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 LI E) RAR.Y 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 62.3
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE 
 VOL. I
 
 NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS 
 
 AT ALL THE LIBRARIES 
 
 KNIGHT-ERPvANT. By Edxa Lyall, author of 
 
 'Donovan,' ' We Two," ' In the Golden Days,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 FROM HEATHER HILLS. By INIrs J. Hartli:y Perks. 
 
 2 vols. 
 
 A DATELESS BARGAIN. By C. L. Piekis, author of I 
 
 'Lady Lovelace,' 'Judith Wynne,' &c, 3 vols, I 
 
 DRIVEN BEFORE 'IHE SI ORM. By Gertrude j 
 
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 COUR ILEROY. By Akne Beale, author of ' Fay 
 
 Arlington,' ' The Pennant Family,' &c. 3 vols. 
 
 HURST & BLACKETT, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE 
 
 A ROMANCE OF THE DEEP 
 
 BY 
 
 W. CLARK RUSSELL 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'A SEA QUEEN'," " THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR," "a SAILOR'S SWEETHEART. 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 I had a dream which was not all a dr 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET 
 
 1S87 
 
 All Rii^hts Reserved
 
 HKINTED BY 
 
 TII.LOTSOX AND SON, MAWDSLEY STREET 
 
 ROI.TON.
 
 S^3 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE. 
 
 C^ In a novel ihe Antlior wrote, and that was puljlishcd in 
 
 1875, entitled "John Holdsworth : Chief Mate," he attempted 
 the portrayal of a condition of mind in a single respect 
 
 STJ resembling that which he deals with in this Stor}-. But the 
 means by which the faculty of memor}- is re-vitalised differ 
 as widely as the character of the tales. This will be evident to 
 those who have read "John Holdsworth," and who may be 
 able to recall how he was a sailor who was deprived of his 
 memory by suffering from long exposure in an open boat, and 
 how the power of recollection was restored to him when he 
 made his w ay from Australia to England, and in the little inland 
 village of Souihbourne beheld the house in which he had 
 courted the girl he had left behind him as his wife. 
 
 \i
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE E I R S T \' O L U M E . 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I.— THE VERULAM I 
 
 II.— THE DOWNS 9 
 
 III.— THE LOVERS 24 
 
 IV.— THE VERULAM SAILS 39 
 
 V. THE DREAM 48 
 
 VI. -THE SKETCH 66 
 
 VII. — HAD NEWS 85 
 
 VIII.— VERIFICATION 96 
 
 IX. —A LETTER II4 
 
 X.— LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE I27 
 
 XI. -A LONG CHAT I45 
 
 XII.— THE GOLDEN HOPE 164
 
 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 XIII.— ON THE EVE 
 
 XIV. — AT SEA 
 
 XV.— TOUCH AND GO . . . 
 
 XVI.— STRUGGLING THROUGH IT 
 XVII. — GOOD HEADWAY 
 XVIII.— THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE 
 
 PAGE. 
 184 
 198 
 219 
 236 
 250 
 275
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE VERULAM. 
 
 One bright, hot, summer afternoon there 
 might have been seen from the summit of 
 the North Foreland, where the herbage goes 
 down in undulations of vivid green to the 
 sharp, white, precipitous chalk, as fair and 
 fine a show as ever our English Channel — 
 fruitful as it is and has been for centuries in 
 grand marine spectacle — submitted to a lover 
 of sea-pieces. 
 
 The sight was a large, full-rigged ship, an 
 East Indiaman, of the burden of about 
 fourteen hundred tons, which in those days 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 constituted a very big vessel. She was not 
 a Company's craft, though she might well 
 have been built to sail in the noble and 
 stately procession of ships which were 
 regularly making the voyages to the East 
 and back, by way of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, under the flag of the Honourable 
 Body in Leadenhall Street. A light air was 
 blowing from the north-west, scarce wrinkling 
 the pale-blue or green, one hardly knew 
 which, that came gleaming out from a vague 
 horizon, dim with the heat, and melting into 
 a faintness of sky that arched up into pure 
 liquid sapphire to where it whitened into 
 dazzle around the sun. The ship was under 
 all sail, and as she came softly round the 
 Foreland, gliding upon the smooth water as 
 though it was a surface of satin, yet so 
 quietly as not to raise the tiniest sparkle 
 of foam at her stem, she braced her yards 
 up to the westering wind and boarded her 
 main tack, and then you saw shadows in the 
 hollow of her cloths, and the glossy edges of 
 her sails shining wan as white silk to the 
 sun, and the staysails mounting like pen- 
 cilled drawings in the shade of the square
 
 THE VERULAM. 3 
 
 canvas, and the jibs lifting out seawards from 
 the long spars beyond the bowsprit, as if 
 they were the wings of some mighty sea-bird 
 yearning for the ocean solitude that lay a 
 thousand miles down behind the silver of the 
 sea-line under the glorious luminary. 
 
 The beautiful ship floated, with the spacious 
 dignity conferred by her exceedingly square 
 yards, lifting her royals to the blue as if she 
 would enrich its loveliness with their cloud- 
 like summer daintiness of tint and texture, 
 without the least perceptible inclination of 
 her lofty, frigate-like spars to heel her hull ; 
 though in the shadow of her on this side, 
 the glimmer of her brassy sheathing might 
 be seen trembling through the translucency 
 under the wide channels and under the width 
 of glossy blackness that separated her broad, 
 wide bands, broken by ports, from the water's 
 edge. 
 
 What could equal such a spectacle, standing 
 with cameo-like clearness upon the sea and 
 sky ; every sail sleeping to the hum of the 
 drowsy wind ; the golden line of the Good- 
 wins over her port-bow; glitterings, keen as 
 mirrors could fling, breaking from all parts of
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 her In many colours, as though her sides and 
 decks were garnished with jewels ; her tall, 
 single topsails giving her the bland, old- 
 fashioned grace one loves to see perpetuated 
 in the ship-of-war ; with here and there the 
 flutter of women's apparel, the twinkle of a 
 parasol, the glitter of a uniform upon her 
 high poop lying bare to the heat under the 
 crossjack-yard save where a narrow line of 
 shadow was flung upon the white planks by 
 the lee clew of the mainsail sheeted aft ; and 
 a crowd of lively hearties forward looking at 
 the coast over the massive cathead, at which 
 the ponderous anchor hung stoppered ready 
 for letting go ! 
 
 The ship was the Verulam, bound to 
 Bombay, loaded with a valuable cargo. She 
 had left Gravesend very early that morning, 
 and had brought a brave wind along with 
 her till she was abreast of Margate, when 
 it grew weak with a gliding of it westwards, 
 and to judge from the haze in the sky where 
 it touched the horizon, likely enough it would 
 fall dead west, if it did not die ere it reached 
 that quarter ; which naturally the hairy-faced 
 crowds forwards would not greatly relish the
 
 THE VERULAM. 5 
 
 prospect of, since it certainly meant detention 
 in the Downs, with all the bother of bringing 
 up and furling, and afterwards getting the 
 anchor again for a fresh start; though one or 
 two old salts, with junks standing high in their 
 cheeks, ventured an opinion that if the wind 
 died westering it was likely to easter in 
 coming to life again ; otherwise, why should 
 France out yonder be making a shadow as if 
 the haze wasn't a thing to be took notice of? 
 I keep you on the North Foreland watching 
 the ship as she glides by, as it is a point from 
 which you see her best ; for, note, as she 
 widens the water betwixt her and the coast 
 that trends south-west to Broadstairs, how 
 new beauties steal out in the trembling of her 
 stern windows to the lustre lifting off her 
 iridescent wake into them ; how the gilt- 
 work upon the quarter-gallery, visible to us, 
 seems to writhe like yellow fire there ; and 
 how, as the helmsman heads her fair for the 
 Downs, bringing the dim blue South Fore- 
 land on the weather bow, the amazing 
 squareness of her black yards is revealed, 
 ascending one by one to where the royal- 
 yards stand mastheaded just under the silver-
 
 6 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 white trucks, and stretching their now^ 
 darkened spaces of canvas in that wonderful 
 symmetry of configuration which the eye 
 loved to trace when it followed the towering 
 sails of such a vessel as this from the tacks 
 of the courses to the head earings of the 
 topmost cloths. 
 
 Softly, always softly and quietly, she went 
 along with the heavier sails flattening into 
 the still failing breeze, and with once only a 
 drag upon the lee-braces to meet the wester- 
 ing tendency of the off-shore draught. What 
 a picture is this I am striving to depict, with 
 only a drop of ink as a paint-box ! It is not 
 merely the line of chalk coast crowned with 
 verdure, nor the splendour of the sun's re- 
 flection upon the water that whitens out into 
 blue from either side the effulgence, nor the 
 three or four sail hovering upon the distant 
 mistiness, nor the still, hot beauty of the whole 
 framework, whose central charm is the stately 
 and spacious-winged Indiaman, toned into 
 unspeakable tenderness of tints by the azure 
 softness of the English summer atmosphere ; 
 it is the thoughts which she inspires, which, by 
 entering into this shining picture gives the
 
 THE VERULAM. 7 
 
 vitality of the soul itself to it. For as you 
 watch the ship, becoming smaller and smaller 
 as she goes, the sense of the infinity of Nature 
 and the tremendous forces she can let slip, but 
 which now lie sleeping and hidden, contrasts 
 with the littleness of the fabric that, with a 
 Heaven's vibration in her rigging, and with 
 musical light gilding her with the placidity of 
 its afternoon lustre, is bravely descending into 
 the liquid amphitheatre of a thousand conflicts 
 of storm and billow, where there are infuriated 
 midnights, and tempests of lightning and 
 thunder, and the perils of ice and rock, and 
 the subtle antagonism of stagnant calms and 
 head winds of poisonous gentleness ! 
 
 Who does not think of such things when 
 watching from the solid earth the slow 
 receding of a ship into the swallowing leagues 
 of distance, and when the crowds of living 
 beings within her are present to the mind, 
 with all that humanity, thus collected and 
 confined within a narrow space, signifies in 
 respect of the bitterness of leave-taking, the 
 hope that lures to adventure, the memories 
 which thicken in the brain till the coast of 
 the island home dissolves in the tears which
 
 8 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the sternest effort cannot always suppress? 
 God speed her! we cry. God protect! we 
 pray. For, familiar as we Englishmen are 
 with the deep, never can the sailing of a ship, 
 full of souls, for ports lying on the other side 
 of the world be so common a thing as not to 
 move the contemplative mind into solemn 
 fancies and into prayerful wishes.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DOWNS. 
 
 Shortly before six o'clock the Indlaman 
 was abreast of Deal. She had swum lazily 
 to this point, having been helped by the tide 
 rather than by the impulse of her sails which 
 now hung motionless from the yards ; for the 
 Channel water lay like a sheet of glass — there 
 was not a fold in its expanse that was shot 
 with sapphire, melting into faint blue, with 
 dim, steely tints, furrowed by the shadow of 
 the tide where it shoaled — to sway the littlest 
 punt upon it ; and the stately fabric upreared 
 her mastheads steady as spires. 
 
 The air had died out, and the sun, past 
 the Foreland, poured its slanting light in 
 rays of ruddy gold, as though he was able 
 to concentrate his fire now that there was no. 
 movement in the atmosphere to disperse his 
 beams. Several vessels were at anchor in
 
 lO THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the Downs, and there were people on Deal 
 beach to witness the frIgate-Hke smartness 
 with which the Verulam brought up. So 
 perfect was the stillness of the air, and so 
 polished the water for the transmission of 
 sound, that the silvery, shrill piping of the 
 boatswain's summons, re-echoed by his mates' 
 whistlings, might have penetrated to Upper 
 Deal ; and then, as if Influenced by a single 
 mechanical force, such as sets the com- 
 plicated gear of a watch travelling, the 
 superstructure of the Verulam seemed to fall 
 to pieces, as yards descended, sails melted, 
 jibs and staysails sank, and the anchor fell 
 like an electric bolt from the cathead, 
 followed by the long, hoarse thunder of the 
 cable it carried, and the sharp, rain-like 
 hissing of the mass of foam expiring into 
 blue water aQ^aln where the anchor had 
 vanished. 
 
 It was not long, as you may suppose of 
 such a ship as this, manned as all such craft 
 should be, before she was at rest, lightly 
 straining at her cable, against whose surface- 
 links the tide broke In a thread that met the 
 huge stem beyond and rippled past In
 
 THE DOWNS. ir 
 
 wrinkles too delicate to distort the mirrored 
 picture of polished sides and white and black 
 band painted in the water ; nay, even deeper 
 yet sank the reflection, for the western light 
 was upon the masts, and fragments of their 
 fragile heights were measured in tremulous 
 gold beneath the shadow of the hull, along 
 with a thin streaming of white radiance 
 under each cabin window and glazed scuttle. 
 The Verulam had not been at anchor 
 above half-an-hour when a man, just arrived 
 by coach from Dover, walked swiftly to the 
 esplanade and gazed for some moments 
 intently at the Indiaman, as if seeking to 
 make sure of her. He was a young clergy- 
 man, this side of thirty, but of a stature and 
 breadth of shoulders which made him look 
 ten years older than he was. He held the 
 sharp of his hand to his brow and peered 
 under it at the ship, fixing an eager, intent 
 stare upon her, and his fine eyes flashed ■ ^ 
 with the doubt and surprise that anyone yc^jL^ 
 could have seen worked in him. A boatman, ^^ ' '^ - 
 with his arms buried in his pocket as high 
 as the elbows, stood near gazing seawards, 
 but keeping the visitor carefully in the
 
 12 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 corner of his gaze, ready to bother him 
 with invitations the instant the chance 
 offered. 
 
 '' I say, my man," said the clergyman, 
 addressing him quickly, " can you tell me 
 if that ship there is the Verulam ?" 
 
 *'Ay, that's the Werulam," answered the 
 boatman, with half a glance at her. "Wan' 
 to go aboard, sir?" 
 
 " Why is she anchored ?" 
 
 ''Why? Because there ain't no wind," 
 responded the boatman, plainly surprised by 
 the nautical ignorance implied by the question. 
 
 ''Yes, certainly. I might have known 
 that," answered the clergyman, looking up 
 and around, and then sending another yearn- 
 ing glance at the ship. "Has she not come 
 very fast from Gravesend ? I understood 
 that she was not likely to pass here much 
 before midnight." 
 
 " Well, she has come fast, I daresay. But 
 she ain't past yet, ye see, sir." 
 
 "How long will she lie at anchor ?'' 
 
 " Whoy," said the boatman, "that'll depend. 
 Whilst it's calm she'll stick where she is. If 
 it comes on westerly, which ain't onlikely,
 
 THE DOWNS. 13 
 
 she'll have to keep all on deferring of her 
 voyage. On t'other hand, if e'er a draught 
 blows favourable she'll git under way; for 
 them there Indiamen appears to me to be 
 always in a hurry till the voyage is regularly 
 commenced, after which they keeps yer 
 waitin'. Put yer aboard, sir ?" 
 
 Whilst the longshoreman expressed his 
 views, the clergyman stood lost in anxious 
 and troubled thought ; then muttering to 
 himself, "I must see her, I must see her!" 
 he told the boatman to row him to the vessel. 
 
 If the water, lying a darkish green under 
 the shadow of the land, needed a detail to 
 complete its beauties of mirrored ships and 
 blue distance and the yellowness — fast 
 growing red — of the south-west sky over 
 the Foreland, it might have been found at 
 that moment in a long, slender, white gig, 
 glittering with brass rowlocks and the 
 uniforms of six young midshipmen leaning 
 from the bright oars which rose and fell 
 with fine precision as the boat sheared 
 through the still surface, steered by a dark- 
 skinned, elderly, sailor-like man, who held 
 the white yoke-lines with gloved hands.
 
 14 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 '' That'll be the Werulam's gig with the 
 skipper in her," said the boatman. On which 
 the clergyman instantly turned with great 
 eagerness to look, but the swiftness of the 
 reefers' rowing had brought the captain's 
 back upon the parson. 
 
 The boatman plied his oars very leisurely ; 
 he had found a "job," and meant to make 
 use of it. But he had sense enough to see 
 that any observations he might feel disposed 
 to bestow upon his fare would be wasted ; 
 so the oars rose and fell in silence, were 
 it not for the splash of them, or the hum 
 of life ashore growing weaker, or the 
 voices from the ships at anchor, the clank 
 of a pawl coming plainly mixed up with 
 confused sounds from the Indiaman, now fast 
 showing larger and larger, with a canvased 
 gangway ladder over the side, heads swarm- 
 ing along her length, and here and there 
 a face glimmering in the dark frame of a 
 porthole. 
 
 ''A beautiful vessel, certainly. Don't 
 suppose as there's e'er a hadmirality as 
 could offer anything more persuadin' to a 
 man's eye," exclaimed the boatman, half-
 
 THE DOWNS. 15 
 
 rounding his body to take his measure for 
 going alongside. He dropped his oars and, 
 catching the ladder, brought the punt to the 
 grating at the bottom of the steps. ''Am I 
 to wait here, sir ?'' 
 
 " Yes," answered the clerofvman ; and 
 with the look of a person who nerves himself 
 for a desperate ordeal he ascended the 
 ship's side. 
 
 A middle-aged gentleman stood near the 
 gangway, and when the clergyman stepped 
 on deck he grasped his hand. . 
 
 '' Fortescue I" he cried. " I saw you coming. 
 You are devoted, indeed I 'Tis a meeting 
 we could not have dreamt of How in the 
 name of all that's wonderful came you to 
 foresee that we should anchor in the 
 Downs ?" 
 
 " I did not foresee it, doctor," replied 
 Fortescue. " I hoped it, but I came to Deal 
 only with the dream of seeing the last of the 
 ship. I never dared expect more than a 
 glimpse of her as she passed onwards, taking 
 my happiness with her. Will this visit tax 
 my darling, do you think ? I could not help 
 coming, doctor," he exclaimed, with a tremble
 
 1 6 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 in his voice and a passionate, sweeping- 
 glance around him, " but if you think " 
 
 '* No, no," interrupted the doctor, " I 
 know what you would say. She may be 
 the happier for this later farewell, perhaps. 
 Anyhow, here you are and you are bound 
 to see her now. She's in her cabin. Step 
 this way, Fortescue." He led him to under 
 the break of the poop. *'The cuddy is 
 full of stewards and passengers flitting about. 
 Stop till I announce you — it must be done 
 with judgment, you know — and then I'll 
 take you to her." 
 
 The doctor, so-called — real name Dr. 
 Joseph Clayton — a short, energetic, kindly- 
 faced, dusky-eyed man, entered the cuddy 
 and left the Reverend Malcolm Fortescue 
 standing alone in the recess formed by the 
 overhanging of the poop-deck. There were 
 a hundred matters to interest him had he 
 had an eye for anything but what was 
 passing in his own heart. The ship, being 
 outward bound, was like a farmyard, with 
 the smell of fodder, the lowing of a cow 
 or two, the bleating of sheep, the mutter- 
 ing of scores of hens in the coops, the
 
 THE DOWNS. 17 
 
 grubbing grunting of pigs forward ; and she 
 was like a street, were It not for a sort of 
 aimlessness in the moving of the people, 
 with the crowds of passengers and sailors, 
 the latter chiefly In the bows and about 
 the galley, the former everywhere, along 
 with the children and a few coloured nurses 
 with gold in their noses and eyes looming 
 witch-like out of cotton hoods. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue was kept waiting some 
 minutes, during which time nobody took 
 any notice of him, nor he of the strange 
 and Interesting scene before him. Once 
 or twice he glanced through the window 
 next him, and once or twice he stirred as 
 though to a shudder, and this he would 
 follow by a glance at the open gangway. 
 Presently Dr. Clayton came out through 
 the door. 
 
 " I had to keep you waiting," he said. 
 '' She was very much surprised. 'Tis almost 
 a pity, perhaps, after all; 'good-bye,' once 
 said, should be meant, for when bonds are to 
 be severed, my argument Is, for the love of 
 God, be quick with the knife ! But come — 
 she Is waiting." 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 15 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 "If she cannot bear it " faltered the 
 
 clergyman. 
 
 '' No, no, she'll bear it. Besides, she 
 knows you're here, and is waiting ;" and so 
 speaking, the doctor entered the cuddy and 
 led Mr. Fortescue to a cabin on the port 
 side, midway the length of the interior. He 
 knocked softly, opened the door, and they 
 entered. A girl stood with one hand upon 
 her heart and the other clasping the back of 
 an armchair, from which she had hastily 
 risen, as might be guessed by the book that 
 had fallen from her lap and lay open on the 
 deck near her feet. Emotion had driven 
 every drop of blood from her cheeks, and the 
 pink in the atmosphere, flowing through the 
 open port, only served to accentuate her 
 desperate whiteness. For some moments 
 there was silence ; then, with a sob, she 
 came to Fortescue's arms and their lips met, 
 whilst the doctor picked up the book with a 
 shaking hand and put his head into the deep 
 port-hole to whisk a crystal off the side of 
 his nose. 
 
 ''Agatha, my beloved, have I done wrong?" 
 whispered Fortescue.
 
 THE DOWNS. 19 
 
 '' I did not expect to see you again — 
 "it is very sudden," she answered, lifting 
 her head as if she would try to look at 
 him, and putting her forehead against his 
 breast again. 
 
 '' I came to Deal wishing to see the vessel 
 pass — wanting to see the last of her," he said. 
 ''I was told she would sail through the Downs 
 — it was the barest chance, even this, I knew, 
 and they told me she might anchor here. 
 But I never dared hope that till I saw her 
 from Deal beach, and how could I help 
 coming? How could I help coming? Agatha! 
 It shortens the long year by a few days. It 
 is five days since we parted, and now that we 
 are together again the twelvemonth will be 
 less by that time." 
 
 ''Ay, that's quite true, and a sensible view, 
 after all," said Dr. Clayton, wheeling round. 
 " Though, Agatha, as I told Fortescue, w^hen 
 the knife has to be used, the fewer the 
 flourishes the better. It was your whiteness 
 that caused me to say it, dear." 
 
 Fortescue held the girl and they w^hispered 
 together, he with his lips upon her ear, and 
 she with her face hidden, till at another
 
 20 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 remark let fall by Dr. Clayton, she drew 
 back with a long sigh and wet eyes, and 
 seated herself with the languor of an invalid. 
 One saw her to but little advantage at a time 
 like this, when white with agitation and 
 grieving, for reasons as bitter as any that 
 ever dismissed an adored sweetheart from 
 her lover to seek health upon the mighty 
 ocean. Yet her beauty shone through her 
 sorrow, and the swiftest glance would have 
 enabled anyone to recall with admiration the 
 soft, purely grey eyes, the abundant, auburn 
 hair full of a soft, gold light, and the delicacy, 
 sweetness and refinement of her pretty, 
 womanly features. 
 
 The young clergyman knelt by her side 
 and took her hand, and Dr. Clayton backed 
 to the door and there stood watching them, 
 as though puzzled, for here plainly was a 
 love that had the artlessness of babyhood in 
 its indifference to observation and to the 
 sense of embarrassment it might put into 
 others, and the doctor, not clearly perceiving 
 whether he should leave his step-daughter 
 and the clergyman alone, also very strongly 
 felt that he did not want to serve by only
 
 THE DOWNS. 2 1 
 
 Standing and waiting whilst they repeated 
 their bitter farewell. But they had been 
 alone often enough before ; when he was in 
 India, and when they were strolling hand in 
 hand along the beach or working together at 
 some little decoration for the old church ; and 
 why not, therefore, now — now, indeed, of all 
 times, when, haply by this hour to-morrow, 
 the ship might be far away down Channel on 
 her voyage of many thousand miles? Besides, 
 there was something too touching and solemn 
 for any third person to witness and hear in 
 the grieving, troubled, impassioned gaze 
 Fortescue fixed upon the girl, her glances at 
 him, his lifting of her delicate, white hand 
 to his lips, the low murmurs which passed 
 between them, the frequent, tremulous sighs 
 which would interrupt her, and the caresses 
 which followed. 
 
 " When do you return ?" asked the doctor, 
 with his hand on the door-handle. 
 
 " Soon, but I need not hurry. I must sleep 
 at Deal to-night. It will not be dark before 
 eight. I will leave then," answered Fortescue, 
 pleading, as though he feared Dr. Clayton 
 meant to tell him that Aofatha was delicate
 
 2 2 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 and that leave-takings were cruel, and that 
 he must mind what he was about. Possibly 
 this was in the doctor's mind, but anyhow he 
 did not say so. He exclaimed, '' Well, don't 
 go w^ithout seeing me," and left the cabin. 
 
 We will imitate him. What little was told 
 at this final meeting disclosed so much that 
 was sanctified by the pathos of embraces, by 
 vows again and again repeated, by prayer 
 offered up to God by them both, kneeling 
 hand in hand, and weeping as they prayed, 
 that the mere thought of it recreates their 
 actual presence, and I softly shut the door 
 upon them as one who has no business in 
 the cabin. He had said he would leave 
 before the dark came along, and as there is 
 an hour of sunshine and of scarlet sunset 
 remaining, let me occupy the interval by 
 asking you to step with me on the poop of 
 the Verulam, where, as the blue deepens in 
 the east till a star shines in it, and whilst 
 the exquisite repose of this summer Channel 
 evening gathers an element of luminous 
 tenderness from the vessels at anchor to 
 south and east of us and from the yellow 
 shining of the French coast that swims in^
 
 THE DOWNS. 23 
 
 the purple atmosphere over the starboard 
 quarter, I may tell you as briefly as I can 
 who Mr. Fortescue is and who Agatha, and 
 how it happened that she was starting on a 
 voyage that, according to the marine reckoning 
 of those quiet, ambling days of trade, must 
 certainly keep them apart for twelve months 
 at least.
 
 C HAPTE R III. 
 
 THE LOVERS. 
 
 The Reverend Malcolm Fortescue was curate 
 of St. James's, a small, very old church in a 
 village on the south coast, which I will call 
 Wyloe. He was a tall, grave-faced, handsome 
 young man, thirty years old, and though the 
 reference may seem prosaic and out of place 
 here, it is necessary that I should say he had 
 a fortune of between seven thousand and 
 eight thousand pounds, the interest of which 
 enabled him to serve, for a stipend scarce more 
 than nominal, as curate to a friend of his 
 father, the Reverend Alfred Clayton, Vicar of 
 Wyloe. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue was a very active, healthy 
 man, and consequently a useful parish- 
 worker. He was an excellent reader and 
 preacher. Besides which, everybody could 
 see he laboured for the love of God only.
 
 THE LOVERS. 25 
 
 He was extremely good-looking, which 
 gave substance to ethereal spirituality by a 
 ver)' captivating sort of human sentiment. 
 His eyes were large, black and lustrous, very 
 soft in their glance, but there were moments 
 — when arguing, or when his mind was 
 quickened by something that lifted it out of 
 the trodden, dusty parish round and put it 
 upon the green freshness on either hand — in 
 which you'd notice a sharp sparkling that 
 pierced the pensiveness of his gaze like a 
 beam of light shooting out of the soft indigo 
 that overlaps the ocean on a midsummer 
 night. It was as though his soul, lying 
 bright but concealed in him, rose to take a 
 peep at you, and no one, attentive to such 
 indications, could have doubted that under- 
 lying his religious and professional gentleness, 
 was some strength of character. So much 
 for the most expressive of his features. For 
 the rest, his face was marked with a com- 
 plexion of melancholy. His piety, perhaps, 
 v/as not of a very cheerful sort. You know 
 there are people who will go on brooding and 
 asking themselves questions, and "hanalysing 
 of theirselves," as an old sailor once said to
 
 2 6 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 me, till dissection ends in nothing but bones. 
 The spirit takes wing, and the understanding 
 — if any be left — reckons everything lost. 
 It need not be said that Mr. Fortescue did 
 not go to any such length as this, but he 
 certainly gave you the notion that he thought 
 too much in one direction, and that there was 
 even more than a touch of mysticism in his 
 nature, and that he w^as thus generating 
 qualities in himself which might come by-and- 
 bye to making people wonder at him and to 
 hint that he would be the better for a change 
 of scene. 
 
 Wyloe is within a mile of the sea, and 
 w^hen you approach the edge of tne low cliff 
 you look down on black rocks and sand 
 and shingle and a line of surf winding out of 
 sight on either hand about a mile each way. 
 It was Mr. Fortescue's great happiness, 
 whenever he had leisure, to wander along the 
 sands under the cliff His love for the sea 
 was a sort of passion, but then it was the 
 passion of a landsman. He had not the least 
 desire to sail upon It. His humour took the 
 turn that gives more room for poetic musing 
 than vocational usage will. He kept the
 
 THE LOVERS. 2 J 
 
 substantial ground under him and put his 
 heart into the miles of liquid green, blue or 
 slate — the waters of the English Channel 
 have many colours — that ran from the cham- 
 pagne-like foaming of the ripples on the 
 sand into the azure of the sloping sky, and 
 so deeply did he fall in love with the solitude 
 of the shore, so intellectual was his per- 
 ception of the power and the glory of the 
 ocean, that its spirit came into his soul, as it 
 w411 into any man's who has an ear for its 
 voice and an eye for its hundred expressions, 
 his relio^ious emotions received an ocean- 
 tincture, because, perhaps, his mysticism 
 found something perfectly sympathetic in 
 the mystery which the surface he gazed at 
 offered as a symbol and a reality. 
 
 When Mr. Fortescue had been with Mr. 
 Clavton for about seven months, a charmiuia: 
 and beautiful girl arrived at the \'icarage. 
 Her name was Agatha Fox and, as you may 
 suppose by her name, she was of Quaker 
 ''extraction," as it is called. But there was 
 no mannerism of dress or aftectation of speech 
 to denote her paternity. She was connected 
 with Mr. Clayton in a very roundabout way :
 
 28 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 that is to say, Mr. Clayton's brother, Joseph 
 Clayton, M.D., had married Miss Fox's 
 mother. I cannot tell you how long after 
 Mr. Fox's death, but not very long, I 
 believe. Dr. Clayton was a medical man 
 who lived in Bombay. He had a large 
 practice there and had filled the post of 
 deputy-coroner. Agatha had been educated 
 in England and placed in charge of an aunt, 
 Sophia Fox, who lived at Falmouth. When 
 her father died, she joined her mother in 
 Bombay with the idea perhaps of returning 
 to England with her. But the widow fell in 
 love with Dr. Clayton, and after a bit 
 married him, by which time Agatha found 
 out that the climate of India did not suit her 
 health. There was no other reason for her 
 desire to leave Bombay. Doctor Clayton 
 made a most affectionate step-father, and the 
 three of them lived together very happily. 
 
 Indeed, she was reluctant to quit her 
 mother, who was loth to accompany her 
 because she could not bear the thought of a 
 separation from her husband for even a year. 
 And what with Agatha clinging to her 
 mamma and her mamma clinging to her
 
 THE LOVERS. 29 
 
 doctor — for widows do sometimes make fine 
 sweethearts and devoted brides — and what 
 with Dr. Clayton being a very busy man out- 
 of-doors and a not ver\^ resolute one in-doors, 
 in consequence of his being a tender-hearted 
 person, the girl stood a chance of losing 
 her constitution altogether. 
 
 But the sudden death of Mrs. Clayton 
 settled the question of Agatha's staying or 
 going. The loss of his wife turned the 
 doctor's heart warmly and wholly to his step- 
 daughter : she grew precious to him as the 
 child of his adoption. Her health thereupon 
 caused him real anxiety, and he saw plainly, 
 what he had before dimly noticed, that she 
 must change the roasting atmosphere of the 
 tropics for the bracing air of the old country. 
 So it was arranged that Agatha should return 
 to her aunt at Falmouth, and that he would 
 visit England or she make a trip to Bombay 
 as often as God permitted, until he had 
 earned money enough to enable him to settle 
 in England for good and all. 
 
 Her departure from Bombay was notified 
 to the Vicar of Wyloe by his brother, who 
 begged that he would have her to stay at the
 
 30 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 Vicarage as frequently as he conveniently 
 could. The doctor said it would satisfy him 
 to feel that she was often under the Rev. 
 Alfred's eye, " for," added he, ''I am a 
 stranger to my poor dear wife's Falmouth 
 relatives, and though I have a sincere respect 
 for the Quakers and know them, when not 
 engaged in making money^ to be the most 
 innocent, artless and genial of people, I 
 should be more contented by hearing about 
 her from you directly, to whose affectionate 
 care, indeed, I should have wholly entrusted 
 her had she not wished to live with Sophia 
 Fox." 
 
 So after a little, Mr. Clayton wrote to 
 Agatha at Falmouth, and asked her to spend 
 a few weeks at the Vicarage, and one day 
 she arrived. 
 
 If any demureness had come to this 
 charming lady from her grandsires it would 
 have been neutralised by her Bombay 
 experiences ; for in those days a good-looking, 
 white girl in India was rated by any number 
 of majors, captains and subalterns as high 
 above rubies, and the male faces which had 
 clustered around Agatha Fox had been
 
 THE LOVERS. 3 I 
 
 ardent enough to thaw off a much thicker 
 coating of primness than that which had 
 dehcately iced her character when she 
 returned to her w-idowed mother in Bombay. 
 Mr Fortescue fell in love with her ; but 
 not at first sio^ht. He was one of that kind 
 of curates whom you occasionally meet, and 
 who you feel disposed to wager will never 
 marry, but go on getting more self-analytical 
 till they end in infidelity or the Church of 
 Rome. Fortescue was to be made a man of 
 by Agatha Fox, but not in a minute. They 
 had to be thrown tOQfether a lonof while and 
 a good deal before they saw the new meaning 
 ripening in their eyes when their gaze met. 
 They were then in love, and Mrs. Clayton, 
 seeing how things promised, suggested that 
 her husband should write to Aunt Sophia. 
 But Mr. Clayton said they had better wait a 
 little. In his judgment, Agatha could not do 
 better than marry Fortescue, who was a well- 
 connected gentleman, a person of sound and 
 noble principles and professionally indepen- 
 dent. But, putting these considerations 
 aside, it was impossible for him to control his 
 brother's step-daughter. He had certainly
 
 32 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 nothing to advise her against in Fortescue, 
 Then again, she was a clever girl, and could 
 be trusted to steer a true and wise course. 
 "Besides," said he, "what you call love 
 between them may really signify only a 
 warm common liking, such as you find 
 existing in many parishes between good- 
 looking curates and young ladies, but which 
 practically ends when the curates leave." 
 
 On this Mrs. Clayton ceased to trouble, 
 and human nature took its own road. Mr. 
 Fortescue saw a very great deal of Miss Fox, 
 met her frequently when alone, as could 
 hardly be helped since Wyloe was such a 
 little place and Miss Fox could not always 
 depend on Mrs. or Miss Clayton for getting 
 a walk, his sermons greatly struck and 
 interested her, and she much admired his 
 clear, solemn reading. At the end of six or 
 eight weeks she returned to Falmouth, but 
 made haste to come back to Wyloe. The 
 reason understood was, that the climate of the 
 West of England was too relaxing and she 
 needed the fresher breezes of the Wyloe 
 coast. Indeed, her letter was like inviting 
 herself — cordial, merry and affectionate — and
 
 THE LOVERS. 33 
 
 Mrs. Clayton smiled when she read It. The 
 Vicar was delighted to have her with them, 
 and when she arrived told her she must not 
 be in a hurry to leave, as she made a sunshine 
 in his home and he could see a deal of her, 
 which was what his brother desired. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue had talked of taklnof a 
 holiday, but no more was heard of his 
 proposed visit to the Isles of Greece when 
 he was told Miss Fox was coming. 
 
 This time she stayed three months at the 
 Vicarage, at the end of which period, or 
 rather, I should say, a few days before the 
 end of it, ]\Ir. Fortescue had proposed to her 
 and she had accepted him. It was inevitable. 
 They were In love before she returned to 
 Falmouth ; they were In love when she was 
 at Falmouth ; and thev could onlv q-q on 
 deepening their love till It terminated In 
 betrothal when she came to Wyloe from 
 Falmouth. Their association this time was 
 intimate and incessant. Mr. Clayton was too 
 asthmatic and too well satisfied with Agatha's 
 choice to Interfere, and Mrs. Clayton felt that 
 the business was in no sense hers to make a 
 burden of. Then again, the Vicar's daughter 
 
 VOL. L D
 
 34 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 Josephine, aged thirty, most good-naturedly- 
 helped forward the courtship by a dozen little 
 manoeuvres which women know how to 
 practice. 
 
 Indeed, Mr. Fortescue was passionately in 
 love with the girl. Passionate is a word 
 very freely used in these days, but all the 
 significance it formerly carried was perfectly 
 applicable to this curate's adoration of 
 Agatha Fox. 
 
 " He had no breath, no being, but in hers ; 
 She was his voice ; he did not speak to her 
 But trembled on her words ; she was his sight, 
 For his eye followed hers and saw with hers, 
 Which coloured all his objects. He had ceased 
 To live within himself; she was his lite. 
 The ocean to the river of his thoughts, 
 Which terminated all ; upon a tone, 
 A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow." 
 
 Her opinions exactly coincided with his. 
 Every construction he placed upon what was 
 written, every interpretation he gave to the 
 meanings of the little, material, coast-bound 
 world in which they had met, all his 
 thoughts, views, delights, she understood, she 
 valued, and would heighten and often clarify 
 (when darkened by the mysticism of his
 
 THE LOVERS, 35 
 
 moods) by the illumination of her exquisite 
 sympathy and perceptiveness. Particularly 
 did the sea draw them both, and many a 
 meeting was held in the shadow and silence 
 of the cliffs, from whose base they watched 
 the blank green of the waters heaving to the 
 splendour of the sun, till their glances met in 
 the star-coloured shape of a gull poised in the 
 blue, as if to invite their thoughts to partake 
 •of the heavenly purity of the hue that shone 
 beyond its outstretched, tremorless wings. 
 
 When ]Mr. Fortescue called upon Mr. 
 Clayton and told him that he had been 
 accepted by Miss Fox, the old gentleman 
 could not look surprised, but he stammered a 
 little as if he wanted himself, as well as his 
 curate, to believe that the thing had come 
 upon them all rather suddenly. And then 
 plucking up, he blurted out that personally 
 lie was delighted, but that nothing could be 
 done until Dr. Clayton had answered the 
 letter he would forthwith write to him. As 
 to Aunt Sophia, he presumed that Miss Fox 
 would write to her herself. 
 
 Fortescue's face fell when Mr. Clayton 
 talked of his brother in Bombay. India
 
 ;^6 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 seemed further off than Paradise, and many 
 months must elapse before he and his love 
 could know what Dr. Clayton would say. 
 But there was no help for it. Agatha 
 herself, in accepting him, had fully implied 
 that her father's sanction (she called the 
 doctor her father) would be necessary to 
 render her happiness perfect! So it was 
 necessary that he should practice the patience 
 he was frequently preaching about to poor, 
 ruddy-faced souls whose crops had failed, or 
 to mahogany-cheeked fishermen whose trawls 
 had gone adrift in a gale. 
 
 Agatha had been at Falmouth some weeks 
 when one day, quite unexpectedly, Mr. 
 Clayton received a letter from his brother, 
 the doctor, dated at London, saying he had 
 come home for a whiff of English air; and 
 next afternoon the doctor arrived, having 
 reached England by the Warkworth Castle 
 three days before. There was real excite- 
 ment in all this for Wyloe Vicarage. The 
 brothers sat far into the night talking, and 
 next day Dr. Clayton, on being introduced to 
 Mr. Fortescue, took him by the hand and 
 expressed his gratitude and happiness that
 
 THE LOVERS, ^^J 
 
 Agatha should have won the affection of such 
 a man as ^Nlr. Clayton had represented his 
 curate to be. 
 
 What, then, could seem surer than that 
 there was to be no very long call made upon 
 Mr. Fortescue's patience ? And this looked 
 likelier still when the doctor proceeded to 
 Falmouth for the purpose of talking the 
 matter over with Agatha's relatives and then 
 bringing her back with him to Wyloe. But 
 his stay at Falmouth was protracted to a 
 degree that neither the Vicar nor Mr. 
 Fortescue could understand, till the former 
 received a letter from him saying that 
 Agatha had taken a chill, which, though 
 it had not laid her up, had accentuated what 
 would have been indicable to a medical man 
 for some time, namely, a weakness in the 
 left lung, that might perilously develop if 
 active measures were not taken to strengthen 
 the organ or arrest the malady. His own 
 opinion, he added, would not satisfy him, 
 though he did not doubt his diagnosis ; he 
 would, therefore, take Agatha direct to 
 London, and obtain the highest opinion 
 procurable.
 
 38 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 And the end ? It was this. The lung was 
 slightly, but very slightly, affected, and the 
 advice was that the girl must go a voyage, 
 return to Bombay with her step-father and 
 then come back to her lover, who would 
 have to wait till then before he could marry 
 her. Was ever a blow crueller ? To bear 
 it, needed all the fortitude a man gets who 
 believes in God's goodness ; for it was not 
 only the hardship of a separation, shattering 
 the dream of immediate union, it was the 
 feeling in them both that she was leaving, 
 touched with disease's forefinger, the mark 
 whereof might prove cancerous and con- 
 suming, though, under Heaven, the old 
 ocean which they both loved would restore 
 her stainless in health and glowing to the 
 heart that must now await the result in the 
 little English village. 
 
 Thus you will understand the meaning of 
 the leave-taking that is happening in the 
 cabin below, and how the sorrow, the tears, 
 the prayers which form it, sanctify it to a 
 height that prohibits intrusion.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE VERULAM SAILS. 
 
 The Deal boatman, over the side in his 
 punt, with his painter made fast to a mizzen 
 channel plate well astern out of the road of 
 the gangway, was beginning to grow im- 
 patient. Already he seemed to have got what 
 he would term ' a kink ' in his neck, by staring 
 aloft for any head over the rail resembling 
 the parson he had rowed aboard. Nor was his 
 temper much improved by the midshipman 
 in charge of the gangway refusing to per- 
 mit him to haul alongside and step on deck. 
 But his patience was not to be taxed 
 much longer. Twenty minutes before sun- 
 down the captain's gig dashed alongside, 
 the skipper mounted the steps, the middies 
 and others hooked the boat on astern and 
 hoisted her to the davits there. The pilot, 
 leaning against the brass rail that ran athwart
 
 40 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the break of the poop, was looking across 
 the glassy surface into the east, where a bank 
 of clouds showed their brows crimson against 
 the evening blue with the reflection of the 
 astonishing glory of red and gold, of pink 
 hollowing into the pale-green lagoons, of 
 angry scarlet and streaks of living yellow fire 
 that was burning to the zenith from the west 
 and overhanging the Channel, till the water, 
 from where the coast of France hung in a 
 thread of mist, resembled blood flowing 
 crimson over the sea-line, and thinning out 
 into pale red as it approached the Downs. 
 He and the captain spoke together, and it 
 was then that Mr. Fortescue came hastily 
 out of the cuddy accompanied by Dr. 
 Clayton. 
 
 " My dear friend," exclaimed the doctor, 
 *' you must cheer up — you really must. 'Tis 
 a hard and bitter parting, I know ; much too 
 hard, much too bitter. I felt it would be so 
 when I saw you coming ; but think only of 
 the sweetness of the meeting, not the sadness 
 of the farewell. Time flies fast ; who that 
 lives knows not that ? Be patient, give us 
 both your prayers ; she will return sound
 
 THE VERULAM SAILS. 4 1 
 
 in health, not dearer than she Is now," — 
 Fortescue lifted his hand as though in pain — 
 '' but the fitter for such a love as subsists 
 between you, which ought not, Fortescue, 
 which really ought not to be menaced by 
 such a destroyer as consumption." 
 
 The tears were bubbling out of the worthy 
 man's honest, dusky eyes as he spoke, and it 
 was the contrast which their wholesome and 
 natural exhibition of emotion established that 
 made the tearless, pallid, grief-fixed face of 
 the young clergyman a thing painful and 
 miserable to behold. It was like a counten- 
 ance changed into stone, at a moment when 
 the heart-agony was acutest. He took the 
 doctor s hand, and his ashen lips stirred, but 
 for a moment or two no sound escaped them. 
 He breathed quickly, w*ith an hysterical 
 swiftness almost — and well would it be for 
 those natures of deep feelings and marble 
 exteriors did hysteria sometimes visit them 
 and wash the fever out of the brain by tears 
 — and whispered, " The Heavenly Maker 
 who will watch over her knows what I cannot 
 say — what my hopes are — what my life must 
 be till she comes to me again ; but "
 
 42 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 His voice failed him, he put his hand to his 
 throat, and walked to the gangway. 
 
 The midshipman there, watching him 
 approach, perceived his condition, and with 
 a touch of pity in his young voice that might 
 have made the boatman think he meant to 
 be sarcastic, ordered the punt alongside. 
 Fortescue entered her, and as the boatman 
 shoved off, the shrill, prolonged whistle swept 
 right fair into the purple gloom above the 
 masthead, followed by the hurricane roar of 
 the boatswain summoning all hands to get 
 the ship under weigh. 
 
 "I'd pretty near made up my mind you 
 was a passenger," said the boatman, settling 
 himself to the oars. "You was so long 
 aboard, sir." And he muttered to himself, 
 "And cuss me if I didn't think I should have 
 to tow down to get my money." 
 
 Fortescue paid no more heed to him than if 
 he had been the buoy that slightly leaned 
 westwards with the tide, whose rippling there 
 blurred the red, still, crystalline surface. He 
 stood up, turning his back on the boatman 
 to look at the ship, and slightly waved his 
 hand to the doctor who was flourishing his
 
 THE VERULAM SAILS. 45. 
 
 hat in the gangway, then let drop his arms 
 and clasped his fingers, gazing with intensity. 
 The breeze was coming along out of the east- 
 wards slowly, in a defined shadow that made 
 indigo of the water under the single star that 
 glimmered over it. and as it neared, you saw 
 the fibrine-like feelers of air it threw out, 
 like the clutchings of antennae, at the polished 
 surface. Indeed the wind resembled a living 
 thing crawling along, and ere the boat was 
 twenty of her own lengths distant from the 
 Indiaman, the great ensign at the peak stirred 
 its folds, and then blew lazily out as it was 
 hauled down for sunset. 
 
 " Suppose there'll be some weight in this 
 here draught presently," said the boatman, 
 addressing the back of the clergyman, "tould 
 you when I put you aboard that them India- 
 men are always in a hurry to get away." 
 
 They had manned the great windlass, for 
 the Verulam was thus equipped, though the 
 capstan was the rule in large ships in those 
 days, and a swarm of men at each handle 
 was making the pawls speak like the blows 
 of a Cyclop's hammer, to mingle with the 
 gritting clank of the cable grinding link after
 
 44 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 link through the iron hawse-pipe, when the 
 sound was suddenly and rudely harmonised 
 by the hoarse, peculiar notes of a seaman 
 breaking into one of the windlass songs of 
 that time, re-echoed presently by the stormy 
 chorussing of the men. The singing swept 
 with the note of a sudden roar of wind in it 
 past the boat from which Fortescue stood 
 gazing, whilst the boatman rowed softly, for- 
 getting his business in the interest he took in 
 the sight ; and whenever the chorus was 
 repeated, the ear seemed to catch an echo of 
 it coming back thin and weak from the coast. 
 It was a plaintive tune — most of the work- 
 ing songs on shipboard were — and distance 
 sweetened it, and it added, somehow, a deeper 
 oceanic meaning to the picture of the India- 
 man, as inch by inch she was brought closer 
 to her anchor, with hands on the jibooms and 
 yards, casting adrift the gaskets and seeing all 
 ready for hoisting and sheeting home. 
 
 The sunset blaze had almost faded, and the 
 purple had fined into the evening shadow 
 leaving the moon bright in the south-east, yet 
 the lingering twilight had lustre enough in it 
 to throw the ship up plainly, only that she
 
 THE VERULAM SAILS. 45 
 
 appeared the more beautiful and romantic for 
 the shadowy and phantom softness of the 
 dusk upon her. The water was now every- 
 where rippling to the air, and the shaft of 
 moonlight trembled at its base beyond the 
 Verulam, though it was steady pearl upon the 
 horizon. The boat was nearly three-quarters 
 of a mile from the vessel by this time, and all 
 the while the clergyman stood watching. 
 
 Suddenly the chorus and the clanking of 
 cable and windlass ceased, some quick cries 
 were uttered, and in a breath the yards and 
 heights of the ship were transferred into 
 clouds standing dark against the moonlight 
 beyond. The stem of the boat grated upon 
 the Deal shingle, and Fortescue. quickly 
 asking the man the charge for the hire, paid 
 without a word the sovereign the fellow 
 unblushingly asked and would have fallen 
 hoarse with impudence over had it been 
 refused him, and walked towards a part of 
 the beach that was deserted, and there 
 stood watching. 
 
 By this time the anchor was off the ground, 
 and the Verulam, paying off to the southward, 
 was shortening her length till the lights in
 
 46 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 her stern cabins filled the blackness above 
 the counter with a row of illuminated squares. 
 Sail had been made on her with wonderful 
 despatch. She was clothed from the royal 
 mastheads to the waterways, and as she 
 moved slowly round to her course with a 
 winking of lights along her length, she raised 
 against the silvery atmosphere past her three 
 dark pyramids that made the sea solemn with 
 their majestic outlines. Never more bland 
 and orrand and beautiful could she have 
 
 o 
 
 looked to the eyes of one desiring hereafter 
 to recall his last sight of her as a fabric 
 holding in its heart an object more precious 
 to him than his love of God would have 
 suffered him to own in prayerful confession 
 to Heaven, than she now appeared — mere 
 mirage as she was — the airiest phantasy for the 
 darkness to dissolve — as she held her canvas 
 erect against the misty sheen under the 
 moon, so that every sail stood out clear as 
 carvings in jet on mother-of-pearl, not the 
 foot of a staysail, nor the curve of a clew, 
 nor the projection of a yard-arm being missed; 
 until, dimming as she drew away from the 
 flowing light, her sails grew pale and her
 
 THE VERULAM SAILS. 47 
 
 hull faint In the shadow going out dark to her 
 with the deeper hue the freshening wind was 
 putting into the sea. 
 
 Fortescue strained his eyes : the headland 
 had not yet concealed her ; right over her a 
 meteor of brilliance broke, and sailed down 
 the sky upon the course the vessel was 
 taking. His glance was courted by the 
 glittering exhalation. It vanished and when 
 he looked for the ship again he saw nothing 
 but the stars which her canvas had eclipsed.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DREAM. 
 
 FoRTESCUE reached Wyloe on the following 
 afternoon. They had to coach it in those 
 days, and leaving Deal early in the morning 
 he did not arrive at his home till five in the 
 afternoon. He lodged at a little house near 
 the church. His rooms were so small that he 
 could never, without inconvenience, entertain 
 more than one friend at a time to smoke a 
 pipe with him of an evening. In one corner 
 stood a table covered with theological works ; 
 a fiddle lay on the sofa ; the engravings on 
 the walls were naval, and a looking-glass, 
 about a hundred years old, embellished the 
 mantelshelf Many persons might have 
 wondered that he could put up with such 
 little lodgings, but the fact w^as there was 
 none better to be had. The Vicarage was 
 the only house with fairly-sized rooms within
 
 THE DREAM. 
 
 49 
 
 a walk of five miles. The other habitations, 
 many of which were wooden, as was Mr. 
 Fortescue's, made a street of low-roofed 
 structures, with here and there a turning that 
 took you past other still lower-roofed struc- 
 tures ; the sea, gleaming in the distance, 
 sweetened the place with its breath and 
 neighbourhood, and there were little gardens 
 and groups of fine trees, and a beautiful 
 avenue to make a quaint and charming place 
 of Wyloe in the summer months. 
 
 Fortescue arrived, cleansed himself from the 
 dust of the long drive and sat himself down 
 for a spell of rest and a cup of tea before 
 walking over to the Vicarage. Throughout 
 the previous night at Deal, during which he 
 had never slept, and throughout his journey, 
 he could think of nothing but the Indiaman 
 fading out upon the night under the expiring 
 spangles of the meteor that had sailed along 
 the sky over the exact course it was the 
 ship's business to steer ; of nothing but that 
 and of her whom the ship had borne away 
 from his heart into the stillness and the dark- 
 ness of the deep. He sat, leaning his head 
 on his hand, and his eyes vacantly fixed, 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 dwelling and brooding on the evening picture 
 he had beheld from the Deal beach, often 
 disposed to lament the resolution that had 
 impelled him to go and see the ship pass by, 
 with a shudder troubling him when memory- 
 brought him to the visionary aspect the lofty 
 fabric offered as she vanished ; then, with his 
 eyes moistening, to the sweetness and the 
 bitterness of the thought of her when the last 
 kiss had been given, the last, yearning cling- 
 ing of her to him relaxed, the last look taken 
 as he passed through the cabin door and 
 caught a glimpse of her falling into her chair 
 with buried face, and bosom heaving to the 
 grief all further lingering could but increase. 
 
 After awhile he aroused himself and walked 
 to the Vicarage. Mr. Clayton and his wife 
 were at home, and the curate was warmly 
 greeted by these simple, home-rooted people, 
 as a man who had undergone an adventure 
 and was safely arrived out of It. 
 
 *' Well," said the Vicar, looking half- 
 anxiously, half-doubtfully, at the young man, 
 '' You have come to tell me I was right to 
 advise you not to attempt the journey on so 
 bare a chance — you did not see the ship ?"
 
 THE DREAM. 51 
 
 '* But I did," replied Fortescue, with a 
 mournful smile. 
 
 "Is it possible now ?" cried the Vicar. 
 '' How quite miraculous that you should 
 have timed your arrival so as to see her pass ! 
 It's positively wonderful ; for had she gone 
 outside the Goodwin Sands, you know, you 
 would have missed her." 
 
 ** But are you sure, Mr. Fortescue, that the 
 vessel you saw was the \"erulam ?" inquired 
 Mrs. Clayton. 
 
 " I found her at anchor when I arrived at 
 Deal. She was lying about a mile distant, 
 exactly opposite the town," said Fortescue. 
 
 "Lying at anchor!" exclaimed the Vicar, 
 who, spite of his having a few fisher-folk 
 among his congregation, had the least 
 imaginable knowledge of the sea, "why?" 
 
 " Because it was calm, there was no wind," 
 replied Fortescue. Then addressing Mrs. 
 Clayton, he said, " I went on board and saw 
 
 Agatha, and " he was proceeding, when 
 
 his lips blanched and tightened, and he ceased. 
 
 There was a short silence, and then the 
 Vicar, in the gentlest manner, said : " How 
 wonderful are God's ways I Who amongst us 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 •w^vERsmr OF \ujmi9
 
 52 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 could have supposed that your journey would 
 have resulted in a second parting ? Is it for 
 the best ? It must be, it must be, as all things 
 are ; but it will have meant another hard 
 wrench to you both, harder than I could have 
 borne, harder than I should have courted." 
 
 They asked the curate how Agatha had 
 looked. He could only answer that she was 
 very white, due, he knew, to her agitation. 
 Yet, as her w^hite face was the last impression, 
 and as it accentuated her delicate appearance, 
 he feared he would not be able to think of 
 her as otherwise, and that would add a new 
 sorrow to his thoughts. 
 
 " Oh, you must shake away such fancies," 
 said the Vicar, putting what little heartiness 
 his bad health permitted into his words. 
 ''The sea will soon give colour to her 
 cheeks ; and then imagine that, perhaps, 
 when my brother is congratulating himself 
 on the happy change working in her, here 
 are you pining over her white face, which, 
 under God will, six or eight weeks hence, be 
 as like what it now is as I am like what I 
 was when I was a romping boy at school." 
 
 But both the Vicar and his wife knew too
 
 THE DREAM. 53 
 
 well the wonderful love that this man bore 
 his sweetheart, the wound that had been 
 dealt by the parting and the necessity for it, 
 to put even the softest tone of chiding into 
 their efforts to cheer him. They showed 
 their sympathy best, perhaps, as they cer- 
 tainly helped him most, by talking about her 
 and getting him to relate as much as he 
 chose to tell of their meeting and farewell, 
 and then of the appearance of the ship, her 
 passengers and the like. For Agatha had gone 
 straight from Wyloe to London with her 
 step-father and sailed from Gravesend ; so 
 that whatever Fortescue had remarked in the 
 ship to describe interested them mightily, 
 not merely because she was the fabric in 
 which the doctor and Agatha were to make 
 the passage to Bombay, but because the 
 Vicar and his wife and their daughter, who 
 came in when they were talking, were 
 intelligent people who could take more than 
 rural interest in hearing a description of a 
 great East Indiaman, and in thinking of the 
 skill that enabled beings whose stature was 
 rendered wonderful if it exceeded six feet, to 
 convey her through darkness and sunshine,
 
 54 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 under blue skies and flashing storms, across 
 an element of which a few square leagues 
 were wide enough and deep enough to 
 drown and contain all the generations of the 
 earth since the days of Noah. 
 
 But the curate's singular fancifulness, that 
 in religious matters took the name of 
 mysticism, stole out when they talked of the 
 ship, and the two ladles listened with an 
 increasing appreciation of his symbolising 
 mood, though the more prosaic Vicar some- 
 times slightly shook his head, when, In a 
 low voice full of melancholy, and with 
 a far-away look In his lustrous dark eyes, 
 Fortescue spoke of his watching the ship 
 from a lonely part of the beach, where the 
 rippling of the water upon the shingle made 
 a sound of weeping, and how the meteor had 
 broken over her and vanished along her 
 course, and how the night with Its moonshine 
 flowing into the sea, that went away In ebony 
 from both silvered sides of its reflection, 
 seemed to draw the pallid phantom of the 
 Indlaman into its folds, less with the absorp- 
 tion of distance than with the apparent 
 resolution of her bv the vast shadow. It
 
 THE DREAM. 
 
 o:> 
 
 was plain — Indeed he made It so — that the 
 spectacle to him presented the mighty and 
 overwhelming sight of death effacing life— of 
 the darkness of the grave eclipsing the light 
 of hope — and they noticed him shudder when 
 he spoke of the coldness that came off the 
 water widening desolately under the low stars 
 around the Foreland, ere he turned his back 
 upon it when the ship had vanished. 
 
 All this, and more that he talked of that 
 evening, merely Indicated In the Mcar's 
 opinion a highly-strung, nervous system 
 debilitated by grief and injuriously influenced 
 in Its weakness by a vigorous imagination 
 fretting over Its own fears. One remedy the 
 good man felt sure must lie in prayer, and 
 his proposal found the others speedily kneel- 
 ing with hidden faces, whilst, with uplifted 
 eyes and fingers clasped and trembling, he 
 prayed for protection for those who were 
 now upon the sea, for health for her whom 
 his entreaties specially concerned, and for 
 patience and tranquility of mind and reliance 
 upon his Maker's love and goodness, for him 
 whose heart was aching. 
 
 Fortescue returned to his lodgings v/Ith his
 
 56 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 thoughts about Agatha, his grief, his anxieties, 
 quickened by his talk at the Vicarage, the 
 prayers there, the confessions he had made 
 respecting the fancies excited in him by the 
 phantom-Hke evanishment of the Indiaman, as 
 a swifter beat is put into the pulse by fever. 
 It was a glorious night, fair as yesterday's, with 
 a fuller, clearer, icier radiance of moonshine 
 the dusty road gleaming like pearl, houses 
 and trees casting jet-like shadows, and a faint 
 hum in the breathless air that a sailor would 
 have recognised as the purring of the sea. but 
 coming from God knows where, for it seemed 
 on all sides. Figures stirred here and there ; 
 a couple standing at a corner, a woman flit- 
 ting through a doorway ; and, in places, the 
 light of a candle dimly showed a transparency 
 of a lozenge-shaped glass staring like an 
 idiot's eye against the soft glory of the moon. 
 Fortescue went out of his way by a short 
 round and came to an avenue of trees ; fields 
 pale as mist lay beyond, intersected by a path 
 that resembled a winding length of silver 
 riband ; under the trees it was an exquisite 
 filagree of pearl and ebony, without a stir, 
 for there was not air enough to move the
 
 THE DREAM. 57 
 
 topmost leaf; and there was a big pool of 
 moonlight at the foot of a tree against the 
 trunk of which Fortescue leaned, hat in hand, 
 with his eyes fixed on the orb. 
 
 He formed a picture fit to startle a man, 
 for he was motionless as the tree that sup- 
 ported him, and though his shape showed 
 very plainly what he was, yet you might 
 have watched him for ten minutes without 
 better assurance of his being living than 
 his eyes, which seemed to hold all his 
 vitality. His head ached, the arteries there 
 throbbed, and the dewy coolness of the place 
 soothed like a love caress. Possibly he 
 wanted the calmness of mind needful to 
 sleep, and felt that he had a better chance of 
 getting it in the coolness outside than in his 
 small rooms ; but that was not quite it. The 
 truth was, just where he was now standing 
 he had once stood with Agatha and asked 
 her to be his wife ; here she had accepted 
 him ; here she had received his first kiss ; and 
 so restless was he with thoughts of her that 
 he could not help coming to this place, where 
 the loneliness was perfect and where the 
 repose of the sleeping branches was like a
 
 58 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 hush in the air, and leaning against the tree- 
 he well remembered, and looking at the 
 moon that shone fair down betwixt two 
 spreading boughs, whilst he thought of the 
 ship the orb was beautifying, and of his dear 
 one, and of the dark sea ever widening 
 betwixt the softly-wafted fabric and the 
 shore she had quitted. 
 
 He left the avenue and walked to his 
 lodgings, a third of a mile distant. He had 
 flattered himself that by this time he had 
 gained some composure of mind ; but he 
 found out his mistake when he took up a 
 book, intending to give half-an-hour to its 
 contents. His eyes went down uhe page as 
 though they were in confederacy with his 
 heart to cheat his intelligence. Not a 
 sentence of his author's meaning did he 
 gather ; as how was it possible he should 
 when his mind was leagues away in the 
 Indiaman's cabin ? Putting down the book 
 he lighted a candle and went to bed. The 
 moonlight lay broad on his window, and 
 finding himself sleepless, despite a strong 
 feeling of physical weariness, he rose and 
 pulled up the blind and lay in the clear, bland
 
 THE DREAM. 59- 
 
 light, watching the ripples of it ghding along 
 the wall with the westering of the orb, till 
 its lustre lay on a little writing-table near 
 the chimney-piece, after which it crept, 
 narrowing into a streak, when it vanished, 
 and the small room darkened to the window 
 that glimmered against the atmosphere, 
 which was still light with the moonshine. 
 
 He fell asleep about this time, and dreamt 
 this dream : — 
 
 There stretched before him an ocean that 
 seemed wider by many leagues than the 
 confines of the horizon permit the sea to 
 show to wakinQ: eves ; a merrv breeze was 
 whipping the deep blue water into long, low 
 lines of billows, which, as they ran and 
 melted into foam, resembled beams of light ; 
 the sky was a hard azure, with a tropical 
 intensity in the wide, bald glare of it round 
 the sun, that was a globe of molten gold, 
 rayless and fiery, poised, as the dreamer be- 
 held it, in the very centre of the firmament. 
 
 Under the luminary, whose burning efful- 
 gence was like folds of heat made hotter by 
 the motion of the wind, a large ship was 
 sailing, leaning over to the breeze, and the
 
 6o THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 sleeper distinctly beheld the spacious canvas 
 that clothed her high and heeling masts, the 
 sparkling of the windward water leaping in 
 prismatic masses against her side, the wake 
 that poured out boiling from her rudder, 
 beautiful as snow, save where it was 
 shadowed by the ship's counter, on which 
 was painted in large letters the word 
 "Verulam." Figures moving about her, on 
 her decks, in her rigging, he seemed to see, 
 but dimly, with the sense of their being 
 there rather than with the perception of 
 them as actualities. It was otherwise with 
 the ship ; her he saw as distinctly as you 
 see the reflection of an object tnat comes 
 out in many glorious tints, all exquisitely 
 clear upon a bubble. She was always sailing, 
 always receding, yet never diminishing ; the 
 sun stood overhead like a pool of liquid, red- 
 hot ore that had leaked through a central hole 
 in the hard, feverish, brassy lightness of blue 
 sky. And the name " Verulam" lay white on 
 the counter, whose shadow darkened the 
 ship's wake under it. 
 
 The vision changed. It was a dark night, 
 blowing stormily, with lightning glaring out
 
 THE DREAM. 6 1 
 
 Upon the heaps of rushing vapour ; and now 
 and again a greenish streak of moonshine 
 flashed suddenly over the rim of a cloud, and 
 touched the swollen and foaming waters with 
 a swift yet sullen lustre that was like the 
 electric leapings themselves for the wild for- 
 midableness and hellish glitter of its play 
 alongside the lightning. Whenever these 
 tempestuous flares of the sky shone, a ship 
 showed up out of the hollows in which she 
 was leaning and plunging, hove-to under a 
 narrow strip of topsail and with her powerful 
 weather bow driving back the lion-like leap 
 of the black surge, till it rose to the flashings 
 of the moon or the lightning in a hill of 
 spume that blew to leeward in a vast cloud. 
 The dreamer watched her with terror, with 
 muttering lips and twitching fingers. Every 
 heave of the vessel's head into the troughs 
 flung up her name " Verulam," as if it were 
 written .in fire, and there was a red dullness 
 of lantern-light about her decks as though 
 every soul were awake, watching and in fear, 
 that gave a singular element of terror to this 
 visionary presentiment. Suddenly a tongue 
 of flame, reaching as high as the foretop, shot
 
 62 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 out betwixt the foremast and the forecastle, 
 making a dayhght about the ship that eclipsed 
 the lightning and the flying moonshine. It 
 vanished, but when it flew, writhing up again, 
 it illuminated a picture of consternation and 
 horror, in the blind swayings and rushings of 
 the swarming people, the more agonizing to 
 the soul of the slumberer to behold, since its 
 vagueness left its reality to be interpreted by 
 the imagination of the sleeper, or whatever 
 the quality or instinct may be that operates in 
 dreams. The clouds broke up, the haze of 
 the dawn pierced and filled their valleys and 
 ravines, and the tropical morning rose in a 
 dingy brown upon a livid, swelling sea, sulky 
 with conflict, and a ship on fire ! 
 
 The sleeper was a young clergyman, as 
 Ignorant of shipboard manoeuvring as any 
 girl. Yet he saw what followed as clearly as 
 if the actual thing were happening under his 
 gaze. He beheld the gangs of men passing 
 buckets along, the water gushing from the 
 hoses, the holes cut in the deck for drowning 
 the hold, the gradual gaining of the fire 
 by its encroachments aft, driving the men 
 into the waist, then to the quarter-deck, then
 
 THE DREAM. 63 
 
 to the poop, he beheld the ship pitching 
 heavily and sluggishly as she ran before the 
 seas with dense volumes of smoke, gashed 
 and streaked by crimson flames, blowing 
 ahead of her. the fall of now a yard, now a 
 mast, now the snapping and swinging in of a 
 thick shroud or backstav burnt through, and 
 always the word " VERULx\M " came out 
 in staring and glaring letters against the 
 background of fire and sooty smoke when the 
 ship's counter was hove right up to it. or 
 glimmered faint with the sternwards stoop 
 of the vessel into the shadow all about her 
 rudder, ere she submerged the place where 
 it was written. 
 
 Again the vision changed. Once more 
 the sun was shining with blinding dazzle and 
 scorching heat from the middle of the clear 
 sky, and on the left-hand side of its brilliant 
 wake the dreamer saw a ship's boat sailing 
 before a quiet wind. Some figures in her 
 leaned with their arms over the side, and 
 their heads lolled as if they were corpses. 
 There was the suggestion in her of having 
 been exposed for days to parching heat and 
 moist nights, God knows how conveyed to
 
 64 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the dreamer, if it did not lie in the dusty and 
 gossamer-Hke aspect of the sail, and in the 
 pallid hue of the painted thwarts and sides. 
 She was but a tiny boat in the dreamer's 
 sight upon that mighty ocean, yet he could 
 clearly see the faces of those who were in 
 her, and he looked from the person who 
 steered her by a tiller, and whom he knew to 
 be the boatswain of the Verulam, to Agatha 
 who was seated by his side, erect, but of a 
 deathlier whiteness than he had seen her 
 when they parted, with the froth of thirst 
 upon her blue lips and her eyes bloodshot 
 and glazed. He wept, he moaned in his 
 sleep ; it was w^onderful that the agony he 
 was now in did not wake him. Whence did 
 he watch ? He was neither on shore nor at 
 sea ; but what could matter an inconsequenti- 
 ality of this kind in a dream so terrible in its 
 vividness that the hair of the sleeper stirred 
 to the horror that was in his soul, and the 
 sweat-drops broke from his forehead ? The 
 breeze freshened, the boat ran swiftly, but 
 tossed dangerously upon the billows. Suddenly 
 an island uprose right ahead. The slumberer 
 watched it rapturously as it took form and
 
 THE DREAM. 65 
 
 colour, feeling in himself the madness that 
 was in the boat, the hunger, the thirst and 
 despair there, and with marvellous distinct- 
 ness the island shaped itself upon the sight. 
 It was like a camel sipping the water with 
 legs submerged. There was verdure on it, 
 and he spied tracks of glittering coral strand, 
 cocoa-nut trees, sloping surfaces covered with 
 bush ; but nothing living, if it were not 
 flights of sea-fowl sailing over the land. All 
 this the dreamer noted, greedily searching 
 for any sparkle of fresh water, till the boat, 
 entering the surf, capsized. He watched, 
 whilst here and there a black object showed, 
 and presently he saw some figures crawl 
 ashore, one of whom was i\gatha, supported 
 by the man who had steered the boat. She 
 left him and fell on her knees, and, after 
 praying, rose, and turning so that her face 
 was perfectly visible to the dreamer, she ex- 
 tended her arms seawards, as though to him, 
 with a most dreadful expression of anguish 
 and hopelessness in her staring, hollow eyes. 
 In this passionate, appealing posture was she 
 when the vision faded, and the sleeper lay 
 in a deep and dreamless slumber. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SKETCH. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue awoke at seven o'clock in 
 the morning, the hour he punctually rose at, 
 and the instant that consciousness became 
 fully alive, the memory of his dream possessed 
 him, and for some minutes he lay thinking of 
 it, with a sense of exhaustion and grief so 
 strong that it was impossible for him not to 
 perceive how violent must have been his 
 distress during the night. 
 
 He said to himself: It is but a dream! 
 But there was no comfort to be got from 
 that reflection. Nay, it heightened the 
 emotion of terror which the recollection of 
 the vision brought with it, to reflect that the 
 scenes he had beheld, painted upon the 
 darkness of his sealed eyes and upon the 
 sable canvas of sleep — the blue sky, the 
 flashing sun, the burning ship, the storm of
 
 THE SKETCH. 6/ 
 
 lightning mingled with moonHght, the lonely- 
 boat, the appealing figure of his adored girl 
 — that these things which, now that he was 
 awake, alarmed, almost stunned him with 
 their hard, inexorable reality, were thinner 
 than air, were less than the shadow of a 
 shadow, were a dream only ! The quality of 
 superstition in him grew active. What did 
 the vision signify.-^ It was a prophecy or 
 nothing, for the ship could not yet be fairly 
 out of the Channel, and the sky that he 
 beheld was Indian, and the boat he had 
 followed to the island had been for days 
 adrift. Did God speak to man in dreams ? 
 He believed that as certainly as he believed 
 in God himself; but every instinct in him 
 shrunk from putting a Divine interpretation 
 on the vision, for then he would have to 
 accept it as a revelation of the truth, of a 
 whisper from Heaven telling him what was 
 to happen ; whereas to think of it as a dream 
 merely was to neutralise its influence, w^as to 
 rob it of its terrors by an easy reference of 
 its origination to the fancies and feelings 
 which had crowded his mind whilst he 
 lingered in the avenue, whilst he walked
 
 68 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 home, and whilst he lay In his bed watching- 
 the passage of the moonbeams. 
 
 He rose and was dressing himself, burled 
 in thought, when his eye was caught by the 
 appearance of the little writing-desk that 
 stood In the recess by the chimney. It had 
 been moved ; there was a chair in front of 
 it ; there was a feather pen in the Inkstand, 
 and on a pad were some sheets of paper. 
 He stood looking a moment, quite certain 
 that this had not been the disposition of the 
 table and chair on the previous night. He 
 also knew that the inkstand and pen were In 
 his sitting-room downstairs when he came 
 to bed. A shudder ran through him, for he 
 was in a mood to be violently affected by a 
 little thing. He walked to the table and 
 glanced at the paper. 
 
 On it was firmly and carefully traced in 
 ink the exact outline of the island he had 
 beheld in his sleep, the island to which in 
 his dream he had followed the boat. But it 
 was something more than a sketch. Every 
 feature that he had noticed — the trees, the 
 bush, the shining open spaces, nay, the 
 whirling procession of birds — was here
 
 THE SKETCH. 69 
 
 reproduced, not even rudely, but with the 
 precision that might be expected in the work 
 of a man who sketches with anxiety that 
 nothing that could be shown in black and 
 white must be omitted. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue pressed his hand to his 
 forehead ; he feared he was going mad. 
 How was he to know that what he saw was 
 not an illusion of his senses ? He went to 
 the w^indow, breathing quickly and trembling, 
 and looked forth upon the bright summer 
 morning, then came to his bedside and knelt 
 in prayer, so praying as to cause him to feel 
 that his mind was clear, steadfast, strong as 
 ever in this sacred relation, and he arose 
 quieted. But a painful trembling and 
 agitation seized him afresh when he looked 
 at the drawing on the paper, for how 
 came it there ? Who had beheld w^ith 
 him the vision he had watched in his sleep, 
 and firmly sketched the closing part of it ? 
 With a violent mental effort he shook off the 
 dreadful and distressing imaginations which 
 were mastering him and finished dressing 
 himself by which time his mind had grown 
 more collected.
 
 70 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 He went to the table and was about to fold? 
 up the sketch and put It It Into his pocket, 
 when, governed by some Impulse he never 
 paused to resist or Inquire Into, he sat down 
 and swiftly wrote on a second sheet of paper 
 all that he could recollect of his dream ; more 
 particularly describing the boat and such of 
 her occupants as he could recall out of the 
 falntness and dimness In which all the human 
 beings he had beheld, saving Agatha and the 
 boatswain of the Verulam In the last stage of 
 it, had swarmed rather than moved and acted 
 before him. 
 
 This done, he went dowmstairs to his 
 sitting-room. He rang the bell ^or break- 
 fast, but so engrossed was he that he w^as 
 unconscious he had summoned his landlady 
 till she entered with his light morning 
 meal. She w^atched him In a sideways,, 
 furtive fashion, as she prepared the table, 
 till, observing a look come into his face 
 that was like a question to her, she said, 
 '' I am afraid you didn't sleep very com- 
 fortable last night, sir." 
 
 "Why do you say that, Mrs. Goldsmith? 
 Do I look as though I had passed a bad
 
 THE SKETCH. yi 
 
 night?" he asked, with a slightly forced smile 
 that instantly vanished. 
 
 "Well, I might guess it by your appearance, 
 even if there was nothing better to go by," 
 said the landlady; "but we heard you moving 
 about a good deal, and " 
 
 He interrupted her by an exclamation and 
 was about to speak, but checked himself 
 violently, turning whiter with the effort, and 
 in a tone of composure said, " Oh, so you 
 heard me movins: about a grood deal ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and my husband, hearing you 
 go downstairs and then come up again and 
 walk about your room, supposed you might 
 be in pain and took the liberty of getting up 
 to see if he could be of any service." 
 
 "Thank him very much, if you please. 
 Yes, it is strange," said he, with startled eyes 
 yet in a quiet voice, "that I did not hear 
 him." 
 
 " He knocked at the door, and getting no 
 answer made him more anxious ; so he 
 opened it and looked in." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "You were at the table writing. You'll 
 forgive me for saying he considered it curious,
 
 72 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 for there was no candle burning, and the 
 moon was off the window, and the dawn too 
 weak to show more'n your figure. He came 
 back to me and said he thought you were all 
 right, and put down your moving about to not 
 being able to sleep for the heat and for other 
 reasons," said she, lowering her eyes, for Mr. 
 Fortescue's love-trouble was well-known to 
 her as to every other person in that slender 
 community of souls. 
 
 *' Did he address me ? If so, I did not hear 
 him. I was deeply lost in thought, no doubt." 
 
 '' So he allowed. He didn't speak. He 
 shut the door on ye. You looked as if you 
 was writing, but that couldn't be— of course, 
 you know, sir ; if you didn't hear him, likely 
 enough you had sat down and fallen asleep. 
 But anyways," said she, with a reaching out 
 in her manner after a touch of cheerfulness, 
 perceiving with feminine clearness that the 
 subject must be dropped, *' so long as you 
 wasn't in pain or anything like that, there's 
 nothing the matter to speak about." 
 
 She left the room, and Mr. Fortescue, 
 seating himself, pulled out the sketch he had 
 found on his bedroom table, and pored over
 
 THE SKETCH. "] T^ 
 
 It with the pulse in his temple hammering 
 upon the palm of his hand, and his chest 
 heaving with hysteric swiftness. 
 
 Of course, he now understood how that 
 sketch had been made. He had walked in 
 his sleep, and that circumstance alone shocked 
 him, as it shocks most people when told 
 they are somnambulists, because it is horrible 
 to be influenced by passions and feelings 
 whilst the brain sleeps and reason's throne is 
 empty, and no one can imagine what the 
 secret man within him, so secret as not to 
 be known or suspected in the full light of 
 consciousness, may be capable of when let 
 loose and walking ungoverned. But he was 
 more terrified yet when he looked at the 
 sketch of the island and perceived how the 
 spiritual part of him had been operating, 
 without any physical conditions to his 
 knowledge ; how what had been done might 
 have been done by an angel from Heaven, 
 or a phantom from the grave, instead of a 
 living, breathing man as he was, so uncon- 
 scious was he of its achievement, so insensible 
 to the impulse that had urged him. Nor 
 was it without awe and reverence mixed
 
 74 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 with his terror that he gazed at the drawing. 
 For in what other direction of thought should 
 his faith, deepened by superstition, urge him, 
 if he did not feel that the hand of God had 
 been upon him that night, summoning him 
 from his bed to rise and depicture what the 
 eyes of his soul had seen, that, when he awoke 
 to consciousness, his material gaze might 
 refresh his memory to the satisfaction of 
 his senses ? 
 
 He barely broke his fast, but, having some 
 duties to perform he left the house, and it 
 was not until midday that he had leisure to 
 call at the Vicarage. By this time he had 
 made up his mind to relate his dream to Mr. 
 Clayton. His first idea had been to bury it 
 in his own breast, but he changed his mind ; 
 the burden was already oppressive ; he looked 
 forward with fear to the thoughts that would be 
 rising night after night, night after night, and 
 he felt that this condition of his profound per- 
 plexity and apprehension might be lightened 
 by speaking to the Vicar, even though he 
 very well knew that there could be no peace 
 of mind for him until Agatha was once more 
 in his arms.
 
 THE SKETCH. 75: 
 
 He found ^^Ir. Clayton alone in his study 
 whose open window let in the warm air, green 
 with the shadows of trees, pleasant with the 
 smell of many garden flowers, and broken by 
 the impatient cries of a goat straining at its 
 tether in the middle of the lawn. The Vicar 
 immediately noticed the unfamiliar expression 
 that had entered the curate's face, but was 
 chiefly struck by the febrile light in his dark 
 eyes. Fortescue believed that he had 
 mastered himself and that he appeared as 
 usual ; in reality, he was as changed from 
 the preceding day as though he had been 
 ill for a fortnight. 
 
 ''What on earth is the matter, Fortescue?" 
 exclaimed Mr. Clayton, putting on his glasses 
 and staring through them. " Xo bad news, 
 I hope ?" 
 
 ''A strange thing has happened to me," 
 replied Fortescue. "It has affected me sO' 
 violently that I can think of nothing else. 
 It would be best, perhaps, if I could let it be 
 my own secret, yet talking about it may ease 
 my mind, and you will be able to say some- 
 thing — to suggest a thought that would not 
 occur to me — that will tranquilise me."
 
 76 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 The Vicar's lips parted till his mouth 
 lay open. Fortescue's manner was odd, 
 yearning, feverish, quite new in him. 
 
 "But what is it.'^" said he. 
 
 "A dream," answered Fortescue. "But 
 listen, Mr. Clayton," slightly lifting his hand 
 in deprecation of the smile that followed, 
 more of relief than of mirth, " so strange, 
 so wonderful a dream, that if it comes not 
 straight from God, if it be not His voice 
 speaking to me in my sleep, I shall cease 
 to believe in the reality of the visions which 
 came as prophecies' to the sleepers in Holy 
 Writ ; in them and in all like instances 
 since." 
 
 Mr. Clayton looked amazed. " My dear 
 Fortescue, pray consider," he exclaimed. 
 " Would you imperil your faith in Divine 
 inspiration by staking it on the truthfulness 
 of a dream of your own — a dream that might 
 come from, from — why, even from in- 
 digestion ?" 
 
 Without answering this, Fortescue pulled 
 the sheets of paper, containing the sketch of 
 the island and the notes of the dream, from 
 his pocket, and mused over them for some
 
 THE SKETCH. 77 
 
 moments, breaking away with a start and 
 a long sigh. Fixing his eyes on the Vicar, 
 he told him of the vision that had appeared 
 to him, relating it more fully than I have 
 written it down, and in words which burnt 
 with the emotions his recital raised in him. 
 He spoke quickly, but his language had the 
 coherence of his dream, and he went throuerh 
 it from beginning to end only as a man 
 could who relates facts which have deeply 
 impressed his soul ; and when he terminated 
 with the description of the posture of his 
 darling on the island, he started up and 
 extended his arms in unconscious imitation 
 of the wild, appealing gesture, and sobbed 
 three or four times with his eyes dry and 
 shining. 
 
 Mr. Clayton listened attentively. He 
 might have found more in the narrative had 
 it not been for Fortescue's dramatic action 
 at the close, which, for the moment, satisfied 
 him that his curate's nerves had been un- 
 strung by the grief of parting with Agatha, 
 and that he had no power of mind to resist 
 the influence of what was certainly a painful 
 dream for him to have dreamed. He said
 
 78 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 k ndly, but with the air of a man who knows 
 better, and consequently feels himself fit to 
 argue with another on his delusion : " You 
 really must not let a dream weigh with you, 
 Fortescue. Only think. What is a dream ? 
 Often the mere insanity of slumber, as we 
 see it in nightmares ; sometimes, as in your 
 case, a logical set of pictures. You can 
 easily account for your dream. You have 
 been thinking for days of nothing but Agatha, 
 and have worried yourself with thoughts of 
 the sea dangers she may meet. May meet 
 and mayn't. And if she does meet them, the 
 ship she is in w^ill outlive them. Thousands 
 cross the ocean in safety. Why not xA^gatha ?" 
 
 "It is true," said Fortescue, languidly, 
 " that the dream referred only to what you 
 speak of as sea dangers. But is it not a 
 prophecy ?" 
 
 ''Of what?" 
 
 ''Of disaster to her ship — of Agatha's 
 abandonment upon an island." 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! What island could it be ? In 
 the tropics, do you say? Why, my good 
 fellow, the ship only sailed a day or two ago." 
 
 " What island could it be ?" exclaimed
 
 THE SKETCH. 79 
 
 Fortescue, looking at the paper. '' I do not 
 know. I have it here — it exists, as surely as 
 you do who are sitting there. I could not 
 imagine, sleeping or waking, such an island 
 as that. Oh, it is real, depend upon it. Its 
 latitude and longitude are known." 
 
 He spoke with his eyes fixed on the 
 sketch. Mr. Clayton said : — 
 
 '' Do I understand you that you have the 
 island there ?" 
 
 Fortescue handed him the drawing. The 
 Vicar peered at it. 
 
 '• Why did you draw this ? To impress the 
 island of your dream upon your memory ?" 
 he asked, looking at him attentively over his 
 glasses, for the sketch persuaded him that 
 Fortescue was even more affected by his 
 dream than his narration of it suggested. 
 
 " I found it upon a writing-table in my 
 bedroom this morning when I awoke," 
 answered the curate. '' Mrs. Goldsmith told 
 me she had heard me moving about in the 
 night, and so unquestionably I must have left 
 my bed, fetched writing materials from the 
 room downstairs, sketched the island, and 
 returned to bed ; for I was in bed when I
 
 8o THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 awoke. To prove that I have not the least 
 recollection of the circumstance, Mrs. Gold- 
 smith informed me that her husband, thinking 
 I was ill, knocked at the door, opened it, and 
 saw me seated at the writing-table. Had I 
 been conscious I must have heard him knock 
 and open the door." 
 
 Mr. Clayton's face wore an expression of 
 wonder. He again examined the sketch, 
 this time as if it were an object of mystery 
 and rarity, and said, " Did you ever walk in 
 your sleep before ?" 
 
 .*' Never, to my knowledge. Were it a 
 practice, no matter how long the intervals 
 between, I am certain to have heard of it." 
 
 *' It is certainly strange," said the Vicar, 
 musingly; "but still, Fortescue, it is not a 
 thing to worry over — only a dream, you 
 know." Fortescue did not answer. "Your 
 rising and making this sketch in your sleep 
 certainly gives it mysterious accentuation, 
 but merely to people who are superstitious. 
 You know you drew the island in a fit of 
 somnambulism, so the supernatural vanishes. 
 A mystery that can be accounted for ceases- 
 to be a mystery. That sounds obvious, but
 
 THE SKETCH. 8l 
 
 it Is worth saying. \\'hy you walked, or 
 rather acted, in your sleep is quite intelligible. 
 Only consider for a moment what is meant 
 by the nervous system ! Here is a complex 
 web of fibres, with the intellect like a spider 
 in the midst of It. Agitate the web and you 
 disorder the spider. Break down the web 
 and the spider vanishes into a hole — any- 
 where. That is insanity. Your nerves 
 have — indeed, it is quite apparent that they 
 have — been much more affected than you 
 yourself are aware by fretful and worrying 
 thoughts. The mind, affected by the nerves, 
 has coined a strange and startling vision, 
 the effect of which, acting upon the nervous 
 system that is too feeble to resist psychologic 
 influence, is to produce somnambulism. Why 
 you should have sketched the island — why 
 you should not have drawn the burning 
 ship — why, in short, you should or should 
 not have done anything else than you 
 did, who can say ? This Is the only 
 mystery, but it is a mystery that Is con- 
 stantly happening in the lives of people 
 who find themselves acting In a way that 
 surprises, delights, or pains them afterwards. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 Dismiss the whole matter from your mind, 
 Fortescue. It is the result of an over-wrought 
 nervous system. A sleeping draught w^ould 
 have kept the curtain down between you and 
 your prophetic vision." 
 
 '' You find nothing in it, then, Mr. Clayton ? 
 Nothing to cause you the least uneasiness 
 regarding Agatha ?" 
 
 The Vicar reflected, and then said, em- 
 phatically, '' Nothing." 
 
 Fortescue picked up the sketch and put it 
 carefully in his pocket along w^ith the memo- 
 randa he had made. 
 
 "You must not let this trouble you," said 
 Mr. Clayton. ''If you do, it will prey upon 
 your mind and perhaps affect your health. 
 Reflect, when it pleases the Almighty to 
 restore Agatha to us, how grieved you will 
 feel that you should ever have doubted His 
 merciful care of your betrothed, to the extent 
 of suffering a dream to weaken your faith 
 in His willingness to answer your and our 
 prayers for Agatha." 
 
 " Don't say that !" cried Fortescue, 
 vehemently. "So far from my faith being 
 weakened, my dream has increased it. Can
 
 THE SKETCH. S^ 
 
 you certainly say that the vision is not the 
 finger of the Most High pointing to what 
 has yet to happen ? Who could charge me 
 with loss of faith for thus thinking? Is not 
 God present in dreams as in the life that 
 surrounds our waking hours ? Why do 
 Christians teach their children to believe in 
 good angels ministering to their slumber 
 with sweet thoughts, if it were not that they 
 know, as I know, that Heaven lies all about 
 us, in our sleep as in our waking ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Clayton, *' God is present 
 whether we wake or sleep ; but do not," said 
 he, half-soothingly, half-combatively, "let the 
 poetry our faith is so rich in carry us beyond 
 those Scriptural facts it is our duty to adhere 
 to and not to budge from." 
 
 Fortescue rose with a faint smile that was 
 meant to give the abrupt movement an 
 expression of politeness. He was in no 
 mood for an argument on religion. 
 
 " I will think over what you have said," 
 he exclaimed. "Your views may be correct. 
 Help me by remembering in your prayers to 
 ask that my vision may prove nothing but a 
 dream."
 
 84 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 ** I'll not Speak to my wife or Josephine 
 about this," said the Vicar. "It is but a 
 bubble ; let it float away. Time will prick it 
 presently."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BAD NEWS. 
 
 The effect of Mr. Clayton's kindly-meant 
 check was to cause Fortescue to cork himself 
 up. Thought grew introspective even to 
 morbidity, and the melancholy of his manner 
 became more defined, though everybody but 
 the Vicar put it down to the grief he felt 
 through his separation from Agatha. He 
 had a good library of books, and devoted his 
 leisure in looking through them to find out 
 all that was in them about dreams. One 
 portly collection of anecdotes retailed several 
 examples of singular dreams that had been 
 verified, but the bulk of them took the 
 shape of ghostly visitations, the distinct 
 visions of mysterious figures, and the death 
 of the dreamer or of the person dreamt 
 about at the hour and by the occasion pre- 
 dicted.
 
 S6 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 But time went by quickly, as it will in 
 monotony ; and though the impression pro- 
 duced in Fortescue's mind by his dream 
 remained as keen and as clear as on the 
 morning when he talked it over with the 
 Vicar, hope was beginning to cast the film 
 of its radiance over it, thus dimming its 
 influence upon his moods. Besides, his 
 work made many calls upon him, and he 
 put new energy into it that he might have 
 the more to occupy his thoughts. He felt» 
 as most men do who are haunted by one 
 absorbing fancy, that the best way to 
 weaken it, is to dilute it with all the homely, 
 prosaic, simple, hearty facts to be obtained 
 from professional labour. Then, again, 
 though he believed his dream to have 
 come straight from God, he found himself 
 wavering when he reflected that if it should 
 prove false, his idea would be a sort of 
 impiety and a harsh contradiction to his 
 humble desire to believe in his Maker's love 
 and goodness. By degrees he schooled his 
 mind, he disciplined his fancies, he strove by 
 prayer to persuade himself into hopefulness, 
 though never could he bring his under-
 
 BAD NEWS. 87 
 
 Standing to such a state of hope but that 
 his own Hghtest recurrence to his dream and 
 the sketch he had made in his sleep sent a 
 chill to his heart and a shudder through his 
 frame. 
 
 There was no prospect of hearing from 
 Agatha under eight or nine months. She had 
 to arrive before she could write, and her 
 passage to Bombay and the return of her 
 letter, even if there was a ship ready to sail 
 with it immediately, were, put together, to be 
 reckoned at not less than the time I have 
 said. Yet, as month after month passed, Mr. 
 Clayton would tell Fortescue cheerfully that 
 they were only so many days now — two 
 hundred, one hundred and fifty, one hundred, 
 as it might be — betwixt him and Agatha's 
 letter announcing her safety and restored 
 health — nay, for the matter of that, between 
 him and Agatha herself, for, as he pointed 
 out to the young curate, "My brother is not 
 likely to keep her in India, for the climate 
 does not suit her. He will wish her on their 
 arrival to get upon the sea again as soon as 
 possible ; so, though she may perhaps wait 
 for the Verulam to return, you may consider
 
 SS THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 it certain that when you get her letter you 
 will not find her lingering many days behind 
 it." 
 
 January had arrived. The New Year 
 had begun ; all the extra parish labour of 
 Christmas-tide was over. It was a bleak, 
 grey morning ; under a surface of slate a 
 bitter north-easter was wildly driving the 
 sulphur- coloured scud ; the trees stood black 
 and fibrine, like sketches in ink, with birds 
 forming dark nobs upon the iron-black 
 boughs ; and the snow, lying in streaks here 
 and there upon the dingy soil, was frozen 
 too hard for the shrieking blast to disturb. 
 Fortescue, in his little sitting-room, was at 
 work preparing a sermon, when he was 
 disturbed by a knock at the house-door, and 
 in a few minutes his landlady looked in to 
 say that Mr. Clayton had sent to ask him to 
 call at the Vicarage immediately. There 
 was a kind of peremptoriness in Mrs. Gold- 
 smith's delivery of the word " immediately " 
 that caused Fortescue to suspect that she w^as 
 unconsciously imitating the tone in which the 
 message had been delivered ; and his face 
 was as white as Agatha's had been when he
 
 BAD NEWS. 89 
 
 last saw her, as he jumped up, put his hat 
 on, and ran into the freezing wind. 
 
 He reached the Vicarage with his heart 
 beating violently. ]\Ir. Clayton met him as 
 he entered and, without saying a word, took 
 him by the hand as a father might, and led 
 him to his study, then closed the door. 
 
 '' Fortescue," he said, " I have received 
 bad news." 
 
 The old man had tried to school himself, 
 but the presence of the young clerg}^man 
 agitated him so greatly that he spoke 
 brokenly and you looked to see him weep. 
 
 " Is she dead ?" asked Fortescue. 
 
 ''No. I have received a letter from the 
 owners — be seated, dear friend ; it cannot be 
 said that she is dead. Oh, Fortescue, think 
 upon God's love now — now that you may 
 need the fullest measure of your faith in His 
 compassion, to bear this new^s." 
 
 He took a letter from the table and gave 
 it to Fortescue. There was a stony look 
 in the curate's eyes that made him appear 
 blind when he held the letter with both 
 hands and stared at it as though he could 
 not see. He shook his head, pressed his
 
 90 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 eyelids with his fingers, and then read the 
 letter aloud : — 
 
 " CoRNHiLL, London, 
 
 "January 12, 18 
 
 " Reverend Sir, 
 
 ''It is with deep regret that we 
 have to inform you our ship Verulam, in 
 which Dr. Clayton and Miss Fox were 
 cabin passengers, was burnt at sea on the 
 second of September last. A boat, con- 
 taining sixteen persons, was encountered 
 two days after the vessel's destruction, by 
 H.M.S. Pigeon, which landed them at Ports- 
 mouth yesterday morning. All passengers 
 and crew got safely away in the ship's boats, 
 and though only one of them has as yet 
 been heard of, we have reason to hope, from 
 the excellent discipline that was maintained 
 throughout, and from the wise disposition 
 of the officers and petty officers among the 
 boats, whereby every boat was put in charge 
 of persons of experience and capable of 
 navigating her, that before long, news will 
 reach us of all the boats being accounted for. 
 We are unable to furnish you yet with 
 further particulars, but any inquiries you
 
 BAD NEWS. 91 
 
 may make, which will be within our power 
 to answer, shall be instantly attended to. 
 "We are, Reverend Sir, 
 
 "Faithfully yours, 
 " Wrotham, Skinner & Farquharson. 
 "To the Rev. Alfred Clayton, M.A., 
 " Wyloe. 
 
 " P.S. — We subjoin the names of persons 
 picked up by H.M.S. Pigeon." (Here 
 followed the names of sixteen men, chiefly 
 seamen.) 
 
 When Fortescue read the letter through,, 
 the Vicar looked at him and kept silent, no 
 more guessing how he would act — what 
 distressing and dreadful form his grief and 
 misery would take — than he could have 
 guessed the hour of his own death. To 
 his astonishment, Fortescue quietly put the 
 letter down, left his chair, and with his 
 hands locked behind him paced the room 
 absorbed in thought. Indeed, such was his 
 air of pre-occupation, that Mr. Clayton could 
 only gaze with wonder, as little disposed to 
 address him as he would have been to awaken 
 him were he walking in his sleep. At least 
 five minutes passed in this way ; an interval
 
 92 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 of silence that seemed interminable to the 
 Vicar, after which Fortescue glanced at the 
 letter again, and said, "Mr. Clayton, is it 
 not true now, do you think, that my dream 
 came from God ?" 
 
 Mr. Clayton answered, ''The coincidence 
 is strange," in a voice scarce audible, so 
 moved was he, not perhaps so much by the 
 calmness and whiteness in Fortescue's face, 
 as by the manner in which the crushing news 
 was received. 
 
 "I dreamt," continued Fortescue, "that 
 the Verulam was destroyed by fire, and 
 there," pointing to the letter, "is the news 
 of her loss. She was burned 01 the 2nd 
 September last, and the date makes my 
 dream the prophetic monition I always knew 
 it to be, for by the close of October she 
 would be in the Indian Ocean, near to the 
 Equator, as I beheld her in my dream, for 
 her position was signified by the high sun 
 burning over her masts and casting no 
 shadows that I could see." 
 
 There was a singular look in his face. 
 It might have been a touch of madness ; it 
 might have been a sudden, irresistible swell-
 
 BAD NEWS. 93 
 
 ing up of the soul rejoicing within itself at 
 this confirmation of its belief that God had 
 directly spoken to it in a dream. Whatever 
 it was, ^Ir. Clayton was afraid of it, not 
 being able to understand it. 
 
 '* We have no right to grieve yet," said he, 
 with a sw^eep round of his eyes as though he 
 sought the aid of familiar objects to help him 
 to the commonsense mood that the young 
 clergyman's unexpected behaviour was ren- 
 dering rather difficult ; ''I shall consider 
 my brother and his step-daughter as safe, 
 well and hearty until news to the contrar\^ 
 reaches us. You have noticed what the 
 owners of the Verulam say?"' Picking up 
 the letter and looking at it with his glasses 
 held to one eye, *' 'All passengers and crew- 
 got safely away in the ship's boats.' Then 
 again, ' we have reason to hope ' — hum — hum 
 — 'that before long news will reach us of all 
 the boats being accounted for.' These 
 people would not mislead us. ' There is 
 reason to hope.' I shall do so. I was 
 shocked, but the first consternation is 
 passing. Meanwhile, there is nothing to be 
 done but wait and pray."
 
 94 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 His voice trembled as he said this, but 
 Fortescue's was quite steady as he extended 
 his hand for the letter, saying, " What is 
 the shipowners' address ?" 
 
 "Take the letter," said Mr. Clayton. '' Do 
 you mean to write to them ? What can they 
 tell you, my dear friend ? For the love of 
 God, who is with those who are dear to us, 
 have patience, have faith. Like George 
 Herbert's mind, yours is being used as a 
 sword only to cut through its scabbard. 
 Whatever happens, or has happened, is 
 God's will. I beseech you not to suffer 
 your grief to extinguish that consolation. 
 Whatever is ordered you would not surely 
 have otherwise, how bitter soever it be, 
 how lacerating, how crushing to hope, yea, 
 even to life." 
 
 The tears were in his eyes, and he raised 
 his clasped hands with a gesture full of pity 
 and entreaty. 
 
 " Mr. Clayton," said Fortescue, in a low 
 voice, '' I have all the faith you could desire 
 for me — more faith, indeed, than I would 
 avow lest you should wish me less. I am 
 but an instrument in God's hands to be bent
 
 BAD NEWS. 95 
 
 as He wills, to be broken as He may wish, 
 to stay or go as He may direct. Leave me 
 to Him," he added, gently, with his dark 
 eyes full now of their old sweetness. "He 
 will lead me aright, and be assured that 
 whatever I do shall be done in His holy 
 name." 
 
 Mr. Clayton bowed his head, though 
 only understanding in part ; and without 
 another word Fortescue left the room and 
 the house, with a face white, indeed, as the 
 paper on which this is printed, but with a 
 fire in his eyes that made his far-away look 
 the wilder and stranger to the few people 
 he met, who touched their caps or curtsied to 
 him without winning a glance.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VERIFICATION. 
 
 FoRTESCUE that evening wrote a letter to 
 Wrotham and Co., in which, after explaining 
 his claims upon their attention as being 
 engaged to Miss Fox, he asked if they 
 would be so good as to tell him how and 
 where he might meet one or more of the 
 men who had been brought to England by 
 H.M.S. Pigeon, as their replies to certain 
 questions they would be easily able to answer 
 might greatly tranquilise his mind. This 
 letter he posted, and next day went about 
 his work as usual, presenting indeed so calm 
 an exterior that it needed a careful inspection 
 of his face to guess at his secret agitation. 
 
 Messrs Wrotham and Co. answered Mr 
 Fortescue's letter by return of post. ''The 
 best person we can refer you to," they said, 
 *' is Mr. Walter Jones, the third mate of the
 
 VERIFICATION. 97 
 
 Verulam. He was in charge of the boat 
 that was picked up. He has been very ill, 
 but is now, we are pleased to know, fast 
 recovering. He is stopping with his mother 
 at No. — , High Street, Ramsgate, and we 
 have written him by this post to request, 
 should you favour him with a call, to fully 
 communicate all that he can tell respecting 
 the loss of our ill-fated ship." 
 
 Ramsgate was not very much further off 
 than Deal was from Wyloe. and the journey 
 there and back was to be made in a couple of 
 days, with time for a long talk between. 
 When he called at the Vicarage to arrange 
 for his absence, Mr. Clayton thought it his 
 duty to break into what he deemed a 
 uselessly sentimental whim with a bit of 
 commonsense argument. 
 
 *'Why do you want to see this third 
 mate ?" he said. " What can he tell you that 
 you do not know ; unless, indeed, you seek 
 fresh agitation and bitterness of mind by 
 learning from this sailors mouth what the 
 horrors of fire are at sea ?" 
 
 " I wish to hear my dream confirmed." 
 
 ** To what purpose .-^ It will deepen the 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 THE GOLDEN HOPE.* 
 
 superstitious feeling you have suffered to 
 grow in you — in respect of this dream, I 
 mean — and if it is confirmed closely enough 
 to satisfy you, though the confirmation might 
 to a mind like mine, seem wide of the 
 mark, what will be the result ? You will feel 
 that Agatha is lost to us for ever, and this 
 conviction will keep you perilously miserable, 
 until one day the news com.es that she and 
 my brother were picked up and landed safe 
 and well at — at — well, anywhere." 
 
 *' I know," said Fortescue, "that you talk 
 to me in this manner out of affectionate 
 kindness only, Mr. Clayton. But let me 
 humour myself." 
 
 They grasped hands, and two hours after 
 Fortescue had started by way of the Dover 
 Road for Ramsgate. It was too late for him 
 to call upon Mr. Jones when he arrived ; he 
 took a bed at a hotel and sat, till the 
 night was far advanced, at his bedroom 
 window, gazing upon the harbour and the 
 dim lights which winked and disappeared 
 at sea. The position of Deal was in- 
 dicated by a faint, flickering galaxy that 
 seemed to hover miles distant upon the
 
 VERIFICATION. 99 
 
 wintry night that was darkened by clouds 
 whose rolHng volumes made mere will-o'- 
 the-wisps of the stars, and Fortescue knew 
 that the darkling space to the left of the 
 lights of Deal was the Downs where his 
 farewell had been taken, and over whose 
 waters he had watched the noble Indiaman 
 gliding till the dusk had blotted out the 
 phantom she had become. It startled him, 
 as the first motions of craziness might, to 
 think of the reality he had seen out there, 
 on whose solid deck he had stood, from 
 whose stout cabin he had withdrawn with his 
 cheeks wet with his darling's tears, and then 
 to consider that now, even as he sat musing, 
 the whole powerful and towering fabric was 
 less substantial than the air his fingers closed 
 upon. The weight of the darkness that 
 shrouded the deep seemed to press upon 
 his brain. What did the solemn flight of 
 those vast wings of vapour under the stars 
 up there signify, if they did not sym- 
 bolise the utter unreality of all things 
 affecting human consciousness, if they did 
 not indicate that they themselves were not 
 more mist-like, more dissoluble, and more
 
 lOO THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 immaterial than man's handiwork and his 
 passions ? 
 
 With aching brow the poor fellow sought 
 his bed, but for hour after hour did he hear 
 the clocks striking and the ships' bells in the 
 harbour answering, and when he was aroused 
 at half-past eight he had not been sleeping 
 three-quarters-of-an-hour. The coach that 
 would carry him to Dover left the High 
 Street Inn at two, he ascertained. Time was,, 
 therefore, of consequence, and immediately 
 after breakfast he walked to the address that 
 had been given him as Mr. Jones's home. 
 It was an old-fashioned house, with small, 
 sparkling windows ; a green raili.ig in front 
 enclosing evergreens ; such a quiet, drowsy 
 old place as a sailor would love to think 
 about when at sea. 
 
 Fortescue knocked, and was promptly 
 admitted by a kindly-faced old lady, who 
 with a curtsey pronounced his name, and 
 said that her son had been expecting him. 
 She was sympathetic and serious, judging 
 Fortescue's to be a melancholy errand, 
 from what the shipowners had written to 
 her son, and opening a door, she said :
 
 VERIFICATION. lOI 
 
 ■*' The Rev. Mr. Fortescue, Walter," and 
 withdrew. 
 
 A young fellow of about twenty rose from 
 an arm-chair, put down a newspaper, and 
 bowed to the curate. He was a sailorly- 
 looking person, dressed in blue serge, the tan 
 of weather upon his cheeks made cloudy by 
 the paleness of one who has been ill. " Pray 
 take a chair, sir," he added ; *'now that I see 
 you I remember you as having come aboard 
 the Verulam in the Downs." 
 
 *' Yes ; I went to say good-bye," answered 
 Fortescue, mastering a fit of nervousness and 
 the sinking, sobbing sensation that attended 
 such fits in him. with a great effort as he 
 seated himself " I was sorr)' to hear that 
 you had been ill. Are you better ?" 
 
 ** Much better, thanks. It was owing to 
 the shock, I think. I mean the sudden 
 alarm stouter fellows than I w^ll feel when 
 the cry of fire is raised aboard a crowded 
 ship, or it might have been the anxious time 
 I passed in the boat, having charge of her. 
 But I am better, sir." 
 
 '* You w411 forgive me this intrusion " 
 
 '* No intrusion, sir. Anything I can tell
 
 I02 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 you I will, gladly. It is a miserable business 
 — I mean the loss of the ship ; a wonderfully 
 fine craft, as, no doubt, you noticed." 
 
 *' Only one boat — yours — has as yet been 
 accounted for ?" said Fortescue, speaking 
 slowly and softly, for he was here to con- 
 verse, and it would not do to break down. 
 
 *' Only one as yet." 
 
 *' What do you think of the chances of the 
 others T' 
 
 '' Why, that their chances are as good as 
 our boat's were," replied the young mate, 
 heartily, too heartily, indeed. It caused 
 Fortescue to perceive that such a question 
 as he had put was not likely to receive 
 anything but a hopeful answer, and he 
 merely listened as Mr. Jones went on. 
 ** They were all commanded by men of 
 experience ; besides, where the Verulam 
 foundered, ships are constantly coming and 
 going. If we have not heard of them it is, I 
 have no doubt, because they have been 
 picked up by vessels outward bound, heading, 
 you don't know where — to Calcutta, Madras, 
 Chittagong, China ports — it's impossible to 
 say. We were picked up by a man-of-war
 
 VERIFICATION. IO3 
 
 paddle steamer, a quick goer ; and she was 
 on her way home, though she was delayed at 
 the Cape. You must give luck time, sir ; 
 for my part I expect to hear of all the boats 
 in due course," he said, smiling. 
 
 "Where did the Verulam founder?'' 
 
 '' To give it you roundly in degrees, eight 
 south and sixty-three east." 
 
 Fortescue put this down in his pocket- 
 book, from which he extracted the notes he 
 had made on the morning on which he had 
 awakened from his dream, and after running 
 his eye over them, he said, " Mr. Jones, I am 
 going to ask you a few questions." 
 
 " You shall have the truth, sir." 
 
 '* Did not the fire on board the Verulam 
 break out at night .•*" 
 
 The young sailor said, "Yes, in the middle 
 watch. It was about three bells — half-past 
 one o'clock — when the first alarm was raised." 
 
 " On the afternoon preceding that night, 
 was the weather gloriously fine, the sun 
 shining in a cloudless sky, and a merry wind 
 blowing, yet not so strongly but that the 
 Verulam could expand all her canvas to it ?" 
 
 " Ay, it was a fine afternoon, and there
 
 I04 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 was a merry breeze, as you say," responded 
 the young mate, gazing with the intentness 
 of sudden surprise at Mr. Fortescue. 
 
 " But when the fire broke out there was a 
 strong wind blowing, and the ship lay slant- 
 wise — I do not know the nautical term." 
 
 " Hove-to," said Mr. Jones, staring at him. 
 
 " Not sailing," continued the clergyman, 
 '' but kept stationary, as it might be with the 
 yards on the first and third masts thus," 
 crossing his forefingers, '* and a narrow 
 length of sail on the middle mast pointed to 
 the wind." 
 
 " We were hove-to under a close-reefed 
 main-topsail, sir. It had come on to blow 
 hard in the first dogwatch," said Mr. Jones, 
 with his surprise fading, as he concluded now 
 that the minute particulars of the ship s loss 
 had been communicated to Mr. Fortescue by 
 the owners, though this set him wondering 
 what further information the clergyman could 
 expect from him. 
 
 " It was a very stormy night ; there was 
 much lightning and thunder, with intervals of 
 moonlight, which made the scene very wild 
 and terrible."
 
 VERIFICATION. IO5 
 
 " That is right, sir." 
 
 "The fire first appeared just in front of 
 the first mast," said Fortescue, with a touch 
 of huskiness in his voice and drying his Hps 
 on his handkerchief. 
 
 '' Yes, it first showed forrard. They'd 
 noticed a smell of burning in the forecastle, 
 and lifted the forehatch and a flame shot up." 
 
 '' The forehatch is in front of the fore- 
 mast ?" 
 
 " Betwixt the foremast and the forecastle 
 front," answered the young mate, wondering, 
 by the singularity of these questions, whether 
 this clergyman was not an attorney In dis- 
 guise. But he had received his orders from 
 the owners, and it was his duty to answer 
 all questions truthfully, as indeed he had 
 promised. 
 
 " The fire," proceeded Mr. Fortescue, 
 speaking slowly after a reference to his notes, 
 ** gained upon the ship rapidly, and foot by 
 foot drove the people into the hinder parts 
 of the vessel. Holes were cut In the deck 
 and water poured down. Also fire-hoses 
 were extended, and numbers of men were 
 employed In passing buckets along. The
 
 I06 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 ship was put before the wind, but when the 
 dawn broke she was on fire from the middle 
 part of her to the bowsprit, and the dense 
 masses of clouds blew along the path over 
 which the wind and seas were driving her." 
 
 '' Quite right, sir ; you have the story so 
 far as the burning goes. I suppose the 
 owners have talked to some of our men since 
 they questioned me. I didn't go into these 
 details. Yet, I shouldn't have supposed any 
 man among the people in my boat would 
 have taken such particular notice. There 
 was a deal of confusion." 
 
 *' Yes ; when the alarm was raised your 
 vessel was aglow with lantern light." 
 
 '* Ay, every man who could catch hold of 
 anything that showed a light brought it on 
 deck, and the running about was bewildering, 
 though all that could be done was done. 
 Nobody was left behind, nobody was 
 drowned, no boat injured in the lowering, 
 though the sea was high." 
 
 *' One of the boats was in charge of a tall, 
 powerfully-built man, with whiskers and a 
 rugged, pock-marked face." 
 
 "Ay, that was the bo'sun ; the second
 
 VERIFICATION. lO/ 
 
 mate ought to have had charge of that boat, 
 but owing to some mistake arising out of the 
 confusion, he jumped into the chief mate's 
 boat. Whether the matter was afterwards 
 rectified I don't know. If the owners told 
 you this, who amongst us could have told 
 them ?" and the young sailor looked with 
 gathering perplexity at Fortescue, while he 
 thought over the men who had been picked 
 up with him, striving to conjecture who had 
 given to the owners a narrative so much 
 fuller than he had thought needful to com- 
 municate. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Fortescue, instead of 
 answering the young mate's question, was 
 musing upon a discovery he had just made, 
 namely, that the big, robust fellow who in 
 the dream had steered the boat and helped 
 Agatha through the surf on the beach of the 
 island was a person he had noticed whilst 
 waiting for Dr. Clayton under the break of 
 the Indiaman's poop ; noticed, I should say, 
 with the sort of glance that takes cognisance 
 without apparent concert with the mind. 
 This burly fellow was boatswain of the 
 Verulam. Mr. Fortescue did not know this
 
 I08 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 when he was on board the ship, but he knew 
 it in his dream. 
 
 ''You might almost have been with us, 
 sir!" said Mr. Jones. "You've mentioned 
 all that I can recollect ; I who was in it." 
 
 " Did the boats keep together for any 
 length of time ?" 
 
 " All day ; but we parted at night. Next 
 morning the ocean was blank." 
 
 " Did you notice if there were any ladies 
 in the boat which the boatswain had charge 
 
 of r 
 
 " I think there was, but I shouldn't like to 
 swear. Most of the ladies went in the long 
 boat, which we came near to losing, for 
 the fire was all about her, when, by the 
 extraordinary efforts of the chief officer, she 
 was got over the side. She was in 
 charge of the captain. There were females 
 distributed among the boats, though none in 
 mine." 
 
 "How long have you been at sea, Mr. 
 Jones ?" said Fortescue, gently, as his 
 manner always was, but speaking with a 
 steadiness that nothing but the secret 
 excitement, the mingling of triumphant
 
 VERIFICATION. lO^ 
 
 wonder and superstitious dread that worked 
 in him, could have communicated to his 
 manner. 
 
 "About six years, sir." 
 
 ''Are you well acquainted with the Indian 
 Ocean T' 
 
 ''Why," replied Mr. Jones, "to and fro 
 I've crossed it seven times ; up and down it, 
 I mean, as the course from the Cape and 
 back again goes." 
 
 "Are you acquainted with the islands in 
 it?" 
 
 " There are so many, sir. From Mada- 
 gascar to the Laccadives right away round 
 by Sumatra — you see, it's a big stretch of 
 water." 
 
 "Would it be possible, do you think, ]Mr. 
 Jones, to ascertain the exact situation of this 
 island .^" said Fortescue, handing him the 
 drawing he had made in his dream. 
 
 The young sailor looked at It, thought for 
 some moments, and looked at it again. The 
 dark eyes of Mr. Fortescue seemed to burn 
 as they remained fixed, without a movement 
 of the lids, on Mr. Jones's face. The young 
 mate shook his head. " No," said he, " I
 
 no THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 never sighted any island resembling this. 
 Where is it supposed to be ?" 
 
 ** In the Indian Ocean near the Equator. 
 But the longitude I don't know — I want to 
 find It out." 
 
 " Was this drawn from the Island itself, 
 Sir r 
 
 " Yes," replied Fortescue, '' from the 
 island itself." 
 
 '' Then couldn't the person who drew it 
 tell you the position of the island ?'' 
 
 " No, for reasons that I need not trouble 
 you with. How could you advise me to go 
 to work to find out the true situation of that 
 island ? I will gladly give a hundred guineas 
 to anyone who will tell me where It is." 
 
 The young sailor opened his eyes and lay 
 back in his chair, thinking. Mr. Fortescue 
 easily saw that he guessed something 
 strange and out-of-the-way lay in his visitor's 
 questions and in the sketch he had pro- 
 duced ; but he also noticed the well-bred 
 air with which he concealed the faintest 
 appearance of curiosity, and the habit of 
 shipboard discipline which was rendering 
 him perfectly obedient to the owners' request
 
 VERIFICATION. I I I 
 
 that he should answer all questions and so 
 furnish the best help he could give. 
 
 He took some time to think, then said, 
 " I don't see that you could do better, sir, 
 than get a number of copies made of this 
 island and contrive that they shall be handed 
 about among seafaring men." 
 
 '* Yes, that is a good idea ! But first let me 
 ask you, is there no chart of the Indian 
 Ocean that would give outlines of the island 
 in it, and their names and situations ?" 
 
 " I don't know of such a chart. The big 
 islands, or parts of them, will be shown ; but 
 nothing so small as this, which is, certainly. 
 no island that I am acquainted with." 
 
 And he was right. Surveying in those 
 times had not been brought to the height to 
 which it has since been carried. Xow-a-days, 
 you can buy a chart of the smallest rock 
 in the ocean — the Roccas, or St. Paul, or 
 Amsterdam Island, with the soundings about 
 it and views of it from different quarters. It 
 was otherwise then, when scores of shoals 
 and islands were left blank on charts for 
 ships to plump upon and go to pieces. 
 
 ''To tell you honestly what I think, sir,"
 
 112 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 continued Mr. Jones, "your only chance to* 
 find out where that island is," pointing to the 
 sketch, "is to get copies made and let it be 
 known that you'll give a reward for the 
 information you require. If you'll send me 
 a few of them I'll forward them to seafaring 
 friends of mine, who'll be sure to put them 
 about in the right directions. The easiest way 
 will be this. Have the drawings engraved on 
 wood or copperplate, write down what you 
 wish to say under the drawing, along with 
 the reward and your address, so that people 
 may know how to get at you. You can 
 send it to dockmasters and harbourmasters, 
 wherever such folks are, all over the 
 kingdom, if you choose to go to that 
 expense, and it'll be a manner of arriving at 
 what you want to get hold of that'll hardly 
 fail of success, because it's a thing to make 
 people talk — it being unusual," with an 
 apologetic smile — "and then there'll be the 
 reward." 
 
 " I thank you much for the suggestion. It 
 is quite practicable, and I will put it in hand 
 at once," exclaimed Fortescue, with a faint 
 flush of eagerness coming into his pale face.
 
 VERIFICATION. II3 
 
 *' I see my way exactly ; I have a friend In 
 London, who will be able to help me, and 
 I shall also count upon you." He rose. 
 "Accept my most grateful thanks for your 
 information and the idea you have given 
 me." 
 
 He shook the mate's hand and left the 
 house. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A LETTER. 
 
 It was plain to Fortescue now that the dream 
 he had dreamed was the Hving truth from 
 God Himself; and if ever he had doubted 
 the existence of the island he had beheld in 
 his sleep, he was now as sure, by the mere 
 force of the logical accuracy of all the rest of 
 the vision which Mr. Jones had verified, that 
 the island was an actual spot of land upon 
 the mighty bosom of the Indian Ocean, as if 
 its exact situation had been given to him by 
 someone who had visited it and could name 
 it. When outside the house he had to stand 
 a few moments and hold by the gate, so 
 strong was the bewilderment that came close 
 to a swooning sensation when he thought of 
 his dream and how his soul had been inspired 
 that night to the height of the angels of 
 Heaven, as he persuaded himself, by the
 
 A LETTER. 
 
 115 
 
 power given It of surveying the future, not 
 dimly as the past is beheld, but sharply 
 and accurately as the life of the present is 
 seen. 
 
 He rallied after a little and walked down 
 the High Street. He had more than an 
 hour yet to spare. The printing and en- 
 graving he needed were not to be done at 
 Wyloe ; but Ramsgate was full of shops, 
 and he ought to be able to find the trades- 
 man he wanted in it, which would save the 
 loss of time the despatching of the work 
 to London must involve. He was directed 
 to a printer's ofhce, and, on entering, was 
 received by the proprietor, who inquired 
 what he could do for him. 
 
 "Can you get this engraved for me .^" 
 Fortescue asked, producing the sketch. 
 
 " On wood, sir?" 
 
 *' I don't care, providing impressions can 
 be taken ; but it must be represented exactly 
 as you see it." 
 
 " There's an engraver just above here 
 who'd do it on copper, and glad to get the 
 job, I daresay. It ought to be easy," said 
 the printer, turning the paper about. " Just
 
 Il6 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 a houtline with a little shaddering. It's the 
 portrait of an island, isn't it, sir ?" 
 
 -Yes." 
 
 ''Well, I'll get that done for you right 
 enough. How many slips ?" 
 
 *' Five hundred. I live at Wyloe. You 
 know where that is ?" 
 
 " I ought to," said the printer. '' I traced 
 a party as owed me five pounds to Wyloe, 
 but lost reckoning of him beyond it." 
 
 '•When will you be able to send the slips 
 to me ?" 
 
 The printer answered that if the gentle- 
 man would wait a minute he'd run round to 
 the engraver. 
 
 Whilst he was absent, Fortescue asked a 
 lad who was in the office for a sheet of paper, 
 and wrote as follows : — 
 
 "The above is a sketch of an island lying 
 in the Indian Ocean. One Hundred 
 Guineas will be paid to any person who can 
 tell the undersigned its exact position on the 
 chart, and at the same time describe its 
 appearance as regards colour, vegetation, &c. 
 
 " Address or call upon 
 *'The Rev. Malcolm Fortescue, Wyloe.""
 
 A LETTER. I I 7 
 
 Soon after he had written this the printer 
 returned. He told ]\Ir. Fortescue that he 
 would be able to send five hundred im- 
 pressions ''the day after to-morrow." 
 
 "That will do." said the clergyman. "I 
 shall want this printed in good bold type 
 under the sketch." 
 
 The printer opened his eyes at the 
 reward offered, and, glancing at Fortescue, 
 immediately concluded that he was an 
 opulent geographer engaged upon an ex- 
 haustive map of the Indian Ocean. His 
 manner took a new tone of respect as he 
 placed samples of paper for size and quality 
 before his customer, requesting him to 
 choose. Fortescue did so, selecting a stout 
 foolscap, and then went away, after ex- 
 acting a solemn promise from the printer 
 that the slips should be sent to his 
 address at Wyloe ' ' the day after to- 
 morrow." 
 
 He was losing no time, and this thought 
 helped to soothe him somewhat during his 
 journey home. His dream was true ; the 
 island had a place in creation ; his loved one 
 was upon it he felt with deepest conviction
 
 Il8 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 now. He must seek her ! God knows how. 
 He had no plans as yet, but he must seek 
 her. If he could get the whereabouts of the 
 island, so much the better ; if not, he would 
 hunt the Indian Ocean over for it. This 
 was to be his mission nor did he intend to 
 delay it. 
 
 He had not had the courage to speak to 
 Mr. Jones about Agatha, to ask whether her 
 health had improved down to the hour of the 
 fire, to question him about her as his love 
 burned to do. The perception that his 
 dream was true caused him to dread its 
 disclosure — to fear anything that might 
 tend to its revelation. It was not so much 
 morbidity in his resolution of reticence, 
 as nervous, jealous anxiety that no smile 
 of ridicule, however well intended, should 
 sully by its reflection the pure, still sur- 
 face of his faith in the mission which he 
 believed his Maker designed he should 
 fulfil. 
 
 The Vicar called at his lodgings in the 
 afternoon, hearing he had returned, and Mr. 
 Fortescue apologised for not having before 
 visited him. He was tired when he arrived ;.
 
 A LETTER. I I 9 
 
 his hands had been full all morning. Besides, 
 he had nothing to say that could interest Mr. 
 Clayton. 
 
 "Nay," said the Vicar, kindly; "but if 
 you have seen one of the mates of the 
 Verulam, anything he had to say would 
 interest me, dear friend ; for is not my 
 brother's life involved, and is not our Agatha 
 precious to me ?" 
 
 " The young man could tell me nothing, 
 because I knew all," said Fortescue, drum- 
 ming softly on the table. 
 
 " Did he confirm your dream ?" 
 
 "Yes. Indeed, I seemed to have seen 
 more of what happened than he, in the 
 confusion, took notice of. He must have 
 supposed that some of the people who had 
 been picked up with him had given the 
 owners fuller particulars than he had, and 
 that they had communicated them to me. 
 He could not otherwise have accounted for 
 my knowledge." 
 
 " Did you speak to him of the island you 
 saw in your dream ?" 
 
 " I showed him the sketch. No word 
 escaped me as to my dream. He had
 
 I20 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 nothing to tell me about the Island — no 
 island he had sighted in the Indian Ocean 
 resembled it." 
 
 The marked reserve in Fortescue's manner 
 could not escape Mr. Clayton ; he perceived 
 he had come to that condition of mind when 
 reference to his dream, or to any effort he 
 might be making in respect of it, was painful 
 and disagreeable to him ; besides, the Vicar 
 remembered that he had advised his friend 
 to dismiss the memory of it, or, at all 
 events, not to suffer it to disturb him, and 
 he could not, therefore, very consistently 
 exhibit curiosity nor even avow surprise 
 at the young mate Jones's verification of 
 the vision, though secretly he wondered a 
 good deal. 
 
 In due course the slips containing the 
 engravings of the island and the printed 
 matter arrived, and Mr. Fortescue proceeded 
 to distribute them. He had obtained the 
 names of the principal docks then in 
 existence, and before the slips reached him 
 he had written a number of letters, every 
 one addressed to a dockmaster or superin- 
 tendent, earnestly soliciting his help ; so that
 
 A LETTER. 12 1 
 
 when the printer's parcel from Ramsgate 
 arrived he had nothing to do but insert a 
 number of sHps in each letter and post the 
 whole batch. He also addressed a quantity 
 to Mr. Jones, to Messrs. Wrotham and 
 Co., and to a retired shipowner, one Mr. 
 Theodore Salt, a distant connection on his 
 mother's side ; a person who for many years 
 had been one of a firm of shipowners in the 
 North of England, but who had for some 
 time retired from business and settled in 
 London ; an old, gouty, but good-humoured 
 bachelor, who lived all day at his club in Pall 
 Mall, and slept all night at his house in 
 Kensington. This gentleman Mr. Fortescue 
 had not seen for some time ; but he had been 
 thinking of him of late, as people will of 
 connections who can be useful when they are 
 wanted, and with a bundle of slips he sent 
 Mr. Salt a long letter, telling him all about 
 his engagement, Agatha's bad health, and 
 the loss of the Verulam, and he added that 
 as a notion was entertained that some of the 
 people had reached an island, of which he 
 enclosed a sketch, and as there was a possi- 
 bility of Miss Fox being amongst them, he
 
 122 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 was most anxious to 'ascertain its where- 
 abouts, and was offering, as Mr. Salt would 
 see, a reward for its determination upon a 
 chart. If Mr. Salt would distribute the slips 
 through such channels as were likely to reach 
 sea captains and others who were acquainted 
 with the Indian Ocean, he would feel deeply 
 obliged. 
 
 Before a week had passed he received 
 acknowledgments of his communications from 
 Wrotham and Co., Mr. Jones, and four or 
 five dockmasters, all promising their imme- 
 diate attention to his request, and from 
 Mr. Salt, who wrote a long, rambling letter, 
 expressing his sincere sorrow at the lament- 
 able disaster that had befallen Miss Fox, 
 earnestly hoping that before long news of 
 her safety would be received, and winding 
 up by saying that he had sent the " circulars" 
 to a number of shipowning and seafaring 
 friends, with a personal request to each, 
 though he hoped Malcolm would excuse him 
 for not quite understanding what he meant 
 about the ''notion" of an island in the Indian 
 Ocean on which some of the people of the 
 Verulam were supposed to have landed,
 
 A LETTER. 12 J 
 
 because if this were certain, help should 
 have been at once sent ; and if it were only 
 suspected, how did Malcolm happen to obtain 
 a sketch of an island the position of which 
 ought to be known by the person who 
 sketched it ? 
 
 It did not answer Fortescue's purpose to 
 reply to this in the manner challenged, 
 because he perfectly well knew that if Mr. 
 Salt or anybody else understood that the 
 island was the presentment of a dream, 
 sketched by the hand of a somnambulist, 
 the interest he wished to excite would not 
 be raised, no trouble would be taken, the 
 reward would be laughed at as a mad offer, 
 and nothing would result but the tame 
 wonder that coincidences excite in a world 
 full of them. So he answered Mr. Salt's 
 letter by saying that the island of which he 
 had sent the outline was, he had been told, 
 in the Indian Ocean, possibly not remote 
 from the spot where the Verulam had 
 foundered ; and that being so, it was not 
 unreasonable to suppose the survivors of 
 the wreck had taken refuge on it. Hence 
 he wanted its exact situation, so that an
 
 124 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 exploring party might be able to include it, 
 if a search was made. 
 
 Three weeks passed away — three weeks 
 of such expectation as amounted to anguish 
 in the young clergyman's mind. He was as 
 sure as that he lived that Agatha had been 
 cast away upon the island he had seen in his 
 vision ; that escape from it was impracticable 
 owing to the boat having gone to pieces in 
 the surf ; and that, therefore, every day he 
 delayed seeking her increased the chance 
 that he would find her dead, if he found her 
 at all, should he succeed in reaching the 
 island. But, not knowing its whereabouts, 
 how could he act ? He had but to look at the 
 chart of the Indian Ocean he had purchased 
 to perceive that he might spend months — 
 nay, years — in sailing about that mighty 
 expanse of water that runs northwards from 
 the Equator over twenty-six parallels of 
 latitude, and whose surge washes the African 
 coast in the west and the shores of Hindostan 
 in the east, without discovering the land 
 that bore the conformation of the island of 
 his dream. 
 
 Three weeks from the date of the posting
 
 A LETTER. I 25 
 
 of the bulk of the printed "slips," Fortescue 
 received a letter. It ran thus : — 
 
 " CoRNHiLL, London, 
 
 "(Such-and-such a date). 
 " Reverend Sir, 
 
 " I was yesterday at the West India 
 Docks, and there met an old seaman to 
 whom somebody had given your circular. 
 He put It Into my hand, and, pointing to the 
 sketch, said, ' I know^ it.' I am senior clerk 
 In the employ of Messrs. Wrotham, Skinner 
 and Farquharson, and was requested by Mr, 
 Skinner to make all inquiries possible re- 
 specting the locality of the island, the sketch 
 of which, together with an offer of one 
 hundred and five pounds, you have caused to 
 be circulated. I have communicated with 
 Mr. Skinner, who has desired me to state 
 that the seaman In question, though retired 
 from the sea, was for several years in 
 this firm's service, filling such positions as 
 guaranteed his respectability. His name Is 
 William Stone. If you care to see him he 
 will be pleased to wait upon you. His 
 address is No. — , West India Dock Road. 
 But Mr. Skinner desires me to say that you
 
 126 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 must judge for yourself of this man's Informa- 
 tion, as, though there is no reason to distrust 
 his honesty, Mr. Skinner cannot accept the 
 responsibiHty of any statement made to you 
 that might prove misleading. 
 
 '' I am, Reverend Sir, 
 
 '' Your obedient servant, 
 
 " F. S. Chandler." 
 On receipt of this letter, Mr. Fortescue 
 immediately wrote to William Stone, earnestly 
 begging him to come to Wyloe without an 
 hour's unnecessary delay, and he also en- 
 closed him a draft to cover the expenses of 
 the journey.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. 
 
 FoRTESCUE had left word with his landlady 
 that if he should be out when William 
 Stone called, she was to keep him till he 
 (Fortescue) returned, and put some dinner 
 or supper before him, as the hour might be. 
 On the evening of the third day following 
 the despatch of the letter to Stone, there was 
 a heavy snowstorm, accompanied by a strong 
 gale of wind. The curate had been attending 
 the little village school in discharge of some 
 duty there, and came ploughing his way 
 through the snow, and leaning against the 
 wind that at corners bade fair to sweep him 
 •off his legs. On his return to his lodgings at 
 about eight o'clock in the evening, he saw 
 a bright light upon his window, and on 
 entering the sitting-room, found a ruddy, 
 tlazing fire in the grate, candles on the table,
 
 128 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 and an old fellow putting down a cup, out of 
 which he had swallowed the last mouthful of 
 coffee. 
 
 He rose when the curate entered, and 
 stood, backing a trifle, after the manner of 
 sailors, with his knuckle on his forehead. 
 
 "William Stone?" inquired Fortescue. 
 
 ''Yes, sir," answered the man. "I beg 
 you'll excuse them there liberties," pointing 
 to the table. '' The lady said it was your 
 orders — thankin' you kindly for thinking of it 
 — and she set the meal on the table, and so I 
 fell to." 
 
 *' Quite right, and don't let me interrupt 
 you," said Fortescue. ''You have come a 
 long journey." 
 
 The man said he couldn't eat any more, he 
 had done well ; and he remained standing 
 whilst Fortescue removed his coat, crystallised 
 with snow, and put on a pair of slippers. 
 Mrs. Goldsmith came in and cleared the 
 table, whilst the curate, talking lightly to 
 Stone about the weather, the journey and 
 the like, was studying his face intently, and 
 striving to decipher its mieaning. 
 
 The visitor was a thorough sailor in
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. 1 29 
 
 appearance, square-shouldered, slightly round- 
 backed, arms hanging up and down, with the 
 bunch of thick fingers curled ; dressed in 
 pilot-cloth, all-round coat, a w^aistcoat with 
 brass buttons upon it, a blue striped shirt 
 with unstarched collar hanging limp over a 
 large silk handkerchief. He had a face 
 whose good looks had out-lived years of 
 stormy weather, and skylarking ashore, and 
 ocean hardships ; keen, small, grey eyes 
 which stared at you resolutely from under 
 iron-grey, bushy brows, lips meeting firmly, 
 and a set of the head that made you think of 
 the sheer of a ship's bow, so floating was it 
 and yet so steady. 
 
 Fortescue pointed to a chair near the fire, 
 placed a jar of tobacco and a pipe at the 
 man's elbow, and seated himself opposite. 
 He easily saw that Stone was shy and 
 would need some thawing before the current 
 of his words began to move, and with persons 
 of this type he was naturally at home, most 
 of the people in the two or three parishes he 
 had worked in having been as this seaman 
 was. 
 
 " Have you been long at sea ?" he in- 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 I ^O THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 quired, desiring to come to the point slowly, 
 that his composure might stand the better 
 chance ; for his fear was — not only in 
 reference to Stone, but to anybody he should 
 speak to or write to on the subject — that 
 something might escape him to indicate that 
 he was influenced by a dream, and hence his 
 dread of being agitated and rendered im- 
 pulsive. 
 
 '' I went to sea at the age of twelve, and 
 knocked off at the age of fifty-five," answered 
 Stone, smiling. 
 
 *' So long ! Then you know the Indian 
 Ocean well ?" 
 
 " Not better than other oceans, sir. But 
 it made itself more felt by me than all the 
 other waters put together, because, d'ye see, 
 sir, I was shipwrecked on it, and it was one 
 o' them sort of shipwrecks that a man don't 
 forget ; no, not if he were used to being cast 
 away to the extent of once a year." 
 
 Fortescue looked at him eagerly. '* Where 
 were you shipwrecked ?" he'asked, in a sort 
 of half-breathless manner, that would have 
 caused you to think he was [afraid of being 
 answered.
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE, 13I 
 
 In the slow way, peculiar to old merchant 
 seamen, Stone felt in his pocket, pulled out 
 Fortescue's letter to him, extracted the ''slip" 
 containing the sketch of the island, smoothed 
 it with his hand, and placed it on the table. 
 He then put Fortescue's tobacco jar between 
 his knees and filled his pipe, whilst his lips 
 moved as if he were rehearsing to himself 
 the best way to begin. Lighting his pipe, 
 he fixed his eyes on Mr. Fortescue and said, 
 *' Ye've offered a hundred guineas reward 
 to any man that shall tell you where that 
 island's situated," pointing to the sketch with 
 the stem of his pipe. ''Afore making up my 
 mind to come down here and see you, sir, I 
 tarned to and did a spell of thinking. For I 
 says to myself, I says, ' Though I knows the 
 truth, and though the Providence as delivered 
 me knows that I knows the truth and 
 couldn't talk of it if it wasn't the truth, yet 
 how am I, by a bare yarn, to persuade the 
 gentleman that I'm speaking rightly ; how 
 am I to make him understand that I'm not a 
 rascal, willing to cheat him out of whatsome- 
 ever amount he's willing to part with, by 
 pointing to a place in the map and telling
 
 132 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 him that his humpbacked island is there — 
 longitude as it may be read and latitude 
 likewise ?' " 
 
 Fortescue, with a gentle smile, lifted his 
 hand as if this were a supposition not to be 
 imagined. 
 
 " But," continued Stone, looking stead- 
 fastly at the curate, '' I tarned to and 
 reasoned in this way : I says to myself, 
 * Here's a Christian man as has lost some 
 friend, as he believes, in the Werulam, and 
 he's got a sketch of a island which someone's 
 been and told him is in the Indian Ocean, 
 and he wants to find out where it is — the 
 place not being marked down — because, for 
 who's to know what passes in a mind that's 
 full of sorrow ? — he may have got the idea into 
 his head that his friends have landed upon 
 that there island. Therefore,' " he went 
 on, " ' he may believe me or he mayn't. 
 Here's his good money sent to pay my 
 journey to this village, and I'll go. I'll 
 tell him the truth as I know it, so help me 
 God ; but only on the condition that not one 
 farden of his reward do I touch till he's found 
 out that I'm right, and that the island's
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. 1 33 
 
 where I says it is ; then I'll take his hundred 
 guineas.' And as this here is to be a compact 
 between a clergyman of the Church of 
 England and a plain sailor man, I'll want 
 nothen in writing, and no other witness than 
 God, who's hearing of me speaking to you 
 and who'll listen w^hilst I talk, if so be you're 
 agreeable to my proposal." 
 
 It was impossible to mistake the man's 
 resolution. Fortescue saw it in the stubborn 
 hardness of the expression that entered the 
 sailor's face whilst he w^as addressing him. 
 He said in a low tone, '' Be it as you wish," 
 and pulling his chair an inch or two closer to 
 the other's, he leaned forward in the attitude 
 of a rapt listener. 
 
 Stone put his pipe down, clasped his 
 hands, and spoke thus : " Mr. Fortescue, it'll 
 be twenty-two years ago. I was able seaman 
 aboard a snow, and we was bound from 
 Karachi to the River Thames. We was 
 in the tail of the monsoon, drawing upon 
 hurricane time, when one morning, being 
 somewheres betwixt the Seychelle and 
 Chagos Islands, a sail was made out to 
 loo'ard of us, pretty well fair abeam. We
 
 134 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 was carrying a strong wind on the quarter^ 
 topmast and lower stunsalls out, weather clew 
 of the mansail up, and the Dolly, as our 
 vessel was named, was walking along tidily. 
 By'n-bye we found the stranger to be a 
 torps'l schooner, and it was soon seen she 
 was haulin' her wind and risin' fast, we 
 headin' sou'-west, say, and she makin' a west- 
 sou'-west course, or more westerly than that, 
 maybe. When her hull came up 'bove the 
 horizon our skipper didn't seem to fancy her. 
 She was low and long and black, with heavy, 
 raking spars, and so many cloths in her 
 mainsail that I reckon her boom when 
 amidships must have gone out a fathom or 
 more over her taffrail. Our captain appearing 
 bothered, brings his eye away from the glass 
 and sings out to hoist the ensign ; but the 
 schooner seemed to take no notice, only 
 'twas plain she was sneakin' up to us hart- 
 fully, by luffing now and again, as if she 
 didn't mean it. 
 
 '' Whether she was a Frenchman or pirate 
 we couldn't guess. The first was most likely 
 in them waters, rigged as she was, and 
 fancying there might be bigger craft about^
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. 1 35 
 
 our captain, to test her honesty and likewise 
 finding some hope in the weather that was 
 taking a dirty look to the south'ard spite of 
 the wind blowing into it there, our skipper, I 
 says, hauls down his stunsails, braces up on 
 the larboard tack and stands east-south-east, 
 under the main topgallant-s'l, which was as 
 much as the Dolly could stagger under. No 
 sooner done than the schooner put her helm 
 down and follows us. I'll not go into the 
 particulars of that there chase. It would be 
 too nautical to interest the likes of you, sir, 
 and if I mentions it at all, it is to let you see 
 how I was cast away." 
 
 Mr. Fortescue sat listening with barely a 
 stir. He showed not the least sign of im- 
 patience at the somewhat roundabout way 
 in which Stone was approaching the point. 
 Indeed, he drank in every word, as if what 
 was now being said w^as not one jot less 
 important, as expressing the truth that was 
 what he desired, than the matter w^hich he 
 knew would come presently. 
 
 "Of course," continued the seaman, "a 
 square-rigged wessel's no match for a 
 schooner on a wind, if it don't blow too
 
 136 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 hard, and though the Dolly was a sharp-lined 
 craft and as fast a brig as perhaps was ever 
 afloat, the schooner came crawlin' up to 
 her, looking a point nearer than we could 
 approach, and promisin' to forereach and 
 weather upon us afore the sky — at which our 
 captain was constantly looking — gave us the 
 chance, it afterwards appeared, we was to 
 rely on. So we tarned to and got the snow 
 dead afore it, stunsails out on both sides, and 
 chaps in the tops and cross-trees, wetting of 
 the sails, for the breeze was failing, and 
 though the schooner set her squaresail and 
 threw out stunsails likewise, we began to 
 drop her, but not afore she had let fly her 
 fo'ksle gun at us, that was a heighteen 
 pounder, as we calculated, the ball of which 
 struck us plump in the run, starting a butt or 
 two or a wood end, and sending us to the 
 pumps. Soon after this, it came on pretty 
 near dark as nigrht. The breeze died fair 
 out, and we forgot all about the schooner 
 in thinking of t'other enemy that was 
 muttering in the southards like guns in 
 a big fight. We shortened sail, but every- 
 thing we showed blew away when it came
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. 1 37 
 
 thundering down upon us In a whole blaze 
 of lightning, and such a screeching, that 
 you would have thought all the cats in the 
 world was being chiveyed over our mast- 
 heads. We saw no more of the schooner, 
 and what she was I couldn't tell you — I mean 
 what nation she belonged to and her business. 
 We had several days of as furious weather as 
 ever a man was afloat in and outlived, and 
 the worst of it was the leak the schooner's 
 shot had made growed bigger ; otherwise, 
 the Dolly would have been as staunch and 
 tight as a corked bottle, which, sir," said the 
 seaman, picking up his pipe to look at the 
 bowl of it, and then putting it down again, 
 '* it might hinterest you to know, will out- 
 weather a hurricane that 'ud level the City of 
 London, ay, including the Tower. 
 
 '* Well, it came to this. The weather 
 broke, but not before us men was so wore 
 out with pumping and other work that we 
 couldn't have done another stroke to save 
 our lives. Besides, the snow was half full of 
 water and bound to go, so we got the boats 
 over and left the wessel to sink, and headed 
 nor'-east, knowing that there were islands
 
 138 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 that way, and the coast of H India past 'em ; 
 but our hope was to be picked up by one of 
 them country wallahs, as they're tarmed, that 
 trade in them latitudes, for the captain hadn't 
 been able to get an observation, and, there- 
 fore, didn't know where he was by leagues 
 an' leagues. It was in the evening when we 
 left the Dolly, and the captain, whose boat I 
 was in, sung out to the others to steer, I 
 forget the course, but anyhow so as to give 
 us a chance of keeping together. However, 
 we soon lost sight of them, and never after- 
 wards heard of them — but that's got nothen 
 to do with my story. We was six men in the 
 boat, and we was a fortnight at sea in her. 
 Ay, as I live to tell it. Our fresh water 
 failed us at the end of the first week, and 
 afterwards we managed in a way I can't fitly 
 speak about, though my own notion of such 
 things is that what's not too dreadful for a 
 sailor to endure can't be too dreadful for a 
 landsman to hear. One of the men went 
 mad and jumped overboard, and sunk like a 
 handlead. I woke up one afternoon from 
 a doze and found the cap'n dead, leaning 
 against me as if he was asleep. The rest of
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. 1 39 
 
 US was SO near to death that the darkness 
 of him was plain to see if we looked into 
 each other's eyes ; when, at daybreak on the 
 fifteenth day, there being a pretty breeze 
 blowin' us along. I stood up as best I could 
 and saw land right ahead of us. I pointed to 
 it, and my three mates stared, but we durstn't 
 believe in the sight till the sun showed it out 
 plain ; and," exclaimed the man, with sudden 
 excitement in his manner, and snatching up 
 the paper and striking the sketch with his 
 forefinger, " what stood out visible when the 
 sun rose up to the right of it was this island 
 here, ay, as true as God's a-listening to me. 
 Could I forget it, if I was spared to live 
 another hundred years, — the sight of it 
 coming upon me when my lips was cracked 
 with baking and thirst, and when these here 
 eyes of mine," touching them, "had sunk so 
 deep that I could have stowed a hen's egg 
 away in each hollow ! There it stood, with 
 the outline of it drawed just as it is here, and 
 two of the men fell a-talking to it as if they'd 
 fallen m^ad, as the boat sailed along with the 
 land over her bows." 
 
 Fortescue sat listening with an intensity
 
 140 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 that seemed to have transformed him into 
 marble. He never removed his eyes from 
 Stone's face ; but at this point his breath 
 grew shorter and weaker, as though not a 
 word of what he had now to hear was to be 
 missed through the sound of his nervous 
 respiration. 
 
 "The land was low, and about height 
 miles off when we saw it," continued Stone, 
 ''and it* took us two hours to fetch it ; but we 
 were to windward, and the surf along the 
 beach was heavy, and we was obliged to sail 
 along till we came to this here point," 
 touching the sketch, "just round which we 
 found a bit of a gully with smooth water ; 
 and then we landed. There were cocoa-nut 
 trees, and we knocked some of the fruit down 
 with stones, and the drink and meat in the 
 shells put some life into us. We hauled the 
 boat up, after a long rest, and turned her 
 over, and lay inside of her, not knowing what 
 wild hanimals there might be in the island, 
 and none of us choosing to trust the others 
 to keep a look-out, all being dead beat, and 
 one man pretty nigh mad. Well, next morn- 
 ing we searched for fresh water, and found a
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. I4I 
 
 Spring t'other side of this," said he, indicating 
 one of the elevations in the sketch. "The 
 water was hot, and there was a shght taste o' 
 brimstone in it ; but we put some by to cool in 
 cocoa-nut shells we picked up, and when we 
 drunk of it, we found it pretty middling, a-nigh 
 equal to water I've had to drink aboard some 
 vessels in my time, and the brimstone in it 
 done none of us any hurt. We were on that 
 island a week, feeding upon the nuts and a 
 turtle we caught, and crabs which we eat raw, 
 for the spring wasn't hot enough for cookin', 
 and then we made up our minds not to wait 
 for help — for we didn't know where we was 
 cast away and whether any vessels came into 
 this part of the ocean — but to tarn to and 
 provision our boat with whatever harticles of 
 food we could get, and sail away to the 
 norrards, and this we did. But the island 
 wasn't out of sight when we see a ship about 
 two leagues distant to the southards, heading 
 to cross our hawse as it might be, but the 
 wind was very light from the south-west, and 
 by chuckin' our oars over and pulling as hard 
 as we could, we managed to close her so as 
 to be seen. On this she backed her topsail
 
 142 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 to let US approach, and when we got aboard 
 we found she was a wessel with a black crew, 
 and an English captain, and a Dutch chief 
 mate, bound from some Madagascan port to 
 Cambay, but blowed miles out of her course, 
 by a rewolving storm so fierce as to make 
 the darkies aboard her of no use. I told the 
 skipper our story, and he wrote it down in 
 the log-book as I talked ; and I then asked 
 him to inform me what part of the ocean we 
 had been cast away in, for I says, says I, that 
 our capt'n had been without an obserwation 
 afore the Dolly foundered, and that we'd 
 been a fortnight knocking about afterwards. 
 Whereupon — have you got such 1 thing as a 
 chart of the Hindian Ocean?" he exclaimed, 
 breaking off in what he was saying, and 
 glancing around him. 
 
 Fortescue started like a man awakened 
 from a dream ; for a moment or two he was 
 bewildered, as one will sometimes be when 
 there comes an abrupt stop in a story to 
 which one listens, utterly engrossed by it. 
 "Yes," he exclaimed, ''I have a chart, the 
 latest, of the Indian Ocean," and he drew a 
 thick long roll of cartridge-like paper from
 
 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE. 1 43 
 
 under the sofa, and spread it upon the 
 table. 
 
 Stone pulled out a pair of spectacles and 
 pored earnestly over it, groping about, then 
 casting his glance at the degrees of latitude 
 .and longitude marked on the edges, and 
 tracing the big sheet with his forefinger, until 
 he said, '' See here, sir." 
 
 The curate, flushed and trembling, put his 
 cheek close against the sailor's face. 
 
 " Do you note this group of islands there ?" 
 said Stone, pointing to the Chagos Archi- 
 pelago. 
 -Yes." 
 
 ''This here to the south-west of the group 
 is called Pitt Bank ; ain't it, sir .^" 
 
 Fortescue looked away and said, "Yes." 
 *' Now tarn to and measure about two 
 hundred and ten nautical miles along a line set 
 due south-by- west from this here Pitt Bank." 
 Fortescue took a length of white paper, 
 ■computed the distance required by placing 
 the paper against the edge of the chart 
 where the parallels were marked, and then, 
 by means of the nearest of the several com- 
 pass indications scattered over the chart,
 
 144 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 adjusted the paper to the bearings named — 
 south-by-west. 
 
 '* Now, make a cross where the two 
 hundred and ten miles end," said Stone. 
 This was done. "What's the longitude of 
 it .^" exclaimed the sailor, lifting his body 
 erect and looking at the clergyman. 
 
 *' Seventy degrees, thirteen minutes east," 
 replied Fortescue. 
 
 ''And the latitude, sir.'*" 
 
 "Ten degrees, forty minutes south." 
 
 Stone pulled out a thick carpenter's pencil 
 from his waistcoat pocket, took the slip 
 bearing the sketch, and wrote under the 
 drawing of the island — 
 
 Longitude E. seventy degrees, thirteen 
 minutes; latitude S. ten degrees, forty minutes. 
 
 " That's where you'll find the place you're 
 hadvertising for, sir," said he, pushing the 
 paper to Fortescue ; and he glanced around 
 him as though in search of his cap in order 
 to be off.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A LONG CHAT. 
 
 FoRTESCUE remained for some moments 
 glancing from the sketch to the chart, and 
 then, perceiving Stone to be looking as if he 
 meant to go, he said, hurriedly, "You do 
 not want to leave yet, I hope ; it is only nine 
 o'clock. I have a thousand things to ask 
 you. Where do you sleep ?" 
 
 "Why, that's just it, sir," answered Stone. 
 ** I came straight from the coach to the 
 house. I must go and seek a bed, I 
 allow. I know what these little villages 
 are. They shut up along with the cocks 
 and hens." 
 
 Fortescue told him to sit down and fill his 
 pipe, and left the room. After a short 
 absence he returned, saying that Mrs. Gold- 
 smith would prepare a box of a place atop 
 of the house for the sailor. "You'll get 
 
 VOL. L L
 
 146 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 plenty of air by leaving the window open," 
 -sard Fortescue. ''It won't be too small, I 
 hope ?" 
 
 "If it ain't smaller than a bunk it'll do 
 first-class," answered Stone, ''thanking you 
 for your kindness. He's a poor sailor as 
 can't make a bedroom of six foot long by two 
 feet wide and three foot tall." 
 
 But the arrangement was made more 
 welcome still by the weather. The gale 
 and the snow hissed and sheared against 
 the wooden house and the window, with a 
 sound as of an escape of steam from twenty or 
 thirty locomotives close at hand, and, small 
 as the room was, the penetrating blast kept 
 the atmosphere cool, spite of the big fire in 
 the grate. Fortescue put a bottle of spirits 
 on the table, some glasses and water. He 
 tasted a drop to keep the seaman in coun- 
 tenance, but he could not smoke. He was 
 nervous, agitated, feverishly eager and im- 
 patient. Above all, the awe and fear that 
 had come to him when Mr. Jones confirmed 
 his dream, had risen strongly again when 
 he considered he had viewed with prophetic 
 sight an island that this seaman had beheld
 
 A LONG CHAT. 1 47 
 
 with his eyes and suffered the anguish of 
 shipwreck upon. 
 
 " Can you recollect the appearance of the 
 island as viewed from the sea ?'' he said, 
 whilst the sailor smoked stolidly, waiting to 
 be addressed. 
 
 ''Yes, sir; and if it was fifty years furder 
 away from me I should remember it. The 
 outline there in that drawing is zV to a T. 
 True as a hair. I always said it was like a 
 drumeedeery with his ears gone, head half 
 under water, and rump buried to where his 
 tail begins. The slopes come down into 
 coral sand when it faces you h'easterly, as 
 this drawing shows it ; but I fancy there 
 must always be a surf boilin' there ; it boiled 
 all the time we was on the island, and 
 I should reckon the breakers beat with 
 tremendious force in stormy weather. Here," 
 said he, taking the sketch and pointing to it, 
 "are the cocoa-nut trees, a small forest of 
 'em ; here's open space that you'd think 
 would be grass from the sea till you get 
 ashore and find it bush ; short thick stuff, 
 like what you see in Australia ; there'd be no 
 landing, I should say, on this side ; there's
 
 148 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 always swell and surf enough to smother and 
 stave a boat. But the gully round this point 
 here's safe. I see the h'artist as drawed this 
 put in some birds. He's right. There's 
 a plenty of birds resembling gulls. We 
 caught one and tried to eat him, but his flesh 
 was like leather soaked in brine. Don't know, 
 I'm sure, how they might taste if they was- 
 cooked." 
 
 " How big is the island ?" 
 
 ''Well, a man might walk round it in six 
 or eight hours, providing the road was 
 clear." 
 
 '' Has it a name ?" 
 
 *' Why, I daresay it has a name among the 
 savidges belonging to them parts, but there 
 was ne'er a soul on it to ask a question of, 
 not even a monkey," said Stone, smiling. 
 
 "How long might people cast away there 
 live upon it ?" asked Fortescue. 
 
 "How long? why, it would depend upon 
 their constitootion, sir. There's turtle to 
 catch, and there's cocoa-nuts, and there's 
 crabs. If the warm spring we met with has 
 dried up another may have busted open. 
 Anyhow, by storin' the fruit ye'd get drink
 
 A LONG CHAT. 1 49 
 
 •enough to last out of the nuts. It isn't a 
 climate I care for myself ; dampish at night 
 and roastin' by day ; but there's trees for 
 shade and holes enough knocking about — 
 sort o' caves — proper to keep ye dry and fit 
 to sleep in, with leaves and the likes of such 
 things for a mattress. If," he continued, 
 looking earnestly at Fortescue, "you're under 
 the impression that some of the people of the 
 Werulam have reached this island, you may 
 make your mind easy as to their finding 
 enough to live on and keepin' well an' hearty 
 till they can manage to get away." 
 '* But how are they to get away ?" 
 " Why, in their boat, as we did." 
 ** But if their boat should have been 
 knocked to pieces by the surf?" 
 
 •* Ha !" said Stone, "then it'll be a poor 
 look out. Without tools they could do 
 nothen with such timber as they'd find 
 a-growin'. They'd have to make a smoke, 
 and keep all on feedin' the fire, and take 
 their chance of a wessel passing and seeing 
 it. But, of course, you're not sure — indeed, 
 you cant know — that your friends aboard 
 the Werulam are on that island ?" said he
 
 150 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 in a tone as if he saw that he had no 
 right to go on damping the clergyman's 
 hope until he gathered more of what was 
 in his mind. 
 
 ''It is my intention to seek them there," 
 replied Fortescue. 
 
 "One's a young lady, so Mr. Chandler 
 was a-saying," remarked Stone, in a voice 
 full of respectful sympathy. 
 
 "Yes. We were to have been married, 
 but her health failed and she was advised to 
 make a voyage to India and back. She 
 sailed in the Verulam with her step-father. 
 This island is not very far distant from the 
 spot where the Indiaman was burned ;" he 
 pulled out a pocket-book and referred to an 
 entry. " She was destroyed, according to 
 , Mr. Jones, her third mate, speaking roughly, 
 in eighty degrees south latitude and sixty- 
 three degrees east longitude. There is con- 
 sequently a great probability that some of the 
 Verulam's people have reached this island. 
 And as the young lady may be among them, 
 I intend to sail to it." 
 
 " But," exclaimed Stone, with his eyes 
 rounded by surprise, ''afore you undertake
 
 A LONG CHAT. I5I 
 
 such a voyage as that, sir, on the merest 
 chance, won't you wait a bit, jest to see if no 
 news come of the other boats ?" 
 
 " How can news come of the lady and 
 the people I wish to hear about if they're 
 locked up in that island ?" 
 
 " But you don't know that they are locked 
 up in it, sir." 
 
 *' I mean to see." 
 
 Stone looked astonished. 
 
 " Did the person as gave you that sketch, 
 sir," said he, ''put the notion of the lady 
 bein' on the island into your head ?" 
 
 " It is probable that the lady is there, and 
 I mean to seek her," answered the curate, 
 quietly. 
 
 " Because," continued Stone, '* if the party 
 was a seafarin' man, it was his duty to advise 
 ye against a job that's onlikely to end in the 
 way you'd hope, if the h'inspiration of it's no 
 more than an idea that she may be there. 
 Besides, why didn't he tell you where the 
 island lay? If he could draw it so correctly, 
 surely, Mr. Fortescue, he'd know its bear- 
 ings." 
 
 Fortescue listened patiently ; but his
 
 152 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 patience was, in a measure, due to his 
 thinking of other things. 
 
 " Let's see," said Stone, '' the Werulam was 
 wrecked in the beginning of September ; this 
 here is February. That makes six months. If 
 you started to-morrow it would take you all 
 three months' fast sailing to fetch the island. 
 That'll be nine months. Nine months on that 
 island !" he exclaimed, as if thinking aloud. 
 ** Well, if they're there, there's no reason why 
 they shouldn't be found well and hearty. But 
 in that time wouldn't something have hove in 
 sight to fetch 'em away ; or wouldn't they 
 have tarned to and rigged up any contrivance 
 and chanced whatever might happen when 
 they were afloat — even if it was a raft formed 
 of trunks of trees, cut down, Lord knows 
 how, and bound together in Kanaka fashion 
 — sooner than remain on the island ? For 
 rek'lect, sir, that arter a few weeks passes 
 and no help comes, shipwrecked people'll 
 think they're to be locked up* for good and 
 all, and sooner than that they'll wenture 
 any perils to get away." 
 
 ''All this is true," said the curate, ''but it 
 is an argument we ought not to entertain.
 
 A LONG CHAT. 
 
 OO 
 
 The preciousness of human Hfe is very great. 
 If there should be ninety-nine chances in the 
 hundred against my discovering her — those 
 whom I mean to seek on that island — the 
 one remaining chance should outweigh all 
 the others. Constantly may we read and 
 hear of vessels being despatched to search 
 for the shipwrecked ; but if the thing were 
 reasoned as you reason it, no help would be 
 sent." 
 
 The seaman looked abashed. "I'm not 
 for opposin' a sarch, God knows," said he, 
 " I have been wrecked myself, felt all the 
 sufferin' of expectin' and hopin'. 'Tis only 
 the question, as I see it, whether you're 
 correct in supposin' the lady and the others 
 to be on the island. If there's e'er a 
 reason by what ye've heard or by what's 
 wisited your thoughts, to consider that 
 they're there, then they ought to be sent 
 for, whether you goes yourself or equips 
 a h'expedition." 
 
 Fortescue, who had been gazing at him, 
 always with an expression on his face as if, 
 now that the sailor had told him where the 
 island was, he had ceased to give his words
 
 154 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 close attention, suddenly smiled with an eager 
 look at the man. 
 
 *' Mr. Stone," said he, "I have made up 
 my mind to sail to the Indian Ocean ; and 
 that being settled, give me your advice as 
 an old seaman." 
 
 '* Whatever I can tell you you shall have,, 
 sir." 
 
 '' Would the Government send a steam 
 vessel to this island if I were to communicate 
 the loss of the Verulam to them and point 
 out " 
 
 '' H 'excuse me for interrupting," said 
 Stone. " Before you'd get the Government 
 to h'act ye'd have to prove that ]/our friends 
 had got ashore on this island ; and then by 
 the time the Government agreed to h'act, if 
 ever it did, the hour would be near arrived 
 for the last trumpet to blow as a signal for 
 the dead to rise. No, sir, the worst must 
 ha' come to the very worst if ye're to think 
 of the Government ; and then the thought 
 of it will only make the very worst worser 
 still. I know 'em !" And he shook his head 
 with an air of great disgust. 
 
 '* How then," asked Fortescue, " would you
 
 A LONG CHAT. I 55 
 
 advise me to proceed on my own respon- 
 sibility ?" 
 
 " Why, sir," answered Stone, promptly, 
 '' if ye're bound to seek 'em, I don't see 
 what else you can do but hire some little 
 clipper vessel and start right away out." 
 
 ''What sort of vessel? I am deplorably 
 ignorant of the sea-life," said the poor fellow, 
 with as sad a smile as man ever wore. 
 
 " Why, there are several kinds, sir," 
 answered Stone, sobering his voice into 
 softness out of sympathy with the other's 
 manner. "There's all sorts of wessels — full- 
 rigged ships, snows, hermaphrodite brigs, 
 pollaccas, schooners, cutters, and so on. 
 What you'd want would be something fast, 
 something as 'ud go to wind'ard, and some- 
 thing as 'ud enable ye to ratch fifty mile a 
 day against a head wind that would keep 
 shoving a square-rigged craft to leeward till 
 the breeze wore itself out. There's nothen 
 that I know of as'll do that but a schooner — 
 and that should be your boat, if so be your 
 mind's resolved." 
 
 " What size should she be ?" 
 
 " Twixt eighty and a hundred tons. Plenty
 
 156 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 large enough to sail round the world in and 
 to scorn the worst of weathers, providin' them 
 that's in charge knows how to handle her." 
 
 '' I shall require a swift vessel." 
 
 '' Then inquire after a fruiter, sir," said the 
 old seaman, with a light kindling in his eyes. 
 *' I've sailed in 'em, and there's nothen afloat 
 to touch 'em." 
 
 ''What is a fruiter?" 
 
 '' Wessels that go to the Western Islands 
 and the Mediterranean for the season's fruit. 
 Wessels so moulded, with such lovely lines, 
 such runs, with such a show of canvas — 
 wessels so beautifully born, that there's 
 nothen in this wide world to stop 'em 
 when once they start, if it isn't that they're 
 drownded through bad management. Ha !" 
 said he, expelling a great breath, ''depend 
 upon it, a fruiter's the wessel you want if you 
 desire to reach that island in a hurry." 
 
 "Would you inquire if such a vessel is to 
 be had when you return to London ?" said 
 Fortescue, anxiously, stirred by the un- 
 mistakeable sincerity of the old fellow's 
 .advocacy of "fruiters." 
 
 "Yes, sir, with pleasure. I'm acquainted
 
 A LONG CHAT. 1 57 
 
 with the owner of three of them, and I'll 
 speak to him. I reckon you'll find it cheaper 
 to buy than to hire. You don't know how 
 long you may be away, and to hire'll be so 
 much a ton per month. Say you're away for 
 twelve months, and call it fifteen shillings a 
 ton, at ninety tons ; how much will that 
 be ?" Fortescue calculated and said eight 
 hundred and ten pounds. "Well, you'll be 
 taking no freight out — nothen to sell, I sup- 
 pose ; and that money'll be dead loss. But 
 suppose you could buy the sort of vessel you 
 want, all found, newly sheathed and the like, 
 for a thousand pound, or for twelve hundred 
 if you choose, when you've done with her you 
 can sell her ; and if she only fetched half 
 what you gave for her she'd be cheaper to ye 
 than hiring of her. But there's no reason to 
 suppose you'd only get half her first cost. A 
 useful craft'll always fetch a good price." 
 
 " You know the island, you know my 
 wishes, you know the kind of vessel best 
 suited to the purpose I have in view," said 
 Fortescue, leaning forward and fixing his 
 dark, ardent eyes on the old seaman. " Will 
 you sail with me ?"
 
 158 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 Stone hung his head, scratching the back 
 of It, looking with a sort of squint into the 
 fire with the intensity of his thoughts, till the 
 odd expression gave way to a slight, slow 
 smile. 
 
 Fortescue waited. Finding the sailor did 
 not speak, he said, " Have you any ties to 
 keep you on shore ?" 
 
 " Nothen but old age, sir, and that ain't 
 very binding when a man's got to get a 
 living," Stone answered. '' My poor old gal 
 died fifteen years ago. I've a son on the 
 East Coast, master of a smack. Between 
 me and any opportunity I could see my way 
 to, there's nothen, nothen ; but it's not a 
 satisfactory reflection for a man who's had to 
 live hard and work hard for three-and-forty 
 year upon the ocean, and may have to die 
 hard at the end ; for at my age one wants a 
 home, sir, no matter how little it be, and a 
 wife or a darter to look after one." He 
 sighed. 
 
 " How do you get a living now ?" 
 
 " By odd jobs about the docks. Then the 
 owners of the Werulam have been very good 
 to me, and they're always finding me some-
 
 A LONG CHAT. 1 59 
 
 thing to do as shipkeeper and the hkes of 
 that." 
 
 "Would it not serve your purpose to sail 
 with me ?" exclaimed Fortescue. "You say 
 you will not touch my hundred guineas till I 
 have found the island. The money shall be 
 placed in Messrs. Wrotham and Co.'s hands 
 to be given to you when we return. Your 
 honesty, that makes you fear I might distrust 
 you, would be quieted by your joining me. 
 For you say the island is there," pointing to 
 the chart, '' and what more triumphant proof 
 of your sincerity could you offer than taking 
 me in a vessel to where it is ?" 
 
 '* I couldn't take you there, sir. You'll 
 want a navigator for that. There's no man 
 Fm afraid of in the matter of rigging and 
 sailing a wessel, from a ship to an oysterman; 
 but I don't know nothen about sights and 
 finding out our situation by the moon and 
 the stars. Never was learnt it, sir." 
 
 "Of course we shall require a navigator." 
 
 " You'll want a properly qualified captain, 
 
 • sir, and a ship's company — a crew, consisting 
 
 of a mate, and if your wessel's to be ninety 
 
 tons, say for a long voyage with the chance
 
 l6o THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 of sickness, five able and two ordinary 
 seamen, and a chap to cook, and a boy to- 
 wait on ye aft ; eleven in all, and you, sir, 
 twelve. Less could do the work. I've been 
 in fruiters with captain, mate, and three 
 men ; but round the Cape to the Equator 
 and back again's a middling tidy voyage, and 
 to keep your crew happy and comfortable, 
 and ready and willing, ye'd by far better 
 have one too many than one too few." 
 
 ''Could you not join me as mate?" said 
 Fortescue, taking in these particulars quickly 
 and intelligently. 
 
 '' Why, yes, sir, I could, no doubt ; and I 
 tell you plainly that I would. But first of all, 
 see here, sir," said the old fellow, putting the 
 pipe Fortescue had placed before him into 
 his waistcoat pocket through sheer force of 
 habit, "what d'ye know about me? How 
 can you tell I ain't a turnpike sailor, all jaw 
 and nothen else? How are you sartin I'm 
 not too old to go to sea again ? How d'ye 
 reckon my character's good enough for the 
 berth you're offering — that I don't drink, that 
 mv sipfht's uncertain so that I'm no use for 
 keeping a look-out, that I ain't lumbersome
 
 A LONG CHAT. l6l 
 
 aloft — In short, that I ain't in all ways what's 
 called by nautical men a scowbanker ? " He 
 spoke with an air of relish that became a 
 visible enjoyment in him as he progressed, 
 as if he should say, " There's a sort of joy in 
 these here notions against oneself when one 
 knows that they're all lies." 
 
 Fortescue was beginning to expostulate, 
 but Stone went on : — '* I must make so bold 
 as to interrupt you again, sir. Afore you 
 make me any offer I should wish you to get 
 my character at full length from the em- 
 ployers I sarved for years — I mean Wrotham 
 and Co. Likewise, I'll ask you to see Mr. 
 Mackworth, master rigger, of Wapping — 
 anyone'll tell you where he lives — and 
 inquire if he thinks me too old to do my 
 duty as a sailor man aboard any craft you 
 may choose to hire. If you're satisfied, then 
 it'll be time enough to ask me to take a berth 
 along with you and to agree about terms. 
 I'm willing to go, and if that there island 
 hasn't been sunk by a h'earthquake since I 
 was cast away upon it, I'll undertake to show 
 the cap'n where it is, if he'll give me his 
 reckonings ; but I shall want you to be more 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 62 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 satisfied about me than it's possible for you 
 now to be, afore anything furder's done either 
 in the way of my seeing about the hiring of a 
 fruiter for ye, or accepting of a berth." 
 
 He spoke with the energy of a man whose 
 mind is made up, and the same instinct that 
 caused him to sHp the pipe into his waistcoat 
 induced him to feel for it there and extract it, 
 then fill and light it. Fortescue glanced at 
 the clock, it was half-past-ten ; but time to 
 him signified nothing only as far as it meant 
 delay in the execution of his scheme. The 
 seething sound of the sleet-laden gale made 
 it the fittest night in the world to talk to 
 an old sailor in, and after requesting Mrs. 
 Goldsmith not to sit up for him, the young 
 clergyman resumed his chair, and there the 
 two of them sat talking till one o'clock in the 
 morning. 
 
 Then Fortescue rose from his chair and 
 led the sailor to the little room Mrs. Gold- 
 smith had prepared, and bade him good- 
 night, but with such a sad, tender, grateful 
 clinging to the warm, toil-wrinkled hand 
 he held, that when he dropped it the 
 seaman's eyes were moist and his voice was
 
 A LONG CHAT. 1 63 
 
 as husky as the hinges of the door he 
 closed, as he said, '' God bless you, sir ; 
 you'll find her yet. Heaven's too good and 
 lovin' to keep the likes of you long sorrow- 
 ful." Which cheery words, as fresh from 
 the old sailor's heart as the sparkling green 
 is that's brought up sweet and clear from 
 over a ship's side, Mr. Fortescue carried to 
 his pillow with him, and lay for a long while 
 thinking over to the wild accompaniment of 
 the hoarse February gale, and the slashing 
 of the snow, and the wet upon the window.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 The next morning William Stone returned 
 to London, bearing with him a letter to 
 Wrotham and Co., and of the seaman's visit 
 nobody in Wyloe heard a word, Mrs. Gold- 
 smith having supposed that he was a survivor 
 from the ship in which Miss Fox had sailed, 
 and that, therefore, his calling upon Mr. 
 Fortescue was a matter too solemn to be 
 passed round to the gossips. 
 
 A couple of days after Stone had returned 
 to London, Fortescue received a very 
 courteous letter from Mr. Skinner, who was 
 apparently the active partner of the firm. 
 He said he had seen Stone, who had com- 
 municated to him Mr. Fortescue's intention 
 to sail to a certain island in the Indian 
 Ocean, on which he (Mr. Fortescue) 
 imagined, or perhaps hoped, he should find
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 1 65 
 
 those among the passengers whose safety- 
 he was concerned for. It was not, Mr. 
 Skinner said, for him to comment upon this 
 determination. He was sure Mr. Fortescue 
 had friends who would wisely counsel him. 
 His duty, that was a pleasure, lay in answer- 
 ing Mr. Fortescue's letter with respect to 
 Stone, and to the purchase or hire of a vessel 
 fit for the undertaking proposed. He gave 
 Stone a very high character, and said that 
 he would make an excellent mate ; and 
 though too old to serve in the forecastle, his 
 knowledge of sea- work, and his experience of 
 sailors, could not fail to render him valuable 
 as an overseer of forecastle duties. The 
 man's advice to select a fruiter was sound. 
 Whatever the issue of the voyage might 
 prove, one thing was certain, the island 
 could not be reached too swiftly nor the 
 return home made too quickly. The 
 fruiters were the fastest vessels afloat ; 
 superior to the famous Baltimore clippers, 
 and as steam was out of the question, as 
 being difficult to get and extremely costly, 
 and slower than sail, having regard to the 
 delays for coal, Mr. Fortescue could not do
 
 l66 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 better than follow Stone's advice. Already 
 the man had seen the owner of a fruiter in 
 which a sailor he knew made a voyage, and 
 the qualities of the vessel Stone had thus 
 been able to ascertain. This owner was in 
 partnership with a person who had raised a 
 dispute over the vessels belonging to them ; 
 the upshot of which was, two had been 
 placed in the market. As he understood 
 that Mr. Fortescue desired to lose no 
 time, he had ventured to make an appoint- 
 ment for Mr. Quilter (the owner) to meet 
 him at Wrotham and Co.'s office, Cornhill, 
 on Friday, at half-past two, when the 
 matter could be discussed and both schooners 
 inspected. 
 
 Still giving no hint of his purpose to Mr, 
 Clayton, Fortescue arranged with him that 
 he should spend a couple of days in London ; 
 but on his arrival there, instead of waiting till 
 half-past two to see Mr. Quilter, he proceeded 
 immediately after breakfast to Kensington, to 
 the house of Mr. Salt, who very cordially 
 received him. To this gentleman Fortescue 
 related the object of his visit to London ; 
 concealing all about his dream, and making
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 167 
 
 out that he desired the voyage as much for 
 his health as for the hope that he might find 
 Agatha on the island that was his destination. 
 Mr. Salt understood him when he talked of 
 his health, for Fortescue looked extremely 
 pale and worn ; but he was quite at a loss 
 when he gathered that the voyage was to be 
 made also with the idea that, because the 
 island lay near the spot where the Verulam 
 had been burnt, there was a chance of a party 
 of survivors, with Miss Fox amongst them, 
 having reached it. It was a supposition 
 which could only cause the practical old 
 gentleman to stare, in spite of Fortescue's 
 apparently reasonable argument that, since 
 he needed a long voyage for his health's 
 sake, why should he not steer into the 
 ocean where the Verulam was lost, and 
 seek among the nearest of the islands there 
 for news or relics of her whom he was 
 mourning for .^ His trembling lips, his 
 pale, sad face, his sorrowful eyes, preserved 
 him from the argument he had dreaded. 
 Mr. Salt perceived that the young man was 
 resolved, that it was to be a love-cruise 
 which, let it end as it might as regarded
 
 1 68 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the clergyman's hopes, could not injure him 
 as fretting at home would, and waiting with 
 a heart fast sickening for the good news 
 that might never come. So, after a long 
 talk that lasted through the morning and 
 that terminated in confirming Mr. Salt's 
 belief that Fortescue was to be best served 
 by being left to his own promptings, the old 
 gentleman went into the city with the young 
 fellow to see, as Fortescue had asked him, 
 that he was fairly treated in the hiring or 
 purchase of the schooner. 
 
 Mr. Quilter was waiting along with William 
 Stone. In a few minutes Mr. Skinner entered 
 the room and Mr. Salt shook hands with him 
 as with an old acquaintance. Some well- 
 meant commonplace remarks touching the 
 loss of the Verulam were uttered, and then 
 said Mr. Salt :— 
 
 ''What's the size of the schooner, Mr. 
 Quilter ?" 
 
 ''The one that Mr. Stone here has in his 
 eye for the gentleman is ninety-ton," answered 
 the other, a rough, gruff, shaggy-browed, yet 
 kindly-faced man. 
 
 "How much per month for hire T'
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 1 69 
 
 " Ninety pounds. To the Indian Ocean 
 and back — shall we call it ten months ?" 
 
 *' Seven," said Mr. Quilter, " if it's to be a 
 matter of hurry. Here's a schooner as can 
 reel out her twelve knots, her highest speed, 
 I allow ; but give her the right wind and 
 she'll do it." 
 
 " Better say twelve months, gentlemen," 
 said Stone, modestly. 
 
 '' So I think," exclaimed Mr. Skinner, who 
 was taking furtive peeps at Fortescue as if to 
 satisfy himself that the clergyman was in his 
 right mind. 
 
 '' Twelve, then," said Mr. Salt. " Twelve 
 times ninety are a thousand and eighty. 
 What are you asking for her, Mr. Quilter ?'' 
 
 " Eleven hundred pounds as she stands, 
 fit to sail to-morrow morning, with plenty of 
 provisions in her." 
 
 " Not a penny less, of course ?" said Mr. 
 Salt. 
 
 " Not a farden. Why, if it wasn't for a 
 family quarrel, as the saying is, she'd be at 
 sea earning a handsome income. As it is, I 
 don't love parting with her. There was 
 nothing ever built more beautiful."
 
 170 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 " Where does she lie ?" 
 
 " In the East India Docks." 
 
 "Then let's view her whilst there's day- 
 light to see her by." And he and Fortescue, 
 Quilter and William Stone, bundled into 
 a hackney carriage of that period which 
 carried them to the Minories, whence they 
 proceeded to Blackwall by the railway. They 
 walked swiftly to where the schooner lay. To 
 Fortescue the scene of the docks was so novel 
 and confounding that he moved with the air 
 of a bewildered man. Amid the still life and 
 rural simplicity of Wyloe, his thoughts of his 
 search for Agatha upon the far off Equator 
 took the fancifulness a landsman gets, whose 
 knowledge of ships is mere romance, coloured 
 by recollection of such fabrics as the Verulam. 
 He could not have sharpened his meditated 
 mission into the actuality a sailor would have 
 made it. His thoughts were of the island, of 
 the vision he had beheld of his adored girl in 
 impassioned posture appealing to him across 
 the sea ; and if ever the leagues of ocean he 
 had to measure occurred to him, they were 
 present but as a dim phantom of moonlight, 
 and sunlight, and blue surface, faint and unreal
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. I/I 
 
 as knowledge of the great realities of nature 
 gained from books and pictures, always is. 
 
 But when he looked around him in the 
 docks he seemed to witness his Heaven- 
 inspired errand in its first making. There 
 was the grim prose of the realities of the sea 
 in the tw^o or three scores of fabrics which 
 crowded the wharves or lay athwart the 
 docks, in their low or tall sides, their spars 
 mounting into the February gloom of the 
 river's dingy atmosphere, the scars upon 
 them of recent conflict, or else the smart- 
 ness of fresh paint in those about to sail ; 
 here and there a royal-yard so high that a 
 man on it looked no bigger than a crow ; 
 whilst the stagnant air was full of the com- 
 motion of clanking pawls, of sailors singing, of 
 dock labourers shouting, of sheaves grinding 
 to the weight of ascending or descending 
 bales, cases, casks and tubs of cargo. 
 
 *' There she is, gentlemen," said Mr. 
 Quilter, pausing at the south-west corner 
 of the Export Dock. '* Stand here — you 
 have her clear of this ship's bowsprit. 
 A little this way, Mr. Fortescue. That's 
 her, past yonder figure-head, which would
 
 172 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 show her better if it were a fathom more 
 to the right." 
 
 She lay bow on to them, her jibbooms 
 rigged in, her square-yards braced up ; 
 she showed about a foot of copper-sheathing 
 upon her black side, along which ran a gilt 
 streak ; her figure-head was a small, gilt- 
 winged, female figure, with a trumpet in its 
 mouth, and face inclining skywards in a pose 
 of triumph. The cutwater gave her a knife- 
 like sharpness about the bows ; but the yacht- 
 like swell of side rounding aft, the slight, yet 
 dominant sheer forward, with the faint rakish- 
 ness of the lower spars, the topmasts stayed 
 just a thought forward to give boih masts the 
 knowing air you see in the pricked-up ears of 
 a racehorse, conveyed even to the ignorant 
 gaze of Fortescue such a presentment of 
 speed, seaworthiness and noble, weatherly 
 and surge-defying qualities, as persuaded him 
 that all England could offer nothing better 
 for the achievement of his singular purpose. 
 
 Stone, sidling up to him quietly and 
 respectfully, said: — ''Do you like her, sir?" 
 
 ''She seems a beautiful vessel," answered 
 Fortescue.
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 1 73 
 
 '*Ah, sir, she is; but it ain't that only. 
 I've heard all about her from a man who 
 sailed to the Western Islands in her. She 
 needs but the handling of a person used to 
 schooners to prove the fastest, driest, most 
 comfortable boat ever launched. She'll be 
 round the Cape with her jibboom heading 
 due nor'-nor'-west for the island, when the 
 biggest full-rigged ship that ever entered 
 these docks, starting at the same time, will be 
 mousing about, all adrift anyhow, among the 
 calms on the Line." 
 
 ''Gentlemen," here interrupted Mr. Ouil- 
 ter, ''we'll go aboard. I see Captain Weeks 
 — Hiram Weeks — her skipper last voyage. 
 I asked him to meet us here. If you should 
 settle on this vessel, gentlemen," looking 
 from Mr. Salt to Mr. Fortescue, "you'll not 
 do better than Hiram Weeks as master. 
 He's not been to sea so long as Mr. 
 Stone here, but there's no better sailor or 
 navigator, and I can recommend him with 
 all my heart, providing, of course, you are 
 not suited." 
 
 "Mr. Quilter's right, gentlemen," said 
 Stone. " Hiram Weeks is a real seaman, and
 
 174 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 I allow he knows the schooner as if they'd 
 been born together and had come into the 
 world twins." 
 
 There were some planks between the 
 wharf and the schooner's rail, and as the 
 party of four stepped on board, they were 
 received by a tall man, who saluted their 
 arrival by a peculiarly nautical flourish of his 
 hand to his fur cap. His years probably 
 did not exceed forty, but so undeterminable 
 was the age indicated by his gaunt, yellow, 
 leathern cheeks, his large, red-streaked, 
 prominent eyes, which appeared to be in 
 the act of starting from their sockets, the 
 coarse, mat-like mass of reddish hair that 
 lay under his chin and on his throat, that no 
 conjecture as to the date of his birth was 
 likely to hit the truth. He was dressed 
 in a rusty pilot-cloth coat, serge trousers 
 (probably concealing a liberal encasement of 
 stout drawers and thick stockings), whereof 
 the ends were screwed into a pair of half 
 Wellington boots, and his neck was swathed 
 in a huge red ''comforter." His name sug- 
 gested a Yankee origin, and, indeed, he had 
 all the appearance of a tanned and hardened
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. I 75 
 
 Down Easter. Yet he proved himself what 
 he was — an Englishman — with a touch of 
 Kent or Essex in his aspirates and g's. 
 •Indeed, his language was very much like 
 Mr. Stone's. 
 
 '' Was almost giving of you up, Mr. 
 ■Quilter. Sarvant, gentlemen. This is the 
 schooner, and a better's not to be had for 
 money." He made a sweeping movement 
 along the deck with a hand that caused you 
 to think of a lobster with the rheumatic 
 warping of the long, yellow, lean fingers. 
 
 "We'll overhaul her at once," said Mr. 
 Salt. " Darkness soon drops down in the 
 Isle of Dogs." Mr. Fortescue followed the 
 -others, feeling a mere child in his ignorance. 
 The terms employed were to him what Fiji 
 Islanders' talk would be. Captain Weeks 
 and Mr. Quilter chattered volubly, Mr. Salt 
 grunted rather than expressed approval as he 
 peered around, whilst William Stone walked 
 in the wake of the others, watching with a 
 Icindly, sympathetic expression in his gaze for 
 any signs of satisfaction in Fortescue. But 
 even had the young clergyman been as well 
 acquainted with nautical matters as Stone, he
 
 176 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 could not have fixed his attention upon the 
 points of build and equipment which Quilter 
 and Weeks indicated. The sky-searching^ 
 spars, to whose heights he lifted his eyes, were 
 but as magic wands to transport him intc^ 
 the solitude of the Indian Ocean, and it was 
 with a yearning of the heart that came near 
 to the pain of breaking, that he thought of 
 his sweetheart's wild appeal to him in his 
 dream, of the bitter long months passing- 
 over her upon that island, of the agony that 
 would be his if, the island of his vision being 
 shown him in substance, he should find no 
 trace of his adored upon it. 
 
 These were the thoughts which filled his 
 mind as he accompanied the others on their 
 tour of inspection. Yet an exclamation from 
 Mr. Salt or a brief word from Stone would 
 sometimes cause him to break away from the 
 mood the sight of the schooner had put into 
 him, to look and think of some admirable 
 feature pointed out. 
 
 ** Captain," said Mr. Salt, "what height of 
 side will you show in ballast ?" 
 
 ** Why, about six foot, sir." 
 
 ** How close will she lie ?''
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. I.77 
 
 '' I'll engage to keep her a rap full at four 
 and a half points." 
 
 '* Steam ain't going to do ver\' much 
 more," said Quilter. " Back them four and 
 a half points with six knots an hour, and a 
 wake following her in a line as fair with 
 jibbooms as if the wind was dead aft, and 
 what's to become of your paddle-wheels.-*" 
 
 "I'm glad to see a tiller," observed Mr. 
 Salt. " Spokes are all very well, but since 
 chain has taken the place of rope and hide I 
 haven't much opinion of wheels." 
 
 " Right for you, sir," exclaimed Quilter, 
 with nods enough of the head to prove that 
 he, at all events, was no progressionist in 
 naval affairs. 
 
 " What's the schooner's age .^" 
 
 " Five year," was the answer. 
 
 '' There's brass work enough," said Mr. 
 Salt, standing right aft and looking along the 
 schooner; "brass belaying pins, brass tiller- 
 head, brass wire gratings over skylight, brass 
 binnacle — why, Mr. Quilter, she must have 
 been born a pleasure craft ; but I hope you 
 don't charge for these gew-gaws. I'm for 
 plainness myself ; nothing like simplicity at 
 
 VOL. L N
 
 178 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 sea, but it must be sound and thoroughly 
 salted. The beauty I look for is workman- 
 ship where you can't see it — under water, I 
 mean." 
 
 ''Well, Mr. Salt," said Quilter, to whom 
 the name of the old owner was evidently 
 familiar, " you have some knowledge of ships, 
 sir, you don't want a vessel's builder aboard 
 to show you what's bad and what's good in 
 her. If this craft don't speak for herself 
 there's no h'eloquence in timber and fasten- 
 ings." 
 
 Mr. Salt, looking not ill-pleased, went to 
 the rail and peered over. '' Channels, I see ; 
 well, so much the better. Don't want any 
 up and down plates to draw in a squall as if 
 they were soft wire, eh. Captain Weeks ? 
 Bright masts," looking aloft ; ''nothing 
 
 like the natural wood ; d paint, say 
 
 I. Good spread of foreyard there — sixty 
 feet?" 
 
 " Fifty-six, sir," said Captain W^eeks. 
 
 " Small galley, but big enough for a couple 
 of saucepans. Lashed to ring bolts, I see ; 
 well, I hope the lashings aren't five years old. 
 Two boats, one stowed in the other ; as many
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 1 79 
 
 as'll be wanted. French grey for the colour 
 of your inside bulwark ; square stern, d'ye 
 notice, Malcolm ? What's the length of your 
 cabin ?" 
 
 " Fifteen feet from the transom, sir," 
 answered Captain Weeks, smuggling a bit 
 of tobacco into his mouth. 
 
 " Let's have a look at it," said Mr. Salt, 
 and down they all went. 
 
 It was a snug little cabin, and high enough 
 for a man to stand up in. A table was fixed 
 in the centre, and round it were lockers which 
 served as seats. There were four bunks, two 
 of a side, mere holes for sleeping in, into 
 which one could vault from the lockers and 
 disappear. Close against the bulkhead was a 
 stove, and on the starboard side, the state 
 cabin, a small but cosy box of a place. The 
 companion-steps came rounding down past it, 
 and the foot of them bordered upon another 
 •cabin, much smaller than the one opposite. 
 Everything was rough and plain, but with a 
 sturdy, hearty look about it that a sailor would 
 eagerly appreciate in a vessel he meant to 
 sail in. 
 
 '' I see no fault to find here," said Mr.
 
 l8o THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 Salt ; " the deck would be more comfortable^ 
 perhaps, for a decent carpet." 
 
 "That's easily remedied," exclaimed Mr. 
 Ouilter. 
 
 "What sort of quarters have the men 
 forward?" inquired Mr. Salt. "It's getting' 
 too dark to rummage about in the forecastle." 
 
 " They're sound, dry and comfortable, sir," 
 replied Captain Weeks; "four bunks, and 
 room for three hammocks, or four at a 
 pinch." 
 
 They went on deck, and Mr. Salt called 
 Fortescue aft to the tiller, and there they 
 stood alone, looking at the schooner, whilst 
 the others talked in the gangway. 
 
 " She's certainly a beautiful little vessel," 
 said the old fellow ; ''one of the handsomest 
 of her class, and staunch and sound. No 
 doubt of that. Should you persist in your 
 resolution 
 
 " Don't put it in that way," said Fortescue, 
 gently. " My resolution is formed." 
 
 " Well, what I meant to say," continued 
 Mr. Salt, a little abashed by the singularly 
 determined tone which the curate's gentle 
 voice distinctly accentuated, " was, if you are
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. l8l 
 
 l)Ound to the Indian Ocean you can't do 
 better than have this schooner. And you 
 had better buy her outright. The cost of 
 hiring, even allowing that you make splendid 
 runs out and home, will, at the rate of a pound 
 a ton a month, come to pretty nearly the 
 price asked for her." 
 
 " I quite understand. Will you negotiate 
 the purchase for me ?" 
 
 "With pleasure. Indeed, if you like I'll 
 go further. I'll see that she is properly 
 victualled and equipped, make sure that 
 her crew are the right kind of men for 
 you, settle about their wages, and. in fact, 
 leave you nothing to do but to step on 
 board when all's ready, and sail away. 
 That'll enable you to stick to your parish- 
 work down to the last moment." 
 
 Fortescue gave him many thanks, shaking 
 his hand heartily. " You'll be doing me the 
 greatest service imaginable," said he, " for I 
 have not the least idea how to go to work." 
 
 *T will haggle with Ouilter a bit."' exclaimed 
 Mr. Salt. " Whatever sum he may concede 
 off his present price will go towards wages. 
 I'll put yonder leather-jawed man there
 
 1 82 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 through his facings ; and If I think him- 
 suitable, he'll do for skipper, because it'll be 
 well for you who want to slash through it 
 round the Cape, that the master of the 
 vessel should know her qualities and how 
 to get all she'll yield out of her. You'll 
 want a mate " 
 
 '' That's settled. William Stone will be 
 mate. He knows where the island is, and 
 he is an old and experienced sailor." 
 
 *' All right," said Mr. Salt. "It's cold in 
 these docks ; let's get away home. You'll 
 sleep at my house to-night, and we can talk 
 over everything material this evening." 
 
 Fortescue consented. They joined the 
 others, and the five of them stepped on to 
 the wharf. 
 
 ** Gentlemen," said Mr. Quilter, pausing, 
 ''t'other schooner we're offering Is round 
 in the basin — five minutes distant. Shall 
 we view her whilst there's light left ?'' 
 
 " Is she a better ship than this ?" Inquired 
 Mr. Salt. 
 
 " She's a ton smaller, and four years older. 
 I'm asking a hundred and fifty pounds less 
 for her."
 
 THE GOLDEN HOPE. I 83 
 
 " Mr. Fortescue," said Stone, touching his 
 cap, '' I beg your pardon, sir. I know both 
 craft. This here's the one to serve your end, 
 and will prove the cheapest, by a long chalk, 
 after the job's over." 
 
 Mr. Salt looked attentively at the old 
 seaman, and exclaimed, '' I am of Stone's 
 opinion." 
 
 "You may believe what he says of the 
 vessels, sir, down to the heels of his state- 
 ments," observed Captain Weeks. "I know 
 them both, too. That's the ship for Mr. 
 Fortescue," pointing to the schooner. 
 
 ''Well, that'll be for Mr. Quilter and me 
 to settle," said Mr. Salt. " By the way, 
 what's the name ?" 
 
 ''The Golden Hope," replied Captain 
 Weeks.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON THE EVE. 
 
 "The Golden Hope!" Here was a name 
 only, yet the bare speaking of it violently 
 affected Mr. Fortescue. It seemed to thrill 
 through him with a prophetic meaning that 
 was in perfect concurrence with the resolution 
 inspired by his dream. '' The Golden 
 Hope !" Was his lighting upon a vessel 
 thus named mere chance ? Not more so, 
 he thought, than his dream was chance, 
 than the amazing confirmation of it was 
 chance, than his discovery of Agatha, if it 
 pleased God to lead him in safety to the 
 island, would be chance. Hope ! If hope 
 were not golden to him then, by what stan- 
 dard would it be appraisable ? And now, not 
 only in ''The Golden Hope," but with golden 
 hope in his heart, with golden hope in the 
 sunlight over him, with golden hope shining
 
 ox THE EVE. 185 
 
 in the blackest night or gleaming sweetly in 
 even' southern, and then in ever\' eastern, star 
 that should rise sparkling over the schooner's 
 bows, would he be sailing in search of 
 Agatha, directed by a dream he had long 
 since accepted as a revelation from God 
 Himself. 
 
 He passed the night at Mr. Salt's house, 
 and sat late with the hearty old gentleman, 
 making all necessary arrangements for the 
 purchase of the schooner, and asking many 
 questions in reference to the vessel and the 
 routine of shipboard. He also talked freely of 
 his expectation of finding Agatha and others 
 on the island, though the conviction he 
 entertained on this matter profoundly puzzled 
 Mr. Salt, to whom he did not breathe a 
 syllable concerning his dream, and who, 
 therefore, not being able to discover any 
 intelligible motive, beyond the curate's health. 
 for the vovaee, viewed his notion that Miss 
 Fox was positively to be found upon an 
 island in the Indian Ocean as a delusion, 
 harmless indeed, but nevertheless a delusion : 
 originating in the shock he had received on 
 hearing of the loss of the \'erulam.
 
 1 86 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 Early next morning Fortescue bade fare- 
 well to his host, and went into the city, 
 where he instructed a firm of stockbrokers 
 to sell certain securities he held, and to place 
 the sums realised to his credit at the bank he 
 dealt with ; which done, and there being 
 nothing else to detain him in London, he 
 returned to Wyloe, reaching the little village 
 late at night. 
 
 No letters had arrived relating to the 
 ''slips" about the island, which he had dis- 
 seminated, so that he thought of William 
 Stone as perhaps the only one among 
 hundreds of seafaring persons capable of 
 giving him the particulars he desired. Where- 
 fore the circumstances of the "slip" coming 
 into the hands of this man struck him with 
 amazement at the manifestation (that was 
 visible with awing and subduing plainness) of 
 the presence of his Maker, strengthening and 
 directing every step he took. 
 
 Ere he left London, he had made up 
 his mind to tell Mr. Clayton that his 
 plans were now arranged ; but when the 
 morning came, and he quitted his lodg- 
 ings to call upon the Vicar, the struggle
 
 ON THE EVE. iSj 
 
 in his breast was a bitter one. The 
 thought of Agatha towered above all other 
 considerations, as the figure of the Madonna 
 in Roman Catholic pictures stands or floats 
 prominently above those who are represented 
 as worshipping her. Yet he had come to 
 love the little village ; there was not an 
 inhabitant who was not his friend ; the little 
 toddling infant had its smiles for the curate ; 
 the old had a blessing for him ; the poor 
 knew who would help them when distress 
 grew sharp in winter, or by summer failures. 
 Between him and the Vicar a warm affection 
 subsisted. And then, the associations I The 
 graves he had wept beside in sympathy with 
 the father, the brother, the son ; the little 
 rooms in which he had sat reading to the 
 bed-ridden, the aged, the dying; the children 
 of the village school ; above all, the quiet 
 sands he had paced with Agatha, the moon- 
 lit calms, the humming of the surf, the 
 peculiar cries of the gulls re-echoing from 
 the cliffs! 
 
 Maybe it was the memory of Agatha that 
 consecrated all things in that little place, 
 yet there was the love also, as well as the
 
 1 88 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 consecration, and there was a sob or two in 
 his breath whilst he glanced about him as 
 he walked, forcing smiles of recognition, and 
 struggling with his voice as he called the 
 morning greeting to one and another. 
 
 He found Mrs. Clayton with her husband. 
 He did not mind this ; indeed, her presence 
 might help him, for her lighter, sympathetic 
 character would enforce the restraint he 
 might find it difficult to practice were he 
 left alone with his friend. One glance at 
 him persuaded both husband and wife that 
 the object of his visit was to prove unusual, 
 if not startling. The lady's face took an 
 expression of curiosity, her husband one of 
 anxiety. Yet for some short while they 
 conversed with a sort of calmness about the 
 coolness of the weather, the journey from 
 London, London itself 
 
 Then said Mr. Clayton, '' I hope no 
 disappointment has attended your visit ; I 
 mean, you will have had a motive for going to 
 London, of course, and I trust the journey 
 may have satisfied your reason for under- 
 taking it, Fortescue." 
 
 ** Quite. I have seen my relative — distant
 
 ON THE EVE. 189- 
 
 indeed — Mr. Salt. He has kindly con- 
 sented to arrange everything for me, so 
 that I can keep to my work here to the 
 last moment." 
 
 The Vicar, leaning forward with a quick 
 gesture, said, " What do you mean, For- 
 tescue ?'' 
 
 " I am leaving you." 
 
 ''Leaving us? Why?" 
 
 "To seek Agatha." 
 
 Mrs. Clayton exclaimed, excitedly, " Do 
 you know where she is? Have you heard 
 of her?" 
 
 Fortescue pulled out the slip, bearing the 
 sketch of the island and the latitude and 
 longitude of it written in William Stone's 
 rough hand, and extending it to Mrs. Clay- 
 ton said, " She is there." Mrs. Clayton 
 looked at it, and gave it to her husband, 
 who, after peering through his glasses, said, 
 " This is the island you dreamt about 
 Fortescue." 
 
 "Yes; I know where it is now. It 
 is a real island. Do you see those figures 
 under it ? They were written by a man 
 who was wrecked on the island, and who
 
 190 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 IS going out with me to the Indian 
 Ocean." 
 
 The Indian Ocean ! Why, if the Vicar 
 and his wife had been conveyed to it in 
 Arabian Nights-like fashion, they could not 
 have looked more astounded. 
 
 *' My dear creature !" cried the Vicar. 
 ** Indian Ocean ! going out with a man 
 who — gracious mercy ! What is your pur- 
 pose t 
 
 " To seek Agatha !" 
 
 At this Mrs. Clayton endeavoured to catch 
 her husband's eye, that she might ask him, by 
 her expression, whether she was not right in 
 thinking Fortescue "touched." But the 
 Vicar's gaze was on the curate. Surprise 
 w^as giving way to sorrow, and there was no 
 more consternation nor stuttering. 
 
 " Fortescue," said he, tenderly, " I beg as a 
 friend that you will forgive me putting a few 
 •questions to you." The clergyman bowed his 
 head. *' You tell me that the island of your 
 dream is real, and that you know this to be so 
 on the testimony of a man who was wrecked 
 on it ?" 
 
 Fortescue answered, *'Yes," listlessly. He
 
 ox THE EVE. 191 
 
 had hoped in his soul that the \^icar would 
 not discuss the subject. 
 
 "I see," continued Mr. Clayton, "under 
 the sketch of the island, you olTer a reward of 
 one hundred guineas to anyone who will tell 
 you where the place is. Good and true 
 Christian as you are, dear friend, generous 
 in interpretation of human motive, yet 
 surely, surely you cannot doubt that so 
 tempting an offer is more than likely to de- 
 termine a man to obtain it bv tellinof a lie." 
 
 o 
 
 " He accompanies me to the island and 
 declines to receive a farthing of the amount 
 until we have verified the spot I dreamed 
 of." 
 
 Mrs. Clayton said, '* That looks honest, 
 certainly ; but how is it possible, Mr. For- 
 tescue, that this island can correspond 
 with yours ? How is it conceivable that 
 you can dream of a real island you have 
 never seen ? " 
 
 " I cannot explain, Mrs. Clayton. But for 
 all that, the island is there." 
 
 " But it is a dream from beginning to end,'* 
 exclaimed the Vicar, with a hint of impatience 
 in his slow, asthmatic speech ; ''corroborated
 
 192 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 in parts It is true and, therefore, wonderful as 
 a coincidence, as a metaphysical coincidence, 
 if you please, but not to be trusted, surely, to 
 the full extent of supposing that Agatha is 
 upon that island, and that you must sail all 
 the way from here to the Indian Ocean to see 
 if she Is there." 
 
 ''Mr. Clayton, I ask your pardon; I have 
 called, not to argue, but to tell you I shall be 
 leaving Wyloe shortly — very shortly. I shall 
 part from you all, from this little village, from 
 its blameless Inhabitants, with sorrow, but 
 God has told me where Agatha is, and has 
 suffered me to witness her appeal to me to 
 seek her. Let those laugh at me who will,* 
 he exclaimed, with a flushed face and shining 
 eyes. "Our Divine Father has many ways 
 of working out His ends ; and shall I 
 doubt any one of them, because I feel to 
 be governed by an impulse — made rational 
 to my own senses by extraordinary proof — 
 without being able to explain the mystery 
 of It, and the Irresistible power of It .'^ " 
 
 Mrs. Clayton, confounding his hot cheeks 
 and luminous eyes with a fevered and dis- 
 tempered brain, diverted the discussion that
 
 ox THE EVE. 193 
 
 was threatened, by asking the curate what 
 plans he had formed for saiHng to the Indian 
 Ocean. Whereupon he quietly related all he 
 had done and arranged for, and how in a few 
 days he expected a letter from ]\Ir. Salt 
 telling him that the Golden Hope was ready 
 and where he should join her. 
 
 " Suppose," said Mrs. Clayton, " that 
 shortly after you have sailed, news should 
 reach us of Agatha's and mv brother-in-law's 
 safety. How hard it would be I You would 
 reach the island and find nobody upon it, 
 unless natives, and you will not know that 
 Agatha is safe and well until you return, 
 which, you have told us, may not be for a 
 whole year." 
 
 " You should consider that," said the \'icar, 
 very gravely. 
 
 "There is nothing I have not considered," 
 replied Fortescue. "Certainty — the certainty 
 that comes from Heaven — requires no con- 
 sideration. If my project were based on 
 chance only I should not go." 
 
 The old Vicar sighed. "Well, well!" he 
 exclaimed, and though the three of them 
 sat talking for another half-hour, there were 
 VOL. I. u
 
 194 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 no more arguments- on the subject of For- 
 tescue's expedition. 
 
 Mr. Salt did not keep the young curate 
 long waiting. In less than eight days, 
 dating from the inspection of the Golden 
 Hope, the old gentleman had purchased her 
 for one thousand and fifty pounds. Captain 
 Weeks had consented to take charge of 
 her for eight pounds a month, and William 
 Stone had signed articles as chief mate for 
 four pounds ten shillings a month. For 
 her crew, the number of men proposed by 
 Stone to Mr. Fortescue had been shipped, 
 namely, five able and two ordinary seamen, 
 a cook, and a boy to wait upon the cabin. 
 Her provisioning and other obligations, in 
 addition to the cost of her purchase, wages 
 and the like, came to a large sum ; but 
 Fortescue turned impatiently from the 
 business - like reminder of this, when it 
 occurred in Mr. Salt's letter, and forthwith 
 transmitted to that gentleman a draft for 
 the full amount, which included a month's 
 advance to the crew and one hundred 
 guineas to be held by Wrotham, Skinner 
 and Co. on behalf of William Stone, to
 
 ox THE EVE. 195 
 
 he presented to him when it could be 
 shown by the voyage that the approximate 
 bearings the sailor had given to the island 
 were right. 
 
 Meanwhile, in order that nothing should 
 delay the start to be made from Gravesend, 
 so far as Fortescue was concerned, he had 
 ordered for himself an outfit of clothes and 
 conveniences, such as his judgment told him 
 he would require in the various climates he 
 would pass through on his way from England, 
 in March, to the Indian Equator, which he 
 hoped to have closely approached by the 
 beginning of June. He likewise provided 
 himself with a box of female wearing apparel 
 and a chest of medicine. And these and all 
 other arrangements being completed, there 
 arrived his last evening at Wyloe. It had 
 been led up to by much that was sorrowful. 
 At his own request the news was circulated, 
 only the day previously that he was to 
 leave the parish, certainly for a year, on 
 a voyage from which he might never 
 return, and the farewells taken, the little 
 simple gifts presented, hastily purchased by 
 some to whom a few shillings represented
 
 196 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 a week's livelihood, affected him deeply, as 
 anyone will imagine. Yet the Claytons 
 remarked that his mood was not one of 
 unmixed melancholy. On the contrary, they 
 often recalled afterwards the triumphant 
 expression that would come, more like a 
 light than a smile, into his face, when his 
 dark eyes had the far-away look the gaze will 
 take if thought and passion and feeling are 
 far-away too. They would speak of the 
 wonderful tone of conviction that furnished 
 thrilling accentuations to any reference he 
 made to the voyage he was about to start on ; 
 as if, instead of being swayed by a dream, he 
 was acting upon a veracious report brought 
 home by some ship, that Agatha Fox w^as 
 upon the island waiting for an expedition to 
 rescue her from a situation that would be 
 hopeless, if no other chance of her de- 
 liverance was provided than a passing vessel. 
 The Vicar was convinced that nothing but 
 superstition, acting upon weak nerves and a 
 weeping heart that turned eagerly towards 
 any phantasm of light that might show upon 
 the darkness, was urging Fortescue ; and he 
 also considered the confirmation of his dream,.
 
 ON THE EVE. 1 97 
 
 SO far as confirmation went, a coincidence, 
 startling certainly, yet not more wonderful 
 than other coincidences which had ended in 
 nothing particular. But nevertheless, he ad- 
 mitted afterwards that he had been awed by 
 the positive views Fortescue entertained, and 
 the amazing faith he had in the fidelity of his 
 vision. It was, indeed, as if there were more 
 behind it all than the young clergyman chose 
 to tell — if in truth it was not madness, which 
 the \'icar declined to admit ; but whatever 
 were the theories that puzzled and troubled 
 the old man's mind, they did not hinder him 
 from putting up such a prayer for Fortescue 's 
 safety and for the accomplishment of his 
 beautiful, touching, noble and devoted under- 
 taking, as drew, by the eloquence and pathos 
 his sincerity gave to his words, many tears 
 from Mrs. Clayton and her daughter, and 
 sobs from Fortescue that choked his speech 
 as he took their hands in turn and quitted 
 the quaint, old house he would not see again 
 for many a long month, if he was suffered to 
 come safely out of his adventure.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AT SEA. 
 
 It was five o'clock in the afternoon, In the 
 month of March, and a sulky dusk coming 
 over the sky out of the eastward, in the teeth 
 of a brisk westerly breeze that was sufficiently 
 mild in temperature, though you felt if it 
 should veer but a point or two southerly, 
 there was wet enough in its skirts to bring it 
 along cold as hail. The Golden Hope, with 
 Mr. Fortescue on board, had got under way 
 from Gravesend that morning at ten o'clock, 
 and under gaff and square-topsails, had sailed 
 down the smooth river at a handsome pace, 
 sweeping no more than a ripple or two aft, as 
 she sheared through it with her keen stem. 
 And now she was off the North Foreland, 
 heading to the southwards of the Goodwins ; 
 for it was pretty certain that the wind would 
 fly into the south-west presently, and Captain
 
 AT SEA. 199 
 
 Hiram Weeks and Mr. Stone had setded it 
 that a ''ratch" to the French coast and a board 
 to the Ness would help them to abreast of the 
 Wight with only a shift of helm, after which 
 there was all the breadth of the Channel 
 before them to the Cherbourg coast with the 
 wind-up of a close-hauled run to the Lizard, 
 whence departure would be taken for the 
 island in the Indian Ocean; always supposing, 
 of course, that the wind hung strong at south- 
 west. 
 
 From the moment of the start it had been 
 all a scene of wonder to Fortescue ; not in 
 the form of river scenery ; no. below bridge, 
 Father Thames is as ugly as mud can make 
 a river-god ; and what is there to admire in 
 the country beyond, in Plaistow Level, in 
 Plumstead- Marshes, in Tilbury, Canvey 
 Island and the Maplin Sands ? — though most 
 of these horrors Fortescue missed, starting, 
 as he did, from Gravesend. It was the ship- 
 ping that made the interest, for in those days 
 the clumsy old paddle steamers with high 
 funnels, dog's-eared atop, and tall, squab 
 hulls as full of windows as hotels, were still 
 new enough as marine experiments to be
 
 200 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 viewed with surprise, and consequently too 
 rare to deform the quaint and picturesque 
 squadrons of sailing vessels with the obscur- 
 ation and defilement of coils of sooty smoke. 
 
 Through dozens of colliers, turning up and 
 turning down, through hoys, barges, and little 
 smacks, through big ships at anchor w^aiting 
 for the tide to serve, the Golden Hope had 
 threaded her w^ay, admired as the fruiter 
 always w^as, by the seamen aboard the vessels 
 she passed ; the more beautiful for the con- 
 trasts she created, when her white canvas, cut 
 to a hair and as superbly a part of her life 
 and strength as are the wings of an eagle to 
 that kingly thing, and her long, low, gleam- 
 ing, flying hull, heralded by its trumpeting 
 figure, paired for a breath with some apple- 
 bowed old coalman, working with black sails 
 across the river, or with some lump of a brig 
 getting her anchor to the tempestuous chorus 
 of:— 
 
 " Old Stormy he is dead and gone !" 
 It was very unlike Wyloe ; very unlike any 
 sort of calm, clerical, rural existence, this 
 busy scene of singing sailors, of dingy waters 
 running under the fresh breeze, of colliers,
 
 AT SEA. 20 1 
 
 shaving one another as they shifted their 
 helms for a fresh "leg," whilst their crews 
 expressed their feelings by clenched fists 
 shaken over the rail, of hands aloft on the 
 brought-up ships sending down sail and yards, 
 and so on, and so on till the opening of the 
 river, past the Xore. found more room for 
 the Golden Hope, less crowding of craft, and 
 a bit of a swell, coming, one couldn't tell from 
 where, but taking sharp WTinkles from the 
 wind and making two white lines of the 
 schooner's wake with eddies and bubbles in 
 plenty between, as the little vessel swept 
 onwards, curtseying, like a sweet bride bowing 
 to the salutations of her lord and master. 
 Also, there were other things besides 
 external objects to interest Mr. Fortescue, 
 who. though pale and melancholy enough to 
 justify any theory that based this voyage 
 upon his health, nevertheless looked a fine, 
 manly fellow in the lay clothes he had shipped 
 in the room of the flapping skirts and white 
 tie of his professional garb. Indeed, Mr. 
 Clayton would scarcely have recognised, in 
 the broad, tall figure, warmly habited in a 
 pea-coat and well-lined cap. with ear-flaps
 
 202 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 triced up ready for letting go, a shape that 
 had appeared comparatively lean in the 
 costume of his calling. There had been 
 more than the river and its spectacle to 
 watch. First, the captain — Hiram Weeks — 
 who had received the curate with respectful 
 cordiality as he stepped over the gangway at 
 Gravesend. His leathern, hollow face and 
 starting eyes, his twisted fingers and long 
 straggling shanks, did not indeed furnish him 
 with the aspect of the typical sailor, whom it 
 is customary to regard as red-nosed, bow- 
 legged, highly-coloured with grog-blossom, 
 full of unintelligible words, and • good-natured 
 and entertaining mainly on the strength of 
 being more or less tipsy ; yet the early im- 
 pression Mr. Fortescue received, whilst he 
 marked his alertness and vigilance, noticed 
 his rapid orders, and a certain carelessness 
 of demeanour too, such as a sailor has, was 
 that Mr. Salt had not erred in selecting 
 this man. Then there was the crew to 
 observe, all of whom would be on deck, 
 and though Mr. Fortescue had no acquaint- 
 ance with blue-water sailors, he felt that 
 these men could not but make a satisfactory
 
 AT SEA. 205 
 
 ship's company, as he remarked their sober 
 behaviour, fresh as they were from the 
 temptations of the tavern and the boarding- 
 house ashore, and honestly as they might 
 deem a drop too much no great wrong 
 in men bound on a long voyage, to be dis- 
 sociated from their families and friends for 
 many months. Nor could he doubt their 
 respectability as he surveyed their costumes 
 of fur Scotch caps, warm jackets, pilot or 
 fearnought trousers, and their hearty looks, 
 such as you see among well-fed naval crews, 
 rather than among neglected merchantmen, 
 growling, like the sea-dogs bad treatment 
 makes them, at dripping forecastles, hard 
 work, bad pay, and food out of which a 
 rat could scarce get nourishment. 
 
 He had taken care to ask Stone, at an 
 early hour, what the men had been told 
 concerning the voyage ; for, spite of his 
 reticence, he never knew whether the sole 
 incentive and desire of this undertaking had 
 not leaked out of him unconsciously, but 
 sufficiently to enable such shrewd percep- 
 tions as Salt's and Skinner's or even Stone's 
 to hit the truth, or to arrive at conclusions-
 
 204 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 more prejudicial than the truth. But Stone 
 had reassured him in his plain, honest, 
 sailor fashion, thus : — 
 
 '' Why, sir, the men have signed articles 
 for a voyage to the Indian Ocean and 
 back, touching at an island there ; the 
 scheme being to benefit your health, and 
 likewise to satisfy your mind as to whether 
 there's anyone surwiving from the Werulam 
 aboard that island ; and all hands are con- 
 tent, as they ought to be, for it'll be mere 
 pleasurin', with plenty to eat and drink, 
 and the beautifullest hull under their feet 
 as ever sailed through this stream of mud 
 and water." For when this was said the 
 schooner was turning into Sea Reach. 
 
 This was comforting, for Mr. Fortescue's 
 sensitiveness was certain to have miscon- 
 strued the naturally inquisitive glances 
 which the crew, at the onset, would cast 
 at the owner of the vessel. Barring half- 
 an-hour, for a mouthful of dinner at two, 
 he had remained on deck all the time, 
 doubtful, when the first of the light swell — 
 fast increasing in weight — took the schooner, 
 whether he should not be sea-sick. But
 
 AT SEA. 205 
 
 men perfectly new to the sea often escape. 
 It is not to be explained ; persons have 
 been known to make their first voyage to 
 Australia without suffering from an hour's 
 nausea, and when they started on a second 
 voyage they were sick for several days. 
 In those times, opportunities for travel were 
 not as they now are ; and no friends of 
 Fortescue would have felt the least wonder 
 to hear him say that he had never been 
 on salt-water in his life. This was the 
 truth ; nevertheless, w^hen the Golden Hope 
 had struck the Channel fair off the North 
 Foreland, and with flattened sheets, was 
 bowing a strong head sea in her ratch 
 past the Goodwins, Fortescue, standing to 
 windward of the tiller, assured Captain 
 Weeks, in answer to his question, that he 
 felt no more inconvenience from the move- 
 ment than were he seated in a jolting 
 carriage. 
 
 '•Well done, sir!" cried Hiram, in his 
 curious, husky, rattling, but penetrating voice, 
 *' it is evident you're a born sailor, as all 
 natives of such an island as Britain ought to 
 be. If the sea ain't us Englishmen's true
 
 206 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 element, then the sooner the French flag's 
 hoisted 'bove our Jack the better ; for it's 
 only one jockey old Ocean can mount at a 
 time, and if John Bull can't keep the saddle, 
 then let old Crapaud haul himself into the 
 seat by the tail, which he's always a-trying to 
 catch hold of. But I hope not to live to see 
 that day, sir." 
 
 '* Is it not blowing fresh. Captain Weeks?" 
 said Fortescue, putting all early nautical 
 questions timidly. 
 
 " Well, p'raps fresh is pretty near the word, 
 sir," answered Weeks. '' But what a wessel 
 is this ? See here, with a single reefed main- 
 sail, single reefed foresail, reefed fore-topsail, 
 standing-jib and staysail, mark how she's 
 walking ! Never knew anything drier. The 
 sea seems afraid of her — chucks itself off her 
 bovv^ just when it seems to have made up its 
 mind to tumble over the rail. I've been 
 ratching in the Hope, across the Western 
 Ocean, when its blowed so hard we've passed 
 no less than five wessels hove-to, each pretty 
 nigh big enough to stow us on their main- 
 deck. I'll tell you what's the quality of this 
 craft, Mr. Fortescue. Look over the stern.
 
 AT SEA. 207 
 
 D'ye see her wake rising to that sea there 
 that's running at it ? Well, if you were to 
 mark half a compass-circle on the taffrail and 
 calculate the direction of that wake bv 
 heaving the logship overboard, you wouldn't 
 iind as much leeway as 'ud give you the 
 sixteenth of a point." 
 
 All this was unintelligible to Fortescue ; 
 but sailors never take any account of land- 
 going ignorance when their minds are full ; 
 besides, apart from Weeks' wish to be polite 
 to the owner of the Golden Hope, it was 
 natural he should wish to strengthen the 
 recommendation he had criven her when thev 
 met in the docks. 
 
 '* She is evidently a very fast vessel," said 
 Fortescue, glancing over the bulwark, past 
 which the foam was whirling in a white wild 
 dazzle, from contrast with the green seas, into 
 which the dusky sky was putting a dark, cold 
 shade. The chalk off the Foreland was 
 dim on the quarter, and the land went in a 
 tremble to Broadstairs, where it vanished, 
 save for a blob or two of prominence that 
 might have passed for the melting head of 
 a sea. Presentlv, a eleam shone to star-
 
 208 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 board, where the North Sand Head was, 
 and as the Gull-light twinkled far distant, the 
 sullen shadow of the night in the east met 
 the southerly dimness, and the wind came 
 along in a dull moaning and warning sweep 
 from the southward of west, with the damp- 
 ness of fine rain in it, and a quick heel of the 
 schooner that provoked a hoarse shout from 
 Captain Weeks. 
 
 " Down foresail, men ! Down with it 
 sharply. Haul the staysail down, my lads !" 
 
 He poked his leathern face into the 
 binnacle, the lamp of which had been lighted 
 half-an-hour before. The schooner had 
 broken off a couple of points and in the 
 faint glare, off the white water alongside, 
 you could see the luff of the mainsail, 
 hollowing-in a trifle to the grip the schooner 
 had of the wind, ere it swelled out its wide 
 cloths to the clew that was causing the 
 massive boom to tear at the main-sheet, 
 as if it would snap the stout hemp like a 
 bit of twine. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue stood watching the men, 
 just perceiving their outlines, wondering by 
 what instinct they managed to lay hold of
 
 AT SEA. 209 
 
 the right ropes in that gloom, and without 
 the faintest notion in what direction the 
 schooner was heading, and lost in astonish- 
 ment at the skill that enabled the captain 
 to know which way to steer and what sail 
 to shorten. 
 
 '* Mr." Stone, as he should be called, being 
 mate, stepped aft to where Fortescue and 
 Captain Weeks were standing. 
 
 '* Rational weather for March, sir," said he, 
 cheerfully. "Shouldn't keep too long on 
 deck. /\ spell down below for a warm w41l 
 keep ye going." 
 
 " I don't feel cold," said Fortescue, too 
 interested to notice that he was cold. "The 
 night has come down dark, but it's a pleasure 
 to feel we're movino^. Whilst the white froth 
 there races past I know we're not lingering ; 
 and every mile, Mr. Stone, makes the voyage 
 shorter by six thousand and eighty feet." 
 
 At this Weeks coughed, and Stone cast a 
 glance aloft. What was the good of telling 
 the gentleman that if they kept all on heading 
 as they were, they'd need a long overland 
 drive before they should catch sight of the 
 Indian Ocean? 
 
 VOL. I. r
 
 2IO THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 '' Take another reef in the mainsail, and 
 two reefs in the gaff-foresail and set it, and 
 then muster the men and settle the watches, 
 Mr. Stone," said the captain. 
 
 Sail was reefed and set as directed. The 
 mate then went forward and roared out. The 
 hands lay aft, and after a bit Stone re- 
 appeared with a lantern. There was to be 
 no jealousy; Weeks and Stone were evidently 
 agreed that of the crew one was as good as 
 another ; so the picking of the watches came 
 to this: — In the captain's, or starboard watch, 
 were James Kitt, Tim Duck, Sam Wilks, 
 Micky Anson, the cook, and Johnny Simp- 
 son, boy ; in the mate's, or larboard watch, as 
 the term then was, were Martin Goldsmith* 
 William Breeches, Henry Sawyer and Joe 
 Hall ; four as against five, but then one of 
 the starbow-lines was a boy, whilst the 
 larboard watch had the advantage of a 
 working mate. 
 
 The crew went forward, the mate put the 
 lantern away, and the schooner thrashed 
 through the water, the sky dark as thunder 
 overhead, yet with an opening here and there 
 of faintness rather than light that the eye
 
 AT SEA. 211 
 
 could not determine, though it was sensible 
 of it ; not lightning nor anything resembling 
 it, but a kind of blinking, as though the glare 
 off some league of foam were flung down back 
 again by the clouds. One knew the keen 
 look-out that was being kept forward by the 
 answer that was returned to the captain's or 
 Stone's call, as if it were the echo of it ; and 
 one also knew how much depended upon 
 those eyes on the forecastle. It was blowing 
 strong indeed, and the mainsail turned the 
 wind into a continuous roll of thunder, whilst 
 now there was uproar in plenty over the 
 weather bow, against which the black surges 
 came swelling full to be smitten into an acre 
 of whiteness by the irresistible blow of the 
 flying hull ; and often you would have 
 thought the night thick with hail, when a 
 headlong floating rush of the clipper into a 
 hollow was followed by a rattling of spray 
 upon the forward decks like a wagon load of 
 gravel capsized from the height of the topsail- 
 yard. Another reef in the mainsail would 
 not have been amiss, one might have fancied, 
 for the bow sea, catching the vessel fair under 
 the bluff and under her bends, heeled her
 
 212 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 over till her lee rail looked flush with the 
 froth there, and her recovery would be such 
 a straining that the iron-stiff shrouds and 
 backstays drove a whole volley of shrieks 
 into the heart of the wind, until the roaring 
 and screaming, and the deep tones thunder- 
 ing out of the sails, and the washing noise 
 that is made by billows as they curl their 
 heads and fling the snow of their summits 
 into the valleys at their feet, were like to 
 deafen and distract a better sailor than Mal- 
 colm Fortescue. But Hiram knew his ship, 
 and what he meant her to do, and he 
 thoroughly comprehended his own ideas, 
 which cannot be said of all shipmasters. He 
 had no notion of being blown back, for that 
 would be a bad first step in Mr. Fortescue's 
 opinion ; and, expecting more wind yet, he 
 was resolved to rush the Golden Hope 
 through her ratch to the south'ard and 
 east'ard till Calais lights showed, so that he 
 might put the Goodwin Sands a long distance 
 to leeward, when, after 'bouting ship, he laid 
 up fair for Dungeness Bay. 
 
 Leaving Stone in charge, he followed 
 Fortescue below for the first of the two-
 
 AT SEA. 213 
 
 "' nips " he told the clergyman he allowed 
 himself. The first nip consisted of a gill of 
 rum in a tumbler filled up with hot water, 
 in which a piece of lemon peel floated. He 
 strongly advised Mr. Fortescue to try it, 
 as he said there was no manlier drink than 
 rum, nothing more comforting to the liver, 
 and the only spirit of them all that enabled 
 Great Britain to keep her supremacy at sea. 
 But Fortescue said, though he might come 
 to like it by-and-bye, whisky would suit 
 him best for the present, and he drank 
 the small quantity he was accustomed to 
 take of a night at Wyloe, not more to 
 keep Hiram Weeks in countenance than to 
 warm himself, for he had come desperately 
 cold from the deck, as he now found out. 
 There was a swinging lamp over the table, 
 and you wanted no livelier indicator of the 
 rolling and pitching of the vessel. In the 
 plain brown and grey of that little cabin, 
 with its holes for bunks, its glowing stove, 
 the wonderful dance of fantastic shadows 
 to the oscillations of the lamp, the pale 
 face of Fortescue, and Captain Weeks' gaunt, 
 long-jawed countenance, and thin, booted
 
 2 14 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 legs, branched out like open scissors, a 
 Dutchman with a genius for painting would 
 have found much to delight him. But 
 unhappily it is not in pigments, nor is it 
 in ink, to give to this interior the qualities 
 of sound and motion which made it the 
 wonder that Fortescue found it. Every 
 noise was dulled, and it seemed the stormier 
 for that, as the motion felt the livelier for 
 one not being able to see what caused it ; 
 every wash aft of a surge was like a sulky 
 roar of some imprisoned beast of thunderous 
 voice ; the crying in the riggings was multi- 
 tudinous in its notes, and human-like, as 
 though raised by a mob of all ages and 
 both sexes, because the ear was no longer 
 deafened by the general uproar. 
 
 ''See, now, Mr. Fortescue," said Hiram, 
 "what good a schooner is compared to 
 any other craft you could have chosen. 
 Here you are walking through it at seven 
 knots an hour, a point and a half closer 
 to the course you want than any square-rig 
 could give ye. A point and a half closer 
 and three knots faster, not to reckon lee- 
 way, which, in a light brig or ship, you.
 
 AT SEA. 215 
 
 might calculate at three or four points, 
 whilst I am not allowing th' Hope more'n 
 one point, and' that's for the send of the 
 sea, nothing else." 
 
 " You know the schooner well ? " 
 
 " So well that if she'd been my own wife, 
 married to me forty year, I couldn't know 
 her better. When the voyage is over there'll 
 be nothing to find fault with, I'm sure. Your 
 object is to get her to the island as fast as 
 you can — that island which Mr. Stone has 
 the reckonings of, and which I have marked 
 down on my chart. Roughly measured, and 
 going outside Madagascar, how fur off d'ye 
 think it is, Mr. Fortescue ?" 
 
 " I have not calculated." 
 
 *' Well, it'll be all ten thousand nautical 
 miles. And how long do you reckon, sir, 
 it's my intention to allow th' Hope to do 
 it in ?" 
 
 Fortescue asked him to say. 
 
 '' Sixty days, counting from the forenoon 
 just gone by, if the Trades are a-blowing 
 still, as their custom's been for ages, and 
 if the Cape of Good Hope ain't further 
 south than the charts represent it," he
 
 2l6 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 exclaimed, putting his empty tumbler into a 
 rack and taking a biscuit out of the locker 
 he was sitting upon and masticating it 
 violently, so that what with the expression 
 of triumph in his face, and the muscles 
 working about it in knots, and his long, 
 moving jaws, he looked, in that swinging 
 and changeful light, more like some live 
 savage set up for worship by his cannibal 
 admirers than an English seaman. Yet 
 unmistakable good-humour and sympathy 
 shone out of his protruding eyes, and 
 when Fortescue said eagerly, ''I pray 
 God, Captain Weeks, that the run may be 
 achieved in the time you name," Hiram 
 answered, "You'll see her in the Trades and 
 you'll see her in the Doldrums. You'll find 
 out, sir, that just as she'll do a comfortable 
 twelve when the right wind's blowing, so 
 there'll be ne'er a catspaw, not sufficient of 
 draught to make a butterfly dance on a blade 
 of grass, out of which she'll not get legs 
 enough to make the log-reel revolve. And 
 more'n that, Mr. Fortescue, you mark, if so 
 be there's people on that island, as I under- 
 stand that you've got it in your head to
 
 AT SEA. 217 
 
 fancy, there'll not be half as much rejoicing 
 over their captivity being ended by th' Hope, 
 as there'll be wonder at the flying rate she'll 
 have come to them at, dating from this 
 blessed day, wind sou'-west, night black, and 
 the vessel making a ratch that's only better 
 than having the anchor on the ground, 
 because presently it'll enable us to shove her 
 nose something to the north o' w^est. You 
 see," said he, rising, pulling his cap on 
 firmly, and lingering only to cut a piece off 
 a cake of black tobacco, which he pulled out 
 of his trousers' pocket, afterwards closing the 
 knife, thrusting it and the tobacco into his 
 pocket again and taking a squint at the 
 fragment ere putting it into his cheek, all 
 very slowly and deliberately, for your true 
 merchantman never is in a hurry unless the 
 occasion arises, when he becomes as active 
 as a monkey, '' You see, sir, a good many 
 would bring up in the Downs and wait for 
 daylight if nothing more followed. But it 
 isn't only that speed's your desire, the 
 selection of the Hope has got to be justified, 
 and I've made up my mind that nothing 
 short of a living gale shall stop us for a
 
 2l8 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 week, or a day, or an hour, according as that 
 living gale may sarve us. As I told Mr. Salt 
 when he says to me, * Captain,' he says, 
 ' don't spare her, 'tis a long voyage ; the 
 schooner Isn't an Indlaman for accommoda- 
 tion ; my relative won't be able to bear too 
 much salt-water In a vessel of her tonnage, 
 and you must tarn to and forget all about 
 figs and currants and raisins, and Imagine 
 ye're chartered to fetch and bring home the 
 first of the season's teas, on a wager, which, 
 if lost, '11 ruin three aldermen who purveys 
 provisions for sailors, and involve the social 
 position of the Lord Mayor of London, "^ 
 whatever that may mean." 
 
 Thus speaking, and with a laugh like the 
 noise made by a saw shearing through a 
 baulk of teak, he clawed his way to the 
 companion and with two strides gained the 
 deck.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 
 
 FoRTESCUE remained for some time in the 
 cabin after Captain Weeks had left it. So 
 much of the visionary character of this errand 
 was mixed up in the steps he had taken from 
 the time of his dream down to the moment of 
 his embarkation, that when he looked back, 
 the dark curtain of the past seemed to exhibit 
 no more than a phantasmagoria, and waking 
 up from the reverie he had fallen into, it was 
 with a start that he felt the sharp realization 
 that came to him, with his glance around the 
 dancing light and shadows, the leaping deck, 
 the ever-varying angles of stanchion and 
 ceiling. 
 
 He felt his imagination growing dangerous, 
 as indeed an observer would have suspected 
 from the expression of his face, whose 
 blanched cheeks and large, dark gleaming
 
 2 20 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 eyes and fixed and tightened lips, took a 
 character that seemed scarcely earthly, from 
 the red tinge imparted by the stove and 
 the swing of the cabin lamp, whose fluc- 
 tuating lustre gave him the air of an 
 incessant change of mood. He suddenly rose, 
 taking no heed of the sloping and tossing of 
 the deck, for deep meditation had rendered 
 him insensible to time, place and movement ; 
 but at sea there is no supernaturalism of any 
 kind, that ever I heard of, which will enable 
 a landsman to balance himself with ease when 
 his vessel is cutting capers, and perhaps the 
 obligation to hastily lay hold of the table, and 
 put his whole mind into the necessity of 
 gaining the deck without tumbling down, did 
 him more good than all the doctors in Great 
 Britain rising as one man to prescribe for him. 
 If you are hysterical, sleepless, suffering 
 from any or all of those nervous maladies, of 
 which a full list is generally appended now- 
 a-days to every rascally quack's advertisement 
 of his pill or potion, go, oh ! reader, to sea. 
 Why, in a very short time, had Fortescue 
 remained seated in that cabin, we should 
 probably have found him growing hysterical,
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 221 
 
 choking with sobs, struggling with a sense of 
 hopelessness, and feeling that if his inspired 
 errand should prove futile, the very deepest 
 part of the Indian Ocean would not have 
 depth enough to hide his bones. But what 
 does this man do — this sensible man, whom 
 Mrs. Clayton. Mr. Salt. Mr. Skinner, and, 
 for all one knows, \\ illiam Stone, consider 
 functionally disturbed ? He creeps and claws 
 his way up the companion-steps, and scarcely 
 has he got his head above the hatch, when 
 pouff ! thunders a blast of salt-water wind 
 clean into his throat and blows every nervous, 
 every hysterical, every despondent feeling 
 out of him overboard. In the cabin it was 
 simply pitching and tossing, with the confine- 
 ment of bulkheads forcing the mind inwards ; 
 but on deck it was a great black world, higher 
 for its sooty shadows of clouds than the stars 
 could have made it appear, broader than 
 daylight could have shown it for the distance 
 the nearer froth made the further foaming 
 heads show at ; wild and hoarse with wind 
 and resonant with the shrilling in the rigging, 
 so that a man fresh from the cabin, coming 
 out of the lamp-light into the darkness and
 
 2 22 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the noise, would have been able to think of 
 nothing but what he could faintly see and 
 with half-deafened organ hear. 
 
 In reality, there was no more wind than 
 was blowing ere Mr. Fortescue left the 
 deck, but it seemed to him to come with 
 double its old weight, and with an added 
 spite of cold in it. Oh! it was a raw wind. 
 A wind to make one think how shipwrecked 
 men must suffer in such weather, when their 
 vessels go ashore and they lash themselves 
 aloft where the gale comes hardest and 
 bitterest, and where the freezing wet covers 
 the body like glass; and to protect his wet 
 ears, the clergyman covered them with the 
 well-lined flaps of his cap. But the sea ran 
 higher if the wind had not increased. The 
 Golden Hope was nearing the French coast, 
 but Cape Grisnez was too far off to check the 
 impulse of the billows that were running with 
 deep hollows and snow-clouded heads to the 
 boisterous shouting of the up-channel wind. 
 Ere Mr. Fortescue had stood holding-on in 
 the companion ten seconds trying to find his 
 eyes, one sample of the conflict between the 
 brave cutwater and bow of the schooner and
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 223 
 
 the black peaks hurling their weight of 
 toppling summits against the shearing vessel, 
 was submitted to him in the form of a wild 
 •and shrieking dive of her whole length into a 
 white trough, hissing as a thousand score of 
 serpents might, then a floating rise of the 
 forward part, like to the flight of a vast 
 albatross snapping into the head of a surge 
 for what it sees there, and then a clean cut 
 through the w^ave, elbowing it into a hill of 
 foam to windward, half of which was swung 
 by the wind over the forecastle into the 
 lee water, though with a mighty smiting 
 of the deck by a load of it that missed 
 the leap. 
 
 Fortescue made out the figure of Weeks, 
 lean and long as the staff of a dog-vane, 
 stiffly erect on the weather quarter, where 
 he was keeping as bright a look-out as his 
 protruding eyes would permit. Stone came 
 up from to leeward to the clergyman. 
 
 "On deck again, sir?" said he. "I hope 
 you feel perfectly comfortable and easy in 
 your mind. Pity the first night should be so 
 rough and dark ; but it ain't stopping us, 
 and that's a good job."
 
 224 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 ''In what direction are we sailing, Mr, 
 Stone ?" 
 
 '' Right on to the Cally coast, sir. That's 
 the Grenny light away there on the weather 
 bow ; we shall be 'bouting ship soon for 
 a ratch to t'other side, where roast beef 
 and plum-pudden's found. After all, Mr. 
 Fortescue, there's no place like home, even 
 to a man who's got none ; which is no con- 
 tradiction, because by home I mean where a 
 man's born, not the house he lives in. Fancy 
 being a native of the country we're pointing 
 at! 'Taint that the French ain't clever, and 
 first-class hands at cutting out mantles and 
 female dresses, but a nation that prefers soup 
 to beer can't be up to much in my opinion, 
 when ye think of 'em as fighting by land, 
 let alone water, which they never will know 
 nothen about." 
 
 He had to shout to be heard ; for he had 
 not only the wind to out-bellow, but there 
 were Mr. Fortescue's ear-pads to penetrate. 
 
 " What's that light out there .^" said the 
 clergyman, pointing ahead. 
 
 ''Cally light. If there was more oil in 
 that town we'd see the sheen chucked up
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 22 5 
 
 by the houses, just as Deal's wisible ten 
 mile off, low as she lies. But my notion 
 is that Frenchmen uses their oil in their 
 food, instead of burning it. Was ye ever 
 in Cally, sir ?" 
 
 '' Never." 
 
 "Well, it's more a smell nor a town. All 
 .the work's done by the women. The men 
 make trousers out of their wives' aprons ; 
 think o' that ! They steals all the lump sugar 
 they come across, and hide it in their caps. 
 The women don't kiss. It's only the men 
 as are permitted to do that. I allow that's 
 why they wear wooden shoes. If kissin' the 
 girls was permitted, the men 'ud need boots 
 as wouldn't make a noise." 
 
 At this Mr. Fortescue laughed outright — 
 his first laugh for many a month. 
 
 "Ton my word, sir," continued Stone, 
 '* you're making astonishing good weather 
 of this tumble. I never supposed you'd be 
 sick, onnatural behaviour of that kind you're 
 incapable of ; but I certainly did not expect 
 to find ye looking the wind in the eye as 
 you're doing — and a cold eye, too, mind you, 
 sir — an' yarning here, fust night at sea, and a 
 VOL. I. <^
 
 226 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 dirty night, certainly, as if you were an old 
 hand. But I've always fancied that the 
 clergy are a good deal like sailors. They've 
 got to tarn to when the call's made, whether 
 it's blowin' or snowin' or anything else. And 
 though they do a deal of good, yet, like 
 sailors, they gets a vast of abuse. You 
 reck'lect the tale of the young lady, who, 
 when some sailors were pointed out to her, 
 said, ' Why, they're just like men !' I don't 
 mean to say that young lady could mistake 
 the clergy for anything but men. I've always 
 fancied they're too fond of 'em for to commit 
 such an error. But you may depend upon it, 
 sir, sailors and ministers of the Gospel aren't 
 so fur apart as some folks might think. 
 There's more languidge, as the saying is, 
 perhaps, among seafaring people than 
 preachers indulge theirselves in ; but it's a 
 question if there'd be even that difference if 
 parsons had the worrits of sailor men." 
 
 At this point of his interesting remarks 
 on things in general, Stone was interrupted 
 by a cry from Weeks. 
 
 *' Fo'ksle there! Is that a ship to wind- 
 ward on the bow yonder ?"
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 227 
 
 Stone Instantly staggered over to the rail, 
 and Fortescue followed him. There was a 
 pause before an answer was returned from 
 the forecastle. 
 
 "Ay, sir, it's a vessel, and she looks to 
 be standing in for Calais." 
 
 The interposition of the bulwark made all 
 the difference when one stood at the com- 
 panion and when one looked over the rail. 
 Here the weight of the wind came sheer 
 off the smooth, sloping side of the fabric and 
 flashed yelling into the canvas ; and what 
 with the force of it and the spray, it w^as 
 more than Fortescue could confront for 
 longer than a few moments at a time, 
 whilst all that his brief glance showed 
 him was a windward darkness that rendered 
 Weeks' power of penetrating it miraculous 
 to the clergyman, and a swarming surface 
 of white spreading from the schooner's bow, 
 the milky glare of which turned the sky into 
 a floor of ebony, and caused the water 
 beyond to appear as folds of black vapour. 
 
 " She looks to me as if she was running, 
 sir," shouted Stone, after staring a bit under 
 his hands.
 
 2 28 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 *' Ay, that's so, I believe!" bawled Weeks,, 
 coming to abreast of the main rigging in 
 three springs, like a kangaroo. " Show a 
 light !" 
 
 But William Stone, old as he was, was 
 before them all ; he had jumped for the 
 lantern — always kept ready for such emergen- 
 cies before the bewildering regulation of 
 lights was introduced — ere the words were 
 well out of Hiram's mouth, and was speedily 
 three ratlines high in the forerigging, flourish- 
 ing the lantern, in the haze of which his 
 figure stood out against the blackness like 
 the sketch of a man done in phosphorus. 
 A few seconds after the lantern had been 
 shown, the vessel out in the darkness spied 
 it, and presently was all alight with lanterns 
 and flare-tins, the latter streaming out the 
 smoky flames of turpentine and oil with 
 particles of the burning cotton flying in 
 sparks with the wind. It w^as more an 
 apparition than a reality, and Fortescue» 
 swinging to a backstay, watched with 
 breathless excitement the wonderful spec- 
 tacle presented by the vessel, which her 
 crowd of lights disclosed as a large, full-
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 2 29 
 
 rigged ship, the water under her coloured 
 red as blood to every stately roll to port, 
 and her forecourse and topsails and staysails 
 to as high as the radiance went, showing 
 a pale yellow, till they vanished in the 
 sooty darkness. She was too far off for 
 faces to be seen, and the wind blew what- 
 ever shouts the people raised clean away 
 from the hearing of the schooner. But the 
 alarm, the hurry, the sort of tremblification 
 you seemed to feel was going on aboard 
 her, all illustrated by the pell-mell manner 
 in which her lights had sprung up, proved 
 her a Frenchman, a high, slow tub, running, 
 as Mr, Stone had declared, and rapidly clos- 
 ing with the Golden Hope, whose hawse 
 she was crossing, and whose stem would 
 be into her if it depended only on her 
 crew. 
 
 " Hard down ! " shouted Weeks. " Ready 
 about, my lads." 
 
 The long tiller was swept over and 
 jammed hard a-lee ; Stone sprang out of 
 the forerigging ; some hands went leaping 
 to the foresheet ; there was a thunderous 
 noise of flapping canvas, and the big ship,
 
 230 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 with her waving lanterns and throbbing^ 
 streaming flares, swept from one bow to the 
 other, close enough in that dizzy reel for 
 dozens of white faces on her poop and along 
 her sides and on her forecastle to be seen in 
 the light of the signals ; close enough for the 
 radiance of lamps upon her cabin windows to 
 shine over the foam under them like the 
 yellow eyes of sea-monsters rushing past ; 
 close enough for the roaring of the wind in 
 her sails to be heard, and the creaking of 
 blocks, the clatter of ropes blown against 
 ropes, the grinding of wheel-chains, the jar 
 of the very rudder smitten by a volume of 
 water, swelling to the counter and uprearing 
 the ship's stern to the height of the topsail- 
 yard of the schooner that spun on her heel, 
 amid the very wake of the big ship, as it 
 seemed. 
 
 There is always a certain amount of excite- 
 ment in tacking a vessel in a strong breeze 
 and rough sea ; noise is inevitable, and there 
 is much necessary running here and there to 
 pull upon ropes and belay, and drag the yards 
 round and haul the sheets flat. But when a 
 craft has to be put about in a violent hurry
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 23 1 
 
 to avert the dread disaster of collision, the 
 business is something to quicken the pulse 
 of the coolest seaman. Fortescue quite 
 understood the peril they had been in, and 
 appreciated the instant resolution and smart- 
 ness with which a catastrophe, that in all 
 probability would have put an end to- his 
 voyage for good and all, had been evaded, 
 but, landsman-like, the chief part of his alarm 
 was caused, not by the schooner having 
 been nearly sent to the bottom, but by the 
 manoeuvring through which she had escaped 
 that fate. One moment there was a sense of 
 swift movement ; the next, the feeling of 
 being wing-borne was gone, and the schooner 
 w-as savagely chopping the billows, plunging 
 furiously on a level keel, with sails shaking, 
 sheets thrashing, the wind meeting the rush 
 into its eye of the staying vessel with a loud 
 roaring as it split against the masts. But it 
 was a wonderful scene ere the schooner took 
 the breeze on her port-bow; black as thunder, 
 not a break for a pinion of vapour to show 
 against overhead ; on the lee quarter the big 
 ship, her place indicated by a windy gleam 
 on her deck or by the inky blot her shadow^
 
 232 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 made where her canvas stood ; a dim haze 
 where Calais was, with a brighter speck or 
 two in the foreground ; the lantern of Cape 
 Grisnez, like some electric exhalation, poised 
 under the far-off, cloudy thickness of dusk 
 over the headland ; the sea, to where It died 
 out In darkness, a melancholy swollen waste, 
 wintry with pallid drifts and streaks of froth 
 and with the keen fangs of the wind, In every 
 blast of which there rang a wolfish howling. 
 I say It was a wonderful scene, at least to 
 the unaccustomed sight of Fortescue, whose 
 glance had the swiftness and encompassing 
 power possessed by the Imaginative and 
 poetic mind. But In another moment the 
 Golden Hope was leaning to starboard, 
 almost burying herself whilst she seemed to 
 collect her forces for the first bound ; then 
 with a shiver as If flinging off the wet of the 
 heavy wash of the spray that broke over her 
 forecastle, she leapt to the summit of a surge 
 and went tearing through it as though she 
 had the scent of the English soil in her nose 
 and meant to let her owner see what she was 
 capable of In this second ratch across the 
 Channel.
 
 TOUCH AXD GO. 233 
 
 But the perpetual storming of the wind, 
 cold with wet, with southing, with the chill it 
 swept up off the water and took from the 
 bleak March night it blew through, was more 
 than Fortescue could any longer stand. He 
 told Captain Weeks he should go below to 
 bed. 
 
 ''You can't do better, sir. Hope you'll 
 sleep well, and that you'll take no notice of 
 what's just happened. It's a night to force a 
 man to forget he's got eyelids — I mean for 
 the darkness ; as for the breeze, it 'ud be 
 beautiful if it only blew the right way. 
 Mr. Stone and me intends to keep the 
 deck together and watch th' Hope fair into 
 daylight, for you see, sir, the necessity of 
 making that island of yours as soon as 
 possible is a h'obligation that's bound to 
 keep us all on going ; and, allowing for this 
 wrong-headed wind to hold its present weight, 
 I shall reckon it a queer start if by breakfast- 
 time to-morrow morning we haven't got sea 
 room enough before us to keep the Atlantic 
 straight in our road ; for after another board 
 to the land of frogs we shan't object to taking 
 a squint at the Lizard when we've got the
 
 234 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 whole of the bay under our larboard bow 
 round the corner." 
 
 Whatever this language meant, Mr. For- 
 tescue was sure it must be satisfactory, and 
 he also noticed with pleasure the marked tone 
 of respectful sympathy in Weeks' words. He 
 shook hands with him, called a good-night 
 to Stone, and went below, where Johnny 
 Simpson, the boy, lighted his cabin lamp 
 and helped him in other ways. Fortescue 
 would perhaps have found his cabin rather 
 smaller than it was, if he had not come 
 to it from rooms not very much larger. 
 It was comfortably fitted with a bunk, 
 drawers, and washstand, lighted in day-time 
 by a bull's eye and a scuttle fitted with 
 immensely thick glass, now tightly screwed 
 up and converted by the blackness outside 
 into a looking-glass which reflected the lamp- 
 light outside, and gave back the clergyman's 
 face when he sought to peer through it. 
 
 He sat a long while in this cabin before 
 going to bed. 
 
 Many tender, and sad, and joyous, and 
 shocking scenes the surface of the ocean has 
 betrayed to the sun and the stars ; but what
 
 TOUCH AND GO. 
 
 6y 
 
 sight stranger and more affecting in its way, 
 what more composite with quahties of hope^ 
 and fear, and faith, and supernatural impulse, 
 did any surge-tossed vessel contain, than this 
 of the cabin of the schooner Golden Hope, 
 where the devoted lover, the ardent believer 
 in his ^Maker's mercy, the man who in his 
 wonderful yearning for his betrothed had 
 embarked in a search for her on the slender 
 promise of a dream^ without a sequel, kneeled 
 with damp cheeks and lifted hands, whilst 
 through the words he uttered rang the tramp 
 of seamen moving about the decks, the 
 crying of the wind, the splashing and 
 seething sounds of billows recoiling from 
 the spurning sides of the vessel rising 
 buoyant to their angry blows ?
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 
 
 Wind in the English Channel is very often 
 a great deal more constant than capricious. 
 From those same Downs, in which the 
 Verulam had brought up for a few hours, 
 seamen will tell you that they have sailed 
 away for the Azores or South European ports, 
 leaving vessels at anchor windbound, and that 
 they have returned to find them still at anchor, 
 windbound. A west-south-west breeze some- 
 times rising into half a gale, is an evil wind 
 for a vessel bound down Channel on a course 
 nearly due west by magnetic compass ; 
 and whatever Captain Weeks might have 
 hoped when he bade Mr. Fortescue good- 
 night, the result proved an intensely dis- 
 agreeable wrestle with the wind, tack by 
 tack, lasting five days, from the longitude 
 of the North Foreland, ere the Golden
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 22,^ 
 
 Hope had fairly got the Lizard abreast of 
 her. 
 
 This cold and prolonged disappointment 
 of weather seemed to be as much felt by the 
 little schooner as by ever\'one in her, from 
 Mr. Fortescue down to Johnny, the boy. 
 Her beauty was not gone, but she looked 
 like a handsome girl suffering from a severe 
 cold, shivering, jaded, irritable. Weeks 
 kept his topmasts fidded, for he was an 
 old Atlantic jockey, and he wanted a black 
 gale before he could be got to think of 
 sending down spars or housing them : and 
 so the schooner remained sightly enough for 
 the eye to look at aloft. The spectacle was 
 miserable ! You saw it in the face of the 
 helmsman, robed in gleaming sou'-wester, 
 long pea-coat, and yellow leggings, when he 
 peered with a sulky squint at as much of the 
 sea as was visible, or when a vicious swerve 
 of the worried craft forced him to help her 
 with the helm (with a bad word in his throat, 
 which he expelled along with a squirt of 
 tobacco juice), before the hang of her should 
 give the surge a chance of sweeping a few 
 tons of its water over her midship weather-
 
 238 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 rail. Likewise you saw it in Weeks' leathern 
 cheeks and his unusually animated chewing 
 of the nautical cud, when he'd come up from 
 below and behold nothing but the same sight 
 over and over again ; and in Mr. Stone, out 
 of whose soul the headwind was extracting 
 the sourness which mariners of sixty years 
 old and upwards are commonly found to be 
 as full of when irritated as a lemon is of acid 
 juice when squeezed ; and in the crew, whose 
 chief business lay in keeping a bright look- 
 out, in attending to the sheets and braces 
 when Weeks or Stone gave the order to 
 tack, in warming their frozen fingers and 
 squeezing the mist out of their eys. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue was patient, and Weeks 
 said nothing to render him otherwise. 
 
 ** Still dead ahead the wind is," he would 
 remark to the curate, "but th' Hope's a 
 vessel as knows how to go to windward 
 pretty near as well as those box-bottomed 
 Geordies as hail from the north know how to 
 go to leeward. A square rigger would take 
 ten or twelve days to find her way to abreast 
 of Portland even in clear weather, with this 
 breeze heading her, whilst we should be well
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 239 
 
 -on to be clear of the Channel by this time if 
 it wasn't that I durstn't keep her under the 
 -canvas she could carry, when the smother at 
 times won't allow you to see five times her 
 length." 
 
 Indeed, to speak the truth, Hiram had 
 l)een slightly scared by his narrow shave with 
 the French ship off Calais ; and ever since 
 had kept the schooner under easy canvas — 
 close-reefed square-topsail, reefed standing 
 jib and stay foresail, and treble-reefed main 
 sail and gaff- foresail. 
 
 •'After all," he had said to Mr. Stone, 
 ''we're not up to the hatches with oranges 
 that'll have to be chucked overboard if we're 
 a few days behind our time. The H indie 
 Ocean isn't Fresh Wharf, and better to lose 
 a week in this muckiness with detarmination 
 to make up for it when blue water's under us 
 and th' horizon's wisible, than crack on now 
 with the chance of doubling up a few smacks 
 on the road, or being doubled up ourselves 
 by running aboard of something ten times 
 our size." 
 
 And perhaps Fortescue's patience was 
 not unindebted to his ignorance of the
 
 240 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 meaning of beating against a strong head- 
 wind and sea. Had the Golden Hope 
 brought up, say in Lyme Bay or under 
 the lee of the "Wight," he would have 
 chafed to a certainty with the thought of 
 the anchor being down and the schooner 
 tumbling and straining without one inch of 
 way ; but he could not help feeling to an 
 extent satisfied when, every time he glanced 
 over the rail, whether to port or to star- 
 board, he found the vessel lying down to 
 her work, shearing and seething through 
 it with a wake racing out astern of her 
 that might for length and whiteness have 
 served for a speed of ten miles an hour. 
 Besides being often tempted to go into the 
 head for the delight it gave him to look 
 over the rail and watch the stem of his 
 vessel ripping through the olive-coloured 
 water, flinging the rude foam off her 
 weather bow, or arching the surge back- 
 wards into a frothless, glass-like comber, 
 he never failed to find a kind of exultation 
 inspired in him by the golden figure under 
 the bowsprit, poised in impetuous pose, and 
 triumphing with lifted trumpet over the
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 24! 
 
 swelling waters, that leapt and then flashed 
 and then scattered to right and left before 
 the proud bounds and graceful, tigress-like 
 movements of the little craft. Moreover, 
 the wet, boisterous weather, by obliging 
 him to keep under shelter, led to long 
 talks with Stone and Hiram Weeks, as the 
 men's watch below or on deck permitted ; 
 by which means he acquired a very good 
 knowledge of their characters and peculiari- 
 ties, besides being much amused by them. 
 Of Stone he had the higher opinion, but 
 he believed he could see a great deal of 
 genuine manhood underlying Hiram's gaunt 
 and ugly exterior, and he liked him for this 
 as well as for many little things in his speech 
 and manner, too subtle to be expressed on 
 paper, but felt as a glance is, or a faint 
 gesture. 
 
 Yet Fortescue was embarrassed by him 
 when they were three days out, eating their 
 one o'clock dinner. Stone keeping the deck, 
 Johnny standing at the foot of the ladder 
 in attendance, and the skylight dark with 
 a squall which made the schooner so frisky 
 that it was not only hard for the clergy- 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 man to see his plate, but to keep it from 
 tumbling into his lap. 
 
 ''You may calculate, Mr. Fortescue," said 
 Weeks, '' that the ocean'll make another man 
 of you. The sleeves and backs of your 
 coats'll have to be let out long before we're 
 heading for home if they're to clothe you. 
 When I was first bent on going to sea, I was 
 that delicate in my constitution that my 
 mother had to stand over me with a stick to 
 make me eat. Six months after I had used 
 the sea I'd have broken that same stick over 
 the head of any man as should have done me 
 out of as much of my 'lowance of provisions 
 as might have been eat up by a fly whilst a 
 chap looked on. Yes, there's no medicine 
 like salt-water. Only think of what you 
 breathe. Take this breeze. Every mouthful 
 of it comes right across the Atlantic, with 
 nothing between and nothing particular be- 
 hind, for the Yankees are a middling clean 
 people ; besides, where this wind starts from, 
 it may be all prairie and clean coast from 
 Washington to Charlestown, South Carolina." 
 
 " I have no doubt that the ocean air will 
 do wonders for me," replied Fortescue,
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 243 
 
 quietly, never much relishing any reference 
 to himself. 
 
 " I hope," continued Weeks, filling a glass 
 from a bottle of beer that he took from the 
 swinging tray, and balancing it as easily as 
 though there was not a move in the schooner, 
 whilst he held it up to the skylight and 
 peered through it with one eye that seemed 
 to start from its socket like a lobster's, ''that 
 you'll not think I'm wanting to know too 
 much, if I ask what put it into your head to 
 sail for the Indian Ocean. I understand," 
 he added, after taking a drink, '* that some 
 friends of yours are missing from the 
 Werulam — a fine ship, sir, nothing finer in 
 the Merchant Sarvice or Navy was ever 
 burnt or lost — and Mr. Salt told me that 
 one reason of yours for seeking Stone's 
 Island was that you might find out whether 
 your friends was likely to be on it." 
 
 Fortescue gave him a half-nod, and folding 
 his arms, watched him, whilst Johnny tumbled 
 about the table, clearing up. 
 
 '' But Mr. Salt said your main object was 
 your health, though Stone has replied 'no* 
 to that. But then Mr. Salt's bound to know
 
 244 'T^E GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 more about it than Stone, and If I make so 
 bold as to ask you why you choose the Indian 
 Ocean, It's because I can't help fancying that 
 more southerly latitudes would suit you better. 
 It's broiling hot where we're bound to, sir. 
 You'll have a taste of It this side afore you 
 gets there, and as to anyone you have consarn 
 in being on that Island of Stone's, why the 
 chance Is so much against it that I wouldn't 
 take It Into calculation If I was you, sir, but 
 think only of your health, and keep to the 
 south side." 
 
 "No doubt you're right as regards the 
 difference of the climate between the Equator 
 and the latitude, say, of the Cape of Good 
 Hope," said Fortescue, ''but I have an idea 
 that some of the survivors of the Verulam 
 may be on that Island — which you call 
 Stone's Island — a good name for it — and 
 Mr. Stone is more correct than Mr. Salt In 
 saying that my chief object In purchasing 
 this vessel and making the voyage was to 
 satisfy my mind on that subject." 
 
 Hiram Weeks could not restrain his 
 curiosity. 
 
 *' Beg pardon, I'm sure, Mr. Fortescue,.
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 245 
 
 but if you've no better authority for believing 
 survivors to be on the island than supposin', 
 won't it come to making this woyage a very 
 expensive job to you if you find that there's 
 nothen living when you get there ?" 
 
 '' Let us get there first," said Fortescue, 
 with perfect amiability, but in a tone which 
 compelled Hiram to understand that the 
 subject had been carried far enough. 
 
 The skipper took the hint, and after a stare 
 at the skylight, and then a look at the tell- 
 tale compass, and uttering a brief marine 
 growl at the weather, he went on deck. 
 He was puzzled, and stood a minute in the 
 companion-hatch, rubbing his nose, and 
 peering at old Stone, who stood to wind- 
 ward of the tiller, clapping his breast for 
 warmth. He had half a mind to talk the 
 thing over with the mate, because his 
 curiosity had been excited by hearing Mr. 
 Fortescue himself say that his principal 
 object in making the voyage was to seek 
 some friends in the far-off island. " As 
 how," he said to himself, "could he know 
 there was any of 'em there, for the mere 
 hoping that they were there wasn't going
 
 246 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 to make a man spend all two thousand 
 pounds, and travel twenty thousand miles, 
 and leave his duties ashore to take care 
 of themselves." But after contemplatively- 
 squinting awhile at Stone, he reflected that 
 Mr. Fortescue would be annoyed if it came 
 to his ears that the captain of his vessel was 
 talking and arguing about him ; so, instead, 
 he told the mate to go below and get his 
 dinner, and took his place on the weather 
 quarter, after a yell to the fellow in the bows 
 to keep his eyes skinned, for, said he, address- 
 ing the seaman who was grasping the tiller 
 rope, ''Confound me, Harry, if this here 
 smother isn't like a cauldron that I once saw 
 bilin' in a theayter, when a piece was being 
 presented called ' Macbeth.' There was some 
 old women collected around the job, and 
 among other things I rec'klect of their chuck- 
 ing in was a lizard's leg and the blood of 
 a sow as had ate her little uns." 
 
 "Who was goin' to swaller the likes of 
 such broth as that ?" said the helmsman, 
 whose mahogany face looked almost black in 
 the dusky drizzle, and from contrast with the 
 reddish beard that forked straight out over
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 247 
 
 the collar of his oilskin coat. " P'raps them 
 old women meant it for sailors." 
 
 " It's not the broth I'm talking about," said 
 Weeks. "It's the h'allegory, if you know what 
 that means. I say that this here smother is 
 like the smoke from the cauldron I saw, only 
 instead of ghosts coming up out of it, as they 
 did in that theayter play, it'll be wessels to 
 run against ;" and then, with a long look 
 round, he felt for a piece of tobacco, and 
 muttered, " Two eyes ain't enough for a 
 sailor. If nautical men had been taken into 
 consideration when this here airth came 
 blooming up into life out of nothen at all, I 
 allow they'd have been treated as the peacock 
 is, eyes enough to sleep with and keep a look- 
 out with at the same time ; eyes for the head 
 and eyes for the starn ; eyes like yours and 
 mine for fine weather, and eyes like a proper 
 ship's glasses when it drawed up thick." 
 
 Weeks had reason to grumble, because 
 those days of Channel thickness put a deal of 
 heavy responsibility upon him. It was not 
 the cold, nor the wet, nor the headwind; it 
 was having to be up and down all the time, 
 seeing that everything was right, that the
 
 248 ' THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 look-out was alive and keen, and so forth. 
 He hadn't the shadow of a doubt that 
 Mr. Stone was to be trusted up to the 
 hilt; but the man was old as sailors go, had 
 knocked off the sea for some years, and 
 wanted watching, at all events till the 
 sky showed the road clear. The fruiter 
 was but a little craft — ninety tons — larger 
 in those days than she would be thought 
 now, but small all the same ; and offering 
 a hull which a tall, lumpish East or West 
 Indiaman, or a massive frigate, French 
 or English, or big warship of any nation, 
 v/ith bows like a cliff", thundering up 
 Channel or stretching north or south on a 
 bowline, would run down without feeling 
 more than a "thud," just enough to make 
 the look-out peer over the rail, and 
 wonder whether it could have been a balk 
 of timber or a buoy. Now and again a 
 dingy sort of smudge would show out to 
 port or starboard, and if the schooner w^as 
 heading that way the blotch would take the 
 shape and substance of a smack, perhaps, or 
 a groaning old Sunderland pink bound to a 
 French port, or a rakish Yankee brig
 
 STRUGGLING THROUGH IT. 249 
 
 Steering for London river, driving with a 
 curtsey out of the folds of vapour into open 
 space ; more like a toy than a real vessel, 
 with her cotton-white canvas, skysail poles, 
 white netting round her short poop, and 
 the metal under her counter gleaming as 
 though a glare of sunshine touched its 
 wetness, when, after a saucy frisk or two, 
 she swung into the mist and faded out. 
 But most of the craft the Golden Hope 
 passed in that dreary, drizzling, bitterly cold 
 and blowing time, were just phantoms, 
 oozings of shadow which never took shape, 
 yet plentiful enough to make the daylight 
 — not to speak of the long hours of dark- 
 ness — formidable ; and a blessed hour was 
 that when, on the eve of the change of 
 weather, Stone's and Weeks' noses, with 
 a crystal at the end of them, met close in 
 the light of the binnacle, in the delight the 
 men took to note that the wind had veered 
 with a sudden leap to the eastward of south, 
 and that the Golden Hope might at last he 
 headed west by north-half-north, with the 
 strong breeze that had been baffling her for 
 five days now abaft the beam.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 
 
 FoRTESCUE had no idea of the change in the 
 weather until he came on deck, though he 
 might have noticed a blueish brightness on 
 his scuttle flashing off the dancing water. 
 The wind had veered at midnight, and what 
 the clergyman saw when he emerged through 
 the companion was no longer thickness, and 
 drizzle, and streaming decks, and small 
 canvas dark with damp, but a heaven of 
 azure, with many mountainous clouds white 
 as wool, one fold towering above another 
 with fragments of rainbow dissolving on their 
 eastern skirts, clouds so noble and majestic, 
 so snow-like in their brilliant brows, so fitted 
 as foils for the prismatic glories of the sunlit 
 iceberg, that it was as wonderful to mark 
 them sailing up out of the south (where in 
 March one fancies all the warmth lies) instead
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 25 I 
 
 of down from the Arctic regions, as it was 
 delightful to plunge the fancy into their soft 
 depths, to observe summits, and brows, and 
 eminences, the spurs of hills, the defiles and 
 ravines and scars, all as solid to the eye as 
 the substantial land, yet presently to melt and 
 disappear like a whiff of tobacco smoke. 
 These vast bodies of vapour filled the sea 
 with their shadows ; the water had not yet 
 taken the azure of the fathomless deep, but 
 the delicate green might well have passed for 
 a faint blue, and the sun shining almost 
 astern of the schooner would, from the edge 
 of every cloud that swept athwart him, fiing a 
 dazzle over the vessel's bows, and transmute 
 into silver the surges which ran across the 
 path of her stem. 
 
 Fortescue stood gazing around him and 
 aloft lost in amazement that was a kind of 
 transport too. The last time he had seen the 
 Golden Hope she was a soaked and struggling 
 vessel ; and now ! — from the flying-jibboom 
 end to the end of the mainboom, from the fore- 
 topgallant-yard to the gaff- topsail, she was 
 literally a tower of canvas. The men had 
 got the stunsail-booms on the yards at
 
 252 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 -daybreak, and the sails were set — topmast 
 and topgallant-stunsails — so that the yards 
 being braced in and yet indined upwards 
 by the vessel's heel to the beamwind, she 
 looked to windward to be carrying such a 
 weight and stretch of cloths as made For- 
 tescue wonder they did not overset the 
 slender fabric that raced beneath them. 
 The fresh breeze was bitterly cold, but the 
 flying sunshine put such joy into it that 
 you thought of nothing but the health of 
 its frosty kissing ; and it was joyous still 
 when the deep-bosomed clouds smote the 
 sun and threw their shadows upon the 
 schooner, for the whirling be?ms of the 
 luminary thus eclipsed were sure to keep 
 the waters flashing ahead, and before the 
 obscuration had time to make its dimness 
 felt, the Golden Hope had rushed into the 
 lighted surges again, flinging the spray aft 
 as far as the gangway, as though showing 
 her triumph and exultation in the bene- 
 ficent splendour that shone upon her once 
 more, and breaking from waterway to 
 topmast-head into a whiteness of canvas 
 that rivalled the glittering fleeciness of the
 
 GOOD HEADWAY, 253 
 
 vaporous folds which had momentarily 
 darkened her beauty. 
 
 " Here it is at last, sir," said Stone, 
 touching his cap to the clergyman. " Not 
 only a fair wind, as it's called ashore, but fine 
 weather ; almost beautiful, indeed, for I don't 
 know that ever I saw wonderfuller clouds." 
 
 '' It does not come too soon, ^Ir. Stone," 
 exclaimed Fortescue, feeling all the freshness 
 and glory of the scene in his heart, though 
 the old sailor noticed, with a side-peep of 
 compassion, how pale the curate's cheeks 
 showed in the penetrating silver splendour 
 that was then showering down from a light 
 blue rift, and how wild and yet sad, likewise, 
 the brilliance that his large, dark eyes took 
 from the darting gleams, made his eager, 
 handsome, attenuated face appear. "Why, 
 one feels to be flying on the back of some 
 great sea-fowl through the air, instead of 
 being on the deck of a vessel." 
 
 He raised his eyes to the immense show of 
 canvas, from which, as he watched, in the 
 space of a breath almost, the shining of the 
 early sun flashed out of ever)- satin-like 
 hollow into the leeward water, over whose
 
 2 54 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 smooth-backed surges it raced in a sheet of 
 silver, whilst the schooner turned grey in the 
 cloud-shadow. 
 
 " I'm not going to say, Mr. Fortescue," 
 said Stone, gravely, '' that there's no sea- 
 birds as couldn't fly faster than we're a-going; 
 but I'd like to lay a wager that if this here 
 breeze kept all on blowing till we was done 
 with it, there's ne'er a sea-bird as the Golden 
 Hope wouldn't wear out and overhaul and 
 be too far ahead to be cotched again by him, 
 when he was ready to make sail afresh. Eh, 
 Bill ?" 
 
 This was addressed to William Breeches, 
 able seaman, who was steering , for in the 
 fruiter as in the coaster we must not look for 
 the quarter-deck etiquette of big ships, inas- 
 much as Jack was as good as his master in 
 such craft, and sometimes better, though of 
 course orders were obeyed as smartly and 
 work done as dutifully as if the discipline 
 was that of a man-of-war. 
 
 " There's only one fowl," answered 
 Breeches, talking with his head turned from 
 those he addressed, true to the sailor's 
 peculiarity of appearing to notice everything
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 255 
 
 but the man he converses with and to find 
 'Cverx'thing Interesting but what he's saying, 
 "' there's only one fowl. Mr. Stone, as 'ud 
 -ever think of trying to beat the vessel by 
 flying, and that's a bird found south o' th' 
 Equator, commonly called the Booby." 
 
 As Mr. Fortescue had never heard of such 
 a bird, he supposed that Breeches meant a 
 joke and sought his eye that he might 
 reward him with a smile, but the sailor had 
 apparently forgotten that he had spoken, 
 and with a gaze levelled steadily at the 
 schooner's head, was grasping the tiller-rope 
 with an expression on his face that couldn't 
 have been severer had he been arguing 
 with a crimp. Mr. Stone, noticing the 
 admiration in Mr. Fortescue's face as he 
 leaned against the bulwark running his 
 eyes from the white heights to the sea and 
 back again, and then around the horizon, 
 out of which the clouds were slowly soaring 
 like huge, mountainous, snow-clad islands, 
 would not break in upon him ; being too 
 well pleased that the clergyman should take 
 his fill of the beauty of the vessel ; for 
 the old sailor was intimatelv concerned in
 
 256 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the selection of her, and he had his share 
 of vanity. Indeed, Fortescue was glad of 
 the privilege of being able to look without 
 having to converse. So far as the actual 
 passage to the island went, the main pleasure 
 he would be able to derive from it must lie 
 in its rapidity. There could be no beauty 
 of sea or sky, no silver shining of sunrise, 
 no ruby splendour of sunset ; if the con- 
 ditions of the spectacle were to be stagnant 
 water and an idle hull. His intellectual 
 hunger and thirst, the craving of every 
 imaginable instinct in him, was to sight the 
 island — to spring ashore — and in Agatha's 
 death or in her life, in her existence or in 
 the solitude of the rock, to learn if the issue 
 of his dream, so promising with its present- 
 ment of her figure pleading and inviting, was 
 to prove no more than the shadow and 
 phantasy Mr. Clayton deemed it. There- 
 fore, what best delight the sea could hold for 
 him he felt this morning, as he watched the 
 spring of the buoyant and beautiful fabric 
 from the slant of one flickering surge to the 
 foaming brow of another, flinging from her 
 sharp bows the spray which was like a
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 257 
 
 shower of diamonds when the clouds obscured 
 the sun, but which became a rainbow w^hen- 
 ever the luminary flashed down again upon 
 the leaping schooner that was softly and 
 rhythmically swaying her lofty heights of 
 canvas to the regular run of the sea. So that 
 with the sun crawling to the southward, the 
 hurrying pencillings of shade in the deep 
 bosoms of the sails, the swift waftings of 
 such dimness as the interposition of a weather 
 leech, or the angle of the masts would dash 
 upon the swollen cloths, the full fabric, 
 leaning tow^ards the north, with mastheads 
 like golden spires w^herever the blue opened 
 for them to show against, appeared to the eye 
 of Fortescue as if the surface upreared by 
 the spars were mother-o'-pearl. 
 
 But it was the exhilaration of hope coming 
 out of the pace, the thought that the Indian 
 Ocean w^as a measurable thing, not th^ limit- 
 less, untrustworthy fancy it used to be at 
 Wyloe, that put a glitter into the young 
 clergyman's eyes when he brought them 
 away from the serene, azure rifts among the 
 clouds, and watched the merry, sparkling 
 throbbing of water to leeward, and the 
 VOL I. s
 
 258 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 delighted heaving and hurHng and shearing 
 dance of the Golden Hope, that was indeed 
 like some living, feathered creature, fresh to 
 liberty and unable to make enough of its 
 wings, of the height of the sky over it, of 
 the mighty freedom of the deep around it, 
 and of the glorious music of the clear, strong 
 wind, to w^hose melodies all about her the 
 sails added a stirring roll as of drums. The 
 men had long before washed the decks down, 
 the wind had dried the planks, and they 
 glistened like sand ; in every bit of polished 
 brasswork or smooth surface to give back 
 light, rose-coloured stars flashed and faded, 
 sparkled and sped with the movements of 
 the schooner and the sailing of the sun; 
 from the chimney of the little caboose 
 the smoke of the galley fire streamed into 
 the hollows of the gaff-foresail; the crew 
 were preparing to get their breakfast; some 
 ducks and hens amidships quacked and 
 cackled. It was a picture of homely sea 
 life ennobled by the airy beauty in and 
 over it — a beauty flowing as sunlight, 
 musical as the wind, pure as the azure 
 rifts, glad as the luminous, washing waters,
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 259 
 
 and majestic as the vaporous mountains which 
 enrich the heavens. 
 
 Fortescue's gaze met Stone's ; the old 
 sailor smiled. *'She don't disappoint ye, I 
 hope, sir ?" he said. 
 
 '' No, indeed; her speed seems magnificent. 
 What is it, should you say ?" 
 
 Mr. Stone gave a careless look to wind- 
 ward, then a half-glance to leeward. *' Ten 
 knots, sir, nothen under; what d'ye say, Bill?" 
 Breeches eased himself off the tiller-rope a 
 bit to take a glance astern at the wake, then 
 with his former air of appearing lost in 
 thinking of everything but his answer, said, 
 *' Nearer eleven, I should say." 
 
 '* It can easily be settled," exclaimed 
 Stone, '* Forward there! lay aft a couple of 
 you, my lads, and heave the log." 
 
 Two of them arrived. Harry Sawyer, a 
 good sample of a sailor, with long arms fit to 
 reach out with, and fingers like fish-hooks, 
 and long legs for climbing rigging without 
 ratlines, or for jockeying a yard-arm ; and Joe 
 Hall, an ordinary seaman, a nimble, little 
 fellow of about two-and-twenty, with grinning 
 eyes, rough hair, and so pliant and boneless
 
 26o THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 in his postures that he was more Hke an eel 
 than a man. He held the log-reel, Sawyer 
 the glass, and Stone hove the chip overboard. 
 Mr. Fortescue heard the reel rattle as it spun, 
 and watched Sawyer's eyes meeting in a. 
 squint in the sand-glass as he held it against 
 the sky, whilst Stone helped the chip by a 
 pull now and then at the line that made little 
 Joe Hall sway again. " Stop !" bawled 
 Sawyer ; and stop it was with what seemed 
 to Mr. Fortescue to be half-a-mile of line 
 towing astern. Stone groped for the knots. 
 '' Nearer eleven than ten, sir," said he, with 
 a face full of wonder and triumph, "by all 
 
 that's " He checked himself in the 
 
 presence of the clergyman, and added, 
 "See! here's the mark for the half; and 
 there's another quarter out as well. Ten and 
 three quarters !" 
 
 " Ay," said Breeches, turning his back to 
 say it, " and if you was to allow another 
 quarter for the drag, mate, you'd be nearer 
 the mark yet." 
 
 Captain Hiram Weeks at this point 
 stepped on deck, red-eyed from a nap, and 
 looking peculiarly gaunt and sallow and
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 26 1 
 
 hollow and long in the bright morning light. 
 He saluted Mr. Fortescue, and instantly said, 
 '' What's she doing, Mr. Stone r 
 
 " Ten and three quarters by the log, but 
 all eleven, as Bill here says, allowin' for the 
 drag, sir." 
 
 " Let 'em talk of steam after this, Mr. For- 
 tescue," said Hiram, coming to the weather 
 quarter with a stride, and with protruding 
 eyes, full of sharp, sailorly intelligence, he 
 overhauled the extent of canvas and the trim 
 of everything aloft in a flash, as it were, so 
 fast did he take it all in ; and then afterwards, 
 with the pleased expression the face of any 
 sort of sea captain will take when the wind is 
 of the right kind and all things else as they 
 should be, he cast his gaze around the horizon. 
 
 '' Hillo !" said he. " A sail ahead there, 
 Mr. Stone." 
 
 Fortescue, who had been watching the 
 tedious operation of reeling in the log-line, 
 looked in the direction indicated by the 
 skipper, and observed a tiny, star-coloured 
 object hovering like the tip of a swan's wing 
 upon the dim, weltering blue of the sea, about 
 a point and a quarter on the weather bow.
 
 262 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 ** She was sighted at dawn, but she's 
 growed bigger since," said Mr. Stone, with 
 a complacency that for some moments 
 puzzled Mr. Fortescue, who said, — 
 
 *'A sail! Is that a ship.^" 
 
 "Ay, sir," answered Hiram, going to the 
 companion, " a ship according to law, be- 
 cause it's evident she ain't propelled by 
 oars. But whether she's a ship according 
 to sailors, or only a brig, or a schooner, 
 there's no telling for a bit ; but only for a 
 bit, sir, for we're catching her up fast 
 enough to satisfy the impatience of a lady 
 who's got to open a handbox afore she can 
 tell how what's inside it'll become her." 
 
 Saying which he smiled gauntly up at 
 Fortescue, and bawled in a hoarse note to 
 " Johnny " to bring him his glass. When 
 the telescope arrived and was levelled, the 
 gleaming object ahead proved to be the 
 royals and . topgallant-sails of what the 
 skipper said was a big ship. "Steering the 
 same course as ourselves," said Captain 
 Hiram. "A frigate, maybe, bound to the 
 Mediterranean, or what's more like, a tea- 
 wagon going our road to the H indies. But
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 263 
 
 whatever she may prove to be, th' Hope, 
 Mr. Fortescue, ain't going to let her remain 
 a mystery long," and a mute would have 
 smiled to hear the bray-like laugh this 
 long, lean, lank and leather fellow gave as 
 he rolled his eyes all over the schooner, 
 and chafed his hands as if he were work- 
 ing to get the stains of tar out. 
 
 They went to breakfast, a snug little meal, 
 for Mr. Salt, who was an old hand at pro- 
 visioning ships, had so stocked the Golden 
 Hope that there was little Fortescue could 
 not get by asking, if we except appetite, the 
 relish that is more often found at sea than 
 carried there. His spirits were better than 
 he remembered them for months The pace 
 of the schooner, the bright morning, the 
 gladness of the sweet and frothing and 
 swelling ocean coming into him, had given 
 him a lightness of heart. Things seemed 
 clearer to him, also. He felt a power 
 of realising things more closely, yet of 
 diffusing his mind, too, as though a mental 
 mist that had hidden everything but Agatha 
 and what her name implied, had thinned ; 
 thereby not only offering him a clearer
 
 264 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 presentment of motive and mission, but a 
 sight of other things as well. 
 
 This perhaps might have been evident in 
 the increased attention he gave to Captain 
 Weeks' remarks and appearance, and in the 
 fancies which possessed him touching the 
 contrast between his life at Wyloe and this. 
 Could Mr. Clayton but see him now ! How 
 utterly vanished, indeed how utterly ex- 
 tinguished, by the liquid girdle of the deep, 
 those curtesying women, those grinning, sun- 
 burnt countrymen, those apple-faced babies, 
 those bed-ridden crones, those rows of 
 Sunday -dressed figures he was wont to 
 exhort ! Oh ! Time, old Time, v/hilst the 
 wings and the scythe are thine, who in his 
 senses will deem that the age of miracles is 
 over ? The wand had been waved, and lo ! 
 instead of a funeral, a sick parishioner, a 
 congregation, a confirmation class — here was' 
 Hiram Weeks, with his legs stuck out like 
 a pair of open compasses, staring with eyes, 
 magnified by protrusion, at every mouthful 
 he held up on his fork, his leathern jaws 
 busy with talk and mastication ; here was a 
 tossing interior swiftly conveying the clergy-
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 265 
 
 man over miles of water, even as he sat 
 breakfasting, with a glassy depth of hundreds 
 of fathoms — for they were off *' soundings" 
 — betwixt the keel that kept him afloat and 
 the bottom, whilst God knows what queer 
 fish were looking up with the wall-eye of the 
 cod or the flat squint of the dab at the ruddy 
 sheating of the Golden Hope flashing comet- 
 like through the liquid firmament that over- 
 hangs those hills and valleys of the deep, 
 upon which are strewn grass-covered wrecks 
 and the green skeletons of sailors. 
 
 The sail ahead was going to furnish some 
 excitement. By noon they had risen her to 
 her courses, when she was clearly made out 
 to be a large vessel under plain sail ; but by 
 the time the stern of her showed black 
 like a blot of ink under her cotton-white 
 canvas with the lift of the sea, Mr. Stone, 
 who had been watching her with attention, 
 from anxiety (as Mr. Fortescue saw after 
 a little) that she might serve to illus- 
 trate the schooner's going power, suddenly 
 sang out, whilst he kept his eye at the 
 telescope : — 
 
 '' There goes his fore-topm'st-stunsail
 
 2 66 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 By the Lord Harry, skipper, they've took 
 notice of us at last and mean to make a race 
 of it." 
 
 It was evidently what the old fellow 
 hoped and wanted, for he toppled about 
 with excitement, whilst he thrust the glass 
 into Mr. Fortescue's hands and begged him 
 to see for himself. What a fore-topmast- 
 stunsail was the clergyman had not the least 
 idea ; and if Mr. Stone had told him that the 
 stranger ahead had set his flying-jib abaft the 
 spanker he would, in all probability, have 
 simply said, "Really!" But it was not hard 
 for him to perceive, after a little manoeuvring 
 with the glass, that. the ship was a perfect 
 pyramid of canvas, a shining outline against 
 the piebald sky that way; and even as he 
 gazed he observed an extension of her sails 
 on the weather side, which, when he called 
 Captain Weeks' attention to it, caused the 
 skipper to yell out, "Mr. Stone! Mr. Stone! 
 all larboard -stunsails as I'm a live man, from 
 the royal-yard-arm to the swinging-boom! A 
 smart ship, Mr. Fortescue, a smart ship, sir. 
 Why, God bless my soul an' body ! to think 
 now of gear and canvas whipped aloft pretty
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 267 
 
 nigh as fast as a man can watch them doing 
 of it !" 
 
 You saw how the contest of speed that had 
 now practically begun was exciting the men, 
 who, at work on the jobs which are as endless 
 as a sailor's growling, peered and stared ahead 
 and dodged whatever was in their way, to get 
 a look, whilst the schooner snored through 
 it, making one long, steady, seething plunge 
 after another till the crowded water under 
 her figure-head rose in milk to the forecastle- 
 rail. Until after dinner — two o'clock — it was 
 just the breeze for her ; a good capfull fit to 
 let her exhibit all she had for an occasion of 
 this kind, though more was on her than she 
 needed for sober sailing. The clouds were 
 then blowing in longer masses, and if here 
 and there one rose slow and ponderous 
 the skirts of it were rent ere it had fairly 
 lifted, and drove fast ahead in patches. Also 
 there was a windy dimness in the sunshine, 
 and the greenish hue of the sea had darkened 
 into a hard, wintry olive, with a quicker 
 melting of the heads of the surges, a swifter 
 run of them, and a swarming of yeasty- 
 looking stuff in the troughs. But at times a
 
 268 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 puff would sing with a shrill edge in it ; it 
 was as though the weather could not make 
 up its mind ; and at such moments every 
 brace and guy, every sheet, tack, shroud 
 and backstay was a screwed-up fiddlestring 
 for the wind to screech upon. 
 
 One or two of the older among the men 
 would cast an askant glance aloft and then at 
 Hiram, perhaps fearing a muddle presently. 
 Mr. Fortescue stood to leeward of the helm 
 revelling in the grand pace — it was that 
 now ; indeed, there was the swiftness of the 
 flying-fish in the mere look of the schooner 
 as she sprang clear of the smother about her 
 bows, and went with a cleaving launch down 
 the clear, dark, liquid green — for ignorance 
 rendered him fearless, and to landgoers upon 
 the ocean everything is right till everything 
 is wrong. Maybe Hiram noticed this, in 
 which case it would help to make him obstin- 
 ate to prove the schooner's qualities to the 
 owner. But a glance from old Stone, whose 
 face was growing a bit grave, spite of a 
 longing to race and beat the ship ahead, 
 might have moved the skipper into giving 
 some order to diminish the strain, had not
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 269 
 
 his eye been taken by the stranger ; he 
 levelled the glass at her again and again, and 
 after throwing himself into a dozen extra- 
 ordinary postures while he worked away with 
 the tube, he cried out : — 
 
 *'Jest so! Mr. Stone, the Stripes and 
 Stars. Histe the ensign, if you please. If 
 her colour's meant for a sneer she may as 
 well know what she's ridicuHn'." 
 
 The small ensign was got out of the locker 
 by the mate and bent to the peak-signal- 
 halliards, and it was funny enough to watch 
 Stone's slow hand-over-fisting of the thin 
 rope, and the sort of stubborn earnestness in 
 his face, as he hauled the flame-like colour to 
 the block, and left it there stiff as a sign- 
 board. It was as though the Golden Hope 
 drew an impulse from the flag. She leaned 
 from a sea till it was dead-eyes under with 
 her, following by a sweep to the height of 
 the next surge that darkened her forecastle 
 with the snow of the cloven crest, and then 
 by a long-drawn roll to windward that raised 
 a yelling aloft fit to serve as a trumpeted 
 answer to the Yankee's challenge. 
 
 At that moment the halliards of the top-
 
 270 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 mast-stunsail parted, and down dropped the 
 sail, shaking and slatting so as to make the 
 boom buckle and jump to the leaping of it, 
 and the drawing weight of the lower stunsall. 
 Stone sprang forward, and Captain Weeks 
 rattled out half-a-dozen orders. Presently 
 the sail was got on deck, and the topgallant 
 and lower stunsalls taken in ; but the puff 
 that had done the business of the stunsalls 
 was quickly followed by another and another, 
 and under a steadily Increasing weight of wind 
 the little schooner stormed through the sea, 
 rising to the lifting of her great squaresail as 
 if she had a mind to fly bodily into the air. 
 
 "If it's going to last like this, capt'n," said 
 Stone, *' we shall have to wait for a smoother 
 chance to show Mr. Fortescue what a fruiter 
 can do. No use, sir," said he, addressing 
 the clergyman, ''looking at a boy and feelin' 
 disappointed because his legs ain't as a 
 man's." 
 
 ''It's as Mr. Stone says," observed the 
 skipper, rubbing the object glass of the 
 telescope for another stare at the ship, 
 " yonder's a clipper, and taking the weather 
 as it is, there's nothen afloat of our tonnage
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 2/1 
 
 :and rig that's goin' to show her the road. 
 But p'raps it ain't all over with us yet," 
 said he, with a grim, half-mortified roll 
 of his eyes to windward ; then, pointing 
 the glass, "Ah, all in but her fore-topmast- 
 •stunsail. She's drawin' ahead — she's bound 
 to do it !" He closed the tube violently, and 
 said, '* Down gaff-topsail, Mr. Stone ; no use 
 making her drag what she won't carry." 
 Then presently, " Main- topmast -stays'l !" 
 delivered with a sulkier note yet in the roar 
 of the order. 
 
 The freshening of the wind might have 
 passed for the rush of a squall if it hadn't 
 been for the blue sky and the white clouds 
 flying over it, though to the westwards of 
 south there was a sort of shadow that seemed 
 nothing but haze till you found you could see 
 through it. 
 
 Hiram pulled the glass into focus and took 
 another jealous look, ''Ho! in topmast-stun- 
 sail, hey !" said he, talking aloud to the ship, 
 and speaking in a fine, sneering voice, 
 ** What's alarming of ye. mate ? Couldn't you 
 have held on with that sail a bit longer ? 
 Condescending to give us the go-by with
 
 272 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 nothen but royals, are you ? Airs !" he 
 exclaimed, turning to Mr. Fortescue. *' I'll 
 tell you what it is, sir ; the cheek of them big 
 ships is something that just wants thrashing 
 out of 'em." 
 
 " No matter if he outsails us," answered 
 Fortescue, smiling, amused and pleased by 
 the anxiety of the two men that he should 
 see how^ fast the schooner could sail. Then, 
 whilst his eye followed the rich, creaming 
 white of the wake that seemed like a serpent 
 to be chasing the Golden Hope with its 
 sinuous snowy folds, he exclaimed, with a 
 sudden gravity, '* If we could only keep up 
 this speed — never bating it ! never bating it!" 
 
 '' Why, yes, sartinly ; it ud be a good 
 job if we could, no doubt," replied Hiram. 
 " x\Ir. Stone, better haul down that ensign. 
 But, for proper sailing, Mr. Fortescue, we 
 don't want any more wind than'll allow the 
 schooner to wear all the cloths that be- 
 longs to her. Think of th' Hope as a 
 young lady, sir. What's the good of gells 
 laying out money in feathers and gownds 
 which trail a fathom astern of their heels, 
 if they're to appear out of door in the
 
 GOOD HEADWAY. 273 
 
 nat'ral hair, and with their dresses triced 
 up till ye can see where the tops of their 
 boots come ? D'ye observe my meaning, 
 sir? It's a h'allegory, of course." 
 
 Mr. Fortescue nodded, for his voice 
 hadn't the power of Hiram's, and it needed 
 all the skipper's lungs to make his words 
 distinct above the noise. In a big ship 
 the motion is slow, the sea is some dis- 
 tance down, and the sails are high over- 
 head. There are plenty of things to get 
 under the lee of so as to make a chat 
 even in a heavy gale possible. But in a 
 schooner of ninety tons, with the ringing, 
 hissing and washing of water close along- 
 side, talk is not easy above-aboard ; the 
 wind comes in thunder down out of the 
 hollow mainsail, the jumping is fast and 
 furious ; there is a dismal, wet, clattering of 
 rope upon rope, with the splash of water 
 forward and a howling as of dogs aloft 
 when the yards bring their arms fiercely 
 to windward, stabbing the breeze, whilst 
 every surge sweeping along the bends 
 gives forth a sullen, roaring noise. But 
 though the ship ahead was leaving the 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 2 74 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 schooner she was in no sense walking away 
 from her. What was wind to the one was 
 wind to the other, and she had clewed her 
 royals up when the Golden Hope was still 
 carrying her topgallant-sail and flying-jib.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 
 
 Too much of deck, however, when it was 
 blowing fresh with the nip of March in the 
 atmosphere and the damp of spray in the 
 strong wind, Mr. Fortescue was not yet 
 seasoned enough to stand. So he went 
 below for warmth and shelter, but had not 
 been in the cabin ten minutes when he heard 
 the singing out of men shortening sail, and 
 after a little, down came old Stone. 
 
 He may have meant to take a snooze till 
 eight bells, but perhaps he felt that a pipe of 
 tobacco would do him more good, and as 
 there was no objection to this, for Fortescue 
 smoked as freely as the others, he pulled a 
 piece of flat wood out of one of the lockers, 
 and putting it on the table and fixing his 
 spectacles upon his nose, he proceeded, 
 slowly and with an air of laboriousness, to
 
 276 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 cut some shavings from a plug of tobacco,, 
 meanwhile addressing the curate. 
 
 '' Just eased her of the t'pgal'ns'l and flying- 
 jib, and it'll be down squaresail afore long, 
 sir. No use spurring a willing horse, as the 
 saying is. It looks as if it was coming on to 
 blow, which is a disappointment, certainly, as 
 I was reckoning this morning on the satisfac- 
 tion this schooner 'ud give you by passing 
 the American vessel." 
 
 " Coming on to blow ! Don't you consider 
 that it is blowing already ? " exclaimed 
 Fortescue, who, landsman as he was, could 
 distinctly feel the gathering weight in the 
 wind by the deeper plunges of th j schooner 
 on the stormier rolling of the seas. 
 
 *' Why, yes, it's blowing, no doubt," 
 answered Stone, lighting his pipe, with his 
 head on one side, and sucking at the sooty 
 stem till the glow of the bowl caused the skin 
 of his nose to shine like a ruby, ''but this 
 here, Mr. Fortescue," said he, slowly setting 
 himself near the stove, and facing the curate, 
 "is a wind w^ith nothing noticeable in it, as 
 yet. If it comes on westerly with strength, 
 we may be able to show the Yankee what aa
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 277 
 
 English fruiter can do. It hasn't been nice 
 weather for ye, sir, taking it all through from 
 the start. I was afeared you'd feel the 
 motion of a wessel of this size, and I should 
 have been glad of a week of smooth till you 
 got used to the Golden Hope. Yet you're 
 standing it oncommonly well, oncommonly 
 well, indeed. If they could see you down 
 at that little willage of yours they'd say 
 the sea was goin' to give you all you ex- 
 pected of it." 
 
 "If I could be sure of that, Mr. Stone!" 
 exclaimed Fortescue, clasping his hands with 
 a passionate, prayerful eagerness, that the old 
 sailor put down to professional habit. 
 
 "Well, since it is health as well as other 
 matters, sir," said Stone, puffing leisurely, 
 with his eyes respectfully fixed upon the 
 clergyman, "there's promise enough already in 
 your face to warrant that all will come right 
 by'n bye. Of course, it's a good bit yet to the 
 island, and then there's all the way back 
 agin." He squeezed the tobacco in the bowl 
 of his pipe with his little finger, and said, 
 *' I hope you won't consider it a liberty, Mr. 
 Fortescue, if I ask you what put it into your
 
 278 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 head to suppose that there's any persons 
 belonging to the Indiaman on that island I 
 was cast away upon ? Captain Weeks was 
 a-talkin' to me about it, and he said it wasn't 
 likely you'd buy this wessel and undertake a 
 long voyage on the mere chance of — of — 
 finding the young lady an' your friends near 
 to where the ship went down — that's to say 
 pretty near. He says to me, ' Stone,' he 
 says, 'you may depend upon it that you did 
 not onderstand what the gent told you down 
 at Wyloe. If it ain't a question of health, it 
 ain't a question of an expensive voyage of 
 seven or eight months on speculation. If 
 you'll speak to Mr. Fortescue agin — for the 
 occasion of this woyage is more your job than 
 mine — you'll find out that he's got information 
 about the parties being on that island of 
 yourn, and that you didn't correctly take in 
 his meaning when you and him was a-yarning 
 down in the little village.' " 
 
 " I quite remember what I said to you," 
 answered Fortescue, speaking very nervously. 
 *' One who was dear to me was in the 
 Verulam when she was lost. I had learnt 
 that there was an island at no great distance
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE V'ANKEE. 279 
 
 from where the ship foundered, and in the 
 hope that the lady and others might have 
 reached it, I determined to satisfy my mind 
 by visiting it." 
 
 " I agin humbly beg your pardon," ex- 
 claimed Stone, accentuating his respectfulness 
 by way of excusing an inquisitiveness he 
 could not restrain, **but if you knew the 
 
 island was there " He stopped, not liking 
 
 to finish the sentence by so blunt a question 
 as, *'Why did you advertise a reward for 
 its discovery ?" 
 
 Fortescue understood him. "1 wanted to 
 make sure," he briefly replied, but with the 
 uneasiness of a high conscience to whom 
 half-truths are as bad as lies. 
 
 "What Captain Weeks was a-saying," 
 continued Stone, not finding much to under- 
 stand in the curate's answer, *' was, that if 
 this 'ere woyage was made only for your 
 health, and I can't get him to look at it 
 in any other light, he could recommend a 
 cruise that 'ud last all eight months, if so 
 be you would care for such a spell, which 
 might be made h'entertaining and instructive ; 
 for you could go to the West H indies and
 
 28o THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 to South Amerlky, and then have a look at 
 the Mediterranean when homeward bound, 
 and so on. In which case you might earn 
 money by taking cargoes. But there's nothen 
 to be done in that way in the island ; very 
 little to see, nothen to interest a man, no one 
 to traffic with." 
 
 A look of alarm darkened Fortescue's face. 
 It was like the convulsive twist a spasm of 
 the heart gives the features. After a little, 
 he said, " I have not yet had a downright 
 talk with Captain Weeks about this voyage — 
 its object, I mean, as it was originally planned 
 between you and me — and I left him to gather 
 its purport from you and Mr. Salt ; but, as 
 you say he cannot make up his mind to 
 believe that we are journeying all the way to 
 the Indian Ocean on the mere chance of 
 finding my friends on an island there, he 
 concludes that my chief, perhaps my only, 
 motive is health ?" 
 
 " That's about it, sir, because he considers 
 I didn't rightly understand your ideas in 
 seeking that there island." 
 
 '' But he knows where that island is r said 
 Fortescue, sharply, with the glow of the stove
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 28 1 
 
 "bright in the gaze he fixed upon the old 
 seaman. 
 
 The lustrousness of the clergyman's black 
 eyes gave an ashen hue to his features, and 
 there was something in this contrast that 
 caused Stone to say quickly, " Of course he 
 do, as near as I could give it, sir." 
 
 Folding his arms, Fortescue sat without 
 speaking, looking at the fire in the stove, 
 whilst fearing that he had said too much. 
 Stone watched him furtively, not liking to 
 speak. It was a strange, even wild picture. 
 The dim light and the fire-shine put the 
 wildness Into it, and this element deepened 
 yet by the stormy sounds outside, the 
 trembling of the plunging schooner, the 
 phantom face of the curate, white as a 
 woman's, despite the crimson tinge of the 
 stove, and by the burly form of Stone 
 w^atching him. Presently the old sailor 
 began to nod ; he then lay along the locker 
 with his shoulder against the side, and fell 
 asleep. 
 
 There was a brief but bitter conflict of 
 thought in Fortescue. Was it possible that 
 -Stone had deceived him ? Yet, how was that
 
 282 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 to be reconciled with his refusal to take the 
 reward of one hundred guineas until the 
 clergyman had seen the island with his own 
 eyes ? But since this reward was to follow 
 verification, and since Stone knew he could 
 depend upon getting it, as the money had 
 been lodged in Mr. Skinner's hands, why had 
 he repeated the suggestions of the captain 
 touching a cruise to the West Indies and 
 elsewhere ? For he might easily guess that if 
 the motive of the voyage was dismissed, his 
 hundred guineas would go with it. Mr. For- 
 tescue's highly nervous condition rendered 
 him suspicious. He could not question 
 Stone's sincerity, nor imagine so plain, 
 rugged, and simple a sailor to be capable of 
 acting the sympathy and respectful interest 
 he had exhibited throughout. To what, then, 
 did his fears point ? To this. That Stone 
 and Weeks had talked the voyage over, and 
 had come to the conclusion that the clergy- 
 man was scarcely sufficiently responsible, 
 mentally, owing to the desperate grief 
 occasioned him by the burning of the 
 Verulam, to decide upon the long journey 
 he had begun. Or it might be that Mr. Salt,
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 283 
 
 out of pure tenderness for him, had asked 
 Weeks and Stone to endeavour to dissuade 
 him from a voyage that seemed to promise 
 nothing but keen disappointment, and hence 
 the suggestion concerning the West Indies 
 and South America. Be the truth what it 
 would, he felt that ere long, not for conscience' 
 sake only, but in the hope that the sympathies 
 of the seamen might find definiteness for the 
 voyage in his confession, he must tell them 
 the cause that prompted him to this under- 
 taking. They might secretly deride him, or 
 they might be impressed. He must take his 
 chance. For the condition of his mind was 
 such that it made him fear they would think 
 him "wanting" if he left them to suppose 
 that this long and costly voyage was adven- 
 tured on no sounder ground than a hope that 
 would seem mere craziness to the practical 
 mind. 
 
 But fortunately Fortescue was at sea ; the 
 best place in the world for nerves and 
 bubbling brains, and a remedy better than a 
 soothing mixture came to him whilst he thus 
 sat labouring as heavily amid thought as the 
 Golden Hope was among the billows, in
 
 :284 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 the shape of Hiram's large foot upon the 
 companion-ladder, followed by his husky 
 shout of " Below there, Mr. Stone, eight 
 bells, if you please." 
 
 ** Ay, ay, sir !" bawled Stone in reply, talk- 
 ing to Hiram's foot. 
 
 ''Weather looks dirty, Bill," said the skip- 
 per, shouting down the steps ; "the men may 
 as well snug her a trifle whilst they're all on 
 deck." 
 
 The foot disappeared. Stone pulled his 
 cap on and mounted the ladder, and For- 
 tescue followed, more for the sake of seeing 
 anything that should divert his mind than 
 for love of the stormy weather above. 
 
 On emerging from that little cabin you 
 would have thought it was blowing as hard 
 again as it was from the mere appearance of 
 the heavens. It was cloud after cloud in 
 wild pursuit ; a mixture of wintry scud-like 
 smoke and large and small bodies of vapour 
 all flying down the sky in the direction where 
 England lay, long leagues distant now. The 
 sun was not yet near his setting, but hung 
 in a sort of misty whirling in the west, where 
 the pink haze was like tinted steam, churned
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 285 
 
 and set revolving into a boiling appearance 
 by the spokes of fire which swung from sea- 
 line to sea-line as the clouds drove over the 
 luminary, eclipsing the orb, but carrying his 
 beams in their flight. The shadow in the 
 south-west had won the wind to it, and then 
 hardened into clouds; and the shift had given 
 the schooner a bow sea and flattened sheets 
 which naturally made the weather seem 
 almost fierce to Fortescue, for it was like a 
 tilting match 'twixt it and the schooner, one 
 running at the other. 
 
 Stone stared to see so much canvas, and 
 Fortescue, crouching under the weather 
 bulwarks, forgot everything in marking the 
 savage aspect the dark-green sea took from 
 the red tinge overhead, in noticing the angle 
 of the decks going down into the lee smother 
 till nothing but the storm of wind under the 
 foresail and mainsail stopped the yellow 
 spume from tumbling on board over the 
 rail in huge flakes, the mad dives of the 
 pressed fabric till you couldn't see her for- 
 ward for the foam over the forecastle-head, 
 the lull in the trough, then the skyward 
 leap with her spars plumb with the kelson
 
 286 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 as she came to windward on the crest, ere 
 burying her channels again for her long 
 hissing plunge down the slant of the Atlantic 
 surge. 
 
 'Hiram stood abaft the weather main- 
 rigging. He had the composed expression 
 of an experienced exhibitor who knows his 
 beast and is calm in the presence of antics 
 that seem dangerous, but he extended his 
 capacious mouth in a wide grin that ex- 
 posed an odd collection of fangs when, on 
 meeting Stone's eye, he pointed with a long 
 hand right ahead to where just a phantom 
 smudge was discernible, as a sea hove the 
 schooner high. 
 
 " Still got the scent of her, Mr. Fortes- 
 cue," he roared to the curate, who tried to 
 see, but was blinded by wind and spray 
 whenever he lifted his head above the 
 bulwark. 
 
 The crew were crouching on the weather 
 side, sitting in the coils of running-gear, 
 hanging upon pins, or holding-on to what- 
 ever their fingers could come at whilst they 
 waited for orders. It was a moment of 
 triumph for Hiram. He'd have sprung a
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 287 
 
 mast or blown away a whole sail sooner 
 than have missed the chance of pointing to 
 the Yankee that was still in sight, before 
 shortening canvas. But concluding the 
 
 vessel had been seen by Fortescue, and 
 satisfied to have put some astonishment 
 into the face of old Stone, whose past 
 experience of the sea and long spell ashore 
 rendered him a person worthy of surpris- 
 ing, Hiram promptly went to business. 
 
 " Down squaresail I" 
 
 The great stretch of canvas was hauled 
 down with difficulty ; it was full of wind, and 
 took as much smothering as a whole topsail 
 with the yard on the cap and the gale on the 
 quarter. 
 
 " Reef the mainsail !" 
 
 '* Two reefs whilst you are about it !" 
 
 ''Take a reef in the dukey." The dukey 
 was the foresail. 
 
 This was done, and the port or larboard 
 watch sent below. The schooner, greatly 
 eased, rose buoyantly to the surges, and 
 made the better weather of it, as a well- 
 treated craft will if her builder has done 
 his duty. The touch of winter Atlantic
 
 2 88 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 weather was rendered the grander by the 
 coarse and dingy flaring of the sun as he 
 sunk lower westwards, with the tall seas 
 sliding darker and darker athwart his hawse ; 
 at long intervals there would come a leap 
 of light over some smoky edge like a lift 
 of flame out of a smouldering mass, that 
 flung upon the west, down to the horizon, a 
 deeper flush of hazy red, against which the 
 froth of every melting head that way came 
 out in a hard, white glare. Then it was a 
 scene of wildness, indeed, when you watched 
 this misty outburst of coarse radiance sweep- 
 ing over the deep, without the least lightening 
 or darkening of its colour. It was like the 
 stare of some angry, blood-red eye up among 
 the clouds. But the ocean-picture grew truer 
 to the season when the clouds smote and 
 extinguished this troubled lustre, and left 
 the freckled troughs and the steady running 
 heights to welter under the pelting vapour • 
 that the wind was chasing over the reeling 
 mastheads of the Golden Hope. 
 
 '' Mr. Stone," sung out Hiram, by-and-bye, 
 "get a reef taken in that fore-topsail afore 
 you go to supper. She'll do very comfort-
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 289 
 
 ably, Mr. Fortescue, under that," and he ran 
 his eyes aloft, as though he reckoned that the 
 curate was taking it all in and was satisfied 
 with the snugness, the speed and the general 
 effect. ''Ah," said he, swinging his arms 
 upon his chest to warm them, and then 
 squatting down near Fortescue to talk, 
 *' Maybe you have taken notice that the 
 wind's drawed ahead since you were on 
 
 deck r 
 
 The clergyman replied that he had not 
 observed the circumstance. 
 
 ''Strange," remarked the skipper, "that 
 what's so h'obvious to the nautical eye ain't 
 always perceived by gents not accustomed to 
 the ways of the ocean. The lay of them 
 yards," said he, pointing forwards, "would 
 tell you how the wind's acted without obliging 
 you to notice how much end there is of the 
 mainsheet on deck, nor how the boom lies. 
 As our course is, the breeze is one point free ; 
 if we was in a ship, I tell yer, the yards 'ud 
 be jammed again' the lee shrouds and the 
 weather leeches liftin'. So," said he, with 
 another prodigious grin, and a shake of his 
 fist towards the bows, " if we don't overhaul 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 that there Yankee before to-morrow's dawn, 
 you shall persuade me, Mr. Fortescue, that 
 that wane there at the masthead's a chimbley- 
 pot." 
 
 It was plain that Hiram had the Yankee 
 on the brain for the time, and the clergyman 
 could not help thinking that the man's belief 
 in the qualities of the schooner and the 
 manner in which he suffered his mind to be 
 engrossed by the wish to prove her heels and 
 beat the American, expressed a very simple 
 nature, something to be accepted as genuine 
 so far as it went ; nor was it without a sense 
 of self-rebuke that he cast his eyes towards 
 the square, round-backed, old seaman-like 
 iigure of Stone, and recalled the misgivings 
 that had distressed him in the cabin. 
 
 The wind freshened yet after sundown and 
 it was as black as thunder till about nine 
 o'clock, when the moon rose and put a sort of 
 faintness into the atmosphere, for light it 
 could not be called, at which hour it was 
 blowing heavily and a wild sea running. But, 
 determined to go ahead, Captain Weeks had 
 treble-reefed the mainsail, under which, along 
 with close-reefed foresail and jib, the Golden
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 29 1 
 
 Hope was ratching through it, her forecastle 
 smothered, and the water up to a man's waist 
 in the lee-scuppers. It was a dry gale, spite 
 of the clouds, whose velocity made the moon 
 look to spin, till you would have thought that 
 the earth had escaped the power that con- 
 trolled its revolutions and was twirling madly 
 to God knows where. In the rigging it was 
 one long, ear-piercing yelling, as of a thousand 
 voices pitched from the deepest bass to 
 the shrillest treble ; the water broke in dense 
 volumes of smoke over the schooner, and if 
 ever the moon darted a clearer ray, the wet 
 decks gave back a gleam as of ice to the 
 momentary flash, which glittered in the oil- 
 skins of the watch crouching aft, and brought 
 out the marble-like face of the helmsman 
 swinging at the tiller, and Stone, like a 
 statue, with his arm round a belaying pin. 
 But the greenish streaming was swifter than 
 blinking the eye, the clouds swept over the 
 luminary as from a factory chimney, and the 
 crew turned black in the shadow, though a 
 sheen swayed about the flooded planks, and 
 the canvas reeled dim in the darkness. 
 Weeks was in bed when Fortescue thought
 
 292 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 he would Step on deck and take a look 
 around. It was miserable enough below, 
 certainly. The cabin was as vile with move- 
 ment as a smack's in a North Sea gale. 
 There was nothing to be had from the 
 caboose, and for the tea and hot grog Johnny 
 had to boil the kettle on the cabin stove. 
 Indeed, the violence of the schooner's motions- 
 would have alarmed the clergyman if it 
 hadn't been for Hiram's earnest reassurances 
 ere he withdrew to his bunk for a short spell 
 of sleep. 
 
 Yet, when he managed to crawl half 
 through the hatch, he could not help feel- 
 ing startled and dismayed by the picture 
 he beheld. There would have been a more 
 rhythmic, a more regular measure in the 
 schooner's movements had she been hove- 
 to, hard as it was to stop a fruiter even when 
 in that situation ; but she was '' ratching" — 
 sailing along — the wind about a point free, 
 and consequently complicating the natural 
 oscillation given her by the regular swinging 
 rise and fall of the dark seas, by wild springs, 
 fierce buryings of her head, a gull-like soaring 
 out of the boiling stuff about her bows, and
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 293 
 
 ^iddy rushlngs down the watery steeps, 
 which caused Fortescue to think some of 
 the dives she made were for good and all. 
 Besides, there was the wide, wild, whirling 
 heavens, the racing moon dimming and 
 brightening as the rolls of vapour were 
 dense or thin, the thunder of smiting and 
 smitten waters, the whistling and screeching 
 in the rigging, the shouting in the canvas, 
 the bullet-like singing of the spray torn up 
 from the windward surges and swept, in 
 storms that stung as hail would, past the ear. 
 
 Stone came sliding and sprawling down 
 to the companion, guessing the curate needed 
 a sailor's cheering. 
 
 ''Trifle blusterin', sir !" he shouted, "but 
 if the schooner's a bit frisky, she's sailing 
 straight and she's sailing fast, two h'obliga- 
 tions upon her which she's a real sweetheart 
 for remembering of." 
 
 Conversation was out of the question, but 
 the mate's observation was well said, for the 
 sense that the Golden Hope was ceaselessly 
 speeding towards the island of his vision, 
 neutralised in Mr. Fortescue the alarm that 
 had been excited by the sea and sky of that
 
 294 "^^^ GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 wan and warring night. He lingered a few 
 moments until a great lump of water, rolling 
 over the forecastle, came washing aft. This 
 rendered the partial closing of the hatch 
 necessary, so bidding vStone good-night, the 
 curate descended into the cabin and withdrew 
 to his little room. 
 
 By this time he was fairly accustomed to the 
 straining noises made by the schooner when 
 labouring ; but for a good while he was kept 
 awake by the close and thunderous sound of 
 the sea striking against the weather side of 
 the vessel. It grew monotonous after a bit, 
 for though there was no regularity in the 
 Golden Hope's pitching and rolling, yet the 
 thump of the surge was almost pendulum-like. 
 
 He always knew how it would be. First, a 
 wild, staggering hesitancy, then a plunge, 
 then the blow of the sea against the bends, 
 the long lean over, the quick, shrieking 
 recovery, the short hang on the brow, then 
 another plunge, followed by the blow, and 
 so on, and so on, with a squeak in every 
 treenail, a groan in every timber, a harsh 
 straining of bulkhead, and bracket-lamp and 
 coats and the like swinging to and fro,.
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 295 
 
 scraping against the side, or hanging far out 
 with the heavier lurches. There were notes 
 and sounds for the poor fellow to set his 
 thoughts to. Hark to that mufHed, seething 
 roll of heavy waters cannonading along the 
 run and roaring past the screwed-up scuttle 
 near him ! How often had Agatha heard the 
 tempestuous sound when the gale had dashed 
 the billows of the great Indian Ocean against 
 the coral reefs of the island ? Hear the fierce 
 and strange shoutings coming down from the 
 rigging with loss of their shrill edge as they 
 pierced the deck ! The sweeping of the hot 
 blasts, the muttering of the fiery gusts would 
 often have been heard by Agatha under the 
 midnight stars. Then, when he thought of 
 her listening, he would ask himself would she 
 be always unsheltered? Had those who were 
 saved with her built them a hut? How, by 
 this time, would she be attired, lacking all 
 things but the apparel in which she was 
 cast ashore ? 
 
 You who know that this man believed his 
 dream to be a whisper in his sleeping ear 
 from God, you who know that, whether with 
 perfect sanity or with a mind disordered by
 
 296 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 grief, he was sailing for the island in full 
 conviction that he should find Agatha Fox 
 there, you may conceive what desperate 
 imaginings of his darling's forlorness, her 
 dreadful plight, her sufferings of houseless- 
 ness, homelessness and friendlessness, his 
 mind would be led into when he thought of 
 the bleak and rolling ocean, the flying smoke 
 of clouds, the whirling of the cold, green 
 moon, the storming of roaring surges against 
 the schooner, and the bitterness of the atmos- 
 phere that even in his cabin sent shudder 
 after shudder through him as he hugged the 
 bedclothes to him, with a frequent start when 
 a wilder plunge of the vessel filled her for- 
 ward deck with boiling and pounding water. 
 At last he fell asleep, but in his slumber he 
 sobbed often and talked aloud. Doubtless 
 he dreamt of Agatha, and it was natural that 
 whatever came to him in his sleep should 
 have the trouble and distress of the windy, 
 flying night in it ; at least, one would say, it 
 must differ from the dreams he had of her at 
 Wyloe, when all was still, the stars as peace- 
 ful as the dew-drops they glistened in, no 
 movement in the trees, no sound in the air, if
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 297 
 
 It were not the timid chirrup of an awakened 
 bird, or the indescribable, ghost-like murmur 
 the surf will send far inland ; for in such 
 dreams he would often smile, and start from 
 his sleep with a speech of love, to find that 
 his hands had clasped fingers more shadowy 
 than shadows, and that the adored form that 
 had been seated at his pillow was real only as 
 memory is. 
 
 But at sea it is nearly all downright prose. 
 Mr. Fortescue was not a mariner, but he 
 could not own a vessel and be aboard her 
 without a taste of the plain peculiarities of 
 the sea-life. Hence from dreams of Agatha 
 he was aroused by a smart knocking on his 
 cabin door, and on asking what was the 
 matter, Captain Hiram Weeks walked in. 
 
 " Mr. Fortescue, it's just past th' half hour, 
 sir, or I shouldn't ha' taken the liberty. It's 
 daylight, an' ye'll see it fine. Sir, if excuses 
 are needful for callin' of you, plenty of 'em 
 shall follow if ye ain't satisfied, But I beg 
 you to bear a hand, for sights at sea are 
 swallowed up with astonishing speed." 
 
 So saying, he closed the door, whilst 
 Fortescue, who was ahvays quick at waking,
 
 298 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 and who was therefore able to grasp that 
 he was instantly required on deck, rapidly 
 clothed himself and hastened above. It was 
 still blowing heavily, and a very high sea 
 was running ; it was bitterly cold, too, but 
 clear, if it were not for the haze of spray 
 blown low and along by the wind. It is no 
 joke to a landsman to come fresh from the 
 shelter of a cabin and the warmth of a bed 
 into bleak and streaming decks and half a 
 gale of wind, and for some moments the 
 curate stood almost stifled with the pouring 
 blast, and dazed by the cold and the wild- 
 ne'ss of the scene, till Hiram helped him fair 
 on deck, closing the companion, and then 
 carrying him to the shelter of the w^eather 
 bulwark. 
 
 " There, sir ! Look !" shouted the skipper, 
 pointing fair abeam to leeward. 
 
 A gaunt man is always gauntest in the 
 morning watch at sea ; and, as Hiram stood 
 pointing, clad from head to foot as he was in 
 oilskin, the leathern, long, hollow face, framed 
 in an old and narrow, thatched south-wester^ 
 might have been a skull covered with parch- 
 ment. An odder picture there never was-
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE YANKEE. 299- 
 
 than that made by this tall, lank figure, holding 
 to the rail with one hand and pointing with 
 the other to leeward, where the backs of the 
 grey surges ran smooth and marbled under 
 the showering of their own spray. 
 
 Mr. Fortescue squeezed the water out of 
 his eyes and looked in the direction indicated, 
 and saw, not above half a mile distant, a big, 
 black ship under close-reefed topsails, reefed 
 foresail and fore-topmast-staysail, heeled over 
 till the grass-green sheathing showed, you 
 would have thought, to the bilge strake. 
 
 '' Now, Mr. Fortescue," cried the skipper 
 in a voice as hoarse as a raven's, through the 
 exultation and pride in it, "see now the 
 difference 'twixt a fruiter and a clipper ship 1 
 It's the Yankee, sir; him as we sighted 
 yesterday and who dropped us. So help me 
 Bob, sir," he cried, bringing his hand with a 
 whack upon his thigh, by way of emphasising 
 the word Bob, " if that there ship to leeward 
 ratchin' under close-reefed torps'ls ain't the 
 very identical Yankee as sneered at us yes- 
 terday with his Stripes and his Stars. Tim,, 
 tell the gent — is it the Yankee or ain't it ?" 
 
 Thus addressed, the able seaman. Tim
 
 300 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 Duck, who was at the tiller, himself clad in 
 yellow oilskin, which the wind got into and 
 swelled out to an aspect of dropsy in the 
 last stage — looked at the ship and then at 
 Fortescue and said, "Ay, she's the Yankee, 
 right enough." 
 
 It was a fine sight to behold the extrava- 
 gantly delighted gaze Hiram fixed upon 
 the clergyman. Had he won the schooner 
 on a wager, the extraordinary satisfaction 
 he exhibited could not have been more 
 striking. The recollection of it, and of 
 the man's whole appearance at that moment, 
 entered afterwards into Fortescue's remem- 
 brance of the incident, but, only just awake, 
 half-stunned by the roaring of the gale, 
 and half-frozen by the spray-laden, flashing 
 wind, it was as much as he could then do 
 to look where he was bidden. The small 
 ensign was tearing like a flame at the 
 schooner's peak-signal-halliards, but there 
 was no response to it aboard the American. 
 A beautiful ship she was, moulded to per- 
 fection of finish in lines, as was easily seen 
 from the windward side of her ; a square 
 stern, a fiddle fiorure-head, a knife-like cut-
 
 water, and the more exquisite for symmetry 
 and appearance aloft for her royal-yards 
 being down and for the cleanness her top- 
 gallant masts took from the absence of 
 hamper there. You almost felt her dis- 
 dainful wrath at being overhauled by the 
 little schooner : for what but that, to a 
 nautical eye at least, should signify the 
 savaee blows she struck the seas, those 
 eager, swerving sweeps that would put a 
 tremble, like a shudder of foiled impatience, 
 into the weather leeches of her topsails, 
 the wild rise of the oncoming: surgre as if 
 she would leap it in her passion. Then the 
 sickly reel to leeward till the grey-backed 
 billow, rising high and foaming between her 
 and the schooner, hid her to half the height 
 of her lower masts from the triumphant gaze 
 of Hiram and Mr. Fortescue. who was be- 
 ginning to forget that it was cold and wet, 
 in the melancholy grandeur of the scene 
 his consciousness was now compassing.^ 
 
 Melancholy it all was, though grand and 
 with wildness in it, too. Whether in storm 
 or in calm, the ocean in northern or southern 
 latitudes, where the sun rises tardilv in the
 
 302 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 wake of the dawn, is always sad at daybreak. 
 The shadow of the night seemed to Hnger 
 in the ashen pouring of the waves swelHng 
 from the windward horizon ; the sky was 
 grey and the clouds were rushing in pro- 
 cessions of vapour ; whenever a sea poured 
 its w^hiteness into a valley, the expiring foam 
 swung up the acclivities with a ghastliness of 
 hue that was as unlike the pallid froth under 
 moonshine or the shining snow of the surges 
 under the fuller day, as the colour of the 
 leper is unlike the complexion of the healthy 
 skin. The desolateness of daybreak, the 
 cheerlessness and melancholy of it, were in 
 all things ; in the damp, dark pUnks of the 
 schooner with the scuppers bubbling ; in the 
 spray-shadowed cloths which strained, wet 
 and full, from gaff and sheet ; in the still 
 and glistening figures of the men on deck, 
 crouched aft and watching the American ; 
 in every upheaval of crystalline smoke from 
 the swift chop and shearing blow of the 
 fruiter's stem. Yet the grace of the leeward 
 ship stole like a kind of warmth into the 
 early morn. There was life in her, and beauty. 
 You saw the helmsman, when she came to
 
 THE SCHOONER PASSES THE VANKEE. 
 
 J^J 
 
 windward, stiff at the wheel, deigning no 
 notice of the schooner ratching past ; the 
 officer of the watch at the mizzen rigging ; 
 a head or two over the rail abreast of the 
 foremast ; and the blowing of smoke from 
 the freshly-lighted fire. But the Golden 
 Hope was to have her way of her. It was 
 part of Hiram's triumph that he should have 
 hung in the Yankee's wake all night and 
 guessed her leeway so as to bring the vessels 
 at dawn abreast of one another, with the 
 wind a point free for the schooner, whilst 
 the ship lay jammed to her course. 
 
 " Johnny !" he roared, " stand by to dip the 
 
 ensign !' 
 
 And when the ship was brought fair on the 
 quarter, the lad who had been called made 
 the schooner bid her an ironical adieu by 
 three times lowering and hoisting the flag, 
 the last time hauling it down for good. 
 
 " Now I'm satisfied," cried Hiram, rubbing 
 his hands and grinning down on Fortescue. 
 *' Speed's what you wanted, sir, and here it 
 is, dragged out o' the heart of a gale o' wind. 
 After this example of what your wessel can 
 •do, Mr. Fortescue, me and Stone'll be able
 
 304 THE GOLDEN HOPE. 
 
 to feel that the 'sponsibility we took in 
 recommending th' Hope Isn't exceeded by 
 the confidence we had in her. If apologies 
 
 is necessary for rousing of you up " But 
 
 Fortescue checked him by a wave of the 
 hand. 
 
 END OF FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 TILLOTSON AND SON, PRINTERS, BOLTON. 
 
 9