"Oh, Emily—I heartily wish that, having finished my embassage by that instantaneous finding of the old Scotch nurse, I had never been so superfluous as to have left those letters of introduction, wherewith you kindly supplied me, in an innocent wish to help our cause. But I felt solitary too, waiting at Madras for the next ship to England; and in my folly, forgetful of the single aim with which I had come, Jeanie Mackie, to wit, I thought I might as well use my present opportunities, and see what I could of the place and its inhabitants.
"With that view, I left my letters at Government House, at Mr. Clarkson's, Colonel Bunting's, Mrs. Castleton's, and elsewhere, according to direction; and immediately found answer in a crowd of invitations. I need not vex you nor myself, Emmy, writing as I do with a heavy, heavy heart, by describing gayeties in which I felt no pleasure, even when amongst them, for my Emmy was not there: splendour, prodigality, and red-hot rooms, only made endurable by perpetually fanning punkahs: pompous counsellors, authorities, and other men in office, and a glut of military uniforms: vulgar wealth, transparent match-making, and predominating dullness: along with some few of the charities and kindnesses of life (Mrs. Bunting, in particular, is an amiable, motherly, good-hearted woman), all these you will readily fancy for yourself.
"My trouble is deeper than any thing so slight as the common satiations of ennui: for I have heard in these circles in which your—my—the general, I mean, chiefly mixed, so much of that ill-rumour that it cannot all be false: they knew it all, and were certain of it all, too well, Emily, dear. And I have been pestering Nurse Mackie night and day; but the old woman is so afraid of being left behind any where, or thrown overboard, or dropped, upon some desert rock, that she is quite cross, and won't say a single word in answer, even when I tell her all these terrible tales. Her resolution is, not to reveal one syllable more, until she sets foot on England; and several people at Madras annoyed me exceedingly by saying, that this kind of thing is an old trick with people who wish to be sent home again. She has hidden away her papers somewhere; not that I was going to steal them: but it shows how little trust she puts in any thing, or any one, except the keeping of her own secret. However, she does adhere obstinately, and hopefully for us, to her original hint, 'you are not what he thinks you;' although she will not condescend to any single proof, or explanation, against the mighty mass of evidence, which probabilities, and common rumour, and the general's own belief, have heaped together. When I call you Emmy, too—the old soul, in her broad Scotch way, always corrects me, and invokes a blessing upon 'A-amy:' so there is a mystery somewhere: at least, I fervently hope there is: and, if the old woman has been playing us false, let us resign ourselves to God, my girl; for our fate will be that matters are as people say they are—and then my old black postscript ends too truly with a wo, wo, wo—!
"But I must shake off all this lethargy of gloom, dearest, dearest girl—how can I dare to call you so? Let me, therefore, rush for comfort into other thoughts; and tell you at once of the fearful dangers we have now mercifully escaped; for the Samarang lies like a log in this friendly port, dismasted, and next to a wreck.
"I proceed to show you about it; perhaps I shall be tedious—but I do it as a little rest, my own soul's love, from anxious, earnest, heart-distracting prayers continually, continually, that the sorrow which I spoke of be not true. Sometimes, a light breaks in, and I rejoice in the most sanguine hope: at others, gloom—
"But a truce to all this, I say. Here shall follow didactically the cause why the good ship Samarang is not by this time in the Docks.
"We were lying somewhere about the tropical belt, Capricorn you know, (O, those tender lessons in geography, my Emmy!) quite becalmed; the sea like glass, and the sky like brass, and the air in a most stagnant heat: our good ship motionless, dead in a dead blue sea it was
'Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.'
"The sails were hanging loosely in the shrouds: every one set, from sky-scraper to stud-sail, in hopes to catch a breath of wind. My fellow-passengers and the crew, almost melted, were lying about, as weak as parboiled eels: it was high-noon, all things silent and subdued by that intolerable blaze; for the vertical sun, over our multiplied awnings and umbrellas, burnt us up, fierce as a furnace.
"I was leaning over the gangway, looking wistfully at the cool, clear, deep sea, wherefrom the sailors were trying to persuade a shark to come on board us, when, all at once, in the south-east quarter, I noticed a little round black cloud, thrown up from the horizon like a cricket-ball. As any thing is attractive in such sameness as perpetual sea and sky, my discovery was soon made known, and among the first to our captain.