RiMlffTM 
 
 
 WELLINGTON 
 
 go S^ -SJB -J;^^ e;^ s-ci)^ a^^ VQ^ t5^^G>0 -^^ -2,ei c^ »i73 i. ^j-s SyS '^Qj-i 
 
 THIS BOOK TO BE RETURNED WITHI 
 
 "J.. 
 
 DAYS. 
 
 ^svnt& of ^nb^cviptiotx , 
 
 Subscribers of £1 Is. allowed Two Volumes from Mudie's, 
 Two from Permanent Library, and use of Reading Room 
 during the day. 
 
 Subscribers of 10s, 6d. allowed One Volume from Mudie's, 
 One from Permanent Library, and use of Reading Room 
 during the day. 
 
 Subscribers of 5s. allowed One Volume from the Permanent 
 Library, and use of Reading Room during the evening. 
 
 '^X[S-iatxx& relating to tire ^ihraru. 
 
 1. — Any Member taking a Book from the Room without 
 entering the same in the Book provided for that purpose, 
 shall be fined Five Shillings. 
 
 2. "Any Member transferring a Book to another Member, 
 or lending it to any other person, shall be fined Two Shillings 
 and Sixpence. 
 
 3. — Any Member losing or injuring a Book shall replace 
 it with a new one, or pay such sum as the Committee may 
 determine, and if any ^fember shall receive a Book torn or 
 defaced he shall communicate the same to the Librarian, or 
 be held responsible for the injury 
 
 4. — All Fines shall be paid to the Librarian before the 
 parties incurring them shall be allowed to have any other 
 Book from the Library. 
 
 5. — No Book shall be lent during the week preceding the 
 Annual General Meeting, and all Books then in circulation 
 shall be returned to the Librarian at least One Week before 
 such Meeting, and any Member detaining a Book beyond that 
 time shall be fined One Shilling. 
 
 J\/o Dictionary or Work of Reference to be 
 taken from the Library. 
 
 ^m^^ssmk 
 
 ^"^si^m.
 
 .„ ->* 
 
 H^^^aC^sm
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/heartofoakthrees01russ
 
 NEW BOOKS AT EVERY LIBRARY. 
 
 SONS OF BELIAL. By William Westall. 2 vols. 
 
 LILITH. By George Mac Donald, i vol. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT. By Mrs. Hunger- 
 ford. 3 vols. 
 
 THE IMPRESSIONS OF AUREOLE, i vol. 
 
 DAGONET ABROAD. By George R. Sims, i vol. 
 
 CLARENCE. By Bret Harte. i vol. 
 
 OTHELLO'S OCCUPATION. By Mary Anderson. 
 I vol. 
 
 HONOUR OF THIEVES. By C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne. 
 I vol. 
 
 THE MACDONALD LASS. By Sarah Tytler. i vol. 
 
 THE PRINCE OF BALKISTAN. By Allen Upward. 
 I vol. 
 
 THE KING IX YELLOW. By Robert W. Chaubers. 
 1 vol. 
 
 London : CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly.
 
 HEART OF OAK 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUART 
 
 LONDON
 
 HEART OF OAK 
 
 A THREE-STRANDED YARN 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CLARK RUSSELL 
 
 author of 
 
 'the wreck of the grosvenor' 'the phantom death' 
 
 ' the convict ship ' etc. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES— VOL. L 
 
 LONDON 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1895
 
 f 5 3 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 Y CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 ^ I. Miss Otway opens the Story . . . . i 
 
 — II. Marie's Sweetheart .16 
 
 III. The ' Lady Emma ' 30 
 
 t ' IV. Marie begins her Voyage 57 
 
 <-; V. The Hidden Life of the Ship . . . 85 
 
 VI. A Strange Man on Board 112 
 
 f^' VII. A Race and a Eoller 136 
 
 . VIII. A Hurricane 161 
 
 y^ IX. Dismasted 190 
 
 X. The Jury-Mast 212 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 4
 
 HEART OF OAK 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY 
 
 I DATE the opening of this narrative, February 
 24, 1860. 
 
 I was in the drawing-room of my father's- 
 house on the afternoon of that day, awaiting 
 the arrival of Captain Burke, of the ship 
 ' Lady Emma,' and his wife, ^lary Burke, who 
 had nursed me and brought me up, and indeed 
 been as a mother to me after my own mother's 
 death in 1854 ; but she had left us to marry 
 Captain Edward Burke, and had already made 
 two voyages round the world with him, and 
 was presently going a third. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 HEART OF OAK 
 
 My father sat beside the fire reading a 
 newspaper. His name was Sir Mortimer 
 Otway ; he was fourth baronet and a colonel ; 
 had seen service in India, thoucjh he had lonc^ 
 left the army to settle down upon his httle 
 seaside estate. He was a man of small fortune. 
 Having said this, I need not trouble you with 
 more of his family history. 
 
 I was his only surviving child, and my 
 name is Marie ; I have no other Christian 
 name than that ; it was my mother's. My 
 age was twenty and my health delicate, so 
 much so that Captain and Mrs. Burke were 
 coming from London expressly to talk over a 
 scheme of my going round the world in their 
 ship for the benefit of my appetite and spirits 
 and voice, and perhaps for my lungs, though 
 to be sure tltey were still sound at that date. 
 
 Ours was a fine house, about a hundred 
 years old ; it stood within a stone's throw of 
 the brink of the cliff; walls and hedges encom- 
 passed some seventy or eighty acres of land.
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY 3 
 
 pleasantly wooded in places, and there was a 
 charming scene of garden on either hand the 
 carriage drive. I stood at the window with 
 my eyes fastened upon the sea, which went in 
 a slope of grey steel to the dark sky of the 
 horizon, where here and there some roamincr 
 mass of vapour was hoary Tvith snow. It was 
 blowinof a fresh breeze, and the throb of the 
 ocean was cold with the ice-hke glances of the 
 whipped foam. Presently it thickened over- 
 head, and snow fell in a squall of wind that 
 darkened the early afternoon into evening 
 with smoking lines of flying flakes. The sea 
 faded as the reflection of a star in troubled 
 water. My father put down his newspaper 
 and came to the vrindow. He was a tall man, 
 bald, high-coloured ; his eyes were large and 
 black, soft in expression, and steady in gaze ; 
 his beard and moustache were of an iron crrev, 
 he was sixty years old, yet still preserved the 
 soldier's trick of carrying his figure to the full 
 heicrht of his stature.
 
 4 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' At what liour do you say they're to be 
 here ? ' 
 
 « At three.' 
 
 He glanced at his watch, then out of the 
 window. 
 
 ' That doesn't look like a scene where a 
 delicate girl's going to get strong ! ' 
 
 ' No,' I answered with a shiver. 
 
 'But a crown piece on a chart will often 
 cover the area of worse weather than this, and • 
 for leagues beyond all shall be glorious sun- 
 shine and blue water.' 
 
 ' It's hard to realise,' said I, straining my 
 eyes through the snow for a sight of the 
 sea. 
 
 'Well,' he exclaimed, turning his back 
 upon the window, ' Brad sh aw is an able man ; 
 his instances of people whom a sea voyage has 
 cured are remarkable, and weigh with me. 
 Living by the seaside is not like going a 
 voyage. It's the hundred climates which 
 make the medicine. Then the sis^hts and
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY 5 
 
 sounds of the ocean are tonical. j^ re sailors 
 ever ill at sea ? Yes, because they carry 
 their sickness on board vr'iih them, or they 
 decay by bad usage, or perish by poisonous 
 cargoes. The sea kills no man — save by 
 drowning.' 
 
 He took a turn about the room, and I 
 stared through the window at the flying 
 blankness. 
 
 ' Steam is more certain,' he went on, think- 
 ing aloud. ' You can time yourself by steam. 
 But then for health it doesn't give you all you 
 want. At least we can't make it fit in your 
 case. It would be otherwise if I had the 
 mean's or was able to accompany you, or if I 
 could put you in charge of some sober, trust- 
 worthy old hand. Steam must signify several 
 changes to give you the time at sea that Brad- 
 shaw prescribes. It's out of the question. 
 No; Mrs. Burke's scheme is the practicable 
 one, and I shall feel easy when I think of you 
 as watched over by your old nurse. But I
 
 6 HEART OF OAK 
 
 have several questions to ask. When are 
 they coming? Have they missed their 
 train?' 
 
 About five minutes after this they were 
 shown in. 
 
 Mrs. Burke, my old nurse, was a homely, 
 plain, soft-hearted woman, a little less than 
 forty years of age at this time. She was stout, 
 and pale, though she w^as now a traveller, 
 with large, short-sighted blue eyes, a flat face, 
 and a number of chins. She w^as dressed as 
 you would wish a homely skipper's wdfe to be : 
 in a neat bonnet with a heavy Shetland veil 
 wrapped around it ; a stout mantle, and a 
 gown of thick warm stuff. She sank a httle 
 curtsey to my father, who eagerly stepped 
 forward and cordially greeted his old servant ; 
 in an instant I had my arms round her neck. 
 You will believe I loved her when I tell you 
 she had come to my mother's service when I 
 was a month old, and had been my nurse and 
 maid, and looked after me as a second mother
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY 7 
 
 down to the time when she left ns to be 
 married. 
 
 Her husband stood sniihng behind her. 
 He was short, an Irishman : he looked the 
 completest sailor you can imagine — that is, a 
 merchant sailor. He was richly coloured by 
 the sun, and his small, sharp, merry, liquid 
 blue eyes gleamed and trembled and sparkled 
 in their sockets like a pair of stars in some 
 reflected hectic of sunset in the eastern sky. 
 Everything about him told of heartiness and 
 good humour : there was something arch in 
 the very curl of his little slip of whiskers. 
 A set of fine white teeth hghted up his face 
 like a smile of kindness whenever he parted 
 his lips. He was dressed in the blue cloth 
 coat and velvet collar, the figured waist- 
 coat and bell-shaped trousers, of the mer- 
 chant service in those days, and over all 
 he wore a great pilot-cloth coat, whose 
 tails fell nearly to his heels ; inside of which, 
 as inside a sentry box, he stood up on slightly
 
 8 HEART OF OAK 
 
 curved, easil)^ yielding legs, a model of a clean, 
 wholesome, hearty British skipper. 
 
 Of course I had met him before. I had 
 attended his marriage, and was never so dull 
 but that the recollection of his face on that 
 occasion would make me smile, and often 
 laucrh aloud. He had also with his wife 
 spent a day with us after the return of his 
 ship from the first voyage they had made 
 together. My father shook him cordially by 
 the hand. He then led him into the library, 
 whilst I took Mrs. Burke upstairs. 
 
 We could have found a thousand thiuf^s to 
 say to each other ; there were memories of 
 sixteen years of my life common to us both. 
 I could have told her of my engagement and 
 shown her my sweetheart's picture ; but I 
 was anxious to hear Captain Burke on the 
 subject of my proposed voyage, and so after 
 ten minutes we went downstairs, where we 
 found my father and the captain seated before 
 a glowing fire, already deep in talk.
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY 9 
 
 The captain jumped up when I entered, 
 my father placed a chair for Mrs. Burke, who 
 curtseyed her thanks, and the four of us sat. 
 
 ' Well, now, Mrs. Burke,' said my father, 
 addressing her very earnestly, ' your husband's 
 ship is your suggestion, you know. You've 
 sailed round the world in her and you can 
 tell me more about the sea than your 
 husband knows ' — the captain gave a loud, 
 nervous laugh — ' as to the suitability of such 
 a ship and such a vovaixe as vou recommend 
 to Miss Otway.' 
 
 ' I am sure, Sir Mortimer,' answered Mrs. 
 Burke, ' that it'll do her all the good, and 
 more than all the good, that the doctors 
 promise. I should love to have her with 
 me.' She turned to look at me affectionately. 
 ' Since you can't accompany her, sir, I'd not 
 like to think of her at sea, and me without 
 the power of caring for her. Xo steamer 
 could be safer than the ''Lady Emma."' 
 The captain uttered a nervous laugh of good-
 
 lo HEART OF OAK 
 
 humoured derision of steamers. ' If you 
 will trust my dear young lady to me, I'll 
 warrant you. Sir Mortimer, there's not the 
 most splendid steamship afloat that shall 
 make her a comfortabler home than my 
 husband's vessel.' 
 
 ' I have some knowledge of the sea. 
 Captain Burke,' said my father. ' I have 
 made the voyage to India. What is the 
 tonnage of the " Lady Emma " ? ' 
 
 ' Six hundred, sir.' 
 
 ' That's a small ship. The " Hindostan " 
 was fourteen hundred tons.' 
 
 ' You don't want stilts aboard of six 
 hundred tons to look over the head of the 
 biggest sea that can run,' answered the 
 captain, 
 
 ' She sails beautifully and is a sweet- 
 looking ship,' said my old nurse. 
 
 ' When do you start ? ' asked my father. 
 
 ' I hope to get away by the end of next 
 month, sir.'
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY ii 
 
 ' Your little ships, I understand, which are 
 not passenger vessels, often sail very deeply 
 loaded and are unsafe in that way,' said my 
 father. 
 
 ' There can be nothing wrong with a 
 man's freeboard, sir, when his cargo is what 
 mine's going to be next trip : stout, brandy, 
 whisky, samples of tinned goods, a lot of 
 theatre scenery, builder's stuff like as doors 
 and window frames, patent fuel and oil-cake.' 
 
 ' Gracious, what a mixture ! ' cried his 
 wife. 
 
 ' What I suppose is termed a general 
 cargo ? ' said my father ; ' not the best of 
 cargoes in case of fire.' 
 
 ' What cargo is good ^vhen it comes to 
 that, sir?' asked Captain Burke, smiling- 'We 
 must never think of risks at sea any more than 
 we do ashore. To my fancy there's more 
 peril in a railway journey from here to London 
 than in a voyage from the Thames round the 
 world.'
 
 12 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' Miss Otway must be under somebody's 
 care, Sir Mortimer,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' How do you tliink she looks ? ' 
 
 ' Xot as she'll look when I bring her back 
 to you, sir.' 
 
 ' It's astonishinii what a lot of colourinfr 
 matter there is for the blood in sea air,' said 
 Captain Burke. ' When I was first going to sea 
 I was as pale as a baker ; or, as my old father 
 used to sa}', as a nun's lips with kissing of 
 
 beads ; afterwards ' he paused with an 
 
 arch look at his wife. 'And the colour isn't 
 always that of rum either,' he added. 
 
 'Where does the ship first sail to, nurse?' 
 said I. 
 
 ' Tell my young lady, Edward,' she 
 answered. 
 
 ' We're bound to Valparaiso, and that's by 
 way of Cape Horn,' said the captain. ' We 
 there discharge, fill afresh, and thence to Syd- 
 ney, New South Wales, thence to Algoa Bay, 
 and so home — a beautiful round voyage.'
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY 13 
 
 ' Eight round the world, and so many 
 lovely lands to view besides ! ' exclaimed Mrs. 
 Burke, looking at me ; ' always in one ship, 
 too, in one home, Sir Mortimer, with me to 
 see to her. Oh, I shall love to have her ! ' 
 
 My father looked out of the window at 
 the wild whirl of snow that had thickened 
 till it was all flying whiteness through the 
 glass, with the coming and going of the 
 thunder of a squall in the chimney, and a 
 subdued note of the snarling of surf, and said, 
 ' Cape Horn will be a cold passage for Miss 
 Otway.' 
 
 ' It's more bracing than cold,' said Captain 
 Burke. ' People that talk of Cape Horn and 
 the ice there don't know, I reckon, that 
 parrots and humming birds are to be met 
 with in Strait le Maire. I was shipmate with 
 a man who's been picking fuchsias in such 
 another snowfall as this down on the coast of 
 Patagonia.' 
 
 ' Miss Marie, you should see an iceberg ;
 
 14 HEART OF OAK 
 
 it's a beautiful sight when hghted up by the 
 sun,' said my nurse. 
 
 ' Beautifuller when under the moon and 
 lying becalmed like a floating city of marble, 
 and nothing breaking the quiet save the 
 breathing of grampuses,' exclaimed the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 In this strain we continued to talk for 
 some time. My father better nnderstood than 
 I did that my very life might depend upon my 
 going a voyage, and spending many months 
 among the climates of the ocean. All the 
 doctors he had consulted about me were agreed 
 in this, and the last and the most eminent, 
 whose opinion we had taken, had advised it 
 with such gravity and emphasis as determined 
 him upon making at once the best arrano^e- 
 ments practicable, seeing that he was unable 
 to accompany me for several reasons ; one, and 
 a sufficient, being his dislike of the sea when 
 on it. Our long talk ended in his proposing 
 to return with Captain Burke to London to
 
 MISS OTWAY OPENS THE STORY 15 
 
 view the ' Lady Emma,' which was lying in the 
 East India Docks, and my old nurse consented 
 to stop with me until he returned, so that we 
 could cliat about the voyage and think over 
 the many little things which might be neces- 
 sary to render my trip as happy and com- 
 fortable as foresight could contrive. The 
 one drawback that kept my father hesitating 
 throughout tliis meeting with Captain Burke 
 and his wife was this : the ' Lady Emma ' would 
 not carry a surgeon. But that question, they 
 decided, would be left until he had seen the 
 ship, and satisfied himself that she would make 
 me such a sea-home as he could with an easy 
 heart send me away in.
 
 i6 HEART OF OAK 
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 Marie's sweetheart 
 
 My father went to London next day with 
 Captain Burke. I denied myself to callers, 
 and until my father came back remained 
 alone with my old nurse, once or twice taking 
 a ramble along the seashore when the sun 
 shone ; but my health was bad, and I had as 
 little taste for walking as for company. 
 
 I suffered from a sort of spiritlessness and 
 a dull indifference to things. My health was 
 the cause of my low-heart edness : but there 
 were many reasons now why I should feel 
 wretched. It was not the merely leaving my 
 father and my home for a twelvemonth and 
 longer, to wander about the ocean in a ship in 
 search of colour for my cheeks and hght for
 
 MARIE'S SWEETHEART 17 
 
 my e3'es and strength for my voice ; bnt for 
 my health I should have been married in the 
 previous October ; and now my marriage 
 must be put off till the sea had made m.e 
 strong, and I was to be sundered from the 
 man I loved for months and months. 
 
 My betrothal had happened whilst my old 
 nurse Burke was away ; it was therefore news 
 to her, and she listened to all about it with 
 eager, affectionate attention. I told her that 
 my sweetheart was 'Mv. Archibald Moore, the 
 son of a private banker in the City of London. 
 I had met him at a ball in the neighbourhood, 
 and within a montli of that we were encrao'ed. 
 He was the sweetest, dearest, handsomest — I 
 found I did not want words when it came to 
 my praising him and speaking of m}' love. 
 
 She said : ' Does he often come to see you. 
 Miss Marie ? ' 
 
 ' Often. Every week. He is occupied 
 with his father in the bank, and can only 
 spare from Saturday to Monday.' 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 I8 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' Will he be here next Saturday ? * 
 
 ' I hope so/ 
 
 ' Dear heart ! Oh, Miss Marie, I have a 
 thought : will not his father spare him to sail 
 with us, so that you can be together P ' 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 ' But why not ? ' 
 
 ' Father would not hear of it.' 
 
 She reflected and exclaimed, 'And Sir 
 Mortimer would be quite right. To be sure 
 it would not do. Is it not a pity that we 
 have to live for our neighbours ? Neighbours 
 have broken folks' hearts, as well as their 
 fortunes. Why shouldn't you two be to- 
 gether on board my husband's ship ? But 
 the neighbour says No, and people have to 
 live for him. Drat the prying, squinting 
 starer into one's windows ! he forces us to 
 dress out a better table than our purses can 
 afford, and to give balls when we ought to be 
 cutting down the weekly bills. But he don't 
 like the sea, my dear. There are no neigh-
 
 MARIE'S SWEETHEART 19 
 
 bours at sea. Unfortunately the wretch stops 
 ashore ; people have to come back, and so 
 he has 'em again ! ' 
 
 Mrs. Burke made much of Mr. Moore's 
 portrait. She had never seen a handsomer 
 gentleman. What was his age P I answered 
 ' Thirty.' ' All the sense,' said she, ' that a 
 man's likely to have he'll have got between 
 thirty and forty. It'll comfort you. Miss 
 Marie, to remember that Mr. Moore's thirty 
 when you're away. He's old enough to know 
 what he's about : he's made up his mind ; 
 there'll be no swerving.' 
 
 This was a sort of gabble to please me. 
 She knew my nature, and when and how to 
 say just the sort of thing to set my spirits 
 dancing. In truth the part of my proposed 
 banishment hardest to bear was the fear that 
 a long absence would cool the heart of the 
 man I loved. 
 
 On Friday Mrs. Burke left us to rejoin her 
 husband, whose home was in Stepney, and on 
 
 c2
 
 20 HEART OF OAK 
 
 tliat day my father returned. He was in 
 good spirits. He liad seen the ' Lady Emma ' 
 and thought her a fine ship. She was classed 
 high, and was yacht-like as a model. Mr. 
 Moore had accompanied him and Captain 
 Burke to the docks, and was wonderfully 
 pleased with the vessel and her accommoda- 
 tion. 
 
 ' We've got over the difficulty of a doctor,' 
 •said my father. 
 
 ' How ? ' I answered. 
 
 ' Burke lias consented to eno-ao-e one. I 
 told him if he would carry a surgeon, by 
 which I mean feed and accommodate him in 
 •the ship, I would bear the other charges. He 
 has a month before him, and may find a man 
 Tvho wants a change of air and who'll give his 
 services for a cabin and food. Or, which is 
 more likely, he'll meet with some intelligent 
 young gentleman who wants to try his 
 'prentice hand on sailors before starting in 
 practice ashore. Doctors find sailors useful
 
 MARIFS SWEETHEART 21 
 
 as subjects ; they can experiment on tliera 
 without professional anxiety as to tlie result.' 
 
 Now that it was as good as settled I was 
 to sail in the ' Lady Emma,' I looked forward 
 to meeting Mr. Moore next day with dread and 
 misery. I was going away alone. All the risks 
 of the sea lay before me. I was low and poor 
 in health. Who could be sure that the ocean 
 would do for me all that the doctors had 
 promised ? Who was to say it would let me 
 return alive H I might never meet my love 
 again. When I said good-bye to the man 
 who by this time should have been my 
 husband, it might be for ever, and the 
 thought made the prospect of meeting him 
 next day almost insupportable. 
 
 He found me alone in the drawim?-room. 
 The servant admitted him and closed the 
 door. I stood up very white and crying ; he 
 took me in his arms and kissed me, led me to 
 a chair and sat beside me, holding my hand 
 and nursing it, and looking into my face for a
 
 22 HEART OF OAK 
 
 little while, scarcely able to speak. How 
 shall I describe him, wliose love for me, as 
 you shall presently read, was such as to make 
 my love for him, when I think of him as he 
 sat beside me that day, as I follow him in 
 memory afterwards, too deep for human ex- 
 pression ? He was tall, fair, eyes of a dark 
 blue, deep but gentle, and easily impassioned. 
 He wore a large yellow moustache, and was 
 as perfectly the model of an English gentle- 
 man in appearance as Captain Burke was a 
 merchant skipper. 
 
 He began immediately on the subject of 
 my voyage. 
 
 ' It's hard we should be parted ; but I like 
 your little ship, Marie. I've not met your 
 old nurse, but I judge from what your father 
 tells me you could not be in better and safer 
 hands. Captain Burke seems a fine fellow — a 
 thorough, practical seaman. I wish I could 
 accompany you.' 
 
 ' Oh, Archie, I shall be so long alone ! '
 
 MARIE'S SWEETHEART 23 
 
 * Ay, but you're to get well, dearest. I've 
 thought the scheme over thoroughly. If 
 there's nothing for it but a voyage as the 
 doctors insist, your father's plans, your old 
 nurse's suggestion, could not be bettered. 
 Who would look after you on board a big 
 steamer? There is nobody to accompany 
 you — no relative, nobody we know, no party 
 of people I can hear of to entrust you to — 
 making, I mean, such a voyage as the doctors 
 advise. I should be distracted when you 
 were gone in thinking of you as alone on a 
 steamship at sea, with not a soul to take the 
 least interest in you saving the captain ; and 
 captains, I believe, do not very much love 
 these obligations. Civility, of course, every- 
 body expects, but a big ship to look after is a 
 big business to attend to.' 
 
 ' It will be a terribly long voyage.' 
 ' To Valparaiso, and then to Sydney and 
 Algoa Bay, and home. About fourteen 
 months. So Burke calculates it. A long
 
 24 HEART OF OAK 
 
 time, Marie ; but if it is to make you strong, 
 it will not be too lono;.' 
 
 In this wise we talked ; then, tliere bein^ 
 two hours of daylight left, I put on my hat 
 and jacket and, taking my lover's arm, went 
 with him slowly down the great gap in the 
 cliffs to the seashore. It was sheltered down 
 here. The yellow sunshine lay upon the 
 brown sand, and flashed in the liftin^^ lenoths 
 of seaweed writhin^j amidst the surf, and had 
 a sense of April warmth, though it was a 
 keen wind that then blew — a northerl}^ wind, 
 strong, with a hurry of white clouds like 
 endless flocks of sheep, scampering south- 
 wards. The sands made a noble promenade, 
 surf-furrowed and hard as wood ; the 
 breakers tumbled close beside us with a loud 
 roar of thunder, and exquisite was the picture 
 of the trending cliffs, snowclad, gleaming with 
 a delicate moonlike light in the pale airy blue 
 distance. All sights and sounds of sky and sea 
 appealed to me now with a meaning I had
 
 MARIE'S SWEETHEART 25 
 
 never before found in them. I ttouIcI stop 
 my lover as we walked, to observe the 
 swift and beautiful miracle of the moulding 
 of a breaker as it arched out of the troubled 
 brine, soaring into a snowstorm, arching 
 headloncr to the sands with the foam flvinor 
 from its rushing peak like white feathers 
 streamino- from a dazzling^ line of helmets ; 
 and once or twice as we talked, I would 
 pause to mark the flight of the gulls stem- 
 ming the wind aslant in curves of beauty, or 
 sailing seawards on level, tremorless wings, 
 and flinging a salt ocean song with their short 
 raw cries throus^h the harsh bass and storm- 
 ing accompaniment of the surf. _ 
 
 ' If the breeze does not make me strong 
 here, why should tlie sea make me strong 
 elsewhere? ' I said. 
 
 ' It is the change. I have heard of des- 
 perate cases made well by travel.' 
 
 ' It is hard ! To think that my health 
 should force me to that ! ' I exclaimed, point-
 
 26 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ino' to a little vessel that had rounded out of 
 a point two miles distant, and was lifting the 
 white seas to the level of her bows as she 
 sank and soared before the fresh wind, every 
 sail glowing hke a star, her rigging gleaming 
 like golden wire, her decks sparkling when 
 she inclined them towards us, as though the 
 glass and brass about her were rubies and 
 diamonds. ' I w^onder if she will ever return, 
 Archie?' 
 
 ' Why not ? Cheer up, dearest.' 
 We watched her till she had shrunk into 
 a little square of dim orange, with the freckled 
 green running in hardening ridges southwards, 
 where the shadow of the early February even- 
 ing was deepening like smoke, making the 
 ocean distance past the sail look as wide again 
 to the imagination as the truth was. I shud- 
 dered and involuntarily pressed my lover's 
 arm. 
 
 ' The wind is too cold for you,' he said, 
 and we slowly returned home up through the
 
 MARIE'S SWEETHEART 27 
 
 great split in the cliff amongst whose hollows 
 and shoulders the roar of the surf was echoed 
 back in quick, sudden, intermittent notes like 
 the sound of guns at sea. 
 
 From this date until I sailed my time was 
 wholly occupied in preparing for the voyage. 
 I went to London with my father to shop ; 
 Mi's. Burke accompanied us, and half our pur- 
 chases were owing to her advice. Fortunately 
 for her, as the wife of a sailor wlio was able to 
 take her to sea with him, she was childless, and 
 could afford to give me much of her time. 
 They reckoned I was to be away fourteen 
 months, but Captain Burke advised us, having 
 regard to the cliaracter of the voyage, es- 
 pecially to the passage from Valparaiso to 
 Sydney, to stock for a round trip of eighteen 
 months : this he thought would provide for a 
 good margin. Clothes for all the climates, 
 from the roasting calms of the line down to 
 the frost-black gales of the Horn, were pur- 
 chased ; many delicacies were laid in — a
 
 28 HEART OF OAK 
 
 hundred elegant trifles of wine and condiments, 
 of sweetmeats and potted stuffs, to supplement 
 the captain's plain table or to find me a relish 
 for some hungry howling hour when the gal- 
 ley fire should be washed out. Mr. Moore 
 wrote that he frequently visited the ship, and 
 that he and Mrs.- Burke between them were 
 making my cabin as comfortable as my 
 old nurse's foresight and experience could 
 manage. 
 
 So went by this wretched time of waiting 
 and of preparation. 
 
 About a fortnight before the ship sailed 
 my father received a letter from Captain 
 Burke, tellino- him that he had enf^ac^ed a 
 surgeon. His name was Owen. His age he 
 said was about forty-three ; he was a widower. 
 The loss of his wife and two daughters three 
 years before this period had broken him down ; 
 he was unable to practise ; had travelled in 
 the hopes of distracting his mind, but his 
 means were slender and he was unable to be
 
 MARIE'S SWEETHEART 29 
 
 long away or go far ; yet when he endeavoured 
 to resume work he found himself unequal to 
 his professional calls. He thereupon sold his 
 practice and had lived for some months in 
 retirement upon a trifling income. Having 
 seen Captain Burke's advertisement he offered 
 his services in exchange for a free voyage. 
 The captain described him as a gentlemanly 
 man, his credentials excellent, and his expe- 
 rience considerable.
 
 HEART OF OAK 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE ' LADY EMMA ' 
 
 On the morning of a day for ever memorable 
 to me as the date of my departure from my 
 home — namely, March 31, 1860 — my father 
 and I went to London, there to stay till April 2, 
 when it was arranged that I should go on 
 board the ship at Gravesend. My grief 
 worked like a passion in me ; yet I was quiet ; 
 my resolution to be calm whitened my cheeks, 
 but again and again my eyes brimmed in spite 
 of my efforts. 
 
 Oh, I so feared this going away alone ! 
 Even thougli I was to be in the comj)any of 
 my faithful, dear Mrs. Burke, my very heart 
 so shrank up in me at the idea of saying 
 farewell to my lover, with the chance of
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 31 
 
 never seeing him more, that sometimes when 
 I said my prayers I would ask God to make 
 me too ill to leave home. 
 
 It was a melancholy grey day when I 
 drove with my father to the station ; the east 
 wind sang like the surf in the naked, iron-hard 
 boughs, and the sea streamed in lines of snow 
 into the black desolate distance, unbroken by 
 a gleam of sail, save, as we turned the corner 
 which gave me a view of the ocean, I caught 
 sight of a lonely black and red carcass of a 
 steamer staggering along, tall and naked as 
 though plucked, with a hill of foam under 
 her counter ; the melancholy and desolation 
 of the day was in her, and no picture of ship- 
 wreck could have made that scene of waters 
 sadder. 
 
 I had bidden good-bye to all I knew during 
 the week ; there were no more farewells to be 
 said. We entered the train, and wlienwe ran 
 out of the station I felt that my long voyage 
 had truly commenced. I'll not linger over
 
 32 HEART OF OAK 
 
 my brief stay in London. Mr. Moore was 
 constantly with me : indeed we were seldom 
 apart during those two days of my waiting to 
 join the ship at Gravesend. His father and 
 sister called to say good-bye ; I was too poorly 
 and low-spirited to visit them. In truth I 
 never once left the hotel until I drove with 
 my father and Mr. Moore to the station to 
 take the train to Gravesend. 
 
 Before embarking, however, I made the 
 acquaintance of Mr. Owen, the surgeon of the 
 ship. He had occasion to be in the West End 
 of London, and Mrs. Burke asked him to call. 
 I viewed him with considerable curiosity, for 
 it was not only he was to be my medical 
 adviser — I could not but reflect tluit I was to 
 be locked up in a small ship with tliis man for 
 very many months, with no other change of 
 society than Captain and Mrs. Burke. I was 
 pleasantly disappointed in him. I had figured 
 a yellow, long-fjiced, melancholy man, with a 
 coimtenance ploughed by frequent secret
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 33 
 
 weeping, and furrowed by pitiful memories 
 and niglit thoughts black as Dr. Young's. 
 Instead there entered tlie room briskly, with 
 a ' sideways bow cleverly executed whilst in 
 motion, the right arm advanced, a short, 
 plump figure of a man in a coat cut in some- 
 thing of a clerical style, short legs, and a face 
 that would have been reasonably full but for 
 its long aquiline nose, and contraction of linea- 
 ments due to a big bush of hair standing out 
 stiff in minute curls over either ear. Other- 
 wise he was bald. 
 
 My father was extremely polite to him. 
 He stayed an hour and partook of some shght 
 refreshment. He stared at me very carnestl}^, 
 felt my pulse, considered me generally with 
 polite professional attention, and, after he had 
 put certain questions, said to my father with 
 significant gravity : 
 
 ' You may console yourself, sir, for the 
 temporary loss of your daughter ; I do not 
 scruple to say that in sending her on this voy- 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 
 
 HEART OF OAK 
 
 age you \Yill be saving her life. I believe I 
 can recognise her case, and strongly share the 
 opinion of those who prescribe a long resi- 
 dence on board ship upon the ocean.' 
 
 My father's face lighted up : nothing I 
 believe could have heartened him more at the 
 moment than this assurance. Mr. Moore took 
 Mr. Owen by the hand and said : 
 
 • We shall be trusting her to you, sir ; she 
 is very dear to me. We should be man and 
 wife but for her health.' 
 
 ' All that ni}^ anxious attention can give 
 her she shall have,' said Mr. Owen, bowing 
 over my lover's hand. 
 
 Yet he did not stay his hour without let- 
 ting us see, poor fellow, that in the depths of 
 his heart he was a grieving man. He said 
 nothing ; no reference was made to his afflic- 
 tion : but in certain pauses the pain of 
 memory w^ould enter his face like a shadow, 
 and sometimes he would sie^h tremulously as
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 35 
 
 one in sorrow sighs in sleep, scarcely knowing 
 you saw, that he did so. 
 
 When he was g(3ne, my father said to Mr. 
 Moore that his spirits felt as light again now 
 that he had seen what sort of man it was who 
 would have charge of my health. 
 
 ' Taking all sides of it,' he said, ' I don't 
 think we could have done better. Marie goes 
 witli an old nurse who loves her as her own 
 child ; Mr. Owen seems a kind-hearted> ex- 
 perienced, practical man. I hope he under- 
 stands that our appreciation of his kindness 
 will not be restricted to bare thanks on the 
 return of the vesseL Tlie more I see of 
 Burke, the better I like him. He is an 
 honest, experienced seaman from crown to 
 heel, and in saying that I am allowing him 
 all the virtues. Xo ; the arrangements are 
 wlioUy to my satisfaction and my mind is at 
 rest. It will be like a long yachting trip for 
 Marie : she will have a fine ship under her, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 HEART OF OAK 
 
 and all the seclusion and comfort of a yacht 
 combined with the safety of ample tonnage. 
 I am satisfied. It was a cruel difficulty ; we 
 have had to meet it ; it is well met, and now, 
 Marie, there is nothing to do but wait. Have 
 patience. The months will swiftly roll by — 
 then you will return to us, a healthy, fine 
 young woman, full of hfe and colour and 
 
 vio-our, instead of ' His voice broke off in 
 
 a sob and he turned his head away. I ran to 
 him and he held me. 
 
 On April 2 we went down to Gravesend. 
 Mr. Moore accompanied us. Captain Burke 
 had telegraphed that the ' Lady Emma ' was 
 lying off that town and would tow to sea in 
 the afternoon of the 2nd. We arrived at 
 Gravesend at about twelve o'clock and drove 
 to a hotel. All my luggage had been sent on 
 board the ship in the docks. Mrs. Burke 
 waited for us in a room overlooking the 
 river ; here she had ordered luncheon to be 
 served. She seemed hearty and happy :
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 37 
 
 kissed me, and curtseyed to my father and 
 ^Jr. Moore, and taking me to the window 
 said : 
 
 ' There she is. Miss Marie. There's your 
 ocean home. What do you think of her as a 
 picture r ' 
 
 She pointed to a vessel that was straining 
 at a buoy almost immediately opposite. A 
 tug was lying near her. It was a young- 
 April day ; tlie sunshine thin and pale, the 
 blue of the heavens soft and dim, with a 
 number of swelhng bodies of clouds, humped 
 and bronzed, saihng with the majesty of 
 line-of-battle ships into the south-west. A 
 brisk wind blew and the river was full of life. 
 The grey water twinkled and was flashed in 
 places into a clearness and beauty of bluish 
 crystal by the brushing of the breeze. The 
 eye was filled and puzzled for some moments 
 by the abounding tints and motion. A large 
 steamer with her line of bulwarks palpitating 
 with heads of emigrants was slowly passing
 
 38 HEART OF OAK 
 
 down ; another with frosted funnel and drain- 
 ings of red rust on her side, as though she 
 still bled from the scratches of a recent vicious 
 fight outside, was warily passing up : beside 
 her was a large, full-rigged ship towing to 
 London, and the sluggish passage of the 
 masts, yards, and rigging of the two vessels, 
 the steamer sliding past the other, combined 
 with the sudden turning of a little schooner 
 close by, all her canvas shaking, and with the 
 heeling figure of a brig, her dark breasts of 
 patched canvas swelling for the flat shores 
 opposite, a spout of white water at her fore- 
 foot, and a short-lived vein of river-froth at 
 her rudder ; then^ close in, two barges heaped 
 with cargo, blowing along stiff as flag-poles 
 under brown wings of sail ; these with vessels 
 at both extremities of the Eeach, coming and 
 going, interlacing the perspective of their 
 rigging into a complication of colours and 
 wirelike outlines, for ever shifting : all this 
 wonderful changiug life, I say, adding to it
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 39 
 
 the treinbliDg of the stream of river, the 
 pouring of smoke, the pulling and shivering 
 of flags, put a giddiness into the scene, and 
 for some moments I stared idly, with Mrs. 
 Burke beside me pointing to the ' Lady 
 Emma.' 
 
 My eye then went to the sliip, and rested 
 upon as pretty a little fabric as probably ever 
 floated upon the water of the Thames. I may 
 venture upon a description of her and speak 
 critically : indeed I must presuppose some 
 knowledge of the sea in you, otherwise I shall 
 be at a loss ; for as you shall presently dis- 
 cover I was long enough upon the ocean, 
 under circumstances of distress scarcely 
 paralleled in the records, to learn by heart 
 the language of the deep, how to speak of 
 ships and tell of sailors' doings, and I cannot 
 but name the things of the sea in the 
 language in which the mariner talks of 
 them. 
 
 The ' Lady Emma ' was a full-rigged ship,
 
 40 HEART OF OAK 
 
 between six hundred and seven hundred tons 
 in burthen ; she was a wooden ship — iron 
 saiUng vessels were few in those days ; she 
 was painted black ; but though loaded for the 
 voyage she sat lightly upon the water, and a 
 hand's-breadth of new metal sheathincr burned 
 along her water-line like a gilding of sunlight 
 the leno'th of her. Her lower masts were 
 white, her upper masts a bright yellow ; her 
 yards were very square, or as a landsman 
 would call them wide : the most inexperienced 
 eve mio'ht uuess that when clothed in sail she 
 would spread wings as of an albatross in 
 power, breadth, and beauty for a n^eteoric 
 flight over the long blue heave. 
 
 ' How do you like her, Miss Marie ? ' said 
 Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' She is a pretty ship, I think,' I answered. 
 
 'She is a beauty,' said the good woman ; 
 ' she outsails everything.' 
 
 'She las a fine commanding hft about 
 the bows,' said Mr. Moore, passing his arm
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 41 
 
 througli mine. ' Captain Burke tells me slie 
 has done as miicli as three hundred and 
 twelve miles in the twenty-four hours.' 
 
 ' So she has, sir,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' I wish she'd maintain that rate of sail- 
 ing all the time Marie is aboard,' said my 
 father. 
 
 ' Oh, Sir Mortimer, this going will seem 
 but as of yesterday's happening when yonder 
 ship's out there again, returned, and your 
 dear girl's in your arms, strong, fme, and 
 hearty, rich in voice, and bright-eyed as she 
 used to be when a baby. These voyages 
 seem long to take, and when they're ended 
 it's like counting how many fingers you have 
 to remember them, so easy and quick it all 
 went.' 
 
 Lunch was served and we seated ourselves, 
 but my throat was dry and I could swallow 
 nothing but a little wine. My father and Mr. 
 Moore pretended to eat ; suddenly looking up 
 I met my sweetheart's gaze : a look of inex-
 
 42 HEART OF OAK 
 
 pressible tenderness and distress entered his 
 face, and starting from bis seat lie went to 
 the window, and kept his back to us for a few 
 minutes. Mrs. Burke went to him and 
 whispered in his ear ; I perfectly understood 
 that she begged him to bear up for my sake : 
 indeed it needed but for my father and my 
 lover to give waj^, for me to break down 
 utterly, with a menace of consequent prostra- 
 tion that must put an end to this scheme of a 
 voyage on the very threshold of it. 
 
 We left the hotel at two o'clock and 
 walked slowly to the pier. I was closely 
 veiled. I could not have borne the inquisi- 
 tive stare of the people as we passed. Whilst 
 we waited for a boat, I watched a mother say- 
 ing good-bye to her son, a bright-haired boy of 
 fourteen in the uniform of a mercliant midship- 
 man. She was in deep mourning, a widow, 
 and I had but to look at her pale face to 
 know that the boy was her child. The lad 
 struiigled with his feelimrs ; his determination
 
 THE 'LADY EM.MA' 43 
 
 to be manly and not to be seen to cry by the 
 people standing round about nor to go on 
 board his ship with red eyes doubtless helped 
 him. He broke away from her with a sort 
 of sharp sobbing laugh, crying, ' Back again 
 in a year, mother, back again in a year,' and 
 left her. She stood as though turned to 
 stone. When in the boat he flourished his 
 cap to her ; she watched him like a statue 
 with the most dreadful expression of grief the 
 imagination could paint. Never shall I forget 
 the motionless fiorure of that widow mother 
 and the grief in her face, and the look in her 
 tearless eyes. 
 
 ' There's plenty of sorrow in this world,' 
 said Mrs. Burke, as the four of us seated our- 
 selves in the boat, ' and there's no place where 
 more grief's to be seen than here, owing to 
 the leave-takings and the coming back of ships 
 with news.' 
 
 ' Master of a ship fell dead yesterday just 
 as he was a-stepping ashore,' said the water-
 
 44 HEART OF OAK 
 
 man who was rowing ns. ' Bad job for Lis 
 large family.' 
 
 ' You'll take care to have a letter ready 
 before the ship is out of the Channel, Marie,' 
 said my father. ' Mrs. Burke, your husband 
 will give Miss Otway every opportunity of 
 sending letters home ? ' 
 
 ' I'll see to it. Sir Mortimer.' 
 
 We drew alongside the ship. Captain 
 Burke and Mr. Owen stood at the gangway to 
 receive us. When I went up the ladder, sup- 
 ported by my father. Captain Burke with his 
 hat off extended his hand, saving : 
 
 ' Miss Otway, welcome on board the" Lady 
 Emma." She has received my whisper. She 
 knows her errand and what's expected of her. 
 She'll keep time. Sir Mortimer ; and the magic 
 that'll happen betwixt the months whilst our 
 jibboom is pointing to as many courses as the 
 compass has marks is going to transform this 
 delicate, pale young lady into the heartiest,
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 45 
 
 rosiest lass that ever stepped over a ship's 
 side.' 
 
 ' I pray so, I pray so,' exclaimed my 
 father. 
 
 'Captain Burke is not too sanguine,' 
 exclaimed Mr. Owen with a smile. 
 
 ' When do you start ? ' asked Mr. Moore. 
 
 ' Soon after three, sir, I hope,' answered 
 Captain Burke. 
 
 I ran my eye over the ship. The scene 
 had that sort of morbid interest to me 
 which the architecture and furniture of a 
 prison cell takes for one who is to pass many 
 months in it. I beheld a lonc^ white deck, 
 extending from the taffrail into the bows, with 
 several structures breaking the wide lustrous 
 continuity : one forward was the galle}^, the 
 ship's kitchen ; this side of it was a large 
 boat with sheep bleating inside her ; whilst 
 underneath was a sty-full of pigs, flanked by 
 hen-coops whoie bars throbbed with the
 
 46 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ceaseless protrusion and withdrawal of the 
 flapping combs of cocks and the heads of hens. 
 Near us was a great square hatch, covered 
 over with a tarpaulin, and further aft, as the 
 proper expression is, was a big glazed frame 
 for the admission of light into the cabin ; some 
 distance past it a sort of box, curved to the 
 aspect of a hood, called the companion- waj^ 
 conducted you below. At the end of the ship 
 was the wheel, like a circle of flame with the 
 brasswork of it flashing to the sun, and im- 
 mediately in front stood the compass box or 
 binnacle, oditterino- like the wheel, and trem- 
 bling to its height upon the white planks like 
 a short pillar of fire. 
 
 A number of sailors hung about the fore- 
 castle, and a man leaned in the little door of 
 the galley in a red shirt, bare to the elbows, 
 eying us, with a pair of fat, dough-like, 
 tattooed arms crossed upon his breast, a 
 picture of stupid, sulky curiosity. 
 
 We stayed for a few minutes talking in the
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 47 
 
 gangway ; Mrs. Burke then asked me to step 
 below and see my cabin, and I went down the 
 steps followed by the rest, and entered the 
 ship's little plain state-room. 
 
 I stopped at the foot of the ladder and 
 drew my breath with difficidty. AVhat was it ? 
 An extraordinary sensation of icy chill had 
 passed through me. It was over in an instant, 
 but it was as though the hand of death itself 
 had clutched my heart. Was it a presentiment 
 working so potently as to affect me physically H 
 Was it some subtle motion of the nerves in- 
 fluenced by the sight of the interior, and by. 
 the strange shipboard smells in it wdiich there 
 was no virtue in the hanging pots of flowers to 
 sweeten ? I said nothing. My father halted 
 to the arrest of my hand, supposing I wished 
 to look about me, and yet, oh, merciful God ! 
 when I date myself back to that hour, and 
 think of me as entering that cabin for the first 
 time, and then of what happened afterwards, I 
 cannot for an instant question — nay, with fear
 
 48 HEART OF OAK 
 
 and awe I devoutly believe — that the heart- 
 moving sensation of chill which came and went 
 in the beat of a pulse was a breath off the 
 pinion of my angel of fate or destiny, stirring 
 in the thick-ribbed blackness of the future at 
 sight of my first entrance into the scene of my 
 distress. Do not think me fanciful nor high 
 strained in expression or imagination. My 
 meaning will be clear to you. 
 
 The Burkes had done their best to make 
 this state cabin comfortable to the eye. 
 Shelves full of books were secured to the 
 ship's wall : a couple of globes of gold and 
 silver fish hung under the skylight, where too 
 were some rows of flowers hanging in pots. 
 A couple of tall glasses w^ere afiixed to the 
 cabin walls, and the lamp was handsome and 
 of bright metal. A new carpet was stretched 
 over the deck, and the table was covered with 
 a cloth, so that the interior looked like a little 
 parlour or living-room ashore. I also ob- 
 served a stove in the fore end of the cabin ; it
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 49 
 
 looked new, as though fitted for this particular 
 voyacre. 
 
 ' Dear Miss Marie, let me show you your 
 bedroom,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 A narrow corridor w^ent out of this livinop 
 room in the direction of the stern ; on either 
 hand were cabins, four of a side. Mrs. Burke 
 threw open a door on the port or left hand 
 side, and we entered a large berth. Two 
 had been knocked into one for my use. 
 
 ' This is bigger than anything I could 
 have secured for you on board a steamer,' 
 said my father. 
 
 My old nurse's eyes were upon me whilst 
 I gazed around. They had made as elegant 
 a little bedroom of the place as could possibly 
 be manufactured on board a plain, homely 
 sailing ship. Every convenience was here, 
 and the furniture was handsome. They had 
 put pink silk curtains to my bunk which was 
 single — that is, the upper shelf w^as removed 
 so that I should have the upper deck clear 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 50 HEART OF OAK 
 
 above me when I pillowed my head. They 
 had prettily decorated with drapery a large 
 oval glass nailed to the bulkhead : this mirror 
 caught the light trembhng off the river, and 
 brimming through the porthole and filled the 
 interior with a radiance of its own as though 
 it had been a lamp. The carpet was thick 
 and rich ; the armchair low and soft. A 
 writing table stood in the corner, and on it 
 was a lovely bouquet ; the berth was rich 
 with the smell of those delicious flowers ; 
 the atmosphere sweet as a breeze in a garden 
 of roses. It was my lover's gift, sent on 
 board the ship just before she left the docks, 
 but I did not know this until after I had 
 said good-bye to him. 
 
 ' It is as comfortable as your bedroom at 
 home, Marie,' said my father. 
 
 ' I find your thoughtful heart everywhere 
 here, nurse,' said I. 
 
 ' We have all done our best, and our best 
 shall go on being done,' she answered, smiling,
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA 
 
 51 
 
 and meeting my father's gaze she dropped 
 hhn one of her little old-world curtseys. 
 
 ' I don't think you'll find anythinof missinor, 
 sir,' said Captain Burke, ' from Mr. Owen's 
 medicine chest down to the smallest case of 
 goodies in the lazarette.' 
 
 'My daughter is in kind hands. I am 
 satisfied,' said my father, and he came to me 
 and put his arm round my neck. 
 
 Captain Burke, saying he was needed 
 on deck, went out. Mrs. Burke and Mr. 
 Owen followed ; my father stepped into 
 the state-room that I mis^ht be alone with 
 my lover. 
 
 He caught me quickly to his heart and 
 kissed me again and again with a passion of 
 grief and love. We had exchanged our vows 
 before, over and over. We could but kiss 
 and whisper hopes of a sweet meeting, of a 
 lasting reunion by-and-by. It was like a 
 parting between a young bride and bride- 
 groom, but with a dreadful significance going 
 
 UBRAFY
 
 52 HEART OF OAK 
 
 into it out of my health and out of the 
 thought of the perils of the sea. Indeed, a 
 sadness as of death itself was in that parting, 
 and I know Archie felt that, as I did, when he 
 released me and stood a moment looking into 
 my wliite face. 
 
 When we went into the cabin I found 
 my father earnestly conversing with Mrs. 
 Burke. He was asking questions about my 
 luggage and effects, and impressing certain 
 things upon her memory. A few minutes 
 later Captain Burke came down the com- 
 panion-steps, and, lialting before he reached 
 the bottom, exclaimed : 
 
 ' Sir Mortimer, I'm sorry to say the 
 tug'll be laying hold of us now almost imme- 
 diately.' 
 
 My father started, looked at me with 
 something frantic in the expression of his 
 face, then crying ' Well, if the time has 
 
 come ' and took m.e in his arms. Then 
 
 with tears standing in his eyes, and gazing up-
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 53 
 
 wards, lie asked God to bless and to protect 
 me, and to restore me, his only child, in 
 safety and in health to him ; and now speech- 
 less with grief, mutely looking a farewell 
 to ^Irs. Burke, who herself was weeping, he 
 went on deck, followed by Mr. Moore, whose 
 leave-taking here had been no more than a 
 single kiss pressed upon my forehead as I 
 stood beside the table after my father had 
 released me. 
 
 ^yhen they were gone I sank into a chair ; 
 Mrs. Burke looked with wet eyes through a 
 cabin window. She was right to let my grief 
 have its way. After a little I heard the 
 voices of men chorusing on deck ; overhead 
 people regularly tramped to and fro. Mr. 
 Owen came into the cabin and said : 
 
 ' Pray, Miss Otway, let me conduct you 
 above. The air will refresh you, and the 
 picture of the river is striking and full of 
 life.' 
 
 ' Come, dear Miss Marie, with me,' said
 
 54 
 
 HEART OF OAK 
 
 Mrs. Burke, and I put my arm through hers 
 and went on deck. 
 
 I stood still on discovering that our voyage 
 was begun. Our ship had been moored to a 
 buoy ; there had been no anchor to weigh, no 
 wild music of seamen nor hoarse quarter-deck 
 commands to give the news of departure to 
 those under deck ; the httle tug had quietly 
 manoeuvred for our tow-rope, and now the 
 ship's bows were pointing down the river, her 
 keen stem shearing through the froth of the 
 paddle-wheels ahead, with some sailors heave- 
 hoing as they dragged upon the ropes which 
 hoisted certain staysails and jibs ; the old town 
 of Gravesend was sliding away upon the 
 quarter. I strained my eyes in vain for a 
 sight of the boat in wliich my father and Mr. 
 Moore might have been making for the shore. 
 Well perhaps that I could not distinguish her. 
 I tliink it would have broken my heart 
 then to have seen them, thus, for the last 
 time, making their way ashore for that home
 
 THE 'LADY EMMA' 55 
 
 I was leaving for months, and perhaps for 
 ever ! 
 
 ' We have started, nurse ! ' I exclaimed. 
 
 ' Yes, dear,' she answered. ' Do not make 
 haste to cease crying. Let nature work by 
 deoTees in her own fashion. I shall soon see 
 my dear girl looking proudly with liealth, and 
 oh, the joy of your meeting with your father 
 and Mr. Moore, and my happiness when I see 
 them staring at you, scarce knowing you for 
 your beauty and brightness ! ' 
 
 The water blazed with sunshine, the merry 
 ■twinkling of it by the fresh April wind made 
 the whole Eeach a path of dazzling light. 
 Twenty vessels of all sorts were about us : 
 some leaned with rounded canvas soft as 
 sifted snow, with yellow streaks of metal 
 glancing wet to the light out of the bracldsh 
 foam, that wanted the shrillness and spit of the 
 froth of the brine ; some lifted bare skeleton 
 scaffolds of spars and yards as they towed 
 past ; some were no bigger than a Yarmouth
 
 56 HEART OF OAK 
 
 smack, and some were great steamers and deep 
 and lofty ships from or for the Antipodes. 
 But whatever you looked at was beautiful with 
 the hues of the afternoon, the backing of the 
 green land, the inspiration of the sea, the spirit 
 of ocean hberty wide as the horizon that is 
 boundless, and high as the air through which 
 the clouds blew.
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTEE IV 
 
 MARIE BEGINS ITER VOYAGE 
 
 This was the first voyage I had ever made. 
 I was born in England, and was left at school 
 when my mother went round the Cape to 
 India on the second visit my father paid to 
 that country. I had never in my life crossed 
 a wider breast of water than the Em?lish 
 Channel between Folkestone and Boulogne. 
 Everything here, then, you will suppose was 
 wonderfully new to me ; infinitely stranger 
 indeed than had the ship been a steamer whose 
 funnel and masts have commonly but httle in 
 them to bewilder the landgoing eye. 
 
 Hundreds of times had I watched ships 
 passing over the blue or grey waters which
 
 58 HEART OF OAK 
 
 our house overlooked ; but they were as clouds 
 to me, indeterminable though beautiful decora- 
 tions of the deep : I knew nothing of their 
 inner life, of one's sensations on board, w^hat 
 the sailors in them did. I looked up now and 
 beheld three masts towering into a delicate 
 fineness to the altitude of their own starry 
 trucks, with yards across, rigging complex as 
 the meshes of a web, Avhite triangular sails 
 between. A sailor stood at the wheel, floating 
 off from it with the easy, careless posture of 
 the sea, his knotted hands gripping the spokes 
 of the gleaming circle. A stout- faced man 
 in the tall hat of the London streets, his neck 
 swathed in a red shawl, walked up and down 
 the deck near the cabin skylight. Mrs. Burke 
 told me he was the pilot. She pointed to a 
 man who was standing on the forecastle as 
 though keeping a look-out on the tug, and said 
 that he was Mr. Green, the first mate of the 
 ship : indeed the only mate. The boatswain, 
 she informed me, who was not a certificated
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 59 
 
 officer, would take charge of her husband's 
 watch when the ship was at sea. 
 
 She talked thus to distract my mind. I 
 asked her what she meant by her ' husband's 
 watch,' thinking she meant the timekeeper in 
 his pocket. 
 
 ' Why,' she said, ' every ship's crew is 
 divided into two companies or watches, called 
 port and starboard ; the starboard watch is 
 the captain's and the other the mate's. Let 
 us walk a little. Already you are looking 
 better, positively.' 
 
 Here Mr. Owen joined us. 
 
 ' I declare, doctor,' exclaimed Mrs. Burke, 
 ' that Miss Otway has already got a little 
 colour in her cheeks, more even since we left 
 Gravesend than, I warrant. Sir Mortimer has 
 seen in her the last twelvemonth gone. If 
 she means to begin to look well so soon, how 
 will it be witli her, sir, when this ship's bow- 
 sprit is pointing the other way and we shall 
 be all ready to go ashore ? '
 
 6o HEART OF OAK 
 
 Mr. Owen, in a soft felt hat, an academic 
 bush of hair under either side of it, hke the 
 cauhflower wig of olden days, and a warm, 
 heavy black cloak, might have passed for a 
 clergyman. He asked permission to stroll the 
 deck with us, and pointed out objects ashore 
 and upon the water with an intelligence that 
 proved him the possessor of a talent for 
 colour. 
 
 Once he broke off in what he was saying 
 to look at the land ; he sighed deeply, yet, 
 forcing a smile, said to Mrs. Burke : 
 
 ' That parting should never be a sad one 
 "which promises a happy meeting, at the cost 
 of no more than patience.' 
 
 ' Truly indeed not,' said Mrs. Burke 
 cheerily. 
 
 ' It is the nieeting ! it is the meeting ! 
 promise tltat, and what is the leave-taking ? ' 
 he exclaimed, and was all on a sudden too 
 moved to speak : he faintly bowed, and went 
 to the ship's side and looked at the shore.
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 6i 
 
 We did not lona' remain on deck. I found 
 the ^ ind cold, my head slightly ached ; I was 
 weary with the exhaustion which follows upon 
 fretting. ]\Irs. Burke went with me to my 
 cabin, and we spent a long wliile in talking, 
 recalling old memories, and most of the time 
 she was cheerfully busy in seeing tliat my 
 things were in their place and that I wanted 
 for nothing^. 
 
 The nigrht had drawn down dark over the 
 ship when we passed from my berth into the 
 state cabin. It was about seven o'clock. 
 Supper was ready. The table was bright 
 with damask and silver and flowers ; under 
 the skylight the large globe lamp glowed 
 steadily, and filled the interior with the soft 
 radiance of sperm oil. I heard some men 
 singing out on deck and the noise of ropes 
 flung down upon the planks. The sound was 
 strange and put a sort of wildness into this 
 interior, despite its fifty civilising details of 
 furniture.
 
 62 HEART OF OAK 
 
 A young sandy-haired youth, long and 
 lank, in a camlet jacket, stood at the foot of 
 the companion-steps, and swung a bell with 
 evident delight in the noise he made. Mr. 
 Owen started up from a locker in the corner 
 of the cabin on seeing us, and exclaimed : 
 
 ' There is a brave wind blowing. Captain 
 Burke hopes to be off Deal by midnight.' 
 
 ' That will be famous work,' said Mrs. 
 Burke. ' But this is a clipper ship.' 
 
 ' Are we sailing ? ' said I. 
 
 'Yes. Some canvas is spread. But the 
 tug still has hold of us,' responded Mr. Owen. 
 
 I felt no movement in the ship. She was 
 going along with the seething steadiness of a 
 sleigh. Just then Captain Burke came below. 
 His composed, cheerful face, peak-bearded 
 with red hair and arch, merry Irish eyes, 
 seemed to bring a new atmosphere of light 
 into the place. He addressed some friendly 
 sympathetic question to me ; we then seated
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 63 
 
 ourselves, I on the captain's right, and Mr. 
 Owen at the foot of the table. 
 
 It was my first meal at sea, if indeed the 
 ship could then be called at sea, and memo- 
 rable to me for that reason. I had tasted no 
 food since breakfast, and now tried to eat, but 
 less from appetite than from the desire to 
 please my old nurse. My chat with her 
 before supper had determined me to fight 
 with my grief, to regard the voyage as a long- 
 holiday yachting excursion, which should be 
 happy if I accepted it as a twelvemonth's 
 diversion that was to end in making me a new 
 woman, and in fitting me to become a wife. 
 It was this last point that Mrs. Burke had 
 insisted upon, and, like a good many ideas 
 which are obvious andj commonplace when 
 uttered, it took my fancy, lighted up my 
 views as though it had been a sort of revela- 
 tion, and whilst I sat at supper I was so com- 
 posed that more than once I caught Mr. Owen
 
 64 HEART OF OAK 
 
 dart a glance of surprise at me when I 
 answered or put a question. 
 
 ' Tlie sea is very smooth here, Edward,' 
 said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 'There's no sea yet,' he answered. 'It's 
 river so far. We're towing through what's 
 called the Warp, near the Nore, whose light 
 ye should be able to see, Miss Otway,' said 
 he, getting up and ducking and bobbing to 
 command the whole compass of a cabin 
 window. 
 
 'I wonder the ship doesn't run the tug 
 down,' said Mr. Owen. 
 
 The captain looked at me with his merry 
 eyes and chuckled. 
 
 ' Ay, we're a match for the old slapper 
 even with nothing on us but fore and aft 
 canvas and two topsails,' said he. ' I wish 
 Sir Mortimer was with us. Here's a voyage 
 to thread a heart through the strands of his 
 years. I don't know that ever I met a gentle- 
 man I took a greater fancy to, unless it's Mr.
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 65 
 
 Moore,' and he gave me a bow, whilst I smiled , 
 feeling a faint glow in my cheeks. 
 
 ' There'll be a full moon at eight,' said Mr. 
 Owen. 
 
 'So there will, sir, thank God,' answered 
 Captain Burke. ' We sailors can never have 
 too much light. No, not even in our wives' 
 eyes,' said he, with an askant arch look at 
 Mrs. Burke. 
 
 And now he began to talk. Though with- 
 out the brogue in his tongue, he had the 
 fluency and humour of his country. He wa& 
 full of stories of adventure and experience ; 
 scarce a sea he had not navigated in his day> 
 His wife watched me eagerly, and if ever T 
 smiled her face lighted up and her kind eyes 
 shone. All his efforts were directed to cheer 
 me. Observing Mr. Owen smelling at an egg 
 he exclaimed : 
 
 ' What's that you've got ? ' 
 
 ' Something laid too soon, caj)tain.' 
 
 ' Doctor,' said the captain, ' I know a 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 HEART OF OAK 
 
 sailor who made an experiment : he put a 
 number of French eggs under a sitting rooster, 
 and what d'ye tliink was hatclied ? Cocks 
 and hens in the last stage of decrepitude ! 
 They hopped and staggered about in his 
 little back-yard, and died of old age in twenty- 
 four hours. That was his test of a bad egg. 
 If he wanted to make sure he hatched it.' 
 
 Thus ran his careless, o-ood-humoured 
 gabble, and perhaps had he talked wisely 
 and soberly he would not have done me any 
 good. 
 
 He went on deck presently, and the mate, 
 Mr. Green, came below to get his supper. 
 He was a middle-aged man, of a very nautical 
 cut in figure and clothes, with a sneering face, 
 and a beard of wiry iron hair covering his 
 throat, though he shaved to the round of his 
 chin, and a droop of left eyelid put the 
 expression of an acid leer into that side of his 
 face. 
 
 Mr. Owen had withdrawn to his cabin.
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 67 
 
 Mrs. Burke and I sat at a little distance upon 
 a comfortable sofa near the stove. The mate 
 squared his elbovrs and fell to work slowly 
 but diligently, often lifting his knife to his 
 mouth and chewing with the solemnity of a 
 goat. 
 
 ' He rose from before the mast,' said Mrs. 
 Burke. ' I hope he's a good sailor. This 
 is his first voyage with my husband. He 
 holds a master's certificate, but that don't 
 signify much, I expect. A man wants to know 
 human nature to command a crew of sailors. 
 He's been a common seaman himself, and fared 
 ill, and worked hard on a starvation wage, 
 as most of the poor creatures do, and that's 
 likely to make liim hard with the men and 
 unpitying. It's always so. It's the person 
 who's been in service that makes the exacting 
 mistress.' 
 
 All this she spoke softly. She then 
 inquired of the mate how the weather was on 
 deck. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' Why, not so fine as it is down here, mum , 
 he answered. ' There's a vast of stars, but 
 'tis black till the moon comes up.' 
 
 ' Where are we now ? ' 
 
 ' The Girdler ain't far off,' he answered, 
 masticating slowly. 
 
 ' Is the tug still towing us ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, certainly yes, mum ! ' 
 
 He did not seem disposed to talk, and 
 answered with grimaces and the awkward air 
 of a man ill at ease. 
 
 I was looking at his square sturdy figure, 
 with his weather-ploughed face and the 
 muscles all about it working like vigorous 
 pulses to the movement of his jaws, when I 
 felt a shght motion of the ship, a gentle, 
 cradhng heave of the deck : the lamp and all 
 things pendulous swayed ; creaking noises 
 arose from all parts ; a sudden giddiness took 
 me. The movement was repeated with the 
 regularity of a clock's tick. 
 
 ' Isn't the sea getting up ? ' exclaimed
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 69 
 
 Mrs. Burke, staring at the gleaming ebony 
 of the skyhght windows and then around 
 her. 
 
 The mate arrested the tumbler whose 
 contents he was turning into his mouth to 
 distend his lips in a grin, which he probably 
 thought concealed. 
 
 ' Why, I thought we were still in the 
 river ! ' cried Mrs. Burke again. 
 
 The mate, picking up his cap, rose, 
 contorted his square figure into a bow to us, 
 and went up the companion-steps. 
 
 The motion of the vessel affected me. 
 Mrs. Burke got a pillow and made me com- 
 fortable on the sofa, and, wrapping herself 
 in a shawl, went on deck. She returned 
 presently and said that the river had widened 
 into a sea, with danger-lights sparkling here 
 and there, and the full moon rising solemnly 
 and beautifully upon the port bow. She 
 hugged herself and said it was blowing fresh, 
 and the ship under several breasts of canvas
 
 70 HEART OF OAK 
 
 was chasing the little tug, ^vhich was splash- 
 ing ahead as fast as she could go. 
 
 'We're doing between seven and eight 
 miles an hour. Only think ! ' she cried. ' We 
 shall be opening the lights of Margate very 
 soon. To think of Margate and the sands 
 and the shrimps, and us sailing past it to the 
 other end of the world. How do you feel, 
 my dear P ' 
 
 I answered that I felt sick. 
 
 'You will suffer for a day or two,' said 
 she, ' and then you'll take no more notice of 
 it than I do. Hark ! what is that ? ' 
 
 The sounds proceeded from Mr. Owen's 
 cabin. 
 
 ' They'll never get a cure for it,' said Mrs. 
 Burke, looking in the direction of the doctor's 
 berth. 
 
 I lay motionless, feeling very uncomfort- 
 able and ill. Mrs. Burke gave me some 
 brandy and put toilet vinegar to my head 
 She advised me to go to bed, but I becrofed
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 71 
 
 leave to rest where I Wcas. The motion of 
 the ship grew more Hvely the further she was 
 towed towards the mouth of the river, where 
 tlie weight of the field of water past the 
 Forelands would dwell in every heave. At 
 last, a little while after ten o'clock, I told Mrs. 
 Burke I felt as if tlie fresh air would revive 
 me, on which she wrapped me up in shawls 
 and helped me on deck. She walked on firm 
 legs with the ease of an old salt, whilst I 
 so swung and reeled upon her arm that I 
 must have fallen twenty times but for her 
 support. 
 
 But, nevertheless, the moment I emerged 
 through the little companion-hatch, with its 
 load of warm atmosphere closing behind me 
 in a sensible pressure of mingled cabin smells 
 and heat, I felt better ; a shout of bright 
 strong moonlight wind fair betwixt my parted 
 lips swept away for the time all sensation of 
 nausea : I breathed deep and looked about 
 with wonder.
 
 72 HEART OF OAK 
 
 It was a fine, noble niglit-scene of water 
 and ship. We were following the tug under 
 three topsails and a main topgallant sail and 
 a flight of fore and aft canvas ; the sails 
 swelled pale as steam into the moonlight air, 
 carrying the eye to the fine points of the 
 mastheads, whose black lines were beating 
 time for a dance of stars. High up was the 
 moon, full, yellow, and glowing ; if land was 
 near, it was buried in the wild windy sheen 
 under the orb ; the water rolled in liquid 
 silver, islanded here and there by the black 
 flying shadows of bodies of vapour hurling 
 headlong down the wind north-east ; ahead 
 the black smear of the tug's smoke full 
 of sparks, with a frequent rush of crimson 
 flame out of the funnel's throat, was flying 
 low. 
 
 Captain Burke came from the pilot's side 
 to salute me, and pointing abeam to star- 
 board (I offer no excuse for writing of tjie 
 sea in the language of the sea) exclaimed :
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE T^ 
 
 ' There's Whitstable somewhere down 
 there, Miss Otway. And yonder should be 
 Heme Bay. With a powerful telescope we 
 should presently be able to see the bathing 
 machines on Margate beach.' 
 
 ' What is that out there ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' A Geordie,' he answered, ' a north- 
 country collier.' 
 
 She was swarming along, a very spectre 
 of a ship, lean, visionary, glistening like the 
 inside of an oyster shell in the moonlight, 
 which whitened the black hull of her into the 
 same sort of misty sheen that was upon the 
 water, till she was blended with the air brim- 
 ful of moonlight, making a mocking phantom 
 of her to fit in with the desolation beyond, 
 where you saw a red star of warning hinting 
 at ooze, and white crawling streaks and a 
 pallid rib or two, with some fragment of mast 
 upward pointing in a finger of wreck, dumbly 
 telling you whither the spirit of the rest of it 
 all had flown.
 
 74 HEART OF OAK 
 
 I watched our little ship bowing in 
 pursuit of the tug ; she curtseyed her white 
 cloths to the moon, and the brine flashed at 
 her bows at every plunge, and went away in 
 a wide, rich race astern, for there was the 
 churning of the paddles in it too. 
 
 But soon I was overcome by nausea once 
 more, the magic of the fresh air failed me, 
 and, yielding now to Mrs. Burke's entreaty, I 
 suffered her to carry me to my cabin. 
 
 After this for the next four or five days I 
 was so miserably ill that I lay as one in a fit 
 or swoon, scarcely sensible of more, and 
 therefore remembering but little more, than 
 that Mrs. Burke was hour after hour in my 
 cabin, sleeping beside me on a mattress 
 during the night, and watching over me 
 throughout that distressing time with touch- 
 ing and unwearied devotion. Mr. Owen was 
 too ill to visit me ; but what could he have 
 done ? Did he cure his own nausea ? I 
 think he knew of no physic for mine.
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 75 
 
 Indeed we met with very heavy weather 
 in the ChanneL The wind shifted shortly 
 after the tug had let go of the ship and blew 
 a moderate breeze out of the south-east, but 
 in the morning the breeze freshened into a 
 gale ; a head sea ran strong, short, and 
 angry ; the captain drove the vessel along 
 under shortened canvas, with sobbing decks 
 and spray-clouded bows as I learnt ; but to me, 
 inexperienced as I was, her behaviour seemed 
 frightfully wild and dangerous. I sometimes 
 thought she was going to pieces. My cabin 
 was aft, the machinery of the helm was 
 nearly overhead, and the noise of it when she 
 plunged her counter into the foam, and the 
 rudder received the blow of some immense 
 volume of rushing brine, sent shock after 
 sliock through the planks, and through me 
 as I lay in my bunk. 
 
 But the stupor of sea-sickness was upon me, 
 I had no fear ; had the ship actually gone to 
 pieces I do not think I could or should have
 
 76 HEART OF OAK 
 
 opened my mouth to cry out. All that I asked 
 for was death, and I was so sick even unto 
 that state that I cannot remember I once 
 wished myself at home, or thought for an 
 instant of my father or Mr. Moore. 
 
 But on the fifth day I was well enough to 
 sit up and partake of a little cold fowl and 
 wine, and next day I was able to go on deck. 
 
 By this time we were clear of the English 
 Channel, and I looked around me at the great 
 ocean, swelling in long lines of rich sparkling 
 blue under the high morning sun. Far away, 
 blue in the air, were some leaning shafts of 
 ships, and at the distance of a quarter of a 
 mile a large steamer was passing, steering the 
 same road as ourselves. 
 
 Weak as I was after my long confinement 
 below, dazzled and confused too by the 
 splendour of the morning, and the novelty 
 and wonder of that windy scene of our 
 bowing ship, clothed in canvas, gleaming like 
 silk to the trucks, I could not but pause with
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE -jy 
 
 a start of admiration when my sight went to 
 that steamer. Captain Burke, seeing me as I 
 leaned on his wife's arm, crossed the deck, 
 and after some commonplaces of genial 
 greeting told me that yonder vessel was a 
 French man-of-war. She was round sterned 
 with portholes for guns there, and two white 
 lines full of gun-ports ran the length of her 
 tall, shapely sides. She was ship-rigged, and 
 lifted a lustrous fabric of square canvas and 
 dehcate cordage to the soft blue skies, a wide 
 space of whose field the gilded balls of her 
 trucks traced as she rolled heavily but with 
 majesty, crushing the water at' her bows to 
 the impulse of her sails and propeller into a 
 heap of splendid whiteness, like to the foam 
 at the foot of some giant cataract. She was 
 the noblest sea-piece I had ever beheld : the 
 tricolour was at her gaff-end, a blue vein of 
 smoke, filtering from a short black funnel, 
 scarcely tarnished the azure over the horizon 
 betwixt her fore and main masts ; a great
 
 78 HEART OF OAK 
 
 gilt eagle was perclied with outstretclied 
 wings under her bowsprit, and seemed to be 
 poised for a soaring flight as though affrighted 
 by the roar of spume beneath ; her decks 
 were a blaze of light and colour wdien she 
 rolled them towards us, with the sparkle of 
 uniforms, the flash of sun-stars in bright 
 metal, and gleams breaking from I know not 
 whence, like sudden flames from artillery. 
 
 ' I think I see her in chars^e of an Enc^hsh 
 heutenant,' said Captain Burke, ' making a 
 straight course for Portsmouth. They have 
 built good ships for us and will build again.' 
 
 He placed chairs, and Mrs. Burke and I 
 seated ourselves. I could now look about me 
 with enjoyment of what I beheld. The sun 
 shone with some warmth, and the wind blowing 
 freely out of the west was of an April mildness. 
 The whole life of the universe seemed to be 
 in that ocean morning, with our ship in the 
 middle of it bowincf as she drove over the loni]^ 
 blue knolls. The hour was half-past eleven.
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 79 
 
 Smoke was feathering down upon the water 
 over the lee side out of the chimney of the 
 galley, through whose door as I looked I saw 
 a sailor emerge holding a steaming tub, with 
 which he staggered in the direction of a little 
 square hole on the forecastle. Immediately 
 after a second sailor rolled out similarly 
 burthened. 
 
 ' The men are going to dinner,' said ]\lrs. 
 Burke. 
 
 ' What do you give them to eat t ' I asked 
 the captain. 
 
 ' To-day,' said he, ' they'll dine on beef and 
 pudding.' 
 
 ' It sounds a good dinner,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 'But all the Avhile I'm at sea, I'm wondering 
 how sailors contrive to get through their work 
 on the food they get.' 
 
 ' Go and put those notions into their 
 shaggy heads forwards and there'll be a 
 mutiny,' said the captain. 
 
 ' Eeef as tasteless as one's boot if one could
 
 Bo HEART OF OAK 
 
 imagine it boiled,' said Mrs. Burke, ' pudding 
 like slabs of mortar, biscuits which glide 
 about on the feet of hundreds of little worms 
 called weevils. Edward has had to live on 
 such food in his day, and 1 believe it is the 
 beef and pork of his seafaring youth that give 
 him his premature looks. He oughtn't to 
 seem his age by ten years.' 
 
 He eyed her archly and kindly. ' Pre- 
 mature is a good word,' said he. ' Sailors are 
 always too soon in life. Soon with their 
 money, and soon with their drink and plea- 
 sures, and soon with their years, so that it 
 is soon over with them.' 
 
 ' They're a body of workmen I'm very 
 sorry for,' said Mrs. Burke ; ' their wrongs are 
 not understood, and they've got no cham- 
 pions.' 
 
 As she pronounced these words the hairy 
 head of a man, clothed in a Scotch cap, 
 showed in the little square of the forecastle 
 hatch ; he took a wary view of the quarter-
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 8i 
 
 deck, then rose into the whole body of a man 
 picturesquely attired in a red shirt, blue 
 trousers, a belt round his waist, and a knife in 
 a sheath upon his hip. He was followed by 
 three others, and after a short conversation 
 they came along the decks towards us. 
 
 Captain Burke, appearing not tp notice 
 them, told his wife he was going to fetch his 
 sextant. Mr. Green, the sour-leering mate, 
 was trudging the weather side of the quarter- 
 deck. The man who had first risen, the 
 hairy one of the Scotch cap, exclaimed, as 
 the four of them came to a halt in the gang- 
 way : 
 
 ' Can we have a word with the capt'n, 
 sir?' 
 
 ' What d'e want ? ' answered the mate, 
 speaking with half his back turned on them 
 as though he addressed some one out upon 
 the water. 
 
 ' We're come to complain that the beef to- 
 dav ain't accordingr to the articles.' 
 
 vol . I. - G
 
 82 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' As how ? ' said the mate, still looking sea- 
 wards. 
 
 ' 'Tain't sweet, sir.' 
 
 ' No call to eat of it,' said the mate, turning 
 his head and letting his leering eye droop 
 upon them. 
 
 ' That's not the way to speak,' whispered 
 Mrs. Burke to me with a note of impatience and 
 temper. ' Why shouldn't the meat be tainted ? 
 It's so in butchers' shops often enough.' 
 
 ' If there's no call to eat of it there's no 
 call to turn to on it,' said one of the men with 
 a surly laugh. 
 
 Here Captain Burke arrived with a sextant 
 in his hand. 
 
 ' "What is it, my lads ? ' said he quickly, 
 but good-humouredly. 
 
 ' The starboard watch's allowance of meat's 
 gone off, sir,' said the man in the Scotch cap 
 civilly enough. 
 
 ' The fok'sle's dark with the smell of it,' 
 said another.
 
 MARIE BEGINS HER VOYAGE 83 
 
 'Notice a blue rin^ round the flame of the 
 lamp ? ' said the captaiu. 
 
 ' 'Tain't meat for men,' exclaimed the man, 
 who had growled out a laugh. 
 
 ' Go and bring aft what remains of it,' 
 said Captain Burke, and he stepped to the 
 side and adjusted his sextant to get a meridio- 
 nal observation. 
 
 The men trudo^ed forward. I could not but 
 notice how eloquent of grumbhng their pos- 
 tures were as they walked. Experience has 
 long since assured me that no man can so 
 perfectly make every limb and lineament of 
 him look his grievance as the sailor. 
 
 They presently returned, bearing a dish : 
 Captain Burke stooped to it and sniffed. 
 
 ' You are right,' he exclaimed. ' Over- 
 board with it, my lads. This should never 
 have been served out to you. "Tis the cook's 
 fault to boil such offal. ^Ir. Green, see that 
 the starboard watch have some canned mutton 
 for their dinner at once.'
 
 84 HEART OF OAK 
 
 The men emptied the contents of the kid 
 over the side, looking very well pleased, and 
 then went forward. 
 
 ' They have no champions, my wife says,' 
 exclaimed Captain Burke to me with a smile. 
 ' Poor fellows ! But I'll tell you what. Miss 
 Otway : you'll never find Jack's rights wrong 
 for the want of Jack taking the trouble to keep 
 them right.'
 
 85 
 
 CHAPTER y 
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 
 
 I DEVOTED the afternoon of the first day of my 
 recovery from sickness to a journal which I 
 meant should serve as a letter both for my 
 father and Mr. Moore, to be transmitted home 
 in sheets as the opportunity occurred. My 
 old nurse told me that her husband had 
 written to my father whilst in the Channel^ 
 and had sent the letter ashore at Plymouth by 
 a smack ; so they would have news of me at 
 home down to two days before. 
 
 I was so much interested in the little inci- 
 dent of the tainted meat I have told you of, 
 that I asked Captain Burke this day to let me 
 taste a specimen of the beef sailors were fed 
 on. He laughed and said :
 
 86 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' Miss, your teeth are too little and white 
 for such beef as that.' 
 
 ' I'll try a cut, too, with your leave, 
 captain,' said Mr. Owen. 
 
 The captain grinned at his wife, but com- 
 plied nevertheless, and when we sat down to 
 supper, the steward placed a cube of fore- 
 castle beef before us. There were plenty of 
 good things on the table : my father had half 
 filled the lazarette, or after-hold, with delica- 
 cies, and we carried an abundance of Jive stock : 
 everything in that way, perhaps, but a cow, 
 for which no room could be made ; but the 
 steam of the sailors' beef filled the atmosphere; 
 the smells of all the other dishes yielded to it. 
 And yet it was good meat of its sort. 
 
 Mrs. Burke wrinkled lier nose, and said, 
 ' Miss Marie, please do not touch it.' 
 
 ' Captain Burke, I will taste a piece,' 
 said I. 
 
 ' And I will thank you for a slice, captain, 
 said Mr. Owen.
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 87 
 
 The captain made a great business of 
 sharpening a carving knife, all the while 
 glancing from me to his wife with a laughing 
 eye. The stuff yielded to the sharp blade 
 in a curled shavinor : it was like cuttincr a 
 block of wood, that part I mean where the 
 heart is. 
 
 ' Don't put it to your lips, my dear,' cried 
 Mrs. Burke. 
 
 I tasted a morsel : the steward watched 
 me with an ill-concealed grin ; the meat, if 
 meat it could be called, was hard as leather, 
 salt as the brine over the side, of a texture 
 and hue no more resembhng corned beef such 
 as we know the thing on sliore than a whelk is 
 like a turtle. 
 
 ]\Ir. Owen chewed and chewed. ' This is 
 what the sailors make snuff-boxes and models 
 of ships of,' said he. 
 
 ' Is this as good as can be got ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' As good as the best,' said the captain, 
 lookino' at it earnestlv.
 
 88 HEART OF OAK 
 
 'You'll have plenty to talk about when 
 you get home,' said my old nurse. 
 
 ' It is strange that science doesn't provide 
 the seamen with food fit to eat,' said Mr. 
 Owen, helping himself eagerly to a shoe of 
 ham. 'I beheve I shall give the subject my 
 attention when I get back.' 
 
 ' Science doesn't think of sailors, only of 
 ships,' said Captain Burke. 'If I had my way 
 my crew should have a fresh mess every day. 
 But you can't go to sea all live stock.' 
 
 Thus we chatted. I listened with interest 
 and asked questions. It was a new life to me. 
 Little did I then imagine how fearfully and 
 tragically deep I was to read into the darkest 
 secrets of it. 
 
 During a few days, which carried us to 
 the Madeira latitudes, the weather continued 
 gloriously line. A quiet north-westerly wind 
 blew throughout ; the ship leaned gently 
 away from the breeze and rippled through 
 the blue swell dreamily ; all was so quiet aloft,
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 89 
 
 all went so peacefully on deck. I'd hang over 
 the side for an hour at a time, viewing the 
 passage of the foam stars and flower-shaped 
 bells, and wreaths of froth sliding aft into a 
 white line on either hand the oil-smooth scope 
 of wake ; I'd watch with admiration the flight 
 of the flying fish, glancing from the ship's side 
 hke arrows of li^^ht disch arched throucrh her 
 metal sheathing ; I'd drink in the large and 
 hberal sweetness of the wind, and stand in the 
 sun that its light might sink through and 
 through me. 
 
 In those few days Mr. Owen assured me 
 the ocean had already done me good. 
 
 ' But you are bound to profit,' he said as 
 we walked the deck together, ' because you 
 have not come too late to this physic of 
 climates. People are sent to sea with one 
 lung gone and the other going, and their 
 friends wonder they should die, and talk of a 
 voyage to sea as of no use where there is 
 organic mischief. You are here in good
 
 90 HEART OF OAK 
 
 time, Miss Otway : be tliat reflection your 
 comfort.' 
 
 Then there came a chancre of weather ; a 
 few days of wet gale ; green seas ridging into 
 cliffs upon the bow, and all the discomfort of 
 a long pitching and tossing bout. But I 
 suffered no longer from sickness however ; I 
 ate and slept well, and spent all the time in 
 the cabin, reading, working, chatting with 
 Mrs. Burke or her husband, or Mr. Owen. 
 
 Captain Burke amused me in these early 
 days by explaining how he worked out his 
 sights. He gave me a very good idea of the 
 art of navigation ; he and his wife shared a 
 pleasant cabin confronting mine. It was a 
 little parlour in its way as well as a bedroom, 
 cheerful with oil paintings of ships, a small 
 collection of china, and other matters all care- 
 fully cleated and otherwise secured. Amongst 
 the pictures was a cutting in black paper 
 mounted upon white of myself when a child 
 in my nurse's arms, the lineaments defined by
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 91 
 
 Streaks of bronze. Captain Burke told me 
 that his wife valued that little meraorial 
 above everything in the cabin, including him- 
 self and all that they owned ashore. 
 
 He showed me his chronometers and ex- 
 plained their use ; placed charts before me 
 and talked of the places we were to visit, and 
 promised that I should be able to take sights 
 and work out the latitude and longitude 
 before we returned home. 
 
 He said this at the dinner table during one 
 of those days of wet, foul weather. 
 
 'Miss Otway,' he added, addressing Mr. 
 Owen, ' is just doing what everyone should do 
 who goes a voyage, whether for entertainment 
 or on business ; she's taking an intelligent in- 
 terest in whatever's passing. If everybody 
 who went to sea did that the case of Jack 
 would be understood, and you'd hear no more 
 of young ladies being astonished on discover- 
 ing that sailors look exactly like men.' 
 
 ' I never could make head nor tail myself,'
 
 92 HEART OF OAK 
 
 said Mrs. Burke, ' of my husband's method of 
 finding out where the ship is.' 
 
 ' No voyage can ever be dull,' exclaimed 
 Mr. Owen, ' that's sensibly lived into. Yet 
 every voyage is found dull.' 
 
 ' There's too much water,' said Mrs. Burke, 
 ' and not enough things to look at. But dull 
 days have long legs. Miss Marie. Time soon 
 passes,' said she with a cheery look. ' The 
 top's never spinning so fast as when it is 
 asleep.' 
 
 'There's plenty to look at,' said I. 'I 
 don't like weather that keeps you under deck ; 
 but it can't be always so.' 
 
 * Scarce once in a white moon, and never 
 even that for sailors,' said the captain. 
 
 ' What,' asked Mr. Owen, ' do you con- 
 sider the great sights of the sea ?' 
 
 Captain Burke shut his eyes and scratched 
 the back of his head, then looking full at me 
 he said : 
 
 ' What do you think of a ship in full sail,
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 93 
 
 becalmed in tlie heat of the fan-shaped reflec- 
 tion of the moon, Miss Otway ? Or would 
 you prefer a whale as big as a brig leaping 
 half out of water with a killer at its 
 throat? Or what d'ye say to a quadrille of 
 water-spouts, the white satin shoes on their 
 feet gleaming as they slide, and the black 
 feathers in their hair nodding stately among 
 the clouds brilliant with electric gems.' 
 
 ' How ? ' inquired Mr. Owen, smoothing his 
 bald head. 
 
 ' But at sea the less you find to talk about 
 the better,' exclaimed Captain Burke ; ' I'd like 
 my ship's log-book to be as dull as a parson's 
 tale. Trifles on the ocean become serious in 
 a moment ; a shght deviation from dulness 
 will start a tragedy. Give us no excite- 
 ments.' 
 
 The conversation was ended by his going 
 on deck to send the mate down to dinner. 
 
 The miserable weather came to an end, 
 and then we took the north-east trades and
 
 94 HEART OF OAK 
 
 swept down the Atlantic under wide spaces of 
 canvas which for many feet overhung the 
 ship's weather side, and she rushed onwards 
 with the salt smoke blowing from her bows, 
 and that swallow of the deep, the stormy 
 petrel, freckling in its swarm the wide hollows 
 betwixt the quartering ridges. For five days 
 we sighted nothing, though Captain Burke 
 promised that the first homeward-bound ship 
 he met with willing to back her topsail should 
 receive my letter. 
 
 Once during these mornings, on coming on 
 deck after breakfast, I found the ship steadily 
 washing through the seas with easy bow^ 
 ing motions, leaving a league-long line of 
 white behind her. We were in hot weather 
 now ; an awning sheltered the quarter-deck, 
 and comfortable chairs were under it. 
 
 It was the improving health in me that 
 gave me the spirit I had ; I did not want to 
 sit ; the life of the sea seemed to sv/eep into 
 my being in a holiday dance of heart. Now
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 95 
 
 that I could feel without the suffenng that 
 had before prostrated me, the whole vitality 
 of the ship coming out of tlie gallant flying 
 fabric of her into the very poise of my form, 
 with a sense as of waltzing in each compelled 
 motion of the figure, I found an enjoyment in 
 her buoyant motions, and in the rolling 
 measures of the surge, beyond anything my 
 poor health had suffered me to know in the 
 ball-room, beyond all delight fine music had 
 given me. 
 
 When we came on deck Mrs. Burke stood 
 a little while with her hand on my arm, whilst 
 I looked aloft and around ; our gaze met ; 
 she laughed in the fulness of some instant 
 emotion of pleasure, and cried : 
 
 ' Oh, dear Miss Marie, I wish Sir Mortimer 
 could see the light that is in your eyes at this 
 minute ! ' i|i 
 
 ' I wonder,* said I, ' if Df: Bradshaw and 
 the others foresaw that I should enjoy this 
 voyage ? ' 
 
 %
 
 96 HEART OF OAK 
 
 'Are you enjoying it?' she exclaimed 
 eagerly. 
 
 'I am constantly pining for home,' I 
 answered, ' and longing — and longing, to see 
 father and Archie. And yet, somehow, this 
 splendid sunshine and wonderful scene of sea, 
 this dehcious feehng of being borne through 
 the air, makes me so glad and Hght-hearted 
 that I believe the strong tonic of the wind has 
 affected my head.' 
 
 ' No more than it has mine,' she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 ' It is like drinking wine in sorrow,' said 
 I ; ' the mind seems merry with it, and the 
 eyes sparkle, but the heart is sad all the same 
 and will speak presently.' 
 
 ' I'll teU. Mr. Owen how you talk,' said 
 she. 'You're not fair to the remedy.' 
 
 ' I don't want to sit,' said I. ' Let 
 me look at the ship this fine morning : I 
 should like to take a peep at the sailors' 
 parlour. And suppose we go right into the
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 97 
 
 bows there and watch the glorious white 
 foam.' 
 
 Captain Burke was in his cabin, the surly 
 mate had charge of the ship, so Mr. Owen 
 accompanied us. There was little to see, 
 however ; we went to the galley and looked 
 in, and here we found the ship's cook making 
 a pie for the cabin. He was the fat-armed, 
 dough-faced man who had stared at us with 
 imbecile curiosity when we came on board. 
 It was a queer little kitchen, not many times 
 larger than a sentry box. Mrs. Burke asked 
 the man if the oven baked well. 
 
 ' Too veil, mum,' he answered, turning 
 his face with an expression of dull surprise 
 upon it at sight of us standing in the galley 
 doorway. ' He's for burning up. He vants 
 too much vatching.' 
 
 ' How do you like being ship's cook ? ' said 
 Mr. Owen. 
 
 'Almost as much, I dessay, as you likes 
 being ship's doctor,' he answered. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 HEART OF OAK 
 
 Mr. Owen looked deaf on a sudden, and, 
 stepping back, found something to interest him 
 aloft. 
 
 ' Wliat pie is that ? ' said Mrs. Burke, who 
 had been casting her eye over the little 
 interior, with its equipment of shelves, 
 crockery, oven, coppers and the like, with the 
 critical gaze of an exacting housekeeper. 
 
 As she asked the question the ship leaned 
 sharply upon a sea ; the cook staggered with 
 a wild flourish of the knife he was trimming 
 the pie-crust with ; the pie slipped and fell 
 with a crash, breaking in halves, and out 
 rolled a dishful of preserved gooseberries. 
 
 ' You can see vat it is for yourself, mum,' 
 said the cook, lancing his knife at the mess 
 on the deck "with a force which drove the 
 blade quivering into the hard plank. ' Who'd 
 be a blooming ship's cook ? This is the sort 
 of life it is ! ' and, heedless of our presence, 
 he began to swear, and then roared out for 
 Bill or some such name — meaning, I suppose.
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 99 
 
 his mate — that the fellow might come and 
 swab up the gooseberry puddle. 
 
 We walked on to the forecastle. 
 
 ' That cook's a very insolent fellow,' said 
 Mr. Owen. 'I hope he will give me the 
 pleasure of prescribing for him.' 
 
 ' All sea cooks are ill-tempered,' said Mrs. 
 Burke. 'They live in little boxes. like that, 
 and are obliged, for want of room, to stand 
 close to furnaces all day long, and their livers 
 swell. But their trials are many. I've heard 
 of a sea striking a galley where the cook was 
 in it full of the business of the cabin dinner, and 
 washing him and his kitchen right aft, where 
 he was rescued out of a depth of water as 
 high as a man's waist holding on for his life 
 to a frying-pan. Cooks ashore never meet 
 with blows of that sort.' 
 
 A number of the crew were at work on 
 various jobs in this part of the vessel. Two 
 sat upon a sail, stitching at it. Hard by was 
 a little machine called a spun-yarn winch,
 
 lOO HEART OF OAK 
 
 merrily clinking, with a boy walking back- 
 wards from it as it yielded tlie line it twisted. 
 
 A man with a marline spike stood in the 
 fore-shrouds working at a ratline. I looked 
 at everything I saw with interest and atten- 
 tion ; to me it was like the rising of a curtain 
 upon a theatrical show of incomparable 
 beauty and variety ; I found novelty in the 
 very men ; I don't remember that I had ever 
 seen such men on shore, least of all down by 
 the seaside, w^here the landsman seeks the 
 sailor and finds him in anything that wears a 
 jersey and owns a boat. They were hairy, 
 burnt, wiklly dressed, half-naked some of 
 tliem ; their trousers turned above their 
 knees, their chests bare, mossy, gleaming with 
 perspiration ; arrows in Indian ink pointed 
 like weatber-cocks upon their muscular naked 
 arms as they moved them, and every man's 
 fist was barbarous with rings in Indian ink 
 and his wrists with blue bracelets. 
 
 ' Do you see that hole there. Miss Otway ? '
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP loi 
 
 said Mr. Owen, pointing to a square hatch in 
 the forecastle deck. ' Those men sleep down 
 in that hole,' said he. 
 
 I drew close to the queer little trap-door 
 to look down, taking care to hold on to Mrs. 
 Burke ; for it was not only that the heave of 
 the ship was to be felt here in her falls and 
 jumps, lofty as the peaks and deep as the 
 valleys which underran her : the trade wind 
 stormed in thunder out of the huge rigid 
 hollow of the fore-course with the weight as 
 of a whole gale in the sweep of it, flying in 
 long, steady shriekings and whistlings under 
 the arched foot, and smiting every heave of 
 brine leaping white above the cathead into- 
 crystal smoke. 
 
 I gazed into a sort of well, at the bottom 
 of which upon an old green battered sea-chest 
 sat a sailor. The man had a squint that had 
 almost twisted each ball of vision into his- 
 nose ; he was deeply pitted, and had long^ 
 curling, sand-coloured hair and a yellow
 
 102 HEART OF OAK 
 
 beard ; lie ^Yas pale and weedy, with but a 
 little piece of nose in the middle of his face, 
 and cheek-bones starting through his skin 
 pale with heat, and when he looked up and 
 continued to stare at us with his desperate 
 squint, he made me guess how drowned 
 sailors look when their bodies are washed 
 ashore. He was a sick man and off duty. 
 
 ' How are you feeling ? ' the doctor called 
 down to him. 
 
 ' Oh,' dot I vhas kep' togedder mit red-hot 
 corkscrews,' he answered in a voice that 
 creaked like a sea-gull's note. 
 
 ' Go on taking your physic,' said Mr. 
 Owen. 
 
 ' By Gott, yaw, dot vould be easy if der 
 physic vhas rum,' answered the man with a 
 ghastly smile, continuing to stare up at us 
 with an occasional snapping blink of his eye- 
 lids. ' But der vater in der bilge — und I gif 
 you all der rats of der ship to be drownt in 
 her too — vas sweet gombared to him.'
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 103 
 
 Mr. Owen drew back and tlie suflferer 
 ceased to speak. 
 
 ' A nasty attack of sub-acute rheumatism,' 
 the doctor said behind me. 
 
 The rest of the sailors were on deck : 
 this man sat alone on his chest in the bottom 
 of that well, and I pitied the poor solitary 
 wretch from my heart when I considered how 
 every plunge and sharp movement of the ship 
 must serve to give a new twist to all those red- 
 hot corkscrews he complained of. It was too 
 dark below to distinguish more than the 
 man's figure. I observed the fluctuations of 
 a thin, watery yellow light, and tasted in the 
 occasional pufis of thick atmosphere that came 
 up a horrid smell of burning fat. 
 
 ' Do they cook down there ? ' I asked. 
 
 'It is the fumes of the forecastle lamp 
 Miss Otway smells,' said the doctor. 'It's 
 fed with the slush the sailors make their 
 puddings with.' 
 
 I wished to ask several questions, but the
 
 I04 HEART OF OAK 
 
 roar of tlie wind and the sea silenced me. 
 Mr. Owen took me by one arm, Mrs. Burke 
 by the other, and we carefully made our way 
 into what is called the ship's head, past a 
 huge anchor and a little capstan, and ropes 
 taut as harp-strings, and vibrating with the 
 wild drumming music of the sails whose 
 corners they confined. The huge bowsprit 
 shot out directly ahead of us. It ran taper- 
 ing, and was like the finger of a giant point- 
 ing, inviting the eye to the deep blue distant 
 recess towards which we were rushing, and 
 which opened like the whole morning upon 
 the sight each time our bows soared to the 
 foaming summit. 
 
 They say that the finest sight in the 
 world is a ship in full sail, and perhaps it is, 
 but I doubt if there's one in a thousand, one 
 in a hundred thousand, who has ever seen 
 such a thing ; and the reason is that a ship in 
 full sail means studding sails out on both 
 sides, and every stitch of the rest of her
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 105 
 
 canvas set, and this figure she can make only 
 under conditions of wind so rare as to render 
 the spectacle, as I understand it, something 
 outside the experience of anyone, sailor or 
 landsman, that ever I have conversed with. 
 
 But to my mind there is a finer sight 
 than a ship in full sail : and that is the view 
 of the vessel you arc on board of rushing at 
 you, thundering at you, for ever charging 
 into the seething troughs of brine with the 
 white foam scaling her wet and flashing bow, 
 you meanwhile perched out beyond her, 
 watching her coming at you. 
 
 They provided this magnificent treat for 
 me that day. It fell out thus : I overhung 
 the rail in the head, looking down at the 
 boiling dazzle there, watching with indescrib- 
 able delight and wonder the beautiful sight of 
 the cutwater of the ship, metalled high, 
 slidincr throuo^h the brine, bowinor till the 
 ivory-white lady that was her figure-head was 
 depressed almost to the sip of the cloud
 
 io6 HEART OF OAK 
 
 of foam which the hurl of the bows sent 
 roaring and flashing far ahead, to rush back 
 in a singing, seething sheet a moment 
 after when the ship's head Hfted upon the 
 next swelhng heave, bright bhie till it 
 was charged and out-turned into a noise 
 and splendour of thunder and snow. Mrs. 
 Burke and the doctor looked down with me. 
 My old nurse would sometimes turn an eye 
 full of satisfaction upon my face, which I felt 
 was glowiug with the spirit tliis rushing ocean 
 picture had kindled. I looked yearningly 
 towards the bowsprit end and exclaimed : 
 
 ' Oh, now, if I were a man, to be able to 
 get out there and watch the ship coming at 
 me ! ' 
 
 ' Here comes Captain Burke,' said Mr. 
 Owen. 
 
 He had arrived on deck just then, and, 
 seeing us in the bows of the ship, was ad- 
 
 vancmg. 
 
 Are you going to paint a picture of the
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 107 
 
 " Lady Emma," Miss Otway ? ' said he, coming 
 to my side and looking down at the thick and 
 giddy foam, roaring and spitting sometimes 
 within arm's reach, and throbbing aft into a 
 wake whose tail went out of sight in the 
 windy blue haze. 
 
 ' No.' 
 
 ' You are studying every effect ! ' 
 
 ' It is worth leaving home to see this ! ' 
 said I. ' How fast are we sailing ? ' 
 
 ' Thirteen knots an hour.' 
 
 'Miss Marie wishes she was a man, 
 Edward,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' All orallant-hearted sfirls wish that,' said 
 he. 'But why?' 
 
 ' That she might be able to climb out on 
 to the bowsprit and watch the " Lady Emma " 
 rushing at her.' 
 
 ' Is that so, miss ? ' cried the captain, whip- 
 ping round upon me with his Irish briskness 
 and arch merry eyes. I smiled. 'It can be 
 managed if you please.'
 
 io8 HEART OF OAK 
 
 I looked at the long bowsprit forking out 
 into jib-booms far ahead, with white jibs curv- 
 ing upon it motionless as ice, save when now 
 and again one or another breathed to the 
 plunge of the ship. 
 
 ' There must be no risks ! ' cried Mrs. 
 Burke. 
 
 'Chaw!' exclaimed her husband. 'Will 
 you trust yourself in my hands, Miss Otway?* 
 
 ' I will indeed.' 
 
 He called to the boatswain of the ship, a 
 bio^ seaman with stronc^ red whiskers and a 
 whistle round his neck : the finest specimen of 
 an English seaman I ever saw out of a man-of- 
 war ; this man who acted as second mate, 
 though uncertificated, I had once or twice 
 conversed with when he was on the quarter- 
 deck, and found him very civil and communi- 
 cative, and a relief to the eye after leering Mr. 
 Green. 
 
 The captain gave him certain directions. 
 He called to a couple of men, and amongst
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP 109 
 
 them — but I am unable to explain their pro- 
 cedure — they rigged up a chair attached by a 
 tackle to a stay ; they bound me securely in 
 the chair, and by some machinery of ropes 
 they gently and slowly hauled me on to the 
 bowsprit, the captain and the boatswain shd- 
 ing out in company. Mrs. Burke watched us 
 with a countenance of fright : I felt excessively 
 nervous whilst I was being drawn to the 
 extremity of the great spar, and held my eyes 
 closed, but did not shriek nor speak. Indeed, 
 somehow I felt safe, thouah a landsman might 
 have regarded my situation as in the last 
 degree perilous. 
 
 ' Xow look at the ship and tell me what 
 you think of her,' said the captain. 
 
 They had got me to the end of the bow- 
 sprit sitting very comfortably and tightly 
 secured in a chair, and the captain and boat- 
 swain were on either hand of me, though what 
 they held on by I don't know. I looked, and 
 what I saw I shall never forget. For there,
 
 no HEART OF OAK 
 
 right in front of me, heeled by the shouting 
 wind, was the whole body of the ship, her 
 milky whiteness, mounting to the royal yards, 
 rounding into violet gloom from the sun, with 
 gleaming half-moons of blue betwixt each 
 yard, and every afterbreast sliding under the 
 netted shadow of rigging. I rose high in my 
 chair above the sea. Under me ran the blue 
 surge sparkling deep and clear to the bows, 
 where it burst into snowstorms. I com- 
 manded a clear view of the white decks 
 through the arch of the foresail, a hundred 
 shadows slipped along them as they slanted 
 up and then slanted down with the rhythmic 
 swing of a pendulum ; a hundred fiery lights 
 broke from all parts as the ship leaned to the 
 sun. The wind was filled with the music of 
 the rigging : deep organ notes, then a large 
 swelling of fifes and trumpets, coming in a sud- 
 den gust or gun of wind, with a drum-like roll 
 trembling out of the taut shrouds and back- 
 stays, and a ceaseless bugling in the hollow of
 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SHIP in 
 
 the canvas that arched like some vast pinion 
 close beside me. 
 
 They carefully swayed my chair down the 
 bowsprit and got me on to the forecastle. 
 
 ' If this don't do you good, Miss Marie/ 
 said my old nurse, extending her hand to help 
 me on to my feet, ' what will ? '
 
 112 HEART OF OAK 
 
 CHAPTEE YI 
 
 A STKANGE MAX OX BO.VED 
 
 A FEW mornings after this, whilst we were 
 at breakfast, the mate looked down upon 
 us through the open skylight, and called 
 out : 
 
 ' There's a sail right ahead.' 
 
 When we went on deck we found the vessel 
 on the lee bow, within signalhng distance. 
 The wind was the tail of the trade, a fiery 
 fanning out of north-north-east, with the loose 
 scud brown as smoke flying down it. The sea 
 was full of violet gleams and bhnkings of 
 froth ; the billow ran without weight and its 
 volume was small. It seemed as if the heat 
 was sucking the wind out of the sky, and still 
 we were a cfood many degrees north of the
 
 A STRANGE MAX ON BOARD 113 
 
 equator, though I cannot recollect the lati- 
 tude. 
 
 A signal of flags was run aloft to the end 
 of the mizzen gaff: the string of gay colours 
 painted the wind and made a holiday figure 
 of the ship in a moment. When the stranger 
 perceived our signal she hauled down the red 
 flacf of the English merchant service which 
 had been flying at her trysail peak ever since 
 we had been able to distinguish it, and hoisted 
 a long, tliin streamer called an answering? pen- 
 nant. 
 
 ' All right ! ' exclaimed Captain Burke > 
 putting down the glass he had been viewing 
 through. 'She is an Enghshman, and is, no 
 doubt, bound home. Get your letter ready, 
 Miss Otway, and if that brig is for England 1 
 will send it across to her.' 
 
 I ran to my cabin. The mere thought of 
 communicating^ with home filled me with ex- 
 citement. This, though we had been som.e 
 weeks at sea, was the first opportunity for 
 
 VOL. I. 1
 
 114 HEART OF OAK 
 
 sending a letter home that had occurred. 
 And then httle thmgs on the ocean stir and 
 move one greatly. Life is so dull that the 
 merest trifle is important, and what would 
 scarcely be noticeable ashore takes the aspect 
 of a wonder. 
 
 I had kept my journal punctually down to 
 the preceding evening, and had now only to 
 write that a brig was approaching and would 
 take the letter, and send a thousand kisses to 
 father and to Archie. I added that I was 
 happy and greatly improved in health. I 
 lingered over this bit of writing. It was like 
 holdincT on to the dear hands of those I ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 When I had made an end, I went on deck 
 with the letter. The brig had slided abreast 
 of us by this time : she looked a very smart 
 little vessel, with sharp bows and raking masts, 
 very lofty. She had backed her topsail as we 
 had ours, and the two vessels lay within speak- 
 m<y distance, bowing to one another with all
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 115 
 
 imaoinable civility. I laucrhed to notice this ; 
 you would have thought them old acquaint- 
 ances who couldn't salute each other too often 
 for delight in this meeting. 
 
 ' Brig ahoy ! ' hailed Captain Burke. 
 
 ' Hallo ! ' shouted a man standing a head 
 and shoulders above the bulwark rail with a 
 staring negro at the wheel, showing a little 
 past him, whenever the brig swayed, ber sand- 
 coloured decks to us. 
 
 ' What ship is that, and where are you 
 bound for ? ' 
 
 '"The Queen o' the Xight " from 
 Mauritius vur Liverpool, a hundred rnd ten 
 days out. What ship's yon ? ' 
 
 The information was fully given, and then 
 Captain Burke bawled out to know if the other 
 would carry a letter home for him ? 
 
 ' Ay, ay, but ye mun send it,' waved back 
 the head and shoulders, with a flourish of 
 arm. 
 
 Captain Burke flourished in response. 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 HEART OF OAK 
 
 Sailors talk more eloquently by gesture than 
 the people of any nation in tlie world. The 
 contortion of a hump-backecl posture will in 
 an instant reveal a voyage full of troubles, and 
 more than half an hour of talk is contained in 
 a peculiar toss of the hand. 
 
 A number of the crew came running aft 
 to the call of the mate : a quarter-boat was 
 cleared and lowered, four men entered her 
 along with the mate, who put my letter into 
 his pocket and away they went for the brig, 
 miraculously vitalising and humanising the 
 desert plain of ocean by the mere picture of 
 their straining forms and flashing oars, and the 
 gilt lines running astern from the white sides 
 of the boat as she was swept through it with 
 Mr. Green's square frame, stiff-backed in the 
 stern, bobbing cask-like with the jump of the 
 little craft, his hand on the tiller. 
 
 ' One could almost think oneself at the 
 seaside to see that boat,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' Yes, I just now caught myself half look-
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 117 
 
 iug round,' I answered, ' with a fancy of tall 
 chalk cliffs, a little pier, a nest of houses in a 
 split ' 
 
 I paused. 
 
 ' And a fine house on the top of the cliff. 
 and trees at the back, and a flight of rooks 
 going up like smoke out of tliem,' said Mrs. 
 Burke, sioiling. 
 
 ' It'll not be far off even, when we've gone 
 all the way we've got to go,' said the captain, 
 ' and by the time we've hove it into sight 
 acrain, we shall have been as crood as our word, 
 Miss — good as the doctor's word anyhow. 
 What now would I give for some portrait 
 machine that takes colour and light instan- 
 taneously, that when they get your letter they 
 might see you as we do ! ' 
 
 Mr. Green handed up the letter to the 
 man who had hailed us, and returned. The 
 boat was then hoisted, the topsail swung, and 
 the ensign dipped as a farewell and thank 
 you to the little homeward-bound brig. I
 
 Ii8 HEART OF OAK 
 
 stood straining my eyes at her as her topsail 
 swept out of hollow shadow into a full breast 
 of sunshine, and I watched her break the long, 
 soft, glittering wave into a little leap of 
 scahng and combing foam at her bow, 
 leaning from the hot quiet wind with yard-arm 
 sharply pointed to it, in a posture of some- 
 thing living that steadies itself aslant for a 
 firmer grip. She was my ocean post-office. 
 I cannot express my thoughts as I viewed her 
 thinning down and growing blue in the atmo- 
 sphere that was silver blue with water and 
 blue sky, and brimming sunshine. Captain 
 Burke said she would probably arrive in 
 Liverpool before we were up with the Horn, 
 for all that the catspaw and the calm and the 
 hard head wind had dismally belated her down 
 to this time. 
 
 And now it is that a dreadful thing hap- 
 pened, making this day, with what had gone 
 before, the most remarkable of any to that 
 hour.
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 119 
 
 We were standing under the fore end of 
 tlie quarter-deck awning, where we could 
 command the heights of the main and fore as 
 well as see the brig astern. Whilst Captain 
 Burke was talking to me about her, his wife 
 hard by listening, assuring me I need have no 
 doubt if the vessel safely arrived at her port 
 that her master would forward the letter to 
 my father, seeing that captains of ships hold 
 this sort of obligation as sacred : I say whilst 
 the captain was talking thus, he happened 
 to look aloft, and, following the direction of 
 his eye, I saw a seaman on the weather 
 fore topsail yard ; his feet were on the foot- 
 rope, he overlay the yard, the outline of his 
 figure clear as a tracing in ink with his yellow 
 naked calves and feet dingy against the white 
 canvas. What he did I could not see. 
 
 The captain broke off and eyed the man 
 intently ; then, looking round a little at Mr. 
 Green, he exclaimed, ' What does that fellow 
 mean by sogering up there ? I've been watch-
 
 I20 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ing him. Who is it? Call him clown. I 
 don't want any loafing of that sort aboard my 
 ship.' 
 
 The mate went some steps forward and, 
 looking up, bellowed in a voice as harsh as 
 the noise of surf on shingle, ' Fore topsail yard 
 
 there ! Come down out of that, you ' 
 
 and here he employed several examples of the 
 forecastle speech which I will not write down 
 because they are not projDcr to remember, 
 though we are to believe that the business of 
 the sea cannot be f?ot throui^h without brutal 
 lanD^ua^e. 
 
 The man looked down at the mate, and 
 «aid something ; Mr. Green roared out again 
 to him to ' lay dow^n,' on wliich I observed 
 the sailor slided a yard or two along the foot- 
 ropes towards the topmast rigging ; he then 
 fell ! 
 
 He struck the deck near the galley. Mrs. 
 Burke shrieked. The man got up in a 
 moment, stood erect w4th blood gushing down
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 121 
 
 his cheeks, and smiled at us, and the next 
 moment dropped dead. 
 
 I fainted, and when I came to my head 
 was resting on Mrs. Burke's knee, and Captain 
 Burke was fanning me. The body had been 
 carried into the forecastle, a couple of seamen 
 were scrubbing at the stains in the white 
 planks. Mr. Owen came slowly aft, and said 
 that the poor fellow was dead ; then saw to me, 
 took me by the hand, and seated me in the cool- 
 ness under the awning, where the pleasant 
 shadow was fresh with the gushing of the 
 wind out of the hollow of the great mizzen. 
 
 It was a frightful thing to have seen. I 
 was looking at the man when he fell, and my 
 sight followed the flash of the poor figure to 
 the shocking thud of the deck ! I saw him 
 rise and smile — a smile made dreadful by 
 blood and heart-subduing by the suddenness 
 of his fallins: back dead. 
 
 ' Howll Mr. Green like to recall the violent 
 words he used to the poor fellow, I wonder ? '
 
 122 HEART OF OAK 
 
 said Mrs. Burke, glancing at the mate, who, to 
 be sure, showed no sensibihty. He trudged 
 the deck athwartship with rounded back and 
 arms up and down in the sea fashion ; 
 occasionally leering at the sky to windward, 
 or darting a sour look at the canvas aloft. 
 He was no man to muse with regret on the 
 death of the sailor, and lament his own intem- 
 perate speech : on the contrary, he was one of 
 those mates who sometimes become masters, 
 to whom human life, provided tlieir own be 
 not imperilled, is of no more consequence than 
 the extinction of the flame of the slush-fed 
 lamp which hghts the sailor's sea-parlour. 
 There were many dogs of that sort at sea in 
 those times, and some have survived into 
 these ; but the odious breed grows scarce. 
 Indeed, the world has agreed to find the 
 type intolerable, and may the day be at hand 
 when the very last of the race shall be brought 
 to the gangway in the holy grip of the 
 giantess Education, and dropped overboard to
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 123 
 
 plumb the depths of time, where lie the green 
 bones of Trunnion, Hatchway, and others of 
 the clan ! 
 
 Mr. Owen recommended that the body 
 should be buried that afternoon. The weather 
 was very hot ; the breeze was slackening and 
 the sea sheeting out — full of fitful winding 
 lanes of hght as though the sun struck u^Don 
 wakes and tracks of oil — into the thickening 
 distance, where the heat was showing in a 
 sensible presence of iihn, blending sky and 
 water till it was like looking at them through 
 tears. 
 
 ' Very well,' said Captain Burke ; ' in the 
 first dog watch, if you please.' 
 
 It was at that hour almost calm, with a 
 broad road of hot red light, billowing snake- 
 like from the ship's side over the soft undula- 
 tions of the western swell towards the rayless 
 sun that still floated at some height in the sky. 
 I stood beside Mrs. Burke on the quarter- 
 deck, prayer-book in hand ; the sailors came in
 
 124 HEART OF OAK 
 
 a body from forward, and amongst them they 
 bore the corpse — an outline of tragic sugges- 
 tion under the large red ensign that hid it. 
 They lifted out a portion of the gangway and 
 rested one end of the plank in the gap, and 
 the captain began to read. 
 
 What is there in shore-going ceremony to 
 compare in solemnity, in pathos, in all the 
 deepest of the meanings Avhich are interpret- 
 able out of human forms and customs, wdtli 
 the simple burial at sea? All was as silent 
 upon the water as the sinking of the sun 
 himself into the broadening road of gold 
 under him. Aloft was a gentle sound of win- 
 nowing canvas ; a sob of the sea from along- 
 side sometimes broke in upon the captain's 
 deliver}^ 
 
 The expressions on the faces of the rough 
 seamen were for the most part fixed. How 
 many shipmates and messmates had they 
 helped bury in their time ? How should they 
 be concerned by death? themselves having
 
 A STRANGE MAX OX BOARD 125 
 
 the Skeleton at tlieir lieels every hour of 
 their existence at sea, allowed but a crooked 
 finger for their own lives, all the remainder 
 of their hands being their owner's ! 
 
 Now, knowing sailors as I do, I can read 
 those seamen's faces by the aid of memory, 
 and almost tell their thoughts as they stood 
 there near the gangway. 
 
 'Well, poor Bill, there he lies.'— Oly turn 
 next perhaps.' — 'What's that yarn the skipper's 
 a-readicg? A blooming good job for them 
 it's true of! No call to talk of souls at sea. 
 It's work hard, live hard, and die hai"d here ; 
 and what's arterwards there's Bill there to 
 say.' 
 
 At a signal the Hag was withdrawn, the 
 stitched hammock was revealed, the plank 
 was tilted, and the grim parcel despatched. 
 
 The night that followed was breathless 
 and beautiful. In the south-east under the 
 moon the water stretched in a stainless field of 
 light, flashing, but still as a sheet of looking-
 
 126 HEART OF OAK 
 
 glass ; our sails glowed blandly like starlight 
 itself as tliey rose one above another into the 
 whitened gloom in whose clear profound many 
 meteors were darting, leaving a smoke of 
 spangles for all the world like sky-rockets 
 under the large trembling stars. Lovely they 
 were : but for the moon I think many had 
 studded the water with points of light, to ride 
 and widen upon the black and noiseless lift of 
 swell, thick and sluggish as though it were oil 
 that ran, and scarcely putting three moons'- 
 breadth of motion into our mastheads, though 
 it sweetened the air with the rain of dew it 
 softly beat out of the canvas. 
 
 The cabin was too hot to sit in. There 
 was no magic in two windsails and a wide 
 skylight to cool it. I had played at cribbage 
 with Mrs. Burke till, with a yawn, the hour 
 being about half-past nine, I proposed that 
 we should go on deck. The steward followed 
 us with a tray of refreshments ; the captain 
 and Mr. Owen joined us, pipes in mouth, and
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 127 
 
 we sat, nothing betwixt us and the stars but 
 the moonht shadow of the nigrht through 
 which we saw them. 
 
 Four bells were struck, ten o'clock ; there 
 was no light forward saving a little sheen of the 
 forecastle lamp round about the fore-scuttle, 
 like a dim luminous mist there. But the 
 moon lav bright upon the white planks of the 
 deck, and though the rigging rose pale as 
 tarnished silver to the mastheads it made a 
 network of shadows black as ebony, which 
 swung with the roll of the ship as though 
 they kept time to music. 
 
 I was looking at some of this dehcate net- 
 work on the main deck when the figure of a 
 man passed through it and approached the 
 boatswain, who had charge of the ship till 
 midnight. They talked with a rumble in 
 their notes that was as good as telling you 
 something was wrong. Tlie captain called out : 
 
 ' What does that man want ? ' 
 
 The boatswain then came to us, leavinof
 
 J28 HEART OF OAK 
 
 tlie man standing, and exclaimed, ' He says 
 there's a strange sailor in tlie sliip.' 
 
 ' What's that ? ' demanded Captain Burke. 
 
 ' He says there's a man walking about as 
 don't belong to the ship's company.' 
 
 ' Whose grog has he been cribbing P ' said 
 Mr. Owen. 
 
 The captain called to the man, who came 
 and stood before us. The moonlio^ht whit- 
 ened him : he was a powerfully built fellow, 
 with a quantity of black hair hanging about 
 his ears and dark nervous eyes, which caught 
 the light in silver stars. 
 
 ' What's this about a strange man being 
 aboard ? ' said the captain. 
 
 'There's a strange man in the ship, sir,' 
 he answered. 
 
 And now I observed that in the black 
 shadow of the galley forward there stood a 
 little group of men, apparently striving to 
 hear what was spoken aft. 
 
 ' Have you seen him ? '
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 129 
 
 ' Certainly I have, sir.' 
 
 ' Go on,' exclaimed tlie captain, impatiently. 
 
 ' I was on the fok'sle when lie passed me. 
 He walked slow. He looked at me as lie 
 passed, and liis face ^vas wet.' 
 
 ' How could you tell that in tliis light ? ' 
 said Mr. Owen. 
 
 ' The moonshine rippled in it, sir.' 
 
 « Go on,' said the captain. 
 
 ' He was going aft as though just come out 
 of the head. I made a step or two and lost 
 
 him.' 
 
 ' Where did he disappear ? ' said the boat- 
 swain in a voice of awe. 
 
 ' Why, in the gloom about the foremast.' 
 
 'It'll be a stowaway come to light at a 
 pretty late date,' exclaimed Captain Burke, 
 stiffening himself in his chair with a start of 
 temper. ' Bo'sun, get a lantern, and take and 
 give everything forward a good overhaul.' 
 
 ' It's no stowaway, sir,' said the man who 
 had seen the stranger. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 HEART OF OAK 
 
 'Ho, d'ye know him, then?' cried the 
 captain. 
 
 ' He was no stowaway,' repeated the sea- 
 man in a sudden roaring voice of irrepres- 
 sible excitement. 
 
 The captain stared at him. 
 
 ' You won't make him a ghost, will you ? ' 
 said Mr. Owen. 
 
 The man viewed the doctor in silence, 
 then suddenly shouted, whipping round upon 
 the boatswain : 
 
 ' Tom Hartley saw him.' 
 
 ' Call Tom Hartley aft,' exclaimed the 
 captain. 
 
 The name was bawled by the boatswain, 
 and repeated in echoes like distant laughter 
 aloft. Then a man stepped out of the huddle 
 of figures in the shadow of the galley and 
 came through the moonlight, followed by four 
 or five who halted at the gangway. 
 
 'What's this you've seen. Hartley ? ' said 
 Captain Burke.
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 131 
 
 ' I was at the scuttle butt with the dipper 
 in my hand, when, turning my head to look 
 forrard, I see the shadow of a man with the 
 ghmmer of a face upon it standing near the 
 foremast. I took a step, thinking it was one 
 of the men, and lost it.' 
 
 'How d'ye mean, lost it?' said the cap- 
 tain. 
 
 * It sort of went out, sir.' 
 
 ' Take a lantern and search the ship 
 forward, bo'sun,' said the captain. 
 
 The three of them went forward, but I 
 heard the first man tell the boatswain that the 
 way to see the stranger that had come aboard 
 was not by showing a hght. 
 
 ' What's the meaning of it ? ' said Mrs. 
 Burke. 
 
 The captain rose in silence and walked the 
 deck, going somewhat towards the gangway, 
 and staring forward and around. The group 
 of seamen had followed the boatswain, and 
 were now on the forecastle, a knot of silvered 
 
 k2
 
 132 HEART OF OAK 
 
 figures with tlieir shadows hke carvings of jet 
 lying at their feet. 
 
 ' Was it a strange man they saw ? ' I 
 asked. 'If so, how did he come into the 
 ship ? ' and I own a chill ran through me as I 
 asked the question. 
 
 The mystery and awe of this wonderful, 
 beautiful night of moonlight and trance of 
 ocean, glazed by the nightbeam as though it 
 were an ice-field, was in this hour to heighten 
 into a sort of horror the fancy of a strange man 
 with a wet face walking forward ; and then 
 again there was the memory of the death in the 
 morning and the burial before sundown. Mrs. 
 Burke was silent, and I saw her watching her 
 husband as he uneasily moved here and there. 
 
 ' Pity it's happened,' said Mr. Owen. ' It's 
 all nonsense, of course. They'll find nobody. 
 A very small optical illusion will carry con- 
 viction into the brain of a noodle. All sailors 
 are noodles in superstition. And now all 
 hands'll think there's a cfhost aboard.'
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 135 
 
 Captain Burke rejoined us abruptly, and 
 seated himself. 
 
 ' They'll find nothing,' said he. 
 
 ' So I was just saying,' said the doctor. 
 
 ' But that'll be the worst of it,' exclaimed 
 the captain. ' I wish it had been that con- 
 founded seaman's watch below. I don't like 
 such things as this to happen in my ship.' 
 
 ' Why, Captain Burke, you don't mean to 
 
 tell me ? ' said Mr. Owen, catching, as I 
 
 did, the note of awe and nervousness in the 
 other's utterance. 
 
 ' I tell you what it is,' burst out the cap- 
 tain irritably ; ' it's devilish hot to-night, I 
 know. Is this the Eed Sea ? ' 
 
 ' Would it were, for that's where all the 
 ghosts are laid,' said the doctor good- 
 humouredly. 
 
 ' I'm no infidel,' said the captain. ' I 
 thank God I have my faith. There's testi- 
 mony enough in the Bible to the existence of 
 ghosts to satisfy any Christian man.'
 
 134 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' Why, Edward,' cried Mrs. Burke, ' do you 
 want to frighten Miss Marie ? ' and she poured 
 out a small tumbler of brandy and seltzer for 
 him ; he swallowed the draught and said : 
 
 ' They'll find nothing ; which will prove, 
 of course,' said he, looking at me, ' that there 
 is nothing/ 
 
 And then he began to talk a little myste- 
 riously of a brig that had sailed out of Cork ; 
 the crimps or runners had bundled a man 
 stone drunk into the forecastle, where the 
 captain let him lie for a day or two, guessing 
 he would rally and turn to ; instead of which 
 they found him dead, and there was no doubt 
 he had been dead when put on board, the 
 crimps shipping the corpse in order to secure 
 the man's wages. They buried the loathly 
 thing, but every night throughout the voyage 
 the apparition of it moved in the forepart of 
 the vessel, and always its ghostly hand struck 
 one bell, which is half an hour past midnight 
 at sea, after w4iicli the shape disappeared, and
 
 A STRANGE MAN ON BOARD 135 
 
 the watcli on deck breathed freely again. I 
 say Captain Burke talked of this brig a little 
 mysteriously, as though he secretly believed in 
 the story, yet was ashamed we should think he 
 did so. 
 
 Whilst Mr. Owen was trying to make Mrs. 
 Burke and me laugh with some silly story of a 
 spectre, the boatswain came aft. 
 
 • Well,' said the captain. 
 
 ' There's no strange man forward, sir.' 
 
 ' Where have ye searched ? ' 
 
 The boatswain named all sorts of places. 
 
 ' All right ! ' said the captain, springing to 
 his feet. ' It's happened right or wrong, 
 and must take time to wear off. The dew 
 is heavy: I recommend Miss Otway to go 
 below.'
 
 136 
 
 
 HEART OF 
 
 OAK 
 
 
 iTuji. 
 
 X 
 
 
 CHAPTEE 
 
 "Vii 
 
 A 
 
 RACE AND A 
 
 ROLLER 
 
 Mks. Burke talked with me in my cabin for 
 some time. She wondered that her husband 
 could be so credulous as to believe in ghosts, 
 and said she had never before suspected he 
 was superstitious. She kissed me and said 
 good-night, and went away thinking, I dare 
 say, she had left me fairly cheerful ; and so 
 indeed I was while she was with me, but w^hen 
 she was gone, and I lay alone in the darkness, 
 I felt very uneasy. The cabin porthole was 
 high above the low bunk in which I rested ; 
 I could not see the stars in it, but the noise of 
 waters fretted by a gentle catspaw of w^ind 
 came through very clearly, along with a dim 
 sifting of moonshine that ruled the gloom in a
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 137 
 
 spectral spoke of light which was like dream- 
 ing to see ; it was a dismal, sobbing, moaning 
 noise of waters whilst it lasted, and made me 
 think of the dead men deep down in the sea, 
 and of the apparition that had moved upon the 
 forecastle, and vanished seemingly as smoke 
 goes out, till I was too afraid to sleep. 
 
 The last bells I heard stealing faintly 
 through the calm were eight — four o'clock in 
 the morning. 
 
 However, I was at the breakfast table at 
 the usual hour ; Captain Burke and his wife 
 and the doctor came below from the deck and 
 seated themselves. Presently I said : 
 
 'Are we making good way. Captain 
 Burke ? ' 
 
 ' Noble way. We've taken a fine royal 
 breeze right abeam. It's hit our heels to a 
 hair.' 
 
 I looked at him as he spoke, and observed 
 a certain dulness in his countenance. The 
 arch expression was gone out of his eyes, and
 
 138 HEART OF OAK 
 
 if they seemed merry it was through their 
 blue ghtter, not their spirit. It may have 
 been his face which made me ask : 
 
 ' Was anything more seen of the ghost 
 during the night ? ' 
 
 ' No, miss,' he answered abruptly. 
 
 ' It was no ghost, Miss Marie,' exclaimed 
 
 my old nurse. 'Why, as Mr. Oiven justly 
 
 says, you can't have no better ingredients for 
 
 spectre than moonshine and the moving 
 
 shadows of rigging.' 
 
 ' For such a noodle as the fellow that saw 
 the thing,' said the doctor, with a half-glance 
 of interest and speculation at the captain. 
 
 'You're not going to get correct like- 
 nesses of living people out of moonshine and 
 shadow,' said the captain. 
 
 ' Why, yes, out of light and shade merely, 
 captain,' said Mr. Owen. ' What else would 
 you do work with in pencil or crayon ? ' 
 
 ' I wonder you can be so silly, Edward,' 
 said Mrs. Burke
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 139 
 
 I looked at her inquiringly, perceiving 
 that something lay behind this : on which she 
 said, 'The man who saw the ghost has 
 frightened Edward by saying he thought it 
 was the captain at first, the face was so like/ 
 
 The captain sipped at a big breakfast cup 
 to conceal his expression, and subdue, as I 
 thought, some temper excited by his wife's 
 remark. He then said, quietly smiling, but 
 with no hght of merriment upon him, ' I went 
 forward last night after you were turned in, 
 Miss Otway, to take a look round. I called 
 to the fellow the ghost appeared to, and 
 asked him to describe the thing to me ; he 
 did so, and said it had my face. My wife 
 thinks I am frightened. You don't believe 
 that, I hope ? You'd not feel safe in a ship 
 commanded by a skipper who's to be scared 
 by a seaman's yarn.' 
 
 ' Just a little bit of forecastle malice, 
 depend upon it,' said the doctor. ' We'll 
 have the truth of it yet. Perhaps they hope
 
 I40 HEART OF OAK 
 
 to justify their charges against your beef by 
 dreaming terrific waking nightmares, and 
 seeing precisely the sort of thing that an un- 
 savoury harness cask would be fruitful of.' 
 
 'You'll have the other man saying now 
 that the thing he saw was like you,' said Mrs. 
 Burke. 
 
 ' He's said it,' exclaimed the captain, with 
 an emphatic nod at her. 
 
 Mr. Owen lay back in his chair with a 
 loud laugh ; an ill-timed explosion and forced 
 withal, for you easily saw that the mood of 
 the captain was then a distemper, which 
 needed the medicine of a little skilful sym- 
 pathy. But the subject was dropped after 
 the doctor's laugh, and Captain Burke, turn- 
 ing to me, talked in a gentle voice of the 
 letter I had sent home, and calculated the 
 distance the brig had sailed since we spoke 
 her, and chatted to entertain me and perhaps 
 to brisken up his own spirits. 
 
 When I went on deck I beheld one of the
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 141 
 
 most spacious splendid scenes of morning our 
 ship had ever sprang through. It was blow- 
 ing fresh, but the seas ran steadily in defined 
 hard blue ridges, smoking as they came at us 
 right abeam. The rolling of the ship was so 
 regular as to be scarcely noticeable. It was 
 all cream and yeast to leeward ; I had never 
 seen before alongside such a bubbling, throb- 
 bing spread of white spume, winking, seething, 
 crackling like burning brushwood, sweeping 
 off in steam whenever the heel of the ship 
 hurled the blast under the foot of the main- 
 sail sheer into it over the rail. The clouds 
 hung in vast terraces to windward, with 
 bodies of vapour blowing up to the zenith out 
 of the silk-wliite heaps, then scudding west- 
 ward to mass themselves low down in a coast 
 of cloud, that looked, with its breaks and 
 tints, like a rich land dimly seen in mist. 
 
 It was this cloud scenery, with its steady 
 whirl of vapour between, that made the 
 morning; show as wide ac^ain as it was. Mr.
 
 142 HEART OF OAK 
 
 Owen, seeing me alone looking at the water, 
 joined me. 
 
 ' It is difficult to feel superstitious on sucli 
 a morning as this,' said he. 
 
 ' If the stranger comes again I hope it will 
 be in daylight,' I answered. ' The thing 
 seems to have affected the captain's spirits.' 
 
 ' But not yours, I hope.' 
 
 ' I don't beheve in ghosts,' said I, ' but I 
 have faith in portents and presentiments and 
 premonitions.' 
 
 He looked grave, and answered so had he, 
 and was about to tell me something, then 
 checked himself ; I think his imagination was 
 with his dead then, and that he could have 
 told me of having received some warning of 
 the loss that was to befall him. 
 
 ' I am sorry,' said he, with a glance at the 
 captain, who was on the weather side of the 
 deck talking with his wife, 'that the sailor 
 should have told Captain Burke the apparition 
 was like him. These reports, if there's good
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 143 
 
 faith ill tliem, catch hold of a man's spirits. 
 The captain's worried. We must avoid the 
 subject in his presence.' 
 
 ' I sliould not Hke to be told that I had 
 appeared to a person,' said I. 
 
 ' I don't know,' he exclaimed, ' whether 
 sailors are more superstitious than others ; 
 they're thought to be so. They can plead 
 good reasons. Last night, for example, was 
 fuller of the mysterious and the spirit-like than 
 any churchyard scene, however crumbling 
 the church tower, however red the colour than 
 of the moon with a streak of black cloud, like 
 crape, above it. The superstitions of the sea 
 are extraordinary, and some of them beautiful. 
 The Ancient Mariner was a poet.' 
 
 'He talks like one in the poem,' said I, 
 smiling. 
 
 ' Coleridge went to the old sea chronicles 
 for his ideas and imagery,' he exclaimed. 
 ' Shelvocke gave him the albatross, and he 
 found his painted ocean, and the shining and
 
 144 HEART OF OAK 
 
 burning, wriggling tilings in it, in Eichard 
 Hawkins. We can never see again as the 
 old saw. They came with the eyes of children 
 and everything was marvellous. But many 
 of the old superstitions linger.' 
 
 ' Is there any particular superstition 
 connected with apparitions at sea ? ' 
 
 ' I am not well read in that subject,' he 
 answered, laughing. ' Most of the apparitions 
 I have heard about concern the coming on 
 and ending of storms — mercurial spirits, 
 spectres of the barometer. The old Jacks 
 swore that the Virgin frequently appeared in 
 the height of a gale ; they had but to vow a 
 taper and down dropped the wind. There 
 was always a gale in the wake of the " Flying 
 Dutchman." ' 
 
 ' There's nothing but weather for appari- 
 tions to predict at sea,' said I. 
 
 ' That wet-faced ghost of last night,' said 
 he, ' reminds me of Lord Byron's tale of a 
 certain captain ; his brother, who was in
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 14J 
 
 India, entered liis cabin in mid-ocean, and 
 lay down in his bunk ; when the captain 
 awoke he found his blankets wet through.' 
 
 ' Perhaps he forgot to close his cabin 
 window,' said I. 
 
 ' Anyhow,' said Air. Owen, ' Captain Kidd 
 afterwards discovered that his brother was 
 drowned at that exact hour of the night.' 
 
 ' This is not nice talk for such a morning 
 as this,' said I, chilled by a sudden return of 
 the uneasy superstitious feeling. 
 
 ' There's a fine sidit comino" along;- 
 yonder,' cried out Captain Burke just then, 
 and he pointed over the weather bow with the 
 telescope he had been looking through. 
 
 I crossed the deck and saw two large stars 
 of light on the sea-line almost directly ahead. 
 Even whilst I gazed they sensibly enlarged. 
 The sun at this time was hanging on the left 
 of them, and his light was on tlie water 
 between, flashing every headlong ridge inta 
 silver, and silvering the sea-smoke till it flew 
 
 VOL. L L
 
 146 HEART OF OAK 
 
 down the wind with the gleam of a silken 
 veil ; and beyond this rushing splendour of 
 silver sea, softened here and there by the 
 shadows of the saihng clouds, hung those two 
 glowing stars, steady as though they were 
 fixed in the heavens. 
 
 Captain Burke let fall the glass from 
 his eye and said to Mr. Owen, ' An ocean race.' 
 
 ' Yachts ? ' said the doctor. 
 
 ' Bless me no. Clippers rushing it for a 
 waofer. If this was the other end of the 
 year they'd probably prove tea-ships. It 
 should be a fine sight,' he cried, anticipation 
 '-' and spirit working his face into something of 
 its old merry, eager look. 
 
 We were ourselves sailing fast, and the 
 two ships were coming along faster perhaps 
 by two or three miles in the hour than we 
 were going ; in a magically short time they 
 were two defined shapes upon the bow about 
 a quarter of a mile apart, black spots under 
 brilliant clouds showing like shapes of white
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 147 
 
 flame throiigli the windy blue dazzle trem- 
 bling into the atmosphere they were coming 
 through. Tlie sailors dropped their several 
 tasks to look ; the surly mate stared with 
 a fixed devouring leer ; all hands I guessed 
 understood what they were to see ; the cook 
 stepped from the galley to the rail. In less 
 than half an hour from the moment of our 
 sighting them they were abreast, and when 
 they were right abeam this one hid the other, 
 so completely were they neck and neck. 
 
 By this time our own ship's number was 
 flying at our peak, and now as they came 
 abreast, each having told us by a thin tongue 
 of flag that our colours had been spelt out, 
 they hoisted their own naiiies. 
 
 'An Aberdeen clipper and a Blackwall 
 liner,' said Captain Burke, reading out of a 
 signal book. ' Both from an Austrahan port, 
 A very pretty race indeed. But it's the spirit 
 of Souchong that puts life into that sort of 
 thing.' 
 
 L 2
 
 148 HEART OF OAK 
 
 Yet spite of that I thought the show as 
 gallant as anything old ocean ever submitted, 
 if it were not a scene of old line-of-battle 
 ships in a gale of wind. They opened into 
 six spires of delicate shadow and snowlike 
 whiteness ; they leaned their full and starlike 
 breasts to us, the lustrous canvas tapering 
 to an apex of cloth that was a very puff of 
 sail, wan as some web of cloud near the 
 afternoon moon. Every stitch that would 
 draw was heaped upon them ; they had the 
 wind right abeam ; to windward they were 
 clothed with studding-sails ; betwixt the masts 
 some becalmed wing of fore and aft canvas 
 would swing in and out idly like the pinion of 
 a wounded bird. The sight was a marvellous 
 hurry of shadows, and flashing lights, and 
 steady shining of rounded canvas ; and under 
 the bows of each a glass-clear sea arching, 
 flashed into a very snow-storm, and broke aft 
 as far as the gangway. 
 
 They passed like clouds, silent and stately,
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 149 
 
 and I continued to watch them till they were 
 glowing astern, dwindling and dimming, but, 
 as Captain Burke declared, neck and neck yet 
 even when they had sunk their courses, and 
 nothing above the clews of their topsails were 
 ' dipping ' upon the horizon. 
 
 It was not many days after this that we 
 crossed the equator. A pleasant sailing wind 
 blew us over the line and failed us not till we 
 had reached almost within the Polar verge of 
 the south-east trade wind, into which Captain 
 Burke and the mate sneaked the ship by care- 
 ful and unwearied attention to every faintest 
 breathing that tarnished the surface of the 
 long, blue equatorial heave. Then one morn- 
 ing, coming on deck, I found a strong wind 
 humming like a concert of organs off the port 
 bow, and the vessel with her yards fore and 
 aft, breaking through a quick spitting sea, and 
 clouds passing like dust over our mast-heads. 
 This was the first of the south-east trade 
 wind.
 
 I50 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' It's all right with us now, Miss Otway/ 
 said Captain Burke as he shook me by the 
 hand. ' We're making a straight course for 
 the Horn, and we shall be putting her nose 
 off for the great South Sea presently.' 
 
 But even though he spoke lightly, and 
 seemed very well satisfied to have taken the 
 trade gale in its strength so young, there was 
 the same suggestion of spiritlessness in his 
 manner that had been more or less visible in 
 him now ever since the sailor had told him he 
 had seen his apparition. Though the ghost 
 had not again appeared ; though Mr. Owen, 
 with the hope, no doubt, of settling tlie 
 captain's spirits, had got the seaman to admit 
 that he might have been mistaken, that he 
 was leaning against the forecastle rail in a sort 
 of doze perhaps when he started and saw the 
 thmg, which, he avowed, might very well 
 have been an illusion of shadow and moon- 
 light upon his sleepy vision — it was all one ; 
 a weight of dejection had come upon the
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 151 
 
 captain's mind, and ever since the night of 
 superstition he had ceased to be that merry, 
 arch, humorous Irishman who had called 
 upon my father, and made us laugh almost in 
 the very anguish of my leave-taking. This 
 was so noticeable in him whilst he talked to 
 me about the south-east trade wind, and oroino- 
 for Cape Horn in a bee-line, and our first 
 sunny port — full of quaint costumes and 
 pleasant fruit and queer merry-makings — ^just 
 round the corner, that on returning to the 
 cabin sometime afterwards and finding Mrs. 
 Burke there sewing, I sat down beside her 
 and talked about him. 
 
 ' What should there be in this thing, 
 nurse, to dispirit your husband after all these 
 days, now that the man has as good as sworn 
 that he was mistaken ? ' 
 
 ' Why, my dear, he is an Irishman, and 
 they are a superstitious people.' 
 
 ' The crew no longer trouble themselves 
 about that ghost.'
 
 152 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' T don't think they do. The boatswain/ 
 said she, laughing, ' told my husband a man 
 had said that as the ghost appeared with a 
 wet face it must have been Old Stormy.' 
 
 ' Who's Old Stormy? ' said I. 
 
 ' Oh,' she answered, still laughing, ' there 
 is a well-known windlass song called ''Old 
 Stormy, he is dead and gone ! " ' 
 
 ' Old Stormy wouldn't be like Captain 
 Burke,' said I. 
 
 ' And that should satisfy him,' she an- 
 swered. ' I doubt that he's quite the thing. 
 These roasting latitudes use the liver cruelly. 
 Then a^ain there's the anxiety of command. 
 The tone of the mind gets lowered by worry, 
 which a man takes as a matter of routine, 
 and doesn't heed though it's working in him 
 all the same. It'll wear off, I dare say, when 
 tlie weather gets cold.' 
 
 She talked placidly, going on with her 
 work with a comfortable, smiling face. She 
 had married too late in life to take anxious
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 153 
 
 views of her husband. It's the young wife 
 that frets, I think. Not that Mrs. Burke 
 would not have shown herself deeply anxious 
 had her husband been ailing in his health ; it 
 was his fancies she took no notice of, a smile 
 was good enough for them. 
 
 It chanced that on this same day there 
 occurred an incident that had nearly verified 
 the judgment of any man who sliould have 
 accepted the visit of the apparition as a 
 menace. After loitering at the dinner-table 
 in chat, I put on my hat and jacket and 
 followed the captain and ]\Ir. Owen on deck. 
 It was blowing very fresh, and though the 
 sun still nearly centred the heavens we were 
 saihng under, the weight of the blast put an 
 edge into the feel of it. But it was a 
 glorious, invigorating, cordial draught ; and I 
 stood for awhile with my hand upon the com- 
 panion-hood, deeply breathing, and rehshing 
 to the inmost pulses of my being that shouting 
 musical tide of liberal gale, blue and salt, yet
 
 154 HEART OF OAK 
 
 sweet as sugar when it came cliarged with 
 the damp of the spray. 
 
 The brown scud was flying off the working 
 ridges on the horizon, and the ship was bowed 
 to her channels, charging the sea-flashes, with 
 the forecastle reeling in the frequent thickness 
 of foam flying athwart. She was carrying all 
 she had of plain sail and clearly more than 
 she needed, for I had not been five minutes 
 on deck when the captain ordered the three 
 royals to be clewed up and furled, and other 
 sail to be taken in. 
 
 I continued standing at the hatch watching 
 two men on the main royal yard stow the sail 
 there. It was a giddy sight to my girlish eye. 
 Indeed I had always found something wonder- 
 ful in the agility and fearlessness of the crew 
 when they sprang aloft, and shded out upon 
 the yards, and struggled with the canvas that 
 soared in l^uge bladders from their grasp. I 
 gazed up at the two fellows and tried to figure 
 the image our ship would make viewed from
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 155 
 
 that height, and whilst I was picturing a 
 narrow streak of hull rushing headlong with a 
 wild play of dazzle on either hand of her, and 
 all aslant to her trucks, with yard-arms point- 
 ing skywards and stirless canvas thrilling hke 
 a thousand drums out of the violet hollows, 
 I was startled by a loud cry directly overhead : 
 and looking up I spied a man in the mizzen- 
 top, leaning off with one hand upon a shroud, 
 and pointing eagerly to leewards with the 
 other, whilst he cried : 
 
 ' There's a whole coast of water a-coming 
 along.' 
 
 I directed my eyes at the lee line of the sea, 
 where I saw, nearly at the distance of the 
 horizon, but clearly coming along at a pro- 
 digious rate directly against the wind and 
 rushing surge, a wall of water : it was round- 
 ing its pouring volume high above the level 
 of the sea, and the vast bulk of it, stretching 
 north and south, blazed with the flashing of 
 the sunlight upon the savage leaps and shatter-
 
 156 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ing recoils of the surge it was rolling up 
 against. Mrs. Burke, losing her wits at the 
 sight, shrieked out : 
 
 ' Oh, Edward, it will drown us ! ' 
 
 Scarcely had she said this when her 
 husband, who had taken but one glance to 
 leeward, roared out : 
 
 ' Hard up, hard up with the helm ! Aft to 
 the weather-braces. Square away fore and 
 aft ! Lively, my lads, for Jesus' sake ! If it 
 takes us abeam it'll sink the ship ! ' 
 
 He yelled the words and they rang 
 through the vessel. The sailors fled to the 
 braces : their practised ears heard in the cap- 
 tain's cry the note that signifies at sea life or 
 death, though some probably did not know 
 what the danger was. The gallant little ship 
 answered her helm like a racing yacht, and 
 seethed aslant down the wind in a semicircle, 
 bowing the hawse-pipes into the billow break- 
 ing under her, and slowly righting as she 
 brought her stern to the breeze, till she was
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 157 
 
 looking at the long on-coming, cliff-like length 
 of brine, with erect spars, rolling never and 
 bowing only as she swept to that wonderful 
 heap of sea. 
 
 It might have been hurling towards us at 
 forty miles an hour, when we are going ten, 
 and in a few heart-beats our bows were lifting 
 to it. 
 
 ' Hold on, all hands ! ' roared the captain 
 from the wheel, which he was grasping con- 
 jointly with the helmsman. 
 
 ' Hold tightly,' screamed Mrs. Burke to me 
 as we stood together in the companion. 
 
 Mr. Owen flung himself on his knees 
 behind the mizzen-mast. Green, the mate, 
 stood at the mizzen-rigging grasping a 
 belaying-pin. It was as though an electric 
 storm was volleying in one continuous roar of 
 cloud battery overhead. The ship seemed to 
 be thrown keel out of water forward. I 
 glanced astern at the instant that her bows 
 took the first of the slant of that mi*ghty
 
 158 HEART OF OAK 
 
 heave of sea, and the hne of her taffrail was 
 depressed, Uke the edge of a spoon afloat in a 
 cup, in the crackhng whiteness there, with 
 Captain Burke and the helmsman low down, 
 pale and motionless. The sails throughout 
 came in to the mast with a single clap. In a 
 breath or two we were on the rounded top of 
 that vast rolling lift of water that was roaring 
 along either extremity of it to the horizon ; 
 the wind was full of the tlumder of the shock 
 and the snap of strong seas staggering on the 
 under run ; in that breathless moment of our 
 being poised atop the whole weight of the 
 wind was upon the ship ; through the roar of 
 the roller ran the bughng in the rigging, and 
 the low, deep humming of the canvas as it 
 strained with the blast. 
 
 Then like an arrow down rushed the^ 
 vessel. Oh, that was a frightful moment ! 
 So steep was the slant that the water poured 
 in tons over her bows as she went. I turned 
 sick. I thouo'lit she would take the valley in
 
 A RACE AND A ROLLER 159 
 
 a dive and strike clean througli under the 
 next sea, never again to rise. Fortunately tlie 
 run of tlie mighty roller left the water smooth 
 in its wake. The bows sprang buoyant, the 
 whole ship seemed to leap with a sort of 
 shudder of rejoicing throughout her. 
 
 ' Trim sail the watch,' shouted the captain, 
 letting go the helm and coming forward. 
 'Mr. Green, bring the ship to her course 
 again. A desperately close shave. Had it 
 come from the wind'ard, or taken us abeam 
 to leeward, or found us a strake or two 
 deeper ' 
 
 There was no need for him to finish the 
 sentence. He came to the companion-way. 
 
 ' An ocean hurdle,' said he, still very pale, 
 and watching the wheel as the man revolved 
 the spokes to bring the ship to. 
 
 ' What was it, Edward ? ' cried his wife. 
 
 ' A roller,' said he. ' I hope there may 
 not be another.' He looked to leeward. 
 ' One of those volcanic jokes or hurricane
 
 i6o HEART OF OAK 
 
 survivals which try periodically to swamp 
 Ascension and St. Helena. Help IMiss Otway 
 below, Mary, and give her a little drop of 
 wine, and take a nip yourself.'
 
 i6i 
 
 CHAPTER Vm 
 
 A HURKICA^'E 
 
 Our voyage, after this incident of the roller 
 down to below the latitude of Cape Horn, was 
 uneventful. I had looked with dread to the 
 cold of that stormy and desolate part of the 
 world ; but when we arrived, having struck a 
 parallel, indeed, beyond which the captain 
 informed us we were not to push much 
 further, I found the ocean climate by no 
 mean insupportable. 
 
 My wardrobe had been a hberal equip- 
 ment. I had furs, wraps and the like in 
 plenty, and all very warm ; then again my 
 health had wonderfully improved, and this 
 helped me to find the cold a lesser evil than I 
 had feared. Throughout the days a fire 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 i62 HEART OF OAK 
 
 glowed in the cabin. And yet it was towards 
 the close of June when we were nearly as far 
 south as the captain intended to go, and June 
 is mid-winter in that part of the world, with 
 but four or five hours of light only in the 
 day, and the sun a little scarlet ball whose 
 arc of flight mio-ht scarcely frame an ice- 
 berg. 
 
 All this while the captain remained the 
 changed man I have before attempted to 
 express him. I did not observe that his 
 despondency increased upon him. He was as 
 one who hves with some fixed belief in his 
 head, wdio, depressing his bearing and manner 
 to a level, leaves himself there, never sinking, 
 but never risino; either. For the rest it had 
 been as it still was, a monotonous routine of 
 bells and meals, reading, chatting, playing at 
 games in the cabin ; sometimes we had spoken 
 a ship ; once we had floated quietly into a 
 school of whales which made the cold black 
 deep lying under the large stars of the south
 
 A HURRICANE 163 
 
 as beautiful as any dream of poet with the 
 silver willowy curves of hght they blew to 
 the moon. 
 
 In this time I found no opportunity to 
 send a second letter home. 
 
 I cannot remember our latitude on this 
 day I am to write about. I understood that, 
 for reasons my memory will not suffer me to 
 explain, we had made more southing than 
 was necessary, whilst we were further to the 
 east — half-way indeed, to Georgia Island, — 
 than the captain and mate cared to talk 
 about. The weather had been sulky all the 
 morning ; large snow clouds in soft dyes of 
 darkness upon the stooping, corrugated, 
 leaden sky, floated sullenly athwart our mast- 
 heads, but without any squally outfly of wind 
 so far, though often the snow fell thickly. A 
 large westerly swell was running, and the ship 
 bowed heavily upon it, finding nothing to 
 steady her in the small beam breeze that blew 
 bitter as ice straio'ht out of the south.
 
 i64 HEART OF OAK 
 
 I remained in tlie cabin all the morning, 
 reading beside the fire. Whilst we were at 
 dinner, the mate, shaggy in thick pilot cloth 
 and a great fur cap between wliose ear-covers 
 his face lay small as though withered by the 
 cold into a mere leer of eye and a purple nose 
 jewelled with a little icicle, came half-way 
 down the companion ladder. 
 
 ' There's a big island jumped out of a 
 snowfall on the lee bow,' he exclaimed. 
 ' The lady '11 like to see it p'raps,' having said 
 which he instantly returned on deck. 
 
 Strangely enough, though we had 
 measured many leagues of ocean often for 
 months and months studded with bergs, we 
 had down to this hour sighted nothing of the 
 sort. I had longed to see an iceberg before 
 all other sights of the deep, and at once 
 wrapped myself up, and went on deck with 
 the captain. On stepping to the lee side, 
 there on the bow about two miles off we 
 beheld a vast iceberg like a mighty cathedral
 
 A HURRICANE 165 
 
 in alabaster shaping itself out of a soft vapoury 
 shadow ! As each feature of the mass stole out . 
 it showed with an ivory-Hke clearness against 
 the hoary soot of the snow-cloud past it ; the 
 swell of the sea washed the base in a large 
 surf. The water was lead coloured as the 
 sky ; its heavings were slow and stubborn, and 
 each volume rolled along as though it were of 
 oil or quicksilver. Some lovely snow-white 
 petrels darted swallow-like athwart our 
 sluggish wake. I cannot express how their 
 beauty deepened, to the imagination, the sky- 
 wide lonehness of this scene of ocean with its 
 ice-island there, material as rock, dissoluble 
 as the smallest of the flakes falling upon it — a 
 mere dream of substance — a pageant of the 
 deep as illusive as the tapestries of the 
 clouds. 
 
 Many shadows of snow hung round the 
 sea. It was like entering a vast arena funereal 
 with draperies. 
 
 ' Wliat does that iceberg remind you of ? '
 
 166 HEART OF OAK 
 
 said Mr. Owen, approaching us with Mrs. 
 Burke. 
 
 ' Of a cathedral,' said I. 
 
 ' Exactly,' he exclaimed. ' Winchester 
 and Canterbury combined, with a hint from 
 Strasburg in that corner to the right yonder, 
 where its opening is clear of the snow.' 
 
 'A pretty little fairy toy to thump up 
 against on a black howling night,' said 
 Captain Burke, with an uneasy look round at 
 the weather. 
 
 ' This is as strange a day as ever I saw,' 
 said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' How long could people live on such an 
 iceberg as that ? ' said I. 
 
 ' Give 'em wreckage for huts and food and 
 fuel, and they should live long enough to be 
 taken off,' answered the captain. 
 
 ' Ha ! ' exclaimed Mr. Owen, pensively 
 regarding the majestic bulk, 'fancy finding 
 one's self alone on such an island as that ! 
 An ice Crusoe ! '
 
 A HURRICANE 167 
 
 'I've known three whalers taken off a 
 piece of ice four or five days before the kimp 
 they floated on would have melted under their 
 feet,' said the captain. 
 
 Mr. Owen viewed him with a smile. The 
 captain abruptly left us. and standing at the 
 wheel directed his eyes earnestly round the 
 sea and up at the sky. ]\Irs. Burke said : 
 
 ' My husband's uneasy. I hope we are 
 not going to have any very bad weather.' 
 
 ' Miss Otway,' said ^Mr. Owen, ' do you 
 know, those birds are the souls of dead 
 ballet-girls ? Observe the exquisite time and 
 grace of their measures and curvings, as 
 though they held their white skirts out and 
 revolved to unheard music' 
 
 Here Captain Burke called out sharply : 
 
 ' Get the main-topgallant sail furled and 
 all three topsails single-reefed.' 
 
 In a few minutes the ship was clamorous 
 with singing men and busy with running 
 figures ; a pale ray of sunshine glanced just
 
 i68 HEART OF OAK 
 
 then at no great height above the horizon and 
 flashed up our ice-glazed rigging and flamed 
 in the spears of ice at the catheads : it touched 
 the iceberg and the cathedral-like phantasy 
 that was now abeam whitened out into a 
 glaring brilliance which flung a sheen of its 
 own round about it ; the sky hung pale above 
 and on its left, but to the right of it snow 
 was falling thickly. In a few minutes the 
 whole mass vanished, a deeper gloom closed 
 in upon the sea, and the swell ran with an 
 increased weight. 
 
 It was an ' all hands ' job as sailors call it, 
 and while the watches were on the topsail 
 yards, the captain bawled out ' two reefs,' and 
 when some hands went on to the mizzen top- 
 sail yard he cried out to them to close-reef the 
 sail, which, before the men came down, was 
 clewed up and furled. Even whilst I remained 
 on deck a sort of vapourish thickness had 
 gathered round the horizon, as though the 
 several draperies of snow-cloud had compacted
 
 A HURRICANE x69t 
 
 into a huge circular wall, blotting out every- 
 tliing a mile off, whilst overhead the sooty- 
 stuff, like scud held in suspense, floated low 
 down till the sweep of the dog vane at the 
 royal mast-head seemed to rend it. 
 
 It began to snow in large soft flakes. I 
 went down the companion steps, and Mrs. 
 Burke and Mr. Owen followed me. I heard 
 Mr. Owen say softly, as though he would not 
 have me overhear, 
 
 ' I wish the mercury had not sunk so 
 low.' 
 
 ' I shall be glad to get out of this sea into 
 the north, where the sun is,' answered Mrs.. 
 Burke. 
 
 'It was after two, and the cabin lamp was 
 alight. I removed my wraps and took a chair 
 close by the stove. The motion of the ship 
 was large, and sweeping upon the swell. You 
 could judge of its character by watching the 
 oscillation of the lamp. Presently Mrs. 
 Burke came from her cabin and sat beside me.
 
 I70 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' We are going to have heavy weather, I 
 fear,' said I. 
 
 ' Oh, well, this is a brave little ship,' she 
 answered. ' We are a long way from home 
 down here, but she's carried us safely so far.' 
 
 ' She has truly, nurse. I cannot wonder 
 that sailors should feel towards ships they 
 have long lived in almost as towards the 
 women they love. A ship is alive. 1 can 
 think of her as with passions and feelings. 
 I've seen the " Lady Emma " erect her spars 
 and look at a sea as a horse cocks its ears at 
 a gate — I once heard Mr. Green talking to 
 her, and I laughed to find myself thinking 
 she understood him.' 
 
 ' What did he say ? ' 
 
 ' " Go it, old bucket " — I forget what 
 more,' said I. 
 
 ' If it were not for Mr. Moore,' said she, 
 looking at me with affectionate eyes, ' I would 
 stake all that my husband owns in this ship 
 that you ended in marrying a sailor.'
 
 A HURRICANE lyr 
 
 I quietly shook my head. 
 
 'Well, the sea has used you handsomely, 
 anyway,' said she. ' I dare say Sir Mortimer 
 is at this minute wonderinsf where vou are. 
 How he and Mr. Moore will have pored over 
 the map of the world, to be sure. But little 
 can they guess where you are this very day. 
 This is the terrible Horn your father was so 
 afraid of for your sake. It's not so cold, is it ? 
 And yet we are further south than it is 
 customary for ships to venture. What would 
 Sir Mortimer think of such a sight as you saw 
 to-day — that great iceberg, I mean ? Fancy 
 such an object floating just opposite your 
 house. What a fortune for the boatmen ! ' 
 
 Just then I heard a shouting on deck ; it 
 came dulled through the planks, yet I caught 
 a sharp, fierce note of instant need in it. A 
 minute later the ship leaned down to an outfly 
 of wind that seemed of hurricane force. I 
 heard the thunder of the storm, and saw the 
 lee cabin windows drowned in the green brine,
 
 172 HEART OF OAK 
 
 whilst the weather ports winked hke blinded 
 eyes with the sudden lashing of foam. My 
 chair gave way, and with a shock I fell with 
 it and rolled down the deck, and for some 
 moments lay helpless, astonished, terrified to 
 the last degree, but unhurt. 
 
 Mrs. Burke clung to a stanchion, and I 
 feared, whilst I watched her stout form swing- 
 ing off it, to see her let go, lest she should 
 flash down upon me and break my neck or 
 maim me for life witli her weight. I could 
 not imagine what was happening save that a 
 sudden hurricane had struck the ship and 
 thrown her on her beam ends. She lay as 
 though capsized, witli a horrible roaring, 
 pounding thunderous noise of water on the 
 weather side of her, and frightful sounds in 
 her hold, threaded with dim notes of rending, 
 as though sails were flogging in rags, or masts 
 going over the sides. 
 
 I managed to get on my knees, and in that 
 posture remained a minute like one en the
 
 A HURRICANE 173 
 
 roof of a house. Such was the slant of the 
 deck I could no more have crawled up it to 
 where Mrs. Burke hung by a stanchion than 
 up a wall. This awful sensation of the ship 
 being upset was dreadfully increased and 
 made a sickness of for the very soul itself to 
 faint under, by her motions in the vast hollow 
 swell which the hurricane was tearing into 
 shreds. Whenever a pause of the beating 
 sea left a Aveather cabin window weeping, yet 
 clear to that extent, I could judge it was 
 about black as midnight outside. The globe 
 of the lamp had swung hard against the deck, 
 and rarely came from it even with a windward 
 roll. All in a moment the ship lurched over 
 yet, till you would have thought she was 
 turning keel up, and this motion was ac- 
 companied by such a thump of the sea, 
 such a shattering inleaping of tons of water, 
 it was as though a huge gun or a whole 
 broadside of pieces had been fired on board 
 of us.
 
 174 HEART OF OAK 
 
 And again through the roaring blow of 
 water I caught the muffled noise of the 
 rending of wood. I shrieked out in that 
 moment of agonising suspense, ' We are 
 sinking ! ' and indeed so bhnding was the 
 echpse of the window glass that I did truly 
 believe we were going down and were even 
 then below the surface. 
 
 Mrs. Burke was unable to make any 
 reply. She was almost black in the face with 
 the anguish of supporting her weight and 
 with horror and fear. In a few moments the 
 strength of her arms gave out ; but by relax- 
 ing her grip she doubtless saved her neck ; 
 her grasp loosened and she slided her embrace 
 down the stanchion to the deck, and then let 
 go and swept silent and helpless as a length of 
 timber down to close beside me ; her feet 
 struck the cabin wall hard, and she lay a 
 minute without motion as though the breath 
 had been shocked out of her. She then 
 grasped my hand and cried out :
 
 A HURRICANE 175 
 
 ' Ob, what can have happened ? Are we 
 amongst the ice ? Did you hear a noise as if 
 our masts had been splintered ? ' 
 
 I shrieked back — I put it thus strongly, for 
 you cannot imagine the uproar in that cabin, 
 what with tlie grinding of the ship and the 
 freight, the creaking of a hundred strong 
 fastenings, the cannonading of flying tons of 
 brine against the lifted exposed weather side 
 of the vessel — I say I shrieked back : 
 
 ' Let us try to get on deck. It is horrible 
 to drown down here.' 
 
 'Don't talk like that. What can have 
 happened ? Is Edward safe ? What has 
 become of the ship ? Oh, the suddenness of 
 it ! Are we amongst the ice ? ' 
 
 Thus the poor woman raved. She was 
 silenced by a roar of water like a crash of 
 thunder close overhead ; a sea of giant bulk 
 had swept the quarter-deck, and in a breath a 
 cataract, sparkhng in the lamp light, rushed 
 smoking down the companion, and before
 
 176 HEART OF OAK 
 
 we could deliver a scream we were up to our 
 waists. 
 
 The water must have been of an icy cold- 
 ness, but I felt it not — at least in that way ; it 
 was no colder than the summer ripples which 
 I would paddle in when a child. Terror had 
 rendered me insensible to pain. 
 
 ' Cannot we drag ourselves out of it before 
 more comes, or we shall be drowned ? ' 
 screamed poor Mrs. Burke. 
 
 Then it was that the ship began to right. 
 She righted slowly at first, then came to a 
 level keel with a sickening jerk and a wild 
 leap of her whole frame that sent the water 
 in the cabin speeding and roaring white as 
 milk. 
 
 A door opened and Mr. Owen stumbled 
 out. 
 
 'Oh, my God!' he cried. * What has 
 happened ? I have been unable to release 
 myself. My berth is half-full of water.' 
 
 And then he came splashing over to
 
 A HURRICANE 177 
 
 where Mrs. Eurke and I stood with an arm 
 writhed about the stanchion. But oh, the 
 soul-Ufting sense of rehef that came into one 
 with the feel of that level deck and the rise 
 and fall, hard and furious as the tossing was ! 
 
 ' What has happened ?' cried Mr. Owen. 
 
 ' Hark ! ' was Mrs. Burke's answer, in so 
 shrill a note, that it pierced the ear like a 
 whistle. We heard the voices of men on 
 deck. A few moments later the figure of 
 Captain Burke appeared in the companion- 
 way. He looked down and cried out : 
 
 ' Are you all right below there ? ' 
 
 ' Edward, come to us. What has hap- 
 pened ? ' shrieked Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' How much water have you taken in down 
 here ? ' he cried, and descended to the bottom 
 of the steps, where he stood looking round 
 him like a man bereft of his mind. 
 
 ' What is it, Edward ? ' screamed his wife. 
 ' Tell us. We are half dead with fright and 
 nearly drowned.' 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' The ship's a sheer hulk — totally dis- 
 masted,' he cried, in a raving way, still look- 
 ing round and around and around. 
 
 ' Oh, oh,' wailed the poor woman, and the 
 doctor, grey as ashes, floundered through the 
 rushing flood upon the cabin floor towards the 
 captain. 
 
 ' Not yet, sir, not yet, sir,' roared Captain 
 Burke, holding him ofi' with both hands out. 
 * See to the ladies. Let them shift their 
 clothes. This water will drain off quickly. 
 Give them brandy and take some. Mary,' 
 he shouted, ' the ship's alive, but if she's to 
 remain so I must see to her,' saying which he 
 went up the steps, closing the companion-way 
 behind him. 
 
 Mr. Owen splashed and staggered after 
 him. He ran up the companion steps bawl- 
 ing, ' Don't lock us up down here,' and tried 
 the doors, but was unable to open them. 
 
 ' Why has he shut us up ? ' I cried wildly, 
 for this imprisonment was the most dreadful
 
 A HURRICANE 179 
 
 passage of all ; I felt as if I should suffo- 
 cate. 
 
 ' He's afraid of more water pouring down 
 and considers we're safer here than on deck. 
 Hell not leave us to drown. He'll not forget 
 we're here,' exclaimed Mrs. Burke. 
 
 'He may be swept overboard, and the 
 others will forget us.' 
 
 ' Come to your cabin and change your 
 boots and dress. 'No more water is coming 
 in, you see. What is that noise ? Hark ! 
 Oh, it is the clanging of the pumps. How 
 fearfully sudden ! But it is always so at sea. 
 Oh, my poor husband ! Come, Miss Marie, 
 come and changfe, or this will be s^ivinof you 
 your death,' and grasping me by the arm the 
 dear, poor, good creature led me towards my 
 cabin. 
 
 As we stepped, moving very slowly with 
 frequent abrupt halts and mutual chngings, 
 for the jump of the dismantled hull from 
 hollow to peak, her helpless beamwise lurch 
 
 y 2
 
 i8o HEART OF OAK 
 
 from summit to valley, were a brain-sickness 
 in sensation, Mr. Owen came out of the pantry 
 holding a bottle of brandy and a glass. He 
 bid me take a small glassful. I told him no, 
 and Mrs. Burke said it was no time to 
 tliink of drinking. It might be that we 
 should be called upon very soon to save 
 our lives, and every one would want the best 
 of his wits. 
 
 ' The captain recommended a draught of 
 the spirit, and so do I,' said Mr. Owen, reeling 
 in the doorway with the motion of the ship 
 and submitting a figure which I must have 
 laughed at, at a time less appalhng, with his 
 short legs set apart, their shape defined by 
 the soaked small clothes which hung like 
 loose plaster upon them, his bushy mass of 
 minute curls over either ear seeming to 
 enlarge hke the pufi* from the mouth of a 
 cannon even as the eye rested upon them, a 
 bottle in one hand, a wineglass in the other, 
 and his face as pale as tallow.
 
 A HURRICANE i8i 
 
 Mrs. Burke irade no answer, and vre 
 gained our cabin. 
 
 The stout door and high coaming had 
 kept the interior fairly dry. I changed, but 
 though I immediately felt the comfort of the 
 dry thick clothing I cannot recollect that I 
 shivered, that I even felt cold, so completely 
 was all physical sensibility in this dreadful 
 time dominated by my horror and surprise 
 and my fright lest the ship should go down 
 with us whilst we were locked up below. 
 Mi's. Burke left me, to shift some of her own 
 clothes. 
 
 I stood at the cabin porthole, holding on 
 by a stanchion that served as a bed-post, and 
 looked out. The thick glass was so bhnd 
 with the ceaseless wash of the roaring sea- 
 flashes that I could distinguish nothing save 
 dissolving, sliifting, shapeless bulks of dim 
 white, vague as snow-clad mountains beheld 
 in starless gloom. But their thunder was 
 without, close beside ; and their strengfth was
 
 i82 HEART OF OAK 
 
 in the Inirl of the ship. Indeed a vast 
 dangerous sea had been set running ahnost 
 as swiftly as the hurricane had burst upon 
 us, and running athwart was the huge swell 
 filled with the might of the greatest stretch 
 of ocean in the world. 
 
 In about half an hour Mrs. Burke came 
 to me. The cabin lamp conthiued to burn 
 brightly, but the fire in the stove had been 
 extinguished by the water. She made me 
 put on a pair of india-rubber shoes, for 
 though the brine had drained off the cabin 
 floor, the thick carpet squelched under 
 the tread like wet sand which leaves a 
 pool in your foot-print. TJie keen edge 
 of this swamp of brine was in the atmo- 
 sphere, raw and weedy and death cold ; it 
 was like entering a ship's hold under 
 sea. 
 
 Mrs. Burke got me to the table, and 
 procured some stout and cold chicken, and 
 compelled me to eat, herself setting an ex-
 
 HURRICANE 183 
 
 ample. She struggled Tvith her spirits, and 
 sought to talk a Httle cheerfully. 
 
 'We are still alive, you see,' she said, 
 ' The " Lady Emma " is one of the strongest 
 ships ever built. I am no longer frightened. 
 I can feel the life in a ship as a sailor does, 
 and this vessel is jumping so briskly that I 
 am certain she is not taking in any water. 
 My husband, besides, is a thorough sea- 
 man. He knows exactly what to do, and 
 what is best will be done.' Then turning 
 her head, she exclaimed, -Where is Mr. 
 Owen?' 
 
 She got up and opened the pantry door ; 
 afterwards knocked upon the door of his 
 berth. The noises were so many and dis- 
 tractincr I could not hear if he answered. 
 She opened the door and exclaimed : 
 
 ' Won't you come and eat a little supper 
 with us ? ' 
 
 ' No, thank 'ee,' he answered, in a thickish 
 voice.
 
 i84 HEART OF OAK 
 
 Mrs. Burke stared at him awhile, then 
 closed the door and returned to me. 
 
 The motions of the ship were so vio- 
 lent that w^e found it hard to keep our 
 seats. 
 
 The food was flung over the fiddles into 
 our laps. Every recovery had the abruptness 
 of the flight of a missile ; the water roared 
 about the cabin windows, and again and 
 again as the hull sank or soared, the thunder 
 of the sea swept through her as though she 
 had split. 
 
 The companion hatch was opened, and 
 Captain Burke descended. He was cased in 
 oilskins, and one whole side of him was white 
 with frozen snow. He came to the table and 
 sat down. 
 
 ' Now will you tell us what has happened, 
 Edward ? ' exclaimed his wife, and she crooked 
 her brows with a straining of her large short- 
 sighted eyes, shining with fear, to catch the 
 expression on his face as it showed and shifted
 
 A HURRICANE 185 
 
 in a sort of hysteric agility with the leap of 
 the shadows under the lamp. 
 
 ' All three masts are gone by the board.' 
 
 ' What's to be done, then ? ' 
 
 ' Eh ? Done ? ' he cried, white in the face, 
 his eyes keen and hot with irritability, pulling 
 off his sou'-wester and striking it upon the 
 table with a blow that dislodged a moulded 
 helmet of snow hard as plaster, ' we want 
 daylight first. You don't realise here what 
 it's like on deck. It's a frightful night.' He 
 checked himself with a look at me and added, 
 ' But we'll have the old jade out of it though 
 it should come to warping her with the Horn 
 for a kedge. We'll put ye safe ashore, miss. 
 By God, then, but Sir Mortimer shan't know 
 you for plumpness and bloom ! ' 
 
 He forced a smile that had more the look 
 of a snarl than a grin with the teeth he dis- 
 closed, his eyes taking no part in it. His wife 
 caught a bottle from the swing- tray as it 
 swept to her outstretched hand and mixed a
 
 i86 HEART OF OAK 
 
 tumbler of drink. He swallowed it, and then 
 picked np a leg of fowl and a piece of white 
 biscuit, and whilst he alternately bit from 
 either hand he talked to his wife thus : 
 
 ' The first outfly was a squall of hurricane 
 force, and it pinned her right down in the 
 trough. I thought she was gone. The men 
 could only hold on. The boatswain at last 
 managed to scramble forward, where he got 
 hold of an axe. He brought it aft, and others 
 taking heart on hearing him sing out, got into 
 the main chains, and with hatchets and knives 
 went to work at the lanyards. The mast 
 went, and with it the other two. It was like 
 the melting of a shadow aloft, with a crash 
 along the starboard length of her that's made 
 matchwood of the bulwarks, I allow, and 
 in a minute spars and rigging were over the 
 side.' 
 
 ' Is the ship sound ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes, she's tight enough. We've lost 
 Green and four men.'
 
 A HURRICANE 187 
 
 ' Oh, Edward, don't say it ! Mr. Green- 
 four men ! How did it happen ? ' 
 
 ' How does anything happen at sea on a 
 black night aboard a dismantled ship with 
 hills of ink and foam rolling over her ? How 
 it happened ask of God who did it. They're 
 not aboard.' 
 
 He talked with jerking movements of the 
 head, snapping his speech at her, and his blue 
 eyes were on fire. A look of fear of him gave 
 a new colour to the expression of horror and 
 consternation in his wife's face. I sat white 
 and speechless, listening to him and to the 
 booming artillery of the sea, entering with 
 ceaseless secret terror into the motions of the 
 ship, all so violent, so extravagantly wild at 
 times that I would say to myself, ' Now she is 
 gone ! ' 
 
 ' Where are the crew ? ' asked Mrs. 
 Burke. 
 
 ' Forward in their quarters. There's no- 
 thing to keep a look-out for except daylight.
 
 i88 HEART OF OAK 
 
 The wreck's gone clear. The wheel's lashed, 
 and whatever comes must come. Is this the 
 meaning of Old Stormy's visit, miss ? ' said he 
 to me with another of his desperate forced 
 grins. ' My apparition, you know, with a wet 
 face ! At sea omens are omens ; the fired 
 part is, you never can tell what form the mis- 
 chief means to take so that you can provide 
 against it.' 
 
 His wife hid her face. 
 
 ' None of that ! ' he roared. ' There must 
 be no breaking down in spirit here. Miss 
 Otway's to be returned safe and sound to her 
 father. There's no virtue in snivelhng to help 
 that, with all three masts gone and the night 
 like a wolf's throat, and ice islands close 
 aboard. Where's Owen ? ' 
 
 I said that he was in his cabin. He got 
 up, opened the door, and looked at him. 
 There was no lamp in the doctor's berth, but 
 the sheen of the cabin light lay upon the 
 interior. The captain entered the cabin, but
 
 A HURRICANE 189 
 
 if he sjDoke I did not hear him. He returned 
 and said : 
 
 ' He is drunk ! I will have a little talk 
 with him by and by. I put you two into his 
 care and he gets drunk I ' 
 
 He drew on his sou'wester and stood up, 
 holding by a stanchion. 
 
 ' Are YOU o-oing on deck, Edward ? ' asked 
 his wife. 
 
 ' Certainly I am.' 
 
 ' You'll be swept overboard.' 
 
 ' Xot I. Ill rout out a couple of the 
 men and we'll have this- carpet up. Pah ! 
 how the salt water stinks ! They shall hght 
 ye a fire too. Boil some cojSee, Mary. You 
 shall have what you want. I doubt but the 
 galley's stove. The longboat's safe, but the 
 quarter boats are gone. She wants steadying 
 — she wants steadying ; ' and making a step 
 or two he sprang up the companion ladder 
 and was gone.
 
 I90 HEART OF OAK 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 DISMASTED 
 
 Captain Burke's manner of going persuaded 
 me liis mind was unhinged. He had talked 
 with excitement, shouted at his wife, his eyes 
 had been full of fire, and still it did not seem 
 that he had fully grasped the whole dreadful 
 meaning of the disaster. 
 
 After he had been o-one a little while two 
 men came into the cabin with fuel for the 
 stove. One had a bloodstained bandage 
 round his forehead under his sou'wester. 
 The snow fell in pieces of white crust 
 from the oilskins of the seamen as they 
 reeled with their hands full to the stove. 
 In the instant of their descent the sweep 
 of the black gale followed, and filled the
 
 DISMASTED 191 
 
 atmosphere with darting needles of stinging 
 cold. 
 
 ' Is any water coming into the ship ? ' 
 cried Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' No, mum. The well's just been sounded. 
 She's right enough in the hull,' answered the 
 man with a bandage round his head. 
 
 ' Aren't the decks being swept ? ' 
 
 ' Now and again a spray,' answered the 
 same man. ' She's a-jumping of it drily 
 enough. She'll not hurt as she hes providing 
 there's nothen knocking about to run foul of.' 
 
 ' Is your head badly hurt ? ' 
 
 'Just a little bit of a cut. Nothen to 
 take notice of, thankee,' answered the man, 
 and he knelt down and lighted the fire, the 
 other looking on and around him with a 
 gleaming gaze of curiosity. 
 
 The lighting of that fire was a marvellous 
 piece of rich deep colour as I see it now, 
 though I had no thoughts that way, I assure 
 you, as I sat watching the kneeling ficrure on
 
 192 HEART OF OAK 
 
 that frightful night. He was in black oil- 
 skins bright with snow ; the other in yellow, 
 snowclad likewise, and as the kindling shav- 
 ings spat out their yellow flames, the two 
 men showed more like some wild startling 
 imagination of a poet done into a grotesque 
 glowing canvas, than a commonplace detail 
 of shipboard life ; their faces sharpened and 
 shrank, grinned and grew grim with twenty 
 shadowy expressions, their roaming seeking 
 eyes burned like rubies under the pent-houses 
 of their sea-helmets ; add the convulsive 
 motions of the dismasted hull, the ceaseless 
 roar of seas pouring in mountains, the dizzy 
 flight, the sickening fall, the wild play of the 
 lamp, the deep, almost human groanings of 
 the fabric with blows of the surge, like bolts 
 from the sky, shocking to her heart in sounds 
 of rending. 
 
 I hoped Mrs. Burke would ask questions 
 of these men as to the safety of the vessel, 
 what would be done, our chances for our
 
 DISMASTED 193 
 
 lives, and the like, seeing that they were able 
 seamen, mariners of experience with memories 
 perhaps of such things as this too ; but she 
 was the captain's wife ; so 1 held my peace 
 and watched the men, clasping myself close 
 in the furs I sat in. 
 
 Scarcely was the fire alight when again 
 the cabin was made bitterly raw by an icy- 
 shriek out of the blackness, and three men, 
 one of them the steward, all clad in oilskins 
 and hardly recognisable, descended. A 
 couple bore some galley things, a coffee pot, 
 a saucepan, a gridiron, some drinking mugs, 
 and such matters. One of them said, 'By the 
 captain's orders, ladies,' and put the utensils 
 on the deck near the stove. Another ex- 
 claimed, * We've been told to stop here. We 
 can't get a fire to burn in the galley. The 
 fok'sle's cruel cold.' 
 
 ' Where's the cook ? ' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' Overboard, along with the mate and 
 three others,' said one of the men. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 HEART OF OAK 
 
 Mrs. Burke tossed her hands and after a 
 pause said : 
 
 ' I'd cook a meal for you with pleasure, 
 men, but I cannot bear this motion — ^I cannot 
 stand. Steward, fetch a ham from the pantry; 
 there's coffee there and biscuits. Get what's 
 needed for a plentiful supper. Four over- 
 board ! How many are left ? ' 
 
 'Nine foremast hands, counting the 
 bo'sun,' exclaimed the seaman with the 
 blood-stained bandage, looking round from 
 the stove. 
 
 Just then the rest of the seamen came 
 below, a shaggy, snow-bleached huddle, the 
 gale following in a howl, with the captain's 
 voice in the frost-keen sling of it, shouting, 
 ' Give them all they want to eat. Let them 
 have plenty of hot coffee, and top the meal 
 off with a dram of rum apiece.' 
 
 The companion doors were then closed, 
 but in such wise as to be easily opened from 
 within. After that moment's roar of ocean
 
 DISMASTED 19S 
 
 and volley of iron blast, the comparative 
 calm in this interior seemed like peace 
 itself. 
 
 ' Isn't the captain coming down ? ' said 
 Mrs. Burke in a voice something wild with 
 anxiety. 
 
 ' Presently, mum,' answered the boatswain, 
 swaying easily from leg to leg, his huge form 
 thickened out by an immensely stout pea-coat ; 
 he pulled his sou'-wester off as a mark oi 
 respect, and the snow on the hatch of it flew 
 to the deck compact, and lay there like a white 
 wreath on a grave. 
 
 ' He'll be frozen,' cried Mrs. Burke. 
 
 'He's a-w^atching of an ice-mountain out 
 over the bows,' said a man. 
 
 I clasped my hands, and felt the blood 
 forsake my heart on hearing this. One 01 
 the men observed me, and in a voice that 
 went through the straining noises, like the 
 sound of the sawing of wood, cried : 
 
 * There's no call to frighten the ladies, Jim 
 
 2
 
 196 HEART OF OAK 
 
 That there block ain't agoing to hurt us, any- 
 how.' 
 
 They then settled who should cook ; a man 
 undertook the job ; the steward cut the ham 
 into rashers, and after a little the place was 
 full of the smell of frying. They had their 
 orders, and went to work. You would not 
 have guessed from their behaviour that we 
 were a dismasted hull, low down past the 
 Horn, ice near us, ourselves rolling helpless 
 on a mountainous sea, a hurricane blowing, 
 often blind with snow, our situation so 
 frightful that every next lurch, every next 
 drive, might carry us headlong out of hand. 
 They fried the bacon, they boiled plenty of 
 coffee, they overhauled the pantry, and got out 
 biscuit and jam and such things ; but all very 
 quietly ; I saw respect in their behaviour ; 
 yet what I best remember was their easy, 
 unconcerned way of going about this business 
 of getting supper. Whilst one cooked and 
 others prepared the table, others again rolled
 
 DISMASTED 197 
 
 the wet carpet off the deck and stowed it away 
 in a corner. 
 
 All this while poor Mrs. Burke kept strain- 
 ing her weak eyes at the companion way. At 
 last she jumped up and shrieked out : 
 
 ' Why doesn't the captain come down ? 
 He'll be frozen to death or washed overboard. 
 Which of you'll go and tell him to come to 
 me ? ' 
 
 The boatswain instantly went. He was 
 absent five minutes, then returned followed by 
 the captain, who merely ■ saying in a voice I 
 should not have known but for seeing him, 
 ' Get on with your supper, my lads, get on with 
 your supper. 'Tis a bad job,' came to the 
 stove and stood before it warming his hands. 
 
 His wife began to reason with him in a 
 crying appeahng voice for remaining on deck : 
 he looked at her and shook his head. She 
 saw something in his face that arrested her 
 speech, and when I glanced at the poor man 
 I was thankful she ceased to worry him. He
 
 198 HEART OF OAK 
 
 stood on wide straddled legs at the stove with 
 his hands behind him, and the snow draining 
 into a pool at each heel, watching the men 
 eating and drinking. 
 
 I never should have imagined any ocean 
 interior could make such a picture as this. 
 The wonder came into it out of the contrast 
 betwixt the rough coarse forecastle hands 
 gathered around the table, with the sparkle 
 of silver plate in their fists, and the com- 
 parative elegance of the state-room in which 
 they sat, with its few looking-glasses and other 
 odds and ends of decoration as before de- 
 scribed ; and always present was the over- 
 whelming thought of the vessel's lonehness. 
 I could not indeed then fioure her in her 
 w^retched state, but with imagination's eye I 
 saw the pale sweep of the decks glimmering 
 with snow, the deserted wheel : with each 
 heave and fall I figured the chmb and plunge 
 of the desolate mutilated craft upon the huge 
 seas, black and roaring as thunder, with a
 
 DISMASTED 199 
 
 hanging, steadfast faintness out upon the bow 
 whenever the snow squall slackened and gave 
 a view of a mile of the flashins: froth breakincr 
 in sullen glares between the iceberg and the 
 ship. 
 
 ' Eat hearty, lads,' said the ca])tain, ' eat 
 hearty. There's nothing to be done with the 
 ship till the dawn gives us a sight of her. 
 Four of ye gone. . . .' He gave a sort of 
 gasp, and stared a moment or two at his wife, 
 and then said to the boatswain, ' Wall, would 
 she have righted, think you, if the masts had 
 stood ? ' 
 
 The boatswain swallowed the contents of 
 his mouth, and said emphatically, ' Xo, sir. 
 That second bust-down must ha' done for her.' 
 
 A growl of assent ran round the table. 
 
 ' Well,' said the captain, ' we all know 
 what's to be done. We've to stick her north- 
 wards anyhow. Something may come along 
 to give us a tow. Failing that, there's enough 
 of foremast standing for a jury rig. The
 
 200 HEART OF OAK 
 
 machinery of the helm's sound. We've to 
 blow to the nor'rards, I say, edging that way 
 for the crowded track.' 
 
 The men said nothing. I seemed to find 
 something ominous in their silence. At the 
 same time it rejoiced me to observe that the 
 captain talked collectedly, as though he had 
 rallied his wits, and had clear ideas and in- 
 tentions. 
 
 When the men had supped and cleared 
 the table, they made as though to go. The 
 captain told them to occupy the cabin for the 
 night. They looked grateful at this, and then 
 around them, as though considering where 
 they should lie. Their awkward grins, queer 
 swaying postures, backs curved, arms up and 
 down, and fingers curled, their bearing, 
 glances, and manners, which expressed but 
 little reference to our lamentable and awful 
 situation, gave me, I own, a sort of heart. 
 They looked as though, but for the captain 
 and us women, and the quarter-deck restraint
 
 DISMASTED 201 
 
 of the cabin, they'd have gathered about the 
 stove, and roared out hearty songs, drowning 
 the fury without with hurricane lungs of 
 music, and spun yarns, and smoked their 
 pipes with as much thoughtless gaiety as they 
 carried to their diversions ashore. 
 
 The captain begged me to go to my cabin, 
 and turn in and lie warm. 
 
 ' Will you go to bed at all to-night ? ' his 
 wife asked him. 
 
 ' No,' he answered. 
 
 ' I suppose you mean to do all the looking 
 out yourself, and end in being found a frozen 
 corpse, while Jack here is to sit by the 
 stove ? ' said she in a low voice, but audible 
 to him and me, glancing round her at the 
 men. 
 
 He peered at her with a scowl, and 
 answered, ' I'm nearly crazy. Say nothing if 
 I'm not to cfo ravincr mad.' 
 
 ' May I not stop here ? ' said I. 
 
 ' What, with these men, miss ? '
 
 202 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' I like the company of sailors. The sight 
 of these seamen keeps up my spirits.' 
 
 ' My poor, dear Marie ! ' cried my nurse, 
 putting the back of her hand against my 
 cheek. ' You can't sit here. Your father 
 would not thank us for throwing you into 
 such company.' 
 
 ' How can you talk so at such a time ? ' I 
 exclaimed. ' I dread to be alone in my 
 cabin. Where is this ship being hurled 
 to ? If she should be flung against an ice- 
 berg ' 
 
 ' If that^' cried he, abruptly, and with 
 temper, ' then as lief be in your cabin as here, 
 as here as on the deck.' 
 
 Then, softening his voice, he said some 
 reassuring things — I forget them — I was cry- 
 ing with my face averted, that the men should 
 not see me. Mrs. Burke took my arm, and 
 we entered my berth. She called to the 
 steward to light the lamp, and named some 
 refreshments which he presently brought, but
 
 DISMASTED 203 
 
 it was too bitterly cold to talk ; nay, our 
 voices here, right aft as my berth was, were 
 almost inaudible for the thunderous wash of 
 the sea along the slant of the side, with a hft 
 of it, when the toppling, helpless hull tumbled 
 my cabin window to the foam, that must 
 again and again have soared high above the 
 line of her bulwark rails. 
 
 I would not undress, but after I had 
 drunk some wine, I got into my bunk, where 
 ;Mrs. Burke made a heap of me with bed- 
 clothes and furs ; then, kissing me and pro- 
 mising to look in from time to time, she 
 dimmed the lamp and went. 
 
 I afterwards passed many terrible nights 
 in this ship, but none worse than this — per- 
 haps because it was the first of tliem. The 
 noises of the sea and straining fabric drowned 
 all sounds in the state-cabin. I could not 
 hear if the men talked, nor tell what they 
 were doin*]^. I terrified mvself by ima^inino- 
 that they would get at the spirits and make
 
 204 HEART OF OAK 
 
 themselves drunk. Then there was always 
 the haunting horror of ice near us. At any 
 moment I might feel a rending shock of col- 
 lision. I was sailor enough to know that if 
 our ship was thrown against such a berg as 
 we had sighted that day, nay, even against a 
 piece of ice of her own bulk, she would be 
 shivered into staves, and all before we could 
 put up one prayer to God. And often did I 
 pray that night, and with plenty of fervour 
 of tongue, I don't doubt, but with little heart, 
 I fear ; I was too frightened to realise the 
 meaning of the words I used. Twice Mrs. 
 Burke visited me and said all was right ; the 
 sailors had been on deck to pump the ship 
 out ; the hull was dry and buoyant, and the 
 gale abating. This news she gave me on her 
 second visit. There was a vast deal of snow 
 in the wind, and the blackness was so thick- 
 ened by it there was no power in the rushing 
 sea-flares to make a light for the eye beyond 
 a pistol shot ; but the captain believed, she
 
 DISMASTED 205 
 
 said, there was do ice nearer to us than 
 the cathedral island we had seen that after- 
 noon. 
 
 Nature, however, was worn out at last and 
 I fell asleep, and when I awoke it was day- 
 light, by which I guessed it was not much 
 earher than noon ; I looked through the port- 
 hole, a large lead- coloured, confused swell was 
 running, but it was unwrinkled and frothless. 
 The motions of the ship were extraordinarily 
 wild and agitated ; she was fiung into twenty 
 postures in a minute. When I got out of my 
 bunk I found it impossible to stand without 
 holding on. The water in the wash-stand was 
 a solid block of ice, but the cold did not seem 
 so piercing, nor of an edge so saw-hke as I had 
 found it yesterday. I contrived to wrap my- 
 self up, and went out and saw Mrs. Burke 
 sitting alone near the stove. She sprang to 
 help me, and said that a few minutes earher 
 she had looked in, and left' on finding me 
 asleep. A pot of coffee was beside the stove,
 
 2o6 HEART OF OAK 
 
 and a breakfast of cold ham, tinned meat and 
 other things on the table. 
 
 ' Where are the crew ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' On deck,' she answered, ' endeavouring 
 to rig up a mast.' 
 
 ' Is the captain hopeful ? ' 
 
 'He means to stick to the ship,' she 
 answered. ' Some of the men talk as if there 
 was nothing to be done with her, and spoke 
 of going away in the long boat.' 
 
 ' Is the vessel utterly dismasted ? ' 
 
 ' She is in a terrible plight. But make a 
 good breakfast, dear. It is quiet weather in 
 spite of this horrible rolling. The hull is 
 sound, and we are sure to be fallen in with by 
 some vessel that will help us.' 
 
 As she spoke Mr. Owen came out of his 
 cabin. His face was the pale shadow of the 
 countenance he had brought on board. He 
 blinked his eyes, and they were bloodshot ; 
 Ills very hair seemed to have been toned by 
 emotion into a sort of ashen colour. He made
 
 DISMASTED 207 
 
 a slight bow, and sat down at the table with- 
 out speaking. Evidently he had breakfasted. 
 Also, no doubt, he had previously met Mrs. 
 Burke. I judged by his behaviour that the 
 captain had talked to him ; it was a mixture 
 of sulkiness and dislike. 
 
 He had been kind and attentive to me on 
 many occasions during the voyage, and, full of 
 fear and other crowding passions as I myself 
 was, I yet felt sorry for him. I bade him good 
 morning and asked him if he had been on 
 deck. On this he rose, and clawing his way 
 round the table, so as to get near to me, he 
 said : — 
 
 ' I owe you an apology for my conduct last 
 night. My indiscretion was not so much the 
 result of cowardice as the state of my health. 
 Much less than I took in the hope of obtaining 
 a little warmth and spirit must have overcome 
 me. I trust I have your forgiveness.' 
 
 ' There is nothing to forgive, Mr. Owen, 
 nor is this a time to talk of such thincfs.'
 
 2o8 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' The captain was scarcely manly in his 
 language,' said he, turning to Mrs. Burke. ' I 
 am not an officer of the ship nor one of his 
 crew. I am practically a passenger, and 
 claim the privileges of a passenger.' 
 
 ' Passengers are not allowed to take too 
 much. All captains object to drinking in 
 their ships, particularly in such dreadful times 
 of excitement as last night,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 I lifted my finger to call attention to the 
 cries of men and the tread of heavily shod 
 feet overhead. Mr. Owen returned to his seat 
 at the table. Soon after this the skylight that 
 was thick with frozen snow whitened as to a 
 watery beam of sunshine, or to some transient 
 glance of clearer day in the sky. I asked 
 Mrs. Burke to take me on deck. She seemed 
 to shrink. I asked her if she had been on 
 deck. 
 
 ' Yes,' she answered. 
 
 ' Then why should not I go .^ ' 
 
 ' Feel how dangerously the hull rolls,*
 
 DISMASTED 209 
 
 said she. ' You might be thrown and break 
 your neck.' 
 
 But I saw that her real objection did not 
 lie so much in that as in her fear of the effect 
 of the scene of the wreck upon me. Thus 
 reading her mind, I exclaimed : 
 
 ' I will go alone ; but why will you not 
 come ? ' and went to my cabin for more wraps. 
 
 She was ready before I was, and we clasped 
 hands, and holding on carefully hkewise, 
 stopping always for that sudden recovery of 
 the deck which would happen out of its slant 
 with the rush of a cannon ball slung by a line 
 and let go at an angle, so ungovernable were 
 the motions of the dismasted hull, we gained 
 the companion ladder, and crawled to the 
 head of the steps, where we stood in the com- 
 panion itself, with our heads above the hood. 
 
 I shrieked on looking ! Let my imaginations 
 have been what they would, here was the 
 reality ! I could not credit my sight. All 
 three masts were gone I nothing of the lower- 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2IO HEART OF OAK 
 
 masts remained saving a height of two or three 
 feet of jagged and sphntered trunk-sheaves of 
 barbed milk-white wood on the main and 
 quarter decks, and about ten to fifteen feet of 
 the foremast. On the right or starboard side, 
 lengths of the bulwark were crushed flat. The 
 decks were littered with gear, ropes' ends were 
 swimming overboard in the leaden swell like 
 hucre eels and sea-snakes making from the 
 wreck. On one side, dangling between the 
 irons, was the keel of a quarter-boat — all that 
 remained of her ; the opposite davits were 
 empty. 
 
 But what idea can such talk as this give 
 you of that wonderful dismal picture of ship- 
 wreck, that spectacle of decks covered with 
 snow, of rails like an armoury with their 
 bristhng pendants of bayonet-blue icicles ? 
 The galley was partly wrecked ; the bowsprit 
 stood soaring and sinking upon the leaping 
 waters, but the jibbooms were gone. I did 
 not know the hull. She looked shrunk to
 
 DISMASTED 2II 
 
 half her former size. The sky stooped to the 
 sea with its burden of vapour, but a break 
 right overhead hovered in a colour of sulphur. 
 No wind stirred. Never was there a deader 
 stagnation in the atmosphere under the height 
 of the Line. Yet you were sensible of the pre- 
 sence of the spirit of this wild, desolate part of 
 the world even in such pauses as this, when 
 you watched the sullen motion of that troubled 
 breast of deep, hurling its glassy folds in com- 
 minglings which ran in silent warring to ihh 
 horizon. Far astern was a shape of white, a 
 gleam in the sallow air there, like that of a 
 sail ; but my eye was now experienced, and 
 since that dash of radiance was too big to be a 
 ship, it must needs be ice. I saw a collection 
 of white tips on the starboard quarter when 
 the swell threw us high, and some points or 
 shafts faint and bluish over the bows. Other- 
 wise the ocean line swept clear.
 
 212 HEART OF OAK 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE JURY-MAST 
 
 All the remaining hands of the ship's company 
 were at work forward. A number of spare 
 booms were stowed on top of the galley and 
 had probably saved the long-boat from being 
 crushed when the masts fell. The sailors had 
 rigged up a triangle of booms with blocks and 
 tackle dangling, and even as Mrs. Burke and 
 I stood in the companion way, they broke 
 into song as they hoisted a huge spar that was 
 to serve as a mast. Their hearty chorus was 
 frequently interrupted by sharp, eager shouts 
 from Captain Burke or the boatswain Wall. 
 
 The break overhead thinned out yet and 
 made more light. A strange dim dye of sul- 
 phur went sifting down to the horizon, and the
 
 THE JURY-MAST 213 
 
 sea in places worked against it dark as bottle 
 glass. About two miles off some whales were 
 blowing ; their vast bulks showed in a black 
 wet gleam amid the swell ; but even then such 
 was the blending of their curved forms with 
 the confused running, that, but for their foun- 
 tains, the eye had missed them. 
 
 We stood watching in the shelter of the 
 companion way. The longer I looked, the 
 stranger, the more forlorn, the more lament- 
 able the scene showed, the more perilous and 
 hopeless our situation seemed. What sort of 
 cloths were they going to spread upon such a 
 height of boom as they were chorusing at ? I 
 thought of the spacious concavities which had 
 risen to the stars, and to the blue heavens of 
 our voyage, those symmetric breasts of lustrous 
 canvas which, when trimmed, snatched an 
 impulse for our clipper keel, from the antago- 
 nism of the head wind itself; I saw the ship 
 robed in the beauty of her sails, lifting her 
 star-saluting royals to the very path of the
 
 214 HEART OF OAK 
 
 flying scud with jibs and staysails yearning 
 from bowsprit and jibboom towards some 
 deeper ocean solitude past the horizon ; and 
 then I looked at the naked boom the men were 
 hoisting at the triangle or shears. 
 
 ' Oh, that cannot help us,' I cried ; ' what 
 does Captain Burke intend ? ' 
 
 ' Even if it should fail as a mast,' Mrs. 
 Burke answered, ' it will be useful as a flag- 
 post. Why, this hull lies so flat without spars 
 a ship might pass three or four miles ofi* and 
 not see us.' 
 
 Here the captain looked round and spied 
 our heads. With a note of his old cheerful- 
 ness he called out : 
 
 ' Many a good prize has been navigated 
 out of an ocean battle-field under leaner sticks 
 than that, and added to the Eoyal Navy after 
 tasselling Jack's pocket-handkerchief with 
 dollars.' 
 
 This he seemed to say as much for the 
 men as for me. He then approached and
 
 THE JURY-MAST 215 
 
 asked me how I did ; and told me not to 
 look too long at the wreck. 
 
 ' Keep up your heart, miss,' said he. 
 * We'll have you out of this in good time. 
 Mary, don't let her stand here dwelling upon 
 this scene. Why, it was a nightmare even to 
 my seasoned eyes when it first came out of 
 the dawn.' 
 
 ' Is that mast meant to carry a sail ? ' 
 said I. 
 
 * When we fix it and stay it we'll set some- 
 thing square upon it, certainly. There'll be 
 room for a bit of fore and aft canvas between 
 the head of it and the bowsprit end. Then 
 let the wind blow south with God's blessing, 
 or east or west will do, to edge us north. 
 We need but steerage way, after which there'll 
 be nothing to do but keep warm till all's well. 
 Take her below, Mary. Look at her face! 
 She'll wither here.' 
 
 The hours of daylight were so few that the 
 night was upon the rolling hull before the
 
 2i6 HEART OF OAK 
 
 seamen had done more than lash the jury- 
 mast to the stump with a stay or two for 
 support. And with the darkness of the night 
 there came along a black Cape Horn snow 
 squall, like a dust storm in its blinding power, 
 with a thunder of wind in it, and so much 
 more afterwards that by five o'clock as high a 
 sea was running as that of the preceding day. 
 The crew came into the cabin for shelter, 
 and cooked their own supper as before. They 
 ate and then went to the stove, and afterwards 
 Captain Burke and his wife and myself sat 
 down to some cold food and a cup of hot 
 coflfee. Mr. Owen came to the door of his 
 berth, but seeing the captain at table at once 
 retired, closing the door upon himself. The 
 captain took no notice. His good spirits were 
 gone again. He drank some coffee, but 
 scarcely tasted food. His posture was one of 
 gloomy despondency as he sat at table, and 
 he rarely lifted his eyes save to dart a glance 
 now and again at the sailors, which put it
 
 THE JURY-MAST 217 
 
 into my head to think that more worked as 
 causes for his dejection than the new fierce 
 gale and our awful situation. His wife often 
 furtively looked towards liim but never 
 ventured to address him, no, not even to ask 
 him if he would eat. 
 
 Well, just such another evening and night 
 as had passed happened with us now. From 
 time to time one or another would go on 
 deck and come below and report the night a 
 flying blackness. On the boatswain returning 
 from one of these errands of observation the 
 captain said : 
 
 ' Does it clear at all ? ' 
 
 ' Still as thick as muck, sir.' 
 
 ' Any smell of ice about ? ' 
 
 ' JS'o, sir.' 
 
 I wondered to hear them talk of smelling 
 ice in a snow storm as thick as froth, and said 
 to the captain : 
 
 ' Is ice to be smelt ? ' 
 
 He looked at me as though he had no
 
 2i8 HEART OF OAK 
 
 mind to answer, to be even civil, then said 
 sharply, ' Yes.' 
 
 My poor old nurse bristled like an angry 
 hen at this behaviour, tliough she was still 
 afraid of the mood upon him, yet being 
 determined that I should get all the comfort 
 possible out of any information the men could 
 give, she turned upon the boatswain, whose 
 bulky, oilskinned figure swung on frock-shaped 
 leggings beside the stove, and said : 
 
 ' Did you ever smell ice, Mr. Wall ? ' 
 
 He looked doubtfully at the captain, and 
 answered awkwardly, ' Yes mum, scores of 
 times.' 
 
 The captain rose and went on deck. At 
 the same moment Mr. Owen came out of his 
 berth. It might have been that through 
 some crevice in the cabin bulkhead he was 
 able to observe the captain's movements. 
 
 'What sort of smell has ice?' I asked, 
 for I could think of nothing but icebergs, of 
 the helplessness of our hull, of our being
 
 THE JURY-MAST 219 
 
 swung by these giant seas against a berg, and 
 I wanted to hear how sailors tell that ice is 
 near without seeing it. 
 
 ' It's the extra coldness that makes the 
 smell. 'Tain't no smell in the or'nary mean- 
 ing/ said the boatswain after a pause. ' The 
 first time I ever learnt that a man could smell 
 ice in a breeze full of frost and snow was in 
 my first voyage in these j)^i'ts. We was 
 running off the Horn, not so low as this here, 
 in a smother o' flakes, nothen visible of the 
 ship from the wheel but her mainmast. I 
 and another was steering the ship, the mate 
 comes rushing aft and sings out to the captain 
 who was walking abreast of the wheel, " I smell 
 ice, sir." They both took a sniff, and I could 
 see by their way of snuffing they both smelt 
 it plain. They looked into the driving smother 
 to starboard and then to port, and then all 
 on a sudden a man on the fok'sle cries out, 
 "Ice right ahead." "Hard aport ! " sings 
 out the capt'n, and out it jumped, big as a
 
 220 HEART OF OAK 
 
 church, right on the bow. Smelt it myself 
 then.' 
 
 A low growl of laughter ran amongst the 
 men, and several looked as though they too 
 had yarns to spin. 
 
 I scarcely slept that night. The cold was 
 terrible, and there were the noises of the sea 
 and the gale, and the heart-maddening rolhng 
 and plunging. Yet, wonderful to relate, next 
 morning, exactly as on the day before, a dead 
 calm was in the air, and the swollen hills of 
 swell ran in liquid lead in a confused shoul- 
 dering. I went on deck with Mrs. Burke at 
 about twelve, and watched the men completing 
 the captain's toy- like affair of jury-mast. They 
 had set a jib upon the bowsprit, and were now 
 bending a sail to a yard which was to be 
 hoisted to the head of the jury-mast. The 
 lean stick was so abundantly stayed that it 
 looked like the inside of an umbrella. The 
 rolls of the hull were dangerous and very 
 fierce ; it was impossible to walk the deck.
 
 THE JURY-MAST 221 
 
 This morning they had got a fire in the galley, 
 which had been roughly repaired. The brown 
 smoke floated straight up out of the swaying 
 chimney, and, trifling as that detail of colour 
 and life was, yet somehow it brought back to 
 the poor old hull something of her old spirit 
 and look. No farmyard sounds came from 
 forward ; no o-nint from the lonof-boat, no 
 cackle nor crow from the hencoop ; all the 
 hve-stock had been frozen or drowned during 
 the first night of the gale, when the masts 
 went. 
 
 I saw those glancings of ice on the horizon 
 which I had taken notice of yesterday ; they 
 hung in the same quarters, and flamed at the 
 same distance against the dark sky with a 
 fairy, star-like brightness. I turned my eyes 
 in every direction for a sail. 
 
 ' Don't ships ever come this way ? ' I 
 asked. 
 
 ' Oh, yes, many,' answered Mrs. Burke. 
 
 ' What sort of ships ? '
 
 222 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' Whalers chiefly, Edward says.' 
 
 ' Suppose one should come ; what will 
 Captain Burke do ? ' 
 
 ' Ask her to tow us/ 
 
 ' If the master dechnes ? This is a big, 
 helpless vessel for another ship to tow in such 
 seas as run here. And what would a ship do 
 with us in tow should we meet with such 
 weather as blew last night or the night 
 before?' 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 ' Surely Captain Burke will transfer us all.' 
 
 ' He'll not leave this vessel,' said she. ' It 
 is not only that he has himself an uninsured 
 venture in her, his obtaining further employ- 
 ment might depend upon his carrying the 
 " Lady Emma " into safety. And if it can be 
 done, it ought to,' she added, with a flat, peer- 
 ing, anxious look around the sea. 
 
 Presently all was ready with the sail. 
 The seamen raised a song, and, to a steady, 
 shearing noise of ropes in sheaves, with a fre-
 
 THE JURY-MAST 223 
 
 quent chorus that swept hke a shout of hope 
 into the bitter, motionless atmosphere, the 
 yard slowly ascended the jury-mast. It was 
 like a huge lug-sail in form and fittings. 
 Tauten it as they would, the breast hollowed 
 and rounded with such blows as of a cudgel, 
 and such claps as of musketry, that the boom 
 sprang and buckled like a willow in a breeze ; 
 the sail was therefore lowered until wind came 
 to steady it. 
 
 It put a weariness as of rheumatism into 
 the body to stand long, and when we saw the 
 sail hoisted we went below. 
 
 Mr. Owen was sitting beside the stove ; 
 he rose on our descending, and went on deck 
 to look around, then, after a brief halt in the 
 shelter of the companion-way returned, and 
 sat him down at the table w^ith the fingers of 
 his right hand buried in his right bush of hair, 
 his whole bearing abjectly disconsolate. Pre- 
 sently, looking at Mrs. Burke, he exclaimed : 
 
 ' Is that single pole on the forecastle all
 
 224 
 
 HEART OF OAK 
 
 the mast the captain means to navigate this 
 ship with ? ' 
 
 ' I do not know. My husband will be glad 
 to tell you, I am sure,' answered Mrs. Burke. 
 
 He gave a ghastly sarcastic smile, that 
 instantly vanished in his former expression of 
 sullen, resentful grief and dismay, showing, as 
 a man might, who is under a sudden tragic 
 surprise, which enrages him also. He looked 
 down, shaking his head softly, and drumming, 
 then started as if he would walk, but the jerk 
 and tumble of the deck was too strong. I 
 began to fear for the poor man's mind. 
 
 Mrs. Burke told me the men would get 
 dinner in the forecastle that day — there, or in 
 the galley. They did not come to the cabin. 
 The only man of them who arrived was the 
 steward. He clothed the table, and made us 
 a tolerable show of dinner. I beg to recall to 
 your memory the many delicacies my father 
 had laid in for me. 
 
 It was about half-past one, I think, and
 
 THE JURY-.MAST 225 
 
 about the time wlien the steward was done 
 with the table, when the companion doors 
 were opened, and the captain came below. 
 The lamp burned brightly : indeed, it made 
 most of the light we had. The skylight was, 
 perhaps, half a foot thick with frozen snow ; 
 the companion doors were kept closed to 
 exclude the cold ; and little light came through 
 the cabin windows, which the hull dipped 
 with pendulum-like monotony into the thunder 
 shadow of the swollen brine. Yet by the 
 lamp-light we saw very clearly, and I observed 
 that the captain's face was lighted up with 
 some life and hope. I thought a sail was in 
 sight, and started, expecting to hear him 
 say so. 
 
 'There's some luck for us in this devil's 
 own ocean after all,' said he, swinging his 
 figure towards us, eagerl}^ watched by Mr. 
 Owen, who was on his feet leaning upon the 
 table, and staring with head moving as the 
 captain moved. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 HEART OF OAK 
 
 ' What is it ? ' cried his wife hysterically. 
 
 ' Why,' said lie, ' there's a breeze sprung 
 up out of the south'ard : I've been watching 
 the ship ; there's drag enough in the rag we've 
 got upon her to give her way. And so, Miss 
 Otway, be easy, now that we're heading for 
 the sun afresh, with a man at the wheel and 
 a little scope of wake astern of us.' 
 
 ' Anything better than lying hke a log,' 
 cried Mrs. Burke, with a short swallow in her 
 speech. ' I had hoped from your face there 
 was a ship in sight.' 
 
 ' And so did I,' I exclaimed. 
 
 Mr. Owen sat down suddenly, and again 
 buried his hand in his hair. 
 
 ' But this is as good as a ship being in 
 sight,' cried the captain irritable on a sudden. 
 ' I want to blow north where ships are to be 
 fallen in with, and we're something to see now, 
 with a thirty foot hoist of canvas on top ten 
 foot of freeboard ; whereas, before — but let's 
 get something to eat.'
 
 THE JURY-MAST 227 
 
 We seated ourselves. Mr. Owen took a 
 corner chair and spoke not a word for some 
 time, till at last, on the captain saying that 
 if he fell in with a vessel he would offer 
 handsome sums for a tow, the doctor said 
 abruptly : 
 
 ' To where ? ' 
 
 The captain eyed him with an unfeeling 
 pause of contempt, and then answered : 
 
 ' That would not rest with you, sir.' 
 
 ' I must request you to transfer me, if we 
 fall in with a ship,' said Mr. Owen. 
 
 ' I shall be happy,' said the captain, 
 nervous and convulsive w^ith temper, ' at 
 least — you've got to remember the object 
 you're here for.' He looked at me. ' ]\Iiss 
 Otway is not likely to accompany you, and 
 you'll be no gentleman if you desert her.' 
 
 'Miss Otway will accompany me if you 
 give her an opportunity of leaving this wreck,' 
 said Mr. Owen. 
 
 ' This is no wreck, sir,' said the captain in 
 
 q2
 
 228 HEART OF OAK 
 
 a low-level voice of menace, stooping his 
 head and looking at the doctor under crooked 
 eyebrows. 
 
 Mr. Owen muttered that he intended to 
 save his life if he could, and Miss Otway's too 
 if he was allowed — the rest he mumbled : 
 after ceasing to articulate his lips moved ; 
 then, with a sudden impassioned motion of 
 despair and horror, he sprang from his chair 
 and disappeared in his berth, having barely 
 taken three bites. 
 
 'I fear his intellects have become dis- 
 ordered,' said Mrs. Burke. 
 
 'He'd like to drive me out of the ship. 
 The lily liver would have me abandon a craft 
 that's as staunch as the newest line-of-battle 
 ship afloat. "What would it signify to him 
 that I left a couple of thousand pounds of my 
 hard earnings to go to the bottom here, so 
 long as his dingy skinful of bones and bobs 
 of curls were safely landed.^' exclaimed the 
 captain in a low-pitched deliberate speech,
 
 THE JURY-MAST ' 229 
 
 that trembled nevertheless with emotion and 
 temper. 
 
 His wife gave me a look as though she 
 would entreat me not to talk to him. Now 
 and again he Hfted up his eyes to a tell-tale 
 compass that hung exactly over his chair ; 
 almost as regular as the beat of a clock was 
 the pkmge of the ship from right to left, 
 from left to right. The blinding green sense 
 of one side and then the other of the cabin 
 portholes, and a loud yearning thunder of 
 water washing past. 
 
 After a httle the captain went to his 
 cabin. I said I would like to see the ship 
 under sail, and when we had clothed ourselves 
 for the deck Mrs. Burke and I went to the 
 companion-steps. 
 
 A seaman, clad in oilskins and swathed 
 about the neck till he showed nothing of his 
 face but a pair of eyes, stood at the wheel. 
 Some delicate stars and darts of snow were 
 falling, but they did not cloud the view.
 
 230 HEART OF OAK 
 
 The square of white canvas was stretched by a 
 fresh following breeze of bitter coldness, beyond 
 frost itself: the sea was feathering upon the 
 swell, and a number of grey and white petrels 
 skimmed the flashes as they moulded their 
 flight to the wind-furrowed rounds. The 
 white sail looked like a wild and sickly light 
 when the hull swung it athwart the soot over 
 tlie horizon, but there could be no doubt that 
 the vessel was in motion. We durst not leave 
 the holding place of the companion-hood to 
 look over the taffrail or side, but you saw 
 slie had steerage way by tlie manner in which 
 the fellow twirled the wheel. 
 
 A group of seamen with their hands deep 
 buried, some of tliem sea-booted fisherman- 
 like to their knees, trudged the white frozen 
 deck opposite tlie galley. It was wonderful 
 to see them keep their feet ; the rumbling 
 luim of their strono- lungs stole aft agrainst the 
 wind ; they swayed in earnest talk, and minded 
 us not when they faced our wav, again and
 
 THE JURY-MAST 231 
 
 again staring round at the sea as though for 
 a sail. 
 
 Now we had not been looking about 
 us above five minutes when, happening to 
 glance aft past the helmsman, I saw the ocean 
 not above half a mile distant, white as milk, 
 the forestretch of it was about two miles long; 
 how wide it went back I could not say, nor 
 could I guess what it was ; there was no 
 snow nor any particular blackness of cloud 
 over it, nor uncommon wildness of flight in 
 the vapour overhanging us. Before I could 
 call Mrs. Burke's attention to the wonder, the 
 seaman at the helm turned and spied it, and 
 instantly roared out in a voice that swept past 
 the ear like the wind of something heavy 
 swiftly flying. 
 
 ' Why,' cried Mrs. Burke — but the rest of 
 tlie sentence was clipped sheer off her lips in 
 a yell of squall, a very hurricane blast ; the 
 air was dark with spray, in the midst of which 
 I just caught sight of the jury-mast and sail
 
 232 HEART OF OAK 
 
 disappearing — not abruptly, but in a dissolv- 
 ing way, as a snowflake dies on water. The 
 whole thing went in the shriek of the blast, 
 with a single report and a snowstorm of flying 
 tatters ; the next instant Mrs. Burke was drag- 
 ging me down the companion-steps and we 
 both got into the cabin dazed, frozen to the 
 marrow, as much confounded and terrified by 
 that sudden meteoric shock and blast of wind, 
 with its burthen of white brine and its noise 
 of fierce yells and whistlings, as though we 
 had scarcely escaped with our lives. 
 
 The captain heard, or guessed what had 
 happened ; he rushed from his berth on to 
 the deck, but the squall pinned him in the 
 companion-way for a minute, and he stood 
 struggling as tliough some man had taken 
 him by the throat. In five minutes, however, 
 the furious outburst was spent or had flown 
 ahead ; I could tell that by glancing at the 
 cabin windows whenever they lifted clear. 
 The steward came below to trim the lamp.
 
 THE JURY-MAST 233 
 
 Mrs. Burke asked him what was doing on 
 deck. He answered, nothing, and told us 
 what we knew, that the jury-mast and sail 
 had blown over the bows. 
 
 It was now to be felt by the distressful, 
 horrid, jerky motion, that the hull had taken 
 up her old situation in the trough. 
 
 ' What has happened ? ' said Mr. Owen, 
 coming out of his berth. 
 
 Mrs. Burke told him. He groaned, and 
 sat down close beside the stove, folding his 
 arms tightly, and said : 
 
 'What is to become of us? This is dis- 
 tracting. I am prepared to meet my Maker, 
 but it is the suspense — it is the suspense — it 
 is the having to wait for death that crazes.' 
 
 ' I am surprised at you,' exclaimed Mrs. 
 Burke, drawing herself up. ' How, as a man, 
 can you talk so before this young lady ? As 
 for me, I don't mind what you say ; I am the 
 wife of a sailor, and it's not in you to improve 
 my spirits or make me despair. But you
 
 234 HEART OF OAK 
 
 have no right to forget yourself as a man 
 before Miss Otway.' 
 
 He slapped his knee violently, crying out, 
 * Poor as I am, I would give five himdred 
 pounds had I never heard of your husband or 
 his ship.' 
 
 The poor woman looked at hiui with her 
 flat eyes and curled her lip, then gave me an 
 expressive glance when he arose and began to 
 move about the cabin, holding on and looking 
 at the windows to left and right as they soared 
 blind with the foam dazzle. 
 
 It was dark as midnight on deck before 
 the captain came below, and yet it may not 
 have been three o'clock. He approached the 
 fire and stood before it, his wife and myself 
 sitting on either hand of him. He seemed to 
 steadfastly regard Mr. Owen, who was on a 
 locker at the after end of the cabin, but did 
 not offer to speak. Presently his wife said : 
 
 'Are the mast and sail lost for good, 
 Edward ? '
 
 THE JURY-MAST 235 
 
 'Ay.' 
 
 ' What was tlie whiteness that swept them 
 away ? ' 
 
 ' What hilt a squall ? This is a great 
 ocean, and mark our luck ; there were thou- 
 sands of miles of water for that squall to 
 sweep over on either hand of us, but Old 
 Stormy bestrode it, and, scenting us, made for 
 the hull.' 
 
 ' There are other booms to rig up a mast 
 with.' 
 
 ' So there are,' he answered, speaking 
 quietly, with his eyes fixed upon the form of 
 the doctor as though he addressed him. 
 ' There are other spars, but there's not an- 
 other crew to do the work.' 
 
 His wife o^ave a start at this and looked 
 up at him with a passion of anxiety, putting 
 her hand upon his arm. 
 
 ' The men have as good as told me,' said 
 he, ' through tlie bo'sun, that there's nothing 
 to be done with jury-masts. They're willing
 
 236 HEART OF OAK 
 
 to try their hands to-morrow on another — to 
 obhge me — but they'd rather get my per- 
 mission to prepare the long-boat for leaving 
 the ship so as to give chase to a sail if 
 one should show too far off to speak us : 
 failing that, then to take advantage of a 
 smooth in the weather and to make for the 
 northward in an open boat — in this sea — the 
 idiots ! ' 
 
 ' But something must be done,' shouted 
 Mr. Owen from his corner. ' The ship will 
 go to pieces if she's to be left to knock about 
 in this hollow sea.' 
 
 Captain Burke took no more notice than 
 had the doctor's voice been the creaking of a 
 bulkhead. 
 
 It was quieter on that than on the pre- 
 ceding night. The wind, we learnt, was a 
 scanty breeze out of the south ; here and 
 there the vapour had thinned, and a pale star 
 shivered in the openings : our drift that day 
 had lifted some northward point of ice, and
 
 THE JURY-MAST 237 
 
 the dim faintness of it was visible on the port 
 beam, as the helpless hull lay ; that was all 
 the ice to be seen, and it was far enouo-h off 
 to keep us easy. A large black swell was 
 flowing north and south, but the folds were 
 wide and regular and the motion of the hull 
 was almost easy upon it. These matters 
 about that scene of night outside I got from 
 the captain and steward. 
 
 The sailors remained forward. I under- 
 stood they managed very well now they could 
 keep the galley fire going. Once during this 
 evening I asked Captain Burke, when he came 
 below for a glass of hot grog and biscuit, why 
 he did not burn a siornal fire. 
 
 ' And risk setting the hull in a blaze ? ' 
 said he, ' with the chance of there being 
 nothing within five hundred miles of us.' 
 
 * It might bring help, Edward,' said his 
 wife. 
 
 He flung from us in a passion. It was a 
 bad sign with him now, tliat the merest
 
 238 HEART OF OAK 
 
 nothings, such as my question, put him into 
 a rage. He swallowed his glass of grog and 
 returned on deck, and when half-way up the 
 companion ladder he paused to shout back, 
 ' No use in making a flare unless there's some- 
 thing to signal to,' and then stepped into the 
 blackness outside. 
 
 It was fine weather next day — fine for 
 that part of the world, I mean ; glimpses of 
 watery blue, betwixt curtains of ashy yellow 
 and brown vapour, some slanting pencils of 
 dull sulphur in the north, striking the line of 
 the horizon out of a long ragged edge of 
 cloud. The wind was west, fresh enough to 
 flash plumes of spray out of the running 
 wrinkles ; there was the head of an iceberg 
 away north to the right of the weak shpwer 
 of sunshine. This was all to be seen — saving 
 always the hull with her deck of frozen snow, 
 and her catheads barbed with ice, and her 
 lines of rails bristling with daggers and small 
 arms of frozen dew and brine — when I looked
 
 THE JURY-MAST 239 
 
 through the companion hatch after leavhig 
 my cabin. 
 
 Whilst Mrs. Burke, Mr. Owen and myself 
 breakfasted, we heard the people on deck 
 busy with another jury-mast. The captain's 
 voice rang out again in loud eager shouts. 
 Mrs. Burke sent the steward up to beg her 
 husband come below and breakfast whilst the 
 coffee was hot ; he sent answer that he could 
 not leave ; but even whilst the steward was 
 delivering the captain's reply, a long strange 
 hallo was delivered by one of the men ; the 
 sounds of bustle ceased ; in a minute or two 
 we heard a rush of feet ; Mr. Owen jumped 
 from his chair and ran up the ladder, whence, 
 after he had paused to stare round, he shouted 
 down in a voice of ecstasy : — 
 
 ' A sail, Mrs. Burke I There's a ship in 
 sight, Miss Otway ! ' 
 
 I screamed with a sudden impulse of 
 delight ; I could no more have arrested that 
 cry than have stopped the hull from rolling ;
 
 240 HEART OF OAK 
 
 then, swiftly as my legs would carry me and 
 my arms would work, I gained my berth and 
 attired myself for the deck, and rushed up 
 reckless of foothold. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 f 
 
 PRINTKD BY 
 
 BPOTTIBWOODE AND CO., KEW-STRKBT BQUABB 
 
 LONDON
 
 m^