BESSIE’S STORY.
By Frank H. Converse.
WHAT my own—my true own name may be or may have been, I do not know. I have a fancy like a dream, that perhaps it has been Adélê. And yet I cannot say why. My father, the captain, whose daughter I am by adoption, gave to me the name of Bessie, for his wife, and Luna, for the moon. Thus within the log-book it is written Bessie Luna Wray.
Girls that have upon the shore their home can tell to an exactness what age they have and when their birthdays shall be. But for myself who have only a home upon the sea, I may know but this—that I have nearly fifteen years of age, “or thereabouts,” as the captain says. I have never known of the birthday—only an anniversary. And when I have forgotten myself of the day of the month on which that happens, I obtain the “Petrel’s” log-book for the year of eighteen hundred and sixty-four, where I find this of record:
“Journal of hemaphrodite brig ‘Petrel,’ Wray, master, from San Francisco to Honolulu, Dec. 25, 1864.
“This day begins with clearing weather and light airs from S. E. Middle part of day wind light and baffling. At 3 P. M. passed a quantity of floating wreck stuff. Moon fulls at 11. P. M. At 11.30 P. M., Lat. by obs. 30° 15´, hove to, and picked up a boat of French build with ‘Toulon’ written in pencil on the seat, and a female child about one year old wrapped in a capote such as is worn by the pilots of Dieppe. Got under way at 12 M., course W. b. N. Call the child Bessie Luna Wray. So ends this twenty-four hours.”
Such is all I know of my beginning of life. Excepting that only for the uncommon brightness of the moon, the lookout had not seen the drifting boat. It is said in all the books I have read, of the babe who is discovered, that it smiles sweetly in the face of its benefactor. But the captain tells me often that I rent the air with crying till I was black in the face, until, arriving on the deck of the “Petrel,” old Candace, the negress, took me in her embrace. She it was who was stewardess, with her husband Jim (also of color) as cook.
The captain would at once have had me fed with Port wines, condensed milk, canned soups, and like nourishment. But Candace said “no,” and gave me of food in small quantities. “Dat ’ar little stummick mus’n be filled to depletion,” is that which the captain repeats as her words to him.
Remaining on board, she had a care of me for four years. I would not be on the shore for even an hour. I cried bitterly when out of sight of my captain. Again we had a stewardess who was English, with her husband to cook. She taught me my sewing, and a prayer to say to the good God. But as I became more old in years the captain gave to me my instruction in books. He learned me of many things useful, and it is said of me that I have a marvellous power to attain in study. At my present age I am thin—svelte, as old M. Jacques, the former mate, says—with a complexion of brunette, and eyes and hair which are black. This it is, with the readiness which I had in learning the French language of M. Jacques, which gives me to think that my mother at least was French. The accent and words seemed to always be known to me as of a dream.
But the captain will have it to say that I am a gift of Christmas from his wife who is with the good God. Be that as it may, I am to him as his very, very own, and he to me as father and mother in one, “the child of his old age,” he insists; for though straight and erect as the mast of the “Petrel,” he is in age sixty years.
He has provided for me everything of comfort and elegance that a young girl could wish. For the “Petrel” is a small brig which goes over all the world where a keel may float, in order to trade. It may be to purchase shells in the Indian ocean, furs in St. Petersburg, fruits at Havana, spices in Ceylon, silks at Nankin, diamonds or ostrich feathers at Cape Town, knick-knacks in London, or bijouterie at Havre—anywhere and everywhere that a bargain may be made, we go. And in every port the ladies of the consignee, or the American consul, will have me at their homes, and are so good to me. They take me to the galleries of art and places of interest. I attend the service of the church with them, and at their homes I meet people who are delightful. Thus I have learned to love things which are beautiful, and the captain is only too willing to get for me what I desire. He has had built for me into the cabin a little cabinet organ. We took as passengers to the Sandwich Islands last year, a good missionary, and his wife, who accompanied him, taught me the music, and to sing and play, so that I am never ennuyéed at sea. I have a great abundance of books; I have my music, my studies (navigation is among them), my sewing, a canary bird, and a pot of ivy—beside my journal from which these pages are recorded—what would you more? It does not matter that we meet storms—sometimes terrible ones. I do not say it to boast, but I have not anything of fear within. I love to be on deck; I have the long oil coat which buttons close about me like that of the captain, and boots of rubber. Oftentimes the captain permits that I give the orders for taking in the light sails, or tacking the brig. And I can steer with the wheel as well as old Dan himself, or trace the vessel’s course upon the chart when I have figured the reckoning.
You of the young ladies who murmur because of the space of closets, should visit my room. It has a length of ten feet, a breadth of six. My berth, with three drawers beneath it, takes much of the room. But I have a tiny wash-stand, a small chair, and a trunk also.
Pictures too. The one, “Christ Stilling the Tempest,” is a small painting in oil, which was a present to myself from a lady in Rome whose husband is a great artist.
Opposite hangs a photograph of the “Immaculate Conception,” also a present from a lady in Liverpool, Mrs. Fancher. There is fastened to the wall a swinging lamp of solid silver. A diver of the submarine brought it up from the wreck of a steam yacht which, belonging to Omar Pacha, was lost with all those on board in the Persian Gulf. The man gave it as pay for his passage to Foochow. But imagine to yourself the curtains of my berth being of silk damask worked with gold thread! They are of much value, yet when one asks of their price, the captain says, with his laugh, that he bought them for a song. It was while we were loading with a few teas at Foochow. A man habited as a sailor came on board at the evening, and offered this for fifty dollars. He had been a runaway from a ship, and seeking the country, was impressed into the army of Chinese insurgents. They had sacked the emperor’s country seat at Ningpo, and this was torn from the hangings of the couch of the princess—or he thus said. The captain told him he could not give but twenty dollars, though it was of more worth. But the man said “no,” and went out. It was then, thinking that he had gone, I began to sing and play the song of Adelaide Proctor, “The Lost Chord,” which I so love. And the strange man came back and began to cry! He said to the captain if I would sing it once more, he should have the stuff at his own price, which I did willingly, and thus it was purchased.
My book-shelves are of sandal-wood inlaid with ebony. They were given me in Madras by the merchant with whom the captain has done business these many years. The ewer and jug in my wash-stand are of bronze. They were discovered from a tomb in the Island of Cyprus.
But it is in especial of one voyage—the last—of which I have to tell, for it came near to become an adventure. We were bound to Lisbon, seeking a cargo of the light wines for the market of New York, and the captain had with him for the purchase three thousand dollars in gold. He had shipped for the voyage a different chief mate, and also two men of the crew who came on board with him. It happens to me to notice small things, and I remember that I looked with surprise at the familiarity which these common sailors had secretly with the first mate. Old Jacques would hardly have spoken to a sailor even upon the land, except in the way of duty. I had for this Mr. Atkin, as he called himself, a strong dislike. His face had a smooth badness, but he was fluent of tongue with an appearance of education, and the captain smiled at what he said was my childish prejudice. Yet the good God has given me to read the human face, and I often have chosen out those from the crew who I felt would make trouble to the officers, and was seldom with mistake.
The second officer was Waters, a man very young but brave and active. He too regarded this Atkin with suspicion. “Tell your father, Miss,” he said to me in private, “to keep his weather eye open, and look out for Atkin.”
The captain did but laugh when I told him, and bade me not trouble my little head with fears. But I found him watchful in a quiet way after that, though there happened nothing for some time of suspicion.
I find as I copy from my journal that I do not sometimes frame these sentences in the exact order that I read them in books. I cannot seem to readily correct myself, so I have made a point to put down all the conversation which I remember, exactly as it was spoken by those of whom I shall write. It will be a good practice for me. I began to keep my journal three years since, with view of having a better command of language.
We finally made sight of the Teneriffe peak among the Canary Islands. It rises many thousand feet above the sea, and for miles is visible in the clear weather.
That night the winds died away, and we were becalmed, and so warm as it was! I could not sleep, and in the first watch—that of the captain—I went upon deck. Old Dan is a sailor who has been at sea with us a great many years, and the only one that the captain wishes me to speak with when he is not present.
So after I had chatted with the captain a little, he went forward a moment with a command for the second mate.
“How do you head, Dan?” I asked of him idly.
“Mostly all round the compass, there being no steerage way to speak of, Miss,” he made answer.
I yawned, for I had a strong desire to sleep, yet cared not to go to the close air of below.
All at once, I thought of the life-boat which swings at the “Petrel’s” stern, covered with canvas, and how delightful to be in it were it possible. If there came a breath of wind I should feel it there; and remembering that I had seen a torn fore-royal put into the boat a few days previous, I made up my mind what to do. “Look you, Dan,” I said, “I am going to sleep in the life-boat till you shall come to the wheel again in the morning watch from twelve till four, and then you can call me.”
“Very well, Miss,” he made reply, though he regarded me with a little doubt, “only maybe Cap’n Wray wouldn’t think—”
“He need know nothing of it,” I said with impatience, for I have a will headstrong, which often causes me after-sorrow. And without other words I slipped myself within the boat, pulling the cover in place with care.
“Where is Miss Wray?” I heard the captain to ask as he came aft a moment after.
“She’s turned in, sir,” was the answer of Dan.
Then the captain began his walk of the quarter-deck with vain whistlings for the breeze.
But it was charming laying upon the old sail listening to the twitter of Mother Cary’s chickens, and the cool swash of the sea about the rudder.
It is not a wonder, then, that I fell into fast sleep, only to awaken by the bell striking “one, two, three, four,” which I knew had the meaning of two o’clock of the morning, and I had some regret at my foolish whim, for it had become quite cool and damp. Yet I knew I might not release myself until four o’clock, when old Dan again had the wheel.
I raised a corner of the cover and peeped out. Spanish Joe stood with one hand upon the wheel, looking sideways in the half darkness of the night. The light from the binnacle was upon his swarthy face with strength, and I told myself, with a little shiver, that it was the face of a brigand such as I had gazed upon in some gallery of pictures. But figure to yourself my feelings as Mr. Atkin, after listening a moment at the open window of the state-room of the captain, came directly behind the wheel, and seating himself upon the taffrail so near that I could touch him, began with an absent drumming of his fingers upon the cover of the boat itself!
“Everybody is sound asleep but you and I, Joe,” he said in half a whisper.
“Bueno,” was the reply of Joe; “an’ now, s’pose you say what you have think ’bout us try to get dis money you tell us of, eh?”
“Well, Joe,” he answers, and you cannot imagine to yourself how like oil was his voice, “I’ve laid the thing out about this way. To-morrow night when Dan is steering and the Swede on the lookout, we’ll give young Waters a little pleasant surprise, and when he comes to himself, he’ll find that his hands are lashed and something over his mouth to keep him from making a noise—savey, Joe?”
I trembled in every limb, and was with a cold perspiration on my face. Had I been one who swoons readily I should have fainted. But at once I recovered myself. “Be brave, Bessie,” I repeated to my heart: “it is for the dear captain’s sake.”
“Then we’ll get the captain out,” the wretch continued, as Spanish Joe made a small nod of the head, “and serve him so, and if the cook, or Dan, or the Swede make a fuss (which they won’t dare do) they’ll see that the balance of power is with us, for we’ve got pistols, and they haven’t. Eh, Joe?”
“Then w’at?” asked Joe with much of eagerness.
“Why, then,” Mr. Atkin goes on with the ease that he would remark upon the weather, “we’ll put the long boat over the side, and politely invite Captain Wray, Miss Wray, Mr. Waters and the cook or one of the men to step in. They can shape their course for the Azores, only thirty miles away, Joe, and we’ll shape ours for Europe.”
“But will you?” I thought within myself with my teeth clenched.
“I’ll take command, of course,” thus the bad man continued; “and when we are near the land we’ll rig up the life-boat here”—and he thumped it with his hand—“take some provisions, water and the money—”
“One tousan’ apiece,” breaks in the sailor.
“Take the money,” Mr. Atkin went on as if Joe had not interrupted; “and when we get ashore, every man will take his share, Joe—and scatter!” he said with a flourish of his fingers.
“But the brig shall find harbor too—they gives alarm and sends after us,” said Joe.
“Not after I have fixed the rudder and taken away the compass, my good Joe,” said the smooth Mr. Atkin; “so now you can let Jerry know what is expected of him, and to-morrow night—”
He made no finish of his words, though, but rising, walked slow away.
Ah, how slowly passed the time! but finally, Joe, with yawns, struck the eight bells, and the wheel was relieved by old Dan.
Surely I lost no time in coming from my hiding-place, and I sought the captain, who, without removing his clothing, had reclined himself upon a lounge in the cabin. I revealed to him in whispers that which I had heard.
“My brave little girl!” he said, as I had made an end of my story; but I could not think what there was of bravery in laying perdu, and listening to conspirators. Had I not given him counsel, though, I think he would have been for dashing upon the three who thus conspired, and smiting them hip and thigh. But I told him to communicate in secret with Mr. Waters, and they two together might make plans of strategy which would avail without bloodshed; and he did so.
It was unfortunate that the captain was entirely without firearms of any kind. I think I myself would have dared to use one in such an emergency. But he whispered to me in the morning that he had that which should serve the same end; and with a beating heart I awaited the result.
The calm remained into the forenoon of the next day. The sea was like oily glass, without a ripple as far as one could view, and the sun made itself hardly to be endured, so fierce did it beat down upon the scorched deck, in the seams of which the pitch fairly melted. The sails hung without motion against the mast, and the wheel was idle.
With a heart fast beating I followed the captain, who had told me to be without fear, upon the deck.
“I wish we had a couple of the turtle that are laying round so plenty, asleep on the water, this morning,” said the captain, as if to myself, who, stood by him, though in a careless way.
I had no meaning of his words, but Atkin, who was near, looked at the black specks upon the water some distance away, with interest.
“Yes, sir,” he made reply, “there’s always lots of them about the Azores in calm weather—nice soup they make, too.”
“You might take the longboat, if you like, Mr. Atkin,” said the captain with a yawn, as if it had but then occurred to him, “and with your watch take two or three—it would be a change from salt beef.”
“Very well, sir,” Atkin replies; for this man was a lover of nice food—a gourmand. “Here, you Joe and Jerry, get the boat over the side.”
THE TABLES ARE SUDDENLY TURNED ON THE CONSPIRATORS.
I began to guess that there was a purpose in this. I saw that the captain had, under a mask of carelessness, a face of anxiety, and that the hand that held his glasses with which he viewed the horizon, trembled never so little as he paced backward and forward while the two men were putting over the boat. When all was ready, Mr. Atkin in the stern-sheets pushed off from the vessel’s side.
“Stop a bit!” now called the captain, as I watched with strong anxiety his face. There was a stern ring in his voice which I had seldom heard. And at the same time I saw Mr. Waters, Dan and the Swede come from the cook’s galley with buckets of hot water which they brought to the rail.
“Well?” asked Atkin with inquiry. And he motioned the two men to cease from rowing.
“You see Teneriffe peak, do you?” again spoke the captain.
“Why, yes, sir,” was the answer of Atkin: “what then?”
“Just this,” said the captain; “my advice to you, you scoundrels, is that you pull your prettiest for the Azore Islands; for while my name is Wray not one of you ever shall set foot again of this brig’s deck!”
Ah, then what oaths! what cries of rage! And so desperate was this villain Atkin that he drew a pistol and commanded his men to pull back, which they did with hesitation. But they were scarce within reach when old Dan discharged the contents of his hot-water bucket full at them. I clapped my hands. I could not resist. For Atkin caught enough of it on his neck and shoulder to cause him to fall backward over the thwart with a roar, and by accident, discharge his pistol in the air.
Then it was they saw they were entrapped, and pulled hastily away to a distance, where they laid upon their oars with angry words each to the other.
And oh, how with eagerness we watched for a breeze, which came not until in the late afternoon. But when once more the ripple of the water made around the bows, and the sails swelled out with a wind from the southwest, I breathed with freeness, and we all thanked the good God as we watched the boat of the conspirators to disappear in the distance.
There were left on board the captain, second mate, two men, the cook and stewardess. And Captain Wray said I should be his second mate, Mr. Waters acting as chief officer.
Many times I stood at the wheel for three and four hours before we reached Lisbon. But the “Petrel,” which has but a tonnage of one hundred and sixty, was easily handled, and the good God gave us favoring winds, as also fair weather; so with much fatigue, but otherwise well, we finally reached our port in safety.
The captain sometimes speaks as one who is getting too old for the life of the ocean—in particular of late does he say this. And he has made hints at a home upon the land, with a house which shall look far out over the sea, and be ever within the sound of its voice. It may be that after a time, and with him, I should be content thus to live. But as now, I regard it with dread. I had somehow dreamed of a continuation of this life which so delights me, and some day to be buried under the blue waves. But we shall see.
The foregoing story is entirely true in all its essential features. I was somewhat acquainted with Miss Wray, and it was with sorrow that in the list of disasters two winters ago, I read that the brig “Petrel” was lost in the English Channel, with all on board, in a December gale.
F. H. C.