THE HAND OF FATE.
At the first stroke of noon next day, Arnold arrived at his cousin's house in Chester Square. He was accompanied by Iris, by Lala Roy, and by Mr. Frank Farrar.
"Pray, Arnold, what is meant by all this mystery?" asked Clara, receiving him and his party with considerable surprise.
"I will explain all in a few minutes, my dear Clara. Meanwhile, have you done what you promised?"
"Yes, I wrote to Dr. Washington. He will be here, I expect, in a few minutes."
"You wrote exactly in the form of words you promised me?"
"Yes, exactly. I asked him to meet me here this morning at a quarter past twelve, in order to discuss a few points connected with Iris's future arrangements, before he left for America, and I wrote on the envelope, 'Immediate and important.'"
"Very well. He will be sure to come, I think. Perhaps your cousin will insist upon another check for fifty pounds being given to him."
"Arnold, you are extremely suspicious and most ungenerous about Dr. Washington, on whose truth and disinterested honesty I thoroughly rely."
"We shall see. Meanwhile, Clara, I desire to present to you a young lady of whom we have already spoken. This is Miss Aglen, who is, I need hardly say, deeply anxious to win your good opinion. And this is Lala Roy, an Indian gentleman who knew her father, and has lived in the same house with her for twenty years. Our debt—I shall soon be able to say your debt—of gratitude to this gentleman for his long kindness to Miss Aglen—is one which can never be repaid."
Clara gave the most frigid bow to both Iris and Lala Roy.
"Really, Arnold, you are talking in enigmas this morning. What am I to understand? What has this gentleman to do with my appointment with Dr. Washington?"
"My dear cousin, I am so happy this morning that I wonder I do not talk in conundrums, or rondeaux, or terza rima. It is a mere chance, I assure you. Perhaps I may break out in rhymes presently. This evening we will have fireworks in the square, roast a whole ox, invite the neighbors, and dance about a maypole. You shall lead off the dance, Clara."
"Pray go on, Arnold. All this is very inexplicable."
"This gentleman, however, is a very old friend of yours, Clara. Do you not recognize Mr. Frank Farrar, who used to stay at the Hall in the old days?"
"I remember Mr. Farrar very well." Clara gave him her hand. "But I should not have known him. Why have we never met in society during all these years, Mr. Farrar?"
"I suppose because I have been out of society, Miss Holland," said the scholar. "When a man marries, and has a large family, and a small income, and grows old, and has to see the young fellows shoving him out at every point, he doesn't care much about society. I hope you are well and happy."
"I am very well, and I ought to be happy, because I have recovered Claude's lost heiress, my cousin, Iris Deseret, and she is the best and most delightful of girls, with the warmest heart and the sweetest instincts of a lady by descent and birth."
She looked severely at Arnold, who said nothing, but smiled incredulously.
Mr. Farrar looked from Iris to Miss Holland, bewildered.
"And why do you come to see me to-day, Mr. Farrar—and with Arnold?"
"Because I have undertaken to answer one question presently, which Mr. Arbuthnot is to ask me. That is why I am here. Not but what it gives me the greatest pleasure to see you again, Miss Holland, after so many years."
"Our poor Claude died in America, you know, Mr. Farrar."
"So I have recently heard."
"And left one daughter."
"That also I have learned." He looked at Iris.
"She is with me, here in this house, and has been with me for a week. You may understand, Mr. Farrar, the happiness I feel in having with me Claude's only daughter."
Mr. Farrar looked from her to Arnold with increasing amazement. But he said nothing.
"I have appointed this morning, at Arnold's request," Clara went on, "to have an interview, perhaps the last, with the gentleman who brought my dear Iris from America. I say, at Arnold's request, because he asked me to do this, and I have always trusted him implicitly, and I hope he is not going to bring trouble upon us now, although I do not, I confess, understand the presence of his friends or their connection with my cousin."
"My dear Clara," said Arnold again, "I ask for nothing but patience. And that only for a few moments. As for the papers, you have them all in your possession?"
"Yes; they are locked up in my strong-box."
"Do not, on any account, give them to anybody. However, after this morning you will not be asked. Have you taken as yet any steps at all for the transference of your property to—to the rightful heir?"
"Not yet."
"Thank goodness! And now, Clara, I will ask you, as soon as Dr. Washington and—your cousin—are in the drawing-room, to ring the bell. You need not explain why. We will answer the summons, and we will give all the explanations that may be required."
"I will not have my cousin vexed, Arnold."
"You shall not. Your cousin shall never be vexed by me as long as I live."
"And Dr. Washington must not be in any way offended. Consider the feelings of an American gentleman, Arnold. He is my guest."
"You may thoroughly rely upon my consideration for the feelings of an American gentleman. Go; there is a knock at the door. Go to receive him, and, when both are in the room, ring the bell."
Joe was in excellent spirits that morning. His interview with Lala Roy convinced him that nothing whatever was known of the papers, therefore nothing could be suspected. What a fool, he thought, must be his grandfather, to have had these papers in his hands for eighteen years and never to have opened the packet, in obedience to the injunction of a dead man! Had it been his own case, he would have opened the papers without the least delay, mastered the contents, and instantly claimed the property. He would have gone on to use it for his own purposes and private gain, and with an uninterrupted run of eighteen years, he would most certainly have made a very pretty thing out of it.
However, everything works well for him who greatly dares. His wife would manage for him better than he could do it for himself. Yet a few weeks, and the great fortune would fall into his hands. He walked all the way to Chester Square, considering how he should spend the money. There are some forms of foolishness, such as, say, those connected with art, literature, charity, and work for others, which attract some rich men, but which he was not at all tempted to commit. There were others, however, connected with horses, races, betting, and gambling, which tempted him strongly. In fact, Joseph contemplated spending this money wholly on his own pleasures. Probably it would be a part of his pleasure to toss a few crumbs to his wife.
It is sad to record that Lotty, finding herself received with so much enthusiasm, had already begun to fall off in her behavior. Even Clara, who thought she discovered every hour some new point of resemblance in the girl to her father, was fain to admit that the "Americanisms" were much too pronounced for general society.
Her laugh was louder and more frequent; her jests were rough and common; she used slang words freely; her gestures were extravagant, and she walked in the streets as if she wished every one to notice her. It is the walk of the Music-Hall stage, and the trick of it consists chiefly in giving, so to speak, prominence to the shoulders and oscillation to the skirts. In fact, she was one of those ladies who ardently desire that all the world should notice them.
Further, in her conversation, she showed an acquaintance with certain phases of the English lower life which was astonishing in an American girl. But Clara had no suspicion—none whatever. One thing the girl did which pleased her mightily.
She was never tired of hearing about her father, and his way of looking, standing, walking, folding his hands, and holding himself. And constantly more and more Clara detected these little tricks in his daughter. Perhaps she learned them.
"My dear," she said, "to think that I ever thought you unlike your dear father!"
So that it made her extremely uncomfortable to detect a certain reserve in Arnold toward the girl, and then a dislike of Arnold in the girl herself. However, she was accustomed to act by Arnold's advice, and consented, when he asked her, to arrange so that Arnold might meet Dr. Washington. As if anything that so much as looked like suspicion could be thought of for a moment!
But the bell rang, and Arnold, followed by his party, led the way from the morning room to the drawing room. Dr. Joseph Washington was standing with his back to the door. The girl was dressed as if she had just come from a walk, and was holding Clara's hand.
"Yes, madam," he was saying softly, "I return to-morrow to America, and my wife and my children. I leave our dear girl in the greatest confidence in your hands. I only venture to advise that, to avoid lawyers' expenses, you should simply instruct somebody—the right person—to transfer the property from your name to the name of Iris. Then you will be saved troubles and formalities of every kind. As for me, my home is in America—"
"No, Joseph," said Lala Roy gently; "it is in Shadwell."
"It is a lie!" he cried, starting; "it is an infernal lie!"
"Iris," said Arnold, "lift your veil, my dear. Mr. Farrar, who is this young lady? Look upon this face, Clara."
"This is the daughter of Claude Deseret," said Mr. Farrar, "if she is the daughter of the man who married Alice Emblem, and went by the name of Aglen."
Clara turned a terrified face to Arnold.
"Arnold, help me!"
"Whose face is this?" he repeated.
"It is—good Heavens!—it is the face of your portrait. It is Claude's face again. They are his very eyes—" She covered her face with her hands. "Oh, Arnold, what is it! Who is this other?"
"This other lady, Clara, is a Music-Hall Singer, who calls herself Carlotta Claridane, wife of this man, who is not an American at all, but the grandson of Mr. Emblem, the bookseller, and therefore cousin of Iris. It is he who robbed his grandfather of the papers which you have in your possession, Clara. And this is an audacious conspiracy, which we have been so fortunate as to unearth and detect, step by step."
"Oh, can such wickedness be?" said Clara; "and in my house, too?"
"Joe," said Lotty, "the game is up. I knew it wouldn't last."
"Let them prove it," said Joe; "let them prove it. I defy you to prove it."
"Don't be a fool, Joe," said his wife. "Remember," she whispered, "you've got a pocketful of money. Let us go peaceably."
"As for you, Nigger," said Joe, "I'll break every bone in your body."
"Not here," said Arnold; "there will be no breaking of bones in this house."
Lotty began to laugh.
"The gentle blood always shows itself, doesn't it?" she said. "I've got the real instincts of a lady, haven't I? Oh, it was beautiful while it lasted. And every day more and more like my father."
"Arnold," cried poor Clara, crushed, "help me!"
"Come," said Arnold, "you had better go at once."
"I won't laugh at you," said Lotty. "It's a shame, and you're a good old thing. But it did me good, it really did, to hear all about the gentle blood. Come, Joe. Let us go away quietly."
She took her husband's arm. Joe was standing sullen and desperate. Mr. Chalker was right. It wanted very little more to make him fall upon the whole party, and go off with a fight.
"Young woman," said Lala Roy, "you had better not go outside the house with the man. It will be well for you to wait until he has gone."
"Why? He is my husband, whatever we have done, and I'm not ashamed of him."
"Is he your husband? Ask him what I meant when I said his home was at Shadwell."
"Come, Lotty," said Joe, with a curious change of manner. "Let us go at once."
"Wait," Lala repeated. "Wait, young woman, let him go first. Pray—pray let him go first."
"Why should I wait? I go with my husband."
"I thought to save you from shame. But if you will go with him, ask him again why his home is at Shadwell, and why he left his wife."
Lotty sprung upon her husband, and caught his wrists with both hands.
"Joe, what does he mean? Tell me he is a liar."
"That would be useless," said Lala Roy. "Because a very few minutes will prove the contrary. Better, however, that he should go to prison for marrying two wives than for robbing his grandfather's safe."
"It's a lie!" Joe repeated, looking as dangerous as a wild boar brought to bay.
"There was a Joseph Gallop, formerly assistant purser in the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company," continued the man of fate, "who married, nine months ago, a certain widow at Shadwell. He was turned out of the service, and he married her because she had a prosperous lodging-house."
"Oh—h!" cried Lotty. "You villain! You thought to live upon my earnings, did you? You put me up to pretend to be somebody else. Miss Holland"—she fell upon her knees, literally and simply, and without any theatrical pretense at all—"forgive me! I am properly punished. Oh, he is made of lies! He told me that the real Iris was dead and buried, and he was the rightful heir; and as for you"—she sprung to her feet and turned upon her husband—"I know it is true. I know it is true—I can see it within your guilty eyes."
"If you have any doubt," said Lala, "here is a copy of the marriage-certificate."
She took it, read it, and put it in her pocket. Then she went out of the room without another word, but with rage and revenge in her eyes.
Joseph followed her, saying no more. He had lost more than he thought to lose. But there was still time to escape, and he had most of the money in his pocket.
But another surprise awaited him.
The lady from Shadwell, in fact, was waiting for him outside the door. With her were a few Shadwell friends, of the seafaring profession, come to see fair play. It was a disgraceful episode in the history of Chester Square. After five minutes or so, during which no welsher on a race-course was ever more hardly used, two policemen interfered to rescue the man of two wives, and there was a procession all the way to the police-court, where, after several charges of assault had been preferred and proved against half a dozen mariners, Joseph was himself charged with bigamy, both wives giving evidence, and committed for trial.
His old friend, Mr. David Chalker, one is sorry to add, refused to give bail, so that he remained in custody, and will now endure hardness for a somewhat lengthened period.
"Clara," said Arnold, "Iris will stay with you, if you ask her. We shall not marry, my dear, without your permission. I have promised that already, have I not?"
THE END.
A YACHTSMAN'S YARN.
"I've knocked off the sea now for some years, but I was yachting along with all sorts of gentlemen and in all sorts of craft, from three to one hundred and twenty tons, ever since the top of my head was no higher than your knee; and as boy, man, and master, I'll allow there's no one who has seen much more than I have. Yet, spite of that, I can recall but one extraordinary circumstance. Daresay when I've told it you, you won't believe it; but I sha'n't be able to help that. Truth's truth, no consequence how sing'lar its appearance may be; and so now to begin.
"No matter the port, no matter the yacht's name, no matter her owner's calling, no matter nothing. Terms and dates and the like shall be imaginary, and so let the vessel be a schooner of one hundred tons called the 'Evangeline,' and her owner Mr. Robinson, and me, who was captain of her, Jacob Williams. This'll furnish a creep you may go on sweeping with till Doomsday without raising what's dead and gone, though not forgotten, mind ye, from the bottom. Well, for a whole fortnight had the 'Evangeline' been moored in a snug berth alongside a pier wall. The English Channel was wide there, and it didn't need much sailing to find the Atlantic Ocean. I began to think all cruising was to come to an end; for Mr. Robinson was a man fond of keeping the sea, and I had never found a fortnight's lying by to his taste at all. But matters explained themselves after I'd seen him two or three times walking about with a very fine-looking female party. Mr. Robinson was a bachelor, his age I dare say about forty, with handsome whiskers, and one of those voices that show breeding in a man; ay, and the humblest ear that hears 'em recognizes them. I didn't take much notice of her, though I reckoned her large black eyes the beautifullest I had ever beheld in a female countenance. She seemed young—not more than eight-and-twenty—with what they call a fine figure, though, speaking for myself, I never had much opinion of small waists. Give me bong poine, as my old master, Sir Arthur Jones, used to say; and he ought to have known, for he had been studying female beauty for eighty year, and died, I reckon, of it.
"I considered it to be a case of courting, for she was a lady; there was no mistaking that; she held her head up like one, and dressed as real ladies do, expensively but plainly—ay, old Jacob knows; he didn't go yachting for years for nothing. But it wasn't for me to form opinions. My berth was an easy one—just a sprawl all day long with a pipe in my mouth, and a good night's rest to follow; and that was all it was my duty to think about.
"Well, one afternoon Mr. Robinson comes aboard alone, and says to me, 'Williams, at what hour will the tide serve to-morrow night?'
"'Why, sir,' says I, after thinking, 'there'll be plenty of water at nine o'clock.'
"'Then,' says he, 'see all ready, Williams, to get away to-morrow at that hour. We're off to ——,' and he names a Mediterranean port.
"Right, sir,' says I, though wondering a bit to myself, for the season was pretty well advanced, and I couldn't have guessed, from what I knew and had heard of him, that he would have pushed so far south.
"Well, at half past eight that evening the deck was hailed by a boat alongside, and up he comes handing a lady on board, thickly veiled, and they both went below as if they were in a hurry. Some parcels and a bit of a bandbox or so were chucked up to us by the watermen, who then shoved off. There was a nice little off-shore breeze a-blowing, and soon after nine we were clear of the harbor and sailing quietly along, the sea smooth and the moon rising red out of a smother of mist. Mr. Robinson came on deck and looked aloft to see what sail was made; I was at the tiller, and stepping up to me, he says—
"'What d'yer think of the weather, Williams?'
"'Why,' says I, 'it seems as if it was going to keep fair.'
"'There can't come too much wind for me,' says he, 'short of a hurricane. Don't spare your cloths, let it blow as it may. You understand that?'
"'Quite easily,' says I.
"Now, this order I took to be as singular as our going to the Mediterranean, for Mr. Robinson was never a man to carry on; there was no racing in him; quiet sailing was his pleasure, and what his hurry was all of a sudden I couldn't imagine, though I guessed that the party in the cabin might have something to do with it. She came on deck after we had been under way about three quarters of an hour, this time without a veil, with what they call a turban hat on her head. There was plenty of moonlight, and I tell you that the very shadow she cast, and that lay like a carving of jet on ivory, looked beautiful on the white deck, so fine her figure was. Lord, how her big eyes flashed, too, when she drew my way and turned 'em to the moon! Being a sober, 'spectable man myself, with correct views on the bringing up of daughters, it seemed to be a queer start that if so be this young lady was keeping company with Mr. Robinson—being courted by him, you know—that her mother or some female connection wasn't along with her. P'raps they were married, I thought; might have been spliced that very morning. She had no gloves on, and whenever she walked with Mr. Robinson near to me, I'd take a long squint at her left hand; but there was no distinguishing a wedding-ring by moonshine, and even had it been broad daylight it would have been all the same, for the jewels lay so thick on her fingers you'd have fancied them sparkling with dew.
"Well, all that night it blew a soft, quiet wind, but for hours next day 'twas all dead calm, a light swell, the sunlight coming off the water hot as steam, and the yacht slewing round and round as if, like the rest of us, she was trying to find out where the wind meant to come from next. I never saw any man fret more over a calm than Mr. Robinson did over that. The lady didn't appear discomposed; she sat under the awning reading, and once when Mr. Robinson turned to look at her she ran her shining black eyes with a smiling roll around the sea, that was just the same as if she had said, 'Isn't it big enough?' for hang me if even I couldn't read the language in them sparklers of hers when she chose to lift the eyelashes off their meaning, unaccustomed as Jacob Williams ever was to female ways and the customs they pursue! But Mr. Robinson couldn't keep quiet. He kept on asking of me when I thought the wind was coming, and he was constantly getting up and staring round, and I'd notice he was always letting his cigar go out, which is a sure sign that either a man don't care about smoking, or else he's got something weighing upon his spirits. P'raps, thought I, it's stipulated that he's not to get married anywhere but in the port we're bound to, and that the license don't run so long as to allow for calms; but this I said to myself, with a wink at my own thoughts, for, though there's a good many things in this 'ere yearth that I don't understand, I must tell you Jacob Williams wasn't born without a mind.
"Well, time went on, and then a head-wind sprung up, with a short, spiteful sea. I kept the yacht under a press, according to orders, and the driving of her close-hauled, every luff trembling and the foam to leeward as high as the rail, fairly smothered the vessel forward; whilst as to her movements, it was dreary and aching enough, I can tell you, the wind sweeping out of clouds of spray forward and splitting with shrieks upon the ropes, and the canvas soaking up the damp till every stretch might have been owned for the matter of color by a coalman. 'Twas 'bout ship often enough, Mr. Robinson being full of anxiety and impatience, and watching the compass for a shift of wind as if he was a cat and there was a mouse in the binnacle. I could have sworn the handsome party would have been beam-ended by the dance; it turned the stomachs of two of the crew, anyhow, and one of them said that if he had known the 'Evangeline' was to cross the bay, he'd have found another ship; yet the lady took no notice of the weather. She'd come up dressed in waterproofs, and her beautiful face shining with the big eyes in it out of a hood; and the more the sea troubled the schooner, the more the vessel labored and showed herself uneasy, the more the lady would look pleased, laughing out at times, with plenty of music in her voice, I allow, but with a something in it and in the gleaming stare she'd keep on the plunging and streaming bows, that made me calculate—don't know why, I'm sure—that lovely as she was and beautiful as she was shaped, there was no more heart inside of her than there's pearls in cockles.
"Well, we had two days of this, passing a good many vessels; both steam and sail, that were getting all they could out of what was baffling us; then there was a shift of wind; it fell light, everything turned dry, and we went along with all cloths showing, sailing about five knots—not more, and I don't think less. When the change of weather came Mr. Robinson looked more cheerful. Seemed happier, he did, and I overheard him say to the party as they stood looking over the starn at the wake that ran away in two white lines with a gull, or two circling within a stone's throw in waiting for whatever the cook had to heave overboard—I heard him say:
"'Every mile'll make it more difficult; besides,' says he, with a sweep of his hand, 'what a waste this is! Williams,' he sings out to me, 'how fur off's the horizon?'
"'Why,' I answered, 'from this height I should say a matter of six mile and a half.'"
'And how fur distant, Captain Williams,' says the lady, smiling sweetly, and pretty nigh confusing my brains by the beautiful look she gave me, 'would a vessel like ours be seen?'
"I took time to think, with a squint at our mastheads—for we carried long sticks—and said, 'Well, call it twelve mile, mum. It's impossible to speak to a nicety.'
"'And what,' I heard Mr. Robinson observe, as I turned away, 'is twelve miles in this here watery wilderness of leagues?'
"'And then she gave a laugh, as if some one had made her feel glad; and it was all like music and poetry, I can tell you, her laughing, and his softness, and the water smooth, and the yacht sailing along as if she enjoyed it, like a hard-worked vessel out for a holiday.
"Time passed till it come on four o'clock on the afternoon of that day. There was a redness in the western heavens that betokened more wind, though the sun still stood high. Meanwhile the breeze hung steady. There was the smoke of a steamer away on our starboard quarter, and there was nothing else in sight. I took no notice of it, for smoke's not uncommon nowadays on the ocean; but whatever the vessel might be, the glances I'd take at her now and again made me see she was driving through it properly; for three-quarters of an hour after we had sighted it, the smoke was abeam, and the funnel raised up, showing that her course was something to the eastward of ours. I pointed the glass at her, and made out a yellow chimney and pole-masts—hull still below the horizon.
"'Either a yacht, sir, or a Government dispatch boat—something of that kind, sir,' says I to Mr. Robinson, who was sitting near me with the lady.
"He jumped up and took a look, and whilst he was working away with the telescope, the breeze comes along right out of the red sky abeam where the steamer was, with twice its former strength, roughening the blue water into hollows, and bowing down the yacht till the slope of her deck was like a roof. The crew jumped about shortening canvas, and the yacht began to snore as she felt the wind. On a sudden, and as if the steamer had only just then spied us, she altered her course by three or four points, as one could see by the swift rising of her hull, till, whilst the sun was still hanging a middling height over the sea line, you could see the whole of the vessel—a long, low craft of about one hundred and fifty tons—sweeping through the seas like an arrow, the smoke streaming black and fat from her small, yellow funnel, and her hull sinking out of sight one moment and reappearing the next in a sort of jump of the whole foaming wash, as if, by Jove, her screw would thrust her clean out of the water.
"The lady looked at her with a sort of indifference; but Mr. Robinson was pale enough as he handed me the glass, and said, 'Williams, see if you know her.'
"I took a look at her, and answered, 'It's hard to tell those steamers till you see their names, sir; but if she's not the Violet, belonging to General Coldsteel (of course these are false names), she's uncommonly like her. But, law bless us! how they're driving her! Why, there'll be a bust up if they don't look out. They'll blow the boilers out of her!'"
'Indeed, I never before saw any vessel rush so. She'd shear clear through some of the larger seas, and you didn't need watch her long to make you reckon you'd seen the last of her. Then Mr. Robinson, talking like a man half in a rage, half in a fright, orders me to pack sail on the schooner; but it was already blowing a single-reef breeze, and I had no idea of losing our spars, and so I told him very firmly that the yacht had all she needed, and that more would only stop her by burying her: and I had my way. But we were foaming through it, too; we wanted no more pressure; the freshening wind had worked the schooner into a fair nine knots, and it was first-rate sailing too, considering the character of the sea and the weight of the breeze. 'Twas now certain beyond all question that the steamer meant to close us, though I thought she had a queer way of doing it, for sometimes she'd head right at us, and then put her helm down and keep on a course parallel with ours, forging well ahead and then shifting the helm for a fresh run at us. There was no anxiety that I could see in the lady's looks, but Mr. Robinson was quite mightily bothered and worried and pale enough to make me suppose that all this meant a pursuit, with a capture to follow; and it was certain that whatever intentions the steamer had, there was nothing in the night which was approaching to promise us a chance of sneaking clear, for the sky was pure as glass, and it wouldn't be long after sundown before the moon would be filling the air with a light like morning.
Well, sir, fathom by fathom the steamer had her way of us. She had drawn close enough to let Mr. Robinson make out the people abroad. As for me, I was at the helm; for there was something in the maneuvering of the steamer that made me suspicious, and I wasn't going to trust any man but myself at the tiller. We held on as we were; we couldn't improve the schooner's speed by bringing the wind anywhere else than where it was; and no good was to be done by cracking on, even though it had, come to our dragging what we couldn't carry; for the steamer's speed was a fair fourteen if it was a mile, and our yacht was not going to do that, you know, or anything like it. The moon had arisen, and the sea ran like heaving snow from the windward, and by this time the steamer was about half a mile ahead of us, about three points on the weather bow. She was as plain as if daylight lay on her. All the time the party and Mr. Robinson had kept the deck, she taking a view now and then of the steamer with an opera-glass.
"Suddenly I yelled out, 'Mr. Robinson, by all that's holy, sir, that vessel there means to run us down! Lads,' I shouted, 'tumble aft quick, and see the boats all ready for lowering!'
"The lady jumped up with a scream, and seized hold of Mr. Robinson's arm, who seeming to forget what he was about, shook her off, and fell to raving to me to see that the steamer didn't touch us. By thunder, sir, there was the cowardly brute slanting her flying length as though to cross our hawse, but clearly aiming to strike us right amidships. I shouted to the men to make ready and 'bout ship, and a minute after I shoved the tiller over, and the yacht rounded like a woman waltzing. But before we had gathered way the steamer was after us. The lady sent up scream after scream. Mr. Robinson stood motionless, seeing as plain as I that if the steamer meant to sink us there was no seamanship in this wide world that could stop her; and I saw the men throwing off their shoes and half stripping themselves, ready for what was to come.
"The steamer headed dead to strike our weather-beam; she rushed at us with the foam boiling over her bows; once more I chucked the schooner right up into the wind, and the steamer went past us like a rocket under our stern. I looked at her and sha'n't ever forget what I saw. There was a white-haired man, with white whiskers and bareheaded, roaring and raging at us in the grasp of three or four seamen. 'Twas like a death-struggle. A chap who looked as if he had just seized the wheel was grinding it hard over to get away from us; and so the steamer fled past, more like a nightmare than a reality, and in a few minutes was standing with full speed to the norrard, where, in less than a quarter of an hour, she faded slick out of sight.
"It was some time after I had left the 'Evangeline' and was at home before I got to know the meaning of this here wonderful adventure. The party, it turned out, was no less than the wife of the general as owned the 'Violet,' and she was running away with Mr. Robinson. May be our men had talked about our going to the Mediterranean, but anyhow the general who was in London at the time, got scent that his wife had bolted with Mr. Robinson in the 'Evangeline,' and in less than twenty-four hours he was after us in his steamer. He tracked us by speaking the vessels we passed; and the light airs and calms we had encountered easily allowed him to overhaul quickly. And it turned out that when he had fairly sighted us, he sent the man at the wheel forward, and took the helm himself. The crew dursn't express their wonder aloud, though they knew he was no hand at steering, not to mention the mad agitation he was in, and they let him have his way when he headed the steamer for us, expecting that he merely wished to close us in order to speak; but when I put my helm down and the steamer passed, and they spied the general rounding his craft evidently to run us down, they threw themselves upon him to save their own lives as well as ours. That was the sight I saw as the steamer rushed past. A few moments after they had gone clear the poor old fellow was seized with an attack of apoplexy, which killed him right off, and thereupon they headed right away to England with the dead body aboard.
"What do you think of this for a yarn? Would any one suppose such vengefulness could exist in a white-haired man that had known his seventieth birthday? What did he want to go and try and drown me and my mates for? We weren't running away with the female party. But the world's full of romantic capering, sir; and I tell you what it is—'tain't all fair sailing even in yachts, modest and pretty as the divarsion is."