i^-^c^'*^: 
 

 
 FBEBERICK R. MATTEmi, 
 
 ->3.32CLIVEST.,e:- 
 Javiaica 'Plain, - Mass.
 
 My Danish Sweetheart. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 
 
 By W. CLARK RUSSELL, 
 
 Author of "A Marriage at Sea,^' "The Frozen Pirate,'^ Etc^ 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 THE F. M. LUPTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 Nos. 73-76 Walker Street.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 A SULLEN DAY. 
 
 On" the morning of October 21, in a year that one need not 
 count very far back to arrive at, I was awakened from a hght 
 sleep, into which I had fallen after a somewhat restless night, 
 by a sound as of thunder some little distance off, and on going 
 to my bedroom window to take a view of the weather, I beheld 
 so wild and forbidding a prospect of sea and sky that the like 
 of it is not to be imagined. 
 
 The heavens were a dark, stooping, universal mass of vapor 
 — swollen, moist, of a complexion rendered malignant beyond 
 belief by a sort of greenish color that lay upon the face of it. 
 It was tufted here and there into the true aspect of the electric 
 tempest; in other parts, it was of a sulky, foggy thickness; 
 and as it went down to the sea-line it wore, in numerous 
 places, a plentiful, heavy, dark shading that caused the clouds 
 upon which this darkness rested to look as though their heavy 
 burden of thunder was weighing their overcharged breasts 
 down to the very sip of the salt. 
 
 A small swell was rolling betwixt the two horns of cliff which 
 framed the wide bight of bay that 1 was overlooking. The 
 water was very dark and ugly with its reflection of the greenish, 
 sallowish atmosphere that tinged its noiseless, sliding volumes. 
 Yet, spite of the shrouding shadow of storm all about, the 
 horizon lay a clear line, spanning the yawn of ocean and 
 heaven betwixt the foreland points. 
 
 There was nothing to be seen seaward; the bay, too, was 
 empty. I stood for a little while watching the cloud of foam 
 made by the swell where it struck upon the low, black ledge 
 of what we called in those parts Deadlow Kock, and upon the 
 westernmost of the two fangs of reef some little distance 
 away from the Deadlow Rock, and named by the sailors here- 
 abouts the Twins; I say I stood watching this small play of 
 white water, and hearkening for another rumble of thunder;
 
 4 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 but all remained hushed — not a breath of air— no glance of 
 dumb lightning. 
 
 On my way to the parlor I looked in upon my mother, now 
 an old lady, whose growing infirmities obliged her to keep her 
 bed till the day was advanced. 1 kissed and greeted her. 
 
 " It seems a very dark, melancholy morning, Hugh," says 
 she. 
 
 " Ay, indeed," 1 answered. " 1 never remember the like 
 of such a sky as is hanging over the water. Did you hear the 
 thunder just now, mother?" 
 
 She anssvered no; but then, to be sure, she was a little deaf. 
 
 " 1 hope, Hugh," said she, with a wistful shake of her head, 
 and smoothing her snow-white hair with a hand that slightly 
 trembled, " that it may not end in a life-boat errand. I had 
 a wretched dream last night. I saw you enter the boat and 
 sail into the bay. The sun was high and all was bright and 
 clear; but on a sudden the weather grew black — dark as it now 
 is. The wind swept the water which leaped high and boiled. 
 You and the men strove hard to regain the land, and then gave 
 up in despair, and you put right before the wind, and the 
 boat sped like an arrow into the gloom and haze; and. just be- 
 fore she vanished a figure rose by your side where you sat steer- 
 ing, and gazed at me thus " — she placed her forefinger upon 
 her lip in the posture of one commanding silence. " It was 
 your father, Hugh: his face was full of entreaty and despair." 
 She sighed deeply. " How clearly does one sometimes see in 
 dreams I" she added. " Never was your father's face in his 
 dear life more distinct to my eyes than in this vision." 
 
 " A Friday night's dream told on a Saturday!" said I, 
 laughing: " no chance of its coming true, though. No fear 
 of the ' Janet ' " — for that was the name of our life-boat — 
 " blowing out to sea. Besides, the bay is empty. There can 
 be no call. And supposing one should come and this weather 
 should burst into a hurricane, I'd rather be afloat in the 
 * Janet ' than in the biggest ship out of London or Liverpool 
 docks;" and so saying 1 left her, never giving her dream or her 
 manner another thought. 
 
 After 1 had breakfasted I walked down to the esplanade to 
 view the " Janet " as she lay snug in her house. 1 was her 
 cockswain, and how it happened that I filled that post I will 
 here explain. 
 
 My father, who had been a captain in the merchant service, 
 had saved money, and invested his little fortune in a couple of 
 ships, in one of which, fifteen years before the date of this story, 
 he had embarked to take a run in her from the river Thames
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 5 
 
 to Sw^ansea, where she was to fill up with a cargo for a South 
 American port. She was a brand-new ship, and he wished to 
 judge of her sea-going qualities. When she had rounded the 
 North Foreland the weather thickened; it came on to blow a 
 gale of wind; she took the ground somewhere near the North 
 Sand Head, and of twenty-three people aboard of her fifteen 
 perished, my father being among those who were drowned. 
 
 His brother — my uncle, George Tregarthen — was a well-to-do 
 merchant in the city of London, and in memory of my father's 
 death, which grieved him to the soul, and which, with the loss of 
 the others, had come about through delay in sending help from 
 the land — for they fired guns and burned Hares, and the adja- 
 cent light-ship signaled with rockets that a vessel was ashore; 
 but all to no purpose, for when the rescue was attempted the 
 ship was breaking up, and most of her people were corpses; as 
 I have said — my uncle, by way of memoralizing his brother's 
 death, at his own cost presented the little town in which my 
 father had lived with a life-boat, which he called the " Janet," 
 after my mother. I was then too young to take a part in auy 
 services she rendered; but by the time I had reached the age of 
 twenty 1 was as expert as the smartest boatman on our part of 
 the coast, and, as I claimed a sort of captaincy of the life-boat 
 by virtue of her as a family gift, I replaced the man who had 
 been her cockswain, and for the last two years had taken her 
 helm during the six times she had been called upon; and not 
 a little proud was 1 to be able to boast that, under my charge, 
 the " Janet " in those two years had rescued twenty-three men, 
 five women, and two children from certain death. 
 
 No man could love his dog or his horse — indeed, I may say, 
 no man could love his sweetheart— with more fondness than I 
 loved my boat. She was a living thing, to my fancy, even 
 when she was high and dry. She seemed to appeal to me out 
 of a vitality that might well have passed for human, to judge 
 of the moods it kindled in me. I would sit and view her, and 
 think of her afloat, figure some dreadful scene of shipwreck, 
 some furious surface of seething yeast, with a shi}} in the heart 
 of it, coming and going amid storms of spray; and then I 
 would picture the boat crushing the savage surge with her 
 shoulder, as she stormed through the tremendous play of 
 ocean on her way to the doomed craft whose shrouds were 
 thick with men; until such emotions were raised in me that I 
 have known myself almost unconsciously to make an eager step 
 to the craft, and pat her side, and talk to her as though she 
 were sentient and could understand my caress and whispers. 
 
 My mother was at first strongly opposed to my risking my life
 
 6 MY DANISH S-WEETHEART. 
 
 in the *' Janet." She said I was not a sailor, least of all was 
 I of the kind who manned these boats, and for some time she 
 woukl not hear of me going as cockswain in her, except in fine 
 weather or when there was little risk. But when, as cockswain, 
 I had brought home my first little load of precious human 
 freight — five Spaniards with the captain's wife and a little 
 baby, wrapped in a shawl, against her heart — my mother's 
 reluctance yielded to her j^ride and gratitude. She found some- 
 thing beautiful, noble, 1 had almost said divine, in this life- 
 saving — in this plucking of poor human souls from the horrible 
 jaws of death — in the hope and joy, too, raised in the heart 
 of the shipwrecked by the sight of the boat, or in the support- 
 ing animation which came from the knowledge that the boat 
 would arrive in time, and which enabled men to bear up, 
 when, jDerhaj^s, had there been no promise of a boat coming 
 to them, they must have drooped and surrendered their spirits 
 to God. 
 
 Well, as I have said, I went down to the esplanade, where 
 the boat-house was, to take a look at the boat, which was, in- 
 deed, my regular daily custom, one 1 could find j^lenty of lei- 
 sure for, since I was without occupation, owing to a serious ill- 
 ness that had balked my efEorts six years before, and that had 
 left me too old for another chance in the same way — and with- 
 out will, either, for the matter of that; for my mother's income 
 was abundant for us both, and, when it should please God to 
 take her, what was hers would be mine, and there was more 
 than enough for my plain wants. 
 
 Before entering the house 1 came to a stand to light a pipe 
 and cast a look around. The air was so motionless that the 
 flame of the match I struck burned without a stir. I took 
 notice of a slight increase in the weight of the swell which came 
 brimming into the bay out of the wide, dark field of the At- 
 lantic Ocean: for that was the sea our town faced, looking due 
 west from out of the shadow of the Cornwall heights, at the 
 base of which it stood— a small, solid heap of granite-colored 
 buildings dominated by the tall spire of the church of St. Sav- 
 iour, the gilt cross atop of which gleamed this morning 
 against the scowl of the sky as though the beam of the risen 
 sun rested upon it. 
 
 The dark line of the broad esplanade went winding round 
 with the trend of the shore to the distance of about a mile. 
 The dingy atmosphere gave it a coloring of chocolate, and the 
 space of white sand which stretched to the wash of the water 
 had the glance of ivory from the contrast. The surf was small, 
 but now that 1 was near I could catch a note in the noise it
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 7 
 
 made as it foamed in a cloudy line upon the sand, which made 
 me think of the voice of a distant tempest, as though each run- 
 ning fold brought with it, from far past the sea-line, some ever- 
 dying echo of the hurricane's rage there. But a man had 
 need to live long at the sea-side to catch these small accents 
 of storm in the fall and pouring of the uuvexed breaker. 
 
 A number of white-breasted sea-gulls.' with black-edged 
 wings, were flying close in-shore this side of Deadlow Rock 
 and Twins: their posture was in the main one of hovering and 
 peering, and there was a sort of subdued expectancy rather 
 than restlessness in their motions; but they frequently uttered 
 sharp cries, and were certainly not a-fishing, for they never 
 stooped. Within a stone's-throw of the life-boat house was a 
 coast-guard's hut, a little place for keeping a lookout from, 
 marked by a flag-post; and the preventive man, with a tele- 
 scope under his arm, stood in the door-way, talking to an aged 
 boatman named Isaac Jordan. The land past that flag-staS 
 went in a rise, and soared into a very noble height of dark cliff, 
 the extremity of which we called Hurricane Point. It looked 
 a precipitous, deadly, inhospitable terrace of rocks in the dis- 
 mal light of that leaden morning. The foreland rose out of 
 the bed of foam which was kept boiling at the iron base by 
 the steadfast hurl of the Atlantic swell; yet Hurricane Point 
 made a fine shelter of our bay when the wind came out from 
 the north, and I have seen the sea there bursting and soaring 
 into the air in volumes of steam, and the water a mile and a 
 half out running wide and wild and w-hite with the whipping 
 of the gale, when, within, a wherry might have strained to 
 her painter without shipping a cupful of water. 
 
 There was an old timber pier going into the sea from off a 
 projection of land, upon the northernmost point of which the 
 life-boat house stood; this pier had a curl like the crook of a 
 sailor's rheumatic forefinger; but it was not j^ossible to find 
 any sort of harbor in the rude, black, gleaming embrace of its 
 pitched and weedy piles, save in smootli and quiet weather. 
 It was an old pier, and had withstood the wash and shocks of 
 fifty years of the Atlantic billow — enough to justify a man in 
 staring at it, since ours was a wild and stormy seaboard, 
 where everything had to be as strong as though we were at sea, 
 and had the mighty ocean itself to fight. At times a collier 
 would come sailing round Bishopnose Point, a tall, reddish-hued 
 bluff past Deadlow Rock, and slide within the curve of the 
 pier, and discharge her freight. Here, too, in the seasous, 
 might be seen a cluster of fishing-boats, mainly the sharp- 
 ended luggers of Penzance; but this morning, as I have aj-
 
 8 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ready said, all was vacant from the horizon to the white sweep 
 of sand — vacant, and, in a manner, motionless too, with the 
 quality of stagnation that came into the picture out of the 
 sullen, breathless, gloom-laden atmosphere, nothing stirring, 
 as it seemed, save the heave of the swell, and a few active 
 figures of 'longshoremen down by the pier hauling up their 
 boats high and dry upon the sand, with an eye to what was 
 coming in the weather. 
 
 I entered the life-boat house and killed ten minutes or so in 
 surveying the fabric inside and out, and seeing that everything 
 was in readiness should a call come. A ship's barometer — a 
 good instrument — hung against the wall or bulkhead of the 
 wooden edifice. The mercury was low, with a depression in 
 the surface of the metal itself that was like emphasizing the 
 drop. 
 
 Our manner of launching the " Janet " was by means 
 of a strong timber slipway that went into a pretty sharp de- 
 clivity from the forefoot of the boat to some fathoms ^^ast low- 
 water mark. There could be no better way of getting her 
 water-borne. The sand was flat; there was little to be done 
 with a heavy boat on such a j^latform, let us have laid what 
 greased woods or rollers we choose under her keel. But from 
 the elevation of her house she fled, when liberated, like a gull 
 into the rage of the water, topping the tallest comber, and 
 giving herself noble way in the teeth of the deadest of in-shore 
 hurricanes. 
 
 As 1 stood at the head of this slipway, looking along it to 
 where it buried itself in the dark and sickly green of the 
 flowing heave of the sea, old Isaac Jordan came slowly away 
 from the coast-guardsman and saluted me in a voice that 
 trembled under the burden of eighty-five years. Such another 
 quaint old figure as this might have been hunted for in vain the 
 whole coast round. His eyes, deep-seated in his head, seemed to 
 have been formed of agate, so stained and clouded were they 
 by time, by weather, and, no doubt, by drink. His tall hat 
 was bronzed with wear and exposure, the skin of his face lay 
 like a cobweb upon his lineaments, and when he smiled he 
 exhibited a single tobacco-stained tooth, which made one think 
 of Deadlow Rock. Isaac did not belong to these parts, yet he 
 had lived in the place for above half a century, having been 
 brought ashore from a wreck in which he had been found, the 
 only occupant, lying senseless upon the deck. When he had 
 recovered he was without memory, and for five years could not 
 have told his father's name nor the place he hailed from. 
 When at last recollection returned to him he was satisfied to
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 9 
 
 remain in the corner of this kingdom on which the ocean, so 
 to. speak, had cast him, and for fifty years he had never gone 
 half a mile distant from the town unless seaward, and then 
 never beyond the bay, where he would fish for his own feed- 
 ing, or ply as a carrier between the shore and such ships as 
 brought up. 
 
 " Good-marning, Mr. Tregarthen,'* said he in the accent 
 of Whitstable, which was his native place; " reckon there'll 
 be some work afore ye if so be as this here muckiness ain't 
 a-going to blow away," and here he turned up his marbled eyes 
 to the sky in a sort of blind, groping way. 
 
 " 1 never remember the like of such a morning like this, 
 Isaac," said I, going down to him that 1 might not oblige 
 him to strain his poor old trembling voice. 
 
 "Lard love ye!" he exclaimed; "scores and scores, Mr. 
 Tregarthen. 1 recollect of just such another marning as this 
 in forty -four; ay, an' an uglier marning yet in thirty-three. 
 That were the day when the ' Kingfisher ' went down and 
 drownded all hands, saving the dawg." 
 
 " What's going to happen, d'ye think, Isaac?" 
 
 " A gale o' wind, master, but not yet. He's a-bracing of 
 himself up, and it'll be all day, 1 allow, afore he's ready;" 
 and once again he cast up his agate-like eyes to the sky. 
 " What's the day o' the month, sir?" he added, with a little 
 briskening up. 
 
 " OctolDer the twenty-first, isn't it?" 
 
 " Why, Gor bless me! yes, an' so it be!" he exclaimed, 
 with a face whose expression was rendered spasmodic by an 
 assumption of joyful thought. " The hanniversary of Tra- 
 falgar, as sure as my name's Isaac! On this day Lord Nelson 
 was killed. Gor bless me! to think of it! 1 see him now," 
 he continued, turning his eyes blindly uj^on my face. " There's 
 nothcn I forget about him. There's his sleeve lying beauti- 
 fully pinned agin his breast, and the fin of his decapitated 
 harm a-working full of excitement within; there's his cocked 
 hat drawed down ower the green shade as lies like a poor man's 
 plaister upon his forehead; there's his one eye a-looking through 
 and through a man as though it were a brad-awl, and t'other 
 eye, said to be sightless, a-imitating of the seeing one till ye 
 couldn't ha' told which was which for health. There was 
 spunk in the werry wounds of that gent. He carried his losses 
 as if they were gains. What a man! There ain't public- 
 houses enough in this country," said he, " to drink to the 
 memory of such a gentlennan's health in. There ain't.
 
 lO HT DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 That's my complaint, master. Not i^ublic-houses enough, I 
 says, seeing what he did for this here Britain." 
 
 Though nobody in Tintrenale (as I choose to call the town) 
 in the least degree believed that old Isaac had ever met Lord 
 Nelson, despite his swearing that he was five years old at the 
 time and that he could recollect his mother hoisting him up 
 in her arms above the heads of the crowd to view the great 
 admiral — I say, though no man believed this old fellow, yet 
 we all listened to his assurances, as though very willing to 
 credit what he said. In truth, it pleased us to believe that 
 there was a man in our little community who with his own eyes 
 had beheld the famous sailor, and we let the thing rest upon 
 our minds as a sort of honorable tradition which we would 
 not very willingly have disturbed. However, more went to 
 this talk of Nelson in old Isaac than met his ear; it was. in- 
 deed, his way of asking for a drink, and, as he had little or 
 nothing to live upon save what he could collect out of charity, 
 I slipped a couple of shillings into his hand, for which he con- 
 tinued to God bless me till his voice failed him. 
 
 I held my gaze fixed upon the sky for some time to gather, 
 if possible, the direction in which the great swollen canopy of 
 cloud was moving, that I might know from what quarter to 
 expect the wind when it should arise; but the sullen greenish 
 heaps of shadow hung over the land and sea as motionless as 
 they were dumb. Not the least loose wing of scud was there 
 to be seen moving. It was a wonderfully breathless heaven 
 of tempestuous gloom, with the sea at its confines betwixt the 
 two points of land looking to lift to it in its central part as 
 though swelled, owing to the illusion of the line of livid shade 
 there, and to a depression on either side caused by a smoky 
 commingling of the atmosjjhere with the spaces of water. 
 
 While I stood surveying the murky scene, that was gradu- 
 ally growing more dim with an insensible thickening of the 
 air, several drops of rain fell, each as large as a half crown. 
 
 " Stand by now for a flash o' lightning," old Isaac cried, 
 in his trembling voice; " wance them clouds is ripped up, all 
 the water they hold'll tumble down and make room for the 
 wind!" 
 
 But there was no lightning. The rain ceased. The still- 
 ness seemed to deepen to my hearing, with a fancy to my 
 consciousness of a closer drawing together of the shadows over- 
 head. 
 
 " ^T'ain't so werry warm, neither," said old Isaac; " and 
 yet here be as true a tropic show as old Jamaikey herself could 
 prowide. "
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 11 
 
 Every sound was startlingly distinct — the calls and cries of 
 the fellows near the pier as they ran their boats up; the grit 
 of the keels on the hard sand, like the noise of skates traveling 
 on ice; the low, organ-like hum of the larger surf, beating 
 upon the coast past Bishopnose Point; the rattle of vehicles in 
 the stony sti-eets behind me; the striking of a church-bell; the 
 hoarse bawling of a hawker crying fish; it was like the hush 
 one reads of as happening before an earthquake, and 1 own to 
 an emotion of awe and even of alarm as I stood listening and 
 looking. 
 
 I hung about the boat-house for hard upon two hours, ex- 
 pecting every minute to see the white line of the wind sweep- 
 ing across the sea into the bay; for by this time 1 had per- 
 suaded myself that what motion there was above was out of 
 the westward; but in all that time the glass-smooth, dark- 
 green surface of the swell was never once tarnished by the 
 smallest breathing of air. Only one particular that was 
 absent before I now took notice of: I mean a strange, faint, 
 salt smell, as of sea-weed in corruption, a somewhat sickly odor 
 of ooze. I had never tasted the like of it upon the atmosphere 
 here; what it signified I could not imagine. One of my boat's 
 crew, who had paused to exchange a few words with me about 
 the weather, called it the smell of the storm, and said that it 
 arose from a distant disturbance working through the sea 
 through leagues and leagues, as the dews of the body are dis- 
 charged through the pores of the skin. 
 
 The same man had walked up to the heights near to Hurri- 
 cane Point to take a view of the ocean, and now told me there 
 was nothing in sight, save just a gleam of sail away down in 
 the north-west, almost swallowed up in the gloom. He was 
 without a glass, and could tell me no more than that it was the 
 canvas of a ship. 
 
 . " Well," said I, *' nothing, if it be not steam, is going to 
 show itself in this amazing calm. " And, saying this, 1 turned 
 about and walked leisurely home. 
 
 We dined at one o'clock. We were but two, mother and 
 son; and the little picture of that parlor arises before me as 1 
 write, bringing moisture to my eyes as 1 recall the dear, good, 
 tender heart nevermore to be beheld by me in this world — as 
 I see the white hair, the kindly aged face, the wistful looks 
 fastened upon me, and hear the little sighs that would softly 
 break from her when she turned her head to send a glance 
 through the window at the dark, malignant junction of sea and 
 sky ruling the open between the ijoints, and at the frequent 
 flashing of the foam on those evU rocks grinning upon the heav-?
 
 13 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ing waters away down to the southward. I could perceive 
 that the memory of her dream lay upon her in a sort of 
 shadow. Several times she directed her eyes from my face 
 to tie portrait of my father upon the wall opposite her. Yet 
 she did not again refer to the dream. She talked of the ugly 
 appearance of the sky, and asked what the men down upon the 
 pier thought of it. 
 
 " They are agreed that it is going to end in a gale of wind/* 
 I. answered. 
 
 " There is no ship in the bay/' said she, raising a pair of 
 gold-rimmed glasses to her eyes and peering through the win- 
 dow. 
 
 " No," said I; "and the sea is bare, saving a single sail 
 somewhere down in the north-west." 
 
 She smiled, as though to a piece of good news. There could 
 be no summons for the life-boat, she knew, if the bay and 
 the ocean beyond remained empty. 
 
 After dinner, while I sat smoking my pipe close against the 
 fire — for the leaden color in the air somehow made the atmos- 
 phere feel cold, though we were too far west for any touch 
 of autumnal rawness just yet — and while my mother sat op- 
 2iosite me, poring through her glasses upon a local sheet that 
 told the news of the district for the week past — the rector of 
 Tintrenale, the Rev. John Trembath, happening to pass our 
 window, which was low-seated, looked in, and, spying the 
 the outline of my figure against the fire, tapped upon the glass, 
 and I called to him to euter. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Cockswain," says he, " how is the weather 
 going to end, pray? I hear there's a ship making for this bay." 
 
 " 1 hope not," says my mother, quietly. 
 
 " How far distant is she?" said L 
 
 " Why," he answered, " I met old Eoscorla just now. He 
 was fresh from Bishopnose way, and told me that there was a 
 square-rigged vessel coming along before a light air of wind 
 out of the west, and apparently heading straight for this bight. " 
 
 " She may shift her helm," said I, who, though no sailor, 
 had yet some acquaintance with the terms of the sea; " there'll 
 be no shelter for her here if it comes on to blow from the 
 west." 
 
 " And that's where it is coming from," said Mr. Trembath. 
 
 " Oh, for a little break of the sky, for one brief gleam of 
 sunshine!" cried my mother, suddenly, half starting from, 
 her chair as if to go to the window. " There is something in 
 a day of this kind that depresses my heart as though aorrow
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 13 
 
 were coming. Do you believe in dreams, Mr. Trembath?" and 
 now I saw she was going to talii of her dream. 
 
 " No/* said he, bluntly; " it is enough to believe in what is 
 proper for our spiritual health. A dream never yet saved a 
 soul.'' 
 
 " Do you think so?" said I. " Yet a man might get a 
 hint in a vision, and in that way be preserved from doing a 
 wrong.'* 
 
 " What was your dream?" said Mr. Trembath, rounding 
 upon my mother; "for a dream you have had, and I see the 
 recollection of it working in your face as you look at me." 
 
 She repeated her dream to him. 
 
 "Tut! tut!" cried he, " a little attack of indigestion. A 
 small glass of your excellent sherry brandy would have cor- 
 rected all these crudities of your slumbering imagination." 
 
 Well, after an idle chat of ten minutes, which yet gave the 
 worthy gentleman time enough to drink to us in a glass of that 
 cherry brandy which he had recommended to my mother, he 
 went away, and shortly afterward 1 walked down to the pier 
 to catch a sight of the ship. In all these hours there had been 
 no change whatever in the aspect of the weather. The sky of 
 dark cloud wore the same swollen, moist, and scowling appear- 
 ance it had carried since the early morn, but the tufted thun- 
 der-colored heaps of vapor had been smoothed out or absorbed 
 by the gathering thickness which made the atmosphere so dark 
 that, though it was scarcely three o'clock m the afternoon, you 
 would have supposed the sun had set. The swell had increased ; 
 it was now rolling into the bay with weight and volume, and 
 there was a small roaring noise in the surf already, and a 
 deeper note yet in the sound of it where it boiled seaward j)ast 
 the points. Alight air was blowing, but as yet the water waa 
 merely brushed by it into wrinkles which put a new dye into 
 the color of the ocean — a kind of inky green — I do not know 
 how to convey it. Every glance of foam upon the Twins or 
 Deadlow Eock was like a flash of white fire, so somber was the 
 surface upon which it played. 
 
 Hurricane Point shut out the view of the sea in the north- 
 west, even from the pier-head, and the ship was not to be seen. 
 There was a group of watermen on the lookout, one or two of 
 them members of the life-boat crew, and among these fellows 
 was old Isaac Jordan, who, as I might easily guess, had drunk 
 out my two shillings. He wore a yellow sou'-wester over his 
 Jong iron-gray hair, and he lurched from one man to another, 
 with his arm extended mO, his fingers clawjcg the air, arguing
 
 14 MY DANISH SWHETHEART. 
 
 in the shrill voice of old age, thickened by the drams he had 
 swallowed. 
 
 ' ' 1 tell 'ee there's going to bo a airthquake, " he was crying as 
 1 approached. " 1 recollects the likes of this weather in eighteen 
 hunuerd an' eighteen, and there was a quake at midnight that 
 caused the folks at Faversham to git out of their beds and 
 run into the street; twor felt at Whitstable, and turned the 
 beer o' th' place sour. Stand by for a airthquake, I says. 
 Here's Mr. Tregarthen, a scholard. The likes of me, as is old 
 enough to be granddad to the oldest of ye all, may raison with 
 a scholard and be satisfied to be put right if so be as he's 
 wrong, when such scowbankers as you a'n't to be condescended 
 to outside the giving of the truth to ye. And so I says. Mr. 
 Tregarthen — " 
 
 But I quietly put him aside. 
 
 " No more money for you, Isaac," said I, "so far as my 
 purse is concerned, until you turn teetotaler. It is enough 
 to make one blush for one's species to see so old a man — " 
 
 "Mr. Tregarthen," he interrupted, "you're a gin'man, 
 ain't ye? What have I 'ad. Is a drop o' milk and water 
 going to make ye blush for a man?" 
 
 Some of the fellows laughed. 
 
 " And how often," he continued, " is the hanniversary of 
 the battle o' Trafalgar a-going to come round in a year? 
 Trenty-voorst of October to-day is, and I see him now, Mr. 
 Tregarthen, as I see.jou — his right fin a-going, his borders 
 upon his breast — " 
 
 " Here, come you along with me, Isaac!" exclaimed one of 
 the men, and, seizing the old fellow by the arm, he bore him oS. 
 
 CHAPTEE IL 
 
 A NIGHT Of STORM. 
 
 I OVERHUNG the rail of the pier, looking down upon the heads 
 of the breakers as they dissolved in white water amid the 
 black and slimy supporters of the structure, and sending a 
 glance from time to time toward the northern headland out of 
 which, 1 gathered from the men about me, the ship would 
 presently draw, though no one could certainly say as yet that she 
 was bound for our bay, spite of her heading direct for the land. 
 A half hour passed, and then she showed: her bowsprit and 
 jibbooms came forking out past the chocolate-colored height 
 of cliff, and the suddenness of this presentment of white wings 
 gi jibs and atfiysajl^ caused the canvas to look ghastly for the
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 15 
 
 moment against the dark and drooping smoke-colored sky that 
 overhung the sea where she was — as ghastly, 1 say, as the 
 gleam of froth is when seen at midnight, or a glance of 
 moonshine dropping spear-like through a rift and making a 
 little pool of light in the midst of a black ocean. 
 
 I watched her with curiosity. She was something loss than 
 three miles distant, and she drew out very stately under a full 
 breast of sail, rolling her three spires — the two foremost of 
 which were clothed to the trucks — with the majesty of a war- 
 sJiip. We might now make sure that she was bound for the 
 bay and meant to bring up. The air was still a very light 
 wind, which made a continuous wonder of the muteness of the 
 storm-shadow that was overhead; and the vessel, which we 
 might now see, was a bark of six hundred tons or thereabouts, 
 floated into the bay very slowly. Her canvas swung as she 
 rolled, and made a hurry of light of her, and one saw the glint 
 of the sails broaden in the brows of the swell which chased and 
 underran her, so reflective was the water, spite of the small 
 wrinkling of it by the weak draught. 
 
 " A furriner," said a man near me. 
 
 *' Ay," said I, examining her through a small but powerful 
 pocket telescope; " that green caboose doesn't belong to an 
 Englishman. She's hoisting her color! Now I have it — a 
 Dane!" 
 
 " What does she want to come here for?" exclaimed an- 
 other of the little knot of men who had gathered about me. 
 ' ' Something wrong, I allow. " 
 
 " Master drunk, per'aps," said a third. 
 
 " He'll be making a lee zhore of our ugly bit of coast, if it 
 comes on to blow from the wesfaM, and if not from there, 
 then where else it's coming from who's going to guess?" ex- 
 claimed a gruff old fellow peering at the vessel under a shaggy, 
 contracted brow. 
 
 *' Her captain may have a trick of the weather above our 
 comprehension," said 1. " If the gale's to come out of the 
 north he'll do well where he lets go his anchor; but if it's to 
 be the other way about — well, I suppose some of our chaps will 
 advise him. May be he has been tempted by the look of the 
 bay; or he may have a sick or a dead man to land." 
 
 " Perhaps he has a mind to vind us a job to-night, zur," 
 said one of my life-boat's men. 
 
 We continued watching. Presently she began to shorten 
 sail, and the leisurely manner in which the canvas was first 
 clewed up and then rolled up was assurance enough to a nauti- 
 cal eye that she was not overmanned. 1 could distinguish the
 
 16 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 figure of a short, squarely framed man, apparently giving or- 
 ders from the top of a long house aft, and I could make out the 
 figure of another man, seemingly young, flitting to and fro 
 with a manner of idle restlessness, though at intervals he 
 would pause and sweep the town and foreshore with his tele- 
 scope. 
 
 About this time five men launched a swift, powerful boat of 
 a whaling pattern off the sand on to which it had been dragged 
 that morning, far beyond high-water mark. They ran the 
 little fabric over a line of well-greased planks or skids, and 
 sprung into her as her bow met the first roll of water, and in 
 a breath their oars were out and they were sweeping the boat 
 toward the bark, making the spray spit from the stem to the 
 herculean sweep of the blades. She was a boat that was 
 mainly used for these errands — for putting help aboard ships 
 which wanted it — for taking pilots off and bringing them 
 ashore, and the like. So slow was the motion of the bark that 
 she was still floating into the bay with her anchors at the cat- 
 heads, and a few heads of men along the yards furling the 
 lighter canvas, when the boat dashed alongside of her. When 
 the stranger was about a mile and a half distant from the point 
 of the pier which I watched her from, she let go her topsail 
 halyards — she carried single sails — and a few minutes later 
 her anchor fell, and she swung slowly, with her head to the 
 swell and the light wind. 
 
 Scarcely was she straining to the scope of cable that had been 
 paid out when the boat which had gone to her left her side. 
 The men rowed leisurely; one could tell by the rise and fall of 
 the oars that their errand had proved a disappointment, that 
 there was nothing to be earned, nothing to be done, neither 
 help nor counsel wanted. I walked down to that part of the 
 sands where she would come ashore, but had to wait until her 
 crew had walked her up out of the water before T could get any 
 news. Our town was so dull, our habits of thought so primi- 
 tive as to be almost child-like, the bay for long spells at a time 
 80 barren of all interests that the arrival of a vessel, if it were 
 not a smack or a collier, excited the same sort of curiosity 
 among us as a new-comer raises in a little village. A ship 
 bringing up in the bay was something to look at, something 
 to speculate upon; and then, again, there was always the ex- 
 pectation among the longshoremen of earning a few pounds out 
 of her. 
 
 I called to one of the crew of the boat after she had been 
 secured high and dry, and asked him the name of the vesseL 
 
 " The ' Anine,' " says he.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 17 
 
 " What's wrong with her?" said I. 
 
 " Nothing but fear of the weather, 1 allow," said he; " she's 
 from Cuxhaven, bound to Party Allegg}?-, or some such 
 hole away down in the Brazils." 
 
 " Porto Alegre, is it?'* said I. 
 
 " Ay," he answered, " that zounds nearer to the ftame that 
 vur given to us. She's got a general cargo aboard. The 
 master's laid up in the cabin; the chief male broke un's leg 
 o2 Texel, and they zent him into Partsmouth aboard of a 
 zmack. The shap in charge calls himself Damm. I onder- 
 stood he'z carpenter acting as zecond mate. But who's to 
 follow such a lingo as he talks?" 
 
 " He's brought up here with the master's sanction, 1 sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 " Can't tell you that," he answered, " f or I don't know. 
 'Pears to me as if this here traverse was Mr. Damm's own 
 working out. He's got a cross-eye, and I don't rightly like 
 his looks. He pointed aloft and zhook his head, and made us 
 understand that he was here for zhelter. Jimmy," meaning 
 one of the boat's crew, " pointed to the Twins, and Mr. Damm 
 he grins and says, ' Yaw, yaw, dot's right!' " 
 
 "But if he's bound to the Brazils," I said, " how does it 
 happen that he is on this side the Land's End? Porto Alegre 
 isn't in Wales." 
 
 Here another of the boat's crew who had joined us, said, 
 " I understood from a man who spoke a bit of English, that 
 they was bound round to Swansea, but what to take in, atop 
 of a general cargo, I can't say." 
 
 The sailors aboard the vessel were now slowly rolling the 
 canvas about the yards. She was a wall-sided vessel, with a 
 white figure-head and a square stern, and she pitched so 
 heavily upon the swell sweeping to her bows that one could 
 not but wonder how it would be with her when it came on to 
 blow in earnest, with such a sea as the Atlantic in wrath threw 
 into this rock-framed bight of coast. She rolled as regularly 
 as she courtesied, and gave us a view of a band of new metal 
 sheathing that rose with a dull rusty gleam out of the water, 
 as though to some swift vanishing touch of stormy sunlight. 
 The white lines of her furled canvas, with the delicate inter- 
 jacery of shrouds and running-gear, the fine fibers of her slender 
 mastheads with a red spot of dog-vane at the mizzen-mast — 
 the whole body of the vessel, in a word, stood out with an ex- 
 quisite clearness that made the heaving fabric resemble a 
 choicely wrought toy upon the dark tempestuous green which
 
 18 WY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 went rising and falling past her, and against the low and men- 
 acing frown of the sky beyond her. 
 
 A deeper shadow seemed to have entered the atmosj)here 
 since she let go her anchor. Away down upon her port quarter 
 the foam was leaping upon the blacii Twins and the larger 
 Rock beyond, and the round of the bay was shar2)ly marked 
 by the surf twisting in a wool-white curve from one point to 
 another, but gathering a brighter whiteness as it stretched 
 toward those extremities of the land which breasted the deeper 
 waters and the larger swell. 
 
 The clock of St. Saviour's Church chimed five — tea-time; 
 and as I turned to make my way home two bells were struck 
 aboard the bark, and the light inshore wind brought in the 
 distant tones ujjon the ear with a fairy daintiness of faint 
 music that corresponded to perfection with the toy-like appear- 
 ance of the vessel. One of the crew of the boat accompanied 
 me a short distance on his way to his own humble cottage in 
 Swim Lane. 
 
 " If that Dutchman," said he — and by " Dutchman " he 
 meant Dane, for this word covers all the Scandinavian nations 
 in Jack's language — " if that Dutchman, Mr. Tregarthen, 
 knows what's good for him, he'll up anchor and ' ratch ' out 
 afore it's too late." 
 
 " Did you see the captain?" 
 
 " No, sir. He's in his cabin, badly laid up." 
 
 " I thought I made out two men on top of the deck-house 
 who seemed in command — one the captain, and the other the 
 mate, as I supposed." 
 
 " No, sir; the capt'n's below. One of them two men you 
 saw was the carpenter, Damm; t'other was a boy — aj^assenger 
 he looked like, though dressed as a sailor man. I didn't hear 
 him give any orders, though his eyes seemed everywhere, and 
 he looked to know exactly what was going forward. A likelier- 
 looking lad 1 never see. Capt'n's sou, 1 dare say. " 
 
 " Well," said I, sending a glance above and around," spite 
 of drunken old Isaac and his prediction of ' airthquakes,' as 
 he calls them, it's as likely as not, to my mind, that all this 
 gloom will end as it began — in quietude." 
 
 The man, one of the most intelligent of our 'longshoremen, 
 shook his head. 
 
 " The barometer don't tell lies, sir," said he; " the drop's 
 been too slow and regular to signify nothing. I've known a 
 gale o' wind to bust after taking two days to look at the ocean 
 with his breath sucked in, as he do now. This here long 
 quietude's the worst part, and — smother me! Mr. Tregarthen,"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 19 
 
 said he, halting and turning his face seaward, *' if the draught 
 that was just uqw blowing ain't gone!'' 
 
 It was as he had said. The light breathing of air had died 
 out, and the swell was rolling in, burnished as liquid glass. 
 
 This day-long extraordinary pause in the most menacing 
 aspect of weather that I had ever heard of — and never in my 
 time had 1 seen the like of it — seemed to communicate its 
 own quality of breathless suspense to every living object my eye 
 rested u^jon. The very dogs seemed to move with a cowed man- 
 ner, as though fi*esh from a whipping. There was no alacrity; 
 little movement, indeed, anywhere visible. Men hung about 
 in small groups and conversed quietly, as though some trouble 
 that had affected the whole community was upon them. The 
 air trembled with the noise of the breaking surf, and there 
 was a note in its voice, sounding as it did out of the unnatural 
 dark hush upon sea and land, that constrained the attention 
 to it as to something new and even alarming. A tradesman, 
 with his apron on and without a hat^ would come to his shop 
 door and look about him uneasily, and jierhaps have a word 
 with a customer as he entered before going round to the coun- 
 ter and serving him. The gulls flew close inshore and screamer] 
 harshly. Here and there, framed in a darkling pane of win- 
 dow, you would see an old face peering at the weather and pale 
 in the shadow. 
 
 1 found my mother a good deal troubled by the appearance 
 of the ship. She asked, with a pettishness I hud seldom wit- 
 nessed in her, "What does she want? Why does she come 
 here? Do they court destruction?" 
 
 I told her all I had learned about the vessel. 
 
 " There was no occasion for them to come here," she said. 
 " Your dear father would have told you that the more distant 
 a ship is upon the ocean in violent weather the safer she is; 
 and here now come the foolish Danes to nestle among rocks 
 and to sneer at the advice our people give them, with the sky 
 looking more threatening than ever 1 can remember it. Who 
 could have patience with such folk?" she cried, pouring out 
 the tea with an air of distraction and an agitated hand. " If 
 there were no such sailors as they at sea 1 am sure there would 
 be no need for life-boats, and brave fellows would not have to 
 risk their lives, and perhaps leave their wives and little chil- 
 dren to starve, to assist jjuople whose stupidity renders them 
 almost unfit to be rescued." 
 
 " Why, mother," cried I, " this is not how you are accus- 
 tomed to talk about such things." 
 
 " 1 ntn depressed," h]w answered — " my spi|-its bftyo taken
 
 20 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 their color from the day. A most melancholy heavy day indeed! 
 Hark, my dear! Is not that the sound of the wind?" 
 
 She looked eagerly, straiunig her hearing. 
 
 " Yes," said I, " it is the wind come at last, mother," catch- 
 ing, at the instant of her speaking, the hollow groaning, in the 
 chimney, of a sudden gust of wind flying over the house-top. 
 " From which quarter does it blow? I must find out!" 
 
 1 ran to the house door, and as I opened it the wind blew 
 with the sweep of a sudden squall right out of the darkness 
 upon the ocean. It filled the house, and such was the weight 
 of it that I drove the door to with difficulty. It was but a 
 quarter before six, but the shadow of the night had entered to 
 deepen the shadow of the storm, and it was already as dark as 
 midnight. I went to the window and parted the curtains to 
 take a view of the bay, but the panes of glass were made a sort 
 of mirror of by the black atmosphere without, and when 1 
 looked they gave me back my own countenance, darkly gleam- 
 ing, and the reflection of objects in the room — the lamp with 
 its green shade upon the table, the sparkle of the silver and 
 the china of the tea-things, and my mother's figure beyond. 
 Yet, by peering, I managed to distinguish the spock of yellow 
 luster that denoted the riding light of the Danish bark — the 
 lantern, I mean, that is hung upon a ship's forestay when she 
 lies at anchor; otherwise it was like looking down into a well. 
 Nothing, save the flash of the near foam tumbling upon the 
 beach right abreast of the house was to be seen. 
 
 " Which way does the wind come, Hugh?" called my mother. 
 
 " From the westward, with a touch of south in it, too, right 
 dead inshore. It is as I have been expecting all day." 
 
 That night of tempest began in gusts and squalls, with lulls 
 between which were not a little deceptive, since they made 
 one think that the wind was gone for good, though while the 
 belief was growing there would come another shrieking outrush 
 and a low roaring in the chimney, and such a shrill and dole- 
 ful whistling in the casements which there was no art in car- 
 pentry to hermetically seal against the winds of that wild, 
 rugged western coast, as might have made one imagine the air 
 to be filled with the ghosts of departed boatswains plying their 
 silver pipes as they sped onward in the race of black air. 
 
 Some while before seven o'clock it had settled into a gale, 
 that was slowly but obstinately gathering in power, as 1 might 
 know by the gradually raised notes in the humming it made 
 and by the ever-deepening thunder of warring billows rushing 
 into breakers and bursting upon sand and crag. It came along 
 Vq fe f urioos play of wet, too, at timesj tHe rain If^shed the
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 81 
 
 windows like small shot, and twice there was a brilliant flash 
 of lightning that seemed spiral and crimsoned; but, if thunder 
 followed, it was lost in the uproar of the wind. It was a night 
 to " stand by," as a sailor would say; at any moment a sum- 
 mons might oome, and, while that weather held, 1 knew there 
 must be no sleep for me. It would have been all the same, 
 indeed, bark or no bark, for this was a night to make a very 
 hell of the waters along our line of coast; there was not an- 
 other life-boat station within twenty-five miles, and, even had 
 the bay been empty, as 1 say, yet, as cockswain of the boat, 1 
 must have held myself ready for a call — ready for the notes of 
 the bell summoning us to the rescue of a vessel that had been 
 blown out of the sea into the bay — ready for a breathless ap- 
 peal for help from some mounted messenger dispatched by the 
 coast-guards miles distant to tell me that there was a ship 
 stranded and that all hands must perish if we did not hurry to 
 her. 
 
 My mother sat silent, with her face rendered austere by 
 anxiety. It was about eight o'clock, when some one knocked 
 hurriedly at the door. I ran out, being too eager to await the 
 arrival of the servant; but, instead of some rough figure of a 
 boatman which I had exj^ected to see, in swept Mr. Trembath, 
 who was carried by the violence of the wind several feet along 
 the passage before he could bring himself up. I put my 
 shoulder to the door, but believed I should have had to call for 
 help to close it, so desperate was the resistance. 
 
 " What a night! What a night!" cried the clergyman. 
 " What is the news? You will not tell me, Tregarthen, that 
 the ship yonder is going to hold her own against this wind and 
 the sea that is running?" 
 
 " Pray step in," said I. " You are plucky to show your 
 face to it!" 
 
 " Oh, tut!" he cried-^ " it is not for a clergyman any more 
 than for a seaman to be afraid of weather. 1 fear there'll be 
 a call for you, Tregarthen — I thought I would look round — I 
 have finished my sermon for to-morrow morning " — and thus 
 talking in a disjointed way while he pulled off his top-coat, he 
 entered the parlor. 
 
 After warming himself and exchanging a few sentences with 
 my mother about the weather, he began to talk again about 
 the bark. 
 
 " Hark to that, now!" he cried, as the wind struck the front 
 of the house with a crash that had something of the weight of 
 a great sea in the sound of it, while you heard it in a roar of 
 thunder overhead; charged always with an echo of pouring
 
 33 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 waters. " What chain cables wrought by mortal skill are going 
 to hold a vessel in the eye of all this?" 
 
 •' What business have they to come here?" cried my mother. 
 
 " 1 met young Beckerley just now," continued Mr. Trem- 
 bath, " and he tells me that there's some talk among our men 
 of there having been a mutiny aboard that Dane." 
 
 " Nothing was said to me about that," 1 rejoined. 
 
 " Beckerly was in the boat's crew that boarded her," he went 
 on. " Probably he imagined a mutiny — misinterpreted a 
 gloomy look among the Canes into an air of revolt. Any- 
 way, nothing short of a mutiny should justify a master in 
 anchoring in such a roadstead as this in the face of the ugliest 
 sky I ever saw in my life." 
 
 "They told me the master was below, ill and helpless," 
 said I. 
 
 He went to the window and parted the curtains to peer 
 through, but the wet ran down the glass, and it was like 
 straining the gaze against a wall^of ebony. 
 
 " You see," he continued, coming back to his chair, " the 
 vessel has those deadly rocks right under her stern, and even 
 if her cables don't part it is impossible to supj^ose that she will 
 not drag and be on them in the blackness, perhaps without her 
 people guessing at her neighborhood until she touches — and 
 then God help them!" 
 
 " I suppose PentreathI" exclaimed my mother, naming the 
 second cockswain of the life-boat, " is keeping a lookout?" 
 
 " We need not doubt it," I answered. "As to her drag- 
 ging," said I, addressing Mr. Trembath, " the Danes are as 
 good sailors as the English, and understand their business; 
 and, mutiny or no mutiny, those fellows down there are not 
 going to take whatever may come without a shrewd guess at 
 it, and outcry enough when it happens. They'll know fast 
 enough if their vessel is dragging; then a flare will follow, and 
 out we shall have to go, of course." 
 
 " We!" said he, significantly, looking from me to my 
 mother. " You'll not venture to-night, I hope, Tregarthen." 
 
 " If the call comes, most certainly I shall," said I, flushing 
 up, but without venturing to send a glance at my mother. " I 
 have appointed myself captain of my men, and is it for me, of 
 all my boat's crew, to shirk my duty in an hour of extremity? 
 Let such a thing happen, and I vow to Heaven 1 could not show 
 my face in Tintrenale again." 
 
 Mr. Trembath seemed a little abashed. 
 
 " 1 respect and admire your theory of dutifulness," said he; 
 *' bqt yon are iiot m old hand — you are no seasQued boatman
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART, 23 
 
 in the sense I have in my mind when 1 think of others of your 
 crew. Listen to this wind ! It blows a hurricane, Hugh," he 
 exclaimed, gently; "you may have the heart of a lion; but 
 have you the skill — the experience — " He halted, looking at 
 my mother. 
 
 " If the call comes I will go,'* said 1, feeling that he rea- 
 soned only for my mother's sake, and that in secret his sym- 
 pathies were with me. 
 
 " If the call comes, Hugh must go," said my mother. 
 *' God will shield him. He looks down upon no nobler work 
 done in this world, none that can better merit His blessing and 
 His countenance." 
 
 Mr. Trembath bowed his head in a heartfelt gesture. 
 
 " Yet I hope no call will be made," she went on. "1 am 
 a mother " — her voice faltered, but she rallied, and said with 
 courage and strength and dignity — *' yes, I am Hugh's mother. 
 I know what to expect from him, and that whatever his duty 
 may be he will do it." Yet in saying this she pressed both 
 her hands to her heart, as though the mere utterance of the 
 words came near to breaking it. 
 
 1 stepped to her side and kissed her. " But the call has not 
 yet come, mother," said 1. " The vessel's anchors may hold 
 bravely, and then, again, the long dark warning of the day 
 will have kept the coast clear of ships. " 
 
 To this she made no reply, and I resumed my seat, gladdened 
 to the very heart by her willingness that I should go if a sum- 
 mons came, albeit extorted from her love by perception of my 
 duty; for haC she been reluctant, had she refused her consent, 
 indeed, it must have been all the same. I should go whether 
 or not, but in that case with a heavy heart, with a feeling of 
 rebellion against her wishes that would have taken a deal of 
 spirit out of me, and mingled a sense of disobedience with 
 what 1 knew to be my duty and good in the sight of God and 
 man. 
 
 I saw that it comforted my mother to have Mr. Trembath 
 with her, and when he offered to go 1 begged him to stop and 
 sup with us, and he consented. It was not a time when con- 
 versation would flow very easily. The noise of the gale alone 
 was subduing enough, and to this was to be added the rest- 
 lessness of expectation, the conviction in my own heart that 
 sooner or later the call must come; and every moment that I 
 talked — putting on the cheerfulest face I could assume — I was 
 waiting for it. I constantly went to the window to look out, 
 guessing that if they burned a flare aboard the bark the torch- 
 like flame of it would show through the weeping glass; and
 
 24 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 shortly before supper was served — that is to say, within a few 
 minutes of nine o'clock— 1 left the i:)arIor, and going to a room 
 at the extremity of the passage, where I kept my sea-going 
 clothes, I pulled on a pair of stout fisherman's stockings, and 
 over them the sea-boots I always wore when I went in the life- 
 boat. I then brought away my monkey-jacket and oilskins, 
 and sou'-wester, and hung them in the passage ready to snatch 
 at; for a summons to man the boat always meant hurry — there 
 was no time for hunting: indeed, if the call found the men in 
 bed, their custom was to dress themselves as they ran. 
 
 Thus prepared, I returned to the parlor. Mr. Trembath ran 
 his eye over me, but my mother apparently took no notice. A 
 cheerful fire blazed in the grate. The table was hospitable 
 with damask and crystal; the play of the flames set the shadows 
 dancing upon the ceiling that lay in the gloom of the shade 
 over the lamp. There was something in the figure of my old 
 mother, with her white hair and black silk gown and antique 
 gold chain about her neck, that wonderfully fitted that homely 
 interior, warm with the hues of the coal-fire and cheerful with 
 pictures and several curiosities of shield and spear, of stuffed 
 bird and Chinese ivory ornament gathered together by my 
 father in the course of many voyages. 
 
 Mr. Trembath looked a plump and rosy and comfortable 
 man as he took his seat at the table, yet there was an expres- 
 sion of sympathetic anxiety upon his face, and frequently I 
 would catch him quietly hearkening, and then he would turn 
 involuntarily to the curtained window, so that it was easy to 
 see in what direction his thoughts went. 
 
 " One had need to build strongly in this part of the country," 
 he said, as we exchanged glances at the sound of a sudden driv- 
 ing roar of wind — a squall of wet of almost hurricane power — 
 to which the immensely strong fabric of our house trembled 
 as though a heavy battery of cannon were being dragged along 
 the open road opposite, *' for, upon my word, Hugh," said 
 he— we were old friends, and he would as often as not give me 
 my Christian name — "if the Dane hasn't begun to drag as 
 yet, there should be good hope of her holding on throughout 
 what may still be coming. Surely, for two hours now past 
 her ground tackle must have been very heavily tested." 
 
 " My prayer is,'^ said 1, " that the wind may choj) round 
 and blow off shore. They'll have the sense to slip then, I 
 hope, and make for the safety of wide waters, with an amid- 
 shiphelm. " 
 
 He is his fatber^a son." said Mr. Trembath, smiling at my
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 35 
 
 mother. *' An amidship helm! It is as a sailor would put it. 
 You should have been a sailor, Tregarthen.'^ 
 
 My mother gently shook her head, and then for some time 
 we eat in silence, the three of us feigning to loois as though 
 we thought of anything else rather than of the storm that was 
 raging without, and of the bark laboring to her cables in the 
 black heart of it. 
 
 On a sudden, Mr. Trembath let fall his knife and fork. 
 
 " Hist!^' he cried, half rising from his chair. 
 
 " The life-boat bell!" I shouted, catching a note or two of 
 the summons that came swinging along with the wind. 
 
 " Oh, Hugh!" shrieked my mother, clasi^ing her hands. 
 
 " God keep your dear heart up!" 1 cried. 
 
 I sprung to her side and kissed her, wrung the outstretched 
 hands of Mr. Trembath, and in a minute was plunging into my 
 peacoat and oilskins. The instant I was out of the house I 
 could hear the fast— 1 may say the furious — tolling of the life- 
 boat bell, and sending one glance at the bay, though I seemed 
 almost blinded, and in a manner dazed by the sudden rage of 
 the gale and its burden of spray and rain against my face, I 
 could distinguish the wavering, flickering yellow Jight of a 
 fiare-updown away in that part of the waters where the Twins 
 and the Deadlow Eock would be terribly close at hand. But I 
 allowed myself no time to look beyond this hasty glance. Mr. 
 Trembath helped me by trying to pull the house door to after 
 me, for of my own strength I never could have done it, and 
 then I took to my heels and drove as best I might headlong 
 through the living wall of wind, scarcely able to fetch a 
 breath, reeling to the terrific outflies, yet staggering on. 
 
 The gas-flames in the few lamps along the sea-front were 
 wildly dancing, their glazed frames rattled furiously, and I 
 remember noticing, even in that moment of excitement, that 
 one of the lamp-posts which stood a few yards aw^y from our 
 house had been arched by the wind as though it were a curve 
 of leaden pipe. The two or three shops which faced the sea 
 had their shutters up to save the windows, and the blackness 
 of the night seemed to be rather heightened than diminished 
 by the dim and leaping glares of the street lights. But as I 
 neared the life-boat house my vision was somewhat assisted by 
 the whiteness of the foam boiling in thunder a long space 
 out. It flung a dim, elusive, ghostly illumination of its own 
 upon the air. I could see the outline of the boat-house against 
 it, the shapes of men writhing, as it seemed, upon the slipway; 
 the figure of the boat herself, which had already been eased by 
 her own length out of the house; and 1 could even discern by
 
 26 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 the aid of that wonderful light of froth, that most of or all her 
 crew were alread}* in her, and that they were stepping her mast, 
 which the roof of the house would not suffer her to keep aloft 
 when she was under shelter. 
 
 " Kerens the cocks'n!" shouted a voice. 
 
 " All right, men!" I roared, and with that I rushed through 
 the door of the house, and, in a bound or two, gained the 
 interior of the boat and my station on the after-grating. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN THE LIFE-BOAT. 
 
 Now had come the moment when I should need the utmost 
 exertion of nerve and coolness my nature was equal to. There 
 was a large globular lamp alight in the little building — its 
 luster vaguely touched the boat, and heliDcd me to see what 
 was going on and who were present. Nevertheless, 1 shouted: 
 
 " Are all hands aboard?" 
 
 " All hand si" came a hurricane response. 
 
 " All got your belts on?" 1 next cried. 
 
 "All I" was the answer — that is to say, all excepting my- 
 self, who, having worn a cork jacket once, vowed never again 
 to embark thus encumbered. 
 
 " Are your sails hooked on ready for hoisting?" 1 shouted. 
 
 "All ready, sir." 
 
 " And your haul-off rope?" 
 
 " All ready, sir!" 
 
 " Now then, my lads — look oat, all hands!" 
 
 There was a moment's pause: " Let her go!" I roared. 
 
 A man stood close under the stern, ready to pass his knife 
 through the lashing which held the chain to the boat. 
 
 " Stand %!" he shouted. " A.11 gone!" 
 
 1 heard the clank of the chain as it fell, an instant after the 
 boat was in motion — slowly at first, but in a few breaths she 
 had gathered the full way that her own weight and the 
 incline gave her, and rushed down the slipway, but almost 
 noiselessly, so thickly greased was the timber structure, with 
 some hands hoisting the foresail as she sped, and others, grim 
 and motionless, facing seaward ready to grasp and drag upon 
 the haul-rope the moment the craft should be water-borne 
 amid the smothering surf. 
 
 The thunderous slatting of the sail as the yard mounted, 
 flinging a noise of rending upon the ear as though the hurri- 
 cane were whipping the cloths in rags, the furious roaring and
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 2? 
 
 seething and crackling and hissing of the mountainous breakers 
 tow^ard which the boat was darting — the indescribable yelling 
 of the gale sweeping past our ears as the fabric fled down the 
 ways — the instant sight of the torn and mangled skies which 
 seemed dimly revealed somehow by the snow-storms of froth 
 coursing along the bay — all this combined into an impression 
 which, thought it could not have taken longer than a second 
 or two to produce it, dwells upon my mind with so much sharp- 
 ness that the whole experience of my life might well have gone 
 to the manufacture of it. 
 
 We touched the wash of the sea and burst through a cloud 
 of foam; in the beat of a heart the boat was up to our knees in 
 water; in another she was freeing herself and leaping to the 
 height of the next boiling acclivity, with my eight men, rigid 
 as iron statues in their manner of hauling and in their con- 
 frontment of the sea, dragging the craft through the surf and 
 into deep water by the off-haul rope attached to an anchor 
 some considerable distance ahead at the end of the slipway. 
 
 At the moment of the boat smiting the first of the breakers 1 
 grasped the tiller-ropes, and ou the men letting go of the oli- 
 haul line 1 headed the craft away on the port tack, my intention 
 being to " reach " down in the direction of Hurricane Point, 
 so as to be able to fetch the bark on a second board. 
 
 One had hardly the wits to notice the scene at the first going 
 off, so headlong was the tumble upon the beach, so clamorous 
 the noise of the tempest, and so frightfully wild the leapings 
 and launchings of the boat amid the heavily broken surface of 
 froth. But now she had the weight of the gale in the close- 
 reefed lug that had been shown to it, and this steadied her; 
 and high as the sea ran, yet as the water deepened the surge 
 grew regular, and I was able to settle down to my job of han- 
 dling the boat, the worst being over, at least so far as our out- 
 ward excursion went. 
 
 1 glanced shoreward and observed the blaze of a port-fire, 
 held out by a man near the boat-house to serve as a signal to 
 the bark that help was going to her. The fire was blue, the 
 blaze of it was brilliant, and it lighted up a wild area of the 
 foreshore, throwing out the figures of the crowd who watched 
 us, and the outline of the boat-house, and flinging a ghastly 
 tint upon every tall upheaval of surf. The radiance lay in a 
 sort of circle upon the ebony of the night, with what I have 
 named showing in it, as though it was a picture cast by a 
 magic-lantern upon a black curtain. You could see nothing 
 of the lights of the town for it. On either hand of this lumi-
 
 S8 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 nous frame the houses went blending into the land, and each 
 way ail was sheer ink. 
 
 Shortly after this signal of port-fire they sent up a rocket 
 from the bark. It was a crimson ball, and it broke like a 
 flash of lightning under the ragged rush of the sky, and then 
 out leaped afresh the flames of a flare, or, as you might call 
 it, a bonfire from the deck of a vessel — a burning tar-barrel 
 perhaps; and the light of it disclosed the vision of the ship 
 plunging awfully, again and again veiled by storms of crystal 
 which the fathom-high flames of the flare flashed into prisms. 
 
 One of our men roared out with an oath^ " She'll have 
 taken the Twins afore we get to her!^' and another bellowed: 
 " Why did they wait to drag a mile afore they signaled ?" But 
 no more was said just then. 
 
 Indeed, a man needed to exert the whole strength of his 
 lungs to make himself heard. The edge of the wind seemed 
 to clip the loudest as it left the lips, as you would sever a rope 
 with a knife. 
 
 Our boat was small for a craft of her character, but a noble, 
 brave, nimble fabric, as had been again and again proved; and 
 every man of us, allowing that good usage was given her, had 
 such confidence in the " Janet " that we would not have ex- 
 changed her for the largest, handsomest, and best-tested boat 
 on the coast of the United Kingdom. You would have un- 
 derstood her merits had you been with us on this night. I 
 was at the yoke-lines; Pentreath, my second in command, sat 
 with his foot against the side, gripping the fore-sheet, ready to 
 let go in an instant; the mizzen had been hoisted, and the 
 rest of the men, crouching down upon the thwarts, sat star- 
 ing ahead with iron countenances, with never so much as a 
 stoop among them to the hardest wash of the surge that might 
 sweep with a wild hissing shriek athwart their sea-helmets 
 and half fill the boat as it came bursting in smoke over the 
 weather bow, till, for the space of a wink or two, the black 
 gale was as white as a snow-storm overhead. 
 
 As we " reached'' out the sea grew weightier. Never be- 
 fore had 1 known a greater sea in that bay. The ridges seemed 
 to stand up to twice the height of our masts; every peak boiled, 
 and as we rose to the summit of it the boat was smothered in 
 the foam of her own churning, and in the headlong, gidd}', 
 dazzling rush into which she soared, with the whole weight of 
 the gale in her fragment of lug bowing her over and sending 
 her, as you might have believed, gunwale under down the long, 
 mdigo slant of the underrunning billow. 
 
 We held on, all as mute as death in the boat. From time
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 2D 
 
 to time as we rose to the head of a sea I would take a look in 
 the direction of the bark, and catch a glimpse of the windj 
 spark of her flare, or of the meteoric sailing of a rocket over 
 hor mastheads. There should have been a moon, but the planet 
 was without power to strike the faintest illumination into the 
 heaps and rags of vapor which were pouring up like smoke over 
 the edge of the raging Atlantic horizon. The picture of the 
 parlor I had just left would sometimes arise before me; I figured 
 my mother peering out at the black and throbbing scene of 
 bay; I imagined good Mr. Trembath at her side, uttering such 
 words of comfort and of hope as occurred to him; but such 
 fancies as these seemed to bo beaten away by the breath of the 
 hurricane as rapidly as they were formed. Should we be in 
 time? If the vessel's cables parted she was doomed. Nay; if 
 she should continue to drag another quarter of an hour, she 
 would be on to the Twins, and go to pieces as a child's house 
 of bricks falls to the touch of a hand! 
 
 " Eeady about!" I roared. 
 
 The helm was put down, the fore-sheet eased off, and round 
 came the boat nobly on the very pinnacle of a surge, pausing 
 a moment as she was there poised, and then plunging into the 
 hollow to rise again with her foresail full, and heading some 
 points to windtvard of the vessel we were now steering for. 
 
 Through it we stormed, sea after sea bursting from the life- 
 boat's bow in pallid clouds which the wind sent whirling in 
 shrieks — so articulate was the sound of the slinging spray — 
 into the blackness landward. Here and there a tiny spark of 
 lamp flickering in the thick of the gloom told us the situation 
 of Tintrenale, but there was nothing more to be seen that way; 
 the land and the sky above it met in a deep, impenetrable 
 dye, toward which, to leeward of us, the tall seas went flashing 
 in long yearning coils, throbbing into mere pallidness when a 
 cable's length distant. 
 
 They had kindled another flare aboard the bark, or else had 
 plied the old one with fresh fuel; she was visible by the light 
 of the flames, the white of her furled canvas coming and going 
 to the fluctuating fires; and I marked, with a heart that sunk 
 in me, the dreadful manner of her laboring. She was pitching 
 bows under, and rolling too, and by the shining of the signal- 
 fire upon her deck offered a most wonderful sight, rendered 
 terrible also by a view that we could now get of a crowd of 
 men hanging in a lump in her starboard fore-rigging. 
 
 The second cockswain flashed a port-fire that they might 
 know the life-boat was at hand, and we went plunging and 
 sweeping down to a point some little distance ahead of the bark.
 
 80 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 the crowd of us irradiated by the stream of emerald-green 
 llame. 
 
 " All ready with the anchor, lads?'* I shouted. 
 
 " Already, sir!" was the answer. 
 
 " Down foresail!*' and as I gave this order I put the helm 
 down and brought the boat-head to wind about thirty fathoms 
 ahead of the ship. 
 
 " Let go the anchor!" 
 
 " Unstep the foremast!" bawled the second cockswain, 
 and, while this was doing, he and another swiftly lifted the 
 mizzen-mast out of its bearings and laid it along. 
 
 "Veer away cable handsomely!" I shouted; and pitching 
 and foaming, now dropping into a hollow that seemed fifty feet 
 dee]), now appearing to scale a surge that lifted the boat's bow 
 almost dead on end over her stern — all in a fashion to make 
 the brain of the stoutest and most experienced among us reel 
 again — we dropped alongside. 
 
 In what followed there was so much confusion, so much up- 
 roar, such distraction of shouts in foreign and unintelligible 
 accents, such a terrible washing of seas, such bewilderment 
 born of the darkness, of the complicated demands upon the 
 attention through need of keeping the boat clear of the huge 
 chopping bows of the bark, through bawling to the men in the 
 rigging and receiving answers which we could not understand, 
 that this passage of my singular adventure could scarcely be 
 less vague to me in memory than, instead of having been an 
 actor in it, I had read it in a book. 
 
 There were six or seven men, as well as I could make out, 
 clustered in the fore-rigging. I believed I could see others in 
 the mizzen-shrouds. This being my notion, my consuming 
 anxiety was to drop the boat down on the quarter as swiftly 
 as possible, for it was not only that the Twins were within a 
 cable's range astern, with the fury of the foam there making 
 a kind of shining upon the water that might have passed for 
 moonlight; such was the volume and height of the sea roaring 
 betwixt the laboring ship and our boat that at every toss of the 
 little fabric, at every ponderous lean down of the great, groan- 
 ing black hull towering over us, we stood to be staved. 
 
 The fellows in the fore-rigging seemed to be stupefied. "We 
 all of us yelled, "Jump, jumn! Watch as she rises, and 
 jump, for God's sake I" meanwhile keeping a turn of the cable 
 as to hold the boat abreast of them. It seemed an eternity 
 before they understood, and yet a minute had not passed since 
 we dropped down, when a cry broke from them, and first one 
 jumped and then another, and then the rest of them sprung,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 31 
 
 and there they were lying in a huddle in the bottom of the 
 boat, one or two of them groaning dreadfully, as though from 
 broken limbs, or worse injuries, still, all of them motionless 
 as they lay when they jumped, like folk nearly dead of terror 
 and cold and pain. 
 
 " Veer out now, my lads! veer out!*' I cried: "handsomely, 
 that we may get smartly under the mizzen-shrouds. " 
 
 " There's nobody there,, sir!'^ roared one of my men. 
 
 No! I looked and found that it had been an illusion of my 
 sight^ due to the flame of the flare that was burning fiercely 
 on the main-deck. 
 
 " Are you all here?" 1 cried, addressing the dusky huddle 
 of men at the bottom of the boat. 
 
 Something was said, but the gale deafened me, and I could 
 catch no meaning, no syllables, indeed, in the answer. 
 
 " They'll all be here, sir," shouted one of my crew: " the 
 port davits are empty, and some'll have left in the boat." 
 
 A great sea swung us up at that instant flush with the level 
 of the bulwark rails, with a heel of the bark that disclosed her 
 decks bare to the bright fires of the signal. 
 
 " They must be all here!" I cried; " but look well. Is there 
 one among you who can catch any signs of a living man on 
 board?" 
 
 They waited for the next upheaval of the sea, and then rose 
 a shout: " They're all here, sir, you'll find." 
 
 " Heave ahead then, my lads!" by which 1 meant that they 
 should haul upon the cable to drag the boat clear of the dread- 
 ful, crushing, shearing chop of the overhanging bows of the 
 bark. 
 
 At that instant a head showed over the rail a little abaft the 
 fore-shrouds, and the clear, piercing voice of a boy cried, with 
 as good an English accent as I myself have: " My father is ill 
 and helpless in the cabin. Do not leave us!" 
 
 " No, no, we'll not leave you," I instantly shouted in re- 
 turn, sending my voice fair to the lad from the height of a sea 
 that pretty well brought his and my head on a level. ' ' How 
 many are there of you?" 
 
 " Two," was the answer. 
 
 I had to wait for the boat to slide up to the summit of the 
 next surge ere I could call out again. The black yawns be- 
 twixt us and the bark might have passed for valleys looked at 
 from a hill- side, so horribly hollow and deep were they; they 
 were pale, and yet dusky too, with sheets of foam; a soul-con- 
 founding noise of thunderous washing and seething rose up 
 Irom them. When we were in one of these hollows the great
 
 32 MY DANISH SWEETHEART, 
 
 mass of the dark fabric of the bark seemed to tower fifty feet 
 above us, aud we lay becalmed, hanging, while you might 
 have counted five, in absolute stagnation, with the yell of the 
 wind sweeping over our heads as though we were in the heart 
 of a pit. 
 
 " Can not your father help himself at all?" I bawled to the 
 boy. 
 
 "He can not stir, he must be lifted!'^ he answered in a 
 shriek, for his high, clear, piercing cry thus sounded. 
 
 " By Heaven, then, lads," I bawled to my men, " there's 
 no time to be lost! We must bundle the poor fellow over 
 somehow, aud help the lad. Nothing will have been done if 
 we leave them behind us. Watch your chance and follow me, 
 three of you!" 
 
 At the instant of saying this I made a spring from off the 
 height of the gratiugs on which I stood, and got into the fore- 
 chains, the boat then being on the level of that platform; and 
 as actively as a cat, for few young fellows had nimbler limbs, 
 I scrambled over the bulwark on to the deck, just in time to 
 escape a huge fold of rushing water that foamed sheer through 
 the chains with a spite and weight that must instantly have 
 settled my business for me. 
 
 1 was in the act of running along the deck to where the lad 
 stood — that is to say, a little forward of the gangway, not 
 doubting that the others of my crew whom 1 had called upon 
 were following with as much alertness as I had exhibited, when 
 I felt a shock as of a thump pass through the bark. 
 
 " She has struck!" thought I. 
 
 But hardly was I sensible of this tremor through the vessel 
 when there arose a wild and dreadful cry from alongside. Heav- 
 enly God! how am I to describe that shocking noise of human 
 distress? 1 fled to the rail and looked over; it was all boiling 
 water under me, with just a sight of the black line of the gun- 
 wale or of the keel of the life-boat; but there was such a raging 
 of foam, such a thickness of seething yeast smoking into the 
 hurricane as ihough some volcanic eruption had happened 
 right under the bark, filling the air with steam, that there was 
 nothing whatever to be seen save just that dark glance of 
 keel or gunwale, as I have said, which, however, vanished as I 
 looked into the depth of the hissing, spumy smother. I knew 
 by this that the life-boat must have been staved and filled by 
 a sudden fling of her against the massive sides of the bark; for 
 she was a self-righting craft, and, though she might have thrown 
 every soul in her out as she rolled over, yet she would have 
 rose buoyant again, emptying herself as she leaped to the surge.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 8^ 
 
 and there she would have been alongside, without a living creat- 
 ure in her, if you will, but a good boat, and riding stoutly to 
 her cable. But she had been stove, and now she was gone! 
 
 The blazing tar-barrel on the main-deck enabled me to see 
 my way to rush aft. I cried to the lad as I sped: " The boafc 
 is staved; all hands of her are overboard and drowning! Heave 
 ropes' ends over the side! fling life-buoys!'* and thus shouting, 
 scarcely knowing, indeed, what I called out, so confounded was 
 I, so shocked, so horrified, so heart-broken, 1 may say, by the 
 suddenness and the fearf uluess of this disaster, I reached the 
 quarter of the bark and overhung it; but I could see nothing. 
 The cloudy boiling rose and fell, and with every mighty drop 
 of the great square counter of the bark the sea swept in a roar 
 from either hand of her with a cataractal fury that would rush 
 whatever was afloat in it dozens of fathoms distant at every 
 scend. Here and there noiv I believe 1 could distinguish some 
 small black object, but the nearer pallid waters dimmed into 
 a blackness at a little distance, and, if those dark points which 
 I observed were the heads of swimmers, then such was the 
 headlong race of the surge they were swept into the throbbing 
 dusk ere I could make sure of them. 
 
 I stood as one paralyzed from head to foot. My inability to 
 be of the least service to my poor comrades and the unhappy 
 Danes caused me to feel as though the very heart in me had 
 ceased to beat. The young fellow came to my side. 
 
 " What is to be done?" he cried. 
 
 " Nothiugl" I answered in a passion of grief. " What can 
 be done? God grant that many of them will reach the shore! 
 The hurl of the sea is landward, and their life-belts will float 
 them. But your people are doomed." 
 
 " And so are we!" he exclaimed, shrilly, yet without per- 
 ceptible terror, with nothing worse than wild excitement in his 
 accents: " there are rocks directly under our stern. Are you a 
 sailor?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Oh, du gode Gud! what is to be done?" cried the lad. 
 
 I cast my eyes despairingly around. The tar-barrel was still 
 burning bravely upon the deck, defying the ceaseless sweeping of 
 spray from over the bows; the windy, unearthly light tinctured 
 the ship with its sickly sallow hue to the height of her lower 
 yards, and the whole ghastly body of her was to be seen as she 
 rolled and plunged under a sky that was the blacker for the 
 light of the distress -flare, and upon a sea whose vast spreads 
 of creaming brows would again and again come charging along 
 to the very height r' '"^'^ U"i".««ir j.j^jj^ 
 %
 
 34 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 In the midst of this pause on my part, and while every in- 
 stinct of self-preservation in me was blindly flinging itself, so to 
 speak, against the black and horrible situation that imprisoned 
 me, and while 1 was hopelessly endeavoring to consider what 
 was to be done to save the young fellow alongside of me from 
 destruction — for, as to his father, it was impossible to extend 
 my sympathies at such a moment to one whom I had not seen, 
 who did not appeal to me, as it were, in form' and voice for 
 succor — I say, in the midst of this pause of hopeless delibera- 
 tion, the roar of the hurricane ceased on a sudden. Xothing 
 more, I was sure, was signified by this than a lull, to be fol- 
 lowed by some fierce chop round, or by the continuance of the 
 westerly tempest with a bitterer spite in the renewed rush of 
 it. The lull may have lasted ten or fifteen seconds. In that 
 time I do not know that there was a breath of air to be felt 
 outside the violent eddyings and draughts occasioned by the 
 sickening motions of the bark. I looked up at the sky, and 
 spied the leanest phantom of a star that glimmered for the 
 space of a single swing of a pendulum, and then vanished 
 behind a rushing roll of vapor of a midnight hue, winging 
 with incredible velocity from the land. 
 
 So insupportable was the movement of the deck that I was 
 forced to supjjort myself by a belaying pin or 1 must have been 
 thrown. My comiDanion clung to a similar pin close beside me. 
 The thunder of running and colliding waters rose into that 
 magical hush of tempest; I could hear the booming of the surf 
 as far as Hurricane Point, and the caldron-like noises of the 
 waters round about the rocks astern of us. 
 
 " Has the storm ceased?" cried my companion. " Oh, belov- 
 ed father, we may be spared yet!" he added, extending his 
 disengaged hand toward the deck-house as he apostrophized 
 the helpless man who lay there. 
 
 Amazed as I was by this instant cessation of the gale, I could 
 yet find mind enough to be struck by my companion's manner, 
 oy his words, and now, I may say, by his voice also. I was 
 about to address him; but as my lips parted there was a 
 vivid flash of lightning that threw out the whole scene of bay, 
 clifF, foreshore, and town, with the line of the horizon seaward, 
 in a dazzle of violet; a crash of thunder followed, but, before 
 its ear-splitting reverberation had ceased, the echoes of it were 
 drowned in the bellowing of the gale coming directly off the 
 Jand. 
 
 What is there in words to express the fury of this outfly? 
 It met the heave of the landward-running seas, and swept them 
 ijato smoke, and the air grew as white and thick with spume as
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. 85 
 
 though ft heavy snow-storm were blowing horizontally along. 
 It took the baric and swung her; her laboring was so prodigious 
 as she was thrust by this fresh hurricane broadside round to 
 the surges, that I imagined every second she would founder 
 under my feet. I felt a shock; my companion cried, " One of 
 the cables has parted!" A moment later 1 felt the same in- 
 describable tremble running through the planks on which we 
 stood. 
 
 " Is that the other cable gone, do you think?** I shouted. 
 
 " There is a lead-line over the side,** he cried; " it will tell 
 us if we are adrift. ** 
 
 1 followed him to near the mizzen-rigging; neither of us durst 
 let go with one hand until we had a grip of something else 
 with the other; it was now not only the weight of the wind 
 that would have laid us prone and pinned us to the deck; a 
 pyramidal sea had sprung up as though by enchantment, and 
 each apex as it soared about the bows and sides was blown 
 inboards in very avalanches of water, which with each vio- 
 lent roll of the vessel poured in a solid body to the rail, one 
 side or the other, again and again, to the height of our waist. 
 
 My companion extended his hand over the bulwarks, and 
 cried out: " Here is the lead-line. It stretches toward the 
 bows. Oh, sir, we are adrift! we are blowing out to sea!** 
 
 I put my hand over and grasped the line, and instantly knew 
 by the angle of it that the lad was right. By no other means 
 would he have been able to get at the truth. The weight of 
 lead, by resting on the bottom, immediately told if the bark 
 was dragging. All around was white water; the blackness of 
 the night drooped to the very spit of the brine; not a light 
 was to be perceived, not the vaguest outline of cliff; and the 
 whole scene of darkness was the more bewildering for the 
 throb of the near yeast upon the eyesight. 
 
 " Is your binnacle light burning?" 1 cried. 
 
 The lad answered : ' ' Yes. " 
 
 " Then,** I shouted, " we must find out the quarter the gale 
 has shifted into, and get her stern on to it, and clear Hur- 
 ricane Point, if Almighty God will permit. There may be 
 safety in the open; there is none here.'* 
 
 With the utmost labor and distress we made our way aft. 
 The flare had been extinguished by the heavy falls of water, 
 and it was worse than walking blindfolded. The binnacle 
 light was burning — this was, indeed, to be expected. The bark 
 was plunging directly head to wind, and a glance at the card 
 ennbled me to know that the gale was blowing almost due east.
 
 30 MY DANISH SWEETH^EABT. 
 
 having shifted, as these cyclonic ragings often do, right into 
 the quarter opposite whence it had come. 
 
 " We must endeavor to get her before it," I cried; " but 1 
 am no sailor. There ma}' come another shift, and we ought 
 to clear the land while the hurricane holds as it does. What 
 is to be done?" 
 
 " Will she pay off if the helm is put hard over?" he an- 
 swered. " Let us try it!" 
 
 He seized the spoi^es on one side; I put my shoulder to the 
 wheel on the other, and thus we jammed and secured the helm 
 into the posture called by sailors " hard a-starboard. " She 
 fell off, indeed — into the trough, and there she lay, amid such 
 a diabolical play of water, such lashings of seas on both sides, 
 as it is not in mortal pen to portray! 
 
 Had we been in the open ocean, a better attitude than the 
 bark herself had taken up we could not have wished for. She 
 was, indeed, hove-to, as the sea expression is, giving something 
 of her bow to the wind, and was in that posture which the ship- 
 master will put his vessel into in such a tempest as was now 
 blowing. But, unhappily, the land was on either hand of us, 
 and, though our drift might be straight out to sea, I could 
 not be sure that it was so. The tide would be making to the 
 west and north; the coils and pyramids and leapings of surge 
 had also a sort of yearning and leaning toward north-west as 
 if in sympathy with the tide; the deadly terrace of Hurricane 
 Point lay that way; and so the leaving of the bark in the trough 
 of the sea might come, indeed, to cost us our lives, which 
 had only just been spared by the shift in the storm of wind ! 
 
 " She does not answer the helm," I cried to my young com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Her head will pay off," he answered, "if we can manage 
 to hoist a fragment of sail forward. It must be done, sir. 
 Will you help me?" 
 
 " God knows 1 will do anything!" I cried. " Show mo 
 what is to be done. We must save our lives if we can. There 
 may be a chance out on the ocean for us." 
 
 Without another word he went forward, and I followed 
 him. We had to pause often to preserve ourselves from being 
 floated off our feet. The flood, which washed white betwixt 
 the rails, lifted the rigging off the pins, and sent the ropes 
 enaking about the decks, and our movements were as much 
 hampered as though we fought our way through a Jungle. 
 The foam all about us outside and inboards put a wild, cold 
 glimmer into the air, which enabled us to distinguish outlines. 
 In faot> at moments the whole shape of the bark, from her bul-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 37 
 
 warks to some distance up her masts, would show like a sketch 
 in ink upon white paper as she leaned off the slant of the sea 
 and painted her figure upon the hill of froth thundering away 
 from her on the lee-side. 
 
 My companion paused for a moment or two under the shelter 
 of the caboose or galley to tell me what he meant to do. VV"e 
 then craM'led on to the forecastle, and he bade me hold on by a 
 rope which he put into my hand, and await his return. I 
 watched him creep into the " eyes " of the vessel and get upon 
 the bowsprit, but after that I lost sight of him, for the seas 
 smoked so fiercely all about the ship's head — to every plunge 
 of her bows there rose so shrouding a thickness of foam- — that 
 the air was a fog of crystals where the lad was, and had he 
 gone overboard he could not have vanished more utterly from 
 my sight. Indeed, 1 could not tell whether he was gone or 
 not, and a feeling of horror possessed me when 1 thought of 
 being left alone in the vessel with a sick and useless man lying 
 somewhere aft, and with the rage and darkness of the dreadful 
 storm around me, the chance of striking upon Hurricane Point, 
 and no better hope at the best than what was to be got out 
 of thinking of the midnight breast of the storming Atlantic. 
 
 After a few minutes there was the noise of the rattling of 
 canvas resembling a volley of small shot fired off the bows. The 
 figure of the lad came from the bowsprit out of a burst of spray 
 that soared in steam into the wind. 
 
 "Only a fragment must be hoisted!" he exclaimed, with 
 his mouth at my ear. " Pull with me!" 
 
 1 put my weight upon the rope, and together we rose a few 
 feet of the sail upon the stay — it was the foretopmast staysail, 
 as I afterward discovered. 
 
 " Enough!" cried my companion, in his clear, penetrating 
 voice; " if it will but hold till the vessel pays off, alj will bo 
 well. We dare not ask for more.'' 
 
 He secured the rope we had dragged upon to a pin, and 1 
 followed him aft, finding leisure even in that time of distress 
 and horror to wonder at the coolness, the intrepidity of soul 
 that was expressed in this clear, unfaltering speech, in the keen 
 judgment and instant resolution of a lad whose age, as I might 
 gather from his voice, could scarcely exceed fifteen or sixteen 
 years. Between us we seized the wheel afresh, one on either 
 side of it, and waited. But we were not to be kept long in 
 suspense. Indeed, even before we had grasped the helm the 
 bark was paying off. The rag of canvas held nobly, and to 
 the impulse of it the big bows of the vessel rounded away from 
 the gale, and in a few minutes she was dead before it, pitch-
 
 38 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ing furiously, with the sea snapping and foaming to her taffrail 
 and quarters. 
 
 But the thickness of her yards, with the canvas rolled up on 
 them, the thickness of the masts, too, the spread of the tops, 
 the complicated gear of shroud, backstay, and running -rigging, 
 all olfered resistance enough to the dark and living gale that 
 was bellowing right over the stern to put something of the 
 speed of an arrow into the keel of the fabric. Through it she 
 madly raced, with pallid clouds blowing about her bows, and 
 white peaks hissing along her sides, and a wake of snow under 
 her counter heaving to half the height of the mizzen-mast 
 with the hurl of the seas, and a ceaseless blowing of froth over 
 our heads as the lad and 1 stood together grasping the wheel, 
 steering the vessel into the darkness of the great Atlantic Ocean, 
 with our eyes upon the compass-card, whose illuminated disk 
 showed the course on which we were being flashed forward 
 by the storm to be a trifle south of west. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HELGA NIELSEN. 
 
 For full twenty minutes the lad and I clung to the helm 
 (vithout exchanging a word. The speed of the driven vessel 
 rendered her motion comparatively easy, after the intolerable 
 iurching and rolling and plunging of her as she lay at anchor 
 3r in the trough. She was swept onward with such velocity 
 that 1 had little or no fear of her taking in the seas over her 
 stern, and she steered well, with but little wildness in the 
 swerving of her bows, as was to be seen by the comparative 
 cegularity of the oscillation of the compass-card. 
 
 This running before the tempest, of course, diminished the 
 rolume and power of it, so far,, I mean, as our own sensations 
 were concerned; but the sight of the sea, as much of it at least 
 IS was visible, coupled with the thunder of the wind up aloft 
 n the sky, and the prodigious crying and shrieking and shrilling 
 )f it in the rigging, was warrant enough that were we to heave 
 ;he bark to, we should find the hurricane harder now than it 
 lad been at any other time since it first came on to blow. Yet 
 )ur racing before it, as I have said, seemed somewhat to lull 
 t, and we could converse without having to cry out, though 
 !or twenty minutes we stood mute as statues waiting and watch- 
 
 At last my companion said to me: " Have we passed that 
 Doiut which you spoke of, do you think.-*"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEABT. 89 
 
 ** Oh, yes," I answered. " It would not be above two 
 miles distant from the point where we broke adrift. Our speed 
 can not have been less than eight or nine knots. 1 should say 
 Hurricane Point is a full mile away, down on the quarter there. " 
 
 " I fear that we shall find the sea,^' said he, " grow terribly 
 heavy as we advance." 
 
 " Yes," said I, " but what is to be done? There is nothing 
 for it but to advance. Suppose such another shift of wind as 
 has just happened — what then? We should have a line of 
 deadly shore right under o\iv lee. No, we must hold on as we 
 are." 
 
 " There are but two of us!" cried he; " my father can not 
 count; What are we to do? We can not work this big ship. " 
 
 " The weather may break," said I; " it is surely too fierce 
 to last. "What can we hope for but to be rescued or assisted 
 by some passing vessel? Is this ship stanch?" 
 
 "Yes; she is a strong ship," he replied. " She is about 
 six years old. My father is her owner. 1 wish I could go to 
 him," he added; " he will be dying to learn what has hap- 
 pened and what is being done, and it is past the time for his 
 medicine, and he will be wanting his supper!" 
 
 I tried to catch a view of him as he spoke these words, but 
 the haze of the binnacle lamp did not reach to his face, and it 
 was as black as the face of the sky itself out of that sheen. 
 What he had said had a girlish note in it that I could not rec- 
 oncile with his dress, with his seafaring alertness, with his 
 spirited behavior, his nimble crawling out upon the bowsprit, 
 and his perception of what was to be done under conditions 
 which might well have clouded the wits of the oldest and most 
 audacious sailor. 
 
 " Pray go and see your father," said I. " 1 believe I can 
 keep this holm amidship without helj). " And, indeed, if I 
 could not have steered the bark alone, I do not know that such 
 assistance as he could offer would have suffered me to control 
 her. He seemed but a slender lad — so far, at least, as I had 
 been able to judge from the view I got when the flare was burn- 
 ing — very quick, but without suc^ strength as I should have 
 looked for in a young seaman, as I could tell whenever the 
 wheel had to be put up or down. 
 
 He let go the spokes, and stood apart for a minute or two, 
 as though to judge whether I could manage without him; 
 then said he: " I will return quickly," and with that took a 
 step and vanished in the blackness forward of the binnacle- 
 stand. 
 
 My mind dwelt for a moment upon him, upon the clearness
 
 40 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 and purity of his voice, upon a something in his speech which 
 I could not define, and which puzzled me; upon his words, which 
 were as good English as one could hope to hear at home, albeit 
 there was a certain sharpness and incisiveness — perhaps I might 
 say a little of harshness — in his accentuation that might suggest 
 him a foreigner to an English ear, though, as I then supposed, 
 it was more likely than not this quality arose from the excite- 
 ment and dismay and distress which worked in him as in me. 
 
 But he speedily ceased to engage my thoughts. What could 
 I dwell upon but the situation in which I found myself — the 
 spectacle of the black outline of the bark painting herself 
 upon the volumes of white water she heaved up around her as she 
 rushed forward, pitching bows under, her rigging echoing with 
 unearthly cries, as if the dark waving mass of spar and gear 
 aloft were crowded with tormented souls wailing and howling 
 and shrieking dismally? I recalled my mother's dream; I be- 
 lieved I was acting in some dreadful nightmare of my own slum- 
 bers; all had happened so suddenly — so much of emotion, of 
 wild excitement, of agitation, and, 1 may say, horror, had 
 been packed into the slender space of time between the capsizal 
 of the life-boat and this rushing out of the bay that, now I 
 had a little leisure to bend my mind to a contemplation of the 
 reality, 1 could not believe in it as an actual thing. I was 
 dazed; my hearing was stunned by the ceaseless roar of wind 
 and seas. The " Janet " stove and sunk! All my lion-hearted 
 men drowned perhaps! The poor Danes, for whom they had 
 forfeited their lives, long ago corpses! Would not this break 
 my mother's heart? Would there be a survivor to tell her 
 that when I was last seen I was aboard the bark? Once again 
 I figured the little parlor I had quitted but a few hours since 
 — I pictured my mother sitting by the fire, waiting and listening 
 — the long night, the bitter anguish of suspense! It was lucky 
 for me that the obligation of having to watch and steer the 
 vessel served as a constant intrusion upon my mind at this 
 time, for could I have been able to sit down and surrender my- 
 self wholly to my mood, God best knows how it must have gone 
 with me. 
 
 The lad was about ten minutes absent. I found him along- 
 side the wheel without having witnessed his approach. He came 
 out of the darkness as a spirit might shape itself, and I did 
 not know that he was near me until he spoke. 
 
 " My father says that our safety lies in heading into the 
 open sea, to obtain what you call a wide oflSng,*' said he. 
 
 " What does he advise?" I asked. 
 
 ** ' We must continue to run,' he says," answered the lad.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 41 
 
 meaning by run that we should keep the bark before the 
 wind. " ' When the coast is far astern we must endeavor to 
 heave to/ So he counsels. I told him we are but two. He 
 answered, ' It may be done. ' " 
 
 " I wish he were able to leave his cabin and take charge,*' 
 said I. " What is his complaint?'' 
 
 " He was seized shortly after leaving Cuxhaven with rheu- 
 matism in the knees," he answered; "he can not stand, can 
 not indeed stir either leg. " 
 
 "Why did he not get himself conveyed ashore for treat- 
 ment?" 
 
 " He hoped to get better. We were to call at Swansea be- 
 fore proceeding to Porto Alegre, and, if he had found himself 
 still ill when he arrived there, it was his intention to procure 
 another captain for the ' Anine,' and remain at Swansea with 
 me until he was able to return home. " 
 
 " Who had charge of the bark when she was brought up in 
 the bay?" I inquired, finding a sort of relief in asking these 
 questions, and, indeed, in having somebody to converse with, 
 for even my ten minutes of loneliness at the helm of that 
 pitching and foaming vessel had depressed me to the very core 
 of my soul. 
 
 " The carpenter, who acted as second mate." 
 
 " Yes, 1 recollect; some of our boatmen brought the news. 
 Your chief mate broke his leg and was sent ashore. But did 
 your father consent to the ' Anine ' dropping anchor in so 
 perilous a bay as ours — perilous, I mean, considering the 
 weather at the time?" 
 
 " He was at the mercy of the man Damm — the carpenter, 
 ] mean," he answered. " The crew had refused to keep the 
 sea; they said a tempest was coming, and that shelter must be 
 sought before the wind came, and the carpenter steered the 
 bark for the first haven he fell in with, which happened to be 
 your bay. Our crew were not good men; they were grum- 
 bling much, as your English word is, from the hour of our 
 leaving Cuxhaven." 
 
 " But surely," said 1, " the poor fellows who sprung out of 
 tjie fore-rigging could not have formed the whole of the crew 
 of a 8h:p of this burden." 
 
 " No," he answered; " the carpenter and five men got away 
 in one of the boats when they found that the bark was dragging 
 her anchors. They lowered one boat, which filled and was 
 knocked to pieces, and the wreck of it, I dare say, is still 
 swinging at the tackles. They lowered the other boat, and 
 went away in her."
 
 4S MY DANISH SWEETHEABT. 
 
 " Did thfiy reach the shore?" 
 
 *• I do not know," said he. 
 
 " They must have been a bad lot," said I; " those who es- 
 caped in the boat and those who hung in the shrouds, to leave 
 your helpless father to his fate." 
 
 " Oh! a bad lot, a wicked lot!" he cried. " They were not 
 Danes," he added. " Danish sailors would not have acted as 
 those men did." 
 
 " Are you a Dane?" I asked. 
 
 " My father is," he answered. *' 1 am as much English as 
 Danish. My mother was an English woman. " 
 
 '* 1 should have believed you wholly English," said I. " Are 
 you a sailor?" 
 
 He answered no. 1 was about to speak, when he exclaimed: 
 " I am a girl!" 
 
 Secretly for some time I had supposed this, and yet I was 
 hardly less astonished had I been without previous sus- 
 picion. 
 
 " A girl!" I cried, sending my sight groping over her fig- 
 ure; but to no purpose. She was absolutely indistinguishable, 
 saving her arms, which were dimly touched by the haze of the 
 binnacle light as they lay upon the spokes of the wheel. 
 
 " It is my whim to dress as a boy on board ship!" she 
 exclaimed, with no stammer of embarrassment that I could 
 catch in her clear delivery, that penetrated to my ear without 
 loss of a syllable through the heavy storming of the gale, 
 flashing with the fury of a whirlwind ofE the brows of the seas 
 which rushed at us, as the bark's counter soared into the whole 
 weight and eye of the tempest. 
 
 So far had we conversed; but at this moment a great surge 
 took the bark and swung her up in so long, so dizzy, and 
 sickening an upheaval, followed .by so wild a fall into the 
 frothing hollow at its base, that speech was silenced in me, 
 and I could think of nothing else but the mountainous billows 
 now running. Indeed, as my companion had predicted, the 
 further we drew out from the land the heavier we found the 
 sea. The play of the ocean, indeed, out here was rendered 
 fierce beyond words by the dual character of the tempest; for 
 the seas which had been set racing out of the west had not 
 yet been conquered by the violence of the new gale and by the 
 hurl of the liquid hills out of the east, and the bark was now 
 laboring in the same sort of pyramidal sea as had run in the 
 bay, saving that here the whole power of the great Atlantic 
 was in each billow, and the fight between the contending waters 
 was as a combat of mighty giants.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 49 
 
 IThe decks were full of water, at frequent intervals the brow 
 of the sea rushing past as, swift as was our own speed upon its 
 careering back, would arch over the rail and tumble aboard 
 in a heavy fall of water, and the smoke of it would rise from 
 the planks as though the bark were on fire, and make tht 
 blackness forward of the main-mast hoary. I sought in vain f oi 
 the least break in the dark ceiling of the sky. Will the vessel 
 be able to keep afloat? I was now all the time asking myself. 
 Is it possible for any structure put together by human hands 
 to outlive such a night of fury as this? As I have said, I was 
 no sailor, yet my 'longshore training gave me very readily tc 
 know that the best, if not the only, chance for our lives was 
 to get the bark hove-to, and leave her to breast the seas and 
 live the weather out as she could with her helm lashed, andj 
 perhaps, some bit of tari^aulin in the weather-rigging, to keej 
 her head up. But this that was to be easily wished was inex- 
 pressibly perilous to attempt or achieve, for, in bringing the 
 vessel to, it was as likely as not we should founder out of hand. 
 A single sea might be enough to do our business; and, failing 
 that, there was the almost certain prospect of the decks bein^ 
 swept, 'of every erection from the talfrail to the bows bein^ 
 carried away, ourselves included, of a score of leaks bein^ 
 started by a single blow, and, even if the girl and 1 managed 
 to hold on, of the bark foundering under our feet. 
 
 Thus we rushed onward, very literally indeed scudding 
 under bare poles, as it is called, and for a long while we had 
 neither of us a word to exchange, so present was calamity, sc 
 near was death, so dreadful was the thunderous sounds of the 
 night, so engrossing our business of keeping the flying fabric 
 dead before the seas. 
 
 I pulled out my watch and held it hastily to the binnacle 
 lamp, and found the hour exactly one. The girl asked mc 
 the time. This was the first word that had passed between us 
 for a long while. I replied, and she said in a voice that in- 
 dicated extraordinary spirit, but that, nevertheless, sounded 
 languishiugly after her earlier utterance: " I^owthatit is pasi 
 midnight, the gale may break; surely such fierce weather car 
 not last for many hours." 
 
 " 1 wish you would go, "said I, " and get some refreshmenj 
 for yourself, and lie down for awhile. I believe I can manage 
 single-handed to keep the vessel before if 
 
 " If I lie down, it would not bo to sleep,'* she answered 
 " but if you think 1 can be spared from the wheel for a few 
 minutes, 1 will obtain some refreshment for us both, and J 
 ehould also like to see how my father doe-s, "
 
 i4 MY DAiflSH SWEETHEART. 
 
 1 answered that i* the helm was to prove too heavy for me, 
 hor help might hardly save me from being obliged to let go. 
 
 '* Do not believe this," she exclaimed, " because you now 
 know that 1 am a girl!'' 
 
 "I have had no heart for wonderment as yet," said I; 
 " otherwise my astonishment and admiration would reassure 
 you, if you suppose I doubt your strength and capacity now 
 that I know you to be a girl. A little refreshment will help 
 us both;" and I was going to advise her to seize the oppor- 
 tunity to attire herself in dry clothes, for 1 was in oilskins, 
 whereas, so far as I was able to gather, her dress was a pea- 
 jacket and a cloth cap, and 1 knew that again and again she 
 had been soaked to the skin, and that the wind pouring on her 
 would be chilling her to her very heart. But even amid such 
 a time as this 1 was sensible of a diffidence in naming what 
 was in my mind, and held my peace. 
 
 She left the wheel, and 1 stood steering the bark single- 
 handed, with my eyes fixed upon the illuminated compass- 
 card, while I noticed that the course the vessel was taking, 
 which always held her dead before the gale, was now above a 
 point, i\ay, perhaps two points, to the southward of west; 
 whence it was clear the hurricane was veering northwardly. 
 
 Whether it was because this small shift in the wind still 
 found the colliding seas traveliug east and west, or that some 
 heavy surge sweeping its volume along the starboard bow 
 caused the bark to "yaw" widely, as it is termed, and so 
 brought a great weight of billow against the rudder; be the 
 cause what it will — while my eye was rooted upon the card, 
 the stern of the vessel was, on a sudden, run up with the 
 velocity of a balloon from whose car all the ballast has been 
 thrown, the spokes were wrenched from my hand as they 
 revolved like the driving-wheel of a locomotive in full career, 
 and 1 was sent spinning against the bulwark, from which I 
 dropped upon my knees and so rolled over, stunned. 
 
 For all I could tell I might have lain five minutes or five 
 hours without my senses. I believe I was brought to by the 
 washing over of me of the water that lay in that lee-part 
 of the deck into which 1 had been flung. 1 sat erect, but for 
 a long while was unable to collect my mind, so bewildered were 
 my brains by the fall and so confounded besides b}^ the uproar 
 round and about. I then made out the figure, as I took it, of 
 the girl, standing at the wheel, and got on to my legs, and 
 after feeling over myself, so to speak, to make sure that all my 
 bones were sound, 1 staggered, or rather clawed my way up to 
 the wheel; for the bark seemed now to jwe to be upoi; her
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEABT. 46 
 
 beam ends, and rolling with dreadful wildness, and there 
 were times when the foaming waters rushed inboards over the 
 rail which she submerged to leeward. 
 
 The girl cried out when she spied me. I had to draw close 
 indeed to be seen; it was as black down where I was thrown 
 us the inside of the vessel's hold. She cried out, I say, utter- 
 ing some Danish exclamation, and then exclaimed: 
 
 "Oh! I feared you were lost; I feared that you had been 
 thrown overboard; I ought not to have left you alone at the 
 wheel. Tell me if you are hurt?" 
 
 " No; lam uninjured," I replied. " But what has become 
 of the ship? I am only just recovered from my swoon." 
 
 " Oh!" she cried, " she has taken up the very situation you 
 wished for. She has hove herself to. She came broadside 
 to the sea after you were flung from the wheel. We are mer- 
 cifully watched over. V\^e dared not of ourselves have brought 
 her to the wind." 
 
 All my senses were now active in me once more, and I 
 could judge for myself. It was as the girl had said. The 
 bark had fallen into the trough, had taken up a position for 
 herself, and was shouldering the heavy western surge with her 
 bow, coming to and falling off in rhythmic sweeps. Clouds of 
 froth repeatedly broke over her forecastle, but she seemed 
 while 1 then watched her to rise buoyant to each black curl 
 of billow as it took her amidships. 
 
 " Will you help me to lash the helm?" cried the girl. " It 
 is all that the ' Anine ' will need, I am sure. She will be able 
 to fight the storm alone if we can secure the wheel. " 
 
 Between us, we drove the helm " hard a-lee," to use the sea 
 term — for which, indeed, it is impossible to find an equivalent, 
 though I trust to be as sparing in this language as the obliga- 
 Jtion of explanation will permit — and then, by means of ropes 
 wound round the spokes, so bound the wheel as to cripple all 
 play in it. 
 
 " Will she lie up to the wind, do you think," said I, " with- 
 out some square of canvas abaft her to keep her head to it?" 
 
 " 1 have been watching her. 1 believe she will do very 
 well," the girl answered. " I feared that that little head of 
 sail we hoisted in the bay would blow her bows round, and, 
 by this not happening, 1 suppose that sail is in rags. One 
 would not have heard it split in such a thunder of wind as 
 this." 
 
 '* Have you seen your father?" 
 
 ** Yes. I was talking to him when you were thrown ivom
 
 46 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 the wheel. I knew what had happened by the behavior of the 
 vessel. 1 ran out, and feared you were lost. " 
 
 " What does lie counsel?" 
 
 "Oh! it is still his wish that we should go on putting 
 plenty of sea betwixt us and the land. But do you notice that 
 the gale has gone somewhat into the north? He will be glad 
 to hear it, now that we are no longer scudding. Our drift 
 should 2)ut us well clear of the Land's End, and, indeed, 1 
 dare say now we are being thrust away at several miles an hour 
 from the coast. He is very anxious to know if the ' Anine ' 
 has taken in water, and wishes me to sound the well. 1 fear 
 I shall not be able to do this alone. " 
 
 *' Why should you?" cried I. " You shall do nothing alone I 
 I can not credit that you are a girl! Such spirit — such courage 
 — such knowledge of a calling the very last in the wide world 
 that women are likely to understand! Pray let me ask your 
 name:" 
 
 " Helga Nielsen," she answered. "My father is Peter 
 Nielsen — Captain Peter Nielsen," she repeated. " And your 
 name?" 
 
 " Hugh Tregarthen," said I. 
 
 "It is sad that you should be here," said she, "brought 
 away from your home, suffering all this hardship and peril! 
 You came to save our lives. God will bless you, sir. I pray 
 that the good God may protect and restore you to those you 
 love." 
 
 SjDite of the roar of the wind, and the ceaseless crashing 
 and seething sound of the smiting and colliding seas, 1 could 
 catch the falter of emotion in her voice as she pronounced 
 these words, but then, as you will suppose, we were close to- 
 gether, standing shoulder to shoulder against the binnacle, while 
 we exchanged these sentences. 
 
 " There is refreshment in the cabin,'' said she, after a pause 
 of a moment or two. " You need support. This has been a 
 severe night of work for you, sir, from the hour of your put- 
 ting off to us in the life-boat." 
 
 1 found myself smiling at the motherly tenderness conveyed 
 in the tone of her voice. 1 longed to have a clear view of her, 
 for it was still like talking in a pitch-dark room; the binnacle 
 lamp needed trimming; its light was feeble, and the sky lay 
 horribly black over the ocean, that was raging, ghastly with 
 pallid glances of sheets of foam, under it. 
 
 " Let us first sound the well, if possible," said I; " for our 
 lives' sake we ought to find out what is happening below/*
 
 MT DAK18H SWEETHEART. 47 
 
 By this time we had watched and waited long enough to 
 satisfy ourselves that the bark would do as well as we dared 
 hope with her helm lashed; and it also happened very fortu- 
 nately that her yards were in the right trim for the posture in 
 which she lay, having been pointed to the wind — the fore-yards 
 on one tack, the main-yards on the other — when the gale came 
 on to blow in the bay, and the braces had not since been 
 touched. I walked with the girl to the entrance of the deck- 
 house, the door of which faced forward. She entered the struct- 
 ure, and, while I waited outside, lighted a bull's-eye lamp, 
 with which she rejoined me, and together we went forward to 
 another house built abaft of the galley. This had been the 
 place in which the crew slejat. The carpenter's chest was here, 
 and also the sounding-rod. We then went to the pumps, and 
 while 1 held the lamp she dropped the rod down the sounding- 
 pipe, drew it up and brought it to the light and examined it, 
 and named the depth of water there was in the hold. I do not 
 recollect the figure, but I remember that, though it was 
 significant, there was nothing greatly to alarm us in it, seeing 
 how heavily and how frequently the bark had been flooded 
 with the seas, and how much of the water might have made 
 its way from above. 
 
 I recount this little passage in a few lines, yet it forms one 
 of the most sharp-cut of the memories of my adventure. 
 The picture is before me as I write. 1 see the pair of us as we 
 come to a dead stand, grasping each other for support, while 
 the vessel rolls madly over on the slope of some huge hurtling 
 sea; I see the bright glare from the bull's-eye lamp in the 
 girl's hand, dancing like a will-o'-the-wisp upon the black 
 flood betwixt the rails washing with the slant of the decks to 
 our knees; 1 see her dropping the rod down the tube, coolly 
 examining it, declaring its indication; while, to the flash of 
 the lamp-light, I catch an instant's glimpse of her face, shin- 
 ing out white — large-eyed as it seemed tome — upon the black- 
 ness rushing in thunder athwart the deck. 
 
 She led the way into the deck-house. There was a small 
 lantern wildly swinging at a central beam — my companion 
 had lighted it when she procured the bull's-eye lamp — it 
 diffused a good luster, and I could see very plainly. It was 
 just a plain, ordinary, shipboard interior, with three little 
 windows of a side, a short table, lockers on either hand, and 
 a sleeping-berth, or cabin, designed for the captain's use, aft; 
 the companion-hatch, which led to the deck below, was be- 
 twixt the after end of the cabin and the bulkhead of the berth, 
 but the rapid glance I threw around speedily settled, as you
 
 48 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 may suppose, into a look — a long look — full of curiosity, sur« 
 prise, and admiration, at the girl. 
 
 She stood beforo me dressed as a sailor lad, in a suit of pilot 
 cloth and a red silk handkerchief round her throat, but her first 
 act on entering was to remove her cloth cap, that was stream- 
 ing wet, and throw it down upon the table; and thus she stood 
 with her eyes fixed on me, as mine were on her, each of us 
 surveying the other. Her hair was cut short, and was rough 
 and plentiful, without remains of any sort of fashion in the 
 wearing of it — nay, indeed, it was unparted. It was very fair 
 hair, and as pale as amber in the lamp-light. Her eyebrows 
 were of a darker color, and very perfectly arched, as though 
 penciled. It was impossible to guess the hue of her eyes by 
 that light: they seemed of a very dark blue, such as might j^rove 
 violet in the sunshine, soft and liquid, and of an expression 
 even in that hour of peril, of the horror of tempest, of the 
 prospect of death — indeed, that might make one readily suppose 
 her of a nature both sweet and merry. There was no sign of 
 exposure to the weather upon her face; she was white with 
 the paleness of fatigue and emotion. Her cheeks were plump, 
 her mouth small, the under lip a little pouted, and her teeth 
 pearl-like and very regular. Even by the light in which I now 
 surveyed her I never for a moment could have mistaken her 
 for a lad. There was nothing in her garb to neutralize for an 
 instant the suggestions of her sex. 
 
 " I will take you to my father,'' said she, " but you must 
 first eat and drink." 
 
 1 could not have told how exhausted I was until I sunk down 
 uj^on a locker and rested my arms upon the table. I was too 
 wearied to ask the questions that I should have put to her at 
 another time, and could do no more than watch her, with a 
 sort of dull wonder at her nimbleness, and the spirit and reso- 
 lution of her movements as she lifted the lid of the locker and 
 produced a case-bottle of Hollands, some cold meat, and a tin 
 of white biscuits. 
 
 " We have no bread," said she, smiling; " we obtained some 
 loaves off the Isle of Wight, but the last was eaten yesterday." 
 
 She took a tumbler from a rack and mixed a draught of the 
 Hollands with some water which she got from a filter fixed to 
 a stanchion, and extended the glass. 
 
 " Pray let me follow you," said 1. She shook her head. 
 " Yes!" 1 cried, " God knows you should need some such tonic 
 more than I!" 
 
 I induced her to drink, and then took the glass and emptied 
 it. A second dram warmed and heartened ma. I w^ with-
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 49 
 
 Out appetite, but was williag to eat for the sake of such strength 
 as might come from a meal. The girl made herself a sand- 
 wich of biscui^t and meat, and we fell to. And so we sat facing 
 each other, eating, staring at each other; the pair of us all 
 the while hearkening with all our ears to the roaring noises out- 
 side, to the straining sounds withiu the ship, and feeling — I 
 speak of myself — with every nerve tense as a fiddle-string, the 
 desperate slants and falls and uprisals of the deck or platform 
 upon which our feet rested. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DAWN. 
 
 There was refreshment, however, to every sense, beyond 
 language to express, in the shelter which this deck-house pro- 
 vided after our long term of exposure to the pouring of the 
 raging gale, into which was put the further weight of volumes 
 of spray, that swept to the face like leaden hail, and carried 
 the shriek of the shot of musketry as it slung past the ear. It 
 was calm in this deck-house; the deafening sounds without 
 came somewhat muffled here; but the furious motion of the 
 vessel was startingly illustrated by the play of the hanging lan- 
 tern, and the swing of the illuminated globe was made the 
 wilder and more wonderful by the calm of the atmosphere in 
 which it oscillated. 
 
 " I do not think the sea is breaking over the ship,'' said the 
 girl, gazing at mei in a posture of listening. " It is hard to 
 tell. I feel no tremble as of the fall of water on the deck. " 
 
 " She is battling bravely,*' said I; " but what now would I 
 give for even a couple of those men of yours who jumped into 
 the life-boat! It is our being so few — two of us only, and you 
 a woman — that makes our situation so hard." 
 
 " I have not the strength of a man," said she, with a smile, 
 and fastening her soft eyes on my face; " but you will find I 
 have the heart of one. Will you come now and see my 
 father?" 
 
 I at once rose and followed her. She knocked upon a little 
 door where the bulkhead partitioned off the inner cabin, and 
 then entered, bidding me follow her. 
 
 A cot swung from the upper deck, and in it sat a man 
 almost upright, his back supported by bolsters and pillows; a 
 bracket lamp burned steadily over a table, upon which lay a 
 book or two, a chart, a few nautical instruments, and the 
 like. There was no convenience for dressing, and I guessed
 
 50 MY DAKISH BWEETHEART. 
 
 that this had been a sort of chart-room which the captain had 
 chosen to occupy that he might be easily and without delay 
 within hail or reach of the deck. 
 
 He was a striking-looking man, with coal-black hair, parted 
 on one side, lying very fiat upon his head, and curling down 
 upon his back. He wore a long goat-beard and mustache, 
 and was somewhat grim with several days' growth of whisker 
 upon his cheeks; his brows were thickly thatched, his forehead 
 low, his eyes very dark, small, and penetrating. He was of a 
 death-like whiteness, and showed, to my fancy, as a man 
 whose days were numbered. That his disease was something 
 more than rheumatism there was no need to look at him twice 
 to make sure of. His daughter addressed him in the Danish 
 tongue, then, recollecting herself, with a half glance at me of 
 timid apology, she exclaimed: 
 
 *' Father, this is Mr. Hugh Tregarthen, the noble gentleman 
 who commanded the life-boat, who risked his life to save ours, 
 and I pray that God of His love for brave spirits may restore 
 him in safety to those who are dear to him." 
 
 Captain Nielsen, with a face contracted into a look of pain 
 by emotion, extended his hand in silence over the edge of his 
 cot. I grasped it in silence too. It was ice cold. He held me, 
 gazing for awhile, without speech, into my eyes, and I thought- 
 to see him shed tears; then, putting his other hand upon mine 
 in a caressing gesture, and letting it go, for the swing of the 
 cot would not permit him to retain that posture of holding 
 my hand for above a moment or two, he exclaimed in a low 
 but quite audible voice: " I ask the good and gracious God of 
 heaven and earth to bless you, for lier sake — for my Helga's 
 sake — and in the name of those who have perished but whom 
 you would have saved!" 
 
 " Captain Nielsen," said I, greatly moved by his manner 
 and looks, " would it had pleased Heaven that I should have 
 been of solid use to you and your men. 1 grieve to find you in 
 this helpless state. 1 hope you do not suffer?" 
 
 " While I rest I am without pain," he answered; and I now 
 observed that though his accent had a distinctly Scandinavian 
 harshness, such as was softened in his daughter's speech by the 
 clearness — I may say, by the melody — of her tones, his English 
 was as purely pronounced as hers. " But if I move," he con- 
 tinued, " I am in agony. I can not stand; my legs are as idle 
 and as helpless as though paralyzed. But now tell me of the 
 'Anine,' Helga," he cried, with a look of pathetic eager 
 yearning entering his face as he addressed her. *' Have you 
 sounded the well?"
 
 MY DANISH SAVEETHEART. 61 
 
 "Yes father.'* 
 
 " What water, my child?" She told him. " Ha!'' he ex- 
 claimed, with a sudden fretfulness; " the pump should be 
 manned without delay; but who is there to work it?" 
 
 " We two will, very shortly," she exclaimed, turning to me; 
 '* we require a little breathing time. Mr. Tregarthen and I," 
 said she, still talking with her soft appealing eye upon me, 
 " have strength, or, at all events, courage enough to give us 
 strength; and he will help me in whatever we may think need- 
 ful to save the ' Anine ' and our lives." 
 
 "Indeed, yes!" said I. 
 
 " Pray sit, both of you," cried Captain Nielsen; " pray rest. 
 Helga, have you seen to the gentleman's comfort? Has he 
 had any refreshment?" 
 
 She answered him, and seated herself upon a little locker, 
 inviting me with a look to sit beside her, for there was no 
 other accommodation in that cabin than the locker. 
 
 " I wish I could persuade your daughter to take some rest," 
 3aid I. " Her clothes, too, are soaked through!" 
 
 " It is salt water," said Captain Nielsen; " it will not harm 
 her. She is very used to salt water, sir;" and then he ad- 
 dressed his daughter in Danish. The resemblance of some words 
 he used to our English made me suppose he spoke about her 
 resting. 
 
 " The pumps must be worked," said she, looking at me; 
 " we must keep the bark afloat first of all, Mr. Tregarthen. 
 How trilling is want of sleep, how insignificant the discomfort 
 of damp clothes, at such a time as this!" 
 
 She opened her jacket and drew a silver watch from her 
 pocket, and then took a bottle of medicine and a wine-glass 
 from a small circular tray swinging by thin chains near tho 
 cot, and gave her father a dose. He began now to question 
 us, occasionally in his hurry and eagerness speaking in the 
 Danish language. He asked about the masts — if they were 
 sound, if any sails had been split, if the " Anine " had met 
 with any injury apart from the loss of her two boats, of whicfi 
 he had evidently been informed by his daughter. A flush of: 
 temper came into his white cheeks when he talked of his men. 
 He called the carpenter Damm a villain, said that had he had 
 his way the bark never would have brought up in that bay, 
 that Damm had carried her there, as he now believed, as much 
 out of spite as out of recklessness, hoping no doubt that tho 
 " Anine " would go ashore, but of course taking it for granted 
 that the crew would be rescued. He shook his fist as he pro- 
 nounced the carpenter's name, and then groaned aloud witli
 
 62 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 anguish to some movement of his limbs brought about by hia 
 agitation. He lay quiet a little and grew calm, and talked, 
 with his thin fingers locked upon his breast. He informed 
 me that the " Anine " was his ship, that he had spent some 
 hundreds of pounds in equiping her for this voyage, that he had 
 some risk in the cargo, and that, in a word, all that he was 
 worth in the wide world was in this fabric, now heavily and 
 often madly laboring, unwatched, amid the blackness of the 
 night of hurricane. 
 
 " Your daughter and I must endeavor to preserve her for 
 you,^' said I. 
 
 " May. the blessed God grant it!" he cried. " And how 
 good and heroic are you to speak thus!" said he, looking at me. 
 " Surely your great Nelson was right when he called us Danes 
 the brothers of the English. Brothers in affection may our 
 countries ever be! We have given you a sweet princess — that 
 is a debt it will tax your people's generosity to repay." The 
 soft smile that lighted up his face as he spoke made me see a 
 resemblance in him to his daughter. It was like throwing a 
 light upon a picture. He was now looking at her with an ex- 
 pression full of tenderness and concern. 
 
 " Mr— Mr.— " he began. 
 
 " Tregarthen," said his daughter. 
 
 " Ay, Mr. Tregarthen," he continued, " will wonder that a 
 girl should be clad as you are, Helga. Were you ever in 
 Denmark, sir?" 
 
 " Never," I replied. 
 
 " You will not suppose, I hope," said he, with another soft, 
 engaging smile that was pathetic also with the meaning it took 
 from his white face, " that Helga's attire is the costume of 
 Danish ladies?" 
 
 " Oh, no," said I. " I see how it is. Indeed, Miss Nielsen 
 explained. The dress is a whim. And then it is a very con- 
 venient shipboard dress. But she should not be suffered to do 
 the rough work of a sailor. Will you believe. Captain Niel- 
 sen, that she went out upon the bowsprit, and cut adrift or 
 loosed the staysail there when your bark was on her beam ends 
 in the trough of the sea?" 
 
 He nodded with emphasis, and said: " That is nothing, 
 Helga has been to sea with me now for six years running. It is 
 her delight to dress herself in boy's clothes — ay, and to go 
 aloft and do the work of a seaman. It has hardened and 
 spoiled her hands, but it has left her face fair to see. She is 
 a good girl; she loves her poor father; she is motherless, Mr. 
 Tregartfeeu, Were my dear wife alive Helga would not be
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 53 
 
 Aere. She is my only child;'' and he made as if to extend his 
 arms to her, but immediately crossed his hands, again ad- 
 dressing her in Danish as though he blessed her. 
 
 I could perceive the spirit in her straggling with the weakness 
 that this talk induced. She conquered her emotions with a 
 -glance at me that was one almost of pride, as though she would 
 bid me observe that she was mistress of herself, and said, chang- 
 ing the subject, but not abruptly: " Father, do you think the 
 vessel can struggle on without being watched or helped from 
 the deck?" 
 
 " What can be done?" he cried. " The helm is securely 
 lashed hard a-lee?" She nodded. " AVhat can be done?" he 
 repeated. " Your standing at the wheel would be of no use. 
 What is the trim of the yards?" 
 
 " They lie as they were braced up in the bay," she responded, 
 
 " I have been in ships," said he, " that always managed 
 best when left alone in hard weather of this kind. There was 
 the old ' Dannebrog,' " he went on, with his eyes seeming to 
 glisten to some sudden stir of happy memory in him. " Twice 
 when I was in her — once in the Baltic, once in the South At- 
 lantic — we met with gales, well, perhaps, not such a gale as 
 this; but it blew very fiercely, Mr. Tregarthen. The captain, 
 my old friend Sorensen, knew her as he knew his wife. He 
 pointed the yards, lashed the helm, sent the crew below and 
 waited, smoking his pipe, in the cabin till the weather broke. 
 She climbed the seas dryly, and no whale could have made 
 better weather of it. A ship has an intelligence of her own. 
 It is the spirit of the sea that comes into her, as into the birds 
 or fish of the ocean. Observe how long a vessel will wash 
 about after her crew have abandoned her. They might have 
 sunk her had they stayed, not understanding her. Much 
 must be left to chance at sea, Helga. !No; there is nothing 
 to be done. Damm reported the hatch-covers on and every- 
 thing secure while in the bay. It is so still, of course. Yet it 
 will ease my mind to know she is a little freed of the water in 
 her." 
 
 " I am ready!" cried I. "Is the pump too heavy for my 
 arms alone? I can not bear to think of your daughter toiling 
 upon that wet and howling deck. " 
 
 " She will not spare herself, though you should wish it, " 
 said her father. " What is the hour, my dear?" 
 . She looked at her watch. " Twenty minutes after two." 
 
 "A weary long time yet to wait for the dawn!" said he. 
 " And it is Sunday morning — a day of rest for all the world 
 8ftv© for the mariner. But it ^s Go4'8 own day, and when
 
 54 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 next Sabbath comes round we may be worshiping Him ashore, 
 and thanking Him for our preservation." 
 
 As he i)ronounced these words, Helga, as I will henceforth 
 call her, giving me a glance of invitation, quitted the berth, 
 and I followed her into the cabin, as I may term the interior 
 of the deck-house. She picked up the bull's-eye lamp and 
 trimmed the mesh of it, and, arming herself with the sound- 
 ing-rod, stepped on to the lieck. 1 watched her movements 
 with astonishment and admiration. I should have believed 
 that I possessed fairly good sea-legs, even for a wilder play of 
 plank than this which was now tossing us; nevertheless, 1 
 never dared let go with my hands, and there were moments 
 when the upheaval was so swift, the fall so sickening, that my 
 brain reeled again, and to have saved my life I could not have 
 stirred the distance of a pace until the sensation had jjassed. 
 But excepting an occasional pause, an infrequent grasp at what 
 was next her during some unusually heavy roll, Helga moved 
 with almost the same sort of ease that must have been visible 
 in her on a level floor. Her figure indeed seemed to float; it 
 swayed to the rolling of the deck as a bubble hovers perpen- 
 dicular upon the pipe-stem you sharply incline under it. 
 
 After the comparative calm of the shelter 1 stepped from, 
 the uproar of the gale seemed as though it were blowing as 
 hard again as at the time of our quitting the deck. The noise 
 of the rushing and roaring waters was deafening; as the vessel 
 brought her masts to the windward, the screaming and whistling 
 aloft are not to be imagined. The wind was clouded with 
 spray, the decks sobbed furiously with wet, and it was still as 
 pitch-black as ever it had been at any hour of the night. 
 Helga threw the light of the bull's-eye upon the pump-brake 
 or handle, and we then fell to work. At intervals we could 
 contrive to hear each other speak — that is to say, in some mo- 
 mentary lull, when the bark was in the heart of a valley ere 
 she rose to the next thunderous acclivity, yelling in her rigging 
 with the voice of a wounded giantess. For how long we stuck 
 to that dismal clanking job I can not remember. The water 
 gushed copiously as we plied the handle, and the foam was all 
 about our feet as though we stood in a half fathom's depth of 
 surf. I was amazed by the endurance aad pluck of the girl, 
 and, indeed, I found half my strength in her courage. Had 1 
 been alone, I am persuaded I should have given up. The 
 blow of the wheel that had dashed me into unconsciousness, 
 coming on top of my previous labors, not to speak of that ex- 
 haustion of mind which follows upon such distress of heart as 
 my situation and the memory of my foundered boat and the
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 55 
 
 -4)0ssible loss of all her people had occasioned in me, must have 
 proved too much but for the example and influence, the in- 
 spiriting presence of this little Danish lioness, Helga. 
 
 In one of those intervals I have spoken of, she cried out: 
 " We have done enough — for the present;" and so saying she 
 let go of the pump-handle and asked me to hold the lamp 
 while she dropped the rod. I had sujjposed our efforts insig- 
 nificant, and was surprised to learn that we had sunk the water 
 by some inches. We returned to the deck-house, but scarcely 
 had I entered it when I was seized with exhaustion so prostrat- 
 ing that I fell, rather than seated myself, upon the locker, and 
 hid my face in my arms upon the table till the sudden dark- 
 ness should have passed from my eyes. When, presently, I 
 looked up, 1 found Helga at my side with a glass of spirits in 
 her hand. There was a wonderful anxiety and compassion in 
 her gaze. 
 
 " Drink this!" said she. " The work has been too hard for 
 you. It is my fault — I am sorry — I am sorry. " 
 
 I swallowed the draught, and was the better for it. 
 
 " This weakness," said I, " must come from the blow I got 
 on deck. I have kept you from your father. He will want 
 your report," aud I stood up. 
 
 She gave me her arm, and but for that support I believe 1 
 should not have been able to make my way to the captain's 
 berth, so weak did I feel in the limbs, so paralyzing to my 
 condition of prostration was the violent motion of the deck. 
 
 Captain Nielsen looked eagerly at us over the edge of his cot, 
 Helga would not release me until I was seated on the locker, 
 
 " Mr. Tregarthen's strength has been overtaxed, father," 
 said she. 
 
 " Poor man! poor man!" he cried. " God will bless him. 
 He has suffered much for us." 
 
 " It must be a weakness, following my having been stunned," 
 said 1, ashamed of myself that 1 should be in need of a girl's 
 pity at such a time — the pity of a girl, too, who was sharing 
 my labors and danger. 
 
 " What have you to tell me, Helga?'* exclaimed the captain. 
 
 She answered him in Danish, and they exchanged some sen- 
 tences in that tongue. 
 
 "She is a tight ship," cried the captain, addressing me; 
 " it is good news," he went on, his white countenance lighted 
 up with an expression of exultation, " to hear that you two 
 should be able to control the water in the hold. Does the 
 weather seem to moderate?" 
 
 " No," said I, " it blows as hard as ever it did.*'
 
 /55 MY DANISH SWEETHEART?. 
 
 *' Does the sen break aboard?" 
 
 " There is plenty of water washing about/* said I, *' but the 
 vessel seems to be making a brave fight. " 
 
 " When daylight comes, Helga/' said he, " you will hoist a 
 distress color at the mizzen-peak. If the peak be wrecked or 
 the halyards gone, the flag must be seized to the mizzen- 
 shrouds.'* 
 
 " I will see to all that, father," she answered; " and now, 
 Mr. Tregarthen, you will take some rest." 
 
 1 could not bear the idea of sleeping while she remained up; 
 yet though neither of us could be of the least use on deck, 
 our both resting at once could not be thought of, if it was 
 only for the sake of the comfort that was to be got out of 
 knowing that there was somebody awake and on watch. 
 
 " I will gladly i-est," said I, "on condition that you now lie 
 down and sleep for two or three hours." 
 
 She answered no; she was less tired than 1; she had not un- 
 dergone what 1 had suSered in the life-boat. She begged me 
 to take some repose. 
 
 " It is my selfishness that entreats you," said she; " if you 
 break down what are my father and I to do?" 
 
 " True," I exclaimed, " but the three of us would be worse 
 off still if yo^t were to break down." 
 
 However, as 1 saw that she was very much in earnest, while 
 her father also joined her in entreating me to rest, I consent- 
 ed on her agreeing first to remove her soaking clothes, for it 
 was miserable to see her shivering from time to time and look- 
 ing as though she had just been dragged over the side, and yet 
 bravely disregarding the discomfort, smiling as often as she ad- 
 dressed me and conversing with her father with a face of 
 scrutiny, plainly striving to soothe and reassure him by an air 
 of cheerful confidence. 
 
 She left the cabin, and Captain Nielsen talked of her at once; 
 told me that her mother was an English woman, that he was 
 married in London, in which city he had lived from time to 
 time, that Helga had received a part of her education at New- 
 castle-on-Tyne, v/here his wife^s family then lived, though they 
 were now scattered, or jierhaps dead, only one member to his 
 knowledge still residing at Newcastle. He took Helga to sea 
 with him, he said, after his wife died, that he might have 
 her under his eye, and such was her love for the sea, such her 
 intelligent interest in everything which concerned the ship, that 
 she could do as much with a vessel as he himself, and had often, 
 at her own request, taken charge for a watch, during which 
 she had shortened /^arnroa ana put the craft about as though,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 67 
 
 iu short, she had been skipper. The poor man seemed to for- 
 get his miserable situation while he spoke of Helga. His heart 
 was full of her; his eyes swam with tears, while he cried: " It 
 is not that 1 fear death for myself, nor for myself do 1 dread 
 the loss of my ship, which would signify beggary for me and 
 my child. It is for her — for my little Helga. We have 
 many friends at Kolding, where I was born, and at Bjert, 
 Vonsild, Skandrup, and at other places. But who will help 
 the orphan? My friends are not rich — they could do little, no 
 matter how generous their will. I pray God, for my child's 
 sake, that we may be preserved— ay, and for your sake — I 
 should have said that,'' he added, feebly smiling, though his 
 face was one of distress. 
 
 He was beginning to question me about my home, and I 
 was telling him that my mother was living, and that she and 
 1 were alone in the world, and that I feared she would think 
 me drowned, and grieve till her heart broke, for she was an 
 old lady, and 1 was her only son, as Helga was his only daugh- 
 ter, when the girl entered, and I broke off. She had changed 
 her attire, but her clothes were still those of a lad. I had 
 thought to see her come in dressed as a woman, and she so 
 interpreted the look I fastened upon her, for she at once said 
 without the least air of confusion, as though, indeed, she were 
 sensible of nothing iu her apparel that demanded an excuse 
 from her: "I must preserve my sailor's garb until the fine 
 weather comes. How should 1 be able to move about the 
 decks in a gown?" 
 
 "Helga," cried her father, "Mr. Tregarthen is the only 
 son of his mother, and she awaits his return." 
 
 Instantly entered an expression of beautiful compassion 
 into her soft eyes. Her gaze fell, and she remained for a few 
 moments silent, the lamp-light shone upon her tumbled hair, 
 and 1 am without words to make you see the sweet sorrowful 
 expression of her pale face as she stood close against the door, 
 silent and looking down. 
 
 " 1 have kept my word, Mr. Tregarthen," said she, pres- 
 ently. " Now you will keep yours and rest yourself. There 
 is my father's cabin below. " 
 
 1 interrupted her: " No; if you please, I will lie down upon 
 one of the lockers in the deck-house." 
 
 " It will make a hard bed," said she. 
 
 " Not too hard for me," said 1. 
 
 " Well, you shall lie down upon one of those lookers, and 
 you shall be comfortable, too;" and, saying this, she went'out 
 again, and shortly afterward returned with some ruga and a
 
 58 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 bolster. These she placed upon the lee locker, and a minute 
 or two later I had shaken the poor captain by the hand, and 
 had stretched myself upon the rugs, where I lay listening to 
 the thunder of the gale and following the wild motions of the 
 bark, and thinking of what had happened since the life-boat 
 summons had rung me into this black and frothing and roar- 
 iug night from my snug fireside. 
 
 It was not long, however, before I feel asleep. I had under- 
 gone some life-boat experiences in my time, but never before 
 was nature so exhausted in me. The roaring of the gale, the 
 cannonading of the deck-house by incessant heavy showerings 
 of water, the extravagant motions of the plunging and rolling 
 vessel, might have been a mother's lullaby sung by the side of a 
 gently rocked cradle, so deep was the slumber these sounds of 
 thunder left un vexed. 
 
 I awoke from a dreamless, death-like sleep, and opened my 
 eyes against the light of the cold stone-gray dawn, and my 
 mind instantly coming to me, I sprung from the locker, paus- 
 ing to guess at the weather from the movement and the sound. 
 So far as I might there know it was still blowing a whole gale 
 of wind, and I was unable to stand without grasping the table 
 for support. The deck-house door was shut, and the planks 
 within were dry, though 1 could bear the water gushing and 
 pouring in the alley betwixt the deck-house and the bulwarks. 
 I thought to take a view of the weather through one of the 
 windows, but the glass was everywhere blind with wet. 
 
 At this moment the door of the captain's berth was opened, 
 and Helga stepped out. She immediately approached me 
 with both hands extended in the most cordial manner im- 
 aginable. 
 
 " You have slept well,'' she cried; " I bent over you three 
 or four times. You are the better for the rest, 1 am sure." 
 
 " I am, indeed!" said I. " And you?" 
 
 " Oh, I shall sleep by and by. What shall we do for hot 
 water? It is impossible to light the galley fire; yet how grate- 
 ful would be a cup of hot tea or coffee!" 
 
 '* Have you been on deck," said I, " while I slept?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, in and out," she answered. " All is well so far 
 — I mean, the ' Anine ' goes on making a brave fight. The 
 dawn has not long broken. I have not yet seen the ship by 
 daylight. We must sound the well, Mr. Tregarthen, before 
 we break our fast — my fear is there," she added, pointing to 
 the deck, by which she signified the hold. 
 
 There was but little of her face to be seen. She was wear- 
 ing an India-rubber cap shaped like a sou'-weeter, the brim of
 
 MY Danish sweetheaet. 69 
 
 which came low, while the flannel ear-flaps almost smothered 
 her cheeks. I could now see, however, that her eyes were of a 
 dark blue, with a spirit of life and even of vivacity in them 
 that expressed a wonderful triumph of heart over the languor 
 of frame indicated by the droop of the eyelids. A little of 
 her short hair of pale gold showed under the hinder thatch of 
 the sou'-wester; her face was blanched. But I could not 
 look at the pretty mouth, the pearl-like teeth, the soft blue 
 eyes, the delicately figured nostril, without guessing that in 
 the hour of bloom this girl would show as bonnily as the faireet 
 lass of creaoi and roses that ever hailed from Denmark. 
 
 We stepped on to the deck — into the thunder of the gale 
 and the flying clouds of spray. I still wore my oilskins, and 
 was as dry m them as at the hour of leaving home. I felt 
 the comfort, I assure you, of my high sea-boots, as I stood 
 upon that deck, holding on a minute to the house front, with 
 the water coming in a little rage of froth to my legs and wash- 
 ing to leeward with the scend of the bark with the force of a 
 river overflowing a dam. 
 
 Our tirst glance was aloft. The fore topgallant-mast was 
 broken ofl at the head of the topmast and hung with its two 
 yards supportedby its gear, but giving a strange, wrecked look 
 to the whole of the fabric up there as it swung to the head- 
 long movements of the hull, making the spars, down to the 
 solid foot of the foremast, tremble with the spearing blows it 
 dealt. The jibbooms were also gone, and this, no doubt, had 
 happened through the carrying away of the topgallant-mast; 
 otherwise all was right up above, assuming, to be sure, that 
 nothing was sprung. But the wild, soaked, desolate — the 
 almost mutilated — look, indeed, of the bark! How am I to 
 communicate the impression produced by the soaked dark lines 
 of sail-cloth rolled upon the yards, the ends of rope blowing 
 out like the jDennant of a man-of-war, the arched and gleaming 
 gear, the decks dusky with incessant drenchings and emitting 
 sullen flashes as the dark flood upon them rolled from side to 
 side! The running-rigging lay all about, working like ser- 
 pents in the wash of the water; from time to time a sea would 
 strike the bow and burst on high in steam-like volumes which 
 glanced ghastly against the leaden sky that overhung us in 
 strata of scowling vapor, dark as thunder in places, yet seem- 
 ingly motionless. A furious Atlantic was running! it came 
 along in hills of frothing green which shaped themselves out 
 of a near horizon thick with storms of spume. But there was 
 the regularity of the unfathomcd ocean in the run of the 
 surge, mountainous as it was; and the bark, with her lashed
 
 60 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 helm, not a rag showing save a tatter or two of the foresail 
 whose head we had exposed on the previous night, soared and 
 sunk, with her port bow to the sea, with the regularity of the 
 ticii of a clock. 
 
 There was nothing in sight. 1 looked eagerly round the sea, 
 but it was all thickness and foam and headlong motion. We 
 went aft to the compass to observe if there had happened any 
 shift in the wind, and what the trend of the bark was, and also 
 to note the condition of the wheel, which could only have been 
 told in the darkness by groping. The helm was perfectly sound, 
 the lashings held bravely. I could observe now that the wheel 
 was a small one, formed of brass, also that it worked the rud- 
 der by means of a screw, and it was this jiurchase or leverage, 
 1 suppose, that had made me find the bark easy to steer while 
 she was scudding. The gale was blowing fair out of the 
 north-east, and the vessel's trend, therefore, was on a dead 
 south-west course, with the help of a mountainous sea besides, 
 to drive her away from the land, beam on. I cried to Ilelga 
 that 1 thought our drift would certainly not be less than four, 
 and perhaps five miles in the hour. She watched the sea for 
 a little, and then nodded to me; but it was scarcely likely 
 that she could conjecture the rate of progress amid so furious 
 a commotion of waters, with the great seas boiling to the bul- 
 wark rail, and rushing away to leeward in huge round backs 
 of freckled green. 
 
 She was evidently too weary to talk, rendered too languid by 
 the bitter cares and sleepless hours of the long night to exert 
 her voice so as to render herself audible in that thunder of 
 wind which came flashing over the side in guns and bursts of 
 hurricane power; and to the few sentences I uttered, or rather 
 shouted, she responded by nods and shakes of the head as it 
 might be. There was a flag-locker under the gratings abaft 
 the wheel, and she opened the box, took out a small Danish 
 ensign, bent in on to the peak-signal halyard, and between us 
 we ran it half-mast high, and there it stood, hard and firm as 
 a painted board, a white cross on red ground, and the red of 
 it made it resemble a tongue of fire against the soot of the 
 sky. This done, we returned to the main-deck, and Helga 
 sounded the pump. She went to work with all the expertness 
 of a seasoned salt, carefully dried the rod and chalked it, and 
 then waited until the roll of the bark brought her to a level 
 keel before dropping it. I watched her with astonishment and 
 admii'ationi It would until now have seemed impossible to 
 me that any mortal woman should have had in her the mak- 
 ings of so nimble and practiced a sailor as 1 found her to be.
 
 MY DAKISH SWEETHEART. 61 
 
 with nothing, either, of the tenderness of girlhood lost in her, 
 in speech, in countenance, in looks, spite of her boy's cloLhes. 
 She examined the rod, and eyed me with a grave countenance. 
 
 " Does the water gain?" said I. 
 
 " There are two more inches of it," she answered, " than 
 the depth I found in the hold last night when 1 first sounded. 
 We ought to free her somewhat." 
 
 " I am willing," 1 exclaimed, '* but are 3'ou equal to such 
 labor? A couple of hours should not make a very grave differ- 
 ence. *' 
 
 " No, no!" she interrupted, with a vehemence that put her 
 air of weariness to flight. " A couple of hours would be too 
 long to wait.'' Saying which she grasped the brake and we 
 went to work as before. 
 
 No one who has not had to labor in this way can conceive 
 the fatigue of it. There is no sort of shipboard work that 
 more quickly exhausts. It grieved me to the soul that my 
 associate in this toil should be a girl, with the natural weakness 
 of her sex accentuated yet by what she had suffered and was 
 still suffering; but her spirited gaze forbade remonstrance. 
 She seemed scarcely able to stand when utter weariness forced 
 her at last to let go of the brake. Nevertheless, she compelled 
 her feeble hands again to drop the rod down the well. We 
 reduced the water to the height at which we had left it before, 
 and, with a faint smile of congratulation, she made a movement 
 toward the deck-house; but her gait was so staggering, there 
 was such a character of blindness, too, in her posture as she 
 started to walk, that 1 grasped her arm and, indeed, half car- 
 ried her into the house. 
 
 She sat and rested herself for a few minutes, but appeared 
 unable to speak. 1 watched her anxiously, with something 
 of indignation that her father, who professed to love her so 
 dearly, should not come between her and her devotion, and 
 insist upon her resting. Presently she rose and walked to his 
 cabin, telling me with her looks to follow her. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CAPTAIN NIELSEN". 
 
 Captain Nielsen was veritably corpse-like in aspect viewed 
 by the cold gray iron light sifting through the little windows 
 out of the spray-shrouded air. The unnatural brightness c 2 his 
 eyes painfully defined the attenuation of his face, and the 
 sickly, parchment-like complexion of his skin. He extended
 
 6S MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 his hanilj but conlcl hardly find time to deliver a greeting, so 
 violent was his hurry to receive his daughter's report. He 
 shook his head when he heard that his topgallant-mast and jib- 
 booms were wrecked, and passionately exclaimed in Danish, on 
 his daughter telling him of the increase of water in the hold: 
 
 " She must be taking it in from below." He then cried, in 
 English: "She has strained herself. Should this continue, 
 what is to be done? She will need to be constantly pumped — 
 and ah, my God! you are but two." 
 
 " Yes, captain," cried I, incensed that he should appear to 
 have no thoughts but for the ship; " but if you do not insist 
 upon your daughter taking some rest there will be but one, long 
 before this gale has blown itself out." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, it is so!" he exclaimed, looking at her on a 
 sudden with impassioned concern. " Mr. Tregarthen is right. 
 You will sink under your efforts. Your dear heart will break. 
 Rest now — rest, my beloved child! 1 command you to rest! 
 You must go below; you must lie in your own cabin. This 
 good gentleman is about — he will sit with me and go forth and 
 report. The ' Anine ' tends herself, and there is nothing in 
 human skill to help her outside what she can herself do." 
 
 " But we must not starve, father," she answered; " let us 
 first breakfast, as best we can, and then I will go below." 
 
 She left the cabin and promptly returned, bringing with her 
 tiie remains of the cold meat we had supped off, some biscuit, 
 and a bottle of red wine. Her father drank a little of the 
 wine, and eat a morsel of biscuit; indeed, food seemed to 
 excite a loathing in him. I saw that Helga eyed him pite- 
 ously, but she did not press him to eat: it might be that she 
 had experience of his stubbornness. She said, in a soft aside, 
 to me: " His appetite is leaving him, and how can I tempt 
 him without the means of cooking? Does not he look very ill 
 this morning?" 
 
 " It is worry, added to rheumatic pains," said 1. " We must 
 get him ashore as soon as possible, where he can be nursed 
 in comfort." 
 
 But though these words flowed readily, out of my sympathy 
 with the poor, brave, suffering girl, they were assuredly not 
 in correspondence with my secret feelings. It was not only 1 
 was certain that Captain Nielsen lay in his cot a dying man; 
 the roaring of the wind, the beating of the sea against the 
 bark, the wild extravagant leapings and divings, the percep- 
 tion that water was draining into the hold, and that there were 
 but two of us — and one of those two a girl — to work the
 
 MT DAITISH SWIETHKART. 63 
 
 pnmps, made a mockery to my heart of my reference to the 
 captain getting ashore and being nursed there. 
 
 We sat in that slanting and leaping interior with plates on 
 our knees. The girl feigned to eat; her head drooped with 
 weariness, yet 1 noticed that she would force a cheerful note 
 into the replies she made to her father's ceaseless feverish ques- 
 tions. When we had ended our meal, she left us to go below 
 to her cabin; but before leaving she asked me, with eyes full 
 of tender pleadings, to keep her father's heart up, to make the 
 best of such reports as 1 might have to give to him after going 
 out to take a look round; and she told me he would need his 
 physic at such and such a time, and so lingered, dwelling upon 
 him and glancing at him; and then she went out in a hurry 
 with one hand upon her breast, yet not so swiftly but that I 
 could see her eyes were swimming. 
 
 " There is a barometer in the cabin," said Captain Nielsen: 
 " will you tell me how the mercury stands?^' 
 
 The glass was fixed to the bulkhead outside. 1 returned 
 and gave him the reading. 
 
 " 'Tis a little rise!" he cried, with his unnaturally bright 
 eyes eagerly fastened upon me. 
 
 1 would not tell him that it was not so— that the mercury, 
 indeed, stood at the level 1 had observed on the preceding day 
 in my glass in the life -boat house. 
 
 ** Fierce weather of this sort/' said 1, " soon exhausts 
 itself." 
 
 He continued to stare at me, but now with an air of musing 
 that somewhat softened the painful brilliant intentness of his 
 regard. 
 
 "I pray God," said he, "that this weather may speedily 
 enable us to obtain help, for I fear that if 1 am not treated I 
 shall get very low, perhaps die. I am ill — yet what is my 
 malady? This rheumatism is a sudden seizure. I could walk 
 when at Cuxhaven. " 
 
 In as cheerful a voice as I could assume, 1 begged him to con- 
 sider that his mind might have much to do with those bodily 
 sensations which made him feel ill. 
 
 " It may be so, it may be so," he exclaimed, with a sad 
 smile of faltering hope. " I wish to live. I am not an old 
 man. It will be hard if my time is to come soon. It is 
 Helga — it is llelga," he muttered, pressing his brow with his 
 thin hand. 1 was about to speak. " How wearisome," he 
 broke out, " is this ceaseless tossing! I ran away to sea; it was 
 my own doing. I had my childish dreams— strange and beauti- 
 ful fancies of foreign countries — and I ran away;" he went On
 
 G4 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 in a rambling manner like one thinking aloud. " And yet I 
 love tlie old ocean, though it is serving me cruelly now. It 
 has fed me — it has held me to its breast — and my nourishment 
 and life has come from it.'' He started, and, bringing his 
 eyes away from the upper deck on which they had been fixed 
 while he spoke, he cried: " Sir, you are a stranger to me, but 
 you are an Englishman of heroic heart, and you will forgive 
 me. Should I die, and should God be pleased to spare you and 
 my child, will you protect her until she has safely returned to 
 her friends at Kolding? She will be alone in any part of the 
 world until she is there, and if I am assured that she will have 
 the generous compassion of your heart with her, a guardian to 
 take my place until she reaches Kolding, it will make me 
 easy in my ending, let the stroke come when it will. " 
 
 " ] came to this ship to save your lives," I answered. " I 
 hope to be an instrument yet of helping to save them. Trust 
 me to do your bidding, if it were only for my admiration of 
 your daughter's heroic qualities. But do not speak of dying, 
 Captain Nielsen — " 
 
 He interrupted me. " There is my dear friend, Pastor 
 Blicker of Kolding, and there is Pastor Jansen of Skandrup. 
 They are good and gentle Christian men, who will receive Hel- 
 ga, and stand by her and soothe her and counsel her as to my 
 little property — ah, my little property!" he cried. "If this 
 vessel founders, what have I?" 
 
 " Pray," said T, with the idea of quietly coaxing his mind 
 into a more cheerful mood, " what is so seriously wrong with 
 you, captain, that you should lie there gloomily foreboding 
 your death? Such rheumatism as yours is not very quick to 
 kill. " 
 
 " I was long dangerously ill of a fever in the West Indies," 
 he answered, " and it left a vital organ weak. The mischief 
 is here, I fear," said he, touching his right side above his hip. 
 " I felt very ill at Cuxhaven; but this voyage was to be made; 
 I am too poor a man to suffer my health to forfeit the money 
 that was to be got bj it. Hark! what was that?" 
 
 He leaned his head over the cot, straining his hearing with 
 a nervous fluttering of his emaciated fingers. It was misera- 
 ble to see how white the skin of his sunken cheeks showed 
 against the whiteness of the canvas of his cot. 
 
 " 1 heard nothing," 1 answered. 
 
 " It was the noise of a blow," he exclaimed. " Pray go 
 and see if anything is wrong," he added, speaking out of his 
 habit of giving orders, and with a peremptoriness that forced 
 a scjile from me as I went to the door.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 65 
 
 I made my way through the house on to the deck, and 
 looked about me, but it was the same scene to stare at and 
 hearken to that 1 had viewed before: the same thunder and 
 shriek of wind, the same clouding of the forward part of the 
 bark in foam, the same miserable dismal picture of water 
 flashing from bulwark to bulwark, of high green frothing seas 
 towering past the line of the rail as the vessel swung in a 
 smother of seething yeast into the trough. 
 
 I caught sight of a long hen-coop abaft the structure in 
 which the sailors had lived, with the red gleam of a cock's comb 
 betwixt a couple of the bars, and guessing that the wretched 
 inmates must by this time be in sore need of food and water, 
 I very cautiously made my way to the coop, holding on by 
 something at every step. The coop was, indeed, full of poul- 
 try, but all lay drowned. 
 
 I returned to the deck-house and mounted on top of it, 
 where I should be able to obtain a good view of as much of 
 the ocean as was exposed, and where also I should be out of 
 the wet which, on the main-deck, rolled with weight enough 
 at times to sweep a man off his legs. The roof of the house, 
 if I may so term it, was above the rail, and the whole fury of 
 the gale swept across it. I never could have guessed at the 
 hurricane force of the wind while standing on the deck be- 
 neath. It was impossible to face it; if I glanced but one in- 
 stant to windward my eyes seemed to be blown into my head. 
 
 I had not gained that elevation above a minute when I heard 
 a sharp rattling aloft, and, looking upward, I perceived that 
 the main-royal had blown loose. For the space of a breath 
 or two it made the rattling noise that had called my attention 
 to it, then the whole bladder-like body of it was swept in a 
 flash away from the yard, and nothing remained but a whip or 
 two streaming straight out like white hair from the spar. A 
 moment later the maintopgallaut-sail, that had been, no doubt, 
 hastily and badly furled, was blown out of the gaskets. I 
 thought to see it go as the royal had, but while I watched, 
 waiting for the flight of the rags of it down into the leeward 
 gloom of the sky, the mast snapped off at the cap at the in- 
 stant of the sail bursting and disappearing like a gush of mist, 
 and down fell the whole mass of hamper to a little below the 
 stay, under which it madly swung, held by the backstays. 
 
 This disaster, comparatively trifling as it was, gave the whole 
 fabric a most melancholy, wrecked look. It allected mo in a 
 manner I should not have thought possible in one who knew 
 so much about the sea and shipwreck as 1. It oppressed me 
 48 an omen approaching dissolution. " What in God's name
 
 C6 MY DANISH SWEETHEAliT. 
 
 can save us?" I remember thinking, as 1 brought my eyes 
 away from the two broken masts, swinging and spearing high 
 up under the smoke-colored, compacted, apparently stirless 
 heaps of vapor stretching from sea-line to sea-line. ' ' What 
 put together by mortal hands can go on resisting this ceaseless, 
 tremendous beating?" and as I thus thought, the vessel, with 
 a wild sweep of her bow, smote a giant surge rushing laterally 
 at her, and a whole green sea broke roaring over the forecastle, 
 making every timber in her tremble with a volcanic thrill, 
 and entirely submerging the fore part in white v/aters, out of 
 which she soared with a scoro of cataracts flying in smoke 
 from her sides. 
 
 1 looked for the flag that Helga and I had half-masted a 
 little while before; it had as utterly disaj^peared from betwixt 
 its toggles as though the bunting had been ripped up and 
 down by a knife. As I was in the act of dragging myself 
 along to the ladder to go below, 1 spied a sort of smudge 
 oozing out of the iron-hued thickness past the head of a great 
 sea whose arching peak was like a snow-clad hill. I crouched 
 down to steady myself, and presently what I had at first thought 
 to be some dark shadow of cloud u^Don the near horizon grew 
 into the proportions of a large ship, running dead before the 
 gale under a narrow band of main-topsail. 
 
 She was heading to pass under our stern, and rapidly drew 
 out, and in a few minutes 1 had her clear — clean and bright 
 as a new painting against the background of shadow, along 
 whose dingy, misty base the ocean line was washing in flicker- 
 ing green heights. She was a large steam frigate, clearly a 
 foreigner, for I do not know that our country had a ship of 
 the kind afloat at the time. She had a white band, broken 
 by ports, and the black and gleaming defenses of her bulwarks 
 were crowned with stowed hammocks. Her topgallant-masts 
 were housed, and the large cross-trees and huge black tops and 
 wide spread of shrouds gave her a wonderfully heavy, massive, 
 ship-of-war look aloft. The band of close-reefed main-topsail 
 had the glare of foam as it swung majestically from one 
 sea-line to the other, slowly swaying across the dark and 
 stooping heaven with a noble and solemn rhythm of move- 
 ment. I could never have imagined a sight to more wholly 
 fascinate my gaze. Always crouching low, 1 watched her 
 under the shelter of my bands locked upon my brow. 1 beheld 
 nothing living aboard of her. She came along as though in- 
 formed by some spirit and government of her own. As her 
 great stem sunk to the figure-head there arose a magnificent 
 boiling, a mountainous cloud of froth on either bow of her.
 
 MY DANISH STUEETHEART. 67 
 
 and the roar of those riven seas seemed to add a deeper tone 
 of thunder to the gale. All was taut aboard — every rope like a 
 ruled line — different, indeed, from our torn and wrecked and 
 trailing appearance on high! She swept past within a quarter 
 of a mile of us, and what j^en could convey the incredible power 
 suggested by that great fabric as her stern lifted to the curl 
 of the enormous Atlantic surge, and the whole ship rushed 
 forward on the hurling froth of the sea with an electric velocity 
 that brought the very heart into one's throat. 
 
 She was a mere smudge again — this time to leeward — in a 
 few minutes. 1 could only stare at her. Our flag had blown 
 away, I was without power to signal, and, even if I had been 
 able to communicate our condition of distress, what help could 
 she have offered? What could she have done for us in such a 
 sea as was now running? Yet the mere sight of her had 
 heartened me. She made me feel that help could never be 
 wanting in an ocean so plowed by keels as the Atlantic. 
 
 I crawled down on to the quarter-deck, and returned to the 
 captain's cabin. The poor man at once fell with feverish 
 eagerness to questioning me. I told him honestly that the main- 
 to23gallant-mast had been carried away while I was on deck, 
 but that there was nothing else wrong that I could distinguish; 
 that the bark was still making a noble fight, though there 
 were times when the seas broke very fiercely and dangerously 
 over the forecastle. 
 
 He wagged his head with a gesture of distress, crying: " So 
 it is! so it is! One spar after another, and thus may we go to 
 pieces!" 
 
 I told him of the great steam frigate that had passed. But to 
 this piece of news he listened with a vacant look, and apparently 
 could think of nothing but his spars. He asked in a childish, 
 fretful way how long Helga had been below, and I answered 
 him stoutly not nearly long enough for sleep. 
 
 " Ay," cried he, " but the bark needs to be pumped, sir." 
 
 " Your daughter will work the better for rest," said I, and 
 then looking at my watch 1 found it was time to give him his 
 physic. 
 
 He exclaimed, looking at the wine-glass: " There is no virtue 
 in this stuff. The sufferer can make but one use of it;'* and, 
 still preserving a manner of curious childishness, he emptied 
 the contents of the glass over the edge of his cot on to the 
 deck, and, as he swung, lay watching the mess of it on the 
 floor with a smile. I guessed that expostulation would be 
 fruitless, and, indeed, having but very little faith myself in any 
 sort of physic, I secretly H])])lauded his behavior.
 
 08 MY DANISH"*SWEETHBART. 
 
 I sat down upon the locker, and, leaning my back against 
 the bulkhead, endeavored, by conversation, to bring a cheerful 
 look to his countenance; but his mood of depression was not 
 to be conquered. At times he would ramble a little, quote 
 passages from Danish plays in his native tongue, then pause 
 with his head on one side as though waiting for me to applaud 
 what he forgot 1 did not understand. 
 
 " How fine is this from ' Palnatoke!' " he would cry, " or 
 hark to this from that noble performance ' Hacon Yarl!' Ah, 
 it is England alone can match Oehlenschliiger. " 
 
 I could only watch him mutely. Then he would break away 
 to bewail his spars again, and to cry out that Belga would be 
 left penniless, would be a j)oor beggar girl, if his ship found- 
 ered. 
 
 " But is not the ' Anine ' insured?" said I. 
 
 ** Yes," he answered, " but not by me. I was obliged to 
 borrow money upon her, and she is insured by the man who 
 lent me the money." 
 
 '* But you have an interest in the cargo. Captain Nielsen?" 
 
 " Ay," cried he, " and that I insured; but what will it be 
 worth to my poor little Helga?" — and he hid his face in his 
 hands and rocked himself. 
 
 However, he presently grew somewhat composed, and cer- 
 tainly more rational, and, after awhile, I found myself talking 
 about Tiutrenale, my home and associations, my life-boat ex- 
 cursions, and the like; and then we conversed upon the course 
 that was to be adopted should the weather moderate and find 
 us still afloat. We should be able to do nothing, he said, 
 without assistance from a passing ship, in the sense of obtain- 
 ing a few sailors to work the bark; or a steamer might come 
 along that would be willing to give us a tow. 
 
 " The Land's End can not be far oft:," said he. 
 
 " No," said I, " not if this gale means to drop to-day. But 
 it will be far enough off if it is to go on blowing. " 
 
 He inquired what I made the drift to be, and then calculat- 
 ed that the English coast would now be bearing about east- 
 north-east, sixty miles distant. " Let the wind chop round," 
 cried he, with a gleam in his sunken eye, " and you and Helga 
 would have the ' Anine ' in the channel before midnight." 
 
 We continued to talk in this strain, and he seemed to forget 
 the wretchedness of our situation; then suddenly he called 
 out to know the time, abruptly breaking away from what he 
 was saying. 
 
 " Hard upon eleven o'clock." said 1. 
 
 *' This will not do," he cried. " The bark, as we talk, is
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 69 
 
 filling under our feet. The well should be sounded. Helga 
 must be called. I beseech you to call Helga," he repeated, 
 nervously, smiting the side of his cot with his clinched hand. 
 " Ah, God!" he added, " that I should be without the powei 
 to move!" 
 
 " I will sound the well," said 1. " Should I find an increase 
 I will arouse your daughter." 
 
 " Go, I beg of you!" he cried, in high notes. " The bark 
 seems sodden to me. She does not lift and fall as she did.'* 
 
 I guessed this to be imagination, but the mere fancy of such 
 a thing being true frightened me also, and 1 hastily went out. 
 1 dried the rod and chalked it as Helga had, and, watching my 
 chance, dropped it, and found five inches of water above the 
 level our last spell at the pump had left in the hold. 1 was 
 greatly startled, and to make sure that my first cast was right, 
 I sounded a second time, and sure enough the rod showed five 
 inches, as before. I hastened with the news to the captain. 
 
 " I knew it! 1 feared it!" he cried, his voice shrill with a 
 very ecstasy of hurry, anxiety, and sense of helplessness that 
 worked in him. " Call Helga— lose not an instant— run, I 
 beg you will run. ' ' 
 
 " But run where?" cried I. " Where does the girl sleep?" 
 
 " Go down the hatchway in the deck-house," he shouted, in 
 shrill accents, as though bent upon putting into this moment 
 the whole of his remaining slender stock of vitality. " There 
 are four cabins under this deck. Hers is the aftermost one on 
 the starboard side. Don't delay! If she does not instantly 
 answer, enter and arouse her;" and as I sped from the cabin 
 I heard him crying that he knew by the motions of the ship 
 she was filling rapidly, and that she would go down on a sud- 
 den like lead. 
 
 It was a black square trap of hatchway into which I looked 
 a moment before putting my legs over. There was 'a short 
 flight of almost perpendicular steps conducting to the lower 
 deck. On my descending I found the place so dark that I was 
 forced to halt till my eyes should grow used to the obscurity. 
 There was a disagreeable smell of cargo down here, and such 
 a heart-shaking uproar of straining timber.?, or creaking bulk- 
 heads, of the thumps of seas and the muffled, yearning roar of 
 the giant waters sweeping under the vessel, that for a little 
 while I stood as one utterly bewildered. 
 
 Soon, however, I managed to distinguish outlines, and with 
 outstretched hands and wary legs made my way to the cabin 
 that Captain ^Nielsen had indicated, and beat upon the door. 
 There was no response. I beat again, listening, scarcely think-
 
 70 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ing, perhaps, that the girl would require a voice as keen as a 
 boalswaiu's pipe to thread the soul-confounding and brain- 
 inuddliug clamor in this after-deck of the storm-beaten bark. 
 " lie bade me enter," thought I, " and enter 1 must, if the 
 girl is to be aroused;" and 1 turned the handle of the door 
 and walked in. 
 
 Helga lay, attired as she hai& left the deck, in an upper 
 bunk, through the port-hole of which the daylight, bright 
 with the foam, came and went upon her face as the vessel at 
 one moment buried the thick glass of the scuttle in the 
 green blindness of the sea and then lifted it, weeping and 
 gleaming into the air. Her head was pillowed on her arm; 
 her hair in the weak light showed as though touched by a dull 
 beam of the sun. Her eyes were sealed; their long lashes put 
 a delicate shading under them; her white face wore a sweet 
 exi^ression of happy serenity, and I could believe that some 
 glad vision was present to her. Her lips were parted in the 
 expression of a smile. 
 
 There was a feeling in me as of profanity in this intrusion, 
 and of wrong-doing in the obligation forced upon me of waking 
 her from a peaceful, pleasant, all-important repose to face the 
 bitter hardships and necessities of that time of tempest. But 
 for my single arms the pump was too much, and she must be 
 aroused. I lightly put my hand upon hers, and her smile was 
 instantly more defined, as though my action were coincident 
 with some phase of her dream, I pressed her hand; she 
 sighed deeply, looked at me, and instantly sat up with a little 
 frown of confusion. 
 
 " Your father begged me to enter and arouse you," said I. 
 " I was unable to make you hear by knocking. I have sound- 
 ed the well, and there is an increase of five inches!" 
 
 " Ah!" she exclaimed, and sprung lightly out of her bunk. 
 
 In silence and with amazing dispatch, seeing that a few 
 seconds before she was in a deep sleep, she put on her sea- 
 helmet, whipped a handkerchief round her neck, and was lead- 
 ing the way to the hatch on buoyant feet. 
 
 On gaining the deck 1 discovered that the wrecked appear- 
 ance of the ship aloft had been greatly heightened during my 
 absence below by the fore-topsail having been blown into rags. 
 It was a single sail, and the few long strips of it which remained 
 blowing out horizontally from the yards stiff as crowbars gave 
 an indescribable character of forlornness to the fabric. Helga 
 glanced aloft, and immediately perceived that the maintopgal- 
 lant-mast had been wrecked, but said nothing, and in a minute 
 the pair of us were hard at work.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 71 
 
 I let go the brake only when my companion was too exhaust- 
 ed to eoutinue; but now, on sounding the well, we found that our 
 labors had not decreased the water to the same extent as here- 
 tofore. It was impossible, however, to converse out of siielter; 
 moreover, a fresh danger attended exposure on deck, for, in 
 addition to the wild sweeping of green seas forward, to the 
 indescribably violent motions of the bark which threatened to 
 break our heads or our limbs for us, to fling us bruised and 
 senseless against the bulwarks if we relaxed for a moment our 
 hold of what was next us — in addition to this, I say, there was 
 now the deadly menace of the topgallant-mast, with its weight 
 of yards, fiercely swinging and beating right over our heads, 
 and poised there by the slender filaments of its rigging, which 
 might part and let the whole mass fall at any moment. 
 
 We entered the deck-house, and paused for a little while in 
 its comparative silence and stagnation to exchange a few 
 words. 
 
 " The water is gaining upon the ship, Mr. Tregarthen/' 
 said Helga. 
 
 *' I fear so,^^ I answered. 
 
 " If it should increase beyond the control of the pumps, 
 what is to be done?" she asked. " We are without boats." 
 
 " What can be done?" cried 1. " We shall have to make 
 some desperate thrust for life — contrive something out of the 
 hencoop — spare booms — whatever is to be found." 
 
 " What chance — what chauce have we in such a sea as 
 this?" she exclaimed, looking up at me with eyes large with 
 emotion, though I found nothing of fear in the shining of 
 them or in the working of her pale sweet face. 
 
 I had no answer to make. Indeed, it put a sort of feeling 
 into the blood like madness itself even to talk of a raft with 
 the sound in our ears of the sea that was raging outside. 
 
 " And then there is my father," she continued, " helpless 
 — unable to move — how is he to be rescued? I would lose my 
 life to save his. But what is to be done if this gale con- 
 tinues?" 
 
 " Ilis experience should be of use to us," said L " Let us 
 go and talk with him." 
 
 She opened the door of the berth, halted, stared a minute, 
 then turned to me with her forefinger upon her lip. I peered, 
 and found the poor man fast asleep. 1 believed at first that he 
 was dead, so still he lay, so easy was his countenance, so white 
 too; but, after watching a moment, I spied his breast rising 
 and falling. Ilelga drew close, and stood viewing him. A 
 strange and moving sight was that swinging cot, the rovelatiou
 
 72 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 of the deiitli-like head within, the swaying boyish figure of a 
 daughter gazing with eyes of love, pity, distress at the sleeping, 
 haggard face as it came and went. 
 
 She sat down beside me. " I shall lose him soon,'' said 
 she; " but what is killing him? He was white and poorly 
 yesterday; but not ill as he is now." 
 
 It would have been idle to attempt any sort of courage. 
 The truth was as plain to her as to me. I could find nothing 
 better to say than that the gale might cease suddenly, that a 
 large steam frigate had passed us a little while before, that 
 some vessel was sure to heave into sight when the weather mod- 
 erated, and that meanwhile our efforts must be directed to 
 keeping the vessel afloat. 1 could not again talk of the raft; it 
 was enough to feel the sickening tossing of the ship under us 
 to render the thought of that i-emedy for our state horrible 
 and hopeless. 
 
 The time slowly passed. It was drawing on to one o'clock. 
 I went on deck to examine the helm and to judge of the 
 weather; then sounded the well, but found no material in- 
 crease of water. The bark, however, was rolling so furiously 
 that it was almost impossible to get a correct cast. Before re- 
 entering the house I sent a look round from the shelter of the 
 weather bulwark to observe what materials were to be obtained 
 for a raft should the weather suffer us to launch such a thing 
 and the bark founder spite of our toil. There was a number 
 of spare booms securely lashed upon the top of the seamen's 
 deck-house and galley, and these, with the hen-coop and hatch- 
 covers, and the little casks or scuttle-butts out of which the men 
 drank, would provide us with what we needed. But the con- 
 templation of death itself was not so dreadful to me as the 
 prospect which this fancy of a raft opened. I hung crouching 
 under the lee of the tall bulwark, gnawing my lip as thought 
 after thought arose in me, and digging my finger-nails into 
 the palms of my hands. The suddenness of it all! The being 
 this time yesterday safe ashore, without the dimmest imagina- 
 tion of what was to come — the anguish of my poor old mother 
 — the perishing, as I did not doubt, of my brave comrades of 
 the life-boat — then this vessel slowly taking in water, dying 
 as it were by inches, and as doomed as though hell's curse were 
 upon her, unless the gale should cease and help come! 
 
 I could not bear it. I started to my feet with a sense of mad- 
 ness upon me, with a wild and dreadful desire in me to show 
 mercy to myself by plunging and silencing the delirious fancies 
 of my brain in the wide sweep of seething waters that rushed 
 from the very line of the rail of the bark ^ she le^iijed to her
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 73 
 
 beam ends in the thunderous trough of that instant. It was a 
 sort of hysteria that did not last; yet might I have found temj)- 
 tation and time in the swift passage of it to have destroyed 
 myself, but for God's hand upon me, as I clioose to believe, and 
 to be ever thankful for! 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE RAFT. 
 
 How passed the rest of this the first day of my wild and 
 dangerous adventure, of Helga's and my first day of suffering, 
 peril, and romantic experience, I can not clearly recall. A 
 lew impressions only survive. I remember returning to the 
 deck-house and finding the captain still sleeping. I remember 
 conversing with Helga, who looked me very earnestly in the 
 face when 1 entered, and who, by some indefinable influence of 
 voice and eye, coaxed me into speaking of my fit of horror on 
 deck. I remember that she left me to obtain some food, which, 
 it seems, was kept in one of the cabins below, and that she re- 
 turned with a tin of preserved meat, a little glass jar of jam, a 
 tin of biscuits, and a bottle of red wine like to what we had 
 before drunk — a very pleasant well- flavored claret; that all the 
 while we eat, her father slept, which made her happy, as she 
 said he needed rest, not having closed his eyes for three nights 
 and days, though it was wonderful to me that he should have 
 fallen asleep in such a mood of excitement and of consternation 
 as I had left him in; but as to his slumbering amid that uproar 
 of straining timbers and flying waters, it is enough to si\y that 
 he was a seaman. 
 
 I also recollect that throughout the remainder of the day we 
 worked the pump at every two hours or thereabouts; but the 
 water was unmistakably gaining upon the bark, and to keep 
 her free would have needed the incessant plying of the pumps — 
 both pumps at once — by gangs of fellows who could relieve one 
 another and rest between. Jlelga told me that her father had 
 given orders for a wind-mill pump to be rigged, Scantlanavian 
 fashion, but that there had been some delay, and so the bark 
 sailed without it. 1 said that no wind-mill pump would 
 have stood uj) half an hour in such a gale of wind as was 
 blowing; but all the same, I bitterly lamented that there was 
 nothing of the sort aboard, for these wind-mill arrangements 
 keep the pumps going by the revolution of their sails, and such 
 a thing must have proved inexpressibly valuable when the 
 weather should moderate, so as to allow us to erect it. 
 
 The captain slept far into the afternoon, but I could not ob-
 
 ?4 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 serve, when he awoke, that he was the better for his long spell 
 of rest. I entered his cabin fresh from a look round on deck, 
 and found him just awake, with his eyes fixed upon his daugh- 
 ter, who sat slumbering upon the locker, with her back against 
 the cabin wall and her pale face bowed upon her breast. He 
 immediatel}' attacked me with questions, delivered in notes so 
 high, penetrating, and feverish with hurry and alarm that they 
 awoke Ilelga. AVe had to tell him the truth — I mean, that the 
 water was gaining, but slowly, so that it must conquer us if the 
 gale continued, yet we might still hope to find a chance for our 
 lives by keeping the pump going. He brok^ into many pas- 
 sionate exclamations of distress and grief, ana then was silent, 
 with the air of one who abandons hope. 
 
 " There are but two, and one of them a girl," I heard him 
 say, lifting his eyes to the deck above as he s^Doke. 
 
 The night was a dreadful time to look forward to. While 
 there was daylight, while one could see, one's spirits seemed 
 to retain a little buoyancy; but, speaking for myself, 1 dreaded 
 the effects upon my mind of a second interminable time of 
 blackness, filled with the horrors of the groaning and howling 
 gale, of the dizzy motion of the tormented fabric, of the 
 heart-subduing noises of waters pouring in thunder and beat- 
 ing against and over the struggling vessel. 
 
 Well, there came round the hour of nine o'clock by my 
 watch. Long before, after returning from a spirit-breaking 
 spell of toil at the pump, we had lighted the deck-house and 
 binnacle lamps, had eaten our third meal that day to answer 
 for tea or supper, and at Helga's entreaty I had lain down 
 upon the deck-house locker to sleej) for one hour or so if 1 could, 
 while she went to watch by her father and to keep an eye upon 
 the ship by an occasional visit to the deck. 
 
 We had arranged that she should awaken me at nine, that 
 we shoukl then apjoly ourselves afresh to the pump, that she 
 should afterward take my place upon the locker till eleven, I, 
 meanwhile, seeing to her father and to the bark, and that we 
 should thus proceed in these alternations throughout the night. 
 It was now nine o'clock. I awoke, and was looking at my 
 watch when Helga entered from the deck. She came up to me 
 and took my hands, and cried: 
 
 " OhI Mr. Tregarthen, there are some stars in the sky. I 
 believe the gale is breaking." 
 
 Only those who have undergone the like of such experiences 
 as these 1 am endeavoring to relate can conceive of the rapture, 
 the new life her words raised in me.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. 75 
 
 " I praise God for your good news!" I cried, and made a 
 step to the barometer to observe its indications. 
 
 Tlie rise of the mercury was a quarter of an inch, and this 
 had happened since a little after seven. Yet, being something 
 of a student of the barometer in my little way, I could have 
 heartily wished the rise much more gradual. It might betoken 
 nothing more than a drier quality of gale, with nothing of the 
 old fierceness wanting. But then, to be sure, it might promise 
 a shift, so that we stood a chance of being blown homeward, 
 which would signify an opportunity of preservation that must 
 needs grow greater as we approached the English Channel. 
 
 1 went with Helga on deck, and instantly saw the stars shin- 
 ing to windward betwixt the edges of clouds which were flying 
 across our mastheads with the velocity of smoke. The heaven 
 of vapor that had hung black and brooding over the ocean for 
 two days was broken up; where the sky showed it was pure, 
 and the stars shone in it with a frosty brilliance. The atmosphere 
 had wonderfully cleared; the froth glanced keenly upon the 
 hurling shadows of the seas, and I believed 1 could follow the 
 clamorous mountainous breast of the ocean to the very throb 
 of the horizon, over which the clouds were pouring in loose 
 masses, scattering scud-like as they soared, but all so plentiful 
 that the heavens were thick with the flying wings. 
 
 But there was no sobering of the wind. It blew with its old 
 dreadful violence, and the half-smothered bark climbed and 
 plunged and rolled amid clouds of spray in a manner to make 
 the eyes reel after a minute of watching her. Yet the mere 
 sight of the stars served as a sup of cordial to us. We strove 
 at the pump, and then llelga lay down; and in this manner 
 the hours passed till about four o'clock in the morning, when 
 there happened a sensible decrease in the wind. At dawn it 
 was still blowing hard, but long before this, had we had sailors, 
 we sljould have been able to expose canvas, and start the bark 
 upon her course. 
 
 1 stood on top of the dock-house watching the dawn break. 
 The bleak gray stole over the frothing sea and turned ashen 
 the curve of every running surge. To windward the ocean 
 line went twisting like a corkscrew upon the sky and seemed 
 to boil and wash along it as though it were the base of some 
 smoking wall. There was nothing in sight. I searched every 
 quarter with a passionate intensity, but there was nothing to be 
 seen. But now the sea had greatly moderated, and, though 
 the decks still sobbed wiih wet, it was only at long intervals 
 that the foam flew forward. The bark looked fearfully wrecked, 
 stranded, and sodden. AH her rigging was slacks the deckfj
 
 76 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 were encumbered with the ends of ropes, the weather side of 
 the mainsail had blown loose and was fluttering in rags, though 
 to leeward the canvas lay furled. 
 
 I went on to the quarter-deck and sounded the well. Practice 
 had rendered me expert, and the cast, I did not doubt, gave 
 me the true depth, and I felt all the blood in me rush to my 
 heart when I beheld such an indication of increase as was the 
 same as hearing one's funeral knell rung, or of a verdict of 
 death pronounced upon one. 
 
 I entered the deck-house with my mind resolved, and seated 
 myself at the table over against where Helga lay sleeping upon 
 the locker, to consider a little before arousing her. She 
 showed very wan, almost haggard, by the morning light; her 
 parted lips were jmle, and she wore a restless expression even 
 in her sleep. It might be that my eyes being fixed upon her 
 face aroused her; she suddenly looked at me, and then sat up. 
 Just then a gleam of misty sunshine swept the little windows. 
 
 " The bad weather is gone!" she cried. 
 
 " It is still too bad for us, though, '' said I. 
 
 " Does the wind blow from the land?" she asked. 
 
 " Ayl and freshly too.*' 
 
 She was now able to perceive the meaning in my face, and 
 asked me anxiously if anything new had happened to alarm 
 me. 1 answered by giving her the depth of water 1 had found 
 in the hold. She clasped her hands and started to her feet, 
 but sat again on my making a little gesture. 
 
 " Miss Nielsen,*' said I, " the bark is taking in water very 
 much faster than we shall be able to pump it out. We may 
 go on plying the pump, but the labor can only end in break- 
 ing our hearts and wasting precious time that might be em- 
 ployed to some purpose. We must look the truth in the face, 
 and make up our minds to let the vessel go, and to do our 
 best, with God's help, to preserve our lives." 
 
 " What?" she asked, in a low voice, that indicated awe 
 rather than fear, and 1 noticed the little twitch and spasm of 
 her mouth swiftly vanish in an expression of resolution. 
 
 " We must go to work," said I, " and construct a raft, then 
 get everything in readiness to sway it overboard. The weather 
 may enable us to do this. 1 pray so. It is our only hope, 
 should nothing to help us come along." 
 
 " But my father?" 
 
 " We shall have to get him out of his cabin on to the raft." 
 
 '* But how? But how?" she cried, with an air of wildness. 
 " He can not move I" 
 
 *' a we are to be saved, he must be saved, at all events,"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 77 
 
 said I. " What then can be done but to lower him in his cot, 
 as he lies, on to the deck and so drag him to the gangway and 
 sling him on to the raft by a tackle?^' 
 
 " Yes/' she said, " that can be done. It will have to be 
 done." She reflected, with her hands tightly locked upon her 
 brow. "How loQg do you think/' she 'asked, "will the 
 ' Anine ' remain afloat if we leave the pumps untouched?" 
 
 " Your father will know," said 1. " Let us go to him." 
 
 Captain Nielsen sat erect in his cot munching a biscuit. 
 
 " Ha!" he cried as we entered. " We are to have pleasant 
 weather. There was some sunshine uj)on that port just now. 
 What says the barometer, Mr. Tregarthen?" Then contract- 
 ing his brow while he peered at his daughter as though he had 
 not obtained a view of her before, he exclaimed: " What is the 
 matter, Helga? What have you come to tell me?" 
 
 " Father," she answered, sinking her head a little and so 
 looking at him through her eyelashes, "Mr. Tregarthen be- 
 lieves, and I can not doubt it, for there is the sounding-rod to 
 tell the story, that water is fast entering the ' Anine,' and that 
 we must lose no time to prepare to leave her. " 
 
 "What!" he almost shrieked, letting fall his biscuit and 
 grasping the edge of his cot with his emaciated hands, and 
 turning his body to us from the waist, leaving his legs in 
 their former posture as though he were paralyzed from the 
 hips down. "The ' Anine ' sinking? prepare to leave her? 
 Why, you have neglected the pump, then I' ' 
 
 " No, captain, no," 1 answered. " Our toil has been as 
 regular as we have had strength for. Already your daughter 
 has done too much; look at her!" 1 cried, pointing to the girl. 
 " Judge with your father's eye for how much longer she is 
 capable of holding out!" 
 
 " The pump must be manned!" he exclaimed, in such an- 
 other shrieking note as he had before delivered. ' ' The ' Anine ' 
 must not sink; she is all I have in the world. My child will be 
 left to starve! Oh, she has strength enough. Helga, the gen- 
 tleman does not know your strength and courage! And you, 
 sir — you, Mr. Tregarthen — ach! God! You will not let your 
 courage fail you — you who came here on a holy and beautiful 
 errand — no, no! you will not let your courage fail you, now 
 that the wind is ceasing and the sun has broken forth and the 
 worst is past?" 
 
 Helga looked at me. 
 
 " Captain Nielsen," said I, "if there were a dozen of us 
 we might hope to keep your ship long enough afloat to give 
 us a chance of being rescued; but no| twelve, nor fifty men
 
 78 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 could save her for you. The tempest has made a sieve of her, 
 and what we have now to do is to construct a raft while we 
 have time and opportunity, and to be ceaseless in our prayers 
 that the weather may suffer us to launch it and to exist upon 
 it until we are succored.'^ 
 
 He gazed at me with a burning eye, and breathed as though 
 he must presently suffocate. 
 
 " Oh, but for a few hours' use of my limbs!" he cried, lift- 
 ing his trembling hands. " 1 would show you both how the 
 will can be made to master the body's weakness. Must I lie 
 here without power?" and as he said these words he grasped 
 again the edge of his cot, and writhed so that I was almost pre- 
 pared to see him heave himself out; but the agony of the 
 wrench was too much; his face grew whiter still, he groaned 
 low, and lay bacii, with his brow glistening with sweat-drops. 
 
 " Oh, father!" cried Helga, " bear with us! Indeed it is 
 as Mr. Tregarthen says. I feared it last night, and this morn- 
 ing has made me sure. We must not think of the ship, but of 
 ourselves, and of you, father, dear — of you, my poor, dear 
 father!" She broke off with a sob. 
 
 I waited till he had recovered a little from the torment he 
 had caused himself, and then gently, but with a manner that 
 let him know that 1 was resolved, began to reason with him. 
 He lay, apparently, listening apathetically; but his nostrils, 
 wide with breathing, and the hurried motions of his breast 
 were warrant enough of the state of his mind. While I ad- 
 dressed him Helga went out, and presently returned with the 
 sounding-rod, dark with wet fresh from the well. He turned 
 his feverish eyes upon it, but merely shook his head and lightly 
 wrung his hands. 
 
 " Father, you see it for yourself!" she cried. 
 . " Miss Nielsen," said I, "we are wasting precious minutes. 
 Will your father tell you what depth of water his ship must take 
 in to founder?" 
 
 He, poor fellow, made no response, but continued to stare 
 at the rod in her hand as though his intelligence on a sudden 
 was all abroad. 
 
 *' Shall we go to work?" said I. She looked at her father 
 wistfully. " Come," 1 exclaimed, " we know we are right. 
 We must make an effort to save ourselves. Are not our lives 
 pur first consideration?" 
 
 1 stepped to the door; as I put my hand to it. Captain Niel- 
 sen cried: " Jf you do not save the ship, how will you save your- 
 selves?"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 79 
 
 " We must at once put some sort of raft together," said I, 
 halting. 
 
 " A raft! in this sea!" he clasped his hands and uttered a 
 low mocking laugh that was more than shocking in him than 
 the maddest explosion of temper could have shown. 
 
 I could no longer linger to hear his objections. Helga might 
 be very dear to him, but his ship stood first in his mind, and 1 
 had no idea of breaking my heart at the pump and then of 
 being drowned after all. My hope was indeed a forlorn one, 
 but it was a chance also; whereas, I knew that the ship would 
 give us no chance whatever. Besides, our making ready for 
 the worst would not signify that we should abandon the vessel 
 until her settling forced us over the side. And was the gentle, 
 heroic Helga to perish without a struggle on my part, because 
 her father clung with a sick man's craziness — which in health 
 he might be quick to denounce — to this poor tempest-strained 
 bark that was all he had in the world? 
 
 I went out and on to the deck, and was standing thinking a 
 minute upon the raft and how we should set about it, when 
 Helga joined me. 
 
 " He is too ill to be reasonable,'' she exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes," said 1, " but we will save him, and ourselves too, 
 if we can. Let us lose no more time, I)o you observe that 
 the wind has sensibly decreased even while we have been talking 
 in your father's cabin? The sky has oiDcned more yet to wind- 
 ward, and the seas are running with much less weight." 
 
 As 1 spoke the sun flashed into a rift in the vaijor sweeping 
 down the eastern heaven, and the glance of the foam to the 
 splendor, and the sudden brightening of the cloud-shadowed 
 sea into blue, animated me, like some new-born hope, and was 
 almost as invigorating to my si^irits as though my eyes had 
 fallen upon the gleam of a sail heading our way. 
 
 1 should but weary you to relate, step by step, how we went 
 to work to construct the raft. The motion of the deck was 
 still very violent, but it found us now as seasoned as though 
 we had kept the sea for years; and, indeed, the movement was 
 becoming mere child's play after the tossing of the night. A 
 long hour of getting such booms as we wanted off the sailors' 
 house on to the deck, and of collecting other materials for our 
 needs, was not, by a very great deal, so exhausting as ten 
 minutes at the pump. We brolvc off a little after nine o'clock 
 to get some food, and to enable Helga to see her father; and 
 now the cast we took with the sounding-rod advised us, with 
 most bitter significance of indication, that, even though my 
 companion and I had strength to hokl to the pump for a
 
 80 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 whole watch — I mean for four hours at a spell — the water would 
 surely, if but a little more slowiy, vanquish us in the 'end. 
 Indeed, there was no longer question that the vessel had, in 
 some parts of her, been seriously strained, and, though I held 
 my peace, my sincere conviction was that, unless some miracle 
 arrested the ingress of the water, she would not be arioat at 
 five o'clock that day. 
 
 By one we had completed the raft, and it lay against the 
 main-hatch, ready to be swayed over the side and launched. 
 1 had some small knowledge of boat building, having acquired 
 what I knew from a small yard down past the life-boat house 
 at Tintrenale, where boats were built, and where I had killed 
 many an hour, pipe in mouth, watching and asking questions, 
 and even lending a hand; and in constructing this raft I 
 found my slender boat-building experiences very useful. First 
 we made a frame of four stout studding-sail booms, which we 
 securely lashed to four empty casks, two of which lay handy 
 to our use, while of the other two, one we found in the galley, 
 a third full of slush, and the other in the cabin below where the 
 provisions were stored. Wo decked the frame with booms, of 
 which there was a number, as 1 have previously said, stacked 
 on top of the sailors' deck-housCj and to this we securely 
 lashed planking, to which we attached some hatchway covers, 
 binding the whole with turn upon turn of rope. To improve 
 our chance of being seen, I provided for setting up a topgal- 
 lant-studdingsail boom as a mast, at the head of which we 
 should be able to show a color. I also took care to hedge the 
 sides with a little bulwark of life-lines lest the raft should be 
 swept. There were many interstices in this fabric fit for hold- 
 ing a stock of provisions and water. 
 
 1 had no fear of its not floating high, nor of its not holding 
 together; but it would be impossible to express the heaviness 
 of heart with which I labored at this thing. The raft had 
 always been the most dreadful nightmare of the sea to my im- 
 agination. The stories of the sufferings it had been the theater 
 of were present to my mind as I worked, and again and again 
 they would cause me to break off and send a despairing look 
 round; but never a sail showed; the blankness was that of the 
 heavens. 
 
 We had half-masted a second Danish ensign after coming out 
 from breaking our fast, and one needed but to look at the breezy 
 rippling of its large folds to know that the wind was becoming 
 rapidly scant. By one o'clock, indeed, it was blowing no more 
 than a pleasant air of wind, still out of the north-east. The 
 stormy smoke-like clouds of the morning were gone, and the
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 81 
 
 sky was now mottled by little heaps of prismatic vapor that 
 sailed slowly under a higher delicate shading of cloud, widely 
 broken, and showing much clear liquid blue, and suffering the 
 sun to shine very steadily. There was a long swell rolling 
 out of the north-east; but the brows were so wide apart that 
 there was no violence whatever in the swaying of the bark 
 upon it. The wind crisped these swinging folds of water, and 
 the surface of the ocean scintillated with lines of small seas 
 crisping, with merry curlings, into foam. But it was fine- 
 weather water, and the barometer had risen greatly, and 1 could 
 now believe that there was nothing more in the rapidity of its 
 indications than a promise of a pleasant day and of light winds. 
 
 1 could have done nothing without Helga. Her activity, her 
 intelligence, her spirit, were amazing, not indeed only because 
 she was a girl, but because she was a girl who had undergone a 
 day and two frightful nights of peril and distress, who had slept 
 but little, and whose labors at the pump might have exhausted 
 a seasoned sailor. She seemed to know exactly what to do, 
 was wise in every suggestion, and 1 could never glance at her 
 face without finding the sweetness of it rendered noble by the 
 heroism of the heart that showed in her firm mouth, her com- 
 posed countenance, and steadfast determined gaze. 
 
 At times we would break off to sound the well, and never 
 without finding a fresh nimbleness coming into our hands and 
 feet, a wilder desire of hurry penetrating our spirits from the 
 assurance of the rod. Steadily, inch by inch, the water was 
 gaining, and already at this hour of one o'clock it was almost 
 easy to guess the depth of it by the sluggishness of the vessel's 
 rolling, by the drowning character of her languid recovery from 
 the slant of the swell. I felt terribly confident, however, that 
 she would keep afloat for some hours yet, and God knows we 
 could not have too much time granted to us, for there was 
 much to be done; the raft to be launched and provisioned, and 
 the hardest part was yet to come, I mean the bringing of the 
 sick captain from his cabin and hoisting him over the side. 
 
 At one o'clock we broke off again to refresh ourselves with 
 food and drink, and Helga saw to her father. For my part I 
 woukl not enter his berth. I dreaded his expostulations and re- 
 proaches, and, indeed, I may say that I shrunk from even the 
 sight of him, so grievous were his white face and dying manner 
 — so depressing to me, who could not look at the raft and then 
 turn my eyes upon the ocean without guessing that I was as 
 fully a dying man as he, and that, when the sun set this night, 
 it might go down forever upon us. 
 
 There was but one way of getting the raft over, and that was
 
 82 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 by the winch and a tackle at the main yard-arm. Helga said 
 she would take tiie tackle aloft, but I ran my eye over her boy- 
 clad figure with a smile, and said "Ko." She was, indeed, 
 a better sailor than I, but it would be strange, indeed, if I was 
 unable to secure a block to the yardarm. We braced in the 
 mainyard until the arm of it was fair over the gangway, and I 
 then took the tackle aloft and attached the block by the tail 
 of it. 
 
 I lay over the yard for a minute or two while I looked round; 
 but the sea brimmed unbroken toward the sky, and I descend- 
 ed, again and again shuddering without control over myself, 
 as I gazed at the little fabric of the raft and contrasted it with 
 the size of the ship that was slowly foundering, and then with 
 the great sea upon whose surface it would presently be afloat — 
 the only object, perhaps, under the eyes of heaven for leagues 
 and leagues! 
 
 Our business now was to get the raft over the side. I should 
 liave to fatigue and perhaps perplex you with technicalities 
 exactly to explain our management of it. Enough if I say 
 that, by hooking on the lower block of the tackle to ropes which 
 formed slings for the raft, and by taking the hauling part to 
 the winch, we very easily swayed the structure clear of the bul- 
 wark rail — for you must know that the winch, with its arrange- 
 ments of handles, cogs, and pawls, is a piece of shipboard 
 mechanism with which a couj^le of persons may do as much as 
 a dozen might be able to achieve using their arms only. 
 
 When the raft was high enough Helga stood by the winch 
 ready to slacken away on my giving the word of command, 
 while I went to a line which held the fabric over the deck. 
 This line 1 eased off until the raft had swung fairly over the 
 water, and then called to Helga to slacken away, and the raft 
 sunk, and in a minute or two was water-borne, riding upon 
 the swell alongside, and buoyed by the casks even higher above 
 the surface than 1 had dared hope. 
 
 " Now, Miss Nielsen!" cried 1. 
 
 " Oh! pray call me Belga," she broke in; " it is my name: 
 it is short! I seem to answer to it more readily, and in this 
 time, this dreadful time, I could wish to have it, and none 
 other!" 
 
 " Then, Helga," said I, even in such a moment as this 
 feeling my heart warm to the brave, good, gentle little creat- 
 ure as I pronounced the word, " we must provision the raft 
 without delay. Our essential needs will be fresh water and 
 biscuit. What more have you in your provision-room below?" 
 
 " Come with me!" said she, and we ran into the deck-house
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 83 
 
 and descended the hatch, leaving the raft securely floating 
 alongside, not only in the grip of the yardarm tackle, which 
 the swaying of the vessel had fully overhauled, but in the hold 
 of the line with which we had slacked the structure over the 
 rail. 
 
 It was still dark enough below; but when we opened the door 
 of the berth, in which as I have told you the cabin provisions 
 were stowed, we found the sunshine upon the scuttle or port- 
 hole, and the apartment lay clear in the light. In about twenty 
 minutes, and after some three or four journeys, we had con- 
 veyed on deck as much provisions as might serve to keep three 
 persons for about a month: cans of meat, some hams, several 
 tins of biscuit, cheese, and other matters, which I need not 
 catalogue. But we had started the fresh water in the scuttle- 
 butts that they might be emptied to serve as floats for the raft, 
 and now we had to find a cask or receptacle for drinking-water, 
 and to fill it too from the stock in the hold. Here I should have 
 been at a loss but for Helga, who knew where the bark's fresh 
 water was stowed. Again we entered the cabin or provision- 
 room, and returned with some jars whose contents we emptied 
 — vinegar, I believe it was, but the hurry my mind was then in 
 rendered it weak in its reception of small impressions; these 
 we filled with fresh water from a tank conveniently stowed in 
 the main hatchway, and as I filled them Helga carried them 
 on deck. 
 
 While we were below at this work I bade her listen. 
 
 " Yes, I hear it!" she cried: " it is water in the hold." 
 
 With every sickly lean of the bark you could hear the water 
 inside of her seething among the cargo as it cascaded now to 
 port and now to starboard. 
 
 " Helga, she can not live long," said I. " I believe, but 
 for the hissing of the water, we should hear it bubbling into 
 her." 
 
 I handed her up the last of the jars, and grasped the coam- 
 ing of the hatch to clamber on to the deck, for the cargo came 
 high. As I did this, something seemed to touch and claw me 
 upon the back, and a huge bhick rat of the size of a kitten 
 flashed from my shoulder on to the deck and vanished in a 
 breath. Helga screamed, and indeed, for the moment, my 
 own nerves were not a little shaken, for I distinctly felt the 
 wire-like whisker of the horrible creature brush my cheek as 
 it sprung from my shoulder. 
 
 "If there be truth in the proverb," said I, " we need no 
 surer hint of what is coming than the behavior of that rat." 
 
 The j|irl shuddered and gazed, with ^yes bright with alarmj
 
 84 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 into the hold, recoiling as she did so. I believe the prospect 
 of drifting about on a raft was less terrible to her than the 
 idea of a second rat leaping upon one or the other of us. 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 adrift! 
 
 It was necessary that we should have everything in readiness 
 before we carried j)Oor Captain Kielsen out of his cabin. I 
 unshipped the gangway, and, watching an opportunity as the 
 swell lifted the raft against the side of the barii stooping to it, 
 I sprung; but I could not have imagined the weight and vol- 
 ume of the swell until I had gained the frail platform. Indeed, 
 one could feel that the wrath kindled by the temi^est still lived 
 in the deep bosom of the ocean. It was like a stern, revenge- 
 ful breathing; but the wind was light, and the water but de- 
 licately brushed, and it was easy to foresee that if no more 
 wind blew the swell would have greatly flattened down by sun- 
 set. Yet the manner in which the hull and the raft came to- 
 gether terrified me with a notion of our contrivance going to 
 pieces. I called to Helga, as she threw to me or handed the 
 several parcels and articles we had collected upon the deck, 
 that there was not a moment of time to waste — that we must 
 get her father on to the raft without delay; and then, when 
 I had hastily stowed the last of the things, I sprung aboard' 
 again, and was going straight to the captain's berth, when I 
 suddenly stopped and exclaimed: " First, how is he to be re- 
 moved?" 
 
 She eyed me piteously. Perhaps her seamanship did not 
 reach to that height; or may be her fear that we should cause 
 her father pain impaired her perception of what was to be 
 done. 
 
 " Let me think now," said I. "It was certain that he must 
 be lowered to the deck as he lies in his cot. Does he swing by 
 hooks? I did not observe." 
 
 " Yes," she answered, " what you would call the clews 
 come together to a point as in a hammock, and spread at the 
 foot and head." 
 
 " Then there must be iron eyes in the upper deck," cried I, 
 " to receive the hooks. Now see here; we shall have to get a 
 sling at each end of the cot, attach a line to it, the ends of 
 which we will pass through the eyes, and when this is done we 
 will cut away the clews and so lower him. Y^es, that will 
 do," said I. "1 have it," and looking about me for such a
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 85 
 
 thickness of rope as 1 needed, I overhauled some fathoms, 
 passed my knife through the length, and together we hastened 
 to the captain's berth. 
 
 " What is it now?'' he asked, in a feeble voice, as we entered. 
 
 " Everything is ready, Captain Nielsen," said I; " there is 
 no time to lose. The cargo is washing about in the hold, and 
 the ship has not another hour of life left in her." 
 
 " "What is it that you want?" said he, looking dully at the 
 coil of rope 1 held in my hand. 
 
 " Father, we are here to carry you to the raft." 
 
 " To the raft!" he exclaimed, with an air of bewilderment, 
 and then he added, while I noticed a little color of temper 
 enter his cheeks: " I have nothing to do with your raft. It 
 was in your power to save the poor ' Anine.' If she is to found- 
 er, I will go down with her." 
 
 So saying, he folded his arms upon his bosom in a posture 
 of resolution, viewing me with all the severity his sickness 
 would suffer his eyes to express. Nevertheless, there was a 
 sort of silliness in the whole manner of him which might have 
 persuaded the most heedless observer that the poor fellow was 
 rapidly growing less and less responsible for his behavior. Had 
 he been a powerful man, or, indeed, possessed the use of his 
 extremities, I should have dreaded what is termed a " scene." 
 As it was, nothing remained but to treat him as a child, to 
 tackle him, with all tenderness, but as swiftly as possible, and 
 to get him over the side. 
 
 There was a dreadful expression of distress in Helga's face 
 when she looked at him; but her glances at me were very full 
 of assurance that she was of my mind, and that she would 
 approve and be with me in sympathy in whatever I resolved to 
 do. Whipping out my knife, I cut lengths off the roj)e I held 
 to make slings of. I carried one of these slings to the cot and 
 passed it over the end. The captain extended his hand, and 
 attempted to thrust me aside. The child-like weakness of 
 that trembling push would, in a time of less wretchedness and 
 peril than this, have unnerved me with pity. 
 
 " Bear with me! Be yourself, captain! Show yourself the 
 true Danish sailor that you are at heart — for Helga'ssake!" I 
 exclaimed. ^ 
 
 He covered his eyes and sobbed. 
 
 I secured the slings to the cot, and, until we lowered him 
 to the deck, he held his face hidden in his hands. I wove two 
 lengths of line through the iron eyes at which the cot slung, 
 in the manner I had described to Helga^ and when the weight 
 of the cot was on these lines we belayed one end, holding by
 
 86 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 the other. 1 tlien passed my knife through the " crow's-feet," 
 as it would be called, or thin lines which supported the cot, 
 and, going to the rope I had belayed, bid Helga lower her end 
 as I lowered mine, and the cot descended safely to the deck. 
 The girl then came round to the head of the cot, and together 
 we dragged it out of the house on to the deck. 
 
 Saviug a little wrench when we hauled the cot over the coam- 
 ing of the deck-house door, the poor man was put to no pain. 
 It was merciful indeed that he should have lain ill in the deck- 
 house, for had he occupied a cabin below I can not imagine 
 how we should have got him out on to the deck without killing 
 him with the anguish which we should have been forced by 
 our efforts to cause him. 
 
 When we had got him to the gangway I sprung on to the 
 raft and caught hold of the block that dangled at the extrem- 
 ity of the yardarm tackle. With this I returned to the bark, 
 and, just as we had got the raft over, so did we sway the poor 
 captain on to her. I got on to the raft to receive him as Helga 
 lowered the cot. He descended gently, and on my crying 
 " Let go I" she swiftly released the line, and the tackle over- 
 hauled itself to the roll of the vessel. 
 
 I remember exclaiming " Thank God!'' when this job was 
 ended and I had unhooked the block, as though the worst was 
 over; and indeed, in the mere business of abandoning the bark, 
 the worst had ended with the bestowal of the sick and helpless 
 captain on the raft. But what was now to begin? My 
 " Thank God I" seemed to sound like a piece of irony in my 
 heart when 1 looked from the deep, wet, gleaming side of the 
 leaning hull waving her wrecked sjiars in the reddening light 
 of the sun — when I looked from her, 1 say, to seaward, where 
 the flowing lines of the lifting and falling swell were running 
 bald and foamless into the south-west sky. 
 
 Helga came to the gangway and called to know if all were 
 well with her father. 
 
 " All is well," I answered. "Come now, Helga! There 
 is nothing to detain us. We shall be wise to cast adrift from 
 the bark. She is very much down by the head, and the next 
 dip may be her last. " 
 
 " A few minutes can not signify," she cried. " There are 
 one or two things 1 should like to bring with me. I wish to 
 possess them, if we are preserved." 
 
 " Make haste, then!" I called. She disappeared, and I 
 turned to the captain. He looked up at me out of his cot 
 with eyes in which all the feverish fire of the morniag was 
 {^^uencb.ed,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 87 
 
 ' ' Is Helga remaining in the bark?" he asked, listlessly. 
 
 " God forbid!" cried I. " She will be with us in a minute 
 or two." 
 
 " It is a cruel desertion," said he. " Poor ' Anine!' You 
 were to have been kept afloat!" 
 
 It was idle to reason with him. He was clothed as I had 
 found him when I had first seen him — in a waistcoat and 
 serge coat, and a shawl round his neck; but he was without a 
 hat — a thing to be overlooked at such a time as this — and the 
 lower part of him was protected only by the blankets he lay 
 under. {There was still time to supply his requirements. I 
 had noticed his wideawake and a long cloak hanging in his 
 berth, and I immediately sprung on board, rushed aft, pro- 
 cured them, and returned. Helga was still below. I put 
 the hat on the captain's head and clasped the cloak over his 
 shoulders, fretting over the girl's absence, for every minute 
 was communicating a deadlier significance to the languid, 
 sickly, dying motions of the fast-drowning hull. 
 
 I think about ten minutes had passed since she left the bark's 
 side to go to her cabin, when, bringing my eyes away from I he 
 sea, into whose eastern quarter I had been gazing with some 
 wild hope or fancy in me of a sail down there — though it 
 proved no more than a feather-tip of cloud — I saw Helga in 
 the gangway. I say Helga, but for some moments I did not 
 know her. I started and stared as if she had been a ghost. 
 Instead of the boyish figure to which my sight was already used, 
 there stood in the aperture, betwixt the bulwarks which we 
 call the gangway, a girl who looked at least half a iiead taller 
 than the Helga who had been my associate. I might have 
 guessed at once that this appearance of stature in her was due 
 to her gown, but, as I did not suspect that she had gone to 
 change her dress, her suggestion of increased height completed 
 the astonishment and perplexity with which I regarded her. 
 She stood on the leaning and swaying side of the bark, as per- 
 fect a figure of a maiden as mortal eyes could wish to rest on. 
 Her dress was of dark-blue serge that clung to her: she also 
 wore a cloth jacket, thinly edged about the neck and where it 
 buttoned with fur, and upon her head was a turban-shai^ed 
 hat of sealskin, the dark glossy shade of which brightened her 
 short hair into a complexion of the palest gold. She held a 
 parcel in her hand, and called to me to take it from her. I 
 did so, and cried: 
 
 " You will not be able to jumj) from the gangway. Cict into 
 the fore-chains, and 1 will endeavor to haul the raft up to 
 you. "
 
 88 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 But even as 1 spoke she grasped her dress and disclosed 
 lier little feet, and with a boimd gained the raft as it rose with 
 the swell, jnelding on her knees as she struck the platform 
 with the grace that nothing but the teaching of old ocean could 
 have communicated to her limbs. 
 
 " Thank God you are here!" I cried, catching her by the 
 hand. " I was growing uneasy — in another minute I should 
 have sought you." 
 
 She faintly smiled, and then turned eagerly to her father. 
 
 " 1 have mother's portrait/' said she, pointing to the parcel, 
 " and her Bible. I would not bring away more. If we are 
 to perish, they will go with us." 
 
 He looked at her with a lack-luster eye, and in a low voice 
 addressed a few words to her in Danish. She answered in that 
 tongue, glancing down at her dress, and then at me, and 
 added, in English: "It was time, father. The hard work is 
 over. I may be a girl now," and looking along the sea she 
 sighed bitterly. 
 
 Her father brought his knitted hands to his brow, and never 
 could I have imagined the like of the look of mental anguish 
 that was on his face as he did this. But what I am here nar- 
 rating did not occupy above a minute or two. Indeed, a 
 longer delay than this was not to have been suffered if we de- 
 sired the raft to hold together. I let go the line that held the 
 little structure to the bark, and getting the small studding-sail 
 boom over — that is, the boom we had shipped to serve as a 
 signal mast — I thrust with it, and, Helga helping me, we got 
 the raft clear of the side of the vessel. The leewardly swell on 
 which we rode did the rest for us, and not a little rejoiced was 
 I to find our miserable fabric gradually increasing its distance 
 from the ' Auine;' for if the bark foundered with us close 
 alongside we stood to be swamped in the vortex, the raft scat- 
 tered, and ourselves left to drown. 
 
 It now wanted about twenty minutes to sundown. A weak 
 air still blew, but the few clouds that still lived in the heavens 
 floated overhead apparently motionless; yet the swell continued 
 large, to our sensations at least, upon that flat structure, and 
 the slope of the platform rapidly grew so distressing and fa- 
 tiguing to our limbs that we were glad to sit, and obtain what 
 refreshment we could from a short rest. 
 
 Among the things we had brought with us was the bull's- 
 eye lamp, together with a can of oil, a parcel of meshes, and 
 some lucifer matches. I said to Helga: 
 
 " We should step or set up our mast before it grows dark.'* 
 
 " Whj?" she innuired. " The flag we will hoist will not be
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 89 
 
 seen in the dark " — knowing that the mast was there for no 
 other purpose than to display a flag on. 
 
 " But we ought to light the lamp and masthead it/' said I, 
 " and keep it burning all night — if God suffers us to live 
 through the night. Who can tell what may come along — what 
 vessel invisible to us may perceive the light?" 
 
 She answered quickly, "Yes. Your judgment is clearer 
 than mine. 1 will help you to set up the mast." 
 
 Her father again addressed her in Danish. She answered 
 him, and then said to me, " My father asks why we are with- 
 out a sail?" 
 
 " I thought of a sail," I replied, speaking as 1 set about to 
 erect the mast, " but without wind it could not serve us, and 
 with wind it would blow away like a cobweb. It would have 
 occupied too much time to rig and securely provide for a sail. 
 Besides, our hopes could never be in the direction of such a 
 thing. We must be picked up — there is no other chance for 
 us." 
 
 The captain made no response, but sat, propped upon his 
 jsillows, motionless, his eyes fixed upon the bark. 
 
 The sun had sunk, but a strong scarlet yet glowed in the 
 western sky by the time we had erected and stayed the spar. 
 I then lighted the lamp and ran it aloft by means of a line and 
 a little block which I had taken care to throw into the raft. 
 This finished, we seated ourselves. 
 
 There was now nothing more to be done but watch and pray. 
 This was the most solemn and dreadful moment that had as 
 yet entered into the passage of our fearful and astonishing ex- 
 perience. In the hurry and agitation of leaving the bark there 
 had been scarcely room for a pause. All we could think of was 
 how quickly to get away, how speedily to equip and launch 
 the raft, how to get Captain Nielsen over, and the like; but 
 all this was ended : we could now think, and I felt as if my 
 heart had been suddenly crushed in me as I sat on the slanting, 
 falling and rising platform, viewing the bark, that lay painted 
 in clear black lines against the fast-dimming glow in the west. 
 
 Ilelga sat close against her father's cot. So far as I was 
 able to distinguish her face, there was profound grief in it and 
 a sort of dismay, but no fear. Iler gaze was steady, and the 
 expression of her mouth firm. Her father kept his eyes 
 rooted upon his ship. I overheard her address him once or 
 twice in Danish, but, getting no reply, she sighed heavily, and 
 held her peace. I was too exhausted in body and spirits to 
 desire to speak. I remember that I sat, or rather squjitted, 
 Lascar-fashion, upon the hatch-cover th»t somewhat raised the
 
 90 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 platform of the raft, with my hands clasped upon my shins 
 and my chin on a level with my knees; and in this posture I 
 continued for some time motionless, watching the " Anine '* 
 and waiting for her to sink, and realizing our shocking situa- 
 tion to the degree of that heart-crushing sensation in me which 
 1 have mentioned. I was exactly clad as 1 had been when I 
 boarded the bark out of the life-boat. Never once, indeed, 
 from the hour of my being in the vessel down to the present 
 moment had I removed my oilskins, saving my sou'-wester, 
 which I would take from my head when I entered the cabin; 
 and I recollect thinking that it was better for me to be heavily 
 than thinly clad, because, being a stout swimmer, a light 
 dress would help me to a bitter long battle for life, whereas 
 the clothes 1 had on must make the struggle brief and speed- 
 ily drag me down into peace, which was, indeed, all that I could 
 bring my mind to dwell upon now, for when I sent my glance 
 from the raft to the darkling ocean 1 felt hopeless. 
 
 The rusty hectic died out. The night came alone in a clear 
 dusk with a faint sighing of wind over the raft every time the 
 swell threw her up. There was a silver curl of moon in the 
 south-west, but she was without power to drop so much as a 
 flake of her light into the dark shadow of water undeyjier. 
 Yet the starlight was in the gloom, and it was not so dark but 
 that I could see Helga's face in a sort of glimmer, and the 
 white outline of the cot and configuration of the raft upon the 
 water in dusky strokes. 
 
 The bark floated at about a cable's length distant from us, a 
 dark mass, rolling in a strangling manner, as I might know by 
 the sickly slide of the stars in the squares of her rigging and 
 along the pallid lines of the canvas stowed upon her yards. 
 There was more tenacity of life in her than I should have be- 
 lieved possible, and I said to Helga: 
 
 " If this raft were a boat, I would board the bark and set 
 her on fire. She may float through the night, for who is to 
 know but that one of her worst leaks may have got choked, 
 and the blaze she would make might bring us help.'' 
 
 The captain uttered some exclamation in Danish in a small 
 but vehement and shrill tone. He had not spoken for above 
 an hour, and I had believed him sleeping or dying and speech- 
 less. 
 
 " What does he say?" I called across softly to Helga. 
 
 " That the ' Anine ' might have been saved had we stood 
 by her," she answered, struggling, as 1 could hear by the 
 tremor in her voice, to control her accents.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 91 
 
 " No, no!" said 1, almost gruffly, I fear, with the mood that 
 was upon me ot helplessness, despair, and the kind of rage that 
 comes with the perception that one is doomed to die like a rat, 
 without a chance, without a soul of all those one loves know- 
 ing one's fate. " No, no!" I cried, " the ' Anine ' was not 
 to be saved by us two, nor by twenty like us, Helga. You 
 know that, for it is like making me responsible for our situa- 
 tion here to doubt it." . 
 
 " I do not doubt it," she answered, firmly and reprcachf ally. 
 
 Captain Nielsen muttered in his native tongue; but I did not: 
 inquire what he said, and the hush of the great ocean night, 
 with its delicate threading of complaining wind, fell upon us. 
 
 My temper of despair was not to be soothed by recollection 
 of this time yesterday, by perception of the visible evidence of 
 God's mercy in this tranquillity of sky and sea at a time when, 
 but for the change of the weather, we had certainly been 
 doomed. I was young; I passionately desired to live. Had 
 death been the penalty of the life-boat attempt, I might, had 
 time been granted me, contemplated my end with the fortitude 
 that springs from the sense of having done well. But what 
 was heroic in this business had disaj)peared out of it when the 
 life-boat capsized and left me safe on board. It was now no 
 more than a vile passage of prosaic shipwreck, with its attend- 
 ant horror of lingering death, and nothing noble in what had 
 been done, or that might yet have to be done, to prop up my 
 spirits. Thus I sat full of wretchedness, and miserably think- 
 ing, mechanically eying the dusky heap of bark; then, breaking 
 away from my afflicting reverie, I stood up, holding by the 
 mast, to carefully sweep the sea, with a prayer for the sight 
 of the colored gleams of a steamer's light, since there was 
 nothing to be expected in the way of a sail in this calm that 
 was upon the water. 
 
 I was thus occupied when I was startled by a strange cry — 1 
 can not describe it. It resembled the moan of a wild creature 
 wounded to death, but with a human note in it that made the 
 sound something not to be imagined. For an instant I be- 
 lieved it came from the sea, till I saw by the dim light of the 
 star-shine the figure of Captain Nielsen, in a sitting posture, 
 pointing with the whole length of his arm in the direction of 
 his bark. I looked, and found the black mass of hull gone, 
 and nothing showing but the dark line of spars and rigging, 
 that melted out of my sight as I watched. A noise of rending, 
 intermingled with the shock of an explosion, came from 
 where she had disappeared. It signified no more than the 
 blowing up of the decks as she sunk; but the star-studded
 
 92 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 vastness of gloom made the sound appalling beyond language 
 to convey. 
 
 " Help!'* cried Ilelga. " My father is dying." 
 
 I gained the side of the cot in a stride and knelt by him, 
 but there was no more to be seen of his face than the mere 
 faint whiteness of it, and I could not tell whether his eyes 
 were open or not. Imagining, but scarcely hoping, that a 
 dram might put some life into the poor fellow, I lowered the 
 bull's-eye lamp from the masthead to seek for one of the jars 
 of spirits we had stowed, but when we came to put the tin 
 I^annikin to his lips we found his teeth set. 
 
 " He is not dead, Helga," I cried; " he is in a fit. If he 
 were dead his jaws would drop," and this I supposed, though 
 r knew little of death in those days. 
 
 I flashed the bull's-eye upon his face, and observed that 
 though his eyes were open, the pupils were upturned and hidden. 
 This, with the whiteness of the skin and the emaciation of the 
 lineaments, made a ghastly picture of his countenance, and the 
 hysteric sob that Helga uttered as she looked made me grieve 
 that I should have thrown the light upon her father. 
 
 I mastheaded the lamp again, and crouched by the side of 
 the cot talking to Helga across the recumbent form in it. 
 Who could remember what was said at such a time? I weakly 
 essayed to cheer her, but soon gave up, for here was the very 
 figure of death himself lying between us, and there was death 
 awaiting us in the black invisible folds in which we swung; 
 and what had I to say that could help her heart at such a time? 
 Occasionally 1 would stand erect and peer around. The weak 
 wind that went moaning past us as the raft rose to the liquid 
 heave had the chill in it of the ocean in October; and fearing 
 that Helga's jacket did not sufficiently protect her, I pulled 
 off my oilskin coat — there is no warmer covering for ordinary 
 apparel — and induced her to put it on. Her father remained 
 motionless, but by stooping my ear to his mouth I could catch 
 the noise of his breathing as it hissed through his chnched teeth. 
 Yet it was a sort of breathing that would make one expect 
 to hear it die out in a final sigh at any minute. 
 
 1 mixed a little spirits and water, and gave it to the girl, and 
 obliged her to swallow the draught, and begged her to eat for 
 the sake of the life and heart food would give her; but she said 
 " Ko," and her frequent silent sobbing silenced me on that 
 head, for how could one, grieving as she did, swallow food? 1 
 filled the pannikin for myself and emptied it, and eat a biscuit 
 and a piece of cheese, which were near my hand in an interstice 
 of the raft, and then lay down near the cot, supporting my
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 93 
 
 head on my elbot^. Never did the stars seem so high, so in- 
 finitely remote, as they seemed to me that night. I felt as 
 though I had passed into another world that mocked the senses 
 with a few dim semblances of things which a little while be- 
 fore had been real and familiar. The very paring of the moon 
 showed small as though looked at through an inverted telescope, 
 and measurelessly remote. 1 do not know why this should 
 have been, yet once afterward^ in speaking of this experience 
 to a man who, in a voyage to India, had fallen overboard on 
 such another night as this and swum for three hours, he told 
 me that the stars had seemed to him as to me, and the moon, 
 which with him was nearly full, appeared to have shrunk to 
 the size of the planet Venus. 
 
 After awhile the captain's breathing grew less harsh, and 
 Helga asked me to bring the lamp that she might look at him. 
 His teeth were no longer set, and his eyes as in nature, saving 
 that there was no recognition in them, and I observed that he 
 stared straight into the brilliant glass of magnified flame with- 
 out winking or averting his gaze. I propped him up, and 
 Helga put the pannikin to his lips, but the fluid ran from the 
 corners of his mouth; upon which I let him rest upon his pil- 
 lows, softly begging the girl to let God have His way with him. 
 
 " He can not last through the night," she exclaimed, in a 
 low voice; and the wonderful stillness upon the sea, unvexed 
 by the delicate wiunowing of the draught, gathered to my mood 
 an extraordinary emphasis from my being able to hear her light 
 utterances as distinctly as though she whispered in a sick-room. 
 
 " You are prepared, Helga?" said 1. 
 
 *' No, no!" she cried, with a little sob. " Who can be pre- 
 pared to lose one that is dearly loved? We believe we are pre- 
 I3ared — we pray for strength; but the blow falls as though we 
 were weak and unready. When he is gone, I shall be alone. 
 And oh, to die here!" 
 
 We sunk into silence. 
 
 Another hour went by, and 1 believed 1 had fallen into a 
 light, troubled doze, less sleepful than a waking day-dream, 
 when I heard my name pronounced, and instantly started up. 
 
 " What is it?" I cried. 
 
 " My father is asking for you," answered Helga. 
 
 I leaned over the cot and felt for his hand, which 1 took. 
 It was of a death-like coldness, and moist. 
 
 " I am here. Captain Nielsen," said I. 
 
 " If God preserves you," he exclaimed, very faintly, "you 
 will keep your word?"
 
 94 MV DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 *' Be sure of it — be sure of it/' 1 said, knowing that he re- 
 ferred to what had passed between us about Uelga. 
 
 " I thank you," he whispered. " My sight seems dark, yet 
 is that not the moon down there?" 
 
 " Yes, father,'' answered the girl." 
 
 "Helga," he said, "did you not tell me you had brought 
 your mother's likeness with you?" 
 
 " It is with us, and her Bible, father." 
 
 " Would to God I could look upon it," said he, " for the 
 last time, Helga, for the last time!" 
 
 " Where is the parcel?" 1 asked. 
 
 " I have it close beside me," she answered. 
 
 "Open it, Helga!" said I. "The lamp will reveal the 
 picture. " 
 
 Again I lowered the bull's-eye from the masthead, and, 
 while Helga held the picture before her father's face, I threw 
 the light upon it. It was a little oil-iDainting in an oval gilt 
 frame. I could distinguish no more than the face of a woman 
 — a young face — with a crown of yellow hair upon her head. 
 The sheen of the lamj) lay faintly upon the jirofile of Helga. 
 All else, saving the picture, was in darkness, and the girl looked 
 like a vision upon the blackness past her, as she knelt with 
 the portrait extended before her father's face. 
 
 He addressed her in weak and broken tones in Danish, then 
 turned his head and slightly raised his arm, as though he 
 wished to point to something up in the sky, but was without 
 the power of limb to do so. On this Helga withdrew the por- 
 trait, and I put down the lamp, first searching the dark line 
 of ocean, now scintellint with stars, before sitting again. 
 
 As the moon sunk, sjjite of her diffusing little or no light, a 
 deeper dye seemed to come into the night. The shooting stars 
 were plentiful, and betokened, as I might hope, continuance 
 of fair weather. Here and there hovered a steam-colored frag- 
 ment of cloud. An aspect of almost summer serenity was 
 upon the countenance of the sky, and, though there was the 
 weight of the ocean in the swing of the swell, there was peace 
 too in the regularity of its run and in the soundless motion of 
 it as it took us, sloping the raft after the manner of a see-saw. 
 
 In a boat, aboard any other contrivance than this raft put 
 together by inexpert hands, I must have felt grateful, deeply 
 thankful to God indeed, for this sweet quietude of air and sea 
 that followed the roaring conflict of the long hours now passed. 
 But I was without hope, and there can be no thankfulness with- 
 out that emotion. These were the closing days of October; 
 November was at hand; within an hour this sluggish breathing
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 95 
 
 of air migbt be storming up into such another hurricane as we 
 were fresh from. And what then? Why, it was impossible to 
 iancy such a thing even, without one's spirits growing heavy as 
 lead, without feeling the presence of death in the chill of the 
 night air. 
 
 No, for this passage of calm, God forgive me! I could not 
 feel grateful. The coward in me rose strong. I could not bless 
 Heaven for what affected me as a brief pause before a dreadful 
 end that this very quiet of the night was only to render more 
 lingering and fuller, therefore, of suffering. 
 
 Captain Nielsen began to mutter. I did not need to listen 
 to him for above a minute to gather that he was delirious. I 
 could see the outline of Helga against the stars, bending over 
 the cot. The thought of this heroic girl's distress, of her com- 
 plicated anguish, rallied me, and I broke in a very passion of 
 self-reproach from the degradation of my dejection. I drew to 
 the cot, and Helga said: 
 
 "He is wandering in his mind.'* She added with a note of 
 wailing in her voice, " Jeg er nu alene ! Jeg er nu alene !" by 
 which she signified that she was now alone. I caught the mean- 
 ing of the sentence from her pronunciation of it, and cried : 
 
 " Do not say you are alone, Helga! Besides, your father still 
 lives — hark! what does he say?" 
 
 So far he had been babbling in Danish: now he spoke in En- 
 glish, in a strange voice that sounded as though proceeding 
 from some one at a distance. 
 
 "It is so, you see. The storks did not return last spring. 
 There was to be trouble — there was to be trouble! Ha!^ here 
 is Pastor Madsen. Else, my beloved Else ! here is the good 
 Pastor Madsen. And there, too, is Eector Gronlund. Will 
 he observe us? Else, he is deep in his book. Look!" he 
 cried a little shrilly, pointing with a vehemence that startled me 
 into following the indication of his shadowy glimmering hand 
 directed into the darkness over the sea. "It is Kolding Latin 
 School — nay, it is Rector Gronlund's parsonage garden. Ah, 
 rector, you remember me? This is the little Else that your 
 good wife thought the prettiest child in Denmark. And this 
 is Pastor Madsen." 
 
 He paused, then muttered in Danish, and fell silent. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IIESCUED. 
 
 This is a thing easy to recall, but how am I to convey the 
 Teality of it? What is there in ink to put before you that wide
 
 ^JG MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 scene of starlit gloom, the dusky shapes of swell forever run- 
 ning noiselessly at us — no sounds saving the occasional creaking 
 of the raft as she was swayed— the motionless, black outlines 
 of Helga and myselt overhanging the pallid streak of cot — at 
 intervals, a low sob breaking from the girFs heart, and the over- 
 whelming sense of present danger, of hopelessness, made 
 blacker yet by the night? And amid all this the crazy bab- 
 bling of the dying Dane, now in English and now in his native 
 tongue! 
 
 It was just upon the stroke of one o'clock in the morning 
 when he died. I had brought my watch to the lamp, when he 
 fetched a sort of groaning breath, of a character that caused 
 me to bend my ear to his lips-, and I found that he had ceased 
 to breathe. I continued to listen, and then, to make sure, cast 
 the light of the lamp upon him. 
 
 " He has gone!" cried Helga. 
 
 " God has taken him," said I. " Come to this side, and sit 
 by me!'' 
 
 She did as I asked, and I took her hand. I knew by her 
 respiration that she was weeping, and I held my peace till her 
 grief should have had some vent. I then spoke of her father, 
 represented that his ailments must in all probability have carried 
 him oli' almost as swiftly ashore; that he had died a peace- 
 ful death, with his daughter beside him, and his wife and home 
 present in a vision to his gaze; and said that, so far from 
 grieving, we should count it a mercy that he had been called 
 away thus easily, for who was to imagine what lay before us — 
 what sufferings, which must have killed him certainly later on? 
 
 ' ' His heart broke when his bark sunk," said she. " I heard 
 it in his cry. " 
 
 This might very well have been, too. 
 
 Never was there so long a night. The moon was behind 
 the sea, and after she was gone the very march of the stars 
 seemed arrested, as though nature had cried "Halt!" to the 
 universe. Having run the lamp aloft, I resolved to leave it 
 there, possessed now with such a superstitious notion as might 
 well influence a shipwrecked man, that if I lowered it again 
 no vessel would appear. Therefore, to tell the time, 1 was 
 obliged to strike a match, and whenever I did this^I would 
 stare at my watch and put it to my ear and doubt the evidence 
 of my sight, so inexpressibly slow was the passage of those 
 hours. 
 
 Helga's sobs ceased. She sat by my side, speaking seldom 
 after we had exhausted our first talk on her coming round to 
 where I was. 1 wished ber to sleep, and told her that 1 could
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 97 
 
 easily make a couch for her, and that my oilskin would pro- 
 tect her from the dew. I still held her hand as I said this, and 
 I felt the shudder that ran through her when she replied that 
 she could not lie down, that she could not sleep. Perhaps she 
 feared I would disturb her father's body to make a bed for her; 
 and, indeed, there was nothing else on the raft, saving the 
 jDOor fellow's cloak and his pillows and blankets, out of which I 
 could have manufactured a bed. 
 
 Had I been sure that he was dead, I should have slipped the 
 body overboard while it remained dark, so that llelga should 
 not have been able to see what 1 did; but 1 had not the cour- 
 age to bury him merely because I believed he was dead, be- 
 cause he lay there motionless; and I was constantly thinking 
 how I should manage when the dawn came — how 1 was so to 
 deal with the body as to shock and pain poor Helga as little 
 as possible. 
 
 As we sat side by side, I felt a small pressure of her shoulder 
 against my arm, and supposed that she had fallen asleep, but, 
 on my whispering, she immediately answered. Dead tired 1 
 knew the brave girl must be, but sleep could not visit eyes 
 whose gaze I might readily guess was again and again directed 
 at the faint pale figure of the cot. 
 
 The light air shifted into the north-west at about three 
 o'clock in the mowiing, and blew a small breeze which extin- 
 guished the star-flakes that here and there rode upon the swell, 
 and raised a noise of tinkling, rippling waters along the sides 
 of the raft. I guessed this new direction of the wind by my 
 observation of a bright greenish star which had hung in the 
 wake of the moon, and was now low in the west. This light 
 breeze kindled a little hope in me, and I would rise again and 
 again to peer into the quarter whence it blew in the expecta- 
 tion of spying some pale shadow of ship. Once Helga, giving 
 a start, exclaimed : 
 
 *' Hush! I seem to hear the throb of a steamer's engines!" 
 
 We both stood up hand in hand, for the sway of the raft 
 made a danger of it as a platform, and I listened with strained 
 hearing. It might have been a steamer, but there was no 
 blotch of darkness upon the obscurity of the sea-line round to 
 denote her, nor any gleam of lantern. Yet for nearly a quar- 
 ter of an hour did we listen, in a torment of attention, and 
 then resumed our seats side by side. 
 
 The dawn broke at last, dispelling, as it seemed to my weary, 
 despairing imagination, a long mouth of perpetual night. The 
 cold gray was slow and stealthy, and was a tedious time in 
 brightening into the silver and rose of sunrise. My first act
 
 98 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 was to sweep the sea for a ship, and I then went to the cot and 
 looked at the face upon the pillows in it. If 1 had never seen 
 death before, 1 might have known it now. I turned to the 
 girl. 
 
 " Helga," said I, gently, " you can guess what my duty is 
 — for your sake, and for mine, and for his too." 
 
 1 looked earnestly at her as I spoke: she was deathly pale, 
 haggard, her eyes red and inflamed with weeping, and her ex- 
 pression one of exquisite touching sorrow and mourning. But~ 
 the sweetness of her young countenance was dominant even in "^ 
 that supreme time, and, blending with the visible signs of mis- 
 ery in her looks, raised the mere prettinessof her features into 
 a sad beauty that impressed me as a spiritual rather than as a 
 physical revelation. 
 
 " Yes, I know what must be done," she answered. " Let 
 me kiss him first. " 
 
 She approached the cot, knelt by it, and put her lips to her 
 father's. Then raising her clasped bands above her head, and 
 looking upward, she cried out — '^ Jeg er faderlbs! Gud 
 lijelpe mig /" 
 
 I stood apart waiting, scarcely able to draw my breath for 
 the j)ity and sorrow that tightened my throat. It is impos- 
 sible to imagine the plaintive wailing note her voice had as she 
 uttered those Danish words — " 1 am fatherless! God help 
 me!" She then hid her face in her hands, and remained 
 kneeling and praying. 
 
 After a few minutes she arose, kissed again the white face, 
 and seated herself with her back to the cot. 
 
 No one could have named to me a more painful, a more 
 distasteful piece of work than the having to handle the body 
 of this poor Danish captain, and launch him into that fathom- 
 less grave upon whose surface we lay. First I had to remove 
 tbe ropes which formed our little bulvvark, that 1 might slide 
 the cot overboard ; then with some ends of line 1 laced the figure 
 in the cot, that it should not float away out of it when launched. 
 The work kept me close to the body, and, thin and white as 
 he was, y©t he looked so life-like, wore an expression so remon- 
 strant, that my horror was sensibly tinctured with a feeling of 
 guilt as though instead of burying him I was about to drown 
 him. 
 
 I made all dispatch possible for Helga 's sake, but came to a 
 pause, when the cot was ready, to look about me for a sinker. 
 There was nothing that I could see but the jars, and, as they 
 contained our little stock of spirits and fresh water, they were 
 altogether too precious to send to the bottom. I could do no
 
 MY DAKTSH SWEETHEART. 99 
 
 more than hope that the canvas would speedily grow saturated, 
 then fill and sink; and, putting my hands to the cot, I dragged 
 it to the edge of the raft, and went round to the head and 
 pushed. 
 
 It was midway over the side, when a huge black rat sprung 
 from under the blankets out through the lacing, and disap- 
 peared under the hatch-cover. I had no doubt it was the same 
 rat that had leaped from my shoulder aboard the bark. If it 
 had terrified me then, you will guess the shock it caused me 
 now! 1 uttered some cry in the momentary consternation 
 raised in me by this beastly apparition of life flashing, so to 
 speak, out of the very figure and stirlessness of death, and 
 Helga looked and called to know what was the matter. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing,'' I replied. " Turn your eyes from 
 me, Helga!" 
 
 She immediately resumed her former posture, covering her 
 face with her hands. The next moment 1 had thrust the cot 
 fair into the sea, and it slid off to a distance of twice or thrice 
 its own length, and lay rising and falling, to all appearances 
 buoyant as the raft itself. I knew it would sink so soon as 
 the canvas and blankets were soaked, yet that might take a 
 little while in doing, and dreading lest Helga should look — for 
 you will readily conceive how dreadful would be to the girl 
 that sight of her father afloat in the square of canvas, his face 
 showing clearly through the lacing of rope — I went to her, 
 and put my arm round her, and so, but without speaking, 
 obliged her to keep her face away. I gathered from her pas- 
 siveuess that she understood me. When 1 glanced again, the 
 cot was in the act of sinking; in a few beats of the heart it 
 vanished, and all was blank ocean to the heavens — a prospect 
 of little Ihishful and feathering ripples, but glorious as molten 
 and sparkling silver in the east under the soaring sun. 
 
 1 withdrew my hand from Helga's shoulder. She then 
 looked, and sighed heavily, but no more tears flowed. I believe 
 she had wept her heart dry! 
 
 " In what words am 1 to thank you for your kindness and 
 sympathy?" said she. " My father and my mother are looking 
 down upon us, and they will bless you." 
 
 " We must count on being saved, Helga," said I, forcing 
 a cheerful note into my voice. " You will see Kolding again, 
 and I shall hope to sec it too, by your side." And with the idea 
 of diverting her mind from her grief, I told her of my promise 
 to her father, and how happy it would make me to accompany 
 her to Denmark. 
 
 "I have been too much of a home-bird, " said I. "You
 
 100 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 will provide me with a good excuse for a ramble, Helga; but 
 first you shall meet my dear old mother, and spend some time 
 with us. 1 am to save your life, you know. I am here for 
 that purpose;" and so I continued to talk to her, now and 
 again coaxing a light sorrowful smile to her lips; but it was 
 easy to know where her heart was; all the while she was send- 
 ing glances at the sea close to the raft, where she might guess 
 the cot had sunk, and twice I overheard her whisj^er to herself 
 that same passionate, grieving sentences she had uttered when 
 she kissed her father's dead face: '"'' Jeg er fuderios ! Gud 
 hjelpc mig !" 
 
 The morning stole away. Very soon after 1 had buried the 
 captain I lowered the lamp, and sent the Danish flag we had 
 brought with us to the head of the little mast, where it blew 
 out bravely, and promised to boldly court any passing eye that 
 might be too distant to catch a sight of our flat platform of a 
 raft. I then got breakfast, and induced Helga to eat and 
 drink. Somehow, whether it was because of the sick com- 
 plaining captain, with his depressing menace of death, being 
 gone, or because of the glad sunshine, the high marbling of 
 the heavens, full of fine weather, and the quiet of the sea, with 
 its placid heave of swell and its twinkling of prismatic ripples, 
 my heart felt somewhat light, my burden of despondency was 
 easier to carry, was less crushing to my spirits. What to hope 
 for 1 did not know. I needed no special wisdom to guess that 
 if we were not speedily delivered from this raft we were as 
 certainly doomed as though we had clung to the bark and gone 
 down in her. Yet spite of this there was a stirring of hope in 
 me. It seemed impossible but that some ship must pass be- 
 fore the day was gone. How far we had blown to the south- 
 ward and westwai'd during the gale I could not have told, but 
 I might be sure we were not very distant from the mouth 
 of the English Channel, and therefore in the fair way of vessels 
 inward and outward bound, more particularly of steamers 
 heading for Portuguese and Mediterranean ports. 
 
 But hour after hour passed, and nothing hove into view. 
 The sun went floating from his meridian into the west, and 
 still the horizon remained a blank, near, heaving line with the 
 sky whitening to the ocean rim. Again and again Helga sought 
 the boundary as I did. Side by side we would stand, she 
 holding by my arm, and together we gazed, slowly sweeping 
 the deep. 
 
 "It is strange!" she once said, after a long and thirsty 
 look. " We are not in the middle of the ocean. Not even 
 the smoke of a steamer."
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 101 
 
 "Our horizon is narrow," answered I. " Does it exceed 
 three miles? 1 should say not, save when the swell lifts us, 
 and then, perhaps, we may see four. Four miles of sea!" 1 
 cried. " There may be a dozen ships within three leagues 
 of us, all of them easily within sight from the maintop of the 
 ' Anine ' were she afloat. But what short of a straight course 
 for the raft could bring this speck of timber on which we 
 stand into view? This is the sort of situation to make one un- 
 derstand what is signified by the immensity of the ocean." 
 
 She shivered and clasped her hands. 
 
 " That I — that we " — she exclaimed, speaking slowly and 
 almost under her breath — " should have brought you to this 
 pass, Mr. Tregarthen! It was our fate by rights — but it ought 
 not to be yours!" 
 
 "You asked me to call you Helga," said I; "and you 
 must give me my Christian name. " 
 
 " What is it?" she asked. 
 
 "Hugh." 
 
 " It is a pretty name. If we are spared, it will be sweet 
 to my memory while I have life!" 
 
 She said this with an exquisite artlessness, with an expres- 
 sion of wonderful sweetness and gentleness in her eyes which 
 were bravely fastened upon me, and then, suddenly catching 
 up my hand, put her lips to it and pressed it to her heart, 
 letting it fall as she turned her face upon the water on that 
 side of the raft where her father's body had sunk. 
 
 My spirits, which remained tolerably buoyant while the sun 
 stood high, sunk as he declined. The prospect of another 
 long night upon the raft and of all that might happen in a 
 night was insupportable. I had securely bound the planks 
 together, as 1 believed, but the constant play of the swell was 
 sure to tell after a time. One of the ligatures might chafe 
 through, and in a minute the whole fabric scatter under our 
 feet like the staves of a stove boat, and leave us no more than 
 a plank to hold on by in the midst of this great sea, which 
 all day long had been without ships. I often bitterly deplored 
 I had not brought a sail from the bark, for the air that hung 
 steady all day blew landward, and there was no weight in it 
 to have carried away the flimsiest fabric we could have erected. 
 A sail would have given us a drift — perhaps have put us in 
 the way of sighting a vessel, and in any case it would have 
 mitigated the intolerable sense of helpless imiirisonment which 
 came to one with thoughts of the raft floating without an 
 inch of way upon her, overhanging all day long, as it might
 
 102 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 have seemed, that very spot of waters in which Helga's father 
 had found his grave. 
 
 Shortly before sundown Helga sighted a sail in the south-west. 
 It was the merest shaft of pearl gleaming above the ocean rim, 
 and visible to us only when the quiet heave of the sea threw 
 us up. It was no more than a vessel's topmost canvas, and 
 before the sun was gone the dim star-like sheen of those cloths 
 had faded out into the atmosjjhere. 
 
 " You must get some rest to-night, Helga," said I. " Your 
 keeping awake will not save us if we are to be drowned, and 
 if we are to be saved then sleep will keep you in strength. It 
 is the after consequences of this sort of exposure and mental 
 distress which are to be dreaded." 
 
 " Shall I be able to sleep on this little rickety platform?" 
 she exclaimed, running her eyes, glowing dark against the 
 faint scarlet in the west, over the raft. " It brings one so 
 dreadfully near to the surface of the sea. The coldness of 
 the very grave itself seems to come out of it." 
 
 "You talk like a girl now that your are dressed as one, 
 Helga. The hearty young sailor lad that I met aboard the 
 ' Anine ' would have found nothing more than a raft and salt 
 water in this business, and would have ' planked ' it here as 
 comfortably as in his cabin bunk. " 
 
 " It did not please you to see me in boy's clothes," said 
 she. 
 
 " You made a very charming boy, Helga; but I like you 
 best as you are. " 
 
 "No stranger should have seen me dressed so," she ex- 
 claimed, in a tone of voice that made me figure a little flush in 
 her cheeks, though there was nothing to be seen in that way 
 by the twilight which had drawn around us. "I did not care 
 what the mates and the crew thought, but I could not have 
 guessed — " she stammered, and went on — " when 1 saw in the 
 bay what the weather was likely to prove, 1 determined to 
 keep my boy's dress on, more particularly after that wretched 
 man, Damm, went away with the others, for then the ' Anine ' 
 would be very short-handed for what might happen, and how 
 could I have been of use in this attire.'"' and she took hold of 
 her dress and looked down it. 
 
 "I have heard before," said I, "of girls doing sailor's 
 work, but not for love of it. In the old songs and stories 
 they are represented as going to sea chiefly in pursuit of ab- 
 sconding sweethearts." 
 
 " You think me unwomanly for acting the part of a sailor?" 
 Baid she.
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 103 
 
 '* I think of you, Helga," said 1, taking her by the hand, 
 " as a girl with the heart of a lioness. But if I once contrive 
 to land you safely at Kolding, you will not go to sea again, I 
 hope?" 
 
 She sighed, without replying. 
 
 There was nothing hut her father's cloak and my oilskins 
 to make a couch for her with. When I pressed her to take 
 some rest, she entreated softly that I would allow her to go 
 on talking and sitting — that she was sleepless — that it light- 
 ened her heart to talk with me — that there were many houra 
 of darkness yet before us — and that before she consented to 
 lie down we must arrange to keep watch, since I needed rest 
 too. 
 
 I was willing, indeed, to keep her at my side talking. The • 
 dread of the loneliness which 1 knew would come ofE the wide, 
 dark sea into my brain when she was silent and asleep, and 
 when there would be nothing but the stars and the cold and 
 ghastly gleam of the ebony breast on which we lay to look at, 
 was strong upon me. I mastheaded the bull's-eye lamp, and 
 spread the poor Danish captain's cloak, and we seated our- 
 selves upon it, and for a long two hours we talked together, in 
 which time she gave me her life's history, and I chatted to her 
 about myself. I listened to her with interest and admiration. 
 Her voice was pure with a quality of plaintive sweetness in it, 
 and now and again she would utter a sentence in Danish, then 
 translate it. It might be that the girlish nature 1 now found 
 in her was accentuated to my appreciation by the memory of 
 her boyish attire, by her appearance when on board the bark, 
 the work she did there and the sort of roughness one associates 
 with the trade of the sea, whether true of the individual or 
 not; but, as 1 thought, never had I been in the company of 
 any woman whose conversation and behavior were so engaging, 
 with their qualities of delicacy, purity, simplicity, and candor, 
 as Helga's. 
 
 It was such another night as had passed, saving that the long- 
 ocean swell had the softness of the long hours of fine weather 
 in its volume, whereas on the previous night it still breathed 
 as in memory of the fierce conflict that was over. 
 
 A little after midnight there was a red scar of moon in the 
 west, and the hour was a very dark one, spite of the silver 
 showering of the plentiful stars. I had made for Ilelga the 
 beet sort of couch it was in my power to manufacture, and at 
 this time she lay upon it sleeping deeply, as I knew by the 
 regularity of her respiration. The sense of loneliness I 
 dreaded had been upon me since she lay down and left me to
 
 10-4 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 the solitary contemplation of our situation. A small wind 
 blew out of the north-west, and there was much slopping noise 
 of waters under my feet amid the crevices of the clumsily 
 framed ' raft. I had promised Helga to call her at three, but 
 without intending to keep my word if she slept, and I sat near 
 her head, her pale face glimmering out of the darkness as 
 though spectrally self-luminous, and forever 1 was turning my 
 eyes about the sea and directing my gaze at the little masthead 
 lantern to know that it was burning. 
 
 Happening to bend my gaze down upon the raft into some 
 interstice close against where the hatch-cover was secured, I 
 spied what, for the moment, I might have supposed a pair of 
 glow-worms, minute, but defined enough. Then 1 believed 
 there was a little pool of water there, and that it reflected a 
 couple of stars. A moment after 1 guessed what it was, and 
 in a very frenzy of the superstition that had been stirring in me, 
 and in many directions of thought influencing me, from the 
 moment of my leaving the bark, I had my hand upon the great 
 rat — for that was what it was — and sent it flying overboard. 1 
 remember the wild squeak of the beast as I hurled it — you would 
 have supposed it the cry of a distant gull. There was a little 
 fire in the water, and 1 could see where it swam, and all very 
 quietly 1 seized hold of a loose plank and, waiting till it had 
 come near, I hit it, and kept on hitting it, till I might be sure 
 it was drowned. 
 
 Some little noise I may have made: Helga spoke in her 
 sleep, but did not wake. You will smile at my mentioning 
 this trifling passage: you would laugh could I make you un- 
 derstand the emotion of relief, the sense of exultant happiness 
 that possessed me when I had drowned this rat. When I look 
 back and recall this little detail of my experiences, I never doubt 
 that the overwhelming spirit of the loneliness of that ocean 
 night lay upon me in a sort of craziness. I thought of the rat 
 as an evil spirit, a something horribly ominous to us, a menace 
 of suffering and of dreadful death while it stayed with us. 
 God knows why I should have thus thought; but the imagina- 
 tion of the shipwrecked is quickly diseased, and the moods which 
 a man will afterward look back upon with shame and grief and 
 astonishment are, while they are present, to him as fruitful of 
 terrible imaginings as ever made the walls of a mad-house 
 ring with maniac laughter. 
 
 It might have been some half hour after this — the silly ex- 
 citement of the incident having passed out of my mind — that 
 1 fell into a doze. Nature was well-nigh exhausted in me, 
 yet I did not wish to sleep. In proportion, however, as the
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 105 
 
 S^orkingsof my brain were stealthily quieted by the slumberous 
 ieeliugs stealing over me, so the soothing influences without 
 operated; the cradling of the raft, the hushing and subduing 
 gaze of the stars, the soft whispering of the wind. 
 
 1 was awakened by a rude shock, followed by a hoarse bawl- 
 ing cry. There was a second shock of a sort to smartly bring 
 my wits together, attended with several shouts, such as 
 "What is it?" "What have ys run us into?" "Why, 
 stroike me silly, it it ain't a raft!" 
 
 1 sprung to my feet, and found, the bows of a little vessel 
 overhanging us. Small as 1 might know her to be, she yet 
 loomed tall and black, and even seemed to tower over us, so 
 low-seated were we. She lined her proportions against the 
 starry sky, and I made out that she had hooked herself to us 
 by running her bowsprit through the stays which supported 
 our mast. 
 
 My first thought was for Helga, but she was rising even as I 
 looked, and the next moment was at my side. 
 
 " For God^s sake," I cried, " lower away your sail, or your 
 stem will grind this raft to pieces! We are two — a girl and 
 a man — shipwrecked people. I implore you to help us get on 
 board you!" 
 
 A lantern was held over the side, and the face of the man 
 who held it showed out to the touch of the luster like a pict- 
 ure in a camera obscura. The rays of the lantern streamed 
 fairly upon us, and the man roared out: 
 
 " Ay! it's a raft, Jacob, and there are two of 'em, and one 
 a gal. Chuck the man a rope's-end and he'll haul the raft 
 alongside." 
 
 " Look out!" shouted another voice, from the after part of 
 the little vessel, and some coils of rope fell at my feet. 
 
 I instantly seized the line, and, Helga catching hold too, 
 we strained our united weight at it, and the raft swung along- 
 side the craft at the moment that she lowered her sail. 
 
 " Catch hold of the lady's hands!" 1 shouted. 
 
 In a moment she was dragged over the side. 1 handed up 
 the little parcel containing her mother's picture and Bible, 
 and followed easily, scrambling over the low rail. 
 
 The man who gasped the lantern held it aloft to survey us, 
 and 1 saw the dusky glimmer of two other faces past him. 
 
 " This is a queer start!" said he. " llow long have you 
 been knocking about here?" 
 
 " You shall have the yarn presently," said I; " but, before 
 the raft goes adrift, it's well you should know that she is
 
 106 MY DANISH SWEETHEAllT. 
 
 pretty handsomely stocked with provisions all worth bringing 
 aboard." 
 
 "Right!" he cried. " Jacob, take this here lantern and 
 jump over the side, and hand up what ye find." 
 
 All this had happened too suddenly to suffer me as yet to 
 be sensible of what came little short of a miraculous deliverance; 
 for had the craft been a vessel of burden, or had there been 
 any weight in the soft night air still blowing, she would have 
 sheared through us as we lay asleep, and scattered the raft 
 and drowned us out of hand — nay, before we could have cried 
 " Oh, God!" we should have been suffocating in the water. 
 
 1 believed her at first a fishing-boat. She was lugger-rigged 
 and open, with a little forecastle in her bows, as I had noticed 
 while the lantern dangled in the hand of the man who sur- 
 veyed us. Yet had she been a line of battle ship she could not, 
 as a refuge and means of deliverance after the horror and 
 peril of that flat platform of raft, have filled me with more 
 joy and thanksgiving. 
 
 " The worst is over, Helga!" I cried, as 1 seized the girl's 
 cold and trembling hand. " Here is a brave little vessel to 
 carry us home, and you will see Kolding again, after all!" 
 
 She made some answer, which her emotion rendered scarcely 
 intelligible. Her being suddenly awakened by the shock of 
 the collision, her alarm on seeing what might have passed in 
 the gloom as a tall black mass of bow crushing into the raft, 
 then the swiftness of our entry into the lugger, and the sensa- 
 tions which would follow on her perception of our escape from 
 a terrible death — all this, combined with what she had gone 
 through, was too much for the brave little creature; she could 
 scarcely whisjDcr; and, as I have said, her hand was cold as 
 frost, and trembled like an aged person's as 1 gently brought 
 her to one of the thwarts. 
 
 By this time I had made out that the boat carried only three 
 of a crew. One of them, holding the lantern, had sprung on to 
 the raft, and was busy in handing up to the others whatever he 
 could lay his hands upon. They did not spend many min- 
 utes over this business. Indeed, I was astonished by their dis- 
 patch. The fellow on the raft worked like one who was very 
 used to rummaging, and, as I knew afterward by observing 
 what he had taken, it was certain not a single crevice escaped 
 him. 
 
 " That's all," I heard him shout. " There's naught left 
 that I can find, unless so be as the parties have snugged any 
 valuables away."
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 107 
 
 "No!^' 1 cried, "there are no valuables, no money — 
 nothing but food and drink." 
 
 " Come aboard, Jacob, arter ye've chucked up what's loose 
 for fire- wood." 
 
 Presently the lantern flashed as it was passed across the rail, 
 and the figure of the man followed. 
 
 " Shove her clear!" was bawled, and shortly afterward, 
 " Up foresail!" 
 
 The dark square of sail mounted, and one of the men came 
 aft to the helm. Nothing was said until the sheet had been 
 hauled aft, and the little craft was softly rippling along over the 
 smooth folds of the swell, communicating a sensation so buoy- 
 ant, so vital after the flat, mechanical swaying and slanting of 
 the inert raft, that the mere feeling of it to me was as potent 
 in virtue as some life-giving dram. 
 
 The other two men came out of the bows and seated them- 
 selves, placing the lighted lantern in the midst of us, and so 
 we sat staring at one another. 
 
 " Men," said I, " you have rescued us from a horrible sit- 
 uation. I thank you for my life, and I thank you for this 
 lady's life." 
 
 " How long have ye been washing about, sir?" said the 
 man at the helm. 
 
 " Since Monday night," said I. 
 
 " A bad jdb!" said he; " but you'll have had it foine since 
 Monday night. Any one perish aboard your raft?" 
 
 " One," I answered, quickly. " And now I'll tell you my 
 story. But first, I must ask for a drop of spirits out of one ol 
 those jars you've transshipiaed. A sudden change of this sort 
 tries a man to the soul." 
 
 " Ay, you're right," growled one of the others. " I know 
 what it is to be plucked by the hair o' the head out of the 
 hopen jaws of death, and the sort of feelings what comes arter 
 the plucking job's o'er. Which'll be the particler jar, sir?" 
 
 " Any one of them," said 1. 
 
 He explored with the lantern, found a little jar of brandy, 
 and the glass, or rather I should say the pannikin, went 
 round. 1 coaxed Helga into taking a sup; yet she continued 
 silent at my side, as one still dazed and incapable of master- 
 ing what had happened. Indeed, with her woman's apparel, 
 you might have believed that she had reequipped herself with 
 her woman's nature.
 
 108 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE "early MORN"/' 
 
 I TOLD my story, and the three fellows listened attentively* 
 Their eyes glowed in the lamp-light as they stared at mC' 
 The weak wind raised a pleasant buzzing noise at the cutwater, 
 and the lugger stole in floating launches through the gloom 
 over the long invisible heave of the Atlantic swell. 
 
 " Ahl'^ said the helmsman, when I had made an end, " we 
 heerd of that there Tintrenale life-boat job when we was at 
 Penzance. An' so you was her cockswain?' ' 
 
 " Were the people of the boat drowned?" cried I, eagerly. 
 " Can you give me any news of them?" 
 
 " No, sir," he answered; " there was no particulars to hand 
 when we sailed. All that we larnt was that a life-boat had 
 been stove alongside a vessel in Tintrenale Bay; and little 
 wonder, tew, says I to my mates when I heerd it. Never re- 
 member the like of such a night as that there." 
 
 " What was the name of the Dane again?" said one of the 
 fellows seated opposite me, as he lighted a short clay pipe by 
 the flame of a match that he dexterously shielded from the 
 wind in his hand as though his fist were a lantern. 
 
 " The ' Anine,' " I answered. 
 
 *' A bit of a black bark, warn't she?" he continued. 
 *' Capt'n with small eyes and a beard like a goat! Why, 
 yes! it'll be that there bark. Tommy, that slipped two year 
 ago. Pigsears Hall and Stickenup Adams and me had a nice 
 little job along with her.'' 
 
 " You are quite right," said Helga, in a low voice; " I was 
 on board the vessel at the time. The captain was my father. " 
 
 " Oh, indeed, mum!" said the fellow who steered. "An* 
 he's gone dead! Poor old gentleman!" 
 
 " What is this boat?" said I, desiring to cut this sort of 
 sympathy short. 
 
 " The ' Airly Mam,' " answered the helmsman. 
 
 " The ' Early Morn!' And from what j^art of the coast, 
 pray""' 
 
 '?" 
 
 " Why, ye might see, I think, sir, that she hails from Deal," 
 he answered. "There's nothen resembling the likes of her 
 coming from elsewhere that I knows of." 
 
 " And what are you doing down in this part of the ocean?" 
 " Why," said he, after spitting over the stern and passing 
 bis hand along his mouthy " we're a-going to Australey,''
 
 KT DANISH SWEETHEART. 109 
 
 " Going wlfere?" I cried, believing I had not correctly heard 
 him, while Helga started from her drooping jjosture and 
 turned to look at me. 
 
 " To Sydney, New South Wales, which is in Australey/' he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " In this small open boat?'* 
 
 " This small open boat!" echoed one of the others. " The 
 ' Airly Marn's ' eighteen ton, and if she be'nt big enough and 
 good enough to carry three men to Australey there's nothen 
 afloat as is going to show her how to do it!" 
 
 By the light shed by the dimly burning lantern, where it 
 stood in the bottom of the boat, I endeavored to gather from 
 their faces whether they spoke seriously, or whether, indeed, 
 they were under the influence of earlier drams of liquor than 
 the dose they had swallowed from our jar. 
 
 " Are you in earnest, men?" said I. 
 
 " Airnest!" cried the man at the tiller, in a voice of aston- 
 ishment, as though he wondered at my wonder. " Wh}', to be 
 sure we are! "What's wrong with us that we shouldn't be 
 a-going to Australey?" 
 
 I glanced at the short length of dark fabric, and up at the 
 black square of lugsail. 
 
 " What is taking you to Australia in a Deal lugger?" said I. 
 
 The man styled Abraham by his mates, answered: " We're 
 a-carrying this here craft out on a job for the gent that's 
 bought her. There was three of us an' a boy, but the boy 
 took sick at Penzance, and we came away without him." 
 
 He paused. The man sitting next him continued in a deep 
 voice : 
 
 " A gent as lives in Lunnon took this here ' Airly Marn ' 
 over for a debt. Well, when he got her he didn't know what 
 to do with her. There was no good a-leaviug her to pine away 
 on the beach, so he tarns to and puts her up to auction. Well, 
 there was ne'er a bid. ' ' 
 
 " Ne'er a bid!" echoed the man who was steering. 
 
 " Ne'er a bid, I says," continued the other, "and whoy? 
 First of all, there ain't no money in Deal; and next, the days 
 of these luggers is numbered. Well, this here gent was called 
 upon by an Australian friend who, gittiug to hear of the ' Airly 
 Marn,' says he's a-willing to buy her for a sum. What that 
 sum might be I'm not hero for to know." 
 
 " Fifty pounds, I allow," said the man named Tommy. 
 " Some says she was guv away. I've heerd speak of thirty 
 pound. But fifty's what I call it." 
 
 " Call it fifty," exclaiuied the fellow who steered,
 
 110 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " Well," continued the first speaker, whose voice was pe- 
 culiarly harsh, " this here f^eut having purchased the ' Airly 
 Marn,' comes down to Deal, and gives out that he wants some 
 men to carry her to Sydney. The matter was turned over. 
 How much would he give? Well, he'd give two hundred and 
 iifty pound, and them as undertook the job might make what 
 shares they chose of the money. I was for making six shares. 
 Abraham there saj's no, fovver's enough. Tommy says three 
 an' a bo}'. That's seventy-five pound a man and twenty-five 
 pound for the boy; but the boy being took sick, his share be- 
 comes our'n." 
 
 " And you think seventy-five pounds a piece pay enough for 
 as risky an undertaking as was ever heard of?'' cried I. 
 
 " Wish it were already aimed," said Abraham. " Pay 
 enough? Oy, and good monney, tew, in such times as these." 
 
 " How far are we from the English coast?" asked Helga. 
 
 The man called Jacob, after a little silence, answered: 
 *' Why, I dare say the Land's End '11 be about a hundred an' 
 eighty mile otf. " 
 
 " It would not take long to return," she exclaimed. " Will 
 you not land us?" 
 
 " What, on the English coast, mum?" he cried. 
 
 I saw him peering earnestly at us as though he would gather 
 our condition by our attire. 
 
 " It's a long way back," continued he: " and supposing 
 the wind," he added, looking up at the sky, " should head 
 us?" 
 
 "If the gent would make it worth us men's while" — 
 broke in Tommy. 
 
 " No! no!" exclaimed Abraham, " we don't want to make 
 nothen out of a fellow-creature's distress. We've saved ye, and 
 that's a good job. Next thing we've got to do is to put ye 
 aboard the first homeward bound vessel we falls in with. I'm 
 for keeping all on. Ships is plentiful hereabout, and ye'll not 
 be kept waiting. But to up helium for the English coast 
 again — " I saw his head wag vehemently against the stars. 
 " It's a long way to Australey, master, and ne'er a man of us 
 touches a penny piece till we gits there." 
 
 I sat considering a little. My immediate impulse was to 
 offer the fellows a reward to land us. Then I thought, no! 
 They may ask too much, and, indeed, whatever they might 
 expect must prove too much for me, to whom five pounds was 
 a considerable sum, though, as I have told you, my mother's 
 slender income was enough for us both. Besides, the money 
 these men might asl^ would be far more fitly devoted to Etel^a,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. Ill 
 
 who had lost all save what she stood in, who was without a 
 friend in England except myself and mother, who had been 
 left by her father without a farthing saving some pitiful sum 
 of insurance money, which she would not get for many a long 
 day, and who, brave heart! would, therefore, need my mother's 
 purse to refurnish her wardrobe and embark her for her Dan- 
 ish home, if, indeed, there would now be a home for her at Kold- 
 ing. 
 
 These considerations passed with the velocity of thought 
 through my mind. On the other hand, we were no longer 
 aboard a stationary raft, but in a nimble little lugger that 
 every hour was carrying us into a new prospect of ocean; and 
 we might be sure, therefore, of speedily falling in with a home- 
 ward-bound steamer that would convey us to England in a 
 tenth of the time the lugger would occupy, very much more 
 comfortably, too, and at the cost of a few shillings, so tosiJeak. 
 Then, again, I felt too grateful for our preservation, too glad 
 and rejoiceful over our deliverance from the dreadful future 
 that had just now lain before us to remonstrate with the men, 
 to oppose their wishes to pursue their course, to utter a word, 
 in short, that might make them suppose 1 did not consider our 
 mere escape from the raft good fortune enough. 
 
 " Surely it would not take them very long,'' Helga whis- 
 pered in my ear, " to sail this boat back to Penzance?" 
 
 I repeated, in a voice inaudible to the others, the reflections 
 which had occurred to me. 
 
 " Why, see there now!" bawled one of the boatmen, point- 
 ing with a shadowy hand into the dusk over the lee quarter. 
 " There's plenty of the likes to fall in with; only she's a-going 
 the wrong way." 
 
 1 peered, and spied the green side and white masthead lan- 
 terns of a steamer propelling along the water at about a quarter 
 of a mile distant. I could faintly distinguish the loom of her 
 black length, like a smear of ink upon the obscurity, and the 
 line of her smoke against the stars, with now and again a little 
 leap of furnace light at the funnel-mouth that, while it hung 
 there, might have passed for the blood-red visage of the moon 
 staring out of a stormy sky. 
 
 " See, Ilelga!" I cried; " thei-e are many like her, as this 
 man says. In a few hours, please God, we may be safe aboard 
 such another!" And I sunk my voice to add: " We can not do 
 better than wait. Our friends here will b« glad to get rid of 
 us. No fear of their detaining us a moment longer than caa 
 be helped."
 
 112 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " Yes, you are right," she answered; " but I wish to quickly 
 return for your sake — for your mother's sake, Hugh." 
 
 Her soft utterance of my name fell pleasantly ujion my ear. 
 I felt for her hand and pressed it, and whispered: " A little 
 patience, and we shall lind ourselves at home again. All is 
 well with us now." 
 
 The lights to leeward silently glided ahead, and turned black 
 upon the bow. One of the boatmen yawned with the roar of 
 an animal. 
 
 " Nothen to keep me out of my bunk now, 1 allow," said 
 he. " No more rafts to run into, I hope." 
 
 " I should like to get this lady under shelter,'' said I. 
 
 " That's easily done!" exclaimed Abraham. " There's a 
 nice little fore-peak, and a bunk in it at her sarvice." 
 
 Ilelga hastily exclaimed that she had had rest enough. I 
 perceived that the delicacy of our Deal friends did not go to 
 the length of observing that while Helga occupied the fore-peak 
 it must be hers, and hers only; but the discussion of that point 
 was out of the question now; so she stayed where she was, the 
 boatman that had yawned went forward, and in a few minutes 
 his snoring came along in a souud like the grating of a boat's 
 keel over the shingle of his native town. 
 
 These darkest hours of the night slowly passed. The breeze 
 blew, the keen stem of the lugger ripped through the quiet 
 heave of the ocean, and I waited for the dawn, never doubting 
 that Helga and I would be out of the boat and aboard some 
 homeward-bounder ere we should have counted another half- 
 score hours. The homely chat of the two men, the queer 'long- 
 shore phrases, the rough sympathy they sought to convey bv 
 their speech, were delightful to listen to. Such had been my 
 experiences that, though five days comprised them, it seemed 
 as if I had been six months from home. The talk mainly 
 concerned this daring, extraordinary voyage to Australia in 
 what was truly no more than an open boat. The excitement 
 of delight over our rescue was in a measure spent. I could 
 think calmly, and attend with interest to other considerations 
 than our preservation, our sufferings, and, in short, ourselves. 
 And what could interest me more than this singular' undertak- 
 ing on the part of three boatmen? 
 
 1 inquired what food they carried. 
 
 " Whoy," says Abraham, " we've got beef an' pork and 
 ship's bread and other wittles arter that sort." 
 
 " Shall you touch any ports?" 
 
 " Oy, if the need arises, master."
 
 MY DAlilSH SWEETHEART. 113 
 
 '* Need arises! You are bound to run short of food and 
 water!" 
 
 " There's a-plenty of ships to fall in with at sea, master, 
 to help us along." 
 
 " How long do you reckon on taking to make the run?" 
 
 " Fower or foive mouth," answered Abraham. 
 
 " Oy, an' perhaps six," said Jacob. 
 
 " Who is skipper?" said I. 
 
 " There aren't no degrees here," answered Abraham; 
 " leastways, now that the boy's gone sick and's left behoind." 
 
 " But which of you is navigator, then?" 
 
 " Oy am," said Abraham — " that's to say, I've got a 
 quadrant along with me, and know how to tell at noon what 
 o'clock it is. That's what's tarmed hascertaining the latitude. 
 As to what's called longitude, she's best left to the log-line." 
 
 " So she is," said Jacob. 
 
 " And you have no doubt of accurately striking the port of 
 Sydney without troubling yourselves about your longitude?" 
 
 " Ne'er a doubt," said Abraham. 
 
 " Or if so be as a doubt should come up, then heave the 
 log, says I," broke in Jacob. 
 
 Their manner of speaking warned me to conceal my amaze- 
 ment that under other conditions could not have been without 
 merriment. They told me they had left Pezance on the morn- 
 ing of Monday, while it was still blowing heavily. " But we 
 saw that the breeze," Abraham said, *' was a-going to fail, and 
 so there was no call to stop for the wedder;" yet they had 
 hardly run the land out of sight when they sprung their mast 
 in the jump of a very hollow sea. " There was no use trying 
 to ratch back ag'in that sea and breeze," said Abraham; " so 
 we stepped our spare mast and laid the wounded chap in his 
 place; but if the wedder be as bad off the Cape as I've lieerd 
 talk of, I allow we'll be needing a rig-out o' spars if we're to 
 reach Australey; and what'll have to be done '11 be to fall in 
 with some wessel as '11 oblige us." 
 
 Considering they were seafaring men, this prodigious con- 
 fidence in luck and chance was not less wonderful than the vent- 
 ure they were upon. But it was for me to question and listen, 
 not to criticise. 
 
 " They will never reach Australia," Helga whispered. 
 
 " They are English seamen," said I, softly. 
 
 " No, Hugh — boatmen," says she, giving me my name as 
 easily as though we had been brother and sister. " And what 
 will they do without longitude?" 
 
 " Grope their way," 1 whispered, " after the manner of the
 
 114 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 early mariners who achieved everything in the shape of sea- 
 manshiji and discovery in ' barkes/ as they called them, com- 
 pared to which this lugger is as a thousand-ton ship to a Graves- 
 end whcrr)'." 
 
 The two boatmen were holding a small hoarse argument 
 touching the superiority of certain galley-punts belonging to 
 Deal when the dawn broke along the port-beam of the lugger. 
 The sea turned an ashen green, and throbbed darkening to the 
 gray wall of eastern sky, against which it washed in a line of 
 inky blackness. I sprung on to a thwart to look ahead on either 
 bow, and Helga stood up beside me; and, as upon the bark, 
 and as upon the raft, so now we stood together sweeping the 
 iron-gray sky and the dark line of horizon for any flaw tha,t 
 might denote a vessel. But the sea stretched bald to its re- 
 cesses the compass round. 
 
 The heavens in the east brightened and the sea-line changed 
 into a fteely whiteness, but this delicate distant horizontal 
 gleam of water before sunrise gave us sight of nothing. 
 
 " Anything to be seen, sir?" cried Abraham. 
 
 " Nothing," 1 answered, dismounting from the thwart. 
 
 " Well, there's all day afore ye," said Jacob, who had taken 
 the helm. 
 
 Now that daylight was come my first look was at Helga, to 
 see how she had borne the bitter time that was passed. Her 
 eyelids were heavy, her cheeks of a death-like whiteness, her lips 
 pale, and in the tender hollow under each eye lay a greenish 
 hue, resembling the shadow a spring leaf might fling. It was 
 clear that she had been secretly weeping from time to time 
 during the dark hours. She smiled when our eyes met, and 
 her face was instantly sweetened by the expression into the 
 gentle prettiness I had first found in her. 
 
 1 next took a survey of my new companions. The man 
 styled Abraham was a sailorly looking fellow, corresponding 
 but indifferently with one's imagination of the conventional 
 'longshoreman. He had sharp features, a keen, iron-gray, 
 seawardly eye, and a bunch of reddish beard stood forth from 
 his chin. He was dressed in pilot cloth, wore ear-rings, and 
 his head was incased in a sugar-loafed felt hat built after the 
 fashion of a theatrical bandit's. 
 
 Jacob, on the other hand, was the most faithful copy of a 
 Deal boatman that could have been met afloat. His face was 
 flat and broad, with a skin stained in places of a brick red. 
 He had little, merry, but rather dim blue eyes, and suggested 
 a man who would be able, without great effort of memory, 
 to tell you how many public-houses there were in Deal, tak-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 115 
 
 ing them all round. He had the whitest teeth I had ever seen 
 in a sailor, and the glance of them through his lips seemed 
 to tix an air of smiling upon his face. His attire consisted of 
 a fur cap, forced so low down upon the head that it obliged 
 his ears to stand out; a yellow oilskin jumper and a pair of 
 stout fearnaught trousers, the ends of which were packed into 
 half 'Wellington boots. 
 
 The third man, named Thomas or Tommy, still continued 
 out of sight in the fore-peak. One will often see at a glance 
 as much as might occupy some pages to even briefly describe. 
 In a few turns of the eye I had taken in these two men and 
 their little shii3. The boat seemed to be a very fine specimen 
 of the Deal lugger. Her fore-peak consisted of a forecastle, 
 the deck of which was carried in the shape of a platform sev- 
 eral feet abaft the bulkhead, which limited the sleeping com- 
 partment, and under this pent-house or break were stored the 
 anchors, cables, and other gear belonging to the little vessel. 
 In the middle of the boat, made fast by chains, was a stove, 
 with a box under the " raft," as the forecastle-deck is called, 
 in which were kept the cooking utensils. 1 noticed fresh water- 
 casks stowed in the boat's bilge, and a harness-cask for the meat 
 near the fore-peak. Eight amidships lay a little fat punt, 
 measuring about fourteen feet long, and along the sides of the 
 thwarts were three sweeps or long oars, the fore-mast that had 
 been " sprung/' and a bare bowsprit. This equipment I took 
 in with the swift eye of a man who was at heart a boatman. 
 
 A noble boat indeed for channel cruising, for the short 
 ragged seas of our narrow waters. But for the voyage to 
 Australia! I could only stare and wonder. 
 
 The big lugsail was doing its work handsomely; the breeze 
 was out on the starboard quarter, a pleasant wind, but with a 
 hardness in the face of the sky to windward, a rigidity of small 
 compacted high-hanging cloud with breaks of blue between, 
 showing of a wintery keenness when the sun soared, that prom- 
 ised a freshening wind before noon. Under the steadfast drag 
 of her lug the light, bright-sided boat was buzzing through it 
 merrily, with a spitting of foam off either bow, and a streak 
 on either side of wool-white water creaming into her wake that 
 streamed rising and falling far astern. 
 
 Had her head been pointing the other way with a promise of 
 the dusky gray of the Cornish coast to loom presently upon 
 the sea-line, I should have found something delightful in the 
 free, floating airy motion of the lugger sweeping over the quiet 
 hills of swells, her weather-side caressed by the heads of the 
 little mm crisply running along with her in a sportive racing
 
 IIG MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 way, liut the desolation of the ocean lay as an oppression 
 u])on my spirits. I counted upon the day-break revealing 
 several sail, and here and there the blue streak of a steamer's 
 smoke, but there was nothing of the sort to be seen, while every 
 hour of such nimble progress as the lugger was now making 
 must, to a degree, diminish our chances of falling in with 
 homeward-bound craft; that is to say, we were sure, sooner or 
 later, to meet with a ship going to England; but the further 
 south we went the longer would be the intervals between the 
 showing of shi^js by reason of the navigation scattering as it 
 opened out into the North Atlantic; and so, though I never 
 doubted that we should be taken off the lugger and carried 
 home, yet as I looked around this vacant sea 1 was depressed 
 by the fear that some time might pass before this would hap- 
 pen, and my thoughts went to my mother — how she might be 
 supposing me dead, and mourning over me as lost to her for- 
 ever, and how, if I could quickly return to her, I should be able 
 to end her heartache and .perhaps preserve her life; for I was 
 her only child, and that she would fret over me even to the 
 breaking of her heart, I feared, despite her having sanctioned 
 my going out to save life. 
 
 Yet when 1 looked at Helga and reflected upon what her 
 sufferings had been and what her loss was, and noted thesijirifc 
 that still shone nobly in her steadfast gaze and was expressed 
 in the lines of her lips, I felt that I was acting my part as a 
 man but poorly in suffering my spirits to droop. This time 
 yesterday we were upon a raft from which the first rise of sea 
 must have swept us. It was the hard stare of the north-westerly 
 sky that caused me to think of this time yesterday, and with 
 something of a shiver and a long deep breath of gratitude for 
 the safety that had come to us with this little fabric buoyant 
 under our feet. I broke away from my mood of dullness with 
 a half smile at the two homely boatmen who sat staring at 
 Helga and at me. 
 
 " The lady looks but porely," said Abraham, with his eyes 
 fixed upon Helga, though he addressed me. " Some people 
 has their allowance of grief sarved out all at once. I earnestly 
 hope, lady, that life's a-going to luff up with you now, and lead 
 ye on a course that won't take long to bring ye to the port of 
 joyfulness." 
 
 He nodded at her emphatically witfi as much sympathy in his 
 countenance as his weather-tanned flesh would suffer him to 
 exhibit. 
 
 " We have had a hard time," she answered, gently. 
 
 ** Much too hard lor any girl to go through^ " said L ' ' Men,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 117 
 
 you mu3t kuow this lady to be a complete sailor. She can take 
 the wheel; she can sound the well; she has a nerve of steel at 
 a moment that would send a good many who consider them- 
 selves stout-hearted to their prayers. It is not the usage of the 
 sea, Abraham, that makes her look poorly, as you say."' 
 
 1 noticed Jacob leaning forward with his hands upon his 
 knees, staring at her. Suddenly he smacked his leg with the 
 sound of a pistol-shot. 
 
 " Why, yes!" he cried; " now I'm sure of it. Wasn't you 
 once a boy, mum?" 
 
 " What!" cried Abraham, turning indignantly upon him. 
 
 A faint blush entered Helga's face. 
 
 " What I mean is," continued Jacob, " when I last see ye 
 you was dressed up as a boy!" 
 
 " Yes," said I — " yes. And what then?" 
 
 " Whoy, then," he cried, fetching his leg another violent 
 slap; " Pigsears Hall owes me a gallon o' beer. When we was 
 aboard the Dane," he continued, addressing Abraham and 
 talking with 'longshore vehemence, " I cotched sight of a boy 
 that I says to myself thinks I is as sartin surely a female as that 
 the Gull lightship's painted red. I told Pigsears Hall to look. 
 ' Gal in your eye!' says he. ' Bet ye a gallon of ale, Jacob, 
 she's as much a boy as Barney Parson's Willie!' But he was 
 too busy to argue, and we left the ship without thinking more 
 about it. Now I'm reminded, and I'm right, and I calls ye to 
 witness, Abraham, so that Pigsears mayn't haul off from his 
 wager." 
 
 " To change the subject," I said, abruptly, " you men seem 
 to have some queer names among you. Pigsears Hall! Could 
 any parson be got to christen a man so?" 
 
 " 'Tain't his right name," said Abraham. " It's along of 
 his ears that he's got that title. There's Stickenup Adams; 
 that's 'cause he holds his thin nose so high. Then there's 
 Paper-collar Joe; that's 'cause he likes to be genteel about the 
 neck. We've all got nicknames. But in a voyage to Aus- 
 traley we gives ourselves the tarms our mothers' knew us by." 
 
 " What is your name?" said I. 
 
 " Abraham Vise," said he. 
 
 " Wise?" 
 
 " I calls it Vise," said he, looking a little disconcerted; " it^s 
 wrote with a W." 
 
 " And your shipmates?" 
 
 *' Him," he answered, indicating his comrade by jerking his 
 chin at him, " is Jacob Minikin. Him that's forrard is 
 Tommy Budd. " He pai^sed, with his eyes fixed upon Helga.
 
 118 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 •' Jacob," said he, addressing his mate, while he steadfastly 
 regarded the girl, " I've been a- thin king, if so be as the gen- 
 tleman and lady aren't going to be put aboard a homeward- 
 bounder in a hurry, how's she to sleep. Tell ye what it is," 
 said he, slowly, looking around at Jacob; "if to-night finds 
 'em aboard us sve'll have to tarn out of the fore-peak. There's 
 a good enough bed for the likes of us men under that there 
 raft," said he, pointing to the wide recess that was roofed by 
 the overhanging of the deck of the fore-peak. " The lady 
 looks as if nothen short of a twenty-four hours' spell of sound 
 sleep was going to do her good. But of course, as 1 was 
 saying," and now he was addressing me, " you and her may 
 be aboard another craft, homeward bound, before the. night 
 comes." 
 
 " I thank you, on behalf of the lady, for your proposal, 
 Abraham," said I. " She wants rest, as you say; but privacy 
 must naturally be a condition of her resting comfortably in 
 your fore-peak. Six hours would suffice — " 
 
 "Oh! she can lie there all night," said Jacob. 
 
 At this moment the third man made his appearance. He rose 
 thrusting through a little square hatch, and, with true 'long- 
 shore instincts, took a slow survey of the sea, with an occasional 
 rub of his wrist along his eyes before coming aft. He glanced 
 at Helga and me carelessly, as though we had long become 
 familiar features of the lugger to his mind, and, giving Abra- 
 ham a nod, exclaimed, with another look round the sea: " A 
 nice little air o' wind out this marning." 
 
 This fellow was a middle-aged man, probably forty-five. 
 His countenance was of a somewhat sour cast, his eyebrows 
 thick and of an iron-gray, and his eyes, deep-seated under 
 them, gazed forth between lids whose rims were so red that 
 they put a fancy into one of their being slowly eaten away by 
 fire as a spark bites into tinder. The sulky curl of mouth ex- 
 pressed the born marine grumbler. His head-gear was of fur, 
 like Jacob's; but I observed that he was dressed in a long 
 coat that had manifestly been cut for or worn by a parson. 
 Under the flapping tails of this coat were exhibited a pair of 
 very loose fearnaught trousers, terminating in a pair of large, 
 gouty, square-toed shoes. 
 
 " What about breakfast?" said he. " Ain't it toime to 
 loight the foire?" 
 
 " Why, yes," answered Abraham; " and 1 dessay," said he, 
 looking at me^ "ye won't be sorry to get a moutlifiU o' 
 Wittles."
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 119 
 
 The sour-faced man named Tommy went forward, and was 
 presently busy in chojiping up a piece of wood. 
 
 " There are some good rashers to be had out of those hams 
 you took from the raft/' said 1; " you will find the canned 
 meat pleasant eating too. While you are getting breakfast I'll 
 explore your fore-peak, with your permission." 
 
 " Sartinly," answered Abraham. 
 
 " Come along, Helga," said I. And we went forward. 
 
 "We dropped through the hatch, and found ourselves in a 
 little gloomy interior, much too shallow to stand erect in. 
 There were four bunks, so contrived as to serve as seats and 
 lockers as well as beds. There were no mattresses, but in 
 each bunk was a little pile of blankets. 
 
 *' A noble sea-parlor, Helga!" said I, laughing. 
 
 " It is better than the raft," she answered. 
 
 " Ay, indeed! but for all that not so good as to render us 
 unwilling to leave this little lugger. You will never be able 
 to sleep in one of these holes?" 
 
 " Oh, yes," she answered, with a note of cheerfulness in her 
 voice; " but I hope there may be no occasion. I shall not want 
 to sleep till the night comes, and, before it comes, we may be 
 in another ship journeying home — to your home, 1 mean," 
 she added, with a sigh. 
 
 " And not more mine than yours, so long as it will please 
 you to make it yours. And now," said I, " that we may be 
 as comfortable as possible — where are our friends' toilet con- 
 veniences? Their wash-basin is, no doubt, the ocean over the 
 side, and I suspect a little lump of grease, used at long inter- 
 vals, serves them for the soap they need. But there is plenty 
 of refreshment to be had out of a salt-water rinsing of the 
 face. Stay you here, and I will hand you down what is to be 
 found." 
 
 1 regained the deck, and asked one of the men to draw me a 
 bucket of salt-water. I then asked Abraham for a piece of 
 sail-cloth to serve as a towel. 
 
 "Sail-cloth!" he cried. "I'll give ye the real thing," 
 and sliding open a locker in the stern sheets, he extracted a 
 couple of towels. 
 
 " Want any soap?" said he. 
 
 " Soap!" cried I. " Have you such a thing?" 
 
 " Why, what d'ye think we are?" called the sour- faced man 
 Tommy, who was kneeling at the little stove and blowing into 
 it to kindle some chips of wood. " How's a man to 8hav# 
 without soap?"
 
 190 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " Want a looking-glass?" said Abraham, handing me a 
 lump of marine soap as he spoke. 
 
 " Thank you/* said I, modestly. 
 
 " And here's a comb/' said he, producing out of his trousers 
 pocket a knife-shaped affair that he opened into a large brass 
 comb. " Anything more?" 
 
 " AVhat more have you?" said I. 
 
 " Nothin' save a razor,'* said he. 
 
 This I did not require. I carried the bucket and the little 
 bundle of unexpected conveniences to the hatch, and called to 
 Helga. 
 
 " Here am I rich in spoils,'* said 1, softly. " These boat- 
 men are complete dandies. Here is soap, here are towels, here 
 is a looking-glass, and here is a comb, " and having handed 
 her these things I made my way aft again. 
 
 " "We ha'n't asked your name yet, sir,*' said Abraham, who 
 was at the tiller again, while the other two were busy at the 
 stove getting the breakfast. 
 
 " Hugh Tregarthen," said I. 
 
 " Thank ye,** said he; " and the lady?" 
 
 *' Helga Nielsen.*' 
 
 He nodded approvingly, as though pleased with the sound 
 of the name. 
 
 " She's a nice little gal, upon my word," said he; " too 
 good to belong to any other country nor Britain. Them 
 Danes gets hold of the English tongue wonderful fast. Take a 
 Swede or a Dutchman; it's ycno yaw v/ith them to the end of 
 their time. But I've met Danes as ye wouldn't know from 
 Deal men, so fust-class was their speech. " He slowly carried 
 his chin to his shoulder to take a view of the weather astern, 
 and then, fastening his eyes with 'longshore leisureliness upon 
 my face — and I now noticed for the first time that he slightly 
 squinted — he said, " It's a good job that we fell in with 'ee, 
 Mr. Tregarthen; for if so be as you two had kept all on wash- 
 ing about on that there raft till noon to-day — and I give ye 
 till noon — 3'e'd be wanting no man's help nor prayers after- 
 ward. It's a-going to blow. " 
 
 " Yes/' said I, " there's wind enough in that sky there; in 
 fact, it's freshening a bit already, isn't it?'* For I now per- 
 ceived the keener feathering and sharper play uj^on the waters, 
 and the harder and broader racing of the yeast that was 
 pouring away fi'om either quarter of the lugger. "There's 
 been a shift of the wind, too, I think,** I added, trying to 
 catch a sight of the dusky interior of a little compass-box that 
 stood on the seat r^nac^ aoo,-»Qf. Abraham.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 131 
 
 ** Yes, it's drawed norradly/' he answered. " I ain't sorry, 
 for it's like justifying of me for not setting ye ashore. I did 
 think, when the young hidy asked me to steer for England, 
 that I wasn't acting the part of a humane man in refusing of 
 her, and for keeping all on stretching the distance between 
 you and your home. But I reckoned upon the wind drawing 
 ahead for a homeward-bound course, and now it has; so that 
 if we was to keep you a week and get ye aboard a steamer at the 
 end of it you'd stand to get home sooner than if we was to 
 down helium now and start a-ratching for your coast." 
 
 " We owe our lives to you," said I, cordially. " Not likely 
 that we could wish to inconvenience you by causing your lug- 
 ger to swerve by so much as a foot from her course/' 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 HEADING SOUTH. 
 
 Just then Helga rose through the hatch. 1 caught an ex- 
 pression of admiration in Abraham's face at her floating, grace- 
 ful manner of passing through the little aj^erture. 
 
 " She might ha' been born and bred in a lugger," said he 
 to me in a hoarse whisper. ' ' Whoy, with the werry choicest; 
 and elegantest o' females it 'ud be no more'n an awkward 
 scramble to squeeze through that hole. Has she wings to her 
 feet? I didn't see her use her elbows, did you? And, my 
 precious limbs! how easily she takes them thwarts!" by which 
 he meant her manner of passing over the seats of the boat. 
 
 Perhaps now I could find heart to admire the girl's figure. 
 Certainly I had had but small spirit for observation of that kind 
 aboard the raft, and there only had her shape been revealed 
 to me; for in the bark no hint was conveyed by her boyish 
 attire of the charms it rudely and heavily concealed. The 
 sparkling brine with which she had refreshed her face had put 
 something of life into her pale cheeks, and there was a faint 
 bloom in her complexion that was slightly deepened by a deli- 
 cate glow as she smiled in response to my smile and took a 
 seat at my side. 
 
 " Them rashers smell first-class," said Abraham, with a 
 hungry snuffle. " It must bo prime ham as'll steal to the 
 nose, while cooking, dead in the vind's eye." 
 
 " Before breakfast is ready," said I, " I'll imitate Miss 
 Nielsen's example," and with that I went forward, drew a 
 bucket of water, dropped into the fore-peak, and enjoyed the 
 most refreshing wash that I can call to mind. One iieeds tf
 
 Iv3 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 
 
 be shipwrecked to appreciate these seeming trifles. For my 
 own part, I could scarcely realize thac, saving my oilskin coat, 
 I had not removed a stitch of my clothes since 1 had run from 
 my mother's house to the life-boat. 1 came into the light that 
 streamed into the little hatch, and took a view of m3'self in 
 the looking-glass, and was surprised to find how trifling were 
 the marks 1 bore of the severe, I may truly say the desperate, 
 experiences I had passed through. My eyes retained their 
 brightness, my cheeks their color. 1 was bearded, and there- 
 fore able to emerge triumphantly from a prolonged passage of 
 marine disaster without requiring to use a razor. It is the 
 stubbled chin that completes the gauntness of the shipwrecked 
 countenance. 
 
 I have a lively recollection of that breakfast — our first meal 
 aboard the " Early Morn.'' Eashersof ham hissed in the try- 
 ing-pan; each of us grasped a thick china mug full of black 
 cotfee; the bag of biscuits we had brought with us from the 
 bai'k lay yawning at our feet, and every one helj^ed himself. 
 The boatmen chewed away solemnly, as though they were 
 masticating quids of tobacco, each man falling to with a huge 
 clasp-knife, that doubtless communicated a distinct flavor of 
 tarred hemp to whatever the blade came in contact with. In- 
 deed, they cut up their victuals as they might cut up tobaoco; 
 working at it with extended arms and backward-leaning 
 posture, putting bits of the food together as though to fit their 
 mouths, and then whipj^ing the morsel on the tips of their 
 knives through their leathery lips with a slow chaw, chaw of 
 their under-jaws that made one think of a cow busy with the 
 cud. Their leisurely behavior carried me in imagination to 
 the English sea-side; for these were the sort of men who, swift 
 as might be their movements in an hour of necessity, were the 
 most loafing of loungers in times of idleness — men who could 
 not stand upright, who polished the hardest granite by con- 
 stant friction with their fearnaught trousers, but who were yet 
 the fittest central objects imaginable for that prospect of golden 
 sand, of calm blue sea, of marble-white pier and terraces of 
 clifE lifting their summits of slojiing green high into the sweet 
 clear atmosphere, which one has in mind when one thinks of 
 the holiday coast of the old home. 
 
 The man named Thomas having cooked the breakfast, had 
 taken the helm, but the obligation of steering did not inter- 
 fere with his eating. In fact, I observed that he steered with 
 the small of his back, helping the helm now and again by a 
 slight touch of the tiller with his elbow, while he fell to on the 
 plate upon his knee. For my part, I was as hungry as a wolf,
 
 MY DAKISH SWEETHEART. 123 
 
 and fed heartily, as the old voyagers would have said. Helga, 
 too, did very well; indeed, her grief had half starved her, and 
 mighty glad was I to see this fair and dainty little heart of 
 oak making a meal, for it was a good assurance in its way that 
 she was fighting with her sorrow and was beginning to look at 
 the future without the bitter sadness that was in her gaze yes- 
 terday. 
 
 But while we sat eating and chatting, the wind continued 
 to slowly freshen; the fore-sheet had tautened to the rigidity 
 of iron, and now and again the lugger made a plunge that 
 would send a bright mass of white water rolling away from 
 either bow. The wind, however, was almost over the stern, 
 and we bowled along before it on a level keel, save when some 
 scend of sea, lifting her under the quarter, threw the little 
 fabric along with a slanting mast and a sharper drum-like 
 rolling out of the heart of the distended canvas as the lugger 
 recovered herself with a saucy swing to starboard. 
 
 " Who says we ain't going to reach Australey?" exclaimed 
 Abraham, palling out a short pipe and filling it, with a slow 
 satisfied grin at the yeasty dazzle over the lee rail to which the 
 eye, fastened upon it, was stooped at times so close that the 
 brain seemed to dance to the wild and brilliant gyrations of 
 the milky race. 
 
 " A strange fancy," said I, " for a man to buy a Deal lug- 
 ger for Sydney Bay." 
 
 " If it warn't for strange fancies," said Thomas, with a sour 
 glance, " it 'ud be a poor lookout for the likes of such as 
 me." 
 
 " Tell ye what I'm a-going to miss in this here ramble," 
 exclaimed Jacob. "That's beer, mates." 
 
 " Beer '11 come the sweeter for the want of it," said Abra- 
 ham, with a sympathetic face. " Still, I must say, when a 
 man feels down there's nothin' like a point o' beer." 
 
 " What's drunk in your country, mum?" said Jacob. 
 
 " Everything that you drink in England," Helga answered. 
 
 " But I allow," grunted Thomas, fixing a morose eye upon 
 the horizon, " that the Scandinavians, as the Danes and like- 
 vise the Swedes along with other nations, incloodin' of the 
 Roosians, is called, be'nt so particular in the matter o' drink 
 as the English, to say notlien o' Dealmen. Whoy," he 
 added, with a voice of contempt, " they're often content to 
 do without it. Capt'ns and owners know that. The Scan- 
 dinavian fancies is so cheap that you may fill your fo'k'sle 
 with twenty sailors ontarms that 'ud starve six Englishmen.''' 
 _ " The Danes are good sailors," said Helga, looking at him.
 
 124 3IY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ' ' and they are the better sailors because they are a sober peo« 
 pie." 
 
 " I've got nothen to say agin 'cm as sailors/' retorted 
 Thomas; '' but they ships too cheap, mum — they ships too 
 cheap. " "^ 
 
 " They will take what an Englishman will take!" ex- 
 claimed Helga, with a little sjjarkle in her eye. 
 
 " So they will, mum — so they will!" exclaimed Abraham, 
 soothingly. " The Dane's a lust-class sailor and a temjjerate 
 man, and when Tommy there'll give me an opportunity of 
 saying as much for him I'll proclaim it." 
 
 1 was standing up, peering round the sea for jjerhaps the 
 tenth time that morning, when, happening to have my eyes 
 directed, astern, as the lugger ran in one of her graceful buoy- 
 ant, soaring launches to the summit of a little surge — for the 
 freshening of the wind had already set the water running in 
 heaps, noticeable even now for weight and velocity aboard 
 that ojDcn craft of eighteen tons, though from the height 
 of a big ship the seas would have been no more than a pleasant 
 wrinkling of the northerly swell — I say, happening to look 
 astern at that moment, I caught sight of a flake of white 
 poised star-like over the rim of the ocean. The lugger sunk, 
 then rose again, and again 1 spied that bland, moon-like point 
 of canvas. 
 
 " A sail!" said I, " but unhappily in chase of us. Always, 
 in such times as these, whatever shows shows at the wrong 
 end." 
 
 Abraham stood up to look, saw the object, and seated him- 
 self in silence. 
 
 " How are you heading the lugger?" cried I. 
 
 " Sou'-sou'-west," he answered. 
 
 " What course have you determined on?" said I, anxious 
 to gather from the character of his navigation what might be 
 our chances of falling in with the homeward-bounders. 
 
 " Why, keep on heading as we go," he answered, " till we 
 strike the south-east trades, which are to be met with a-blow- 
 ing at about two-and-twenty degrees no'the; then bring the 
 ' Airly Marn ' to about south. When the hequator's crossed," 
 continued he, smoking, with his head well sunk between his 
 coat collars, " we strikes oflE to the west'ard again for the 
 hisland of Trinidad — not to soight it; but when we gits into 
 its latitude we starboards for the south-east trades and goes 
 away for the Cape o' Good Hope. Are ye anything of a navi- 
 gator yourself?" 
 
 " No," 1 answered, which was true enough, though I was
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 125 
 
 not so wholly ignorant of the art of conducting a ship from 
 one place to another as not to listen with the utmost degree 
 of astonishment to this simple boatman's programme of the 
 voyage to Australia. 
 
 He whipped open the same locker from which he had taken 
 the rough toilet articles, and extracted a little blue-backed 
 track-chart of the world, which he opened and laid across his 
 knees. 
 
 " 1 suppose ye can read, sir?" said he, not at all designing 
 to be offensive, as was readily gatherable from his countenance, 
 merely putting the question, as I easily saw, out of his experi- 
 ence of the culture of Deal beach. 
 
 Helga laughed. 
 
 " Yes, I can read a little,^' said I. 
 
 " Well, then," said he, laying a twisted stump of thumb 
 upon the chart, " here's the whole blooming woyage wrote 
 down by Capt'u Israel JBrown of the ' Turk's Head,' a wessel 
 that was in the Downs when my mates and me agreed for to 
 undertake this job. He took me into his cabin, and pulling 
 out this hei'e chart, he marked these lines as you see down 
 upon it. 'There, Abraham!' he says, says he; 'you steer 
 according to these here directions, and your lugger '11 hit Syd- 
 ney Bay like threading a needle.' " 
 
 1 looked at the chart, and discovered that the course marked 
 upon it would carry the lugger to the westward of Madeira. It 
 was not suggested by the indications that any port was to be 
 touched at, or, indeed, any land to be made until Table Bay 
 was reached. The two men, Jacob and Tommy, were eying 
 me eagerly, as though thirsting for an argument. This deter- 
 mined me not to hazard any criticism. 1 merely said: 
 
 " 1 understood from you, 1 think, that you depend upon 
 ships supplying you with your wants." 
 
 Abraham responded with an emphatic nod. 
 
 Well, thought I, 1 suppose the fellows know what they are 
 about; but in the face of that chart I could not but feel 
 mightily thankful that Helga and 1 stood a chance of being 
 transshiped long before experience should have taught the 
 men that charity was as little to be depended at upon sea as 
 ashore. They talked of five months, and even of six, in mak- 
 ing the run, and who was to question such a possibility when 
 the distance, the size of the boat, the vast areas of furious 
 tempest and of rotting calm which lay ahead were considered? 
 The mere notion of the sense of profound tediousness, of sick- 
 ening wearisomeness which must sjjeedily come, sent a shudder 
 through me when I looked at the open craft whose length
 
 1^6 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 might have been measured by an active jumper in a couple of 
 bounds, in which there was no space for walking, and for the 
 matter of that not very much room for moving, what with the 
 contiguity of the thwarts and the incumbrances of lockers, 
 spare masts and oars, the pump, the stove, the little deck for- 
 ward, the boat, and the rest of the furniture. 
 
 I asked Abraham how Ihey managed in the matter of keep- 
 ing a lookout. 
 
 " One tarns in for four hours, and t'other two keep the watch, 
 one a-steering for two hours and the other relieving him ar- 
 terwards." 
 
 " That gives you eight hours on deck and four hours sleep," 
 said Helga. 
 
 " Quite right, mum." 
 
 " Eight hours of deck is too much," she cried; " there 
 should have been four of you. Then it would have been watch 
 and watch." 
 
 " Ay, and another share to bringdown our'n," exclaimed 
 Thomas. 
 
 "Mr. Abraham," said Helga, "Mr. Tregarthen has told 
 you that 1 can steer. I promise you that while I am at the 
 helm the lugger's course shall be as true as a hair, as you 
 sailors say. I can also keep a lookout. Many and many a 
 time have I kept watch on board my father's ship. While we 
 are with you, you must let me make one of your crew." 
 
 " I, too, am reckoned a middling hand at the helm," said 
 I; " so while we are here there will be five of us to do the lug- 
 ger's work." 
 
 Abraham looked at the girl admiringly. 
 
 " You're a werrygood lady," he said; " I dorn't doubt your 
 willingness. On board a ship I shouldn't doubt your capacity; 
 but the handling of these here luggers is a job as needs the 
 eddication of years. Us Deal boatmen are born into the work, 
 and them as ain't commonly perish when they tries their hand 
 at it." 
 
 " 'Sides, it's a long woyage," growled Thomas, " and if 
 more shares is to be made of it I'm for going home." 
 
 " You're always a- thinking of the shares. Tommy," cried 
 Abraham; " the gent and the lady means nothing but koind- 
 ness. No, mum, thanking you all the same," continued he, 
 giving Helga an ungainly but respectful sea bow. " You're 
 shipwrecked passengers, and our duty is to put ye in the way 
 of getting home. That's what you expect of us; and what 
 we exjject of you is that you'll make your minds easy and keep 
 comfortable ontil ye leave us. "
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 137 
 
 I thanked him warmly, and then stood up to take another 
 look at the vessel that was overhauling us astern.. She was 
 rising fast, already dashing the sky past the blue ridges of the 
 ocean with a broad gleam of canvas. 
 
 " Helga," said I, softly, " there is a large ship rapidly 
 coming up astern. Shall we ask these men to put us aboard 
 her?" 
 
 She fastened her pretty blue eyes thoughtfully upon me. 
 
 " She is not going home, Hugh." 
 
 " No, nor is the lugger. That ship should make us a more 
 comfortable home than this little craft until we can get aboard 
 another vessel." 
 
 She continued to eye me thoughtfully, and then said: 
 " This lugger will give us a better chance of getting home 
 quickly than that ship. These men will run down to a vessel 
 or even chase one to oblige us and to get rid of us; but a ship 
 like that," said she, looking astern, " is always in a hurry 
 when the wind blows, and is rarely very willing to back her 
 topsail. And then think what a swift shi]) she must be, to 
 judge from her manner of overtaking us! The swifter, the 
 worse for us, Hugh — I mean, the further you will be carried 
 away from your home." 
 
 She met my eyes with a faint wistful smile upon her face, as 
 though she feared 1 would think her forward. 
 
 " You are right, Helga," said I. " You are every inch a 
 sailor. We will stick to the lugger." 
 
 Abraham went forward to lie down, after instructing Jacob 
 to arouse him at a quarter before noon, that he might shoot 
 the sun. Thomas sat with a sulky countenance at the helm, 
 and Jacob overhung the rail close against the fore-sheet, his 
 chin upon his hairy wrist, and his gaze leveled at the horizon 
 after the mechanical fashion of the 'longshoreman afloat. At 
 intervals the wind continued to freshen in small "guns," to 
 use the expressive old term — in little blasts or shocks of squall, 
 which flashed with a shriek into the concavity of the lug, leav- 
 ing the wind steady again but stronger, with a higher tone in 
 the moan of it above and a stormier boiling of the waters round 
 about the lugger, that seemed to be swirling along as though 
 a comet had got her in tow, though this sense of speed was no 
 doubt sharpened by the closeness of the hissing white waters 
 to the rail. Yet shortly after ten o'clock the ship astern had 
 risen to her water-line and was picking us up as though, for- 
 sooth, we were riding to a sea-anchor. 
 
 A nobler ocean picture never delighted a landsman's vision. 
 The enow-white spires of the oncDmiug ship swayed with solema
 
 138 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 siiid stately motions to the uiiderruii of the quartering sea. 
 She had stiiddiug-sails out to starboard, one mouuting to an- 
 other in a very pyramid of soft milky cloths, and her wings of 
 jibs, almost becalmed. Heated airily from masthead to bowsprit 
 and jibboom end like symmetric fragments of fleecy cloud rent 
 from the stately mass of fabric that soared behind them brill- 
 iant in the flashing sunshine. Each time our lugger was hove 
 upward I would spy the dazzling smother of the foam, which 
 the shearing cutwater of the clipper, driven by a power greater 
 than steam, was piling to the hawse-pipes, even to the very 
 burying of the forecastle-head to some of the majestic struct- 
 ure's courtesies. 
 
 Helga watched her with clasped hands and parted lips and 
 glowing blue eyes full of spirit and delight. The glorious sea- 
 piece seemed to suspend memory in her; all look of grief was 
 gone out of her face, her very being appeared to have blended 
 itself with that windy, flying, triumphant oceanic show, and 
 her looks of elation, the abandonment of herself to the impulse 
 and the spirit of what she viewed, assured me that if ever old 
 Ocean owned a daughter its child was the pale, blue-eyed, 
 yellow-haired, maiden who sat with rapt gaze and swift 
 respiration at my side. 
 
 Jacob, who had been eying the ship listlessly, suddenly 
 started into an air of life and astonishment. 
 
 '• Whoy, Tommy," cried he, grasping the rail and staring 
 over the stern out of his hunched shoulders, " pisen me, mate, 
 if she ain't the ' Thermoppillyl' " 
 
 Thomas slowly and sulkily turned his chin upon his shoul- 
 der, and, after a short stare, put his back again on the ship, 
 and said: " Yes, that's the ' Thermoppilly ' right enough I" 
 
 '• The ' Thermopylae?' "said 1. " Do you mean the famous 
 Aberdeen clipper?" 
 
 " Ay," cried Jacob, " that's her! Aiu^t she a beauty? 
 My oye, what a run! What's a-going to touch her? Look at 
 them mastheads! Tall enough to foul the stars. Tommy, and 
 <:/e'-range the blooming solar system." 
 
 He beat his thigh in his enjoyment of the sight, and contin- 
 ued to deliver himself of a number of nautical observations 
 expressive of his admiration and of the merits of the approach- 
 ing vessel. 
 
 She had slightly shifted her helm, as I might take it, to hav^e 
 a look at us, and would pass us close. The thunder of the 
 wind in her towering heights came along to our ears in the 
 sweep of the air in a low continuous note of thunder. You 
 could hear the boiling of the water bursting and pouring from
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 139 
 
 her bows; her copper gleamed to every starboard roll on the 
 white peaks of the sea along her bends in dull flashes as of a 
 stormy sunset, with a frequent star-like sparkling about her 
 from brass or glass. How swiftly she was passing us I could 
 Dot have imagined until she was on our quarter, and then 
 abreast of us — so close that 1 could distinguish the face of a 
 man standing aft looking at us, of the fellow at the wheel, of 
 a man at the break of the short poop singing out orders in a 
 voice whose every syllable rung clearly to our hearing. A 
 crowd of seamen were engaged in getting in the lower studding- 
 sail, and this great sail went melting out against the hard 
 mottled-blue of the sky as the clipper stormed past. 
 
 Jacob sprung on to a thwart, and, in an ecstasy of greeting 
 that made a very wind-mill of his arms, shrieked rather than 
 roared out: " How d'ye do, sir — how d'ye do, sir.^ How are 
 ye, sir? Glad to see ye, sir!" 
 
 The man that he addressed stared a moment, and hastily with- 
 drew, and returned with a binocular glass, which he leveled at 
 us for a moment, then flourished his hand. 
 
 " What are you doing down here, Jacob.'"' he bawled. 
 
 " Going to Australey!" shouted Jacob. 
 
 "Where?" roared the other. 
 
 " To Sydney, New South Wales!" shouted Jacob. 
 
 The man, who was probably the captain, put his finger 
 against his nose and wagged his head; but further speech was 
 no longer possible. 
 
 " He don't believe us!" roared Jacob to his mate, and 
 forthwith fell to making twenty extravagant gestures toward 
 the ship in notification of his sincerity. 
 
 The wonderful squareness of the ship's canvas stole out as 
 she gave us her stern, with the foam of her wake rushing 
 from under the counter like to the dazzling back-wash of a 
 huge paddle-wheel, and she seemed to fill the south-west 
 heaven with her cloths, so high and broad did those compli- 
 cated pinions, soaring to the trucks, look to us from the low 
 seat of the bounding and spluttering lugger. 
 
 " Lord now!" cried Jacob, " if she'd only give us the end 
 of a tow-rope!" 
 
 " Yes," said I, gazing with admiration at the beautiful 
 figure of the ship rapidly forging ahead, and already diminish- 
 ing into an exquisite daintiness and delicacy of shape and tint, 
 " you would not, in that case, have to talk of five or six months 
 to Australia." 
 
 At a quarter before twelve she was the merest toy ahead, 
 just a glance of mother-of-pearl upon the horizon; but by this
 
 130 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 hour it was blowing a strong breeze of wind, and when Abra- 
 ham came out of the fore-peak he called to Jacob, and between 
 them they eased up the fore-halliards and hooked the sheet to 
 the second staken — in other words, to a sort of cringle or loop, 
 ot which there were four. Then, having knotted the reef points, 
 Abraham came aft to seek for the sun. 
 
 My humor was not a little pensive, for the sea that was now 
 running was a verification of the boatman's words to me, and 
 I could not keep my thoughts away from what must have hap- 
 pened to Helga and me had we not been mercifully taken off 
 the raft. The lugger rose buoyantly to each flickering, seeth- 
 ing head, but, spite of my life-boat experiences, 1 could not 
 help watching with a certain anxiety the headlong rush of 
 foam to her counter, nor could I feel the wild, ball-like toss 
 the strong Atlantic surge would give to our egg-shell of a 
 boat without misgiving as to the sort of weather she was likely 
 to make should such another storm as had foundered the 
 " Anine " come down upon the ocean. I was also vexed to 
 the heart by the speed at which we were driving, and by the 
 assurance, 1 was seafarer enough to understand, that in such 
 a lump of a sea as was now running there would be a very 
 small probability indeed of our being able to board, or even 
 to get alongside of, a homeward-bounder though twenty vessels 
 close-hauled for England should travel past us in an hour. 
 How far were we to be transported into this great ocean before 
 the luck of the sea should put us in the way of returning 
 home? These were considerations to greatly subdue my spirits; 
 and there was also the horror that memory brought when 1 
 glanced at the sweeping headlong waters and thought of the 
 raft. 
 
 1 looked at Helga; her eyes were slowly sweeping the hor- 
 izon, and on their coming to mine the tender blue of them 
 seemed to darken to a gentle smile. Whatever her heart 
 might be thinking of, assuredly no trace of the misgivings 
 which were worrying me were discernible in her. The shadow 
 of the grief that had been upon her face during the morning 
 had returned with the passing away of the life the noble pict- 
 ure of the ship had kindled in her; but there was nothing in 
 it to weaken in her lineaments their characteristic expression 
 of firmness and resolution and spirit. Her tremorless lips lay 
 parted to the sweep of the wind; her admirable little figure 
 yielded to the bounding, often violent, jerking motions of the 
 lugger with the grace of a consummate horsewoman who is 
 one with the brave, swift creature she rides; her short yellow 
 hair trembled under the dark velvet-like skin of her turban-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 131 
 
 shaped hat, as though each gust raised a showering of gold- 
 dust about her neck and cheeks. 
 
 Yet I believe had I been under sentence of death 1 must 
 have laughed outright at the spectacle of Abraham bobbing at 
 the sun with an old-fashioned quadrant that might well have 
 been in use for forty years. He stood up on straddled legs 
 with the aged instrument at his eye, mopping and mowing at 
 the luminary in the south, and biting hard in his puzzlement 
 and efforts at a piece of tobacco that stood out in his cheeks 
 like a knob. 
 
 " He's a blazing long time in making height bells, hain't 
 he, to-day?" said Jacob, addressing Abraham, and referring 
 to the sun. 
 
 " He's all right,'' answered Abraham, talking ^vith his eye 
 at the little telescope. " You leave him to me, mate; keep 
 you quiet, and I'll be telling you what o'clock it is presently." 
 
 Helga turned her head to conceal her face, and, indeed, no 
 countenance more comical than Abraham's could be imagined, 
 what with the mastication of his jaws, which kept his ears and 
 the muscles of his forehead moving, and what with the in- 
 tensity of the screwed-up expression of his closed eye and the 
 slow wagging of his beard, like the tail of a pigeon newly 
 alighted. 
 
 " Height bells!" he suddenly roared in a voice of triumph, 
 at the same time whipping out a huge silver watch, at which 
 he stared for some moments, holding the watch out at arm's- 
 length as though time was not to be very easily read. 
 " Blowed if it be n't much more than eleven o'clock at Deal," 
 he cried. " Only fancy being able to make or lose time as ye 
 loike! Werry useful ashore, sir, that 'ud be, 'ticularly when 
 you've got a bill a-falling doo." 
 
 He then seated himself in the stern sheets, and, producing 
 a small book and a lead-pencil from the locker, went to work 
 to calculate his latitude. It was a very rough, ready, and 
 primitive sort of reckoning. He eyed the paper with a know- 
 ing face, often scratching the hair over his ear and looking up 
 at the sky with counting lips; then, being satisfied, he admin- 
 istered a nod all round, took out his chart, and, having made 
 a mark upon it, exclaimed, while he returned it to the locker: 
 " There, that job's over till twelve o'clock to-morrow. " This 
 said, he extracted a log-book that already looked as though it 
 had been twice round the world, together with a little penny 
 bfi-ttle of ink and a pen, and, with the book open upon his knee, 
 forthwith entered the latitude (as he made it) in the column 
 ruled for that purpose; but I could not see that he made any
 
 133 MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. 
 
 attempt even at guessing at his longitude, though 1 noticed that 
 he wrote down the sj^eed of his little craft, which he obtained 
 — and 1 dare say as correctly as he had hove the log — by cast- 
 ing his eye over the side. 
 
 " How d'ye spell ' Thermoppilly?' " said he, addressing us 
 generally. 
 
 I told him. 
 
 " Just want to state here that we sighted her, that's all," 
 said he; "this here space with ' Observations ' wrote atop 
 has got to be filled up, I suppose! At about wan o'clock this 
 marning," he exclaimed, speakiug very slowly and writing 
 as he spoke, " fell in with a raft — how's raft spelled, master? 
 two r's?" I spelled the word for him. " Thank 'eel Fell 
 in with a raft, and took off a lady and gent. There, that'll 
 be the noose for twenty-four hours! IS^ow let's go to dinner." 
 
 This midday meal was composed of a piece of corned beef, 
 some ship's biscuit, and cheese. I might have found a better 
 ajipetite had there been less wind, and had the boat's head 
 been pointed the other way. All the time now the lugger was 
 swarming through it at the rate of steam. There was already 
 a strong sea running too, the stormiuess of which we should 
 have felt had we had it on the bow; but our arrowy speeding 
 before it softened the fierceness of its sweeping hurls, and the 
 wind for the same reason came with half the weight it really 
 had, though we must have been reefed down to a mere strip of 
 canvas had we been close-hauled. The sun shone with a dim 
 and windy light out of the sky that was hard with a piebald- 
 ing of cloud. 
 
 " What is the weather going to prove?" I asked Abraham. 
 
 He munched leisurely, with a slow look to windward, and 
 answered: " 'Tain't going to be worse nor ye see it." 
 
 " Have you a barometer?" said I. 
 
 " No," he answered; " they're no good. In a boat arter 
 this here pattern what's the use of knowing what's a-going 
 to come? It's only a-letting go a rope an' you're under bare 
 poles. Marcury's all vepy well in a big ship, where ye may be 
 taken aback clean out o' the sky, and lose every spar down to 
 the stumps of the lower masts." 
 
 Though I constantly kept a look-out, sending my eyes 
 roaming over either bow j^ast the smooth and foaming curves 
 of seas rushing ahead of us, I was very sensible, as I have said, 
 that nothing was to be done in such hollow waters as we were 
 now rushing through, though we should sight a score of home- 
 ward-bounders. Yet, spite of the wonderful life that strong 
 northerly wind swept into the ocean, nothing whatever showed
 
 MY DAKISH SWEETHEART. 133 
 
 during the rest of the day, if 1 except a single tip of canvas 
 that hovered for about a quarter of an hour some two or three 
 leagues down in the east like a little wreath of mountain mist. 
 The incessant pouring of the wind past the ear, the shouting 
 and whistling of it as it flashed spray-loaded off each foaming 
 pealc in chase of us, grew inexpressibly sickening and wearying 
 to me, coming as it did after our long exposure to the fierce 
 weather of the earlier days. The thwarts or lockers brought 
 our heads above the line of the gunwale, and to remedy this I 
 asked leave to drag a spare sail aft into the bottom of the boat, 
 and there Helga and I sat, somewhat sheltered at least, and 
 capable of conversing without being obliged to cry out. 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 A ^LONGSHORE QUARREL. 
 
 We passed the afternoon in this way. Jacob was forward, 
 sleeping; Thomases turn at the helm, had come round again; 
 and Abraham lay over the lee rail, within grasp of the fore- 
 sheet, lost in contemplation of the rushing waters. 
 
 " Where and when is this experience of ours going to end?'* 
 said I to Helga as we sat chatting. 
 
 " Plow fast are we traveling?" she asked. 
 
 " Between eight and nine miles an hour,'* I answered. 
 
 " This has been our speed during the greater part of the 
 day/' she said. " Your home growp more and more distant, 
 Hugh; but you will return to it." 
 
 -" Oh, I fear for neither of us, Helga," said I. " Were it 
 not for my mother, 1 should not be anxious. But it will soon 
 be a week since I left her, and, if she should hear that 1 was 
 blown away out of the bay in the ' Anine,* she will conclude 
 that I perished in the vessel." 
 
 '* We must pray that God will support her and give her 
 strength to await your return," said she, speaking sadly, with 
 her eyes bent down. 
 
 What more could she say? It was one of those passages 
 in life in which one is made to feel that Providence is all in 
 all, when the very instinct of human action in one is arrested, 
 and when there comes upon the spirit a deep pause of waiting 
 for God's will. 
 
 1 looked at her earnestly as she sat by my side, and found 
 myself dwelling with an almost lover-like pleasure upon the 
 graces of her pale face, the delicacy of her lineaments, the 
 refinement of prettiness that was heightened into something
 
 134 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 of dignity, maidenly as it was, by the fortitude of spirit her 
 coimt'.niance expressed. 
 
 " llelga/' said I, " what will you do when you return to 
 Kolding?" 
 
 " 1 shall have to thinii/' she answered, with the scarcely 
 perceptible accent of a passing tremor in her voice. 
 
 " You have no relatives, your father told me?" 
 
 " Xo; none. A few friends, but no relatives." 
 
 " But your father has a house at Kolding?" 
 
 " He rented a house, but it will be no home for me if I can 
 not afford to maintain it. But let my future be my trouble, 
 Hugh," said she, gently, looking at me, and always pronounc- 
 ing my name as a sister might a brother's. 
 
 " Oh, nol" said I. " 1 am under a promise to your father 
 — a promise that his death makes binding as a sacred oath 
 upon me. Your future must be my business. If 1 carry you 
 home in safety — I mean to my mother's home, Helga — I shall 
 consider that I saved your life; and the life a man rescues it 
 should be his privilege to render as easy and happy as it may 
 lie in his jDOwer to make it. Y''ou have friends in my mother 
 and me, even though you had not another in the wide world. 
 So, Helga," said 1, taking her hand, "however our strange 
 rambles may end, you will promise me not to fret over what 
 your future may hold when you get ashore." 
 
 She looked at me with her eyes impassioned with gratitude. 
 Her lips moved, but no word escaped her, and she averted her 
 face to hide her tears. 
 
 Poor, brave, gentle, little Helga! I spoke but out of my 
 friendship and my sympathy for her, as who would not, situ- 
 ated as I was with her, my companion in distress, now an or- 
 phan, desolate, friendless, and poor? Yet I little knew then, 
 heedless and inexperienced as I was in such matters, how pity 
 in the heart of a young man will swiftly sweeten into deeper 
 amotion when the object of it is young and fair and loving and 
 tkione in the world. 
 
 The sun went down on a wild scene of troubled, running, 
 foaming waters, darkling into green as they leaped and broke 
 along the western sky that was of a thunderous, smoky tinct- 
 ure, with a hot, dim, and stormy scarlet which flushed the 
 clouds to the zenith. Y'et there had been no increase in the 
 wind during the afternoon. It had settled into a hard breeze, 
 good for outward-bounders, but of a sort to send everything 
 heading north that was not steam scattering east and west, 
 with yards fore and aft and tacks complaining. 
 
 By this time I had grown very well used to the motion of
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 135 
 
 the lugger, had marked her easy flight from h'quid peak into 
 foam-laced valley, the onward buoyant bound again, the steady 
 rush upon the head of the creaming sea, with foam to the line 
 of the bulwark-rail, and the air for an instant snow-like with 
 flying spume, and all the while the inside of the boat as dry as 
 toast This, I say, I had noticed with increasing admiration 
 of the sea-going qualities of the hearty, bouncing, stalwart little 
 fabric; and I was no longer sensible of the anxiety that had be- 
 fore possessed me when I had thought of this undecked lugger 
 struggling with a strong and lumpish sea — a mere yawn upon 
 thd water, saving her forecastle — so that a single billow tum- 
 bling over the rail must send her to the bottom. 
 
 " Small wonder," said I to Helga, as we sat watching the 
 sunset and marking the behavior of the boat, "that these 
 Deal luggers should have the greatest reputation of any ^long- 
 shore craft around the English coasts, if they are all like this 
 vessel! Her crew's adventure for Australia is no longer the 
 astonishment I first found it. One might fearlessly sail round 
 the world in such a craft." 
 
 " Yes," she answered softly in my ear — for surly Thomas 
 sat hard by — " if the men had the qualities of the boat! But 
 how are they to reach Australia without knowing their longi- 
 tude? And if you were one of the party, would you trust 
 Abraham's latitude? My father taught mo navigation; and, 
 though I am far from skillful at it, I know quite enough to 
 feel sure that such a rough observation as Abraham took to- 
 day will, every twenty-four hours, make him three or four miles 
 wrong, even in his latitude. Where, then, will the ' Early 
 Morn 'blunder to?'* 
 
 " Well, they are plainly a sensitive crew," said I, " and, if 
 we want their good-will, our business is to carry admiring 
 faces, to find everything right, and say nothing." 
 
 This chat was ended by Abraham joining us. 
 
 " Now, lady,*' said he, " when would ye like to tarn in? 
 The fore-peak's to beyour'n for the night. Name your hour, 
 and whosoever's in it'll have to clear out." 
 
 " I am grateful, indeed!" she exclaimed, putting her hand 
 upon his great hairy paw in a pretty, caressing way. 
 
 -" Abraham," said 1, " I hope we shall meet again after we 
 have separated. I'll not forgot your kindness to Miss Nielsen. " 
 
 " Say nothen' about it, sir; yay nothen' about it," he cried 
 heartily. " She's a sailor's daughter, for all he warn't an 
 Englishman. Her father lies drowndod, Mr. Trcgarthcn. 
 If he was like his lass he'll have had a good heart, sir, and 
 the sort of countenance one takes to at the first sight o't,"
 
 136 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 By the rusty light still living in the west I saw him turn his 
 head to look forward and then aft; then lowering his voice 
 into a deep sea growl, he exclaimed: " There's wan thing I 
 should like to say: there's no call for either of ye to take any 
 notice along of old Tommy. His feelings is all right; it's his 
 vays as are wrong. Fact is/' and here he sent another look 
 forward and then aft, " Tommy's heen a disajopointed man 
 in his marriages. His first vife took to drink, and was always 
 a-combing of his hair with a three-legged stool, as Jack says. 
 His second vife had the heart of a flint, spite of her prowiding 
 him with ten children, fewer by her first and six by Tomm}'. 
 Of course it's got nothen' to do with me; but there ain't the 
 loike of Molly Budd — 1 mean Tommy's wife — in all Deal — ay, 
 ye may say in all Kent — for vickedness. Tommy owned to 
 line wan day that though she'd lost children — ay, and 
 though she'd lost good money tew, he'd never knowed her 
 to shed a tear saving wonst. That was when she went 
 out a-chairing. The master of the house had been in the 
 habit of leaving the beer-key in the cask for th' ale to be 
 sarved out by the hupper servant. Molly Budd was a-cleaning 
 there one day, when down comes word for the key to be 
 drawed out of the cask, and never no more to be left in it. 
 This startled Molly. She broke down and cried for a hour. 
 Tommy had some hopes of her on that, but she dried up 
 arterwards, and has never showed any sort of weakness since. 
 But, of course, this is between you and me and the bed-post, 
 Mr. Tregarthen." 
 
 " Oh, certainly!" said I. 
 
 " And now about the lady's sleeping," he continued. 
 
 I was anxious to see her snugly under cover; but she was 
 in trouble to know how I was to get rest. I pointed to the 
 open space under that overhanging ledge of deck which 1 have 
 before described, and told her that I should find as good a 
 bedroom there as I needed. So after some little discussion it 
 was arranged that she should take possession of the fore-peak 
 at nine o'clock, and, meanwhile, Abraham undertook to so 
 bulkhead the opening under the deck with a spare mizzen-mast, 
 yard, and sail as to insure as much shelter as I should require. 
 1 believe he observed Helga's solicitude about me, and proposed 
 this merely to please her; and for the same motive I consented, 
 though 1 was very unwilling secretly to give the poor honest 
 fellows any unnecessary trouble. 
 
 When the twilight died out, the night came down very 
 black. A few lean, windy stars hovered wanly in the dark 
 heights, and no light whatever fell from the skyj but the at-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 137 
 
 mosphere low down upon the ocean was pale with the glare of 
 the foam that was plentifully arching from the heads of the 
 seas, and this vague illumination was in the boat to the degree 
 that our figures were almost visible one to another. Indeed, a 
 sort of wave of ghastly sheen would pass through the darkness 
 amid which we sat each time the lugger buried herself in the 
 foam raised by her shearing bounds, as though the dim reflec- 
 tion of a giant lantern had been thrown upon us from on high 
 by some vast shadowy hand searching for what might be upon 
 the sea. 
 
 When nine o'clock arrived, Abraham went forward and 
 routed Thomas out of the fore-peak. The man muttered as 
 he came aft to where we were, but I was resolved to have no 
 ears for anything he might say at such a time. A sailor dis- 
 turbed in his rest, grim, unshorn, scarcely awake, with the nip- 
 ping night blast to exchange for his blanket, is proverbially the 
 sulkiest and most growling of human wretches. 
 
 " I will see you to your chamber door, Helga/' said I, 
 laughing. " Abraham, can you spare the lady this lantern? 
 She will not long need it." 
 
 " She can have it as long as she likes," he answered. 
 " Good-night to you, mum, and I hope you'll sleep well, I'm 
 sure. Feared ye'll find the fore-peak a bit noisy arter the 
 silence of a big vessel's cabin. " 
 
 She made some answer, and I picked up the lantern that had 
 been placed in the bottom of the boat for us to sit round, and, 
 with my companion, went clambering over the thwarts to the 
 hatch. 
 
 " It is a dark little hole for you to sleep in, Helga," said I, 
 holding the lantern over the hatch while I peered down, " but 
 then — this time last night! Our chances we now know, but 
 what were our hopes?" 
 
 " We may be even safer this time to-morrow night," she 
 answered, " and rapidly making for England, let us pray!" 
 
 " Ay, indeed !" said I. " Well, if you will get below, 'l will' 
 hand you down the light. Good-night, sleep well, and God 
 bless you." 
 
 I grasped and held her hand, then let it go, and she descend- 
 ed, carrying with her the little parcel she had brought with 
 her from the bark. 
 
 I gave her the lantern, and returned to smoke a pipe in the 
 bottom of the boat under the shelter of the stern-sheets, before 
 crawling to the sail that was to form my bed under the over- 
 hanging deck. ■ Thomas, whose watch below it still was, was 
 already resting under the ledcre. Abraham steered, and Jacob
 
 133 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 sat with a pipe in his mouth to leeward. 1 noticed that one of 
 these men always phiced himself within instant reach of the 
 fore-sheet. Abraham's talk altogether concerned Helga. He 
 asked many questions about her, and got me to tell for the sec- 
 ond time the story of her father's death upon the raft. He 
 frequently broke into homely expressions of sympathy, and 
 when 1 paused, after telling him that the girl was an orphan 
 and without means, he said: 
 
 " Beg pardon, Mr. Tregarthen; but might I make so bold 
 as to ask if so be as you're a married man?" 
 
 " Xo," said 1, " 1 am single.'^ 
 
 " And is her heart her own, sir, d'ye know?" said he. "For 
 as like as not there may be some young Danish gent as keeps 
 company with her ashore. " 
 
 " I can't tell you that," said I. 
 
 " If so be as her heart's her own," said he, " then 1 think 
 even old Tommy could tell 'ee what's agoing to happen." 
 
 " What do you mean?" I asked. 
 
 " Why, of course," said he, " you're bound to marry her!" 
 
 As she was out of hearing, I could well afford to laugh. 
 
 " Well," said 1, " the sea has been the cause of more won- 
 derful things than that! Anyway, if I'm to marry her, you 
 m ust put me in the way of doing so by sending us home as 
 soon as you can." 
 
 " Oy," said he, " that we'll do, and I don't reckon, master, 
 that you'd be dispoged to wait on til we've returned from Aus- 
 traley, that Tommy and me and Jacob might have the satisfac- 
 tion of drinking your healths and cutting a caper at your mar- 
 riage." 
 
 Jacob broke into a short roar that might or might not have 
 denoted a laugh. 
 
 "I shall now turn in," said I, " for I am sleepy. But first 
 I will see if Miss Nielsen is in want of anything, and bring 
 the lantern aft to you. " 
 
 I went forward and looked down the hatch. By stooping, so 
 as to bring my face on a level with the coaming, I could see 
 the girl. She had placed the lantern in her bunk, and was 
 kneeling in prayer. Her mother's picture was placed behind 
 the lantern, where it lay visible to her, and she heid the Bible 
 she had brought from the bark; but that she could read it in 
 that light I doubted. I supposed, therefore, that she grasped 
 it for its sacredness as an object and a relic while she prayed, 
 as a Roman Catholic might hold a crucifix. 
 
 1 can not express how much I was affected by this simple 
 picture. Not for a million would 1 have wished her to know
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 139 
 
 that I watched har; and yet, knowing that she was anconscious 
 I was near, I felt I was no intruder. She had removed 
 her hat; the lantern-h'ght touched her pale hair, and I could 
 see her lips moving as she prayed, with a frequent lifting of 
 her soft eyes. But the beauty, the wonder, the impressiveness 
 of this picture of maidenly devotion came to it from what 
 surrounded it. The little fore-peak, dimly irradiated, showed 
 like some fancy of an old painter upon the shadows and lights 
 of whose masterly canvas lies the gloom of time. The strong 
 wind was full of the noise of warring waters, and of its own 
 wild crying; the foam of the surge roared about the lugger's 
 cleaving bows, and to this was to be added the swift leaps, the 
 level poising, the shooting, downward rushes of the little struct- 
 ure upon that wide, dark breast of wind-swept Atlantic. 
 
 She rose to her feet, and, stooping always, for her stature 
 exceeded the height of the upper deck, she carefully replaced 
 the Bible and picture in their cover. 1 withdrew, and, after 
 waiting a minute or two, I approached again and called down 
 to ask if all was well with her. 
 
 " Yes, Hugh," she answered, coming under the hatch with 
 the lantern. " I have made my bed. It was easily made. 
 Will you take this light? The men may want it, and I shall 
 not need to see down here." 
 
 I grasped the lantern, and told her I would hold it in the 
 hatch that it might light her while she got into her bunk. 
 
 " Good-night, Hugh," said she, and presently called, in her 
 clear, gentle voice, to let me know that she was lying down; 
 on which I took the lantern aft, and, without more ado, 
 crawled under the platform, or raft, as the Deal boatmen called 
 it, crept into a sail, and in a few moments was sound asleep. 
 
 And now for three days, incredible as it will appear to those 
 who are acquainted with that part of the sea which the lugger 
 was traversing, we sighted nothing — nothing, I mean, that 
 provided us with the slenderest opportunity of speaking it. At 
 very long intervals, it would be a little streak of canvas on the 
 starboard or port sea-line, or some smudge of smoke from a 
 steamer whose funnel was below the horizon; nothing more, 
 and these so remote that the dim apparitions were as useless to 
 us as though they had never been. 
 
 The wind held northerly, and on the Friday and Saturday 
 it blew freshly, and in those hours Abraham reckoned that the 
 *' Early Morn " had gone a good two hundred and twenty 
 miles in every day, counting from noon to noon. I was forever 
 searching the sea, and Ilelga's gaze was as constant as mine; 
 until the eternal barrenness of the sinuous line of the ocean
 
 UO MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ituliicod a kiud of heart-sickness in me, and 1 would dismount 
 from the thwart in a passion of vexation and disappointment, 
 asking N?hat had hapj)ened that no ship showed? Into what 
 part of the sea had we drifted? Could this veritably be the 
 confines of the Atlantic off the Biscayan coast and waters? or 
 had we been transported by some devil into an unnavigated 
 tract of ocean on the other side of the world? 
 
 " There's no want of ships," Abraham said. " The cuss 
 of the matter is, we don't fall in with them. S'elp me, if I 
 could only find one to give me a chance, I'd chivey her even 
 if she showed the canvas of a R'yal Jarge." 
 
 " If this goes on you'll have to carry us to Australia," said 
 1, guessing from my spirits as 1 spoke that I was carrying an 
 uncommonly long and dismal countenance. 
 
 " Hope not," exclaimed sour Tommy, who was at the helm 
 at this- time of conversation. " 'Tain't that we objects to 
 your company; but where's the grub for five souls a-coming 
 from?" 
 
 " Don't say nothen' about that," said Abraham, sharply. 
 " Both the gent and the lady brought their own grub along 
 with them. That ye know. Tommy, and I allow that ye hain't 
 found their ham bad eating either. They came," he added, 
 softening as he looked at his mate, " like a poor man's twins, 
 each with a loaf clapped by the angels on to its back." 
 
 It is true enough that the provisions which had been re- 
 moved from the raft would have sufficed Helgaand me — well, 
 I dare say, for a whole month, and perhaps six weeks, but for 
 the three of a crew falling to the stock; and therefore I was 
 not concerned by the reflection that we were eating into the 
 poor fellows' slender larder. But, for all that, Thomas's re- 
 mark touched me closely. I felt that if the three fellows, hearty 
 and sailorly as were Abraham and Jacob — 1 say, 1 felt that if 
 these three men were not already weary of us they must soon 
 become so, more particularly if it should happen that they met 
 with no ship to supply them with what they might require; in 
 which case they would have to make for the nearest port, a 
 delay they would attribute to us, and that might set them 
 grumbling in their gizzards, and render us both miserable 
 until we got ashore. 
 
 However, 1 was no necromancer; I could not conjure up 
 ships, and staring at the sea-line did not hel]) us; but I very 
 well remember that that time of waiting a)id of expectation 
 and of disappointment lay very heavily upon my spirits. There 
 was something so strange in tbe desolation of this sea that I be- 
 came melancholy and imaginative, and I remember that X
 
 MY DANTSH SWEETHEART. 141 
 
 foreboded a dark issue to my extraordinary adventure with 
 Helga, insomuch tliat I took to heart a secret conviction 1 
 should never again see my mother, nay, that I should never 
 again see my home. 
 
 Sunday morning came. 1 found a fine bright day when 1 
 crawled, out of my sail under the overhanging ledge. The 
 wind had come out of the east in the night, and the " Early 
 Morn,'' with her sheet aft, was buzzing over the long swell 
 that came flowing and brimming to her side in lines of radi- 
 ance in the flashing wake of the sun. Jacob was at the tiller, 
 and, on my emerging, he instantly pointed ahead. I jumped 
 on to a thwart, and perceived directly over the bows the lean- 
 ing, alabaster-like shaft of a ship's canvas. 
 
 " How is she steering?' ' I cried. 
 
 " Slap for us," he answered. 
 
 "Come!" 1 exclaimed, with a sudden delight, "we shall 
 be giving you a farewell shake of the hand at last, I hope. 
 You'll have to signal her," I went on, looking at the lugger's' 
 masthead. " What colors will you fly to make her know your 
 wants?" 
 
 " Ye see that there pole?" exclaimed Thomas, in a grunting 
 voice, pointing with a shovel-ended forefinger to the spare 
 booms along the side of the boat. 1 nodded. "Well," said 
 he, " I suppose you know what the Jack is.^" 
 
 " Certainly," said I. 
 
 " Well," he repeated, " we seizes the Jack on to that there 
 pole and hangs it over, and if that don't stop 'em it'll be 
 'cause they have a cargo of wheat aboard, the fumes of 
 which'll have entered their eyes and struck 'em bloind." 
 
 " That's so," said Ja(;ob, with a nod. 
 
 Just then Abraham came from under the deck, and in an- 
 other moment Helga rose through the little hatch, and they 
 both joined us. 
 
 " At last, Helga!" 1 cried, with a triumphant face, point- 
 ing. 
 
 She looked with her clear blue eyes for a little while in silence 
 at the approaching vessel, as though to make sure of the di- 
 rection she was heading in, then, clasping her hands, she ex- 
 claimed, drawing a breath like a sigh, " Yes, at last. Hugh, 
 your home is not so very far off now." 
 
 " What's she loike?" said Abraham, bringing his knuckles 
 out of his eyes and staring. 
 
 He went to the locker for a little, old-fashioned, 'longshore 
 telescope, pointed it, and sf^id, " A bit of a bark. A furriner."
 
 142 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 He peered again, " A Hamburger/' cried he. " Look, 
 Tommy!" 
 
 The man put the glass to his eye and leaned against the rail, 
 and his mouth lay with a sour curl under the little telescope 
 as he stared through it. 
 
 " Yes, a whoite hull and a Hamburger,'^ said he, "and 
 she's coming along tew. There'll be no time, 1 allow, to bile 
 the coffee-pot afore she's abreast, " he added, casting a hun- 
 gry, morose eye toward the little cooking-stove. 
 
 " Ye can loight the foire. Tommy," said Abraham, " whoilst 
 1 signlize her," saying which he took an English Jack out of 
 that locker in which he kept the soap, towels, and, as it 
 seemed to me, pretty well all the crew's little belongings, and, 
 having secured the flag to the end of the pole, he thrust it over 
 the side and fell to motioning with it, continuing to do so until 
 it was impossible to doubt that the people of the little bark 
 had beheld the signal. He then let the pole with the flag 
 flying upon it rest upon the rail, and took hold of the fore- 
 halliards in readiness to let the sail drop. 
 
 I awaited the approach of the bark with breathless anxiety. 
 1 never questioned for a moment that she would take us 
 aboard, and my thoughts flew ahead to the moment when 
 Helga and I should be safely in her: when we should be look- 
 ing round and finding a stout little ship under our feet, the 
 lugger with her poor plucky Deal sailors standing away from us 
 to the southward, and the horizon past which lay the coast of 
 Old England fair over the bows. 
 
 " Shove us close alongside, Jacob," cried Abraham. 
 
 '* Shall 'ee hook on, Abraham?" inquired Jacob. 
 
 " No call to it," answered Abraham. " We'll down lug 
 and hail her. She'll back her tawps, and I'll put the parties 
 aboard in the punt." 
 
 " I have left my parcel in the fore-peak," said Helga, and 
 was going for it. 
 
 "I'm nimbler than you can be now, Helga," said 1, smil- 
 ing, and meaning that now she was in her girlish attire she had 
 not my activity. 
 
 I jumped forward, and plunged down the hatch, took the 
 parcel out of the bunk, and returned with it, all in such a 
 wild feverish hurry that one might have supposed the lugger 
 was sinking, and that a moment of time might signify life or 
 death to me. Abraham grinned, but made no remark. 
 Thomas, on his knees before the stove, was sulkily blowing at 
 some shavings he had kindled. Jacob, with a wooden face at
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 148 
 
 the tiller, was keeping the bows of the " Early Morn '^ on a 
 line with the oncoming vessel. 
 
 The bark was under a full breast of canvas, and was heeling 
 prettily to the pleasant breeze of wind that was gushing brill- 
 iantly out of the eastern range of heaven made glorious by the 
 soaring sun. Her hull sat white as milk upon the dark-blue 
 water, and her canvas rose in squares which resembled mother- 
 of-pearl with the intermixture of shadow and flashing light upon 
 them occasioned by her rolling, so that the cloths looked shot 
 like watered silk or like the inside of an oyster shell. But it 
 was distance on top of the delight that her coming raised in 
 me which gave her the enchantment I found in her, for, as 
 she approached, her hull lost its sndw-like glare and showed 
 somewhat dingily with rusty stains from the scupper-holes. 
 Her canvas, too, lost its symmetry and exhibited an ill-set pile 
 of cloths, most of the clews straining at a distance from the 
 yard-arm sheave-holes, and I also took notice of the disfigure- 
 ment of a stumjj-foretopgallant-mast. 
 
 " Dirty as a Portugee," said Abraham; " yet she's Jarman 
 all the same.'* 
 
 " I never took kindly to the Jarmans, myself," said Jacob; 
 *' they're a shoving people, but they aren't clean. Give me 
 the Dutch. What's to beat their cheeses? There's nothing 
 made in England in the cheese line as aquils them Dutch can- 
 non-balls, all pink outside and all cream hin." 
 
 '* Do you mean by a Hamburger a Hamburg ship?" asked 
 Helga. 
 
 " Yes, lady, that's right," answered Abraham. 
 
 " Then she's bound to Hamburg," said the girl. 
 
 " Ask yourself the question," answered Abraham — which is 
 the Deal boatmen's way of saying yes. 
 
 She looked at me. 
 
 " It will be all the same," said I, interpreting the glance; 
 *' England is but over the way from Hamburg. Let us be 
 homeward-bound in any case. We have made southing enough, 
 
 " Tommy!" sung out Abraham, *' give that there Jack an- 
 other flourish, will ye?" 
 
 The man did so, with many strange contortions of his pow- 
 erful frame, and then put down the pole and returned to the 
 stove. 
 
 " Tb'^re don't seem much life aboard her," said Jacob, ey- 
 ing the" bark. *' I can only coimt wan head ower the fo'k'sle 
 rail "
 
 144 ilY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. 
 
 " Up helium, Jacob!" bawled Abraham, and as he said the 
 words lie let go the fore-halliards, and down came the sail. 
 
 The lugger, with nothing showing but her little mizzeu, lost 
 way, and rose and fell quietly beam-on to the bark, whose 
 head was directly at us, as though she must cut us down. When 
 she was within a few cables' length of us she slightly shifted 
 her helm and drew out. A man sprung on to her forecastle 
 rail and yelled at us, brandishing his arms ia a motioning way, 
 as though in abuse of us for getting into the road. We 
 strained our ears. 
 
 " What do 'ee say?' 'growled Abraham, looking at Helga. 
 
 " I do not understand him," she answered. 
 
 " Bark ahoy!" roared Abraham. 
 
 The man on the forecastle-head fell silent, and watched us 
 over his folded arms. 
 
 " Bark ahoy!" yelled Jacob. 
 
 The vessel was now showing her length to us. On Jacob 
 shouting a man came very quietly to the bulwarks near the 
 mizzen rigging and, with sluggish motions, got upon the rail, 
 where he stood holding on by a back-stay, gazing at us lifelessly. 
 The vessel was so close that I could distinguish every feature of 
 the fellow, and I see him now, as 1 write, with his fur cap and 
 long coat and half boots and beard like oakum. The vessel 
 was manifestly steered by a wheel deep behind the deck- 
 house, and neither helm nor helmsman was visible — no living 
 being, indeed, saving the motionless figure on the forecastle head 
 and the equally lifeless figure holding on by the backstay aft. 
 
 " Bark ahoy!" thundered Abraham. " Back 3'our tawps'l, 
 will 'ee? Here's a lady and gent as we wants to jjut aboard 
 ye: they're in distress. They've bin shipwreckt — they wants 
 to git home. Heave to, for Gord's sake, if so be as you're men !" 
 
 Neither figure showed any indications of vitality. 
 
 *' What! are they corpses?" cried Abraham. 
 
 " No, they're wuss — they're Jarmans!" answered Jacob, 
 spitting fiercely. 
 
 On a sudden the fellow who was aft nodded at us, then 
 kissed his hand, solemnly dismounted, and vanished, leaving 
 no one in sight but the man forward, who a minute later disap- 
 peared also. 
 
 Abraham drew a deep breath and looked at me. His coun- 
 tenance suddenly changed. His face crimsoned with temper, 
 and, with a strange, ungainly, 'longshore plunge he sprung 
 on top of the gunwale, supporting himself by a grip of the 
 burton of the mizzen-mast with one hand while he shook his 
 other fist in a very ecstasy of passion at the refcreafino- vessel.
 
 MT DAKISH SWEETHEART. 145 
 
 "Call yonrselyes tJien !" he roared. "I'll have the law. 
 along of ye! It'll be ine as'll report ye! Don't think as i 
 can't spell. H^ A, N, S, A — Hansa. There it is, wrote 
 big as life on your blooming starn! I'll remember ye! You 
 sausage-eaters — you scowbankers — you scaramouches — you 
 varmint! Call yourselves smYors ? Only gi' me a chance of 
 getting alongside!" 
 
 He continued to rage in this fashion, interlarding his lan- 
 guage with words which sent Helga to the boat's side, and held 
 her there with averted face; but, all the same, it was imioossi- 
 ble to keep one's gravity. Vexed, maddened, indeed, as I was 
 by the disappointment, it was as much as I could do to hold 
 my countenance. The absurdity lay in this raving at a vessel 
 that had passed swiftly out of hearing, and upon whose deck 
 not a living soul was visible. 
 
 Having exhausted all that he was able to think of in the 
 way of abuse, Abraham dismounted, flung his cap into the 
 bottom of the boat, and, drying his brow by passing the whole 
 length of his arm along it, he exclaimed: 
 
 " There — now I've given 'em something to think of!" 
 
 " Why, there was ne'er a soul to hear a word ye said," said 
 Thomas, who was still busy at the stove, without looking up. 
 
 " See here!" shouted Abraham, rounding upon him with 
 the heat of a man glad of another excuse to quarrel. " Dorn't 
 you have nothen' to say. No sarce from you, and so I tells 
 ye. I know all about ye. When did ye pay your rent last, 
 eh? Answer me that!" he sneered. 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it? that's the time o' day, eh?" growled 
 Thomas, looking slowly but fiiercely round upon Abraham, and 
 stolidly rising into a menacing posture, that was made wholly 
 ridiculous by the clergyman's coat he wore. " And what's 
 my rent got to do with you? 'T all events, if I am a bit be- 
 hoindhand in my rent, moy farder was never locked up for 
 six months." 
 
 " Say for smuggling, Tommy, say for smuggling, or them 
 parties as is a-listening'll think the ould man did something 
 wrong," said Jacob. 
 
 Helga took me by the arm. 
 
 " Oh, Hugh, silence them — they will como to blows." 
 
 " No, no," said I, quickly, in a low voice. " I know this 
 type of men. There must be much more shouting than this 
 before they double up their lists." 
 
 Still it was a stupid passage of temper, fit only to bo quickly 
 ended. 
 
 "Come, Abraham," I cried, waiting till he had finished
 
 HO MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 roaring out some farther offensive question to Thomas: " l^c 
 " us get sail on the boat and make an end of this. The trial of 
 temper should be mine, not yours. Luck seems against the 
 lady and me; and let me beg of you, as a good fellow and an 
 English seaman, not to frighten Miss Nielsen." 
 
 " What does Tommy want to sarce me for?" said he, still 
 breathing defiance at his mate out of his large nostrils and 
 blood-red visage. 
 
 " What's my rent got to do with you?" shouted the other. 
 
 " And what's moy father got to do with you?" bawled Ab- 
 raham. 
 
 " I say, Jacob," I cried, " for God's sake let's tail on to 
 the halliards and start afresh. There's no good in all this!" 
 
 " Come along, Abey, come along, Tommyl" bawled Jacob. 
 " Droy up, mates! More'n enough's been said;" and with 
 that he laid hold of the halliards, and, without another word, 
 Abraham and Thomas seized the rope too, and the sail was 
 mastheaded. 
 
 Abraham went to the tiller, the other two went to work to 
 get breakfast, and now, in a silence that was not a little re- 
 freshing after the coarse hoarse clamor of the quarrel, the lug- 
 ger buzzed onward afresh. 
 
 " We shall be more fortunate next time," said Helga, 
 looking wistfully at me; and well I knew there was no want 
 of worry in my face; for now there was j^eace in the boat the 
 infamous cold-blo""oded indifference of the rogues we had just 
 passed made me feel half mad. 
 
 " We might have been starving," said I; " we might have 
 been perishing for the want of a drink of water, and still the 
 ruffians would have treated us so." 
 
 "It is but waiting a little longer, Hugh," said Helga, 
 softly. 
 
 "Ay, but how much longer, Helga?" said I. "Must we 
 wait for Cape Town, or perhaps Australia?" 
 
 " Mr. Tregartheu, don't let imagination runaway with ye," 
 exclaimed Abraham, in a voice of composure that was not a 
 little astonishing after his recent outbreak; though, having a 
 tolerably intimate knowledge of the 'longshore character, and 
 being very well aware that the words these fellows hurl at one 
 another mean very little, and commonly end in nothing — 
 unless the men are drunk — 1 was not very greatly surprised by 
 the change in our friend. " There's nothen' that upsets the 
 moiud quicker than imagination. I'll gi' yea yarn. There's 
 an old chap, of the name of Billy Buttress, as crawls about 
 our beach. A little grandson o' his took the glasses out o' his
 
 MY DAHISH SWEETHEART. 147 
 
 speotacles by way o' amusiug hisself. When old Billy puts 
 'eia on to read with he sings out, ' God bless me, Oi'm gone 
 bloiud!' and trembling, and all of a clam, as the saying is, he 
 outs with his handiierchief to woipe the glasses, thinking it 
 might be dirt as hindered him from seeing, and then he cries 
 out, ' Lor' now, if I ain't lost my feeling!' He wasn't to be 
 comforted till they sent for a pint o' ale and showed him that 
 Lis glasses had been took out. That's imagination, master. 
 Don't you be afeered. We'll be setting ye aboard a homeward- 
 "bounder afore long." 
 
 By the time the fellows had got breakfast, the hull of the 
 "bark astern was out of sight; nothing showed of her but a 
 little hovering glance of canvas, and the sea-line swept from 
 her to ahead of us in a bare unbroken girdle. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 asailor'sdeath. 
 
 The day slipped away; there were no more disputes; 
 Thomas went to lie down, and, when Jacob took the tiller, 
 Abraham pulled a little book out of his locker and read it, 
 with his lips moving, holding it out at arm's length, as though 
 it were a daguerreotype that was only discernible in a certain 
 light. I asked him the name of the book. 
 
 " The Boible," said he. " It's the Sabbath, master, and I 
 always read a chapter of this here book on Sundays." 
 
 Helga started. 
 
 " It is Sunday, indeed!" she exclaimed. " I had forgotten 
 it. How swiftly do the days come round! It was a week last 
 night since we left the bay, and this day week my father was 
 alive — my dear father was alive!" 
 
 She opened the parcel and took out the little Bible that had 
 belonged to her mother. I had supposed it was in Danish, but 
 on my taking it from her I found it an English Bible. But 
 then 1 recollected that her mother had been English. I asked 
 her to read aloud to me, and she did so, jironouncing every 
 word in a clear, sweet voice. 1 recollect it was a chapter out 
 of the New Testament, and while she read Abraham put down 
 his book to listen, and Jacob leaned forward from the tiller 
 with a straining ear. 
 
 In this fashion the time passed. 
 
 I went to my miserable bed of spare sail under the over- 
 hanging deck shortly after nine o'clock that night. This un- 
 sheltereri opening was truly a cold, windy, misere^ble bedroom
 
 148 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. / 
 
 for a man who could not in any way claim that he was used 
 to hardship. Indeed, the wretchedness of the accommodation 
 was as much a cause as any other condition of our situation of 
 my wild, headlong impatience to get away from the lugger 
 and sail for home in a ship that would find me shelter and a 
 bed and room to move in, and those bare conveniences of life 
 which were lacking aboard the " Early Morn.^' 
 
 Well, as I have said, shortly after nine o'clock on that Sun- 
 day, I bid good-night to Abraham, who was steering the vessel, 
 and entered my sleeping abode, where Jacob was lying rolled 
 up iu a blanket, snoring heavily. It was then a dark night, 
 but the wind was scant, and the water smooth, and but little 
 motion of swell in it. I had looked for a star, but there was 
 none to be seen, and then I had looked for a ship's light, but 
 the dusk stood like a wall of blackness within a musket-shot 
 of the lugger's sides — for that was about as far as one could 
 see the dim crawling of the foam to windward and its receding 
 glimmer on the other hand — and there was not the faintest 
 point of green or red or white anywhere visible. 
 
 I lay awake for some time: sleep could make but little head- 
 way against the battery of snorts and gasps which the Deal 
 boatman, lying close beside me, opposed to it. My mind also 
 was uncommonly active with worry and anxiety. I was 
 dwelling constantly upon my mother, recalling her as I had 
 last seen her by the glow of the fire in her little parlor when I 
 gave her that last kiss and ran out of the house. It is eight 
 days ago, thought 1; and it seemed incredible that the time 
 should have thus fled. Then I thought of Helga, the anguish 
 of heart the poor girl had suffered, her heroic acceptance of her 
 fate, her simple piety, her friendlessness and her future. 
 
 In this way was my mind occupied when I fell asleep, and I 
 afterward knew that 1 must have lain for about an hour 
 wrapped in the heavy slumber that comes to a weary man at 
 sea. 
 
 I was awakened by a sound of the crashing and splintering 
 of wood. This was instantly succeeded by a loud and fearful 
 cry, accompanied by the noise of a heavy splash, immediately 
 followed by hoarse shouts. One of the voices I believed was 
 Abraham's, but the blending of the distressed and terrified 
 bavvlings rendered them confounding, and scarcely distinguish- 
 able. It was pitch dark where I lay. I got on to my knees 
 to crawl out; but some spare sail that Abraham had contrived 
 as a shelter for me had slipped from its position, and ob- 
 structed me, and I lay upon my knees wrestling for a few 
 minutes before I could free myself. In this time my belief
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 149 
 
 was that the lugger had been in collision with some black 
 shadow of ship invisible to the helmsman in the darkness, and 
 that she might be now, even while I kneeled wrestling with 
 the sail, going down under us, with Helga, perhaps, still in 
 the forepeak. This caused me to struggle furiously, and pres- 
 ently I got clear of the blinding and hugging folds of the can- 
 vas; but 1 was almost spent with fear and exertion. 
 
 Some one continued to shout, and by the character of his 
 cries I gathered that he was hailing a vessel close to. It was 
 blowing a sharp squall of wind, and raining furiously. The 
 darkness was that of the inside of a mine, and all that I could 
 see was the figure of a boatman leaning over the side and 
 holding the lantern (that was kept burning all night) on a 
 level with the gunwale while he shouted, and then listened, 
 and then shouted again. 
 
 " What has happened!" I cried. 
 
 The voice of Jacob, though I could not see him, answered, 
 in a tone I shall never forget for the misery and consternation 
 of it: 
 
 " The foremast's carried away and knocked poor old Tom- 
 my overboard. He'sdrownded! he'sdrownded! He don't make 
 no answer. His painted clothes and boots have took him 
 down as if he was a dipsy lead.'' 
 
 " Can he swim?" I cried. 
 
 " No, sir, no!" 
 
 I sprung to where Abraham overhung the rail. 
 
 " Will he be lying fouled by the gear over the side, do you 
 think?" I cried to the man. 
 
 " No, sir," answered Abraham; " he drifted clear. He 
 Bung out once as he went astern. What a thing to happen! 
 Can't launch the punt with the lugger a wreck," he added, 
 talking as though he thought aloud in his misery. "We'd 
 stand to lose the lugger if we launched the punt." 
 
 " Listen!" shouted Jacob, and he sent his voice in a bull- 
 like roar into the blackness astern: " Tom-mee!" 
 
 There was nothing to bo heard but the shrilling of the 
 sharp-edged squall rushing athwart the boat, that now lay 
 beam on to it, and the slashing noise of the deluge of rain 
 horizontally streaming, and the grinding of the wrecked gear 
 alongside with frequent sharp slaps of the rising sea against 
 the bends of the lugger, and the fierce snarling of melting heads 
 of waters suddenly and savagely vexed and flashed into spray 
 while curling. 
 
 " What is it?" cried the voice of Helga in my ear. 
 
 " Abj thank Heaven, you ?ire safe!" I cfied^ feeling for her
 
 150 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 hand and grasping it. "A dreadful thing has happened. 
 The lugger has been dismasted, and the fall of the spar has 
 knocked the man Thomas overboard.'* 
 
 " He may be swimming I" she exclaimed. 
 
 " No! no! no!" growled Abraham, in a voice hoarse with 
 grief. " He's gone — he's gone! We shall never see him 
 again." Then his note suddenly changed. "Jacob, the 
 raffle alongside must be got in at wonst: let's bear a hand 
 afore the sea jumps aboard. Lady, will ye hold the loight? 
 Mr. Tregarthen, we shall want you to help us. " 
 
 " Willingly!" I cried. 
 
 I remembered at that moment that my oilskin coat lay in 
 the side of the boat close to where I stood. I stooped and felt 
 it, and in a moment I had whijsped it over Helga's shoulders, 
 for she was now holding the lantern, and 1 had her clear in 
 my sight. It would be a godsend to her, 1 knew, in the wet 
 that was now sluicing past us, and that must speedily have 
 soaked her to the skin, clad as she was. 
 
 For the next few minutes all was bustle and hoarse shouts. 
 I see little Helga, now, hanging over the side and swinging 
 the lantern, that its light might touch the wreckage; I see the 
 crystals of rain flashing past the lantern and blinding the glass 
 of it with wet; I feel again the rush of the fierce squall upon 
 my face, making breathing a labor, while I grab hold of the 
 canvas, and help the men to drag the great, sodden heavy sail 
 into the boat. We worked desperately, and, as I have said, in 
 a few minutes we had got the whole of the sail out of the 
 water; but the mast was too heavy to handle in the blackness, 
 and it was left to float clear of us by the halliards till daylight 
 should come. 
 
 We were wet through, and chilled to the heart besides — I 
 speak of myself, at least — not more b}' the sharp bite of that 
 black, wet squall than by the horror occasioned by the sudden 
 loss of a man, by the thought of one as familiar to the sight 
 as hourly association could make him, who was just now liv- 
 ing and talking — lying cold and still, sinking fathoms deep 
 into the heart of that dark measureless profound on whose 
 surface the lugger — in all probability the tiniest ark at that 
 moment afloat in the oceans she was attempting to traverse — 
 was tumbling. 
 
 "Haul aft the mizzen-sheet, Jacob!" said Abraham in a 
 voice hoarse indeed, but marked with depression also. " Ye 
 can secure the tiller too. She must loie as she is till we can 
 see what we're about. " 
 
 Th^ man went aft vvith a lantern. He s|)eedily executed
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 151 
 
 Abraham^s orders; but by the aid of the dim lantern-light I 
 could see him standing motionless in the stern-sheets, as 
 though barkening and straining his gaze. 
 " "He's gone, Abraham!" he cried, suddenly, in a rough 
 voice that trembled with emotion. " There will be never no 
 more to hear of Tommy Budd. Ay, gone dead — droWuded 
 forever!" 1 heard him mutter, as he jDicked up the lantern 
 and came with heavy booted legs clambering over the thwarts 
 to us. 
 
 " As God's my loife, how sudden it were!" cried Abraham, 
 making his hands meet in a sharp report in the passion of 
 grief with which he clapped them. 
 
 It was still raining hard, and the atmosphere was of a mid- 
 night blackness; but all the hardness of the squall was gone 
 out of the wind, and it was now blowing a steady breeze, such 
 as we should have been able to expose our whole lugsail to 
 could we have hoisted it. Jacob held the lantern to the mast, 
 or rather to the fragment that remained of it. You must 
 know that a Deal lugger's mast is stepped in what is termed a 
 " tabernacle " — that is to say, a sort of box, which enables 
 the crew to lower or set up their mast at will. This " taber- 
 nacle," with us, stood a little less than two feet above thefore-^ 
 peak deck, and the mast had been broken at some ten feet 
 above it. It showed in very ugly, fang-like points. 
 
 " Two rotten masts for such a voyage as this!" cried Jacob, 
 with a savage note in his voice. " 'Tis old Thompson's work. 
 Would he was in Tommy's j^lace! S'elp me! I'd give half 
 the airniugs of this voyage for the chance to drown him!" 
 
 By which I might gather that he referred to the boat-builder 
 who had supplied the masts. 
 
 " No use in standing in this drizzle, men," said I. " It's a 
 bad job, but there's nothing to be done for the present, Abra- 
 ham. There's shelter to be got under this deck, here. Have 
 you another lantern?" 
 
 " What for?" asked Abraham, in the voice of a man utterly 
 broken down. 
 
 " Why, to show," said I, "lest we should be run into. 
 Here we are stationary, you know, and who's to see us as we 
 lie?" 
 
 " And a blooming good job if we was run into!" returned 
 Abraham. " Blarst me if I couldn't chuck moysolf over- 
 board!" 
 
 " Nonsense!" cried I, alarmed by his tone rather than by 
 his words. " Let us get under shelter! Here, Jacob, give 
 me the light! Now, Helga, crawl in first and show us the
 
 152 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 roail. Abraham, in with you! Jacob, take this lantern, will 
 yoii, aihl get one of those jars of spirits you took oil the raft, 
 -t and a mug and some cold water! Abraham will be the better 
 for a dram, and so will you." 
 
 Tlis3 jar was procured, and each man took a hearty drink. 
 I, too, found comfort iu a dram, but I could not induce Helga 
 to put the mug to her lips. The four of us crouched under 
 the overhanging deck — there was no height and, indeed, no 
 breadth for an easier posture. We set the lantern in our 
 midst — I had no more to say about showing the light — and in 
 this dim irradiation we gazed at one another. Abraham's 
 countenance looked of a ghostly white. Jacob, with mourn- 
 ful gestures, filled a pipe, and his melancholy visage resembled 
 some grotesque face beheld in a dream as he opened the lan- 
 tern and thrust his nose, with a large rain-drop hanging at 
 the end of it, close to the flame to light the tobacco. 
 
 " To think that I should have had a row with him only this 
 marning!" growled Abraham, hugging his knees. " What 
 roight had I to go and sarce him about his rent? Will any 
 man tell me," said he, slowly looking round, " that poor old 
 Tommy's heart warn't in the roight place? Oi hoi^e not, Oi 
 hope not — Oi couldn't abear to hear it said. He was a man 
 as had had to struggle hard for his bread like others along of 
 us, and disappointment and want and marriage had tarned 
 his blood hacid. Oi've known him to pass three days without 
 biting a crust. The wery bed on whicb he lay was took from 
 him. Yet he bore up, and without th' help o' drink, and I 
 says that to the pore chap's credit. " 
 
 fie paused. 
 
 " At bottom," exclaimed Jacob, sucking hard at his inch 
 of sooty clay, " Tommy was a man. He once saved my loife. 
 You remember, Abey, that job I had along with him when we 
 was a-towing down on the quarter of a big, light Spaniard?" 
 
 " I remember, I remember," grunted Abraham. 
 
 "The boat sheered," continued Jacob, addressing me, 
 " and got agin the steamer's screw, and the stroke of the blade 
 cut the boat roight in halves. They chucked us a loife-buoy. 
 Poor old Tommy got hold of it and heads for me, who were 
 drowning some fadoms off. He clutched me by the h«ir just 
 in toime, and held me till we was picked up. And now he's 
 gone dead, and we shall never see him no more. " 
 
 *' Tommy Budd," exclaimed Abraham, " was that sort of 
 man that he never took a joint himself without asking a chap 
 to have a glass tew, if so be as he had the valley of it on him. 
 There was no smarter man fore and aft the beach in steering
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 153 
 
 a galley-punt. There was scarce a regatta but what he was 
 fust." 
 
 '' He was a upright man," said Jacob, observing that Abra- 
 ham had paused; "and never more upright than when he 
 warn't sober, which proves how true his instincts was. When 
 his darter got married to young Darkey Dick, as Tommy 
 didn't think a soctable match, he walks into the room of the 
 public-house where the company was dancing and enjoying 
 themselves, kicked the whole blooming party out into the road, 
 then sits down, and calls for a glass himself. Of course he'd 
 had a drop too much. But the drink only im^jroved his 
 nat'ral disloike of the wedding. Pore Tommy! Abey, pass 
 along that jar!" 
 
 In this fashion these plain, simple-hearted souls of boatmen 
 continued for some time, with now and again an interlude in 
 the direction of the spirit-jar, to bewail the loss of their un- 
 happy shipmate. Our situation, however, was of a sort that 
 would not suffer the shock caused by the man Thomas's death 
 to be very lasting. Here we were, in what was little better 
 than an open boat of eighteen tons, lying dismasted, and en- 
 tirely helpless, amid the solitude of a black midnight in the 
 Atlantic Ocean, with nothing but an already wounded mast to 
 depend upon when daybreak should come to enable us to set it 
 up, and the lugger's slender crew less by one able hand! 
 
 It was still a thick and drizzling night, with a plentiful sob- 
 bing of water alongside; but the " Early Morn," under her 
 little mizzen and with her bows almost head to sea, rose and 
 fell quietly. By this time the men had pretty well exhausted 
 their lamentations over Thomas. I therefore ventured to 
 change the suDJect. 
 
 " Now there are but two of you," said I, " I suppose you'll 
 up with your mast to-morrow morning and make for home?" 
 
 "No fear!" answered Abraham, speaking with briskness 
 out of the drams he had swallowed. " We're agoing to Aus- 
 traley, and if so be as another of us ain't taken we'll git there." 
 
 " But surely you'll not continue this voyage with the outfit 
 you now have?" said I. 
 
 " Well," said he, " we shall have to ' fish ' the mast that's 
 sprung and try and make it sarve till we falls in with a wessel 
 as'U give us a sound spar to take the mast's place. Anyhow, 
 we shall keep all on. " 
 
 "Ay, we shall keep all on," said Jacob: "no use coming 
 all this way to tarn back again. Why, Gor' bless me, whac 
 'ud be said of us?"
 
 154 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " But, surely," said Helga, " two of you'll not be able to 
 manjige this big boat?" 
 
 " Lord love 'ee, yes, lady," cried Abraham. " Mind ye, if 
 we was out a pleasuring I should want to get home; but 
 there's money to take up at the end of this ramble, and Jacob 
 and me means to airn it." 
 
 Thus speaking, he crawled out to have a look at the weather, 
 and was, a moment later, followed by Jacob, and presently I 
 could hear them both earnestly consulting on what was to be 
 done when the morning came, and how they were to manage 
 afterward, now that Thomas was gone. 
 
 The light of the lantern lay upon Helga's face as she sat 
 close beside me on the spare sail that had formed my rough 
 couch. 
 
 " What further experiences are we to pass through?" said I. 
 
 " Little you guessed what was before you when you came 
 off to us in the life-boat, Hugh!" said she, gazing gently at 
 me with eyes which seemed black in the dull light. 
 
 " These two boatmen," said I, " are very good fellows, but 
 there is a pig-headedness about them that does not improve 
 our distress. Their resolution to proceed might appear as a 
 wonderful stroke of courage to a landsman's mind, but to a 
 sailor it could signify nothing more than the rankest foolhardi- 
 ness. A plague upon their heroism! A little timidity would 
 mean common sense, and then to-morrow morning we should 
 be heading for home. But I fear you are wet through, 
 miga." 
 
 " No, your oilskin has kept me dry," she answered. 
 
 " No need for you to stay here," said L " Why not return 
 to the forepeak and finish out the night?" 
 
 " I would rather remain with you, Hugh. " 
 
 " Ay, Helga, but you must spare no pains to fortify your- 
 self with rest and food. Who knows what the future may be 
 holding for us — how heavily the pair of us may yet be tried? 
 These experiences, so far, may prove but a few links of a chain 
 whose end is still a long way off. " 
 
 She put her hand on the back of mine, and tenderly 
 stroked it. 
 
 " Hugh," said she, " remember our plain friend Abraham's 
 advice: Do not let imagination run away with you. The 
 spirit that brought you to the side of the ' Anine ' in the 
 black and dreadful night is still your own. Cheer up! All 
 will be well with you yet. What makes me say this? I can 
 not tell, if it be not the conviction that God will pot leave uq-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. 155 
 
 watched one whose trials have been brought about by an act 
 of noble courage and of beautiful resolution. " 
 
 She continued to caress my hand as she spoke — an uncon- 
 scious gesture in her, as I perceived — may be it was a habit of 
 her affectionate heart, and I could figure her thus caressing 
 her father's hand, or the hand of a dear friend. Her soft eyes 
 were upon my face as she addressed me, and there was ligiit 
 enough to enable me to distinguish a little encouraging smile 
 full of sweetness upon her lips. 
 
 If ever strength is to be given to a man in a time of bitter 
 anxiety and peril, the inspiration of spirit must surely come 
 from such a little woman as this. I felt the influence of her 
 manner and of her presence. 
 
 " You have a fine spirit, Helga," said I. " Your name 
 should be Nelson instead of Nielsen. The blood of nothing 
 short of the greatest of English captiins should be in your 
 veins." 
 
 She laughed softly and answered: 
 
 " No, no! I am a Dane first. Let me be an English girl 
 next.'* 
 
 Well, I again endeavored to persuade her to withdraw to 
 her bunk, but she begged hard to remain with me, and so for 
 a long while we continued to sit and talk. Her speaking of 
 herself as a Dane first and an Englishwoman afterward started 
 her on the subject of her home and childhood, and once again 
 she talked of Kolding and of her mother, and of the time she 
 had spent in London, and of an English school she had been 
 put to. I could overhear the rumbling of the two fellows' 
 voices outside. By and by I crawled out and found the rain 
 had ceased; but it was pitch dark, and blowing a cold wind. 
 Jacob had lighted the fire in the stove. His figure showed in 
 the ruddy glare as he squatted toasting his hands. I returned 
 to Helga, and presently Abraham arrived to ask us if we 
 would have a drop of hot cofi'ee. This was a real luxury at 
 such a time. We gratefully took a mugful, and with the help 
 of it made a midnight meal oS a biscuit and a little tinned 
 meat. 
 
 How we scraped through those long, dark, wet hours I will 
 not pretend to describe. Toward the morning Helga fell 
 asleep by my side on the sail upon which we were crouching, 
 but for my part I could get no rest, nor, indeed, did I strive 
 or wish for it. One thing coming on top of another had ren- 
 dered me unusually nervous, and all the while I was thinking 
 that our next experience might be the feeling some great 
 shearing stem of a sailing ship or steamer striking into the
 
 156 MY DANISH S-WEETHEAItT. 
 
 lugger and drowning the lot of us before we could well realize 
 "what had happened. 1 was only easy in my mind when the 
 boatmen carried the lantern out from under the overhanging 
 deck for some purpose or other. 
 
 It came at last, however, to my being able no longer to con- 
 ceal my apprehensions, and then, after some talk and a bit of 
 hearty " pooh-poohiug " on the part of Abraham, he con- 
 sented to secure the light to the stump of the mast. 
 
 This might have been at about half past three o'clock in the 
 morning, when the night was blacker than it had been at any 
 
 {jrevious hour; and then a very strange thing followed, I 
 lad returned to my shelter, and was sitting lost in thought, 
 for Helga was now sleeping. The two boatmen were in the 
 open, but what they were about I could not tell you. I was 
 sunk deep in gloomy thought, as I have said, when on a sud- 
 den I heard a sound of loud bawling. I went out as quickly 
 as my knees would carry me, and the first thing I saw was the 
 green light of a ship glimmering faintly as a glow-worm out in 
 the darkness abeam. I knew her to be a sailiug-ship, for she 
 showed no masthead light, but there was not the dimmest out- 
 line to be seen of her. Her canvas threw no pallor upon the 
 midnight wall of atmosphere. But for that fluctuating green 
 light, showing so illusively that one needed to look a little on 
 one side of it to catch it, the ocean would have been as bare 
 as the heavens, so far as the sight went. One after the other 
 the two boatmen continued to shout " Ship ahoy!" in hearty 
 roaring voices, which they sent flying through the arching of 
 their hands; but the light went sliding on, and in a few min- 
 utes the screen in which it was hung eclipsed it; and it was all 
 blackness again, look where one would. 
 
 There was nothing to be said about this to the men. I 
 crept back to Helga, who had been awakened by the hoarse 
 shouts. 
 
 " Some sailing-vessel has passed us,^' said I, in answer to 
 her inquiry, " as we may know by the green light; but how 
 near or far I can not tell. Yet it is more likely than not, 
 Helga, that but for my begging Abraham to keep a light 
 showing that same shij) might have run us down. " 
 
 We conversed awhile about tbe vessel and our chances, and 
 then her voice grew languid again with drowsiness, and she 
 fell asleep. 
 
 Somewhile before dawn the rain ceased, the sky brightened, 
 and here and there a star showed. I had been out overhang- 
 ing the gunwale with Abraham, and listening to him as he 
 talked about his mate Thomas, and how the children were to
 
 MY DAITISH SWEETHEART. 157 
 
 manage now that the poor fellow was taken, when the gray of 
 the dawn rose floating into the sky oQ. the black rim of the 
 sea. 
 
 In a short time the daylight was abroad, with the pink of 
 the coming sun swiftly growing in glory among the clouds in 
 the east. Jacob sat sleeping in the bottom of the boat, squat- 
 ting Lascar fashion — a huddle of coat and angular knees and 
 bowed head. I got upon a thwart and sent a long thirsty look 
 round. 
 
 " By Heaven, Abraham!" I cried, " nothing in sight, as I 
 live to say it! What, in the name of hope, has come to the 
 sea?'' 
 
 " We're agoing to have a fine day, I'm thankful to say," he 
 answered, turning up his eyes. "But, Jjord! what a wreck 
 the lugger looks!" 
 
 The poor fellow was as haggard as though he had risen from 
 a sick-bed, and this sudden' gauntness or elongation of counte- 
 nance was not a little heightened by a small powdering of the 
 crystals of salt lying white under the hollow of each eye where 
 the brine that had been swept up by the squall had lodged and 
 dried. 
 
 " Hi, Jacob!" he cried; " rouse up, matey! Day's broke, 
 and there's work to be done." 
 
 Jacob staggered to his feet with many contortions and 
 grimaces. 
 
 "Chock-a-block with rheumatics," he growled; "that's 
 how the sea sarves a man. They said it 'ud get warmer the 
 furder we drawed down this way; but if this bo what they 
 calls warm, give me the scissors and thumbscrews of a Jani- 
 vary gale in the Jarman Ocean." He gazed slowly around 
 him, and fixed his eyes on the stump of the mast. " Afore 
 we begin, Abraham," said he, " I must have a drop of hot 
 corffee." 
 
 " Eight," answered the other; " a quarter of an hour isn't 
 going to make any difEereuce. " 
 
 A fire was kindled, a kettle of water boiled, and, Helga now 
 arriving, the four of us sat, every one with a mug of the com- 
 forting steaming beverage in his hand, while the two boatmen 
 settled the procedure of strengthening the wounded spar by 
 " fishing it," as it is termed, and of making sail afresh.
 
 158 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE END OF THE "EARLY MOEN." 
 
 The first business of the men was to get the broken mast 
 out of the water. Helga helped, and worked with as much 
 dexterity as though she had been bred to the calling of the 
 Deal waterman. The mast in breaking had been shortened by 
 ten feet, and was therefore hardly as useful a spar to step as 
 the bowsprit. It was laid along the thwarts in the side, and 
 we went to work to strengthen the mast that had been sprung 
 in the Channel by laying pieces of wood over the fractured 
 part, and securely binding them by turn upon turn of rope. 
 This, at sea, they call " fishing a spar." Jacob shook his 
 head as he looked at the mast when we had made an end ol 
 the repairs, but said nothing. When the mast was stepped, 
 we hoisted the sail with a reef in it to ease the strain. Abra- 
 ham went to the tiller, the boat's head was put to a south- 
 west course, and once again the little fabric was pushing 
 through it, rolling m a long-drawn way upon a sudden swell 
 that had risen while we worked, with a frequent little vicious 
 shake of white waters o2 her bow, as though the combing of 
 the small seas irritated her. 
 
 The wind was about east, of a November coldness, and it 
 blew somewhat lightly till a little before ten o'clock in the 
 morning, when it came along freshening in a gust which heeled 
 the boat sharply, and brought a wild, anxious look into Abra- 
 ham'b eyes as he gazed at the mast. The horizon slightly 
 thickened to some film of mist which overlay the windward 
 junction of heaven and water, and the sky then took a windy 
 face, with dim breaks of blue betwixt long streaks of hard 
 vapor, under which there nimbly sailed, here and there, a 
 wreath of light-yellow scud. The sea rapidly became sloppy 
 — an uncomfortable tumble of billows occasioned by the lateral 
 run of the swell — and the boat's gait grew so staggering, such 
 a sense of internal dislocation was induced by her brisk, jerky 
 wobbling — now to windward now to leeward, now by the stern 
 now by the head, then all the motions happening together, as 
 it were, followed by a sickly, leaning slide down some slope of 
 rounded water — that for the first time in my life I felt posi- 
 tively sea-sick, and was not a little thankful for the relief I ob- 
 tained from a nip of poor Captain Nielsen's brandy out of one 
 of the few jars which had been taken from the raft, and which 
 still remained f ulL
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 159 
 
 Somewhile before noon it was blowing a fresh breeze, with 
 a somewhat steadier sea; but the rolling and plunging of the 
 lugger continued sharp and exceedingly uncomfortable. To 
 still farther help the mast— Abraham having gone into the 
 fore-peak to get a little sleep— Helga and I, at the request of 
 Jacob, who was steering, tied a second reef in the sail; though, 
 had the spar been sound, the lugger would have easily borne 
 the whole of her canvas. 
 
 " If that mast goes, what is to be done?" said I to Jacob. 
 
 " Whoy," he answered, " we shall have to make shift with 
 the remains of the mast that went overboard last night.'* 
 
 " But what sail will you be able to hoist on that shortened 
 height?" 
 
 " Enough to keep us slowly blowing along," he answered, 
 " till we falls in with a wessel as will help us to the sort o' 
 spar as'll sarve." 
 
 " Considering the barrenness of the sea we have been sailing 
 through," said I, " the look-out seems a poor one, if we're to 
 depend upon passing assistance." 
 
 " Mr. Tregarthen," said he, fixing his eyes upon my face^ 
 " I'm an older man nor you, and therefore I takes the liberty 
 of telling ye this: that neither ashore nor at sea do things fall 
 out in the fashion as is hanticipated. That's what the Hi- 
 talian organ-grinder discovered. He con-ceived that if he 
 could get hold of a big monkey he'd do a good trade; so he 
 buys the biggest he could meet with — a chap pretty nigh as 
 big as himself. What happened? When them parties was 
 met with a week arterward, it was the monkey that was a- 
 turning the handle, while the horgan-grinder was doing the 
 dancing," 
 
 " The public wouldn't know the difference," said Helga. 
 
 " True for you, lady," answered Jacob, with an approving 
 nod and a smile of admiration. " But Mr. Tregarthen here'll 
 find out that I'm speaking the Lard's truth when I says that 
 human hanticipation always works out contrariwise." 
 
 " I heartily hope it may do so in our case!" I exclaimed, 
 vexed by the irrationality, as it seemed to me, of this homely 
 boatman's pliilosphic views. 
 
 " About toime for Abraham to take soights, ain't it?" said 
 he. 
 
 I went to the hatch and called to Abraham, who in a few 
 minutes arrived, and, with sleepy eyes, fell to groping after 
 the sun with iiis old quadrant. While he was thus occupied, 
 Helga touched me lightly on the shoulder and pointed astern, 
 
 I peered an instant, and then said:
 
 160 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " I see it! A sail! — at the wrong end of the sea again, of 
 course! Another " Thermopylae/* may be, to thunder past us 
 with no further recognition of our wants than a wagging head 
 over the rail, with a finger at its nose. " 
 
 " It's height bells!" cried Abraham; and he sat down to 
 his rough calculations. 
 
 Jacob looked soberly over his shoulder at the distant tiny 
 space of white canvas. 
 
 " If there's business to be done with her," said he, " we 
 must steer to keep her head right at our starn. What 
 course'll she be taking?" 
 
 " She appears to be coming directly at us," answered Helga. 
 
 " Why not lower your sail, heave the lugger to, and fly a 
 distress signal?" said I. 
 
 I had scarcely uttered the words when the boat violently 
 jumped a sea; a crash followed, and the next instant the sail, 
 with half of the fished mast, was overboard, with the lugger 
 rapidly swinging, head to sea, to the drag of the wreckage. 
 
 I was not a little startled by the sudden cracking of the 
 mast, that was like the report of a gun, and the splash of the 
 sail overboard, and the rapid slewing of the boat. 
 
 Helga quietly said in my ear; 
 
 " Nothing better could have happened, Hugh. We are 
 now indeed a wreck for that ship astern to sight, and she is 
 sure to speak us. " 
 
 Abraham flung down his logbook with a sudden roaring out 
 of I know not what 'longshore profanities, and Jacob, letting 
 go the helm, went scrambling forward over the thwarts, heap- 
 ing sea-blessings, as he sprawled, upon the eyes and limbs of 
 the boat-builder who had supplied the lugger with spars. The 
 three of us went to work, and Helga helped us as best she 
 could, to get the sail in; but the sea that was now running 
 was large compared to what it had been during the night, and 
 the task was extraordinarily laborious and distressful. In- 
 deed, how long it took us to drag that great lug-sail full of 
 water over the rail was to be told by the ship astern, for when 
 I had leisure to look for her I found her risen to her hull, and 
 coming along, as it seemed to me, dead for us, heeling sharply 
 away from the fresh wind, but rolling heavily too on the swell, 
 and pitching with the regularity of a swing in motion. 
 
 Helga and I threw ourselves upon a thwart, to take breath. 
 The boatmen stood looking at the approaching vessel. 
 
 " She'll not miss seeing us. anyway," said Abraham. 
 
 *' I'm for letting the lugger loie as she is," exclaimed 
 Jacob: " they'll see the mess we're in, and back their taws'L"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 161 
 
 ** You will signal to her, I hope?" said L 
 
 *' Ay/' answered Abraham; " we'll gi' 'em a flourish of 
 the Jack presently, though there'll be little need, for if our 
 condition ain't going to stop 'em there's 'nothen' in a color 
 to do it." 
 
 " Abraham," said I, " you and Jacob will not, I am sure, 
 think us ungrateful if 1 say that I have made up my mind — 
 and I am sure Miss Nielsen will agree — that I have made up 
 my mind, Abraham, to leave your lugger for that ship, out- 
 ward-bound as I can see she is, if she will receive us. " 
 
 "Well, sir," answered Abraham, mildly, "you and the 
 lady are your own masters, and, of course, you'll do as you 
 please." 
 
 " It is no longer right," I continued, " that we should go 
 on in this fashion, eating you out of your little floating house 
 and home; nor is it reasonable that we should keep you de» 
 j)rived of the comfort of your fore-peak. We owe you our 
 lives, and, God knows, we are grateful! But our gratitude 
 must not take the form of compelling you to go on maintain- 
 ing us." 
 
 Abraham took a slow look at the ship. 
 
 " Well, sir," said he, " down to this hour the odds have 
 been so heavy agin your exchanging this craft"^ora homeward- 
 bounder that I really haven't the heart to recommend ye to 
 wait a little longer. It's but an oncomfortable life for the 
 likes of you and the lady — she having to loie in a little bit of 
 a coal-black room, forrads, as may be all very good for us 
 men, but werry bad and hard for her; and you having to tarn 
 jn under that there opening, into which there's no vartue in 
 sail-cloth to keep the draughts from blowing. I dorn't doubt 
 ye'll be happier aboard a craft where you'll have room to 
 stretch your legs in, a proper table to sit down to for your 
 meals, and a cabin where you'll loie snug. 'Sides, tain't, after 
 all, as if she wasn't a-going to give ye the same chances of get- 
 ting home as the ' Airly Marn ' dew. Only hope she'll receive 
 ye." 
 
 " Bound to do it," rumbled Jacob, " if so be as he cap'n's a 
 man. " 
 
 I turned to Ilelga. 
 
 " Do I decide wisely?" 
 
 "Yes, Hugh," she answered. " I hate to think of you ly- 
 ing in that cold space there throughout the nights. The two 
 Eoor fellows," she added, softly, " are generous, kind, large- 
 earted men, and I shrink from the thought of the mad ad- 
 venture they have engaged in. But," said she, with a little 
 
 6
 
 1G2 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 smile aud a faint touch of color in her cheeks, as though she 
 spoke reluctantly, " the ' Early Morn ' is very uncomfortable, 
 Hugh.'' 
 
 " All we have now to pray for is that the captain of that 
 vessel will take us on board, "said I, fixing my eyes on the 
 ship, that was yet too distant for the naked sight to make any- 
 thing of. "I suppose, Abraham," I spoke out, turning to 
 the man, " that you will request them to give you a boom for 
 a spare mast?" 
 
 " Vy, ask yourself the question, sir," he answered. 
 
 " But suppose they have no spare booms, and are unable to 
 accommodate you?" 
 
 " Then," said he, " we must up with that there stick," 
 pointing with his square thumb to the mast that had carried 
 away on the previous night, " and blow along till we meets 
 with something that will accommodate us." 
 
 " But, honestly, men — are you in earnest in your resolution 
 to pufsue this voyage to Australia? You two — the crew now 
 half the working strength you started with — a big boat of 
 eighteen tons to handle, and — " 
 
 I was on the point of referring to the slenderness of his skill 
 as a navigator, but, happily, snapped my lips in time to si- 
 lence the words. 
 
 Abraham eyed me a moment, then gave me a huge, emphatic 
 nod, and, without remark, turned his back upon me in 'long- 
 shore fashion, and leisurely looked around the ocean line. 
 
 " Men," said I, " that ship may take us aboard, and in the 
 bustle I may miss the chance of saying what is in my mind. 
 My name is Hugh Tregarthen, as you know, and I live at Tin- 
 trenale, which you have likewise heard me say. I came away 
 from home m a hurry to get alongside the ship that this brave 
 girl's father commanded; and as I was then so am I now, 
 without a single article of value upon me worthy of your ac- 
 ceptance; for, as to my watch, it was my father's, and I must 
 keep it. But if it should please God, men, to bring us all 
 safely to England again, then, no matter when you two may 
 return, whether in twelve months hence or twelve years hence, 
 you will find set apart for you, at a little bank in Tintrenale, 
 a sum of fifty pounds — which you will take as signifying 
 twenty-five pounds from Miss Helga Nielsen, and twenty-five 
 pounas from me." 
 
 " We thank you koindly, sir," said Jacob. 
 
 " Let us get home, first," said Abraham; " yet, I thank ye 
 koindly tew, Mr. Tregarthen," he added, rounding upon me 
 again and extending his rough hand.
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 1G3 
 
 I grasped and held it with eyes suffused by the emotion of 
 gratitude which possessed me: then Jacob shook hands with 
 me, and then the poor fellows shook hands with Helga, whose 
 breath I could hear battling with a sob in her throat as she 
 thanked them for her life and for their goodness to her. 
 
 But every minute was bringing the ship closer, and now I 
 could think of nothing else. Would she back her topsail and 
 come to a stand? Would she at any moment shift her helm 
 and give us a wide berth? Would she, if she came to a halt, 
 receive Helga and me? These were considerations to excite a 
 passion of anxiety in me. Helga's eyes, with a clear blue 
 gleam in them, were fixed upon the oncoming vessel; but the 
 agitation, the hurry of emotions in her little heart, showed in 
 the trembling of her nostrils and the contraction of herlvhite 
 brow, where a few threads of her pale-gold hair were blowing. 
 
 Jacob pulled the Jack out of the locker, and attached it to 
 the long staff or pole, and fell to waving it as before when the 
 Hamburger hove into view. The ship came along slowly, 
 but without deviating by a hair'a-breadth from her course, 
 that was on a straight line with the lugger. She was still dim 
 in the blue, windy air, but determinable to a certain extent, 
 and now with the naked vision I could distinguisli her as a 
 bark or ship of about the size of the " Anine," her hull black 
 and a row of painted ports running along either side. She sat 
 somewhat high upon the water, as though she were half empty 
 or her cargo very light goods; but she was neat aloft — differ- 
 ent, indeed, from the Hamburger. Her royals were stowed in 
 streaks of snow upon their yards, but the rest of her canvas 
 was spread, and it showed in soft, fair bosoms of white, and 
 the cloths carried, indeed, an almost yacht-like brilliauce as 
 they steadily swung against the steely gray of the atmosphere 
 of the horizon. The ship pitched somewhat heavily as she 
 came, and the foam rose in milky clouds to the hawse-pipes 
 with the regular alternation of the lifting out of the round, 
 wet, black bows, and a Hash of sunshine off the streaming tim- 
 bers. From time to time Jacob flourislied his flagstaff, all of 
 us, meanwhile, waiting and watching in silence. Presently, 
 Abraham put his little telescope to his eye, and, after a pause, 
 said: 
 
 " She means to heave to." 
 
 " How can you tell?" I cried. 
 
 " 1 can sec some figures a-standing by the weather main- 
 braces,'' said ho; " and every now and again there's a chap, 
 aft, bending his body over the rail to have a look at us. " 
 
 His 'longshore observation proved correct. Indeed, your
 
 164: MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 Deal boatman can interpret the intentions of a ship as you are 
 able to read the passions in the human face. When she was 
 within a tew of her own lengths of us, the main-sail having 
 previously been hauled up, the yards on the mainmast were 
 swung, and (he vessel's way arrested. Her impulse, which 
 appeared to have been very nicely calculated, brought her 
 surging, foaming, and rolling to almost abreast of us, within 
 reach of the fling of a line before she came to a dead stand. I 
 instantly took notice of a crowd of chocolate-visaged men 
 standing on the forecastle, staring at us, with a white man on 
 the cathead, and a man aft on the poop, with a white wide- 
 awake and long yellow whiskers. 
 
 "Bark ahoy!" bawled Abraham, for the vessel proved to 
 be of that rig, though it was not to have been told by us as she 
 iipproached head on. 
 
 " Halloo I" shouted the man in the white wideawake. 
 
 " For God's sake, sir," shouted Abraham, " heave us a line, 
 ihat we may haul alongside! "We're in great distress, and 
 there's a couple of parties here as wants to get aboard ye." 
 
 " Heave them a line!'^ shouted the fellow aft, sending his 
 voice to the forecastle. 
 
 " Look out for it!" bawled the white man on the heel of 
 the cathead within the rail. 
 
 A line lay ready as though our want had been foreseen: with 
 /Sailorly celerity the white man gathered it into fakes, and in a 
 few moments the coils were flying through the air. Jacob 
 caught the rope with the unerring clutch of a boatman, and 
 the three of us, stretching our backs at it, swung the lugger 
 to the vessel's quarter. 
 
 " What is it you want?" cried the long- whiskered man, 
 looking down at us over the rail. 
 
 " We'll come aboard and tell you, sir," answered Abraham. 
 
 " Jacob, you mind the lugger! Now, Mr. Tregarthen, 
 watch your chance and jump into them channels " (meaning 
 the mizzen-chains), " and I'll stand by to help the lady up to 
 your hands. Ye'll want narve, miss! Can ye do it?" 
 
 Helga smiled as she answered: 
 
 " I will go first if you like. " 
 
 1 jumped on to a thwart, planting one foot on the gunwale 
 in readiness. The rolling of the two craft, complicated, so to 
 speak, by the swift jumps of the lugger »s compared with the 
 slow stoops of the bark, made the task of boarding ticklish 
 even to me, who had had some experience of gaining the decks 
 of ships in heavy weather. I waited. Up swung the boat, 
 and over came the leaning side of the bark; then I sprung.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 165 
 
 and successfully, and, instantly turning, waited to catch hold 
 of Helga. 
 
 Abraham took her under the arms as though to lift her to- 
 ward me when the opportunity came. 
 
 " 1 can manage alone — I shall be safer alone!" she ex- 
 claimed, giving him a smile and then setting her hps. 
 
 She did as I had done — stood on a thwart, securely planting 
 one foot on the gunwale; and even in such a moment as that 
 1 could find mind enough to admire the beauty of her figure 
 and the charming grace of her posture as her form floated per- 
 pendicularly upon the staggering motions of the lugger. 
 
 " Now, Hugh!" she cried, as her outstretched hands were 
 borne up to the level of mine. I caught her. She sprung, 
 and was at my side in a breath. 
 
 " Nobly done, Ilelga," said I; " now over the rail with us.'* 
 
 She stopped to call Abraham with a voice in which 1 could 
 trace no hurry of breathing: 
 
 " Will you please hand me up my little parcel?" 
 
 This was done, and a minute later we had gained the poop 
 of the bark. 
 
 The man with the long whiskers advanced to the break of 
 the short poop or upper deck as Helga and 1 ascended the 
 ladder that led to it. He seized the brim of his hat, and, 
 without lifting it, bowed his head as though to the tug he 
 gave, and said with a slightly nasal accent by no means 
 Yankee, but of the kind that is common to the denomination 
 of " tub-thumpers ": 
 
 " I suppose you are the two distressed parties the sailor in 
 the lugger called out about?'' 
 
 "We are, sir," said I. " May I take it that you are the 
 caj)tain of this bark?" 
 
 " You may," he responded, with his eyes fixed on Helga. 
 " Captain Joppa Bunting, master of the bark ' Light of the 
 World,' from the River Thames for Table Bay, with a small 
 cargo and for orders. That gives you everything, sir," 
 said he. 
 
 He pulled at his long whiskers with a complacent smile, now 
 contemplating me and now Helga. 
 
 "Captain Bunting," said I, "this lady and myself are 
 shipwrecked people, very eager indeed to get home. We have 
 met with some hard adventures, and this lady, the daughter 
 of the master of the bark ' Auine,' has not only undergone the 
 miseries of shipwreck, the hardships of a raft, and some days 
 of wretchedness aboard that open boat alongside: she has been 
 afllicted, besides, by the death of lier father."
 
 16G MT DANISH -SWEETHEART. 
 
 " Very sorry, indeed, to hear it, miss,'* said the captain; 
 " but let this be your consolation, that every man's earthly 
 father is bound to die at some time or other, but man's Heav- 
 enly Father remains with him forever/* 
 
 Helga bowed her head. Language of this kind in the mouth 
 of a plain sea captain comforted me greatly as a warrant of 
 good-will and help. 
 
 " I'm sure," said 1, " 1 may count upon your kindness to 
 receive this lady and me and put us aboard the first home- 
 ward-bound ship that we may encounter." 
 
 " Why, of course, it is my duty as a Christian man," he 
 answered, "to be of service to all sorrowing persons that 1 
 may happen to fall in with. A Deal lugger — as I may pre- 
 sume your little ship to be — is no fit abode for a young lady of 
 sweet-and-twenty — " 
 
 He was about to add something, but at that moment Abra- 
 ham came up the ladder, followed by the white man whom I 
 had noticed standing on the forecastle. 
 
 " What can 1 do for you, my man?" said the captain, turn- 
 ing to Abraham. 
 
 " Whoy, sir, it's loike this — " began Abraham. 
 
 *' He wants us to give him a spare boom to serve as a mast, 
 sir," clipped in the other, who, as I presently got to know, 
 was the first mate of the vessel — a sandy-haired, pale-faced 
 man, with the lightest-blue eyes I had ever seen, a little pimple 
 of a nose, which the sun had caught, and which glowed red, 
 in violent contrast with his veal-colored cheeks. He was 
 dressed in a plain suit of pilot cloth, with a shovel-peaked 
 cap; but the old pair of carpet slippers he wore gave him a 
 down-at-heels look. 
 
 " A spare boom!" cried the captain. '* That's a big order, 
 my lad. Why, the sight of your boat made me think I hadn't 
 got rid of the Downs yet! There's no hoveling to be done 
 down here, is there?" 
 
 " They're carrying out the boat to Australia, sir!" said the 
 mate. 
 
 The captain looked hard at Abraham. 
 
 *' For a consideration, I suppose?" said he. 
 
 "Ay, sir, for a consideration, as you say," responded 
 Abraham, grinning broadly, and clearly very much gratified 
 by the captain's reception of him. 
 
 " Then," said the captain, pulling down his whiskers and 
 smiling with an expression of self-complacency not to be con- 
 veyed in words, " I do not for a moment doubt that you are 
 carrying that lugger to Australia, for my opinion of the Deal
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. 167 
 
 boatmou is this: that for a consideration they would carry 
 their immortal souls to the gates of the devil's palace, and then 
 return to their public-houses, get drunk on the money they 
 had received, and roll about bragging how they had bested 
 Old Nick himself! Spare boom for a mast, eh?" he contin- 
 ued, peering into Abraham's face. " What's your name, my 
 man?" 
 
 " Abraham Vise," answered the boatman, apparently too 
 much astonished as yet to be angry. 
 
 " Well, see here, friend Abraham," said the captain, turn- 
 ing up his eyes and blandly pointing aloft, " my ship isn't a 
 forest, and spare booms don't grow aboard us. And yet," 
 said he, once again peering closely into Abraham's face, 
 "you're evidently a fellow-Christian in distress, and it's my 
 duty to help you! I suppose you are a Christian?" 
 
 " Born one!" answered Abraham. 
 
 " Then, Mr. Jones," exclaimed the captain, " go round the 
 ship with friend Abraham Vise, and see what's to be come at 
 in the shape of a spare boom. Off with you now! Time's 
 time on the ocean, and I can't keep my tops'l aback all day." 
 
 The two men went off the poop. The captain asked me my 
 name, then inquired Helga's and said: " Mr. Tregarthen, and 
 you. Miss Nielsen, I will ask you to step below. I have a 
 drop of wine in my cabin, and a glass of it can hurt neither 
 of you. Come along if you please," and so saying he led the 
 way to a little companion-hatch, down which he bundled, with 
 Helga and myself in his wake; and I recollect, as I turned to 
 put my foot upon the first of the steps, that I took notice 
 (with a sort of wonder in me that passed through my mind 
 with the velocity of thought) of the lemon-colored face of a 
 man standing at the wheel, with such a scowl upon his brow, 
 that looked to be withered by the sun to the aspect of the rind 
 of a rotten orange, and with such a fierce, glaring expression 
 in his dusky eyes, the pupils of which lay like a drop of ink 
 slowly filtering out upon a slip of colored blotting-paper, that 
 but for the hurry I was in to follow the captain I must have 
 lingered to glance again and yet again at the strange, fierce, 
 forbidding creature. 
 
 We entered a plain little state-cabin, or living-room, filled 
 with the furniture that is commonly to be seen in craft of 
 this sort — a table, lockers, two or three chairs, a swinging 
 tray, a lamp, and the like. , The captain asked us to sit, and 
 disappeared in a berth forward of the state-cabin; but ho re- 
 turned too speedily to suffer Uelga and me to exchange words. 
 Ue put a bottle of Marsala upon the table, took the wine-
 
 1(38 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 glasses from a rack affixed to a beam, and produced from a 
 side-locker a plate of mixed biscuits. He tilled the glasses, 
 and, with his singular smile and equally curious bow, drank 
 our healths, adding that he hoped to have the pleasure of 
 speedily tiansshiping us. 
 
 He had removed his wideawake hat, and there was nothing, 
 for the moment, to distract me from a swift but comprehen- 
 sive survey of him. He had a long hooked nose, small, rest- 
 less eyes, and hair so plentiful that it curled upon his back. 
 His cheeks were pei-fectly colorless, and of an unwholesome 
 dinginess, and hung very fat behind his long whiskers, and I 
 found him remarkable for the appearance of his mouth, the 
 upper lip of which was as thick as the lower. He might have 
 passed very well for a London tradesman — a man who had be- 
 come almost bloodless through long years of serving behind a 
 counter in a dark shop. He had nothing whatever of the 
 sailor in his aspect — I do not mean the theatrical sailor, our 
 old friend of the purple nose and grog-blossomed skin, but of 
 that ordinary every-day mariner whom one may meet with in 
 thousands in the docks of Great Britain. But that, however, 
 whixjh I seemed to find most remarkable in him was his smile. 
 It was the haunting of his countenance by the very specter of 
 mirth. There was no life, no sincerity in it. Nevertheless, it 
 caused a perpetual play of features more or less defined, in- 
 formed by an expression which made one instantly perceive 
 that Captain Joppa Bunting had the highest jjossible opinion 
 of himself. 
 
 He asked me for my story, and I gave it him, he, mean- 
 while, listening to me with his singular smile, and his eyes 
 almost embarrassingly rooted upon my face. 
 
 " Ah!" cried he, fetching a deej) sigh, " a noble cause is 
 the life-boat service. Heaven bless its sublime efforts! and it 
 is gratifying to know that her majesty the queen is a patron 
 of the institution. Mr. Tregartheu, your conscience should be 
 very acceptable to you, sir, when you come to consider that 
 but for you this charming young lady must have perished " — 
 he motioned toward Helga with an ungainly inclination of his 
 body. 
 
 " I think, captain," said I, " you must put it the other way 
 about — 1 mean, that but for Miss Nielsen I > ust have 
 perished. " 
 
 " Nielsen — Nielsen," said he, repeating the words. " That 
 is not an English name, is it?" 
 
 " Captain Nielsen was a Dane," said I. 
 
 *' But you are not a Dane, madame?" he exclaimed.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAPT. 169 
 
 *' My mother was English," she answered, "but I am a 
 Dane, nevertheless." 
 
 " What is the religion of the Danes?" he asked. 
 
 " We are a Protestant people," she answered, while I stared 
 at the man, wondering whether he was perfectly sound in his 
 head, for nothing could seem more malapropos at such a 
 time as this than his questions about, and his references to, 
 religion. 
 
 " What is your denomination, madame?" he asked, smiling, 
 with a drag at one long whisker. 
 
 " I thought I had made you understand that 1 was a Prot- 
 estant," she answered, with an instant's petulance. 
 
 " There are many sorts of Protestants!" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Have not you a black crew?" said I, anxious to change 
 the subject, sending a glance in search of Abraham through 
 the window of the little door that led on to the quarter-deck, 
 and that was framed on either hand by a berth or sleeping- 
 room, from one of which the captain had brought the wine. 
 
 " Yes, my crew are blaiik," said he; " black here " — he 
 touched his face — "and, 1 fear, black here "—he put his 
 hand upon his heart. " But I have some hope of beating out 
 one superstition from them before we let go our anchor in 
 Table Bay!" 
 
 As he said these words a sudden violent shock was to be felt 
 in the cabin, as though, indeed, the ship, as she dropped her 
 stern into the trough, had struck the ground. All this time 
 the vessel had been rolling and plunging somewhat heavily as 
 she lay with her tojisail to the mast in the very swing of the 
 sea; but, after the uneasy feverish friskings of the lugger, the 
 motion was so long-drawn, so easy, so comfortable, in a word, 
 that I had sat and talked scarcely sensible of it. But the sud- 
 den shock could not have been more startling, more seemingly 
 violent, had a big ship driven into us. A loud cry followed. 
 Captain Bunting sprung to his feet; at the same moment there 
 was a hurried tramp and rush of footsteps overhead, and more 
 cries. Captain Bunting ran to the companion-steps, up which 
 he hopped with incredible alacrity. 
 
 " I fear the lugger has been driven against the vessel's 
 side!" said Helga. 
 
 " Oh, Heaven, yes!" 1 cried. " But I trust, for the poor 
 fellows' sake, she is not injured. Let us go on deck!" 
 
 We ran up the steps, and the very first object I saw as I 
 passed through the hatch was Jacob's face, purple with the 
 toil of climbing, rising over the rail on the quarter. Abraham
 
 170 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 and two or three oolored meu grasped the poor fellow, and 
 over ho floundered on to the deck streaming wet. 
 
 Ilelga and I ran to the side to see what had happened. 
 There was no need to look long. Directly under the ship's 
 quarter lay the lugger with the water sluicing into her. The 
 whole of one side of her was crushed as though an army of 
 workmen had been hammering at her with choppers. "We had 
 scarcely time to glance before she was gone I a sea foamed over 
 and filled her out of hand, and down she went like a stone, 
 with a snap of the line that held her as though it had been 
 thread, to the lift of the bark from the drowning fabric. 
 
 " Gone I" cried 1. " Heaven preserve us! What will our 
 poor friends do?" 
 
 Captain Bunting was roaring out in true sea-fashion. He 
 might continue to smile, indeed; but his voice had lost its 
 nasal twang. 
 
 " How did this happen?" he bawled. " "Why on earth 
 wasn't the lugger kept fended ofF? Mr. Jones, jump into that 
 quarter-boat and see if we've received any injury." 
 
 The mate hopped into the boat, and craned over. 
 
 " It seems all right with us, sirl" he cried. 
 
 " Well, then, how did this happen?" exclaimed the captain, 
 addressing Jacob, who stood, the very picture of distress and 
 dejection, with the water running away upon the deck from 
 his feet, and draining from his iinger-ends as his arms hung 
 up and down as though he stood in a shower-bath. 
 
 " I'd gone forward," answered the poor fellow, " to slacken 
 away the line that the lugger might drop clear, and then it 
 happened, and that's all I know;" and here he slowly turned 
 his half-drowned bewildered face upon" Abraham, who was 
 staring over the rail down upon the sea where the lugger had 
 sunk, as though rendered motionless by a stroke of paralysis. 
 
 " Well, and what'll you do now?" cried Captain Bunting. 
 
 " Do? Whoy, chuck myself overboard I" shouted Jacob, 
 apparently quickened into his old vitality by the anguish of 
 sudden realization. 
 
 "Shocking!" cried Captain Bunting. "I shall have to 
 talk apart with you, my man." 
 
 Here Abraham slowly looked round, and then turned and 
 lay against the rail, eying us lifelessly.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CAPTAIN JOPPA BUNTING. 
 
 There were four or five colored seamen standing near look- 
 ing on. Though I could not have been sure, I guessed them 
 to be Malays by the somewhat Chinese cast of their features. 
 I had seen such faces once before, discoloring a huddle of white 
 countenances of European seamen looking over the side of a 
 ship, anchored in our bay, at the life-boat I was in charge of 
 for an hour or two of jDractice. I also caught the fierce lemon- 
 colored creature at the wheel following the captain, as he moved 
 about, with his stealthy dusky eyes; but more than this I had 
 not time to take notice of. 
 
 " Abraham," I exclaimed, approaching him, " this is a bad 
 business." 
 
 " Ay," he muttered, drying his lips upon his knuckles. 
 " There's nothen to do now but to get home again. I laid 
 out fifteen pounds for myself on this here job, an' it's gone, 
 and gone's too the money we was to take up. Oh, Jacob, 
 matey! how came it about — how came it about?" be cried, 
 in a voice of bitter grief that was without the least hint of 
 temper or reproach. 
 
 " Ye've heard, Abraham," answered the other, speaking 
 brokenly. " Gord He knows how it hajipened. I'd ha' given 
 ten toimes ower the money we was to airn that this here mucking 
 job had been your'n instead o' mine, that I might feel as sorry 
 for ye, Abey, as ye are for me, mate." 
 
 " Is she clean gone?" cried Captain Bunting, looking over 
 the quarter. " Yes, clean. Nothing but her boat floating, 
 and a few spars. It is spilled milk, and not to be recovered 
 by tears. You two men will have to go along with us till we 
 can send the four of you home. Mr. Jones, fill on your top- 
 sail, if you please. Hi! you Pallunappacheley, swab up that 
 wet there, d'ye hear? 'Now Moona, now Y'^ong Soon Wat, and 
 you, Shayoo Saibo — maintopsail-brace, and bear a hand!" 
 
 While the topsail-yaid was in the act of swinging I observed 
 that Abraham's countenance suddenly changed. A fit of 
 temper, resembling his outbreak when the Hamburger had 
 passed us, darkened his face. He rolled his eyes fiercely, then, 
 plucking oir his cap, flung it savagely down upon the deck, 
 and, while he tumbled and sprawled about in a sort of mad 
 dance, he bawled at the top of his voice: 
 
 " I says it can't be trije! What I says is, it*8 a dream — a
 
 172 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 blooming, measly dream! The 'Airly Marn ' foundered!" 
 Here he gave his cap a kick that sent it flying the length of the 
 poop. " It's a loie, I says. It was to ha' been seventy-foive 
 pound k man, and there was two gone, whose shares would ha' 
 been our'n. And where's moy fifteen pound vorth o' goods? 
 Cuss the hour, I says, that ever we fell in with this bark!" 
 
 He raved in this fashion for some minutes, the captain 
 meanwhile eying him with his head on one side, as though 
 striving to find out whether he was drunk or mad. He then 
 rushed to the side with an impetuosity that made me fear he 
 meant to spring overboard, and, looking down for a moment, 
 he bellowed forth, shaking his clinched fist at the sea: 
 
 " Yes, then she is gone, and 'tain't a dream!" 
 
 He fetched his thigh a mighty slap, and, wheeling round, 
 stared at us in the manner of one temporarily bereft of his 
 senses by the apparition of something he finds horrible. 
 
 "Those Deal boatmen have excitable natures!" said Cap- 
 tain Joppa Bunting, addressing me, fixedly smiling and passing 
 his fingers through a whisker as he spoke. 
 
 " I trust you will bear with the poor fellows," said I; " it 
 is a heavy loss to the men, and a death-blow to big expecta^ 
 tions." 
 
 " Temper is excusable occasionally at sea," observed the cap- 
 tain; " but language 1 never permit. Yet that unhappy 
 Christian soul ought to be borne with, as you say, seeing that 
 he is a poor ignorant man very sorely tried. Abraham Vise, 
 come here!" he called. 
 
 " His name is Wise," said I. 
 
 " Wise, come here!" he shouted. 
 
 Abraham approached us with a slow, rolling gait, and a 
 face in which temj^er was now somewhat clouded by bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 " Abraham," said the captain, looking from him to Jacob, 
 who leaned, wet through, against the rail, with a dogged face 
 and his eyes rooted upon the deck, " you have met with one 
 of those severe reverses which happen entirely for the good of 
 the sufEerer, however he may object to take that view. De- 
 pend upon it, my man, that the loss of your lugger is for some 
 wise purpose. " 
 
 Abraham looked at him with an eye whose gaze delivered 
 the word damn as articulately as ever lips could have uttered 
 the expletive. 
 
 " You two men were going in that small open boat to Aus- 
 tralia," continued the captain, with a parternai air and a nasal
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 173 
 
 voice, and smiling always. " Do you suppose you would evqr 
 have reached that distant coast?" 
 
 " Sartainly I dew, sir,'' cried Abraham, hoarsely, with a 
 vehement nod. 
 
 " 1 say no, then!" thundered the captain. " Two of you! 
 Why, I've fallen in with smaller luggers than yours cruising in 
 the channel with eight of a crew." 
 
 "Ay!" shouted Abraham. " And vy!'* Only ask yourself 
 the question! 'Cause they carry men to ship as pilots. But 
 tew can handle a lugger." 
 
 " I say no!" thundered the captain again. '-' What? All 
 the way from the Chops to Sydney Bay? Who's your navi- 
 gator?" 
 
 " Oy am," answered Abraham. 
 
 The captain curved his odd, double-lipped mouth into a 
 sneer, that yet somehow did not disugise or alter his habitual 
 or congenital smile, while he ran his eye over the boatsman's 
 figure. 
 
 " You!" he cried, pausing and bursting in to a loud laugh; 
 then, resuming his nasal intonation, he continued. " Mark 
 you this now. The loss of your lugger alongside my bark is a 
 miracle wrought by a bountiful Heaven to extend your exist- 
 ence, which you were deliberately attempting to cut short by a 
 dreadful act of folly, so dreadful that had you perished by a 
 like behavior ashore you would have been buried with a stake 
 through your middle!" 
 
 He turned up his eyes till little more than the whites of 
 them were visible. Grieved as I was for poor Abraham, I 
 scarcely saved myself from bursting out laughing, so ludicrous 
 was the shifting emotions which worked in his face, and so 
 absurd Jacob's fixed stare of astonishment and wrath. 
 
 " Now men," continued the captain, " you can go forward. 
 What's your name?" 
 
 "Jacob Minnikin, sir," answered the boatman, speaking 
 thickly and with dilficulty. 
 
 " Get you to the galley, Jacob Minnikin," said the captain, 
 " and dry your clothes. The chief mate will show you where 
 to find a couple of spare bunks in the forecastle. Go and 
 warm yourselves and get something to eat. You'll be willing 
 to work, I hope, in return for my keeping you until I can 
 send you home?" 
 
 Abraham sullenly mumbled, " Yes, sir." 
 
 " All right. Wo may not be long together; but while I 
 have you I shall be thankful for you. We are a black Cfew,
 
 174 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 and the sight of a couple of white faces forward will do me 
 good. Off you go, now!" 
 
 Without another word the two men trudged ofiE the poop; 
 but I could hear them muttering to each other as they went 
 down the ladder. 
 
 Some time before this they had trimmed sail, and the bark 
 was once again clumsily breaking the seas, making a deal of 
 noisy sputtering at her cutwater to the stoop of her ajjple- 
 shaped bows, and rolling and plunging as though she were 
 contending with the surge of Agulhas or the Horn. I sent 
 my sight around the ocean, but there was nothing to be seen. 
 The atmosphere had slightly thickened, and it was blowing 
 fresh, but the wind was on the quarter, and the mate had found 
 nothing in the weather to hinder him from showing the mainsail 
 to it again with the port clew up. But the captain's talk pre- 
 vented me from making further observations at that time. 
 
 "These two men," said, he, "have very good, honest, 
 substantial, Scri23tural names. Abraham and Jacob," he 
 smacked his lips. " I like 'em. I consider myself fortunate 
 in the name of Joppa," he continued, looking from me to 
 Helga. " I might have been called Eobert." 
 
 You would have thought that the smile which accomijauied 
 this speech was designed to point it as a Joke, but a moment's 
 observation assured me that it was a fixed expression. 
 
 " 1 have observed," he went on, " that the lower orders are 
 very dull and tai-dy in arriving at an a23preciation of the mis- 
 fortunes which befall them. Those two men, sir, are not in the 
 least degree grateful for the loss of their lugger, by which, as 
 1 told them, their lives have been undoubtedly preserved." 
 
 " They are poor men,'^ said Helga, " and do not know how 
 to be grateful for the loss of perhaps very nearly all that they 
 have in the world.'' 
 
 He looked at her smilingly, with a glance down her figure, 
 and exclaimed: "I am quite sure that when your poor dear 
 father's bark sunk you did not resent the decree of Heaven." 
 
 Helga held her peace. 
 
 " Was she insured, madame?" he asked. 
 
 She answered briefly " Yes," not choosing to enter into ex- 
 planations. 
 
 He surveyed her thoughtfully, with his head on one side; 
 then, addressing me, he said: 
 
 " The man Abraham, now. I take it he was skipper of the 
 lugger?" 
 
 " Yes, he was so," said I. 
 
 " Is it possible that he knows anything of navigation?"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 175 
 
 •' 1 fear his acquaintance with that art is small. He can 
 blunder upon the latitude with the aid of an old quadrant, but 
 he leaves his longitude to dead reckoning.'^ 
 
 " And yet he was going to Australia !'' cried the captain, 
 tossing his pale, fleshy hands and upturning his eyes. " Still, 
 he is a respectable man?" 
 
 " A large-hearted, good man," cried Helga, warmly. 
 
 He surveyed her again thoughtfully with his head on one 
 side, slowly combing down one whisker, then addressing me: 
 
 " I am rather awkwardly situated," said he. " Mr. Ephraim 
 Jones and myself are the only two white men aboard this ves- 
 sel. Jones is an Only Mate. You know what that means?" 
 
 I shook my head in my ignorance, with a glance at Helga. 
 
 " Captain Bunting means," she answered, smiling " that 
 Only Mate is literally the only mate that is carried ni a ship." 
 
 He stared at her with lifted eyebrows, and then gave her a 
 bow. 
 
 " Right, madame," said he. " And when you are married, 
 dear lady, you will take all care, I trust, that your husband 
 shall be your Only Mate." 
 
 She slightly colored, and as she swayed to the rolling deck 1 
 caught sight of her little foot petulantly beating the plank for 
 a moment. It was clear that Captain Bunting was not going 
 to commend himself to her admiration by his wit. 
 
 " You were talking about Abraham," said I. 
 
 "No, I was talking about Jones,'' he answered, "and 
 attempting to explain the somewhat unjoleasant fix I am in. 
 The man who acted as second mate was the carpenter of the 
 bark, a fellow named Winstauley. I fear he went mad, after 
 we were a day out. Whether he jumijed overboard or fell 
 overboard, I can not say. ' ' He made a wild grimace, as though 
 the recollection shocked him. " There was nothing for it but 
 to pursue the voyage with my Only Mate; and 1, of course, 
 have to keep watch and watch with him — a very great incon- 
 venience to me. I believe Abraham Wise — or Vise, as he 
 calls himself — would excellently till the post vacated by Win- 
 stanley." 
 
 " He wants to get home," said I. 
 
 " Yet 1 might tempt him to remain with me," said he, 
 smiling. " There's no melody so alluring to a Heal boatman's 
 ears as the jingling of silver dollars." 
 
 " You will find him thoroughly trustworthy," said Helga. 
 
 " We will wait alittle— we will wait a little!" he exclaimed, 
 blandly. 
 
 " Of course. Captain Bunting," said I, "your views in the
 
 173 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 direction of Abraham will not, I am sure, hinder you from 
 sending Miss Xielsen and myself to England at the very earli- 
 est opportunity. " And I found my eye going seaward over 
 the bark's bow as I spoke. 
 
 " The very first vessel that comes along you shall be sent 
 aboard of, providing, to be sure, she will receive you." 
 
 I thanked him heartily, and also added, in the most delicate 
 manner I could contrive on the instant, that all expense in- 
 curred by his keeping us should be defrayed. He flourished 
 his fat hand. 
 
 " That is language to be addressed to the Pharisee, sir — not 
 to the Samaritan." 
 
 All this was exceedingly gratifying. My spirits rose, and I 
 felt in a very good humor v,'ith him. He looked at his watch. 
 
 " Five o'clock," said he. " Mr. Jones," he called to the 
 mate, who was standing forward at the head of the little poop- 
 ladder, " you can go below and get your supper, then relieve 
 me. Tell Punmeamootty to put some cold beef and pickles 
 on the table. Better let him set the ham on too, and tell the 
 fool that it won't bite him, because it was once a pig. Pun- 
 meamootty can make some coffee, Mr. Jones; or perhaps you 
 drink tea?" said he, turning to Helga. " Well, both, Mr. 
 Jones, both," he shouted: "tea and coffee. Make a good 
 meal, sir, and then come and relieve me. " 
 
 The mate vanished. Captain Bunting drew back by a step 
 or two to cast a look aloft. He then, with a sailorly eye, 
 methought, despite his wiskers and dingy fleshy face and fixed 
 smile, sent a searching glance to windward, following it on 
 with a cautious survey of the horizon. He next took a peep 
 at the compass, and said something to a mahogany-colored 
 man who had replaced the fierce-looking fellow at the wheel. 
 1 observed that when the captain approached the man stirred 
 uneasily in his shoes, 'twixt which and the foot of his blue 
 dungaree breeches there lay visible the bare yellow flesh of 
 his ankles. 
 
 1 said softly and quickly to Helga, " This is a very extraor- 
 dinary shipmaster." 
 
 " Something in him repels me," she answered. 
 
 " He is behaving kindly and hospitablv, though." 
 
 " Yes, Hugh; still I shall be glad to leave the bark. What 
 a very strange crew the ship carries! What are they?" 
 
 " 1 will ask him," said I, and at that moment he- rejoined 
 us. 
 
 "Captain," I exclaimed, "what countrymen are your 
 sailors, pray?"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 177 
 
 " Mostly Malays, with a few Cingalese among them,'* he 
 answered. " I got them on a sudden, and was glad of them, 
 I can tell you. I had shipped an ordinary European crew in 
 the Thames; and in the Downs, where wc lay wind-bound for 
 three days, every man-jack of them, saving Mr. Jones and 
 AVinstanley, lowered that quarter- boat," said he, nodding to it^^ 
 " one dark night, chucked their traps in, and went away for 
 Dover round the 8outh Foreland. I recovered the boat, and 
 was told that there was a crew of Malays lodged at the Sailor's 
 Home at Dover. A vessel from Ceylon that had touched at 
 the Cape and taken in some colored seamen there had strand- 
 ed, anight or two before my men ran, somewhere off the South 
 Sand Head. She was completely wrecked, and her crew were 
 brought to Dover. There were eleven of them in all, with a 
 boss or bo's'n or serang, call him what you will — there he is!" 
 He pointed to a dark-skinned fellow on the forecastle. 
 " Well, to cut the story short, when these fellows heard I was 
 bound to the Cape they were all eager to ship. They offered 
 their services for very little money — very little money indeed," 
 he added, smiling, " their object being to get home. 1 had no 
 idea of being detained in the Downs for a crew, and 1 had no 
 heart, believe me, to swallow another dose of the British mer- 
 chant sailor, so I had them brought aboard — and there they 
 are!" he exclaimed, gazing complacently forward and aft; 
 " but they are black inside and out. They're Mohammedans, 
 to a man, and now I'm sorry I shipped them, though I hope 
 to do good — yes, "said he, nodding at me, " I hope to do good." 
 
 He communicated to this final sentence all the significance 
 that it was in the power of his countenance and manner to 
 bestow; but what he meant I did not trouble myself to inquire. 
 Mr. Jones remained below about ten minutes: he then arrived, 
 and the captain, who was asking Helga questions about her 
 father's ship, the cause of herloss^and the like, instantly broke 
 off on seeing the mate, and asked us to follow him to the 
 cabin. 
 
 The homely interior looked very hospitable, with its table 
 (!leanly draped and pleasantly equipped with provisions. The 
 colored man who apparently acted as steward, and who bore 
 the singular name of Punmeamootty, stood, a dusky shadow, 
 near the cabin door. Spite of a smoky sunset in the western 
 windy haze, the gloom of the evening in the east was already 
 upon the ocean, and the cabin, as we entered it, showed some- 
 what darksome to the sight; yet though the figure of the Malay, 
 as I have already said, was no more than a shadow, I could 
 distinctly see liis gleaming eyes even from the distance of the
 
 178 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 companion steps; and I believe had it been much darker still 
 1 should have beheld his eyes looking at us from the other end 
 of the cabin. 
 
 "Light the lamp, Punmeamootty!'* said the • captain. 
 " Now, let me see," said he, throwing his wideawake on to a 
 locker, " we call the last meal supper, at sea. Miss Nielsen." 
 
 " Yes, I know that," she answered. 
 
 " Before we go to supper," he continued, " you would like 
 to refresh yourself in a cabin. How about accommodating you, 
 Mr. Tregarthen? That cabin is mine," said he, pointing, 
 " and the one facing it is Mr. Jones's. There are four gloomy 
 little holes below, one of which was occupied by j)oor Win- 
 stanley, and the others, I fear, are choke-full of stores and odds 
 and ends. " He eyed her for a moment meditatively. " Come," 
 said he; "you are a lady and must be made comfortable, 
 however short your stay with me may be. Mr. Jones will 
 give up his cabin, and go into the steerage!" 
 
 -"And Mr. Tregarthen?" said Helga. 
 
 " Oh, I'll set some of our darkies after supper to make ready 
 one of the berths below for him." 
 
 " I do not wish to be separated from Mr. Tregarthen," said 
 Helga. 
 
 Captain Bunting looked at her, then at me, then at her left 
 hand, for the colored steward had now lighted the lamp and we 
 were conversing close to it. 
 
 " You are Miss Nielsen?" said the captain. " Have I mis- 
 taken?" 
 
 The blood rose to the girl's cheek. 
 
 " No, you have not mistaken," said I; " Miss Nielsen and 
 1 have now for some days been fellow- sufferers, and, for ac- 
 quaintance' sake, she wishes her berth to be near mine!" 
 
 This I said soothingly, for 1 thought the skipper's brow looked 
 a little clouded. 
 
 "Be it so," said he, with a bland flourish of both hands: 
 " meanwhile, madame, such conveniences as my cabin affords 
 are at your service for immediate use." 
 
 She hesitated, but on meeting my eye seemed immediately to 
 catch what was in my mind, and, smiling prettily, she thanked 
 him, and went at once to his cabin. 
 
 " The fact is, sir," said he, nasally, dragging at the wrist- 
 band of his shirt and looking at his nails, " man at the best, 
 is but a very selfish animal, and cruelly neglectful of the com- 
 fort and happiness of women. Pardon my frankness: your 
 charming companion has been exposed for several days to the 
 horrors of what was really no better than an open boat.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 179 
 
 What more natural than that she should, wish to adjust her hair 
 and take a peep at herself in a looking-glass? And yet " — 
 here he smiled profoundly — " the suggestion that she should 
 withdraw did not come from you/' 
 
 " The kindness of your reception of us/' I answered, " as- 
 sured me that you would do everything that is necessary.'* 
 
 " Quite so," he answered; " and now, Mr. Tregarthen, 1 
 dare say a brush-up will comfort you too. You will find all 
 that you require in Mi\ Jones's cabin. " 
 
 I thanked him, and at once entered the berth, hardly know- 
 ing as yet whether to be amused or astonished by the singular 
 character of this long-whiskered, blandly smiling, and, as 1 
 might fairly believe, religious sea captain. 
 
 There was a little window in the berth that looked on to the 
 quarter-deck. On peering through it I spied Abraham and 
 Jacob with their arms buried to the elbow in their breeches 
 pockets, leaning with dogged mieuj, ia the true loafing, loung- 
 ing, 'longshore posture against the side of the caboose or gal- 
 ley. The whole ship's company seemed to have gathered about 
 them. I counted nine men. There was a rusty tinge in the 
 atmosphere that gave me a tolerable sight of all those people. 
 It was the first dog-watch, when the men would be free to 
 hang about the decks and smoke and talk. The colored 
 sailors formed a group, in that dull hectic light, to dwell upon 
 the memory — one with a yellow sou'-wester, another with a 
 soldier's forge-cap on his head, a third in a straw hat, along 
 with divers scarecrow-like costumes of dungaree and coarse 
 canvas jumpers — here a jacket resembling an evening-dress 
 coat that had been robbed of its tails, there a pair of Happing 
 skirts, a red wool comforter, half-wellington boots, old shoes, 
 and 1 know not what besides. 
 
 The man that had been pointed out to me as " boss " — to 
 emjjloy Captain Bunting's term — was addressing the two boat- 
 men as I looked, lie was talking in a low voice, and not the 
 lightest growl of his accents reached me. Now and again he 
 would smite his hands and act as though betrayed by temper 
 into a sudden vehement delivery, from which he swiftly re- 
 covered himself, so to speak, with an eager look aft at the 
 poop-deck, where, I might suppose, the mate stood watching 
 them, or where, at all events, he would certainly be walking, 
 on the lookout. While he addressed the boatmen, the others 
 stood doggedly looking on, all apparently intent upon the 
 countenances of our Deal friends, whose attitude was one of 
 contemptuous inattention. 
 
 However, by this ti^e I h»d refreshed myself with » wash.
 
 180 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 and now quitted the cabin after a slight look round, in which 
 I took notice of the portrait of a stout lady cut out in black 
 })aper and pasted upon a white card, a telescope, a sextant- 
 case and a little battery of pipes in a rack over the bunk. 
 
 Helga arrived, holding her sealskin hat in her hand. Her 
 amber- colored hair — for sometimes I would think it of this 
 hue, at others a pale gold, then a very fine delicate yellow — 
 showed with a little roughness in it as though she were fresh 
 from the blowing of the wind. But had she been an artist 
 she could not have expressed more choiceness in her fashion 
 of neglect. She had heartened and brightened greatly since 
 our rescue from the raft, and, though there were still many 
 traces of her grief and sufferings in her face, there was like- 
 wise the promise that she needed but a very short term of good 
 usage from life to bloom into as sweet, modest, and gentle a 
 maiden as a man's heart could wish to hold to itself. 
 
 The captain, motioning us to our places, took his seat at 
 the head of the table with a large air of hospitality in his 
 manner of drawing out his whiskers and inflating his waist- 
 coat. The vessel creaked and groaned noisily as she pitched 
 and rolled, so slanting the table that, but for the rough, well- 
 used fiddles, every article upon it would have speedily tumbled 
 on to the deck. The lamp burned brightly, and almost 
 eclipsed the rusty complexion of daylight that lay upon the 
 glass of the little skylight directly over our heads. 
 
 Punmeamootty waited nimbly upon us, though my immedi- 
 ate impression was that his alacrity was not a little animated 
 by fear and dislike. As the captain sat smilingly recommend- 
 ing the ham that he was carving — dwelling much upon it, 
 and trJking of the pig as an animal on the whole more service- 
 able to a man than the cow — I caught the colored steward 
 watching him as he stood some little distance away upon the 
 skipper's left, with his dusky shining e3'es in the corner of 
 their sockets. It reminded me of the look 1 had observed the 
 fierce-looking fellow at the wheel fasten upon the captain. It 
 was as though the fellow cursed him with his dusky gaze. 
 Yet there was nothing forbidding in his face, despite his ugli- 
 ness. His skin was of the color of the yelk of an egg, and. he 
 had a coarse heavy nose, which made me suspect a Dutch hand 
 in the man's creation. His hair was coal black, long, and 
 lank, af-ter the Chinese pattern. It would have been hard to 
 guess his age from such a mask of a face as he carried; but 
 the few bristles on his upper lip suggested youth, and I dare 
 say I was right in thinking him about two-aud-twenty. 
 
 The captain talked freely j sometimes he omitted his nasal
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 181 
 
 twang; but his conversation was threaded with pious reflec- 
 tions, and 1 took notice of a tendency in the man to sermonize, 
 as though little in the most familiar talk could occur out of 
 which a salutary moral was not to be squeezed. He seemed to 
 be very well pleased to have us on board, not perhaps so much 
 because our company was a break as because it provided him 
 with an opportui^ity to philosophize, and to air his sentiments. 
 I shall not be thought very grateful for thus speaking of a 
 man who had rescued us from a trying and distressful situa- 
 tion, and who was entertaining us kindly, and, 1 may say, 
 bountifully: but my desire is to give you the truth — to de- 
 scribe exactly as best I can what I saw and suffered in this 
 strange passage of my life, and the portrait I am attempting 
 of Captain Joppa Bunting is as the eyes of my head, and of 
 my mind too, beheld him. 
 
 As I looked at him sitting at the table, of a veal-like com- 
 plexion in that light, blandly gesticulating with his fat hands, 
 expressing himself with a nasal gravity that was at times 
 diverting with the smile that accompanied it, it seemed difificult 
 to believe that he was a merchant captain, the master of as 
 commonplace an old ocean wagon as ever crushed a sea with 
 a round bow. 1 asked him how long he had followed the life, 
 and he astonished me by answering that he was now forty-four, 
 and that he had been apprenticed to the sea at the age of 
 twelve. 
 
 "You will have seen a very great deal in that time, cap- 
 tain?" said I. 
 
 " I believe there is no wonder of the Lord visible upon the 
 face of the deep which I have not viewed," he responded. 
 " There is no part of the world which I have not visited. I 
 have coasted the Antarctic zone of ice in a whaler, and 1 have 
 been becalmed for seventeen weeks right off, with thirty miles 
 of motion only in those seventeen weeks, ujjon the parallel of 
 one degree north." 
 
 On this I observed that Helga eyed him with interest, yet I 
 seemed to be sensible, too, of an expression of recoil in her 
 face, if I may thus express what I do not know how better to 
 define. 
 
 " You have worn wonderfully well," said I. 
 
 " I have taken care of myself," he answered, smiling. 
 
 " Is this your ship, sir?" 
 
 " 1 have a large interest in her," he replied. " 1 am very 
 well content to follow the sea. The sense of being watched 
 over is comforting, and often exhilarating; but I wish," he 
 exclaimed; with a solemn wagging of Jiis head, '* that the
 
 183 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 obligation to make money in tiiis life was less, much less, than 
 it is. " 
 
 "It is the only life in which we shall require money," said 
 Helga. 
 
 " True, madame," said he, with an apparently careless but 
 puzzling glance at her; " but let me tell you that the obliga- 
 tion of money-making soils the soul. I am not surprised that 
 the godliest of the good men of old took up their abode in 
 caves, were satisfied with roots for dinner, and were as happy 
 in a sheep's-skiu as a dandy in a costume by Poole. 1 
 defy a man to practice virtue and make money too. Pun- 
 meamootty, put some wine into the lady's glass. " 
 
 Helga declined. The Malay was moving swiftly to execute 
 the order, but stopped dead on her saying no, and with in- 
 sensible and mouse-like movements regained his former post, 
 where he stood watching the captain as before. 
 
 " Yes," said I, " this world would be a pleasant one if we 
 could manage without money." 
 
 " For myself," said he, casting his eyes over the table, " 1 
 could do very well with a crust of bread and a glass of water; 
 but I have a daughter, Judith Ruby, and I have to work for 
 her." 
 
 This brought a little expression of sympathy into Helga's 
 face. 
 
 " Is she your only daughter. Captain Bunting?" she asked. 
 
 " My only daughter," he answered, with a momentary soft- 
 ening of his voice. " I wish I had her here!" said he. " You 
 would find her. Miss Nielsen, a good, kind, religious girl. 
 She is lonely in her home when I am away. I am a widower. 
 My dear wife fell asleep six years ago." 
 
 He sighed, but he was smiling too as he did so. 
 
 The windows of the skylight had now turned into gleaming 
 ebony against the darkness of the evening outside, and re- 
 flected the white table-cloth and the sparkling glass and our 
 figures as though it were a black polished mirror over our 
 heads. I had taken notice of a sharper inclination in the heel 
 of the bark when she rolled to leeward, and, though 1 was no 
 sailor, yet my ears, accustomed to the noises of the coast, had 
 caught a keener edge in the hum of the wind outside, a more 
 fretful hissing in the stroke of every sea smiting the bends. 
 An order was delivered from the deck above us, and, shortly 
 afterward, a singular sound of howling arose, accompanied 
 with the slatting and flapping of canvas. 
 
 " Mr. Jones is taking the mainsail off her," said the captain.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 183 
 
 " but the glass is very steady. We shall have a fine night/' 
 he added, smiling at Helga. 
 
 "Is that strange wailing noise made by the crew?'* she 
 asked. 
 
 " It is, madame. The Malays are scarcely to be called 
 nightingales. They are pulling at the ropes, and they sing as 
 they pull. It is a habit among sailors — but you do not re- 
 quire me to tell you that." 
 
 " I believe there is very little in seamanship. Captain Bunt- 
 ing, '^ said I, " that even you, with your long experience, 
 could teach Miss Nielsen." 
 
 She looked somewhat wistfully at me, as though she would 
 discourage any references to her. 
 
 "Indeed!" he exclaimed. "I should like to hear your 
 nautical accomplishments." 
 
 " It was my humor to assist my father when at sea," she 
 said, with her eyes fixed on the table. 
 
 " Now, what can you do?" said he, watching her. " Pray 
 tell me? A knowledge of the sea among your sex is so rare 
 that a sailor could never value it too greatly in a lady." 
 
 " Let me answer for Miss Nielsen, captain," I exclaimed, 
 carelessly, with a glance at the Malay steward, whose gaze, 
 like the captain's, was also directed at Helga. " She can put 
 a sliiji about, she can steer, she can loose a jib, and run aloft 
 as nimbly as the smartest sailor; she can stand a watch and 
 work a ship in it, and she can take sights and give you a ves- 
 sel's place on the chart — within a mile shall I say, Helga?" 
 
 He looked at me on my pronouncing the word Helga. I do 
 not know that I had before called the girl thus familiarly in 
 his presence. 
 
 " You are joking, Mr. Tregarthen!" said he. 
 
 A little smile of appeal to me parted Helga's lips. 
 
 " No, no," said I, " I am not joking. It is all true. She 
 is the most heroic of girls, besides. We owe our preserva- 
 tion to her courage and knowledge. Helga, may God bless 
 you, and grant us a safe and speedy return to a home, where, 
 \t the dear heart in it is still beating, we shall meet with a 
 sweet welcome, be sure." 
 
 "But you must not be in a hurry to return home," ex- 
 claimed the captain, turning his smiling countenance to Helga; 
 " you must give mo time to tempt you to remain on board 
 ' The Light of the World. ' Your qualifications as a sailor 
 should make you an excellent mate, and you will toll me how 
 much a month you will take to servo in that capacity?" 
 
 1 observed the same look of recoil in her face that I had
 
 184 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 before seen in it A woman's instincts, thought 1, are often 
 amazingly keen in the interpretation of men's minds. Or is 
 she merely nervous and sensitive, with a gentle pretty modesty 
 and bashful ness which render direct allusions to her after this 
 pattern distressing? For my part, 1 could find no more than 
 what the French call badinage in the captain's speech, with 
 nothing to render it significant outside the bare meaning of 
 the words in his looks or manner. 
 
 She did not answer him, and by way of changing the sub- 
 ject, being ako weary of sitting at the table, for we had fin- 
 ished the meal some time, though the Malay continued to look 
 on, as though waiting for the order to clear away, 1 pulled 
 out my watch. 
 
 " A quarter to seven," 1 exclaimed. " You will not wish 
 to be late to-night, Helga. You require a good long sleep. 
 By this time to-morrow we may have shifted our quarters; 
 but we shall always gratefully remember Captain Bunting's 
 goodness." 
 
 " That reminds me," said he, " your cabins must be got 
 ready. Punmeamootty, go forward and tell Nakier to send a 
 couple of hands aft to clear out two of the berths below. No! 
 tell Nakier I want him, and then come aft and clear the 
 table." 
 
 The man, gliding softly, but moving swiftly, passed 
 through the door that led on to the quarter-deck. 
 
 " I wish 1 could tempt you. Miss Nielsen," continued the 
 captain, " to take Mr. Jones's cabin. You will be so very 
 much more comfortable there." 
 
 " 1 would rathere be near Mr. Tregarthen, thank you," she 
 answered. 
 
 " You are a fortunate man to be so favored!" he ex- 
 claimed, smiling at me. " However, every convenience that 
 my cabin can supply shall be placed at Miss Nielsen's disposal. 
 Alas! now, if my dear Judith were here! She would im- 
 prove, by many womanly suggestions, my humble attemj^ts as 
 a Samaritan. Our proper business in this world, Mr. Tre- 
 garthen, is to do good to one another. But the difficulty," he 
 exclaimed with a sweep of his hand, "is to do all the good 
 that can be done! Now, for instance, I am at a loss. How 
 am 1 to supply Miss Nielsen's needs?" 
 
 " They are of the simplest — are they not, Helga?" said I. 
 
 '* Quite the simplest. Captain Bunting," she answered, and 
 then, looking at him anxiously, she added: "My one great 
 desire now is to get to England. 1 have been the cause of
 
 . MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 185 
 
 taking Mr. Tregarthen from his mother, and I shall not feel 
 happy until they are together again!" 
 
 " Charity forbid," exclaimed the captain, " that I should 
 question for an instant the heroism of Mr. Tregarthen's be- 
 havior! But," said he, slightly lowering his voice and stoop- 
 ing his smiling face at her, so to say, " when your brave friend 
 put off in the life- boat he did not, I may take it, know that 
 you were on board?" 
 
 " But I was on board," she answered, quickly; " and he 
 has saved my life, and I wish him to return to his mother, who 
 may believe him drowned, and be mourning him as dead!" 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ON" BOARD "the LIGHT OF THE WOKLD." 
 
 At that moment the man whom the captain styled Nakier 
 entered the little cuddy, followed by the steward. He made 
 a singular gesture, a sort of salaam, bowing his head and whip- 
 ping both hands to his brow, but with something of defiance 
 in the celerity of the gesture. He was the man whom I had 
 seen haranguing the two boatmen. He had a large, fine in- 
 telligent eye. liquid and luminous, despite the Asiatic duski- 
 ness of its pupil; his features were regular and almost hand- 
 some: an aquiline nose, thin and well chiseled at the nostrils, 
 a square brow, small ears decorated with thick gold hoops, 
 and teeth as though formed of china. The expression of his 
 face was mild and even prej)ossessing, his complexion a light 
 yellow. He bore in his hand what had apparently been a 
 soldier's foraging cap, and was dressed in an old pilot jacket, 
 a red shirt, and a pair of canvas breeches held by a belt, to 
 which was attached a sheath containing a knife lying tight 
 against his hip. He took me aud Helga in with a rapid roll 
 of his handsome eyes, then looked straight at the captain in a 
 posture of attention, with a little contraction of tlie brow. 
 
 " I Vv'ant a couple of the berths below cleared out at once," 
 said the captain. " Goh Syn Koh seems one of the smartest 
 among you. Send him. Also send Mow Lauree. He can 
 make a bed, 1 hope? Ho is making a bed for himself! Bear 
 a hand and clear this table, Punmcamootty, so as to be able to 
 assist. You'll superintend the work, Nakier. See all clean 
 aud comfortable." 
 
 " Ya-as, sah," said the man. 
 
 He was going. 
 
 " Stop!" exclaimed the captain, smiling all the time he con- 
 tinued to talk. " Did you eat your dinner to-day?"
 
 186 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 "No, sah." 
 
 " What has become of it?" 
 
 " Overboard, sah," answered the man, preserving his slight 
 frown. 
 
 " Overboard! As good a mess of pork and pea-soup as waj 
 ever served out to a ship's company. Overboard! That is 
 the third time. If it happens again " — he checked himself 
 with a glance at Helga — " if it happens again," he went on, 
 speaking with an air of concern, " 1 shall be obliged to Btoj) 
 the beef." 
 
 " We can not eat pork, sah — we are Mussulmen — '* he was 
 proceeding. 
 
 The captain silenced him with a bland motion of the hand. 
 
 " Send the men aft, Nakier," said he, with a small increase 
 of nasal twang in his utterance, " and see that the cleaning 
 and the clearance out is thorough. " 
 
 He gave him a hard, significant nod, and the man marched 
 out, directing an eager look at me as he wheeled round, as 
 though for my sympathy. 
 
 Puumeamootty was clearing the table with much ill-dis- 
 sembled agitation in the hurry of his movements: his swift 
 glances went from the captain to me, and then to Helga. 
 They were like the flashing of a stiletto, keen as the darting 
 blue gleam of the blade, and they would be as murderous, too, 
 I thought, if the man could execute his wishes with his eyes. 
 I believed the captain would now make some signal to leave the 
 table, but he continued to sit on. 
 
 " Did you observe that man just now?" said he, addressing 
 Helga. She answered " Yes." " Handsome, do you think?" 
 said he, combing a whisker. 
 
 " He had a mild, pleasant face," she answered. 
 
 " His name," said he, " is Vanjoor Nakier. He is boss of 
 the native crew, and I allow him to act as a sort of boatswain. 
 It is hard to reconcile so agreeable a countenance with the 
 horrible and awful belief which must make him forever and 
 ever a lost soul, if he is not won over in plenty of time for re- 
 pentance, for praj'er and mortification." 
 
 " You seem to have the fellows' names very pat," said I. 
 " Are you acquainted with the Malay tongue?" 
 
 " Ah!" cried he, with a shake of the head ; " I wish I were. 
 I might then prove a true missionary to the poor benighted 
 fellows. Yet I shall hope to have broken heavily into their 
 deplorable and degraded superstitions before I dismiss them at 
 Cape Town." 
 
 I caught sight of the shadowy form of the steward lurking
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 187 
 
 abaft the companion steps, where he seemed busy with some 
 plates and a basket. 
 
 " It is your hope/' said I, " to convert the Mussulmen?" 
 
 " It is my hope, indeed," he answered; *' and i^ray, what 
 honester hope should possess a man?'' 
 
 " It is an admirable desire," said I, " but a little dangerous 
 perhaps." 
 
 " Why?" asked he. 
 
 " Well," said 1, " I am no traveler. 1 have seen nothing 
 of tbe world, but I have read, and I have always gathered from 
 books of voyages, that there is no class of men more bigoted 
 in their faith and more treacherous in their conduct than 
 Malay seamen." 
 
 "Hush!" cried Helga, putting her finger to her lips and 
 looking in the direction of the steward. 
 
 The captain turned in his chair. 
 
 " Are you there, Punmeamootty?" 
 
 " Yes, sah," and his figure came swiftly gliding into the 
 light. 
 
 " Go below and help the others! They should be at work 
 by this time." 
 
 The man went out on to the quarter-deck, where, close 
 against the cuddy-front, lay the little hatch that conducted to 
 the steerage. 
 
 " You are quite right," exclaimed the captain, lying back 
 and expanding his waistcoat. " Malay seamen are, undoubt- 
 edly, treacherous. In fact, treachery is part and parcel of the 
 Malay character. It is the people of that nation who run 
 a-muck, you know. " 
 
 " What is that?" inquired Helga. 
 
 " A fellow falls crazy," answered the captain, smiling, 
 " whi23S out a weapon called a creese, and stabs and kills as 
 many as he can encounter as he flies through the streets." 
 
 " They are a people to live on good terms with," said Helga, 
 looking at me. 
 
 " They arc a people," said the captain, nasally accentuating 
 his words, " who are to be brought to a knowledge of the 
 Light; and, in proportion as the eliort is dangerous, so should 
 the worker glory in his task." 
 
 He gazed at Helga, as though seeking her approval of this 
 sentiment. But she was looking at me with an expression of 
 anxiety in her soft blue eyes. 
 
 '* I gather," said I, with curiosity stimulated by thought of 
 the girl's aud my situation aboard this homely little bark, 
 with her singular skipper and wild, dark crew — " I gather.
 
 188 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 Captain Bunting, from what has passed, that the blow you aro 
 now leveling at these fellows' superstitions — as you call them 
 — is aimed at their diet?" 
 
 *' Just so," he answered. " I am trying to compel them to 
 eat pork. Who knows that before the equator be crossed I 
 may not have excited a real love for pork among them? That 
 would be a great work, sir. It will sap one of the most con- 
 temptible of their su2ierstitions, and provide me with a little 
 crevice for the insertion of the wedge of truth." 
 
 " 1 believe pork," said I, "is not so much a question of 
 religion as a question of health with these poor dark creatures 
 bred in hot latitudes." 
 
 " Pork enters largely into their faith," he answered. 
 
 " So far, you have not been very successful, I think?" 
 
 " No. You heard what Vanjoor Xakier said. The waste- 
 ful wretches have for the third time cast their allowance over- 
 board. Only think. Miss Nielsen, of willfully throwing over 
 the rail as much hearty excellent food — honest salt pork and 
 very fair pea-soup — as would keep a poor family at home in 
 dinners for a week!" 
 
 " What do they eat instead?" she asked. 
 
 " Why, on pork days, biscuit, 1 suppose. There is nothing 
 else." 
 
 " You give them beef every other day?" said I. 
 
 "Beef and duff," he answered; " but I shall stop that. 
 Famine may help me in dealing with their superstitions." 
 
 It was not for me, partaking, as Helga and 1 were, of this 
 man's hospitality, using his ship, dependent upon him indeed 
 for my speedy return home with Hegla — it was not for me, I 
 say, at this early time at all events, to remonstrate with him, 
 to tell him that, exalted as he might consider his motives, they 
 were urging him into a very barbarous, cruel behavior; but, 
 as I sat looking at him, my emotion, spite of his claims upon 
 my kindness, was one of hearty disgust, with deeper feelings 
 working in me besides, when I considered that, if our evil fort- 
 une forced us to remain for any length of time on board 
 " The Light of the World," we might find his theory of con- 
 version making his ship a theater for as bad a tragedy as was 
 ever enacted upon the high seas. 
 
 On a sudden he looked up at a little time-piece that Vfaa 
 ticking against a beam just over his head. 
 
 " Have you any acquaintance with the sea, Mr. Tre- 
 garthen?" he asked. 
 
 " Merely a boating acquaintance," 1 replied. 
 " Could you stand a watch?"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 189 
 
 " I could keep a lookout," said I, a little dismayed by these 
 questions, " but 1 am utterly ignorant of the handling of a 
 ship." 
 
 He looked reflectively at Helga, then at mo, pulling down 
 first one whisker, then the other, while his thick lips lay broad 
 in a smile under his long-hooked nose. 
 
 " Oh, well," said he, " Abraham Wise will do." He went 
 to the cuddy door and called, " Forward there!" 
 
 " Ya-as, sail," came a thick African-like note out of the 
 forecastle obscurity. 
 
 " Ask Abraham Wise to step aft." 
 
 He resumed his seat, and in a few minutes Abraham arrived. 
 
 Helga instantly rose and gave him her hand with a sweet 
 cordial smile that was full of her gratification at the sight of 
 him. For my part, it did my heart good to see him. After 
 the tallowy countenance and odd talk of the captain and the 
 primrose comjjlexions and scowling glances of his Malays, there 
 was real refreshment to the spirits to be got out of the homely 
 English face and English 'longshore garb of the boatman, with 
 the man's suggestions, besides, of the English Channel and of 
 home. 
 
 " And how is Jacob?" said I. 
 
 " Oh, he's a-feeling a little better, sir. A good bit down, 
 of course, as we both are. 'Tain't realizable even now." 
 
 " Do you refer to the loss of your lugger?" said Captain 
 Bunting. 
 
 " Ay, sir, to the ' Airly Marn,' " answered Abraham, con- 
 fronting him, and gazing at him with a steadfastness that 
 slightly increased his squint. 
 
 " But surely, my good fellow," cried the captain, " you had 
 plenty of time, 1 hope, to feel thoroughly grateful for your 
 preservation from the dreadful fate which lay before you had 
 Providence suffered you to continue your voyage?" 
 
 " I dunno about dreadful fate," answered Abraham: " all 
 I can say is I should be blooming glad if that there ' Airly 
 Marn ' was afloat again, or if so be as we'd never fallen in with 
 this here ' Light of the World.' " 
 
 " It ia as I told you, you perceive," exclaimed the captain, 
 smiling und addressing Helga and mo in his blandest manner: 
 " as we descend the social scale, recognition of signal and prov- 
 idential mercies grows feebler and feebler, until it dies out — 
 possibly before it gets down to Deal boatman. I want a word 
 with you, Abraham Wise. But first, how have you been 
 treated forward?" 
 
 " Oh, worry well indeed, sir," he answered. "The mate
 
 190 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 showed us where to tarn in when the time comes round, and 1 
 dessay we'll manage to git along all right till we gets clear 
 of ye." 
 
 " What have you had to eat?'* 
 
 " The mate gave us a little bit o' pork for to be biled, but 
 ye've got a black cook forrads as seemed to Jacob and me to 
 take the dressing of that there meat werry ill." 
 
 The captain seemed to motion the matter aside with his 
 hand, and said: 
 
 " My vessel is without a second mate; 1 mean, a man qual- 
 ified to take charge of the deck when Mr. Jones and I are be- 
 low. Kow, 1 am thinking that you would do very well for 
 that post." 
 
 " I'd rather go home, sir," said Abraham. 
 
 " Ay," said the captain, complacently surveying him, " but 
 while you are with me, you know, you must be prepared to do 
 your bit. I find happiness assisting a suffering man. But," 
 added he, nasally, " in this world we must give and take. 
 You eat my meat and sleep in what I think I may fairly term 
 my bedroom. What pay do I exact? Simply the use of your 
 eyes and limbs." 
 
 He glanced with a very self-satisfied, expression at Helga. 
 It seemed, indeed, that most of his talk now was at her when 
 not directly to her. She had come round to my side of the 
 table after leaving Abraham, and I had given her my chair 
 and stood listening with my hand on the back of it. 
 
 " I'm quite willing to tarn to," said Abraham, " while I'm 
 along with ye, sir. I ain't afeared of work. I don't want no 
 man's grub nor shelter for nothen." 
 
 " Quite right," said the captain, " those are respectable 
 sentiments. Of course, if you accepted my offer I should pay 
 you, give you the wages that Winstanley had — four pounds a 
 month for the round voyage." 
 
 Abraham scratched the back of his head and looked at me. 
 This proposal evidently put a new complexion upon the mat- 
 ter to his mind. 
 
 " You can handle a ship, I presume?" continued the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 " Whoy, yes," answered Abraham, with a grin of wonder 
 at the question; " if I ain't been piloting long enough to 
 know that sort o' work, ye shall call me a Malay." 
 
 " 1 should not require a knowledge of navigation in you," 
 said the captain. 
 
 Abraham responded with a bob of the head, then scratching 
 at his back hair afresh, said:
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 191 
 
 ** I must ask leave to tarn the matter over. I should like 
 to talk with my mate along o' this.^' 
 
 " I'll put him on the articles, too, if he likes, at the current 
 wages/' said the captain. "However, think over it. You 
 can let me know to-morrow. But 1 shall expect you to take 
 charge during the middle watch." 
 
 " That I'll willingly dew, sir," answered Abraham. " But 
 how about them Ceylon chaps and Malays forrads? Dew they 
 understand sea tarms?" 
 
 " Perfectly well," answered the captain, " or how should 1 
 and Mr. Jones get along, think you?" 
 
 " Well," exclaimed Abraham; " I han't had much to say 
 to 'em as yet. One chap's been talking a good deal this even- 
 ing, and I allow he's got a grievance, as most sailors has. 
 There's some sort o' difficulty: I allow it lies in the eating; 
 but a man wants practice to follow noicely what them there 
 sort o' colored covies has to say." 
 
 " Well," exclaimed the captain, with another bland wavo 
 of the hand in dismissal of the subject, " we understand each 
 other, at all events, my lad." 
 
 He went to the locker from which he had extracted the bis- 
 cuits, produced a bottle of rum, and filled a wine-glass. 
 
 " Neat or with water?" said he, smiling. 
 
 " I've pretty nigh had enough water for to-day, sir," an- 
 swered Abraham, grinning too, and looking very well pleased 
 at this act of attention. " Here's to you, sir, I'm sure, and 
 wishing you a prosperous woyage. Mr. Tregarthen, your 
 health, sir, and your'n, miss, and may ye both soon get home 
 and find everything comfortable and roight." He drained the 
 glass with a smack of his lips. " As pretty a little drop o' 
 rum as I've had this many a day," said he. 
 
 " You can tell Jacob to lay aft presently," said the captain, 
 *' when the steward is at liberty, and he will give liina such 
 another dose. That will do." 
 
 Abraham knuckled his forehead, pausing to say to me in a 
 hoarse whisper, which must have been perfectly audible to the 
 captain, " A noice gemman, and no mistake." 
 
 " I am going below," said the captain when he was gone, 
 " to see after your accommodation. Will you sit here," ad- 
 dressing Helga, " or will you go on deck for a few turns? I 
 fear you will find the air chilly." 
 
 " I will go on deck with you, Hugh," answered Helga. 
 
 The captain ran his eye over her. 
 
 " You are without luggage," said he, " and, alas! wanting 
 in almost everything; but if you will allow me—" he broke
 
 192 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ofif and went to his cabin, and before we could have found time 
 to exchange a whisper, returned with a very handsome, almost 
 new, fur coat. 
 
 " Kow, Miss Kielsen,'' said he, " you will suffer me to 
 wraji you in this." 
 
 "Indeed my jacket will ii;eep me warm," she answered, 
 irith that same look of shrinking in her face 1 have before de- 
 scribed. 
 
 *' Nay, but wear it, Helga," said 1, anxious to meet the 
 man, at all events, half-way in his kindness. " It is a delight- 
 ful coat — the very thing for the keen wind that is blowing on 
 deck!" 
 
 Had I offered to put it on for her she would at once have 
 consented, but I could observe the recoil in her from the 
 garment stretched in the captain's hands, with hisijalefat face 
 smiling betwixt his long whiskers over the top of it. On a 
 sudden, however, she turned and suffered him to put the coat 
 on her, which he did with great ostentation of anxiety and a 
 vast deal of smiling, and, as I could not help perceiving, with 
 a deal more of lingering over the act than there was the least 
 occasion for. 
 
 "Wonderfully becoming, indeed!" he exclaimed; "and 
 now to see that your cabin is comfortable." 
 
 He passed through the door, and we mounted the compan- 
 ion steps. 
 
 The night was so dark that there was very little to be seen 
 of the vessel. Her dim spaces of canvas made a mere pale 
 whistling shadow of her as they floated, waving and bowing, 
 in dim heaps through the obscurity. There was a frequent 
 glancing of white water to windward and a dampness as of 
 spray in the wind, but the little bark tossed with dry decks 
 over the brisk Atlantic heave, crushing the water off either 
 bow into a dull light of seething, against which, when she 
 stoo^Dcd her head, the round of the forecastle showed like a 
 segment of the shadow in an eclipse of the moon. The haze 
 of the cabin lamp lay about the skylight, and the figure of the 
 mate appeared in and vanished past it with monotonous regu- 
 larity as he pased the short poop. There was a haze of light, 
 too, about the binnacle-stand, with a sort of elusive stealing 
 into it of the outline of the man at the helm. Forward the 
 vessel lay in blackness. It was blowing what sailors call a top- 
 gallant breeze, with, perhaps, more weight in it even than 
 that; but the squabness of this " Light of the World " 
 promised great stiffness, and, though the wind had drawn
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 193 
 
 some point or so forvvard while we were at table, the bark rose 
 as stiff to it as though she had been under reefed topsails. 
 
 " Will you take my arm, Helga?" said 1. 
 
 " Let me first turn up the sleeves of this coat,'' said she. 
 
 1 helped her to do this; she then put her hand under my 
 arm, and we started to walk the lee-side of the deck as briskly 
 as the swing of the planks would suffer. Scarcely were we in 
 motion when the mate came down to us from the weather- 
 side. 
 
 " Beg pardon," said he. " Won't you and the lady walk 
 to wind'ard?'' 
 
 " Oh, we shall be in your way!'* I answered. " It is a cold 
 wmd." 
 
 "It is, sir." 
 
 " But it promises a fair night," said I. 
 
 " I hope so," he exclaimed. " Dirty weather don't agree 
 with dirty skins." 
 
 He turned on his heel and resumed his post on the weather- 
 side of the deck. 
 
 " Dirty skins mean Malays in that chief mate's nautical dic- 
 tionary," said 1. 
 
 " Hugh! how thankful I shall be when we are transferred 
 to another ship!" 
 
 " Ay, indeed! but surely this is better than the lugger?" 
 
 " No! I would rather be in the lugger." 
 
 " How now, Helga?" cried I. " We are very well treated 
 here. Surely the captain has been all hospitality. No warm- 
 hearted host ashore could do more. Why, here is he now at 
 this moment superintending the arrangement of our cabins 
 below to insure our comfort!" 
 
 " I do not like him at all!" said she, in a tone which her 
 slightly Danish accent rendered emphatic. 
 
 " 1 do not like his treatment of the men," said I, " but he 
 is kind to us." 
 
 " There is an unwholesome mind in his flabby face!" she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 I could not forbear a laugh at this strong language in the 
 little creature. 
 
 " And then his religion!" she continued. "Does a truly 
 pious nature talk as he does? 1 can understand professional 
 religionists intruding their calling upon strangers; but 1 have 
 always found sincerity in matters of opinion modest and ro- 
 eerved — 1 mean among what you call laymen. What right 
 has this man to force upon those poor fellows forward the food 
 that they are forbidden by their faith to eat?"
 
 194 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " Yes," said I; *' that is a vile side of the man's nature, 1 
 must own; vile to you and me and to the poor Malays, I mean. 
 But, surely, there must be sincerity too, or why should he 
 bother himself?" 
 
 " It may be meanness,*' said she: " he wants to save his 
 beef; meauness and that love of tyrannizing which is oftener 
 to be found among the captains of your nation, Hugh, than 
 mine!" 
 
 " Your nation!" said I, laughing. " 1 claim you for 
 Great Britain by virtue of your English speech. No pure 
 Dane could talk your mother's tongue as you do. Spite of 
 what you say, though, I believe the man sincere. Would he, 
 situated as he is — two white men to eleven yellow-skins (for 
 we and the boatmen must count ourselves out of it) — would 
 he, I say, dare venture to arouse the passions — the religious 
 passions — of a set of men who hail from the most treacherous 
 community of people in the world, if he were not governed by 
 some dream of converting them? — a fancy that, were you to 
 transplant it ashore, would be reckoned noble and of a script- 
 ural and martyr-like greatness." 
 
 " That may be," she answered; " but he is going very 
 wickedly to work, nevertheless, and it will not be his fault if 
 those colored sailors do not dangerously mutiny long before he 
 shall have persuaded the most timid and doubting of them 
 that pork is good to eat." 
 
 " Yes," said I, gravely; for she spoke with a sort of impas- 
 sioned seriousness that must have influenced me, even if I had 
 not been of her mind. '* I, for one, should certainly fear the 
 worst if he persists — and I don't doubt he will persist, if Abra- 
 ham and the other boatmen agree to remain with him; for 
 then it will be four to eleven — desperate odds, indeed, though, 
 as an Englishman, he is bound to underrate the formidable- 
 ness of anything colored. However," said I, with a glance 
 into the darkness over the side, " do not doubt that we shall 
 be transshiped long before any trouble happens. 1 shall en- 
 deavor to have a talk with Abraham before he decides. What 
 he and Jacob then do, they will do with their eyes open." 
 
 As I spoke these words the captain came up the ladder and 
 approached us. 
 
 " Hal Miss Nielsen," he cried, " were not you wise to put 
 on that warm coat? All is ready below; but still let me hope 
 that you will change your mind and occupy Mr. Jones's 
 berth." 
 
 " Thank you; for the short time we shall remain in this ship
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 195 
 
 the cabin you have been good enough to prepare will be all I 
 shall require/' she answered. 
 
 He peered through the skylight to see the hour. 
 
 " Five minutes to eight," he exclaimed. " Mr. Jones!'* 
 The man crossed the deck. " 1 have arranged," said the cap- 
 tain, " with the Deal boatman Abraham Wise to take charge 
 of the bark during the middle watch. It is an experiment, 
 and 1 shall require to be up and down during those hours to 
 make sure of him. Not that I distrust his capacities. Oh, 
 dear, no! From the vicious slipping of cables, merely for 
 sordid purposes of hoveling, to the noble art of navigating a 
 ship in a hurricane amid the shoals of the Straits of Dover, 
 your Deal boatman is the most expert of men. But," contin- 
 ued he, " since 1 shall have to be up and down, as I have said, 
 during the middle watch, I will ask you to keep charge of the 
 deck till midnight. " 
 
 " Very good, sir," said the mate, who appeared to me to 
 have been on duty ever since the hour of our coming aboard. 
 " It will keep the round of the watches steady, sir. The port- 
 watch comes on duty at eight bells." 
 
 " Excellent!" exclaimed the captain. " Thank you, Mr. 
 Jones." 
 
 The mate stalked aft. 
 
 " Mr. Tregarthen," he added, " I observe that you wear a 
 sou'- wester." 
 
 " It is the headgear I wore when I put off in the life-boat," 
 said 1, " and 1 am waiting to get home to exchange it." 
 
 " No need, no need!" cried he; "I have an excellent wide- 
 awake below — not, indeed, perfectly new, but a very service- 
 able clinging article for ocean use — which is entirely at your 
 service." 
 
 " You are all kindness!" 
 
 " Nay," he exclaimed in a voice of devotion, " I believe 1 
 know my duty. Shall we linger here. Miss Nielsen, or would 
 you prefer the shelter of the cabin? At half past eight Pun- 
 meamootty will place some hot water, biscuit, and a little 
 spirit upon the table. I fear I shall be at a loss to divert you. " 
 
 " Indeed not!" exclaimed Ilelga. 
 
 The unconscious irony of this response must have discon- 
 certed a less self-complacent man. 
 
 " 1 have a few volumes of an edifying kind, and a draught- 
 board. My resources for amusing you, I fear, are limited to 
 those things." 
 
 The swoej) of the wind was bleaker than either of us had 
 imagined, and, now that the captain had joined us, the deck
 
 196 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 possessed no temptation. We followed him into the cabin, 
 where llelga hastily removed the coat as though fearing the 
 captain would help her. His first act was to produce the 
 wideawake he had spoken of. This was a very great conven- 
 ience to me; the sou'- wester lay hot and heavy upon my head, 
 and the sense of its extreme uusightliness added not a little to 
 the discomfort it caused me. He looked at my sea-boots and 
 then at his feet, and, with his head on one side, exclaimed, in 
 his most smiling manner, that he feared his shoes would prove 
 too large for me, but that I was very welcome to the use of a 
 pair of his slippers. These also I gratefully accepted, and 
 withdrew to Mr. Jones's berth to put them on, and the com- 
 fort of being thus shod, after days of the weight and unwield- 
 iness of my sea-boots, it would be impossible to express. 
 
 " I think we shall be able to make ourselves happy yet,'* 
 said the captain. " Pray sit. Miss Nielsen. Do you smoke, 
 Mr. Tregarthen?" 
 
 " I do, indeed," 1 answered, '* whenever I can get the 
 chance." 
 
 He looked at Helga, who said to me : 
 
 "Pray smoke here, Hugh, if the captain does not object. 
 My father seldom had a pipe out of his mouth, and 1 was con- 
 stantly in his cabin with him." 
 
 " You are truly obliging," said the captain; and going to 
 the locker in which he kept his rum, biscuits, and the like, he 
 took out a cigar-box, and handed me as well-flavored a Havana 
 as ever 1 had smoked in my life. All this kindness and hos- 
 
 fntality was, indeed, overwhelming, and I returned some very 
 ively thanks, to which he listened with a smile, afterward, as 
 his custom was, waving them aside with his hand. He next 
 entered his cabin and relurned with some half dozen books, 
 which he put before Helga. I leaned over her shoulder to 
 look at them, and speedily recognized " The Whole Duty of 
 Man," " The Pilgrim's Progress," Young's " Night 
 Thoughts," a volume by Jeremy Taylor, and the rest were of 
 this sort of literature. Helga opened a volume and seemed to 
 read When I turned to ask the captain a question about these 
 books, 1 found him staring at her profile out of the corner of 
 his eyes, while with his right hand he stroked his whisker med- 
 itatively. 
 
 " These are all very good books," said I, " particularly the 
 ' Pilgrim's Progress.' " 
 
 " Yes," he answered with a sigh; " works of that kind dur- 
 ing my long periods of loneliness upon the high seas ai'e my 
 only solace, and lonely 1 am. All ship captains are more or
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 19? 
 
 less alone when engaged in their profession, but I am pecul- 
 iarly so/' 
 
 " I should have thought the Church, captain, would have 
 suited you better than the sea," said I. 
 
 " Not the Church," he answered. "I am a Nonconform- 
 ist, and Dissent is stamped upon a long pedigree. Pray light 
 up, Mr. Tregarthen." 
 
 He took his seat at the head of the table, put a match to his 
 cigar, the sight of which betwixt his thick lips considerably 
 humanized him in my opinion, and, clasping his pale, gouty- 
 lookiug hands upon the table, leaned forward, furtively eying 
 Helga over the top of his cigar, which forked up out of his 
 mouth like the bowsprit of a ship. 
 
 His conversation chiefly concerned himself, his past career, 
 his antecedents, and so forth. He talked as one who wishes 
 to stand well with his hearers. He spoke of a Lady Duckett 
 as a connection of his on his mother's side, and I observed 
 that he paused on pronouncing the name. He told us that his 
 mother had come from a very ancient family that had been for 
 centuries established in Cumberland, but he was reticent on 
 the subject of his father. He talked much of his daughter 
 Judith's loneliness at home, and said he grieved that she was 
 without a companion; some one who would be equally dear to 
 them both; and as he said this he lay back in his chair in a 
 very amplitude of waistcoat, with his eyes fixed on the upper 
 deck and his whole posture suggestive of pensive thought. 
 
 Well, thought I, this, to be sure, is a very strange sort of 
 sea captain. I had met various skippers in my day, but none 
 like this man. Even a trifling expletive would have been re- 
 freshing in his mouth. From time to time Helga glanced at 
 him, but with an air of aversion that was not to be concealed 
 from me, however self-complacency might blind him to it. 
 She suddenly exclaimed, with almost startling inconsequen- 
 tiality: 
 
 " You will be greatly obliging us, Captain Bunting, by giv- 
 ing orders to Mr. Jones or to Abraham to keep a lookout for 
 ships sailing north during the night. We can never tell what 
 passing vessel might not be willing to receive Mr. Tregarthen 
 and me." 
 
 " What! In the darkness of night?" he exclaimed. " How 
 should we signal? How would you have me convey my desire 
 to communicate?" 
 
 " By a blue light, or by burning a port-fire," said Helga, 
 shortly. 
 
 " Ah, 1 see you are a thorough sailor — you are not to be in-
 
 198 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 striicted," be cried, jocosely, wagging his whiskers at her. 
 *' Think of a jouug lady being acquainted with the secret of 
 night communications at seal I fear — I fear we shall have to 
 wait for the daylight. But what," he exclaimed, unctuously, 
 " is the reason of this exceeding desire to return home?" 
 
 " Oh, captain," said I, " home is home." 
 
 " And Mr. Tregarthen wishes to return to his mother," said 
 Helga. 
 
 " But, my dear young lady, your home is not in England, 
 is it?" he asked. 
 
 She colored, faltered, and then answered: 
 
 " My home is in Denmark." 
 
 " You have lost your poor dear father," said he, " and 1 
 think I understood you to say, Mr. Tregarthen, that Miss 
 Nielsen's poor dear mother fell asleep some years since. " 
 
 This was a guess on his part. 1 had no recollection what- 
 ever of having told him anything of the sort. 
 
 " I am an orphan," exclaimed Helga, with a little hint of 
 tears in her eyes, " and — and. Captain Bunting, Mr. Tregar- 
 then and I want to return home." — 
 
 " Captain Bunting will see to that, Helga," said I, con- 
 ceiving her somewhat too importunate in this direction. 
 
 She answered me with a singularly wistful, anxious look. 
 
 The conversation came to a pause through the entrance of 
 Punmeamootty. He arrived with a tray and hot water, which 
 he placed upon the table together with some glasses. The 
 captain produced wine and a bottle of rum. Helga would 
 take nothing, though no one could have been more hospitably 
 pressing than Captain Bunting. For my part, 1 was glad to 
 fill my glass, as much for the sake of the tonic of the spirit as 
 for the desire to appear entirely sociable with this strange 
 skipper. 
 
 " You can go forward," he exclaimed to the Malay; and 
 the fellow went gliding on serpentine legs, as it veritably 
 seemed to me, out through the door. 
 
 Ko further reference was made to the subject of our leaving 
 the bark. The captain was giving us his experiences of the 
 Deal boatmen, and relating an instance of heroic roguery on 
 the part of the crew of a galley-punt, when a noise of thick, 
 throaty, African-like yowling was heard sounding from some- 
 where forward, accompanied by one or two calls from the 
 mate overhead. 
 
 " 1 expect Mr. Jones is taking in the foretopgallant-sail," 
 paid the captain. " Can it be necessary? I will return 
 pkortly."
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 199 
 
 And, giving Helga a convulsive bow, he pulled his wide- 
 awake to his ears and went on deck. 
 
 " You look at me, Hugh," said Helga, fixing her artless, 
 sweet, and modest eyes upon me, " when 1 speak to Captain 
 Bunting as though I do wrong." 
 
 1 answered gently: 
 
 " No. But is it not a little ungracious, Helga, to keep on 
 expressing your anxiety to get away, in the face of all this 
 hospitable treatment and kindly anxiety to make us comfort- 
 able and happy while we remain?" 
 
 She looked somewhat abashed. 
 
 " I wish he was not so kind," she said. 
 
 " What is your misgiving?" said I, inclining toward her to 
 catch a better view of her face. 
 ^' "I fear he will not make haste to transship us," she an- 
 swered. 
 
 "But why should he want to keep us?" 
 
 She glanced at me with an instant surprise emphasized by 
 a brief parting of her lips that was yet not a smile. She made 
 no answer, however. 
 
 " He will not want to keep us," continued 1, talking with 
 the confidence of a young man to a girl whom he is protect- 
 ing, and whose behavior assures him that she looks up to him 
 and values his Judgment. "We may prove very good com- 
 l^any for a day or two, but the master of a vessel of this sort is 
 a man who counts his sixpences, and he has no idea of main- 
 taining us for a longer time than he can possibly help, depend 
 upon it." 
 
 " 1 hope so," she answered. 
 
 " But you don't think so," said I, struck by her manner. 
 
 She answered by speaking of his treatment of his crew, and 
 we were upon this subject when he descended the cabin ladder. 
 
 " A small freshening of the wind," said he, " and a trifling 
 squall of rain. " There was no need for him to tell us this, 
 for his long whiskers sparkled with water drops, and carried 
 evidences of a brisk shower. " The bark is now very snug, 
 and there is nothing in sight," said he, with a sort of haff- 
 humorous reproachful significance in his way of turning to 
 Helga. 
 
 She smiled, as though by smiling she believed 1 should be 
 pleased. The captain begged her to drink a little wine and 
 eat a biscuit, and she consented. This seemed to gratify him, 
 and his behavior visibly warmed while he relighted his cigar, 
 mixed himself another little dose, and resumed his chat about 
 J)eal boatmen and his experience in the Downg,
 
 200 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A CREW OF MALAYS. 
 
 We sat chatting thus until something after nine. The com- 
 fort of this cabin after the lugger, the knowledge that Helga 
 and I would each have a comfortable bed, comparatively speak- 
 ing, to lie in, the conviction that our stay in the bark must be 
 short, and that a very few hours might see us homeward bound, 
 coupled with a sense of security such as never possessed me in 
 the open lugger, not to mention the influence of my one 
 pretty big tumbler of rum punchj had put me into a good 
 humor. 
 
 " Is not this better than the lugger?" I said, to Helga, as I 
 motioned with my cigar round the cabin, and pointed to the 
 slippers upon my feet. " Think of my little windy bed un- 
 der that boat's deck, Helga, and recollect your black fore- 
 peak. " 
 
 She seemed to acquiesce. The captain's countenance was 
 bland with gratification. 
 
 " You tell me you have not traveled, Mr. Tregarthen?'' 
 said he. 
 
 " 1 have not," I replied. 
 
 " But you would like to see the world? All young men 
 should see the world. Does not the poet tell us that home- 
 keeiDing youths have ever homely wits?" and here he harangued 
 me for a little with commonplaces on the advantages of travel; 
 then, addressing Helga very smilingly, he said, " You have 
 seen much of the world?" 
 
 " Not very much," she answered. 
 
 " South America?" 
 
 " I was once at Eio," she answered. " I was also at Port 
 Koyal, in Jamaica, and have accompanied my father in short 
 voyages to one or two Portuguese and Mediterranean ports." 
 
 *' Come! There is extensive observation, even in that," 
 said he, " in one so — in one whose years are still few! Did 
 you ever visit Table Bay?" 
 
 She answered " No." He smoked meditatively. . 
 
 " Helga," said I, " you look tired. Would you like to go 
 to your cabin?" 
 
 "I should, Hugh." 
 
 " Well, I shall be glad to turn in myself, captain. Will 
 you forgive our early retreat?"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 201 
 
 " By all means," he exclaimed. "Let me show you the 
 cabins." 
 
 He went to the cuddy door and bawled for Punmeamootty. 
 " Light a lantern/' 1 heard him say, " and bring it aft!" 
 After a minute or two the steward made his appearance with 
 a lantern swinging in his hand. The captain took it from 
 him, and we passed on to the quarter-decii where the hatch lay. 
 After the warmth of the cuddy interior, the wind, chilled as it 
 had been with the damp of the squall, seemed to blow with an 
 edge of frost. The rays of the lantern danced in the black- 
 ness of the wet jjlanks. The vessel was rolling slowly and 
 plunging heavily, and there were many heavy, complaining, 
 straining noises aloft amid the invisible spaces of canvas swing- 
 ing though the starless gloom. The cold, bleak roar of seeth- 
 ing waters alongside recalled the raft, and there was a sort of 
 sobbing all along the dusk close under either line of bulwarks. 
 
 " Let me help you through this little hatch, Miss Nielsen," 
 said the captain, dangling the lantern over it that we might 
 see down the aperture. 
 
 If she answered him I did not hear her; she peered a mo- 
 ment, then put her foot over and vanished. The steps were 
 perpendicular — pieces of wood nailed to the bulkhead — yet 
 she had descended this up-and-down ladder in an instant, and 
 almost as she vanished was calling to me from below to say 
 that she was safe. 
 
 " What extraordinary nimbleness in a young lady!" cried 
 the captain, in a voice of unaffected admiration. " What an 
 exquisite sailor! Now, Mr. Tregarthen!" 
 
 I shuffled down, keeping a tight hold of the edge of the 
 hatch, and felt with my feet before there was occasion to let 
 go with my hands. There was very little to be seen of this in- 
 terior by the lantern-light. It was the fore part of the steerage, 
 so far as 1 could gather, with two rows of bulkheads forming 
 » little corridor, at the extremity of which, aft, 1 could faintly 
 distinguish the glimmering outlines of cases of light cargo. 
 Forward of the hatch through which we had descended there 
 stood a solid bulkhead, so there was nothing to be seen that 
 way. The doors of the cabin opened out of the little corri- 
 dor; they wore mere pigeon-holes; but then these 'tween decks 
 were very low, and while I stood erect 1 felt the crown of the 
 wideawake I wore brushing the planks. 
 
 Never could I have imagnied so much noise in a ship as was 
 here — the squeaking, the grinding, the groaning; the jar and 
 shock of the rudder upon its post; the thunif) of the seas out- 
 side, and the responsive throbbing within; the sullen, muffled
 
 303 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 roar of the Atlantic surge washing past; all these notes were 
 blended into such a confusion of sounds as is not to be ex- 
 pressed. The lantern swayed in the captain's hand, and the 
 shadows at our feet sprung from side to side. There were 
 shadows, too, all round about, wildl}^ pla3'ing upon the walls 
 and bulkheads of the vessel with a mopping and mowing of them 
 that might have filled a lonely and unaccustomed soul down 
 here with horrible imaginations of sea monsters and ocean 
 specters, 
 
 " I heartily wish. Miss Nielsen," cried the captain — and, 
 in truth, he had need to exert his voice to be audible amid 
 that bewildering clamor-^" that you had suffered me to pro- 
 vide you with better accommodation than this. Jones could 
 have done very well down here. However, for to-night this 
 will be your cabin. To-morrow I hope you will change your 
 mind, and consent to sleep above." 
 
 So saying, he opened the foremost of the little doors on the 
 port side. It was a mere hole indeed, yet it somehow took the 
 civilized look of an ordinary ship's berth from the round 
 scuttle or thickly glazed port-hole which lay in an embrasure 
 deep enough to comfortably warrant the thickness of the ves- 
 sel's side. Under this port-hole was a narrow bunk, and in it 
 a bolster, and, as 1 might suppose, blankets, over which was 
 spread a very handsome rug. I swiftly took note of one or 
 two conveniences — a looking-glass, a wash-stand secured to the 
 bulkhead (this piece of furniture I made no doubt had come 
 direct from the captain's cabin), there was also a little table, 
 and upon it a comb and brush, and on the cabin-deck was a 
 square of carpet, 
 
 " Very poor quarters for you. Miss Nielsen," said the cap- 
 tain, looking round, his nose and whiskers appearing twice as 
 long in the fluctuations of the lantern-light and his fixed smile 
 odd beyond words, with the tumbling of the shadows over his 
 face. 
 
 " The cabin is very comfortable, and you are very kind," 
 exclaimed Helga, 
 
 " You are good to say so. I wish you a good-night and 
 pleasant dreams." 
 
 He extended his hand, and held hers, I thought, rather 
 longer than mere courtesy demanded. 
 
 " That will be your cabin, Mr. Tregarthen," said he, going 
 to the door, 
 
 1 bade Helga good-night. It was hard to interpret her 
 looks by that light, yet I fancied she had something to say, 
 and bent my ear to her mouth; but instead of speaking she
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 303 
 
 hurriedly passed her right hand down my sleeve, by no means 
 caressingly, but as though she desired to cleanse or dry her 
 fingers. I looked at her, and she turned away. 
 
 "Good-night, Helga!'' said I. 
 
 "Good-night, Hugh!'* she answered. 
 
 " You will find a bolt to your door. Miss Nielsen," called 
 the captain. " Oh, by the way," he added, " I do not mean 
 that you shall undress in the dark. There is an opening over 
 your door; I will hang the lantern amidships here. It will 
 shed light enough to see by, and in half an hour, if that will 
 not be too soon, Punmeamootty will remove it. Good-night, 
 Mr. Tregarthen!'' 
 
 He left me, after hanging up the lantern by a hook fixed in 
 a beam amidships of the corridor. I waited until his figure 
 disappeared up the steps of the hatch, and then called to 
 Helga. She heard me instantly, and cried, " What is it, 
 Hugh?'* 
 
 " Did you not want to say something to me just now?" I 
 exclaimed. 
 
 She opened the door and repeated, " What is it, Hugh? I 
 can not hear you." 
 
 " 1 thought you wished to speak to me just now," said 1, 
 " but were hindered by the captain's presence." 
 
 " No, 1 have nothing to say,'* she answered, looking very 
 pale in the frolic of shadows made by the swinging lantern. 
 
 " Why did you stroke down my arm? Was it a rebuke? 
 Have 1 offended you?*' 
 
 " Oh, Hugh!" she cried; then exclaimed: " Could not you 
 see what I meant? I acted what I could not speak.** 
 
 " I do not understand,** said I. 
 
 " 1 wished to wipe off the grasp of that man*s hand,** she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Poor wretch! Is he so soiling as all that, Helga? And 
 yet how considerate he is! I believe he has half denuded his 
 cabin for you.** 
 
 " Well, good-night once more,** said she, and closed the door 
 of her berth upon herself. 
 
 1 entered my cabin, wondering like a fool. I could witness 
 nothing but groundless aversion in her thoughts of this Cap- 
 tain Bunting, and felt vexed by her behavior; for first I con- 
 sidered that, as in the lugger so here — some days, ay, and even 
 some weeks, might -pass without providing us with the chance 
 of being conveyed on board a homeward-bound ship. I do 
 not say 1 believed this; but it was a probable thing, and there 
 was that degree of risk, theveforej iu it. Then I reflectecl
 
 204 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 that it was in the power of Captain Bunting to render our stay 
 in his vessel either as agreeable as he had the power to make 
 it, or entirely uncomfortable and wretched by neglect, inso- 
 lence, had-humor, and the like. I therefore regarded Helga's 
 behavior as impolitic, and, not having the sense to see into it 
 so as to arrive at a reason, I allowed it to tease me as a piece 
 of silly girlish caprice. 
 
 This was in my mind as 1 entered my cabin. There was 
 light enough to enable me to master the interior, and a glance 
 around satisfied me that I was not to be so well used as Helga. 
 There were a pair of blankets in the bunk, and an old pewter 
 basin on the deck that was sliding to and fro with the mo- 
 tions of the vessel. This I ended by throwing the concern into 
 the next cabin, which, so far as I could tell, was half full of 
 bolts of canvas and odds and ends of gear, which emitted a 
 very strong smell of tar. However, I was sleepier than I was 
 sensible of whiJe I used my legs, for I had no sooner stretched 
 my length in the bunk, using the captain's slipj)ers rolled up 
 in my monkey-jacket as a jiillow, than I fell asleep, though 
 five minutes before 1 should have believed that there was 
 nothing in opium to have induced slumber in the face of the 
 complicated noise which filled that interior. 
 
 I slept heavily right through the night, and awoke at half 
 past seven. I saw Punmeamootty standing in the door, and 
 believe I should not have awakened but for his being there and 
 staring at me. I lay a minute before I could bring my mind 
 to its bearings; and 1 have some recollection of stupidly and 
 drowsily imagining that I had been set ashore on an island by 
 Captain Bunting, that 1 had taken refuge in a cave, and that 
 the owner of that cave, a yellow wild man, had looked in, and 
 finding me there, was meditating how best to dispatch me. 
 
 " Halloo?" said I. " What is it?'' 
 
 " You wan tehee water, sah?" said the man. 
 
 "Yes," said I, now in possession of all my wits. "You 
 will find the basin belonging to this berth next door. A little 
 cold water, if you please, and if you can possibly manage it, 
 Punmeamootty, a small bit of soap and a towel." 
 
 He withdrew, and in a few minutes returned with the arti- 
 cles I required. 
 
 " How is the weather?" said 1, with a glance at the screwed- 
 up port-hole, the glass of which lay as dusky with grime as the 
 scuttle of a whaler that has been three years a- fishing. 
 
 " Very proper wedder, sah," he answered. 
 
 " Captain Bunting up?" 
 
 "No, sah."
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 305 
 
 ** You will be glad to get to Cape Town, I dare say/* said 
 I, scrubbing at my face, and willing to talk since I noticed a 
 disposition in the fellow to linger. " Do you hail from that 
 settlement, Punmeamootty?" 
 
 *' No, sah: I ^long to Ceylon,*' he answered. 
 
 " How many Cingalese are there aboard?** 
 
 " T*ree,'* he answered. 
 
 *' Do the rest belong to the Cape?'* 
 
 He shook his head and replied, " No; one Burmah man, 
 anoder Penang, anoder Singapore — allee like that. ** 
 
 " But your work in this ship ends at Cape Town?'* 
 
 " Yes, sah," he answered, swiftly and fiercely. 
 
 *' Are you all Mohammedans?" 
 
 " Yes, allee Mussulmen." 
 
 I understood by allee that he meant all. He fastened his 
 dusky eyes upon me with an expression of expectation that 1 
 would pursue the subject: finding me silent, he looked behind 
 him and then said, in a species of English that was not 
 *' pigeon," and that 1 can but feebly reproduce, though, to be 
 sure, what was most remarkable it came from the color it took 
 through his intonation, and that glitter in his eyes which made 
 them visible to me in the dusk of the previous evening, " You 
 have been wrecked, sah?" 1 nodded. " But you sabbee 
 nabigation?" 
 
 1 could not restrain a laugh. " 1 know nothing of naviga- 
 tion," said 1; " but I was not wrecked for the want of it, 
 Punmeamootty. " 
 
 " But de beautiful young lady, she sabbee nabigation?" 
 said he, with an apologetic conciliatory grin that laid bare a 
 wide range of his gleaming white teeth. 
 
 " How do you know that?" said 1, struck by the question. 
 
 " Me hear you tell de captain, sah." 
 
 " Yes," said 1. " I believe she can navigate a ship." He 
 tossed his hands and rolled up his eyes in ludicrous imitation, 
 as I thought, of his captain's behavior when he desired to ex- 
 press admiration. " She beautiful young lady," he exclaimed, 
 " and worry good — kind smile, and berry sorry for poor Mus- 
 sulmen, sah." 
 
 " 1 know what you mean, Punmeamootty," said I. " We 
 are both very sorry, believe mo! The captain means well " — 
 the man's teeth met in a sudden snap as I said this — " the man 
 means well," 1 repeated, eying him steadily, " but it is a 
 mistaken kindness. The lady and I will endeavor to influ- 
 ence him; though, at the same time, we trust to be out of th©
 
 20(5 MY DANIS3 SWEETHEART. 
 
 ship very soon, possibly too soon to be of any use. Anything 
 in sight?" 
 
 "No, sah.'* 
 
 He loitered still, as though he had more to say. Finding 
 me silent, he made au odd sort of obeisance and disappeared. 
 
 Helga's cabin door was shut. 1 listened, but could not 
 collect amid the creaking noises that she was stirring within. 
 It was likely she had passed an uneasy night and was now sleep- 
 ing, and in that belief I gained the hatchway and mounted ob 
 deck. 
 
 The first person I saw was Helga. She was talking to the 
 two boatmen at the foot of the little poop-ladder, under the 
 lee of the bulwarks, which were very nearly the height 
 of a man. The decks were still dark with the swabbing- up 
 of the brine with which they had been scoured. The galley 
 chimney was hospitably smoking. A group of the colored sea- 
 men louuged to leeward of the galley, with steaming pannikins 
 and biscuits in their hands, and, as they eat and drank, they 
 talked incessantly. The fellow named Nakier stood on the 
 forecastle with his arms folded, persistently staring aft, as it 
 seemed to me, at Helga and the boatmen. The sun was 
 about half an hour above the horizon; the sky was very deli- 
 cately shaded with a frosty net-work of cloud, full of choice 
 and tender tints, as though the sun were a prism flooding the 
 heavens with many-colored radiance. Over the lee-rail the sea 
 was running in a fine rich blue streaked with foam, and the 
 wind was a moderate breeze from which the completely clothed 
 masts of the bark were leaning with the yards braced forward, 
 for, so far as I could tell by the sun, the wind was about south- 
 east. 
 
 All these details my eye took in as I stepped out of the hatch. 
 Helga advanced to meet me, and I held her hand. 
 
 "You are looking very bonny this morning," said L 
 " Your sleep has done you good. Good-morning, Abraham; 
 and how are you, Jacob? You two are the men I just now 
 want to see. " 
 
 " Marning, Mr. Tregarthen," exclaimed Abraham. " How 
 are you, sir? Don't Miss Nielsen look first-rate? Why, she 
 ain*t the same lady she was when we first fell in with ye. " 
 
 " It is true, Helga," said I. " Did Captain Bunting smug- 
 gle some cosmetics into your cabin along with his wash-stand?" 
 
 " Oh, do not joke, Hugh," said she. " Look around the 
 ocean : it is still bare. " 
 
 " Tve bin a-tPlUn^ Miss Nielsen," exclaimed Abraham/
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHi!ART. 207 
 
 " that them colored chaps forrads are a-talking about her as if 
 she were a diwiniti'.^' 
 
 " A augel," said Jacob. 
 
 " A diwinity," said Abraham, looking at his mate. " The 
 cove they calls boss — that there Nakier yonder, him as is a-look- 
 ing at us as if his heart was a-going to bust — what d'ye think he. 
 says — ay, and in fust-class English, too? ' That there gal,' 
 says he, ' ain't no English woman. I'm glad to know it. She's 
 got too sweet a hoye for an English woman.' 'What d'ye 
 know about hoyes?' says 1. 'English bad, bad,' says he; 
 ' some good,' here he holds up his thumb as if a-couuting 
 wan; ' but many veree bad, veree bad,' he says, says he, and 
 here he holds up his fower fingers, like a little sprouting of 
 o'erripe plantains, meaning fower to one, I allow." 
 
 " It's pork as is at the bottom o' them feelin's," said 
 Jacob. 
 
 " Abraham," said I, in a low voice, for I had no desire to 
 be overheard by the mate, who came and went at the rim of 
 the poop overhead in his walk from the taffrail to the break 
 of the deck, " before you accept Captain Bunting's offer — " 
 
 " I have accepted it, Mr. Tregarthen," he interrupted. 
 
 " When?" 
 
 " Last noight, or call it this marning. He was up and down 
 while I kep' a lookout, and wanst he says to me, ' Are you 
 agreeable, Vise?' says he; and I says, ' Yes, sir, 'having talked 
 the matter o'er with Jacob." 
 
 " I hope the pair of you have thought the matter well out," 
 said I, with a glance at the captain's cabin, from which, how- 
 ever, we stood too far to be audible to him in it. "I saw 
 Nakier haranguing you yesterday afternoon, and, though you 
 told me you didn't quite understand him, yet surely by this 
 time you will have seen enough to make you guess that if the 
 captain insists on forcing pork down those men's throats his 
 ship is not going to continue a floating Garden of Eden." 
 
 " Whoy, that may be roight enough," answered Abraham; 
 " but them colored chaps' grievances ha'n't got nothen to do 
 with Jacob an' me. What 1 considered is this: here am I 
 oflPered fower pound a month, and there's Jacob, who's to go 
 upon the articles for three pound; that'll be seven pound 
 'twixt UB tew men. Ain't that money good enough for the 
 likes of us, Mr. Tregarthen? Where's the ' Airly Marn?' 
 Where's my fifteen pound vorth o' property? Where's Jacob's 
 height pound vorth — ay, ever farden of height pound?" he 
 exclaimed, looking at Jacob, who confirmed his assurance with 
 a prodigious nod. " As to them leather-colored oovies," he
 
 208 ' MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 continued, with a contemptuous look forward, then pausing, 
 he cried out, " 'Soides, whoy shouldn't they eat pork? If it's 
 good enough for me and Jacob, ain^t it good enough for the 
 loikes o' such a poor little parcel o' sicidy flesh as that there 
 Nakier and his mates?" 
 
 " It is a question of religion with them," said L 
 
 " Religion!" grumbled Jacob. " Religion, Mr, Tregarthen, 
 don't lie here, sir," putting his hand upon his waistcoat, 
 " but here," pointing with a tarry-looliing finger to where he 
 imagined his heart was. " There hain't no religion in dishes. 
 I've heerd of chaps a-preaching in tubs, but I never heerd of 
 religion lying pickled in a cask. Don't you let them chaps 
 gammon you, sir. 'Tain't pork: it's a detarmination to find 
 fault." 
 
 " But have they not said enough in your hearing to persuade 
 you they are in earnest?" said Helga. 
 
 " Why, ye see, lady," answered Abraham, " that their lan- 
 guage is a sort o' conversation which there's ne'er a man along 
 Deal beach as has ever been eddicated in, howe'er it may be 
 along o' your part o' the coast, Mr. Tregarthen. What they 
 says among themselves 1 don't onderstand." 
 
 " But have they not complained to you," persisted Helga, 
 gently, " of being obliged by the captain either to go without 
 food every other day or to eat meat that is forbidden to them 
 by their religion?" 
 
 " That there Nakier," replied Abraham, " spun a long 
 yarn yesterday to Jacob and me while we lay agin the galley 
 feeling werry ordinary — werry ordinary indeed — arter that there 
 bad job of the ' Airly Marn;' but be talked so fast, and so soft 
 tew, that all that I could tell ye of his yarn, miss, is that he 
 and his mates don't fancy themselves as comfortable as they 
 might be." 
 
 I said quietly, for Mr. Jones had come to a halt at the rail 
 above us: " Well, Abraham, my advice to you both is, look 
 about you a little while longer before you allow your names to 
 be put upon tbe articles of this ship. " 
 
 At that moment the captain came out of the door of the 
 cuddy, and the two boatmen, with a flourish of their hands to 
 Helga, went rolling forward. He came up to us, all smiles 
 and politeness. It was easy to see that he had taken some 
 trouble in dressing himself; his whiskers were carefully 
 brushed; he wore a new purple satin scarf; his ample black 
 waistcoat hinted that it belonged to his Sunday suit, or " best 
 thmgs," as servants call them; his boots were well polished; he 
 showed an abundance of his white cufE, and his wideawake sat
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 209 
 
 jauntily upon his head. His two or three chins went rolling 
 and disappearing like a grounds well betwixt the opening of a 
 pair of tall starched collars — an unusual embellishment, I 
 should have imagined, at sea, where starch is as scarce as news- 
 papers. He hoped Helga had slept well; he only trusted that 
 the noises of straining and creaking below had not disturbed 
 her. She must really change her mind, and occupy Mr. Jones's 
 cabin. After shaking me by the hand, he seemed to forget 
 that 1 stood by, so busy was he in his attention to Helga. He 
 asked her to step on to the poop or upper deck. 
 
 " These planks are not yet dry,'' said he; " and besides," 
 he went on smiling always, "your proper place, my dear 
 young lady, is aft, where there is, at all events, seclusion, 
 though, alas! 1 am unable to offer you the elegances and lux- 
 uries of an ocean mail steamer.'' 
 
 We mounted the ladder, and he came to a stand to survey 
 the sea. 
 
 " What a mighty waste, is it not. Miss Nielsen? Nothing in 
 sight. All hopelessly sterile. But it is not for me to com- 
 plain," he added, significantly. 
 
 He then called to Mr. Jones, and all very blandly, with the 
 gentlemanly airs and graces which one associates with the 
 counter, he asked him how the weather had been since eight 
 bells, if any vessels had been sighted, and so forth, talking with 
 a marked reference to Helga being near and listening to him. 
 
 Mr. Jones, with his purple pimple of a nose of the shape of 
 a woman's thimble standing out from the middle of his pale 
 face, with a small but extraordinary light-blue eye twinkling 
 on either side of it under straw-colored lashes and eyebrows 
 resembling oakum, listened to and addressed the captain with 
 the utmost degree of respect. There was an air of shabbiness 
 and of hard usage about his apparel that bespoke him a man 
 whose locker was not likely to be overburdened with shot. His 
 walk was something of ?, shamble, that was heightened by the 
 loose pair of old carpet slippers he wore, and by the frayed 
 heels of his breeches. His age was probably thirty. He im- 
 pressed me as a man whose appearance would tell against him 
 among owners and ship-masters, who would therefore obtain a 
 berth with difficulty, but who when once in possession would 
 hold on tight by all possible strenuous effort of fawning, of 
 agreeing, of submissively undertaking more work than a cap 
 tain had a right to' put him to. 
 
 While we thus stood I sent a look round the little " Light 
 of the World," to see what sort of a ship we were aboard of, 
 for down to this time I had scarcely had an opportunity of
 
 310 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 inspecting her. She was an old vessel, probably forty years 
 old. This I might have guessed from the existence of the 
 cabins in the steerage; but her beam and the roundness of her 
 bosvs and a universal worn air, that answered to the wrinkles 
 u2Don the human countenance, likewise spoke her age very 
 plainly. Her fittings were of the homeliest: there was no brass- 
 work here to glitter ujjon the eye; her deck furniture was, in- 
 deed, as coarse and plain as a smack's, with a look about the 
 skylight, about the companion hatch-cover, about the drumhead 
 of the little quarter-deck capstan, and about the line of the 
 poop and bulwark rail, as though they had been used over and 
 over again by generations of seamen for cutting up plug to- 
 bacco upon. She had a very short forecastle-deck forward, 
 under which you saw the heel of the bowsprit and the heaped 
 mass of windlass; but the men's sleeping quarters were in the 
 deck beneath, to which access was to be had only by what is 
 commonly called a fore-scuttle — that is to say, a little hatch 
 with a cover to it, which could be bolted and padlocked at will. 
 Abaft the galley lay the long-boat, a squab tub of a fabric like 
 the mother whose daughter she was. It rested in chocks, on 
 its keel, and was lashed to bolts in the deck. There were 
 some spare booms secured on top of it, but the boat's one use 
 now was as a receptacle for poultry for the captain's table. 
 On either side of the poop hung a quarter-boat in davits — plain 
 structures, sharp-ended like whalmg-boats. Add a few de- 
 tails, such as a scuttle-butt for holding fresh water for the 
 crew to drink from; a harness-cask against the cuddy front, 
 for storing the salted meats for current use; the square of the 
 main-hatch tarpaulined and battened down; and then the 
 yards mounting the masts and rising from courses to royals, 
 spars and gear looking as old as the rest of the ship, though the 
 sails seemed new, and shone very white as the wind swelled 
 their breast to the sun, and you have as good a picture as 1 can 
 put before you of this " Light of the World " that was bear- 
 ing Helga and me hour by hour further and deeper into the 
 heart of the great Atlantic, and that was also to be the theater 
 of one of the strangest and wildest of the events which fur- 
 nished forth this trying and desperate jiassage of my life. 
 
 Captain Bunting moved away with an invitation in his man- 
 ner to Helga to walk. I lingered to exchange a word with the 
 mate from the mere desire to be civil. Helga called me with 
 her eyes to accompany her, then, hearing me speak to Mr. 
 Jones, she joined the captain and paced by his side. I spied 
 him makiug an augle of his arm for her to take, but she looked 
 away, and he let fall his hand.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 211 
 
 *' If Abraham Wise," said I, *' agrees to sail with you, Mr. 
 Jones, you will have a very likely, lively fellow to relieve you 
 in keeping watch. " 
 
 " Yes; he seems a good man. It is a treat to see a white 
 face knocking about this vessel's deck," he answered, in a 
 spiritless way, as though he found little to interest him when 
 his captain's l3ack was turned. 
 
 " You certainly have a very odd-looking crew," said I. 
 '* I believe I should not have the courage to send myself adrift 
 along with one white man only aboard a craft full of Malays." 
 
 " There were three of us," he answered, " but Winstanley 
 disappeared shortly after we had sailed." 
 
 As he spoke, Nakier, on the forecastle, struck a little silver- 
 toned bell eight times, signifying eight o'clock. 
 
 " Who is that copper-colored, scowling-looking fellow at the 
 wheel?" I asked, indicating the man who had been at the 
 helm when Helga and 1 came on board on the preceding day. 
 
 " His name is Ong Kew Ho," he answered. " A rare 
 beauty, ain't he?" he added, with a little life coming into his 
 eyes. " His face looks rotten with ripeness. Sorry to say he's 
 in my watch, and he's the one of them all that I never feel very 
 easy with of a dark night when he's where he is now and I'm 
 alone here." 
 
 " But the look of those Asiatic folk don't always express 
 their minds," said I. "I remember boai-ding a ship off the 
 town I belong to and noticing among the crew the most hid- 
 eous, savage-looking creature it would be possible to imagine: 
 eyes asquint, a flat nose with nostrils going to either cheek, 
 black hair wriggling past his ears like snakes, and a mouth 
 like a terrible wound; indeed, he is not to be described; yet 
 the captain assured me he was the gentlest, best-behaved man 
 he had ever had under him, and the one favorite of the crew." 
 
 " He wasn't a Malay," said Mr. Jones, dryly. 
 
 " The captain didn't know his country," said I. 
 
 Here Abraham arrived to take charge of the deck. He had 
 polished himself up to the best of his ability, and mounted 
 the ladder with an air of importance. He took a slow, mer- 
 chant-sailor-like, deep-sea survey of the horizon, following on 
 with an equally deliberate gaze aloft at the canvas, then knuc- 
 kled his brow to Mr. Jones, who gave him the course and ex- 
 changed a few words with him, and immediately after left the 
 deck, howling out an irrepressible yawn as he descended the lad- 
 der. 
 
 It was not for me to engage Abraham in conversation. Ho 
 was now on duty, and I understood the sea-discipline well
 
 212 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 enough to know that he must be left alone. I thereupon 
 joined Helga and Captain Bunting, not a little amused secretly 
 by the quarter-deck strut the worthy boatman put on, by the 
 knowing, consequential expression in his eyes as they met in a 
 squint in the compass-bowl, by his slow look at the sea over the 
 talfrail and the twist in the pursed-up lips as he went rolling 
 forward to the break of the poop, viewing the sails as though 
 anxious to find something wrong, that he might give an order 
 and prove his zeal. 
 
 At half past eight Puumeamootty rang a little bell in the 
 cabin, and we went down to breakfast. The repast, it was to 
 be easily seen, was the best the ship's larder could furnish, and 
 in excess of what was commonly placed upon the table. There 
 was a good ham, there was a piece of ship's corned beef, and 1 
 recollect a jar of marmalade, some white biscuit, and a pot of 
 hot coffee. The colored steward waited nimbly, with a singu- 
 lar swiftness and eagerness of manner when attending to Helga, 
 at whom I would catch him furtively gazing askant, with an 
 expression in his fiery, dusky eyes that was more of wonder and 
 respect, 1 thought, than of admiration. At times he would 
 send a sideways look at the captain that put the fancy of a 
 flourished knife into one's head, so keen and sudden and 
 gleaming was it. Mr. Jones had apparently breakfasted and 
 withdrawn to his cabin, thankful, no doubt, for the chance to 
 stretch his legs upon a mattress. 
 
 In the course of the meal Helga inquired the situation of the 
 ship. 
 
 " We are, as nearly as possible," answered the captain, " on 
 the latitude of the island of Madeira, and, roundly speaking, 
 some hundred and twenty miles to the eastward of it. But 
 you know how to take an observation of the sun, Mr. Tre- 
 garthen informed me. I have a spare sextant, and at noon 
 you and 1 will together find out the latitude and longitude. I 
 should very well like to have my reckoning confirmed by you," 
 and he leaned toward her, and smiled and looked at her. 
 
 She colored, and said that, though her father had taught her 
 navigation, her calculations could not be depended upon. But 
 for her wish to please me, I believe she would not have troubled 
 herself to give him that answer, but coldly proceeded with the 
 question she now j)ut: 
 
 " Since we are so close to Madeira, Captain Bunting, would 
 it be inconveniencing you to sail your bark to that island, 
 where we are sure to find a steamer to carry us home?" 
 
 He softly shook his head with an expression of bland concern,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 213 
 
 While he sentimentally lifted his eyes to the tell-tale compass 
 above his head. 
 
 " You ask too much, Helga/^ said L " You must know 
 that the deviation of a ship from her course may vitiate her 
 policy of insurance, should disaster follow." 
 
 " Just so!" exclaimed the captain, with a thankful and 
 smiling inclination of his head at me. 
 
 " Besides, Helga," said 1, gently, " supposing, on our ar- 
 rival at Maderia, we should find no steamer going to England 
 for some clays, what should we do? There are no houses of 
 charity in that island of Portuguese beggars, 1 fear; and Cap- 
 tin Bunting may readily guess how it happens that I left my 
 purse at home." 
 
 " Just so!" he repeated, giving me such another nod as 
 he had before bestowed. 
 
 The subject dropped. The captain made some remark about 
 the part of the ocean we were in being abundantly navigated by 
 homeward-bound craft, then talked of other matters; but 
 whatever he said, though directly addressed to me, seemed to 
 my ear to be spoken for the girl, as though, indeed, were she 
 absent, he would talk little or in another strain. 
 
 CHAPTER XVllI. 
 
 bunting's forecastle fare. 
 
 When breakfast was ended, Helga left the table to go to her 
 cabin. Puumeamootty began to clear away the things. 
 
 " You can go forward," said the captain. " I will call you 
 when I want you." I was about to rise. " A minute, Mr. 
 Tregartnen," he exclaimed. 
 
 He lay back in his chair, stroking first one whisker and then 
 the other, with his eyes thoughtfully surveying the uj)per deck, 
 at which he smiled as though elated by some fine happy 
 fancies. He hung in the wind in this posture for a little 
 while, then inclined himself with a confidential air toward me, 
 clasping his fat fingers upon the table. 
 
 " Miss Nielsen," said he, softly, " is an exceedingly attract- 
 ive young lady. " 
 
 " She is a good, brave girl," said I, " and pretty too." 
 
 " She calls you Hugh, and you call her Helga — Helga! a 
 very noble, stirring name — quite like the blast of a trumpet, 
 with something biblical about it too, though I do not know 
 that it occurs in Holy Writ. Pray forgive me. This familiar 
 interchange of names suggests that there may be more between 
 YOU than ejcactly meets the eye, as the poet observes, "
 
 214 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 "No!" 1 answered^ with a laugh that was made short by 
 surprise. " If you meaa to ask whether we are sweethearts, 
 my answer is — Xo. We met for the first time on the twenty- 
 first of this month, and since then our experiences have been 
 of a sort to forbid any kind of emotion short of a profound, 
 desire to get home." 
 
 " Home!" said he. " But her home is in Denmark?" 
 
 " Her father, as he lay dying, asked me to take charge of 
 her and see her safe to Kolding, where I believe she has 
 friends," I answered, not choosing to hint at the little half- 
 matured programme for her that was in my mind. 
 
 " She is an orphan," said he; " but she has friends, you 
 say?" 
 
 " 1 believe so," I answered, scarcely yet able to guess at the 
 man's meaning. 
 
 " You have known her since the twenty-first," he exclaimed: 
 " to-day is the thirty-first — just ten days. Well, in that time 
 a shrewd young gentleman like you will have observed much 
 of her character. 1 may take it," said he, peering as closely 
 into my face as our respective positions at the table would 
 sufEer, " that you consider her a thoroughly religious young 
 woman?" 
 
 " Why, yes, I should think so," 1 answered, not suffering 
 my astonishment to hinder me from being as civil and concili- 
 atory as possible to this man, who, in a sense, was our deliv- 
 erer, and who, as our host, was treating us with great kindness 
 and courtesy. 
 
 " 1 will not," said he, " inquire her disposition. She im- 
 presses me as a very sweet young person. Her manners are 
 genteel. She talks with an educated accent, and 1 should say 
 her lamented father did not stint his purse in training her." 
 
 1 looked at him, merely wondering what he would say next. 
 
 " It is, at all events, satisfactory to know," said he, lying 
 back in his chair again, " that there is nothing between you — 
 outside, 1 mean, the friendship which the very peculiar cir- 
 cumstances under which you met would naturally excite." 
 He lay silent awhile, smihng. " May I take it," said he, 
 " that she has been left penniless?" 
 
 " I fear it is so," I replied. 
 
 He meditated afresh. 
 
 " Do you think," said he, " you could induce her to accom- 
 pany you in my ship to the Cape?" 
 
 " No," cried 1, starting, " I could not induce her, indeed, 
 and for a very good reason; I could not induce myself." 
 
 '* Bat yihj?" he exclaimed, in his oiliest tow, *' Why de-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 215 
 
 cline to see the great world, the wonders of this Qoble fabric 
 of universe, when the opportunity comes to you? You sliall 
 be my guests; in short, Mr. Tregarthen, the round voyage 
 sha'n't cost you a penny!" 
 
 " You are very good!" I exclaimed, " but I have left my 
 mother alone at home. I am her only child, and she is a 
 widow, and my desire is to return quickly, that she may be 
 spared unnecessary anxiety and grief." 
 
 " A very proper and natural sentiment, pleasingly ex- 
 pressed," said he; " yet I do not quite gather how your desire 
 to return to your mother concerns Helga — 1 should say Miss 
 Nielsen I" 
 
 I believe he would have paused at " Helga " and not have 
 added " Miss Nielsen "but for the look he saw in my face. 
 Yet, stirred as my temper was by this half-hearted stroke of 
 impertinent familiarity in the man, I took care that there 
 should be no further betrayal of my feelings than what might 
 be visible in my looks. 
 
 "Miss Nielsen wishes to return with me to my mother's 
 house," said 1, quietly: " you were good enough to assure us 
 that there should be no delays." 
 
 " You only arrived yesterday!" he exclaimed, " and down 
 to this moment we have sighted nothing. But why do you 
 suppose," added he, " that Miss Nielsen is not to be tempted 
 into making the round voyage with me in this bark?" 
 
 " She must speak for herself," said 1, still j)erfectly cool, 
 and no longer in doubt as to how the land lay with this gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 " You have no claim upon her, Mr. Tregarthen?" said he, 
 with one of his blandest smiles. 
 
 " No claim whatever," said I, " outside the obligation im- 
 posed u])on me by her dying father. I am her protector, by 
 his request, until I land her safely among her friends in Den- 
 mark." 
 
 " Just so," said he; " but it might happen — it might just 
 possibly happen," he continued, letting his head fall on one 
 side and stroking his whiskers, " that circumstances may ariso 
 to render her return to Denmark under your protection un- 
 necessary. " 
 
 1 looked at him, feigning not to understand. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Tregarthen, see here," said' he, and his blaiul- 
 ness yielded for an instant to the habitual professional porenip- 
 toriuess of the ship-master, "l^iiB extremely desirous of mak- 
 ing Miss Nielsen's better acquaintance, and I am also much iu 
 earnest in wishing that she should get to know my character
 
 216 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 very well. This can not be clone in a few hours, nor, indeed, 
 in a few days. You will immensely oblige me by coaxing the 
 young lady to remain in this vessel. There is nothing between 
 you. . . . Just so. She is an orphan, and there is reason to 
 fear, from what you tell me, comparatively speaking, friend- 
 less. We must all of us desire the prosperity of so sweet and 
 amiable a female. It may happen," he exclaimed, with a 
 singularly deep smile, " that before many days have passed she 
 will consent to bid you farewell and to continue the voyage 
 alone with me." 
 
 I opened my eyes at him, but said nothing. 
 
 " A few days more or less of absence from your home," he 
 continued, " can not greatly signify to you. We have a right 
 to hope, seeing how virtuously, honorabh', and heroically you 
 have behaved, that Providence is taking that care of your dear 
 mother which, let us not doubt, you punctually, morning and 
 night, offer up your prayers for. But a few days may make 
 a vast difference in Miss Kielsen^s future; and, having regard 
 to the solemn obligation her dying father imposed upon you, 
 it should be a point of duty with you, Mr. Tregartheu, to ad- 
 vance her interests, however inconvenienced you may be by 
 doing so. " 
 
 Happily, his long-windedness gave me leisure to think. I 
 could have answered him hotly; I could have given him the 
 truth very nakedly; I could have told him that his words were 
 making me understand there was more in my heart for Helga 
 than I had been at all conscious of twenty minutes before. 
 But every instinct in me cried. Beware! to the troop of emo- 
 tions hurrying through my mind, and 1 continued to eye him 
 coolly and to speak with a well-simulated carelessness. 
 
 " I presume. Captain Bunting," said I, " that if Miss Niel- 
 sen persists in her wish to leave your ship you will not hinder 
 her?" 
 
 " That will be the wish I desire to extinguish," said he; " I 
 believe it may be done." 
 
 " You will please remember," said I, " that Miss Nielsen is 
 totally unequipped even for a week or two of travel by sea, let 
 alone a round voyage that must run into months." 
 
 " 1 understand you," he answered, motioning with his hand; 
 " but the difficulty is easily met. The Canary Islands are not 
 far off. Santa Cruz will supply all her requirements. My 
 purse is wholly at her service. And with regard to yourself, 
 Mr. Tregarthen, 1 should be happy to advance you any sum 
 in moderation, to enable you to satisfy your few wants."
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 217 
 
 ** You are very good," said I; " but 1 am afraid we shall 
 have to get you to transshii? us at the first opportunity. " 
 
 A shadow of temper that was not a frown, and therefore I 
 do not know well how to convey it, penetrated his smile. 
 
 " You will think over it,'^ said he. " Time does not press. 
 Yet we shall not find another port so convenient as Santa 
 Cruz." 
 
 As he pronounced these words Helga entered the cuddy. 
 He instantly rose, bowing to her and smiling, but said no more 
 than that he hoped shortly to join us on deck. He then en- 
 tered his berth. 
 
 Helga approached me close, and studied my face for a mo- 
 ment or two in silence with her soft eyes. 
 
 " AVhat is the matter, Hugh?" she asked. 
 
 1 looked at her anxiously and earnestly, not knowing as yet 
 how to answer her, whether to conceal or to tell her what had 
 passed. I was more astonished than irritated, and more wor- 
 ried and perplexed than either. Here was an entanglement 
 that might vastly amuse an audience in a comedy, but that, 
 in its reality, was about as grave and perilous a complication 
 as could befall us. With the velocity of thought, even while 
 the girl*s eyes were resting on mine and she was awaiting my 
 reply, 1 reflected — first, that we were in the power of this 
 captain, in respect, 1 mean, of his detention of us, while his 
 vessel remained at sea; next, that he had fallen in love with 
 Helga; that he meant to win her if he could; that his self- 
 complacency would render him profoundly hopeful, and that 
 he would go on keeping us on board his craft under one pre- 
 text or another in the conviction that his chance lay in time, 
 with the further help that would come to him out of her con- 
 dition as an orphan and penniless. 
 
 " What is it, Hugh?" 
 
 The sudden, brave, determined look that entered the girl's 
 face, as though she had scented a danger and had girded her 
 spirit for it, determined me to give her the truth. 
 
 " Come on deck!" said 1. 
 
 I took her hand, and we went up the little companion steps. 
 
 Abraham was standing near the wheel, exchanging a word 
 or two with the yellow-skin who had replaced the fierce-faced 
 creature of the earlier morning. There was warmth in the 
 sun, and the sky was a fine clear blue dome, here and there 
 freckled by remains of the interlacery of cloud which had set- 
 tled away into the west and north. The breeze was a soft, 
 caressing air, with a hint of tropic breath and of the equatorial 
 gea-perf ume in it, and the round-bowed bark was sliding along
 
 *18 MY l>A>;JSIi SWEETHEART. 
 
 at some four or five xuiles an hour, with a simmering noise of 
 broken waters at her side. Tliere was nothing in sight. Two 
 or three copper-colored men squatted, with j^alms and needles 
 in their hanils, upon a sail stretched along the waist; Nakier, 
 on the forecastle-head, was standing, with a yellow paw at the 
 side of his mouth, calling instructions, in some Asiatic tongue, 
 to one of the crew in the foretopmast cross-trees. 1 caught 
 sight of Jacob, who was off duty, leaning near the galley door, 
 apparently conversing with some man within. He nodded 
 often, with an occasional sort of pooh-poohing flourish of his 
 hand, puffing leisurely, and enjoying the sunshine. On catch- 
 ing sight of us he saluted with a flourish of his fist. This was 
 the little picture of the bark as 1 remember it on stepping on 
 deck with Helga that morning. 
 
 1 took her to leeward, near the quarter-boat, out of hearing 
 of Abraham and the helmsman. 
 
 " Now, what is it, Hugh?" said she. 
 
 " Why should you suppose there is anything wrong, Helga?" 
 
 " 1 see worry in your face." 
 
 " Well," said 1, " here is exactly how matters-stand;" and 
 with that I gave her, as best my memory cculd, every sentence 
 of the captain's conversation. She blushed, and turned pale, 
 and blushed again; the shadows of a dozen emotions passed 
 over her face in swift succession, and strongest among them 
 was consternation. 
 
 " You were vexed with me for not being civil enough to 
 him, Hugh," said she, " and you would not understand that 
 the civiler I was the worse it might be with us. Such a con- 
 ceited silly creature would easily mistake." 
 
 " Could 1 imagine that he was in love with you?" 
 
 " OhI do not say that again," she cried, with disgust in her 
 manner, while she made as though to stop her ears. 
 
 •' How could 1 guess?" I went on. " His behavior seemed 
 to me full of benevolence, hospitality, gratification at having 
 us to talk to, with courtesy marked to you as a girl delivered 
 from shipwreck and the hardships of the ocean." 
 
 " Will no ship come?" she cried, looking round the sea. 
 *' The thought of remaining in this vessel, of having to dis- 
 guise my feelmgs from that man for policy's sake, of being 
 forced to sit in his company and listen to him, and watch his 
 smile and receive his attentions and compliments, grows now 
 intolerable to me, Hugh!" and she brought her foot with a 
 little stamp to the deck. 
 
 " Did you know you were so fascinating?" said I, looking 
 at her. *' In less than a day you have brought this pale, stout
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 219 
 
 captain to your feet. In less than a day! Why, your charms 
 have the potency of Prospero's magic. In ' The Tempest,' 
 Ferdinand and Miranda fall deeply in love, plight their troth, 
 bill and coo and gamble at chess, all within three hours. This 
 little ship promises to be the theater of another ' Tempest,' I 
 fear." 
 
 " Why did not you make him understand, resolutely compel 
 him to understand, that it is our intention to return to Eng- 
 land in the first ship?" she exclaimed, with a glow in her blue 
 eyes and a trace of color in her cheeks and a tremor in her 
 nostrils. 
 
 " Bluntness will not do, Helga. We must not convert this 
 man into an enemy." 
 
 " But he should be made to know that we mean to go 
 home, and that his ideas — " she broke off, turning scarlet on 
 a sudden, and looked down over the rail at the sea with a 
 gleam of her white teeth showing upon the under lip she bit. 
 
 "Helga," said 1, gently touching her hand, "you are a 
 better sailor than 1. What is to be done?" 
 
 She confronted me afresh, her blue eyes darkened by the 
 suppi'essed tears which lay close to them. 
 
 " Let us," I continued, " look this matter boldly in the 
 face. He is in love with you. " For a second time she stamped 
 her foot and bit her lip. " 1 must say it, for there lies the 
 difficulty. He hopes, by keeping you on board, to get you to 
 like, and then, perhaps, listen to him. He will keep me, too, 
 for the present — not because he is at all desirous of my com- 
 pany, but because he supposes that in your present mood, or 
 rather attitude, of mind you would not stay without me, or at 
 least alone with him." 
 
 Her whole glowing countenance breathed a vehement No! 
 
 " He need not speak passing ships unless he chooses to do 
 so," I went on; "and I don't doubt he has no intention of 
 speaking passing ships. What then? How are we to get 
 home?" 
 
 The expression on her face softened to a passage of earnest 
 thought. 
 
 " VVe must induce him to steer his ship to Santa Cruz," she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " You will have to act a part then," said I, after pausing 
 to consider. " He is no fool. Can you persuade him that 
 you are in earnest in wishing to go to the Cape in this ship? 
 If not, his long nose will sniff the stratagem, and Santa Cruz 
 in a few days be remoter than it now is." 
 
 She reflected, and exclaimed:
 
 320 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " I must act a part if we are to get away from this vessel. 
 What better chance have we than Santa Cruz? We must go 
 ashore to make our purchases, and, when ashore, we would 
 stop there. Yet what a degrading, what a ridiculous, what a 
 wretched position to be in I" she cried. " I would make my- 
 self hideous with my nails to get you safely home to your 
 mother, Hugh!" and, with a dramatic gesture 1 should have 
 deemed the little, gentle creature incapable of, she put her 
 fingers to her cheeks. 
 
 Abraham was now patroling the deck to windward, casting 
 his e3'es with a look of importance up at the sails, and then 
 directing them at the sea-line. He would, to be sure, find 
 nothing to excite his curiosity in this subdued chat betwixt 
 Helga and me to leeward. 1 had a mind to call him and ex- 
 plain our new and astonishing situation; then thought, "' Iso; 
 let us mature some scheme first; he will help us better then, 
 if he is able to help at all." 1 leaned against the rail with 
 folded arms, deeply considering. Helga kept her gaze upon 
 me. 
 
 " We should not scheme as though Captain Bunting were a 
 villain!" said I. 
 
 " He is a villain to his men!" she answered. 
 
 " He is no villain to us, Helga! What we do not like in him 
 is his admiration of you. But this does not make a rascal of 
 him!" 
 
 " He promised to transfer us to the first ship that passed!" 
 said she. 
 
 " Shall you be well advised in acting a part?" I exclaimed. 
 " You are too frank, of too sweetly genuine a nature; you 
 could not act; you could not deceive him!" said 1, shakmg 
 my head. 
 
 The gratification my words gave her rose to her face in a 
 little smile, that stayed for a moment like a light there. 
 
 " How frank and sweet 1 am I do not know," said she, art- 
 lessly; " but I love your praise, Hugh!" 
 
 " Madeira is yonder," said I, nodding into the westward, 
 " some hundred odd miles distant, according to our friend's 
 reckoning. If that be so, the Canaries must be within easy 
 reach of two or three days, even at this dull pace. In fact, 
 by to-morrow afternoon we could be having the Peak of Ten- 
 erifiEe blue in the heavens over the bow. We could not make 
 the captain believe, in that time, that we, who have been 
 consumed with anxiety to return to England, have suddenly 
 changed our mind and are willing to sail in his ship to wher- 
 ever he may be bound. He would say to himself, ' They want
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 231 
 
 me to steer for Santa Cruz, where they will go ashore and 
 leave me. ' " 
 
 " Yes, that is likely," said the girl. 
 
 *' We must not speculate and plan as though he were a vil- 
 lain," I repeated. " I believe the safe course will be to be- 
 have as though we did not doubt he will transfer us when the 
 chance offers, and we must be ceaseless in our expressions of 
 anxiety to get home.'* 
 
 " That will be genuine in us," said Helga, " and 1 would 
 rather act so. He will soon discover,'* added she, coloring, 
 " that he is merely increasing the expenses of the voyage by 
 detaining us." 
 
 " He is not a rascal,*' said 1; "he means very honestly; he 
 wishes to make you his wife." She raised her hand. " Ad- 
 miration in him has nimble feet. 1 have heard of love at first 
 sight, but have scarcely credited it till now." Her eyes be- 
 sought me to be still, but I continued, urged, I believe, by 
 some little temper of jealousy, owing to the thought of this 
 captain being in love with her, which was making me feel that 
 1 was growing very fond of her too. * ' But his ideas are those 
 of an honorable, pious man," said I. " He is a widower — his 
 daughter leads a lonely life at home — he knows as much about 
 you as he could find out by plying us both with questions. 
 He is certainly not a handsome man, but — " here I stopped 
 short. 
 
 She gazed at me with an expression of alarm. 
 
 " Oh, Hugh!" she cried, with touching plaintiveness of air 
 and voice, " you will remain my friend!" 
 
 " What have 1 said or done to make you doubt it, Helga?" 
 
 " What would you counsel?" she continued. " Do you in- 
 tend to side with him?" 
 
 " God forbid!" said I, hastily. 
 
 She turned to the sea to conceal her face from me. 
 
 " Helga," said I, softly, for there was no chance for further 
 tenderness than speech would convey, with Abraham stump- 
 ing the deck to windward and a pair of dusky eyes at the wheel 
 often turned upon us, "I am sorry to have uttered a syllable 
 to vex you. How much I am your friend you would know if 
 you could see into my heart." 
 
 She looiied at me quickly, with her eyes full of tears, but 
 with a grateful smile too. 1 was about to speak. 
 
 " Hush!" she exclaimed, and walked right aft, raising her 
 hand to her brow, as though she spied something on the 
 horizon astern, 
 
 '• A delightful day — quite tropical," exclaimed the captain.
 
 222 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 advancing from the poop-ladder. ' ' What does Miss Nielsen 
 
 see 
 
 v 
 
 " She is always searching for a sail/' said I. 
 
 " May I take it," said he, " that you have communicated 
 to her what has passed between us?" 
 
 " Captain," I said, " you ask, and perhaps you expect, too 
 much. You have been a married man; you must therefore 
 know the ropes, as the sailors say, better than I, who have 
 not yet been in love. All that I can positively assure you is 
 that Miss Kielsen is exceedingly anxious to return home with 
 me to England." 
 
 " It would be unreasonable in me to expect otherwise — for 
 the present," said he. 
 
 He left me and joined Helga, and 1 gathered by the motions 
 of his arms that he was discoursing on the beauty of the morn- 
 ing. Presently he went below, and very shortly afterward ar- 
 rived bearing a little folding-chair and a cotton umbrella. He 
 placed the chair near the skylight. Helga seated herself and 
 took the umbrella from him, the shade of which she might find 
 grateful, for the sun had now risen high in the heavens — there 
 was heat in the light, with nothing in the wind to temper the 
 rays of the luminary. The captain offered me a cigar with a 
 bland smile, lighted one himself, and reposed in a careless 
 flowing way upon the skylight close to Helga; his long whiskers 
 stirred like smoke u^Don his waistcoat to the blowing of the 
 wind, his loose trousers of blue serge rippled, his chins seemed 
 to roll as though in motion down betwixt the points of his 
 collar. 
 
 Clearly his study in the direction of posture was animated 
 by a theory of careless, youthful, sailorly elegance; yet never 
 did nautical man so completely answer to one's notions of a 
 West End hair-dresser. 
 
 He was studiously courteous, and excessively anxious to 
 recommend himself. 1 could not discover that he was in the 
 least degree embarrassed by the supposition that 1 had repeated 
 his conversation to Helga, though her manner must have as- 
 sured him that I had told her everything. He was shrewd 
 enough to see, however, that she was in a mood to listen rather 
 than to be talked to, and so in the main he addressed himself 
 to me. He asked me many questions about my life-boat ex- 
 periences, particularly wished to know if I thought that my 
 boat, which had been stove in endeavoring to rescue Miss Kiel- 
 sen and her lamented father, would be replaced. 
 
 " Should a fund be raised," he exclaimed, " 1 beg that my 
 name may not be omitted. My humble guinea is entirely at
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 333 
 
 the service of the noble cause you represent. And what grand 
 end may not an humble guinea be instrumental in promoting? 
 It may help to rescue many wretched souls from the perdition 
 that would otherwise await them were they to be drowned 
 without having time to repent. This is lamentably true of 
 sailors, Mr. Tregarthen. Scarcely a mariner perishes at sea 
 who would not require many years of a devotional life to purge 
 himself of his numerous vices. An humble guinea may also 
 spare many children the misery of being fatherless, and it may 
 shed sunshine upon humble homes by restoring husbands to 
 their wives. You will kindly put me down for an humble 
 guinea." 
 
 I thanked him as though 1 supposed he was in earnest. 
 
 ' ' You will never take charge of a life-boat again, I hope, 
 Hugh," said Helga. 
 
 " Why not? 1 like the work," 1 answered. 
 
 " See what it has brought you to," said she. 
 
 " Into enjoying the association and friendship of Miss Helga 
 Nielsen," exclaimed the captain. "Mr. Tregarthen will 
 surely not regret that experience. " 
 
 " I feel that I am responsible for his being here. Captain 
 Bunting," said she, "and I shall continue wretched for his 
 and his mother's sake till we are journeying to England. " 
 
 "I would gladly put my ship about and sail her home to 
 oblige you," exclaimed the captain, " but for one considera- 
 tion: not the pecuniary loss that would follow — oh, dear, no!" 
 he added, slowly shaking his head; " it would too quickly sever 
 me from a companionship I find myself happy in." 
 
 She bit her lip, looking down with a face of dismay and 
 chagrin, while he eyed her as though seeking for signs of grati- 
 fication. 
 
 " The Canary Islands are within a short sail, 1 think, cap- 
 tain," said I. 
 
 " They are," he responded. 
 
 "It would occasion no deviation, I think, for you to heave 
 o£E some port there — call it Santa Cruz — and send us ashore 
 in one of your excellent, sharp-ended quarter-boats." 
 
 " That would be giving me no time," he answered without 
 the least hesitation, and speaking and smiling in the politest, 
 the most bland manner conceivable, " to prevail upon you and 
 Miss Nielsen to accompany me." 
 
 " But to accompany you where, captain?" cried I, warm- 
 ing up. 
 " To the Cape," he answered.
 
 224 MY 1)AM^11 ^WKEIHEAHT. 
 
 "Ay, to the Cape/' said I; "but I understood that you 
 were to call there to discharge a small cargo and await orders. " 
 
 " You do not put it quite accurately/' said he, still oily to 
 the last degree in his accent and expression. " I own the 
 greater proportion of this vessel and my orders are my inter- 
 ests. When I have discharged this cargo I must look out for 
 another." 
 
 " Yes/' said I; " and when you have got it, where is it go" 
 ing to carry you to?" 
 
 " Ah!" he exclaimed, with a sigh, " who can pierce the 
 future? But who would pierce it? Depend upon it, young 
 gentleman, that human blindness — I mean intellectual blind- 
 ness — "he was proceeding; but I was in no humor to listen 
 to a string of insipid, nasally pronounced commonplaces. 
 
 " The long and the short of it. Captain Bunting," said I, 
 finding an impulse in the soft but glowing eyes which Helga 
 fixed upon me. But before I could proceed, Abraham came 
 from the little brass rail which protected the break of the poop. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir," said he, addressing the captain. " That 
 there chap Nakier has arsted to be allowed to say a word along 
 wi' ye." 
 
 " Where is he. Wise?" inquired the captain, smiling into 
 the boatman's face. 
 
 " He's a-waiting down on the quarter-deck, sir." 
 
 "Call him!" 
 
 The " boss" mounted the ladder. I was again impressed 
 by the modest, the gentle air his handsome face wore. His 
 fine liquid, dusky eyes glittered as he approached, but without 
 in the least qualifying his docile expression. He pulled off his 
 queer old soldier's cap, and stood looking an instant earnestly 
 from me to Helga before fastening his dark but brilliant gaze 
 upon the captain. 
 
 " What now, Nakier?" 
 
 " Dere's Goh Lyn Koh says de men's dinner to-day is allee 
 same as yesterday," said the man. 
 
 " You mean pork and pea-soup?" 
 
 " Ya-as, sab," answered the fellow, nodding with an Eastern 
 swiftness of gesture. 
 
 "Just so. Pork and pea-soup'. You threw your allowance 
 overboard yesterday. I have not ordered pork and pea-soup 
 to be given to you two days running as a punishment! — oh, 
 dear, no!" he went on, with a greasy chuckle coming out, as 
 it were, from the heart of his roll of chins. " What! punish 
 a crew by giving them plenty to eat? Noj no; I simjply in-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 225 
 
 tend that you and the rest of you shall know that I am captain 
 of this ship, and that I must have my way!" 
 
 " Dat is proper," exclaimed Nakier. " No man ever say 
 no to dat. But we no eat pork. We sooner eat dirt. We 
 will not eat pea-soup — it is gravy of pork. We sooner drink 
 tar." 
 
 " Can you conceive such bigotry, such siiperstition, in men 
 who are really, Miss Nielsen, not totally wanting in brains?" 
 exclaimed the caj^tain, turning to Helga. 
 
 She looked away from him. 
 
 " Nakier," he continued, " you know, my good fellow, 
 there must be a beginning. Have you ever tasted pork?" 
 
 " No, sah; it is against my religion!" cried the man, vehe- 
 mently. 
 
 "Your religion!" exclaimed the captain. "Alas, poor 
 man! it is not religion, it is superstition of the most deplorable 
 kind! and, since every captain stands as father to his crew, it 
 is my duty, as your father for the time, to endeavor to win 
 you, my children, for the time, to a knowledge of the truth!" 
 He glanced askew at Helga, and proceeded: " You will begin 
 by eating each of you a mouthful of pork. I do not expect 
 much — just one mouthful apiece to begin with. You may 
 then follow on with a meal of salt beef. The first step is 
 everything. My idea is to deal with one sujDcrstition at a time. 
 Why should pork be unfit for you? It is good for this lady; 
 it is good for me; for this gentleman; for Wise there. Are 
 we inferior to you, Nakier, tliat we should be willing to eat 
 what you and my poor dark crew — dark in mind as in skin — 
 profess to disdain?" 
 
 " We can not eat pork," said the man. 
 
 '' Oh, 1 think so. You will try?" 
 
 " No, sah, no!" 
 
 There was a sharp, wild gleam in his eyes as he pronounced 
 these words, a look that desperately contradicted his face, and 
 his gaze at the captain was now a steadfast stare. 
 
 " 1 desire," continued the captain, very blandly, " to get 
 rid of your deplorable prejudices as 1 would extinguish a side 
 of bacon — rasher by rasher." This he said with another leer 
 at Helga. " 1 have some knowledge of your faith. You need 
 but make up your mind to know that what 1 do I do in the 
 highest interests of my crew, and then I shall have every hope 
 of getting you to listen to me, and of transforming you all into 
 thoughtful Christian men before we reach Cape Town," 
 
 " You will give us beef to-day, sah?" 
 8
 
 226 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " I think not, and if you throw your allowance overboard 
 you shall have pork again to-morrow.'' 
 
 " We did not sign your articles for dis/' said the man, who 
 spoke English with a good accent. 
 
 " The articles j^rovide for certain food," answered the cap- 
 tain, ' ' and that food is served out to you in very good meas- 
 ure. You will try — you will try to eat this pork, and when I 
 learn that you have every one of you swallowed one mouthful, 
 you will find me indulgent in other directions, and ready to 
 proceed on the only course which can result in your salvation." 
 
 " You will not give us beef to-day, sah?" said the man, 
 shaking his head. 
 
 " Yes, but I must learn first that you have eaten of the 
 pork. I will not insist upon the soup, but the pork you must 
 eati" 
 
 "No, sah!" 
 
 " You can go forward!" 
 
 " We signed for meat, sab: we can not work on biscuit!" 
 
 " Meat you have, and excellent meat too! It is my business 
 to make Christians of you. This little struggle is natural. 
 You can go forward, I say!" 
 
 Helga, catching her breath as though to a sudden hysteric 
 constriction of the throat, cried out: 
 
 " Captain, do not starve these men! Give them the food 
 their religion permits them to eat!" 
 
 He looked at her for a moment or two in silence. It was 
 hard to guess at his mind under that fixedly smiling counte- 
 nance, but it seemed to me as though in those few moments of 
 pause there was happening a really bitter conflict of thought 
 in him. 
 
 " I know my duty!" he exclaimed. " I know what my re- 
 sponsibilities are here, what is expected of me!" He reflected 
 again. " I shall have to render an account for my conduct, 
 and human weakness is not forgiven in those who know what 
 is right, and who are in a position to maintain, enforce, and 
 confirm the right." He paused again, then saying softly to 
 Helga, " For your sake!" he turned to Nakier. " This lady 
 wishes that the crew shall have the food their black and wicked 
 superstitions suffer them to eat. Be it so — for to-day. Let 
 the cook go to Mr. Jones's cabin for the key of the harness- 
 cask." 
 
 Without a word, the man rounded upon his heel and went 
 forward. 
 
 The captain gazed at Helga while he pensively pulled his 
 whiskers.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 237 
 
 " It is just possible/' said he, " that you may not be very 
 intimately acquainted with the character of the religion I am 
 endeavoring to correct in those poor dark fellow-creatures of 
 mine." 
 
 " 1 dare say they are very happy in their belief," she an- 
 swered. 
 
 " Ay, and the drunkard is happy in his bottle, and the pick- 
 pocket when his hand is in the stranger's fob; but it is a sort 
 of happiness the honest part of the world are incessantly strug- 
 gling to cure. Let me give you two examples of the credulity 
 of our friends yonder," bending his head sideways in the di- 
 rection of the forecastle. " Nakier will tell you, and will 
 solemnly swear to the truth of what he tells, that Mohammed 
 was conveyed on a mysterious animal from Mecca to Jerusa- 
 lem, whence he ascended the seven heavens, conversed with 
 patriarchs and angels, then descended to Jerusalem and re- 
 turned to Mecca — all in the tenth part of a night. Nakier 
 and his mates there believe that. They will also swear that 
 the moon, at Mohammed's command, performed seven revo- 
 lutions round the temple of Mecca, saluted the Prophet in the 
 Arabic language, entered at the collar of his shirt, and issued 
 forth through his sleeve. What say you to that. Miss Nielsen? 
 And a third: that the Prophet saw angels in heaven whose 
 heads were so large that it would take a bird a thousand years 
 to fly from one ear to the other. What say you to that?" he 
 repeated, smiling. 
 
 " They are to be thought of as fairy-tales," said I. " We 
 tell fairy-tales to children, and they believe them. Those men 
 there are children in their way, too. They will not be pun- 
 ished hereafter, 1 dare say, for being born credulous." 
 
 " Besides," exclaimed Helga, with a defiant gleam in her 
 eye as she looked at the captain, " who are we, to sit in judg- 
 ment on one another? Let every man see to himself!" 
 
 He arched his eyebrows and spread his waistcoat, and had 
 fetched a deep breath preparatory to delivering one of his 
 fathoms of tedious commonplace; but his eye was at that in- 
 stant taken by the clock under the skylight. 
 
 "Ha!" ke cried, " I must fetch my sextant, it is drawing 
 on to noon. I will bring you an instrument, Miss Nielsen: we 
 will shoot the sun together." 
 
 " No, if you please," she exclaimed. 
 
 He entreated a little, but her " no " was so resolutely pro- 
 nounced that, contenting himself with a bland flourish of his 
 hand, he went below. 
 
 " What is to be done, Hugh?" whispered Helga. " W«
 
 22S MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 shall not be able to induce him to land us at Santa Cruz. Is 
 he mad, do you think?" 
 
 "No more than I am," said I. "One vocation is not 
 euough for the fellow. There are others like him in my coun- 
 try of Great Britain. What a sea captain, to be sure! How 
 well he talks — I mean for a sea captain! He has a good com- 
 mand of words. I wager he has made more than one rafter 
 echo in his day. And he is sincere, too. 1 saw the struggle 
 in him when you asked that the men should have their bit of 
 beef. Yet if they don't cutliis throat — " 
 
 "How am I to make him understand," said she, "that 
 nothing can follow his keeping us here?" 
 
 " At all events," I exclaimed, " we can do nothing until we 
 sight a ship heading for home." 
 
 " That is true," she answered. 
 
 " We came aboard yesterday," I continued, " since when 
 nothing has been sighted, therefore, be the disposition of the 
 man what it will, he could not down to this moment have put 
 us in the way of getting home. But here he comes." 
 
 He rose through the companion-hatch, with a sextant in his 
 hand, and, stepping over to the weather side of the deck, fell 
 to ogling the sun that flamed over the weather-bow. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 WE ARE SPOKEN. 
 
 On the afternoon of this same day of Tuesday, October 31st, 
 Helga having gone to her cabin, I stepped on deck to smoke 
 a pipe — for my pipe was in my pocket when 1 ran to the life- 
 boat, and Captain Bunting had given me a square of tobacco 
 to cut up. 
 
 We had dined at one. During the course of the meal Helga 
 and I had said but very little, willing that the captain should 
 have the labor of talking. Nor did he spare us. His tongue, 
 as sailors say, seemed to have been slung in the middle, and it 
 wagged at both ends. His chatter was an infinite variety of 
 nothing; but he spoke with singular enjoyment of the sound 
 of his own voice, with a ceaseless reference, besides, in his 
 manner to Helga, whom he continued silently and self-com- 
 placently to regard in a way that rendered her constantly un- 
 easy, and kept her downward-looking and silent. 
 
 But nothing more at that table was said about our leaving 
 his ship. Indeed, both Helga and 1 had agreed to drop the 
 subject until an opportunity for our transference should ar-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 239 
 
 rive. We might, at all events, be very certain that he would 
 not set us ashore in the Canary Islands; nor did 1 consider it 
 politic to press him to land us there, for waiving all considera- 
 tion of other reasons which might induce him to detain us, it 
 would have been unreasonable to entreat him to go out of his 
 course to oblige us, who were without the means to repay him 
 for his trouble and for loss of time. 
 
 He withdrew to his cabii after dinner. Helga and I sat 
 over his draught board for half an hour; she then went below, 
 and I, as I have already said, on decli, to smoke a pipe. 
 
 The wind had freshened since noono and was now blowing a 
 brisk and sparkling breeze out of something to the northward 
 of east; sail had been heaped upon the bark, and when I 
 gained the deck I found her swarming through it under over- 
 hanging wings of studding-sail, a broad wake of frost-like 
 foam stretching behind, and many flying-fish sparkling out of 
 the blue curl from the vessel's cutwater ere the polished round 
 of brine flashed into foam abreast of the fore-rigging. Mr. 
 Jones stumped the deck, having relieved Abraham at noon. 
 The fierce-faced, lemon-colored creature with whithered brow 
 and fiery glances grasped the wheel. As 1 crouched under the 
 lee of the companion-hatch to light my pipe, I curiously and 
 intently inspected him; strangely enough finding no hiuderance 
 of embarrassment from his staring at me too; which, I take it, 
 was owing to his exceeding ugliness, so that I looked at him as 
 at something out of nature, whose sensibilities were not of a 
 human sort to grieve me with a fancy of vexing them. 
 
 '* Well, Mr. Jones," said I, crossing the deck and accosting 
 the shabby figure of the mate as he slouched from one end to 
 another in shambling slippers and in a cap with a broken peak, 
 under which his thimble-shaped nose glowed in the middle of 
 his pale face like — to match the poor creature with an elegant 
 simile — the heart of a daisy, " this is a very good wind for you, 
 but bad for me, seeing how the ship heads. I want to get 
 home, Mr. Jones. I have now been absent for nearly eleven 
 days, though my start was but for an hour or two's cruise." 
 
 " There's no man at sea," said he, " but wants to get home, 
 unless he's got no home to go to. That's my case.'* 
 
 " Where do you hail from, Mr. Jones?" 
 
 " Whitechapel," he answered, " when I'm ashore. I live 
 in a big house; they call it the Sailor's Home. There are no 
 wives to be found there, so that the good of it is to make a 
 man glad to ship. " 
 
 " The sea is a hard life," said I, " and a very great deal 
 harder than it need be — so Nakier and -his men think, I war-
 
 330 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 rant you. A little too much pork, I fear, goes to the making 
 of the captain's religious ideas.'' 
 
 " The pork in this ship," said he, " is better than the beef; 
 and what is good enough for English sailors is good enough 
 for dirt-colored scaramouches. " 
 
 *' Ay! but the poor fellows' religion is opposed to pork." 
 
 " Don't you let them make you believe it, sir," he exclaimed. 
 " Religion! You should hear them swear in English! They 
 want a grievance. That's the nature of everything afore the 
 mast, no matter what be the color of the hide it's wrapped up 
 in." 
 
 " What sort of sailors are they?" 
 
 " Oh, they tumble about; they're monkeys aloft; they're 
 willing enough; I'm bound to say that." 
 
 1 could instinctively guess that whatever opinions I might 
 ofifer on the captain's treatment of his crew would find no 
 echo in him. Poverty must make such a man the creature 
 of any ship-master he sailed with. 
 
 " Have you received orders from Captain Bunting," I 
 asked, " to signal and bring to any homeward-bound ship 
 that may come along?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " We wish to be transshiped, you know, Mr. Jones. We 
 should be sorry to lose the opportunity of a homeward-bounder 
 through the captain omitting to give you orders, and through 
 his being below and asleep, perhaps, at the time." 
 
 " 1 can do nothing without his instructions, sir," he ex- 
 claimed, with a singular look that rose to the significance of a 
 half smile. 
 
 " All right!" I said, perceiving that his little light-blue eyes 
 had witnessed more than I should have deemed them capable 
 of observing in the slender opportunities he had had for employ- 
 ing them. 
 
 The wind blew the fire out of my pipe, and to save the to- 
 bacco I went down to the quarter-deck for the shelter of the 
 bulwarks there. While I puffed I spied Jacob down in the lee 
 fore-rigging repairing or replacing some chafing-gear upon 
 the swifter-shroud. 1 had not exchanged a word with this 
 honest boatman since the previous day, and strolled forward to 
 under the lee of the galley to greet him. I asked him if he was 
 comfortable in his new berth. He answered yes; he was very well 
 satisfied; the captain had given orders that he was to have a 
 glass of grog every day at noon; the provisions were also very 
 good, and there was no stint. 
 
 " 'Soides," he called down to me, with his fat, ruddy face
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 331 
 
 framed in the squares of the ratlines, " three pound a month's 
 good money. There'll be something to take up when I gets 
 home, something that'll loighten the loss o'my eight pound o* 
 goods and clothes, and make the foundering of the ' Airly 
 Marn ' easier to think of." 
 
 " You and Abraham, then, have regularly entered yourselves 
 for the round voyage?" 
 
 " Ay; the cap'n put us on the articles this afternoon. He 
 called us to his cabin and talked like a gemman to us. 'Tain't 
 often as one meets the likes of him at sea. No language — a 
 koind smile — a thank'ye for whatever a man does, if so be as 
 it's rightly done — a feeling consarn for your morals and your 
 comforts: tell 'ee, Mr. Tregarthen, the loikes of Cap'n Buntin' 
 ain't to be fallen in with every day — leastways, in vessels 
 arter this here pattern, where mostly a man's a dog in the 
 cap'n's opinion, and where the mate's got no other argument 
 than the fust iron belaying-pin he can whip out." 
 
 " I am very glad to learn that you are so well satisfied," 
 said I. "A pity poor Thomas isn't with you. He would 
 be as satisfied, 1 dare say, as you are with what has fallen 
 out." 
 
 " Pore Tommy! There's nothen in my toime as has made 
 me feel so ordinary as Thomas's drownding. But as to him 
 making hisself happy here — " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sah," said a voice close beside me. 
 
 I turned, losing the remainder of Jacob's observations, and 
 perceived the face of Nakier in the galley door, that was within 
 an arm's-length of me from where I leaned. His posture was 
 one of hiding, as though to conceal himself from the sight of 
 the poop. As I looked, a copper-colored face with black, 
 angry eyes flashing under a low forehead as wrinkled as the 
 rind of an old apple, with the temper that worked in the creat- 
 ure, showed behind Nakier's head, and vanished in a breath. 
 I now recollected that when I had first taken up my station 
 under the lee of the galley I had caught the hiss of a swift, 
 fiery whispering within the little structure, but it had instantly 
 ceased on my calling to Jacob, and the matter went out of my 
 head as 1 listened to the boatman in the rigging. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sah! May I speakee a word with you?" 
 
 " What is it, Nakier?" 1 exclaimed, finding a sort of pleasure 
 in the mere contemplation of his handsome face and noble 
 liquid Eastern eyes, dark and luminous like the gleam you 
 will sometimes observe in the midnight sea. 
 
 " Are yuu a sailor, sah?" 
 
 *' I am not," 1 responded.
 
 333 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " Can you tellee me de law of ships?" 
 
 Here the copper-colored face came out again, and now hung 
 steady with its frown over Nakier's shoulder; but both fel- 
 lows kept all but their heads hidden. 
 
 " I know what you mean,'' I answered. " I fear I can not 
 counsel you." 
 
 "Our captain must have us starve,'' said he; "he give us 
 meat we must not eat, and on dose days we have only bread 
 and water. Dat is not right?" 
 
 " No, indeed," said I; " and how little we think it right 
 you may know by what the lady said to-day." 
 
 "Ah! she is good, she is good!" he exclaimed, always 
 speaking very softly, and clasping his long thin fingers with 
 filbert-shaped nails while he upturned his wonderful eyes. 
 " We are not of de captain's religion — he sabbee dat when we 
 ship. Is dere law among Englishman to ponish him for 
 trying to make us eat what is forbidden?" 
 
 " I wish I knew — I wish I could advise you," said 1, some- 
 what secretly relieved by hearing this man talk of law; for when 
 I had watched him that morning on the poop I would have 
 sworn that his and his mates' whole theory of justice lay in 
 the blades which rested upon sheaths strapped to their hips. 
 " One thing you may be sure of, Nakier, Captain Bunting 
 has no right to force food upon you that is forbidden to you 
 by your religion. There must be lawyers in Cape Town who 
 will tell you how to deal with this matter if it is to be dealt 
 with. Meanwhile, try to think of your captain in this business 
 as — " I significantly tapped my forehead. " That will help 
 you to patience, and the passage to the Cape is not a long 
 one." 
 
 The copper-colored face behind Nakier violently wagged, 
 the frown deepened, and the little, dangerous eyes grew, if 
 possible, more menacing in their expression. 
 
 " He is a cruel man," said Nakier, with a sigh as plaintive 
 as one could imaigne in any lovesick Eastern maid; " but we 
 will be patient; and, sah, I t'auk you for listening." 
 
 The copper-colored face disappeared. 
 
 " You are no sailor, sah!" continued Nakier, smiling, and 
 showing as pearl-white a set of teeth as were ever disclosed by 
 the fairest woman's parted lips; " and yet you have been 
 shipwreck?" 
 
 I briefly related my life-boat adventure, and in a few words 
 completed the narrative of the raft and of our deliverance by 
 the lugger. Indeed, it pleased me to talk with him: his ac- 
 cent, his looks, were a sort of reahzation, in their way, of early
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 233 
 
 boyish dreams of travel; they carried me in fancy to the prov- 
 inces of the sun; I tasted the ripe aromatic odors of tropic 
 vegetation, there seemed a scent of the hubble-bubble in the 
 blue and sparkling breeze gushing fair over the rail. He be- 
 got in me a score of old yearning imaginations — of the elei^hant 
 richly castellated, of the gloom of palatial structures dedicated 
 to idols, their domes starry with incrustation of gems and the 
 precious ores. 
 
 The brief spell was broken by Jacob's gruff 'longshore voice : 
 
 " It don't looii, Mr. Tregarthen, as if you and the lady 
 was to git home as fast as ye want to." 
 
 " No," I replied. " Do you see anything in sight up there, 
 Jacob?" 
 
 He spat, and looked leisurely ahead. 
 
 " Nothen, sir." 
 
 " I beg pardon, sah!" broke in Eakier's voice. '* Do you 
 sabbee nabigation?" 
 
 " I do not," I answered, struck with a question that recalled 
 Punmeamootty's inquiries that morning. 
 
 " But Mr. Vise," he continued, " he sabbee nabigation?" 
 
 I shook my head with a slight smile. 
 
 " He has some trifling knowledge," said I. " Fortunately, 
 there is no occasion to trust to his skill." 
 
 " De sweet young lady sabbee nabigation, sah?" 
 
 " I will not answer for it!" I exclaimed, looking at him. A 
 sudden fancy in me may have been disclosed by my eyes. His 
 gaze fell, and he drew in his head. Just then I caught sight 
 of Helga at the break of the poop to leeward, looking along 
 the decks. She saw me, and beckoned. As I knocked the 
 ashes out of my pipe, Jacob cried out: " Blowed if I don't 
 believe that's a steamer's smoke ahead." Ha! thought I, 
 Helga has seen it, and I at once made for the poop-ladder. 
 
 It was as I had supposed. She had seen the smoke when she 
 came on deck, and instantly looked about for me. It was the 
 merest film, the faintest streak, dim as a filament of spider's 
 web; but it was directly ahead, and it was easy to guess that 
 unless the steamer was heading east or west she must be com- 
 ing our way, for assuredly, though the " Light of the 
 World " was sweeping through it at some six or seven knots, 
 we were not going to overhaul a steamer at that pace. 
 
 A telescope lay in brackets inside the companion-way; 1 
 fetched and leveled it, but there was nothing more to be seen 
 than the soaring of the thin blue vein of smoke from behind 
 the edge of the sea, where the dark, rich central blue of it 
 went lightening oit into a tint of opal. It did not take long.
 
 534 MT DANISH SWEETHEART, 
 
 however, to discover by the hanging of the smoke in the same 
 place that the steamer was heading directly for us. I put down 
 the glass, and said to Mr. Jones: 
 
 " Will you be so good as to call the captain and tell him 
 that there is a steamer in sight, coming this way?" 
 
 " 1 have no orders to call the captain merely to report a 
 ship in sight, sir," he answered. 
 
 " That may be," said I; " but here is a chance for us to 
 leave this vessel, and the captain might not thanii you to keep 
 him ignorant of the opportunity." 
 
 " 1 can't help it, sir. My duty here is to obey orders, and 
 to do what's expected of me, and no more," and so saying he 
 marched shambling aft; yet 1 will not say that his manner of 
 leaving me was abrupt or offensive. 
 
 " There is no time to be lost, Helga," said I. "If that 
 steamer is doing ten and we are doing six the joint speed is 
 sixteen knots, and she will be abreast of us and away again 
 quickly. I will report to the captain myself;" with which I 
 went on to the quarter-deck and passed into the cabin and 
 knocked on the door of Captain Bunting's berth. 
 
 He immediately cried: " Who's there?" 
 
 " Mr. Tregarthen," I answered. 
 
 " Are you alone?" he called. 
 
 I told him I was. 
 
 " Then pray walk in," said he. 
 
 1 opened the door and found him lying in his bunk in his 
 shirt-sleeves. Full as I was of the business of the steamer 
 heaving into view, I could yet manage to notice, now that he 
 was under no particular obligation to smile, that his habitual 
 grin when his face was off duty, so to speak, was of the kind 
 that is called sardonic. It was the set of his mouth with the 
 thick curve of its upper lip that made the smile; but his eyes 
 bore not the least part in this expression of mirth. It was a 
 mere stroke of nature in him, however, and, though the con- 
 genital grin did not increase his beauty, it left untouched in 
 his countenance the old character of blandness, self-complac- 
 ency, and an air of kindness too. 
 
 " What can I do for you, Mr. Tregarthen?" said he, 
 promptly sitting up in his bunk, with a glance around for his 
 coat. 
 
 " I must ask your pardon for intruding upon you," said I; 
 " there is a steamer's smoke in sight over the bows; Mr. Jones 
 declined to report her to you. I venture to do so, and I have 
 also to ask you. Captain Bunting, to signal her to stop that 
 she may receive Miss Nielsen and me.**
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 335 
 
 ** 1 shall be very willing to transfer you, Mr. Tregarthen/' 
 (^id he, without more or less significance in his manner than 
 was usual in it; " but you must not, you really must not, ask 
 me to part in this sort of hurry with your sweet, engaging 
 companion.'* 
 
 " I certainly shall not leave you without her,'* said I, 
 breathing quickly. 
 
 "Just so,'Mie exclaimed, "nor is it my wish that you 
 should. I want you to convert your experience of shipwreck 
 into a little holiday cruise. 1 hope you are comfortable with 
 me?" 
 
 " Perfectly comfortable; but all the same. Miss Nielsen and 
 I desire to return to England, and I must entreat — indeed. 
 Captain Bunting, I must insisi upon you signaling the steamer 
 that is rapidly approaching us. '^ 
 
 He opened his eyes wide at the word insist, which I deplored 
 having made use of at the moment it had escaped me; but he 
 continued very bland, and his smile being now vitalized, as 
 when he was at the table or on deck with us, had lost what I 
 had found sardonic in it. 
 
 " A captain's joowers, Mr. Tregarthen, are considerable," 
 he exclaimed, " He is first on board his own ship; his will 
 is the law that governs the vessel ; no man aboard but he can 
 insist for an instant. But my desire is for cordial feelings 
 between us. Let us be friends and talk as friends. Pray bear 
 with me. You are in possession of my hopes. Do not add 
 fears to them by your behavior." 
 
 He dropped his head on one side, and surveyed me with an 
 eye that seemed almost wistful. I believed that ho meant to 
 keep me talking till the steamer had passed. 
 
 " Captain Bunting," said I, " I am as fully disposed as you 
 are to be friendly; but I must tell you that, if you decline to 
 transfer us — if, in other words, you force us to proceed on this 
 voyage, you will be acting at your peril. I shall exact repara- 
 tion, and whatever the law can do for me shall be done. 
 Practically you will be abducting Miss Nielsen, and that, you 
 must know, is a highly punishable offense." 
 
 He motioned with both his hands. 
 
 " It is no abduction," said he. " When you rescue a young 
 lady with your life-boat from a foundering craft you do not 
 abduct her. 1 can understand your impatience, and forgive 
 your irritability. Yet I had thought to have some claim upon 
 you for a more generous, for a handsomer interpretation of my 
 wishes. What is the reason of this extreme hurry in you to 
 return home?"
 
 236 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " You surely do Dot require me to repeat my answer to that 
 question I" I exclaimed, curbing my temper with an effort. 
 
 " To be sure. You are concerned for your poor dear mother. 
 Come, Mr. Tregarthen, suppose we send news of your safety 
 by this steamer you have reported I'' His face beamed. " Let 
 me see— your home is — your home is — " he scratched his 
 head. I viewed him without speaking. " Ah, 1 have it — Tin- 
 trenale!" He spelled it; twice or thrice. " Hugh Tregarthen, 
 Tintrenale. Come, the steamer shall report your safety, and 
 then your mind will be at ease.'' 
 
 " 1 am to understand that you refuse to transfer us. Captain 
 Bunting?" 
 
 " Nay; never interpret the mind of another harshly. You 
 know my wishes: every hour renders them dearer and dearer to 
 me.'' 
 
 Under all this blandness I could now perceive a spirit of 
 resolution that was clearly no more to be influenced by me 
 than his ship's side was to be kicked out by a blow of my 
 foot. 1 turned to leave the cabin. 
 
 " If you are going on deck, will you have the kindness to 
 send Mr. Jones to me?" said he. 
 ■ I pulled the door to, and regained the poop. 
 
 " The captain wants you," I called to Mr. Jones, who im- 
 mediately left the deck. Helga came to me. 
 " He refuses to transship us," said I. 
 " He dare not!" she cried, turning pale. 
 " The creature, all smiles and blandness, says no, with as 
 steady a thrust of his meaning as though it were a boarding- 
 pike. We have to determine either to jump overboard or to 
 remain with him." 
 
 She clasped her hands. Her courage seemed to fail her; 
 her eyes shone brilliant with the alarm that filled her. 
 
 " Can nothing be done? Is it possible that we are so entirely 
 in his power? Could we not call upon the crew to help us?" 
 A sob arrested her broken exclamations. 
 
 1 stood looking at the approaching steamer, struggling with 
 my miud for some idea to make known our situation to her as 
 she passed, but to no purpose. Why, though she should 
 thrash through it within earshot of us, what meaning could I 
 hope to convey in the brief cry I might have time to deliver? 
 I can not express the rage, the bitterness, the mortification, the 
 sense, too, of the startling absurdity of our position, which 
 fumed in my brains, as 1 stood silently gazing at the steamer, 
 with Helga at my side, white, straining her eyes at me, swiftly 
 j^reathing, with a gob now again in her throat.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. 237 
 
 In the short time during which I had been below, the ap- 
 proaching vessel had shaped herself upon the sea, and was grow- 
 ing large with a rapidity that expressed her an ocean mail-boat. 
 Already, with the naked sight, I could catch the glint of the 
 sun upon the gilt device at her stem-head, and sharp flashes of 
 the reflection of light in some many-windowed deck structure 
 broke from her, end-on as she was, to her slow, stately sway- 
 ing, as though she were firing guns. 
 
 The captain remained below. A few minutes after Mr. 
 Jones had gone to him, he— that is, the mate — came on to 
 the poop bearing a great blackboard, which he rested upon the 
 deck. 
 
 " Captain Bunting's compliments, Mr. Tregarthen,'' said 
 he, " and he'll be glad to know if this message is satisfactory 
 to you?" 
 
 Upon the board was written, in chalk, in very visible, de- 
 cipherable characters, like the letters of print, the following 
 words: 
 
 HUGH TREGARTHEN, OF TINTRENALE, 
 
 BLOWN OUT OF BAY NIGHT OCTOBER 21ST, 
 
 IS SAFE 
 
 ON BOARD THIS SHIP, " LIGHT OF THE WORLD." 
 
 BUNTING, MASTER, TO CAPE TOWN. 
 
 PLEASE REPORT. 
 
 *' That will do," said I, coldly, and resumed my place at the 
 rail. 
 
 Helga said, in a low voice: "What is the object of that 
 board?" 
 
 " They will read the writing aboard the steamer," I an- 
 swered, " make a note of it, report it, and my m^other will get 
 to hear of it and know that I am alive." 
 
 " But how will she get to hear of it?" 
 
 " Oh, the message is certain to find its way into the ship- 
 ping papers, and there will be twenty people at Tintrenale to 
 hear of it and repeat it to her." 
 
 " It is a good idea, Hugh," said she. " It is a message to 
 rest her poor heart. It may reach her, too, as quickly as you 
 yourself could if we went on board that steamer. It was clever 
 of you to think of it." 
 
 " It was the captain's suggestion," I exclaimed. 
 
 '* Hugh, it is a good idea!" she repeated, with something of 
 life coming into her blanched, dismayed face; " you will feel 
 a little happier. I shall feel happier too. I have grjeyed tg
 
 238 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 think your mother may suppose you drowned. Now, in a 
 few days she will know that you are well/* 
 
 " Yes, it is a good idea/' said 1, with my eyes gloomily 
 fastened upon the steamer; " but is it not monstrous that we 
 should be imprisoned in this fashion? That fellow below has 
 no right to. detain us. If it should cost me five years of my 
 income, I'll punish him. It is his admiration for you that 
 makes him reckless — but what does the rascal hope? He 
 talked of his willingness to transfer me, providing you re- 
 mained." 
 
 " Oh, but you would nat leave me with him, Hugh!'' she 
 cried, grasping my arm. 
 
 "Leave you, Helga! No, indeed. But I made one great 
 blunder in my chat with him this morning. He asked me if 
 there was anything between us — meaning were we sweethearts, 
 and I said no. I should have answered yes; I should have 
 told him we were betrothed; then perhaps he would have 
 been willing to let us leave him. " 
 
 She returned no answer. I looked at her, and saw an ex- 
 pression in her face that told me 1 had said too much. The 
 corners of her little mouth twitched, she slightly glanced at 
 me and tried to smile on observing that I was regarding her, 
 then made a step from my side as though to get a better view 
 of the steamer. 
 
 " She's a fine big ship," exclaimed Mr. Jones, who had 
 quietly drawn close to me; " a Cape boat. In six days' time 
 she'll be snug in dock. When I was first going to sea 1 
 laughed at steam. Now, I should be glad if there was nothing 
 else afloat." 
 
 My impulse was to draw away, but my temper had some- 
 what cooled, and was now allowing me the exertion of my 
 common-sense again. If I was to be kept aboard the ship, 
 it could serve no sort of end to make an enemy of Mr. Jones. 
 
 " Yes," said I, " she is coming along in fine style — a mail- 
 steamer apparently. AVhy will not the captain signal her? 
 Surely she would receive us!" 
 
 "Not a doubt of it," he answered, almost maliciously; 
 " but the captain knows his own business, sir." 
 
 " Where's your flag-locker?" cried I. " Show it me, and 
 I'll accept the responsibility of hoisting the ensign half-mast 
 high!" 
 
 " Not without the captain's orders, Mr. Tregarthen," said 
 he, 
 
 " The captain !" I exclaimed " He has nothing to do with 
 me. He's your master, not mine I"
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 239 
 
 Helga softly called to me. I went to her. 
 
 "Do not reason with him, Hugh!" she whispered. " Let 
 the peojjle in that steamer read the message, and we can afford 
 to be patient — for a little," she added. 
 
 " For a little!" 1 rejoined. " But how long will that little 
 make? Is it to stretch from here to Table Bay?'" 
 
 But by this time the steamer was on the lee bow, and, when 
 abreast, would be within a few cables' length of us. I thought 
 to myself, Shall 1 spring upon the rail and hail her in God's 
 name, wave my hands to her to stop, and take my chance of 
 her people hearing the few words I should have time to bawl? 
 Then, with the velocity of thought, I reflected that the mate 
 would be certain to hinder any such attempt on my part, to 
 the length, I dare say, of laying hands upon me and jDulling 
 me off the rail, so that I might subject myself to what would 
 prove but little short of an outrage, while I should likewise 
 forfeit the opportunity of getting the message delivered; for 
 there was no man on the poop to hold up the board but the 
 mate, and if the mate was busy with me the board must remain 
 hidden. 
 
 All this 1 thought, and while I thought the steamer was 
 sweeping past us at a speed of some thirteen knots, with Mr. 
 Jones standing something forward of the mizzen-rigging hold- 
 ing up the board at arm's-length. 
 
 The picture of that rushing metal fabric was full of glitter- 
 ing beauty. Her tall promenade-deck, draped with white 
 awnings, out of which the black column of her funnel forked 
 leaning, was crowded with passengers, male and female. 
 Dresses of white, pink, green — the ladies of South Africa, I 
 believe, go very radiantly clad — fluttered and rippled to the 
 sweep of the strong breeze raised by the steamer's progress. 
 'X'liose who walked came to a stand to survey us, and a dozen 
 binocular glasses were pointed. High above, on thC' white 
 canvas bridge, the mate in charge of the ship was reading the 
 handwriting on the black-board through a telescope that 
 flashed like silver in his hands. Beside him, twinkling in 
 buttons and lace, stood the commander of the steamer, as I 
 might suppose. The sun was in the south-west sky; his red- 
 dening brilliance beat full upon the ship that was thundering 
 by faster than a hurricane could have blown the " Light of 
 the World " along; and the glass in her line of port-holes 
 seemed to stream in fire as though the tall black iron sides 
 were veritably belted with flame. There were stars of gold 
 in her bright yellow masts and a writhing of glowing light all 
 about the gilt work with which her quarters were glorified.
 
 240 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 She rolled softlj', and every inclination was like the twist of a 
 kaleidoscope for tints. How mean did the little bark look 
 at that instant I how squalid her poor old stumpy decks with 
 their embellishment of rude scuttle-butt, of grimy caboose, of 
 squab long-boat, not to mention the choice humanities of her 
 forecastle, the copper-colored scarecrows who had dropped the 
 various jobs they were upon to stare with their sloe-like eyes 
 at the passing show I 
 
 She had not swept past abreast by more than her own length 
 when the twinkling commander on the bridge flourished his 
 arm. 
 
 "And about time, too!" cried Mr. Jones, lowering the 
 board and leaning it against the rail. " They must be poor 
 hands at spelling aboard that ship to keep me holding up 
 that board as if I were a topsail-yard proper to set a whole 
 sail upon!" 
 
 " Have they read the message, do you think, Mr. Jones?'* 
 cried Helga. 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes, miss,'* he answered. 
 
 He ran in an awkward sprawl to the skylight, where the 
 telescope lay, pointed it, and exclaimed, " See for yourself, 
 miss!" 
 
 She leveled the glass with the ease and precision of an old 
 sailor. 
 
 " Yes, Hugh,'' she called to me, while she held the tele- 
 scope to her eye; " the man in the jacket and buttons is writ- 
 ing in what looks to be a pocket-book; the other bends over 
 him as though to see that the words are correct. I am satis- 
 fied!" and, putting the glass down, she returned to me. 
 
 The steamer was now astern of us, showing but little more 
 than the breadth of her, rapidly growing toy-] ike as she swept 
 onward, with an oil-smooth wake spreading fan-shaped frqm 
 her counter, and the white foam curving with the dazzle of 
 sifted snow from either side the iron tooth of her shearing stem. 
 My heart ached with the yearning for home as 1 followed her. 
 At that moment eight bells were struck forward, and almost 
 immediately Abraham came aft to relieve Mr. Jones, who, 
 after saying a word or two to the boatman, picked up the 
 board and went below. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 I MAKE FREE. 
 
 " There's a hopportunity lost, Mr. Tregarthen," exclaimed 
 Abraham, looking at the receding steamer; " not that me and
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 241 
 
 Jacob ain't satisfied, but there's ne'er a doubt that wessel 'ud 
 ha' taken you and the lady, if so be as Capt'n Bunting had 
 arsted her." 
 
 " We are kept here against our will," said I. " What the 
 man means to do 1 don't know, but what he can do I now see. 
 Unless 1 can get those black fellows to back the topsail and 
 put us aboard the next ship when she comes along, here we 
 must stop until it is the captain's pleasure to release us." 
 
 " But what does he want along of ye?" inquired Abraham, 
 m a low, hoarse voice, with a glance at the open skylight. 
 
 1 looked at Helga, and then said bluntly — for I had some 
 dim hope of this boatman and his mate being able to help us, 
 and the plain truth must therefore be given to them: 
 
 " The long and short of it is^ Abraham, the captain greatly 
 admires Miss Nielsen — he has fallen in love with her, in short 
 — and so you have it." 
 
 Helga looked and listened without any air of embarrassment, 
 as though the reference were of general instead of individual 
 interest. 
 
 "But he hain't fallen in love with you, sir? Why do he 
 want to keep ye both, then? Couldn't he have sent you 
 aboard?" 
 
 " You astonish me!" 1 cried. "Do you suppose I would 
 ieave this lady alone in the vessel?" 
 
 " Why, p'r'aps not," he answered; " but still, 'tain't as if 
 you was a lady, one of her own sex, as was hacting companion 
 to her. Oi don't mean to say that one man's as good as an- 
 other; but I don't see no call for you to keep all on in this 
 here wessel." 
 
 " What am I to understand you to mean?" cried I. " That 
 Miss Nielsen is to be left without a protector in the company 
 of a fellow like Captain Bunting?" 
 
 "But if he's willing to be her protector, sir, ain't it all 
 fight?" he inquired. 
 
 " Has not your head been turned?" said Hegla, warmly, 
 with a flushed face. 
 
 He looked stupidly from one to the other of us with a slow 
 ffSLze and a mind laboring to master the difficulty he could not 
 understand. 
 
 " Sorry if I've said anything to offend ye, miss," said he; 
 '' this here capt'n's an honorable man, Oi allow, and he's evi- 
 dently on the lookout fotr a wife. All I says is, what's the 
 good of his keeping Mr. Tregarthen away from his home when 
 he's willing to take his place?" 
 
 " But he must not take his placel" exclaimed Helga, with
 
 242 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 glowii)g eyes, in which 1 looked to see a tear presently. *' 1 
 would drown myself if 1 were to be left here alone!" 
 
 A slow smile animated the leathern countenance of Abra- 
 ham. 
 
 " Then, mum, asking your pardon, all Oi can say is, Mr. 
 Trogarthen should ha' put it differently. Where there's wan 
 there's no call for tew, and there being wan already, then, of 
 course, it's the capt'n's duty to send ye both home as soon as 
 he can." 
 
 " If Captain Bunting persists," said I, not choosing to fol- 
 low the line of Abraham's reasoning, " what is my remedy? 
 You Deal boatmen have the reputation of knowing the law 
 pretty well. First, has he the right to carry ' us with him 
 against our wishes?" 
 
 " There's never much question of right along with sea cap- 
 tains," he answered. " My 'sperienceis that what the master 
 of a wessel chooses to do he will do, and the rights of it some- 
 how seem to come out of his doing of it." 
 
 " But have we no remedy?" said I. 
 
 " Ask yourself the question!" he answered. " Wher«i's the 
 remedy to be found?" and here he sent his eyes roaming, over 
 the sea and up aloft and along the decks. 
 
 " Of all Job's comforters!" I exclaimed. 
 
 *' If I was you," he continued, apparently not understand- 
 ing my remark, and sending another cautious look at the open 
 skylight, with a further subduing of his voice, " what Oi'd do 
 is this: Oi'd just enjoy myself at this 'ere gemman's expense, 
 eat his wittles and drink his rum — and I'm bound to say this, 
 that a better drop o' rum than he keeps in that there locker 
 of his isn't to be met with afloat or ashore — I say, Oi'd drink 
 and eat at his expense, and keep my spirits as joyful as sar- 
 cumstances might permit, but taking care to let him know 
 every day, ay, and p'r'aps twice a day — say at breakfast and at 
 supper — that the lady and me wants to get home; and tlii^^ 
 Oi'd dew till we got to port, and then Oi'd bring an actiori 
 agin him and sail home on the damages, with a few pound to 
 the good. " 
 
 He had barely ceased when he turned sharply round and 
 marched aft, and as he did so the captain mounted the poop- 
 ladder, exclaiming: 
 
 " What very enjoyable weather, to be sure! Mr. Jones in- 
 forms me that the message was duly noted. Now, Miss Niel- 
 r.en, we may take it that our friend Mr. Tregarthen's mind is 
 perfectly at ease. " 
 
 It was four o'clock when the steamer passed, and half an
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 343 
 
 hour later she was out of sight, so rapid was the comhined 
 pace of the vessels. Her name was large upon her stern had 
 we chosen to read it, but the mate was too busy with his board 
 and I with my temper to note the letters, and tlelga did not 
 think of doins: so, and thus it was that the steamer passed 
 away and none of us knew more about her than that she was 
 a Cape Union mail-liner bound to England with now a mes- 
 sage, meant for my mother, on board. 
 
 The captain hung about us, and was all blandness, courtesy, 
 and admiration when he addressed Helga or directed his eyes 
 at her. On his first joining us she said quickly, pointing to the 
 steamer that was still in sight: 
 
 " Why have you suffered us to lose that opportunity?" 
 
 " Mr. Tregarthen's and your company," he answered, 
 " makes me so happy that I can not bear to part with you 
 yet!" 
 
 Her little nostrils enlarged, her blue eyes glittered, her breast 
 quickly rose and fell. 
 
 " You called yourself a Samaritan yesterday!" she ex- 
 claimed, with all the scorn her tender soul was capable of and 
 her pensive, pretty face could express. " Is this the way in 
 which Samaritans usually behave?" 
 
 He viewed her as though she were a picture that can not be 
 held in a new position without disclosing a fresh grace. 
 
 " You are too good and kind to be cruel," said he, regard- 
 ing her with deepening admiration, as it seemed to me. " The 
 Samaritan played his part fairly well yesterday, I believe." 
 He blandly bowed to her with a countenance of exquisite self- 
 comphicency. " He is still on board, my dear young lady, 
 with a character in essentials unchanged, merely enlarged." 
 Here he spread his fingers upon his breast, and expanded his 
 waistcoat, looking at her in a very knowing sort of way, with 
 his head on one side. " Now that we have sent our message 
 home, there is no hurry. Our little cruise," he exclaimed, 
 pointing over the bow, " is almost entirely tropical, and there 
 is no reason at all why we should not find it delightful!" 
 
 I caught Helga's eye, and exhorted her by a glance to keep 
 silent. Siie fixed her gaze upon the deck, with a lip lightly 
 curled by disgust, and I stepped aft under a pretense to look 
 at the compass, with so much more contomi")t and anger than 
 I could hold between my teeth that I dared not speak for 
 fear I should say a very great deal too much. 
 
 The breeze slackened as the sun sunk, and at supper, as the 
 captain persisted in calling the last meal, the ocean fell calm 
 and the old broad-bowed bark rolled sleepily, but with much
 
 344 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 creaking of her rheumatic bones, upon a long-drawn polished 
 swell Hewing out of the north-east. Her canvas beat the 
 masts and fetched reports out of the tall spars that jjenetrated 
 the little cuddy like discharges of musketry. 
 
 For a long while the captain gave Helga and me no oppor- 
 tunity for a quiet talk. At table he was more effusive than he 
 had yet been, distressingly importunate in his attentions to the 
 girl, to whom he would address himself in tones of lover-like 
 coaxing if she haj^pened to say no to his entreaties to her to 
 drink a little wine, to try a slice of ham, and the like. He 
 begged that we should both make ourselves thoroughly at 
 home; his colored cook, he said, was not a first-rate hand, but 
 if Miss Helga ever had a fancy she need but name it and it 
 would go very hard with the cook if he failed to humor her. 
 
 " We are not a yacht,'' said he, pulling a whisker and look- 
 ing around, " but, most fortunately, gaudy mirrors and hand- 
 some carpets and the ginger -bread ornamentations of the 
 pleasure craft need never form any portion of human happiness 
 at sea. The sun looks as brightly down upon " The Light of 
 the World " as upon the most stately ship afloat, the ocean 
 breeze will taste as sweetly over my bulwark rails as on the 
 bridge of the gallantest man-of-war that flies the crimson 
 cross;" and thus he went on vaporing as usual in fathoms of 
 commonplace, yet with a bland underlying insistence always 
 upon our being his guests, upon our remaining with him and 
 being happy, as though, indeed, we had cheerfully consented 
 to stop, and were looking forward with great enjoyment to the 
 voyage. 
 
 I was as cold and distant as I could well be, answered him in 
 monosyllables, eat as if with aversion from the food before me, 
 "which, nevertheless, I constrained myself to devour merely to 
 kee^D body and soul together. But he did not seem to heed ray 
 manner in the least; I could swear, indeed, that he did not 
 observe it. He was wholly engrossed in contemplation of 
 Helga, and in the enjoyment of enlarging his waistcoat, and 
 delivering more or less through his nose, with a fixed smile and 
 somewhat leering eye, the dull, trivial, insipid contents of his 
 mind. 
 
 He asked the girl to play draughts with him when Pun- 
 meamootty had cleared the table. On her declining, he fetched 
 from his cabin the volume of Jeremy Taylor — it was that di- 
 vine's " Holy Living and Dying," I think— and asked permis- 
 sion to read a few pages aloud. She could not refuse, and 1 
 see that extraordinary ship-master now, standing under the 
 lamp, holding the portly volume up with both hands, smiling
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT. S45 
 
 upon the page, pausing at intervals to look over the top of the 
 book at the girl with a nod to serve as a point of admiration, 
 and reading nasally in a voice without the faintest inflection, 
 so that at a little distance his delivery must have sounded like 
 a continuous groan. He then begged her to read to him. 
 
 " What greater treat could we have," said he, looking at 
 me, " than to hear the rich, noble, impressive words of this 
 great bishop pronounced by the charming lips of Miss Helga 
 Nielsen?" 
 
 But she curtly refused; and, after hovering about her for 
 another half hour, during which I would notice a growing air 
 in him that was a distinct intimation, in its way, of his entire 
 satisfaction at the progress he was making, he withdrew to his 
 cabin. 
 
 Helga looked at me with weariness and dismay, and moist- 
 ened her lips. 
 
 '* This is worse than the raft," said I. 
 
 " It is so bad," she exclaimed, " that I feel persuaded it 
 can not last." 
 
 " Let us go on deck. Tf we linger here he may rejoin 
 us. How tragical it all is one may know by the humor of it." 
 
 We went softly to the companion steps, and I recollect that 
 I looked over my shoulder to see if he was following us — than 
 which I can recall no better proof of my perfect recognition 
 of our helplessness. 
 
 The new moon had followed the sun, and the planet would 
 not be showing by night for two or three days; but in the 
 south, and over our mastheads, the sky was richly spangled 
 with stars, which burned in one or two dyes of glory, and 
 very sharply, whence, from recollection of a like sight at 
 home, 1 sujiposed that hard weather was at hand. There was 
 some little lightning, of a delicate shade of violet, in the 
 north-east, which, indeed, would have been no noticeable thing 
 down in this part of the world but for the mountainous heap- 
 ing of cloud it revealed, a black sullen mass stretching along 
 the sea-line in that quarter, and putting a hue as of ink into 
 the dusk which swept in glittering obscurity to the shadow of 
 it. There was a great deal of greenish fire in the sea, and it 
 broadened and shrunk in wide spaces in the hft of the noise- 
 less running swell as though the ways of a tinted lantern were 
 cast upon the water. The dew was plentiful, and lay along 
 the rails and upon the skylight, crisp as frost in the starshine. 
 
 It was Abraham's watch, and I spied his figure flitting cum- 
 trously in the neighborhood of the wheel, at which stood the 
 shape of some colored man, motionless as though carved in
 
 24:6 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ebony, faintly touched by the sheen of the binnacle lamp. I 
 was in no humor to converse with the boataian. His stupid 
 talk that afternoon in response to my questions had vexed me, 
 and I was still angry with the fool, as I chose to think him, 
 spite of the claims he had upon my kindness and gratitude. 
 
 I put Helga's hand under my arm, and we quietly patroled 
 the deck to leeward. Our conversation wholly concerned our 
 position — it would only tease you to repeat it. There was 
 liothing to suggest, no plan to propose; for think, advise, 
 scheme as we might, it could only come to this: that if the 
 captain declined to part with us, then, unless the men took 
 our side and insisted on putting us aboard a passing ship, we 
 must stop. But if the crew took our side, it would be mutiny 
 with them; and bewilderingly disagreeable as our situation was, 
 preposterously and ridiculously wretched as it was, yet assuredly 
 it was not to be mended by a revolt among those dusky-skins 
 forward. 
 
 Yet the fancy of stirring up the Malays to befriend us was 
 in my mind as I walked with the girl. 
 
 " God forbid," said 1, " that I shQuld have a hand in it; 
 yet, for all that, I believe it is to be done. I had a short talk 
 with Nakier to-day, and there was that in his questions and 
 his manner which persuades me that the train is ready, and 
 nothing wanting but the spark. ^^ 
 
 " A mutiny is a terrible thing at sea," said she; " and what 
 would men like the crew of this ship stop at?" 
 
 " Ay, nothing more terrible, Helga. But are we to be car- 
 ried to the Cape?" 
 
 " The captain has no intention of putting into Santa Cruz," 
 said she. 
 
 " That we may be sure of. But does the fellow intend that 
 you shall pass week after week with no other ajoparel than 
 what you stand up in?" 
 
 I was interrupted by Abraham sending a hurricane shout 
 into the blackness forward for some hands to clew up the fore 
 and main-royals, and for others to lay aft and haul down the 
 gaflf-topsail. 
 
 " It's a-going to blow to-night, Mr. Tregarthen," he called 
 across to me. 
 
 " Yes; and you may see where it is coming from, too," I 
 replied, not knowing till then that he had observed us. 
 
 In a few moments the silence that had hung upon the ves- 
 sel, with nothing to disturb it but an occasional sob of water 
 ^nd the beating of canvas hollowing into the masts to the roll
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 247 
 
 of the fabric, was broken by the strange howling noises raised 
 by the colored seamen as they hauled upon the gear. 
 
 " Get them sails furled, my lads!'' bawled Abraham; " and 
 the rest of ye lay aft and take this 'ere mizzen off her. " 
 
 " It is wonderful that the fellows should understand the 
 man," said I. 
 
 " There's the captain!" exclaimed Helga, instantly halting, 
 and then recoiling in a way that dragged me a pace back with 
 her. 
 
 He rose through the companion-hatch, his outline vaguely 
 visible in the dim radiance sifting through the cabin skylight. 
 Abraham addressed him. 
 
 *' Quite right, Wise, very wise of you. Wise!" he exclaimed. 
 ' ' There is a marked fall in the barometer, and I perceive 
 lightning in the north-east, with a deal of rugged cloud down 
 there. His shadowy form stepped to the binnacle, into which 
 he peered a moment. " 1 think. Wise," said he — and, to use 
 a Paddyism, 1 could see the man's fixed and singular smile in 
 the oiliness of his accents — " that you can not do better than 
 go forward and rouse up all hands. I can rely best upon my 
 crew when the weather is quiet. ' ' 
 
 Abraham trudged forwai-d, and in a minute later I heard 
 him thumping heavily on the fore-hatch, toj^ping the blows 
 with a boatswain's hoarse roar of " All hands shorten sail!" 
 
 " The captain's politeness," I said, " will end in making 
 that JJeal boatman sit at his feet. " 
 
 " He is afraid of his crew, perhaps," answered Helga, " and 
 is behaving so as to make sure that the two men will stand by 
 him should difficulties come." 
 
 " It was a bad blow that sunk the fellows' lugger, Helga. 
 We might have sighted that steamer of to-day and be now 
 homeward bound at the rate of fourteen knots an hour. " 
 
 " And it is all my fault!" she cried, in tones impassioned 
 by regret and temper. " But for me, Hugh — " 
 
 I silenced her by taking her hand as it lay in my arm and 
 pressing it. She drew closer to me, with a movement caress- 
 ing but wistful too, though finely and tenderly simple. 
 
 I did not doubt that the captain perceived us; nevertheless, 
 he hung near the wheel, never coming further forward than 
 the companion-hatch, while we kept at the other end of the 
 little poop, where the shadow of the port-wing of mainsail lay 
 heavy. 
 
 Shortly after Abraham had summoned the men, the decks 
 were alive with sliding and gliding shapes, and the stillness of 
 the ocean night was clamorous with parrot-like cries. The
 
 248 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 lightning had ceased, but the darkness was fast deepening, and 
 overhead the stars were beginning to languish in the projected 
 dimness of the growing mass of cloud that, now that there was 
 no play of violet fire upon it, was indistinguishable in its own 
 dumb, brooding obscurity. 
 
 " Whatever is to come will happen on a sudden," said I. 
 
 We neither of us cared to keep the deck now that the cap- 
 tain had arrived, and descending the ladder, we entered the 
 cabin. Under other conditions 1 should have been willing, and 
 indeed anxious, to assist the crew, but now I was resolved not 
 to touch a rope, to maintain and present as sullen a front as I 
 could contrive, to hold apart with Helga, to mark my resent- 
 ment by my behavior, and so, perhaps — but God knows 1 had 
 no hope of it — to intimidate the fellow into releasing us by 
 obliging him to understand that he had already gone a very 
 great deal too far. There was much noise on deck; Mr. Jones 
 was bawling from the forecastle, and Abraham from the waist, 
 and the songs of the Malays might easily have jjassed for the 
 cries of people writhing in pain. Apparently the captain was 
 alarmed by the indications of the glass and the look of the 
 weather in the north-east, and was denuding his little ship as 
 speedily as might be. His own voice began to sound now, and, 
 though it was perfectly distinguishable, there was nothing 
 nasal, bland, or greasy about it. On the contrary, his roars 
 seemed to proceed from a pair of honest sea-lungs, as though 
 what was nautical in him had been worked up by the appear- 
 ance of the weather, and was proving too strong for the soapy 
 exterior of his habitual manner. 
 
 " He can be natural when he forgets himself/' said I. 
 
 " It is quite possible that he swears at times," said Helga. 
 
 '' One touch of nature in the fellow would make me feel al- 
 most comfortabh," I exclaimed. 
 
 " He is not a true sailor: he never could be natural for any 
 length of time," said Helga. 
 
 The pattering of the naked feet of the crew was like the 
 noise of a shower of rain. Helga seemed to be able to follow 
 what was being done, as though she were on deck directing 
 the crew. 
 
 " They have furled this sail — they are reefing that sail — now 
 they are hauling down such and such a jib — now they are 
 stowing the mainsail," she would say, giving the canvas its 
 proper name, and looking at me with a little smile in her 
 liquid-blue eyes, as though the interest in the sailors' work 
 made her forget our troubles. 
 
 " Be as nautical as you like with me," said 1. " 1 love to
 
 WY DANISH SWEETHEART. 249 
 
 hear yon pronounce the strange, uncouth language of the sea; 
 but guard your lips before the captain. The more sailorly you 
 are, the more he will admire you." 
 
 " What would make him hate me?" she exclaimed, with 
 the light of the smile going out of her eyes, and her white brow 
 contracting. " How is he to be sickened, Hugh?" 
 
 "Oh! what can you do, Helga? What can a pretty girl do 
 that will not heighten the passion of a man who has fallen in 
 love with her?" 
 
 " Call me pretty if you will," said she, with a maidenly 
 droop of her eyelids, " but do not speak of me as a girl with 
 whom anybody has fallen in love." 
 
 " By George!" said I, starting and heaving a long sigh, with 
 a look at the clock, the hands of which were now at nine, 
 " the road to Kolding gets longer and longer. But we shall 
 measure it — we shall measure it yet, Helga!" I quickly added, 
 heartily grieved by the sorrow that entered her face. 
 
 " What a strange dream has all this time been!" she half 
 murmured, pressing her eyes. " My father stood by my side 
 last night, I felt his kiss — oh, Hugh! it was colder than the 
 salt water outside." 
 
 She uttered an exclamation in Danish, with a little passion- 
 ate shake of the head. 
 
 " I hope you are quite comfortable below," exclaimed a 
 much too familiar voice, and looking up I spied the long whis- 
 kers and smiling countenance of Captain Bunting framed in 
 the open casement of the skylight. 
 
 Helga rallied as if to a shock, and stiffened into marble, mo- 
 tionless and with a hardening of her countenance that I should 
 have thought impossible to the gentle, ingenuous prettiness of 
 her face. 
 
 " 1 fear," he continued, talking through the skylight, " that 
 we are in for some nasty weather; but my bark is stripped and 
 nearly ready for the affray. I am grieved not to be able to 
 join you. Miss Nielsen. It is necessary that I should remain 
 on deck. You are partaking of no refreshment. 1 will send 
 Punmeamootty to you. Pray give him your orders." 
 
 His whiskers floated out into the obscurity like two puffs of 
 smoke, and he called, but in genteel accents, for Helga was 
 now listening, and he knew it, to Abraham to send Punmea- 
 mootty " to wait upon his guests in the cabin." A moment 
 after his whiskers reappeared. 
 
 " I have to beg, Miss Nielsen, that you will consider yourself 
 mistress here. And before you withdraw to rest — and, what- 
 ever may happen, pray slumber securely, for J. shall be watcU-
 
 250 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ing the ship — may I entreat you to occupy Mr. Jones's berth, 
 which you will find so very much more airy and comfortable 
 than the dark, confined steerage?" 
 
 " 1 am quite satisfied with my accommodation, thank you," 
 she answered, without looking up. 
 
 He youthfully wagged his head in reproach of what his man- 
 ner seemed to consider no more than an enchanting girlish 
 capriciousness, and adding, " Well, I entreat you both to make 
 yourselves thoroughly at home," he disappeared. 
 
 Punmeamootty arrived. He entered soundlessly as a spirit, 
 and with the gliding movements that one could imagine of a 
 phantom. I said to Helga: 
 
 " Abraham's philosophy shall be mine. My temper shall 
 not prevent me from using our friend's larder. You asked 
 just now what will sicken him. Let us eat and drink him up! 
 Punmeamootty, when is the gale going to burst?" 
 
 " It will not be long, sah," he answered, showing his teeth. 
 
 *' Put the best supper you can upon the table. Have you 
 nothing better than rum to drink?' 
 
 " Dere is wine, sah." 
 
 " Yes, and very poor wine too. Have you no brandy?" 
 
 " Yes, sah, de capt'n hab some choice brandy for sickness." 
 
 " Put a bottle of it on the table, Punmeamootty, and be 
 quick, like a good fellow, as you are to serve the food before 
 this sweet little ship begins to kick up her heels." 
 
 He showed his teeth again, with a glance at the skylight, 
 following it on with a short-lived look of deep interest at 
 Helga, then slipped away. 
 
 With wonderful nimbleness he had spread the cloth, and put 
 ham, salt beef, biscuit, and such things upon the table. 
 
 " Now draw that cork!" said I. 
 
 The pop of it brought the whiskers to the open skylight as 
 if by magic. 
 
 '' Quite right, quite right!" exclaimed the captain. " I 
 hope. Miss Helga, that this repast is of your ordering? What 
 have you there, Punmeaniootty?" he suddenly cried, with ex- 
 citement. " That is brandy, I believe?" 
 
 " I ordered it!" I called out in a sullen voice. 
 
 " You will handle it tenderly, if you please," said he, with 
 a trifle of asperity in his speech. " It is a fiine cordial brandy, 
 and I have but three bottles of it." 
 
 I returned no answer, and he vanished. 
 
 " Upon my word, I believe Abraham is right, after all!'* 
 said I, with a laugh. " Now, Helga, to punish him, if the 
 road to his sensibility lie through ham and beef!"
 
 UY DANISH SWEETHEART. 251 
 
 She feigned to eat merely to please me, as I could see. 
 Though I was not very hungry, I made a great business of 
 sharpening my knife, and fell tc the beef and ham with every 
 appearance of avidity, not doubting that we should be furtively 
 surveyed from time to time by the captain, who could peep at 
 us unseen without trouble as he passed the skylight, and who 
 could very well overhear the clatter of dishes, the sharpening 
 of my knife, and my calls to the steward, so silent did the 
 night continue, as though there rested some great hush of ex- 
 pectancy upon the ocean. 
 
 I filled a bumper of brandy and water, and exclaimed in a 
 loud voice: 
 
 " Here's to our speedy release, Helga! But if that is not to 
 happen, then here's to the safest and swiftest passage this crazy 
 old bucket is capable of making! And here's to proceedings 
 hereafter to be taken!" 
 
 The colored steward stood looking on with a grin of wonder. 
 
 " Capital brandy, this, Punmeamootty," I sung out in ac- 
 cents that might have been heard upon the forecastle. " An- 
 other drop, if you please! Thank you! I will help myself." 
 
 A mere drop it was, for I had had enough; but I took care 
 by my posture to persuade an eye surveying me from above 
 that I was not sparing the bottle. 
 
 " You may clear away, Punmeamootty; and if you can find 
 a cigar I shall feel obliged by your bringing it to me." 
 
 " Well, and how are we getting on?" exclaimed the caj^tain, 
 bending his head into the skylight. 
 
 " We have supped, thank you," I answered, haughtily and 
 coldly. " Punmeamootty, a cigar, if you please!" 
 
 The captain's head vanished. 
 
 "Me no sabbee where capt'n him keep his cigar," said 
 Punmeamootty. 
 
 " Ransack his cabin!" said I, loudly. 
 
 The fellow shook his head, but there was enjoyment in his 
 grin with an expression of elation in his eyes that borrowed a 
 quality of fierceness from the singularly keen gleam which ir- 
 radiated their dusky depths. I was about to speak, when Helga 
 raised her hand. 
 
 " Hark!" she cried. 
 
 1 bent my ear, and caught a sound resembling the low moan 
 of surf heard at a distance. 
 
 " More than a capful of wind goes to the making of that 
 noise," said I. 
 
 A bright flash of lightning dazzled upon the skylight and 
 eclipsed the cabin lamp with its blinding bluish glare. A *:)mall
 
 252 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 shock of thunder followed. I heard the captain cry out an 
 order; the next minute the skylight was hastily closed and a 
 tarpaulin thrown over it. 
 
 " Bring mc my oilskins, Punmeamoottyl'' shouted the cap- 
 tain down the companion-way. The man ran on deck with 
 the things. 
 
 " Can that be rain?" cried Helga. 
 
 Rain it was, indeed I a very avalanche of wet charged with 
 immense hailstones. The roar of the smoking discharge upon 
 the jilanks was absolutely deafening. It lasted about a couple 
 of minutes, then ceased with startling suddenness, and you 
 heard nothing but the surf -like moaning that had now gath- 
 ered a deeper and a more thrilling note, mingled with the wild 
 sound of sobbing in the scuppers and a melancholy hissing of 
 wet as the water on the quarter-deck splashed from side to side 
 to the light rolling of the bark. Yet fully another five min- 
 utes passed in quiet, while the growling of the thunder of the 
 still distant storm-swe^ot sea waxed fiercer and fiercer. It 
 was as though one stood at the mouth of a tunnel and listened 
 to the growing rattling and rumbling of a long train of goods 
 wagons approaching in tow of a panting locomotive. 
 
 Then in a breath the wind smote the bark, and down she 
 leaned to it. So amazingly violent was the angle, I do most 
 truthfully believe that for the space of twenty or thirty seconds 
 the bark lay completely on her beam ends, as much so as if 
 she were bilged high and dry upon a shoal, and there was a 
 dreadful noise of water pouring in upon her deck from over the 
 submerged lee main-deck rail. 
 
 Helga was to windward, and the table supported her, but the 
 chair upon which I was seated broke away with me, and I fell 
 sprawling upon my back amid a whole raffle of the contents of 
 the table, which Punmeamootty had not yet removed. The 
 full mess of it came headlong about me with a mighty smash; 
 the beef, the ham, the bottle of brandy now shivered into a 
 thousand pieces, the jam-pots, the biscuits, the knives and 
 forks — all these things I lay in the midst of, and such was the 
 heel of the deck that I could not stir a limb. Helga shrieked. 
 I cried out, " I am not hurt; I'll rise when I can.'' Some one 
 was hoarsely bawling from the poop; but, whatever the mean- 
 ing of the yell might have been, it was immediately followed 
 by a loud report resembling the blast of a tweuty-four-pounder 
 gun. " There goes a sail I" I shouted. The vessel found life 
 on being relieved of the canvas, whatever it was; there was a 
 gradual recovery of her hull, and presently she was on a level 
 keel, driving smoothly as a sleigh over a level plain of snow.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 25h 
 
 but with such an infernal bellowing and hooting and ear-ioierc- 
 ing whistling of wind accompanying her that there is nothing 
 I can imagine to liken it to. 
 
 1 waited awhile, and then, bidding Helga stay where she 
 was, went on to the quarter-deck; but all betwixt the rails was 
 of a pitch darkness, with a sort of hoariness in the blackness 
 on either hand outside, rising from the foam, of which the 
 ocean was now one vast field. I mounted the poop-ladder, but 
 was blinded in a moment by the violence of the wind, that was 
 full of wet, and was glad to regain the cabin; for 1 could be of 
 no use. and there was no question to be asked nor answer to 
 be caught at such a time. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 JOPPA IS IN EARNEST. 
 
 It was about half past nine when this gale took us, but such 
 was the force and weight of it, so flattening and shearing was 
 its scythe-like horizontal sweep, that no sea worth speaking of 
 had risen till ten o'clock, and then, indeed, it was beginning 
 to run high. All this while there had been no sound of hu- 
 man voices, but at this hour a command was delivered above 
 our heads, and going on to the quarter-deck, I dimly discerned 
 the figures of men hauling upon the fore-braces; but they 
 pulled dumbly; no song broke from them; they were silent 
 as though in terror. A little later on I knew by the motions 
 of the bark that she had been brought to the wind and lay hove 
 to. 
 
 That few vessels would better know how to plunge and roll 
 than this old " Light of the World " I might have guessed 
 from her behavior in quiet weather when there was nothing 
 but a slight swell to lift her. But I never could have con- 
 jectured how truly prodigious was her skill in the art of tum- 
 bling. She soared and sunk as an empty cask might. She 
 took every hollow with a shock that threatened to rend her 
 bones into fragments, as though she had been hurled through 
 the air from a mighty height; and when she swung up an ac- 
 clivity, the sensation was that of being violently lifted, as by a 
 balloon or by the grip of an eagle. Groans and cries rose 
 from her interior as though she had a thousand miserable, 
 perishing slaves— men, women, and children — locked up in 
 her hold. 
 
 " This,*' said I to Helga, " is worse than the ' Anine.' '' 
 
 " Yet it was blowing harder on that Saturday night than it 
 is now," she answered, watching the mad oscillations of the
 
 ^54 MY DAT^ISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 cabin lamp with serene eyes and a mouth steadfast in expres- 
 sion. *' I have a greater dread of Captain Bunting's smile," 
 she continued, " than of any hurricane that can h\ow across 
 the ocean." She looked at the clock. " He is certain to ar- 
 rive shortly. He is sure to find some excuse to torture me 
 with his politeness. He will tease me to exchange my cabin. 
 1 think 1 will go to bed, Hugh." 
 
 There was little temptation to remain up. I put my hand 
 under her arm to steady the pair of us, and we passed on to 
 the quarter-deck, where I found the hatch leading to our 
 sleeping quarters shut. We lifted it, and looked into a black- 
 ness profounder than that of a coal-mine. On this 1 roared 
 for Punmeamootty. I shouted four or five times at the top of 
 my lungs, and then some voice bawled from over the rail of 
 the deck above, " What's wrong down there?" Who it was 1 
 could not tell; it was impossible to distinguish voices amid the 
 hellish clamor of the wind roaring in the rigging with the 
 sound of a tempest-swept forest. 1 took no notice, and bawled, 
 again for Punmeamootty, and, after a little, the poor colored 
 wretch came out of the darkness into the sheen of the cabin- 
 light that feebly touched the quarter-deck, crawling on his 
 hands and knees. He was soaked through, and, when he stood 
 up, could scarcely keep his feet. Indeed, forward, the seas 
 were sweeping the decks jn sheets, and each time the vessel 
 lifted her bows the water came roaring in a fury of foam to 
 the cuddy front. 
 
 We were forced to jjut the hatch on again to keep the sea 
 out of the ship till Punmeamootty came staggering out of the 
 cuddy with a lantern. Helga then dropped below with amaz- 
 ing dexterity, and I handed the light down to her, requesting 
 that she would hang it up and leave it burning, as I was in no 
 mood to " turn in " just then, wishing to see more of the 
 weather before resting, and to smoke a pipe. 1 put the hatch 
 on and re-entered the cuddy, followed by Punmeamootty. 
 
 " You seem half drowned I" said I. 
 
 " A sea knock me down, sah. Is dere danger, sab?" 
 
 '* 1 hope not," I answered. " Do you feel equal to pick- 
 ing up that mess?" and I pointed to the broken china and bit 
 of beef, and so on. 
 
 He turned a terrified eye upon them, staggering and swaying 
 wildly, and then, as. though he had not heard m}' question, he 
 exclaimed, " We all saj" dis storm comee tro' capt'n being 
 wicked man! Tankee de Lor"! we hab no eat pork! Tankee 
 de Lor'! we hab no eat pork!" 
 
 fie bared his gleaming teeth, as though in the anguish of
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 255 
 
 cold, and shook his small clinched fist at the skylight. I sat 
 down and lighted a pipe, and, having been somewhat chilled 
 by waiting out in the wet of the quarter-deck for Punmeamootty 
 to bring the lantern, I slided and clawed my way round to 
 Captain Bunting's locker for a bottle of rum that lay within. 
 As I did this, the companion door opened, and down came the 
 skipper. The wind and the wet had twisted his whiskers into 
 lines like lengths of rope. I could have burst into a laugh at 
 the sight of this singular face, framed in the streaming thatch 
 and flannel ear-protectors of his sou'wester. The water 
 poured from his oil-skins as he came to a stand at the end of 
 the table, grabbing it, and looking about him. 
 
 " What's all that?" cried he, pointing with a fat forefinger 
 to the mess on deck. This was addressed to Punmeamootty, 
 but I answered, flinging the surliest note I could manage into 
 my voice, which I had to raise into a shout, " An accident. 
 This is a beast of a ship, sir! No barge could make worse 
 weather of a breeze of wind." 
 
 1 let fall the lid of the locker, and sat upon it, poising the 
 bottle of rum, and blowing a great cloud with my pipe. 
 
 " Where is Miss Nielsen?" he exclaimed. 
 
 " Gone to bed," I answered. " Punmeamootty, reach me 
 a glass out of that rack." 
 
 The man, in taking the tumbler, reeled to a violent heel of 
 the deck, and let it fall. 
 
 " D — n it," roared the captain, " you clumsy son of a hog! 
 What more damage is to be done?" His sudden passion made 
 his fixed smile extraordinarily grotesque. " Get a basket and 
 pick up that stuff, and bear a hand! he thundered. " Has 
 Miss Helga a light?" 
 
 " Yes," I answered. " I have seen to that." 
 
 " But she may fall— she may let the lantern drop!" 
 
 '* She is abetter sailor than you," I called out; " she knows 
 how to keep her feet. Punmeamootty! a tumbler, if you 
 please, before you begin picking up that stuff. " 
 
 " I must see that Miss Nielsen's lantern is safe," said the 
 captain; and he was coming forward as though to pass through 
 the cuddy door. I sprung to my feet and confronted him on 
 widely stretched legs. 
 
 " No man," said I, " enters Miss Nielsen's sleeping quarters 
 while she and I remain in this ship." 
 
 Ho stared at me with twenty emotions working in his face. 
 His countenance then ciianged. I perceived him glance at the 
 bottle of rum that I hold by the neck, and that I was just in 
 the temper to let him have fair between his eyes had he siX-
 
 B56 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 tempted to shove past me. I believe he thought I had been 
 drinking. 
 
 " I can assure you/' he exclaimed, with a violent reaching 
 out of his mind, so to speak, in the direction of his regular and 
 familiar blandness, " that Miss Nielsen's privacy is as sacred 
 to me as to you. Will you go below and see that her light is 
 all right? It is a matter that as much concerns your safety 
 as ours.'' 
 
 Without answering him, 1 opened the locker, replaced the 
 bottle, and continuing to puff out great clouds of smoke 
 through the excitement under which I labored — for I had 
 been prepared for a hand to hand struggle with him, and my 
 heart beat fast to the resolution of my temper — I quitted tke 
 cuddy, with a loud call to Puumeamootty to follow me and 
 rejilace the hatch. 
 
 Whether the colored steward put the hatch on, whether, 
 indeed, he followed me as I bid him, 1 can not tell. 1 found 
 the lantern burning bravely and swinging fiercely under the 
 beam, and extinguished it, and lay down completely clothed, 
 with the exception of my boots, shrewdly guessing there 
 would be little sleep for me that night. 
 
 That it blew at any time as hard as it had when we were 
 aboard the " Anine " I can not say; enough that the dreadful 
 maddened motions of the old vessel made a truly hideous gale 
 of wind of the weather. Again and again she would tumble 
 off the head of a sea and fall headlong into the yawn of water 
 at the base, heeling over as she fell till you would have be- 
 lieved the line of her masts were parallel with the horizon, and 
 strike herself such a mighty blow when she got to the bottom 
 that you listened, with a thumping heart, for a crackling and 
 a rending noise of timbers to tell you that she was going to 
 pieces like a child's house of cards. It was impossible to 
 sleep: twice I was flung upon my bunk, and came very near to 
 breaking a limb. I called to Helga, and found her awake. 1 
 asked her how she did; but, silver-clear and keen as her voice 
 was, I could not catch her answer. 
 
 It is likely that toward the small hours of the morning I 
 now and again snatched a few minutes of sleep. From one of 
 these brief spells of slumber I was aroused by the blow of a sea 
 that thrilled like an electric shock through every plank and 
 fastening of the vessel, and to my great joy I observed, 
 as I thought, the faint gray of dawn coloring the dim and 
 weeping glass of the scuttle. I immediately pulled on my 
 boots and made for the hatch, but the cover was on and the 
 darkness was as deep as ever it had been at midnight, I QOii-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 257 
 
 sidered for a minute how I should make myself heard, and 
 groping my way back to my berth I took a loose plank, or 
 bunk-board as it is called, from out of the sea-bedstead, and 
 with it succeeded in raising such a thunder in the hollow cover 
 that in a few minutes it was lifted. The homely, flat, ruddy- 
 cheeked face of Jacob, his head clothed in a somewhat tattered 
 yellow sou '-wester which he had probably borrowed from one 
 of his colored mates forward, looked down upon me through 
 the glimmering square of the aperture. 
 
 " Why, bio wed, Mr. Tregarthen," cried he, "if Oi didn't 
 think the bark was ashore! But ye'd have had to hammer 
 much louder and much longer before escaping from that rat 
 trap if it hadn't been for me a-sheltering of moyself under 
 this 'ere break." 
 
 It was a wild scene indeed to arrive on deck and suddenly 
 view. Furious as was the behavioi* of the bark, I could have 
 got no notion of the weight of the surge from her capers. A 
 huge swelling, livid, frothing surface — every billow looking 
 to rear to the height of the main-top, where it was shattered 
 and blown into a snow-storm — a heaven of whirling soot : this, 
 in brief, was the picture. The vessel, however, was undamaged 
 aloft. She was lying hove-to under a band of close- reefed 
 topsail, which glanced like a sheet of foam against the stoop- 
 ing dismal dusk of the sky. None of the dark-skinned crew 
 was visible. Jacob roared in my ear that they had been half 
 wild with fear during the the night. 
 
 " There's some sort of superstition a-working in them," 
 he shouted; "they've been a-praying and a-praying horrible, 
 arter their fashion. Lucky for the ship that she was snugged 
 before the storm busted. Them poor covies ain't a-going to 
 save their lives when the call comes for them to live or perish.'* 
 
 " Who has the watch?" said I. 
 
 " The mate," he answered. 
 
 I looked at my watch, and was astonished to find that it 
 was after eight. I had believed the hour to be daybreak, but 
 indeed it was surprising that any light at all should have had 
 power to sift through that storm-laden sky. Helga at this 
 moment showed in the hatch. I took her hand. She looked 
 pale, but her mouth was firm as she swept the boiling, swollen 
 scene with her gaze, holding the deck with feet that seemed 
 to float above the planks. 
 
 " What a night it has been!" she cried. " This is a bad 
 ship for bad weather. Hour after hour I have been thinking 
 that she was going to pieces." 
 
 I told Jacob to replace the hatch-cover, and the girl and J
 
 258 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 entered the cuddy, as it was impossible to converse in the open; 
 while, spite of the parallel on which we reeled, the weight of 
 the wind carried an edge as of a Channel January blast in it. 
 In the comparative shelter of the interior we were able to talk, 
 and I told her how I had behaved to the captain on the pre- 
 vious night. 
 
 " Nothing that we can do,*' said she, " can signify while this 
 weather lasts !'^ 
 
 "No, indeed!" I exclaimed. "We must now pray for 
 the ship to live. Our leaving her is made a twopenny consid- 
 eration of by this gale." 
 
 She rose to look at the tell-tale compass, and returned to my 
 side with a look of concern and a sad shake of the head. 
 
 " This must end our dream of Santa Cruz," said she. 
 
 " It was an idle dream at the best," I answered. 
 
 " Unless it should result in disabling the bark!" she con- 
 tinued. She added with a little passion, as she looked through 
 the cuddy window on to the quarter-deck: " I wish all three 
 masts would go overboard!" 
 
 " Leaving the hull sound," said I. 
 
 " Yes, yes, leaving the hull sound. 1 would be content to 
 roll about in this hateful vessel for a whole fortnight if I could 
 be sure of being taken off at the end. Anything, anything 
 to terminate this cruel, this ridiculous captivity!" 
 
 As these words left her lips the cajstain came down the com- 
 panion-steps. He paused on seeing us, as though he had sup- 
 posed the cuddy empty, and was ashamed to be seen in that 
 figure. The dried white salt lay like flour in his eyes; his 
 whiskers were mere rags of wet hair; a large globule of salt 
 water hung at the end of his nose like a gem worn after the 
 Eastern fashion, He struggled along to where we sat, and 
 extended his hand to Helga. In his most unctuous manner, 
 that contrasted ludicrously with his streaming oil-skins, he 
 expressed the hope that she had slept well, lamented the sever- 
 ity of the gale for her sake, but assured her there was no dan- 
 ger, that the bark was making noble weather of it, and that he 
 expected the wind to moderate before noon. He held her 
 hand while he spoke, despite her visible efforts to withdraw it 
 from his grasp. He then addressed me. 
 
 " I have to apologize," he exclaimed, " for a little exhibition 
 of temper last night. I employed an expletive which I am 
 happy to think has not escaped me for years. The provoca- 
 tion was great — the anxieties of the gale — the loss of a fore- 
 topmast-staysail — the ruined crockery on deck — a bottle of my 
 valuable cordial-brandy wasted— Punmeamootty's somewhat
 
 MY DAKISH SWEETHEART. 259 
 
 insolent stupidity — the most pious mind might be reasonably 
 forgiven for venting itself in the language of the forecastle 
 under the irritation of so many ti-ials! But I offer you my 
 apologies, Mr. Tregarthen, and I hope, sir, that you slept 
 well." 
 
 I answered him coldly and with averted eyes, being now re- 
 solved to persevere in my assumption of contemptuous dislike, 
 which I also desired he should believe was animated by a de- 
 termination to punish him when I got him ashore. 
 
 He went to his cabin to refresh himself, first taking care to 
 inform us, with a large smile, that he had spent the whole of 
 the night on deck in looking after the vessel, whose safety, he 
 exclaimed, with a significant leer at Helga, " has been ren- 
 dered extraordinarily precious to me since Monday lasf 
 
 I now told her — for I had forgotten the incident — how aur 
 oily friend had whipped out with a small oath on the previous 
 night. 
 
 " So, then, he has humanized himself to you?" said she, 
 laughing. 
 
 "It is the only symptom of sincerity I have observed in 
 him," I exclaimed. 
 
 He reappeared presently, soaped, shining and smiling, with 
 dried (vhiskers floating smoke-like, on either hand a purple 
 satin cravat. But the breakfast was to be a poor one that 
 morning. The cook, it seems, could not keep the galley fire 
 alight, and we had to make the best meal we ceuld off a tin of 
 preserved meat and some biscuit and wine and water. The 
 captain was profusely apologetic to Helga, and unctuously as- 
 cribed the poverty of the meal to me, who, he said with an air 
 of jocosity, was the cause of half a ham and an excellent 
 piece of beef being rendered unfit for the table. 1 made no 
 answer to this. Indeed, Helga and I sat like mutes at that 
 table; but the captain talked abundantly, almost wholly ad- 
 dressing himself to the girl. In truth, it was now easy to see 
 that the unfortunate man was head over ears in love with her. 
 
 His gaze was a prolonged stare of admiration, and he seemed 
 to find nothing in her behavior to chill or repel him. On the 
 contrary, the more she kept her eyes downward bent, the 
 colder and harder grew her face, the more taciturn she was — 
 again and again not vouchsafing even a monosyllabic answer 
 to him — the more he warmed towards her, the more he en- 
 croached in his behavior. If he had any sensibility, it was 
 armor-clad by complacency. I never could have believed that 
 vanity had such power as I here found to sheath so impene- 
 trably the human understanding. Well, thought I to myself,
 
 2G0 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 all this means a voyage for Helga, if not for me. Assuredly 
 ho '11 not part with her this side of the Cape, and the fool's 
 hope, 1 thought, as I let my eyes rest on the grinning mask of 
 his countenance, is that he will have won her long before he 
 reaches the parallel of thirty-four degrees south, though he 
 has to make the most of every calm and of every gale of wind 
 to achieve his end. 
 
 I will not attempt to follow the hours of that day. They 
 were little more than a repetition of our experiences in the 
 "Anine." The captain came and went, but for the most 
 part Helga and I remained in the cabin. The gale somewhat 
 moderated at noon, as the skipper had predicted, but it still 
 blew too hard to make sail on the ship, and she lay hove-to 
 in the trough, sickening me to the inmost recesses of my soul 
 with her extravagant somersaults and prodigious falls and up- 
 heavals. Somewhere about half past four that afternoon, on 
 looking through the cuddy window, I saw Jacob smoking a 
 pipe in the shelter of the projection of the captain's and 
 mate's cabins. I thought I would keep him company, and, 
 having cut up a pipe of tobacco for myself, 1 quitted Helga, 
 who showed a disposition to doze, and joined the boatman. 
 
 The wind made a great howling aloft, and the thun- 
 derous wash of the breaking waters against the vessel's side put 
 a wild note of storm into the shrieking and hissing and hoot- 
 ing of the rigging. But it was fairly calm in the recess, and 
 we conversed very easily. I asked Jacob, while I pointed 
 over the lee-rail at the huge, dark- green, froth-laced backs of 
 the seas rushing from the ship in headlong race, what would 
 be his thoughts of this weather if he were aboard the " Early 
 Morn." 
 
 " Why, the lugger 'ud be doing as well as this here bucket, 
 any way," said he. 
 
 "Captain Bunting," said I, "will think that you are not 
 half grateful enough for your deliverance." 
 
 "He is a proper gentleman!" he exclaimed. "Abraham 
 swears there ain't the likes of him afloat for politeness; but 
 his crew b'ent of Abey's mind, I'm afrai^. Looks to me as 
 if there's going to be trouble." 
 
 " Anything fresh happened?" I asked. 
 
 " It's all along of this matter of sarving out pork to them 
 chaps as won't eat it, Mr. Tregarthen. The mate gave 'em 
 pork again to-day. There ain't no galley-fire alight, so it's 
 all the same to them colored chaps whether it be pork or beef. 
 But it's the principle of it what's a-sticking in their gizzards. 
 Nakier says to me, ' It would be alleede same if de water boil/
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 261 
 
 says he, ' for it is eider pork or no meat/ by which he sinni- 
 fied that if be so as it was fine weather and the galley-fire goin', 
 the men's dinner to-day 'ud be pork or nothen. Now, Mr. 
 Tregarthen, Oi allow that they don't mean to keep all on en- 
 during of this here treatment." 
 
 " What have you noticed to make you suppose this?" said 
 I, with a glance along the deserted decks, dark with sobbing 
 wet and often shrouded forward by vast showers of flying 
 spray. 
 
 " Well," he answered, " all the darkies has been a-sitting 
 below saving the chap at the wheel, there being nothen for 
 them to do on deck. I was in the fo'k'sle when Nai\ier comes 
 down and tells the men that it was to be pork again. I 
 couldn't understand him, for he spoke his own language, but 
 guessed what was up when I heerd the hullabaloo his words 
 raised. They all began to sing out together in a sort of 
 screeching voice like the row made by a crowd of women 
 a-quarreling and a-pulling the hair out of each other's heads 
 up a halley. Some skipped about in their rage as though 
 there was a fiddle going. One chap, him with a face like a 
 decayed lemon, he outs with his knife and falls a-stabbing of 
 the atmosphere; and Oi tell ye, Mr. Tregarthen, when I saw 
 that I just drawed my legs up into my bunk and tried to 
 make myself as little as possible with the hope of escaping his 
 hobservation, for damme! thought I, if that there article's 
 a-going to run amuck, as I've heerd tell the likes of him is in 
 the habit of doing, strike me dark, thinks Oi, if I be'nt the 
 fust man he'll fall foul on!" 
 
 " What was said?" 1 asked. 
 
 " Why, ask yourself the question, sir. What do monkeys 
 say when they start a-yelling? Who's to know what they 
 said?" 
 
 " How do you know, then, that it was the serving-out of the 
 pork again that excited them?" said I. 
 
 " Whoy, that there Nakier told me so arterwards." 
 
 "Ha!" I exclaimed; "and for how long did they go on 
 shrieking, as you say, and brandiehing their knives?" 
 
 " It was over wonderful soon," he answered. " Nakior 
 looked on while they was all a-shouting together, then said 
 something, and it was like blowing the head off a pint o' ale 
 —nothen remained but flatness. They just stood and listened 
 while Nakier spouted, and ye should ha' seen 'em a-nodding 
 and a-grimacing, and brandishing their arms and slapjiing 
 their legs; but they never said nothen; they just took and 
 listened. Tell 'ee, Mr. Tregarthen, the suddenness of it, and
 
 3C2 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 
 
 the looks of 'em was something to bring the pusperation out of 
 the pores of a Polar bear/^ 
 
 " What does Abraham think?" said I. 
 
 " T\'hoy, I dunno how it is, he don't seem to obsarve — ap- 
 pears to find nothen to take to heart. He's growcd a bit 
 consequential, being now what the skipj^er would call a 
 orficcr, and though he sleeps forrard his feelings is aft. 'Tis 
 mere growling, he thinks, with the fellows. But there's 
 moren't than that," said he, striking a match and catching 
 the flame of it in his clasped hand, and lighting his pipe as easily 
 as if there were not a breath of air stirring. 
 
 " The lunatic of a captain has his eyes in his head," said I, 
 thinking aloud rather than conversing. " If he can't see the 
 mischief his mad notion of conversion is breeding, it is not 
 for me to point it out. In fact, I heartily wish the Malays 
 would seize the bark and sail her to Madeira or the Canaries. 
 Is it not abominable that Miss Kielsen and I should be carried 
 away to the Cape of Good Hope against our will by that long- 
 whiskered rogue?" signifying the captain by a backward mo- 
 tion of my head at the cabin. 
 
 " Abraham was a-telling me about this here traverse. The 
 skipper's gone and fallen in love with the young lady, ain't 
 he?" said Jacob, with a grin overspreading his flat face. 
 
 " Yes," said I, " and hopes by keeping her aboard to win 
 her heart. The dolt!" 
 
 " Dunno shout dolt, sir!" exclaimed Jacob. " She's a nice 
 looking young gal, is Miss Nielsen, and, 1 allow, just the sort 
 of wife as a shipmaster would live heasy vith." 
 
 " You argue as vilely as Abraham," said I, looking at him 
 angrily. " Will you pretend that this captain is not acting 
 outrageously in detaining the young lady on board his ship — 
 imprisoning her, in short — for that is what it comes to?" 
 
 A little look of intelligence gave a new expression to the flat- 
 faced fellow's smile as he respectfully surveyed me. 
 
 " Well, sir — I don't blame you, I can't blame you," he ex- 
 claimed. " I've kep' company myself. I was for five years 
 along with as nice a gal as was ever seen in Deal, a-courting 
 and a-courting, and always too pore to git spliced. I know 
 what the passion of jealousy is. She took up with a corporal 
 of marines, and, I tell ye, I suffered. It came roight, then it 
 went wrong again, and it ended in her marrying a measly 
 little sHce of a chap, named Billy Tusser, who'd saved a bit 
 out o' sprattin' and hovellin'. I can't blame 'ee, sir." 
 
 It was not a matter to pursue with this worthy man, whose 
 small intelligence lay too deep to be worth boring for; so I
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 263 
 
 dropped the subject, and talked afresh of the colored crew, and 
 continued lingering till I could not have told how long our 
 chat lasted. Though the gale was much less hard than it had 
 blown down to noon, it was still a very violent wind, and the 
 sea as wild as ever it had been, with the shadow of the even- 
 ing now to add a darker tinge of gloom to the whirl of stoop- 
 ing, sooty heaven, under which every head of surge broke like 
 a fash of ghastly light. The vessel was a straugely desolate 
 picture — not a living creature to be seen forward, the decks 
 half drowned, water sluicing white otf the forecastle rim, or 
 blowing up into the wind from off that raised deck in bursts 
 of crystalline smoke, like corkscrew leapings of fine snow to 
 the hurl of a blast roaring across a wintery moor. The slack 
 gear curved black with wet; again and again the vessel would 
 pitch into the bow sea till the spreading froth made by the 
 massive plunge of her round bows rose to her forecastle rail. 
 I had had enough of the cold and the wet; the cheerless pict- 
 ure of the bark and the ocean, too, was unspeakably depress- 
 ing, and, with a glance round at the near horizon of broken 
 creaming waters on which nothing showed, 1 bestowed a nod 
 of farewell on Jacob, and re-entered the cuddy. 
 
 Captain Bunting was sitting close to Helga. The light was 
 so weak in this interior that 1 had to peer a little to make 
 sure that it was the caj^tain, for the dim figure might well 
 have been the mate's. Helga was at the extreme end of the 
 locker, as though she had uneasily worked her way from his 
 side while they sat; but he had followed, and was now close, 
 and her next and only step to get rid of him must be to rise. 
 He was addressing her very earnestly when I entered; his whis- 
 kers floated from his cheeks as he bent toward her. Charged 
 as the cuddy was with the complaining sounds of the laboring 
 fabric, speech was very easy within it, nor was it necessary to 
 raise the voice. Indeed, the interior had the effect of a hush 
 upon my ears, coming, as I did fresh from the shriek and 
 thunder of the weather out on deck. 
 
 On seeing me the captain instantly broke off, sat up, and 
 called out: 
 
 " Well, and how are things looking on deck?" 
 
 Helga rose and went to the little window against the door. 
 
 " The weather could not be worse," I answered, with the 
 air and tone of sullenness I had resolved on. " Your ship is 
 too old and squab for such a conflict." 
 
 " She is old, but she is a stout ship," he answered. " She 
 will bo afloat when scores of what you might consider beeni- 
 ties have vanished,"
 
 304 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " I thiuk not," said I, looking toward Helga, and wonder- 
 ing what the man had been saying to her. 
 
 " Let us hope/' he exclaimed, lifting a great pilot coat 
 from the locker and struggling into it, " that the necessity for 
 your remaining here will not last very much longer. I should 
 have expected handsoiner treatment at your hands, Mr. Tre- 
 garthen." 
 
 " I do not know what you can find to base such an expecta- 
 tion on,'' I cried. " Your detention of us is cruel, and, as I 
 hope and believe, punishable. But there is no good in dis- 
 cussing that matter with you here and now. I have merely to 
 beg that we may be as strangers while we are so unfortunate 
 as to be together in the same ship." 
 
 He drew his sou'-wester down upon his head, surveying me 
 in the meanwhile; but 1 witnessed no malevolence in his re- 
 gard; indeed, I may say no trace of temper. His enduring 
 smile lay broad with such expansion, indeed, as gave an air of 
 elation to his face. 
 
 " No," said he, wagging his head, while he slipped the 
 elastic baud of his sou'-wester behind his whisker, " we will 
 not live together as strangers, as you desire. Brotherly love is 
 still iDracticable, and nothing that you can say or do. my youug 
 friend, shall dissuade me from cultivating it. That we shall 
 be long together I do not believe," he added, with a signifi- 
 cance that astonished me and sent my eyes askant at Helga, 
 whose back was still upon us. " Meanwhile endeavor to be 
 contented. To have content is to have all, and to have all is 
 to be richer than the richest." 
 
 He inclined his sou'-westered head in an odd benedictory 
 grotesque nod or bow, and, with a half pause in his manner as 
 though he would call some speech to Heiga, turned on his heel 
 and went on deck. 
 
 " What has he been saying, Helga?" 
 
 She looked round, and, finding the captain gone, came to 
 my side and locked her fiugers apon my arm. She had drawn 
 to me with a pale face, but the blood flushed her throat and 
 cheeks as she let fall her eyes from mine. I had never before 
 thought her so sweet as she showed at that moment. She was 
 without a hat, and her short fair hair glimmered on her head 
 in the gathering gloom of the evening with a sheen like the 
 glancing of bright amber. My memory gave me a thought 
 full of beauty — a wild caprice of sentiment at such a time! 
 
 The freshness of new hay is on thy hair. 
 And the withdi-awing innocence of home 
 Within ^hine eye.
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEAET. 265 
 
 *' What has he been sajang to you, Helga?" 
 
 *' That he loves me," she answered, now fixing her artless, 
 tender gaze upon me, though her blush lingered. 
 
 " A fine time to tell you such a thing! Does that sort of 
 sea-captain wait for a gale of wind to propose to a girl?" I 
 exclaimed, with a sudden irritation of jealousy tingling through 
 me, and I looked at her closely and suspiciously. 
 
 " I wanted to be angry, Hugh, but could not,'' said she. 
 *' T hate the man, yet 1 could not be angry with him. He spoke 
 of his daughter — he did not talk through his nose — he did not 
 cant at all. Is ' cant ' the right word? I felt sorry; I had 
 not the heart to answer him in rudeness, and to have risen 
 and left him while he was speaking would have been rude- 
 ness.'' 
 
 I made a slight effort to disengage my arm from her clasp. 
 
 " He told me — no doubt you heard him," said I — " he told 
 me he believed there would be no necessity to keep me long. 
 He is a clever man — a shrewd man. Well, after this I shall 
 believe in all the proverbs about women." 
 
 " What do you mean, Hugh?" she exclaimed in a startled 
 voice, letting fall her hands and staring at me. 
 
 " What do you mean?" 
 
 " Why, that I am sorry for the man, and hate him." 
 
 "Oh! if you keej) sorry long, you will soon cease to hate 
 him." 
 
 *' No, no!" she cried with a little passion, making as if to 
 clasp my arm afresh and then shrinking. " I could not help 
 his coming here and speaking to me." 
 
 "That is true." 
 
 " Oh, Hugh, why are you angry?" 
 
 Her gaze pleaded, her lips twitched, even as she looked at 
 me her blue eyes filled. Her grieved, pretty face — her wist- 
 ful, tender, tearful face must have transformed my temper 
 into impassioned pity, into self-reproach, in tokeen self-resent- 
 ment, even had there been solid ground for vexation. I took 
 her hand and lifted it to my lips. 
 
 " Forgive me, Helga; we have been much together. Our 
 association and your father's dying words make mo think of 
 you as mine until — until — the long and short of it is, Helga, 
 1 am jealous!" 
 
 An expression of delight entered and vanished from her face. 
 She stood thoughtfully looking down on the deck. Just then 
 Punmeamootty entered to prepare the table for supper, and 
 Helga again went to the cabin window and stood looking out, 
 lightly, with unconscious ease and grace, swaying to the
 
 2C6 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 stormy heave of the deck with her hands clasped behind her 
 in a posture of meditation. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A NIGHT OF HORROR. 
 
 The gale broke on the morning of Thursday, the second of 
 November. The compacted heaven of cloud scattered in 
 swelling' cream-colored masses; the sun shone out of the wide 
 lakes of moist blue, and the sea turned from the cold and sickly 
 gray of the stormy hours into a rich sapphire, with a high swell 
 and a plentiful chasiug of foaming billows. By four o'clock 
 in the afternoon the ocean had smoothed down into a tropical 
 expanse of quietly rising and falh'ng waters, with the hot sun 
 sliding westward and the bark stemming the sea afresh under 
 all cloths which could be piled upon her, the wind a small 
 breeze, about west, and the sea-line a flawless girdle. 
 
 The evening that followed was one of quiet beauty. There 
 was a young moon overhead, with power enough to drop a lit- 
 tle trickling of silver into the dark sea nnder her; the clouds 
 had vanished, and the stars shone brightly with a very abund- 
 ant showering of meteoric lights above the trucks of the silent 
 swaying masts. 
 
 As we paced the deck the captain joined us. Short of going 
 to our respective cabins there was no means of getting rid of 
 him; so we continued to patrol the jalanks, withhimatHelga's 
 side, talking, talking— oh. Heaven! how he talked! His 
 manner was distressingly caressing. Helga kept hold of my 
 arm, and meanwhile I, true to that posture I had maintained 
 for the past three days, listened or sent my thoughts elsewhere, 
 rarely speaking. In the course of his ceaseless chatter he 
 struck upon the subject of his crew and their victuals, and 
 told us he was sorry that we were not present when Nakier 
 and two other colored men came aft into the cuddy after he 
 had taken sights and gone below. 
 
 " 1 am certain," he exclaimed, smiting his leg, " that I 
 have made them reflective! I believe 1 could not mistake. 
 Nakier in particular hstened with attention, and looked at his 
 mates with an expression as though conviction were being 
 slowly borne in upon him.'' 
 
 I pricked up my ears at this, for here was a matter that had 
 been causing me some anxious thought, and I broke away from 
 my sullen, resentful behavior to question him. 
 
 " What brought the men aft?" 
 
 *' The same tiresome storv-" he answered, speakmg loudly.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 207 
 
 anrl seemingly forgetful of or indifferent to the pair of yellow 
 ears which, 1 might warrant him, were thirstily listening at 
 the helm. " They ask for beef, for beef, for nothing but 
 beef, and I say yes — beef one day, pork another;- beef for your 
 bodies and pork for your souls. I shall conquer them; and 
 what a triumph it will be! Though I should make no further 
 progress with them, yet I could never feel too grateful for a 
 decisive victory over a gross, imbecile superstition that, like a 
 shutter, though it be one of many, helps to keej) out the light. " 
 
 He then went on to tell us what he had said, how he had 
 reasoned, and I shall not soon forget the unctuous, self-satisfied 
 chuckle which broke from the folds of his throat as he paused 
 before asking Helga what she thought of that as an example 
 of pure logic. 1 listened, wondering that a man who could 
 talk as he did should be crazy enough to attempt so perilous 
 an experiment as the attempting to win his crew over to his 
 own views of religion by as dangerous an insult as his fanatical 
 mind could have lighted upon. It was the more incompre- 
 hensible to me in that the fellow had started upon his crude 
 missionary scheme when there were but two whites in the ship 
 to eleven believers in the Prophet. 
 
 I waited until his having to fetch breath enabled me to put 
 in a word. 1 then briefly and quietly related what had passed 
 in the forecastle as described to me by Jacob Minnikin. 
 
 " And what then, Mr. Tregarthen?'' said he, and I seemed 
 to catch a sneer threading, so to speak, his bland utterance: 
 the moon gave but little light as 1 have said, and 1 could not 
 see his face. " AVhen a man starts on the work oi convert- 
 ing, he must not be afraid.'^ 
 
 " Your men have knives— they are devils, so I have heard, 
 when aroused — you may not be afraid, but you have no right 
 to provoke peril for us,'^ 1 said. 
 
 " The cockswain of a life-boat should have a stout heart,'* 
 he exclaimed. " Miss Nielsen, do not be alarmed by your 
 courageous friend's apprehension. My duty is exceedingly 
 simple. 1 must do what is right. liight is divinely protect- 
 ed," and I saw by the pose of his head that he cast his eyes up 
 at the sky. 
 
 1 nuilged Helga as a hint not to speak, just breathlessly 
 whispering, " He is not to be reasoned with." 
 
 It was a little before ten o'clock that night when the girl re- 
 tired to her cabin. The captain, addressing her in a simper- 
 ing, lover-like voice, had importuned her to change her cabin. 
 She needed to grow fretful before her dotcrniined refusals 
 silenced him. He entered his berth when she had gone, ^nd I
 
 268 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 took my pipe to enjoy a quiet smoke on deck. After the up- 
 rotir of the past three days, the serenity of the night was ex- 
 quisitely soothing. The moon shone in a curl of silver; the 
 canvas soared in pallid visible sj^aces star^vard; there was a 
 pleasant rippling sound of gently stirred waters alongside, and 
 the soft westerly night-wind fanned the cheek with the warmth 
 of an infant's breath. The decks ran darkling forward; the 
 shadow of the courses flung a dye that was deeper than the 
 gloom of the hour betwixt the rails, and nothing stirred save 
 the low-lying stars which slipped up and down past the fore- 
 castle rail under the crescent of the foresail as the bark court- 
 esied. 
 
 Nevertheless, though I could not see the men, I heard a deli- 
 cate sound of voices proceeding from the block of darkness 
 where the forecastle front lay. Mr. Jones had charge of the 
 watch, and, on my stepping aft to the wheel, I found Jacob 
 grasjiing the spokes, having relieved the helm at four bells — 
 ten o'clock. He was not to be accosted while on that duty; 
 and my dislike of the mate had not been lessened by the few 
 words which had passed between us since the day when the 
 Cape steamer had gone by, and by my observation of his fawn- 
 ing behavior to the captain. I briefly exclaimed that it was a 
 fine night, received some careless, drowsy answer from him, 
 and, with pipe betwixt my lips, lounged lonely on the l#e side 
 of the deck, often overhanging the rail, and viewing the sea- 
 glow as it crept by, with my mind full of Helga, of my home, 
 of our experiences so fai', and of what might lie before us. 
 
 I was startled out of a fit of musing by the forecastle bell 
 ringing five. The clear, keen chimes floated like an echo from 
 the sea, and I caught a faint reverberation of them in the hol- 
 low canvas. It was half past ten. I knocked the ashes out 
 of my pipe, and, going on to the quarter-deck, dropped through 
 the hatch. 
 
 The lantern swinging in the corridor betwixt the berths was 
 burning. Ilightly called to Helga to know if all was well with 
 her, but she was silent, and, as I might suppose, asleep. I 
 put out the light, as my custom now was, and, partially un- 
 clothing myself in the dark, got into my bunk and lay for a 
 little watching the dance of a phantom star or two in the dim 
 black round of the scuttle close against my head, sleepily won- 
 dermg how long this sort of life was to continue, what time 
 was to pass, and how much was to happen before I should be 
 restored to the comfort of my own snug bedroom at home; 
 and thus musing, too drowsy perhaps for melancholy, I fdJ 
 asleep.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART^ 269 
 
 I was awakened by some one beating heavily upon the bulk- 
 head of the next-door cabin. 
 
 "Mr. Tregartheu! Mr. Tregarthen!'^ roared a voice; then 
 thump! thump! went the blows of a massive fist or handspike. 
 " For Gawd a'mighty^s sake wake up and turn out! — there's 
 murder a-doing! Which is your cabin?" 
 
 I recognized the voice of Abraham, disguised as it was by 
 horror and by the panting of his breath. 
 
 The exclamation, " There's murder a-doing!" collected my 
 wits in a flash, and I was wide awake and conscious of the 
 man's meaning ere he had fairly delivered himself of his cry. 
 
 " I am here — I will be with you!" I shouted, and, without 
 pausing further to attire myself, dropped from my bunk 
 and made with outstretched hands for the door, which I felt 
 for and opened. 
 
 It was pitch dark in this passage betwixt the cabins, with- 
 out even the dim gleam the porthole in the berth offered to the 
 eye to rest on. 
 
 " Where are you, Abraham?" I cried. 
 
 " Here, sir!" he exclaimed, almost in my ear, and, lifting 
 my hand, I touched him. 
 
 " The crew's up!" he cried. " They've killed the mate^ 
 and by this time, I allow, the capt'n's done for." 
 
 " Where's Jacob?" 
 
 " Gawd He only knows, sir!" 
 
 "Are you armed? Do you grip anything?" 
 
 " Nothen, nothen. I run without stopping to arm myself. 
 I'll tell ye about it — but it^s awful to be a-talking in this here 
 blackness with murder happening close by." 
 
 He still panted as from heavy recent exertion, and his voice 
 faltered as though he were sinking from a wound. 
 
 " What is it.^" cried the clear voice of Helga from her berth. 
 
 " Open your door!" I said, knowing that it was her practice 
 to shoot the bolt. " All is darkness here. Let us in — dress 
 yourself by feeling for your clothes — the Malays have risen 
 upon the captain and mate — it may be our turn next, and we 
 must make a stand in your cabin. Hush!" 
 
 In the interval of her quitting her bunk to open the door, 1 
 strained my ears. Nothing was to be heard save near and 
 distant straining noises rising out of the vessel as she heeled 
 on the long westerly swell. But then wo were deep down, with 
 two decks for any noise made on the poop to penetrate. 
 
 " The door is open," said llelga. 
 
 I had one hand on Abraliam's arm, and, feeling with the 
 other, I guided him into Helga's berth, the position of which.
 
 270 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 as he had never before been in this part of the vessel, he could 
 not have guessed. 1 then closed the door and bolted it. 
 
 " Dress yourself quickly, Helgal" said I, talking to her in 
 the mine-like blindness of this interior that was untouched by 
 the star or two that danced in her cabin window as in mine. 
 
 " Tell me what has happened!'^ she exclaimed. 
 
 "Speak, Abraham!" said I. 
 
 " Lor'! but Oi don't seem able to talk without a light," he 
 answered. " Ain't there no lantern here? If there's a lan- 
 tern, I've got three or four loocifers in my pocket." 
 
 " Hist!" I cried. " I hear footsteps." 
 
 We held our breath: all was still. Some sound had fallen 
 upon my ear. It resembled the slapping of planks with naked 
 feet to my fancy, that had been terrified by Abraham's sudden 
 horrible report, before there was time for my muscles and 
 nerves to harden into full waking strength. 
 
 " What d'ye hear?" hoarsely whispered Abraham. 
 
 " It was imagination. Helga, can we light the lantern?" 
 
 She answered yes — she was ready. 
 
 " Strike a match, Abraham, that 1 may see where the lan- 
 tern hangs," said I. 
 
 He did so, holding the flame in his fist. I opened the door, 
 whipped out, took down the lantern and darted in again, bolt- 
 ing the door anew with a thrill of fear following upon the haste 
 I had made through imagiuation of one of those yellow-skins 
 crouching outside with naked knife in hand. I swiftly lighted 
 the lantern, and placed it in Helga's bunk. Abraham was of 
 an ashen paleness, and I knew my own cheeks to be bloodless. 
 
 "Ought we to fear the crew?" cried Helga. "We have 
 not wronged them. They will not want our lives," 
 
 " Dorn't trust 'em, dorn't trust 'em!" exclaimed Abraham. 
 " Ain't there nothen here to sarve as weapons?" he added, 
 rolling his eyes around the cabin. 
 
 " What is the story? Tell it now, man, tell it!" I cried, in 
 a voice vehement with nerves. 
 
 He answered, speaking low, very hastily and hoarsely: 
 
 " Oi'd gone below at eight bells. Oi found Nakier harangu- 
 ing some of the men as was in the fok'sle; but he broke off 
 when he see me. I smoked a pipe, and then tamed in and 
 slep' for an hour or so; then awoke aud spied five or six of the 
 chaps a-whispering together up in a coruer of the fok'sle. 
 They often looked moy way, but there worn't loight enough to 
 let ^em know that my_ eyes was open, and 1 lay secretly 
 a-watching 'em, smelling mischief. Then a couple of 'em 
 Vr^iit on deck, mO, t|ie rest lay down. Nothen happened for
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEABT. S71 
 
 some time. Meanwhile Oi lay woide awake, listening and 
 watching. ^Twas about seven bells, I reckon, when some one 
 — Oi think it was Nakiet- — calls softly down through the hatch, 
 and instantly all the fellows, who as I could ha' swore was 
 sound asleep, dropped from their hammocks like one man, and 
 the fok'sle was empty. I looked round to make sure that it 
 were empty, then sneaks up and looks aft with my chin no 
 higher than the coaming. I heered a loud shriek, and a cry 
 of 'Oh, God! Oh, God I Help! Help!' and now, guessing 
 what was happening, and believing that the tastin' of blood 
 would drive them fellows mad, and that Oi should be next if 
 Jacob worn't already gone, him being at the wheel, as I might 
 calculate by his not being forrard, Oi took and run, and here 
 Oi am.'' 
 
 He passed the back of his hand over his brow, following the 
 action with a fling of his fingers from the wrist; and, indeed, 
 it was now to be seen that his face streamed with sweat. 
 
 " Do you believe they have murdered the captain?" cried 
 Helga. 
 
 " I dorn't doubt it — 1 can't doubt it. There seemed two 
 gangs of 'em. Oi run for my life, and yet I see two gangs," 
 answered Abraham. 
 
 " Horrible!" exclaimed the girl, looking at me with fixed 
 eyes, yet she seemed more shocked than frightened. 
 
 " Did not I foresee this?" 1 exclaimed. " Where were 
 your senses, man — you who lived among them, eat and drank 
 with them? It would be bad enough if they were white men; 
 but how stands our case, do you think, in a ship seized by sav- 
 ages who have been made to hate us for our creed and for the 
 color of our skins?" 
 
 "Hark!" cried Helga. 
 
 We strained our hearing, but nothing was audible to me sav- 
 ing my heart, that beat loud in my ears. 
 
 " I thought I heard the sound of a splash," she exclaimed. 
 
 " If they should ha' done for my mate, Jacob!" cried Abra- 
 ham. " As the Lord's good, 'twill be too hard. Fust wan, 
 then another, and now nowt but me left of our little company 
 as left Deal but a day or tew ago, as it seems when Oi looks 
 back." 
 
 " Are we to perish here like poisoned rats in a hole?" said 
 I. "If they clap the hatch-cover on, what's to become of us?" 
 
 " Who among them can navigate the ship?" asked Helga. 
 
 " Ne'er a one," rei)lied Abraham; " that lean tell 'ee from 
 recollecting of the questions Nakier's asted me from toime to 
 toime."
 
 S72 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " But if the body of them should come below/' cried I, 
 *' and force that door — as easily done as blowing out that light 
 there — are we to be butchered with empty hands, looking at 
 them without a lift of our arms, unless it be to implore mercy? 
 Here-are two of us — Englishmen! Are we to be struck down 
 as if we were women?" 
 
 " There are three of us!" said Helga. 
 
 " What are our weapons?" I exclaimed, wildly sweeping the 
 little hole of a cabin with my eyes. " They have their knives!" 
 
 " Give me the handhug of 'em one arter the other," said 
 Abraham, fetching a deep breath and then spitting on his 
 hands, " and I'll take the whole 'leveu whilst ye both sit down 
 and look on. But all of them at wanst — all drouk with rage 
 and snapping round a man as if he was a sheep and they 
 wolves — " he breathed deeply again, slowly shaking his head. 
 
 " The planks in that bunk are loose," said 1, " but what 
 can we do svith boards?" 
 
 " Hugh, I will go on deck!" suddenly exclaimed Helga. 
 
 "You?" cried I. "No, indeed! You will remain here. 
 There must be two of us for them to deal with before the third 
 can be come at!" 
 
 " I will go on deck!" she repeated. " I have less cause to 
 fear them than you. They know that I am acquainted with 
 navigation — they have always looked at me with kindness in 
 their faces. Let me go and talk to them!" 
 
 She maile a step to the door — I gripped her arm, and brought 
 her to my side and held her. 
 
 " What is to be done is for us two men to do!" said I. " We 
 must think, and we must wait." 
 
 " Hugh, let me go!" she cried. " I am certain they will 
 listen to me, and I shall be able to make terms. Unless there 
 be a navigator among them, what can they do with the ship in 
 this great ocean?" She struggled, crying again: " Let me go 
 to them, Hugh!" 
 
 " Dorn't you do nothen of the sort, sir!" exclaimed Abra- 
 ham. " What'd happen? They'd tarn to and lock her up 
 until they'd made an end of you and me, and then she'd be 
 left alone aboard this wessel — alone, I mean, with eleven yal- 
 ler savages. Gord preserve us! If you let go of her, sir, Oi 
 shall have to stop the road. " 
 
 There was something of deliberateness in his speech: his 
 English spirit was coming back with the weakening of the hor- 
 ror that had filled him when he first camo rushing below. 
 
 Some one knocked lightly on the door. At the same instank
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. S73 
 
 my eye was taken by the glance of lamp or candle flame in the 
 opening in the bulkhead overlooking the narrow passage. 
 
 "Hush!" cried I. 
 
 The knock was repeated. ]t was a very soft tapping, as 
 though made by a timid knuckle. 
 
 " Who is there?" 1 shouted, gathering myself together with 
 a resolution to leap upon the first dark throat that showed; for 
 I believed this soft knocking — this soundless approach — a 
 Malay ruse, and my veins tingled with the madness that enters 
 the blood of a man in the supreme moment whose expiry 
 means life or death to him. 
 
 " It is me, master! Open, master! It is allee right!" 
 
 " That's Nakier!" exclaimed Abraham. 
 
 •' Who is it?" 1 cried. 
 
 " Me, sah— Nakier. It is allee right, I say. Do not fear. 
 Our work is done. We wish to speakee with you, and be 
 friend." 
 
 " How many of you are there outside?" I called. 
 
 *' No man but Nakier," he answered. 
 
 "How are we to know that?" bawled Abraham. "The 
 most of you have naked feet. A whole army of ye might 
 sneak aft, and no one guess it." 
 
 " 1 swear Nakier is alone. Lady, you shall trust Nakier. 
 Our work is done; it is allee right, I say. See, you t'ink I am 
 not alone; you are afraid of my knife; go a leetle way back — 
 I trow my knife to you." 
 
 We recoiled to the bulkhead, and Abraham roared " Heave!" 
 The knife fell upon the deck close to my feet. I pounced upon 
 it as a cat upon a mouse, but dropped it with a cry. " Oh, 
 God, it is bloody!" 
 
 "Give it mo!" exclaimed Abraham, in a hoarse shout; 
 " it'll be bloodier yet, now I've got it, if that there Nakier's 
 a-playing false." 
 
 Grasping it in his right hand, he slipped back the bolt, and 
 opened the door. The sensations of a life-time of wild experi- 
 ences might have been concentrated in that one instant. I had 
 heard and read so much about the treachery of the Malay that 
 when Abraham Hung open the little cabin door I was prepared 
 for a. rush of dusky shapes, and to find myself grappling — but 
 not for life, since death I knew to be certain, armed as everj 
 creature of them was with the deadly blade of the sailor's 
 sheath knife. Instead — erect in the corridor, immediately 
 abreast of our cabin, holding a bull's-eye lamp in his hand, 
 stood Nakier^ who on seeing us put the light on the deck, and
 
 274: MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 saluted us by bringing both hands to his brow. Abraham put 
 liis head out. 
 
 " There ain't nobody here but Nakier!" he cried. 
 
 " What have you done?'' I exclaimed, looking at the man, 
 who in the combined light showed plainly, and whose handsome 
 features had the modest look, the prepossessing air I had found 
 when my gaze first rested on him in this ship. 
 
 " The captain is kill — Pallunappachelly, he kill him. The 
 mate is kill — with this ban'." He held up his arm. 
 
 " Where's moy mate?" thundered Abraham. 
 
 " No man touch him. Jacob, he allee right. Two only." 
 He held up two fingers. " The captain and Misser Jones. 
 They treat us like dog, and we bite like dog!" he added, show- 
 ing his teeth, but with nothing whatever of fierceness or wild- 
 ness in his grin. 
 
 " What do you want?" ] repeated. 
 
 " We wantchee you come speak with us. We allee swear on 
 de Koran not to hurt you but to serve you, and you serve we.'* 
 
 1 stood staring, not knowing how to act. 
 
 *' He is to be trusted," said Helga. 
 
 " But the others?" 1 said. 
 
 " They can do nothing without us." 
 
 " Without 07ie of us. But the others!" 
 
 " We may trust them," she repeated with an accent of con 
 viction. 
 
 Nakier's eyes, gleaming in the lantern-light, were bent upon 
 us as we whispered. He i^erceived my irresolution, and, once 
 again putting down the bull's-eye lamp on the deck, he clasped 
 and extended his hands in a posture of impassioned entreaty. 
 
 " We allee swear we no hurt you!" he cried in a voice of 
 soft entreaty that was absolutely sweet with the melody of its 
 tones; " dat beautiful young lady — oh! 1 would kill here," 
 he cried, gesticulating as though he would stab his heart, " be- 
 fore dat good, kind, clever lady be harm. Oh! you may trust 
 us! We hab done our work. Mr. Wise, he be capt'n; you be 
 gentleman — passengaire; you live upstair and be very much 
 comfortable. De beautiful young lady, she conduct dis ship 
 to Afric. Oh! no, no, no! you are allee safe. My men shall 
 trow down dere knives upon de table when you come, and we 
 swear on de Koran to be your friend, and you be friend to we." 
 
 " Let's go along with him, Mr. Tregarthen,"said Abraham. 
 ** Nakier, 1 shall stick to this here knife. Where's moy mate 
 Jacob? If 'ere a man ©f ye's hurted him — " 
 
 " It is no time to threaten," I whispered, angrily, shoving 
 past him. " Come, Helga! Nakier, pick up that bull's-eye
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART, 375 
 
 and lead the way, and, Abraham, follow with tha<; lantern, 
 will you?" 
 
 In silence we gained the hatch. It lay open. Nakier sprung 
 through it, and, one after the other, we ascended. The wind 
 had fallen scantier since I was on deciv last, and though the 
 loftier canvas was aslee]?, silent as carved marble, and spread- 
 ing in spectral wanness under the bright stars, there was no 
 weight in the wind to hold steady the heavy folds of the fore 
 and main courses, which swung in and out with the dull sound 
 of distant artillery as the bark leaned from side to side. The 
 cuddy lamp was brightly burning, and the first glance I sent 
 through the ojjen door showed me the whole of the crew, as I 
 for the instant supposed — though 1 afterward found that one 
 of them was at the wheel — standing at the table, ranged on 
 either hand of it, all as motionless as a company of soldiers 
 drawn up on parade. Every dark face was turned our way, 
 and never was shipboard picture more startling and impressive 
 than this one of stirless figures, dusky fiery eyes, knitted brows, 
 most of the countenances hideous, but all various in their ugh- 
 ness. Their caps and queer headgear lay in a heap upon the 
 table. ISf akier entered and paused, with a look to us to follow. 
 Helga was fearlessly pressing forward. I caught her by the 
 hand and cried to Nakier: 
 
 " Those men are all armed.*' 
 
 He rounded upon them, and uttered some swift feverish 
 sentence in his native tongue. In a moment every man whip- 
 ped out his knife from the sheath in which it lay buried at the 
 hip, and placed it upon the table. Nakier again spoke, pro- 
 nouncing the words with a passionate gesture, on which Pun- 
 meamootty gathered the knives into one of the caps and handed 
 them to Nakier, who brought the cap to Helga and placed it 
 at her feet. On his doing this Abraham threw the blood- 
 stained knife he held into the cap. 
 
 It was at that moment we were startled by a cry of " Be- 
 low, there!'' 
 
 " Whoy, it's Jacob!" roared Abraham, and stepping back- 
 ward and looking straight up, he shouted, "Jacob, ahoy! 
 Where are ye, mate?" 
 
 " Up in the maintop pretty nigh dead," came down the 
 leather-lunged resjionse from the silence up above. 
 
 " Thank Gawd you're alive!" cried Abraham. "It's all 
 roight now — it's all roigbt now." 
 
 " Who's a-going to make me believe it?" cried Jacob. 
 
 1 stared up, and fancied 1 could just perceive the black nob 
 of his hCf^d projected over the rim of the top,
 
 276 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " You can come down, Jacob," I cried. ** All danger, 1 
 hope, is over." 
 
 " Danger over?" he bawled. " Whoy, they've killed the 
 mate and chucked him overboard, and if I hadn't taken to my 
 heels and jumped aloft they'd have killed me." 
 
 " No, no — not true; not true, sahl" shrieked Nakier. 
 " Come down, Jacob! It is allee right!" 
 
 " Where's the captain?" cried Jacob. 
 
 " Him overboard!" answered Nakier. "It is allee right, 
 I say!" 
 
 A shudder ran through me as I glanced at the cabin which 
 the captain had occupied. I can not express how the horror 
 of this sudden, shocking, bloody tragedy was heightened by 
 Nakier 's cool and easy acceptance of the deed, as though the 
 two men whom he and his had slain were less to his sympathies 
 than had they been a couple of fowls whose necks had been 
 wrung. 
 
 " Pray come down, Jacob!" said Helga, sending her voice 
 clear as a bell into the silent, towering heights. " You, as 
 well as Abraham, are to be known as an Englishman." 
 
 This little scornful stroke, which was extremely happy in 
 that it was unintelligible to Nakier and the others, had the 
 desired effect. 
 
 " Why, if it is all right, then I suppose it be all right," I 
 heard Jacob say, and a few moments after his figure, with 
 'longshore clumsiness, came slowly down the rigging. 
 
 As he sprung from the bulwark rail on to the deck he whipped 
 off his cap and dashed it down on to the planks, and with the 
 utmost agitation of voice and manner, danced around his cap 
 as he vociferated while he flourished his fist at Abraham: 
 
 " Now, what did Oi say? All along I've been a-telling ye 
 that that there pork job was a-going to get our throats cut. 
 Whoy didn't ye stop it? Whoy didn't ye tell the capt'n what 
 you seed and knowed? Freight! Whoy, I moight ha' died 
 in that there top and rolled overboards, and what yarn was ye 
 going to give my missis as to my bending, if so be as ever ye 
 got ashore at Deal agin?" 
 
 He continued to shout after this fashion, meanwhile tum- 
 bling and reeling about his cap as though it were a mark for 
 him upon the theater of this deck on which to act his part. 
 But though it appeared a very ecstasy of rage in him, the out- 
 break seemed wholly due to revulsion of feeling. Nakier stood 
 motionlessly eying him; the others also remained at table, all 
 preserving their sentinel postures. At last the fellow made 
 ^n end, put his cap on, and was silent; breathing hard.
 
 MY DAKISH SWEETHEART. 277 
 
 " Will you come in, sah? Will you enter, lady? Misser 
 Wise, it is allee right. Come along, Jacob, my mate!" 
 
 Thus saying, Nakier re-entered the cuddy, and the four of 
 us followed him. There was a dark stain on the bare plank 
 close against the coaming or ledge of the door of the captain's 
 cabin. It was the short, wild, startled sideways spring which 
 Abraham gave that caused me to look at it. The very soul 
 within me seemed to shrink at the sight. Nakier exclaimed: 
 
 " It is easy to scrape out," motioning as though he scraped 
 with his little delicately shaped hand. He then addressed one 
 of the fellows at the table, who nodded, sweeping the air with 
 his arm as he did so. 
 
 It now occurred to me with the marvelous swiftness of 
 thought that the cap containing the men's knives still lay upon 
 the deck where Nakier had lodged it at Helga's feet, and the 
 instant motion of my mind was to return to the quarter-deck, 
 pick the ca23 up, and heave it over the rail. But I reflected 
 that not only might an act of this sort enrage the crew by los- 
 ing them their knives — it would also imply profound distrust 
 on our part. I also considered that, if they designed to kill 
 us, they would be able to manage that business very well with- 
 out their knives — for there was the carj)enter's tool-chest for- 
 ward which would supply them with plenty of deadly weapons, 
 not to mention the cabin knives, which Punmeamootty had 
 charge of, and of which several were at all times to be found 
 in the galley. All this passed through my mind in the space 
 that a man might count five in, so amazing is the velocity of 
 imagination; and my resolution was formed in this matter even 
 while I continued to measure the few steps which separated 
 the table from the cuddy door. 
 
 Nakier went to the head of the table, and, putting his hand 
 upon the captain's chair, exclaimed, bowing with inimitable 
 grace to Helga as he spoke: 
 
 " Will de sweet mees sit here?" 
 
 She passed along the little file of five men and took the 
 chair. 1 do not know whether she had seen that mark on the 
 deck I have spoken of. She was of a death-like whiteness, but 
 her eyes shone spiritedly as she ran them over the colored faces 
 of the queer figures erect on either hand the table, and never 
 at any time since the hour when the dawn showed me her 
 pretty face aboard the " A nine," appareled as she then was 
 as a boy, had I observed more composure and resolution in her 
 countenance. 
 
 I stood close beside her, and Abraham and his mate were ou 
 her right, Nakier went on gliding feet to the fore-end of the
 
 278 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 table and said something to the men. What language he ex- 
 pressed himself in 1 did not then, and still do not, know. The 
 elTect of his speech was to cause the whole of them to extend 
 their arms toward us with the forefingers of both hands to- 
 gether. The posture, for the moment, was absolutely as 
 though to Nakier's command they had simultaneously leveled 
 firearms at us! Jacob fell back a step with a growl of alarm. 
 
 " What is all this, Nakier?" 1 called out. 
 
 " It is to say we are all your brodders, sah. It is my coun- 
 try sign of friendship." 
 
 Their bauds fell to their sides, but immediately afterward 
 Nakier spoke again to them,, whereupon every man leveled his 
 forefingers, as before, at Helga. Again Nakier spoke, and 
 Puumeamootty left the cuddy. 
 
 " I wish he'd talk English," exclaimed Abraham, wiping 
 his forehead. " Who's to know what's a-going to happen?" 
 
 " It is allee right, Misser Wise," said Xakier, with a soft 
 smile, half of reproach, half of encouragement. " Punmea- 
 mootty hab gone to fetch de Koran for we to swear to be true 
 and not harm you." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A CONFERENCE. 
 
 There was now a pause. How am I to convey the dramatic 
 character of this interval of silence? The hush of the night 
 worked liked a spirit in the vessel, and the silence seemed to be 
 deepened rather than disturbed by the dull, pinion-like beat 
 of the mainsail swinging into the mast, by the occasional creak 
 breaking forth from some slightly strained bulkhead, and by 
 the half-muffled gurgling of some little lift of dark water lav- 
 ing the bark's side. I could witness no temper in the men. 
 Wherever there lava scowl, it was no more than a part of the 
 creature's make. Their faces were by this time familiar to me, 
 and I could not mistake. Custom had even diminished some- 
 thing of the fierceness, and I may say the hideousuess, of the 
 lemon-colored man, whose corrugated brow and savage eyes 
 had been among the earliest details of this ship to attract my at- 
 tention on boarding her. Yet with the memory in me of what 
 had just now been enacted — with thoughts in me of two corpses 
 scarcely yet cold sinking, still sinking, at but a little distance 
 from the vessel — these men opposed a horribly formidable array 
 of countenances to the gaze. Their various dyes of comjilexion 
 were deepened by the lantern light; the grotesque character of
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 279 
 
 their attire seemed to intensify their tragic appearance. Their 
 figures were as motionless as though they were acting the part 
 as statues in a stage representation. At intervals one or an- 
 other would look to right or left, but in the main their eyes were 
 directed our way, and were chiefly fixed upon Helga. 
 
 Jacob stared as though in a dream; Abraham, with his under- 
 jaw hanging lonse, appeared to be fascinated by Nakier. I 
 longed to plunge into this silence, so to speak, to expend in 
 speech and questions the emotions which were keeping my heart 
 fiercely beating; but I was held dumb by the notion that this 
 stillness was a part of the solemnities which were to be employed 
 for the protection of our lives. 
 
 Punmeamootty re-entered the cuddy holding a book. Nakier 
 took it from him, and turning round to us said: 
 
 " Look, lady! look, sah! You see dis is de Koran " — 1 ob- 
 served that he sometimes said de and sometimes the — " it is our 
 religion. We swear upon it. Look, to make sure!" 
 
 I received the volume and examined it. It was a manuscript 
 bound in leather, with a flap, and very elegantly ornamented 
 on the sides and back with some sort of devices in gold and 
 color. The writing was in red, and every page was margined 
 with a finely ruled red line. What tongue it was written in 1 
 could not, of course, tell. ] have since supposed it was in 
 Arabic; but for us it might as well have been the Talmud as 
 the Koran. 1 returned the book to Nakier. 
 
 " It is allee right, you see, sah," he exclaimed, showing his 
 wonderfully white teeth in a smile of gentle, respectful con- 
 gratulation that put a deeper glow into his eyes and gave a 
 new beauty to his handsome features. 
 
 " It may be the Koran," said L "I can not tell. I will 
 take your word." 
 
 He turned to the men, and, with a passionate gesticulation, 
 addressed them; on which they shouted out all as one man: 
 " Yaas! yaas! Al-Koran! Al-Koran!" — nodding and point- 
 ing and writhing and working with excess of Asiatic contortion. 
 
 " We are quite content," said L 
 
 Nakier withdrew to his end of the table, carrying the book 
 with him. He stood erect, blending the grace of a reposing 
 dancer with an air of reserved eagerness and enthusiasm. 
 
 " Lady and you, sah!" he exclaimed, while every dusky eye 
 along the table was fixed intently upon him, " you sabboe why 
 we kill de capt'n and Misser Jones? Them two bad men — 
 them two wicked, shocking men. They would make we poor 
 Mussulmans sin, and would send we to hell. And why? 
 Dey not care at heart our soul for to save. We came here for
 
 iiSO Air DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 work: we gib dem (lis for dere money — " he elevated his 
 clinched hands, and then gesticulated as though he pulled and 
 hauled — " not dis, which is Allah's/^ striking his breast 
 vehemently; by which, 1 presume, he signified his spirit or 
 conscience. 
 
 A rumbling murmur ran round the table. 1 should not 
 have supposed the fellows understood the man; but acqui- 
 escence was strong in every tawny face, and a universal nod 
 followed when he struck his bosom. 
 
 " We not all Malay,^^ he continued, " but we are all men, 
 lady. We hab feeling — we hab hunger; we drink and cry 
 and laugh like you all who are white and do not believe in de 
 pro]5het. "We have killed dose two shocking wicked men. and 
 we are not sorry. Ko; it is justice!" he added, with a sud- 
 den piercing rise in his melodious voice, and a flash of the eye 
 that was emphasized somewhat alarmingly by an unconscious 
 clutch of his hand at the empty sheath strapped to his hip. 
 But his manner instantly softened, and his voice sweetened 
 again, though his behavior seemed, while it lasted, to exercise 
 an almost electrical influence over his people. They fluttered 
 and swayed to it like ears of wheat brushed by a wind, dart- 
 ing looks at one another and at us. But this ceased on Nakier 
 resuming his former air. 
 
 "Dis ship," said he, "is boun' to Table Bay. Some of 
 ns belong to Cape Town. Allee want to get to Afric, and 
 dem as not belong to Cape Town ship for dere own country. 
 But dis ship must not steer for Cape Town. When we arrive, 
 it is asked, ' Where is de capt'n? "Where is Misser Jones?' 
 and we must not tell," said he, smiling. 
 
 " But where do you wish to go to, then?'* said I, almost 
 oppressed by the sudden simultaneous turning of the men's 
 dark, fiery eyes upon me. 
 
 " Near to Cape Town," said he. 
 
 " But what do you call near to Cape Town?" 1 asked. 
 
 " Oh, dere will be a river — we find him. "We anchor and 
 go ashore and walkee, walkee," he exclaimed. 
 
 Helga gave a little start. 
 
 " What you and your mates want is that we should put ye 
 ashore somewhere?" said Abraham. 
 
 " Yaas, dat's so," called the fellow named Pallunappa- 
 chelly. 
 
 " No, no!" cried Nakier, " not somewhere, Misser "Vise. 
 Near Cape Town, I say. Not too far for we to walkee. " 
 
 " But to set ye ashore, anyhow?" exclaimed Abraham. 
 
 The man nodded.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 381 
 
 *' I suppose you know, Nakier/^ said I, with a sense of dis- 
 may pressing like a weight upon my spirits, " that this young 
 lady and I wish to return home? The caiDtain refused to part 
 with us — he insisted on carrying us with him — we have a home 
 to return to. Surely you do not intend that we should make 
 the passage to the Cape in this bark?" 
 
 " Who will nabigate de ship?" said Nakier. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Wise will,'^ 1 exclaimed, turning upon the 
 boatman. 
 
 " Bio wed, then, if I dew!" cried Abraham, recoiling. 
 " What! along with these — arter what's — 'soides, I don't 
 know nothen about longitude. " 
 
 " For mercy's sake, man, don't talk like that!" cried I. 
 " Miss Nielsen and 1 must be trausshiped." 
 
 " So must Oi!" said Abraham. 
 
 " And Oi!" hoarsely shouted Jacob. 
 
 " What ees it you say?" exclaimed Nakier, smiling. 
 
 " Why, that we all of us wish to get aboard another vessel, 
 said I, " and leave this bark in your hands to do whatever 
 you like with." 
 
 There was a sharp muttering of " No, no!" with some 
 fierce shaking of heads on either side the table. Nakier 
 made a commanding gesture and uttered a few words in his 
 own tongue. " We must not speakee any shijj, lady, and 
 you, sah, and you, Misser Vise, and Jacob, my mate. Can 
 not you tell why?" 
 
 " If you're going to keep us here for fear of our peach- 
 ing," cried Abraham, " there's me for wan as is ready 
 to take moy oath that I'll say nothen about what's happened, 
 2)urwiding you safely set us aboard another wessel." 
 
 Nakier strained his ear, wiih a puzzled face. The language 
 of Deal was happily unintelligible to him, for which I was ex- 
 ceedingly grateful,, since nothing could be more imperiling 
 than such talk as this. Helga, who all this while remained 
 silent, seated in her chair, without lifting her eyes to my face 
 or turning her head, said softly, in little more than a whisper, 
 so that only I, who stood at her shoulder, could catch her ac- 
 cents, " You can see by their faces, Hugh, that they are re- 
 solved. All this has been preconcerted. Their plans are 
 formed, and they mean to have their way. We must seem 
 to consent. Lot us agree, that they may take the oath, other 
 wise our lives are not worth more than the captain's or the 
 mate's." 
 
 Nakier's glowing eyes were upon her, but, though the move- 
 ments of her lips might have been visible, it would seem to
 
 382 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 them as though she whispered to herself. The conviction that 
 she was absolutely right in her advice came to me with her 
 words. I needed but to glance at the double line of deter- 
 mined faces to gather that argument, that even hesitation 
 would merely result in speedily enraging the fellows; that they 
 were not to be influenced by the most reasonable of our wishes; 
 that our lives had been spared in order that we should con- 
 vey them to a place of safety; and this, too, I saw with the 
 help of the illumination sujjplied by Helga's few words — that, 
 fully believiog the girl qualified to navigate the vessel, they 
 might, if we provoked them, destroy the three of us and retain 
 lier, counting upon their threats and her situation to achieve 
 their ends. 
 
 1 said in a hurried aside to the boatmen: " Not a word, 
 now, from either of you! This must be left to me! If you 
 interfere, your blood will be on your own heads!'' Then, 
 addressing Nakier: 
 
 " Your demands are these: the bark is to be navigated to 
 some part of the South African coast lying near to Table 
 Bay?" 
 
 " Yaas, sah!" he answered, holding up one finger as though 
 counting. 
 
 " The spot you wish to arrive at will have to be pointed 
 out on the chart!" 
 
 Up went a second finger, followed by another. "Yaas, 
 sah!" 
 
 " We are not to communicate with passing ships?" 
 
 "Eight, sah!" he added, nodding and smiling, and rais- 
 ing a third finger. 
 
 " And then?" said I. 
 
 " Den," said he, " you swear to do dis and we swear by de 
 Koran to be true, and to serve you, and be your friend." 
 
 " And if we refuse?" said 1. 
 
 " Do not say it!" he cried, sweeping his hands forward as 
 though to repel the idea. 
 
 " There must be other conditions!" said I, talking with an 
 air of resolution which, I fear, was but poorly simulated. 
 " First, as to the accommodation?" 
 
 " I do not understand!" said Nakier. 
 
 " I mean where are we to live?" 1 cried. 
 
 " Oh, here! oh, here!" he shouted, motioning round the 
 cuddy; " dis is your room. No man of us come here." 
 
 " And here I stop, tew," said Abraham. " No moro ol 
 your forecastle for me, mates!" 
 
 "Norforcael" rumbled Jacob,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 283 
 
 " Do not say so!'* exclaimed Helga, turning hastily to ad- 
 dress them. " Be advised. Do not interfere. Let Mr. Tre- 
 garthen have his way. " 
 
 " And 1 suj^pose," I continued, running my eyes over the 
 rows of faces till they settled on Nakier, " that we shall be 
 waited upon as usual, and that we shall be as well cared for 
 as when Captain Bunting was alive?" 
 
 " Yaas, sah! yaas, sah!" said Nakier demonstratively, and 
 Punmeamootty shouted: " Me wait allee same upon you and 
 de sweet lady. Me sabbee what you like. Me get dem room 
 ready," pointing to the mate's and the captain's cabins. 
 
 I shook my head with a shudder, then said softly to Helga, 
 whose gaze was bent on the table: " Can^^u suggest anything 
 further for me to say to them?" 
 
 " Nothing. Get them to take their oath, Hugh." 
 
 " Nakier!" 1 exclaimed, " we consent to your proposals. 
 Among us we will navigate this ship for you. But first you 
 and your mates will swear by that Koran in which you believe 
 — 1 suppose it is the Koran — " 
 
 . " Oh, yaas, yaas!" he cried, and there was a general chorus 
 of " yaases." 
 
 " You must swear by that sacred book of yours not to harm 
 us; to be our friends; to serve us and do our bidding as 
 though we were officers of this ship. Explain this to your 
 men, and let them take the oath in theirs and your country's 
 fashion, and we shall be satisfied." 
 
 On this he addressed them. I hear now his melodious voice 
 and witness his animated, handsome face as he poured forth 
 his rich, unintelligible syllables. It was difficult to look at the 
 fellow and not believe that he was some prince of his own 
 nation. There was nothing in his scarecrow clothes to impair 
 the dignity of his mien and the grace of his motions. I could 
 conceive of him as a species of man-serpent capable of fascinat- 
 ing and paralyzing with his marvelous eyes, holding his victim 
 motionless till he should choose to strike. His influence over 
 the others was manifestly supreme, and 1 had no doubt what- 
 ever that the tragedy which had been enacted was his and 
 wholly his by the claim of creation and command. While he 
 talked I would here and there mark a dingy face with a look 
 of expostulation in it. The lamp swinging fairly over the table 
 yielded light enough to reveal expressions. When he had 
 ceased there was a little hubbub of voices, .a running growl, 
 so to speak, of discontent. One cried out to him, and then 
 another, and then a third, but in notes of expostulation rather 
 than temper.
 
 284 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 Helga, without taming licr head, said tome, " 1 expect they 
 wish us to swear too. Your bare assurance does not satisfy 
 them." 
 
 The guess seemed a shrewd one, and highly probable, but 
 the men's talk was sheer Hebrew to the four of us. Nakier 
 listened, darting looks from side to side, then suddenly lifted 
 both his hands in the most dramatic posture of denunciation 
 that could be imagined, and hissed some word to them, where- 
 upon every man fell as silent as though he had been shot. 
 He picked up the volume and extended it to the fellow next 
 him. 
 
 " Takee, takee," he cried, speaking that we might under- 
 stand. " Lady, and you, sah, Misser Vise and Jacob my mate, 
 dis is de Mussulman oath we men now take. I speak not well 
 your language, but dis is my speech in English of what you 
 shall hear.'^ Then, composing his countenance and turning 
 up his eyes till nothing gleamed but the whites of them in his 
 dark visage, ho exclaimed in a profoundly devotional tone and 
 in accents as melodious as singing: 
 
 " In de name of Allah de most merciful, and de good Lord 
 of all things, if break dis oath do I, den, oh, Allah, may 1 
 go to hell!" 
 
 He paused, then turned to the man who held the volume, 
 who forthwith held the book at arm's-length above his head 
 and pronounced in his native tongue what we might suppose 
 the oath that Xakier had essayed to make English of. This 
 done, the book was handed to the next man, and so it went 
 round, all in dead silence, broken only by the strange, wildly 
 solemn accents of the oath-taker, and I noticed that the glit- 
 tering eyes of ISTakier rested upon every man as he swore, as 
 though he constrained him to take the vow by his gaze. 
 
 Abraham and his mate looked on with open mouths, breath- 
 ing deeply. The book came to Nakier. He was about to lift 
 it, paused, and spoke to the fierce-looking fellow that was 
 called Ong Kew Ho, who immediately glided out of the cabin 
 — none of these men seemed to walk: the motion of their legs 
 resembled that of skaters. 1 was wondering what was to hap- 
 pen next, when the fellow who had been stationed at the wheel 
 arrived. Nakier addressed him. Immediately he extended 
 his arms and leveled his forefingers at us as the others had; 
 then elevated the book and recited the oath. 
 
 " All this looks very honest," 1 whispered to Helga. 
 
 Then Nakier took the oath, handed the volume to a man, and 
 said something. Instantly every man's arms were pointed at
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 285 
 
 US, with the index finger touching, and a minute later all the 
 men, saving Nakier, had quitted the cabin. 
 
 " You see, lady, it is allee right," said he, smiling. 
 
 " Yes, we are satisfied," she exclaimed, rising from her 
 chair; but her eyes caught the stain on the deck; an expression 
 of horror worked in her face like a spasm, and she brought her 
 hand to her breast with a half-stifled exclamation. 
 
 " When day come," said Nakier, addressing Helga, " we 
 look at de chart and find out de place for you to steer we to." 
 
 His bearing was still full of Eastern grace and courtesy. No 
 expression entered his face to deform its beauty; yet somehow 
 I seemed sensible of a subtle spirit or quality of command in 
 the fellow, as though he was now disguising his sense of power 
 and possession with diflBculty. It was clear that he looked to 
 Helga mainly, if not wholly, for what was to be done for them. 
 
 " You shall point out the spot you have in your mind," said 
 she. 
 
 " You sabbee nabigation, sweet lady?" 
 
 "Among us," she answered, with a motion of her hand 
 that comprehended the two boatmen and myself, " we shall be 
 able to do all you require." 
 
 He made a sort of salaam to her, and said, looking at Abra- 
 ham, " Who keep de watch?" 
 
 " Whose watch on deck is it?" I asked. 
 
 " The starboard's — moine," answered Abraham, with an 
 uneasy shuffling of his feet. 
 
 " Allee right, Mr. Vise; allee right! It is veree fine night. 
 I go now to sleep," said Nakier, and he went in his sliding, 
 spirit-like fashion to the cuddy door, and vanished in the black- 
 ness on the quarter-deck. 
 
 The four of us stood grouped at the head of that little table, 
 staring at one another. Now that the colored crew were gone, 
 a sense of the unreality of what had happened possessed me. 
 It was like starting from a nightmare, with the reason in one 
 slowly dominating the horror raised by the hideous phantas- 
 magoria of sleep. 
 
 " We must not seem to be standing here as though we were 
 planning and plotting," exclaimed Helga. " Dark figures out 
 in that shadow there are watching us." 
 
 " That's right enough, miss," said Abraham; " but what's 
 to be done?" 
 
 " Here stands a man," cried Jacob, hotly, striking his 
 breast, " as dorn't mean for to be carried to the Cape in a 
 bloomin' wessel full o' bloody savages; and that's speaking 
 straight. "
 
 286 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " Hush I" cried I. " Soften those leather Inngs of yours, 
 will you?" 
 
 " Ain't there no firearms knocking about?" said Abraham. 
 
 " I hope not," said Helga; " we shall be able to manage 
 without firearms." 
 
 I looked at her white face but resolute mouth and steady, 
 spirited blue gaze. 
 
 " What is in your mind, Helga?" 
 
 " An idea not yet formed," she answered. " Give me time 
 to think. I believe that not only are our lives to be saved but 
 the vessel tool" 
 
 "Ha!" cried Abraham, with a thirsty look. " It needs a 
 sailor's lass to get such a fancy as that into her head! I'm a 
 cockney if I don't seem to see a sal wage job here!" 
 
 But Jacob was staring at us gloomily. 
 
 " What I says is this," he exclaimed, addressing us with his 
 fists clinched: "Here be three Englishmen and a gal with 
 the heart of two men in her" — "Softly!" 1 interposed — 
 " with the heart of two men in her," he continued, with a 
 shake of his fist; " and what's forward? He-leven whisps of 
 colored yarn! He'leven heflBgies, with backbones separately 
 to be broke like this!" He crooked his knee, and made as if 
 he were breaking a stick across it. " Are we," he cried, with 
 the blood mounting to his face and an expression of wrath 
 sparkling in his eyes — " are we fewer — three men and a young 
 lady — to quietly sit down and wait to be murdered, or are we 
 to handle 'em as if they was a pack of apes, to be swept below 
 and smothered under hatches as a breeze o' wind 'ud blow a 
 coil of smoke along?" 
 
 " Lower you voice, man!" I whispered. " What do you 
 want — to court the death that you bolted aloft to escape?" 
 
 " What's to prevent us," he continued, muffling his tone, 
 though the fierceness of his temper hissed in every breath he 
 expelled — " what's to prevent us a-doing this? More'n than 
 the watch are below; three or fower may be on deck. Ain't 
 the scuttle forrads to be clapjjed down over the forecastle, 
 where they lie safe as if they was at the bottom of a well a 
 hundred foot deep? Ain't that to be done? And if the three 
 or fower that's knocking about on deck aren't to be handled 
 by us three men — good-noight!'* 
 
 He rounded his back upon us in sheer contempt of passion. 
 
 " We may do better than that," said Helga. 
 
 "You're for supposing that they ain't going to keep a 
 bright lookout, mate," said Abraham. "See here! What's 
 good to be done, these here hands you'll find equal to," smiting
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 387 
 
 first his left then his right knuckles; " but s'elp me Moses 
 I'm not here to be killed. Them chaps are born knife-stickers. 
 Touch one, and you're groaning at your length on deck with 
 a mortal wound in your witals. And if what we do ain't com- 
 plete — if so be as they're wan too many for us — and it's eleven 
 to three, remember that, mate — what's to happen? Ask your- 
 self the question! For the lady's sake, I'm for all caution." 
 
 '' We must not remain debating here," said I. " They 
 believe us sincere. There are eyes watching us, as Miss Niel- 
 sen says. This holding a counsel is not going to reassure them. 
 If yoii object to keeping a lookout, Abraham, I'll take 
 charge." 
 
 "I will keep you company, Hugh," said Helga. 
 
 "No, no!" cried Abraham. "It's moy watch, and Oi'll 
 keep it." 
 
 He went clumsily, and with a bewildered manner, to the 
 companion steps. 
 
 "I'll remain along wi' ye, Abey," said Jacob. " Arter 
 what I saw as I stood at the wheel — the poor chap's cry — the 
 way they chucked him overboard — " He buried his eyes 
 in his coat-sleeve. " The cussed murderers!" he exclaimed, 
 lifting his face, and looking savagely around. 
 
 " Come!" cried Abraham, " if ye mean to come! What's 
 your temper a-going to do for us?" 
 
 " I'll relieve you at four o'clock," said 1, looking at the 
 time-piece, the hands of which stood at a quarter before two. 
 
 The men went on deck, and, turning down the lamp — for the 
 revelation of the light served as a violent irritant to the nerves 
 on top of the fancy of the secret, fiery eyed observation of us 
 without — I seated myself beside Helga on a locker to whisper 
 and to think. 
 
 The girl and I had passed though some evil, dark, and dan- 
 gerous hours since we first came together in that furious Sat- 
 urday night's gale; but never was the worst of them all com- 
 parable to this middle watch through which we sat, for hard 
 upon two hours of it, in gloom, in the ocean silence that lay 
 upon the bark, imagining the movement of dark shapes in the 
 blackness that came like a wall to the cabin door, and the 
 gleam of swiftly recoiling eyes peering at us through the cabin 
 skylight. Regularly through the stillness sounded the com- 
 bined tread of Abraham and his mate over our heads, with 
 sometimes a halt that almost startled the ear, while wo could 
 clearly catch the rumbling growling of their conversation as 
 they passed the skylight on their way to and fro. 
 
 Yet, strangely enough — I am speaking for myself — the horror
 
 288 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 of the double assassination did not lie upon my spirit with the 
 deadening weight I should have imagined as the effect of so 
 shocking, sudden, and bloody a tragedy. That which might 
 have been acute horror was subdued into little more than a 
 dull and sickening consternation by perception of our own 
 peril. Yet I would look at those berths lying on either side 
 the cuddy front as though from either one or the other of 
 them the figure of the captain or his mate must stalk! The 
 stain upon the cabin deck lay black as ink against the captain's 
 door. Oh! to think that that was all of him his bark now 
 contained ! 
 
 "We sat whispering about the unhappy creature and his 
 wretched subordinate; then our talk went to other matters. I 
 told Helga we need not question that the intention of the 
 crew was to cast the vessel away upon some part of the South 
 African coast, near enough to Cape Town to enable them to 
 trudge the distance, but too remote from civilization for the 
 movements of the bark to be witnessed. That was their resolu- 
 tion, I said: I would swear to it as though it had been revealed 
 to me. That they would never suffer us three men to land 
 alive we might be as sure as that they had slaughtered Bunting 
 and his mate. 
 
 " Their oath counts for nothing, you think?" said she. 
 
 I answered nothing; they would value their lives above their 
 oath. Not likely they would suffer us to testify to their crime. 
 Under the serpent-fair exterior of Xakier lay as jjassionless a 
 capacity of murder as ever formed the mechanical instinct of 
 any deadly beast or reptile. 
 
 " His eye," I said, " will never be off us." Even as we 
 whispered, his gaze or that of another subtle as himself might 
 be upon us. He was the one to fear, and this carried me into 
 asking, " What is to be done?" 
 
 Yet before the hands of the clock were upon the hour of 
 four we knew what was to be done. It was wholly Helga's 
 scheme. Her little brain had planned it all, but it was not 
 until she spoke and delivered her plot bit by bit that I under- 
 stood the reason of her silence while I had been feverishly whis- 
 pering my fears, talking of the captain, of Nakier, of the 
 treachery of the Malay and Cingalese miscreants, and asking, 
 as one might think aloud, " What is to be done?" 
 
 We went on deck at four; it was the darkest hour of the 
 night, but very quiet. I bade Abraham and the other man 
 go forward and turn in as had heretofore been their custom. 
 
 " Not a word!" I cried, in swift response to the first of 
 Jacob's remonstrances. " I can not speak here. There are
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 389 
 
 thirsty ears at the wheel. We have planned that long before 
 this time to-morrow the bark shall be our own, with nothing 
 more for you to do than to calculate the value of the salvage. 
 I'll find an early chance to explain — but not here! not now! 
 Forward with you both, for our lives depend u23on the fellows 
 believing that we have confidence in them." 
 
 This I spoke as rapidly as intelligibility would jjermit, and, 
 with Helga, drew away from them, moving toward the wheel. 
 They hung as though staring and deliberating a few moments, 
 then, without a word, went forward. 
 
 I spoke pleasantly to the fellow at the helm— what man it 
 was I could not see — said that the vessel's course was the right 
 navigation for the South African coast, and so forth. He an- 
 swered me throatily, with a note of satisfaction in his thick 
 speech, and then Helga and I fell to quietly pacing the deck. 
 
 We took great care to speak low; so nimble and ghostly were 
 the movements of this colored crew that it was impossible to 
 tell where a man might be lying listening and hidden. Twice 
 1 beheld the flitting of a shadow in the obscurity round about 
 the main-mast, and all the while 1 walked 1 was again and again 
 casting a look behind me. 
 
 It seemed an eternity ere the cold gray of the dawn hovered 
 in the east. The first sight the bleak and desolate light re- 
 vealed was a patch of dark crimson abreast of the companion, 
 close against the rail^ marking the spot where the unhappy mate 
 had been stabbed. The bark stole glimmering out to the day- 
 light, lifting her ashen canvas with a gloom about the deck 
 where the forecastle ended as though the blackness of the night 
 had been something tar.gible, and the lingering shadows betwixt 
 the rails fragments and tatters of it. I swept the sea-line. " 'JUie 
 ocean was a gray desert floating in thin lines of swell which 
 made it resemble a va^t carpet stirred by a draught of wind. 
 But the small breeze of ihe j)revious evening was still with us, 
 and the broad bows of the vessel broke the water into wjin- 
 kles fine-drawn as piano- wire as she swam forward, slowly roll- 
 ing. 
 
 Three of the crew sat, squatting like Lascars, against the 
 long-boat. 1 called, and they instantly sprung to their feet 
 and came aft. 
 
 " Get scrapers," said 1, " and work that stain out oi the 
 deck as fast as you can move your arras." 
 
 They sprung forward, )-eturned with the necessary tools, 
 and, in a minute, w^ere on their knees scraping violently. With 
 a dreadful feeling of sickness of heart I rejoined Helga at tho 
 other end of the deck.
 
 '300 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 The auu rcse; the morning was to be a bright one; the 
 heavens went, in a clear tropic blue, into the south and west, 
 and in the north-east the clouds, like a scattering of frosted sil- 
 ver, hucg high and motionless — mere pearly feathers of vapor, 
 to be presently absorbed. Helga went belo\v to her cabin 
 under the deck. When I asked her if she did not feel timid at 
 the idea of penetrating those gloomy depths alone, she smiled, 
 and, merely saying, " Ay, Hugh I you have called me a brave 
 girl, but you do not believe me to be so,'' she left me. 
 
 It was shortly after seven o'clock that 1 spied Nakier stand- 
 ing in the galley door talking to some one within. I called to 
 him: he immediately knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and, 
 slipping the inch of sooty clay into his breast, approached me. 
 His salute was full of resj)ect, and he surveyed me with eyes so 
 gentle and so cordial that one looked to see the engaging ten- 
 derness of his heart overflowing his face in smiles. So much 
 for appearancesi The most poisonous-fan ged rogue of them 
 all in that bark fall of colored wretches made miscreants and 
 murderers of by Captain Joppa Bunting's theories of conver- 
 sion might have passed to every eye as one of the very few 
 sweec-souled men in this great world of wrong-headed human- 
 ity! 
 
 " I want you to send Abraham to me, Nakier," said I, in 
 the civilest manner I could command. "It is his watch be- 
 low, but I desire his presence and help while I overhaul the cap- 
 tain's cabin for charts, for instruments of navigation and so 
 forth. " 
 
 He sought to veil, by drooping his lids, the keen glance he 
 shot at me. 
 
 " Yaas, I send Misser Vise to you, sah,"said he; " but first 
 I would like to speakee about dat place we sail to. We have 
 agree, and we ask you," he continued, with a smile that put 
 an expression of coaxmg into his handsome face, " to agree 
 allee same with us to sail for Mossel Bay. It is a very good 
 bay, and it have a nice little town." 
 
 " Yes," said I; " and when we get there, what do you mean 
 to do with the ship?" 
 
 " Oh, we allee go ashore," he answered. 
 
 He then asked me if I knew where Mossel Bay was situated. 
 1 answered that I had never heard of the place, but that if it 
 was down on the charts we should undoubtedly be able to carry 
 the bark to it. 1 then again rea nested him to send Abraham 
 aft that he and 1 and the young lady might examine the con- 
 tents of the captain's cabin, ascertain the situation of the ship 
 when observations were last taken,, and confer ^ to the course
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 291 
 
 to be steered. I thought he hesitated for an instant, but, with 
 true Malay swiftness of resolution that scarcely gave me time 
 to note the hang of the mind in him, he exclaimed: " 1 will 
 send Misser Vise, sah/' and went forward. 
 
 In a few minutes Abraham arrived. He was speedily fol- 
 lowed by Jacob, who hung about in the waist, looking wistfully 
 aft. He, however, was to be talked to afterward, for the 
 policy of the three of us was to keep as separate as possible, 
 ooming together only under some such excuse as I had now 
 invented. The men who formed the watch on deck were 
 " loafing about," to use the expressive vulgarism, one loung- 
 ing against the bulwark rail with another talking to him; here 
 a fellow squatting like a Hindoo blowing a cloud, there a couple 
 patroling ten feet of deck, their arms folded upon their breasts. 
 There was no gesticulation, no excitement, nothing of the swift, 
 fierce whispered conversation significant with the flashing of 
 the askant glance that had been noticeable down to the dusk 
 of the previous evening. Nakier paced the weather-side of the 
 forecastle. I never once caught him looking our way, yet I 
 could feel that the fellow had us in his eye as fully as though 
 his stare was a level one. 
 
 " Abraham," said I, " I have sent for you under the pretense 
 of helping me to overhaul the dead skipper's stock of nautical 
 appliances. My real motive is to create an opportunity to 
 acquaint you with the plot Miss Nielsen and I settled between 
 us while we were in the cuddy. Don't look knowing, man! 
 Put on as honest and stupid a Deal beach air as you can man- 
 ufacture." 
 
 I called to Nakier. 
 
 " The bark will want watching. Step aft and keep a look- 
 out while we are below, will you?" And followed by Abraham 
 I entered the cuddy. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 helga's plot. 
 Brfore summoning Helga I resolved to take a peep at the 
 bertha, lest there should be some sight in one or the other of 
 lliem too shocking for her to behold. I was made to think of 
 this by the great blood stain on the deck close against the cabin 
 door. Its true complexion showed in the daylight. Abraham 
 again backed away on seeing it; but time was precious. This 
 was an ojiportunity to be made the most of, and, pushing open 
 the door, 1 peered in. It was as I might have conjectured. 
 The captain had been assassinated by twenty strokes of the
 
 292 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 fellows' knives as he lay in his bunk asleep. Not one, not 
 half a dozen stabs could have made such a horror of the bed- 
 clothes and the square of carpet on the deck as we gazed at. 
 It was not an interior fit for Helga to enter. 
 
 1 looked into the mate's berth, and found it as the man had 
 left it — the blanket lying as it had been tossed when'he arose. 
 There was nothing frightful here; but our business lay in the 
 captain's cabin, and, full of loathing, I re-entered the horrible 
 room and shut the door. 
 
 " A piteous sight! a piteous sight, sirl" exclaimed Abra- 
 ham, looking about him in a stupefied way, and biting upon 
 his underlip to moisten it. 
 
 "Now, attend!" said I. "Collect your wits, for our 
 stratagem signifies life or death to us. " 
 
 It took me but a few minutes to communicate Helga 's plan. 
 He grasped the thing with sailorly promptitude, nodding 
 eagerly, with the blood returning to his cheeks to my hurried 
 whispering, and when I had made an end and drew back to 
 mark his judgment in his face, he struck his thigh a mighty 
 blow, but said in a voice cold with resolution, despite his 
 countenance being all a-work with agitation: 
 
 " It will do, sir. It can't fail. It is only the getting 'em 
 together; but it is to be done with a little patience." 
 
 " Now," said I, " let us see what is here. Will the poor 
 fellow have had a revolver?" 
 
 But we searched in vain for such a weapon. With hasty, 
 desperate hands, never knowing but that at the next moment 
 Nakier might enter or some probing yellow face stare in upon 
 us through the little window that overlooked the quarter-deck, 
 we ransacked the lockers, explored a large black sea-chest, ex- 
 amined the shelves — to no purpose. 
 
 " He was too good a Christian man," said Abraham, hoarse- 
 ly, " to own a pistol. Had he been a Nova Scotia man, there'd 
 be veapons enough here to rig out a regiment of the line vith. " 
 
 " It can not be helped," said I, keenly disappointed, never- 
 theless, for I had counted upon finding a revolver, scarcely 
 doubting that a man in charge of such a ship's company as 
 these colored fellows formed would go to sea well armed. 
 
 With all haste possible we transfixed to the mate's cabin a 
 bag of charts, a couple of sextants, a chronometer, and other 
 matters of a like sort, and then, with sickened hearts, closed 
 the door upon that tragic interior of the captain's berth. I 
 looked through the contents of the bag, and found a large, blue- 
 backed chart of South Africa, with marginal illustrations of 
 the principal ports, harbors, and headlands.
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 293 
 
 " This will do," said I, and rolling it up 1 put it under my 
 arm, and, accompanied by Abraham, stepped through the 
 cuddy door. 
 
 My eye once more as I passed fell upon the dreadful stain 
 ingrained in the plank o' the deck, and, observing Punmea- 
 mootty speaking with another man a little forward of the main- 
 mast, 1 was about to call and order him to scrape out the odious 
 shocking blotch. But at the same instant it crossed my mind 
 to let it be: it was a detail to fit into our stratagem, and I 
 whispered the fancy to Abraham as we quitted the cuddy. I 
 believed that all this while Helga was below in her cabin, and 
 I was leaning over the little hatch that led to our quarters to 
 call to her, when she pronounced my name from the deck 
 overhead, and on looking up I saw her standing at the brass 
 rail with Nakier. 
 
 " Shall Oi go forward an* get my breakfast or keep along 
 with you, Mr. Tregarthen?" said Abraham. 
 
 " Keep with me for a little time,'^ I answered, and he fol- 
 lowed me on to the poop. 
 
 Nakier's fine eyes glowed and his face was lighted up with 
 an expression of admiration and pleasure. It was manifest at 
 the first glance that Helga had not spared her simple, pretty 
 arts in conversing with him. Her first words to me were: 
 
 " Nakier has been talking to me about his native country, 
 Hugh. Oh! what a shining land of flowers and birds and a 
 thousand other delights it must be!" She clasped her hands 
 as though in rapture, and added: " I shall hope some of these 
 days to visit that beautiful country." 
 
 " This is all very clever, and happily devised, and well 
 done," thought T, stealing a peep at Nakier, who was stead- 
 fastly regarding with undissembled admiration the girl's sweet, 
 fresh face, that was faintly flushed by her enactment; " but if 
 we three men should be made away with " — 1 choked off the 
 hurry of ugly fancies that swarmed on top of the thought of 
 that dark, princely mannered villain falliug in love with her, 
 and exclaimed: 
 
 " Yes, the country of the Malays is a paradise, 1 believel 
 Here, Nakier, is a chart of South Africa. " 
 
 We went to the skylight to spread it. 
 
 " Now," said I, " where is this Mossel Bay that you were 
 speaking about?" 
 
 1 pored upon the chart in a posture of eager interest. He 
 immediately pointed to the place with a forefinger as delicately 
 shaped as a woman's. 
 
 '* Ha!" said I. *' Yes; that is to the eastward of Agulhas.
 
 294 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 *' See," I continued, pointing to one of those marginal illus- 
 trations I have referred to, ' ' here is a picture of the bay. It 
 is a long walk to Cape Town!" I continued, looking round 
 with a smile at !Nakier. 
 
 " Oh, no; plenty coach, plenty horse, plenty ox," he re- 
 sponded, showing his teeth and speaking without the least hesi- 
 tation — a quality of assurance that made me hopeful, for it was 
 everything indeed that he should believe us credulous enough 
 to suppose that Mossel Bay was the destination he had in his 
 mind. 
 
 " Here is the picture, Helga!" said 1. " D'ye see it, Abra- 
 ham? A fine open roadstead, not to be easily missed by you 
 and Miss Nielsen. There are a couple of excellent sextants 
 and a good chronometer below, and all necessary instruments 
 for a safe navigation." 
 
 " Oy, a first-class bay, and no mistake," exclaimed Abra- 
 ham. 
 
 Bending his squint upon the chart in a musing way, he scored 
 along the line of coast with his square-cut thumb, as though 
 calculating courses and distances. Miserable as I felt, I could 
 have burst into a laugh at the face he put on. 
 
 " Oi've long had a notion," said he, still squinting at the 
 chart, " of wisiting these 'ere foreign parts. Oi've heerd tell 
 of Cape Town as a projDer city, j)lenty o' grapes a-knocking 
 about and sherry vines and the likes of them drinks to be had 
 for the asting, everything A 1 and up to the knocker. But 
 see here, Nakier," said he, in a wonderfully familiar and 
 friendly, shipmate-like sort of way, " Oi'm a pore man, and 
 so is my mate Jacob. Tell ye what Oi'm a-thinking of: ain't 
 there no chance of our taking up a few pound for this here 
 run?" 
 
 His apparent earnestness must have deceived a subtler eye 
 than ever Nakier could have brought to bear on him. I ut- 
 tered a word or two, as though 1 would remonstrate. 
 
 " You and me, Misser Vise, will speak on dat by um by. 
 We allee want money, and tve get it," responded Nakier, nod- 
 ding significantly. 
 
 I partly turned away, as though there was nothing in this 
 conversation to interest me. 
 
 "Ye don't know what hoveling is, Nakier, Oi suppose?" 
 said Abraham. " This here wessel is what we should call a 
 blooming good job down our way — " 
 
 I interrupted him, fearful lest he should overdo his part: 
 
 " You might go forward and get some breakfast now, Abra- 
 ham. You can relieve me here when you have finished the
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 295 
 
 meal. Is there anything more you wish to know that this 
 chart can tell us about, Nakier?" 
 
 " No, sah. Now you sabbee where Mossel Bay is, it is allee 
 right.'' 
 
 Abraham was descending the poop-ladder. Under pretense 
 of giving him the chart to replace in the mate's berth, I whis- 
 pered, " Mind you tell Jacob everything," and then walked 
 aft with Helga, leaving Nakier to go forward. 
 
 Throughout that morning the weather continued wonderfully 
 brilliant and quiet. The heavens were a sweep of blue from 
 line to line, and the sun as hot as we might have thought to 
 find it ten degrees further south. But shortly after ten o'clock 
 the weak wind, that had been barely giving the " Light of the 
 World " steerage way, entirely failed; the atmosphere grew 
 stagnant with the dry, parched hollowness that one sometimes 
 notices before a storm, as though nature sucked in her cheeks 
 before expelling her breath through her feverish lips. I put 
 my head into the skylight to look at the barometer, not know- 
 ing but that there might be dirty weather at the heels of this 
 passing spell of sultry silence; but the mercury stood high, 
 and the lens-like sharpness of the line of the horizon along 
 with the high fine-weather blue was as ample a confirmation 
 of its promise as one could hope to find. By eleven o'clock 
 the calm was broken by a delicate ripplmg of wind out of the 
 north-east — the first fanning of the north-east trade-wind I 
 took it to be. The yards were trimmed to the change by Abra- 
 ham, who followed on with some orders about the foretopmast- 
 studding-sail. 1 was on deck at the time, and, hearing this, 
 rose hastily and thrust past him, saying betwixt my teeth, so 
 vexed was I by his want of foresight: 
 
 " Keep all fast with your studding-sail gear, you fool! Are 
 we three Englishmen taking a line-of -battle ship's company? 
 Pray think before you bawl out!" 
 
 He saw his blunder, and, after a leisurely, well-acted view 
 of the sea, as though the weather had raised a debate in his 
 mind, he called out to the three or four fellows who were 
 clambering aloft to rig the boom out on the foreyard: 
 
 " Never mind about that there stun'-sail ! Ye can lay down, 
 moy lads!" and he bawled to me (who had returned aft), by 
 way, no doubt, of excusing himself to Nakier, who was on the 
 forecastle and who appeared to be keeping a keen lookout upon 
 the ship on his own account, " There's no use, Oi think, Mr. 
 Tregartlien, a-worriting about stun'-sails ontil this here breeze 
 hardens. It'll only be keeping the men a-going for no good." 
 
 " Unless we are speedy, 1 whispered to Helga, as we stood
 
 296 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 within ear-shot of the helmsman, " that man Abraham wiU 
 ruin us. Think of the fellow piling canvas at such a time^ 
 What a curse is consequeutiality when out of season! Here i« 
 a jjoor, miserable Deal boatman with the privilege of ordering 
 a few black men about, and he doesn't know how to make 
 enough of his rights." 
 
 From time to time 1 would gaze mechanically round the sea 
 in search of a ship, but with no notion of finding encourage- 
 ment in the gleam of a sail or in the shadowing of a steamer's 
 smoke. My hope lay in a very different direction. But cus- 
 tom is strangely strong on shipboard, and 1 continued to look, 
 though I was without the wish to see. 
 
 (Shortly before noon I fetched the two sextants, one of which 
 I gave to Abraham and the other to Helga. The boatman 
 seemed hardly to know what to do with the instrument; it was 
 a new, very handsome sextant, sparkling with brass and de- 
 tails of telescope, glass, and the like, and bore as little resem- 
 blance to the aged, time-eaten quadrant that had gone down 
 with the " Early Morn " as to the cross-staff of the Ancient 
 Mariner. I marked him putting it to his eye, and then fum- 
 bling with it, and, noticing several fellows forward, Nakier 
 among them, attentively watching us, I called to him softly: 
 
 " Keep it at your eye, man! Let them believe that you 
 thoroughly understand it!" 
 
 " Roight ye are," he answered, putting the instrument to 
 his face; " but who the blazes is a-going to bring the sun into 
 the middle o' such a muddle o' hornamentation as this here?" 
 
 The attention of the men, however, was in reality fixed upon 
 Helga. She stood at the rail within full view of them, and 
 there was, indeed, novelty enough in the sight to account for 
 their staring, apart from the hope they had of her as the one 
 that was to navigate their ship to the coast on which, as 1 took 
 it, they meant to wreck her. Her well-fitting dress of dark 
 serge showed no signs of wear as yet. No posture that she 
 might have artfully adopted could so happily express the charms 
 of her figure as this, when she turned her face sunward, with 
 the shining sextant raised to her eye. The delicate pale gold 
 of her short hair was the right sort of tint to fascinate the 
 dusky gaze that was fastened upon her. In her conversations 
 with me she had made little or nothing of her knowledge of 
 navigation, but it was easy to see in an instant's glance that 
 she was a practiced hand in the art of coaxing the sun's limb 
 to the sip of the sea-line. 
 
 1 spied Nakier forward watching her with an air of breath- 
 less interest. He and the rest of them might have doubted her
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 297 
 
 capacity, knowing of it only from such oflE-hand talk as Pun- 
 meiimootty had been able to collect and repeat from the cabin 
 table. But now she was justifying their expectations, and by 
 this time the whole of the crew — ten of them, with Jacob in 
 the waist and a Malay at the wheel — were staring as one man; 
 the cook from the door of his galley, Nakier on the forecastle 
 swinging off from a rope, the rest of them in groups here and 
 there. 
 
 " It is eight bells,'* cried Helga, in her clear voice, accen- 
 tuated, as it always was, with a faint harshness of Scandinavian 
 articulation. 
 
 " Height bells'." roared Abraham, though it might have 
 been midnight to him, so far as the indications of his sextant 
 went. 
 
 " Eight bell!" piped the melodious voice of Nakier, like a 
 belated echo of Helga's cry; and the chimes floated along the 
 quiet decks. 
 
 I told Abraham to go below to the mate's cabin, and bring 
 materials of ink, paper, log-book, and so forth, to enable 
 Helga to work out the sights; also the chronometer an«l the 
 " Nautical Almanac." This was a part of our plot; other- 
 wise, as you may suppose, the chronometer was not a thing to 
 be carried here and there, least of all by such hands as Abra- 
 ham's. The men were now passing in and out of the galley, 
 conveying their dinner of smoking beef and ship's "duff" 
 into the forecastle. They talked eagerly, and with a gratula- 
 tory tone. That Helga had been able to find out what o'clock 
 it was by the sextant was the fullest warranty of hersufficience 
 as a navigator the poor wretches' ignorant souls could have 
 demanded. 
 
 Nakier remained on the forecastle watching us. I sum- 
 moned him with a motion of my forefinger, and he came rap- 
 idly gliding to the jioop. 
 
 " 1 wish you to remain here," said I, " while Miss Nielsen 
 calculates the bark's position, that you may be able to tell the 
 rest of the men they are in friendly hands, and that we look 
 for the same friendly behavior from you all." 
 
 He answered with a motion of his hand that was as expres- 
 sive as a Frenchman's gesture. 
 
 " It would have been more convenient for the lady," 1 con- 
 tinued, " to have made her calculations in the captain's cabin, 
 but " — I looked him full in the face. He did not seem to un- 
 derstand. " T^'hat berth is not fit for her to enter." 
 
 " Ha!" he exclaimed, " dat shall be put right. I have for- 
 got."
 
 298 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ' ' By and by. No hurry now. Tell Punmeamootty to 
 bring us our dinner here. Miss Nielsen does not care to use 
 the cuddy. She is a young lady — impressionable — you under- 
 stand me, Nakier? When all is made straight the feeling will 
 pass with her. But for the present — " 
 
 1 broke off as Abraham arrived bringing with him the arti- 
 cles I had dispatched him to procure. 
 
 " Whose trick at the wheel is it?" I asked the boatman, 
 carelessly. " It is noon, and that man yonder has been at the 
 helm since ten. " 
 
 " It'll be Jacob's, sir. 01 allow he's waiting to finish his 
 dinner." 
 
 " No, no," said I, " that's not true ship's discipline. Fair 
 must be fair aboard us," and, with some demonstration of 
 warmth in my manner, I went to the poop rail andJliajvled for 
 Jacob to come aft. 
 
 The man promptly made his appearance, and the moment 
 he had gripped the spokes of the wheel the ginger-colored fel- 
 low who had been steering fled along the decks for his dinner 
 fleet as a hare with hunger. Abraham, with pencil and paper 
 in hand, leaned upon the companion-cover while he pretended 
 to be lost in calculating. Nakier and I stood looking on at 
 Helga, who was seated on one side the skylight, the lid of 
 which being closed and lying flat, provided her with a table on 
 which stood the chronometer, the volumes, the charts, and the 
 other appliances she needed. She knew exactly what to do, 
 and worked out her problems with a busy face and the blue of 
 her eyes sweetened into violet by the shadow of the lashes. 
 Deeply worried, miserably anxious as I was on the eve of a proj- 
 ect the failure of which was bound to signify an inhuman 
 butchery of the three of us by the dark-skinned creatures we 
 designed to betray, I could still find heart for admiration of 
 the wonderful heroism of this girl. She. was actively to share 
 in our enterprise, and, if failure followed, her doom might be 
 even more fearful than ours; yet, had her face been of marble 
 carved into an incomparable counterfeit of a girl's countenance 
 intent on a bit of arithmetic and nothing more, its passion- 
 lessness, its marvelous freedom from all expression of agita- 
 tion, could not have been completer. 
 
 When she had completed her reckoning, she opened the 
 chart which bore Captain Bunting's " prickings," as they are 
 termed, and with rules and pencil continued the line to the 
 situation of the ship at noon. 
 
 " That is where we are at this moment," she exclaimedf 
 pointing to the chart.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 399 
 
 Nakier, with looks of astonishment and delight, peered. 
 
 " What d'ye make it, miss?" called Abraham. 
 
 She gave him the latitude and longitude — what it was has 
 wholly escaped me. 
 
 " Eoight/' he shouted, tearing up his bit of paper. 
 
 " Take these things below, Abraham," said I, indicating the 
 nautical instruments and charts, " and then get your dinner. 
 When you have done I shall want you to come aft and take 
 charge of the bark for half an hour. Miss Nielsen wishes to 
 go to her cabin, and I am no sailor to be left alone with this 
 craft." 
 
 " Oy, oy, sir!" he answered, and picking up the things he 
 trundled off the poop. 
 
 " Send Pnnmpamootty here with something for us to eat, if 
 you please, Nakier," said I. 
 
 He made a soft salaaming bow, and quitted us with shining 
 eyes and a highly pleased face. Presently the steward ap- 
 proached us with some cold salt beef, biscuit, and a bottle of 
 wine. He spread a cloth upon the skylight, and then brought 
 a couple of chairs from the cabin. While he was doing this I 
 slipped into the mate's berth and took a track-chart of the 
 world from the bag and returned with it. I opened and pre- 
 tended to examine it with anxious attention, speaking in an 
 aside to Helga in a grumbling, doubting voice, and with a 
 shake of my head, while Punmeamootty stood by waiting to 
 learn if we had further orders. I told him we should require 
 nothing more, and then rolling up the chart, feigned to attack 
 the repast before us. But as to eating! — not for ten times the 
 value of this " Light of the World " and her cargo could I 
 have swallowed a morsel. Helga munched a biscuit and drank 
 a little wine, eying me collectedly, with often a smile when 
 my glance went to her. 
 
 " What a heart beats in you!" I cried, gently, for it was im- 
 possible to know but that some wriggling, nimble-heeled 
 colored skin had slipped into the cabin, and was hanging mo- 
 tionless close under us, with his ear at the skylight. " liut it 
 is not too late even yet to reconsider. 1 can do without you, 
 Helga." 
 
 " Yes, but not so well as with me," she answered. 
 
 " But if we fail—" 
 
 " There must be no tlwught of failing." 
 
 " If we fail," 1 continued, " they may spare you as not ap- 
 parently in the plot, and they will spare you the more readily, 
 and use you well too, since they must bo helpless without you 
 to navigate them."
 
 300 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 "Hush!" she whispered. "The stratagem will be the 
 surer for my presence. And what is the danger? There can 
 be none if we manage as we have arranged. '' 
 
 " When d'ye reckon on starting on this here job, Mr. Tre- 
 garthen?" called Jacob from the wheel. 
 
 I shook my fist as a hint to him to hold his tongue. I waited 
 a few minutes, during which 1 pretended to be busy with my 
 knife and fork. The yellow-faced cook stood in the galley 
 door smoking; there were two fellows beyond him conversing 
 close against the forecastle hatch. The rest of the seamen 
 were below at their dinner. I now ojaened the chart; Helga 
 came round to my side, and the psdr of us fell to pointing and 
 motioning with our hands over the chart as though we were 
 warmly discussing a difficulty. I raised my voice and shook 
 my head, exclaiming: " No, no! Any sailor will tell 3'ou that 
 the prevailing gales off Agulhas are from the east'ard;" and 
 continued in this fashion, delivering meaningless sentences, 
 always very noisily, and with a great deal of gesticulation, 
 while Helga acted a like piart. The three fellows forward 
 watched us steadfastly. 
 
 Just then Abraham rose out of the forecastle hatch and ap- 
 proached the poop in a strolling, rolling gait, carelessly filling 
 his pipe as he came and sending the true 'longshore leisurely - 
 look at the sea from side to side. A couple of fellows followed 
 him out of the hatch, entered the galley for a light, as 1 sup- 
 posed, and emerged smoking. Helga and I still feigned to be 
 wrangling. Then Abraham joined us, and, after listening a 
 minute or two, raised his voice with a wrangling note in it also. 
 
 " Come, Helga," I whispered, " this fooling has lasted long 
 enough. Now for it, and may God shield us! Abraham, 
 stand by, my lad! Keep your eye forward!" 
 
 I had courted a few occasions of peril in my time, and knew 
 what it was to have death close alongside of me for hour after 
 hour; but then my blood was up, there was human life to be 
 saved, and, outside that consideration, there was small oppor- 
 tunity for thought. It was otherwise now, and I own that my 
 heart felt cold as stone as 1 advanced to the forecastle with 
 Helga. 1 prayed that my cheeks would not betray my inward 
 perturbation. I did not greatly fear for the girl. Though we 
 should fail, I believed her life would be saved, horrible as the 
 conditions of preservation might prove to her. It was other- 
 wise with me. Let but a suspicion of my intention enter the 
 minds of the men, and I knew that in the space of a pulse or 
 two I must be Pj corpse, pierced by every knife in that vessel's 
 forecastle.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 301 
 
 As I approached the hatch that led to the quarters of the 
 crew, Nakier came out of it. I suppose that the fellows who 
 had been watching us called down to him, and that he came 
 up to gather what the discussion on the poop might be about. 
 Be looked astonished by our jDresence in that fore part of the 
 ship, and there was a mingling of puzzlement and of cunning 
 in his eyes as he ran them over us. 
 
 " Nakier," said I, " 1 can not satisfy myself that Mossel 
 Bay is a safe and easy destination for this vessel." 
 
 " It was settle, sah," he exclaimed, quickly. 
 
 " There are more accessible ports on the South African 
 coast. What are the views of jour crew?'' 
 
 " Dey are all of my 'pinion, sah."' 
 
 " The matter has not been discussed in their presence," I 
 exclaimed. " Why do you wish to carry us round Agulhas? 
 Besides, do not you know that there are ships of war at Simon's 
 Bay, and that there is every chance of our falling in with one 
 of her majesty's cruisers ofi that line of coast you wish us to 
 sail round?" 
 
 By this time the few men on deck had gathered about us, 
 and were listening eagerly with their necks craned and their 
 eyes, like blots of ink upon ovals of yellow satin, but fire- 
 touched, steadfast upon me. 
 
 " I do not agree with Mr. Tregarthen, Nakier," said Ilclga. 
 " I believe there is nothing to fear from our sailing round the 
 Cape. He speaks of the heavy seas of the Southern Ocean 
 and of strong easterly winds. It is not so," she added, smil- 
 ing. 
 
 •' No, no," he cried, vpith a jiassionate motion of the head; 
 "no easter wind dis time ob year. All fine-wedder sailing; 
 beautiful smooth sea, allee same as dis." 
 
 " Now, see here," said I, with a note of imperativeness in 
 my speech. " I have a right to express an opinion on this 
 matter, and my contention is that it is, ridiculous to sail round 
 to Mossel Bay when you may get ashore for your walk to Cape 
 Town on this side of the stormy headland of Agulhas." 
 
 The fellow's eyes sjiarkled with irritation and misgiving as 
 he looked at me. 
 
 " Abraham and his mate are both of my way of thinking," 
 I went on. " The lady, on the other hand, has no objection 
 to Mossel Bay. Here we are then, undecided as yet. i)o you 
 follow me?" He nodded his head sideways, as much as to say, 
 "Goon!" "The four of us, however, will agree to this. 
 The chart gives you a view of South Africa. Let all hands as- 
 semble, saving those two men aft there, who ai'o willing to
 
 802 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 abiilo by your decision. Let me show them this chart and ex- 
 plain my ideas to them. If after I have been heard you and 
 your men still insist upon our carrying this vessel to Mossel 
 13ay, it shall be done." 
 
 " Where can we lay the chart?" said Helga. 
 
 " Is there a table in your forecastle, Nakier?" I asked, send- 
 ing a look at the little hatch which yawned close by. 
 
 " Yaas, sab," he answered, glancing from Helga to the 
 cuddy as if he could not understand us. 
 
 I met his eyes with a shake of my head as though 1 could 
 read his thoughts, and, ajjproaching him by astride, whispered: 
 
 " Not in the cuddy. You know why, Nakier. She will 
 not enter it until it has been cleansed, and 1 must have her by 
 my side if we are to fairly argue this difficulty." 
 
 " I can easily descend," said Helga, stepping to the fore- 
 castle hatch to look down it. "I should like to see the men^s 
 quarters, Nakier. I am as much a sailor as any of you, and 
 have slept in a hammock." 
 
 The man's gaze glowed with the admiration 1 had noticed 
 in it while she was working out the navigation problems. Had 
 he been the subtlest-witted of his race, what could he have 
 witnessed in this desire of the girl and me to enter the fore- 
 castle to excite his suspicion? The other poor dusky fools 
 standing by with tawny orange or primrose faces wrinkled their 
 repellent masks with sailor-like grins of expectation; for what- 
 ever be the color of Jack's skin at sea, the least excitement, 
 the least divergement from the miserable monotony of his life, 
 is a delight to him. 
 
 " Shall 1 go first?" said I. 
 
 Helga uttered a clear laugh. " I should be ashamed," she 
 answered, " not to be able to enter a ship's forecastle without 
 help;" and so saying she put her little foot upon the first of 
 the pieces of wood nailed against the bulkhead and serving as 
 steps, and descended. I followed, bidding Nakier as I entered 
 the hatch to order every mother's son of his crew to attend, 
 since it was a question for all hands, and their decision was to 
 be final. 
 
 It was a time of emotions and sensations, and memory re- 
 calls but little more. I remember that one after another, in 
 response to Nakier's call, the men who were on deck dropped 
 below, till the forecastle seemed full of dusky, grotesquely at- 
 tired shapes. The daylight streamed down through the oblong 
 yawn of hatch. The flame of a slush-lamp charged the interior 
 with an atmosphere of greasy smoke. Some bunks went on 
 either hand^ and a few hammocks dangled from the upper
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 303 
 
 deck. There was a square table fixed to the stout after-bulk- 
 head that divided this compartment from the hold. The men 
 seemed to be without other wearing apparel than that they 
 stood up in. I saw no sea-chests, no bags: merely here and 
 there a shoe, a cap, a sou'^wester, an oilskin smock dangling 
 at a nail. The murmur of the water, broken by the stealthily 
 sliding stem, penetrated the stillness with a subdued sound of 
 hissing like the swift respiration of the men, who gathered 
 about Helga and me as we stood at the table with the chart 
 open before us. Hard by the table was a stove, the chimney 
 of which, in a zigzag, pierced the deck, showing its head well 
 out of the way close against the hollow under the topgallant 
 forecastle where the windlass was. But for this chimney the 
 stratagem we were about to attempt must have been rendered 
 impossible by humanity. 
 
 Pressing my forefinger upon the chart, the curling corners 
 of which were held down by Nakieron the one hand and Helga 
 on the other, I fell to explaining my views, as I chose to call 
 them, meanwhile looking round to observe that all hands of 
 the Malays and Cingalese were present — for the creatures had 
 a trick of coming and going like shadows. I bade them all 
 listen, looking into one face after another, and 1 can see them 
 now, shouldering one another and eagerly bending forward, a 
 strange, gloomy huddle of discolored countenances flasliful 
 with eyes, and of various expressions. Some of them barely 
 imderstood English, apart from the plain sea-going terms, and 
 these frowned down upon the chart or at me in their effort to 
 understand my meanmg. Ui^on every man's left hip was 
 strapped the inevitable sheath-knife of the sailor, accessible in 
 a twist of the wrist, and my breath for a little while grew 
 labored, while I cursed myself for not having acted upon the 
 first motion of my mind after Nakier had laid the capful of 
 naked blades at Helga's feet. 
 
 " See here, now!'' 1 exclaimed, addressing the men gener- 
 ally: " judge of the time and leagues we might be able to save 
 by making for St. Helena Bay, or say Saldanha Bay, instead 
 of Mossel Bay. Here is Simon's Town, and in this bight, as 
 you all of you know, lies several of her majesty's ships. Fig- 
 ure a cruiser requiring us to bring to, and sending a boat 
 aboard us. What then?" 
 
 The few of the fellows who understood mo breathed hard 
 and looked at Nakier. One of them, with a Dutch accent, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Boss, how far it be from Saldanha Bay to Cape Town?" 
 
 Nakier said something almost fiercely to him in his native
 
 304 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 tongue. The Dian responded in a dialect that certainly, to my 
 ear, did not resemble Nakier's; but this might have been owing 
 to the swinish thickness of his utterance, and, having spoken, 
 he thrust one of his mates asidCj to get nearer to the table, 
 and, putting his grimy thumb on the part of the chart where 
 Simon's Bay was marked, he stared at Nakier, nodding with 
 a vehemence that seemed a sort of fury in him — immediately 
 afterward rounding upon the others, and gesticulating with 
 his hand to his neck, clearly signifying a halter. 
 
 " No, no!" cried Nakier, 
 
 '^How far? — how far, boss?'' shouted the other, addressing 
 me. 
 
 " I can not tell," said I, " without a pair of compasses. I 
 forgot to bring those measuring instruments with me, Nakier. 
 I will fetch them — I'll be back among you in a few minutes.*' 
 
 Helga, with a well-acted start and look of alarm, said: 
 
 " You must not leave me alone here, Hugh! Let me fetch 
 the box!" 
 
 " Very good!" said 1. 
 
 She lightly gained the deck, but even while she was making 
 for the hatch I was covering her retreat by noisily talking and 
 demonstratively pointing, so that every man's attention was 
 fixed upon me. 
 
 1 held the corner of the chart, which HeJga had pinned down 
 with her fingers, while 1 spoke; the charfwas stiff and had 
 not been often used, and when one let go it rolled itself up into 
 a funnel. I perceived that my reference to the British ships 
 of war at Simon's Bay had taken a hold upon the imagination 
 of a few of the fellows, and while 1 seemed to wait for Helga 
 I made the most of this by asking the men if they could tell 
 me what vessels were on that station, if they knew how often 
 and in wliat direction they cruised, and then 1 said: 
 
 " Supj)ose on our arrival at Mossel Bay we find an English 
 frigate or corvette there? Men, have you thought of that? 
 It is not because I am innocent of the blood of the captain and 
 the mate who were assassinated last night that I wish to be 
 boarded by a lieutenant and a dozen English sailors from a 
 man-of-war on our arrival, wherever it may be, or on the high 
 seas. Can I be sure of proving my innocence if I am charged 
 with having had a hand in this crime?" I cried, looking de- 
 fiantly at Nakier and raising my voice. " Would you come 
 forward and say that you and your men were guilt)^, and that 
 I and the lady add the two Englishmen were innocent? You 
 know you would not!" I thundered, heavily striking the chart 
 a thump with my clinched fist. " Why, then, do you want ta
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 305 
 
 Sail past this Simon's Bay? Is not this side of the coast safer, 
 fieer from the risks of falling in with a ship of war, and nearer 
 bl many miles to Cape Town than Mossel Bay?'' 
 
 y How much near? — how much near, boss?" cried the man 
 wlx) had already asked this question. 
 
 '' Here!" said 1. " Hold down this corner of the chart, 
 wili you, while I call to Mr. Wise to bring me the box of in- 
 struments? Evidently Miss Nielsen can not find the things. 
 Mr. Wise put the box away, and will know where it is." 
 
 I left the table and stood under the hatch a moment to ad- 
 dress a word to Nakier in that wild mad spirit of defiance that 
 will often in the timidest mock at peril in the most terrible in- 
 stant of it. 
 
 " Make your men understand," I cried, " that if we fall in 
 with a man-of-war, every soul of them stands to be hanged by 
 the neck until he is dead!" 
 
 As I said these words I sprung, caught the coaming of the 
 hatch, gained the deck with another bound, and the next in- 
 stant the slide of the hatch was swept in a roar through its 
 grooves by the powerful hands of the two Deal boatmen. 
 
 " Cotched!" cried Abraham, while I swung the iron bar to 
 the staple and hooked the padlock into it. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 fire! 
 
 " Well, and if this here ain't been a right down sort of 
 proper cajolin' job tew! Strike me bald, Mr. Tregarthen, if 
 the hexecution of this here trepanning ain't vurth a gold 
 medal, let alone the planning of it!" shouted Jacob. 
 
 I rose from my knees with my hand upon my heart, breath- 
 ing short. The reaction from the intense mental strain of the 
 preceding twenty minutes ran a feeling of swooning through 
 my brain, but the fresh air and sense of safety speedily rallied 
 me. Helga stood at the wheel steering the bark. I flourished 
 my arm to her, and she kissed her hand to me. Close against 
 the securely covered hatch stood the two boatmen, and at cither 
 man's feet lay a heavy belaying-pin, which, as I knew by what 
 had been preconcerted, had been gripiX'd by their powerful 
 fists ready for the first black head that might have followed mo 
 as 1 emerged. 
 
 " Never should lia' believed you could have coni])assed it!" 
 exclaimed Abraham. " Never could ha' supposed that such 
 artful chaps as them darkies was so easy to be took in! A
 
 tiOG VY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 ha5'-wan piece o' acting, Mr. Tregarthen! No theayter shor 
 that e'er I've heard of or sat at ever came up to it I" 
 
 All was silent below. 1 had thought, on the hatch beiig 
 thrust to, that the imprisoned fellows would have fallen to 
 beating and bawling. There was not a sound. Were tley 
 accepting their fate with the resignation of the Mussulm&n? 
 The scantling of the hatch-cover that secured them was of an- 
 usual thickness. "When opened, the foremost lid slid back 
 on top of the other, and when closed, as it now was, it vas 
 held fast to the coaming by a strong iron-hinged bar fitting to 
 a staple in which lay a padlock. The after lid was kept do^vn 
 by an iron batten, so that, once secured, the hatch-cover was 
 in all respects as impenetrable from above or below as the decjk 
 itself. Nor were we under any apprehension that the im- 
 mured men could find other means of escaping. The bulk- 
 head of the forecastle was a massive wall of wood. There was, 
 indeed, a little hatch right forward, by which the forcpeak 
 might be entered; but this forepeak was also stoutly bulkhead- 
 ed, with the cargo in the hold coming hard against the division; 
 and though the men should contrive to break through into the 
 hold, the secured after hatches would still as efl'ectually bar 
 the deck to them as though every mother's son lay helplessly 
 manacled in the bottom of the ship. 
 
 " Now/' said 1, " the poor wretches must not suppose we 
 mean to starve them. Murderers though they be. Heaven 
 knows one can't but pity them, seeing what the wrong was 
 that drove them into crime. Hush, now, that I may catch 
 their answer!" 
 
 1 stepped over to the forecastle chimney, which, as I have 
 already told you, pierced the planks close against the opening 
 under the topgallant-deck. It stood as high as a man ; my 
 mouth was on a level with the orifice, and the zigzag funnel 
 provided as excellent a speaking-tube as though designed for 
 that and no other purpose. 
 
 " Below, there!" 1 cried through it, and thrice did I utter 
 this summons before I received a response. 
 
 " What you wanchee?" floated up a reply — thin, reed-like, 
 unreal, a tone not to be distinguished. 
 
 " I am hailing to let you know that we shall keep you lib- 
 erally supplied with food and fresh water," 1 shouted. 
 " Plenty of fresh air will blow down to you through this chim- 
 ney. Take notice: You are securely imprisoned. There is no 
 possibility of your escaping. At the same time if you make 
 the least effort to release yourselves we will leave you to starve 
 below and to perish miserably with thirst. *'
 
 ' MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 307 
 
 \ *' What do you mean to do with us?" was the faint ci-y that 
 rollovved my speech. 
 V* That is our business/' I roared back. " Keep you quiet, 
 and you shall be well used!" 
 
 1 waited for the voice to speak again, but all remained 
 hushed, and 1 came away very well satisfied to know that 
 Nakier, at all events, would understand my language and 
 translate it to the others. 
 
 This plot had been so carefully prepared that we knew ex- 
 actly what to do. Our first business was to shift the bark's 
 helm and trim sail for the Canaries — the land that lay nearest 
 to us — where, at Santa Cruz, we might count upon getting all 
 the help we required. We briefly arranged that Jacob should 
 keep watch at the hatch. At the first sound of disturbance 
 below he was to call us. There was small need for such senti- 
 neling, yet our fears seemed to find it necessary, at the outset, 
 at all events, for they were eleven to three, and we could not 
 forget that, securely imprisoned as we knew them to be. 
 
 I went aft with Abraham. My brave little Helga, on my 
 approach, let go the wheel, and extended her hands. My love 
 for her, that had been held silent in my heart by the troubles, 
 the worries, the anxieties, the perils which had been pressing 
 heavily upon us for many days, now leaped in me, a full and 
 abounding emotion, at the sight of her sweet, hopeful face, her 
 brave smile, the tender congratulation in her eyes, her out- 
 stretched hands; and, taking her in my arms, held her to me, 
 and kissed her once, and yet agam. Abraham, grasping a 
 spoke of the wheel, swung off from it, giving us, with 'long- 
 shore modesty, his back, as he gazed steadfastly over the stern. 
 She struggled for a moment, and was then quiet, trying to hide 
 her blushing face against my shoulder. 
 
 " It must have come to this, Helga," I whispered, " sooner 
 or later; and what is soonest is always best, my love, in such 
 matters. You are mine by right of the poor old ' Anine;' you 
 are mine, Helga, by right of your father's commands to me." 
 
 I kissed her again, released her, and she went to the rail and 
 overhung it for a few minutes, while I waited watching her. 
 
 " Now, dear heart," said I, " let us get the ship round, and 
 you shall tell us what course to steer for 8anta Cruz." 
 
 From this moment we were too busy for a long while to think 
 of sentiment. The bark was under all plain sail, and we were 
 but three men to get the yards braced round. The wind was 
 a very light breeze, the sea smooth and delicately crisped, the 
 sky a pure azure, unblurred anywhere by so much as a feather- 
 tip of cloud, Helga^ still wearing a rosy face, but with the
 
 30S MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 very spirit of liappiness and hope radiant in her eyes — and na 
 better sign of how it was with her heart could I have asked of 
 her — fetched the chart, and, having determined the course, 
 took the wheel from Abraham, and the three others of us 
 went to work with the braces. We sprung about in red-hot 
 haste, since none of us liked the notion of leaving the hatch 
 un watched for even a few minutes. But two pairs of hands 
 only could not have dealt without tedious toil with those yards. 
 
 According to Captain Bunting's reckoning, we had been in 
 the latitude of Madeira on Tuesday, the 31st of October, but, 
 spite of our having been hove to during the fierce weather of 
 Nov. the 1st and 2d, we had driven heavilj to the southward, so 
 that now on this afternoon of Frida}^ ISov. 3d, we computed 
 our distance from the Canaries to oe some hundred miles. I can 
 but speak as my memory serves me, but these figures I believe 
 fairly represent the distance. The light wind softly humming 
 in our rigging out of the north-east would not suffer the bark 
 to lie her course for the islands by a point or two, but this was 
 a matter of little moment. We might surely count from one 
 hour to another now on heaving some sort of sail into sight, 
 and in expectation of this we took the English ensign out of 
 the locker and bent it on to the peak halyards with the jack 
 down ready for hoisting when the moment arrived. Not that 
 we expected that any merchantman we might fall in with 
 would greatly help us. It was hardly to be supposed that a 
 ship-master would consent to receive a mutinous, murderous 
 crew of eleven colored men into his vessel. The utmost we 
 could hope from a ship homeward bound like ourselves was 
 the loan of a couple of men to assist us in navigating the bark 
 to Funehal. 
 
 Indeed, the sense of our necessity in this way grew very 
 strong in me after we had come to a pause in our labor of 
 bracing the yards up, and were standing near the forecastle 
 hatch i^ale with heat and wet with perspiration, and panting 
 heavily — I say I grew mighty sensible of the slenderness of our 
 little crew of three men and a girl — who, to be sure, in her 
 boy's clothes would have been the nimblest of us all aloft, 
 but who could do no service in that way in her woman's dress 
 — when I sent my gaze up at the quiet breasts of sail softly 
 swelling one upon another, and rising spire-like, and thought 
 of how it must be with us should heavy weather set in, such a 
 gale as we might be able to show no more than a close-reefed 
 topsail to, unless the whole fabric of masts and canvas was to 
 go overboard. 
 
 I said to Abraham?
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 309 
 
 f' Don't you think we could safely trust a couple of those 
 pot-r devils below — Punmeamootty, for example, and that 
 tawny fellow. Mow Lauree? We're terribly short-handed.'* 
 
 " Ay," he answered, " short-handed we are, as you say, sir; 
 but trust e'er a one of 'em, arter the trick they've been sarved! 
 Lord love 'ee! the first thiug them two men 'ud do whenso- 
 ever oui* backs should be tarned for a moment 'ud be to lift 
 that hatch there. And then stand by!" 
 
 " 'Soides," exclaimed Jacob, " this 'ere's to be a salwage 
 job, and, as poor old Tommy 'ud ha' said, we don't want to 
 make no more shares than the diwisions what's already repre- 
 sented." 
 
 I was not to have been influenced by Jacob's talk about 
 shares; but Abraham's remark was to the point; it convinced 
 me, and I dropped the subject, making up my mind to this — 
 that, if the wind should freshen, there was nothing for it but 
 to shorten sail as best we could, and leave what we could not 
 deal with to blow away. 
 
 When our work of trimming yards was ended, 1 told Jacob 
 to boil a quantity of salt beef for the fellows below, that they 
 might have rations to last them several days. We found a 
 breaker stowed away in the long-boat, and this we filled with 
 fresh water from the scuttle-butt, ready to hand through the 
 hatch. I was very earnest in this work. It was easily imag- 
 ined that the interior in which the men lay imprisoned would be 
 desperately hot, with no more an" to get to them than such as 
 sulkily sunk out of the listless breeze through the zigzag chim- 
 ney, aud with the planks of the deck above their heads like 
 the top of an oven with the day-long pouring of the sun. And, 
 miscreants as they were, villains as 1 have no doubt they would 
 have ultimately proved themselves to us, I could not endure 
 to think of them as athirst, and also tormented with fears that 
 we intended to leave them to perish of that most horrible form 
 of suffering. 
 
 Yet it would not do to make separate parcels of the provis" 
 ions we intended for them. We must open the hatch at our 
 peril while we lowered the food; and this was to be done once, 
 and once only. 
 
 It was past five by the time that all was ready. Twice had we 
 heard a sound of knocking in tiie hatchway; but I guessed 
 that it signified a demand for water, and dared take no notice 
 of it until wc v/cre prepared. The three of us— Helga being 
 at the wheel — armed ourselves with a heavy iron belaying-pia 
 apiece, ^nd, stationing the boatmen s^t the hatcji, I put my
 
 310 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 face against the mouth of the funnel and hailed the men 
 through it. I was instantly answered: 
 
 " Yaas, yaas, sah! Oh, in the name of Allah, water!" 
 
 It was such another thin, reed-like voice as had before 
 sounded, yet not the same. This time it might have been 
 Nakier who sjDoke. 
 
 " We are going to give you water and food now!" I shouted. 
 " We will open the hatch; but only one man must show him- 
 self to receive the things. If more than one of you shows him- 
 self we will close the hatch instantly, and you will get no 
 water. Do you understand me?" 
 
 " Yaas, yaas," responded the voice, sounding in my ear as 
 though it were half a mile distant. " We swear by Allah only 
 one man he show hisself." 
 
 " Let that man be Punmeamootty!" I bawled. 
 
 I then returned to the hatch. Jacob, putting the belaying- 
 pin into his coat pocket, stood abaft ready to rush the lid of 
 the hatch to at a cry from me, while Abraham, on the left, 
 hung, with poised weapon, prepared for the first hint of a 
 scramble up from^below. I remember the look in his face: it 
 was as though he were already fighting for his life. I slipped 
 the padlock, withdrew the bar, and pushed the cover back 
 some three or four inches. The glare on the deck blinded me 
 when I peered down : the interior seemed as black as midnight 
 to my eyes. 
 
 " Are you there, Punmeamootty?" I cried. 
 
 1 heard a faint " Yaas," pronounced in a subdued, terrified 
 tone. 
 
 " Come up till your hands show," cried I, for I feared that 
 he might have his knife drawn and would stab ihe if I put my 
 arms down. 
 
 His hands, with extended fingers, rose through the mere 
 slice of opening like those of a drowning man above water, 
 and then I could see the glimmer of his eys as he looked uj). 
 
 *' Are the rest of you well away?" 
 
 "Allee standing back! Allee standing back!" he ex- 
 claimed, piteously. 
 
 On this I pulled the hatch open a little wider, Abraham 
 bending over it with the belaying-pin lifted; and, the interstice 
 being now wide enough, I fell to work as quickly as possible 
 to hand down the provisions. These consisted of three or four 
 bags of ship's biscuit and a number of large pieces of boiled 
 salt horse. But the water-cask, or breaker rather, gave me 
 some trouble. What its capacity was I do not know. It was 
 too heavy for me to deal with single-haiided,. I called Jacob,
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 311 
 
 and together we slung it in a couple of bights of rope, and, 
 rolling it over the coaming, lowered away. It efieetually 
 blocked the hatch while it hung in it, and Punmeamootty had 
 to back away to receive it. 
 
 This done^ I threw down a few pannikins, not knowing but 
 that they might be without a drinking-vessel in the forecastle, 
 then closed the hatch, catching a loud cry from below as I did 
 so; but I dared not pause to ask what it was, and a moment 
 later the cover was securely bolted, with Jacob sitting upon it, 
 leisurely pulling out his pipe, and Abraham and I walking aft. 
 
 Some time later than this, bringing the hour to about six 
 o'clock, Helga and I were eating some supper — 1 give the 
 black tea, the biscuit, and beef of this meal the name they 
 carry at sea — one or the other of us holding the wheel that 
 Abraham might obtain some sleep in the cabin, when the man 
 Jacob, who was trudging a little space of the deck forward, 
 suddenly called to me. I left the wheel in Helga's hand, and 
 made my way to the boatmun. 
 
 " Oi fear them chaps is a-suffocating below," said he; 
 " they're a-knocking desperate hard against the hatch, and 
 their voices has been a- pouring through that there chimney as 
 though their langage wor smoke. Hark! and ye'll hear 'em. " 
 
 The sound of beating was distinct. I went to the mouth of 
 the funnel, and heard a noise of wailing. 
 
 " What is it?" I cried. " What is wrong with you below?" 
 
 " Oh, give us air, sah! give us air!" was the response. 
 " Some men die; no man he live long downee here!" 
 
 God knows to whom that weak, sick voice belonged. It 
 struck a horror into me. 
 
 " We must give them air, Jacob," I cried, " or they're all 
 dead men. What is to be done?" 
 
 " There's nowt for it but to open the hatch," he answered. 
 
 " Yes," cried I; " we can lay bare a little space of the 
 hatchway — enough to freely ventilate the forecastle. But how 
 to contrive that they shall not slip the cover far enough back 
 to enable them to get out?" 
 
 He thought a moment, then, with the promptitude that is 
 part of the education of the seafaring life, he cried* 
 
 "I have it!" 
 
 Next moment he was speeding aft. I saw him spring into 
 the starboard quarter-boat with an energy that proved his 
 heart an honest and humane one, and in a trice he was com- 
 ing forward holding a couple of boat stretchers — that is to say, 
 pieces of wood which arc placed in the bottom of a boat for 
 the oarsman to strain his legs against.
 
 312" MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " These' 11 fit, I allow," cried he, " and save half an hour 
 of sawing and cutting and planing." 
 
 He placed them parallel upon the after-lid, and their fore- 
 most extremities suffered the lid which traveled to be opened 
 to a width that gave plenty of scope for air, but through which 
 it would have been impossible for the slenderest human figure 
 to squeeze. Between us we bound these stretchers so that there 
 was no possibility of their shifting, and I then tried the sliding 
 cover, and found it as hard-set as though wholly closed and 
 padlocked. 
 
 " How is it now with you?" I cried through this interstice. 
 
 The rejDly came in the form of a near chorus of murmurs, 
 which gave me to know that all the poor wretches had drawn 
 tog^her under the hatch to breathe. I desired to be satisfied 
 that there was air enough for them, and called again: 
 
 " How is it with you now, men?" 
 
 This time I could distinctly recognize the melodious voice of 
 Nakier: 
 
 "It is allee right now. Oh! how sweet is dis breeving. 
 Why you wanchee keep us here?" 
 
 He was proceeding, but 1 cut him short; the liberation of 
 the wretched creatures was not to be entertained for an in- 
 stant, and it could merely grieve my heart to the quick, with- 
 out staggering my resolution, to listen to the protests and ap- 
 peals of them as they stood directly under the hatch in that 
 small, black, oppressive hole of a forecastle. 
 
 After this all remained quiet among them. 1 was happy to 
 believe that they were free from suffering'; but, though I knew 
 the hatch to be as secure as though it were shut tight and the 
 hinged bar bolted, yet it was impossible not to feel uneasy at 
 the thought of its lying even a little way open. Of all the 
 nights that Helga and I had as yet passed, this one of Friday, 
 November the 3d, was the fullest of anxiety, the most horribly 
 trying. The wind held very light; the darkness was richly 
 burdened with stars, there was much fire in the sea too, and 
 the moon, that was drawing on to her half, rode in brilliance^ 
 over the dark world of waters which mirrored her light in a 
 ■wedge of rippling silver that seemed to sink a hundred miles 
 deep. We dared not leave the hatch un watched a minute, and 
 our little company of four we divided into watches, thus: one 
 man to sentinel the Malays, two resting, the fourth at the 
 wheel. But there was to be no rest for me, nor could Helga 
 sleep, and for the greater sjDace of the night we kept the deck 
 together. 
 
 Yet there were times when ansiety would yield to a quiet.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 313 
 
 pure emotion of happiness, when 1 had my little sweetheart's 
 hand under my arm, and when by the clear light of the moon 
 I gazed upon her face and thought of her as my own, as my 
 first love, to be my wife presently, as I might hope — a gift of 
 sweetness and of gentleness and of heroism, as it might well 
 seem to me, from old Ocean herself. That she loved me 
 fondly 1 did truly believe and, indeed, know. It might be that 
 the memory of her father's words to me had directed, and now 
 consecrated, her affection. She loved me, too, as one who 
 had adventured his life to save hers, who had suffered griev- 
 ously in that attempt — as one, moreover, whom bereavement, 
 whom distress, privation, all that we had endured, in short, 
 had rendered ultimate to her heart as a friend, and, as it might 
 be, now that her father was gone and she was a girl destitute 
 of means, her only friend. All had happened since October 
 the 21st: it was now the 3d of November. A little less than 
 a fortnight had sufficed for the holdmg of this wild, adventur- 
 ous, tragical, yet sweet jsassage of our lives. But how much 
 may happen in fourteen days! Seeds sown in the spirit have 
 time to shoot, to bud, and to blossom — ay, and often to wither 
 — in a shorter compass of time. Was my dear mother living? 
 Oh I I might hope that, seeing that if ever Captain Bunting's 
 message about me had been delivered, she would before this 
 be knowing that I was safe, or alive, at least. What would 
 she think of Helga? What of me, coming back with a sweet- 
 heart, and eager for marriage? — coming back with a young 
 girl of whom I could tell her no more than this: that she was 
 brave and good and gentle; a heroic daughter; all that was 
 lovely and fair in girlhood meeting in her Danish and English 
 blood; with face, with speech, with manners whose simple elo- 
 quence of appeal could need no words from me. 
 
 The morning broke. All through the night there had been 
 silence in the forecastle; but daylight showed how the extreme 
 vigilance of those long hours had worked in my face, as 1 
 might tell by no other mirror than Ilelga's eyes, whose gaze 
 was full of concern as we viewed each other by the spreading 
 light of the dawn. There was the dim gleam of a ship's can- 
 vas right abreast of us to starboard, and that was all to be seen 
 the wiiole horizon round. 
 
 After we had got breakfast, the three of us went forward 
 and received the empty breaker from the fellows below, con- 
 triving on our removing the stretchers so to pose ourselves as 
 to be ready to beat down the first of them if a rush should bo 
 attempted, and instantly close the hatch. The breaker came 
 empty to our hands. We filled and lowered it as on the pre-
 
 314 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 vious evening, then left the hatch a little open as before; and 
 now, so far as the provisioning of the fellows was csncerned, 
 our work for the day was ended, seeing that they had beef and 
 biscuit enough to last them for several days. They made no 
 complaint as to the heat or want of air; but after we had low- 
 ered the little cask, and were fixing the stretchers, several of 
 them shouted out to know what we meant to do with them, 
 and I heard Nakier vowing that if we released them they Vi^ould 
 be honest, that they had sworn by the Koran and would go to 
 hell if they deceived us; but we went on securing the hatch 
 with deaf ears, and then Jacob and 1 went aft, leaving Abra- 
 ham to watch. 
 
 The sun was hanging about two hours and a half high over 
 the western sea-line that afternoon, when the light air that had 
 been little more than a crawling wind all day freshened into a 
 pleasant breeze with weight enough slightly to incline the 
 broad-beamed bark. This pleasant warm blowing was a re- 
 freshment to every sense: it poured cool upon our heated faces; 
 it raised a brook-like murmur, a sound as of some shallow fret- 
 ting stream on either hand the vessel; and, above all, it soothed 
 us with a sense and reality of motion, for the bark broke 
 the smooth waters bravely, and the wake of her, polished and 
 iridescent as oil, went away astern to the scope of two or three 
 cables. A few wool- white clouds floated along the slowly dark- 
 ening blue like puffs of steam from the funnel of a newly 
 started locomotive; but they had not the look of the trade 
 cloud, Helga said. She had taken sights at noon, had worked 
 out the vessel's reckoning, and had made me see that it would 
 not need very many hours of sailing to heave the high land of 
 Teneriffe into sight over the bow, if only wind enough would 
 hold to give the old bucket that floated under us headway. 
 
 I was holding the wheel at this hour I am speaking of, and 
 Helga was abreast of me leaning against the rail, sending her 
 soft blue glances round the sea as she talked. Abraham, with 
 a pipe in his mouth, his arms folded, and his head depressed, 
 was slowly marching up and down beside the forecastle hatch. 
 Jacob lay sound asleep upon a locker in the cuddy within easy 
 reach of a shout down the companion-way or through the sky- 
 light. 
 
 On a sudden my attention was taken from what Helga was 
 saying, and I found myself staring at the main-mast, which was 
 what is called at sea a " bright " mast— that is to say, un- 
 painted, so that the slowly crimsoning sun found a reflection 
 in it and the western splendor lay in a line of pinkish radiance 
 upon the surface of the wood. This line, along v/ith a portion
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 315 
 
 of the spar, to the height perhaps of eighteen or twenty feet, 
 seemed to be slowly revolving, as though, in fact, it were part 
 of a gigantic corkscrew, quietly turned from the depth ot the 
 hold. At first 1 believed it might be the heat of the atmos- 
 phere. Helga, observing- that I stared, looked too, and in- 
 stantly cried out: 
 
 " Hugh, the vessel is on fire!" 
 
 " Why, yes!" I exclaimed; " that bluish haze is smoke!" 
 
 I had scarcely pronounced these words when Abraham, with 
 his face turued our way, came to a dead halt, peered, and then 
 roared out: 
 
 *' Mr. Tregarthen, there's smoke a-filtering up out of the 
 main hatch I" 
 
 " Take this wheel!" said I to Helga; then, m a bound, I 
 gained the skylight, into which 1 roared with all my lungs for 
 Jacob to come on deck. As 1 ran forward 1 could see the 
 smoke thinly rising in bluish wreaths and eddies round about 
 the sides of the main hatch and from under the mast-coat at 
 the foot of the main-mast. 
 
 " They're a-shoutiug like demons in the fok'sle, sir," cried 
 Abraham, throwing his pipe overboard in his excitement. 
 
 " They have set fire to the ship!" I cried. " Does smoke 
 rise from the fok'sle?" 
 
 " Yes! ye may see it now!— ye may see it now!" he bawled. 
 
 In the moment or two's pause that followed 1 heard the half- 
 muffled shouts of the dark-skmned crew, with one or two 
 clearer voices, as though a couple of the fellows had got their 
 mouths close against the narrow opening in the hatch. I 
 rushed forward from abreast of the main-mast, where I had 
 come to a stand. 
 
 " What is wrong?" I cried. " Where is this smoke com- 
 ing from?" 
 
 A voice answered — it was Nakier's — but his dark skin 
 blended with the gloom out of which he spoke, and I could not 
 see him. 
 
 " 8ome man hab taken de fork'sle lamp into de forepeak, 
 and hab by haccident set fire to de cargo by putting de lamp 
 troo a hole in de bulkhead. For your God's sake let we out, 
 or we burn!" 
 
 " Is this a trick?" cried I to Abraham. 
 
 *' Test it, sir! — test it by opening the main hatch!" he 
 shouted. 
 
 Jacob had by this time joined us. In a few moments -.ve 
 had removed the battens and torn off the tarpaulin, but at the 
 first rise of the after-hatch cover that we laid our liands upon
 
 310 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 up belched a volume of smoke, with so much more following 
 that each man of us started back to catch his breath. Now 
 could be plainly heard a noise of shrieking forward. 
 
 " My God! men, what shall we do?" I cried, almost para- 
 lyzed by this sudden confrontment of the direst peril that can 
 befall humanity at sea, but rendered in our case inexpressibly 
 more horrible yet, to my mind, by the existence of the pent- 
 up wretches whom 1 felt, even in that moment of stupefying 
 consternation, we dared not liberate while we remained on 
 board. 
 
 " What's to be done?" cried Jacob, whose wits seemed less 
 abroad than Abraham's. " Ask yourself the question. The 
 wessel's on fire, and we must leave her if we ain't to be 
 burned." 
 
 " What! leave the Malays to perish?" 1 exclaimed. 
 
 " Let's smother this smoke down first, anyways," cried 
 Abraham, and he and his mate put the hatch on. 
 
 " Helga," I shouted, " drop the wheel! Come to us here I 
 The ship is on fire!" 
 
 She came running along the poop. 
 
 " See this!'' cried Abraham, extending his arms, which 
 trembled with the hurry and agitation of his mind; " if them 
 fellows forrads are not to be burned— and oh! myGord, listen 
 to them a-singing out! — we must provision a quarter-boat and 
 get away, and, afore casting off, one of us must pull them 
 stretchers off that the men may get out. Who's to be that 
 last man? I will!" 
 
 " Ko, ye can't swim, Abey! That must be moy job/' 
 shouted Jacob. 
 
 " I can lay hold of a buoy, an' jump overboard." 
 
 " It'll be moy job, 1 tell ye!" passionately cried Jacob. 
 
 " Oh, hark to those poor creatures!" exclaimed Helga. 
 
 " Quick!" cried 1. " Abraham has told us what to do. 
 Oh! there would be no need for this horrible haste but for 
 those imprisoned men! Hear them! Hear them!" 
 
 It was a wild and dreadful chorus of lamentation, mingled 
 with such wailings as might rise in the stillness following a 
 scene of battle. The noise was scarcely human. It seemed 
 to proceed from famished or wounded jackals and hyenas. 
 But to liberate them — every man armed as he was with a 
 sheath-knife deadly as a kreese in those dingy fists — every man 
 infuriated — it was not to be dreamed of! 
 
 As swiftly as we could ply our legs and arms, we victualed 
 the starboard quarter-boat. Provisions were to our hands; we 
 threw them in plentifully — remains of cooked meat, biscuit.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 31? 
 
 cheese, and the like; we took from each boat the breaker that 
 belonged to her, filled them both with water, and stowed them. 
 The sail belonging to the boat lay snugged in a yellow water- 
 proof cover along the mast; there were oars in her — all other 
 furniture indeed that properly belonged to her — rowlocks, rud- 
 der, yoke; and the boatmen, old hands at such work as this, 
 nimbly but carefully saw that the plug was in its place. 
 
 All the time that we worked there was rising out of the fore- 
 castle hatch the dreadful noise of lamentation, of cries, of en- 
 treaties. It was a sound to goad us into red-hot haste, and we 
 labored as though we were eight instead of four. 
 
 " Now, Mr, Tregarthen,'' cried Abraham, " if we ain*t to 
 be pursued by them savages on our liberating of ^em, we 
 must cut them there falls. " 
 
 And he pointed to the tackles which suspended the other 
 boat at the port davits. 
 
 " Do so!" said I. 
 
 He sprung on to the rail, and passed his knife through the 
 ends of the falls. This effectually put an end to all chance of 
 the fellows chasing us in that boat. 
 
 " There'll be plenty o' time for them to get the long-boat 
 out," shouted Abraham, running across the deck to us. 
 " They're seamen, and there's Nakier to tell 'em what to do." 
 
 " Rot 'em for firing the ship!" cried Jacob. " I don't be- 
 lieve she is on fire. They've made a smoke to scare us out of 
 her!" 
 
 " Is everything ready?" I exclaimed. 
 
 " Hugh!" cried Helga, clasping her hands, '' I have forgot- 
 ten my little parcel — the picture and the Bible!" 
 
 She was about to fetch them. 
 
 " I can be quicker than you," 1 cried, and, rushing to the 
 hatch, jumped down it, gained the cabin she had occupied in 
 Captain Bunting's time, and snatched up the little parcel that 
 lay in the bunk. There was no smoke down here. 1 sniffed 
 shrewdly, but could catch not the least savor of burning. It 
 is the fore part of the ship that is on fire, I thought. As 1 ran 
 to regain the hatch, it somehow entered my mind to recollect 
 that while looking for a lead-pencil in the chief mate's berth, 
 on the previous day, 1 had found a small bag of sovereigns and 
 shillings, the unhappy man's savings — all, perhaps, that he 
 possessed in the world — the noble fruits of Heaven knows how 
 many years of hard suffering and bitter labor! I was without 
 a halfpenny in my pocket, and entered the cabin to take this 
 money, which I might hope to be able to repay to some next 
 of kin of the poor fellow, should 1 ever get to hear of auch a
 
 318 MY DAKISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 person, and which in any case would be more serviceable in my 
 pocket than at the bottom of the sea, whither it was now tend- 
 ing. Having secured the money, which would be very useful 
 to Helga and me, should we live to reach a port, 1 hastened 
 on to the poop, heart-sickened by the dull noise of the cease- 
 less crying forward. 
 
 " Now," said I, " let us lower away in the name of mercy, 
 if only to free those wretches, half of whom may be already 
 suffocated." 
 
 Helga and 1 got into the boat, and'Abraham and his mate 
 smartly slackened away the tackles. In a few moments we 
 were water-borne, with the blocks released — for there was little 
 left for me to learn in those days of the handling and manage- 
 ment of a boat — and myself standing in the bow, holding on 
 by the end of the painter which I had passed through a mizzen- 
 channel plate. Abraham came down hand over hand by one 
 of the tackles, and dropped into the boat, instantly falling to 
 work to step the mast and clear away the sail. 
 
 " Below there!" roared Jacob; " look out for these duds!" 
 and down came first his boots, then his cap, then his coat, and 
 then his waistcoat. "I'll jump overboard f rom_ this 'ere 
 quarter!" he bawled. " Stand by to pick me up!" 
 
 The released helm had suffered the bark to come up into 
 the wind, and she lay aback with a very slow leewardly trend. 
 The breeze held the water briskly rippling, but the plain of 
 the ocean was wonderfully smooth, with a faint, scarce notice- 
 able swell lightly breathing in it. 
 
 "Mr. Tregarthen," exclaimed Abraham, " you'll pull a 
 stouter oar than Miss Nielsen. Supposin' the lady stands by 
 that there painter!" 
 
 "Eight!" 1 exclaimed, and on the girl entering the bows 
 Abraham and 1 seized an oar apiece in readiness for Jacob's 
 leap. 
 
 We lay close alongside, so that nothing was visible save the 
 length of the ship's black side and her overhanging yardarms, 
 and the thick lines of her shrouds rising to the lower mast- 
 heads. It was a breathless time. I had no fear for Jacob; I 
 guessed that the imprisoned wretches would be too dazed by 
 the glaring sunshine and by the fresh air and by their deliver- 
 ance from the stifling, smoke-thickened gloom of the forecastle 
 to catch him even should they pursue him ere he jumped. 
 Nevertheless, those moments of waiting, of expectation, of 
 suspense, strung the nerves in one to the tension of fiddle- 
 Btrings, and sensation was sharpened into a sort of anguish.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 319 
 
 Not more than three minutes elapsed — yet it seemed an hour. 
 Then in a hoarse roar right over our heads sounded a shout: 
 
 " Look out, now!'' 
 
 " Let go!'' shrieked Abraham. 
 
 Helga dropped the line that held the boat. 
 
 " Back a-starn, now!" 
 
 The fellow poled the boat off, while I put my whole strength 
 mto the oar I gripped. 1 caught a glimpse of Jacob poising 
 and stooping with his arms outstretched and his fiuger-eucls 
 together; his body whizzed through the air, his arms and head 
 striking the water as clean as a knife; then up rose his purple 
 face at a distance of three boats* lengths. A thrust of the 
 oar brought us alongside of him, and, while 1 grabbed him by 
 the neck to help him inboard, Abraham was hoisting the sail, 
 with Helga at the yoke-hnes, quietly waiting for the sheet to 
 be hauled aft. 
 
 " Bravely done, Jacob," cried L " There's a bottle of 
 brandy in the stern-sheets. Take a pull at it! The sun will 
 speedily dry you. " 
 
 " Where's the Malays?" exclaimed Abraham. 
 
 " Didn't stop to see," answered Jacob. " 1 chucked the 
 stretchers off and sung down ' Ye can come up,' and then 
 bolted." 
 
 " There's ISIakier!" cried Helga. 
 
 " And there's Punmeamootty!" 1 called. 
 
 1 was astounded by observing the figures of these two fel- 
 lows quietly gazing at us from the forecastle. Almost imme- 
 diately after they had appeared others joined them, and before 
 our boat had fairly got way upon her 1 counted the whole 
 eleven of them. They stood in a body with Nakier in the thick 
 of them surveying us as coolly as though their ship were at 
 anchor, and all were well, and we were objects of curiosity 
 merely. 
 
 " Why, what's the matter with 'em?" cried Abraham. 
 " Are they waiting for us to sing out to tell 'em what to do?" 
 
 He had scarcely spoken the words when a loud shout of 
 laughter broke from the dingy little mob, accompanied by 
 much ironical flourishing of hands, while Nakicr, springing on 
 to the rail, pulled his hat off and repeatedly bowed to us. We 
 were too much astounded to do more than gape at them. A 
 minute later Nakier sprung back again on to the forecastle and 
 piped out some orders in his melodious voice, in which, as- 
 suredly, the most attentive ear could have detected nothing of 
 the weakness that 1 had noticed in his cries to us through the 
 half-closed batch. Instantly the men distributed themselves,
 
 320 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 oue of them running to the wheel; and while we continued to 
 gaze, mute with amazement, the foretopsail-yard was swung, 
 the bark's head slowly fell off, the yards were then again braced 
 up, and behold! the little vessel, with her head at about south, 
 was softly breaking the waters, with the after yards swinging 
 as they were squared by the braces to the north-east wind. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVl. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 There was small need to go on staring and gaping for any 
 length of time to discover that we were the victims of an 
 out and away shrewder, cleverer, subtler stratagem than we 
 had practiced upon those dark-skins. I could not perceive any 
 smoke risiug from the forecastle. The fellows had been much 
 too clever to accept the risk of suffocation as a condition of 
 their escape. Abraham had assured me that the bulkhead 
 which divided the forepeak from the main hold was as strong 
 as any timber wall could well be; but there was either some 
 damage, some rent, some imperfection in the bulkhead, which 
 provided access to the hold, or the crew, jobbing with Asiatic 
 patience at the jjlank with their sharp knives, had joenetrated 
 it, having had all last night and all this day to do the work 
 in. 
 
 A very little thing will make a very great deal of smoke. 
 The burning of a small blanket might suffice to fill the hold 
 of a much bigger shif) than that bark with a smell of fire 
 stroDg enough and rolls of vapor dense enough to fill the crew 
 with consternation and drive them to the boats. While the 
 fellows kept the hatch of the forepeak closed the smoke could 
 hardly filter through into the forecastle. I can but conjecture 
 how they managed; but the triumphant evidence of their clev- 
 erness lay clear to our gaze in the spectacle of the bark slowly 
 drawiug away into the morning blue of the south and west. 
 
 When the two boatmen saw how it was, I thought they 
 would have jumped overboard in their passion. Abraham, as 
 usual, flung his cap into the bottom of the boat and roared at 
 the receding figure of the ship as though she were hard by, and 
 the men aboard attentively listening to him. Jacob, soaking 
 wet, his black hair plastered upon his brow, and his face as 
 purple now with temper as it Lad before been when he rose 
 half-strangled out of the water, chimed in, and together they 
 shouted. 
 
 Theu, turning upon me, Abraham bawled out that he would 
 follow them.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART, 321 
 
 *' This here's a fast boat," he vociferated. ** Here be oars 
 to help her canvas. Think them colored scaramouches is 
 a-going to rob me of my salwage? Is it to be all bad luck — 
 fust the ' Airly Marn,' and now/' cried he, wildly pointing at 
 the bark, " a job that might ha' been worth three or four hun- 
 dred pound a man! And to be tricked by such creatures! to 
 be mude to feel sorry by their howling and wailing! to watch 
 "em a-sailing away with what's properly moine and Jacob's, 
 and your'n! Whoy, there's money enough for a fust-class 
 marriage and the loife of a gentleman arterwards in a single 
 share of the salwage that them beasts has robbed us of!" 
 
 And so he went on; and when he paused for breath Jacob fell 
 a-shouting in a like strain. 
 
 Meanwhile Helga, at the helm with a composed face, was 
 making the boat hug the wind, and the little fabric, bowed 
 down by the spread of lug till the line of her gunwale was 
 within a hand's-breadth of the water, was buzzing along at a 
 speed that was fast dwindling the heap of square canvas astern 
 into a tcy-like space of white. At last Abraham and his mate 
 fell silent; they seated themselves, looking with dogged faces 
 over their folded arms at the diminishing bark. 
 
 For my part, long before the two honest fellows had made 
 an end of their temper I had ceased to think of the Malays and 
 the trick they had put up on us. Here we were now in a little 
 open boat — three men and a girl— in the heart of a spacious 
 field of sea, with nothing in sight, and no land nearer to us 
 than the Great Canary, which lay many leagues distant, and 
 for which the north-east wind would not suffer us to head on 
 a direct course. Here was a situation heavy and significant 
 enough to fill the mind, and leave no room for other thoughts. 
 And yet 1 do not know that I was in the least degree appre- 
 hensive. The having the bark's forecastle filled with a crew 
 of fellows whose first business would have been to slaughter 
 us three men on their breaking out had weighed intolerably 
 upon my spirits. It was a dreadful danger, a horrible obliga- 
 tion now passed, and my heart felt comparatively light, forlorn 
 and perilous as our situation still was. Then, again, I found 
 a sort of support in the experiences I had passed through on 
 the raft and in the lugger. The mind is always sensible of a 
 shock on leaving the secure high deck of a ship, and looking 
 abroad upon the vast, pitiless breast of old ocean from the 
 low elevation of a boat's side. I have heard of this sort of 
 transition paralyzing the stoutest-hearted of a shipwrecked 
 crew; for in no other situation does death seem to come nearer 
 to one, floating close alongside, as it were, ^ud chilling the hot-
 
 323 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 
 
 est air of the tropics to the taste and quality of a frosty blast; 
 and in no other situation does human helplessness find a like 
 accentuation, so illimitable are the reaches of the materialized 
 eternity upon which the tiny structure rests, the very stars by 
 night looking wan and faintly glittering, as though the found- 
 ered gaze had rendered their familiar and noted distances 
 measureless compared to their height from a ship's deck or 
 from solid earth. 
 
 But, as I have it in my mind to say, our experiences in the 
 raft and the open lugger were so recent that it was impossible to 
 feel all this vastness and nearness of the deep and the unutter- 
 able solitude of our tiny speck of fabric in the midst of it, as 
 though one came fresh from days of bulwarked heights and 
 broad white decks to the situation. Helga surrendered the 
 helm to Abraham, and the boat blew nimbly along over that 
 summer stretch of sea; Abraham steering with a mortified 
 face; Jacob leaning upon the weather gunwale with his chin 
 upon his arms, sullenly gazing into vacancy; and Helga and 
 I a little forward, talking in a low voice over the jjast. 
 What new adventure was this we had entered upon? Should 
 we come off with our lives after all? The tigress ocean had 
 shown herself in many moods since 1 had found myself within 
 reach of her claws. She was slumbering now. The dusky lid 
 of night was closing upon the huge open trembling blue eye. 
 Should we have escaped her before she aroused herself in 
 wrath? 
 
 The sun was now low upon the horizon, and the sky was a 
 flashing scarlet to the zenith, and][of a violet dimness eastward, 
 where a streak or two of delicate cloud caught the western 
 glory and lay like some bits of chiseling in bronze m those 
 tender depths. 
 
 " There ain't nothen in sight," said Jacob, resuming his seat 
 after a long look round; " we shall have to go through the 
 night." 
 
 " Well, I've been out in worse weather than this," exclaimed 
 Abraham. 
 
 " Pity the breeze doesn't draw more north or south," said 
 1. " The boat sails finely. A straight course for Teneriffe 
 would soon be giving us a sight of the peak." 
 
 " Ye and the lady '11 ha' seen enough, 1 allow, by this toime 
 to make ye both want to get home," said Abraham. " Is 
 there e'er a seafaring man who could tell of such a procession 
 of smothering jobs all a-treadiug on each other's heels? Fust 
 the loss of the ' Hayneen ' (meaning the ' Anine '), then the 
 j-aft, then the foundering of the ' Airly Mam,' then the feed-
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 333 
 
 ing of Mussulmen with pork, then the skipper — as was a proper 
 gentleman, tew— a-falling in love and afterwards being mur- 
 dered, then that there fire, and now this here boat — and all 
 for what? Not a blooming penny to come out of the whole 
 boiling!'' And his temper giving way, down went his cap 
 again, and he jumj^ed to his feet with a thirsty look astern; 
 but fortunately by this time the bark was out of sight, other- 
 wise there is no doubt we should have been regaled with another 
 half hour of 'longshore lamentation and invective. 
 
 The breeze held steady, and the boat swept through as 
 though she were in tow of a steamer. The sun sunk, the 
 western hectic perished, and over our heads was spread the 
 high night of hovering silver with much meteoric dust sailing 
 amid the luminaries, and in the south-east stood the moon, in 
 whose light the fabric of the boat and her canvas looked as 
 though formed of ivory. We had brough a^ bull's-eye lamp 
 with us, and this we lighted that we might tell how to steer 
 by a small compass which Abraham had taken from the cap- 
 tain's cabin. We made as fair a meal as our little stock of 
 provisions would yield, sitting in the moonshine eating and 
 talking, dwelling much upon the incidents of the day, especially 
 on the subtlety of the Malays, with occasional speculation on 
 what yet lay before us; and again and again one after another 
 of us would rise to see if there was anything in sight in the 
 pale hazy blending of the ocean rim with the sky, which the 
 moon as it soared flooded with her light. 
 
 To recount the passage of those hours would be merely to 
 retrace our steps in this narrative. It was a tedious course of 
 dozing, of watching, of whisj)ering. At times 1 would start 
 with the conviction that it was a ship's light my eyes had fast- 
 ened upon out in the silvery obscure, but never did it prove 
 more than a star or some phosphorescent sparkling in the eye 
 itself, as often happens in a gaze that is much strained and 
 long vigilant. 
 
 It was some time before five o'clock in the morning that I 
 was startled from what was more a trance of weariness than of 
 restful slumber by a shout: 
 
 " Here's something coming at last!" cried the hoarse voice 
 of Abraham. 
 
 The moon was gone, but the starlight made the dark very 
 clear and fine, and no sooner had 1 directed my eyes astern 
 than I spied a steamer's light. The triangle of red, green, 
 and white seemed directly in our wake, and so light was the 
 breeze and so still the surface of the ocean that the pulsing of 
 the engines, with the respiratory splashing of the water from
 
 324 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 the exliaust-pipe, penetrated the ear as distinctly as the tick 
 of a watch held close. 
 
 " Flash the bull's-eye, Jacob/* shouted Abraham, " or she'll 
 be a-cutting of us down!" 
 
 The fellow sprung into the stern-sheets and flourished the 
 light. 
 
 " Now sing out altogether, when I count three,'* cried Abra- 
 ham again, " ' Ship ahoy!' to make one word of it. Now then 
 — wan, tew, three!" We united our voices in a hurricane yell 
 of " Ship ahoy!" 
 
 "Again!" 
 
 Once more we delivered the shout, with such a note in it as 
 could only come from lungs made tempestuous by fear and 
 desire of preservation. Six or seven times did we thus hail 
 that approaching lump of shadow, defined by its triangle of 
 sparks, and in the intervals of our cries Jacob vehemently 
 flourished the bull's-eye lamp. 
 
 Suddenly the green light disappeared. 
 
 " Ha! She sees us!" exclaimed Abraham. 
 
 The sound of pulsing ceased, and then with a swiftness due 
 to the atmospheric illusion of the gloom, but that, neverthe- 
 less, seemed incredible in a vessell whose engines had stopped, 
 the great mass of shadow came shaping and forming itself out 
 within her own length of us into the aspect of a large brig- 
 rigged steamer, dark as the tomb along the length of her hull, 
 but with a stream of lamp-light touching her bridge, from 
 which came a clear strong hail: 
 
 " Boat ahoy! What is wrong with you?" 
 
 " We're adrift, and want ye to pick us up!*' roared Abra- 
 ham. " Stand by to give us the end of a line!" 
 
 Within five minutes the boat, with sail down and mast un- 
 stepped, was alongside the motionless steamer, and ten minutes 
 later she was veering astern and the four of us, with such few 
 articles as we had to hand up, safe aboard, the engines champ- 
 ing, the bow-wave seething, and the commander of the vessel 
 asking us for our story. 
 
 On the morning of Saturday the 18th of November, the 
 brigged-rigged steamer " Mosquito,** from the west coast of 
 Africa for London, stopped her engines and came to a stand 
 off the port of Falmouth, to put Helga and me ashore at that 
 town by the aid of a little west-country smack which had been 
 spoken and now lay alongside. 
 
 The English coast should have been abreast of us days earlier 
 than thisj bat very shortly after the " Mosquito ** had picked
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 335 
 
 US up something went wrong in her engine-room; our passage 
 to Madeira was so slow as to be little more than a dull and 
 tediouscravvlingover the waters; and we were delayed for some 
 considerable time at Funchal while the chief engineer and his 
 assistants got the engines into a condition to drive the great 
 metal hull to her destiaation. 
 
 But now the two bold headlands of the fair coast of Fal- 
 mouth — the tenderest, most gem-like bit of scenery, I do hon- 
 estly believe, not that England only, but that this whole great 
 world of rich and varied pictures has to show — lay plain in our 
 eyes. Streaks of snow upon the heights shone like virgin 
 silver in the crisp brilliant November sun of that wintery Chan- 
 nel morning, and betwixt the headlands the hills beyond showed 
 in masses of a milk-white softness poised cloud-like in the keen 
 blue distance, as though by watching you would see them soar. 
 
 I thanked the captain heartily for his kindness, and then, 
 standing in the gangway with my sweetheart at my side, I 
 asked for Abraham and Jacob that we might bid them fare- 
 well. The worthy fellows, endeared to me by the association 
 of peril bravely met and happily passed, promptly arrived. I 
 pulled out the money that I had taken from Mr. Jones's berth, 
 and said: "Here are thirteen pounds and some shillings, 
 Abraham, which belonged to that poor mate whom the Malays 
 killed. Here is half the amount for you and Jacob; the other 
 half will carry Miss Nielsen and me to Tintrenale. You need 
 not scruple to take it. I will make inquiries if the poor creat- 
 ure had any relatives, and, if 1 can hear of them, the money 
 will be repaid. And now you will both of you remember a 
 promise 1 made to you aboard the ' Early Morn.' Let me 
 have your addresses at Deal;" for they were proceeding to the 
 Downs in the steamer. 
 
 They told me where they lived. 1 then extended my hand. 
 
 " God bless you both!" 1 said. " 1 shall never forget you!" 
 And indeed more than that I could not have said at the mo- 
 ment, for my throat tightened when I looked into their honest 
 faces and thought how Helga and 1 owed our lives to them. 
 
 It was a hearty farewell among the four of us; much hand- 
 shaking and God-blessing of one another, and when we had enter- 
 ed the smack and shoved oil, the two poor fellows got upon the 
 bulwark rail and cheered us again and again, with such contor- 
 tions of form and violence of gesture that 1 feared to see them 
 fall overboard. But the steamer was now in motion, and in a 
 very little while the two figures were indistinguishable. I have 
 never seen them since; yet, as I write these words and think 
 of them, my heart is full; if t'hey be living 1 earnestly hope
 
 32(3 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 tliey are well and doing well; and if these lines meet their eye 
 they will know that the heartiest of hearty welcomes awaiU 
 them whenever they shall find themselves near my little 
 Cornish home. 
 
 The ISth was a Saturday, and I made up my mind to stay 
 throughout Sunday at Falmouth, that 1 might have time to 
 receive a liue from Mr. Trembath, to whom my first business 
 must be to send news of my safe return, that he might deliver 
 it with all caution to my mother; for it was not to be foreseen 
 how a sudden shock of joy might serve her. So we were no 
 sooner ashore than I wrote to Mr. Trembath, and then Helga 
 and 1 quitted the hotel to make some purchases, taking care 
 to reserve enough money to pay our traveling expenses home. 
 
 Next morning we went to church, and, kneeling side by side, 
 we offered up the thanks of our deeply grateful hearts for our 
 preservation from the many dark and deadly perils we had 
 encountered and for our restoration, sound in health and limb, 
 to a land we had often talked of and had as often feared we 
 should never again behold. 
 
 It was a quiet holiday with us afterward: a brief passage of 
 hours whose happiness was alloyed only by anxiety to get 
 news of my mother. Our love for each other was true and 
 deep — how true and how deep I am better able to know now 
 than 1 did then, before time had tested the metal of our hearts. 
 I was proud of my Danish sweetheart, of her heroic nature, of 
 her 'many endearing qualities of tenderness, goodness, simj^le 
 piety, of her girlish gentleness of character, which, in the hour 
 of trial and danger, could harden into the courage of the lioness 
 without loss, as I knew, of the sweetness and the bloom of her 
 maidenhood. 1 felt, too, she was mine in a sense novel indeed 
 in the experience of love-making: 1 mean, by the right of 
 having saved her life, of plucking her, as it were, out of the 
 fury of the sea; for we were both very conscious that, but for 
 my having been aboard the " Anine,'' she must have perished, 
 incapable of leaving her dying father even had she been able 
 with her girl's hands alone to save herself, as between us we 
 had saved ourselves. 
 
 But not to dwell upon this, nor to recount our walks on that 
 quiet November Sabbath day, our exquisite and impassioned 
 enjoyment of the scenes and sights and aromas of this favored 
 space of land after our many privations and after the sicken- 
 ing iteration of the ocean girdle, flawless for days and making 
 our sight ache with gazing and with expectation: not to dwell 
 upon this and much more that memory loves to recall — 
 Monday morning's post brought me a letter from Mr. Trem-
 
 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 32? 
 
 bath. My mother was well — ho had told her 1 was at Falmouth 
 — 1 was to come to her without delay. It was a long letter, 
 full of congratulations, of astonishment, but — my mother was 
 well! She knew I was at Falmouth! All the rest was idle 
 words to my happiness, full of news as the letter was, too. 
 Helga laughed and cried and kissed me, and an hour later we 
 were in a railway carriage on our way to Tintrenale. 
 
 On our arrival we immediately proceeded to the house of Mr. 
 Trembath. We were on foot, and on our way from the rail- 
 way station, as we turned the corner of the hilly road that 
 led to the town, the whole view of the spacious bay opened 
 upon our eyes. We instantly stopped, and 1 grasped Helga's 
 hand while we stood looking. It was a keen bright blue 
 morning, the air of a frosty, of an almost prismatic brilliance 
 of purity owing to the shining ranges of snow upon the slopes 
 and downs of the headlands of the cliffs. The Twins and the 
 Deadlow Rock showed their black fangs with a recurrent flash 
 of light as the sun smote them while wet from the lift of the 
 swell that was rolling into the bay. 
 
 " Yonder is where the ' Anine ' brought up. Oh! Helga, 
 do you remember?" 
 
 She answered me by caressing my shoulder with her cheek. 
 
 White gulls were hovering off the pier. To the right was 
 the life-boat house out of which we had launched on that dark 
 and desperate night of October 31st. The weather-cock 
 crowning the tall spire of St. Saviour's was glowing like gilt 
 in the blue. Far off, at the foot, of Hurricane Point, was the 
 cloudy glimmer of boiling water, the seething of the Atlantic 
 fold recoiling from the giant base. A smart little schooner lay 
 half a mile out on a lino with the pier, and, as she rolled, her 
 copper glistened ruddily upon the dark-blue surface. Sounds 
 of life arose from the town ; the ringing of bells, the rattling 
 of vehicles, the cries of the hawker. 
 
 " Come, my darling!" said I, and we proceeded. 
 
 1 shall never forget the look of astonishment with which 
 Mr. Trembath received us. We were shown into his study — 
 his servant was a new hand and did not know me; she ad- 
 mitted us as a brace of parishioners, 1 dare say. " Great 
 Heaven! it is Hugh Tregarthen!" he cried, starting out of his 
 chair as though a red-hot iron had been applied to him. He 
 wrung both my hands, overwhelming me with exclamations. 
 I could not speak. He gave me no opportunity to introduce 
 Helga. Indeed, he did not seem sensible of her presence. 
 
 " Alive, after all! A resurrection in good faith! What a 
 night it was, d'ye remember? Hal hal" he cried, clinging
 
 328 MT DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 to my hands and staring, with the wildest earnestness of ex- 
 pression, into my face, while his eyes danced with congratula- 
 tion and gratification. " We gave you up. You ought to be 
 dead — not a doubt of it! No young fellow should return to life 
 who has been mourned for as you were!" Thus he rattled on. 
 
 " But my mother — my mother, Mr. Trembath! How is 
 my mother?" 
 
 " Well, well, perfectly well — looking out for you. Why 
 are you not with her instead of with me? But to whom am I 
 talking — to Hugh Tregarthen's ghost?" 
 
 Here his eyes went to Helga, and his face underwent a 
 change. 
 
 " This young lady is a friend of yours?" and he gave her an 
 odd sort of puzzling, inquisitive bow. 
 
 " If you will give me leave, Mr. Trembath. I have not yet 
 had a chance. First let me introduce you to Miss Helga Niel- 
 sen, my betrothed — the young lady who before long will be 
 Mrs. Hugh Tregarthen, so named by your friendly offices. " 
 
 He jDeered at me to see if I was joking, then stepped up to 
 her, extended his hand, and courteously greeted her. Sweet 
 the dear heart looked as she stood with her hand in his, smil- 
 ing and blushing, her blue eyes filled with emotion, that dark- 
 ened them to the very complexion of tears, and that made 
 them the prettier for the contrast of their expression with her 
 smile. 
 
 " My dear mother being well," said I, " the delay of a quar- 
 ter of an hour can signify nothing. Let us seat ourselves that 
 I may briefly tell you my story and explain how it happen* 
 that Helga and I are here instead of going straight to my 
 home. " 
 
 He composed himself to listen, and I began. 1 gave him our 
 adventures from the hour of my boarding the " Anine,'' and 
 I observed that as I talked he incessantly glanced at Helga 
 with looks of growing respect, satisfaction, and pleasure. 
 
 " Now," said I, when I had brought my narrative down to 
 the time of our being picked up by the " Mosquito," never 
 suffering his repeated exclamations of amazement, his frequent 
 starts and questions, to throw me off the straight course of my 
 recital, " my wish is to see my mother alone, and when I 
 have had about an hour with her 1 want you to bring Helga 
 to our home." 
 
 "I quite understand," he exclaimed: "a complication of 
 surprises would certainly be undesirable. You will prepare 
 the way. 1 shall know how to congratulate her. I shall be 
 able to speak from my heart," said he, smiling at Helga.
 
 HY DANISH SWEETHEAET. 329 
 
 " One question, Mr. Trenibath. What of my poor life- 
 boat's crew?" 
 
 " Three of them were drowned," he answered; " the rest 
 came ashore alive in their belts. It was a very astonishing 
 preservation. The gale shifted and blew in a hurricane off 
 the land, as of course you remember; yet the drive of the 
 seas stranded the survivors down upon the southern end of the 
 esplanade. They were all washed in together — a most extra- 
 ordinary occurrence, as though they had been secured by short 
 lengths of line." 
 
 " And they are all well?" 
 
 " All. Poor Bobby Tucker and Lance Hudson were almost 
 spent, almost gone; but there was a preventive man standing 
 close by the spot to where the sea washed them; he rushed 
 away for help; they were carried to their homes — and what a 
 story they had to tell! The poor Danes who had jumped into 
 the boat were drowned to a man." 
 
 Helga clasped her hands, and whispered some exclamation 
 in Danish to herself. 
 
 I sat for another five minutes, and then rose with a signifi- 
 cant look at the clock, that Mr. Trembath might remember my 
 sweetheart was not to be absent from me for more than an 
 hour. I then kissed her and left the house, and made my way 
 to my mother's home. 
 
 It was but a short step, yet it took me a long while to reach 
 the door. 1 believe I was stopped at least ten times. Tintre- 
 nale is a little place; the ripple of a bit of news dropped into 
 that small pool swiftly spreads to the narrow boundaries of it, 
 and, though Mr. Trembath had only heard from me on the 
 preceding day, the whole town knew that I was alive, that 1 
 was at Falmouth, that I was on my way home. But for this 
 I might have been stared at as a ghost, and have nimbly stepped 
 past faces turned in dumb astonishment upon me. Now 1 had 
 to shake hands; now 1 had to answer questions, breaking away 
 with what grace I could. 
 
 When I reached my home there was no need to knock. My 
 dear mother was at the window, and, to judge from the celerity 
 with which the door flew open, she had stationed a servant in 
 the hall ready to admit me at her first cry. 
 
 " Dear mother!" 
 
 "My darling child!" 
 
 She strained me to her heart in silence. My throat was 
 swelled, and she could not speak for weeping. But tears of 
 rejoicing are soon dried, and in a few mmutos I was on the 
 sofa at her side, our hands locked.
 
 330 MY DAKISH SWEETHEAKT. 
 
 In the first hurry and joy of such a meeting as this much 
 will be said that the memory can not carry. There was a score 
 of questions to answer and put, none of which had any refer- 
 ence whatever to my strange experiences. She was looking 
 somewhat thin and worn, as though fretting had grown into 
 a habit which she could not easily shake off. Her snow-white 
 hair, her dear old face, her dim eyes, in which lay a heart- 
 light of holy, reverent exultation, the trembling fingers with 
 which she caressed my hair — the homely little parlor, too, with 
 the dance of the fire-play in the shady corners of the room, its 
 twenty details of pictures, sideboard— I know not what else — 
 all my life familiar to me, upon which, indeed, the eyes of my 
 boyhood first opened — I found it as hard to believe that I 
 was in my old home again at last, that my mother's voice 
 was sounding in my ear — that it was her beloved hand which 
 toyed with my hair — as at times I had found it hard to be- 
 L'eve that I was at sea, floating helplessly aboard a tiny raft 
 under the stars. 
 
 " Mother, did you receive the message that was written 
 upon a board, and read by the people of the Cape steamer 
 homeward bound ?^' 
 
 " Yes, four days ago, but only four days ago, Hugh! 1 be- 
 lieved I should never see yoa again, my ciild!" 
 
 " Well, thank God it is well with us both — ay, well with 
 three of us,*' said 1; " the third presently to be as precious in 
 this little home, mother, as ever a one of us that has slept be- 
 neath its roof. " 
 
 *' "What is this you are saying?" she exclaimed. 
 
 *' Be composed and give me your ear and follow me in the 
 adventures I am going to relate to you," said I, pulling out 
 my watch and looking at it. 
 
 My words would readily account for her perceiving some- 
 thing in my mind of a significance quite outside that of my ad- 
 ventures; but the instincts of the mother went further than 
 that; I seemed to catch a look in her as though she half guessed 
 at what 1 must later on tell her. It was an expression of 
 mingled alarm and remonstrance, almost as anticipative as 
 though she had spoken. God knows why it was she should 
 thus suggest that she had lighted upon what was still a secret 
 to her, seeing, as one might suppose, that the very last notion 
 which would occur to her was that 1 had found a sweetheart 
 out upon the ocean in these few weeks of my absence from 
 home. But there is a subtile quality in the blood of those 
 closely related which will interpret to the instincts as though 
 the eye had the power of ei^loring the recesses of the heart.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 331 
 
 I began my story. As briefly as I might, for there was no 
 longer an hour before me, I related my adventures step by 
 step. 1 had only to pronounce the girl's name to witness the 
 little movement of jealousy and suspicion hardening in the 
 compressed lips and graver attention of the dear old soul. I 
 had much to say of Helga. In truth, my story was nearly all 
 about Helga: her devotion to her father, her marvelous spirit 
 in the direst extremity, her pious resignation to the stroke 
 that had made her an orphan. I put before my mother a picture 
 of the raft, the starlit gloom of the night, the dying man 
 with his wife's portrait in his hand. I told her of Helga's 
 heroic struggle with her anguish of bereavement, her jjosture 
 of prayer as I launched the corpse, her prayer again in the 
 little forepeak of the lugger where the dim lantern faintly 
 disclosed the picture of her mother, before which the sweet 
 heart knelt. My love for her, my pride in her were in my 
 face as I spoke; I felt the warm blood in my cheek, and emo- 
 tion made my poor words eloquent. 
 
 Sometimes my mother would break out with an exclamation 
 of wonder or admiration, sometimes she would give a sigh of 
 sympathy; tears stood in her eyes while 1 was telling her of 
 the poor Danish captain's death and of Helga kneeling in 
 prayer in the little forepeak. When 1 had made an end, she 
 gazed earnestly at me for some moments in silence, and then 
 said: 
 
 " Hugh, where is she?" 
 
 " At Mr. Trembath's!" 
 
 " She is in Tintrenale?" 
 
 " At Mr. Trembath's, mother." 
 
 " Why did you not bring her here?" 
 
 " I wished to break the news." 
 
 " But she is your friend, Hugh. She was a good daughter, 
 and she is a good girl. 1 must love her for that." 
 
 1 kissed her. "You will love her when you see her. You 
 will love her more and more as you know her better and bet- 
 ter. She is to be my wife. Oh, mother, you will welcome her 
 — you will take her to your heart, so friendless as she is and so 
 poor; so tender too, so gentle, so affectionate?" 
 
 She sat musing awhile, playing with her fingers. That col- 
 oring of suspicion, of a mother's jealousy, which I have spoken 
 of, had yielded to my tale. She was thinking earnestly, and 
 with an expression of kindness. 
 
 *' You are young to marry, Hugh." 
 
 " No, no, motherl"
 
 332 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 
 
 " She is very young too. We are poor, dear; and she has 
 
 nothing, you tell me." 
 
 " She is one of those girls, mother, who have nothing, yet 
 have all.'' 
 
 She smiled, and stroked my hand, and then turned her head 
 as though in a reverie, and fixed her eyes for a little space 
 upon my father's picture. 
 
 " We know nothing of her parents," said she. 
 
 " She has her mother's portrait. It tells its own story. 
 We know who and what her father was. But you- shall ques- 
 tion her, mother. I see her kneeling at your side telling you 
 her little life history." 
 
 At this moment the house-door knocker was set chattering 
 by a hand that I very well knew could belong to no other man 
 than Mr. Trembath. I was too impatient to await the attend- 
 ance of the servant, and rushing to the door brought Helga 
 into the parlor. The clergyman followed, and as Helga stood 
 in the door,-way he peered over her shoulder at my mother. 
 The dear girl was pale and nervous, yet sweet and fresh and 
 fair beyond words did she look, and my heart leaped up in my 
 breast to the instant thought that my mother could not see 
 her without being won. 
 
 The pause was but for a moment; my mother rose and 
 looked at the girl. It was a swift, penetrating gaze, that van- 
 ished in a fine, warm, cordial smile. 
 
 " Welcome to our little home, Helga!" said she, and step- 
 ping up to her she took her by the hands, kissed her on both 
 cheeks, and drew her to the sofa. 
 
 "Well, good-bye for the present, Hugh," exclaimed Mr. 
 Trembath. 
 
 " I will acccompany you," said I. 
 
 *' No," cried my mother, " stay here, Hugh! This is your 
 proper place," and she motioned for me to sit beside her. 
 
 Mr. Trembath, with a friendly nod, disappeared. 
 
 My story comes to an end as the worthy little clergyman 
 closes the door upon the three of us. When I sat down to 
 this work, I designed no more than the recital of the advent- 
 ures of a month; and now I put down my pen very well satisfied 
 that 1 leave you who have followed me in no doubt as to the 
 issue of Helga's introduction to my mother, though it would 
 go beyond my scheme to say more on that head. I found a 
 sweetheart at sea, and made her my wife ashore, and a time 
 came when my mother was as proud of her Danish daughter 
 as 1 was of my Danish bride.
 
 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. 333 
 
 There had beeu much talk between Helga and me, when we 
 were on the ocean, of our going to Kolding; but down to the 
 present time we have not visited that place. Her friends there 
 are few, and the journey a long one; yet we are constantly 
 talking of making an excursion to Copenhagen, and the mere 
 fancy, perhaps, gives us as much pleasure as the trip itself 
 would. Through the friendly oflSces of the Danish vice-consul 
 at Falmouth we were enabled to realize upon the poor few 
 effects which Captain Nielsen had left behind him in his little 
 house at Kolding, and we also obtained payment of the money 
 for which he had insured his own venture in the freight that 
 had foundered. 
 
 There were moments when I would think with regret of the 
 "Light of the AVorld." No doubt, could we have brought 
 her to England or to a port, our share of the salvage would 
 have made a little dowry for Helga, for, though 1 had not 
 seen the vessel's papers, I might reasonably supj)Ose the value 
 of the cargo, added to that of the bark itself, amounted to 
 several thousands of pounds, and, as there were but four to 
 share, Helga's and my division would not have failed to yield 
 us a good round sum. 
 
 And what was the end of that ship? I have heard the 
 story: it found its way into the newspapers, but in brief, in- 
 suflBcient paragraishs only. The whole narrative of her advent- 
 ures after we had been tricked out of her by her colored crew 
 is one of the strangest romances of the sea that my experience 
 has encountered, student as I am of maritime affairs. Some 
 of these days I may hope to tell the story; but for the present 
 you will consider that I have said enough. 
 
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