“Though you chose George instead of me I don’t mean to give you up. I mean to do something big, looking forward to you for a prize. I believe you love me better than you do George in spite of what you did. You will never marry him, never. You’ll marry me, because you love me, and I won’t let you go. I know you’ll get this letter, and send me an answer to Mrs. Jacks, Apple Row, Poole. And you’ll wait for my reply, which may be late a coming, but will be sure to come.
“Yours till death,
“Charles Delambre.”
A few minutes afterwards he was on his way down to the Mary Jane, Captain Jacks’ brigantine. He was received with the gravity befitting a skipper on shipping a new hand, and after bestowing his few purchases in a cubby-hole in the tiny cabin, returned on deck in his shirt-sleeves, to take part in whatever work was going on, with all the ardour of a new recruit. Next morning at daylight the Mary Jane departed. Under the brilliant sky of June the dainty little vessel glided out into the Channel, bounding forward before the fresh north-easterly breeze, as if rejoicing to be at home once more, and freed from the restraint of mooring chains and the stagnant environment of a sheltered harbour.
Charles took to his new life wonderfully, feeling no qualms of sea-sickness, and throwing himself into every detail of the work with such ardour that by the time they had been out a week he was quite a useful member of the ship’s company. And then there arrived that phenomenon, a June gale from the north-west. Shorn of all her white wings but one, the little brigantine lay snugly enough, fore-reaching against the mighty Atlantic rollers that hurled themselves upon her like mountain ranges endowed with swiftest motion. So she lay throughout one long day and far into the night succeeding, until just at that dread hour of midnight when watchfulness so often succumbs to weariness at sea, a huge comber came tumbling aboard as she fell off into the trough of the sea. For a while she seemed to be in doubt whether to shake herself clear of the foaming mass, and then splendidly lifting herself with her sudden burden of a deck filled with water, she resumed her gallant struggle. Just then it was discovered that her lights were gone. Before they could be replaced, out of the darkness came flying an awful shape, vast, swift, and merciless. One of the splendid Yankee fliers of those days, the Columbia, of over a thousand tons register, was speeding eastward under every stitch of sail, at a rate far surpassing that of any but the swiftest steamships. A good look out was being kept on board of her, for those vessels were noted for the excellence of their discipline and careful attention to duty. But the night was pitchy dark, the Mary Jane had no light visible, and before anything could be done her doomed crew saw the Columbia’s bow towering over their vessel’s waist like some unthinkable demon of destruction. Up, up, up, she soared above them, then descending, her gleaming bow shone clean through the centre of the Mary Jane’s hull, tearing with it the top-hamper of masts and rigging, and rushing straight through the wreckage without a perceptible check. One wild cry of despair and all was silent. Over the side of the Columbia peered a row of white faces gazing fearfully into the gloom, but there was nothing to be seen. The sea had claimed her toll.
As usual, after such a calamity, there was a hushed performance of tasks, until suddenly one of the crew shouted, “Why, here’s a stranger.” And there was. Charles had clutched instinctively at one of the martingale guys as the Columbia swept over her victim, and had succeeded in climbing from thence on board out of the vortex of death in which all his late shipmates had been involved. Plied with eager questions, his simple story was soon told, and he was enrolled among the crew. The Columbia was bound to Genoa, a detail that troubled him but little; so long as he was at sea he had no desire to select his destination. But he found here a very different state of things obtaining. The crew were a hard-bitten, motley lot, prime seamen mostly, but “packet rats” to a man, wastrels without a thought in life but how soon they might get from one drinking-bout to another, and at sea only kept from mutiny, and, indeed, crime of all kinds, by the iron discipline imposed upon them by the stern-faced, sinewy Americans who formed the afterguard. There were no soft, sleepy-voiced orders given here. Every command issued by an officer came like the bellowing of an angry bull, and if the man or men addressed did not leap like cats to execute it, a blow emphasized the fierce oath that followed.
Charles now learned what work was. No languid crawling through duties with one ear ever cocked for the sound of the releasing bell, but a rabid rush at all tasks, even the simplest, as if upon its immediate performance hung issues of life or death. “Well fed, well driven, well paid,” was the motto on board those ships, albeit there were not wanting scoundrelly skippers and officers, who, in ports where fresh hands were to be obtained cheaply, were not above using the men so abominably that they would desert and leave all their cruelly-earned wages behind. Strangely enough, however, Charles became a prime favourite. This son of the soil, who might have been expected to move in clod-hopper fashion, developed an amazing smartness which, allied to a keenness of appreciation quite American in its rapidity, endeared him specially to the officers. In the roaring fo’c’sle among his half-savage shipmates he commanded respect, for in some mysterious way he evolved masterly fighting qualities and dogged staying powers that gave him victory in several bloody battles. So that it came to pass, when Genoa was reached, that Charles was one day called aft and informed that, if he cared to, he might shift his quarters aft and go into training for an officer, holding a sort of brevet rank as supernumerary third mate. He accepted, and was transferred, much to the disgust of his shipmates forward, who looked upon his move aft as a sort of desertion to the enemy. But they knew Charles too well to proceed further with their enmity than cursing him among themselves, so that as much peace as usual was kept.
From this port Charles wrote lengthily to Louise at Longbridge as before, and to Poole to Mrs. Jacks, breaking her great misfortune to her, and begging her to write to him and send him at New York any letters that might have arrived for him. And then he turned contentedly to his work again, allowing it to engross every thought. He was no mere dreamer of dreams, this young man. In his mind there was a solid settled conviction that, sooner or later (and it did not greatly matter which), he would attain the object of his desires. This granitic foundation of faith in his future saved him all mental trouble, and enabled him to devote all his energies to the work in hand, to the great satisfaction of his skipper. Captain Lothrop, indeed, looked upon this young Englishman with no ordinary favour. A typical American himself, of the best school, he concealed under a languid demeanour energy as of an unloosed whirlwind. His face was long, oval, and olive-brown, with black silky beard and moustache trimmed like one of Velasquez’s cavaliers, and black eyes that, usually expressionless as balls of black marble, would, upon occasion given, dart rays of terrible fire. Contrasted with this saturnine stately personage, the fair, ruddy Charles looked like some innocent schoolboy, the open, confiding air he bore being most deceptive. He picked up seamanship, too, in marvellous fashion, the sailorizing that counts, by virtue of which a seaman handles a thousand-ton ship as if she were a toy and every one of her crew but an incarnation of his will. But this very ability of his before long aroused a spirit of envy in his two brother officers that would have been paralyzing to a weaker man. Here, again, the masterly discipline of the American merchantman came to his aid, a discipline that does not know of such hideous folly as allowing jealousy between officers being paraded before the crew, so that they with native shrewdness may take advantage of the house divided against itself. When in an American ship one sees a skipper openly deriding an officer, be sure that officer’s days as an officer are numbered; he is about to be reduced to the ranks. So, in spite of a growing hatred to the —— Britisher, the two senior mates allowed no sign of their feelings to be manifested before the crew. Perhaps the old man was a bit injudicious also. He would yarn with Charles by the hour about the old farm and the sober, uneventful routine of English rural life, the recital of these placid stories evidently giving him the purest pleasure by sheer contrast with his own stormy career.
In due time the stay of the Columbia at Genoa came to an end, and backward she sailed for New York. In masterly fashion she was manœuvred out through the Gut of Gibraltar, and sped with increased rapidity into the broad Atlantic. But it was now nearly winter, and soon the demon of the west wind made his power felt. The gale settled down steadily to blow for weeks apparently, and with dogged perseverance the Columbia’s crew fought against it. Hail, snow, and ice scourged them, canvas became like planks, ropes as bars of iron. Around the bows arose masses of ice like a rampart, and from the break of the forecastle hung icicles which grew like mushrooms in a few hours of night. The miserable crew were worn to the bone with fatigue and cold, and had they been fed as British crews of such ships are fed they would doubtless have all died. But, in spite of their sufferings, they worked on until one night, having to make all possible sail to a “slant” of wind, they were all on deck together at eight bells—midnight. With the usual celerity practised in these ships, the snowy breadths of canvas were rising one above the other, and the Columbia was being flung forward in lively fashion over the still heavy waves, when Charles, who was standing right forward on the forecastle, shouted in a voice that could be heard distinctly above the roar of the wind and sea and the cries of the seamen, “Hard down!” Mechanically the helmsman obeyed, hardly knowing whither the summons came, and the beautiful vessel swung up into the wind, catching all her sails aback, and grinding her way past some frightful obstruction to leeward that looked as if an abyss of darkness had suddenly yawned in the middle of the sea, along the rim of which the Columbia was cringing. The tremendous voice of Captain Lothrop boomed out through the darkness, “What d’ye see, Mister Delamber, forrard there?” “We’ve struck a derelict, sir,” roared Charles, and his words sounded in the ears of the ship’s company like the summons of doom. The ship faltered in her swing to windward, refused to obey her helm, and swung off the wind again slowly but surely, as if being dragged down into unknown depths by an invisible hand whose grip was like that of death.
CHAPTER IV
In this hour of paralyzing uncertainty Charles rose to the full height of his manhood. Passing the word for a lantern, and slinging himself in a bowline, he ventured into the blackness alongside, and presently reappeared with the cheering news that no damage was done. A few strokes of an axe and they would be set free. And arming himself with a broad axe, he again disappeared into the outer dark, this time under the watchful eye of the skipper, and presently, with a movement which was like a throb of returning life to every soul on board, the Columbia regained her freedom. Charles was hauled on board through the surf alongside like a sodden bundle of clothing, unhurt, but entirely exhausted, having made good his claim to be regarded as one of the world’s silent heroes, a man who to the call of duty returns no dubious answer, but renders swift obedience.