CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE ADVENTURE.
Our situation as recorder of events connected with this history, whilst it enables us to look from an elevated position upon those connected with our story, enables us also to transport our readers, with a thought, from pole to pole. Nay, we can even rival the swift flight of Puck, if we so will it, and "put a girdle round about the earth in somewhat less than forty minutes."
In virtue of this power, we therefore take leave to transport our readers upon the "sightless couriers of the air," and bid them look down upon the main of waters several thousand miles from the scene of our last chapter—even to the watery wastes which wash the coast of Florida.
A small speck—an atom—is seen slowly and laboriously making its way over the broad waves of the Atlantic. Steadily and beautifully, as we obtain a nearer view, does she seem to mount upon the rolling surge, and then again sink down into the vale of waters, almost lost to sight between the liquid mountains which follow each other in succession, apparently from end to end of the world.
How awfully grand is the situation! How curious to consider is the intellect, courage, and perseverance of those who guide that barque through such an unknown waste! The dreadful winds roaring above them, and beneath the multitudinous waters descending, "where fathom line would never find the ground," one touch of an unseen rock, one bolt starting in the vessel's hull, one unmarked and uncared-for blast of wind, one spark alighting in a crevice, and that vessel and all that it contains, unknown, unseen, is resolved into the vast tide, and washed amidst the atoms contained in its dark waters. Months have passed since the Falcon left the river which flows up to that old Dutch-built Cinque Port where our readers may remember to have last seen her. Steadily hath the wanderer held on day after day, through fair and foul, into the dark waste, alone, like some atom upon the surface, and still breasting the wave, as if eternity was before her in those rolling seas.
Strange that the spirit of adventure should sustain men in such a hopeless-looking wilderness! That the desire of finding new worlds, or their greed after gold, should take them from all they hold dear in their own land. Such, however, is the motive which actuates the major part of the crew of that labouring barque, whilst to one alone amongst them, and who seems the chief of the party, the secret spring which is indeed the prime mover of the adventure, is love.
The youthful Count, then, whilst he leads on his followers under the idea of new discoveries, great gains, and hatred of the Spaniard, is, in truth, seeking for one who has either perished by wreck or starvation, or is still living in hopeless abandonment or captivity, somewhere amongst these far-away seas.
One only confidant is aware of the secret motive, and that person is our old acquaintance Martin. If then we look within the hull of this small craft, we shall find its interior peopled by some sixty stern-looking and bearded wanderers, high in courage, stern in resolve, the captain and crew who work the vessel, the eccentric and faithful Martin, and one female in disguise, the latter "a count of wealth as well as quality," to all appearance, and who, as proprietor of the vessel and loader of the expedition, seeks ostensibly but to pursue his love of adventure.