Heart of Oak: A Three-Stranded Yarn, vol. 3

by William Clark Russell

CHAPTER XXIV THE BRIG 'ALBATROSS'

I remained, nevertheless, in the cabin of the whaler until the captain grew impatient and showed signs of wishing to be rid of me, on which I thanked him, shook hands, and was rowed ashore.

I drove to the boarding-house and there found the following letter—

'Mowbray: December 17, 1860.

'Mr. Hoskins' compliments to Mr. Moore. He has obtained leave to open the grave and will, with Mr. Moore's permission, call for him in a closed carriage at five o'clock to-morrow afternoon.'

This gave a new turn to my thoughts. My first humour was to decline the invitation. It was not Marie who lay in that grave, and I did not like the thought of the memory the sight would create. But after reflecting awhile, I resolved to attend, a glance would give sinews to the confirmation of the pictures. Sir Mortimer would also wish that I should take every measure to satisfy myself as to the identity of the remains.

Having written an answer, I went downstairs and sent it to the post by a servant, by which hour dinner was ready and I took my place. Five of us were at table, including the lady of the house, who carved. The colonel sitting opposite me almost immediately asked what news I had got of the ship seen on the ice. I had made up my mind to talk, partly because it did me good to do so, partly because I never could tell what hints and news might follow upon free speech.

I answered that the dismasted hull the captain of the whaler had seen was the 'Lady Emma.'

'Does he think there are people locked up in her?' cried the colonel with excitement.

A Dutch gentleman (I will call him Pollak) who sat next him inquired with civil curiosity what we were talking about. On which I put down my knife and fork and plainly related the story of the voyage of Marie Otway for her health, the dismasting of the ship, her abandonment by the sailors, the reason of my visiting the Cape, and I told him how I knew by the photographs that the body which had been brought to Cape Town was not Marie's; but I said nothing about the opening of her grave; I judged that Mr. Hoskins would not be pleased to find a gaping crowd in the cemetery at such a time.

They listened to me with deep attention. All saving the colonel had heard of the arrival of the schooner with the body; indeed—which was extraordinary—the Dutch gentleman was one of a few who had been present when the remains were taken out of the cask. I had passed several hours a day since my arrival in this man's company, and now learnt for the first time that he had seen the body.

It was no season, however, for questioning him, and the conversation of the table went to the wreck seen by the captain of the whaler.

All could have observed in my manner that I was deeply stirred; I could scarcely eat; I felt thirst only. The colonel talked fluently, but not serviceably; but I listened with kindness, for I was grateful to him for the accident of this astonishing discovery.

After dinner I went on to the stoep to breathe the fresh air and smoke and think; I hoped that the others, remarking the state of my mind, would leave me alone; they did so; the colonel, the Dutch gentleman, and two others, who arrived after dinner, drinking coffee at a table at the other end of the verandah. Their conversation flowed in a low hum, but that it concerned the topic we talked over at dinner I knew by the occasional looks one or another directed my way.

At last the Dutch gentleman, Mr. Pollak, came from his party and, pulling a chair to my side, seated himself. He said, speaking with an excellent English accent:

'I have thought as I saw the body you would wish me to describe it. It was not to be spoken of at table.'

'The photographs were ghastly pictures,' said I.

'Ach, Gott!' he cried, with such a roll of his eyes under the lids as made them balls of porcelain. 'But how should anyone—the handsomest—appear who was five weeks in spirits after having been drowned and lifted out of the sea? And still her hair was long and fair, and fine, and there was a shadow of beauty in the mask of her face—all saw it. It breathed like a perfume from a dead flower.'

'She was not Miss Otway,' said I.

He described every feature, and I continued to shake my head.

'No, no,' said I, 'she is not Miss Otway. The girl I want is in that ship on the ice; yet—is she there?'

'Well, it must be found out,' said he.

'I shall go about it to-morrow.'

'Mr. Moore,' said he, after a short silence, 'you are a stranger in Cape Town. I have many friends. If I can be useful, you will, I beg, command me.'

I thanked him and said I had brought a few letters of introduction, but, conceiving the purpose of my visit ended when I viewed the photographs, I had called nowhere. I slightly referred to my position in London—that is, as a partner in my father's bank—and added that the manager of a South African bank, whose headquarters were in Cape Town, had been a senior clerk in my father's office, but that I had not visited him.

'Would not the British admiral who is at St. Simon's Town,' said he, 'send out a ship of war to search for the wreck?'

I replied quickly, 'No, I must go myself,' and added, 'You may not have had experience in the ways of British officials.'

He smiled and answered. 'The admiral might give you leave to go in the ship he sent.'

'I can tell you exactly how it would be,' said I. 'I go to the admiral and the admiral demands the log-book of the whaler. The whaler has sailed, the admiral requires full particulars of the wreck before despatching one of his ships to a perilous part of the world; full particulars can be obtained only in London. By the time the British admiral sees his way the hull, when sought, has disappeared.'

He smiled again, stroking his chin.

'When I left the whaler,' said I, finding it eased my heart to talk, and pleased with his plain sympathy, 'I had formed a resolution. It may be, sir, that you are able to help me in it.'

He bowed.

'I intend at once—that is, to-morrow, if to-morrow will provide me with the opportunity—to hire a vessel and sail for Coronation Island as promptly as she can be equipped and victualled.'

'Ah,' he exclaimed, 'that looks like business. It will be expensive——'

I interrupted him with an exclamation.

'Yes,' he exclaimed, a little ruefully, 'that should not be thought of; it will be a marvellous, noble thing to save the life of your young lady and her companions. How can I help, now?—let me see. I am acquainted with most of the leading merchants here; I believe that my friend Mr. Vanderbyl is expecting a consignment from our Australian port. Perhaps the vessel has arrived. I will inquire. If it is the same brig that was here last spring she will be the very boat for you. Her name is the "Albatross." Did you observe a brig painted white amongst the shipping when you went on board the whaler?'

'I did not.'

'If she comes with the same captain and can be hired, he will be your man; Captain Christopher Cliffe, a little clever, honest, sober sailor. I know him very well. He was second mate of a ship I sailed to England in. Well, I will inquire and see what is to be done, and you also will inquire. But the "Albatross" is your ship, sir—a clipper. She slides like a knife through the sea, and should put you abreast of the hull as quickly as steam.'

'But she is not yet arrived.'

'She is due.'

'She will need time to discharge her cargo?'

'If she is in the Bay,' said he, 'she should be able to sail with you in a fortnight, and that is as quick as gold itself shall let you be in this climate.'

I was excited by his praise of the brig, and, standing up, I asked him to accompany me to the waterside, and search the Bay with his sight for her. But he had an engagement, so I stepped forth alone, there still remaining a long evening of daylight.

I made my way to the same place I had embarked from that afternoon, and looking at the scene of Bay which glowed like the sky with the evening splendour, stretching out from my feet, and brimming into gold trembling into purple to the white beach abreast, which ran in a curve flashing like light against the lip of the brine, I counted no less than twenty-two ships riding to their anchors: vessels of all rigs and of several nationalities, and, as though heaven were on my side in this time of trial and grief, I saw what I guessed was the vessel I was here to look for. She lay, curiously enough, immediately astern of the whaler—a milk-white figure, slightly swaying on the satin-smooth heave, with wet green gleams trembling along her as she lifted her metal sheathing.

I said to a coloured waterman who stood near, pointing to the brig:

'What brig is that, do you know?'

He answered immediately, 'De "Albatross," boss!'

'Ha!'

'From Sydney, boss.'

'When did she arrive?'

'Two yastardays, boss.'

But it was not wonderful she should have escaped my observation; in going and coming from the whaler I had thought of nothing but what I was to hear and what I had heard; and earlier my sight, often as it wandered to the shipping, never paused to distinguish.

I saw no more of my Dutch friend till next morning, when, at eleven o'clock, whilst I was making ready to drive into the town and inquire about the brig 'Albatross,' a servant knocked on the door, and said Mr. Pollak was below with another and wished to see me. I at once descended.

His companion was a little man, almost a dwarf; his nose was as long as Punch's, his mouth much like that puppet's, wide and thin, with the look of a smirk in the curl of the lips at either extremity; he wore little slips of grey whiskers; his eyes were deep sunk, grey and kindly, and he blinked them with a nervous fury when he dodged a sort of sea-bow on Mr. Pollak introducing him. He was almost bald, and was perhaps fifty-five years of age, much curved in the back, his shanks slightly arching out. Mr. Pollak called him Captain Christopher Cliffe, and introduced him as master and part-owner of the brig 'Albatross.'

'I know,' said the worthy Dutchman, 'that time is precious to you. I am glad we have found you in. I cannot stay. But I will leave Captain Cliffe behind me to talk with you.'

And picking up his hat he nodded and went out.

I asked the little man if Mr. Pollak had told him my story.

'Enough,' he answered, 'to make me understand there is reason to hurry.'

'The whaler "Sea Queen,"' said I, 'lying just ahead of you——'

'She sailed this morning,' he interrupted.

'She sighted a hull high and dry on the ice of Coronation Island, New Orkneys,' said I, pulling out my note-book to give him the date. 'That hull, when she was made a raft of by the loss of her masts, was abandoned by the crew in latitude 58° 45´ south, longitude 45° 10´ west. Three people were left in her—one of them a young lady, dearer to me than my heart's blood. The "Lady Emma" is as surely the hull that was seen by the Yankee as that you who hear me are alive.'

'You think to find the people still locked up in her?' said he, blinking and snapping his lips with many convulsive grimaces.

'I mean to find that out. Is your brig for hire?'

'Ay.'

'When will she be ready?'

'I hope to have the remaining cargo out of her by Monday next; she's then at your service.'

'Have you a crew?'

'I'll get a good 'un when you're ready, sir.'

'What's the tonnage of the vessel?'

'One hundred and seventy register.'

'What'll be the cost?'

'Thirty shillings per ton a month, we finding everything, or fifteen shillings per ton a month and you finding everything.'

I put down the figures, and said, 'How long is it going to take the brig to arrive off the island?'

He talked a little to himself, blinking and grimacing absurdly, and replied, 'Call it a month.'

'I should like to see the brig, Captain Cliffe.'

'At once, if you will, sir.'

I sent for a cab and we drove to the waterside. He talked freely when he was out of the house and driving. I found something very honest and diverting in this little man's looks and manner of speech. He had an amazingly brisk and nimble mind, I thought; I got at that in a very little while. He went behind my questions, fetched a number of new possibilities for hope to feed on out of the scheme of the search, and heartened me vastly by his clear view and statement of my wishes and plans—that is, he said that the hull sighted by the whaler was beyond all question the wreck of the 'Lady Emma'; everything tallied—colour of sides, situation, time, down to the very stump of foremast. Then, since three were abandoned in her, why shouldn't they still be aboard? Of course it was my duty, he said, to sail right away. Who wouldn't, to deliver his young lady out of such a scene of horror? But humanity was in it too. The hull was to be searched for and overhauled, and I was quite right in reckoning that if I left that job to the British Admiral the hulk would have disappeared, or the people inside have perished into statues of ice, before the official mind had settled what to do.

'Not unlikely,' said he as we drove along, 'the parties have been taken out; sealers and whalers are constantly moving about those waters; but we aren't to think of that. If they're gone, so much the better, for then they're safe elsewhere; but it's your business to consider that they're still there and to fetch 'em.'

Thus we talked, and as we rowed to the brig we continued to chat, he entering very fully into the cost and character of the equipment we should require, the time we should occupy, supposing them alive in the hull, whether we returned with them to the Cape or headed for the nearest South American port.

My spirits rose under the influence of this man's conversation. His practical mind put everything so clearly that in imagination, even whilst we made for the brig, I had realised my hopes—I had rescued Marie and her companions—we were proceeding home!

The brig did not show so milk-white when close to as from the beach; rusty blood-like stains lay dried in scars under the bolt heads and other metal projections, but her figure gained in beauty when approached. I am no sailor, but when I ran my eye over her moulded shape, observed her keen entry, the swan-like curve of her run lifting to an elliptical stern, with a swell of white side that made me think of a polished heave of sea, I would have wagered there were few swifter vessels of her rig and tonnage then afloat. A lighter or something of that sort was alongside receiving cargo; a man in a cloth cap and half Wellington boots was perched on the rail close to where the cargo was going over the side; he made notes with a pencil in a little book; three or four coloured men were winding at a winch. I had caught, whilst in the boat, the clinking noise of the pawls slipping over the sheet-calm water in a sort of music that wanted but the accompaniment of a hurricane lung or two to furnish out a fine ocean concert. The man on the rail touched his cap when we gained the deck.

'That's my mate, Mr. Bland,' said Captain Cliffe. 'He's a good seaman. I can recommend him.'

I sent a glance of curiosity at the sailor, guessing if I hired this brig he would go with us; he had the face of a sheep, dark eyes set far back close against his ears, a thick black beard, and a weather-tanned skin, filled with the holes of small-pox. An ugly man indeed! Yet you saw honesty and intelligence like a light of good humour in the expression of him.

Captain Cliffe took me round the decks of the little craft first of all. I had no eye for points of marine equipment, yet noticed a smart little galley with red tiles on the floor, a seat athwartships, and a small array of saucepans, kettles, and the like, all very clean. The windlass looked small, so roomy was the forecastle. The captain then took me aft to the companion, which was painted green, trotting by my side, of the height of a boy, from time to time looking up into my face to observe if I was pleased.

I halted in the companion and asked how many boats he carried; he answered two, and pointed to a long-boat stowed near the galley, this side of it, and then to the water astern, where a small boat was floating.

'We ought,' said I, 'to go well provided with boats of an exact form and strength for passing through the breach of the sea. The waves break heavily under the hull, the whaling captain said, and we must be prepared for a high surf the whole length of the coast.'

'You're quite right, sir,' said the little man. 'But if we come to terms you've only got to commission me, and whatever's needful I'll see to. For instance, there's a height of ice cliff, and grappling irons 'll be wanted. And we should carry a few lengths of rope ladder. It isn't as though we had to find her. We know she's high and dry. Make the worst of it and call it fifty feet above the wash. That's sure unless the ice had shifted her. And we've got to be provided with machinery for entering.'

Thus speaking he descended and I followed.

The companion steps were almost up and down; on the right, at the bottom of the ladder, was a sleeping berth, a sort of cupboard with a sliding door like a smacksman's bedroom; on the left was the main cabin, a larger interior than I expected to see. It was well lighted by a frame of windows overhead and round scuttles in the walls, and furnished with a table, locker seats, and a few camp stools. Forward was a brightly polished brass fireplace. Three small berths were bulkheaded off this living room, one of which the captain told me was a sail and boatswain's locker, and the other a bread and store locker; 'but we can clear 'em out,' said he, 'when they come to be wanted.'

I was satisfied, and then and there resolved to hire this brig and sail quickly for that far-off ice-clad island. I sat down on one of the lockers and asked the captain to take pen and paper, and we talked about what would be required, making notes, and reckoning up the expenses till I bethought me of my engagement with Mr. Hoskins. And with reluctance and a hearty handshake took my leave.

I was rowed ashore, and on the way to the boarding-house called at the bank whose manager had been my father's clerk. He was astonished and delighted to see me; he had known me, indeed, ever since I was an Eton schoolboy. I had no time on this occasion to enter fully into the cause of my being at the Cape; my immediate purpose was served when he assured me that I was welcome to draw upon the bank to the amount I wanted.

At five o'clock Mr. Hoskins drove up to the boarding-house, and we at once started for the cemetery. He was alone in a closed carriage, and was dressed in mourning as deep as man's apparel will express grief. I, too, had been careful to clothe myself in black. I had not seen Mr. Hoskins since the arrival of the 'Cambrian,' and his voice and presence carried me on board again, renewed the quiet incidents of the passage, and returned me in imagination to Southampton on that memorable day of my departure. He was pale and melancholy, and his spirits seemed depressed with thought of the distressing ceremony we were bent upon.

'I am sorry now,' said he as he drove along, 'that I solicited permission to inspect the remains. The photographs were perfectly convincing, and still I felt it—I feel it—my duty to make as sure as opportunity admits. Captain Oilier will expect me to tell him all that it was in my power to learn. Nor, perhaps, should I feel perfectly satisfied to erect the monument I intend for my poor child without looking into her coffin to see that it is she herself who will be under it.'

I answered that this melancholy undertaking was even less needful to me than to him; but that, like himself, I saw the necessity of confirming my own opinion by every possible testimony, for the peace of my own heart as well as for the satisfaction of Miss Otway's father.

We then talked of my chances of finding Marie in the hull upon the island, and I told him how I had hired the brig 'Albatross' and intended myself to sail in her as soon as she discharged her cargo and was ready for sea, which I hoped would be about the close of the following week.

I saw little of the scenery we were driven by; we passed a number of gigantic aloes on the roadside; the hard-blue mountains, towering into the heavens with keenly cut skylines, with great spaces of their sides lustrous with the trembling and delicate foliage of the silver tree, wound with us as we wound, or shadowed us as we drove; they were an eternal presence, like the cloudless blue over them.

Whilst Mr. Hoskins was telling me how he contrived to obtain an order for the exhumation of the remains, we arrived at the cemetery where we alighted, and my companion conducted me to the grave whose situation he was exactly acquainted with. A number of persons were beside the grave, two were sextons armed with mattocks, or spades, the others were strangers and remained so to me; but one, I believe, was a medical man, and another a government official. They raised their hats to us, and after the exchange of a few commonplace greetings, decorously attuned, the diggers went to work.

The body had lain in this grave since August—four months. The heat thrilled in a sort of surging wave that closed upon the respiration with a sense of suffocation whilst we stood watching the diggers. I shuddered at the idea of looking. I had come to Cape Town conceiving that this body was Marie's, I now knew it was not hers; nevertheless, I guessed that the aspect of the dead face, at rest and out of sight under the cleaving spades, must become a memory that would be inseparably associated with Marie's image, whether I was to behold her again or not, and my spirits shrunk as I stood watching.

The soil was red, and the diggers turned it cheerily. Mr. Hoskins talked in a low tone apart with one of the strangers; that man was probably an undertaker or connected with the firm of buriers. Many rich strange flowers and plants glowed like jewels or glanced like snow upon or about the graves round about; it was a big tract of ground, all the sculptures, and monuments of several sorts showing at a distance sharp as carvings in ivory through the hot rare blue atmosphere.

The group of us were the only living occupants of that field of sleepers. Doubtless the order had gone forth for all to be excluded till the coffin had been reburied. They came to it at last; it was raised with some trouble, a plain black box, and placed upon the edge of the grave, and without an instant's loss of time the person with whom Mr. Hoskins had been conversing, unscrewed the lid—and we looked.

I had expected to behold something that was to shock the sight, and create a memory of pain and disgust; instead, there lay before us, her head pillowed, her arms peacefully crossed, the form of a young woman whose face, through chymic changes explicable only by the pen of science, had filled and freshened in complexion to an aspect easily supportable by the most nervous or sensitive eye. The flesh was discoloured; in the pictures it had shown as an ulcerous ghastly white; but here, in this coffin, the face was far more defined and distinguishable in lineament, I may even add in expression, than in the photographs. I could almost understand my Dutch friend's reference to a shadow of beauty lurking in this dead mask of countenance. The hair was very fair, and beautifully abundant, but it was not the hair of Marie, the hands were not Marie's. Now that I looked upon her I observed that she resembled Marie to a less degree even than the pictures expressed the likeness. I shook my head and drew back a pace, covering my face, the sight was pitiful—I could not bear to look beyond a moment or two. I thought of that form in the loneliness of the ocean off the Horn, and then again I was agitated by a violent reaction in my spirits; for though I had been certain it would not prove Marie, yet I knew not what I was to behold either, what tragic, heart-subduing surprise that coffin might have in store for me, and I shrunk back, shaking my head and hiding my face.

Mr. Hoskins viewed the remains in silence, then sobbed, and I looked at him. Our eyes met across the coffin, and exclaiming, 'It is my daughter, Mr. Moore! It is Charlotte; the wife of Captain Henry Ollier,' he sank upon his knees and folded his hands in prayer beside his child.

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