An Ocean Tragedy

by William Clark Russell

‘Heaven grant it! Give me once more, Laura, the pavements of Piccadilly under my feet, and I believe there is no man in all England eloquent enough to persuade me that what we have undergone from the hour of our departure in the “Bride” to the hour of our return in the whatever her name may prove actually happened.’

‘But I am real,’ she whispered, and I felt her hand tremble in mine.

I pressed her fingers to my lips. Had Lady Monson been out of hearing I should have known what to say. I tried to put a cheerful face upon our perilous and extraordinary position, but I found it absolutely impossible to talk of anything else than our chances of escape, how long we were to be imprisoned, Wilfrid’s death, the destruction of the yacht, incidents of the voyage, and the like. I spoke freely of these matters, caring little for Lady Monson’s presence. One of the men in talking with the others said something about the ‘Eliza Robbins,’ and Laura, turning to her sister, exclaimed:

‘I hope some other ship may take us off. How could you have endured such a horrid atmosphere, Henrietta, even for the short time you lived on board her?’

But to this her ladyship deigned no reply; her silence was ominous, full of wrath. I can imagine that she abhorred her sister at that moment for recalling that ship, and the infamous withering memories which the mere utterance of the name carried with it. She rose as though to go to the galleon’s side, but sat again after the first stride, finding the deck with its slippery and cutting shells and its tripping interlacery of growths too ugly a platform to traverse in the dark. I had hoped that she would break through the husk of sulkiness, haughtiness, selfishness with which she had sheathed herself for such comfort as Laura might have obtained from some little show in her sister of geniality and humanity and sympathetic perception of the dire disaster that had befallen us. There was indeed a time that evening when I believed her temper was mending; for during some interval of our listening to the conversation of the sailors Laura spoke of Muffin, of the horror and fear that had possessed him that night of the severe squall when I found him on his knees, his detestation of the sea, his eagerness to get home, his tricks to terrify Wilfrid into altering the yacht’s course, and how the poor wretch’s struggles in that way seemed now justified by his being drowned, ‘so much so,’ added Laura, ‘that I cannot bear to think of the unfortunate fellow having been whipped by the men.’

On hearing this, Lady Monson began to ask questions. Apparently she had been ignorant until now that Muffin was on board the ‘Bride.’ Naturally, she perfectly well remembered him, for the man was her husband’s valet some time before she ran off with the Colonel. Her inquiries led to Laura telling her of the tricks that Muffin had played. The girl’s voice faltered when she spoke of the phosphoric writing on the cabin wall.

‘What words did Muffin write?’ asked Lady Monson.

‘Oh, Henrietta!’ exclaimed Laura, who paused to a tremulous sigh, and then added, ‘He wrote, “Return to baby.”’

I might have imagined there would be something in this to have silenced her ladyship for a while, but apparently there was as little virtue in thoughts of her child to touch her as in thoughts of her husband. She asked coldly, but in a sort of dictatorial, pressing way, as though eager to scrape over this mention of her child as you might crowd sail on your ship to run her into deep water off a shoal on which her keel is hung: ‘This Muffin was a ventriloquist too, you say?’