At the date of this story the discharging of a cargo was a much more leisurely operation than it is at the present day; and Bob therefore had several opportunities of taking a run ashore and looking round the town and suburbs of Sydney. The passengers—such of them, that is, as were residents in or near Sydney—had one and all given Bob most pressing invitations to visit them whenever he could obtain leave; and on the day but one following the arrival of the ship, a very prettily-worded and pressing little note had come to him from Blanche Lascelles to say that the friends with whom she and Violet were staying at Cookstown would be delighted to make his acquaintance; so that Bob was never at a loss for a place whither to direct his steps whenever he could get ashore. He consequently managed to see a good deal of the place, and thoroughly enjoyed the seven weeks during which the Galatea lay in Sydney harbour.
The outward cargo discharged, the homeward freight of wool began to come down, and the stevedores were kept busy all day long screwing it into as small a compass as possible in the hold.
Meanwhile Captain Staunton was in great tribulation. The gold-fever was then at its height in Australia. The precious metal had been discovered some years before, but about a month previous to the arrival of the Galatea in Sydney, news had come down the country of the discovery of a new auriferous region, the richness and extent of which was said to be something past belief. The result of this rumour was that every idle loafer who arrived in an Australian port made it his first business to desert from his ship and start hot-foot for the gold-fields. If the matter had ended here the shipmasters would have had cause to congratulate themselves rather than the reverse, but unfortunately for them it was not so. The gold-fever had stricken everybody—merchants even, mechanics, clerks, all in fact but the few cool hands who realised that by remaining in the half-deserted towns they were sure of making that fortune the winning of which at the diggings was problematical; and one consequence of this was that when seamen deserted a ship no one could be found to take their places; and Captain Staunton could stand on his own poop and count at least fifty vessels whose cargoes were on board, hatches battened down, and everything ready for sea; but there they lay, unable to sail for want of a crew to man them.
Now the Galatea was not in quite so bad a plight as this; for when the last bale of wool had been screwed in and the hatches put on, there still remained in her forecastle eight good men and true—six belonging to the port watch and two to the starboard—who had resisted all the alluring dreams of fortunes to be made in a day at the diggings. The other eight had deserted in a body one Sunday, very cleverly eluding the police, whose chief duty it then was to prevent such occurrences. The second mate and the cook were also missing. Hence Captain Staunton’s anxiety. On the one hand, he was averse to the extreme step of taking his ship to sea half-manned; and on the other, he was haunted by the constant dread of losing still more of his men if he remained in port until he had made up his complement.
At length, however, to his infinite relief, he chanced upon half a dozen men who, in consideration of the payment of fabulous wages, undertook to ship for the homeward passage. They were as lawless and ruffianly-looking a set of fellows as one need ever care to encounter; but, as Mr Bowles observed, they could at least pull and haul, and once at sea and away from the demoralising influence of the grog-shops, who knew but they might settle down into steady serviceable hands. At all events they would not want for a good example on the part of their shipmates, the remnant of the original crew, for these were without exception thoroughly steady, reliable men, although one of them was Boyd, the man who had been shot by Mr Carter for refusal to obey orders.
These men secured, Captain Staunton resolved to avoid all further risk by sailing at once. It was true that the ship would be still rather short-handed—which was all the more to be regretted inasmuch as she was in light trim and a trifle crank—but he reflected that he might lie in port for the next six months without securing another man; and it therefore seemed to him best under the circumstances to make shift with what he had, and get away to sea forthwith. Hasty summonses were accordingly despatched to the few passengers who had taken berths; and these all coming on board next day, the anchor was hove up, and evening saw the Galatea standing off the land and heading to the eastward, with every sail set and dragging at her like a cart-horse.
The passengers were this time only six in number, namely, Blanche and Violet, Messrs Dale, Fortescue, and Brook, who had lost the contract which they went out in the hope of securing, entirely through the obstinacy of the head of the firm, and a Mr Evelin, formerly a captain in the Royal Engineers, who had thrown up his commission to go gold-digging, and who, thanks to his technical training, supplemented by arduous special study of geology, had been successful to an extraordinary degree, and was now returning home master of a handsome fortune.
Launcelot, or Lance Evelin, was a tall handsome man of about thirty-five, with the physique of a Hercules, the result of some six months’ toil and exposure at the diggings, deeply bronzed, clear cut features, half concealed by a heavy moustache and beard of a golden chestnut hue, clear grey eyes, and wavy hair a shade darker than the beard. He proved an immense acquisition to the ladies, who would otherwise have been almost entirely dependent on Rex Fortescue for amusement; Mr Dale being altogether too savage at his recent failure to make an agreeable associate, which indeed he never was, even at the best of times; while Brook, willing though he was to do his best, was too pugnacious, ill-bred, and illiterate to be more than just barely tolerated. Rex Fortescue and Violet, it was perfectly clear, were daily sinking deeper into that condition wherein people are conscious of the existence of two individuals only—their two selves—in the whole world; so that poor little Blanche would soon have found herself quite out in the cold had not Mr Evelin taken compassion upon her and devoted himself to her amusement. He knew London well; and, on comparing notes, it soon transpired that he knew several people with whom Blanche was also acquainted; so they got on capitally together, especially as Lance possessed in an eminent degree the art of making his conversation interesting. Later on, too, when he had thawed a little, he would relate story after story of his adventures at the gold-fields, some of which convulsed his companion with laughter, while others made her shudder and nestle unconsciously a little closer to the narrator.
But notwithstanding this Blanche still found time to chat occasionally with Bob. The lad was very fond of steering, indeed he had won the reputation of being the finest helmsman in the ship, and he was always ready to take a “trick” at the wheel during either of the dog-watches, and so give the rightful helmsman a chance to stay “for’ard” and amuse himself with his shipmates; and when this was the case Blanche generally used to seat herself in a deck-chair near him, and chatter away upon any topic which came uppermost.
She had been thus amusing herself one evening when, as eight bells struck and Bob walked forward on being relieved from the wheel, Lance Evelin, who had been smoking his cigar on the break of the poop, and watching from a distance the “carryings-on” of the men upon the forecastle, sauntered to her side and opened conversation with the remark—