The Last Entry

by William Clark Russell

A few passengers, attracted by this conversation, had drawn close. You heard murmurs of excitement. A voyage at sea, in the old days of tacks and sheets, was a tedious affair, in spite of flirtation, cards, the simple diversions of the dance on the quarter-deck, the heaving of the quoit, the bets on the run. Even a floating bottle was a something to cause a stir. It broke the dull continuity of the day. A sail was a Godsend. And here now, after many weeks of tedious ocean travel, here now had suddenly uprisen, all at once, coming down a-beam out of the darkness of the midnight, so to speak, an ocean mystery that would be fraught with an inexpressible significance if Captain Parry's conjecture proved accurate.

To this gentleman, for whom the head pump had magically ceased to have existence, the time of waiting and suspense was frantically long. Lieutenant Piercy came and stood beside him.

'But, supposing it is the Mowbray,' said the young officer: 'her presence in this sea needn't concern your friends. The vessel may have been sold. They may have been carrying her to some distant port. If it is fever, the dead will be found; if mutiny——' Here Lieutenant Piercy stopped, puzzled.

'I don't think Vanderholt would sell her,' exclaimed Parry. 'He was proud merely of her possession, though he did not often go afloat. How amazing to see her lying there! Of course it is the Mowbray,' he exclaimed, again levelling the glass. 'She used to carry a long-boat, and that's gone. If her people have left her, they went away in it.'

'She's certainly abandoned,' said Piercy, 'or something living would have shown itself by this time.'

'Why the deuce doesn't that fellow Blundell return?' muttered Parry, in an agony of impatience.

But, even as he spoke, the figure of the mate might have been observed to drop over the schooner's side into the boat. The oars swept the brine into steam. The boat hissed alongside, and the third mate stepped on board. All the people of the saloon or cabin had by this time heard the news; they knew that an abandoned schooner, which was an ocean mystery, lay close by, and they had made great haste to dress themselves, insomuch that a large number of them were on deck. They elbowed round the third mate, and the commander, and Captain Parry, to hear the ship's officer's report.

'She is the Mowbray, sir, of, and from, London. I can't find any papers. Here's her log-book, sir. The last entry is in a female hand. The vessel was apparently on a pleasure cruise.'

'Let me look at that book,' said Captain Parry.

He turned the pages till he came to the last entry, then began to read, now and then swaying himself, then making a step in recoil. All saw by his face and his motions, by his strange gestures, by the wild looks he would sometimes cast from the page to the schooner, that what he read was carrying the bitterness of death to his heart. Meanwhile the captain was questioning the third officer.