Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

MY SHIPMATE LOUISE

VOL. III.

NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES.

A FELLOW OF TRINITY. By Alan St. Aubyn and Walt Wheeler. 3 vols.

THE WORD AND THE WILL. By James Payn. 3 vols.

AUNT ABIGAIL DYKES. By George Randolph. 1 vol.

A WARD OF THE GOLDEN GATE. By Bret Harte. 1 vol.

RUFFINO. By Ouida. 1 vol.

London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W.

MY SHIPMATE LOUISE
The Romance of a Wreck

BY

W. CLARK RUSSELL

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. III.

London

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1890

PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

LONDON

CONTENTS
OF
THE THIRD VOLUME

MY SHIPMATE LOUISE

CHAPTER XXIX
THE CAPTAIN BEGINS A STORY

For a couple of days nothing that need find a place in this narrative happened. On the afternoon of the third day of our being aboard the barque we sighted a sail, hull down, to windward. I climbed into the main-top and examined her through the glass, and found her a brig, very loftily rigged, her canvas soaring into moonsails, a sight I had never before witnessed at sea, even in those days when ships went more heavily draped than they do in these. She was heading our course, perhaps making a slightly more weatherly navigation, and full blown as she looked to be—a large, soft cloud of canvas in the lenses of the telescope—we passed her at the rate of two feet to her one; and some time before sunset we had sunk her to her royals on the quarter.

Miss Temple wanted me to ask Captain Braine to run the Lady Blanche into speaking distance of the brig, that we might ascertain where she was bound to and get on board of her. ‘For she may be sailing,’ she said, ‘to some South American port that will be, comparatively speaking, close at hand, where we shall be easily able to find a ship to convey us home.’ But after thinking a little, I decided to keep quiet. It would not sound very graciously to request Captain Braine to tranship us into an outward-bound vessel: nor would it be wise to put him to the trouble of deviating from his course merely, perhaps, to ascertain that the brig was bound round the Horn to parts more distant than the Mauritius. Besides, I had no wish to court a blunt refusal from Captain Braine to put his vessel within hailing distance of another until a real opportunity to get to England should present itself by some homeward-bound ship passing close; when, of course, I should take my chance of his assent or refusal. So I suffered the brig to veer away out of sight without speaking to the captain about her, or even appearing to again heed her after I had come down from aloft.

It was a terribly dull, anxious, weary time; I am speaking of those two uneventful days. The hot breeze had drawn abeam, and blew feverishly under a cloudless sky that was a dazzle of brass all about the sun from morn till evening. We showed royals and a foretopmast-studdingsail to it, and drove along over the smooth plain with half a fathom’s height of foam at the cutwater, and a spin and hurry of snow alongside that made the eyes which watched it reel. I entered the day’s work and the necessary observations, and so forth, in the log-book in compliance with the captain’s request. He was delighted with my handwriting, sat contemplating it with his unwinking gaze for some considerable time, as though it were a picture, and then, drawing a deep breath, exclaimed: ‘There’s no question but that eddication’s a first-class article. Look at your writing alongside of mine, and at mine alongside of Chicken’s. Chicken and me was brought up in the same college—a ship’s forecastle, and so far from standing amazed at my own fist and that there spelling, I’m only astonished that I’m able to read or write at all.”

However, though he broke forth thus, he fell silent, and remained so afterwards, became, indeed, extraordinarily meditative, and at mealtimes scarcely opened his lips, though his stare grew more deliberate in proportion as his reserve increased, until it came at last to his never taking his eyes off one or the other of us. Again and again Miss Temple would say to me that she was certain he had something on his mind, and she looked frightened as she theorized upon his secret. Sometimes, when on deck, I would observe him standing at the rail, gazing seaward, and talking to himself, frequently snapping his fingers, whipping round, as though suddenly conscious that he had talked aloud, then starting off in a short, restless, unsteady walk, coming to an abrupt halt to again mutter and to snap his fingers with the air of one laboring to form a resolution.

It was on the afternoon of the second day of those two about which I have spoken, and it was drawing on to six o’clock, four bells of the first dog-watch. The captain had been on deck since four, and for the last twenty minutes he had been standing a little to the right of the fellow who was steering, eyeing me with an intentness that had a long time before become embarrassing, and I may say distressing. Whenever I turned my head towards him, I found his gaze fixed upon me. Miss Temple and I were seated too near him to admit of our commenting upon the singular regard that he was bestowing upon me. She contrived to whisper, however, that she was certain his secret, whatever it was, was slowly rising from the depths of his soul to the surface of his mind.

‘I seem to find a change in the man’s face,’ she said under her breath. ‘Let us walk, Mr. Dugdale. Such scrutiny as that is unbearable.’

As she spoke, four bells were struck forward. Mr. Lush, who was leaning against his windlass end, knocked the ashes out of his pipe and slowly came aft to relieve the deck. I rose to walk with Miss Temple as she had proposed. Captain Braine called my name. He met me as I approached him, and said: ‘I want to have a talk with you in my cabin.’

There was something in his manner that alarmed me. How shall I express it? An air of uneasy exultation, as of a mind proud of the achievement of a resolution at which the secret instincts tremble. For a moment I hung in the wind, strongly reluctant to box myself up alone, unarmed as I was, with a man whose insanity, to call it so, seemed stronger in him at this moment than I had ever before observed it. But the carpenter had now gained the poop; and the captain, on seeing him, instantly walked to the companion, down which he went to midway the ladder, and there stood waiting for me to follow him.

Tut, thought I, surely I am more than his match in strength, and I am on my guard! As I put my foot on the ladder—the captain descending on seeing me coming—I paused to lean over the cover and say to Miss Temple:

‘If you will remain on deck, I shall be able to get away from him if he should prove tedious, by telling him that I have you to look after.’

‘What do you imagine he wishes to say?’ she exclaimed with a face of alarm that came very near to consternation.

I could only answer with a helpless shrug of the shoulders, and the next minute I had entered Captain Braine’s cabin.

‘Pray sit you down,’ said he. He pulled off his straw hat and sent it wheeling through the air into a corner, as though it were a boomerang, and fell to drying his perspiring face upon a large pocket-handkerchief; then folding his arms tightly across his breast, and crooking his right knee whilst he dropped his chin somewhat, he stood gazing at me under the shadow of his very heavy eyebrows with a steadfastness I could only compare to the stare of a cat’s eye.

‘Well, Captain Braine,’ said I in an off-hand way, though I watched him with the narrowness of a man who goes in fear, ‘what now is it that I am to hear from you? Do you propose to ask me more questions on navigation and seamanship?’

‘Mr. Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, speaking very slowly, though the excitement that worked in him rendered his voice deep and unusually clear and loud, ‘I have come to the conclusion that you are a gentleman very well able to sarve me, and by sarving me to sarve yourself. I’ve been a-turning of it over in all hours of the day and a good many hours in the night, too, since the moment when ye first stepped over the side, and I’ve resolved to take ye into my confidence.’

He nodded, and stood looking at me without speech for a few moments; then seated himself near me and leaned forwards with a forefinger upon his thumb in a posture of computing.

‘It was in the year 1831,’ he began, ‘that I was third-mate aboard of a ship called the Ocean Monarch. We sailed from London with a cargo of mixed goods, bound to the port of Callao. Nothing happened till we was well round to the west’ards of Cape Horn, when the ship was set afire by the live cinders of the cabin stove burning through the deck. The cargo was of an inflammable kind. In less than two hours the vessel was in a blaze from stem to starn, by which time we had got the boats over, and lay at a distance waiting for her to disappear. There was two boats, the long-boat and a jolly-boat. The long-boat was a middling big consarn, and most of the men went in her along with the captain, a man named Matthews, and the second mate, a foreign chap named Falck. In our boat was the chief mate, Mr. Ruddiman, myself, two sailors, and a couple of young apprentices. We was badly stocked with water and food; and after the Ocean Monarch had foundered, Captain Matthews sings out to Mr. Ruddiman to keep company. But it wasn’t to be done. The long-boat ran away from us, and then she hove-to and took us in tow; but there came on a bit of a sea, and the line parted, and next morning we was alone.’

He paused.

‘I am closely following you,’ said I, fancying I perceived in his face a suspicion of inattention in me, and wondering what on earth his story was going to lead to. He stood up, and folding his arms in the first attitude he had adopted, proceeded, his voice deep and clear.

‘It came on to blow hard from the south’ard and east’ard, and we had to up hellum and run before the seas for our lives. This went on for three or four days, till Mr. Ruddiman reckoned that we was blowed pretty nigh half-way across to the Marquesas. It then fell a stark calm, and we lay roasting under a broiling sun with no fresh water in the boat, and nothing to eat but a handful of mouldy fragments of biscuit in the bottom of a bag that had been soaked with spray o’er and o’er again. One of the apprentices went mad, and jumped overboard, and was drownded. We was too weak to help him; besides, ne’er a one of us but thought him well off in that cool water, leaving thirst and hunger behind him, and sinking into a deep sleep, as it might be. Then the other apprentice was took bad, and died in a fit of retching, and we put him over the side. When daylight broke on the morning following that job, we saw one of the sailors dead in the bottom of the boat. T’other was the sicklier man of the two, yet he hung out, sir, and lived for three days. We kept his body.’

His deep tones ceased, and he stared at me. Just a story of a bad shipwreck, thought I, so far.

‘There came a light breeze from the east’ard,’ he continued after a little pause; ‘but neither Mr. Ruddiman nor me had the strength of a kitten in our arms, and we let the boat drive, waiting for death. I thought it had come that same afternoon, and on top of the sensation followed a fit, I allow, for I recollect no more, till on opening my eyes I found myself in a hammock in the ’tweendecks of a little ship. The craft was a small Spanish vessel, called the Rosario. She had floated into sight of our boat, and there was just enough strength left in Mr. Ruddiman to enable him to flourish his handkerchief so as they might see the boat had something alive in her. Ne’er a soul aboard spoke a syllable of English, and neither Mr. Ruddiman nor me understood a word of Spanish. We couldn’t even get to larn where the brigantine was bound to, or where she hailed from. We conversed with the crew in signs all the same as though we had been cast away among savages. We was both hearty men in those days, and it wasn’t long afore we had picked up what we had let fall during our ramble in the boat. Well, the course the vessel made was something to the south’ard o’ west, and I took it we were heading for an Australian port; but though I’d make motions, and draw with a piece of chalk on the deck, I’d never get more’n a stare, and a shake of the head and a grin, and a shrug of the shoulders, for an answer. In fact, it was like being sent adrift along with a company of monkeys.’

He dried his face again, took his seat as before, and leaned towards me in his former computing posture with his eyes glued to my face. The singularity of their habitual expression was now greatly heightened by a look of wildness, which I attributed in a measure to the emotions kindled in him by this recital of past and dreadful sufferings. I sat as though engrossed by his story; but I had an eye for every movement in him as well as for his face.

‘It came on to blow a gale of wind one night after we had been aboard the brigantine about a fortnight. They were a poor lot of sailors in the vessel, and so many as to be in one another’s road. They got the little ship in the trough, somehow, under more sail than she could stand up to; the main-topmast went; it brought down the fore-topmast, which wrecked the bowsprit and jib-boom. The Spaniards ran about like madmen, some of them crossing themselves, and praying about the decks; others bawling in a manner to terrify all hands, though I can’t tell ye what was said; the ship was in a horrible mess with wreckage, which nobody attempted to clear away. It blew very hard, and the seas were bursting in smoke over the brigantine, that lay unmanageable. At last the boatswain of her, holding a sounding-rod in his hand, yelled out something, and there was a rush for the boats stowed amidships. They were so crazy with fear they hardly knew how to swing ’em over the side. Ruddiman says to me: “I shall stick to the ship. If those boats are not swamped, they’ll blow away, and her people’ll starve, and our late job in that line is quite enough for me.” I said I would stick by the ship, too, and we stood watching whilst the Spaniards got their boats over. It was luck, and not management, that set the little craft afloat. The captain roaring out, made signs to us to come; but we, pointing to the sea, made motions to signify that they would be capsized and shook our heads. They were mad with fright, and weren’t going to stay to argue, and in twos and threes at a time they sprang into the boats like rats; and whether they took food and water with them I can’t tell ye; but this I know, that within twenty minutes of the Spanish bo’sun’s singing out, the two boats had disappeared, and Mr. Ruddiman and me were alone.’

He rose as he said this, and fell to pacing the cabin floor in silence, with his head drooped, and his arms hanging up and down like pump handles.

‘A very interesting story, captain, so far as it goes,’ said I, shifting a bit on my seat, as though I supposed that the end was not far off now. ‘Of course you were taken off by some passing vessel?’

He made no reply to this, nor, indeed, seemed to heed me. After several turns, he stopped, and looked me in the face, and continued to stare with a knitted brow, as though he were returning to his first resolution to communicate his secret with an effort that fell little short of mental anguish. He came slowly to his chair, and started afresh.

‘We sounded the well, and presently discovered that the water she was taking in drained through the decks, and that she was tight enough in her bottom; and we reckoned that if we could get her out of the trough, she’d live buoyant; so we searched for the carpenter’s chest, and found it, and let fly at the raffle with a chopper apiece, and after a bit, cleared the vessel of the wrecked spars and muddle, and got her to look up to it, and she made middling good weather, breasting it prettily under a tarpaulin seized in the weather main rigging. The gale blew itself out after twenty-four hours, and the wind shifted into the east’ards. We let drop the foresail; there was no more canvas on her to set, with the head of the mast gone, and with it the peak halliards and the sail in rags. Our notion was to head for the Sandwich Islands, for we stood by so doing to fall in with a whaler, and failing help of that sort there was civilisation over at Hawaii; but t’others of the Polynesian rocks were mostly cannibal islands, we believed, and we were for giving them a wide berth. Yet we could do nothing but blow before it. That you’ll understand, Mr. Dugdale?’

‘Quite,’ said I.

‘It came on thick,’ he continued, speaking with intensity and in an utterance deep, clear, and loud, ‘with a bit of a swell from the east’ards and a fresh wind singing over it. I was at the hellum in the afternoon, and Ruddiman lay asleep close against the companion hatch. I was drowsy for want of rest, and there was sleep enough in my eyes to make me see very ill. Suddenly looking ahead, I caught sight of a sort of whitish shadow, and even whilst I was staring at it, wondering whether it was vapour or white water, it took shape as a low coral island with clumps of trees here and there and a small rise of greenish land amidships of it. I put the hellum hard over, and called to Ruddiman, who jumps up and takes a look. “A dead lee-shore, Braine,” says he; “what’s to be done? There’s no clawing off under this canvas.” What was to be done? The land lay in a stretch of reef right along our beam, with the brigantine’s head falling off again to the drag of the foresail, spite of the hellum being hard down. In less than twenty minutes she struck, was took by the swell, and drove hard aground, and lay fixed on her bilge with her deck aslope to the beach that was within an easy jump from the rail.’

He broke off, and went in a restless, feverish way to the table and unlocked and drew out a drawer, looked at something within, then shut the drawer with a convulsive movement of the arm and turned the key. I was now heartily wishing he would make an end. Down to this, the tale was just a commonplace narrative of marine suffering, scarcely reclaimed from insipidity by the singularity of the figure that recited it. But that was not quite it. I was under a constant fear of the next piece of behaviour he might exhibit, and my alarm was considerably increased by the air of mystery with which he had examined the drawer and hurriedly closed it, as though to satisfy himself that the weapon he had lodged there was still in its place. Having locked the drawer, he stood thinking a little, then taking up his Bible from the table, he approached me with it.

‘Mr. Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, ‘before I can go on, I must have ye kiss this here book to an oath. Take it!’ he cried with a sudden fierceness; ‘hold it, and now follow me.’

‘Stop a minute,’ I said; ‘you are telling me a story that I have really no particular desire to hear. You have no right to exact an oath from me upon a matter that I cannot possibly be in the smallest decree interested in.’

‘It’s to come,’ said he in a raven note; ‘ye shall be interested afore long. Take the oath, sir,’ he added with a dark look.

‘But what oath, man, what oath is it that I am to take?’

‘That as the Lord is now a-listening to ye, you will never divulge to mortal creature the secret I’m agoing to tell ye, so help you God: and if you break your oath, may ye be struck dead at the moment of it, and your soul chased to the very gates of hell. So help ye God, again!’

I looked at him with astonishment and fear. No pen could express his manner as he pronounced these words—the dull fire that entered his eyes and seemed to enlarge them yet, the solemn note his deep and trembling, yet distinctly clear voice took—his mien of command that had the force of a menace in it as he stood upreared before me, his nostrils wide, his face a dingy sallow, one arm thrusting the little volume at me, the other hanging at his side with the fingers clenched.

‘I dare not take that oath,’ said I, after a little spell of thinking, with every nerve in me tight-strung, so to speak, in readiness to defend myself should he attack me. ‘Miss Temple will certainly inquire what our talk has been about; I will not undertake to be silent to her, sir. Keep your secret. It is not too late. Your narrative is one of shipwreck, and so far there is nothing in it to betray.’

With that I rose.

‘Stop!’ he exclaimed; ‘you may tell the lady. There need be no objection. I see how it lies betwixt you and her, and I’m not so onreasonable as to reckon she’ll never be able to coax it out of ye. No. Your interests’ll be hers, and of course she goes along with us. ’Tis my crew I’m thinking of.’

I was horribly puzzled. At the same time curiosity was growing in me; and with the swiftness of thought I reflected that whether I had his secret or not it would be all the same; he was most assuredly a madman in this direction, anyhow, if not in others; and it could be nothing more than some insane fancy which he had it in his head to impart, and which might be worth hearing if only for the sake of recalling it as an incident of this adventure when Miss Temple and I should have got away from the barque.

‘Mr. Dugdale, you will swear, sir,’ he exclaimed.

‘Very well,’ said I; ‘but put it a little more mildly, please. Leave out the gates of hell, for instance; or see—suffer me to swear in my own way. Give me that book.’

I observed that his hand was trembling violently as I took the volume from him.

‘I swear,’ I said, ‘to keep secret from all mortal persons in this world, saving Miss Temple, whatever it is your intention now to tell me. So help me God,’ and I put the book to my lips. ‘That oath excludes your crew,’ I added, ‘and I hope you’re satisfied?’

His face took a little complexion of life, and he almost smiled.

‘It’ll do—oh yes, it’ll do,’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew I could count upon you. Now then for it.’

He resumed his seat, and leaning towards me with his unwinking eyes fixed upon my face as usual, he proceeded thus.

CHAPTER XXX
THE CAPTAIN MAKES A PROPOSAL

‘Mr. Ruddiman and I got ashore and walked a little way up the beach, to see what sort of spot we had been cast away on. It was a small island, betwixt two and three miles long, and about a mile wide in the middle of it. There were no natives to be seen. We might be sure that it was uninhabited. There was nothing to eat upon it, and though we spent the hours till it came on dark in searching for fresh water, we found none. This made us resolve to land all we could out of the brigantine when daylight should arrive. The weather cleared at midnight, the stars shone, and the sea smoothed down with a light swell from the north-west, which the trend of the reef shouldered off and left the water about the stranded craft calm. As soon as daylight came we got aboard, and rigged a whip on the fore-yardarm, and by noon we had landed provisions enough, along with fresh water and wines and spirits in jars, to last us two men for three months; but that didn’t satisfy us. There was no other land in sight all round the horizon; we were without a boat; and though, if the vessel broke up, we had made up our minds to turn to and save as much of her as we could handle that might wash ashore, so as to have the materials for a raft at hand if it should come to it, we hadn’t the heart to talk of such a thing then, in the middle of that wide ocean, with such a sun as was shining over our heads all day, and the sure chance of the first of any squall or bit of dirty weather that might come along adrowning of us. So we continued to break out all we could come at. We worked our way out of the hold into the lazarette, and after we had made a trifle of clearance there, we came across three chests heavily padlocked and clamped with iron. “What’s here?” says Mr. Ruddiman. “If these ain’t treasure-chests like to what the Spanish marchants sends away gold in along the coast my eyes ain’t mates,” he says. He went away to the carpenter’s chest, and returned with a crow and a big hammer, and let fly at one of the padlocks, and struck a staple off short. We lifted the lid, and found the chest full of Spanish pieces of gold. The other two was the same, full up with minted gold; and we reckoned that in all three chests there couldn’t be less in the value of English money than a hundred and eighty to two hundred thousand pounds! It wasn’t to be handled in the chests; so we made parcels of it in canvas wrappers; and by the time the dusk drew down, we had landed every farden of it.’

Once more he broke off and went to the drawer. I watched him with profound anxiety, incapable of imagining what he was about to produce, and collecting all my faculties, so to speak, ready for whatever was to come. He took from the drawer, however, nothing more alarming than a piece of folded parchment, round which some green tape was tied. This he opened with trembling hands, smoothed out the sheet of parchment upon the table, and invited me to approach. The outline, formed of thick strokes of ink, represented an island. Its shape had something of the look of a bottle with the neck of it broken away. It lay due north and south according to the points of the compass marked by hand upon the parchment; and towards the north end of it, on the eastern side, there was a somewhat spacious indent, signifying, as I supposed, a lagoon. Over the face of this outline were a number of crosses irregularly dotted about to express vegetation. In the centre of the lagoon was a black spot like a little blot of ink, with an arrow pointing from it to another little blot in the heart of the island bearing due east from the mark in the indent or lagoon. In the corner of the sheet of parchment were written in a bold hand the figures, Long. 120° 3′ W.; Lat. 33° 6′ S.

‘This,’ said he, in a voice vibratory with excitement and emotion, ‘is the island.’ I inclined my head. ‘You see how it lies, sir,’ he continued, pointing with a shaking forefinger to the latitude and longitude of the place in the corner. ‘Easter Island bears due north-east from it. That will be the nearest land. Supposing you start from Valparaiso, a due west-by-south course would run you stem on to the reef.’

I waited for him to proceed. He drew away by a step, that he might keep his eyes upon my face, whilst he continued to hold his trembling forefinger pressed down upon his little chart.

‘We agreed to bury the gold,’ he said; ‘to hide it somewhere where we should be easily able to find it when we came to look for it, if so be as providence should ever allow us to come off with our lives from this destitute reef. D’ye see this hollow, Mr. Dugdale?’

‘A lagoon, I suppose?’ said I.

‘Yes. This here mark amidships of it’—he turned his dead black eyes upon the chart—‘signifies a coral pillar about twice as thick as my mainmast, rising out of the water to about fourteen foot. We reckoned that there was no force in nature outside an airthquake to level such a shaft as that, and Mr. Ruddiman and me took it for a mark. We landed the brigantine’s compass, and having hit on a clump of trees, found they bore east three-quarters south from that there coral pillar. We fixed upon a tree, and after trying again and again, made it exactly two hundred and eight paces from the wash of the water in the curve of the lagoon. There we buried the money, sir.’

‘And there it is now, I suppose?’ said I.

‘Hard upon two hundred thousand pounds,’ he exclaimed, letting the words drop from his lips as though they were of lead. ‘Think of it, sir.’

He folded up the sheet of parchment, always with a very trembling hand, replaced it in the drawer, which he locked; and then, after steadfastly gazing at me for some little while, an expression of energy entered his face, and he seemed to quicken from his eyes to his very toes.

‘All that money is mine,’ said he, ‘and I want you to help me recover it.’

‘I!’

‘Yes, you, Mr. Dugdale. You and me’ll do it between us. And I’ll tell ye how, if you’ll listen’——

‘But, my dear sir,’ I exclaimed, ‘I suppose you recollect that you are under a solemn promise to Miss Temple and myself to transfer us to the first homeward-bound ship we meet.’

‘I can’t help that,’ he cried with a hint of ferocity in his manner. ‘There’s this here fortune to be recovered first. After we’ve got it, home won’t be fur off.’

Come, thought I, I must be cool and apparently careless.

‘It is very good of you, Captain Braine, to wish me to participate in this treasure; but really, my dear sir, I have no title to any portion of it; besides, I am a man of independent means, and what I possess is quite as much as I require.’

‘Ye’ll not refuse it when ye see it,’ he exclaimed. ‘Money’s money; and in this here world, where money signifies everything,—love, happiness, pleasure, everything you can name—who’s the man that’s agoing to tell me he can get too much of it?’

‘But you haven’t completed your story,’ said I, strenuously endeavouring to look as though I believed in every word of the mad trash he had been communicating.

‘As much as is necessary,’ said he. ‘I want to come to business, sir. I could keep you listening for hours whilst I told ye of our life aboard that island, how the brigantine went to pieces, how one day Mr. Ruddiman went for a swim in the lagoon, and how the cramp or some fit took him, and he sunk with me a-looking on, being no swimmer, and incapable of giving him any help.’

‘And how long were you on the island?’ said I.

‘Four months and three days. It was one morning that I crawled from the little hut we had built ourselves out of some of the brigantine’s wreckage that had drifted ashore, and saw a small man-of-war with her tops’l aback just off the island. She was a Yankee surveying craft, and a boat was coming off when I first see her. They took me aboard, and landed me at Valparaiso two months later. But all that’s got nothing to do with what I want to talk to ye about. I’ve got now to recover this money, and I mean to have it, and you’ll help me to get it, Mr. Dugdale.’

‘But why have you waited all this time before setting about to recover this treasure?’ said I.

‘I never had a chance of doing it afore,’ he replied; ‘but it’s come now, and I don’t mean to lose it.’

‘What is your scheme?’

‘As easy,’ he cried, ‘as the digging up of the money’ll be. I shall head straight away for Rio, and there discharge all my crew, then take in a few runners to navigate the vessel to the Sandwich Islands, where I’ll ship a small company of Kanakas, just as many as’ll help us to sail the Lady Blanche to my island. I shan’t fear them. Kanakas ain’t Europeans; they’re as simple as babies; and we can do a deal that they’ll never dream of taking notice of.’

I listened with a degree of astonishment and consternation it was impossible for me to conceal in my face; yet I managed to preserve a steady voice.

‘But you have a cargo consigned to Port Louis, I presume?’ said I. ‘You don’t mean to run away with this ship, do you? for that would be an act of piracy punishable with the gallows, as I suppose you know?’

He eyed me steadily and squarely.

‘I don’t mean to run away with this ship,’ he answered; ‘I know my owners, and what they’ll think. It’ll be a deviation that ain’t going to interfere with the ultimate delivery of my cargo at Port Louis, and I don’t suppose it’ll take me much time to fix upon a sum that’ll make my owners very well pleased with the delay, and quite willing that I should do it again on the same tarms.’

‘But why do you desire to bring me into this business?’ I exclaimed, startled by the intelligence I found in this last answer of his.

‘Because I can trust ye. You’re a gentleman, and you’ll be satisfied with the share we’ll settle upon. Where am I to find a sailor capable of helping me to navigate this ship that I could feel any confidence in, that I could talk to about this here gold with the sartinty that he wouldn’t play me some devilish trick? Can’t ye see my position. Mr. Dugdale?’ he cried with a wild almost pathetic air of eagerness and pleading. ‘I can’t work out such a traverse as this alone. I must have somebody alongside of me that I can confide in. Once the money’s aboard, we can rid ourselves of the Kanaka crew, and ship a company of white men for the run to the Mauritius. The gold’ll be aboard, and it’ll be my secret and yourn.’

Though I never doubted for a moment that all this was the emission of some mad, fixed humour, I was yet willing to go on questioning him as if I was interested, partly that he might think me sincere in my profession of belief in his tale, and partly that I might plumb his intentions to the very bottom; for it was certain that, lie or no lie, his fancy of buried treasure was a profound reality to his poor brains, and that it would influence him, as though it were the truth, to heaven alone knew what issue of hardship and fatefulness and even destruction to Miss Temple and me.

‘I presume,’ said I, assuming an off-hand manner, ‘that your men have signed for the run to Port Louis and back?’

‘Well, sir?’

‘How are you going to get rid of them at Rio?’

‘Half of them will run, and the rest I shall know how to start.’

‘But what excuse will you have for putting into Rio?’

‘Want of a chief mate,’ he answered, in a deep sepulchral voice.

This threw me all aback again, and thoroughly confounded me. Indeed, I was well enough acquainted with the sea to guess that he was within the truth when he spoke of an easy quittance of the crew at Rio; and assuredly in the want of a chief mate he could find a reason for heading to that South American port, against which it would be impossible for his sailors to find anything to urge, supposing, a thing not to be taken into account, that they had it in their power to insist upon his sailing straight for Mauritius.

But even as I sat looking at him in an interval of silence that fell upon us, a thought entered my head that transformed what was just now a dark, most sinister menace, into a bright prospect of deliverance. As matters stood—particularly now that I had his so-called secret—I could not flatter myself that he would suffer me to leave his ship for a homeward-bound craft, or even for the Countess Ida herself, if we should heave her into sight. Consequently, my best, perhaps the only, chance for myself and the girl who looked to me for protection and safety must lie in this madman making for a near port, where it would be strange indeed if I did not find a swift opportunity of getting ashore with Miss Temple. I saw by the expression in his own face that he instantly observed the change in mine. He extended his hand.

‘Mr. Dugdale, you will entertain it? I see it grows upon ye.’

‘It is a mighty unexpected proposal,’ said I, giving him my fingers to hold. ‘I don’t like the scheme it involves of running away with the ship—the deviation, as you term it, which to my mind is a piratical proceeding. But if you will sign a document to the effect that I acted under compulsion, that I was in your power, and obliged to go with you in consequence of your refusal to transfer me to another ship—if, in short, you will draw up some instrument signed by yourself and witnessed by Miss Temple that may help to absolve me from all complicity in this sotermed deviation, I will consent to accompany you to your island. But I must also know what share I am to expect?’

‘A third,’ he cried feverishly. ‘I’ll put that down in writing, too, on a separate piece of paper. As to t’other document, draw it up yourself, and I’ll copy it and put my name to it, for I han’t got the language for such a job.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Is it settled?’

‘It will be settled,’ I answered, ‘when those two formal documents are made out and signed.’

‘That can be done at once,’ he cried, with profound excitement working in every limb of him, and agitating his face into many singular twitchings and almost convulsive dilatations of the sockets of his eyes.

‘Give me leave to think a little,’ said I. ‘I will have a talk with Miss Temple and settle with her the terms of the absolving letter you are to write and sign.’

‘How long will it take ye?’ he asked with painful anxiety.

‘I shall hope to be ready for you before noon to-morrow,’ I replied.

‘All right,’ said he; ‘the moment it is settled I’ll change my course.’

I took his track-chart and opened it, and with a pair of compasses that lay on the table measured the distance betwixt the point at which we had arrived at noon and Rio. Roughly speaking, and allowing an average of a hundred and fifty miles a day to the barque, I computed that the run would occupy between ten and twelve days.

‘What are ye looking for?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘To see how far Rio is from us,’ I answered.

‘Well, and what d’ye make it?’

‘Call it fifteen hundred miles,’ I responded. He nodded in a sort of cunning emphatic way. ‘Nothing remains to be said, I think?’ said I, making a step to the door.

‘Only this,’ said he. ‘I was thinking of asking ye to keep my lookout, acting, as you will be, as my chief mate, but on consideration I believe it’ll be best to wait till we’ve got a new crew afore ye take that duty. Not that the men could object to my calling into Rio on the grounds that you’re aboard and are good enough as a navigator to sarve my turn; because they reckon that you’re to be transhipped along with the lady at the first opportunity. But it’ll be safest, I allow, for you to remain as ye are this side of Rio.’

‘Very well,’ said I; ‘but I can continue to take observations if you like.’

‘Oh yes; there can be no harm in that,’ he answered.

I opened the door.

‘Mr. Dugdale,’ he exclaimed, softening his voice into a hoarse whisper with a sudden expression of real insanity in the gloomy, almost threatening look he fastened upon me, ‘ye’ll recollect the oath you’ve taken, if you please.’

‘Captain Braine,’ I replied with an assumption of haughtiness, ‘I am a gentleman first of all, and my oath merely follows;’ and slightly bowing, I closed the door upon him.

By this time it was nearly dark. I had scarcely noticed the drawing down of the evening whilst in the captain’s cabin, so closely had my attention been attached to him and his words. Indeed, the man had detained me an hour with his talk, owing to his pausings and silent intervals of staring; though the substance of his speech and our conversation could have been easily packed into a quarter that time. I went half-way up the companion steps, but feeling thirsty, descended again to drink from a jug that stood upon a swinging tray. Whilst I filled the glass, my eye at the moment happening to be idly bent aft, I observed the door of the cabin adjoining that of Captain Braine’s to open and a man’s head showed. It instantly vanished. It was too gloomy to allow me to make sure. However, next moment the young fellow Wilkins came out, no doubt guessing that I had seen him, and that he had therefore better show himself honestly.

I was somewhat startled by the apparition, wondering if the fellow had been in the berth throughout our talk, for if so, it was not to be questioned but that he had overheard every syllable, for there was nothing between the cabins but a wooden bulkhead, and the captain’s utterance had been singularly clear, deep, and loud. But a moment’s reflection convinced me that even if he had heard everything, his knowledge (supposing he carried the news forward) would only help to persuade the men that Captain Braine was a madman, and facilitate any efforts I might have to make to deliver myself and Miss Temple from this situation, should Braine’s craziness increase and his lunatic imagination take a new turn. So, that the fellow might not think that I took any special notice of his coming out of that cabin, I asked him in a careless way when supper would be ready. He answered that he was now going to lay the table; and without further words I went on deck.

It was a hot and lovely evening, with a range of mountainous but fine-weather clouds in the west, whose heads swelled in scarlet to the fires of the sun sinking into the sea behind them. In the east the shadow was of a deep liquid blue, with the low-lying stars already coming into their places. The breeze blew softly off the starboard beam, and the barque, clothed in canvas to the height of her trucks and to the outmost points of her far-reaching studding-sail booms, was floating quietly and softly, like some spirit-shape of ship, through the rich and tender tropic blending of nightdyes and westering lights.

Miss Temple stood at the rail, leaning upon her arms, apparently watching the water sliding past. She sprang erect when I pronounced her name.

‘I was beginning to fear you would never come on deck again,’ she exclaimed as she looked at me with a passionate eagerness of inquiry. ‘How long you have been! What could he have found to say to detain you all this while?’

‘Softly!’ I said, with a glance at old Lush, who was patrolling the forward end of the poop athwartships with his hands deep buried in his breeches’ pockets, and with a sulky air in the round of his back and the droop of his head. ‘I have heard some strange things. If you are not tired, take my arm, and we will walk a little. We are less likely to be overheard in the open air than if we conversed in the silence of the cabin.’

‘You do not look miserable,’ she exclaimed. ‘I expected to see you emerge with a pale face and alarmed eyes. Now, please tell me everything.’

There was something almost of a caress in her manner of taking my arm, as though she could not suppress some little exhibition of pleasure in having me at her side again. Also she seemed to find relief in the expression on my face. She had been full of dark forebodings, and my light smiling manner instantly soothed her.

I at once started to tell her everything that had passed between Captain Braine and myself. I contrived to recite the skipper’s yarn as though I fully believed it, always taking care to sober my voice down to little more than a whisper as we alternately approached the fellow at the wheel and the carpenter at the other end in our pendulum walk. Her fine eyes glowed with astonishment; never did her beauty show with so much perfection to the animation of the wonder, the incredulity, the excitement raised by the narrative I gave her.

‘So that is his secret?’ she exclaimed, drawing a breath like a sigh as I concluded, halting at the rail to gaze at her with a smile. ‘I presume now, Mr. Dugdale, that you are satisfied he is mad?’

‘Perfectly satisfied.’

‘You do not believe a word of his story?’

‘Not a syllable of it.’

‘And yet it might be true!’ said she.

‘And even then I would not believe it,’ I answered.

‘Did he explain how it was that all that gold lay hidden in a poor ship like the Spanish brigand—brig—whatever you call it?’ she asked, her curiosity as a woman dominating for a moment all other considerations which might grow out of that yarn.

‘No,’ said I; ‘nor would I inquire. It is giving one’s self needless trouble to dissect the fabric of a dream.’

‘Poor wretch! But how frightful to be in a ship commanded by a madman! What object has he in telling you this secret?’

‘He wants me to help him recover the treasure;’ and I then related the man’s proposals.

She gazed at me with so much alarm that I imagined her fear had rendered her speechless.

‘You tell me,’ she cried, ‘that you have consented to sail with him to this island of his in—in—the Pacific? Are you as mad as he is, Mr. Dugdale? Do you forget that I look to you to protect me and help me to return home?’

Her eyes sparkled; the colour mounted to her cheek, her bosom rose and fell to the sudden gust of temper.

‘I am surprised that you do not see my motive,’ I exclaimed. ‘Of course I feigned to fall in with his views. My desire is to get to Rio as soon as possible, and ship with you thence for England.’

‘To Rio? But I’m not going to Rio!’ she cried. ‘The captain solemnly promised to put me on board the first ship going home. Why did you not insist upon his keeping his word?’ she exclaimed, drawing herself up to her fullest stature and towering over me with a flashing stare.

‘He’ll not tranship us now,’ said I. ‘I’m like Caleb Williams. I have his secret, and he’ll not lose sight of me.’

‘Oh, what miserable judgment!’ she exclaimed. ‘You are frightened of him! But were he ten times madder than he is, I would compel him to keep his word. Rio indeed! He shall put us on board the first ship we meet, and I’ll tell him so when I see him.’

‘You will do nothing of the kind,’ said I. ‘If you open your lips or suffer your temper to come between me and any project I have formed, I will wash my hands of all responsibility. I will not lift a finger to help ourselves. He shall carry us whithersoever he pleases.’

‘How can you talk to me so heartlessly! I have no friend but you now, and you are turning from me, and making me feel utterly alone.’

‘I am so much your friend,’ said I, ‘that I do not intend you shall alienate me. My judgment is going to serve me better than yours in this dilemma. I know exactly what I am about and what I intend, and you must keep quiet and be obedient to my wishes.’

‘Oh, I should abhor you at any other time for talking to me like that!’ she exclaimed. ‘There was a time—— I shall not go to Rio! He has promised to put us on board a ship going home.’

‘Miss Temple, you talk intemperately. You are in an unreasonable mood, and I will not converse with you. We will resume the subject by-and-by;’ and I half turned, as though to walk off, humming an air betwixt my teeth.

She grasped my arm. ‘You must not leave me. I have been long enough alone. I believe you will drive me as crazy as the captain.’

‘I will see you safely to England first,’ said I, ‘and then you shall fall crazy.’

The tears suddenly gushed into her eyes, and she turned seawards to hide her face. I moved away, but before I had measured half-a-dozen paces, her hand was again upon my arm.

‘I am sorry,’ she said softly, hanging her stately head, ‘if I have said anything to vex you.’

‘I desire but one end,’ said I, ‘and that is your safety. To ensure it needs but a little exercise of tact on your part and a resolution to trust me.’

‘I do trust you,’ she exclaimed; ‘but am I wholly wanting in brains, that you will not suffer me to offer an opinion, nay, even to express a regret?’

‘You would be able to do nothing with this mad sailor,’ said I. ‘Rio is within a fortnight’s sail, and our safety depends upon our getting there.’

‘A fortnight!’ she cried—‘another fortnight of this horrible ship!’

‘Yes; but England is a long way off from where we are. Were you to get on board another vessel, you might be fully as uncomfortable as you are here, unless she should prove a passenger craft with ladies in her. A fortnight more or less could not signify. At Rio you will be able to purchase such articles as you immediately need, and there will be a choice of ships to carry us home in comfort.’

‘I believe you are right,’ said she, after a little pause, with something of timidity in the lift of her eyes to my face. ‘I was shocked and made irritable by alarm. I am sorry, Mr. Dugdale.’

The answer I was about to make was checked by Wilkins calling to us from the companion way that supper was ready.

CHAPTER XXXI
THE FORM OF AGREEMENT

The captain did not arrive, and we had the table to ourselves. Miss Temple was subdued, and her glances almost wistful. It gave me but little pleasure to humble her, or in any way to triumph over her; but I had made up my mind to be master whilst we were together, and not to spare her feelings in my effort to assert myself; and I may add here that I had determined, if it pleased God to preserve us, to make this noble and beautiful woman my wife. For I was now loving her, but so secretly, that my love was scarce like a passion even to my own reason; and the conclusion I had formed was that the only road to her heart lay behind the armour of her pride, which must be broken down and demolished if ever I was to gain her affection. And sure I was of this too; that she was of that kind of women who need to be bowed by a strong hand into a submissive posture before they can be won.

We spoke very little; the captain’s cabin was not far off, and the knowledge of his being in it held us very taciturn. However, we made amends for our silence after we had supped and regained the deck. She was now to be easily convinced that our best chance of escaping from this barque was for me to fool the captain to the top of his bent, that he might carry us to Rio; and before long she was even talking cheerfully of our prospects, asking me in a half-laughing way how we were to manage for money when we arrived at Rio, whether I had any friends there, and so on.

‘There are my jewels,’ she said; ‘but I should be very sorry to part with them.’

‘There will be no need to do that,’ said I. ‘I have a few bank-notes in my pocket which I think may suffice. There is an English consul, I suppose, at Rio, and he will advise us.’

Talk of this kind heartened her wonderfully. It gave her something happy and hopeful to think about; in fact, before we went below she told me that she now preferred the idea of proceeding to Rio to the old scheme of going aboard a ship bound to England.

‘I shall be able to purchase a few comforts,’ she said; ‘whereas I might be transferred to some horrid little vessel that would occupy weeks in crawling along the sea, and in all that time I should be as badly off as I am now. Do the ladies in South America dress picturesquely, do you know? I should like to be romantically attired on my arrival home. How my dearest mother would stare! What colour a long Spanish veil and a dress of singular fashion would give to my story of our adventures.’

And so she talked.

It was a very calm and lovely night, with the moon, a few days old, going down in the west. The breeze held everything silent aloft; a murmur as of the raining of a fountain floated up from alongside as the white body of the little barque slipped through the darkling waters brimming in a firm black line to the spangled sky of the horizon. The captain had arrived on deck at eight, but he kept to the after-part of the poop, nor once addressed us, often standing motionless for ten minutes at a time, till he looked like some ebony statue at the rail floating softly up and down against the stars to the delicate curtseying of his little ship. I seemed to notice, however, yet without giving much heed to the thing, an indisposition on the part of the watch on deck to coil themselves away for their usual fine-weather naps. From time to time, though dimly, there would steal aft a hum of voices from the black shadow upon the deck past the galley. Once a man kindled a phosphorus match to light his pipe, and a small group of faces showed to the flash of the flame, so to speak, as it soared and sank to the fellow’s sucking at it; but I found nothing in this to arrest my attention saving that I recollect asking Miss Temple to notice the odd effect produced by the coming out of those faces amid the dusk; for one saw them only and no other portion of the men’s bodies.

We walked to the companion to leave the deck. I scarcely knew whether or not to call a good-night to the captain, so absorbed in thought did his motionless posture express him. But as Miss Temple put her foot upon the steps, he quietly cried out: ‘Are ye going to bed?’

‘Yes, captain,’ I answered, ‘and we wish you a very good-night.’

‘A minute!’ he sung out, and came to us. He seemed to peer into Miss Temple’s face, that showed as a mere faint glimmer in the starlight, the moon being then sunk, and addressing me, exclaimed in a voice but a little above a whisper: ‘I suppose you have told the lady everything, Mr. Dugdale?’

‘Yes,’ I answered; ‘my oath allowed for that, you know.’

‘Certainly,’ said he. ‘It’s a grand opportunity for money-getting, mem. The brace of you know more than the wife of my own bosom has any suspicion of. As God’s my Saviour, never once have I opened my lips to Mrs. Braine about that there money.’

‘I had hoped you would have transferred me to a homeward-bound ship,’ said Miss Temple.

‘You don’t want to be separated from a sweetheart, do you?’ he exclaimed.

This was a stroke to utterly silence her. I believe she had spoken from no other motive than to finesse, that the captain might suppose her as sincere in her belief of his story as I was; but this word sweetheart was like a blast of lightning. What her face would have exhibited if there had been light enough to see it by, I could only imagine.

‘It grows late, captain; good-night,’ said I, pitying her for the confusion and disorder which I knew she would be under.

‘Have you been thinking over the tarms of that letter we were talking about?’ said he.

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I’ll pay your cabin a visit after breakfast and write it out.’

‘Very well, sir. That and the agreement about the division of the money too. I shall want to shift my hellum for Rio to-morrow.’

He left us, and we descended in silence, nor did Miss Temple speak a word to me as we made our way to our gloomy deep-sunk quarters, excepting to wish me good-night.

I slept well, and rose next morning at seven to get a bath in the head; for, as in the Indiaman, so in this barque, and so, indeed, in most ships in those days, there was a little pump fixed in the bows for washing down the decks of the fore-part of the craft. It was a very gay brilliant morning, a fresh breeze about a point before the starboard beam, and the Lady Blanche was moving through it at a meteoric pace with her royals and gaff topsail in, and all else save the flying jib abroad. The water was of a rich blue, and rolled in snow; the violet shadows of swollen steamcoloured clouds swept over the rolling lines of the ocean, and by their alternations of the sunshine made a very prism of the vast, throbbing disc of the deep. About two miles astern was a large schooner, staggering along on a westerly course, so close hauled that she seemed to look into the very eye of the wind and plunging bow under with a constant boiling of foam all about her head. By the time I had taken my bath she was a mere chip of white on the windy blue over our weather quarter.

There were a few sailors cleaning up about the decks, and as I passed them on the road to the cabin, I could not fail to observe that they eyed me with a degree of attention I had never before noticed in them. Their looks were full of curiosity, with something almost of impudence in the bold stare of one or two of them. What, I reflected, can this signify but that the fellow Wilkins overheard everything that passed between the captain and me, and has carried the news into the forecastle? So much the better, I thought; for should the captain come to guess that the men had his secret, the suspicion must harden him in his insane resolve to carry the barque forthwith to Rio to get rid of his crew.

When Miss Temple came out of her berth there was a momentary touch of bashfulness and even of confusion in her manner; then a laughing expression flashed into her eye. As we repaired to the cabin we exchanged some commonplaces about the weather. She warmed up a little when I spoke of the noble breeze and of the splendid pace of the barque, and assured her that the most distant port in the world could never be far off to people aboard such a clipper keel as this. The captain joined us at the breakfast table. I thought he looked unusually haggard and pale, appearing as a man might after a long spell of bitter mental conflict. His eyes seemed preternaturally large, and of a duller and deader black than my recollection found common in them. He seldom spoke but to answer the idle conversational questions one or the other of us put to him. I observed that he drank thirstily and ate but little, and that he would occasionally rest his forehead upon his hand as though to soothe a pain there. Yet lustreless as was his gaze, it was singularly eager and devouring in its steadfastness. He had been on deck since four o’clock, he told us, and had not closed his eyes during the previous four hours of his watch below.

‘I get but little sleep now,’ said he with a long trembling sigh.

‘That schooner astern this morning,’ said I, ‘looked as if she were bound somewhere Rio way.’

He responded with a dull nod of indifference.

‘Were you ever at Rio, Captain Braine?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘No, mem.’

‘I suppose I shall easily find a ship there to carry me home?’ said she.

He stared at her and then at me; and then said, looking at her again, ‘Don’t you mean to go along with him?’ indicating me with a sideways jerk of the head.

Her eyes sought mine for counsel.

‘It will be a question for you and me to discuss, captain,’ said I. ‘With all due deference to Miss Temple, it may be you will come to think that the presence of a lady could but encumber us in such a job as we have in hand.’

‘Ay, but she has my secret!’ said he swiftly and warmly.

‘Your secret is mine, and my interests are hers—you know that!’ I exclaimed.

‘What are the relations between you?’ he asked.

A blush overspread Miss Temple’s face and her eyes fell.

‘Ask me that question presently, captain,’ said I, laughing.

He continued to stare slowly at one or the other of us, but remained silent.

Wilkins entered with a pot of coffee. I furtively but attentively surveyed his expressionless veal-like countenance; but I might as well have explored the sole of his foot for hints of what was passing in his mind. He came and went quickly. Indeed, his practice of waiting consisted merely in placing our meals upon the table, and then lingering out upon the quarter-deck within hearing of the captain’s voice if he was wanted.

Presently the skipper rose.

‘I’ve made out that document consarning shares,’ said he; ‘perhaps you might now come with me and con-coct the letter you want me to sign.’

‘Very well,’ I answered; ‘Miss Temple is to witness your signature, and you will allow her to accompany us?’

For answer he gave her one of his astonishing bows, and the three of us went to his cabin. He opened the drawer that contained the chart of his island, and produced a sheet of paper, very oddly scrawled over.

‘I made this up last evening,’ said he; ‘jest see if it’ll do, Mr. Dugdale. If so, I’ll sign it, and ye can draw me up a copy for my own keeping.’

‘Miss Temple will have to witness this too,’ said I, ‘so I’ll read it aloud:

“Barque Lady Blanche.

At Sea (such and such a date).

I, John Braine, master of the barque Lady Blanche, do hereby agree with Dugdale, Esquire, that in consideration of his serving me as chief-officer for a voyage to an island situate in the South Pacific Ocean, latitude 83° 16′ S. longitude 120° 3′ W., unnamed, but bearing due south-west from Easter Island, distant ; I say that in consideration of your helping me to navigate this ship to that there island, and from there to Port Louis in the island of Mauritius afterwards, the said John Braine do hereby undertake to give and secure to the said Dugdale, Esquire, by this here instrument as witnessed, one whole and full third of the money now lying buried in the above-said island, whereof the amount, as by calculation allowed, is in Spanish pieces from 180 to 200,000 pounds.

Witness my hand and seal.”’

It cost me a prodigious effort to keep my face whilst I read, almost tragical as was the significance of this absurd document to Miss Temple and myself, as forming a condition, so to speak, of the extraordinary adventure fate had put us upon. I durst not look at her for fear of bursting into a laugh. The man’s strange eyes were fixed upon me.

‘Nothing could be better,’ said I. ‘Now, sir, if you will kindly sign it—and I will ask you, Miss Temple, to witness it.’

He turned to seat himself; the girl’s glance met mine; but heaven knows there was no hint of merriment in her face. She was colourless and agitated, though I could perceive that she had a good grip of her emotions. The captain signed his name with a great scratching noise of his pen, then made way for Miss Temple, whose hand slightly trembled as she attached her signature to the precious document. It was now my turn; in a few minutes I had scribbled out a form of letter addressed to myself guaranteeing me immunity from all legal perils which might follow upon the captain’s piratical deviation from his voyage. This also he signed, and Miss Temple afterwards put her name to it as a witness.

‘I’ll take copies of these,’ said I, ‘at noon, after helping you to work out the sights.’

‘I beg pardon,’ he exclaimed, observing me to take a step towards the door; ‘I should be glad to know the relations ’twixt you and this young lady? It ain’t for inquisitiveness that I ask. She has my secret, sir;’ and he drew himself erect.

‘We were fellow-passengers,’ I answered with a side-look at the girl, whose expression was one of disgust and distress.

‘There’s nothing close in that,’ said he: ‘I counted upon ye as being sweethearts—that you was keeping company with her, and to be married when the chance came, when I told you there was no objection to your reporting my secret to her.’

‘We are sweethearts,’ I replied, smiling, and taking the girl’s hand; ‘and when the chance comes along,’ I added, faintly accentuating the ‘when’ for her ear only, ‘we shall be married, captain, and I shall hope to see you dancing at our wedding and heartily enjoying the entertainment, which, it will not need all my third share to furnish forth.’

Miss Temple could not contain herself; she uttered a short hysteric laugh.

‘Pity ye couldn’t have told me this at once,’ exclaimed the captain, regarding me sternly; ‘but,’ he went on whilst his countenance slightly relaxed, ‘there’s always sensitiveness in love-making whilst it keeps young. I’m obliged to you, mem, for your visit.’

I opened the door and followed Miss Temple out.

‘I am of opinion that he is not so mad as he appears,’ said I.

She averted her flushed face somewhat haughtily. No matter, thought I; it is a subject that will keep.

We got under the short awning on the poop and lounged away the morning there. Her good breeding speedily came to her rescue, and our chat was as easy, in a sense, as ever it could have been aboard the Indiaman—easier, i’ faith, by a long chalk! though it concerned troubles and anxieties which never could have occurred to us in the Countess Ida. I observed that Mr. Lush frequently directed his eyes at me as he paced the weather deck. To my accost he had satisfied himself with returning a surly ‘marning,’ and we spoke no more. He seemed unable to view me attentively enough to satisfy himself without growing offensive by staring.

‘I hope that fellow,’ I whispered to Miss Temple, ‘may not thwart my Rio programme. Yet I don’t see how he could do so. The barque wants a chiefmate, so the captain contends. It is no falsehood; the need would by all sailors be regarded as an imperative one. Still, I hate that surly fellow without exactly knowing why.’

‘Do you notice how those men yonder are constantly looking this way?’

‘Yes. As I have explained to you, Master Eavesdropper Wilkins has reported all he heard; and the Jacks understanding at last that their skipper is a madman, are wondering what on earth is going to happen next. They’ll be glad, you’ll find, to learn that we’re heading for Rio when the course is changed. They’ll report the skipper as insane, and end our difficulties out of hand for us.’

‘I hope so indeed!’ she sighed.

Well, for the rest of the day nothing happened worth relating. I took an observation with the captain, worked it out in his cabin, and made draughts of the two extraordinary documents. When we had calculated our situation, he went on deck, and by a tell-tale compass in his cabin I perceived that he had changed the barque’s course. Simultaneously with this, I heard the men bracing the yards more forward, and the heel of the barque slightly sharpened to the increased lateral pressure of the fresh breeze upon her canvas. I hastened on deck when I had done my copying to observe the crew’s deportment; but in the manner of the few men who were about I witnessed nothing to lead me to suppose that they made anything of this sudden change of course.

When I told Miss Temple that we were now heading as close as the wind would let us lie for the South American port she instantly grew animated; her eyes brightened, a look of hope and pleasure entered her face, and her voice was full of cheerfulness. The captain, on the other hand, grew gloomier as the day advanced. During his watch on deck from twelve to four he paced the planks without any intermission that I was sensible of, walking nearly always in the same posture, with his hands clasped behind him and his head bowed; and with his long black hair, yellow face, and blue gills he needed nothing but the dress of a monk to look one, rehearsing his part for the cloisters.

Some dinner was taken to him on deck; but I saw Wilkins afterwards carry the dishes forward, and the food appeared to me untouched. At the supper hour he came to the table, but neither ate nor drank. During the greater part of the sitting he kept turning his eyes first on one and then on the other of us with a dim sort of strained interrogative expression in his stare, as though he was struggling with some degree of suffering to dislodge an imagination or idea out of a remote secret cell of his brain and bring it forward into the clear light of his understanding. He seemed to find Miss Temple’s presence a restraint. Sometimes, after eyeing me he’d start as if about to speak, but instantly check himself with a glance at the girl, whilst his face would darken to some mood of irritation and impatience.

Another gloriously fine night followed sunset that day, with a brighter and longerliving moon, and a gushing of breeze that melted through, and through one with the delicious coolness that it brushed off the waters and gathered from the dew. The sea throbbed in flashings of foam, which shone with the radiance of moon-touched snow mingled with spangles of the gold and emerald light of the phosphor. There was a pleasant roaring and hissing noise off the weather bow, with merry whistlings aloft, where the fullthroated canvas soaring to the main-topgallant yard leaned in pale spaces against the stars, with frequent sweeps of the mastheads to the frisky plungings of the clipper hull upon the head seas.

The carpenter was in charge of the deck. He was standing at the rail abreast of the wheel, when it occurred to me to accost him, that I might gather from his replies what notions had been put into his head by the captain having changed the course. I had Miss Temple on my arm, for the deck was hardly safe for her without some such support. We went to the binnacle, and I took a peep at the card, then crossed over to the carpenter.

‘Good-evening, Mr. Lush. A rattling breeze this! Since Rio is our destination, such a draught as this should put us in the way of making it smartly, off her course as the barque is.’

‘I suppose you know what we’re a-going there for?’ he answered in a gruff tone of voice, that left me in doubt as to whether he intended a question or not.

‘You are second mate, and of course are in the captain’s confidence. What should I know that you don’t?’

‘Ah, what?’ he exclaimed, in a voice like a dog’s growl.

Miss Temple slightly pressed my arm, as though she would have me walk away.

‘A vessel like this wants a chief mate,’ said I, ‘some one who knows what to do with the sun and stars.’

‘Oh, then, you’re acquainted with the reason why we’re going to Rio?’ said he in a tone of such impudent sarcasm, that without another word I rounded on my heel and led Miss Temple forward.

‘The brute!’ I exclaimed. ‘But I am rightly served. I have no business to address the surly illiterate baboon.’

‘You know that he knows you have learnt the captain’s motives, if it be true, as you suppose, that Wilkins has repeated to the men what he overheard; why, then, do you feign an ignorance that can only excite the creature’s suspicions?’

‘Suspicions of what?’

‘That you are acting a double part: with the captain for the sake of his buried money, and with the crew for the sake of your safety.’

‘You put it shrewdly, and I am fairly hit,’ said I. ‘I wanted to get at the fellow’s mind, if he has any; it did not occur to me for the moment that he would know through Wilkins of what had passed in the cabin. That is to say if he does know; for after all, Wilkins may not have overheard everything, and for aught we can tell he may not have repeated a syllable of the little that he managed to collect through that bulkhead. No matter, Miss Temple. A fortnight more, please God, and we shall be able to write the word finis to this passage of our adventures.’

‘I shall scarcely know myself again,’ she exclaimed cheerfully, whilst she extended her disengaged white hand to the sheen in the air flowing from the stars and scar of moon, ‘when I put my rings on once more. What an experience! How improbable, and how consistently possible and horribly absolute!’

And then she asked me how far it was from Rio to London; and we went on chatting and pacing, sometimes coming to a stand at the side to watch some sweep of foaming water roaring off from the blow of the lee bow into the weltering gloom until five bells were struck—half-past ten. She then said she felt chilly, and I took her below. It was a little early for bed, however; besides, the excitement of the day still lingered—the signing and witnessing of the queer documents: the captain’s insane dream of a treasure-quest, mad, as we deemed it, at all events: the sense of our speeding now towards a port whence we should be able to take ship and proceed comfortably to England.

I went to the cuddy door and called for Wilkins, and on his arrival told him to put a bottle of the wine that had been brought from the wreck on the table along with some biscuit, and thus furnished, Miss Temple and I managed to kill very nearly another hour. She removed her hat; the lamplight streamed fair upon the marble-like beauty of her face, upon her large, dark, soft, and glowing eyes, upon her rich neglected abundant hair.

‘Do you remember that night,’ I said, ‘in the English Channel, when after the collision with the Frenchman you came to where I stood and asked me to explain what had happened?’

‘I would rather not remember anything that passed between us on board the Indiaman, Mr. Dugdale,’ she replied with a droop of her long lashes as she spoke.

I gazed at her earnestly; a single glance would have enabled her to witness something of passion in my regard at that instant: I bit my lip to check what my instincts assured me would then have been said all too soon, and looking at my watch exclaimed: ‘Hard upon half-past eleven.’

She rose, and together we descended to our inhospitable steerage quarters.

CHAPTER XXXII
A TRAGEDY

How long it was before I fell asleep I cannot say. The humming of the wake racing away close outside was noisy; the light cargo in the steerage creaked and strained, and the thump of the rudder was frequent, and sometimes startling. I was aroused by a continuous knocking on the bulkhead. It was pitch-dark, despite a small sliding dance of stars in the porthole glass. I thought the knocking was upon my door, and cried out, ‘What is it?’ It did not cease; and gathering by this time that it proceeded from the bulkhead that divided the cabins, I jumped out of my bunk and beat upon the boards to let Miss Temple know I heard her.

I called; but though I caught her voice, I could not distinguish her utterance. I had turned in partially clothed, and groping my way to the door, stepped forth and knocked upon her cabin. The handle was touched and I was sensible that the girl’s door was ajar.

‘Are you there, Mr. Dugdale?’

‘Yes. What is the matter?’

‘Did not you hear a pistol-shot?’

‘No,’ I cried.

‘I am certain a firearm has been discharged,’ she exclaimed.

‘Stay a bit,’ said I. ‘I will see if anything is wrong, and let you know.’

After some groping, I succeeded in lighting the candle in my lantern; and then slipping on my shoes, I made for the hatch ladder, which I was able to see by leaving my cabin door open. I entered the cuddy and listened. The lamp had been extinguished; but a sort of spectral illumination of stars and white water came sifting through the skylight and the port-holes and the little windows in the cuddy front, and I was able to determine the outline of objects. All was right in this interior, so far as I could tell. I listened; but not so much as a footfall sounded upon the upper deck, not a note of human voice or movement of men forward. The barque was sweeping through the seas bravely, and the atmosphere of the cuddy was vibratory with the resonant cries of the wind up aloft.

I made for the cuddy door and looked out; nothing stirred on the quarter-deck that ran pallid into the impenetrable shadow past the waist. I returned to the companion steps, which I mounted, and stood in the hatch a moment or two. There was nobody on the poop saving the man at the helm. I stepped over to him and said, ‘Where’s the captain?’

‘He’s gone below,’ he answered; ‘he told me he wouldn’t be long.’

‘When did he leave the deck?’

‘Seven or eight minutes ago, belike.’

‘Did you hear a noise just now that resembled a pistol-shot?’ I inquired.

‘No, sir,’ he answered. ‘But who’s to hear anything atop of this here shindy of wind and water?’

‘That’s true,’ I exclaimed. ‘I doubt if the noise will have meant more than a fall of something below. It is the lady who heard the sound, and I’ve just stepped up to see what it might mean. It’s to be hoped the captain won’t linger. This is not a breeze in which to leave a ship in charge of her helmsman only.’

And indeed the little craft wanted too much watching on the part of the fellow to suffer him to talk or to permit of my calling off his attention from his duty. I resolved to wait, that there might be some sort of lookout kept whilst the captain stayed below. The breeze had freshened, I thought, since I left the deck; there was a dim windy look, moreover, all away out to starboard; and the barque close hauled was making the wind to come as hard again as it was blowing, in fact, through her thrusting, plunging, nimble manner of looking up into it. The mainsail is too much for her, thought I; it should be furled. There is a staysail or two too many, also; and that top-gallant sail will have to come in anon, if the look of the sky out yonder means what it threatens.

Five minutes passed, but the captain did not make his appearance. The sound that Miss Temple had heard was beginning to work an ugly fancy in my mind. I stepped aft to the wheel.

‘Did the captain tell you why he was going below?’

‘No, sir,’ was the answer. ‘He’d been standing for about a quarter of an hour stock still; then he comes soddenly in a sort o’ run to the binnacle, takes a look at the card, and says: “Keep her as she goes; nothing off: see to it! I shan’t be long.” That was all.’

At that instant the wind breezed up in a gust that came in a long howl over the weather rail, and the little vessel bowed down to it till the smother alongside looked to be up to the covering-board.

‘No use waiting for the captain,’ said I, made irritable by anxiety; ‘we shall have the masts out of her if we don’t mind our eye;’ and running forward, I shouted at the top of my voice: ‘Lay aft and haul up the mainsail!’

In a moment the watch came tumbling out of the darkness forward. Their manner of rushing gave me to know that they had been standing by for the order to shorten sail, and were wondering why it had not been delivered sooner.

‘Furl it, lads,’ I shouted, ‘when you’ve hauled it up; but first get your maintopgallant staysail hauled down. I must find out what has become of the captain.’

Without losing another moment, I ran into the cuddy and knocked upon the door of the captain’s cabin. No answer was returned. I knocked again, thundering with my fist; then tried the handle, and found the door locked. ‘Good God!’ thought I, ‘the man has shot himself. That will be the meaning of the sound Miss Temple heard.’ As I turned for a moment, utterly at a loss how to act, the girl rose through the hatch close to where I stood. She held in her hand the lantern I had left alight in my berth.

‘What has happened?’ she cried.

‘I have no notion as yet,’ I responded; ‘but I fear the captain has shot himself. Let me take that lantern from you.’