“That Miss Mary Mason,” said Toby, “is a sweetly pretty girl. I would go through fire and water to serve her.”
“And Julia Arundel is one of the most lively, animated girls I have met for a long time,” remarked William, with a sigh. I had observed O’Carroll in conversation with a lady who seemed to be a former acquaintance. He told me that he had known her in her younger and happier days, that she had married an officer in India, had come home with three children, who had all died, and that she was now on her way to rejoin her husband.
“Her case is a very hard one,” he remarked.
“So I suspect we shall find are the cases of many,” I answered. “Sad indeed are the effects of war! The non-combatants suffer more even than the combatants. That is to say, a far greater number of people suffer who have nothing to do with the fighting than those who actually carry on the murderous work. Oh, when will war cease throughout the world?”
“Not until the depraved heart of man is changed, and Satan himself is chained, unable further to hurt the human race,” answered O’Carroll. “What has always struck me, besides the wickedness of war, is its utter folly. Who ever heard of a war in which both sides did not come off losers? The gain in a war can never make amends for the losses, the men slain, the physical suffering, the grief: the victorious side feel that only in a less degree than the losers.”
I cordially agreed with him. Yet how many hundreds were daily falling at that time in warfare—how many thousands and tens of thousands were yet to fall, to gratify the insane ambition of a single man, permitted to be the fearful scourge that he was to the human race? We said as little about our expedition as we could, for the emigrants, as soon as they heard of so many of their countrymen being in the neighbourhood, were eager to set out to see them. We, however, persuaded them to remain where they were, for a visit of so large a party would not fail to be discovered by the French, and greatly increase the annoyances of our position. We, however, paid our second visit to the passengers of the Indiaman, and found them on shore at the place where we had first met them. Their spirits, however, had already begun to flag; their guards had been less courteous than at first, sickness had attacked two or three, gloomy apprehensions were troubling the minds of many. Still we had a pleasant dinner, and the song and the jest went round as before. The two midshipmen were the merriest of the party, and paid, as may be supposed, the most devoted attention to the two young ladies whom they thought fit to admire. Their happiness was, however, disagreeably interrupted by the appearance in our midst of half-a-dozen armed Frenchmen. They nodded familiarly at us. “Bien, messieurs; you have saved us the trouble of going to fetch you,” said one of them, in a sarcastic tone. “You will not leave this, but as you are seamen, you will accompany us to the prison ship.”
We soon found that they had been made acquainted by the seamen of the Kangaroo of our being on the island, and had only waited for leisure to go and bring us to the settlement. Another party had already been dispatched to bring in the emigrants, and from the rough unmannerly way in which these treated our new friends, we could not but feel the gravest apprehensions as to the indignities to which they might be subjected. Our own existence in the hands of lawless ruffians would be very different from what it had hitherto been. The appearance of these unwelcome visitors completely broke up the picnic party, and while our friends returned to their ship, we were marched off towards one of the hulks. We soon had evidence of the bad disposition of our captors towards us, for Toby Trundle, who was very indignant at being thus caught, beginning to saunter along as if he had no intention of hurrying himself to please them, one of them threatened to give him a prog with his bayonet. As we were walking along as slowly as Trundle could contrive to go, the sound of a shot reached our ears. It came from the sea. Our guards started and talked rapidly to each other. Several other shots followed in succession, some close together.
“There are two at it, of that I am sure,” exclaimed O’Carroll.
The Frenchmen continued their gesticulations with increased animation. They were evidently eager to get to the mouth of the harbour, whence they could look seaward.
“They think that there is something in the wind, depend on that,” observed Trundle.