The stormy petrel was tripping around them the same as ever; but they had no fears now, for after sunset the harbour lights of Port Louis were seen to twinkle over the sea; so the cables were roused out of the tier, and rattled cheerily as they were laid in fakes along the deck; they were bent to the anchors; the deep sea lead was in constant requisition, and the hawsers were brought up from between decks.
By daybreak next morning the ships were close in shore, and in the pilot's charge, with a fine breeze, ran in between Fort Blanc and the Isles des Tonneliers, so the spires of the town were right ahead. As the ship, with her courses clewed up, ran under her jury topsails and driver into the fine old harbour of Port Louis, Morley and Ethel were on deck together. Rose was below with Nance Folgate, busy packing, though her more thoughtful sister had done all her own share of that duty long ago.
Morley seemed a prey to unusual sadness, and as she caressed his hand kindly from time to time, and while her gentle eyes filled alternately with pensive tenderness or sparkling animation, she could barely obtain a response to her inquiries; for now that the voyage was ended, that their dangers were over, and all excitement had passed away, he felt a melancholy that he could not overcome, and against which he struggled in vain. This emotion was very natural. He knew not what was before him now in this strange land—this half-French colony, where on the morrow he would find himself without a shilling in his pocket.
Hesitatingly, and while his now weather-beaten cheek glowed with honest shame, he said something of this to Ethel; but she sought to cheer him, and added that his friends, Captain Bartelot, the Scotch mate Morrison, and old Noah were precisely in the same predicament, yet they were all merry as crickets, whistling and singing, while, with the three men of the Scotch ship, they hoisted the great rusty anchors over the bows.
"Ah, Ethel, do not smile as if you would mock me," said Morley, with unwonted irritation; "it is our, or rather my, uncertain fortune that haunts and galls me now."
He knew, beyond a doubt, that the doctor would marry Rose as soon as he could rejoin her, or get quit of the ship; Morley knew that Heriot had his profession, a moderate competence, and excellent monetary prospects; but what had he?
Mr. Basset's health was so hopelessly impaired by all he had undergone as to preclude any chance of his assuming his legal functions, or, indeed, doing more in the matter of his judgeship than simply to resign it on landing.
His local influence would thus be dissipated, and already he spoke of returning to England on the first suitable opportunity, resolving to pass the remainder of his days there, even with his crippled means; so, after all they had endured, Morley and Ethel, as they gazed mournfully and tenderly into each other's eyes, felt that the course of true love was as unlike a railway as possible.
But now the sails were handed, the anchor let go with a plunge into the seething flood, and exactly three months and fourteen days from the time of her leaving the London Docks, the Hermione swung at her moorings in the harbour of Port Louis, distant only a few fathoms from her late companion and protector, the stately ship of Alloa.
Quarantine laws, custom-house harpies, and all such necessary annoyances satisfied, the ship brokers came on board, and one of them brought for Mr. Basset a packet of letters, which had arrived fully a fortnight before, by a passing ship.