Won from the Waves

by William Henry Giles Kingston

A Yarn at Sea.

“If it gives you no painful recollections, my dear Headland, I shall much like to hear your history,” said Harry. “On this calm night the thread of your narrative is not likely to be broken.”

“I will try to go back, then, as far as my memory will help me,” said Headland.

I have a dim recollection of living in a large Eastern style of house, with a number of black servants dressed in white, and a black woman who spoke in a language which has now become strange, though I think I then understood it. She attended especially on me. There was a tall gentleman of a slight figure, and a very fair lady, who was, I am sure, my mother. I have a faint recollection of her blue eyes and sweet smile as she took me in her arms, or looked down upon me as I played at her feet. Still, it is only now and then like the vision in a dream that her countenance rises to my memory. After that there comes a blank, and I found myself on board a ship—brought there by my black nurse, accompanied by the tall gentleman. I remember him clearly in the cabin, talking to a lady who then took charge of me, my nurse, I conclude, returning on shore, for she disappears from my recollection. While the gentleman was on deck, as I was afterwards told by Jack Headland, he suddenly, looking at the mate, asked him if he was not somebody he had known in England. The mate seemed for a moment taken aback, but, recovering himself, replied quite quietly that the gentleman was mistaken; that he had never heard of such a person, and that his name was Michael Golding, which, as Jack said, as far as he knew to the contrary, was the case, for that was the name he went by on board, though he was generally spoken of as the mate. The gentleman at last seemed satisfied, and returned on shore.

The ship sailed, and I remember seeing the blue water bubbling and hissing alongside as she clove her way through it, and playing with a ball on deck, which rolled out through one of the ports. The lady was very kind, and used to sing to me, and tell me stories, and, I fancied, tried to teach me my letters, though I was somewhat young to learn them. She was, however, very different to my mother, much older I suspect, and I did not love her half so much.

It came on to blow after a time, the sea got up and the ship tumbled about, and the poor lady was unable to watch over me.

There were other passengers, but they were all ill, and the stewardess was too busy to attend to me, but the mate came one day and told the lady that he would watch over me, or get some one else to do so when he was engaged.

From the first I did not like him, for he was a dark, black bearded man, with an unpleasant expression of countenance, so I cried out whenever he came near me. The captain must, I think, therefore, have given me in charge to Jack Headland, a young apprentice, whose looks I liked much better than the mate’s. At all events, I was frequently with Jack, and no one could have taken better care of me.

There were not many English seamen, most of the crew being dark-skinned fellows—Malays, I suppose.

The vessel was, I know, not an Indiaman, but a country trader bound to Calcutta or Bombay.