A Life For a Love Part 28

He made his plans very carefully; he knew to effect his object he must be extremely careful. He would die, but it must never be supposed, never breathed by mortal soul that he had pa.s.sed out of this world except by accident. He knew perfectly what the captain thought of him during the first couple of days of his residence on board the _Esperance_.

"Captain Jellyby is positive that I am touched in the head," thought Wyndham. "I must undo that suspicion."

He took pains, and he succeeded admirably. Wyndham was not only a favorite on board, but he was cheerful, he was gay. People remarked not on his high but on his good spirits.

"Such a merry, light-hearted fellow," they said of him.

Wyndham overheard these remarks now and then. The captain openly delighted in him.

"The s.h.i.+p will never be lucky again when you leave her," he said.

"You're worth a free pa.s.sage to any captain. Why you keep us all in good humor. Pa.s.sengers, emigrants, sailors and all. Here, come along. I thought you rather a gloomy young chap when first I set eyes on you; but now--ah, well, you were homesick. Quite accountable. Here, I have a request from the second mate, and one or two more of the jack tars down there. They want you to sing them a song after supper. They say it isn't fair that we should have you to ourselves in the saloon."

Gerald laughed, said he would be happy to oblige the sailors, and walked away.

"As jolly a chap as ever I laid eyes on," muttered the captain. "I liked him from the first, but I was mistaken in him. I thought him gloomy. Not a bit. I wonder his wife could bear to let him out of her sight. I wouldn't if I were a la.s.s. There, hark to him now! Bless me, we are having a pleasant voyage this time."

So they were. No one was ill; the amount of rough weather was decidedly below the average, and cheerfulness and contentment reigned on board.

The s.h.i.+p touched at Teneriffe, but only for a few hours, and then sped on her way to the Cape. It was now getting very hot, and an awning was spread over the deck. Under this the saloon pa.s.sengers sat, and smoked and read. No one suspected, no one had the faintest shadow of a suspicion that black care lurked anywhere on board that happy s.h.i.+p, least of all in the breast of the merriest of its crew, Gerald Wyndham.

The _Esperance_ reached the Cape in safety, there some of the pa.s.sengers, Gerald amongst them, landed, for the captain intended to lie at anchor for twenty-four hours. Then again they were away, and now they were told they must expect colder weather for they were entering the Southern Ocean, and were approaching high lat.i.tudes of polar cold.

They would have to go through the rough sea of the "Roaring Forties,"

and then again they would emerge into tropical suns.h.i.+ne.

Soon after they left the Cape, little Cecily Harvey fell ill. She caught a chill and was feverish, and the doctor and her mother forbade her to go on deck. She was only eight years old, a pretty, winsome child. Gerald felt a special tenderness for her, for she reminded him of his own little sister Joan. During this illness she often lay for hours in his arms, with her little feverish cheek pressed against his, and her tiny hot hand comforted by his firm cool clasp.

"Mr. Wyndham," she said on one of these occasions. "I wish you wouldn't do it."

"Do what, Cecily?"

"Run up the rigging as you do. I heard one of the sailors talking to Mrs. Meyrich the other day, and he said you were too daring, and some day you'd have a slip, and be overboard, if you did not look sharp."

"Oh, I'll take care of myself, Cecily. At one time I thought of being a sailor, and I was always climbing, always climbing at home. There isn't the least fear. I'm not rash. I'm a very careful fellow."

"Are you? I'm glad of that. Had you tall trees at your home?"

Gerald gave the little hand a squeeze.

"They were like other trees," he said. "Don't let us talk of them."

"Mustn't we? I'm sorry. I wanted to hear all about your home."

"I haven't a home, Cecily. Once I had one, but you can understand that it is painful to speak of what one has lost."

"I'm very sorry for you, dear Mr. Wyndham. Did you lose a little sister, too? Is that why you squeeze me so tight?"

"I have lost many little sisters; we won't talk of them, either. What is the matter, Cecily? Do you feel faint?"

"No, but I hate this rough, choppy sea. I want it to be smooth again as it used to be. Then I can go on deck, and lie under the awning, and you can sit near me, and tell me stories. Will you?"

Gerald did not answer.

"_Will_ you, Mr. Wyndham?"

"I can lie to everyone else but not to the child," muttered Gerald.

He roused himself, and sought to divert her attention.

"We are in the 'Roaring Forties' now," he said. "Isn't that a funny name? The sea is always very choppy and rough here, but it won't last long. You will soon be in pleasant weather and smooth seas again."

Cecily was not satisfied, and Gerald presently left her and went on deck.

The weather was not pleasant just now, it was cold and squally, always veering about and causing a choppy and disagreeable motion with the s.h.i.+p. Some of the ladies took again to their beds, and went through another spell of sea-sickness; the more fortunate ones sat and chatted in the great saloon--not one of them ventured on deck. Gerald, who was not in the least indisposed in body, found plenty to do in his _role_ of general cheerer and comforter. When he was not nursing little Cecily he spent some time with the emigrants, amongst whom he was a great favorite.

On this particular day a round-faced young woman of five and twenty, a certain Mrs. Notley, came up to him the moment he appeared on the lower deck.

"They do say it, sir, and I thought I'd speak to you, so that you wouldn't mind. They do say you're over rash in helping the sailors--over rash, and none so sure-footed as you think yourself."

"Folly," said Gerald, laughing good-humoredly. "So I can't run up a rope or tighten a rigging without people imagining that I am putting my precious life in jeopardy. Don't you listen to any foolish tales, Mrs.

Notley. I'm a great deal too fond of myself to run any risks. I shan't slip, if that's what you mean--for that matter I have always been climbing, since I was a little chap no bigger than that urchin of yours there."

"Ay, sir, that's all very well, but it's different for all that on board s.h.i.+p; there may come a lurch when you least look for it, and then the surest-footed and the surest-handed is sometimes outwitted. You'll excuse my mentioning of it, sir, but you're a bonny young gentleman, and you has the goodwill of everyone on board."

"Thank you, Mrs. Notley, I like to hear you say so. It is pleasant to be liked."

"Ah, sure you are that, and no mistake, and you'll forgive me mentioning it, sir, but you'll be careful, won't you? You ain't married for sure, for your face is too lightsome for that of a married man. But maybe you has a mother and a sweetheart, and you might think of them, sir, and not be over daring."

Wyndham's face grew suddenly white.

"As it happens I have neither a mother nor sweetheart," he said. Then he turned away somewhat abruptly, and Mrs. Notley feared she had offended him.

The sailors prophesied "dirty weather;" they expected it, for this was the roughest part of the voyage. Gerald was very fond of talking to the sailors and getting their opinions. He strolled over to where a group of them were standing now, and they pointed to some ugly looking clouds, and told him that the storm would be on them by night.

Nothing very bad, or to be alarmed at, they said, still a rough and nasty sea, with a bit of a gale blowing. The women and children wouldn't like it, poor things, and it would be a dark night too, no moon.

Gerald asked a few more questions.

"I have a great anxiety to see a storm," he said. "If it gets really stormy, I'll come up; I can shelter beside the man at the wheel."

"Better not, sir," one or two said. "The vessel is sure to lurch over a good bit, and it takes more sea-weather legs than yours to keep their footing at such a time."

"All the same," remarked a burly-looking sailor, who was to take his place at the wheel for some hours that night, and thought Gerald's company would be a decided acquisition, "I could put the gent into a corner where he'd be safe enough round here, and it's something to see a gale in these parts--something to live for--not that there'll be much to-night, only a bit of a dirty sea; but still----"

"Expect me, Loggan, if it does come," said Wyndham. He laughed and turned away. He walked slowly along the upper deck. Captain Jellyby came up and had a word with him.

"Yes, we're in for a dirty night," he remarked.

Then Wyndham went downstairs. He chatted for a little with the ladies in the saloon. Then he went into his own cabin. He shut the door. The time had arrived--the hour had come.