LI B R.AFLY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 823 
 R9»»T>ar 
 
 v.l
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/marooned01russ
 
 y,^ ^ 
 
 MAROONED 
 
 VOL. I
 
 MAROONED 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CLARK RUSSELL 
 
 AUTHOR OF "'the GOLDEN HOPE," " THE WRECK OF THE * GROSVEXOR, 
 " THE LADY MAUD," " A SEA QUEEN," " JACK'S COURTSHIP," 
 " THE FROZEN PIRATE," ETC. ETC 
 
 Maroon— To put a person ashore on an uninhabited island 
 
 Nautical Dictionary 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1889 
 
 TTie Right of Translation and Refnoiuction is Ressrved
 
 RtcHARP Clay and Sons, Limited, 
 
 LONDON AND BUNGAY. 
 
 4/>-
 
 8£3 
 
 V. 1 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I RECEIVE A LETTER I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 MISS AURELIA GRANT .' II 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE IRON CROWN 22 
 
 ^ CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WE EMBARK 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE VOYAGE BEGINS 5 1
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL 72 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE I04 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT 1 23 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED 1 38 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A MIDNIGHT ALARM 163 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A TRAGEDY I79 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MUTINY 207
 
 CONTENTS. • vii 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE 228 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS 245 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT ...>.... 267 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL 289
 
 MAROONED. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 I RECEIVE A LETTER. 
 
 I RETURNED to my lodglngs In London one 
 night in June in the year eighteen hundred and 
 something, and found a letter lying upon the 
 table. It was from my cousin, Alexander 
 Fraser, and was dated at Rio Janeiro. This 
 was a man whom I had neither seen nor heard 
 of for some years. We had been sent to sea 
 as boys in the East India Company's service, 
 and together had made three voyages in the 
 same ship to Bombay ; which In those amibling 
 days of trade, when a four months' passage to 
 the Bay of Bengal was considered a good run, 
 meant a lonof and intimate association. Through 
 
 VOL. L B
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 the death of my dear mother I came into money 
 enough to render me independent, and so I 
 quitted old ocean after three years of seafaring. 
 Fraser made a fourth voyage and I then lost 
 sight of him. When later on I wrote to his 
 sisters in the north of Scotland, I was told he 
 had left his ship at Bombay to accompany a 
 tea-grower, who had been a passenger in the 
 vessel, to his plantations. That was the last 
 I heard of him. As I held his letter in my 
 hand, memory recalled him as a fair, blue-eyed, 
 bronzed young fellow, exceedingly good-looking, 
 a very nimble and alert seaman, fitter for the 
 navy indeed than for the tea-waggon service, full 
 of spirit and resolution and extremely impulsive. 
 He wrote to the following effect : first of all, 
 he said, he had heard of me and obtained my 
 address from a friend of mine who had sailed a 
 few months before for Lima, but whose ship had 
 been obliged to put into Rio to repair some 
 damage she had sustained in a heavy gale oft 
 Cape Agostino. He had a long story to relate 
 about his misfortunes in India, how he had been 
 villainously deceived in the character of his 
 associate and almost ruined by him, and how,
 
 I RECEIVE A LETTER. 
 
 as he had no wish to die of starvation, 
 he had shipped as a foremast hand aboard a 
 Yankee vessel, from which he ran on her arrival 
 at Pernambuco — where he fell in with a sugar- 
 grower belonging to Rio, who offered him a 
 good berth on his estate in the neighbourhood 
 of that town. He had not been long settled 
 when he made the acquaintance of a Mr. and 
 Mrs. Grant, with whose only daughter, Aurelia, 
 he immediately fell in love. Mr. Grant was a 
 Scotchman who had married a Spanish lady of 
 noble birth, and their daughter, Fraser went on 
 to say, was the most majestic, stately, and 
 beautiful woman that ever walked the earth. 
 The parents consented to their betrothal, but 
 objected to the marriage until Fraser was in a 
 condition to support a wife in comfort. One 
 night, very suddenly, Mrs. Grant died. Her 
 husband, who adored her, found her dead at 
 his side, and the shock was so great that both his 
 health and his mind gave way. He declared 
 that he could not support life in a town where 
 every object which met his eye reminded him of 
 his loss ; and within a month of Mrs. Grant's 
 death he broke up his home and sailed with 
 
 B 2
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Aurelia for England. Fraser added that folks 
 at Rio spoke of Mr. Grant as a well-to-do man, 
 and talked of Aurelia as an heiress ; but the truth 
 came out when he w^as gone, and it was then 
 understood that so far from being rich he had 
 just contrived to come to a stand within a few 
 fathoms of the brink of insolvency. 
 
 The lovers of course agreed to write by every 
 ship. Fraser was cocksure of being able to sup- 
 port a wife before another year had run out, 
 and it was settled that he was to send for or 
 fetch her at the expiration of the twelvemonth, 
 as there was not the least likelihood of Mr. 
 Grant returning to Rio. 
 
 Eight months after the arrival of the girl in 
 England the father died. She wrote to acquaint 
 Fraser with her loss, and hinted quite enough 
 to intimate that she was not only friendless in 
 London, but in poverty. " And now," continued 
 my cousin, '' I want you, who were as a brother 
 to me when we were together at sea, to stand 
 me in a brother's stead aofain in about as trvinof 
 and perplexing a passage as ever formed part 
 of a man's life. The business I have charofe of 
 is so tender, it needs such cherishing, such per-
 
 I RECEIVE A LETTER. 
 
 sistent personal attention, that I am persuaded 
 were I to let go of it to fetch Aurelia I should 
 return to find myself bankrupt. The population 
 of Rio comprises a great number of rogues, and 
 though the people I employ are not worse than 
 the rest, they are rascals nevertheless, and I 
 make no doubt whatever that if I were to turn 
 my back upon them for three months they would 
 ruin me. Now, my dear Dick, this is what you 
 will do for me : you will call upon Aurelia " 
 — here came in the address — " advance what- 
 ever money she may require, engage a cabin 
 for her in the next ship that sails for Rio, furnish 
 her with all such delicacies and comforts as your 
 seafaring experiences, backed by a fastidious 
 appetite, will suggest, and then, all this being 
 d.ox\^, accompany her yourself. You start ! But, 
 my dear boy, you will do this ! ay, indeed you 
 will ; for d'ye see, you imtst, Dick. You will 
 need but glance at her to perceive instantaneously 
 that she cannot be suffered to embark alone. 
 And consider how happy it will make her, thrown 
 as she must needs be into the company, not of 
 our polished glittering species — the sparkling 
 dandies of John Company — but of men with
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 faces like walnut-shells, with voices hoarse and 
 raw with hard drinking, whose language is thick- 
 ened and stiffened with horrid objectionable 
 words — how happy, I say, it will make her to 
 feel that she has the protection of her sweet- 
 heart's own cousin, a man of muscle and nerve, 
 who can tell the toughest salt of them all where 
 the flying-jibboom ends and how many gudgeons 
 a liner's rudder hangs on ! Consider the ease of 
 mind that I shall enjoy through knowing that 
 you are at her side. Consider again the pro- 
 digious delight it will give me to meet you — to 
 thank you — to entertain you — to yarn with you 
 over the past and hearken to the home news 
 you will bring with you. No excuse, as you 
 love me ! You initst come, d'ye see, Dick. 
 Yes, you must absolutely accompany my poor 
 lonely darling girl. You are an idle man, you 
 know ; your friend told me you were unmarried 
 when he last saw you, and I have a right to 
 believe, as I certainly hope, that you are single 
 at this minute of reading my letter. The 
 voyage is a pleasant one. Once clear of the 
 Bay, 'tis no more than the pleasant fanning of 
 the north-east trade-wind, with a brief instructive
 
 I RECEIVE A LETTER. 
 
 halt on the equator for a glance at John Sharkee 
 and the pretty little flying fishes, and then a 
 delightful run to the noblest bit of scenery the 
 wide world over. Reflect a little upon your 
 health and you are sure to discover that a change 
 of air will do you good. And name me an air 
 sweeter than the ocean breeze ! Besides, you 
 were never in South America, and cannot there- 
 fore imagine the delights in store for you in the 
 shape of the rivers, the mountains, the shining 
 flowers and exquisite fruits of this grand contin- 
 ent, or at all events of that part of it to which I 
 invite you." 
 
 And so the letter went on, terminating in a 
 whole jumble of exhortations to me to come 
 — to squire his sweetheart — to behold from the 
 summit of the regal Corcovado the magnificent 
 harbour, the sparkling city, the green country 
 beyond aflame with coloured growths. . . . 
 
 It was a letter to set me pacing the room. 
 The voyage was a considerable one ; and though 
 I had gone to sea for love of ships when I was 
 a boy, a very few months sufliced to break the 
 spell, and I had long ceased, as I believed, to 
 be sensible of any sort of oceanic influence. I
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 sat down, filled a pipe, and entered into certain 
 calculations. I reckoned that a tolerably true 
 course to Rio from the Thames would come 
 hard upon five thousand nautical miles, and as 
 it was hopeless to expect that any British South 
 American trader would average more than one 
 hundred and fifty knots in the twenty-four hours, 
 I judged that though all conditions should prove 
 favourable, the outward passage alone would 
 run me into five or six weeks. Then of course 
 I should have to return, so that I must look 
 upon the round voyage as promising me three 
 solid months, at least, upon a bosom that had 
 ceased to rock me for some years. The first 
 movement of my mind was one of recoil ; but 
 after turning the project over I got to think 
 that, after all, the voyage would prove a complete 
 and healthy change, inexpensive too, and much 
 less troublesome than a trip across the Channel. 
 Possibly the old instincts which had driven me 
 to sea as a lad, and which I had thought dead 
 long ago, lived still, and were now faintly stirring 
 to sudden visions of frothing billows, of the 
 small green moon shearing like a cannon-ball 
 through the flying scud, of the star-touched
 
 I RECEIVE A LETTER. 
 
 well rolling in dark folds silently, of the tropic 
 shore that sweetens the warm breath of the 
 languid breeze with the odours of spices and the 
 perfume of a nameless vegetation. London was 
 hot and dull ; the seaside tedious and common- 
 place. My excursions abroad formed no genial 
 
 memories, for in I nearly died of fever at 
 
 Brussels, and In lay 111 of a poisonous smell 
 
 for close upon a month at Florence. Besides, 
 my cousin pleaded to me as a brother and a 
 sailor, and I knew him well enough to feel 
 certain that If he were In my place he would 
 do me this service. 
 
 But what sort of a eirl w^as this Miss Aurella 
 Grant ? My cousin expressed her perfections 
 in the Impassioned language of love, and he 
 might possibly be very right in all he said ; but 
 I remember a man who had passed some years 
 in Spain, and who knew the Spanish character 
 well, telling me that he took particular notice 
 there was a deal of the mule mixed up in the 
 disposition of the women of that country — a 
 quality, as he described It, of bland and even 
 polite obstinacy, that was however very easily 
 excited into a most unpleasant, clamorous.
 
 lo MAROONED. chap. i. 
 
 peevish Stubbornness. Miss Aureliawas indeed 
 half English ; but suppose the other half of her 
 was not to my taste ? I do protest on my word 
 that I would rather go to jail for a fortnight 
 than be locked up in a ship for a month with a 
 disagreeable woman. Thus I sat debating ; but 
 though I was some distance on the road towards 
 forming a resolution, I cannot say that I had at 
 all made up my mind when I went to bed.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MISS AURELIA GRANT. 
 
 Next morninor I dressed mvself with more 
 care than I usually took In this way, though 
 twenty-six years old and not without self- 
 complacency in some respects, and about eleven 
 o'clock drove to the address Qriven me bv 
 Fraser. 
 
 I found the house in a dull and dingy street 
 out of the Edgware Road. Miss Grant was at 
 home. I sent up my name, and was shown into 
 a little front parlour, gloomy with sallow drapery 
 and the bilious atmosphere peculiar to this part 
 of the metropolis. In a few minutes she 
 entered, and I must confess I sprang rather 
 than rose to miy feet, so surprised was I by the 
 girl's beauty and deportment. I had indeed 
 conjectured a tall figure in conformity with my
 
 12 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 cousin's description ; but imagination had not 
 gone beyond that, with a pair of dark eyes and 
 an upper Hp shaded with down. 
 
 Now Miss Aureha Grant had as fair and 
 delicate a complexion as any that ever I 
 witnessed in the most matchless Eno^Hsh- 
 woman's face. Her hair was brown, very 
 plentiful, thick and soft, and it had a kind of 
 light of its own upon it as though dusted with 
 gold. Her eyes were black — profoundly so : 
 Spanish eyes in passion and power and mean- 
 ing, but subdued to an expression of beauty by, 
 as I took it, the Eno^lish heart in her, that 
 rendered them remarkable beyond my capacity 
 of expression. Her figure was extremely fine, 
 full yet girlish too. She was dressed in mourn- 
 ing, and as she stood looking at me a moment 
 or tw^o in the doorway, I said to myself, 
 This is the handsomest creature I have ever 
 seen ! 
 
 There was a little blush on her cheeks that 
 briorhtened the li^ht in her eves : she smiled and 
 gave me her hand. 
 
 " I am indeed glad to see you, Mr. Musgrave. 
 Alexander has talked of you to me again and
 
 ^IISS AURELIA GRANT. 
 
 again. In a letter I received from him yester- 
 day he told me you would call. You are very 
 Q-Qod to come so soon." 
 
 '* I shall be truly rejoiced if I can be of 
 service to you," said I, still a trifle confused ; 
 " my cousin's description of you — eloquent as 
 his devotion would naturally make him " — here 
 I fumbled for the letter, — " would — perhaps, 
 madam " (we madam'd the ladies in those days 
 of high coat-collars, splendid waistcoats and 
 immense breast-pins), ''you would like to 
 read it." 
 
 She took it eagerly, and her eyes grew so 
 fond as she read, whilst a look so yearning 
 entered her face — such an expression as the 
 memory of her loneliness might put into her 
 when she should meet her sweetheart ao-ain 
 after their long separation — that I felt I acted 
 sneakishly in watching her. She smiled happily 
 when she came to the part in which Fraser 
 spoke of her beauty, and when she had made 
 an end she folded the letter carefully as though 
 it were something precious, and pressed it 
 between her hands as if it was her sweetheart's 
 own fingers she held. ^
 
 14 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 It seemed to me as I surveyed her that my 
 cousin exhibited uncommon courage In confid 
 ing so much beauty as this to the care and 
 attention of a man whom he knew to be young 
 and single, to say no more, for a spell of ship- 
 board that might last for two or even three 
 months. Our eyes met : her colour deepened 
 somewhat, but her brilliant gaze was as steady 
 as the shining of a star. There was a sin- 
 gularly engaging, most unaffected quality or 
 tone of frankness in her voice. 
 
 '' Alexander has asked you to do him a great 
 favour. It is really ^oo great." I seemed to 
 dissent. " It is positively enough, Mr. Musgrave, 
 that you should hire a cabin for me. To make 
 the voyage also ! And yet I know he would be 
 overjoyed to see you. Still it is a tedious 
 journey, and if you are like Alexander you 
 detest the sea." 
 
 " No," said I, *' I believe I shall enjoy a few 
 weeks on the ocean. The fact is, madam, I 
 want time to realize the thing, so to speak — not 
 to understand it, for of course it is intelligible 
 enough, but to accustom my thoughts to it, you 
 know ; " and here I coughed and brought myself
 
 II. MISS AURELIA GRANT. 15 
 
 up '' all standing " as sailors say, for indeed 
 there was something In her shining steadfast 
 gaze that caused me to talk as though I was ill 
 at ease. 
 
 ** Should you decide to be my companion, 
 Mr. Musgrave," said she, " the voyage will be 
 something to look forward to, greatly as I dis- 
 like the sea, or rather existence on board ship." 
 I bowed. '' But you will not dream of doing 
 more than securing a cabin for me and helping 
 me in one or two other ways, — if you have the 
 least reluctance. It is quite possible that I may 
 find a pleasant companion among the passengers 
 — if there should be ladies on board. As a rule 
 the captains and mates of the ships that trade 
 to South America are a very rough and rude 
 set of men. Should I be the only passenger, 
 it is natural," she said, with a litde droop of the 
 head, " that I should not choose to be alone in 
 such society." 
 
 This was like an appeal in its way, and her 
 manner of speaking rendered it irresistible. 
 Besides, there was Eraser's letter calling upon 
 me to protect her, imploring me as one who 
 was as a brother to do him this great service,
 
 i6 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 and these considerations coming on top of 
 my concern for her loneHness and helplessness, 
 my sympathy with her in the grief that was 
 still recent, and above all the perception that 
 she desired my company, and that I should be 
 acting unchivalrously to refuse her, made me 
 whip out, " Miss Grant, it is settled. We sail 
 together. There is nothing to keep me ashore. 
 It will be delightful to meet Fraser again, and 
 I shall find immense satisfaction in feeling that 
 my enjoyment of your society also includes the 
 pleasure of obliging you." 
 
 She clapped her hands with a gesture that 
 was like telling you she had something besides 
 English blood in her. 
 
 " How good you are ! How glad you make 
 me, Mr. Musgrave ! I wonder what kind of 
 ship we shall sail in ? " she cried, with the 
 vivacity of a mind that has suddenly lost its 
 burden. " She must prove swift ! She cannot 
 sail too fast for me ! " and here she told me of 
 the vessel in which she and her father had 
 made the voyage home — a clumsy, round- 
 bowed polacca, apparently, that stirred to 
 nothing less than half a gale of wind, and so
 
 II. MISS AURELIA GRANT. 17 
 
 leaky that the crew were at the pumps for 
 fourteen hours out of the twenty-four ; with a 
 bow-legged, beef-faced old swab for captain, 
 whose favourite boast was that he had once 
 swallowed at a draught a bowl of punch con- 
 taining ten half-pints of rum, whiskey, brandy 
 and water. She described this man and his 
 habits with so much humour as to give me a 
 high opinion of her talent as an observer ; 
 and she made me laugh heartily by an account 
 of a quarrel between him and his mate over a 
 pudding — the latter (an Irishman) beginning it 
 by swearing that he had seen dried currants 
 and raisins growing naturally like capers on 
 trees, and the captain ending it by grasping a 
 lump of the hot and steaming stuff and flinging 
 it plump into the mate's face. Maybe some- 
 thing of the merriment of the tale and her 
 delivery of it lay to my mind in the contrast 
 between the rough sea-anecdote and the dignity, 
 refinement, and beauty of the speaker. But I 
 confess I liked her the better for her archness, 
 and for her easy recital of a story which Miss 
 Prim would consider rather vulgar since it 
 referred to such very common people. 
 VOL. I. c
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Our conversation presently went to her 
 father. He died in the house in which she was 
 still lodging, and she declared that when, after 
 the funeral, she sat down to reflect she did not 
 know what in the world she should do. She 
 had not a friend in England, and of her mother's 
 relatives in Spain she knew nothing. The few | 
 pounds her father had left were fast giving out, \ 
 and she frankly told me that the money she still 
 had would not have carried her on another 
 month. ''Why did you not call upon me ?" I 
 asked her. But it seems that Eraser had 
 omitted to give my address in the last letter but 
 one he sent to her, and it was only a week or 
 two before he wrote that he had learnt it from my 
 friend whose ship had been forced into Rio. 
 
 I was with her for two hours, and never did 
 time pass more pleasantly and quickly. We ar- 
 ranged that I should call for her next day and 
 accompany her to the shops she had occasion 
 to visit, and afterwards make inquiries about 
 the next ship and start on all the necessary pre- 
 parations for the voyage. She cried when she 
 said good-bye to me. Indeed she had suffered 
 grievously, and now that the darkness was
 
 II. MISS AURELIA GRANT. 19 
 
 passing she could not meet the first of the dawn 
 without tears. 
 
 As to myself, I hardly knew whether my re- 
 solution made me glad or sorry when I came to 
 turn it over. The girl was exceeding hand- 
 some, but then she was not my sweetheart. 
 Had her heart been her own a voyage with her 
 must have yielded me a prospect that could not 
 have left me doubting whether I was right in 
 this adventure. But as my cousin's betrothed 
 she was the same to me as if she was his wife. 
 There was no room for sentiment. I was 
 young enough to take this into consideration, 
 and I say, when I reflected upon my deter- 
 mination, I could not satisfy myself that my 
 judgment was as brilliant as my heroism. 
 
 On the following morning I called at her 
 lodgings and afterwards passed some hours in 
 watching her whilst she shopped and in paying 
 for her purchases. There was a dignified frank- 
 ness about her that was very fascinating, and 
 not the less so because it was tinctured with 
 melancholy. Her fine eyes expressed so much 
 spirit, there was so much power in the curve 
 and set of her lips, such suggestion of self- 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 reliance in the peculiar floating pose of her head, 
 I felt persuaded that a very great deal of the 
 heroine went to her composition, that she was 
 a woman whose qualities would best discover 
 themselves in a time of extremity, a person by 
 nature so ardent that no theory about her could 
 touch the limits of the romantic exploits she was 
 equal to in the service of the man she loved. 
 These were my thoughts as I sat watching her 
 whilst she handled the stuffs the shopmen put 
 before her, frequently turning to me to speak, 
 when I would notice that every sudden con- 
 frontment of her full beauty surprised me as 
 a fresh revelation. 
 
 She managed to buy all she needed in one 
 day, which I thought very clever and very kind 
 also. " How long," said I, " will it take you to 
 prepare for the voyage ? " 
 
 " Oh," she answered, " if you were to tell me 
 the ship sails to-morrow I should be quite 
 ready." 
 
 I told her that 1 would devote the next day 
 to making inquiries and arrangements, and 
 would do myself the pleasure to call in the 
 evening^ and let her know what I had done.
 
 II. MISS AURELIA GRANT. 21 
 
 " At all events," said I, "you would wish me to 
 book ourselves for the next ship ? '"' 
 
 '' If you please," she answered with anxiety. 
 
 " In which case," I observed, " we must not 
 be fastidious. The best procurable cabins will 
 satisfy us, and the skipper's appearance need 
 not count. Yet it will not do to sail away in a 
 vessel whose seams yawn and whose hold has 
 been abandoned by the rats. I have some small 
 knowledge of ships, and if the first that offers 
 is not as she should be we must wait for 
 the next." 
 
 " I will leave everything to you," she said, 
 *'only," looking around with a slight shudder — 
 we were conversing in her lodgings — " I am so 
 very weary of this gloomy house, this dull 
 street ; so lono^inis: to see mv dear one aQ^ain, 
 and the bright sun and the flowers of my own 
 home." 
 
 " I will do my best," I exclaimed ; '' there 
 should be and perhaps will be a choice of ships. 
 If we have to wait, you will suffer me to find 
 you pleasanter quarters." 
 
 And with that I bade her good-bye and left 
 her.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE IRON CROWN. 
 
 In those days a large number of vessels 
 bound to all parts of the world loaded in the 
 Pool, a little wav below London Brldo^e. 
 Steam then was young, and not much was made 
 of it. I have lived to see steamers trading to 
 South America big enough to stow away in 
 their holds manv of the sailino- vessels which 
 were then carrying goods and passengers to all 
 parts of the world. It is difficult in this age to 
 realize the kind of experiences our forefathers 
 suffered when they took ship — it mattered little 
 to what countries — if it were not the ports to 
 which the Indlamen were despatched. I have 
 heard my mother say that in her young days 
 country people who proposed a trip to London 
 would make their wills before entering the
 
 CH. HI. THE IRON CROWN. 23 
 
 coach. I do not know that the coach was 
 much more dangerous than the locomotive, but 
 I am certain that there were no Hmits to the 
 perils which menace the ocean-borne traveller 
 in the time of the little passenger-ship and 
 smaller passenger-brig ; when the sailor was 
 still an exceeding rough son of a gun, charged 
 to the throat with the traditional infirmities of 
 his calling ; when no special qualifications were 
 insisted upon as conditions of a man taking 
 charge of a vessel ; when ships sailed without 
 side-lights, and when collisions were averted by 
 the easy remedy of whipping the lamp out of 
 the binnacle and flourishing it over the rail ; 
 when the cabin provisions were only a little 
 less coarse than the forecastle fare, and when a 
 passage that is now made in a w^eek occupied 
 two or three months. 
 
 I had obtained the addresses of a few brokers 
 and owners in the South American trade, hoping 
 thus to find two or three ships proceeding much 
 about the same time, but it turned out that the 
 first vessel on the berth sailed next day and 
 that her cabin accommodation was full. Her 
 name, I remember, was the Amazon. The
 
 24 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 next vessel, a brig named the Iron Crown, did 
 not sail until the 23rd, so that even if she 
 satisfied me we should have to wait eight days. 
 The office of the owner of this craft was in 
 Tower Hill, and whilst I was inquiring about 
 her cabin accommodation the person to whom 
 I was speaking, motioning towards a man who 
 had entered a moment before, exclaimed : 
 
 '' Here is the master himself, sir. Captain Guy 
 Broadwater, and he will tell you that a stouter, 
 swifter, more comfortable ship than the Iron 
 Crown never sailed out of an English port. 
 Captain, you will confirm me. What is it now," 
 inclining his head and screwing up one eye as 
 if in thought, '' on a bowline with you ? A 
 cool thirteen, I believe ? Indeed," he cried, 
 chafing his hands and grinning, "we may safely 
 consider the good ship Iron Crown the one 
 favourite trader between Rio and the Thames." 
 
 " Well," said Captain Broadwater in the hoarse 
 voice of a man who has broken his pipes by 
 rum and years of bawling aloft in gales, "it 
 Isn't for me to praise the Iron Crown, sir. 
 She can speak for herself. She only needs to 
 know that a man's eye is upon her to talk out.
 
 III. THE IRON CROWN. 25 
 
 Handsome ! Well I knew old Jarge Rowley who 
 laid her keel, and always reckoned him a man 
 without the least flavey of sentiment in his 
 intellectuals until this here Iron Crown was 
 launched and lay floating, and then I says to 
 myself, ' Broadwater,' I says, ' swaller your own 
 precious eyes, mate, if Jarge ain't a poet ! ' " 
 
 " You hear what the captain says, sir ?" cried 
 the other continuing to chafe his hands. 
 
 I took a short survey of Captain Guy Broad- 
 water, and there stood before me a wide- 
 shouldered, exceedingly muscular man of fifty, 
 short, with iron-gray hair and a beard that hung 
 like a bush at his throat, the chin being shaved. 
 He had the smallest eyes I ever saw, and their 
 colour as I now took stock of them seemed red, 
 but I afterwards discovered that this was due 
 to congestion caused by rheumatism, or punch, or 
 both. His nose w^as of the exact shape of a pear, 
 and being purple at the nostrils and point, looked 
 as if it had been lately stung by a bee. His 
 mouth on the other hand was so small as to corre- 
 spond, as a deformity, with his eyes. When he 
 was not speaking he seemed from the posture of 
 his lips to be trying, but in vain, to whistle. The
 
 26 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 skin of his face was much burnt by the weather, 
 and it was adorned with a strange subcutaneous 
 fiHgree-work, or net rather let me term it, of 
 dusky crimson meshes. He was dressed in 
 pilot-cloth, and carried in his hand a bell-shaped 
 beaver, the brim of which was large enough to 
 furnish out a bishop. Yet ugly and queer as 
 he was, there was nothing whatever in his 
 appearance to offend or prejudice me. I put 
 him down at once as a coarse, unlettered, but 
 good-natured sailor of the hearty lively type, 
 whose physical peculiarities were to a certain 
 extent to be attributed to bad victuals In early 
 life, to too much liquor later on, and through- 
 out to the rouorh usaQ:e of the vocation of the 
 sea when followed before the mast. I told him 
 that I was glad to make his acquaintance, and 
 that I had called with the intention of taking a 
 passage in his ship, though I would not decide 
 until I had inspected her. 
 
 " Sir," said he, " I am going aboard myself 
 when I have done my business with this 
 gentleman, and if you don't mind lettin' go 
 your anchor here for five minutes I'll carry ye 
 straight to the vessel."
 
 III. THE IRON CROWN. 27 
 
 They withdrew to an inner office where I 
 could hear the growling voice of my captain 
 mingling with the sharp-edged tones of his 
 owner as though there was a mastiff and a 
 pug tumbling and larking behind the door. 
 
 The skipper presently emerged and put on 
 his broad-brimmed hat, in which he made so 
 strange a figure that I could scarce forbear a 
 lau^h. We walked to the river and were 
 rowed to a brig that was moored in mid- 
 stream. 
 
 '* Here she is!" cried Captain Broadwater; 
 " look at her, sir ! Was there ever beautifuller 
 lines ! Observe the lovely swell of the side ! 
 It might be the breast of a duck, sir. Mark 
 how clean she comes to the starn-post. In my 
 opinion she's too good to use ; she's properer 
 for a show." 
 
 There Is no reason why he should not have 
 been In earnest, for, as her master. It was 
 conceivable that he should be proud of her. 
 For my part however I could find no hint 
 of the charms which threw him into raptures. 
 The vessel was a stout brig of three hundred 
 tons, an excellent sea-boat, no doubt, with the
 
 28 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 scantling of a line-of-battle ship, but she was 
 certainly no beauty. She was painted black, 
 with a narrow yellow streak running the length 
 of her sides, and had been newly coppered to 
 the bends ; the lustre of the bright metal was 
 under her, and she seemed to float in a little 
 surface of pale sunshine. She was loftily rigged 
 for a craft of her size and carried exeeedingly 
 square yards, whence I inferred that with her 
 studding sails abroad she could expand canvas 
 enough in a breeze of wind to start an island 
 from its moorings. We gained the side, climbed 
 up a stout rope-ladder and jumped aboard. 
 
 There was a lighter on the starboard bow 
 and a number of intoxicated lumpers were 
 hoisting in car^o. It should have been no 
 new scene to me, yet I found it confusing 
 enough. The sails were unbent, and the 
 running rigging unrove, so there were no 
 ropes' ends to trip over. Nevertheless the 
 decks were encumbered with all sorts of " raffle," 
 as sailors term lumber — casks, hencoops, sacks, 
 planks, and I know not what else besides. 
 There was a full-rigged ship a short distance 
 off getting her anchor, and the fellows at the
 
 HI. THE IRON CROWN. 29 
 
 windlass were roaring out with hurricane lungs 
 one of the many working songs with which the 
 British seaman Inspires his heart and nerves, 
 his hands and legs. The melody awoke echoes 
 long ago silent in me. It was at Cape Town 
 that I had heard it last, and the rouo^h salt air 
 brought the picture before me in a vision so 
 clear, sunbright, real — the blue waters of the 
 wide haven, the groups of ivory-white houses 
 upon the low shore, the polished azure back of 
 the huge Atlantic comber poising its arched 
 summit in a ridge of glassy opal light for a 
 breath ere thundering Its burthen of snow upon 
 the beach, the great mountains beyond with 
 streaks of lace-like mist crawling along their 
 brows, as though the viewless spirits of the 
 blue atmosphere up there were spinning a 
 white fabric of exquisite delicacy out of their 
 airy looms for the adornment of those giants' 
 heads — that I seemed to waken with a start to 
 Captain Broadwater's invitation to step below 
 and view^ the cabin. 
 
 One hears of the Swiss weeping when 
 some one tunes up their national cow-strain, 
 ^larlners are a people who have no tears
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 to Spare : what they possess in that way they 
 devote to their private woes ; but I do think 
 nothing so stirs a man who has been a sailor 
 as the melody of a forecastle chorus. 'Tis 
 like the wand of a wizard : the curtain rises 
 to it and there before you lies the past — the 
 roiling ocean, the gallant fabric in whose 
 heart you scoured your thousand leagues of 
 sea, your hearty shipmates, the gay Saturday 
 carousal, the girl in the distant home from 
 whose sunny head you snicked the golden 
 wisp, which many a time you have pressed 
 to your lips in some mid-ocean solitude, when 
 there was nobody but the man in the moon 
 and the man at the wheel to see what you 
 were at. 
 
 '' I have been a sailor myself, captain," said 
 I, as I followed him to the companion-hatch : 
 '' and the sound of that stormy chorus out 
 yonder makes me feel a bit swabbish, do you 
 know, for quitting the old life." 
 
 "Bin a sailor yourself, hey?" he cried, 
 rounding when at the bottom of the ladder 
 to take a view of me. " Well, an' I dessay 
 it did ye no harm. There's worse people
 
 III. THE IRON CROWN. 31 
 
 knocking about the world than sailors, though 
 I haven't much respect for that class of 
 'em which goes by the name of Hands." 
 
 " I see. Your sympathies are aft." 
 
 ** Well, I don't know about that either," he 
 exclaimed rather warmly, as though he 
 objected to my considering that he had any 
 sympathies at all, and methought that his 
 pear-shaped nose as he spoke took a deeper 
 dye ; then with a flourish of the arm he 
 said, " This here's the cabin. A noble room, 
 sir. Must board the Indiamen to find the 
 like of it." 
 
 The vessel had so much beam that her 
 cabin was larger than I had expected to find it. 
 The furniture was simple enough : a table, 
 lockers for seats, snuff-coloured bulkheads with- 
 out any sort of ornamentation. At the after 
 end were four cabins, two of a side, whilst 
 forward were other but smaller berths. 
 
 " That end's for the passengers," said the 
 captain, pointing aft. 
 
 I inspected the accommodation and found 
 it airy and roomy. 
 
 ''Which are to let?" I asked.
 
 32 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 "All," he replied; "how many of you are 
 there, sir ? " 
 
 '' Myself and a lady." 
 
 *' I reckon there'll be no more then," said he. 
 " Here's four' beautiful bedrooms to choose 
 from." 
 
 " Where do yoii^ sleep ? " 
 
 " Forwards there," said he, pointing with 
 his nose as a negro does with his chin. " Me 
 an' my first mate lodges there. The bo'sun 
 who sarves as second mate lies in the fo'k'sle. 
 There's no interference. You'll be as private 
 as a chick in its egg. Case of more coming 
 I'd take the two foremost berths, if I was you. 
 The helm don't feel to kick so much there, 
 and If the chap at the wheel should warm his 
 toes by stamping you won't hear him plain." 
 
 I should have been better pleased with a 
 vessel of twice the burthen of this craft ; but 
 then to be sure we should start In the height of 
 the summer when the Bay of Biscay is least 
 formidable — though let me remember that 
 the heaviest gale I was ever in w^as fifty miles 
 south of Ushant in the month of July — and 
 once clear of those waters we had a r'lQ-ht to
 
 III. THE IRON CROWN. ^3 
 
 look for quiet weather during the rest of the 
 passage. The short chat I had with Broad- 
 water on returning on deck confirmed my 
 first impression of him : he was indeed no 
 very polished companion for ladies, but he 
 was well enough as sea-captains of his class 
 and in his trade then went. I was not 
 surprised to find that the vessel did not carry 
 a stewardess. You had to look to the height 
 of the Indiamen in those days for luxuries 
 of this kind. I asked him what sort of table 
 he kept. 
 
 "An A I copper-bottom table," he an- 
 swered. "' Salt beef of the primest — roast pork 
 — poultry twice a week — currant dumplings 
 — taking it all round, a list nieh as lone as 
 
 mv arm. 
 
 " Pretty substantial." I exclaimed. 
 
 "Ay," said he, grinning, "there's never no 
 twopenny kickshaws to be found aboard of 
 me. No hishee-hashees here, sir, with French 
 names. All's good solid eating, — dishes which 
 makes a man feel that he's dined when he 
 gets up. Give me food that'll coil a chap's 
 appetite down for him. That's wh)', to my 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 MAROONED. chap. hi. 
 
 notion, there's ne'er a bit of vittles on this 
 airth to beat a good leg o' roast pork." 
 
 I gathered from these observations that 
 Miss Grant and I were not Hkely to be 
 invariably entertained to our tastes, and that 
 it would therefore be necessary to lay in a 
 stock of wines and stores for our separate 
 use ; and having ascertained that I was at 
 liberty to fill one of the hencoops with poultry 
 for ourselves, and that if the other cabins 
 were unlet one of them was at my service as 
 a larder, I took leave of him, and was rowed 
 ashore, and without further ado walked to 
 Tower Hill and engaged two berths in the 
 brig Iron Crown, Broadwater master. Also, 
 at this office, to save time, I wrote a letter 
 to my cousin, in which I named the vessel we 
 were to sail in and the date of our departure, 
 and handed it to the owner of the Iron Crown 
 to transmit with despatches of his own to Rio 
 by the ship Amazon proceeding next day.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WE EMBARK. 
 
 As the brig did not sail for another week, 
 and as we intended to join her at Deal, 
 which would give us two or three days 
 ashore beyond the date of our departure 
 from the Thames, I procured rooms for 
 Miss Grant in a private hotel near Bond 
 Street, so that I was within convenient reach 
 and saw much of her. In truth the poverty 
 and melancholy of the street in which she had 
 lodged rendered the very name of it intolerable 
 to her, and the gloomy influence of the house 
 upon her spirits was made more oppressive 
 yet by the recollection of her father's sufferings 
 and death and her own privation in it. 
 
 The change from such lodgings to the 
 comforts of a hotel, the sudden removal from 
 
 D 2
 
 36 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 her mind of the distracting burthen of poverty 
 and anxiety, the feeHng that I was by her 
 side and that she had a protector in me, 
 and that in a few weeks she would be with 
 her sweetheart and married to him, combined 
 to make another woman of her in those eight 
 or ten days. Her eyes shone with a clearer 
 light, and their dark luminous depths gathered 
 a softness beyond description from the hap- 
 piness that was in her. A delicate bloom 
 lay upon her cheeks, her laugh was sincere, 
 her smiles full of an honest gaiety. As w^e 
 walked together I would notice that both 
 men and women stopped to stare after her. 
 I remember an old dandy with his hat cocked 
 and a tuft on his chin, coming to a dead 
 stand on seeing her, then following us and 
 passing as an excuse to turn again to have 
 another look. I will not say that she was 
 insensible to the admiration she excited — she 
 would have been no true woman to feign such 
 a thing — but I cannot conceive that any girl 
 could have shown herself less affected by It. 
 
 We took the coach for Deal early on a 
 Friday morning. The journey was long and
 
 IV. WE EMBARK. 37 
 
 tedious. It was after sunset when we sat 
 down to the dinner I had ordered in a quaint 
 hotel that looked directly upon the sea ; but 
 the moon rode high, clear as crystal in the 
 dark blue air, and her glorious reflection came 
 to the very margin of the beach, upon whose 
 shingle the rippling summer breakers trembled 
 into snow in a fan-shaped path of glory that 
 floated as steadily upon the quiet surface as 
 the orb herself in the breathless sky. 
 
 After dinner we walked to the esplanade. 
 The luggers lying high and dry looked 
 hoary in the clear and icy light : the seaward- 
 gazing windows sparkled out to the gush of 
 the radiance in silver stars ; every shadow 
 lay like an ebony carving upon a sand-white 
 ground. Far away, past the yellow winking 
 spots of the signal lanterns floating off the 
 Goodwins, was the fitful flashing of violet 
 lightning. The planets hung large and burnt 
 richly, and, clear of the sphere of mist-like 
 radiance that circled the moon, the stars 
 shone in such numbers that I never remember 
 witnessing the heavens so crowded. After the 
 roaring of metropolitan streets, the low wash-
 
 38 MAROONED. CHAr. 
 
 ing sound of the surf along the coast was 
 inexpressibly soothing and refreshing, and 
 one's blood coursed to the cool sweetness 
 of the ocean atmosphere as to a draught of 
 rare and generous cordial. 
 
 There were many ships in the Downs, wan 
 and spectral in the moonshine. Their riding- 
 lights resembled a swarm of fire-flies. By bend- 
 ing the ear you caught from the nearer vessels 
 the sounds of laughter, the thin strains of a 
 concextlna, the clank of a chain cable dragged 
 along the deck ; or from the further distance 
 the faint chorusing of a crew pulling and haul- 
 ing aboard some hidden craft that had softly 
 sneaked into the Downs on the top of the 
 subtle tide. 
 
 '' Which amid that ashen muddle of ships out 
 yonder will be ours, 1 wonder ? " said I. 
 
 " How ghostly is the atmosphere that is 
 made by moonlight at sea ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Grant, sending her glance along the shining 
 wake of the luminary, and then looking into 
 the eastern darkness and talking as if she spoke 
 to herself "It must be the low-lying stars, I 
 think, which cause the distance to appear so
 
 IV. WE EMBARK. 39 
 
 terribly remote. The beauty of such a night as 
 this used to awe me when we were comine to 
 England — it does so now, though I am on 
 dry land. It should be as lovely to me as to 
 others, but it is not so. The mystery of it is 
 too great — the mystery of the silence and the 
 pale air and the whispering of the sea along the 
 shore." 
 
 '■ It may be that what is mysterious cannot 
 be beautiful," said I, finding talk of this sort a 
 little above my art, though not wanting her to 
 think that I did not understand her either. 
 ''Yet I don't know, I have seen eyes in my 
 time as secret as the dark sea yonder, and they 
 were wonderfully beautiful, I assure you." 
 
 As I said this a rumbling voice close behind 
 me exclaimed, " Bort, sir ! beautiful noight for 
 a row, sir ! Water smooth as satin, lady." 
 
 I turned and observed a Deal boatman. 
 
 " No — we shall have enouah of the sea 
 presently. Can you tell me if a vessel named 
 the Iron Crown has brought up off here ? " 
 
 *' What's she loike ? " he asked. 
 
 " A brig," I said, " three hundred tons, newly 
 sheathed, painted black with a yellow stripe."
 
 40 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " Is her capt'n a man with werry small eyes 
 an' a nose like a sailor's duff ? " 
 
 '* That's right." 
 
 " Then she brought up just afore sundown. 
 Oi was off fishin' with a party at the time, and 
 the chap Oi've described sung out to me to git 
 out of the road ; " and he pointed seawards with 
 a shadowy hand, but it was impossible to dis- 
 tinguish any one ship among the congregation 
 there. He hung about me a little as though he 
 would engage me in further conversation, and 
 then said, "Werry thirsty weather, sir." I 
 gave him the value of a glass of ale and he 
 left us. 
 
 " At the head of human disenchanters," said 
 I, ',' stands the British long-shoreman, with his 
 cry of ' Bort, sir.' " 
 
 " Hark ! " exclaimed my companion lifting 
 her hnger. 
 
 It was half-past nine, and the bells out upon 
 the water were sounding the hour. There 
 were probably two hundred sail in the Downs ; 
 the tinkling ran in ripples as though a wave 
 of air raised scores of metallic echoes of 
 different tones as it swept onwards. Some of
 
 IV. WE EMBARK. 41 
 
 the bells sounded simultaneously ; some fol- 
 lowed one another in chimes ; a few were 
 mellow, many shrill, more yet of a silver singing 
 cadence. From the pallid remoteness the tones 
 came in faint and tiny sounds, after which fell the 
 silence, and you heard nothing but the fountain- 
 like seething of foam upon the shingle. 
 
 We returned to the hotel, but 1 lingered, 
 after INliss Grant had retired, for a long hour 
 upon the balcony overlooking the sea, smoking 
 a cigar and musing much on the girl and my 
 cousin Fraser and the voyage on which we 
 should probably start next day. The moon 
 hung over the Downs, and through the steady 
 rain of her silver twinkled the yellow sparks of 
 the ships' lights. There was a lugger heading 
 for Deal and comino^ fair down the middle of the 
 ice-like path upon the waters. She floated black 
 against the tremulous shining that went up 
 behind her to the sea-line, and as you marked 
 her sweeps or long oars rising and falling you 
 would have imagined her some gigantic marine 
 insect stealthily creeping shore wards. From 
 every lifted blade the w^ater dripped to the 
 moonshine in diamonds, and the cheep, cheep
 
 42 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 of the oars grinding betwixt the thole-pins sent 
 the fancy roaming to the tropic swamp and to 
 the mysterious croaklngs of the tree-toad. 
 
 I was up betimes, but Miss AureHa was be- 
 fore me. She looked as fresh and as fragrant 
 as Cowper's rose newly washed by a shower. 
 
 ''The sea," said I, "promises to use you 
 kindly." 
 
 " Yes, and I feel well, too, which is better 
 than looking so." 
 
 She was robed in black, her dress fitted her 
 excellently, her hair was colled into the likeness 
 of a crown, her dark eyes wxre full of fire and 
 life. I did not 'much like to think of her as 
 being obliged to sit and converse with such a 
 man as Broadwater and with such people as 
 his mates were tolerably certain to prove. But 
 it could not be helped ; though when the 
 captain's purple face came Into my head I felt 
 that I should have been ungenerous and mean 
 indeed to have suffered her to sail alone. 
 There was a light breeze from the southward. 
 The upward-bound vessels had got under way, 
 and the picture was gay and brilliant with the 
 crowded white canvas of the numerous craft,
 
 IV. WE EMBARK. 43 
 
 the sparkling of the sun in the running waters, 
 the fitful flashings of the wet oars of boats, 
 the light blue sky with a stretch of ivory-like 
 crescents of clouds, resemblinof new moons 
 linked and compacted going down to the sea- 
 line, where a leaning sail or two gleamed like 
 little obelisks of Parian marble. Miss Grant 
 came to my side and we stood gazing together. 
 Presently a waiter arrived, asked if my name 
 was Musgrave, and said there was a gentleman 
 inquiring for me. A moment or two afterwards 
 Captain Broadwater entered. 
 I - He gave Miss Grant a bow that was a sheer 
 convulsion in its way, and said, " I thought I'd 
 , look in here, sir, afore I went aboard. There'll 
 I be nothing to keep us when you and the lady 
 are over the side. There's not much weight in 
 this here w^ind, but the tide sarves, and I'm never 
 for waiting when there's a chance to get away." 
 "You are very right," said I; ''but we 
 haven't breakfasted yet, captain. There's time 
 enough for that, I hope ? " And thinking he was 
 going to object, I added, "You'll join us .'^ 
 Nothing like shore-going food and cooking 
 down to the last moment."
 
 44 MAROONED. char 
 
 He answered that he had already breakfasted, 
 but that on reflection he felt himself equal to 
 another meal, and the waiter arriving with the 
 ham and coffee we sat down. I have seen men 
 with immense appetites In my day, but no man 
 who ever came near to Broadwater in this way. 
 It was not only the quantity he devoured ; It 
 was the rapidity with which he ate. He took a 
 hot roll, tore the crumb out, buttered and then 
 bolted the whole without winking and in a 
 breath. He picked up an egg-spoon, and after 
 inspecting it an instant, called the waiter and 
 asked him what It was. The waiter explained. 
 " Bring me a proper spoon ! " he roared in a 
 voice that caused Miss Grant to start and 
 glance at me with a little air of consternation. 
 The man handed him a dessert-spoon, with 
 which he struck the egg as though it had been 
 a sailor's head, then scooped out the Inside and 
 swallowed the whole, afterwards seizing another 
 egg, all so quickly that It was like watching the 
 performance of a conjuror. He never offered 
 to speak a word until he had eaten as much 
 breakfast as would have sufficed me for a week, 
 though he made an end before Miss Grant and
 
 WE EMBARK. 45 
 
 I had fairly begun. My companion looked at 
 me as if she would say, " I told you what sort 
 of people the captains are in this trade ; " I 
 was more struck however by his manner of 
 roarin^ to the waiter than bv the rest of his 
 behaviour. " If this is not a ship's bully all of 
 the olden time," I thouQ;ht to mvself. "let his 
 appetite be called delicate." 
 
 He now began to tell me in a hoarse voice 
 about his passage down the river to the Downs, 
 and how a West Indiaman in bringing up at 
 midnight had fouled his cable and nearly run 
 aboard him. " But," said he, " there's no sea- 
 manship to be expected from the men who gets 
 command of them big ships. They're hired 
 for their faces and their tricks of speechifying 
 and caper-cutting and grinning out answers 
 without losing their tempers when the ladies 
 bother 'em with questions. Put them into a 
 situation that requires real nautical knowledge 
 and they can only stand and look on. If \'ou 
 want to be cut down, or your spars brought 
 about vour ears, them's the o-ents to show ve 
 how It's done." 
 
 All this was very pig-headed talk ; but if he
 
 46 MAROONED. chai. 
 
 should prove, as I suspected, full of salt 
 prejudices and antique sea-notions, I at all 
 events should not be without one favourite 
 source of diversion during the voyage. 
 
 Our baeeaee was on board the brier. The 
 little we had with us was conveyed to one of 
 the vessel's boats that was lying off the beach 
 waiting for the captain. Miss Grant sprang 
 to the gunwale and thence to a thwart with in- 
 imitable grace that was full of a generous disdain 
 of the extended hand of one of the seamen. 
 I followed, and Broadwater bundled in after me. 
 " Shove off! " he bawled as though in a passion. 
 The boat's head was slewed for the brig, and 
 the three men fell to their oars. 
 
 There were fifty things to admire as our 
 little keel was swept forwards : the gray bald 
 stare of the Foreland point with the sheen of 
 the chalk trembling off it upon the blue atmo- 
 sphere beyond ; the ships still at anchor growing 
 large to our approach, their glossy sides twink- 
 ling to the rippling lustre in the water like the 
 tremble of sunlight amid the shadows of dancing 
 leaves ; the sudden flash of a cabin-window to 
 the movement of the hull as though a cannon
 
 WE EMBARK. 
 
 had been fired from it ; the various colours and 
 devices of a dozen different nations' ensigns 
 languidly fluttering their bright folds from mast- 
 head and peak ; the line of green and yellow 
 coast sweeping into an airy dimness of pallid 
 cliff as wan in the distance of the brilliant north 
 as the crescent of the moon floating in the noon- 
 tide heavens ; the quaint aspect of the hearty 
 old smuggling town whose foreground of brown 
 shingle gleamed black to the recoil of the 
 washing breaker, whilst it offered the saltest 
 imaginable picture in the shape of fleets of 
 yellow luggers high and dry, and the figures 
 of boatmen lounging, scrubbing, mending 
 nets, and boiling pitch-pots. 
 
 There were plenty of things, I say, to look 
 at, yet I do not remember that I took notice of 
 much outside the three men who were rowing 
 us to the brig. They belonged of course to 
 the ship's company. One was a half-blood of 
 a dark olive complexion and eyes like sloes 
 resting on slices of lemon. His hands were as 
 small as a girl's, beautifully shaped, though 
 corned and horny and palm-blackened by the 
 tar and drudgery of shipboard. The others
 
 48 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 were plain ginger-haired British lobscousers — 
 one with a beard of stubble that projected from 
 his chin like the thatch of a sou'-wester, both 
 knob-nosed and rugged as the shell of a wal- 
 nut. Their feet were naked, their rough breasts 
 lay bare to the light, their nervous muscular 
 arms were decorated with bracelets, crucifixes, 
 anchors, female figures, pricked in with the 
 pale blue of the sailor's pigment. All three of 
 them wore a sullen look — not the expression of 
 evil-minded men, but of persons rendered sulky 
 and resentful by ill-usage. I saw the half-blood 
 glance at Miss Grant, and a sort of light broke 
 upon his face and swept the dogged air out of 
 it as a smile clears a sour brow ; but his eye 
 Instantly went from her to Broadwater and fell, 
 a singular look of loathing and hate darkened 
 his countenance, and 1 witnessed the impulse of 
 a violent emotion in him In the quick, savage 
 swing he gave his oar. It was like a curse ! 
 
 Here were tokens not to please me who, as a 
 man that had passed some years at sea, had 
 preserved an eye for the interpretation of 
 sailors' meanings. If the crew were dissatisfied 
 at this earlv stao^e, then old Broadwater and his
 
 IV. WE EMBARK. 49 
 
 mates must have gone to work with an in- 
 credible promptitude to make their true charac- 
 ters known to them. Had they a grievance ? 
 Their provisions would have been fresh meat 
 and loaves of .bread down to this point, and they 
 could not therefore know what the forecastle 
 stores were like. Was the vessel leaky ? It 
 was to be hoped she was not. No ! it could be 
 nothing less than Broadwater. Well, if the 
 men were growling now, what would be their 
 posture later on ? I was sufficiently well . ac- 
 quainted with the character of merchant seamen 
 to know that often the very best sailors amongst 
 them are those who curse the deepest in their 
 gizzards. I was also aware that there was 
 nothing uncommon in a crew finding plenty ot 
 time and excuses to mutiny in a run from Black- 
 wall to the Forelands, going ashore with bag 
 and baggage in a body, and obliging the ship to 
 wait off Deal until the crimps could roll a new 
 crew into her forecastle. All this was. as it still 
 is, in the ordinary course of the ocean life. 
 But the looks of the three thinly-clad fellows 
 made you think of something more significant 
 han the familiar causes of the forecastle rebellion. 
 
 VOL I E
 
 50 MAROONED. chap. iv. 
 
 However they pulled too briskly to give me 
 time to consider them very attentively. The 
 boat buzzed through the water, and the brig 
 ahead rapidly enlarged upon the view. 
 
 '* Is that the ship ?" exclaimed Miss Grant. 
 
 I answered, yes. 
 
 "Is there anything afloat to beat her?" 
 exclaimed Broadwater in a deep-sea voice. 
 
 The half-blood turned his head upon his 
 shoulder as if he would have his mates observe 
 what was in his mind by his look. 
 
 " Oars ! " bawded the captain. '' Out boat- 
 hook, you dog ! " to the man in the bows. 
 "Good thunder !" he growled, "what is there 
 to make the sojers who ship as sailors nowadays 
 skip, if it ain't gunpowder in their shoes and a 
 lighted match 'twixt their toes ? " 
 
 We swang alongside and gained the deck.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 
 
 The moment Captain Broadwater's foot was 
 on shipboard he shouted out, '' Man the 
 windlass, Mr. Bothwell ! Get this here boat 
 hoisted some of you! Jump, bulHes, jump! 
 There's wind enough to blow us away if ye 
 don't stop to curl your hair ! " which said, he 
 forthwith fell to bundlinof about on his rounded 
 shanks, running here and there, looking round 
 and aloft, bawling to the m.ate who had gone 
 forward, and apparently employing every art of 
 which he was master to render the scene of 
 commotion one of sheer distraction. 
 
 There seemed about fourteen of a crew, not 
 counting the captain and mate. A few of them 
 came to the davits to get the boat up, the rest 
 laid hold of the windlass handles and began to 
 
 E 2
 
 52 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 heave. You heard the clank, clank, of the 
 pawls and the grinding chink of the cable 
 coming in link by link. *' Sing out, my livelies ! 
 heave to the girls, lads ! heave and sing ! heave 
 and raise the dead ! sing out, men ! clap a 
 tune to your muscles, my splicers ! heave ! " 
 cried out the mate (as I supposed the dark 
 young fellow who spoke these w^ords to be) ; 
 and I was not a little relieved to hear after a 
 minute or two the peculiar long-drawn notes 
 of a seaman breaking into a workincr sone, 
 followed at the proper interval by the whole 
 body of men delivering the chorus with the 
 true old hurricane note. It would have been 
 a. bad sign had they not sung. Only a sailor 
 would appreciate the meaning of silence 
 among the crew of a merchantman getting her 
 anchor. 
 
 I took Miss Grant below to show her her 
 berth. There was no smiling and curtseying 
 stewardess to receive her ; no obliging steward 
 and his mates to fly to my bidding. The very 
 cabin-boy was at the windlass, and there was 
 nothing living under deck if it were not a lurk- 
 ing cockroach or a concealed rat. But then 
 
 I
 
 THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 
 
 happily we could not miss what we had not 
 been used to, nor complain of the omission of 
 what we had no reason to expect. Put the 
 mail-boat traveller of to-day back fifty years 
 and he would probably be the most forlorn and 
 melancholy sea-borne object under the sky. I 
 had forgotten to ask Captain Broadwater if 
 there were other passengers, but there was no 
 further need to trouble him : the doors of the 
 berths were open, and a single glance sufficed 
 to let me know that Miss Grant and I were 
 alone. All for the best no doubt, thought I ; 
 think of some fellow here in these pent-up 
 quarters with a snore like the escape of steam, 
 or of some lean splentic Spaniard, constantly ill, 
 and full of growlings in smooth water, and of 
 aves and litanies in stormy weather ! 
 
 " It is not every one who would choose to 
 sail with Captain Broadwater," said Miss 
 Grant, evidently surprised at our being the 
 only passengers. 
 
 " You do not like him ? I am sorry. I was 
 glad to get an early ship — " 
 
 " No, no, Mr. Musgrave, I do not mean 
 that. How^ could you tell what sort of a person
 
 54 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 he would prove to be. I think you will find 
 that he treats his crew inhumanly." 
 
 I lifted my eyebrows ; I had not imagined 
 she would have seen- so quickly into such a 
 matter as that. 
 
 " Nor," continued she smiling, " do I fancy 
 that we shall find him a very agreeable table- 
 companion. But no matter. Rio is not so 
 very, ve7y far off now ! " 
 
 We exchanored these sentences whilst we 
 stood before our cabin-doors. Our luggage 
 lay in a heap aft against the transom, but it 
 was better there than in the hold. There 
 was no one to help us, and so we shifted for 
 ourselves. Between us we dragged the boxes 
 and portmanteaux into our berths, and I found 
 a new quality to admire in Tvliss Grant in 
 the form of a sturdy spirit of independence. 
 No complaints, no regrets, no peevish murmurs 
 over our being neglected. I recollect that 
 I thought — were we to be cast away, here 
 is the girl to show the sailors how to manage. 
 Little did I imagine what was before us when 
 that fancy passed through my head ! 
 
 The necessary furniture for sleeping lay in
 
 V. THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 55 
 
 my bunk, but It was evident I should have 
 to make my own bed. In the spare cabin 
 next mine was our private stock of provisions. 
 I cast my eyes over the hampers and cases, 
 and knowing what they contained, considered 
 that, taking our hve stock into account, we 
 should fare on the whole tolerably enough. 
 Calling to Miss Grant that she would find 
 me on deck, I mounted the companion-ladder, 
 and on emerging discovered that the crew 
 had tripped the anchor and were running 
 about making sail. There were many vessels 
 getting under way at this time, and the 
 picture was full of animation and colour. 
 The jib had been hoisted, and the brig's 
 head was slowly paying off ; hands aloft were 
 shouting to people below to hoist away and 
 sheet home ; the men on deck were hoarsely 
 bawling as they dragged upon the sheets and 
 halliards ; purple-faced old Broadwater stand- 
 ing near the wheel was roaring out orders 
 in whole volleys, and the mate in the waist, 
 who had a singularly shrill voice for a man, 
 heightened the general clamour by re-echoing 
 the captain's orders in notes which sounded
 
 56 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 like screams. As If all this were not distract- 
 ing enough, the pigs under the long-boat, 
 irritated by neglect, by fasting, or by the 
 hubbub about them, were squealing as though 
 somebody were stirring them up, whilst the 
 concert was still further intensified by the 
 crowing and the crackling of the cocks and 
 hens in the coops. That the sailors should 
 sing out at the ropes was reasonable and desir- 
 able ; seamen as they haul take time from 
 their songs, otherwise the business of hoisting, 
 bracing up, sheeting-home w^ould be like drawl- 
 ing teeth. But what purpose could Captain 
 Broadwater serve by roaring to his crew as 
 if they were a company of villains whom 
 nothing short of noise and execrations could 
 urge to exertions ? 
 
 As I stood looking on, my eye was taken by 
 the mate. He was a man apparently of my 
 own age, tall and thin, with nothing of the air 
 of a sailor about him. His complexion was 
 exceedingly sallow^ but his features were strik- 
 ingly handsome — such a nose, mouth, and fore- 
 head as you would expect to find only in some 
 marble fancy of a heathen deity. His eyes
 
 V. THE VOYAGh BEGINS. 57 
 
 were large and black and amazingly rapid in 
 their movements, insomuch it seemed incredible 
 that glances could be darted with the swiftness 
 I have witnessed in this man. An extraordinary 
 point was, his hair was that of a negro : as sheer 
 curly black wool as ever adorned the pate of a 
 M umbo- jumbo. It was a very puzzling feature, 
 for assuredly there was no more of the African 
 in him than there was in me. He had a small 
 moustache, and only needed a sovibi^ero hat, a 
 cutlass, and a girdle full of pistols, to offer the 
 completest imaginable copy of a pirate. His 
 shrill words leapt as rapidly from his lips as his 
 glances from his eyes, but he seemed incapable 
 of delivering even the most commonplace order 
 without temper. His English was that of an 
 educated man, nor could I discover that it 
 was tainted in the least degree by a foreign 
 accent. 
 
 Before long all plain sail had been made, and 
 the brig, with her bowsprit pointing to a down- 
 Channel course, was leaning lightly under the 
 pressure of the summer breeze and pushing 
 gently through the trembling blue surface. 
 The men had ceased their songs ; there was no
 
 58 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 further occasion for the captain to bawl, and 
 something Hke silence was upon the little ship. 
 Well, thought I, here am I fairly started at 
 last ! and as I looked at the town of Deal 
 sparkling to the high sun, and at the old chalk 
 ramparts soaring to the brow of the Foreland 
 giant, a queer feeling thickened my sight for an 
 instant, though it vanished with the *' Pshaw ! " 
 it evoked from me. But this was an. old 
 weakness. I believe had I used the ocean for 
 twenty years, and was still going a voyage every 
 twelvemonth, the sight of the cliffs of the old 
 home quietly sliding away on the quarter and 
 melting into the blue atmosphere would affect 
 me as it did in my boyhood. 
 
 I turned to join the captain, and was con- 
 fronted by Miss Grant. The joyousness in her 
 face seemed to rebuke me. She had brought 
 her hands together, and was gazing from the 
 sails to the land with her lips parted, her breath 
 coming and going quickly, her eyes full of 
 gladness. 
 
 " There Is one gay heart aboard," said I 
 quietly. 
 
 " It Is like a dream to me, Mr. Muso^rave ! "
 
 V. THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 59 
 
 she exclaimed, '' when I think of my dull 
 lodgings — and the thoughts that terrified me 
 there — the dread of never seeing Alexander 
 again — and now to find myself going to him — 
 only a few weeks between us, — a kind friend by 
 my side — I. who a few days ago had no friend 
 — " She paused and repeated almost in a 
 whisper, " It is like a dream to me." 
 
 " It is real enough," I exclaimed ; "yonder is 
 stuff much too substantial to serve as a fabric 
 for the manufacture of visions," and I glanced 
 in the direction of Captain Broadwater, who, 
 now that his ship was fairly under way, had 
 started on the regular pendulum walk of the 
 quarter-deck — a true sea-sawing from abreast of 
 the wheel to forward of the main shrouds with 
 a stare aloft, a look to windward, and then a 
 spin of the heels for another turn ; and so on as 
 I have seen the thino^ done rio^ht throuQ^h a four 
 
 c> c> o 
 
 hours' watch. 
 
 "Who is that man?" asked Miss Grant, 
 indicating the chief mate, who was standing in 
 the gangway with his eye aloft to witness, if he 
 could, any imperfection in the trim of the yards 
 and the set of the sails. I told her, and added,
 
 6o MAROONED. chap. 
 
 "He looks fitter for the stage than for ship- 
 board. I hope I do not misjudge him ; but if 
 he would not knife a sailor with as little com- 
 punction as he would harpoon a dolphin, then 
 the cut of his jib badly libels his soul." 
 
 She watched him with fast failing curiosity and 
 presently sent her gaze seawards. The draught 
 of air had slightly freshened ; we were slipping 
 past the South Foreland and opening the broad 
 range of the Channel over the starboard bow. 
 There was a small swell here, just enough to 
 give a slight lift and fall to the jibboom, and to 
 raise a faint seething noise at the cutwater, 
 along with the airy tinkle of foam-bells sliding 
 iridescent as beads of oil into the eddies of the 
 short wake under the counter. There were 
 ships all about us, and upon the far sea-line you 
 saw the snow-like shining of canvas, serenely 
 luminous as any star, and the dim pearly 
 shadow beyond of the coast of France. I 
 walked aft with Miss Grant to survey the brig 
 from the best place in which a ship is to be 
 viewed when you are aboard her, and here 
 we were joined by Broadwater, who, as he 
 approached us, pulled out and cast his little 

 
 V. THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 6r 
 
 eyes upon an immense, almost round, silver 
 watch. 
 
 " Pretty nigh time to go to dinner," said he. 
 "It's a blessed thing to be born with a good 
 appetite. There's never no harm in a man that 
 eats hearty. I'd rather judge of a fellow-being's 
 conscience by his appetite than by his actions." 
 
 " What country does your chief mate belong 
 to ? " I inquired. 
 
 '' That's more than I can tell you, sir," he 
 replied. " He calls himself a Scotchman, but 
 his hair don't look North Country. His name's 
 Bothwell — Neil Bothwell. He's the proper 
 sort of man for sailors. Never was a chap who 
 could work up old iron like him." 
 
 '' Are sailors animals that they require 
 working up, as you term it ? " inquired Miss 
 Grant. 
 
 " Well, perhaps they ain't, miss," he replied. 
 " Animal's too soft a term for 'em. The proper 
 word's beast — wild beast, mum ; there ye have 
 it!" 
 
 I observed that whenever this captain la- 
 boured under any sudden excitement his nose 
 reddened to it as though emotion could find
 
 62 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 no other feature to express Itself in ; owing to 
 his eyes being much too small to convey his 
 mind, and to the purple meshes which over- 
 spread his countenance like a net that prevented 
 any particular expression of intelligence from 
 rising to the surface. Methought there was 
 something malevolent in the air with which he 
 turned his eyes from Miss Grant to cast a 
 glance aloft. 
 
 "Nothing off! Nothing off!" he suddenly 
 shouted, whipping round upon the fellow that 
 was steering ; " where d'ye think the ship's 
 bound to, you scowbanker ? Keep her to her 
 course ! " he rolled menacing to the wheel and 
 addressed the man in a low voice, whilst he 
 thrust his face into the binnacle. The fellow 
 put the wheel down by a spoke or two, with a 
 dogged look and a sullen twist of his eye upon 
 the captain. I think he believed the skipper 
 had meant to strike him. A sheath knife lay 
 upon his hip, and the muscles of his arms, 
 which were bare to the elbow, stood up like 
 ridges of iron under the weather-browned flesh. 
 Broadwater after some further muttering re- 
 turned to us.
 
 V. THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 63 
 
 "You were speaking of sailors, ma'am," said 
 he ; " there's but one way of finding out the sort 
 of people they are. You must take command 
 of a ship. Of course there's nothing good 
 enough for 'em. They come to the vessel imbe- 
 cile with drink out of the alleys in which they 
 live when ashore, with nothing to wear but the 
 rags they stand up in, and without having tasted 
 food for a week maybe ; and they're no sooner 
 aboard than up turns their noses to whatever's 
 offered to them, and the growlin' begins. What's 
 their w^ittles ? Beef, pork, tea, bread, mollasses, 
 winegar — things they'd never have knowed the 
 names of if they hadn't been sailors ; for as 
 landsmen they couldn't have earned as much as 
 would have brought their eyes to the sight of 'em. 
 They like the money they take up, but the work 
 don't suit their delicate constitutions. Tell 'ee 
 what it is : there's been a great deal too much 
 said about the British sailor. He's been led 
 into such fancies of his own consequence that 
 he's now ate up with wanity. ' Ne'er another 
 nation, I'm told,' he says, says he, 'can produce 
 the likes of me ! ' An' he don't know how 
 right he is. Ne'er another nation do I For
 
 64 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 what's the name of the country whose sailors 
 are within haiHng distance of him in the art 
 of loafing, growling, mutineering, and giving 
 trouble all round ? " 
 
 *' Your crew are contented, I hope ?" said I. 
 
 " ]\Ie and the mate '11 keep 'em satisfied, I 
 warrant ye," he answered. 
 
 I must confess I did not like this man's 
 views and talk. But then I reflected that 
 sailors are, on the whole, a long -suffering 
 people ; that in every crew there Is a propor- 
 tion of sensible men who keep the others 
 straight by their resolution to out-weather the 
 captain, even If he should prove old Nick 
 himself, sooner than be betrayed by Injurious 
 usage Into an act that would procure the for- 
 feiture of their wages. I likewise considered 
 that Broadwater had doubtless been master 
 for some years, and that he had experience 
 enough to distinguish the line where surly 
 and dissatisfied obedience ends, and mutiny — 
 defiant, reckless, and often deadly — begins. 
 Meanwhile I held my tongue, for I was in no 
 humour to enter into an argument with him 
 upon the virtues and vices of the British
 
 V. THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 65 
 
 sailor. I observed that Miss Grant watched 
 him furtively, but with attention. Yet his face 
 was but little better thafi a mask. It was 
 impossible to decipher his ; mind by looking at 
 him. He had no other faculty of self-interpreta- 
 tion than his speech. Nature had restricted 
 his capacity of expression to that. 
 
 Shortly after this the cabin-boy arrived to 
 announce dinner. The time had slipped away 
 swiftly, and it was now one o'clock. 
 " The lad must mean htnch ? " said I. 
 "No fear!" said Broadwater; ''dinner sir, 
 dinner ! " 
 
 '' And pray what Is the next meal called ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 '' Supper, sir ; sarved at half-past five ; much 
 as a man can eat or ought to eat 'long with 
 tea. Should ye feel faint towards bed-time, 
 there's biscuit, cheese an' pickles. No chance 
 of passengers starving aboard me ! " 
 
 "Oh, we shall manage very well, I have no 
 doubt," I exclaimed soothingly. 
 
 He trudged below leaving Miss Grant and 
 me to follow. 
 '' A true sea-bear, Mr. Musgrave, "she whispered. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " Yet he was fairly well spoken ashore," said 
 I. " But to keep one's temper is the great 
 secret of happiness. And, besides, we need 
 see as little of him as we choose." 
 
 He kept us waiting, and when he emerged 
 from his cabin his face shone from what he 
 himself would have called a " wash down." You 
 might have thought he had soaped his hair 
 as well as his face : it lay as a skull-cap on his 
 head and glistened in the light, and I took 
 notice of a polished spike of it projecting beyond 
 either ear as though the old fellow had rounded 
 off his toilet with a couple of notes of admira- 
 tion. It is not many years since I made a 
 voyage to the West Indies in a mail- steamer 
 that would have carried me on to Rio, had I 
 desired* to visit that port ; and I well remember 
 that this, our first meal aboard the /7^o?i Crown, 
 recurred to me as vividly as though it had 
 been an experience of yesterday when I sat 
 down in the shining saloon of the great steam- 
 palace at a table, white, rich, glittering with 
 damask and glass and silver, and a waiter 
 behind my chair to attend to my selections 
 from a bill of fare which no excellent hotel
 
 V. THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 67 
 
 could go far beyond. The cabin-boy of the 
 Iron Crown was a tall, knock-kneed, dejected- 
 looking youth, who was making his first voyage ; 
 he was already oppressed with nausea, and his 
 anxiety and fear of the captain were horrible. 
 I think I see him now, breathing hard as he 
 put a tureen of hot pea-soup (at which he was 
 too ill to glance) before old Broadwater, and 
 then staggering back with his eyes half out of 
 his head, as though persuaded he had blundered 
 in some way and that the captain would in- 
 stantly rise and fall upon him. Our repast — 
 and I will ask you to consider the time of year 
 — consisted of this same soup, a boiled leg of 
 pork, a dish of potatoes smoking in their jackets, 
 and a pudding of the shape and appearance of 
 a small bolster spotted with currants. The captain 
 drank rum and water, and ate like a ship-wrecked 
 man ; and that he might not think us fastidious, 
 and so ground and justify to himself a still 
 more objectionable manner than he had as yet 
 discovered, Miss Grant and I partook of the 
 soup and toyed with a slice of the pork, but 
 declined the pudding on the plea that the 
 excellent breakfast we had made had left us 
 
 F 2
 
 68 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 without appetite. The skyHght lay open, but 
 the atmosphere was nevertheless oppressive, 
 and I was not a little grateful that the brig 
 should be sailing along on a level keel ; for 
 though I was never sea-sick in my life I am 
 persuaded that, had the vessel's motion been 
 lively, the hot atmosphere of the cabin coupled 
 with the strong fumes of the repast would have 
 rendered me very uneasy. Broadwater was so 
 well pleased with his dinner that he suffered 
 the cabin-boy to stagger through the task of 
 waiting without giving him one injurious word ; 
 but the terrified concern of the lad satisfied 
 me that though the brig had sailed from the 
 Thames but a day or two before, he had in 
 that brief time undergone discipline enough to 
 make him heartily wish himself at home again 
 with his friends. 
 
 As I handed Miss Grant up the companion- 
 steps, she exclaimed : '' I fear you will have to 
 thank me for some uncomfortable experiences — 
 and yet think of me alone in this vessel ! " 
 
 ** Never trouble yourself about me, Miss 
 Grant," said I, '' 1 shall begin to enjoy myself 
 presently. Here am I face to face with an
 
 V. THE A'OYAGE BEGINS. 69 
 
 aspect of life quite worth examining, believe me. 
 One miQ^ht wish indeed that there were other 
 passengers, for Broadwater has the look of a 
 man in whom decorousness is only to be con- 
 trived by a combination of fares. But he shall 
 help to divert us yet ! " 
 
 1 returned to the cabin to get a deck-chair I 
 had purchased, together with a parcel of books, 
 and made her comfortable. But there was 
 nothing in literature to detain her eye or mine 
 just then. The breeze had freshened, yet it 
 blew a little before the beam, and the brig with 
 her port tacks aboard had just heel enough to 
 suggest speed by her posture. We w^ere haul- 
 ing out from the land that trended away to star- 
 board in streaks of dim green and white and 
 brown, with here and there a brilliant star-like 
 shining upon it from some object that sent back 
 the sunlight. About a quarter of a mile to 
 windward of us, was a large Indiaman, bound 
 as we were, and passing us, but slowly. There 
 were soldiers aboard her, and the line of the 
 forecastle and main-deck was spotted with bright 
 red uniforms ; whilst, from under the violet 
 twilight of the awning stretched over the poop-
 
 70 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 deck, you caught the glance of twinkHng lace 
 and metal buttons, and the fluttering coloured 
 drapery of ladies standing or walking. Her 
 large cabin-windows trembled back the shivering 
 lustre that rose to them off the flashing hurry of 
 waters. Her wake followed her like a narrow- 
 band of white satin, and as the dark blue curl at 
 the cutwater arched its luminous ridge into snow, 
 the leap of the froth to the afternoon splendour 
 resembled a scattering of gems, or the shattering 
 of a fragment of rainbow. That is the sort of 
 ship to make a voyage in, I thought to myself ; 
 but it would not have been kind to say so. Miss 
 Grant's ofaze was full of deliQ;ht and admiration. 
 She let me know that she had a sailor's eye for at- 
 mospheric effect when she bade me observe how 
 the white light of the canvas appeared to overflow 
 the boundaries of the gleaming spaces, and dis- 
 solve upon the blue beyond like the sheen from a 
 sky-line of snow-clad hills standing fair against 
 the liquid sapphire of the winter heavens. But 
 though the Indiaman was soon ahead of us we 
 were sailing, too, and there was comfort in 
 knowing it. Round as were the bows of the 
 Iron Crozvn I judged that she had the trick of
 
 V. THE VOYAGE BEGINS. 71 
 
 blowing along whenever the wind found her a 
 chance, and that her run to Rio might prove 
 nimbler than her shape, as she lay in the Pool, 
 had promised me. Thus we slipped onwards, 
 dImlnlshInQ: the land until It fell into blobs of 
 film and hovering streaks of blue ; and by sun- 
 down we might have been in the heart of one of 
 ocean's deepest solitudes but for three or four 
 orange-tinctured sail, like dashes of light in the 
 far distance, and but for the water our stem was 
 rending being of a hue as different from the 
 deep, dark, beautiful, pure blue of the fathom- 
 less surge as were old Broadwater's eyes from 
 those of Miss Aurelia.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 
 
 Had I embarked on this voyage despondently, 
 I believe I should have found a reason for 
 the gloom on my mind in a very extraordinary 
 incident that occurred on this the first night of 
 our departure from England. 
 
 Supper had been served at half-past five. 
 Broadwater thus spoke of this meal because it 
 was, as it still is, one of the perversities of the 
 forecastle parlance, so to entitle the hook-pot of 
 tea, the pieces of ship's bread, and the remains 
 of the contents of the noontide kid of beef or 
 pork, which form the last of the mariner's three 
 repasts. I had requested the captain to order 
 one of my fowls to be killed and cooked as a 
 provision against the oppressively substantial 
 fare of the cabin ; and though to be sure the
 
 CHAP. VI. AX IXXIDEXT IX THE CHAXXEL. 73 
 
 bird came to the table somewhat tough for the 
 want of keeping, and somewhat prickly with un- 
 plucked quills, it at least provided us with a 
 lighter entertainment than we should have 
 found in the cold leg of pork, in the dish of fried 
 slices of pudding, and in the liver and bacon 
 which the cabin-boy placed upon the table. A 
 great teapot was put before Broadwater, who 
 poured out cupfuls of a liquor black as ink ; 
 from the depths of w^hich, on stirring it, there 
 arose quite a little plantation of twigs and leaves. 
 He told us that there was milk enough on 
 board to last until to-morrow, after which we 
 must be satisfied to take our tea "neat," as he 
 called it. 
 
 '' Few vessels of the size of this brig carry 
 cows, I suppose ?" said I. 
 
 " Xo," he answered, ''nor goats neither. It's 
 astonishing that the art of feeding people on 
 board ship should have rose to what it is, con- 
 sidering how few^ vittles there are which ain't of 
 a perishable kind. They'll put up effigies to 
 chaps who write books, to play-actors, to folks 
 like politicians who get on for themselves and 
 don't do nobody else any good ; but if ever
 
 74 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 mortia! man In this here bloomin' world de- 
 sarved a statue it was the fellow who first 
 hit on the notion of steeping beef In brine to 
 keep It fit and sweet for sailors' use. Think of 
 being able to get when afloat — mind ye, miss, 
 I says afloat — such a dinner as we've had to- 
 day ! The mere sight of such food at sea — not 
 an ounce of salt In the whole blling neither — Is 
 enough to make a man think his eyes must 
 have gone wrong ! " and he lifted his hands and 
 gazed upwards w^Ith the air of a person over- 
 whelmed with astonishment. 
 
 At this early stage It was difficult to tell 
 whether he desired us to accept him as a 
 humorist. But it was not long before I dis- 
 covered that he was neither a wit nor a wag, 
 and that he was only comical when he had not 
 the least intention of being so. 
 
 Whilst we were at supper the mate came be- 
 low and took his seat quietly, saluting Miss 
 Grant and me with a bow. But for his hair I 
 must certainly have thought him one of the 
 handsomest men I had ever seen, now that I 
 could view him closely and observe the delicacy 
 of his lineaments. His woolly crop was how-
 
 VI. AX IXCIDEXT IX THE CHAXXEL. 75 
 
 ever fatal to him. It was a feature that neu- 
 trahzed all others, even when his head was 
 covered ; the effect of the exposure of the whole 
 growth fell little short of a shock. I tried to 
 engage him in conversation ; but he was very 
 reserved, answering merely in monosyllables 
 with a constant reference in his manner to old 
 Broadwater, whose presence I supposed kept 
 him quiet. Once or twice he glanced at ]\Iiss 
 Grant, but so swiftly it was scarcely possible 
 that he should be conscious he looked at her. 
 He despatched his meal quickly, rose, bowed to 
 us again, and went to his berth in the forward 
 part of the cabin. 
 
 " Is your mate a smart sailor ? " I asked. 
 
 ** There never was a smarter," answered 
 Broadwater. "See him aloft. He'll spring to 
 the yardarm from the slings, and '11 be jockey- 
 ing of it when the liveliest of the hands isn't 
 up with the futtock shrouds." 
 
 " Have you known him long ?" 
 
 "He was my mate last voyage," he replied, 
 
 ting the lid of the locker next to him and 
 pulling out a bottle of rum ; and then calling 
 for water he mixed himself as stout a nor'-
 
 76 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 wester as ever sailor put to his lips, though he 
 had already swallowed three large cups of tea. 
 
 '^ He has not the air of a seamen," said Miss 
 Grant. 
 
 "So little," I exclaimed, "that I am sur- 
 prised, captain, to hear you speak of him as 
 a taut hand." 
 
 *' Taut ? well, that's perhaps the word, sir. I 
 don't know that he's not almost as taut as me, 
 and in saying that I pay him as handsome a 
 compliment as one man could give to another : 
 for let me tell you, Mr. Musgrave, that you 
 might coast the whole of Great Britain and not 
 meet with a shipmaster who could hold a candle 
 to me in the art of managing sailors." 
 
 " Glad to hear it," said I, rising, not very well 
 pleased by the languishing glance he cast at the 
 bottle, as though debating whether to take 
 another sup or return the liquor to the locker. 
 
 The afternoon had been hot and blinding 
 with sunshine. The evening that now stole 
 down upon us from astern with a single jewel 
 glittering upon its brow, albeit the western sky 
 was still crimson, with lagoons of delicate green 
 amid the amber and rose and scarlet of the
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 77 
 
 light high clouds there, was delicious and tran- 
 quillizing, full of dewy softness and the balm of 
 the shadows which trail in the wake of a glar- 
 ing day. The radiance was so illusive that the 
 sea looked to go bare to its confines, and the 
 sense of solitude you got when you gazed over 
 the rail could not have been more complete 
 had the Iron Crown been floating deep in the 
 heart of the Pacific. 
 
 Miss Grant and I paced the deck, greatly 
 enjoying the coolness and repose of the night. 
 Our talk was chiefly about her early life, her 
 father and mother, Rio, Fraser, and the like. 
 It seems that on her mother's side she came of 
 a race of grandees, one of whom was an officer 
 under Don Pedro de Valdez when that Admiral 
 surrendered to Drake, and she said it was a 
 tradition in the family that he was the only man 
 aboard the Spaniard who exhibited any kind of 
 reluctance to being made a prisoner by Sir 
 Francis. Her mother took her to old Spain, as 
 she called it, when she was a child, but though 
 she met several relatives she could recollect 
 nothing of them beyond their haughty manners 
 and grandiose airs. Indeed, I gathered that
 
 78 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 her mother's noble connections accepted her 
 marriage as a blow to the family dignity. " And 
 yet my father," said Miss Grant, ''came of as 
 good a stock as any In Scotland. Pray, what 
 Spanish woman of title Is too good for a Scotch 
 gentleman of high descent ? " I ought to love 
 my mother's native country ; but she is poor and 
 has sunk so low that, until she can take her old 
 place in Europe again, the pretensions of her 
 ancient nobility must continue to be almost too 
 ridiculous to laugh at." 
 
 Whilst we walked and chatted the time in- 
 sensibly slipped away. Once Broadwater rolled 
 over to us puffing a pipe. He offered no 
 apology to Miss Grant for smoking in her 
 presence, though those were days when be- 
 haviour of this sort was considered a barbarous 
 Incivility to a lady. 
 
 " There is grog and biscuit to be had below," 
 he exclaimed, " if you or the lady has a mind 
 for a sup before turning in." 
 
 " Thank you, we require nothing more." 
 
 " The boys lock up at half-past nine," said he. 
 " but the cabin-light's left burning all night. 
 There's never no need for groping aboard of me.
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 79 
 
 What I says to my owner Is, treat your passengers 
 well and they'll stick to ye. Fvi not a man to be 
 scared by a ha'porth of ile. Tell 'ee, ]\Ir. ]^Ius- 
 grave, how to read a man's character : watch 
 him carve, sir ? There's some as '11 help ye as 
 thoueh when what they're sarvins: out is gfone 
 there "11 be nothing more left to eat on this 
 blooming airth. Others '11 act as though they 
 understood you was a man. That's my kind. 
 Aboard me everything's up to the knocker." 
 
 He uttered a loud unmeaning laugh that 
 instantly flavoured the atmosphere with the 
 odour of rum. 
 
 " We must consider ourselves very fortunate 
 to fall into such good hands," said I. "A man 
 of purple cheer, to use the language of the poet, 
 is a person quite to my liking." 
 
 His eyes were so small that it was impossible 
 to judge whether they were unsteady or not. 
 He seemed to look at me as if he suspected a 
 ' sarcasm in my words, and an objectionable mean- 
 ing in my employment of the word " purple " ; 
 he then with a flourish of the stem of his pipe 
 to his forehead walked over to the binnacle, and 
 I after blowing some clouds of smoke with many
 
 8o MAROONED. chap. 
 
 a long look around and up at the canvas, 
 knocked the ashes out of his bowl, gave some 
 directions to the boatswain, who, acting as 
 second mate, had charge of the deck, and went 
 below. 
 
 " He thinks of nothing but eating," said 
 Miss Grant. 
 
 '' I hope that may be all," I answered : then 
 checking some expression of dislike and mistrust 
 I was about to utter, I changed the subject by- 
 calling her attention to the lovely effect of the 
 moonlight upon the sails of the brig. By day- 
 light the vessel was the sheerest bit of common- 
 place ; but now that the magic pencils of the 
 moon were busy with her, every feature was 
 chastened, the homeliest and coarsest detail 
 softened by the rich clear glow into a fairy 
 delicacy of airy outline and silvered substance. 
 She floated clothed with beauty, and swam like 
 a sweet imagination through the shining air. 
 Her decks gleamed out with the whiteness of 
 the peeled almond : the black line of every seam 
 between the planks lay as sharp to the sight as 
 the ebon shadows of the rigging sliding to and 
 fro to the sleepy stirring of the vessel ; there
 
 VI. AN INXIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 8i 
 
 was weight enough In the draught of air to hold 
 the canvas motionless, and every hollow was 
 like the image of a sail carved in alabaster. 
 The boatswain stumped the weather-deck, and 
 his shadow at his feet was more keenly black 
 there than his figure against the sky. The 
 fellow at the wheel stood stirless, but for an 
 occasional movement of his arms, and you 
 would have thought It was the stars that ran as 
 they slipped up and down past him, so im- 
 perceptible was the curtseying of the brig. 
 The dew along the rail sparkled crisply, as 
 though, since moonrise, some secret fingers had 
 encrusted the line of bulwarks with eems. 
 Forward all was still ; save under the yawn ot 
 the fore-course I could distinguish the figure of 
 the look-out man stepping athwart the forecastle, 
 sometimes pausing to lean over the side to send 
 his gaze Into the pale distance ahead. There 
 was no orleam of llorht alonof the rano-e of the 
 starboard seaboard where the coast was. 
 
 "If this were to last," exclaimed Miss Grant, 
 " the voyage would be delightful In spite of the. 
 disagreeable obligation of having to take our 
 meals with the captain." 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 S2 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 '' Delightful, yes ; but too long I fear," said I. 
 '' We want wind, Miss Grant ; we need what 
 the shipbrokers term despatch. This moonlight, 
 this quiet sea, this gentle wind, the transforma- 
 tion of this old bucket into a fabric of marble 
 and diamonds and pearl, are enchanting indeed, 
 — but conditions fit only for pleasure-making. 
 You are in a hurry, and I shall not be reluctant 
 to see Rio heave into view either. Give me, 
 instead of the beauty of such a night as this, 
 the thunder of half a gale of wind blowing over 
 our quarter, a high green frothing sea chasing 
 us, that same moon up yonder whisking like a 
 silver round-shot from the edge of one dark 
 cloud to another, and the brig with a reef in her 
 fore-sail and the main-top-gallant sail set over 
 the double-reefed topsail hurling through an 
 acre of foam of her own making, with the white 
 seething and hissing smother boiling into her 
 wake that stretches to the very line of the 
 tumbling horizon ! " 
 
 " An excellent description, Mr. Musgrave, 
 and it is what we want as you say. You have 
 not forgotten your old calling. You talk easily 
 enough of reefs and sails."
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 83 
 
 "When," said I, ''a man has dipped his hand 
 into the tar-pot the stain of the stuff never 
 quits him. Once a sailor, always a sailor." 
 
 At this moment five bells were struck by 
 some one on the main deck. 
 
 " What time is that ? " she inquired. 
 
 *' Half-past ten," I answered. 
 
 " So late ! " she exclaimed ; " it is time to go 
 to bed. Good-night, Mr. Musgrave.'' 
 
 " Let me see you to your cabin," said I, and 
 down we w^ent. 
 
 The lamp had been dimmed spite of the 
 skipper's indifference to ha'porths of oil, but 
 there was light enough to see by. I was glad 
 to find the little bracket-lamps in our cabins 
 alight. I suppose it was a part of the boy's 
 duty to see to this, but there was really so little 
 to expect in the way of attention in a craft of 
 this kind that I was grateful for the most trifling 
 illustration of our being looked after. I stepped 
 into my cabin for a cheroot, not choosing to turn 
 my back on so fair a night yet a while. Slightly 
 as the brig swayed, the bulkheads and strong 
 fastenings creaked as though a score of rats 
 were worrying one another, and I guessed, 
 
 G 2
 
 84 ' MAROONED. chap. 
 
 unless I should turn In thoroughly sleepy, 
 these bothersome noises promised to keep me 
 awake all night. Cigar In mouth I walked the 
 deck for some time, finding a constant pleasure 
 in the moonlit scene, and greatly enjoying the 
 delicious hush that rested upon the vessel and 
 the ocean. After all, thought I, this is a voyage 
 to do me a great deal of good. It Is a complete 
 change ; there is no cold weather to be dreaded, 
 no Cape Horn, no Southern Ocean In June. 
 There should be some fun to be got out of old 
 Broadwater, though I do not like him. And 
 then I fell to thinking of Miss Aurelia. There 
 had been so much moonlight mixed up in our 
 oceanic Intercourse so far, that it seemed to me 
 as If I should never be able to cast my eyes 
 upon the planet without thinking of her.^ Well, 
 no woman could desire a lovelier fancy and 
 habit of association In a man's mind. My 
 humour took a poetic turn ; Byron's line — '' She 
 walks In beauty like the night," came Into my 
 head, along with Shelley's fine thought — 
 " Moonlight and music and feeling are one." 
 Here Is plenty of moonlight, thought I, but 
 even if I should call Miss Aurelia the music,
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 85 
 
 where is the feehng ? But what wonderful 
 eyes she has ! I mused : what spirit, power, hfe, 
 intelHgence ! She talks very finely too, by 
 George ! Fraser is her dear boy, and deserves 
 to be so, I don't doubt ; but the shape of his 
 head must have vastly changed since he was 
 my shipmate at sea, if he Is able to understand 
 one half of the fancies which take her. 
 
 Presently feeling somewhat lonesome, I 
 crossed the deck to where the boatswain was 
 quietly pacing. 
 
 ''A fine night," said I. 
 
 *' It is, sir, — lovely Indeed," he replied, coming 
 to a stand and touching his cap very civilly. 
 
 '' You are the second mate, I believe ? " 
 
 '' Second mate and bo'sun, sir." 
 
 " Pray do not stand, I will walk with you." 
 
 We started to pace the length of the quarter- 
 deck together. I particularly observed in him 
 a very respectful, quiet manner, the sort of 
 sailor-like civility one wanted to hear of in such 
 a ship as the /7^ou Crown. The moonshine 
 gushed so clearly that my companion's face 
 could not have been more visible had I viewed 
 it by daylight. He was a hearty-looking man
 
 86 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 of about five-and-forty, clean shaven save in a 
 streak of iron-grey whisker ; a real splicer in 
 aspect down to such minutiae as the hang of his 
 arms and the curl of his fino^ers as he walked. 
 
 ''Is this your first voyage with Captain 
 Broadwater, Mr. ?" 
 
 " Gordon's my name, sir — Zana Gordon. 
 Yes, this is my first voyage with Captain 
 Broadwater." 
 
 " I suppose he is reckoned a pretty smart 
 seaman ? " 
 
 " I don't know I'm sure, sir." 
 
 " The crew at least strike me as a lively lot. 
 They tumble about very briskly, a good sign in 
 men newly shipped. But of course most of 
 them will run when the brig arrives at Rio. 
 Jack has his peculiarities as have other 
 folks." 
 
 "He has a right to be peculiar, sir. His 
 life's a good deal out of the common ; little 
 understood, too, save by them who have to eat 
 and drink and jump aloft with him. And it 
 isn't enough that he's expected to work for 
 twenty-four hours in the day, and that he's got 
 to eat victuals which no man ashore who values
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 87 
 
 his dog would give it, unless it went mad and 
 had to be choked ; and that his labour's of a 
 sort ne'er a landsman would undertake, no, not 
 if instead of signing for three pounds a month 
 he ao^reed for a hundred. That isn't enouQ^h, I 
 say. It's what lies behind, sometimes deep, 
 and nearly always out of sight, that's the worst 
 part of all that's bad in the seafaring calling." 
 
 " You mean bullying, brutal treatment, 
 injurious language ? " He was silent. '' I 
 should understand you," said I. '' In coming 
 aboard this morning I found a bigger hint than 
 would have sufficed me in the faces of the 
 boat's crew. I was a sailor myself for three 
 years, and one doesn't want to serve longer 
 than that to make plain words of the looks of 
 seamen." 
 
 He still held his peace, but he had said 
 enouQ:h to let me know his silence was mere 
 wariness. When we got on to other topics he 
 was as talkative as I could desire. I found he 
 had been able seaman aboard the Indiaman I 
 had first gone to sea in, though he had left her 
 before I joined. She had been commanded in 
 his time by the same man who had her when I
 
 88 MAROONED. chap, 
 
 was a midshipman ; so here was a topic that was 
 enough to at once estabHsh a sort of bond 
 between us. 
 
 Whilst we were pacing the deck the man on 
 the look-out forward hailed my companion — as 
 he seemed to think. Neither of us caught 
 what he said, and Gordon hallo'd back. The 
 Tnan sang out again, but without making him- 
 self heard ; on which the boatswain went 
 forward to see what was wanted. He left me 
 standing near the wheel. There yet remained 
 half of my cheroot to smoke out. Six bells — 
 eleven o'clock — had been struck some ten minutes 
 before ; but the loveliness of the night still 
 detained me, and I was in no mood yet to 
 exchange the warm sweetness of the ocean 
 night-breeze for the atmosphere of my cabin. 
 On a sudden the man who was steering started 
 violently, let go the wheel, and ran to the 
 vessel's side, where he hung in a strained 
 listening posture, with one hand to his ear. I 
 hastily crossed the deck, wondering what on 
 earth he could have heard to cause him to start 
 so wildly, and above all to desert his post at the 
 helm as though he had gone out of his mind.
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 89 
 
 The moonshine streamed full upon him, and the 
 complexion of that light, combined with his 
 extreme pallor, made the face he slowly turned 
 upon me ghastlier than any dead man's for the 
 very life that worked with a sort of grin in it. 
 
 '' Did you hear him ? " he inquired in the 
 low tremulous voice of a man newly recovered 
 from a faint. 
 
 ''Hear whom?" I answered, staring my 
 hardest into the distance, misty with the 
 radiance. 
 
 " Something away yonder called me ! " said 
 he, still speaking in the same voice, weak with 
 terror and astonishment. 
 
 *'You!" I exclaimed; ''called you! But 
 there's nothing there, man — nothing in sight, 
 anyway. What should there be then for a 
 human voice to sound from ? " 
 
 " Hark ! There again ! " he cried, with 
 another violent start as though he had been 
 electrified. I had heard nothing. 
 
 " What is your name ? " I asked. 
 
 "Jesse Cooper, sir," he responded, trembling 
 pitifully. 
 
 I had begun to think that the fellow was ill,
 
 90 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 or that he had suddenly gone wrong In his 
 head, when he Hfted his hand as if to motion 
 silence, and then I certainly did seem to hear a 
 faint sound coming from God knows where, that 
 might have passed for a feeble human cry, 
 though it syllabled nothing that was intelligible 
 to my ears. No doubt it was no more than the 
 sheer imagination in me wrought on by some 
 delicate murmur of wind aloft, or by the stir 
 of one rope lying in the chafe of another, or by 
 the jerk of a sheet to the gentle strain of the 
 sail, or the creak of parrel or truss. But for the 
 moment I was hardly less startled than the man 
 himself. 
 
 "Very extraordinary!" I said. 
 
 " You heard it, sir ? " he cried, looking 
 wildly at me. 
 
 " I certainly heard something confoundedly 
 like a human voice hailing," I answered, 
 peering with all my eyes at the sea, as 
 though I must certainly see something there 
 If I stared long enough. 
 
 " O my God ! O my God ! " he groaned. 
 *'You heard it too, sir! It's no fancy then. 
 I'm called, and must go. It was father's
 
 VI. AN INXIDEXT IN THE CHANNEL. 91 
 
 voice. He was drowned at sea, and three 
 years afterwards called my brother, who fell 
 from aloft and was killed the same night. 
 And now he's called me I " 
 
 I saw how it was, and felt very sorry that 
 I should have owned I heard the sound, for 
 I was now persuaded it was pure fancy on my 
 part, that is to say, pure fancy in taking the 
 noise I had heard to be a human voice : 
 though by my owning I had caught the note, 
 be it what it would, I was like to drive the 
 poor superstitious creature clean out of his 
 mind. 
 
 '' The brig will be aback in another 
 minute," said I. " Catch hold of the wheel, 
 man. There's nothing in all this — nothing 
 but nerves. Dead men can't call out — you 
 ought to know that! If they could there'd 
 be nothing but voices hailing the world day 
 and night." 
 
 He grasped the wheel without answering 
 m.e, and brought the brig to her course. 
 Just then the boatswain came aft. 
 
 " Nothing wrong forward, I hope ! " said I. 
 
 '' Xo, sir. The look-out called to a mate
 
 92 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 for a chew of tobacco, and thought, when I 
 answered, that I was the man he had sung 
 out to." 
 
 "Glad it's no worse," said I. "We've had 
 a bit of a scare aft here, — all happening in 
 a minute — too odd of its kind to require im- 
 proving by anything of the same sort forward,' 
 and then I told him what had happened. 
 
 We stood in the shadow cast by the main- 
 rigging as we conversed. He cast a glance 
 in the direction of the wheel, and said, in a 
 voice made up of pity and contempt : 
 
 " There's always sailors knocking about 
 with notions of that kind. I've seen a man 
 plump down upon his knees and pray in a 
 loud voice all because he caught sight of a 
 compreesant a-burning at the yard-arm. That 
 there Cooper struck me, on first setting eyes 
 on him, as having a queerish look in his face, j 
 If there was more learninsf in forecastles 
 there'd be a deal less of these here fanciful 
 gallivantins. Fancy a chap supposing that 
 his father, who was drownded t'other side o' 
 Cape Horn, could hail him after all these 
 years out o' the English Channel ! "
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 93 
 
 " Yet wiser men than this same Cooper, 
 Mr. Gordon, hold and stoutly cling to stranger 
 beliefs than the midnight halloing^ of drowned 
 men!"' said I, hammering at a flint for a 
 light for my fragment of cigar. ''If any 
 mortal beinof has a rieht to believe in 
 ghosts, it should be the sailor. Look aloft, 
 j\Ir. Gordon!" — he turned up his weather- 
 beaten face — " i\Iark how spectrally those 
 sails show out to the moonliorht. What, to 
 a fanciful eye, should the flitting of the 
 shadows up there to the swaying of the 
 masts signify but the pinions of spirits hover- 
 ing over those glimmering heights ? and what, 
 to the imaginative ear, should the mutterings 
 of the breeze in the shrouds mean but the dark 
 and secret whispered conversation of beings 
 as little like you or me, Mr. Gordon, as the 
 moon is like the sun ? Again, look over the 
 side — it is all wide, white silence : mere sea 
 and moonshine to you and me, but to the 
 lonely distempered vision the fittest canvas 
 the wide world over for the magic lantern ot 
 the mind to cast its imaginations on." 
 
 He tilted the peak of his cap on to his
 
 94 
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 nose as he scratched the back of his head, 
 and said : '' Well, if a man's weak enough 
 to believe in ghosts, I don't doubt he'd get 
 more ideas about them out of such a night 
 as this upon the ocean than maybe he'd 
 collect out of the most crowded of grave- 
 yards ashore. But supposing such things as 
 sperrits to be, who's going to make me believe 
 they ha'n't got too much sense to choose the 
 sea to knock about in ? A spectre's right 
 enough in an old country house and the 
 likes of them places ashore ; for he's not 
 only got a roof over his head and a fire to 
 warm himself at when the weather draws 
 up cold, but the pick of the best room to 
 lay in, and a larder to help himself from — 
 if so be a sperrit ever gets hungry. But 
 what does a ghost do at sea ? If he's a land 
 ghost he'll stop ashore ; and is it imaginable, 
 d'ye think, sir, that if he's the ghost of a 
 sailor he'd retarn, without being forced, to 
 the life he was bound to hate when he was 
 flesh and blood, and keep company, of his 
 own accord, with such people as skippers 
 and mates, and endure again the cold and
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 95 
 
 wet that 'ud send him from the deck or from 
 aloft streaming Hke a soaked rag to his thin 
 blanket and leakinor bunk .'^ " He shook his 
 
 CD 
 
 head in a way that showed him fully convinced 
 by his own reasoning. 
 
 " Isn't that a sail out yonder?" I exclaimed, 
 at that instant catching sight of some tiny 
 object gleaming like a faint dash of light on 
 the sea-line, and doubting for a moment 
 whether it was a star or a ship's canvas or 
 the play of white water. 
 
 He looked, and said, "Yes, sir; a yacht, 
 I allow, by the sheen of her sails." 
 
 It was as though a paring of pearl reflected 
 the moonlight, so exceedingly dainty and 
 delicate was the lustre of the fabric against 
 the dark obscure of the horizon. I noticed 
 however, whilst I kept my eye fastened upon 
 it, that it moved with a velocity quite meteoric 
 in its way, for when I had first descried it, 
 it showed out a hand's-breadth forward of 
 the foremost mainshroud, whilst before I 
 could have counted ten it had slided midway 
 to the forerigging. 
 
 I glanced aft. '^Why, Mr. Gordon," I
 
 g6 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 said, "the wheel's deserted; the brig's coming 
 round ! " 
 
 He sprang to the helm, and ground at 
 the spokes till the tiller-chains rattled again, 
 meanwhile looking right and left. 
 
 ''Where's Cooper, sir?" he cried; "he 
 hasn't gone forward. I'll swear he never 
 passed us ; he wouldn't quit the helm unless 
 he was mad ! " 
 
 There was a grating abaft the wheel ; I 
 sprang on to it and strained my sight at the 
 wake astern. The moon was westering and 
 looking over our foretopsail yard-arm, and 
 her light was very clear and broad. I could 
 see nothing. The wake went away slowdy 
 in small black holes and little seething clouds, 
 with here and there a faint flash of green 
 light, as though a strange fish with a green 
 eye floated up to the surface to take a view 
 of us now and again. 
 
 "He is overboard — drownded hisself ! " 
 cried the boatswain. " Man overboard ! " he 
 roared. "Lay aft the watch! lively, or ye'll 
 be too late ! " and he fell to grinding at the 
 wheel again to steady it.
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 97 
 
 The brig came round slowly. His cry was 
 electrical in its effect. I had seen nothing 
 stirring save the man on the look-out, and 
 now in an instant the planks re-echoed the 
 thumping and slapping of the booted or 
 naked feet of the watch tumbling aft as if 
 for their lives. They were busy with the 
 boat, clearing away the falls and casting off 
 the gripes, when up came old Broadwater. 
 
 *' What's the matter? what's the matter?" 
 he bawled. 
 
 " Man overboard, sir ! " shouted the boat- 
 swain. 
 
 " Where is he ? where is he ? Anybody 
 see him ? " roared the skipper, springing with 
 his oval shanks on to the grating alongside 
 me. 
 
 " I have been looking, but can make out no 
 signs of him," I answered. 
 
 "How long has he been overboard?" he 
 shouted. 
 
 " Three or four minutes, I expect," answered 
 the boatswain. 
 
 "How did he git there?" he bellowed; 
 "was he knocked overboard ?" 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 "Good God!" I cried, wild to think of 
 the precious time the old fool was losing by 
 these questions, "there's a man overboard, 
 captain, and he must drown if you don't in- 
 stantly seek him, if indeed he's still afloat." 
 
 " Keep all fast with the boat," he vociferated ; 
 "if he's only been overboard three or four 
 minutes he ought to be visible if he's on the 
 surface, and since he ain't it's a proof he's under." 
 
 " It's murder ! " said an angry voice amongst 
 the men standing near the davits. 
 
 Just then the mate sprang through the 
 companion. 
 
 " Who was it said it's murder ? " shouted 
 Broadwater, half suffocated with passion. "Mr. 
 Bothwell, find out the man ! find out the man ! 
 I must know who it is ! " 
 
 " Captain Broadwater," I exclaimed, " the 
 poor fellow has only been overboard a few j 
 minutes, and you really — " 
 
 " Mind your own blasted business, sir," he 
 shouted in such a raging way that I have no 
 pen to portray it with. " Find me the man 
 who said it's murder, Mr. Bothwell ! Find me 
 that man, sir ! "
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 99 
 
 Disgusted by the old fellow's insolence and 
 temper, and sickened by his indifference to 
 human life, I walked a little way forward clear 
 of the men, and stood leaninQ^ ao^ainst the rail 
 with my arms folded waiting for what was next 
 to happen. The mate thrust in lithe as steel 
 amongst the sailors, flashing his eyes first into 
 one then into another face, whilst with shrill' 
 imperious tones which came back in echoes 
 from the hollows of the canvas he demanded 
 to know who had spoken the words. Broad- 
 water, dismountino^ from the o-ratino^, danced 
 in a very delirium of wrath in and out among 
 the seamen, looking for all the world in the 
 transfiguring light of the moon like a gigantic 
 crab masquerading in man's attire, whilst he 
 whipped out at the top of his pipes with all sorts 
 of menaces, threatening I know not what unless 
 the man who had said it was murder was named 
 or confessed himself. The excitement grew, 
 the hubbub increased. Oaths were so plentiful, 
 I could only earnestly hope that if Miss Grant 
 were not asleep she was out of hearing. I 
 feared it would come to a fight, and expected 
 everv moment to witness the Q-leam of a knife 
 
 H 2
 
 roD MAROONED. chap.. 
 
 flourished In the air. The men, however, would 
 not tell who it was that had spoken the words. 
 Some blows were exchanged, and presently the 
 sailors came staggering my way, driven and 
 beaten along by Broadwater and his mate. 
 
 " Forward with ye ! Forward with ye ! " 
 roared the old fellow, flourishing his arms like a 
 windmill, whilst the mate shoved and pushed 
 as a drover would thrust a congregation of 
 irresolute or defiant calves. It would have 
 struck a landsman as incredible that the men 
 should have suffered themselves to be thus 
 driven. They were six to two, yet they offered 
 no resistance. But the habit of discipline is 
 strong in the sailor, and the quarter-deck Is 
 sacred ground. In no man who has command 
 of his fellow-beings is there vested such des- 
 potic powers as in the master of a ship. The 
 spirit of mutiny will skulk long ere it dare 
 show its face. There is no doubt the men 
 would have gone forward quietly enough ; but 
 Broadwater's and his mate's blood was up, and 
 the wild and wretched business did not end 
 until the men had been driven forward of the 
 mainmast. Blowing and gasping, though still
 
 VI. AN INCIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. loi 
 
 flourishing his hands, Broadwater came to a 
 stand, his face so crimsoned by his exertions 
 that he looked Hke a mulatto In the moonlight. 
 
 '* Now see here," he said, sputtering out the 
 words In wheezy accents, for he was too ex- 
 hausted to roar, ''ontll the name of the man 
 who spoke them words is given to me, you're 
 on bread and water ! Mind that ! One of you 
 it was, and I must know who ; and If bread and 
 water don't sarve, I'll stop 'em both, I'll stop 
 'em both ! Hunger '11 make a mad beast rational. 
 So now you know what ye've got to expect." 
 
 With this he walked aft, followed by his 
 mate. By this time I had had enough of the 
 deck, and was sick, grieved, and deeply w^orrled. 
 Broadwater's insulting expression stuck in my 
 gorge, and I made up my mind to have a short 
 conversation with him next morning on the 
 subject. It was depressing beyond words, too, 
 to think that the unhappy man, who beyond 
 question had dropped silently overboard whilst 
 the boatswain and I conversed forwards, may 
 have perished for the want of a boat nimbly 
 sent to seek him. One of the crew had called 
 it murder, and that would be the universal
 
 io2 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 feeling of the forecastle I was sure. Broadwater 
 was marching to and fro near the wheel, with a 
 lurch in his gait that satisfied me he must have 
 gone to bed pretty well primed. He was talking 
 vehemently to the boatswain, who still held the 
 wheel. The mate overhung the rail, gazing 
 astern. I went below unnoticed by them, and 
 had opened the door of my cabin when I heard 
 my name called. I turned and saw Miss Grant 
 standing in her doorway robed in a pink dress- 
 ing-gown. Her dark eyes flashed back the 
 light of the lamp in my berth, and with them 
 and her pale face and coronal of fair hair and 
 commanding posture she would, attired as she 
 w^as, have nobly filled the canvas of a painter as 
 the Muse of Tragedy. 
 
 '' What was the cause of that great commotion 
 on deck just now ? " she inquired, without the 
 least exhibition of alarm or nervousness. 
 
 '' I had hoped that you would have been 
 peacefully sleeping. Miss Grant. A fellow w^ho 
 was at the wheel fell crazy, and quietly slipped 
 himself overboard. He was missed, and the 
 alarm given. Hence the hurried tread over- 
 head which disturbed you."
 
 VI. AN INXIDENT IN THE CHANNEL. 103 
 
 ** Was he saved ? " 
 
 "No. Broadwater arrived rather the worse 
 for Hquor, lost his temper, and prohibited the 
 men from lowering the boat. It is all verv sad, 
 and I would rather it had happened on the last 
 instead of the first night of our voyage. But I 
 have told you the worst. And do you know, 
 Miss Grant, that it is past midnight ? " 
 
 She saw that I did not want to prolong my 
 talk just then. Indeed I was secretly much ex- 
 cited, much perturbed, vexed, and pained, and 
 feared that my speech would betray my anxiety 
 and worry her. She listened a little, and ex- 
 claimed, " Everything seems quiet now : is it 
 still a fine night ? " 
 
 "As lovely as when you left it," I answered. 
 
 She inclined her head and closed her door, 
 and without further ado I tumbled into my bunk, 
 though not to sleep for a long while.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 
 
 I WAS awakened early by the scrubbing- 
 brushes of the men overhead washing down the 
 decks. The movement of the Httle ship was 
 tolerably lively, insomuch that on quitting my 
 bunk I had som.e difficulty for a few minutes in 
 keeping my legs, nor was it hard to tell, by the 
 dim humming noise that seemed to tremble 
 through the fabric like the vibration in a harp- 
 string after it has been tw^anged, that it was 
 blowing a fresh breeze of wind. I was soon 
 dressed, and on gaining the deck found the brig 
 storming along with her royals furled and her 
 trysail-boom well on the quarter. A high sea 
 chased us, and but for the wind being abaft the 
 beam we must have found no little spite in the 
 weight of the sudden gusts and brisk squalls
 
 CH. vii. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 105 
 
 which distended our canvas until the sheets 
 groaned again to the strain. The heavens were 
 covered with large white clouds, which rolled 
 along very stately and solemnly, with a brown- 
 ish scud speeding under them like smoke ; but 
 there were everywhere great breaks of clear 
 blue sky of the true summer tint of the English 
 Channel. The sea was as grand as one could 
 wish it with flying shadow and leaping dazzle — 
 blue ridges with a mile-long head of foam, bits 
 of rainbow in the showering of spray, weltering 
 spaces of violet gloom cast by the clouds and 
 the swift glory that chased them. The brig 
 was buzzing through it as if, to use the sailor's 
 phrase, she had the scent at last. She rose to 
 the head of a sea in a boilino- smother, then 
 sank all very solemnly with a leeward heel that 
 seemed to bring the top-gallant rail within 
 arm's-reach of the hissing yeast that w^ent wildly 
 swirling past, and out of which the rush of wind 
 from under the foot of the mainsail would tear 
 up bucketfuls of blobs and flakes, and send them 
 scattering with a scream through the air with 
 something of the pearly glint of the flying-fish 
 in their flight.
 
 io6 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 My friend, INIr. Zana Gordon, had once 
 again charge of the deck. Bucket In hand, 
 with trousers turned above the knee, he 
 swirled the sparkhng green water that w^as 
 handed to him alonof the deck, whilst the men 
 scrubbed with their brushes. Recollecting that 
 these were the fellows who were to be disciplined 
 by a diet of bread and water into telling the 
 captain which of them it was who had used the 
 words that had enraged him, I ran my eye from 
 one to another of them with a little attention, 
 but observed nothing particular, unless It were 
 a sort of sullenness in their deliberate manner 
 of handling their scrubbing-brushes, which 
 after all might have been a mere imagination on 
 my part. 
 
 It w^as a lively enough scene in Its way, and 
 brought back old memories to me. The smoke 
 of the newly-lighted galley-fire blew swiftly and 
 merrily from the chimney of the caboose Into 
 the sea, and you noticed the farm-yard noise 
 about of the crowing of cocks and the grunting 
 of pigs. There w^as but one vessel in sight, a 
 large topsail schooner heading to cross under 
 our stern for a course to some French port.
 
 VII. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 107 
 
 The sea took her fair abeam, and she rolled so 
 heavily that she looked like a great fan violently 
 swayed by some Titanic hand hidden beneath 
 the surface of the water. Well, it w^as just the 
 sort of w^eather I had told Miss Grant yesterday 
 that w^e needed. A short spell of it would 
 drive us clear of soundings, and I knew It w^ould 
 make one feel as though the voyage was to 
 have an end w^hen one should find the course set 
 fair by the binnacle compass for South America. 
 The boatswain saluted me w^Ith a flourish of a 
 tarry thumb to his forehead, but he was too full 
 of business to talk. After I had been on deck 
 for about a quarter of an hour, by which time 
 the scrubbing was over, and the seamen were 
 smacking the planks w^Ith a swab or tw^o, Broad- 
 water came up through the companion-hatch, 
 where he stood a while holding on, and blinking 
 around him as though not yet w^ide awake. 
 Then going to the wheel he brought his eyes in 
 a squint upon the compass, and after a survey 
 of the fabric aloft, and a slow gaze round the 
 sea, he called out to me, " Good morning, sir. 
 Tow rope's in hand at last, I allow. No hint 
 of kedging in this here movement."
 
 io8 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 I inclined my head coldly and distantly to him, 
 and then suspecting that any kind of sub-acid 
 or chilly posture would be entirely lost upon 
 such an intelligence as his, I resolved to deal 
 with him in a way that should at least be 
 intelligible. 
 
 " I wish to speak a word with you, Captain 
 Broadwater," I called out. 
 
 He looked at me a moment as though he 
 feared his dignity and importance would suffer 
 by having to go to me, and then after a half 
 glance at the fellow at the wheel with a slow 
 pulling down of his nose with his fore-finger and 
 thumb, a trick that seemed to help him to arrive 
 at a conclusion, he came to where I stood, but 
 very leisurely, appearing the while to think 
 of nothing but the appearance of the deck and 
 the movements of the men swabbing. 
 
 ''Well, Mr. Musgrave," he exclaimed, ''what 
 is it, sir ? Slept pretty comfortable, I hope ? 
 Nothing the lady can find to complain about,- 1 
 trust ? " 
 
 "Sir," said I, "you were extremely rude and 
 offensive to me last night. You are captain of 
 this ship, and I am a passenger who has paid
 
 VII. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 109 
 
 for certain rights — civility from you amongst 
 the rest — which I intend to claim ; and if you 
 do not concede me every tittle of what I have 
 parted with my money to obtain. I will make it 
 so hot for you on my return to England that 
 you shall wish yourself hanged ere you ever set 
 eyes on me. And now, sir," I continued, with 
 the sternest face I could contrive to put on, 
 though my gravity was not a little staggered 
 by the ludicrous expression of bewilderment 
 that overspread his singular countenance, " I 
 insist upon your apologizing to me at once, 
 Captain Guy Broadwater, for the insolent 
 manner in which you addressed me last 
 night." 
 
 He cast his little eyes from the deck to the 
 sky and back again, frow^ned, scratched his head, 
 and by other signs seemed to wish me to sup- 
 pose that he was in an agony of thought. Then, 
 with an inimitable air of being all abroad, he 
 pointed with his forefinger to his waistcoat, and 
 said, '' Me ! me insult you ! You're a-dreaming, 
 Mr. Musgrave." 
 
 ''No dream at all, sir," said I ; "you were 
 confoundedly insolent to me, and ruder even in
 
 no MAROONED. chap. 
 
 your manner than In your speech, and I de- 
 mand an apology." 
 
 Again he looked up at the sky and down at 
 the deck, as though the effort to recollect what 
 had passed caused him acute suffering. 
 
 ** What did I say ? " he suddenly asked. 
 
 I told him. 
 
 ''Well, Mr. Musgrave," said he, "you're a 
 gentleman, and I should be sorry for to swear 
 that I never spoke them words, seeing that you 
 tell me I did. But I can assure you, sir, on my 
 honour as master of this here Iron Crown, that 
 I have no recollection of using the term you 
 mention. If I did, why then I 'pologize, and 
 no man can do more." 
 
 On hearing this I bowed coldly and walked 
 aft, congratulating myself upon my resolution, 
 for I believed I had made him understand he 
 would have to be very cautious henceforth in 
 his dealings with me, and I had also got to see 
 that the man, like all other bullies, was very 
 white-livered at bottom. There was Indeed 
 danger that a person of this nature would ex- 
 tend something of the treatment he exhibited to 
 his crew to Miss Grant and me ; and unless I
 
 VII. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. iii 
 
 asserted myself promptly it might end, through 
 a natural aversion on my part from any kind of 
 worry or annoyance, to my insensibly submitting 
 to his rough usage, which of course he would 
 accentuate in proportion as I yielded, until my 
 life on board might become as uneasy as if I 
 had been one of the crew. This is a feature of 
 a voyage absolutely impossible in these days, 
 but in my time it was a condition (in small pas- 
 senger vessels, of course) as familiar as the 
 coarseness of the food and the gloom and 
 discomforts of the cabin. 
 
 I kept my back on the quarter-deck for a 
 little, whilst I stood watching the sparkling race 
 of froth hurling from under the shadow of our 
 counter to the creamy summit of the green surge 
 chasing us, during which I could hear the old 
 fellow calling to the seamen in such a tone as 
 few men would think ht to adopt towards a dog. 
 If it was convenient to him to forget his insult- 
 ing manner to me, it was plain that whatever 
 else he chose to remember was very present to 
 his mind. For how long a period the men who 
 formed the starboard watch would consent to 
 the discipline of bread and water it was hard to
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 conjecture ; though indeed the sailor of that 
 period could scarcely suffer a very severe 
 hardship in the deprivation of lumps of meat 
 out of which, whether raw or cooked, the 
 mariner beguiled the tedium of the voyage by 
 manufacturing snuff-boxes for his grandfather, 
 work-boxes for his sweetheart, and tobacco- 
 boxes for himself. 
 
 Miss Grant did not leave her cabin till break- 
 fast was upon the table. Broadwater, who was 
 seated when she arrived, got up and distorted 
 his figure with a bow, whilst he asked her, w^ith 
 much such a pleasant face as he wore when I 
 first made his acquaintance, what sort of a night 
 she had passed, and if the brig's tumblefication 
 troubled her much. This stroke of politeness 
 was meant as much for me as for her. After 
 the exchange of a few common-places about the 
 weather and so forth. Miss Grant said to the 
 captain, '' Were they not able to save the poor 
 fellow who fell overboard last nio^ht ? " 
 
 " No, mum," he answered, with a half look 
 from me to a lump of sausage which he held 
 aloft on a fork ; " the long and short of it's this. 
 The man was in the water some minutes afore
 
 VII. BOTH WELL, CHIEF MATE. 113 
 
 the alarm was given. The surface lay clear 
 under the moon, and had he been showing 
 there was enough of us looking for some one 
 to see him. He meant to drown hisself, and 
 he did it." 
 
 '* But apart from the chance," said I, "of 
 rescuing him as a mere matter of humanity, 
 would not his loss, by weakening your working 
 strength, make you anxious to be sure that he 
 was not to be recovered ? " 
 
 '' There was no signs of him, sir," he answered 
 doggedly. " I don't want to lose no men if I 
 can help it ; but if a chap chooses to slip over- 
 board so quietly that no one hears him touch 
 the water, what's to be done ? " 
 
 " But you didn't know when you first came on 
 deck that he //c?<:/ drowned himself," said I. 
 
 " No," he answered, " but didn't I act as if I 
 did ? which means that Fm one of those men 
 who don't need to know a thing to understand it." 
 
 I turned to ]\Iiss Grant, and related the 
 strange story of the preceding night, whilst 
 Broadwater worked away at his breakfast with 
 both hands, and masticated with such energy as 
 to apparently hold him deaf. 
 
 VOL. L I
 
 1 14 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 '' Strange," she exclaimed, '' that you should 
 have thouQfht vou heard the voice that called 
 him. Of course it was fancy, but it is dreadful 
 to think how even a little imagination may 
 overpower the reason." 
 
 " There was everything to help the imagin- 
 ation," said I : '' the silence upon the vessel and 
 upon the ocean — the wild, straining look in the 
 man's eyes with the sparkle of moonlight in 
 them as he turned them upon me, full, as I can 
 now see, with the anguish of madness — and then 
 the misty silvery distance towards which he 
 bent his ear with his hand to it. I believe had 
 he told me there was a phantom out there, and 
 pointed to it, I should have seen sometJiing, if 
 not the apparition he himself beheld." 
 
 Presently, after a prodigious meal, Broadwater 
 arose and left the cabin. 
 
 " Why did not he attempt to save the man ? " 
 Miss Grant said. 
 
 '' I believe the fellow when he first came on 
 deck was still muddled with the fumes of the 
 liquor he had swallowed, and barely understood 
 what had happened or knew what he was 
 about." And then I told her how he had in
 
 vii. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 115 
 
 suited me, and how a litde while before I had 
 obliged him to apologize. My mere telling her 
 this thing touched the spirit In her. The look 
 of her as she listened to me made you feel that 
 here was a woman to fill any man w^ho should 
 vex her with the feelings of a dog. Before we 
 quitted the table, the mate arrived to get his 
 breakfast. He bowed to us quietly as before, 
 seated himself without speaking, and fell to 
 his meal with great soberness and civility of 
 demeanour. It seemed hard to reconcile his 
 subdued bearing, which seemed by Its air to be 
 habitual to him, with his fierce and passionate 
 treatment of the men, and particularly his des- 
 perate and raging behaviour of the previous 
 night. Now that the captain w^as away I hoped 
 to be able to draw him into conversation, and 
 began by saying that If this breeze lasted we 
 might look for a run of two hundred and fifty 
 knots in the twenty-four hours. 
 
 " Quite that, sir," he answered. 
 
 " That was a sorry business last night, Mr. 
 Bothwell. If the men forward are superstitious, 
 they will not like it." 
 
 *' They won't like their company being weak- 
 
 I 2
 
 ii6 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 ened you mean, sir ? " lifting his gaze from his 
 plate and eying me steadily for a moment. 
 
 I thought to myself, as I glanced at his woolly 
 head, his handsome features and dark eyes, which 
 when they fell from my face rolled In a hundred 
 nimble glances, fastening upon nothing, and yet 
 seeing everything as you would say, " Lord, 
 what a corsair this rogue would make in the 
 hands of a Byron or a Michael Scott ! " 
 
 " No," said I ; "I mean they won't like 
 Captain Death boarding their craft almost be- 
 fore the anchor they have broken out has dried 
 at the cathead." 
 
 His swift glance darted from me to Miss 
 Grant, and then with a smile that exhibited a 
 set of fine, even white teeth, the whiter for his 
 dark moustache, he said. In an almost effeminate 
 way, '' Oh, sir, we must not trouble ourselves 
 about what the sailors forward think." 
 
 ''Why not?" asked Miss Grant quickly. 
 *' Are they not men like you and Captain 
 Broadwater ? You would be unable to sail this 
 ship without them. A master on land dare not 
 treat his men-servants as captains at sea treat 
 their crews."
 
 VII. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 117 
 
 He answered softly, " No, madam, because no 
 doubt men-servants would give notice and seek 
 another situation." 
 
 " Do you believe it, sir ? " she exclaimed, 
 flushing and gazing at him irefully ; '' Indeed 
 
 you would find they would not rest there " 
 
 She checked herself, and added laughingly, and 
 looking at me, " I have not a very high opinion, 
 Mr. Musgrave, of the spirit and courage of 
 lackeys and footmen, but I truly believe that if 
 they were treated by their masters as sailors are 
 by their commanders there would be a great 
 many mysterious disappearances happening 
 amongst the nobility and gentry." 
 
 '' I am always glad, madam," said the mate, 
 showing his teeth again, *'to hear the ladies 
 championing poor Jack. He has very few 
 friends, very few friends." 
 
 He shook his head without any suggestion 
 of sarcasm about him, and the gesture seemed 
 to me to make his eyes shine as if they had been 
 formed of some black liquid with a gleam upon 
 it that danced to the rippling of their movement. 
 
 "How long have you been at sea .'^ " I asked 
 bluntly.
 
 ii8 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 *' Ten years, sir." 
 
 *' Humph ! " I exclaimed, " a good deal of 
 hard weather and knocking about may be packed 
 into ten years. Apparently you are of Captain 
 Broadwater's mind, that the sailor moves for- 
 ward the better for being kicked." 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 " I have heard," said I, addressing Miss 
 Grant, '' of captains whose hatred of the sailors 
 serving under them was really phenomenal. 
 I remember being told of the commander of a 
 ship that he could never bring himself to offer 
 one of his seamen anything with his hand, but 
 that he would put it down upon the deck and 
 kic^ it at him. By the way," I continued, 
 turning upon the mate again, '' what'll be the 
 upshot of this trouble with the starboard 
 watch ? The men are not likely to peach upon 
 their messmate, and if the man who used the 
 words won't confess himself, what's to follow ? 
 The fellows will not surely put up for a whole 
 voyage with nothing to eat and drink but ship's 
 bread — bad enough, I dare say — and a draught 
 from the scuttle-butt ? " 
 
 Before he could reply, Miss Grant said
 
 VII. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 119 
 
 quickly, *' To what do you refer, Mr. Mus- 
 grave ? " 
 
 "Why," I answered, ''last night on the 
 captain refusing to send a boat on the chance of 
 picking up the man who had gone overboard, 
 one of the group of fellows who were at the 
 davits exclaimed, ' It's murder ! ' and the whole 
 of the watch are not to be allowed any other 
 provisions but biscuit until the man who used 
 the words is discovered." 
 
 ''He is discovered," said the mate almost 
 blandly. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " I exclaimed, " how, pray ? " 
 
 "He came to me about twenty minutes ago, 
 and said that as he did not choose his mess- 
 mates should suffer for what he had done, he 
 would own he was the man who cried out, ' It's 
 murder ! ' " 
 
 " He should be pardoned for his honesty," 
 exclaimed Miss Grant. " I hope the captain 
 will let the matter rest. I will ask him to 
 forgive the poor fellow." 
 
 The mate softly wiped his moustache, rose, 
 bowed, and went on deck. 
 
 " One should say," said I, "that there are the-
 
 I20 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 seeds of a startling romance in that chap ; but I 
 fear that it is nothing but the vilest sea-going 
 commonplace made a little odd by good looks 
 and Hottentot wool." 
 
 '' I agree with you," she answered ; "he is 
 ev^en more colourless than his captain ; yet 
 prosaic as they both are, they are equal to 
 creating a very great deal of trouble ; and do 
 you know, Mr. Musgrave," she said, suddenly 
 and even vehemently, " I am extremely sorry 
 that we ever took berths in this ship." 
 
 '' Oh, but it is a little early to be anxious," 
 said I cheerfully. *' I quite know what is in 
 your mind : you fear that the behaviour of 
 Broadwater and his mate may lead to the crew 
 giving trouble. Well, the same misgiving is 
 my reason for speaking out so plainly to both 
 men. If they are made to understand that I 
 am watching them and observino: their conduct, 
 they may have sense enough to restrain them- 
 selves for the reason that I should be at hand 
 as a witness to testify to their inhumanity, and 
 to justify any act of insubordination that the 
 sailors might be driven to." 
 
 She was silent for a little, and then
 
 VII. BOTHWELL, CHIEF MATE. 121 
 
 said, ''Whereabouts is the ship now, Mr. 
 Musgrave ? " 
 
 " I suppose we are hardly abreast of the Isle 
 of Wight yet," I answered. 
 
 She reflected again, and then clasping her 
 hands and bringing them to her lips, and 
 looking at me with a sort of wistfulness, though 
 she spoke with hesitation, she said, " I almost — 
 I almost wish that the captain would put us 
 ashore." 
 
 This was a desire to puzzle me considerably. 
 I answered, '' Of course, Miss Grant, if you are 
 reluctant to proceed I will unhesitatingly ask 
 the captain to put us ashore ; but I should not 
 like him to refuse, and unhappily there Is no 
 doubt that he will refuse, because of course he 
 would conclude that we should return to London 
 and lodge a complaint against him, and so lose 
 him his berth. Now, if he should decline to 
 put us ashore my position would be an awk- 
 ward one. He need do nothing but keep the 
 ship heading steadily on her course, and we 
 are helpless." 
 
 She interrupted me : " And the passage 
 money would be forfeited. No, I am silly to
 
 122 MAROONED. chap. vii. 
 
 wish such a thing. I was all eagerness and 
 impatience yesterday. It is just a little passing 
 misgiving." I was about to speak. " No," 
 she exclaimed with energy, '' we are here and 
 will remain here." 
 
 '' Be it so," said I, not a little relieved, for I 
 foresaw a very great deal more of trouble than 
 1 had the least disposition to undergo, even to 
 oblige /ler, had she insisted on my asking old 
 Broadwater to haul his brig in to the land, 
 and set us and our baggage once more on 
 terra fir ma.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE half-blood's PUNISHMENT. 
 
 Miss Grant went to her cabin and I on 
 deck, where I observed Broadwater and the 
 mate marching the length of the quarter-deck 
 and busy in conversation. There was a mid- 
 dhng high sea running, which, had it been on 
 the bow instead of on the quarter, would have 
 rendered the motion of the brig extremely 
 uncomfortable. As it was, it swung the vessel 
 with an almost rhythmic steadiness as it under- 
 ran her. It was first a long upward heave to 
 the foaming liquid brow, then a gradual lean 
 over to the full weight of the wind till the lee- 
 channels roared in the smother of spume over 
 the side, and then a steady slide down into the 
 speckled, froth-laced trough, with a recovery 
 of the hull that started us with a level keel for
 
 124 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 the next buoyant climb. Not above a cannon- 
 shot to windward was a large frigate, close- 
 hauled under double-reefed topsails and reefed 
 foresail. She showed no colours, but to a nau- 
 tical eye a single glance sufficed to prove her 
 English. She was plunging heavily, and would 
 lift her head out of the boiling white about her 
 bows until eight or ten feet of the keel at her 
 forefoot showed clear, with a dull yellow 
 glancing from the metal sheathing that looked 
 like a mirroring of pale light on the wet, black, 
 gleaming sides of the beautifully moulded hull. 
 As she rolled she gave us a view of a portion 
 of her weather-deck, with a hint of black 
 artillery in certain covered, muzzled shapes, 
 crouching under the defences of her bulwarks 
 crowned with the white line of hammocks. 
 The movement of a spot of red here and there 
 marked the mechanical pacing of a marine. I 
 never remember a nobler sea-show than was 
 offered by this fine frigate, with her broad 
 white line broken by the closed gun-ports, the 
 superb set of her reefed canvas, the airy grace 
 of her rigging ruling the piebald hurrying sky 
 with dark lines of shrouds, thinning as they
 
 VIII. THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT. 125 
 
 soared, till they rose delicate as the fibres of a 
 spider's web to the gHmmering button of the 
 truck at the royalmast-head, whence streamed 
 the long pennon straight out upon the wind, 
 like a streak of light up there ; whilst over the 
 weather-bow there was the sharp and frequent 
 flash of a green sheet of water that broke into 
 smoke as it flew, or a sudden lifting above the 
 bulwark-rail of a column of froth, which the 
 blow of the bow would send arching back till 
 'twas a sheer huddle of dazzling yeast under 
 the radiant figurehead, that, with some hero's 
 wreath in its hand, plunged to the giddy white- 
 ness only to soar triumphant a moment after. 
 
 It was old Broadwater's duty to hoist and dip 
 the ensign to her. This is a civility I should 
 be very punctual in exacting if I were com- 
 mander of a British man-of-war. The skipper, 
 however, rolling along on his bow-legs by the 
 side of the mate, did not look as if he even 
 knew there was anything in sight. He never 
 threw so much as a glance in her direction, 
 though I could see some men at work on the 
 fore-rigging watching her with an admiration 
 that rendered them, for the time being,
 
 126 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 insensible to the presence of the skipper and 
 his companion. 
 
 There was one of a dozen coils of rope hang- 
 ing over a belaying-pin swinging to the heave 
 of the hull. I went and sat myself in it, for the 
 shelter of the bulwark there from the gusty 
 blasts which were splitting upon the rigging full 
 of whistlings and cryings ; and there swayed, 
 cradle-like, by the hanging fakes, I leisurely 
 loaded my pipe, and fell to chipping, in the old- 
 world style of that age, at a flint for a light. 
 Whilst thus occupied, my eye was taken by the 
 figure of a man standing at the foot of the fore- 
 mast. I was thinking of other matters at that 
 moment, and yet I can recollect wondering, as 
 my gaze went from him after a brief glance, 
 that any man belonging to either watch should 
 have the courage to stand idle on deck whilst 
 the rest of the people were at work, when both 
 the captain and the chief mate were pacing 
 within eyeshot of him. Presently glancing his 
 way again, I noticed that he still remained in 
 the same posture, that is to say, with his back 
 against the mast and his face looking a little 
 forward of the fore-rigging, his arms folded
 
 MIL THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT. 127 
 
 upon his breast, and his legs together with the 
 feet turned out, hke a soldier in a sentry-box. 
 The mast was painted white, and hence it was, 
 I suppose, that I did not immediately observe 
 that the man was bound to it by turn upon turn 
 of rope, starting from his arm-pits and ter- 
 minating a little below his knees. I know not 
 what there was in the sight to startle me, but I 
 believe had a seaman fallen from aloft at my 
 feet, and there lay bleeding and broken, the 
 thino- would not have shocked me more than 
 
 o 
 
 the spectacle ol yonder sailor secured to the 
 mast as though he were some dangerous maniac, 
 and rendered motionless by the ligatures, saving 
 that he could use his head and had the freedom 
 of his arms. 
 
 I had not been long enough on board to be 
 able to distinguish the crew, but this man I 
 seemed to remember. To make sure, I got 
 out of the coil of rope and went a few paces 
 forward, and recognized in the fellow bound to 
 the mast the half-blood who had been one of the 
 boat's crew that rowed us aboard from Deal. 
 If his face had struck me then you will sup- 
 pose that it impressed me very strongly now.
 
 128 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Whether owing to the strangulation of the rope 
 about him, or to the thoughts in him, his com- 
 plexion, that I had observed to be of a clear 
 olive, had changed to an indescribably ugly 
 colour, which I can only speak of as an ashen 
 o-reen. It reminded me of the hue I once saw 
 
 o 
 
 in the face of a dead sailor whose cheeks had 
 been burnt to an almost chocolate tint by ex- 
 posure in an open boat in the Indian Ocean. 
 He turned his dark eyes upon me with a 
 savage glare in them of mutiny, malice, hatred, 
 and so full of defiance withal, that but for the 
 evil passions his countenance expressed you 
 might have accepted his air as one of bitter and 
 contemptuous pride. It was intolerable that he 
 should think I had inspected him out of mere 
 curiosity, which I saw from his manner he sup- 
 posed ; and since he would be too wild in his 
 mind to interpret the sympathy which I am sure 
 must have been visible in me — for, as I say, the 
 sight of the poor bound fellow inexpressibly 
 shocked and grieved me — I turned my back on 
 him and walked right aft. 
 
 Broadwater left the mate and came up to me. 
 
 ''That's true old North Country style, sir,"
 
 VIII. THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT. 129 
 
 he exclaimed, '' to sit in the bight of the rigging 
 over the pin under the lee of the bulwarks. 
 I've been hove to in the North Sea, and sat for 
 hours along with the rest of my mates, just as 
 you've been a-sitting, waiting for what was to 
 happen next." 
 
 '' It is hard to find a corner to smoke in," 
 said I, "on board a flush-decked vessel. Where 
 there's a poop or a round-house, a man may 
 discover a nook clear of the gale, and manage to 
 keep the cinders in his bowl till the fire's all 
 gone. Did you ever serve aboard a Dutchman, 
 captain ? " 
 
 "No, by thunder!" he answered; "what's 
 put such a question as that into your head, 
 sir ? 
 
 "Why," I said, " I notice that you have got 
 one of your hands forward there seized to the 
 foremast. The Dutch used to serve their 
 rogues so — sometimes however going a little 
 further than you, for to make sure of the fellow 
 they'd pin him through the hand with a knife." 
 
 "You're keeping a bright -look-out aboard 
 this vessel, sir," he exclaimed, shooting an odd 
 look at me out of his little eyes. 
 
 VOL. I. K.
 
 I30 
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 '* My good fellow," I cried, '' I should be 
 blind not to see such a sight as that. What 
 has he done ? Murdered a shipmate ?" 
 
 '' Almost wish he had," he growled, '' for that 
 'ud bring about the sort of treatment he wants. 
 He's the man who spoke them words last 
 night." 
 
 " Ha ! " I exclaimed, " and for that you are 
 dosing him with a spell of fresh air that he may 
 go to his dinner with a good appetite ? " 
 
 He left me under pretence of looking into the 
 compass. I will not say that he was afraid of 
 me, but I am quite sure that if it had not been 
 for my talk with him in the morning, for the 
 manner I then put on, and which I still wore, 
 he would have dealt with me scarce less roughly 
 and insolently than had I been one of his sea- 
 men. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, 
 looking away towards the horizon, below which 
 and out of sight lay the line of the English coast, 
 and felt myself urged by a very strong impulse 
 to request him to head for the nearest port, and 
 to put Miss Grant and myself ashore, as his 
 behaviour to his men, though we were not yet 
 twenty-four hours from Deal, had rendered us
 
 VIII. THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT. 131 
 
 extremely uneasy, Insomuch that we were re- 
 solved not to pursue the voyage in his ship. 
 But I was again checked by the considerations 
 which had occurred to me whilst talking on the 
 subject with Miss Grant. He might refuse to 
 comply, lose all control over himself in the 
 notion that my intention was to ruin him, and so 
 affront me that I should be at a loss how to act. 
 I quite perceived that, unless I could be sure 
 he would put us ashore, I should be acting un- 
 wisely in asking him to do so, for, if he per- 
 sisted in sailing away with us, then whilst we 
 remained on board his ship we should have to 
 submit to any sort of usage he chose to give us. 
 I stamped my foot on the deck with vexation 
 and worry, and could have cursed the hour in 
 which I had ever set eyes on the Iron Crow7i. 
 
 I had hoped when Miss Grant came on deck 
 that the figure of the fellow bound to the mast 
 would escape her attention, and was scheming 
 to place her chair close against the wheel on the 
 port side where the man would be hidden from 
 her ; but the Instant she came out of the com- 
 panion and looked forward she started violently, 
 and exclaimed : 
 
 K 2
 
 132 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 *' Why have they bound him ? What has he 
 done to deserve such a punishment as that ? " 
 
 '* He Is the man," I answered, " who cried 
 out last night, ' It's murder ! ' when the captain 
 ordered the boat to be kept fast." 
 
 ''And they have tied him to the mast merely 
 for uttering those words ? " 
 
 '' Ay ! It's a bitter burning shame ; the Indig- 
 nity of this sort of punishment Is the worst 
 part of It." 
 
 " I shall ask Captain Broadwater to release 
 him," she exclaimed, with the Indignation In 
 her surging up hot to her face and flashing In 
 her eyes. '' I shall tell him that the sight pains 
 and disgusts me, and that he has no right to 
 oblige his passengers to witness such painful 
 and miserable spectacles." 
 
 Before I could check her she swept up to old 
 Broadwater, and towering over him with such 
 an air as SIddons would have worn in her 
 tragedy parts, her face flushed, her eyes on fire, 
 her head thrown backwards, she levelled her 
 white forefinger at the half-blood, gazing mean- 
 while full Into the crimson expanse of the 
 skipper's countenance, and exclaimed, ''What
 
 VIII. THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT. 133 
 
 has that man done to merit the sufferings of 
 mind and body he must be enduring there ? " 
 
 The captain was a broad and muscular man, 
 but short ; and her erect, swelHng, impassioned 
 figure made him look like a boy by her side as 
 he stared up at her. Her sudden dramatic 
 accost took him completely by surprise. His 
 countenance wore a ludicrous expression of 
 bewilderment. He half turned towards the 
 mate, as if to invoke his assistance, and then 
 exclaimed in a hoarse stutter, *' Why, mum, 
 that there man — he's about the impudentest son 
 of a swab — the long and short o't is, he as good 
 as called me a murderer last night. Had he 
 been a man-o'-war's man he'd have been spread- 
 eagled to the toon of twelve dozens for saying 
 much less than that ! " 
 
 I joined Miss Grant and offered her my arm ; 
 for though no woman ever stepped a heaving 
 deck more easily and gracefully than she, yet 
 the slope now was sometimes so sharp as even 
 to make Broadwater lurch, and I was afraid of 
 her carrying away, to use the sea term, as she 
 was quite forgetful, as I could see, in the temper 
 and mood that then possessed her, of the
 
 134 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 tumbling of the platform on which she 
 stood. 
 
 " The words," she exclaimed, " were no 
 doubt forced from the man by a sudden im- 
 pulse. Why did you hear them ? You would 
 not punish a man for thinking'' 
 
 "Yes, I would, if I knew it," answered Broad- 
 water, plucking up a bit, and yet looking 
 uneasy too. 
 
 ''You must release him, sir," she exclaimed ; 
 " it is a sight that makes the whole ship painful 
 and distressing to me." 
 
 "You cannot refuse the lady's request, 
 captain," said I. 
 
 ''But I can, though," he blustered; "why, 
 smother my precious eyes and bile every 
 blooming limb that I own ! who's cap'n of this 
 here craft ? Release him ! Certainly not. If 
 the sight's too painful to view, the lady needn't 
 look. An' what's there painful about it ^ Why, 
 some men would have chucked him into the 
 forepeak, smothered him up down there in the 
 blackness, with nothen but rats to keep him 
 company, 'stead of benevolently sarving him as 
 I do by suffering him to stop up in the fresh air
 
 VIII. THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT. 135 
 
 for his shipmates to look at and meditate on. 
 Mr. Musgrave," he suddenly exclaimed, in a 
 bullying, angry voice, '' I'll thank you to tell 
 the lady that I'm the commander of this here 
 vessel, and of everything that consarns her and_ 
 her navigation ; and I shall feel obliged, sir, by 
 your recollecting of that fact yourself, sir, for 
 it '11 spare ye the trouble of cross-examining my 
 chief-mate here, sir, as if you was a hadmiralty 
 judge. No, by thunder ! my name's Broad- 
 water — Guy Broadwater — and I'm master of 
 this vessel, and them there men forrard are my 
 crew, and I'll thank you and the lady not to 
 meddle with my consarns, but to be satisfied so 
 long as I perform the part expected of me, 
 which is, to carry you and this here cargo to 
 Rio ! '* and feigning to be in a mighty temper he 
 bowled away to the taffrail, and then came back 
 again breathing hard and looking swiftly up 
 and around him, with a fine air of injury, re- 
 sentment, and righteous indignation, not ill- 
 managed on his part, though — like the ghost of 
 a squall — it was to be seen through. 
 
 There was no affectation in Miss Grant's pity 
 and disgust. She lingered a little while on
 
 136 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 deck, and then went below to her cabin, declar- 
 ing that she could not bear to see the man 
 standing helpless and motionless, as if he were 
 dead, suffering grievously as she feared from 
 his posture, which rested the whole weight of 
 him upon his naked feet, and from the many 
 coils of rope which girt him so tautly and 
 plentifully to the spar, that the mere sight of 
 them made one draw one's breadth with diffi- 
 culty out of sheer sympathy with their sugges- 
 tion of strangulation. The men at work in the 
 rigging and about the decks did not give him 
 the least heed that I could discover. I noticed 
 one or two of them glance aft when Miss Grant 
 spoke to the captain and pointed forward, but 
 in a sulky, incurious way, as though what was 
 passing had no interest whatever for them. 
 This behaviour might have been due to the 
 presence of the mate, whose rapid glances 
 seemed to dart all over the brig in a breath, and 
 who, as I had already observed, never suffered 
 a man to halt for an instant in any job he was 
 upon. No doubt his almost preternatural quick- 
 ness in detecting the least hint of laziness or 
 languor was already as well known to the men
 
 viiL THE HALF-BLOOD'S PUNISHMENT. 137 
 
 as if the vessel had been on the hieh seas a 
 couple of months. Yet Miss Grant's speaking 
 to the captain about the pinioned half-blood 
 was in its way an incident so far removed from 
 all ordinary shipboard occurrences that the 
 sullen inattention of the men to it impressed 
 me greatly. If heavy troubles do not befall 
 this ship ere long, thought I, it will not 
 be because the spirit of mischief is even already 
 wanting amongst her crew ; and I sent a 
 gloomy glance seawards in the direction where 
 old England lay, feeling that I would not only 
 gladly forfeit the passage-money I had paid, 
 but ten times that amount over again, to 
 find myself and Miss Grant once more safe 
 and snug in London,
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 
 
 However, since we were to be locked up 
 w^ith old Broadwater for a spell of weeks that 
 might run into months, our policy was to put 
 the best face we could upon our condition. 
 But Miss Grant was not to be induced to re- 
 turn on deck whilst the man continued lashed 
 to the foremast. I pointed out that he was not 
 suffering as she fancied, that at all events he 
 had not yet been pinioned long enough to be in 
 pain, and I also begged her to remember that a 
 posture and exposure which might strike her 
 as a severe punishment would sit lightly upon a 
 sailor, whose vocation is supposed to harden 
 him into the most extraordinary capacity of 
 endurance. But it would not do. She refused 
 to quit the cabin until the man had been re-
 
 CH. IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 139 
 
 leased, and so she remained below the whole 
 day. Indeed I had some trouble to persuade 
 her to dine at the table with the captain, 
 though her good sense helped her in this at 
 last ; but throughout the meal she could 
 scarcely bear to glance at him, scarcely endure 
 to listen to him. 
 
 On his side he behaved as if he were willing 
 to let bygones be bygones, as if indeed after 
 careful consideration he was on the whole 
 willing to overlook the past. His dinner put 
 him into a good humour. It consisted amongst 
 other things of a large round of corned beef ; 
 and when the cabin-boy came staggering with 
 it into the cabin, old Broadwater seemed so 
 much impressed by the beauty of the joint that 
 he lay back upon the locker, with a carving 
 knife and fork sticking up out of his great fists, 
 which he rested upon the table, and in this 
 attitude remained motionless for some moments, 
 as though his transport would not suffer him to 
 move or speak. However, he probably judged 
 by our faces that we were in no temper to 
 listen to his eulogies of the joint. He carved 
 with a countenance of rapture, and with an air
 
 I40 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 of concern, too, as though the cutting up of 
 such a dish as that was a business not to be 
 lightly and irreverently approached. 
 
 It was necessary to talk to the man, so I said, 
 "If this breeze holds I suppose we shall soon 
 be swept out of soundings ? " 
 
 '' Yes," he answered, pouring out a caulker 
 of rum, and holding up the glass to the skylight 
 to see how much it held. "We shall be having 
 the Lizard over our starn this time to-morrow, 
 sir. If we keep all on as we are." 
 
 '' Upon my word," said I, speaking some- 
 what heedlessly, out of the mere fulness of my 
 thoughts just then, ''so much has happened 
 since the anchor was lifted off Deal that it 
 seems as If we had been a week on the road 
 already." 
 
 "What's happened?" he asked quickly. 
 " It's all been plain sailing, hasn't it ? There's 
 been nothen that you as a passenger have had 
 cause to grumble about ? " 
 
 " The time seems long, anyhow," I responded 
 curtly. 
 
 " It'll have to be longer yet afore It's ended," 
 said he, turning his little eyes upon Miss Grant.
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 141 
 
 She had hitherto kept silent, scarce glancing 
 at him : now she suddenly exclaimed, with a 
 flash of her dark eyes full Into his ruddy face, 
 " When do you Intend to release the unfortu- 
 nate man you have fastened to the mast ? " 
 
 He took a long pull at his glass of rum and 
 water before answering her, and then said, 
 " Not until I think the weather's had time to 
 purge him." 
 
 "Is he to be kept there all day ? " she 
 continued. 
 
 "Ay, mum, and all night, too. Billy," 
 addressing the cabin-boy, "jump with this here 
 beef, my lad ! away with It ! If ye drop so much 
 as a toothful of grease, stand by ! and mind that 
 the pudden's covered up as ye bring it along, 
 and keep to leeward with It, d'ye hear ? for 
 there's a showering of spra}^ to wind'ard now 
 and again, and If you salt the pudden I'll salt 
 yo7i^ / The fact Is, mum," he continued, address- 
 ing Miss Grant afresh, "there's no use In 
 half-measures with sailors. We've Q-ot a crew 
 aboard as wants riding down, and the man as 
 needs It most is the yaller rogue you're a-pitylng. 
 W^ere the fellow an Englishman I don't know
 
 142 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 that I shouldn't consider a twelve hours' spell 
 at the foot of the fore mast as much as he 
 desarves ; but he's a half-and-half, and my 
 experience is, the blacker the blood that runs In 
 a man's veins the longer's the tarm of teaching 
 he stands in need of." 
 
 '' Is he to be kept without food ? " she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " He is, mum," he answered cheerfully. 
 
 On this she rose and left the table without 
 another word. 
 
 " What makes the lady so terribly sensitive 
 to sailors' feelings ? " exclaimed Broadwater, 
 with as much puzzlement on him as his 
 countenance could express. " I see she ain't 
 married. Has she a sweetheart at sea ? On 
 
 less maybe you ?" He shut one eye, and 
 
 looked at me with the other. 
 
 " Never concern yourself about her or me 
 either," said I. *' Keep your mind clear, my 
 friend, for you'll be wanting plenty of space 
 presently for the thoughts your crew'll fill you 
 with." 
 
 "What do you mean, sir?" he exclaimed 
 coarsely and angrily.
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 143 
 
 " I mean this," I replied quietly, though my 
 feelings were hot enough, " if you do not shift 
 your course and head on another tack with 
 your forecastle, there'll be a mutiny aboard 
 before we're a week older." 
 
 At this his little mouth rounded Into a 
 complete circle, the blood came into his face, 
 down dropped the slab of pudding he was in 
 the act of raising to his lips. "Mutiny!" he 
 cried. '' Mutiny aboard me ! Mutiny afore 
 another week's out ! Why — why — why," he 
 stammered, " what have ye been hearing of to 
 put such fancies Into your head ? " 
 
 " I judge by my eyes, not by my ears," I 
 replied, still coldly and very quietly, " though I 
 don't doubt that a few^ minutes of listening 
 at the forescuttle would convince me even 
 more fully than my sight." 
 
 Just then the mate arrived, having been 
 relieved by the boatswain that he might get 
 his dinner. 
 
 "Mr. Bothwell! Mr. Bothwell ! " cried 
 Broadwater, whose face was of a dark crimson, 
 "what d'ye think Mr. Musgrave here's 
 a-threatening ? Why — why — why, that there'll
 
 144 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 be a mutiny aboard me afore another week's 
 out." 
 
 '' Indeed ! " answered the mate blandly, but 
 nevertheless exhibiting his teeth In a smile that 
 made his handsome face mighty malevolent 
 while the grin lasted ; *' I hope not. On what 
 does Mr. Musgrave found his fears, sir ? " 
 
 " On the captain's and your usage of the 
 men," said I, resenting the sarcastic air of the 
 fellow. 
 
 " But what have Captain Broadwater and I 
 done, sir, to justify this terrible apprehension 
 on your part ? " 
 
 " I want you to understand, Captain Broad- 
 water," said I, not choosing to heed the mate's 
 question, '' that you and you alone are respon- 
 sible for Miss Grant's and my safety. I now 
 warn you that that safety Is being seriously 
 imperilled by your treatment of the crew of this 
 brig. Indeed," I continued, suffering my 
 temper to get the better of me, *' already the 
 outlook of this voyage fills me with so much 
 uneasiness that since we are still in the English 
 Channel, and — with this wind — within a few 
 hours' run of a port, Miss Grant and I are
 
 fx. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 145 
 
 willing and desirous that you should set us 
 ashore ; the conditions being, of course, that 
 we forfeit our passage-money." 
 
 Now I had fully believed that on my saying 
 this he would have fallen into a violent passion, 
 raged at and insulted me, defied me to compel 
 him to head the ship for the coast, and so on. 
 Instead, to my very great surprise, the blood 
 faded out of his face ; pale indeed he could not 
 become, but the disorder of his mind manifested, 
 itself in a complexion that would answer to 
 pallor in another man's countenance. He 
 pushed his plate from him as though his 
 appetite were gone for ever, and in a 
 wonderfully subdued, changed voice, exclaimed, 
 *' Mr. Musgrave, sir, I beg that you'll banish 
 that wish from your mind, sir. To set ye 
 ashore would be my ruination. There's nothing 
 in the world, that I can see, that need make 
 ye oncomfortable. The cabins are roomy, 
 the living up to the hammer, there's ne'er a 
 stouter vessel afloat than the Iron Crown ; and, 
 though it's me as savs so, there's no man 
 living that Capt'n Guy Broadwater "11 yield to 
 in the knowledo-e of navi^atino^ and handlincr a 
 
 VOL. L L
 
 146 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 ship under all sarcumstances of wind and 
 weather. There's nothen either in the be- 
 haviour of the crew, or in my treatment of 'em, 
 to breed oneasiness. Indeed," he continued, 
 speaking most abjectedly, " if the lady's really 
 so consarned by the sight of that there Ernest 
 Charles at the foremast, why, then, to please 
 her I'll lubberate him in the second dog-watch, 
 'stead of keeping him there all night, as was 
 my intention." 
 
 The mate ate his dinner with a wooden 
 face. 
 
 ''You can do as you please, Captain Broad- 
 water," said I, rising. " I have not the slightest 
 intention to meddle with your notions of 
 discipline. I simply desire to point out to you 
 that your treatment of the crew is such as to 
 render the prospects of the voyage very gloomy 
 indeed, and if you will head the ship for some 
 adjacent English port. Miss Grant and I will 
 be very glad to leave her." 
 
 " I hope not, sir ! I'd rather not, Mr. Mus- 
 grave ! " he exclaimed, speaking and looking so 
 dejectedly that I suspected his manner was to a 
 large degree assumed. " To shift the helm in
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 147 
 
 this here wind would be extremely awkward — 
 extremely awkward ; and it'ud ruin my reputation 
 as the master of a passenger-vessel if you was 
 to give out the reasons of your leaving, which 
 are all imagination, sir — the fancies of a gent as 
 has long lost sight of the sailor's character, and 
 forgot that if life was all soup and bully in the 
 fo'k'sle there'd be no work done — no work done 
 whatever ! " 
 
 I caught one of the mate's swift glances ; 'twas 
 as full of malice as could well be packed into 
 such a nimble roll. There was nothing more to 
 be said, and in silence I quitted the cabin, satis- 
 fied with my second victory that day over Captain 
 Broadwater ; but at the same time also profoundly 
 convinced that a five minutes' conversation with 
 his mate would influence the old fellow into a 
 resolution to keep me and Miss Grant on board 
 at all hazards, trusting maybe to time to soften 
 and extinguish the prejudice and dislike and 
 misgivings we had not scrupled to express in 
 one shape or another. 
 
 As Gordon had charge of the deck until four 
 o'clock in the afternoon, I endeavoured to 
 ascertain froni him what the men thought of the 
 
 L 2
 
 148 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 captain's treatment of the half-blood ; but he was 
 very shy and wary, and I believe would not have 
 conversed with me upon the subject at all had it 
 not been for the sort of kindness our chat on 
 the previous night had established between us. 
 His reply was to the effect that the crew were 
 cautious in what they said before him, but that 
 as far as he could gather, the securing of the 
 man to the mast had raised a very strong feeling 
 against the captain and mate ; and he said he 
 believed it was only because the culprit was a 
 foreigner that they suffered him to remain in 
 that posture of indignity and pain. " Had he 
 been an Englishman," he added, " my opinion 
 is that they'd have gone on cutting him adrift 
 as fast as the capt'n could seize him up." 
 
 The fellow still stood at the mast, bound as 
 I have already described. Thus he had been 
 standing since some time before nine o'clock 
 in the morning. Whether the crew had at any 
 time of the day fed him or put a drink to his 
 lips I could not know ; but though it was not 
 three o'clock in the afternoon when I made these 
 observations, the man already — that is to say 
 after seven hours or thereabouts — exhibited
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 149 
 
 such sipfns of weakness and distress that one 
 would have said he was merely kept upon his 
 feet by the ropes round his body. I never 
 longed in all my hfe for anything so heartily as 
 for the power to cast the unhappy creature adrift 
 and send him below for a warm meal ; but I had 
 spoken out freely and done my best, and more 
 was not to be thought of, though I vowed in my 
 heart, as I saw the unhappy creature wearily 
 pass his hands over his eyes, and drop his chin 
 on to his breast as if his neck could not support 
 the burthen of his head, that if redress was to be 
 obtained for him from such machinery of law as 
 I might find flourishing at Rio I would not spare 
 my purse to procure it. 
 
 The wind blew strong throughout the day. 
 Indeed before six o'clock it had freshened into 
 half a gale ; the topgallant-sails had been furled, 
 and the brig swept roaring through it under 
 reefed topsails and foresail. The height of the 
 seas which chased us might have made a man 
 think himself in the middle of the Atlantic. 
 Each billow rolled under us with the weight of 
 the ocean surge, and it was hard to realize that 
 we were still in the narrow waters. The sky'
 
 tSo MAROONED. chap. 
 
 had settled into that high, hard stratification of 
 greenish-gray cloud, with a dark streak in places, 
 compact and apparently motionless, which nearly 
 always signifies wind, and as a rule plenty of it. 
 The brig steered w^ildly, and the perspiration 
 poured from the face of the man at the helm as 
 he swung to the wheel, putting it down and up, 
 whilst every floating rush of the fabric off the 
 liquid brows brought the seas boiling about her 
 quarters, till the curl of the yeast there would 
 sometimes be flush with the rail. At sunset the 
 wildness of the glory was more like the rising 
 of the luminary on a stormy December morning, 
 when the heavens open and shut with snow- 
 squalls, than his descent on a summer's night. 
 The heavens flushed to a furnace-glow — an 
 angry, smoking crimson, lightening into pink 
 zenithwards, and thence floating away in rose 
 into the very heart of the east. But the sea 
 kept its dark green colour, and the run of its 
 frothing peaks from one shining line to another 
 made the glow of the firmament as startling as 
 an unreality by the contrast. 
 
 Miss Grant remained in the cabin. At the 
 meal called by the captain "supper" I had
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 151 
 
 begged her to come on deck, telling her that 
 Broadwater (and I fixed my eyes on him as I 
 spoke) had promised to free the man during the 
 second dog-watch. 
 
 " When he is released I will go on deck, 
 -Mr. r^Iusgrave," she said, "but not before. 
 Such a sight is more than I can bear, and in- 
 deed it is miserable enough to be down here 
 and feel that the man is still suffering." 
 
 " He isn't suffering, mum,'' said Broadwater ; 
 " he'd laugh at you for supposin' it. The calling 
 of the sea turns sailors' skins into hides, and 
 their feelings into horns. If it didn't there'd be 
 no seamen left, for they'd all die off of con- 
 sumption and other delicate complaints. I've 
 told jMr. Musgrave that to accommodate you the 
 man shall be lubberated in the second doe-w^atch, 
 and that means eight bells ; and obliged he ought 
 to be, for by thunder ! mistress, if it hadn't been 
 for the consarn you're under about him I'd have 
 kept him there till eight o'clock in the first watch 
 to-morrow morning ! " 
 
 Well, by remaining below she missed not 
 only a fine and wondrous scene of sundown, 
 but as gallant and stirring a sea-piece as it was
 
 152 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 ever my fortune to view. For whilst the sun, 
 hidden as he was, hung, as I might suppose, 
 some four or five degrees above the horizon, a 
 cloud of canvas loomed up almost dead astern. 
 The brig was swarming through it at not less 
 than eight or nine knots, and yet here was a 
 ship growing out of the olive-coloured welter as 
 though in very truth she was the rising moon. 
 She w^as a large black American clipper, fresh 
 from the Thames, with canvas white as cotton, 
 and she had every cloth abroad, with the excep- 
 tion of her mizen-royal and her fore and main 
 skysails. The press was prodigious ; one looked 
 to see the great, swelling, soft white fabric flash- 
 ing into a thousand fragments, and melting away 
 upon the roar of the gale like snow-flakes. Her 
 speed was not less than fifteen knots in the hour ; 
 I judged it so by comparing her approach with 
 our progress. All forward she was smothered 
 to the spritsail-yard ; but at irregular intervals 
 she shot her long black shape clear of the dazzle 
 and fury about her bows, but only to smite the 
 trough with a blow that hurled up a very storm 
 of white waters, until you would have taken her 
 to be a ship sweeping through the first gatherings
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 153 
 
 of a waterspout. She passed us close, flying 
 along as though we were at anchor, and her 
 passage was that of a thunderstorm for the 
 sound of the gale in her canvas, for the rain-like 
 hissing all about her sides, and for the multitudin- 
 ous shrieking of the wind in her rigging, reson- 
 ant as fiddle-strings to the enormous strain put 
 upon every shroud, backstay, and brace. 
 
 Broadwater orazed at her with an inimitable 
 air of astonishment. I saw him looking up at 
 his own canvas, and then over the stern of the 
 brig at the wake there, as though he could not 
 persuade himself that the great clipper yonder 
 carried the same weight of wind under which 
 the Iron Crown was staggering. In a few 
 minutes her elliptical stern was upon us, with 
 swift upward heavings of the gleaming gilt-work 
 upon it, till the letters of her name showed 
 glaring over her rudder, and with flying plunges 
 and slow majestic rollings, the stately fabric 
 swep tonwards with the gloom into the west, 
 until presently she was as visionary in the 
 liquid obscurity ahead as the creaming of the 
 seas there. 
 
 On eight bells being struck, Broadwater,
 
 154 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 who was standing near the wheel, bawled out, 
 " Mr. Gordon, cast that there Ernest Charles 
 adrift from the foremast, and tell him to lay 
 aft ! " 
 
 I wondered what the captain meant to say to 
 the unfortunate wretch, whose long punishment 
 certainly did not need the topping off of a round 
 of abuse ; but finding he did not appear, I 
 crossed the deck and observed a group of sea- 
 men collected at the foot of the mast. On 
 approaching I saw the figure of the half-blood 
 prone upon his back. 
 
 ** What ails the man, Mr. Gordon ? " said I ; 
 '' has he fainted ? " 
 
 *' It's exhaustion, I allow," he answered. 
 
 " He's been belayed too taut — enough to 
 prize his heart out of its moorings," exclaimed 
 one of the sailors in a gruff voice. 
 
 ** There's a flask of brandy in my cabin," I 
 exclaimed. '' Where's the boy ? He'll find it." 
 
 At this moment the mate arrived. " What's 
 the trouble now ? " he called out in his shrill, 
 fierce voice. 
 
 " Charles is in a swound," responded the 
 boatswain.
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 155 
 
 The mate bent his back, and looked into the 
 face of the prostrate man. The twiHght was 
 still abroad, but the gloom of the night, darkened 
 yet by the shadow of vapour that overspread 
 the sky, was fast deepening, and it was already 
 difficult to distinguish objects. 
 
 " Up you get ! " shouted the mate, suddenly 
 springing erect, with a sharp kick at the recum- 
 bent form. " There's no shamming allowed 
 aboard this brig. Up w^ith you ! Up with you ! " 
 
 He kicked him again and yet again, and then, 
 as fiercely as a madman would throw himself 
 upon another, clutched the man about the collar, 
 and ran his back against the foremast sheer on 
 to his feet. 
 
 I expected to see him fall, but whether he 
 was actually shamming, as the mate declared, 
 or had been brought to by Mr. Bothwell's kicks 
 and handling, he opened his eyes and kept his 
 feet, though he swayed against the mast, and 
 I do not doubt would have fallen but for 
 the support of it. 
 
 "Aft with you ! " cried the mate ; " the cap- 
 tain wants a word with you before you go 
 below."
 
 156 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " He'd better be helped aft/' said the boats- 
 wain ; " small wonder if he should have lost the 
 use of his legs." 
 
 " Aft with you ! " persisted the mate. 
 
 The inhumanity of the fellow was maddening. 
 " Murder him at once ! " I cried ; '' it would be 
 kinder ! " 
 
 The mate did not answer, did not even look 
 round at me. One of the sailors muttered 
 something ; I did not catch the words, but the 
 growl had a very ugly note in it. The half- 
 blood made a step, reeled, and fell heavily. I 
 walked aft sick at heart, but ere I had made a 
 few paces I heard the mate exclaim, " Take him 
 below, then, take him below ! " and passing me 
 he joined the captain, and they fell to pacing 
 the deck together. 
 
 The night was damp, and the force of the 
 wind put an edge of cold into it. There was 
 nothing to court Miss Grant on deck nor to 
 detain me there ; so I spent the rest of the 
 evening with her in the cabin, though conver- 
 sation after a time grew somewhat laborious, 
 owing to the dismal creakings and groanings in 
 the heart of the hull as it strained from hollow
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 157 
 
 to summit, and groaned again to the stormy 
 sweep of the blast into the iron-hard canvas 
 aloft. I told my companion that the half-blood 
 had been freed and taken below, but said 
 nothing about the brutality of the mate nor 
 the condition the man appeared in, whether 
 actual or affected, when released from the 
 mast. 
 
 And indeed I do not know^ that I should 
 have entered so closely into these particulars, 
 but for the oblieation I am under to exhibit the 
 causes which led to the extraordinary adven- 
 tures I shall have to relate before I bring this 
 narrative to a conclusion. At the same time, 
 as pictures of the sea-life are so seldom 
 attempted, and as the secret history of the 
 merchant-sailor is so little understood, I cannot 
 but think it proper that all forms of the voca- 
 tion, whether sunny or sombre, whether elevating 
 or debasing, should, in the interests of the 
 mariner, be described by those who have an 
 acquaintance with the calling, and who are able 
 to plainly write down their recollections and 
 experiences. I am happy to know that many 
 of the old forms of inhumanity on shipboard
 
 158 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 are extinct, or fast decaying ; yet enough sur- 
 vives to render, I am sorry to say, even such 
 a sketch as I have attempted true in many 
 respects of much that happens in the saiHng- 
 ship of to-day. The coarse, unprincipled skipper 
 still flourishes ; mates of the Bothwell pattern 
 still are to be found in plenty ; and though the 
 condition of the sailor has been improved and 
 fortified by laws which had no existence in the 
 days of which I am writing, his grievances yet 
 remain sufficiently abundant to render even a 
 recurrence to the usages and practices of half a 
 century ago useful to him at the present moment 
 as much that continues habitual to his hard, 
 toilsome, hazardous and unrepresented voca- 
 tion. But to proceed. 
 
 The wind blew fresh all that night, and did 
 not fail us until we had put twenty leagues 
 between us and the Scilly Islands. It then fell 
 light and drew ahead, and forced us upon a bow- 
 line, and for twenty-four hours we were stagger- 
 ing most abominably upon a long swell, with a 
 true Biscayan sweep in the run of it ; wrinkled 
 with the wind, but foamless ; swollen enough to 
 fetch a harsh voice of small ordnance from the
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. 159 
 
 canvas that it swayed into violent slaps against 
 the masts, and into short blasts like explosions 
 with the sudden rounding-out of the cloths. 
 Affairs on board seemed to run during this 
 while pretty smoothly. I saw the half-blood 
 named Charles at work on the day following 
 the night of his release, and I do not know 
 that old Broadwater made further trouble of the 
 matter for which the fellow had been punished. 
 The notion, or perhaps the hope rather, grew 
 in me that he meant to soften somewhat his 
 truculent treatment of the men. I had indeed 
 spoken very plainly, and I took it that he had 
 turned my words over in his mind when he was 
 not too fuddled with liquor to think coherently, 
 and had determined not to put it in my power 
 to create a difficulty for him at Rio or on his 
 return home. The mate, too, seemed disposed 
 to quiet down, as if he had got his cue from the 
 captain. It is true that he could never hail a 
 man aloft, or call him when on deck, without an 
 exasperating note of quite unnecessary temper 
 in the fling of his voice. But it seemed to me 
 as if he was no longer incessantly on the look- 
 out for something to fly in a rage over. I sus-
 
 r6o MAROONED. chap. 
 
 pected however that both he and Broadwater 
 moderated their behaviour only when Miss 
 Grant and I were on deck. At all events the 
 ship's work seemed to be carried on without 
 much fret and jar ; yet, whether it was because 
 the old sailorly instincts in me sharpened my 
 sympathies, or because I feared that the conduct 
 of the captain and his mate had already raised 
 a devil forward, which even the quieter bearing 
 of such men as they was not likely to lay, I 
 confess I could never look at the crew without 
 seemino^ sensible of an indefinable air amono^st 
 them which I can best convey by speaking of it 
 as a sort of morose uneasiness. 
 
 Broadw^ater, I am bound to say, showed no 
 sulkiness towards us for our plain speaking and 
 dealing;. You would have thouo^ht there had 
 been no trouble whatever between us had you 
 heard him praising the meals at table, bragging 
 of his old experiences, boasting of his brig as 
 though she was the loveliest frigate then afloat, 
 and so forth. As to the mate, we gave him so 
 wide a berth that often a whole day passed 
 without our exchanging a sentence with him. 
 The only companionable creature aboard was
 
 IX. THE HALF-BLOOD IS RELEASED. i6r 
 
 Gordon, in whose quarter-deck walk I was 
 always glad to join when the night came round 
 that gave him the first wa^h as we call it at sea 
 — that is, from eight to twelve. Naturally Miss 
 Grant and I were very much together. This, 
 to be sure, was unavoidable ; but I own that I 
 would get a bit troubled in my mind when, after 
 turning in and extinguishing the lamp, I found 
 my imagination haunted by her fine eyes, her 
 noble figure, and above all by a certain sweet- 
 ness in the tone of her voice that would at all 
 times, long after she was silent, linger upon my 
 ear like a memory of glad and gentle music. I 
 sometimes said to myself. Suppose I fall in love 
 with her ? It would be impossible to conceive 
 of a more inconvenient passion. It was idle 
 to argue with myself and pretend that I need 
 not fall in love with her unless I chose. Reason 
 might talk very soberly about such a thing, but 
 my instincts knew better. In short, not being 
 able to make sure of myself in this direction, 
 I arrived at the conclusion that I had acted as a 
 fool in consenting to lock myself up in^a small 
 brig with a handsome woman whose heart was 
 another's, and to the fascination of whose person 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 i62 MAROONED. chap. ix. 
 
 and manners I was expected to oppose as im- 
 movable a countenance as old Broadwater's. 
 Had there been other passengers we might 
 have made shift, for considerable intervals at all 
 events, to manage without one another's com- 
 pany ; but we were alone — a condition of the 
 voyage I cannot say I had seriously contem- 
 plated or even lightly thought of before em- 
 barking on this adventure — and the result was 
 we were incessantly together. I had purchased 
 a chess-board and a pack or two of cards, and 
 when the deck bored us, or the weather there 
 was uncomfortable, we would sit down and play 
 a game in the cabin ; and I say it was difficult 
 for me to be hour after hour and day after day 
 encountering her spirited, sparkling glances, 
 watching her smiles, listening to her graceful 
 fancies, observing the fifty fascinating elegances 
 of her posture and movements, without thinking 
 a very great deal more about her when I was 
 alone, and perhaps even when I was in her 
 company, than my honour could approve or my 
 judgment understand.
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 MIDNIGHT ALARM. 
 
 We had been eight days out when I met 
 with a very unpleasant experience. The brig 
 w^as still on the Spanish parallels. The night 
 had come down moonless and dark, and the 
 vessel, close-hauled under all plain sail, was 
 quietly rippling over the breathing surface of 
 the sea, with lines of delicate green fire 
 breakinof from her cut water to abreast of the 
 gangway, where they trembled out Into the 
 deep blackness there. The air was damp 
 with dew, and as Miss Grant was below and 
 there was nobody on the quarter-deck but 
 the mate, I flung my cheroot overboard, and 
 entered the cabin. There I found my com- 
 panion with a book in her hand, trying to 
 read by the light of the lamp, whose swaying 
 
 M 2
 
 i64 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 to the movements of the brig bothered the eye 
 with a flittinof of shadows. Broadwater was 
 at his usual place at the table, with a bottle of 
 rum and a steaming glass before him. He 
 sat apparently lost in thought, with one eye 
 shut and the other fixed upon the lamp, his 
 little mouth rounded into the familiar whistling 
 shape, his pear-shaped nose as ruddy as the 
 liquor in the bottle, and the expression on his 
 face indescribably absurd with its rubicund cast 
 of tipsy sentiment. 
 
 '' Have a glass of rum and water, Mr. 
 Musgrave ? " he said to me, with a stupid 
 smile, pointing with a drooping finger to the 
 tumbler before him, yet speaking as if the 
 silence had grown oppressive and he was glad 
 to break it. 
 
 I declined, and asked Miss Grant what she 
 was reading. Before she could answer, Broad- 
 water said, "Beg pardon, Mr. Musgrave, but 
 can you tell me if you're a married man, 
 sir ? " 
 
 " I certainly can tell you," I replied, bursting 
 into a laugh ; '' I am not married. Are 
 you ? "
 
 X. A MIDNIGHT ALARM. 16 
 
 " Yes, sir," he answered, '"' and I wish I 
 wasn't. She's a nice young lady, but," he 
 added gloomily, '' I don't like her mother, sir. 
 That there mother of hers is always inter- 
 fering ; and whats worse, she's got no respect 
 for me." His hand wandered somewhat 
 aimlessly towards his glass, w^hich he presently 
 grasped, half emptied, and replaced w^ith a 
 heavy sigh. '•' Mr. iNIusgrave," he went on, 
 " you'll excuse me, sir, if you please. You'll 
 be marrying some of these days — bound to it 
 — an' I'd strongly recommend ye to take 
 Capt'n Broadwater's advice — the advice of old 
 Guy Broadwater, who's as well known from 
 Freshwharf down to Blackwall as the ]\Ionu- 
 ment is, or the dome of St. Paul's : don't you 
 go and get married to a party that's got a 
 mother. If you do, you'll find you've gone 
 and married 'em both. There's nothing as 
 weighs upon a man's feelings like his wife's 
 mother. You mind, sir. Remember what I 
 says, and you'll recall this voyage as the 
 one sarcumstance of your life that was the 
 making of ye." 
 
 He drained his glass, and pulling out his
 
 i66 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 great silver watch, that seemed to pop from his 
 trousers'-band like a cork from a bottle, he 
 cast an uncertain glance at it, and rose with a 
 succession of nods at me, whilst he said, 
 " Recollect Capt'n Broadwater's advice, sir : 
 it'll be the making of ye," fell about a little 
 whilst he replaced the bottle in the locker, and 
 then, saluting Miss Grant with a tipsy smile, 
 lurched towards his cabin, talking to himself as 
 he went, the burthen of his words being, as 
 far as I could collect it, " Take my advice, Mr. 
 Musgrave ; it'll be the making of ye." 
 
 As he was nightly in the habit of withdraw- 
 ing to his cabin more or less overtaken with 
 liquor, we had by this time grown used to the 
 practice, had come indeed to view it as part 
 of the navigation of the Iron Crown, and had 
 therefore nothing to say about it now. We 
 sat talking for half an hour or so : Miss Grant 
 then went to bed ; and after smoking my pipe 
 in the companion - hatchway, from which 
 sheltered point I took notice of the heavy 
 gloom amid which the ship was sailing — a 
 shadow so thickened with the deep dusk of 
 the night, through which here and there a star
 
 X. A MIDNIGHT ALARM. 167 
 
 glanced haggard and sparely, that the fabric of 
 spar and canvas was invisible from half the 
 height of the mainmast — I descended to my 
 berth, and, to use the proper nautical expression, 
 " turned in." 
 
 On extinguishing the light and pulling the 
 blankets over me, I found my mind somewhat 
 threateningly active. ]\Iaybe I was a bit 
 nervous ; why, I knew not, unless I harked 
 back to Broadwater's supper and dinner-table, 
 in whose dishes indeed reasons might be found 
 for an intellectual condition only a little short 
 of lunacy. I fell to thinking of the captain's 
 being in liquor, of the blackness through which 
 the brig was stemming, of our safety being 
 dependent upon the vigilance of the mate, 
 who, for all I knew, might be snoring on his 
 back on the skylight or on a hencoop, whilst 
 the man at the wheel lurched there with eyelids 
 of lead and his chin upon his breast. Now 
 and again came the long-drawn sobbing sounds 
 of water washing along the bends close against 
 where my head lay, with a note of yearning in 
 the small roar of its passage that set me 
 thinking of the cold death in the liquid pro-
 
 1 68 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 found under our keel, and of the slenderness 
 of the structure of plank, tree-nail, and beam, 
 which was our only barricade against the 
 intrusion of the spectre. Then Miss Grant 
 came into my head, and the thought of her 
 beauty put a sort of light into my mood, 
 though my fancies continued to hang in a 
 nervous jumble upon my mind. However, 
 after a while I fell asleep, and lay dreamless for 
 some time, as I believe ; and may have rested 
 so for an hour or more, when I had a hideous 
 nightmare. I dreamt that the cabin-door was 
 suddenly flung open, and that Captain Broad- 
 water entered with his eyes on lire and his 
 face blood-red with drink. He grasped the 
 immense carving-knife he was in the habit of 
 flourishing at table, and approached me close. 
 Whence came the light by w^hich I viewed him 
 I know not ; but he was horribly distinguish- 
 able. He seemed to say, and I quite under- 
 stood him, that it was his intention to murder 
 me because I wished to leave his ship ; but 
 that, as his hatred of me was too intense to 
 suffer him to despatch me quickly, it was his 
 intention to destroy me by degrees. I lay
 
 X. A MIDNIGHT ALARM. 169 
 
 paralyzed, tried to bawl out, but could utter no 
 sound, endeavoured to stir, but felt as dead as 
 a log of wood. Agony at length broke the 
 spell ; I awoke, sprang into a sitting posture, 
 with the perspiration pouring from my face, and 
 stared, panting as if I had been wounded to 
 death, into the blackness of the cabin. 
 
 As I sat peering and endeavouring to collect 
 my senses, I heard the sound of what re- 
 sembled a human groan. It seemed to come 
 from the floor of my cabin. I was still suffering 
 from the agitation caused by my nightmare ; 
 and my nerves having been unduly wrung, 
 whilst I had scarcely yet had time to recollect 
 myself, I confess that this strange and alarming 
 noise filled me with so much consternation that 
 I felt almost as helpless as when Broadwater 
 stood beside me in the vision. The extraor- 
 dinary noise was repeated ; I could not doubt 
 my hearing. It rose from the deck under my 
 bunk, and was so exceedingly like the groan of 
 a drunken man in pain that I thought to my- 
 self, Good God ! there may be more in my 
 dream than I am as yet conscious of! 
 
 The sense of the presence of a real danger
 
 lyo 
 
 ISIAROONED. CHAP. 
 
 served to rally me. My tinder-box — I had no 
 other means of procuring a light — was in the 
 pocket of my coat that hung near the door, 
 and it was necessary to get out of bed to 
 obtain it. I threw my legs over the edge of 
 the bunk, intending to very warily slide round 
 by the bulkhead to where the coat was, that I 
 might not tread upon whatever the object 
 might be that groaned upon the deck, when 
 the noise sounded again — a thick, snoring, 
 choking moan. I whipped my legs into my 
 bunk, much more alarmed than it pleases me 
 to confess. Great mercy ! thought I, is it 
 conceivable that Broadwater in a drunken fit 
 has really entered this cabin with the design of 
 murdering me, and that the liquor he has 
 swallowed has proved too potent at the last 
 moment to enable him to execute his horrid 
 project ! If he has a knife in his hand, I 
 reflected, starting as another groan arose, I 
 may stumble over him in groping and fall upon 
 the blade ; or if I should roll over him he 
 mio-ht not be too drunk to imaofine that I was 
 attacking him, when of course he would defend 
 himself and perhaps kill me.
 
 X. A MIDNIGHT ALARM. 171 
 
 Another groan determined me. This must 
 end, thought I, come what will ; and with that 
 I slipped over the edge of my bunk, but 
 instead of touching the deck my feet pressed 
 upon a soft, naked, hairy body. Before I could 
 cry out, the thing started up with a savage 
 squeal and threw me down. It ran over me, 
 but my fright was so great that I had not the 
 least idea whether it was man or beast, until, 
 putting out my hands to protect myself, I 
 grasped a curly tail, to my drag upon which 
 the pig — for a beast of a pig it was ! — re- 
 sponded by making his nature known in a 
 series of ear-piercing squealings. I groped 
 for the door, found it open and swinging to the 
 movement of the vessel, and feeling for the 
 hook secured it backwards against the bulk- 
 head. I then sought for and tumbled into my 
 small-clothes ; but whilst moving w^ith my arms 
 outstretched to where I thought I should find 
 my coat I fell over the pig again. I was now 
 as angry as I had before been frightened ; in 
 truth I was not a little bruised with my falls, 
 and my temper was still further inflamed by 
 the distracting cries of the pig whenever I
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 struck against it. Miss Grant opened her door. 
 She had lighted her lamp, and fearing that the 
 beast would make for her, I cried out : "It's 
 only a pig. I'll have him out of this In a 
 minute. Shut your door quickly, or he'll run 
 in upon you." She Instantly did as I told her, 
 but a moment after I could hear her laughing 
 as though she had fallen hysterical. 
 
 I stepped cautiously towards the passage, 
 and found the door that shut off the after- 
 accommodation from the state-cabin closed. 
 But for this, I should have had light enough 
 from the reflection of the dimmed lantern that 
 swung in the cabin to have seen by. By 
 sliding my hands about I succeeded in feeling 
 the handle of the door, which I opened ; but 
 the moment the light streamed in the pig ran 
 for it, and striking me on the legs as it swept 
 past, threw me again to the deck. The cabin- 
 skylight was opened, and the voice of some 
 one above called to me. I could just dis- 
 tinguish the features of the boatswain, but 
 before I could tell him what was the matter, 
 Broadwater, followed by the mate, came running 
 out from their berths in the fore end.
 
 X. A MIDNIGHT ALARM. 173 
 
 '' What is it ? what is it ? " shouted the old 
 skipper. '' Anybody being murdered ? " 
 
 But the mate's swiftly rolling eye instantly 
 caught sight of the pig, at which he made a 
 spring. The creature with a prodigious squeal 
 slipped, as though its back had been greased, 
 out of his grip, and with a wild kick-up of its 
 hind-quarters, and a defiant flourish of its tail, 
 made in a gallop in the direction of the captain, 
 through whose bow-legs it bolted, bringing 
 him down as if he had been shot. By this 
 time the boatswain, peering through the sky- 
 light and seeing how it was, had ordered some 
 of the men of his watch to jump below and 
 catch the pig, and down they trundled, four of 
 them, filled with anticipations of a fine bout of 
 skylarking — for Jack dearly loves a pig-hunt. 
 The uproar was now prodigious. The pig 
 raced round the cabin and under the table 
 yelling like a steam-horn to every clutch that 
 was made at it ; and after it went the sailors, 
 tumbling, swearing, laughing, whilst the mate 
 shouted to them in a shrill voice to bear a hand 
 and catch the brute. Old Broadwater, who 
 appeared somewhat dazed by his fall, sat upon
 
 174 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 a locker rubbing the back of his head, now and 
 again lifting his clenched fist as the pig 
 galloped past him, and heaping curses upon 
 the thing in a half-smothered tone. The men 
 however enjoyed the sport too keenly to be in 
 a hurry to end it, and a full hvQ minutes of 
 roaring, puffing, laughing, and squeaking 
 passed before the pig was captured. It w^as 
 then carried away by the fellows, one of whom, 
 it seemed to me, must have tormented it in 
 some secret manner, for the squealing of the 
 beast as it was borne up the ladder and along 
 the deck was so violent and sharp-edged that 
 it might have been heard a league distant. 
 
 Scarce had these distracting notes been 
 silenced, and just as I was about to put a 
 question to Captain Broadwater — for talk was 
 not to be dreamt of whilst that noise lasted — I 
 heard the boatswain on deck cry out in a loud 
 and fearful tone, " Hard up ! Hard up ! Over 
 with it, man, for our lives ! " and then an 
 instant after, ''Ship ahoy!" he roared, with 
 the same note of violent hurry and sense of 
 danger in his voice, " Port your helium ! port 
 your helium, or you'll be into us ! "
 
 A MIDNIGHT ALARM. 
 
 The mate gained the deck in a couple of 
 leaps : Broadwater followed him as though he 
 had been whipped up by a tackle ; and for- 
 getting that I was without shoes or stockings, 
 clad in nothing indeed but a shirt and trousers, 
 I shot up the ladder to see what was the 
 matter. It took my eyes some moments to 
 get used to the gloom, for there was sheen 
 enough in the cabin to turn the night black 
 as a wolf's throat when you rose out of the 
 companion-hatch into it ; then close upon our 
 starboard-bow, as it seemed to me, I spied 
 a light oscillating, as though passionately 
 flourished, and I could just distinguish a huge 
 black shadow there like a deeper dye of black- 
 ness upon the liquid dusk that overhung the 
 ocean. A minute after, close by the first 
 light up sprang a second — a sea-torch of 
 turpentine, the long sickly flame of which 
 streamed away into smoke, though it had 
 power enough to palely colour a small circum- 
 ference of atmosphere, out of which there 
 stole glimmering to the illumination the rigging 
 and lower canvas of a big ship. She loomed
 
 176 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 up so close aboard that the sight was something 
 to hold a man breathless. 
 
 In the brief interval of silence that followed 
 the boatswain's cry to her to port her helm, I 
 could distinctly hear the hiss and splash of the 
 curl of water breaking at her stem ; the voice 
 of a man rapidly delivering orders as though 
 for life or death ; the rattle of tiller-chains to 
 the swift revolution of the wheel ; the flap of 
 some light sail aloft buried in the black void, 
 hollowing inwards as the ship, answering her 
 helm, rounded to the wind. One moment she 
 was off our bow, the next abreast of us, so 
 close that the face of the man holding the 
 streaming flare-tin glimmered out yellow as the 
 rind of a ripe lime ; and as he leaned from the 
 bulwark-rail, torch in hand, swinging at arm's 
 length from a backstay, the figure of him upon 
 the yellow atmosphere of light was for all the 
 world like a human shape wrought in black 
 silk upon a ground of rusty amber. I cowered 
 involuntarily, believing the stranger's jibbooms 
 to be over us, and expecting every minute to 
 hear the rending and crashing of masts and
 
 A MIDNIGHT ALARM. 177 
 
 Strong fastenings to the sheering sweep of 
 those outstretched spars. She was soon on 
 our quarter, and then it was possible to fetch a 
 breath ; though even when there, you felt her 
 terrifying presence in the oppression of the 
 vast shadow of her black heights upon the 
 dusk. Presently the flare over her side went 
 out — the blotch she made melted into the 
 general shadow — and then she was as utterly 
 gone from the sight, though but a few cables' 
 lengths distant, as though she had foundered. 
 
 By this time Broadwater had recovered his 
 faculties, and he now let fly a whole hurricane 
 of questions at the boatswain ; demanding to 
 know how it was that the vessel had not been 
 sighted sooner, whether there w^as a man for- 
 ward on the look-out, and the like. But neither 
 rage nor rum could blind him to the almost 
 preternatural gloom of the night. Indeed it 
 was like being in a vault. One or two stars 
 showed faint as the dimmest of their own re- 
 flections, and it staggered one to see them, so 
 unreal was their wan gleam. What had become 
 of the moon I do not know. The outline of 
 the brig met the blackness without a break, and 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 lyS MAROONED. chap. x. 
 
 though I stood within a couple of yards of the 
 boatswain and Broadwater, I should not have 
 known there were people near me but for their 
 voices. Gordon answered the skipper quietly, 
 said that he had been keeping as bright a look- 
 out as was practicable to mortal sight on such 
 a night, but that, had he had as many eyes in 
 his head as a peacock carries in its tail, and 
 each eye a telescope at that, it would have been 
 all the same ; to which old Broadwater answered 
 with a growling, '' Well, boil me, if it ain't so ! " 
 and after that cooled down and spoke ration- 
 ally. 
 
 But just before I went below I heard Gordon 
 exclaim, *' It was the crying of the pig, sir, that 
 made our presence known. The ship heard it, 
 and showed a light, guessing there was some 
 craft close aboard. If it hadn't been for that 
 squeaking, I allow that we should have been on 
 the road to the bottom before this."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A TRAGEDY. 
 
 You will believe, after hearing the boat 
 swain's remark to the captain, that I was no 
 longer disposed to make a trouble of the 
 invasion of my berth by the pig. A trifle 
 light as air will at sea, and often in an instant, 
 become as solemn and as serious a thing as 
 doom. I returned to the cabin cold from the 
 deck, with the chill moreover in me that a 
 sudden danger and swift release will put into 
 a man, and going to my berth I thrust my 
 feet into a pair of warm slippers, wrapped a 
 dressing-gown about me, and re-entered the 
 cabin with a bottle of brandy in my hand for 
 the comfort of a dram. I was waiting for the 
 arrival of Broadwater, desiring to gather, 
 though without temper, how the pig had made 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o MAROONED. chap. 
 
 its way aft, when I was surprised by Miss 
 Grant peeping through the door that led to 
 our berths, and then advancing. 
 
 ** I expected you would be up, Mr. 
 Musgrave," she exclaimed, seating herself at 
 my side; ''what a noisy time this has been! 
 Far more alarming indeed than the commotion 
 the other night when the poor man committed 
 suicide. I have really felt frightened." 
 
 Yet she did not look so. Her eyes were as 
 steady, her lips as composed, her manner as 
 quiet as ever they had been in the tranquillest 
 hour we had passed together since our first 
 meeting. Her hair, roughened by the pillow, 
 made her beauty the more striking for the 
 disorder of it upon her white forehead and 
 whiter neck. It was no moment to take notice 
 of such trifles, but it seemed to me that this 
 woman .could never look more fascinating than 
 when newly and hastily arisen from her couch, 
 and hurriedly attired in a pink dressing-gown ! 
 
 I related my story of the adventure with the 
 pig, at which she laughed continuously, until 
 I came to tell her of our narrow escape, and 
 how, under Heaven, an incident that would
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 
 
 seem merry enough to everybody but the 
 person who took part In it, was the cause of 
 our escape from a catastrophe that might have 
 sent every soul of us to the bottom ; and then 
 she grew very grave. 
 
 ''It needs an effort of mind," said I, "to 
 conceive of the genius of luck taking upon 
 itself the aspect of a pig. Henceforward I 
 shall think respectfully of Broadwater's affec- 
 tion for roast and boiled pork." 
 
 '' I wish this voyage were over, Mr. 
 Musgrave," she exclaimed. '' I feel as if we 
 had already passed a couple of months at sea. 
 Do you think If the ship had run into us we 
 should have been drowned?" 
 
 " Impossible to say, Miss Grant. She was 
 a lump of a craft, to judge by the huge loom 
 of her shadow ; and I fear that, staunch as 
 the Iron Crown may be, one thrust from 
 that big chap would have made old staves 
 of the little hooker." 
 
 At this moment Broadwater's bow legs 
 appeared In the companion-way. Down he 
 came, pulling off his hat as he arrived. Sleep, 
 and the turmoil of the pig-hunt, and the alarm
 
 i82 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 he was fresh from, had cleared his head, and 
 he was as sober as one could wish. 
 
 '' Rather late for you to be a-sitting up, 
 miss," said he approaching the table ; '* there's 
 no longer call to be afraid. It'll be all plain 
 sailing now for the rest of the night." 
 
 ''What time is it, captain?" she inquired. 
 
 He pulled out his watch — ** weighed it" 
 would be the correct term, for it was like 
 breaking out an anchor — and said, '' Close 
 upon four bells — two o'clock, mum. Is that 
 there bottle yours, Mr. Musgrave ? " 
 
 I replied that it was, and grasping the hint 
 conveyed by the question, begged him to help 
 himself. He smacked his lips to the draught, 
 for the brandy was of my own buying, choice 
 and old, and said : "' A close shave that just 
 now, sir. I don't know that I ever remember 
 a darker night, considering it's fine weather." 
 
 "Ay," said I, ''dark it is; much too dark 
 for human eyesight, as your second mate truly 
 said. *Tis fortunate that we are endowed with 
 other faculties than vision only. Had there 
 not been ears aboard the stranger to catch the 
 squeaking of my pig where should we be now ? "
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 183 
 
 " How could the pig have got into the 
 cabin ? " exclaimed Miss Grant. 
 
 " Why," answered Captain Broadwater, *' he 
 must have broken out of his sty under the long- 
 boat, and grubbed along quietly in the dark- 
 ness until he comes to the companion-way, 
 down which he rolls, courted, maybe, by a smell 
 of feedin'. All hands of us aft being asleep, as 
 I allow, there was nobody to hear him. But 
 if that there door was shut," he added, pointing, 
 *' I don't see how the pig was to get into your 
 passage ; and supposing j^^^r door to have been 
 shut, how was he to enter your cabin ? " 
 
 It seems however that the door that con- 
 ducted to the passage had been left open and 
 unhooked, so that it was likely the pig, in 
 grubbing about, had given it a shove with its 
 snout and slammed it to. But how the creature 
 contrived to enter my cabin, the door of which 
 I remember having shut, I was at a loss to 
 imagine, until, going presently to fetch a 
 cheroot — for I was absolutely sleepless and was 
 in the habit of smoking whenever it pleased me 
 in the cabin, with Miss Grant's good leave, of 
 course — I examined the latch of the door of my
 
 1 84 ' MAROONED. chap. 
 
 berth, and observed that the tongue caught so 
 thinly that it yielded to the slightest pressure. 
 
 I think Broadwater would have gone 
 straightway to bed had it not been for my 
 brandy-bottle. Miss Grant protested that she 
 felt too restless to return to her cabin, and said 
 she wished it were daylight. 
 
 " The dawn'll soon be coming along, miss/' 
 said the captain ; " meantime, what's there to 
 be uneasy about now ? " 
 
 " The lady is not uneasy, captain," said I, 
 " her rest has been broken, and she no longer 
 feels sleepy ; " and I w^ondered that even his 
 little eyes should not have observed her com- 
 posed and tranquil expression. Indeed it 
 seemed to me that what uneasiness there was 
 lay altogether in hwi. His manner was sub- 
 dued, he spoke with a note of respect ; there 
 w^as that in his bearing which suggested that 
 the weight of his alarm had not yet lifted, and 
 I would see him sometimes shoot a look at the 
 companion or up at the skylight, and then 
 thoughtfully stroke down his nose, whilst his 
 little eyes met in a squint upon the glass around 
 which his carrot-shaped fingers were curled.
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 185 
 
 He was too much of a seaman not to know that 
 we had all of us come off just now very narrowly 
 indeed with our lives ; and though, as I have 
 said, he would no doubt have gone to bed but 
 for the brandy, he could not sit there and reflect 
 upon what had occurred without indications of 
 discomposure, which contrasted strongly with 
 Miss Grant's reposeful expression, steadfast 
 eyes, and calm, sweet utterance. 
 
 And yet from the few words she had let fall, 
 I was sure that she had mastered the full signi- 
 ficance of the danger we had escaped as com- 
 pletely as if she had witnessed the scene — as 
 completely indeed as if she had been as prac- 
 tical a sailor as the captain himself. Once she 
 lifted her finger to the light moan of a sea run- 
 ning stealthily along the side against which we 
 were leaning, and exclaimed : "How cold the 
 sound is there ! I remember once telling 
 Alexander that qualities sensible to the touch 
 may also be so to the hearing. He did not 
 understand me ; but surely, Mr. Musgrave, 
 isn't the icy breath of a winter's blast, as it 
 sweeps past the window, as perceptible to the
 
 i86 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 ear as it would be to the face if one should 
 look out of doors ? " 
 
 " I find nothing hard to understand in that 
 fancy," I replied ; meanly willing, I fear, to 
 exhibit my understanding as in some senses 
 superior to her Alexander's. " I once saw a 
 man lying dead in a posture of terror — he 
 had died with a shriek, I learned ; but I did 
 not need to be told that, for I could see 
 his cry in the attitude, though Death's fore- 
 finger had been upon his lips for twenty-four 
 hours." 
 
 '' A queer sort of twisting of the faculties, ain't 
 it, sir?" exclaimed old Broadwater; '' to see a 
 shriek, and hear cold weather ! That's a kind of 
 boiling above most men's intellectuals, I should 
 think. With your good leave, Mr. Musgrave, 
 I'll take another drop, sir. Good old Jamaiky, 
 as a standing drink, is to my taste unsurpassable 
 by any sort o' liquor to be found in the first 
 nobleman's cellar in the country ; but a drop of 
 brandy after this here pattern is an agreeable 
 change, and I've heard," he continued, helping 
 himself, " that an occasional wariation is recom-
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 187 
 
 mended by the doctors as sarviceable to the 
 liver. Your heahh, sir ; miss, to you." 
 
 He nodded with more complacency than I 
 had ever witnessed in him when not in his cups 
 and sighed with satisfaction after drinking. 
 
 I thought I would take advantage of his 
 mood to put in a good word for his crew, and 
 said, " Your fellows seem a lively lot — true 
 Jacks when it comes to a bout of skylarking. 
 Did you notice how they relished the pig-hunt ? 
 I should say there's nothing to be afraid of in 
 men who possess their capacity of enjoying 
 Httle things." 
 
 I had scarce uttered these words when, 
 through the silence that followed, and through 
 the whole lenorth and breadth of the briof, as it 
 seemed to me, there rang out so wild and shrill 
 a cry of human anguish, that the like of it I 
 could never imagine deliverable by human lips. 
 You would have sworn it was a woman's voice, 
 and had not Miss Grant been by my side I 
 must have thought it was she — as the only one 
 of her sex on board — who had uttered it. 
 
 "Great Heavens!" I cried, ''what has 
 happened ? "
 
 1 88 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Broadwater had started to his feet at the 
 sound, but he then appeared to be stricken 
 helpless, for he stood staring with a sort of 
 gape in the set of his lips towards the com- 
 panion-ladder. Miss Grant's face was full of 
 consternation, and she kept her eyes fixed on 
 me with a wild look of consternation in them. 
 I listened, expecting to hear a second cry. 
 There was a sound of swift running overhead ; 
 a sharp, angry shout in the voice of the boat- 
 swain ; a minute after the chief mate came 
 staggering down the ladder with his hand to 
 his side, his dark face dreadful to see with the 
 ghastly colouring upon it. He stood whilst 
 you could have counted ten at the foot of the 
 ladder, swaying, his left hand upon his heart, 
 his right hand extended, his ashen lips in- 
 articulately moving ; then dropped without a 
 groan, and lay motionless. 
 
 A voice halloa'd on deck. I could not 
 catch the words, but it was easy to recognize 
 Gordon's tone, and it seemed to me that he 
 was bawling for assistance from the wheel, or 
 close to it. The light burnt dully in the cabin 
 lantern ; I turned the mesh high that we might
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 
 
 see what was the matter with the mate, and 
 then went up to him. He lay on his side, and 
 when I looked at his face I could not question 
 that he was dead. He had run from the cabin 
 in his shirt and trousers on hearing the squealing 
 of the pig, and in that attire had bounded on 
 deck when the boatswain's sudden cry had 
 raised the alarm of collision, and thus was he 
 habited as he lay — a clearly murdered man — at 
 the foot of the cabin steps. His left side was 
 dark in the lamplight with the saturation of 
 blood, and already there was a large dusky 
 patch slowly sifting out, like ink upon blotting- 
 paper, over the sand-coloured planks on which 
 the man rested. His head was uncovered, his 
 eyes half closed, his lips had not yet had time 
 to soften down out of the rigours of their 
 grinning twist of agony and terror ; the gleam 
 of his white teeth was as though he snarled, 
 spite of his lying still. God knows, handsome 
 as the lineaments were, it was now a face as 
 villainous for the wrinkled torment and fierce 
 sneer about the mouth, and the sly brutality 
 of the half-closed eyes, and the savageness of 
 the woolly hair, that even in life when all was
 
 TQO MAROONED. chap. 
 
 well with him was enough to repel most sorts 
 of sympathy, as imagination could depicture. 
 I know that the memory of it, with its base 
 accentuation of stained deck and dyed shirt, 
 haunted me for years, and the thing is before 
 me at this moment, though without the old 
 horror. 
 
 This is a passage that takes some time to 
 describe, though the interval between the 
 dropping of the killed man and my bending 
 over him was to have been spanned by twenty 
 or thirty seconds. Broadwater appeared to 
 have been bereft of reason. A professional 
 danger — the thundering down of a squall 
 catching him aback, a big ship under a press 
 close aboard him, white water under the bows 
 — might have found him equal to its con- 
 frontment. The vocational instincts would 
 have gone to work, and preserved him from 
 gaping like a fool. But here was something 
 wide of his experience, a sudden violent shock 
 — a frightful menace in its way, too, for it was 
 impossible to say what greater and blacker 
 tragedy yet lay secret, but sure, behind this 
 first and most bloody one.
 
 XL A TRAGEDY. 191 
 
 I found Miss Grant at my side looking 
 at the body, with a white face, indeed, but 
 with a bearing perfectly collected and self- 
 possessed. 
 
 " Mr. Musgrave," she said, in a quick yet 
 firm voice, " what Is to be done ? Direct me : 
 I am prepared to assist you in any way." 
 
 " So far as this man Is concerned," I answered, 
 pointing to the body, " there is nothing to be 
 done. Look at his face. There is no virtue 
 for him now in any stanching or dressing. He 
 has been stabbed to the heart !" 
 
 She shuddered, and returned to her seat at 
 the table. 
 
 "Captain!" I cried suddenly, angered by 
 the posture of helplessness into which this 
 business had struck him, ''here is murder — 
 murder, do you hear, sir ? If your crew have 
 not mutinied, what else should this signify ? 
 There is no leisure at sea, sir, for goggling. 
 P'or God's sake go on deck, man, and find out 
 what's the matter ! " 
 
 Had I run at him with a pitchfork, the 
 action could not have started him more 
 effectually than my speech.
 
 192 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " Goggling ! who's a-goggling ? " he roared. 
 " By |his and by that," and here he bellowed 
 out a whole volley of curses, *' the man who's 
 done this thing shall swing for it ! From my 
 own yard-arm he shall swing for it, though 
 there's ne'er a pair of hands on board but mine 
 to run the villain aloft ! Murder ! Murder 
 aboard of me ! Why, what do they hope to 
 do ? what's their intention ? " 
 
 He made for the companion-ladder with fury 
 in his looks and gestures ; but at that instant 
 down thundered the second mate, with his face 
 as white as its dark tincture of weather would 
 suffer it to be, as wild in his manner as a de- 
 mented man ; so distractedly agitated that his 
 quick, distressful breathing broke up his words 
 as they rolled hoarsely from his lips, and it was 
 with an effort you caught his meaning. 
 
 *' Captain ! captain ! " he cried, '^ there's been 
 a murder done ! The mate — ay, there he lies — 
 stabbed, sir, stabbed by the half-blood Charles ! " 
 
 ** Where is he ? " bellowed Broadwater, who 
 had come to a stand on seeing the boatswain, 
 but who now gathered himself together afresh 
 for a spring on deck.
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 193 
 
 *' Hold, sir ! " cried Gordon, " hold ! hear me 
 out. For God Almighty's sake deal with 
 them as though an ill word now should tarn 
 'em all into wild beasts ! Mr. INIusgrave — sir 
 — you've been to sea. You know that when 
 sailor-men are ripe for mischief the sight and 
 smell of blood will change the most peaceable 
 of them into devils. Tell the captain this, 
 sir ! beg him to listen to me, sir, or there'll be 
 not a life of one of us now here collected as'll 
 stand the chance of that flame there if you was 
 to try and blow it out." 
 
 " Captain," said I, half wild with the thoughts 
 such talk as this put into my head, as I looked 
 for an instant at Miss Grant to mark what 
 effect the incoherent consternation of the boat- 
 swain produced upon her, '' you must listen to 
 this man. He has something to tell you. 
 There are three of us ; I have weapons of my 
 own, and you will not be without arms. For 
 God's sake, don't let the worst happen without 
 preparation ! Sit — be cool. There, '^ I cried, 
 pointing to the body of the mate, " is something 
 to warrant a cold debate ! " and with that I 
 grasped him by the arm, with a quick sense of 
 
 vol.. I. o
 
 194 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 satisfaction coming to me, somehow or other, 
 out of the feel of the mass of muscle my 
 fingers gripped, and shoved him towards a 
 locker. He sat down, with his face as dark as 
 the stain on the cabin deck, without speaking, 
 with a fixed glare of his little eyes at Gordon, 
 and a kind of suffocated heaving of his breast. 
 
 " Now, Gordon ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 The man had already grown somewhat 
 calmer. 
 
 '' Captain," he said, " this is how it happened. 
 Charles, the half-blood, was at the wheel. 
 When you went below, the mate," here he 
 turned his eyes with a sickly roll upon the 
 body, and a sharp catching of his breath, 
 "came up to me, and talked of the craft that 
 had nearly run us down. He spoke in a 
 passion, gave me hard words — told me I had 
 no eyes, wasn't fit to take charge of the deck, 
 and swore cruelly that he'd reckon his own 
 eyesight to have been blasted if he'd have 
 missed the shadow long afore they showed the 
 binnacle light over the side. We argued, and 
 I fell as hot as he. After a long spell of jaw- 
 ing he went forra'ds, and I heard him talking
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 195 
 
 to some of the men there. His words went 
 with a snap in them — bitter hard words they 
 was, sir ! — a sight too fierce for flesh and blood ; 
 and the men took courage, I suppose from the 
 blackness, and gave it him back, till forra'ds it 
 grew into a whole growl of curses, and then," 
 he continued with another sickening look at 
 the figure, *' he steps aft threatening them with 
 a hundred work-up jobs for to-morrow. He 
 comes up to me, and lets fly again. He talked 
 as if he hadn't his right mind, and I tell ye that 
 I peered for the gleam of a knife in his hand, 
 dark as it was, for he acted as if he were eoino- 
 to run a muck. It was his watch below ; there 
 was nothing to keep him on deck ; whilst, if I 
 couldn't boast of his education, there was 
 nothing on God's ocean in the seafaring line 
 as he was competent to teach me." He cast 
 another look of dismay and disgust at the dead 
 man, and stopped to take breath. 
 
 Broadwater watched him with a fixed gaze. 
 I was afraid he would interrupt the fellow, but 
 he had fallen into his earlier posture of be- 
 wilderment and astonishment. 
 
 '' I could follow him," continued Gordon, 
 
 o 2
 
 196 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " by the white of his shirt a-flitting about the 
 deck, and after a bit he walks to the wheel 
 where Charles was, and spoke to him. There 
 was some muttering ; then I heard hwi!' 
 pointing with his finger at the body without 
 looking at it, "talking shrill as a fishwife, whilst 
 the half-blood answered sulkily, as a man 
 struggling with his temper ; and this went on 
 till of a sudden Mr. Both well made the cry 
 ye must have heard, and before I could run aft 
 he had slipped to the companion, where I lost 
 sight of him. I found the wheel deserted. 
 The half-blood had gone forward in the murky 
 blackness along the line of the larboard bul- 
 warks, and though I noticed the slapping of 
 shoes, yet, not seeing him, I supposed he was 
 still at the helm. I halloa'd for some one to 
 lay aft and take the wheel. The moment he 
 came, I says, 'Where's Charles?' 'In the 
 fo'k'sle,' he answers. 'What's he done?' 
 says I, for I couldn't guess at the truth of the 
 matter from the noise of Mr. Bothwell's yell. 
 ' He's knifed the mate,' says he. ' How do 
 you know that ? ' says I. ' Why,' he says, 
 ' afore dropping down the scuttle he sings out,
 
 XL A TRAGEDY. 197 
 
 ' Nat — Dan — Terence— is there e'er a one of 
 you on deck?" '/ am,' says I, who was 
 standing close. ' By God ! ' says he, ' the 
 mate'll trouble us no more ; my knife has 
 found his heart out ! It'll be the skipper's 
 turn next ! ' " 
 
 Broadwater started to his feet. 
 
 '* For Heaven's sake, hear him out ! " I 
 cried ; " time may be precious ; how on earth 
 shall we know what to do unless we get the 
 truth " 
 
 The skipper had lifted his arm with a frenzied 
 gesture, and would have plunged, spite of my 
 entreaty, into one of his now familiar roaring 
 bouts ; but happily he was half-suffocated by 
 rage and terror, and scarcely able to articulate. 
 He continued to watch the boatswain, whilst 
 his extended arm fell to his side. 
 
 '' When I heard this," continued Gordon, 
 throw^ing a look up the companion-ladder as if 
 he suspected listeners there, " I went forrards, 
 put my head into the scuttle, and called to 
 Charles. He answered without showing him- 
 self. I says, ' In God's name, what have you 
 gone and done ? ' ' I've sent a villain to hell,'
 
 198 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 he answers, ' let him come back if he can.' 
 Some of the chaps laughed at this. They had 
 trimmed the fo'k'sle lamp afresh, and all hands 
 seemed wide awake, as no doubt they would be 
 after the row of the pig and the danger we 
 scraped clear of ; but I tell ye, Captain Broad- 
 water," he continued, with another look up the 
 ladder, " that there was a sound in them men's 
 laughter which gave me to know that a cask of 
 gunpowder, with the head knocked off lying 
 clear for the first spark, wouldn't be a bigger 
 danger in the hold of this vessel than's her 
 fo'k'sle to her as it now stands, sir." He paused, 
 dried his face on a great blue handkerchief, and 
 then went on speaking hurriedly. " I says, 
 ' Charles, you must come out of that ! No use 
 skulking below. There's no stabbing men in 
 this here craft and lying snug after it. Up with 
 ye now, — don't give me the trouble to fetch ye.' 
 He bawled out a curse, keeping hidden all the 
 time. I put my leg over, but ere I could lift 
 the other, four or five men sprang under the 
 hatch, and one of them said, ' See here, Mr. 
 Gordon. We don't owe you no grudge. 
 These are your quarters as they are ourn ; but
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 199 
 
 the man's not to be touched. Understand that ! 
 By the Etarnal ! if so be a finger's laid upon him 
 the capt'n '11 answer for it with his life ; so aft 
 with ye, sir, and give him this piece of news 
 from his fo'k'sle.' I got out of the hatch, and 
 after a look dowm at the men, came away to tell 
 ye what's happened." 
 
 I had made up my mind to offer no sugges- 
 tions, and so contented myself with watching 
 Broadwater, wondering what measures such a 
 head as his would be able to devise for the 
 remedying of the horrible mess into which he 
 and his mate had plunged us. He seemed to 
 wake up when the boatswain ceased, and fell to 
 pacing the cabin in silence, measuring twenty or 
 thirty strides before he spoke. He then said, 
 " Better return on deck, Mr. Gordon, and look 
 after the brig, sir. Send Billy here." The 
 boatswain ascended the ladder ; Broadwater 
 resumed his walk. 
 
 One wants a paint-brush instead of a quill for 
 such a picture as this. The dead body of the 
 mate ; Miss Grant motionless and composed, 
 though, methought, there was a flash of an 
 almost preternatural vitality in the dark sweep
 
 2 03 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 of her eyes whenever they met mine ; the short, 
 square, muscular figure of Broadwater pacing the 
 length of the cabin, staring^ ahead of him with 
 the blind, wooden look of a figure-head ; the 
 play of shadows set dancing by the lamp ; the 
 midnight silence on deck ; the soft, washing 
 sound of water running in some sobbing black 
 fold along the bends ; the creak and jar of the 
 fabric as she rolled on the light swell, with many 
 a muffled note like the short laughs or sullen 
 grumblings of a company of giants below, 
 stealing to our ear from the freighted hold be- 
 neath our feet — I say there is nothing in ink to 
 give you the colour, the horror, the strangeness 
 of this cabin picture, and the noises breaking 
 into the interval of silence, during which the 
 captain stepped from one end to the other, 
 whilst Miss Grant and I waited for the arrival 
 of the boy, knowing what he was wanted for. 
 
 A few moments before he came, Broadwater 
 halted at the side of the dead man, stooped and 
 listened, grasped his wrist and held it, as though 
 feeling for the life there, then shot erect, and 
 cried out, " Never before did such a thing 
 happen aboard of me ! never before ! And they
 
 XT. A TRAGEDY. 201 
 
 talk of murdering me too, hey ? How many 
 lives must it cost 'em ? How many lives must it 
 cost 'em ? " He thrust his hand into the bosom 
 of his shirt, and made as if to run to his cabin, 
 but checked himself, wheeled round, and fell to 
 pacing the deck afresh. 
 
 The boy arrived. " Here," shouted Broad- 
 water fiercely, '' help me to carry that body to 
 his berth." 
 
 The unhappy youth stood with his knock- 
 knees trembling one against the other, whilst 
 he stared at the corpse with eyes which 
 threatened to leap from their sockets. If ever 
 human hair stirred upon the head to the 
 agitation of the spirit, his did. But his fear of 
 Broadwater was livelier than his dread of the 
 corpse. Between them they carried the body 
 to its berth in the fore-end, and I had not 
 known how heavily the presence of the thing 
 had hung upon me until it was gone, when I 
 fetched a breath as easy as a sigh. 
 
 Broadwater returned, and the boy shambling 
 in his wake went stealthily to the ladder, and 
 then fled up it as though the mate were in pur- 
 suit of him. The captain looked through the
 
 202 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 hatch as if he meant to mount on deck, but 
 hung irresohite, with a short glance round to 
 me that was like a question. I own that the 
 difficulty with which he was confronted was 
 enough to stagger a brighter intellect than his 
 pork-fed and rum-tinctured brains. Yet his 
 hesitation at such a juncture was mighty dis- 
 composing too. Observing that he continued 
 to stand in a posture of doubt at the foot of the 
 ladder, I said bluntly, believing that a plain 
 question might help him, '* Captain, what do you 
 mean to do ? " 
 
 He looked at me oddly for some moments, 
 sent a glance into the black arch of atmosphere 
 formed by the cover of the companion-way, and 
 answered in a deep, sea-growling note, " Cursed 
 if I know. What would yoit do ? " 
 
 " Wait till daylight, anyhow," I replied ; 
 '' remain cool, and keep my temper. That's 
 what / should resolve upon first. For the rest 
 I should be guided by events." 
 
 " And who says I ain't cool ? " he cried in a 
 quarrelsome way, " and as to losing my temper 
 
 " he stopped dead to the sudden choke 
 
 of rao^e in his throat, clenched both fists till
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY. 203 
 
 I noticed the veins stand out black to the 
 tension Hke whipcord under the flesh, hfted 
 his arms to the deck overhead, and shook 
 them convulsively in a fit of speechless passion ; 
 then looking for his cap he pulled it fiercely 
 down to his ears, and went with a heavy tread 
 up the steps. 
 
 "We ought to be grateful," said I, ''that the 
 fellow's rage is often too great to enable him 
 to speak. His speechlessness was the very 
 petrifaction of his curses ! " 
 
 "He is not the man," she exclaimed, "for 
 such an emergency as this. Pray God there 
 may be some good sense left amongst the crew. 
 If not, what will happen ? ^' 
 
 " I comfort myself with the thought," I replied, 
 "that sailors are slow to mutiny. They know 
 the law. If they refuse their duty, certain and 
 severe punishment awaits them ashore ; if they 
 seize the vessel, it is piracy — a criminal act that 
 ends with Jack Ketch. If they murder — but 
 enough of such talk, Miss Grant. Here has 
 been a wild disturbance that may presently 
 settle down into a sulky calm ; and let the 
 tranquillity be as sinister as it will, providing
 
 204 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 we can step ashore at Rio before it ends, we 
 shall have reason to be satisfied." 
 
 She glanced at the dark stain on the deck, a 
 slight shiver ran through her, and she folded 
 her arms across her breast as though for the 
 warmth of them. 
 
 *' What a night this has been ! " she cried ; 
 " indeed, what a time the whole voyage has 
 been, so far as it has gone ! I have heard 
 stories of wild doings in vessels of this kind 
 trading to the West Indies and to South 
 America, but nothing to equal our experiences ! " 
 
 She shivered again ; I caught a tremble in her 
 under-lip, and a swift expression of mingled 
 worry and horror in her eyes, and fearing that 
 she would break down — and surely w^hat she 
 had seen and suffered since she had quitted her 
 berth might well have broken a hardier spirit 
 than ever woman was yet informed with — I 
 poured a little brandy into a glass, and begged 
 her to drink it ; but she waved it aside with a 
 sudden proud smile, sweet with kindness too. 
 
 " Do not misjudge me, Mr. Musgrave," she 
 said ; '' if I seem to falter in a time of trouble, it 
 is not, I think, from want of couracre. It is the
 
 XI. A TRAGEDY 
 
 sense of uncertainty that always weakens me 
 most — the not knowing what to do." She 
 suddenly ceased, lifting her hand to motion 
 silence ; but the noise was no more than the 
 growling of old Broadwater's voice talking to 
 the boatswain close against the cabin skylight, 
 one frame of which stood open. We strained 
 our ears, but could not catch words enough to 
 
 o 
 
 enable us to gather the import of their talk. I 
 advised her to return to her berth, and sleep 
 out the rest of the ni^ht if she could. She 
 smiled at my speaking of sleep, and said she 
 would go to her berth and dress herself. 
 
 " But you wall not come on deck. Miss Grant ? " 
 
 '' Why not ? " 
 
 " Be advised by me, I beg you. It is bleak 
 and black ; what can you do on deck ? Next, 
 in the present temper of the men, I could wish 
 you to keep out of sight of them. The dawn 
 will soon be at hand, and sunrise may g'wQ a 
 new complexion to our affairs." 
 
 " I will do whatever you please," she said 
 " I merely need advice. What follows I hope 
 I shall have courage enough to meet," and with 
 another smile — so full of spirit that it was
 
 2o6 MAROONED. chap. xi. 
 
 almost enough to make one doubt that she 
 fully grasped the significance of our dangerous 
 situation, in a small brig with murder newly 
 done, and the crew sheltering and making a 
 hero of the assassin — she entered her berth. 
 Ten minutes after, I quitted my own cabin, 
 fully dressed, and went on deck.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MUTINY. 
 
 As I Stepped over the combing of the hatch, 
 I caught sight of the dawn sifting out into dim 
 ash along the seaboard on the port, or, as we 
 then termed it, the larboard side. It was a cold, 
 unearthly lights and against it the sea-line ran 
 in a short clear ruling, black as liquid pitch. 
 The wind was a quiet breeze, as it had been 
 throughout the night ; but the swell had veered 
 from abeam to the starboard quarter, and swung 
 the brig onwards in gliding, floating movements, 
 though that her sails were doing their work you 
 knew by the sound of the singing of running 
 waters rising from the obscurity, mingled with 
 a dull noise of moaning, and the flat, echoless 
 plashing of ripple colliding with ripple into
 
 2o8 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 short spouts of sea, which leaped without hfe 
 round about the vessel's quarters. 
 
 Even as the dawn broke it was yet so dark 
 that there was nothing to be seen but the 
 filtering light ; but this brightened fast into a 
 ragged sort of staring of the radiance over 
 streaks and through tail-ends of clouds, until 
 the whole circumference of the horizon sloped 
 dark to the vague gray of the sky, with a slow 
 writhing, wonderful to behold, of the shadowy 
 substance of the brig's sails, masts, and hull, 
 into determinable forms, out of what was just 
 now mere impalpable blocks of dusk one on 
 top of another. 
 
 I can conceive of no spectacle more melan- 
 choly and cheerless than the first breaking of 
 day over the wide and troubled ocean. There 
 is a bleakness in the aspect of pallid heaven 
 and yet darkling water, and in the gray com- 
 plexion of the canvas and rigging of the ship, 
 that enters the atmosphere as a sensible quality 
 of cold ; and I have known men who, though 
 they had been on deck for several hours without 
 feeling the edge of the wind, have slapped their 
 breasts with a shudder to the first opening of
 
 XII. MUTINY. 209 
 
 the desolate faintness in the east. But it was 
 soon broad dayHght. The broken, bhnd sort 
 of stare among the clouds to larboard melted 
 out into the flooding of effulgent pink — the sun 
 lifted a segment of rose-red glory — a sinuous 
 stream of radiance flashed from one blue brow 
 to another down to within a musket-shot of us — 
 and then you saw a piebald sky, mottled into rich 
 marble with dashes of white vapour — a broad - 
 bosomed swell rolling in folds of dark blue and 
 brimming to our channels, freckled with foam- 
 mgr wrinkles. 
 
 There were some men talking near the fore- 
 hatch ; occasionally they directed their glances 
 aft to the quarter-deck, where the captain and 
 boatswain stood in silent waiting, as it seemed 
 to me, until the spring of the sun from the 
 ocean should fairly settle the dawn into day. I 
 took a long survey of the blue circle, but there 
 was nothing to be seen. Not that there was 
 anything to be hoped from the sight of a ship, 
 unless, indeed, she should prove a man-of-war ; 
 for our trouble was not of a kind that a 
 merchantman could meddle with. How could 
 her people serve us ? Advice was hardly likely 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 2IO MAROONED. chap. 
 
 to prove profitable to Broadwater, and more 
 than that he was not going to obtain by back- 
 ing his topsail to speak a stranger and asking 
 him to send a boat. And yet even the re- 
 motest gleam of a ship w^ould have yielded me 
 a sort of feeling of relief, by qualifying, how- 
 ever worthlessly, the profound sense of loneliness 
 that possessed me on first seeing the vast stretch 
 of liquid waste bathed in the delicate light of 
 the sunrise. 
 
 There was an air of surly and defiant stubborn- 
 ness in the postures and glances of the group 
 forward that was instantly noticeable. I counted 
 seven of them, and supposed therefore that 
 amongst them was one or more of that division 
 of the crew which had the watch below. They 
 appeared to be holding a council ; and it was 
 startling, I can tell you, to mark their forms, so 
 to speak, come out from the blackness into the 
 dawn, and to think of them as having been 
 there talking one to another, as they now were 
 when the darkness hid them. 
 
 I looked for the man Charles, but he was not 
 on deck. No doubt it was the fancies put into 
 my head by the thought of the dead creature
 
 XII. MUTINY. 
 
 below, which helped my imagination to colour 
 and accentuate the attitudes and expressions 
 of the fellows ; but even though the night had 
 passed as tranquilly as the preceding one, I 
 must still, though bending the most incurious 
 eye in the world upon them, have found some- 
 thing in their varied demeanour to render me 
 uneasy. There was doggedness and obstinacy 
 in the plant of the figures swaying upon their 
 legs to the heave of the deck ; in the arms 
 squared firmly upon the breast, the rugged wrist 
 of one hand showing out past the dark half- 
 concealed knuckles of the other ; in the challeng- 
 ing glances aft ; in the well-conveyed indifference 
 to the presence of the master. 
 
 The second mate had a very worn and hag- 
 gard look. He showed like a man worried to the 
 heart ; but I think it must have been the shock 
 of Bothwell's murder that paled and lengthened 
 his face, for he had used the sea for too many 
 years, and had lived too closely with sailors, 
 to be scared to the degree that his visage 
 and manner now indicated by mere mutinous 
 mutterings and loafing, insolent attitudes. As 
 to old Broadwater, it was quite impossible for 
 
 p 2
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 him to look gaunt ; his purple countenance was 
 as much a part of him as his ears or his feet, 
 and he would die with it on him as a negro dies 
 with a black skin. But the incidents of the 
 night had done their work with him neverthe- 
 less. The arch over each eye was sharper ; in 
 quiet times this would have made him appear 
 as though labouring under astonishment, but 
 there were other features and other expressions 
 to lift this aspect of surprise into a look of 
 savage consternation. Had I viewed him 
 without knowing what was the matter, I should 
 have imagined that he had been on deck day 
 and night for a week, exposed to violent and 
 dangerous weather, during which his mind had 
 been heavily strained by anxiety. 
 
 There was a man named Daniel Ladova, 
 another half-blood, as I supposed, standing at 
 the wheel, and I could have laughed outright 
 at the pat fit of the fellow's face to the circum- 
 stances of the time ; for though I dare say he 
 may have been at bottom as steady, respectable, 
 and sober a creature as one could wish to see 
 in a ship's forecastle, yet he was so confoundedly 
 ugly, with his flat nose, the nostrils whereof
 
 XII. MUTINY. 213 
 
 were stretched past the Kne of his eyes, his 
 wide mouth and negro fulness of Hps, his coal- 
 black, long, streaky Indian hair, low forehead 
 and complexion of saffron, the whole topped 
 off by the sieve-like pitting of smallpox, that 
 one might have searched every shipping-yard 
 in Great Britain without meeting with a 
 fellow better qualified by his looks to 
 stand at the brig's helm in this particular 
 juncture. 
 
 Suddenly Broadwater made some observation 
 to Gordon, and walked aft. The boatswain 
 called out, " Forward there ! Send Charles aft, 
 one of you ! " but there was a half-heartedness in 
 his way of singing out that made one feel he 
 regarded the captain's command as purposeless 
 and ridiculous. 
 
 The fellows lounging about the foremast 
 looked round to the hail, but only quitted their 
 posture to that extent. No one called to 
 Charles, no one even approached the scuttle to 
 do so. 
 
 '' D'ye hear what I say, men ? " repeated 
 Gordon, but in the same half-spirited tone, as 
 though the bother of this time had taken most
 
 214 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 of the manhood out of him ; " one of you tell 
 Charles that the captain wants him aft." 
 
 '' Charles has got nothen to do with us," cried 
 back one of the fellows huskily ; '' if the capt'n 
 wants him, he knows where to find him." 
 
 Broadwater bawled from the station he 
 occupied near the wheel, " What are they 
 a-saying, Mr. Gordon ? What are they a-saying, 
 sir ? " 
 
 The boatswain replied, "If we want the half- 
 blood, we must call him ourselves." 
 
 " Send all hands aft ! send all hands aft ! " 
 shouted Broadwater furiously, stepping forward 
 by half-a-dozen angry strides, and then halting, 
 with his chest rising and falling to his passionate 
 breathing, that was not all pure wrath either, for 
 I could y^-^/ the irresolution that lay under all 
 this show of temper, and guessed that but very 
 little likely to prove useful to us could follow 
 on any intentions he might have in his mind. 
 
 The boatswain instantly roared out, *' Lay aft 
 all hands ! " in much such a hurricane note as 
 he would have delivered in a gale of wind, 
 in summoning all hands to reef topsails. 
 
 My heart beat fast now, I confess, for the
 
 XII. MUTINY. 215 
 
 men's refusal to obey this order would signify 
 mutiny ; and though from the first hour of my 
 climbing aboard the Iron Crown I had been 
 apprehensive of grievous trouble in this way, 
 now that it had come to look as if the thing 
 was about to happen, I was as much agitated 
 as though I had never given it a thought, and 
 it had broken upon us on a sudden. Judge, 
 then, of my relief, when I saw the knot of men 
 gathered about the foremast leisurely make 
 their way aft with a shambling, devil-may-care 
 gait for the most part ; one or two with a half 
 grin, which was less suited to my taste than the 
 mulish, sullen countenances the others carried. 
 The captain, leaning forwards and backwards 
 on his curved legs to the swing of the ship, his 
 arms up and down, his hands clenched to the 
 appearance of small rounds of beef, his cap 
 jammed so tightly down upon his head that the 
 upper rounds of his ears forked out with the 
 pressure, stood fixedly regarding the sailors as 
 they approached. Meanwhile the boatswain 
 had gone forward, and picking up a handspike, 
 thumped the deck heavily with it, whilst with 
 his head overhanging the scuttle — by which I
 
 2 r 6 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 would have you understand the Httle forecastle- 
 hatch through which the men emerged from, 
 or dropped into their quarters — he delivered a 
 second leather-lunged roar of " All hands lay 
 aft!" emphasizing his cry with a further smiting 
 of the deck with his bar, which he then threw 
 down. This done, he came away, and stood a 
 little abaft the main-rigging, the captain having 
 posted himself abreast of the companion-hatch. 
 In a few moments the rest of the men who 
 were in the forecastle tumbled up, hoisting 
 themselves out w^ith their elbows, and vaulting 
 lightly on to the deck, with a sailor's enjoyment 
 of an incident that at least gave them some- 
 thing else to think of than the cheerless, 
 laborious routine of the ship's work. 
 
 The sun was now risen, and some degrees 
 above the horizon. It was half-past four in the 
 morning, maybe later ; one takes no particular 
 account of time in such passages as these. The 
 warm breeze blew steadily, and the brig buzzed 
 softly over the blue hills of swell, which, as they 
 ran into the south-east quarter, lifted the molten 
 silver of the sun's reflection upon their broad 
 shoulders in regular procession, till the white
 
 xii. MUTINY. 217 
 
 dazzle there was as blinding as a glance at the 
 luminary himself. I had often read of diffi- 
 culties of this kind happening at sea, but never 
 been brought face to face with the reality ; and 
 I remember thinking, as I stood on the larboard 
 side of the vessel, close against the quarter- 
 boat, and ran my eye over the group that had 
 come to a stand a little abaft the mainmast, 
 that though the perils of the deep be many, 
 some frightful, and all of them formidable, the 
 worst of them, ay, even fire itself, must yield in 
 horror to mutiny — where men arm themselves 
 against their fellows, where the passions of 
 undisciplined minds are let loose, where tyrannic 
 authority and bitter grievance come in conflict, 
 and where the struesfle is inflamed and rendered 
 wilder than anything of a like sort could ever 
 become ashore through the forecastle percep- 
 tion that, the bad business once entered upon, 
 there is no mercy to be expected in the event 
 of failure, no hope to be cherished should 
 rebellion prove successful. In disaster men 
 work together for their lives ; in mutiny they 
 work together for their own destruction. The 
 sweep of the sparkling sea-line round about us
 
 2 1 8 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 was like the compression of the very spirit 
 of lonehness into our little brig. There was 
 nothing to help the eye, to ease, by a solitary 
 detail of discipline, the perturbation excited by 
 the scene. On board an Indiaman, for instance, 
 there would have been mates and midshipmen 
 in plenty, loyal to the commander ; with an 
 array of passengers, maybe, in whose fidelity 
 one could count in the name of self-concern. 
 It would be strange, too, if the whole of a big 
 ship's company should prove disaffected ; so 
 that the quarter-deck might reckon at least on 
 the negative services of a portion of the crew. 
 But if yonder crowd, gathered about the main- 
 mast, and staring with mingled derision and 
 hate at the square, round-legged, red- faced man 
 whose lifted brows and whistling mouth put the 
 expression of a gape into his countenance, 
 broke into revolt, what should our case prove ? 
 I counted ten of them, and the man who 
 steered would make eleven, and Charles, who 
 skulked below, twelve. Twelve reckless fellows, 
 with the scent of the assassin's knife fresh in 
 their nostrils, with instincts and yearnings 
 perhaps made devilish by the memory of a
 
 XII. MUTINY. 219 
 
 usage of which I as a passenger must needs 
 have seen but a very little part, though I had 
 witnessed enous^h to convince me that had I 
 been of their company, and suffered as they 
 had, my resentment would surely not have left 
 me among the hindmost of them in the posture 
 they now exhibited ! 
 
 The picture was as nautical as the most 
 ardent lover of ocean-pieces could desire. The 
 men were variously attired : in blue dungaree 
 — in patched canvas breeches — in half-boots, 
 and coloured shirts which revealed their brawny 
 breasts bare to the dark moss upon them — here 
 a round hat, there a sou'-wester, and around 
 every sailor's waist was the narrow sea-belt, 
 with a sheath of leather upon the hip, holding, 
 convenient to the grasp, the black haft of a 
 dagger-shaped knife. The shadows of the 
 rigging crawled upon them, as the vessel, with 
 a little humming of water at her bow, floated, 
 with cradling swings, from one sapphire knoll 
 to another ; not a feature but had the true 
 oceanic colour : the coils of rigging swinging at 
 the belaying-pins ; the big scuttle-butt securely 
 seized under the high bulwark ; the little white
 
 220 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 caboose with its head of black chimney whence 
 blew a vein of blue smoke ; the yellow long-boat 
 amid ships snugged under the spare booms, 
 with a black snout projecting from the sty 
 under it ; and a darting and withdrawal beyond 
 of the heads of cocks and hens glancing like 
 red rags as they showed and vanished through 
 the bars of the coops. Aloft, swelling gently, 
 rose courses and topsails to the little royals, 
 with a breezy stir of shadows in the hollows, 
 and a pearly curve sunwards where the bosom, 
 arching beyond the bolt-rope, caught the full 
 splendour shining out of the east. 
 
 Broadwater pulled off his hat, dried his 
 forehead, covered himself afresh, and ap- 
 proached the men by half-a-dozen paces. 
 
 ''Is the man Charles among ye ?" said he ; 
 *' if so, let him step out, for it's him I want, not 
 your 
 
 Of course he knew perfectly well that the 
 half-blood did not form one of that little crowd. 
 Perhaps he meant to convey that he had not 
 deigned to glance at the fellows ; but this was 
 absurd, for every man as he stepped aft must 
 have observed that the captain watched him as
 
 XII. MUTINY. 221 
 
 a terrier does an approaching rat. One or two 
 of them glanced over their shoulders, as though 
 believing that the half-blood had come from the 
 forecastle. No answer was returned to Broad- 
 water's inquiry. 
 
 *' Now, look here, men," he continued, with 
 an air of bluster which I hoped would not 
 increase upon him, " you know, of course, that 
 Charles committed murder this morning by 
 stabbing the mate, who lies a dead body in his 
 bunk below ; and you likewise know that for 
 an act of this kind, when he gets ashore, he'll 
 be hung up by the neck, and left to dangle 
 there till his bones blow away. Now, as he's a 
 murderer, it's my duty to put him in irons, and 
 keep him under hatches till I'm able to hand 
 him over to the people employed by the law to 
 sentence and strangle him, and all such folks as 
 he. D'ye see, men ? " with a powerful flourish 
 of his arm, and a slight increase of bluster, as 
 though he was gaining in spirit from the air of 
 attention with which the sailors seemed to listen 
 to him. " We don't want no difficulties. 
 Aboard ^ue everything has always been plain 
 sailing, and up to the knocker. My mate lies
 
 2 22 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 a dead man, and I want the chap as killed 
 him." 
 
 He paused, running his eye over them. 
 Two or three of the crew gave their heads a 
 quick shake, but none of them spoke. 
 
 " The man," proceeded Broadwater, " is 
 lying snugged away in the fo'k'sle. Now, look 
 ye here, my lads. There need be no trouble 
 about it at all. All that you've got to do is 
 just to remain where you are, whilst me and 
 the second mate fetches him — seeing that he 
 won't come under milder persuasions." 
 
 I thought by the manner of the men that 
 they hung in the wind, and would let the captain 
 have his way. He must have fancied this also, 
 for he started to walk to the forecastle with a 
 gesture of his hand to the boatswain ; but, ere 
 he could get one leg fair before the other, a tall, 
 powerfully-built seaman flung himself with a 
 stride or two upon the line of deck which the 
 captain was about to measure, and cried out, 
 ''Stop, sir! no furder ! We don't mean to let 
 you have the man." 
 
 If Broadwater had been shot through the 
 heart, the arrest of his movements could not
 
 XII. MUTINY 
 
 223 
 
 have been more spasmodic and utter. Rage 
 once again rendered him speechless, and the 
 rush of blood to his head darkened his purple 
 countenance into an almost livid complexion. 
 Half-a-dozen sailors thrust up and formed abput 
 the man who had spoken. Their looks were so 
 threatening, that I dreaded in Broadwater the 
 least gesture that might be mistaken as 
 combative by the fellows. The boatswain came 
 to the side of the old man, who, gasping for 
 breath, and as voiceless as a person in a fit, 
 fell back step by step till he had put some 
 half-dozen yards between him and the crew, by 
 which time he had recovered his voice ; but I 
 protest, had I not looked at him and observed 
 his lips to move, that I should not have known 
 him by his tones. He raised his arm, and 
 shook his clenched fist at the tall sailor. 
 
 *' Your name's Terence Mole," he said. " If 
 it should cost me every shilling I'm worth so to 
 punish ye for this ere job as to keep ye cursing 
 your mother's memory day and night for ever 
 having bore you, I'll spend it! If, to have ye 
 punished for this, it should oblige me to tear 
 the shirt off my back and pawn it for more law
 
 2 24 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 yet to crush you with, I'd do It, and go naked 
 for the rest of my time, and die easy ! You 
 scoundrel ! " 
 
 He fell speechless again, with another mad 
 brandishing of his arms towards the tall sailor. 
 The man watched him with a cold, insolent 
 grin. One of the crew exclaimed, " Soft words, 
 master, soft words. Ye want that there man 
 Charles, and we don't mean to let ye have 
 him." 
 
 The boatswain, with a glance at the captain, 
 turned upon the crew. " Lads," he exclaimed, 
 "consider what you're a-doing of! In protect- 
 ing this here murderer you're making your- 
 selves parties to his crime ; and though I don't 
 know much about shore-going law, I can't 
 question that your abetting of the villain may 
 end in stringing most of ye up alongside of 
 him ; whilst it should sinnify transportation for 
 life to the rest of ye." 
 
 '' Mr. Gordon," answered the tall seaman 
 Mole, ** we've tarned the matter over, and 
 we've made up our minds not to let the man 
 Charles suffer, leastwa^^s aboard this brig, for 
 his act. He's rid us of a devil," he pronounced
 
 XII. MUTINY. 
 
 the word with a sudden snap of the teeth, 
 " and if he hadn't done it some one else would ; 
 thouo^h it was for him. bv rights, to make a 
 beginning, seeing how he was sarved," he 
 pointed with a dark thumb in the direction of 
 the foremast, "merely for commiseratin^: the 
 fate of a drownded shipmate. If the capt'n"s 
 flesh an" blood, so are we. We're willinof 
 enough to listen to reason, but so long as we 
 continue to be the crew of this here brier, 
 Charles don't go into irons ; nor shall we allow 
 him to be punished in any other way." 
 
 With that he folded his arms, rearing his 
 figure erect, and angrily staring at the captain. 
 The boatswain turned to Broadwater as much 
 as to say, " Speak, sir, speak. You hear what 
 the man says." The old fellow swung on his 
 heel and walked aft, and stood with his hands 
 behind him gazing seawards. The men fell to 
 talking amone themselves, and there was a 
 laugh or two, but the hilarity had a very false 
 ring, and was instantly checked by a growling 
 ''Dowse it, you fool, dowse it I '' I observed 
 some of the seamen regarding me, but I pretty 
 well understood that by this time they knew 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 2 26 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 that whatever might be my sympathies they 
 assuredly did not incHne towards the cabin end 
 of the ship. Besides, I had a right to listen 
 and look on at all events, and leaning against 
 the rail, with my hands in my pockets, I kept 
 my eyes fixed on them, unmoved by their 
 gaze. 
 
 Although Broadwater scarcely remained a 
 minute abaft the wheel, the time seemed so 
 long that I believed that he intended the men 
 should break up and go forward of their own 
 accord, without giving himself the trouble of 
 dismissing them. But I was mistaken. He 
 suddenly wheeled round and came along at a 
 rapid pace, abruptly stopping however at some 
 distance from the crew. 
 
 " It's your intention, then," he shouted, ''not 
 to allow me to clap this murderer in irons and 
 lock him up ? " 
 
 " You heard what was said," one of them 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Mr. Gordon ! " he suddenly roared, " for- 
 rards with us both ! By the thunder of heaven, 
 we'll have a try for the bloody villain, let follow 
 what will ! "
 
 XII. MUTINY. 227 
 
 I saw him tweak at the band of his trousers 
 with the motion of a man who girds himself for 
 an affray, then make a spring. The men closed 
 in a wall before him. He struck at them, but 
 I could not see that his blows were returned ; 
 they did no more than to press upon him and 
 drive him backwards. Gordon threw his arms 
 around the old fellow's waist to drag him away. 
 Sickened and horrified by the scene, I ran to 
 assist the boatswain, dreading lest one of the 
 many blows which the old fellow was raining 
 might lead to a general onslaught on him, 
 and grasped his right arm, and in a few moments 
 we had hauled him clear of the crew, at whom 
 the boatswain continued shouting, as together 
 we pulled the skipper aft, '' For God's sake, go 
 forward, men ! for God's sake, go forward ! " 
 
 Q 2
 
 CHAPTER XIJI. 
 
 BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 
 
 We got Broadwater, wheezing, panting, and 
 gasping, to the cabin skyHght, upon which we 
 forced him to sit, not a Httle blown ourselves by 
 our uncommon exertions ; by which time the 
 crew had broken up as advised by the boatswain, 
 and were going forward in twos and threes 
 quietly enough. Broadwater sat for some min- 
 utes without offering to speak ; when he had 
 got his breath again, he flung off the skylight 
 and ran below with the swiftness and gestures 
 of a madman. 
 
 ''This is a bad business — a bad business, 
 sir," said Gordon, speaking in a voice full of 
 concern. 
 
 " The deuce of it is," I exclaimed, " the cap- 
 tain has not the least idea how to act. The 
 men are wildly to blame — no doubt of that ; it
 
 CHAP. XIII. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 229 
 
 is monstrous that British seamen should sympa- 
 thize with a murderer and a foreigner ; but I 
 am certain, from signs of a disposition I took 
 notice of in them as they stood together yonder, 
 that were the master of this vessel any other 
 man than Broadwater, the sailors might easily 
 be brought over." 
 
 '' I know it, sir — I know it," he cried bitterly. 
 " They began well. Had they been properly 
 used they would have gone on and ended well. 
 But though the man's dead I don't mind saying, 
 Mr. Musgrave, that a crueller mate never walked 
 a ship's deck than Mr. Bothwell. 'Twasn't only 
 the words he'd use, 'twas the insulting tone of 
 them — like coating with poison the knife you 
 stab with. The brutal tarms cut to the men's 
 hearts, and lay festering there, sir, with the re- 
 collection of the fellow's voice and looks. Ye 
 onderstand me ? It rose above the half-blood's 
 restraint. A horrid murder, Mr. Musgrave, 
 but it don't surprise me." 
 
 " What w^ill Broadwater do ? " 
 
 He threw a glance down the skylight and ex- 
 claimed, ''I'm afraid whatever he does'll be 
 wrong."
 
 230 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 '' But what would you advise, Mr. Gordon ? 
 There is a lady below, remember ; I am respon- 
 sible for her safety ; if for her sake only, this 
 trouble should be speedily ended by some deci- 
 sive course of action." 
 
 '' Why, sir, seeing how matters stand," he an- 
 swered — ''the mate dead, his murderer screened 
 by the men, the crew in a state of mutiny, 
 the captain ought to head fair for Madeira — 'tis 
 the nearest point, where no doubt he'd get help 
 from the shore, if so be there was no English or 
 foreign man-of-war riding there." 
 
 "Certainly," I cried; "that should be his 
 plan ! There is no man forward, I suppose, cap- 
 able of guessing the captain's intentions by a 
 change of course ? " 
 
 " The change would be too small to take their 
 notice," he responded. " But suppose they did 
 guess what he was at, they'd make no difficulty 
 about it — at least whilst their feelings remain as 
 they are now. They hate the vessel, and 'ud be 
 glad of a chance to get away from her, though 
 the road to their liberty lay through a jail." 
 
 " Have you suggested this notion to the 
 captain ? "
 
 XIII. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 231 
 
 *' I told him," he answered, *' when him and 
 me were talking before sunrise about the mate's 
 murder, that if the men continued to give trouble, 
 or broke out into regular mutiny, there'd be cer- 
 tainly nothing for it but to head for Madeira." 
 
 *' What did he say ? " 
 
 '' Cursed and swore, sir. ' Sooner than be 
 driven to Madeira by my crew,' he says, I'd 
 cut away the brig's masts, and let her lie where 
 she is,' he says, ' till she's growled unrecognizable 
 for barnacles ! ' But," he added, '' now that he's 
 seen the sort of attitude the men have put them- 
 selves into he may change his ideas and agree 
 with me." 
 
 ''Was there ever such a bigoted old fool ?" 
 I cried. *' Did ever one hear of so rum-soddened 
 a dolt placed in such a confoundedly responsible 
 position as that of master of a ship before ? I 
 only wish he were as ignorant of navigation as 
 he is of human nature and the art of treating 
 sailors : I'd run him then myself to Madeira, 
 and he shouldn't know where he was bound to 
 until the island was hove up green over the bow. 
 What is the stupid idiot to do if the hands, 
 barring yourself, are against him ? " I continued
 
 232 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 talking hotly, out of the fit of nervous Irritability 
 that had seized me. " And what does he mean 
 by saying that he would sooner cut away his 
 masts than haul in for the island and the pro- 
 tection it would afford him ? Confound the 
 fellow ! Does he suppose that the lady and I 
 parted with our money for the privilege of ship- 
 ping in a sheer hulk ? " 
 
 " Well, sir," said Gordon, '' I dessay if ye put 
 it to him warmly he'll listen to ye. If not to 
 you, to nobody else for sartain, sir. There's too 
 much feeding mixed up with the brains in his 
 head ; and the machinery's got clogged and 
 don't travel properly, spite of his being inces- 
 santly greasing of it with liquor. And what's he 
 going to do about the watches, I wonder ? Why, 
 it must be drawing on for six o'clock, and here 
 have I been on deck since midnight." He 
 dodged about the skylight In his efforts to com- 
 mand a view of the cabin, to see if the captain 
 were there. '' There's ne'er a man more willing 
 to do his bit than me," he said, *' but it ain't in 
 flesh and blood to keep all on watching and 
 nothen else." 
 
 *' If he likes to make you his chief mate, and
 
 xiii. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 233 
 
 me his second," said I, " I shall be quite willing 
 to fill the berth, and take watch and watch with 
 you. I shouldn't set myself up as your match, 
 Gordon, of course ; but if I couldn't trim sail 
 with old Broadw-ater, or take sights, or note a 
 change of wind, or mark the head of a growing 
 squall with him, he shall tell me I can't dis- 
 tino-uish the difference between the sheet of 
 his trysail and the hanks of his standing jib." 
 
 " Put it to him, sir ; put it to him," cried the 
 boatswain, rubbing his hands with a small 
 emotion of glee in his worried face. " I tell 
 you what, sir, if the capt'n 'ud make you hacting 
 second mate — unbecoming as such a post would 
 be for a gentleman like you to occupy — I allows 
 that the appointment 'ud go further to reconcile 
 the men to the brig, and to the voyage, than all 
 the excuses the capt'n could make for himself, 
 and all the wisest sort of kindness he'd be 
 capable of showing 'em. Of course they know^ 
 that you have been a sailor, sir." 
 
 '' How ? " I asked. 
 
 "Why," he replied, "I told them. Next, 
 they're aware that the man Charles was saved 
 from spending the night lashed to the foremast
 
 234 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 by your and the lady's entreaties and threats to 
 leave the ship. That bit of news was brought 
 forrards by Billy the cabin-boy ; likewise by the 
 chap whose trick It was at the wheel when the 
 lady spoke to the capt'n about the half-blood. 
 Depend upon It, sir," he added emphatically, 
 "that If you should be made second mate, or, 
 better still, chief mate, the men 'ud feel so sat- 
 isfied to know they'd got a gentleman to officer 
 them, that I'm confident they'd give no further 
 trouble this side of Rio. Will you put it to the 
 capt'n, sir ? " 
 
 '' Certainly I will," I replied, struck by the poor 
 fellow's eagerness, though my fancy hung much 
 less In this direction than In a desire to urge 
 Broadwater to make promptly for Madeira. 
 
 I left the honest creature and went below, 
 pretty shrewdly guessing that Miss Grant lay 
 all this while sleepless in her cabin, and w^as in 
 bad need of the encouragement of a chat. I 
 also wished to meet Broadwater, that I might 
 tackle him whilst I was in the mood to pitch my 
 key to any sort of note that he might choose to 
 strike. Billy the cabin-boy, with his lank, yel- 
 low hair dangling over his eyes, was on his
 
 XIII. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 235 
 
 knees working with a deck-scraper at the dark 
 and ugly stain at the foot of the companion- 
 steps ; but blood lies upon wood as upon the 
 human conscience ; its sacred magic, its pre- 
 ternatural quality of staining, is no more to be 
 neutralized in timber by the scraper, than in the 
 murderer's mind by the parson. 'Twasa mallet 
 and chisel that the lad needed, and even with 
 them the cleansing of the plank might have 
 ended in a hole in the deck, gaping to the utter- 
 most outline of the horrid blot. I felt a little 
 creeping in my skin as I passed the boy, but 
 then I was desperately bothered, and the eyes of 
 my imagination were out of gear, so that little 
 things put on ugly forms, and through distortion 
 of aspect were cruelly suggestive and abominably 
 significant. 
 
 I listened a moment at ^liss Grant's cabin- 
 door, and very sofdy knocked, by no means de- 
 siring to disturb her should she be asleep. She 
 instantly asked who it was that knocked ; I 
 answered and she came out. She was fully 
 dressed, robed in jacket and hat for the deck. 
 
 " I am glad you have come to me," she ex- 
 claimed ; ''but you see I have dutifully obeyed
 
 236 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 your orders. I would not even enter the cabin, 
 though you would imagine how dull, expectant, 
 miserable, I felt alone — listening, waiting, 
 dreading I cannot tell you what — in this 
 gloomy little box." 
 
 I took her hand and conducted her to the 
 cabin, and she seemed to lift her head like a 
 drooping lily to the refreshment of water as she 
 entered an atmosphere bright with the spark- 
 ling of the sun flowing full upon the skylight, 
 and crawling in sheets of gold upon the bulk- 
 heads and deck. She looked with attention at 
 the lad at work under the hatch, as though she 
 w^ondered what he was doing ; then, under- 
 standing, she partly turned her back upon him 
 with a manner that was like dismissing the per- 
 ception of the meaning of the fellow's labour 
 from her memory. 
 
 " What have you got to tell me ? " she asked, 
 seating herself, and resting her chin in the palms 
 of her hands, whilst she Qfazed at me from under 
 the shadow of her broad straw hat with such 
 a spirit of resolution in her eyes, that I saw 
 she had prepared herself for the darkest 
 disclosures.
 
 xiii. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 237 
 
 I related exactly all that had happened dur- 
 ing the time I had been on deck, and was in 
 the midst of repeating my recent conversation 
 with the boatswain when she slightly coughed, 
 with a significant glance past me. I looked, 
 and saw Broadwater coming from his cabin. 
 He stood near the boy a moment or two 
 watching him, then gave the lad a kick that 
 threw him on to his face. 
 
 ''Away with ye!" he cried. "Scraping in- 
 deed ! It's bottle-washing that's in your line, 
 you young scaramouch ! Off with ye for a broom, 
 and collect these here shavings, and tell the cook 
 to get the cabin-breakfast ready by six bells." 
 
 The boy picked himself up, and mounted the 
 ladder. Broadwater turning to me said, " An 
 all-night job regularly sets me pining for food, 
 long afore I should feel the need of It after a 
 proper allowance of sleep." I thought to myself, 
 Shall I begin with the fellow at once, or wait 
 till he has broken his fast ? A meal might 
 make him more sensible, render him more 
 tractable ; but my present mood was an oppor- 
 tunity I ought not to miss ; and then time was 
 exceedingly precious. So I began :
 
 2-,8 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " Captain Broadwater, unless you are going 
 on deck to relieve the boatswain, who has had 
 charge since midnight " 
 
 He interrupted me by saying in his roughest 
 manner, '' Mr. Musgrave, the discipline of 
 the Iron Crown's my affair. Don't, I beg 
 of you, give yourself any trouble about it, 
 sir." 
 
 '' Then sit down," said I, warmly and sternly, 
 '' for if the discipline of the vessel is your affair, 
 this lady's safety is 7nme / So now, sir, give me 
 your attention, for you will find that I am more 
 in earnest than even the most rebellious of your 
 men forward." He did not offer to sit, but 
 contented^ himself with watching me. '' First," 
 I went on, "what do you mean to do ?" 
 
 " Wait, sir, and you'll see." 
 
 '' No," I cried, bringing my hand down with 
 a sounding whack upon my thigh ; " that answer 
 will not satisfy me. Captain Broadwater. The 
 crew are in a state of mutiny ; your mate lies 
 murdered ; the only living creature aboard that 
 you can depend on is your bo'sun, and even /le 
 may fail you — honest to the bottom of his soul 
 as I know him to be — for he is no more than a
 
 XIII. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 239 
 
 foremast hand, though he holds a responsible 
 position under you. Now listen, sir. As mat- 
 ters stand, this lady and I are in peril of our 
 lives. Your duty is not only to give us every 
 encouragement, but to make haste to obtain 
 such assistance as shall deliver us, as Vv'ell as 
 yourself and vessel, from the heavy dangers 
 which threaten us. Therefore I demand to 
 know what you mean to do ? " 
 
 He eyed me with the same kind of dogged- 
 ness I had noticed in some of his men when he 
 w^as addressing them ; was silent for a space 
 after I had ceased, and then said, "What was 
 your object in hiring cabins in this brig ? " 
 
 "The passage to Rio." 
 
 " Right ! And I'm carrying you to Rio. 
 That's the part you paid my owner for me to 
 perform, and I'll do it." 
 
 " But," I cried, " how is it possible that you 
 can carry your vessel to Rio with a crew who 
 have already distinctly mutinied by refusing to 
 surrender your mate's murderer to you ? " 
 
 "The Lord spare me!" he roared out. "If 
 I ain't bound to Rio w^here else am I a-going ? " 
 
 "See here," said I, determined to make him
 
 240 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 understand by my manner that I was In earnest, 
 *' you must be perfectly well aware that as mat- 
 ters are you will never succeed In carrying your 
 ship to Rio. A moment, If you please ! The 
 crew have rebelled to a man, and have defied 
 you. You know It ! The respect you might 
 have obtained you have forfeited, and they 
 laugh at your commands. You know that too ! 
 By protecting the half-blood they share in his 
 crime, and every fellow in your ' forecastle is 
 therefore an assassin at heart. And you mean 
 to tell me that, all this being as I say, you will 
 be able to complete a voyage which may run 
 us into two or three months, but which Is as 
 yet but a week old only ? " 
 
 '' Certainly ! " he cried ; " we're bound to Rio, 
 and I mean to keep all on till we get there." 
 
 " If that be so," said I vehemently, " this 
 lady and I decline to proceed with you." 
 
 " Decline to proceed ! " he shouted, evidently 
 misunderstanding me. 
 
 *'Yes, sir," I answered, shouting too. ''We 
 insist upon your steering the brig for the island 
 of Madeira. The place Is within a few days' 
 sail. I don't doubt that the crew would cheer-
 
 XIII. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 241 
 
 fully help you to navigate the vessel there. 
 They loathe the brig as much as they dislike 
 you, and would exult in their release, even if it 
 came to their going ashore in irons. Therefore, 
 Captain Broadwater, as you are in no condition 
 to continue the voyage to Rio, I must Insist, by 
 virtue of my rights as a passenger, and of the 
 claim that this lady has upon my protection, that 
 you shape your course without any further loss 
 of time for jMadelra." 
 
 He breathed hard, then raised his fist and 
 brought It down with a mighty whack upon the 
 table. His face was dark with passion, his little 
 eyes reeled as they took me In from head to 
 foot. " Sooner than do what you say," he 
 muttered rather than spoke, '' I'd scuttle the 
 ship with these hands," lifting them both, "and 
 send every man-jack of us aboard to the devil." 
 He backed away, as though he meant to walk 
 . crab-fashion to the companion-ladder, and on a 
 sudden shouted out, ** You've been a-talking 
 with the bo'sun, Mr. Musgrave." 
 
 " And what of that ? " I responded, in a voice 
 that gave him to know I had lungs enough to 
 outshout him even if occasion should render 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 such a contest needful. "Am I to under- 
 stand that you refuse to head the ship for 
 Madeira, that Miss Grant and I may go ashore 
 there, and escape the barbarous perils which 
 your treatment of the crew is certain to 
 plunge us into if you persist in continuing 
 this voyage ? " 
 
 " Yes," he roared, '' you are to understand it ! 
 — you are to understand it a hundred times 
 over ! My instructions are to carry this ship to 
 Rio, and sooner than deviate I'll scuttle her!" 
 and flinging his fist at me, so to speak, with a 
 loud snap of his fingers, he went with a heavy 
 lurching tramp up the ladder, growling out fifty 
 curses in an undertone that reminded me of a 
 dog gnawing a bone, watched by another. 
 
 I looked at Miss Grant. " Of all pig-headed 
 varlets ! Where," cried I, ''could have been 
 my eyes, that I was unable to decipher the 
 old lobster's true nature under his complicated 
 purple skin when I first met him ? " 
 
 "We are confronted with a difficulty, Mr. 
 Musgrave," she said quietly, mechanically 
 twisting a ring upon her finger, with thoughtful 
 eyes fixed upon it, "and we must look at it
 
 XIII. BROADWATER PROVES OBSTINATE. 243 
 
 calmly, and be patient, and consider what is 
 best to be done. First of all," she continued, 
 " I am quite certain, from the man's manner, 
 that you will never induce him to alter his course 
 for Madeira. And then what follows ? Perhaps 
 now that the mate is dead the crew will cease 
 to prove troublesome. Mr. Gordon is a quiet 
 man, and the sailors appear to like him. Mr. 
 Musgrave, I believe if this horrid old captain 
 could only be induced by threats or persuasions 
 to use his men kindly, the voyage might be 
 safely continued." 
 
 But, unhappily, peace of mind was not to be 
 obtained by contemplation of merely theoretic 
 conditions, though I heartily admired her cool 
 inspection of a difficulty that surely could not 
 have held less terrors for her than for any other 
 woman without her heart to oppose it. If 
 Broadwater was to be terrified into changing 
 his nature, then no doubt we might reckon upon 
 a comfortable and pleasant passage. But the 
 old swaggerer's qualities clung like limpets to 
 his soul. He was not to be cleansed by any 
 process I w^as master of, at all events. The 
 only hope that I could find lay in Miss Grant's 
 
 R 2
 
 244 MAROONED. chap. xiii. 
 
 suggestion that, the mate being dead, the sailors' 
 grievances would be diminished to the extent of 
 the bitter usage he had given them. But the 
 scene on deck that morning had been too sig- 
 nificant not to fill me with dark and melancholy 
 misgivings, which were accentuated yet by the 
 feeling that, let me talk as hotly as I would, and 
 threaten as clamorously as I chose, I was prac- 
 tically pow^erless. I had felt this in the Channel, 
 and I felt it more violently now that we were 
 far out upon the surface of the broad Atlantic, at 
 the disposal of a man whose resolutions there 
 w^ere no means of thwarting, so far as I was 
 concerned, unless indeed I sided with the men, 
 encouraged them to deprive him of the command 
 of the brig, and sailed her myself back to Eng- 
 land or^ to the nearest port, leaving the vindi- 
 cation of my behaviour to the story of cruelty 
 and peril it would be in my power to relate — a 
 romantic project indeed, and to be instantly 
 dismissed !
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE sailor's last TOSS. 
 
 I REMAINED wIth MIss Grant In the cabin until 
 breakfast was served. Our talk referred to 
 nothing but our situation, as you will suppose. 
 Before long I found my worry and anxiety 
 yielding to the influence of her calm yet ani- 
 mated gaze and clear good sense. Indeed there 
 is no kind of human encouragement that equals 
 the feeling a woman can inspire. The moral 
 help a man will get from the posture and lan- 
 guage of a brave girl is so invigorating that it 
 will give his heart a new spirit, though there be 
 the pulse of a lion in its beat. 
 
 Whilst we conversed I heard Broadwater 
 talking on deck, and it seemed to me as if he 
 were delivering a harangue ; but I gave it little 
 heed, being heartily sick of him and the mutinous
 
 246 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 disturbances raised by his base old tongue. 
 There was a sound of scrubbing-brushes gritting 
 along upon the deck overhead, with a noise of 
 pumping and of water washing about In the 
 scuppers — assurance, at all events, that the crew 
 were doing the ship's w^ork. This I bade Miss 
 Grant take notice of, being now rendered 
 almost hopeful by the fine cordial Influence of 
 her intelligent thoughts and by the Inspiriting 
 power of her smiles, her sparkling regard, the 
 music of her voice, the resolution of soul 
 that held her beauty as composed as if she 
 slumbered. 
 
 Punctually at six bells — seven o'clock — the 
 cabin-boy arrived with the breakfast, and almost 
 immediately afterwards Broadwater made his 
 appearance. I had got my cue from Miss Grant, 
 who had urged me not to question the man, and 
 above all in conversing with him never to lose 
 my temper ; so that we had nearly finished the 
 repast before a single word was uttered by any 
 of the three of us. The captain gobbled as 
 heartily as if all had been well with the ship. 
 In truth, his jaws were so incessantly occupied 
 that they gave him no chance to utter a syllable.
 
 XIII. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 247 
 
 Then, having somewhat appeased his appetite, 
 he called for another great cup of black tea, 
 which he fell to stirring meditatively, with an 
 occasional lift of his little eyes to mine. 
 
 " I hope, I\Ir. ]\Iusgrave," said he, forcing an 
 odd note of rough jocosity into his deep sea- 
 tones, "that you've sent that there Madeiry 
 scheme of yours adrift. Why, ma'am," he con- 
 tinued, turning to ]\Iiss Grant, "if so be as I'm 
 given to onderstand that Rio's your home — and 
 Mr. Grant was a gentleman whose name is very 
 well beknown to me, very well beknown to me 
 indeed — if so be, I says, that Rio's your home, 
 surely, ma'am, you must be in a hurry to get 
 there, and wouldn't thank me for carrying out 
 Mr. Musgrave's proposal to delay the voyage 
 by calling at ^Nladeiry." 
 
 " Certainly I am impatient to get to Rio, 
 Captain Broadwater," she answered, with a half 
 glance at me, following on the faintest possible 
 blush rising to her cheeks, and quickly van- 
 ishing, as though it were the shadow of a rose 
 lifted to her face and dropped again. " But 
 then it is my impatience that wants me to 
 make sure of getting there."
 
 248 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 He drained his cup and cried, '' Never doubt 
 it, mum. Give me wind enough to blow us 
 along, the rest '11 be as easy as swallowing 
 whilks." 
 
 This new manner of confidence in him made 
 me say, " The behaviour of the crew, I hope, 
 has improved since sunrise ? " 
 
 "Mr. Musgrave," he exclaimed, rising, ''I 
 have to beg and pray of you, sir, that you'll 
 allow the behaviour of the crew to be 7?iy 
 business. Judging from the observations you 
 let fall this morning. It's middling plain to me 
 that all that you want is to feel sure that you 
 and the lady'll arrive at Rio. Ontil, then, you've 
 got good cause to be alarmed, you've got no 
 right to tell me what my duty is, how I'm to 
 treat my crew, and what port it's my business 
 to head for ! " saying which, he picked up his 
 cap, and buttoning his coat around him, with 
 a ludicrous expression of mingled dignity and 
 self-complacency he went on deck. 
 
 A couple of minutes later, not a little to my 
 surprise, Gordon came down the companion- 
 steps and stood a moment at the bottom of 
 them, looking shyly at the table, cap in hand.
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 249 
 
 He tweaked an imaginary lock of hair on his 
 forehead at Miss Grant, and exclaimed, with a 
 nervous laugh, '' Rather a novelty for me, Mr. 
 Musgrave, sir, to breakfast 'long with ladies and 
 gents in the land o' knives and forks ; but it's 
 the capt'n's orders. He's made me chief mate, 
 and I'm to live down here and take Mr. Both- 
 well's cabin — when he's out of it," with a look 
 at the stain at his feet. 
 
 "We are glad to w^elcome you aft, Gordon, 
 believe me ! " I cried. " Take that seat. Here's 
 the teapot — I don't think Broadwater has 
 emptied it." 
 
 He sat down and fell to his breakfast, and I 
 cannot express to you what a new element of 
 cheerfulness came into the atmosphere of that 
 rude old interior out of this sailor's plain, hearty, 
 honest face and bearing. I w^as extremely 
 anxious to get the news, for the captain had 
 told me nothing, and asked him if anything 
 fresh had happened on deck since I came below. 
 He replied, subduing his voice, with a heave 
 up of his eyes at the skylight, till nothing but 
 the whites of them showed, that the captain 
 had called the men aft and made them a speech.
 
 250 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 in which he told them that, if they agreed to 
 go on with their work quietly and give him no 
 more trouble, he would not insist upon their 
 surrendering the half-blood, though the fellow 
 would have to come on deck and share in the 
 general work as heretofore. Of course, on his 
 arrival at Rio, he would report the matter, and 
 leave the rest to the law. That was his duty. 
 He further told the men that Gordon would 
 take the place of Mr. Both well, and that he — 
 that is to say, the captain — would stand watch 
 and watch with him for the rest of the voyage, 
 unless, amongst the crew, he should later on 
 discover a man fit to take the duties of second 
 mate, when, if the hands consented, he should 
 be willing to bring him aft. Indeed Gordon 
 told me that Broadwater talked so soberly to 
 the sailors that they stared at him and at one 
 another, as though they suspected some ugly 
 scheme behind this sudden queer shift of face. 
 However it ended in their expressing them- 
 selves satisfied ; and Gordon particularly noticed 
 that when the watch were turned to wash 
 down, they sprang to the work with the live- 
 liness of people from whom a shadow and
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 251 
 
 a burden have been lifted, whilst the watch 
 below, who went forward to get their break- 
 fast, exhibited every symptom of surprise and 
 gratification. 
 
 " But it's all along of your doing, sir," con- 
 tinued the boatswain, still speaking in a voice 
 scarcely raised above a whisper ; "it was that 
 there demand of yours that he should carry the 
 ship to Madeiry that worked on the captain. 
 He came up to me in a passion, and asked me 
 what I meant by speaking of Madeiry to you ; 
 but cooled down astonishingly rapid, and, after 
 taking a few turns by himself, sung out to me 
 to send the men aft, with the consequence as 
 I've related. A leery old gentleman, sir, but 
 what's happened is bound to be well, providing 
 it ends well." 
 
 This sudden change in the captain — though, 
 like a shift of wind, it might mean only a short 
 blow from a new quarter, and then a sweep 
 back into a long howling gale out of the same 
 old wild point — was a thing to feel grateful for, 
 when the afternoon came and brought with it 
 an hour's dead calm — a long wash of muddy 
 swell heaving from the south-east, and running
 
 252 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 a sluggish jumble of folds, round-browed as 
 domes, with never a ridge in twenty miles of 
 them to break the monotony of the hump-backed 
 procession with the sparkling of a glass-clear 
 head — and then a swift rush of breeze that 
 swept the foam out of the water as it broke with 
 a long cry out of the south-east dinginess, and 
 bowed the brig down to her covering-board. 
 Broadwater was ready for it. The topgallant- 
 sails had been furled, the mainsail snugged to 
 its yard, some fore-and-aft canvas (no need to 
 be too particular) hauled down, and the topsails 
 were blowing out from the yards on the caps 
 with the reef-tackles hauled out, and hands 
 dancing aloft to knot the points, when the first 
 of the weather rang between our masts. It 
 was not a moment when one wanted to think 
 there was a mutiny aboard. Broadwater helped 
 the man at the wheel to put the helm hard-a- 
 weather, and to the long wash of the Atlantic 
 swell foaming to the sudden scourging of the 
 wind, with the sail swelling from the foretop- 
 sail-yard, the foresail yearning high as though 
 it would fly into the rush of shadows overhead, 
 hands chorusing upon the main, with Gordon's
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 
 
 DO 
 
 figure at the weather yard-arm coming out 
 clean as a pencil-drawing against the soft dark 
 race past him, the half-blood Charles swinging 
 upon the flemish horse at his feet, the other 
 fellows ranged along with many a kick-up abaft 
 of the foot-ropes as they plunged to the reef- 
 points curving out of reach as the line of the 
 band arched to the slings and quarters — the 
 brig, responding to her helm and to the heavy 
 leeward drag of her big thunderous jib, gave 
 her quarter to the tempestuous outfly, and went 
 with lone seethinof rolls througrh it like a sleio^h 
 over falls and risings of snow. 
 
 It was blowing so hard presently that they 
 found the reefed fore-course and topsails with a 
 stay-foresail and a fragment of trysail as much 
 as the vessel could carry ; and before long there 
 was a plentiful washing of water forward, for 
 she lay now as close to her course as she would 
 come, and the ridged seas foaming on top of 
 the backs of the swell brimmed with a roar to 
 the bow under the larboard cathead, where they 
 rose In a dazzle of white water, then tumbling 
 inboard with the clatter of twenty tons of 
 shingle, and floating coils of the running rigging
 
 254 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 up amongst the legs of the men, and converting 
 locomotion in the waist into sheer floundering. 
 The men worked briskly and with a will ; in- 
 deed I accepted this burst of weather as a 
 stroke of Providence, designed to rally the minds 
 of the crew to their strict business of seafaring, 
 and to bring old Broadwater to recognition of 
 the value of willing sailors in the navigation of 
 a ship — considerations which appeared to have 
 fallen asleep in the tender breezes that had 
 fanned us out of the Bay, under clear skies by 
 day and sparkling constellations by night, down 
 to the latitude and longitude our keel was now 
 traversing. Certain it was this half gale — for 
 it came to that — was dead in the road of 
 Madeira ; indeed the brig could not have looked 
 up for the island to within six points ; and me- 
 thought as I stood near Broadwater, whilst the 
 crew were on the foretopsail-yard, that he 
 turned his eyes from the foaming windward sea- 
 board to me, as if he would say, '' You see what 
 chance your Madeiry scheme would have nowr 
 This was really the first bit of hard weather 
 we had yet encountered. The brig proved a 
 wetter craft than I should have imagined, though
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR^S LAST TOSS. 255 
 
 she rose buoyant to each long frothing hill of 
 brine, with a slant of her spars and a shear of 
 her cut-water that made you think she had more 
 of the clipper instincts in her than the mind of 
 her builder had included in his model. But it 
 was dreary, weary work — the air on deck wet 
 with spray and surging down upon you in 
 volumes that often forced you to turn your back 
 upon it to fetch a breath, a melancholy clat- 
 tering of spare booms forward, the scream 
 and smoke of water hissing inboards through 
 the scupper-holes, and then draining aw^ay 
 through the same apertures in long lament- 
 able sobbings, the shrill whistling of the gale 
 splitting upon the curve of the gray ropes, 
 the quick roar of it as it flung as with a sound 
 of cannon from under the foot of the arched 
 canvas to the weather roll of the masts ; whilst 
 below it was dismaller yet, bulkheads creaking, 
 cabin-doors ticking like gigantic clocks upon 
 their hooks and hinges to the regular swaying, 
 groanings of strained cargo in the hold, and 
 such a tumblefication of deck, that having once 
 fairly brought up on a locker you loathed the 
 obligation of leaving it.
 
 256 MAROONED. CHAP. 
 
 The storm-shrouded day howled itself stead- 
 fastly onwards into the blackness of night, 
 when the scene of commotion took a new 
 character of wildness from the swarmings of 
 sea-fire in the curl of each dark summit, and 
 in the soft sheet-lightning-like flashes of the 
 phosphor flying with the water through our 
 rigging. But though it was a time of dis- 
 comfort, it was a time of comparative ease, too, 
 for it blew all thoughts of mutiny out of one's 
 head. Recollections of tragedy, anxiety, and 
 distress seemed to have been washed over- 
 board by the first sea the brig shipped ; and 
 Miss Grant said to me that she would be glad 
 never to see a sunlit day nor a placid night of 
 moonshine again during the rest of the voyage, 
 providing the Iron Crown continued to stem 
 fairly onwards for Rio, and the men remained 
 quiet, and Broadwater too occupied by the 
 weather to bluster and bully as of old. 
 
 I confess I had forgotten all about the dead 
 mate, when on returning from a short look 
 round on deck at about half-past ten — Miss 
 Grant having withdraw^n to her berth an hour 
 before — I saw Gordon and the cabin-boy stag-
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 257 
 
 gering out of one of the foremost cabins, 
 bearing between them a long white bundle. I 
 asked the boatswain what it was, and he an- 
 swered, " The body of the mate, sir." The 
 thing, bolster-shape, was stitched up in sail- 
 cloth, and more ghastly, maybe, to the im- 
 agination for lacking suggestion of human 
 outline. 
 
 " What are you going to do with it ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Heave it overboard, sir," answered Gordon. 
 
 I might have suspected as much ; yet I could 
 not make sure that Broadwater would have 
 dismissed the remains of his factotum without 
 a benediction. 
 
 '' The capt'n wouldn't trust the handling of 
 him to any of the people forward," said Gordon, 
 " nor bury him by daylight under their noses. 
 I reckon he's right. This here," said he, w4th 
 a look at the burden, at one end of which he 
 swayed whilst the cabin-boy staggered at the 
 other, but without the pale consternation In his 
 face that would have shown in it had the cap- 
 tain been his assistant, "is still as a red rag to 
 more than one pair of horns which have sprouted 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 aboard us of late days. Steady, my lad ! 
 Slew round now! I'll go back'ards up the 
 steps, and don't you pull ! " 
 
 The brig rolled so heavily that I expected 
 every moment to see the boatswain plump 
 down with his ghastly burthen and overset the 
 boy. They managed to get it on deck however 
 without mishap, and following, I watched them 
 from over the edge of the companion-hatch 
 swing the white thing with a low growling one, 
 two, THREE ! from Gordon, and send it with a 
 flash like any one of the sheets of milk-white 
 foam bursting over the weather-rail into the 
 dark waters beyond. The sailor's last toss ! 
 I thought, as I re-entered the cabin ; and whose 
 child had been that negro-headed, handsome- 
 featured fellow ? The wolfish yell of the wind 
 high aloft swept to the black orifice of the 
 hatchway as an answer to the question, and 
 no icy blast could have struck such a shudder 
 through me as the chill that trembled from my 
 hair to my feet to the sudden lighting of my eyes 
 upon the mahogany-like stain upon the cabin- 
 deck. One thing on top of another, 'twas almost 
 enough to make a man feel sorry for the mur-
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 259 
 
 dered wretch. If ever a creature was charged 
 to the gorge with all qualities which go to the 
 making of a romantic scoundrel, this same Neil 
 Bothwell had been. Maybe he was born a 
 little too late ; for the paddle-wheel, if not the 
 propeller, was even now scooping up all ideal- 
 ism out of the sea. If the black flagf were not 
 actually hauled down, it was on its way to the 
 locker, there to moulder ; the Corsair had buried 
 his jNIedora, and gone to the Isles of Greece 
 to slink out, oily and Rlthy, upon the sleepy 
 Turk, or the humming Sicilian. The slaver 
 alone was active. Yet I never can recall Mr. 
 Bothwell's woolly head, his chiselled features, 
 white teeth, and nimble, sparkling eyes, along 
 with the dark brutality of his nature, his pir- 
 atical voice and venomous language, without 
 feeling persuaded that the knife of the half- 
 blood had cut short a career which, in its 
 continuance, despite the crimson cross and the 
 grinning teeth of the British frigate, must 
 have supplied the naval writer with many fruit- 
 ful and astonishing themes. 
 
 That miserable stain made the atmosphere 
 ot the cabin feel as bleak as a vault on a 
 
 s 2
 
 2 6o MAROONED. chap. 
 
 December night ; and though we were supposed 
 to be in warm parallels, I could not have 
 snugged me in my blankets with heartier relish 
 of the clinging comfort of them had the gale been 
 splitting upon frozen rigging, and the blackness 
 upon the sea dashed with the iceberg's spectral 
 tinge of faintness. 
 
 This dirty weather troubled us for four 
 days. It seemed to have blown the ocean 
 clear of ships and birds, for we sighted nothing, 
 whether winged with canvas or feathers. All 
 day long 'twas the same steadfast rush of the 
 surge, green as bottle-glass, freckled with the 
 foam flying from the champing courser in ad- 
 vance, lifting a head of melting white to the 
 sullen slate of the shadow overlaying the sky ; 
 with once — it was on the second evening — a 
 fierce sunset of smoking crimson, red spokes 
 of a dingy brightness cleaving the black scud 
 and the boiling, angry haze of the west, and 
 touching the unmirroring welter into spaces 
 of a rusty blood-like colour, as though — and 
 the fancy was Miss Grant's — each beam of 
 coarse effulgence were a material weapon darted 
 by some mighty hand on high, and making the
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS, 261 
 
 ocean bleed to the thrust ; followed by a sort 
 of melting out of the sun into a brief, shape- 
 less running as of molten ore low upon the 
 sea-line, where the billows leapt black against 
 it ; till the gale, like some baffled, sentient 
 thing, stormed up afresh with a long victorious 
 yelling in its western flight, crowding cloud 
 upon cloud there with such rapid smothering 
 of the tarnished hectic, that In a few moments 
 you knew not where to look for the place 
 behind which the luminary had foundered. 
 
 Then followed several days of fair weather, 
 and If It had not been for a lurking feeling of 
 uneasiness, a sense of trouble Impending, I be- 
 lieve I should have found enjoyment enough in 
 this time to fully compensate me for the worries 
 and anxieties I had suffered. For three succes- 
 sive days a pleasant wind from the north and 
 east blew almost directly over our stern ; and the 
 brig, with studding-sails overhanging the water 
 far out on either side of her, and soothingly 
 cradled by a subdued heave of liquid fold, as 
 regular as a pulse, and soft as the rise and fall 
 of a sleeper's breast, floated steadily on her 
 course, irradiating the blue of the surge with
 
 262 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 silver reflection from her extended canvas, 
 whilst the short wake streamed off white as a 
 looking-glass, as though indeed the lines of 
 dark ripples breaking from the bow shivered 
 spaces of the translucent sheen under the 
 swinging booms into fragments, w^hich veering 
 aft occasioned the lovely metallic shining which 
 you noticed in the furrow^ under the counter. 
 Already from the slope of the rolling brows of 
 dark blue brine the flying-fish were whisking 
 in short, uncertain flights ; the swinish outline 
 of the porpoise rose black and wet to the flash 
 of the sun ; afar the snow-white spire of a 
 ship's canvas would break the melancholy 
 continuity of the sea-line. Our shadows short- 
 ened at noon, and so fair was the course we 
 headed that the eye had almost the accuracy 
 of the sextant in determining the period of the 
 meridian, by observing the wake of the luminary 
 rising and falling in a fan-shaped stream of 
 gold transversely from the horizon to our lar- 
 board cathead. 
 
 One scarcely needed the comforts of the 
 pleasure vessel to have found it all as full of 
 such delights as go to a yachting cruise, if the
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 263 
 
 rest had been as well as sea and sky and 
 atmosphere. But, first of all, there was 
 Captain Broadwater again. Now that the dirty 
 sky had been blown away, and the shrill dark 
 gale transformed into a steady gushing of fair 
 blue sunlit breeze, warm as a w^oman's breath, 
 and filled with the aroma of a thousand leagues 
 of ocean, the reckless old man had warped his 
 mind back to its old moorings, and was once 
 more falling foul of the men, often as I would 
 think without reason, or, when justified, then 
 always with coarse and needless temper. But 
 that was not all. The half-blood Charles was 
 about the deck — for I must tell you, now that 
 we w^ere regularly at sea it was "all hands," as 
 the term goes, from eight bells in the morning 
 down to four o'clock in the afternoon, with an 
 interval of an hour from half-past eleven for 
 dinner ; and consequently it was impossible to 
 put your head through the companion-hatch 
 without, after a bit, seeing the half-blood at 
 work, sometimes on the rigging, sometimes with 
 a marline-spike on deck, but most often stitching 
 at sailcloth stretched along the waist. It was 
 not only the knowing that he was a murderer
 
 264 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 that regularly affected me with a violent stir of 
 emotion every time my eye lighted on him, 
 though I should see him twenty times in a day ; 
 it was the shock also, at least to my notion of 
 shipboard discipline, to the marine habits of 
 thought I had carried away with me from my 
 early voyagings, coming from perception of his 
 being at large, when without doubt he should 
 be in irons below, and of the liberty he was 
 now enjoying being the will of the crew. My 
 abhorrence of Broadwater's early usage of him 
 could in nowise temper my loathing of the olive- 
 coloured dastard's act. Of course, the crime of 
 which the fellow had been guilty might well 
 make one suspect a deeper significance in every 
 action, gesture, and speech of his than they in 
 reality possessed ; but sometimes, in watching 
 him furtively over the top of a book, or whilst 
 conversing with Miss Grant, when he was not 
 too far off for his features to be inexpressive, I 
 would get it into my head that if ever the swift, 
 askant glance of a human eye indicated treachery 
 and black resolution, matured and waiting only, 
 his did whenever Broadwater's approach courted 
 a glance from under his dusky, drooping lids at
 
 XIV. THE SAILOR'S LAST TOSS. 265 
 
 the old fellow. I reasoned thus : I said to my- 
 self, this man being guilty of murder, albeit he 
 has his freedom in the brig — the liberty of a bird 
 in a cage ! — is fully aware that the gallows awaits 
 him on his arrival in port, and that the person 
 who will make it his especial business to procure 
 his prompt despatch is that same red-faced, hec- 
 toring, noisy, and tyrannous skipper, at whom, 
 when he imagines himself unperceived, he darts 
 as malignant a glance as ever I witnessed in 
 mortal eyes. What then! Is it reasonable to 
 suppose that yonder half-blood intends to re- 
 signedly suffer himself to be carried to Rio, and 
 on the testimony of the depositions of that ship- 
 master there, whom he abhors, to suffer with 
 his life for his deed ? Then I would say to 
 myself, But what is he to do ? Certainly he 
 cannot prevent the master from navigating 
 the brig to her South American destination. 
 Does he contemplate suicide as his only chance 
 of escaping the executioner ? He is under the 
 protection of the crew ; has he any influence 
 with them ? Assuming that he has, w^hat use 
 can he make of it ? Thus would I sometimes 
 speculate, Idly indeed ; yet the thoughts that
 
 266 MAROONED. chap. xiv. 
 
 occurred to me were of a kind to rob the smooth 
 ocean of its placidity, and the gay picture of the 
 brig, brilHant with the serene splendour of the 
 heavens, of something of its beauty. 
 
 However, I kept my thoughts to myself. I 
 took care that Miss Grant should have no sus- 
 picion of what was passing in my mind, nor 
 did I utter a word on the subject to Gordon, 
 mainly because I felt the whole thing was 
 mere foreboding, and that discussion of it 
 could therefore serve no end.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 
 
 I REMEMBER it was on the third night of this 
 gentle weather that I was quietly walking up 
 and down the deck with Miss Grant's hand 
 lying lightly on my arm. Four bells had not 
 been long struck. The night was dark, but ex- 
 ceedingly beautiful, with a tropical richness of 
 starlight that yet, though to the eye it showed 
 like a wide fine rain of silver light, suffered 
 the sea to heave black to the confines of the 
 hovering firmament — not a break or glance of 
 foam anywhere, not the tiniest sparkle of the 
 sea-glow, albeit with my companion I had 
 overhung the quarter for many minutes to 
 watch for any greenish cloudy rising, any yellow 
 fibrous shooting ; for of all oceanic midnight 
 sights nothing delights me so keenly as the
 
 2 68 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 movement of phosphoric swarmings in the quiet 
 ebon brine, when the vessel has just way enough 
 to stir the Hquid blackness into shining con- 
 figurations of all sorts along her sides, and to 
 mark her passage by a jewel-like trailing of 
 luminous bells of foam, and the emerald glare of 
 misty puffs of fire. The brig, with studding-sails 
 out on either side, was floating through the 
 shadow of the night at some four or five miles 
 in the hour. Her wide stretch of canvas rose 
 pallid to the gloom, and died upon the eye in 
 mere films and spaces of faintness ere the sight 
 could penetrate to the forms of the little sails 
 which crowned the stone-coloured pyramid- 
 All was silent — every cloth aloft was asleep. 
 Under the black arches of the distended 
 canvas the stars would come and go to 
 the movement of the fabric, like eyes of 
 invisible shapes, peering an instant over 
 the edge of the yards down upon the dim 
 glimmer of the brig's decks. Gordon was 
 in charge. I had killed half-an-hour some 
 time before with him in talk, but when Miss 
 Grant arrived I paired off with her, and left 
 my hearty friend to fill the interval betwixt
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 269 
 
 the wheel and the main-rigging with lonely 
 meditations. 
 
 I do not mind owning here, that on such 
 a night as this it was not very easy to check in 
 myself something of those sentimental thoughts 
 concerning my fascinating companion which had 
 bothered me, as I have elsewhere said, at an 
 earlier date, and which no doubt would have 
 continued to worry and vex me dow^n to this 
 hour, but for the murder of the mate and the 
 posture of the crew. The quiet weather, and 
 the apparent peace in the brig during the last 
 three days, had enabled us to be much together 
 on deck again, and to converse on subjects of a 
 kind very different from assassination on ship- 
 board, and the perils of passengers in vessels 
 worked by mutinous sailors. Indeed, the long 
 and short of it is, as we stepped the deck 
 together this night, I felt that if our voyage to 
 Rio should be long delayed, it must infallibly 
 end in my falling in love with Miss Aurelia. It 
 would not do to call the emotion a disloyalty to 
 my cousin. What must happen cannot be 
 helped, and there is nothing in philosophy to 
 balk the issue, though it mav teach one how to
 
 270 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 support it. The utmost I could hope to do was 
 to disguise my feehngs, quit Rio as promptly as 
 the shipping there would suffer, and leave the 
 rest to old Time with his brush and whitewash. 
 Still the position was an exceedingly uncom- 
 fortable one, and it was likely to endure long 
 enough to render me very unhappy. For in 
 those days I was a young man with the heart 
 and sensibilities of youth ; and to fall in love 
 with a woman who was betrothed to another ; 
 to find my happiness subtly sneaking away, 
 and making its existence dependent upon con- 
 ditions which never could be fulfilled ; to feel 
 moreover that the emotions, which it was not in 
 my power to suppress, were in a sense unfair 
 to the girl — though I must always maintain 
 that the highest compliment a man can pay a 
 woman is to fall in love with her — whilst they 
 were dishonouring to myself in my existing 
 relations with my cousin, w^as to place myself, 
 without being able to help it, in a position so 
 immediately distressful as to threaten by and 
 by to become distracting. The worst of it was 
 that, whilst I would wish the voyage over, my 
 conscience was sensible that the desire was
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 271 
 
 nonsense, and that I was in no hurry. To be 
 sure It would be with nq common dehght that I 
 should part with Captain Broadwater and his 
 odious dinner-table, and take an eternal farewell 
 of a ship's company of whose behaviour it was 
 Impossible to make sure from one hour's end 
 to another ; but already — already ! though Miss 
 Grant and I had been together for a fortnight 
 only — the prospect of turning my back upon 
 her, of saying good-bye to her at Rio, of sailing 
 away and feeling that all I had done was to 
 undergo the miseries of a long voyage merely 
 to hand over the handsomest woman that I had 
 ever met in my life — the only girl moreover I 
 had ever encountered to whom I could have 
 given every bit of my heart — I say, the prospect 
 of this was all so very distasteful to me, that 
 when I came to look into myself I was not at all 
 astonished to find I was secretly willing that 
 this voyage to Rio should continue, at all risks, 
 to a period that might be indeterminable, sooner 
 than sunder my association with the lovely and 
 engaging girl whom my abominably thoughtless 
 cousin had asked me to take charge of. 
 
 But these were my thoughts only. It was
 
 272 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 not to be supposed that she would have the 
 least suspicion of what was passing in my mind. 
 There was nothing of the coquette in her ; no 
 capacity of courting admiration for the mere 
 selfish pleasure of enjoying it. As she walked 
 by my side, the warm fragrance of her on the 
 atmosphere, her face white to the star-shine with 
 the sparkles of it in her eyes, I had very little 
 doubt, believe me, that, had she guessed at the 
 thoughts which had my heart in tow, she would 
 have rapidly made shift to conquer the floating 
 movements of the deck without the support of 
 my arm upon which her left hand now rested. 
 Upon my word, the cruellest of all women — not 
 the more forgivable because she is unconsciously 
 cruel — is the girl who, knowing that she is 
 beautiful, acts without perception of the magic 
 and influence of her graces. Fortunately for 
 the peace of men, such women are rare. But 
 Miss Aurelia Grant was one of them ; and, 
 though the more intimate our association was 
 the more, in one sense, and in a mean sense I 
 am afraid, I enjoyed it ; yet she could never touch 
 my hand, bend her fire-impassioned eyes upon 
 mine, incline her stately figure to me with the
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 2 
 
 16 
 
 gracious, maidenly familiarity of a girl in the 
 society of a man whom she values as a friend, 
 without a sort of wild odd regret in me that 
 Nature, in making her beautiful, had not also 
 dowered her with the capacity of appreciating 
 the significance of beauty's most artless pro- 
 vocation. But then the Spanish blood would 
 account for much in her that was as teasing as 
 it was delightful. 
 
 Now, as we quietly moved from one end of 
 the deck to the other, there happened so strange 
 a thing, that the like of it in these parallels, at 
 all events, has, to my knowledge, been witnessed 
 once only. We had been chatting as soberly 
 as though we were uncle and niece : not the 
 lightest of the inspirations of this most glorious 
 night coming out of it to tincture our w^ords or 
 thoughts into any complexion of romance, 
 though never might a scene of starlit gloom 
 furnish a young fellow, already rendered senti- 
 mental enough, with a better excuse for frequent 
 poetical flight than this in whose shadow I paced 
 with Miss Aurelia, her ungloved hand (with the 
 gleam, by the way, of an engaged ring meeting 
 my eye each time I looked down) lying white 
 
 VOL. L T
 
 274 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 as a flake of sea-foam In the bight of my arm. 
 I was talking about old Broadwater, and ex- 
 pressed my wonder that he should be able to 
 accommodate his love of rum and his taste for 
 " all night In," as they say at sea, with the 
 obligation he had imposed upon himself of 
 taking Bothwell's place. 
 
 " Spite of his many shortcomings," she 
 exclaimed, " I should think he is too ex- 
 perienced a sailor, too much a seaman 
 by habit not to be vigilant during his 
 watch." 
 
 " Oh," said I, " I don't doubt that he keeps 
 a bright look-out when his turn to take charge 
 comes round. What I mean Is, it Is odd that 
 he should not have chosen some one from 
 amongst the men forward to act as second mate, 
 Gordon now being first, for then he would be 
 able to go to bed drunk as usual, with plenty of 
 time to sleep off the fumes ; but the long and 
 short of it is," I added, '' there's no living 
 creature in this forecastle to whom he durst 
 confide his ship." 
 
 As I said this, I heard my name called, 
 apparently from the forecastle. We were at
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 275 
 
 that moment close to the wheel, and In the act 
 of returning to measure the length of deck 
 afresh. I was not a little surprised to hear 
 myself hailed from so remote a part of the brig, 
 and as I had not recognized the voice, I sang 
 out, " Who wants me there ? " 
 
 " Me, sir — the mate," came the answer from 
 the bows ; " will you and the lady please step 
 this way ? " 
 
 I asked Miss Grant If she w^ould accompany 
 me, thinking that she might be a little shy, and 
 very reasonably shy, too, under the circum- 
 stances, of that part of the vessel. 
 
 " Certainly," she answered promptly. We 
 had to move with caution. The pile of canvas 
 that clothed the brlof from truck to waterwav 
 deepened the midnight obscurity of the deck, 
 and though it was plain sailing where we had 
 been walking, yet, once abreast of the mainmast, 
 one had to keep a sharp look-out, by groping, 
 for the harness-cask, scuttle-butts, coils of 
 rigging, pump-handles, and other matters which 
 lay between the point where the quarter-deck 
 began and where the brig's forecastle ended. 
 I called out, " On which side are you, Mr. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Gordon ? " wondering why he wanted us, and 
 what had carried him away from his post aft. 
 
 '' On the starboard bow, sir," he rejoined ; 
 " mind the fluke of the stowed anchor as ye 
 come along ! I'm just forrard of it." 
 
 I held Miss Grant's hand, walking in front of 
 her. The galley was locked up for the night ; 
 there was not the faintest gleam of light any- 
 where visible, if it were not a sort of ghostly 
 sheen lurking like a churchyard exhalation over 
 the fore-scuttle, from the slush lamp, as I 
 presumed, swinging in the sailors' sea-parlour 
 below. Indeed I was so engrossed by the 
 occupation of picking my w^ay, that I saw 
 nothing until I was fairly alongside of Gordon, 
 who pointed, with a long shadowy arm, the 
 finofers at the end of which showed like a 
 giant's against the stars, over the horizon, and 
 exclaimed, " Mr. Musgrave, sir, saw any man 
 ever the like o' that ? What can it be ? " 
 
 He held his arm levelled, and following its 
 indication I saw, right ahead of the ship, 
 standing apparently upon the ocean at the 
 distance of the horizon, an arch of light, or 
 rather, let me say, a shape of dim white radiance.
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 277 
 
 that arched in perfect outline from one leg to 
 another that appeared to rest upon the black 
 surface of the deep to within three or four de- 
 grees of the sea-line, as though its foot had 
 broken away. There is nothing so deceptive 
 as distance at sea. The liQ^ht, when I first saw 
 it, might have been within, gunshot, or it might 
 have been a couple of leagues away from us. 
 The radiance had the tint of moonshine, and 
 was as visibly defined upon the velvet dusk as 
 though painted there by the sweep of a brush 
 dipped in white fire. You saw the stars shining 
 close against the rim of it, all round and under 
 the arch of it, where they sparkled like the 
 riding-lights of ships. 
 
 ''What is it, Mr. Mus^rave?" exclaimed 
 Gordon, in the voice of a man not only awed, 
 but even alarmed. 
 
 " I wish I could tell you," said I. "It looks 
 like the fiery trail of a comet that has swept in 
 an arc from behind the sea, and gone to pieces 
 in the blackness before it had perfected the 
 semi-circle." 
 
 " We are steering directly for it ! " exclaimed 
 Miss Grant.
 
 2 78 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 The watch on deck, disturbed In the naps 
 •they were taking In secret corners by Gordon's 
 call to me, had collected near us, and you heard 
 the growling of their voices as they pointed 
 ahead, marvelling, as we did, one to another, 
 at the startling, beautiful, radiant appearance. 
 I heard one say, "Jim, It's a sort of vast com- 
 preesant. There's no luck for the vessel as 
 sights them shows." 
 
 Another said, *' If we are to sail through It, 
 stand by ! The likes of them lights, I'veheerd, 
 strikes men green If they smites 'em full." 
 
 *' What in thunder can It be ? " repeated 
 Gordon ; " 'tain't anything burning out there, 
 is it ? How fur do It stretch ? Can any 
 man tell ? Looks to me to be a-wldenlng." 
 
 One of the shadowy group beside me ex- 
 claimed, " Job is to know how fur off it lies. I 
 allow there's all ten mile between them legs," 
 
 " Vast there ! " cried another, " ten mile ! I'll 
 swap my chest agin your Scotch cap afore eight 
 bells this blooming night if them legs is a mile 
 wide." 
 
 " I'll go aft and report It to the captain," said 
 Gordon, in a voice that betrayed the agitation
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 279 
 
 he was labouring under. '' Never see'd the Hke 
 of such a- thing In all my time. Beats all my 
 going a-fishing, sir. Why, it's a object that 
 ain't in nature ; and if we don't give it a wide 
 berth it'll be a bad look-out for some of us, or I 
 wasn't christened Zana ! " And apparently as 
 much subdued as if he had seen a ghost, or 
 heard some spectral voice up in the air bidding 
 him prepare for his end, he slunk away from 
 our side, and vanished in the darkness as he 
 made his way to the cabin. 
 
 When he was gone a deep silence fell. 
 The men ceased to speak : Miss Grant and I 
 gazed without exchanging a syllable : nothing 
 was to be heard but the soft shearing of the cut- 
 water beneath us, rending the liquid indigo with 
 the noise as of the tearing of satin. The black- 
 ness under the bows was profound — not a 
 sparkle of phosphor to catch the eye, not the 
 sickliest flake of starshine to express the in- 
 visible heave of the deep by the wire-like 
 widening of it to the movement. I looked 
 behind me at the towering canvas on the 
 fore-mast, and found a strange solemnity In 
 the visionary beauty of the silent, swelling, airy
 
 2 8o MAROONED. chap. 
 
 concavities mounting in pale vague surfaces into 
 the stooping dusk ; but whether near or distant, 
 the mystic arch of Hght ahead threw not the 
 feeblest gleam upon that soaring surface that 
 spectrally dilated on either hand to the pinions 
 of the studding-sails which faded into a hovering 
 faintness far beyond the sides. The mysterious 
 sheen to our approach seemed to gather a quicker 
 tincture of lustre, as of the diamond, or some 
 clear glittering star. It is impossible to express 
 the startling loveliness of this apparition of 
 luminous arch against the midnight sky, with 
 the stars shining dow^n to its rim, and spangling 
 the hollow to the sea-line within. 'Twas as 
 though God's hand had set up a sign in the sky 
 for us to behold ; and the men now were so 
 dumb jn the face of it, that you easily guessed 
 how impressed and awed they were. Most of 
 the watch below had come up to have a look, 
 but each new-comer's first murmur of wonder 
 speedily died in the hush that was upon the 
 others. 
 
 ''What is it, do you think, Mr. Musgrave ?" 
 said Miss Grant, in a voice a little above a 
 whisper.
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 281 
 
 " W^ere we far north or south," I rephed, 
 " one would make it IntelKgible by reference to 
 the Northern Lights or to the magnificent 
 display of the Aurora Australis, with its 
 sudden pale flashings and spiral coruscations. 
 No doubt yonder beautiful object is something 
 of the kind, electric — phosphoric — call it what 
 you will. But is it not worth seeing ? Why, 
 one would sail round the world even with old 
 Broadwater for such possession of memory as 
 that glorious span will yield ! " 
 
 "It will fill these poor fellows with super- 
 stitious fancies," she said, speaking very softly. 
 " Did you hear one of them say that people who 
 sail through such things are struck green ? " 
 
 I could not help laughing, and said, " Yes ; 
 but it is possible to be green without passing 
 through such an arch as that. If these sailors, 
 now, were Roman Catholics after the type of 
 the mariners of Columbus's day, they would be 
 on their knees chanting litanies, and making the 
 air melodious with their Salve Regina s. But 
 is not superstition excusable amongst seamen ? 
 Look at that wonderful sight. Miss Grant. 
 Imagine yourself run backwards by the stream
 
 282 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 of time three hundred years — before the scien- 
 tific man had broken loose, when the world was 
 bare of problem-solvers, when all Interpretation 
 was deliclously romantic and tenderly poetical. 
 What then would you think of such a sight as 
 that! It would be no mere phosphoric or 
 electric arch. No, no ; but some paradisiacal 
 bridge of ethereal crystal, such as St. John 
 may have gazed upon without having recorded 
 it ; and be sure that your young-eyed imagin- 
 ation, fired by sheer ecstasy of superstition, 
 would readily discern the forms of angelic 
 beings with wings of pearly light, and raiment 
 as lustrous as a moonbeam, flitting along it to 
 the stars upon which Its unfinished end to the 
 left there seems to rest." 
 
 I merely talked thus to provoke her, delight- 
 ing In the high moods which even such Idle 
 stuff as this would induce in her. But un- 
 fortunately it was not only that we were not 
 alone ; I had scarcely made an end, when old 
 Broadwater, followed by Gordon, rolled floun- 
 dering and tumbling on to the forecastle. He 
 came and stood close against me, puffing and 
 blowing in such a manner that my nose was a 
 
 \
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 283 
 
 long way ahead of my ears in detecting that if 
 he was not actually drunk he must have turned 
 in very well primed. He stared for some 
 moments in silence, breathing hard, and then 
 burst out, " Well, boil me alive, if ever I seed 
 the likes of that ! 'Tain't fire, neither. What 
 do yoit call it, ]\Ir. Gordon .^ " 
 
 " Got no idea, sir," answered the mate, 
 speaking as before with a note of awe and 
 depression in his voice. ^' Shall we shift the 
 helm while there's time ? It looks close aboard 
 now, and w^e shall be into it if we don't mind." 
 
 '' Shift the helium ! " cried Broadwater. 
 '' What for ? D'ye think it's land, man ? Why, 
 what else is it but w^hat they calls a luminous 
 fog ? And who's going to diwerge for a thick- 
 ness you can see through ? " 
 
 Some man said, " That there's no luminous 
 fog, master. It's a big, strlke-me-blind com- 
 preesant. Look out! It may foul our mast- 
 heads as we pass under it, and who's to know 
 that we shall ever be heard of arterwards ? " 
 
 Broadwater, who had been peering hard into 
 my face, seemed on a sudden to distinguish me, 
 and without apparently heeding the man who
 
 284 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 had spoken, exclaimed, " Hope you're enjoying 
 of It. Mr. Musgrave. 'Taint often a sight Hke 
 that's chucked in for naught in a voyage to 
 Rio." 
 
 " Am I to shift the helm, sir ?" said Gordon. 
 
 " Certainly not ! " roared the old fellow, 
 "didn't ye hear me say so just now? Cook 
 me alive, Mr, Musgrave, if sailors be men fit 
 even to make soldiers of ! Diwerge because 
 there's a lunar rainbow in the road ! " He 
 seemed to be struck by his own fancy. " It's a 
 lunar rainbow," he shouted, '' one of the finest 
 I ever see." 
 
 "Where's the moon to make him? "said a voice. 
 
 " Keep all on as ye are, Mr. Gordon ; all on 
 as ye are ! " said Broadwater, with an ominous 
 growl in his tones, that was like an intimation 
 to the little company of shadows standing near 
 him to hold their peace. " Steady as she goes, 
 sir!" And so saying he staggered away 
 from the rail, and went swinging towards the 
 quarter-deck, singing out to the helmsman as 
 he went, " Steady as she goes, my man ! steady 
 as she Q^oes ! " 
 
 We had neared the shining appearance so
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUGH A STRANGE LIGHT. 285 
 
 rapidly, that I suspected it must have been very 
 much closer to us when first sighted than we 
 had imagined. It cast no reflection upon the 
 dark waters under it, nor sheen upon the air 
 beyond the line of its own irradiation, as you 
 saw by the shine of the stars close down upon 
 it. As we were under a steady helm, it soon 
 became plain that the sparkling arch was slowly 
 trending to larboard. When it first showed 
 out, our jibbooms seemed to point fair for the 
 centre of it, whereas now the right leg had 
 drawn on to our starboard bow. The obscurity 
 seemed the blacker for that light. I'd look 
 aloft and around, wondering that no illumina- 
 tion came from the mystical burning to touch 
 the sails, or to put a sparkle into the eyes of 
 the staring men. They were grumbling freely, 
 swearing that nothing but ill-luck could attend 
 our passage through the luminous thing, and 
 heaping curses upon the captain for his drunken 
 obstinacy. Gordon had followed Broadwater 
 on to the quarter-deck, but Miss Grant and 
 I held our place against the forecastle-rail. 
 Within half-an-hour of the object heaving into 
 view, we were close upon it. Even when our
 
 286 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 fiying-jibboom end was silvered by contact with 
 the luminosity, the jibs themselves hung black as 
 thunder-clouds against the shining. I had just 
 time to note the wondrous sweep of this mighty 
 arch, extending like a vast hueless rainbow 
 into the clear obscure, when the light was all 
 about us. I begged my companion to look 
 aft ; the spectacle was incomparable for splen- 
 dour and shadow, heightened by the elements 
 of mystery and fear. The swelling sails at the 
 fore — studding-sail upon studding-sail to the 
 topgallant )'ard-arm, and white cloths rounding 
 and rising from forecourse to crowning royal 
 — leapt into spaces of bland, almost milk-white 
 light to the touch of this atmospheric radiance, 
 and floated gleaming whilst the rest of the brig 
 from the fore-rigging lay black and buried ; but 
 very swiftly the whole vessel leapt into this 
 midnight effulgent vision, and no searching 
 moonlight could have offered a clearer view of 
 her. Every man's shadow swung at his feet ; 
 the atmosphere was a wide white gushing ; 
 the very trucks at the lofty mastheads shone 
 out with the dull light of frosty silver buttons. 
 Aft, upon the quarter-deck, you saw the motion-
 
 XV. WE SAIL THROUCxH A STRANGE LIGHT. 287 
 
 less dark figures of Broadwater and the mate, 
 standing as though this mystical illumination 
 possessed some hellish quality that had blasted 
 them into stirlessness. The fellow at the wheel 
 gripped the spokes w^ithout a move in his 
 posture that seemed to me full of terror and 
 awe. Many of the crew% whilst our jibboom 
 was yet penetrating this burning mist, and 
 whilst the forecastle still lay in blackness, had 
 jumped below with sharp cries of alarm, w^arn- 
 ing one another to bew^are of the light, that it 
 turned the flesh green, that it was fatal to those 
 it shone on, and the like. But a few men 
 lingered, though when the brig was fair in the 
 radiance I marked them in cowering attitudes, 
 one stooping low at the w^indlass end, another 
 crouching with his arms against his forehead, a 
 third in a posture of recoil at the heel of the 
 bowsprit, as I have seen people terror-stricken 
 by a sudden dazzling flash of lightning. The 
 heave of the sea was like the sw^elline of a 
 sheet of silver. But in less than three minutes, 
 as nearly as I could calculate, I marked the 
 jibboom and jibs turn black, then the forecastle 
 stole into the midnight again, and preternatural
 
 MAROONED. chap. xv. 
 
 beyond expression was the spectacle of the 
 swelling canvas, bright for a breath to us who 
 stood in blackness, then vanishing upon the 
 sight as though the whole fabric had been 
 formed of star-lighted mist that had melted on 
 a sudden. In a few minutes the brig was 
 once more sailing along in darkness, and the 
 glorious arch was over her stern, with what was 
 now its left limb, viewing it from the forecastle, 
 veering away upon our larboard quarter.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Broadwater's proposal. 
 
 Had we been a large ship full of passengers, 
 such an astonishing sight as a silver arch, self- 
 luminous, yet without power to pale the close- 
 lying stars, with overflow of its sheen, spanning 
 a space of the midnight waters and resembling 
 nothing, as I then supposed, ever seen south of 
 the polar verge of the temperate parallels north 
 of the equator, would have given us enough to 
 talk about to serve to the end of the vovao-e 
 But wonderment is brief when Its sphere of 
 diffusion is slender. Miss Grant and I talked 
 the subject out promptly, and then there was 
 nobody left to say more about it. Broadwater, 
 It Is true, at breakfast next morning persisted in 
 declaring that it was a lunar rainbow ; though, 
 had he stuck to his first notion that It was a 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 luminous mist, I am not sure that his guess 
 would have been far out. 
 
 '' How are you going to get a lunar rainbow 
 without the moon ? " I said. 
 
 '' Who says that it is to be got ? " he answered. 
 *' The moon's always somewheres about, I sup- 
 pose ; and why shouldn't she be able to chuck 
 one of them appearances upon the sky when 
 she's out of sight, just as she do when she's 
 within view of the eye ? There's no call for her 
 to be overhead for shows of that kind to hap- 
 pen. I once see a beautiful rainbow, right over 
 our mastheads, a full half-hour after the sun 
 had gone down. You may depend upon it that 
 there arch last night was a lunar rainbow." 
 
 I liked him too little to argue with him, lover 
 as I am of the absurd ideas of stupid, prejudiced, 
 ignorant old sailors. Besides, the thing was a 
 phenomenon not to be explained by anybody 
 aboard that brig at all events, and to be ac- 
 cepted therefore as one of the many thrilling 
 and beautiful mysteries of old ocean's sombre 
 or sunlit solitudes. 
 
 I was not however a little surprised to find 
 that what I had deemed the mere passing de-
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 291 
 
 pressing influence of the apparition upon the 
 spirits of Gordon continued to weigh upon him. 
 This was made apparent when Broadwater, after 
 favouring us with his views on the subject of 
 lunar rainbows and other atmospheric effects, 
 most of which were no doubt coloured by the 
 bottle of rum through w^hich he had inspected 
 them, went on deck that the mate might get 
 his breakfast. 
 
 " Have any of the hands turned green since 
 last night, Mr. Gordon ? " said I. 
 
 " No, sir," he answered. " Most of 'em 
 jumped below, I hear ; t'others dodged the 
 sheen. They reckoned upon some of them 
 show^Ing blighted though when daylight came 
 along ; and if the watch had turned out blue, let 
 alone gi^een, hang me, Mr. Musgrave ! " he ex- 
 claimed, hitting the table with the handle of his 
 knife to emphasize his language, " if I for one 
 should have been surprised, for never did a more 
 scaring sight arise before the eyes of a sailor." 
 
 His subdued and dejected manner was more 
 striking than his words. I glanced at Miss 
 Grant, whose fine eyes, full of thought, were 
 fastened upon his face. 
 
 u 2
 
 292 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " The fancy amongst the men," she exclaimed, 
 '' must have arisen from the old belief that the 
 shining of the moon full on the face of a sleeper 
 distorts the features, and puts an ugly colour 
 into the complexion. The arch looked like moon- 
 shine, and I suppose the sight made the men so 
 nervous that it was enough for one of them to 
 hint at anything alarming to terrify the whole." 
 
 " I wish I'd never seen it," he exclaimed ; 
 " it's done me no good, miss." 
 
 " But surely," cried I, wondering at him, for 
 his had always seemed to me as prosaic a mind 
 as ever I met with in a sailor — nor could I for- 
 get his ridicule of the superstitious craze of the 
 man who had drowned himself in the English 
 Channel — " you do not want yourself to be- 
 lieve that there is anything in a mere body 
 of luminous vapour, to call it so, to hurt or 
 influence you, either in body or mind ? " 
 
 He shook his head very despondently : I 
 observed that he ate little, though he drank a 
 quantity of tea, thirstily and feverishly. '' I'm 
 a poor man, sir," he exclaimed, " but, so help 
 me Heaven, Mr. Musgrave, I'd gladly have 
 parted with every shilling of my savings sooner
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 293 
 
 than that the capt'n should have headed the 
 brig sHck into that shining. Beg your pardon, 
 miss," he continued, addressing Miss Grant with 
 a sudden eagerness, " but when ye entered that 
 Hght did it feel cold to ye ? " 
 
 " No," she answered, without exhibiting sur- 
 prise at the question. 
 
 " You, Mr. Musgrave — did it feel chilly like ? 
 not so much upon your skin as here ? " and he 
 put his hand to his heart. 
 
 " The only sensation I can recollect," I 
 answered, '' is one of delight at the glorious 
 picture the brig made, as she slowly floated into 
 the radiance out of the blackness, coating her- 
 self with the quicksilver of it from the truck to 
 the end of the swinging boom." 
 
 He was silent, then shook his head, and 
 exclaimed: "Well, mere fancy, no doubt. It's 
 all fancy in this here world. Without imagina- 
 tion there'd be nothing to hope for, nothing to 
 be afraid of." 
 
 " There might have been a chill in the light, 
 though we enjoyed the picture too much to be 
 conscious of it," said Miss Grant, talking to me 
 though speaking at Gordon.
 
 294 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 " The strangest part of it was this, miss," he 
 said, looking at her earnestly, " I felt it was cold 
 afore we entered it. 'Twas that which made 
 me so earnest the capt'n should shift the helium. 
 I knew so soon as ever I came in contact with 
 that lieht the bleakness of it would catch me 
 here," again putting his hand to his heart, " and 
 I'd have given all I'm worth — all I'm worth," 
 the poor fellow cried, with a vehemence unusual 
 in him, " to have escaped it. Up to the moment 
 when the light had slided within a foot of me I'd 
 no sensation but the fear of what was a- coming ; 
 but the moment it touched me I felt the chill. 
 There was death in it, sir, there was death in it ! 
 No man '11 ever persuade me contrary-wise." 
 
 He checked what I was about to say by 
 rising w^ith an apologetic glance at the skylight, 
 to let us know he could linger no longer, and 
 immediately went on deck. 
 
 I had so much faith in the steadiness of 
 Gordon's intellect that I could only accept this 
 odd posture in him as due to some trifling 
 functional derangement, which a dose of physic 
 or a few hours' rest would correct. Yet it gave 
 Miss Grant and me something to talk about. I
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 295 
 
 had some knowledge of sailors and their super- 
 stitions, and kept her amused for an hour or 
 two with stories of wizards of Finnish origin, 
 who sold favourable gales of wind to credulous 
 mariners ; of bald human heads, with little laugh- 
 ing black eyes and capacious grinning mouths, 
 rising to the surface, and terrifying Jack by 
 asking questions in a tongue unknown to any 
 nation under the stars, and then disappearing 
 w4th a shriek of derisive laughter ; of ghostly 
 shapes alighting on the yard-arms, and kindling 
 corpse-lights there, by whose dismal illumination 
 the mariner could see phantom faces glimmer- 
 ing out into expressions of sorrow and remorse, 
 as though grieving over the fateful missions 
 on which they had been despatched. 
 
 However, though I had no sympathy with the 
 queer notions which had come into Gordon's 
 head, my own misgivings were of a kind which 
 might very well have passed for a sort of 
 superstition too, for they kept me incessantly 
 foreboding disaster, though what form it was to 
 take I never could have imagined ; and so, as 
 you will see, the mate's despondency in its way 
 was no more deserving of ridicule than mine.
 
 296 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 First of all, I was more troubled than I was 
 perhaps conscious of by the recollection of the 
 murder that had been committed. It worried 
 me mostly of nights ; again and again in the 
 darkness of my cabin, and in the silence of 
 the long watches, when the brig was sailing 
 smoothly forwards, and all was still upon the 
 sea, when nothing broke upon the ear but the 
 muffled w^ashing of water outside, and' the 
 faint jar and creak of the fabric within, the 
 vision of the mate as I saw him when he stood 
 at the foot of the companion-steps with the 
 grin of death in his moving and speechless lips, 
 his right hand extended, his left hand dabbling 
 in his shirt that was soaked, where his fingers 
 pressed, with the life-blood draining from his 
 heart, would rise before me horribly distinct, 
 and keep me rolling and tumibling in my bunk, 
 till more than once it ended in my jumping 
 up, lighting the lamp, and clothing myself, and 
 killing a couple of sleepless hours with pipes of 
 tobacco and a drain or two from the private 
 stock in the next cabin. Then again, as I have 
 before said, it was a cause of no small con- 
 sternation to me, secret as the emotion was, to
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 297 
 
 feel that the man who had committed this 
 murder moved freely about the ship, enjoying 
 his liberty and the protection of the crew, and 
 had all necessary leisure besides to converse 
 with the men, and to influence them to any 
 purpose he might have in his mind. Indeed I 
 formed a darker opinion of the sailors from 
 their willing association with the ruffian, and 
 the jokes I would hear them exchanging with 
 him, than from any other sort of conduct I had 
 as yet witnessed in them. It was un-English — 
 a harsh, bad, jarring note in the rough and 
 rude harmony of British forecastle-life ; and this 
 feature of our shipboard existence was the 
 uglier to my mind for the man being a foreigner. 
 Such half-bloods as this Charles, at best, are a 
 people alongside w^hom our Jacks do not much 
 care to slinor their hammocks nor eat out of the 
 same kid with ; but in addition to this man's 
 deformity of breed w^as his proved quality as a 
 " knifer " — a characteristic unpleasantly common 
 to those skins, and half the secret at least of the 
 aversion they inspire in English crews. Detest- 
 able as Bothwell had been as a man, the crime 
 of his murder was more to be abhorred even
 
 298 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 than he ; and I say it worked in me Hke a 
 superstition to see his assassin coming and 
 going about the decks, fetching his meals from 
 the caboose along with the others, singing out 
 at the ropes, or hailing from aloft in the voice 
 of a lively hearty — but always with the same 
 sharp, stabbing gleam in his eyes whenever he 
 turned them upon Broadwater — and making a 
 part of the brig's honest routine, when his 
 proper lodging was the forepeak, his fit 
 equipment the bilboes, and his rightful con- 
 dition the completest practicable isolation from 
 his shipmates. 
 
 These and twenty more such thoughts were 
 in my mind after Miss Grant had withdrawn to 
 her berth, and whilst I remained alone watching 
 the shambling figure of the cabin-boy stripping 
 the cabin-table, with a hungry goggling of his 
 eyes at the remains of the meal as he stag- 
 gered up the hatchway with the dishes. I was 
 mechanically rolling a cigar between my fin- 
 gers, with the intention of lighting it and going 
 on deck, when Broadwater came below. I sup- 
 posed he would pass to his cabin, for, now that 
 he divided the look-out with Gordon, he was
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL 299 
 
 very punctual in going to bed when it came to 
 his turn to quit the deck. Instead, he halted, 
 took a survey of the cabin as if to make sure 
 that we were alone, and then came and sat 
 down near me. 
 
 '' Mr. Musgrave," said he, speaking with hesi- 
 tation and awkwardly, " I knew that you was 
 at sea as a youth, sir ; but I wasn't aware, till 
 Mr. Gordon just now told me, that you con- 
 sidered yourself equal to taking charge of the 
 deck and navigating a craft." 
 
 I looked at him, wondering what was in his 
 mind. 
 
 '' I hope," he continued, " you'll find nothing 
 offensive in what I'm about to observe. The 
 fact's this. Now that my mate's overboard, 
 there's no man but me in this here brie, barrine 
 yourself, with knowledge enough of the quad- 
 rant to know what part to put his eye at, if so 
 be he should need to use it. Now, if I should 
 fall sick, who is there, onless it be you, sir, 
 who'd be able to carry on the navigation of this 
 here brig ? Gordon tells me that you yourself 
 said to him a short while ago you'd be willing, 
 if asked, to take a mate's berth aboard of me.
 
 300 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Now, Mr. Musgrave, what d'ye say ? Gordon's 
 agreeable to fall back into his old spear, and if 
 you'll take his place as mate, sir, I should be 
 glad, very glad indeed ; though of course I won't 
 say nothing about remooneration, that being a 
 matter you might afterwards settle with the 
 owner." 
 
 " I am obliged to you for your offer," said I. 
 ''' I certainly did say something to Gordon about 
 being willing to lend a hand in the navigation of 
 the brig, should my services in that way ever 
 be required ; but as to taking a post of com- 
 mand over your crew " I shook my head. 
 
 " I don't like their attitude ; I don't like the 
 idea of your mate's murderer being at large ; I 
 don't like to think that there's any body of 
 English sailors who can not only protect but 
 remain friends with a half-blood, a foreign mis- 
 creant, whose knife, in my humble opinion, is 
 as ready for another man's heart as it was 
 for Mr. Bothwell's." 
 
 '' Ay," said he hoarsely, leaning towards me 
 with a look at the skylight, and then at the 
 hatch, " that's just it. Ye've hit it true as a 
 hair. It's more because I want to feel that we're
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 301 
 
 stronger than we are aft than because I may 
 fall sick that I'd be glad to see you mate first or 
 second, as you may elect. I don't mind telling 
 you," he continued, in the same hoarse, subdued 
 voice, and with another look up and around, 
 "that the aspect of the present biling don't sit 
 pleasingly upon my eyes, sir. Ye heard what 
 Gordon said that ni^fht of the murder, when he 
 came down — how the half-blood 'ud do for vie, 
 too, if I didn't keep a bright look-out. Well, I 
 tell you, I've learnt to fear that man. I don't 
 like his looks. I met his eye just now, and it was 
 like the snap of a musket at m.e. I haven't said 
 much about it, in fact I haven't said anything ; 
 and maybe it's weighed the more upon me, 
 'cause I kept myself shut up on the subject. But 
 it's a long way to Rio yet, sir, and my fear of 
 what that man's capable of is a weight that I 
 must chuck over the side somehow or other. 
 My notion is, then, that if you took the mate's 
 berth the men 'ud like it, you being a gentle- 
 man. They'd feel your influence after a bit, 
 and by expressing of your feelings to them in 
 the sort of language that my neglected edu- 
 cation as a boy keeps me as a man a-falling
 
 302 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 short of, they might grow ashamed of their 
 protection of the half-blood, and be willing 
 to let us clap him in irons, when of course I 
 should be able to sleep sound again, and 
 enjoy my meals with the old satisfaction." 
 
 He looked at me with a mixture of 
 eagerness and cunning in his little eyes. I 
 did not need to reflect, for whilst he had 
 been speaking I had made up my mind. 
 
 " I thank you for your good opinion of me," 
 said I ; " I cannot accept any such post as 
 you propose. 'Twas a mere fancy tossed to 
 the bo'sun in the course of a talk, with no 
 wish or resolution in it at all ; but, though 
 I decline your offer, you will of course un- 
 derstand that I am quite prepared to sup- 
 port you in any time of trouble ; always 
 presuming," I added significantly, " that the 
 authority you exercise, but which may be 
 resisted, is fair, legitimate, and consistent 
 with regular sea-duties." 
 
 '' Have ye got any weapons of your own ?" 
 he asked, with another look up and around. 
 
 " Yes," I answered. 
 
 " What are they, sir ? " 
 
 I
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 303 
 
 ^' A brace of pistols," said I. 
 
 ** Any hammunition ? " 
 
 ''Ay," I replied smiling, ''enough to send 
 ten times the number of your crew to their 
 account." 
 
 " That's all right," said he ; " I'm armed 
 too, armed enough to be able to sarve out 
 what's needful to Gordon, and to have 
 enough left for myself and vi07'e, if we can 
 get others to help us. Would you mind 
 doing this, sir ? — get in with the men in a 
 proper sort of condescending way, so as 
 there could be nothing bemeaning in the 
 thing to a gent of your spirit, and find out 
 if there's e'er a man forward who is to be 
 trusted to stand by and look on, should you 
 and me and Gordon arrange to rush the 
 job." 
 
 " I don't fully understand," said I. 
 "Well, I'll tell ye," he exclaimed, with his 
 eyes very full of cunning and eagerness, " the 
 notion that's come into my head's this : if w^e 
 could count on so many of the men standing 
 aloof, should it come to a melhee, then for the 
 safety of all consarned I should propose that
 
 304 
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 you and me and Gordon should arm ourselves, 
 have the handcuffs ready, fall upon and se- 
 cure the half-blood when no man could sus- 
 pect our intentions, drag him aft and lock him 
 up down here, and with our pistols keep 
 any of the crew off who should attempt a 
 rescue." 
 
 " The scheme is practicable," said I, after 
 a little, " but it requires consideration. At 
 the first sight I don't half like it. I see your 
 difficulty — I clearly perceive that unless this 
 half-blood be secured and removed from all 
 intercourse with the crew, diabolical mischief 
 may follow. I realize this : that at one end 
 of the ship is a murderer, at the other end 
 a man who is only waiting to get him to 
 Rio to hang him." He nodded vehemently. 
 " He knows that, and the question is, is he 
 going to give you the chance to hang him ? " 
 
 " That's the question ! " he cried, bringing 
 his fist down heavily upon the table. 
 
 '' Yes," I exclaimed, '' and it has haunted 
 me pretty smartly of late, I can assure you. 
 But, on the other hand, a melhee, as you 
 call it — this project of seizing the half-blood 
 
 I
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 305 
 
 and threatenlnor the sailors with our small- 
 arms — might, indeed it would, end in rank, 
 staring, hellish mutiny. What then would 
 you do ? There are but three of us against 
 the whole ship's company. The safety of 
 the lady who is on board this vessel under 
 my protection is my first consideration. It 
 would be a poor look-out to set fire to a ship 
 in order to get rid of a rat. It would be an 
 equally poor look-out to excite the men into 
 wild revolt against the three of us, to the 
 imperilling of the life and honour of Miss 
 Grant, for all we dare predict, simply that 
 your mind may be eased by having the half- 
 blood under lock and key." 
 
 " Then what's to be done ? " he exclaimed 
 coarsely, and in a defiant, quarrelsome way 
 " The safety of the brig depends upon me, 
 and if harm befalls vie, what's to become ot 
 her, and you, and the lady you're so consarned 
 about — and unwisely consarned about in my 
 opinion, for, by not helping me, you'll be 
 chancing to let her go adrift." 
 
 "I have told you. Captain Broadwater," 
 said I, greatly disliking this sudden change 
 of manner in him, for I had met his sugges- 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 3o6 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 tion in a very earnest spirit, " that In a time 
 of extremity, which shall not — understand me 
 — have been brought about by any act of 
 cruelty and brutality on your part, I will 
 support you and Mr. Gordon heart and soul. 
 But I cannot accept the duties you ask me 
 to undertake, nor do I see my way to offering 
 to help you In any wild scheme of seizing 
 the half-blood, under cover of the muzzles of 
 our pistols, with perhaps the obligation of 
 having to shoot down one or more of your 
 crew, to the assured end of raising a murderous 
 spirit amongst the men, and exciting them 
 into God knows what act of terrible mutiny." 
 
 As I said this. Miss Grant came from her 
 berth. I made a gesture to him to signify 
 that no more must be said now ; on which 
 he rose and went to his cabin. She looked 
 at me earnestly, but was silent. I handed 
 her up the companion-ladder, lighted a cigar, 
 and followed. The morning was deliciously 
 fine. There was a pleasant breeze a little 
 abaft the beam, which enabled the brig to 
 show her lower studding-sail to it, and under 
 broad wrings packed to the trucks, the little 
 vessel glided crisply over a sea of blue,
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 307 
 
 the beautiful dark dye of which at the 
 horizon seemed to tincture the Hne of the 
 sky, bending down past it into an opalescent 
 shimmer through contrast of the sapphire 
 sweep with the azure faintness behind it. 
 The decks were dry and white, with a 
 crystalline sparkling of salt about them. 
 There w^as a short aw^ning just abaft the 
 skylight, and our deck-chairs were under it ; 
 but the sun was not yet high, the wind blew 
 sweet and cool over the rail ; life was stirred 
 to her innermost sources by the freshness of 
 the morning, and to sit would have been to 
 forfeit half the delights of this radiant day. 
 On our quarter, steering north, was a brigan- 
 tine, toy-like in the distance ; the sunlight 
 flashed an ivory whiteness on her windward 
 canvas, whilst the violet shadowinQ^ on the 
 leeward cloths made them look to be melting 
 on the airy blue beyond. There was a spot 
 of colour in her rigging, and Gordon, from 
 the other side, called out to me that she was 
 a Dane. There was nothing else in sight, 
 and the mighty stretch of water, under the 
 dazzle of the soaring sun, looked the vaster 
 for that fairy-like fabric upon it. 
 
 X 2
 
 3o8 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 I threw a swift glance along our decks, and 
 
 noticed that the men worked quietly upon their 
 
 various jobs. A couple of them were busy on 
 
 some chafing-gear in the fore-rigging ; a spun- 
 
 3^arn winch was rattling on the forecastle ; and 
 
 the half-blood Charles, with his back upon uS' 
 
 dressed in blue dungaree, a red cap on his head, 
 
 and chocolate-coloured shanks bare to the knees, 
 
 was balling up the stuff as It was manufactured. 
 
 The cook was standing in the door of his little 
 
 galley, smoking a sooty pipe, his naked arms 
 
 folded upon his breast, watching the cabin-boy 
 
 close by washing some plates and dishes In a 
 
 tub. High aloft on the fore-royal-yard stood 
 
 the figure of a man, who had paused In some 
 
 work he was upon up there to stand erect with 
 
 his hand on the truck, and the sharp of his 
 
 other hand over his eyes, whilst he gazed Into 
 
 the immeasurable distance visible to him from 
 
 that altitude.^ The tall, muscular seaman, 
 
 Terence Mole, was at the helm, his hands 
 
 carelessly gripping the spokes of the wheel, his 
 
 attitude full of that indefinable, floating ease that 
 
 enters as a sort of grace into the posture and 
 
 movements of the true deep-water sailor. All 
 
 these were details to fill my eye in a breath ;
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 309 
 
 and on the surface the picture was so homely, 
 there seemed so much salt, plain honesty in the 
 complexion, quality, aspect of the full scene, 
 that my instant recurrence to what but a little 
 while before had passed between the captain 
 and myself, affected me as an unreality, as 
 something that I had imagined, as an affront to 
 the truth of this quiet, inboard picture, and to 
 the high, wide, refreshing splendour through 
 which our little craft was softly pushing. 
 
 When we emerged from the cabin. Miss 
 Grant made some commonplace remark about 
 the beauty of the morning ; but we had scarcely 
 measured half the length of the deck when, 
 looking at me wistfully and searchingly also, 
 she exclaimed, '' What has happened to worry 
 you, Mr. Musgrave ? " 
 
 " I must look worried, I suppose," I an- 
 swered, smiling, " or you would not ask the 
 question." 
 
 "You do, indeed. It is some anxiety that 
 concerns this voyage, of course. There can be 
 nothing else, for there are no postmen here to 
 bring you disagreeable news ; at least I hope 
 the cause lies in the voyage." '' If it does, will 
 you tell me what it is ? "
 
 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Now my immediate impulse was to answer 
 her evasiv^ely ; but on meeting her gaze, I 
 observed so much fearlessness in it, so much 
 clear and keen intelligence, along with so direct 
 a challenge to me to be plain with her or not 
 speak at all, and so unmistakable an assurance 
 besides of a guess that had already carried her 
 half-way into the truth, that I said to myself 
 with the swiftness of one who thinks, '' Why 
 not be perfectly candid with this woman ? 
 The wit and instincts of her sex may help 
 me." 
 
 She kept her gaze fastened upon me, and 
 seemed to read my thoughts. She said, with a 
 little smile very full of pride, " Do you know, 
 Mr. Musgrave, if Alexander ever had a doubt, 
 he would come to me to settle it for him. I am 
 fond of problems. If I were a man, I should 
 wish to be a politician above all things. I 
 should love to be in a position where my 
 judgment would be constantly tested, and 
 where I should have to act quickly. What is 
 best in a sailor's character springs from this 
 habit. He is incessantly confronted by surprises, 
 many of them tragical, all of them requiring 
 instant resolution." She preserved her smile,
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 311 
 
 still continuing to look at me. I suspected she 
 talked to give me time to think. 
 
 " My anxiety," said I, " concerns our position 
 on board this vessel — your position chiefly. 
 What could offer a more peaceful picture than 
 these decks .^ How softly the shadows sway ! 
 The men are working as quietly as if the whole 
 gladness of the morning were in them ; and 
 yet, since you wish to know the truth, Miss 
 Grant, I should say that if these planks were 
 growling insufferably hot from fire below — 
 raging, but as yet concealed — our outlook 
 would be more distinctly satisfactory to my 
 mind than it is now, staunch as the brig 
 is, quiet as these fellows seem, calm and 
 glowing as the whole picture all about us 
 shows." 
 
 She threw a glance around her, and said 
 quietly, " What has occurred to put these 
 thoughts into you ? " 
 
 I came to a halt, our faces fronting the 
 forecastle, and indicating the half-blood by a 
 movement of my head, I said, '' That fellow 
 there knows that on the arrival of this brig he 
 must be hanged, or in some other manner 
 dispatched for the murder of Mr. Both well.
 
 ^lAROONED. CHAP. 
 
 He also knows that the man who is resting in 
 the cabin under our feet means to get him 
 killed for his crime." The half-blood turned 
 his head at this moment, and we resumed our 
 walk. '' You say you are fond of problems. 
 Here is one for you. That fellow forward has 
 the sympathies of the whole crew. He has 
 more : he has their protection, and they will 
 not allow a finger to be laid upon him. Aft is 
 a captain who stands alone." 
 
 " The problem, Mr. Musgrave ? " 
 
 " How is Captain Broadwater to sail the ship 
 to Rio, and set you and me safely ashore there, 
 with yonder olive-coloured villain closely and 
 intimately associated with the crew — popular 
 amongst them as the hero who freed them 
 from the tyranny of the mate — conscious, 
 maybe, of their willingness to help him save 
 his life, which he knows must be forfeited on 
 the arrival of the brig ? " 
 
 " What do you fear ? " 
 
 " That Master Ernest Charles yonder will 
 contrive that this brip" shall never reach her 
 
 port." 
 
 " By what means ? " 
 
 " Ha ! " said I, " there it is, Miss Grant."
 
 xvi. . BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 313 
 
 She threw another swift glance around her 
 and sHghtly knitted her brows. " Can we not 
 contrive to find out what Captain Broadwater 
 thinks ? " she said. 
 
 I exactly repeated my conversation with him 
 in the cabin. She listened until I had made an 
 end, and then said quickly, " Mr. Musgrave, if 
 you will be advised by me, you will take no 
 part in any scheme the captain may decide 
 upon as regards the discipline of the vessel. 
 The men know that they have your sym- 
 pathies, and should trouble come, they will 
 — at least they may — remember that you 
 were their friend. But what would be the 
 result of your siding with the captain, 
 helping him to put that wretched creature 
 yonder in irons, perhaps being obliged in 
 self-defence to shoot one of the crew ? We 
 have a right to think of our safety. Captain 
 Broadwater has imperilled it by his treatment 
 of the men, and I say we have a right, Mr. 
 ]\Iusgrave, to think of ourselves. My advice 
 is, be neutral." 
 
 I dare say I was the more impressed by 
 what she said, because of her having given 
 prompt and clear expression to my own secret
 
 314 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Opinions. The judgment that concurs with 
 our own must be, of course, very shrewd and 
 sagacious. But I could also find a good deal 
 to admire in the quickness with which she had 
 seen into the thing, and the accuracy of her 
 insight. For, after all, it only needed a little 
 thought to enable me to conclude, that as 
 Gordon hardly seemed a man to prove 
 serviceable in a crisis — being just a plain, 
 sober, slow-minded sailor, whose tastes were 
 altogether forward, and who in his heart loved 
 the captain as little as the others — the main 
 burden of Broadwater's project must be borne 
 by him and me ; that a conflict between us and 
 the crew must inevitably end in our defeat, and 
 perhaps in our destruction, for the sight of a 
 levelled pistol would serve, as a wand in the 
 hand of a wizard, to raise the foulest of evil 
 spirits among the people of the brig ; and that 
 if I were not slaughtered outright in the 
 struggle with the men, they would extend their 
 hatred of the captain to me in an equal measure, 
 so that, in a word, I should be practically 
 helpless as a protector in any form or fashion 
 for Miss Grant. Indeed, this was the essential 
 meaning of her advice to me — her entreaty
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 315 
 
 almost ; yet I thought I would sound her 
 womanly judgment a little further. 
 
 " You are perfectly right, and I shall be 
 guided by you. But suppose the captain should 
 be set upon by the men — I mean treacherously 
 — without furnishing them with an inch of honest 
 ■justification, would it not be my duty as well as 
 my policy to stand by him ? " 
 
 " But is he likely to be set upon unless he 
 provokes them ? And judging from what we 
 have seen, if he provokes them, will he not 
 deserve the treatment he may receive at their 
 hands ? " she answered, with a flash of indigna- 
 tion in her look which gave me to know that 
 old Broadwater must expect no commiseration 
 from her, happen what might. 
 
 " I am heartily sorry," said I, with a smile 
 which instantly brought the light of one into 
 her face, though my own grin was pure admira- 
 tion without the faintest flavour of mirth ; for 
 her beauty showed rich just then to the mood 
 excited in her by our conversation, and admira- 
 tion will often make a man smile as though he 
 had a joke in his head when, God knows, his 
 heart may be full of mirthless emotion — " I am 
 mightily sorry that I was ever at sea as a sailor.
 
 3i6 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 Were I a landsman making my first voyage, I 
 should find little or nothing to worrv me in 
 what has happened ; particularly now that the 
 roll of the commotion is smoothed out, and 
 everything," I added, with a look along the 
 peaceful decks, '' is as placid on the surface as 
 the waters of a canal." 
 
 ''A little patience, j\Ir. Musgrave ! " she ex- 
 claimed. *' Rio is closer than it was a fortnight 
 ago." I was not so sure of that, but I said 
 nothing. "At all events," she continued, ''we 
 must take care that you return home in a good 
 ship, with a pleasant captain." 
 
 ''Yes," said I, " we must see to that." 
 
 " Alexander will be able to advise you," she 
 said, with a softening of her voice to the utter- 
 ance of his name. "He is sure to know of a 
 good ship, one that might be quite worth 
 waiting for if she is not at Rio." 
 
 " Confound Alexander ! " I thought to myself; 
 and her way of speaking of him so teased me, 
 that it would have soothed the momentary 
 irritation to have told her that I heartily wished 
 he stood in my boots on board this brig. But 
 a glance at her made me feel that the expression 
 of such a v/Ish would have been preposterously
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 317 
 
 insincere. No ; our situation was uncommonly 
 dark and uncomfortable : no man knowing the 
 truth would have dared venture to predict that 
 to-morrow would find us as we were to-day ; and 
 still my enjoyment of her society topped every 
 risk I could contemplate ; and how detestable 
 the project of our association coming to an end 
 was to me, I knew by my inward perturbation 
 that followed on her speaking of Alexander 
 and his choosing me a good ship to return in. 
 
 An hour passed. Our conversation was 
 chiefly about the crew, and the outlook they 
 threatened, and again and again she advised 
 me not to entertain any scheme old Broadwater 
 might submit, but to view myself wholly as 
 a passenger, without further concern in the 
 voyage than its conclusion. She then, feeling 
 tired, took a chair under the awning and put 
 a book upon her knee, but seemed to have no 
 eyes for anything but the crew, whom she 
 watched curiously, as might an artist who gazes 
 for effects of colour, posture, and expression. 
 All this while Gordon trudged the weather- 
 deck alone. I now crossed over to him. 
 
 '' Feel more cheerful by this time, I hope, 
 INIr Gordon?" said I ; "a man's spirits must
 
 3i8 MAROONED. chap. 
 
 be gloomy indeed that don't brighten out to 
 such a day as this." 
 
 He forced a grin, and said, " Worrit, sir, 
 worrit ; there's no accounting for a man's 
 feehngs. I wish it 'ud come on to blow. This 
 here smiling kind of weather is all very well 
 when ye ain't in a hurry ; but when ye've got 
 bows forrard like the head of a puncheon, and | 
 beam enough for a score of fandangoes 'twixt " 
 the rails, without call to stop even a coil of 
 halliards to the standing rigging to get more 
 room, then what one wants is the relieving- 
 tackles hauled taut, and two chaps sweating at 
 the wheel, and the spritsail-yard out of sight in 
 the smother over the bows." 
 
 '' You're in as great a hurry as Miss Grant," 
 I exclaimed. 
 
 " Greater, I dessay," he exclaimed. *' To 
 tell ye the truth, Mr. Musgrave, I'm sick of the | 
 voyage. None of these here small brigs for 
 me again, sir. Never no more ! Nothen less 
 than a thousand ton. A man's nature seems 
 able to stand upright when he's aboard a big 
 ship ; in these here small craft it's all stooping 
 for fear of knocking your brains out." 
 
 There was a sour expression on his face
 
 XVI. BROADWATER'S PROPOSAL. 319 
 
 which strictly corresponded with the sentiment 
 and note of his grumbling. I said to him, 
 " Gordon, an odd thought came into my head 
 just now. Notice the half-blood yonder. He's 
 a clearer menace to our safety than an auger 
 working through the ship's bottom. Now 
 what think you of the scheme of the captain — 
 of you and me arming ourselves with loaded 
 pistols, springing upon him unawares, hand- 
 cuffing him, and dragging him aft under 
 cover of the muzzles of our small 
 arms ? " 
 
 " What do I think of it, sir ? " he exclaimed, 
 without a moment's hesitation. 
 " Yes," I rejoined. 
 
 " This," said he. " If there's any gunpowder 
 aboard, better knock the head off a barrel and 
 snap one of your pistols into it, and blow the 
 whole blooming mess of us to heaven. But 
 you're not serious ? " 
 
 " No, no," said I ; '' certainly not. Mere 
 fancy, and nothing more. But not to your 
 liking, evidently." 
 
 " Good God ! " he exclaimed, '' at the first 
 offer to touch Charles, pistol or no pistol, the 
 whole crew 'ud be on ye like one man. Tkeyd
 
 320 MAROONED. chap. xvi. 
 
 like the scheme. It's the sort of chance they're 
 waiting for. For Heaven's sake, don't go and 
 suggest your notion to the capt'n, sir. He's 
 just the sort of man to entertain it, and to 
 come and ask me to help him." 
 
 "Would you help him ?" said I. 
 
 " Let him ask me first, Mr. Musgrave," he 
 replied, with an odd look at me out of the 
 corner of his eyes. If this was not news, 'twas 
 what I needed to get from his lips. Even had 
 Miss Grant's advice not already settled my 
 mind, Gordon's askant glance, that was more 
 eloquent than words, would have decided me 
 out of hand, there and then. In truth it could 
 but prove as I had foreseen, should I consent 
 to help the captain ; and I remember that 
 I let out my breath in a half-wild sigh of 
 relief over the determination I had formed 
 as I turned from Gordon to take a chair at 
 Miss Grant's side. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. 
 
 /