The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories Part 11

Before long it was so near that I could see people on board. I arose and looked over the rail. Then some one on the steamer fired a gun or a pistol. As this seemed to be a signal, I waved my hat. Then the steamer began to move more slowly, and soon lay to and lowered a boat.

In ten minutes three men stood on the deck of the _Sparhawk_. Some one had hailed me in English to lower something. I had lowered nothing; but here they were on deck. They asked me a lot of questions, but I answered none of them.

"Is your captain with you?" I said. They answered that he was not, that he was on the steamer. "Then take me to him," said I.

"Of course we will," said their leader, with a smile. And they took me.

I was received on the steamer with much cordiality and much questioning, but to none of it did I pay any attention. I addressed the captain.

"Sir," said I, "I will be obliged to you if you will immediately cruise to the southwest and pick up for me a life-preserver with a little white flag attached to it. It also carries a message for me, wrapped up in a piece of oiled silk. It is very important that I should obtain that message without delay."

The captain laughed. "Why, man!" said he, "what are you thinking of? Do you suppose that I can go out of my course to cruise after a life-preserver?"

I looked at him with scorn. "Unmanly fiend!" said I.

Another officer now approached, whom I afterward knew to be the s.h.i.+p's doctor.

"Come, come now," he said, "don't let us have any hard words. The captain is only joking. Of course he will steam after your life-preserver, and no doubt will come up with it very soon. In the mean-time you must come below and have something to eat and drink and rest yourself."

Satisfied with this a.s.surance, I went below, was given food and medicine, and was put into a berth, where I remained for four days in a half-insensible condition, knowing nothing--caring for nothing.

When I came on deck again I was very weak, but I had regained my senses, and the captain and I talked rationally together. I told him how I had come on board the _Sparhawk_, and how I had fallen in with the _La Fidelite_, half wrecked, having on board only a dear friend of mine. In answer to his questions I described the details of the communications between the two vessels, and could not avoid mentioning the wild hopes and heart-breaking disappointments of that terrible time. And, somewhat to my languid surprise, the captain asked no questions regarding these subjects. I finished by thanking him for having taken me from the wreck, but added that I felt like a false-hearted coward for having deserted upon the sea the woman I loved, who now would never know my fate nor I hers.

"Don't be too sure of that," said the captain, "for you are about to hear from her now."

I gazed at him in blank amazement. "Yes," said the captain, "I have seen her, and she has sent me to you. But I see you are all knocked into a heap, and I will make the story as short as I can. This vessel of mine is bound from Liverpool to La Guayra, and on the way down we called at Lisbon. On the morning of the day I was to sail from there, there came into port the _Glanford_, a big English merchantman, from Buenos Ayres to London. I knew her skipper, Captain Guy Chesters, as handsome a young English sailor as ever stood upon a deck.

"In less than an hour from the time we dropped anchor, Captain Guy was on my vessel. He was on the lookout, he said, for some craft bound for South America or the West Indies, and was delighted to find me there.

Then he told me that, ten days before, he had taken two ladies from a half-wrecked French steamer, and that they had prayed and besought him to cruise about and look for the _Sparhawk_, a helpless s.h.i.+p, with a friend of theirs alone on board.

"'You know,' said Captain Guy to me, 'I couldn't do that, for I'd lost time enough already, and the wind was very light and variable; so all I could do was to vow to the ladies that when we got to Lisbon we'd be bound to find a steamer going south, and that she could easily keep a lookout for the _Sparhawk_, and take off the friend.' 'That was a pretty big contract you marked out for the steamer going south,' I said, 'and as for the _Sparhawk_, she's an old derelict, and I sighted her on my voyage north, and sent in a report of her position, and there couldn't have been anybody on board of her then.' 'Can't say,' said Captain Guy; 'from what I can make out, this fellow must have boarded her a good while after she was abandoned, and seems to have been lying low after that.' Was that so, sir? Did you lie low?"

I made no answer. My whole soul was engaged in the comprehension of the fact that Bertha had sent for me. "Go on!" I cried.

"All right," said he. "I ought not to keep you waiting. I promised Captain Guy I would keep a lookout for the _Sparhawk_, and take you off if you were on board. I promised the quicker, because my conscience was growling at me for having, perhaps, pa.s.sed a fellow-being on an abandoned vessel. But I had heard of the _Sparhawk_ before. I had sighted her, and so didn't keep a very sharp lookout for living beings aboard. Then Captain Guy took me on board his s.h.i.+p to see the two ladies, for they wanted to give me instructions themselves. And I tell you what, sir, you don't often see two prettier women on board s.h.i.+p, nor anywhere else, for that matter. Captain Guy told me that before I saw them. He was in great spirits about his luck. He is the luckiest fellow in the merchant service. Now, if I had picked up two people that way, it would have been two old men. But he gets a couple of lovely ladies; that's the way the world goes. The ladies made me pretty nigh swear that I'd never set foot on sh.o.r.e till I found you. I would have been glad enough to stay there all day and make promises to those women; but my time was short, and I had to leave them to Captain Guy.

So I did keep a lookout for the _Sparhawk_, and heard of her from two vessels coming north, and finally fell in with you. And a regular lunatic you were when I took you on board; but that's not to be wondered at; and you seem to be all right now."

"Did you not bring me any message from them?" I asked.

"Oh, yes; lots," said the captain. "Let me see if I can remember some of them." And then he knit his brows and tapped his head, and repeated some very commonplace expressions of encouragement and sympathy.

The effect of these upon me was very different from what the captain had expected. I had hoped for a note, a line--anything direct from Bertha. If she had written something which would explain the meaning of those last words from Mary Phillips, whether that explanation were favorable or otherwise, I would have been better satisfied; but now my terrible suspense must continue.

"Well," said the captain, "you don't seem cheered up much by word from your friends. I was too busy looking at them to rightly catch everything they said, but I know they told me they were going to London in the _Glanford_. This I remembered, because it struck me what a jolly piece of good luck it all was for Captain Guy."

"And for what port are you bound?" I asked. "La Guayra," he said. "It isn't a very good time of the year to be there; but I don't doubt that you can find some vessel or other there that will take you north, so you're all right."

I was not all right. Bertha was saved. I was saved; but I had received no message. I knew nothing; and I was going away from her.

Two or three days after this, the captain came to me and said: "Look here, young man; you seem to be in the worst kind of doleful dumps.

People who have been picked up in the middle of the ocean don't generally look like that. I wonder if you're not a little love-sick on account of a young woman on the _Glanford_."

I made no answer; I would not rebuke him, for he had saved my life; but this was a subject which I did not wish to discuss with a sea-captain.

"If that's really what's the matter with you," said he, "I can give you a piece of advice which will do you good if you take it. I think you told me that you are not engaged to this lady," (I nodded) "and that you never proposed to her except through a speaking-trumpet." I allowed silence to make a.s.sent. "Well, now, my advice is to give her up, to drop all thoughts of her, and to make up your mind to tackle onto some other girl when you find one that is good enough. You haven't the least chance in the world with this one. Captain Guy is mad in love with her. He told me so himself, and when he's out and out in love with a girl he's bound to get her. When I was with him he might have been married once a month if he'd chosen to; but he didn't choose. Now he does choose, and I can tell you that he's not going to make love through a speaking-trumpet. He'll go straight at it, and he'll win, too. There's every reason why he should win. In the first place, he's one of the handsomest fellows, and I don't doubt one of the best love-makers that you would be likely to meet on land or sea. And then again, she has every reason to be grateful to him and to look on him as a hero."

I listened without a word. The captain's reasoning seemed to me very fallacious.

"You don't know it," said he, "but Captain Guy did a good deal more than pick up those two women from an abandoned vessel. You see he was making his way north with a pretty fair wind from the south-west, the first they'd had for several days, and when his lookout sighted _La Fidelite_ n.o.body on board thought for a minute that he would try to beat up to her, for she lay a long way to the west of his course, though pretty well in sight.

"But Captain Guy has sharp eyes and a good gla.s.s, and he vowed that he could see something on the wreck that looked like a handkerchief waved by a woman. He told me this himself as we were walking from my s.h.i.+p to his. Everybody laughed at him and wanted to know if women waved handkerchiefs different from other people.

"They said that any bit of canvas might wave like that, and that it was plain enough that the vessel was abandoned. If it was not, it could be, for there was a boat still hanging to one of its davits. Captain Guy paid no attention to this, but spied a little longer; then he vowed that he was going to make for that vessel. There was one of the owners on board, and he up and forbid Captain Guy to do it. He told him that they had been delayed enough on the voyage by light winds, and now that they would be over-due at their port a good many days before they got there. Every day lost, he said, was money lost to the owners. He had never heard of any skipper undertaking a piece of tomfoolery like this.

It would take all day to beat up to that wreck, and when they reached it they would find an old derelict, which was no more than they could see now. And as for there being a woman on board, that was all stuff.

The skipper had woman on the brain.

"To this Captain Guy answered that he didn't own the s.h.i.+p, but he commanded her, and as long as he commanded this vessel or any other, he was not going to pa.s.s a wreck when there were good reasons to believe that there was a human being on board of it, and in spite of what anybody said, his eyes told him that there was reason to believe that there was somebody waving on that wreck. So he ordered the s.h.i.+p put about, paying no attention to the cursing and swearing of the owner, and beat against a wind that was getting lighter and lighter for over four hours until he reached the French steamer and took off the two ladies.

"There was n.o.body on board the _Glanford_ that thinks that Captain Guy will ever sail that s.h.i.+p again. And in fact he don't think so himself.

But said he to me: "If I can marry that girl, the s.h.i.+p can go. If I can't get another s.h.i.+p, I can sail under a skipper. But there's no other girl in the world like this one."

"And so you see, sir," he continued, "there isn't the least chance in the world for you. Captain Guy's got her on board his s.h.i.+p; he's with her by sunlight and starlight. He's lost his s.h.i.+p for her and he wants to marry her. And on the other hand, it'll be weeks and weeks and perhaps months before you can see her, or write to her either, as like as not, and long before that Captain Guy will have his affair settled, and there isn't any reason in my mind to doubt which way it will settle. And so you just take my advice, sir, and stop drawing that long face. There are plenty of good girls in the world; no reason why you shouldn't get one; but if you are moping for the one that Captain Guy's got his heart set on, I'm afraid you'll end by being as much out of your head as you were when I found you."

To all this I made no answer, but walked gloomily toward the stern and looked down into the foaming wake. I think I heard the captain tell one of the men to keep an eye on me.

When we reached La Guayra--and the voyage seemed to me a never-ending one--I immediately set about finding a vessel bound for England. My captain advised me to go up on the mountains and wait until a steamer should sail for New York, which event might be expected in two or three weeks. America would be much better for me, he thought, than would England. But I paid no attention to him, and as there was nothing in port that would sail for England, I took pa.s.sage in a Spanish steamer bound for Barcelona. Arriving there, after a pa.s.sage long enough to give me plenty of time for the consideration of the last two words I heard from Mary Phillips, and of the value of the communications I had received regarding Captain Guy Chesters, I immediately started by rail for London. On this journey I found that what I had heard concerning the rescue of my Bertha had had a greater effect upon me than I had supposed. Trains could not go fast enough for me. I was as restless as a maniac; I may have looked like one.

Over and over I tried to quiet myself by comforting reflections, saying to myself, for instance, that if the message which Bertha had sent floating on the sea to me had not been a good one, she would not have sent it. Feel as she might, she could not have been so hard-hearted as to crush the hopes of a man who, like herself, might soon lie in a watery grave. But then, there was that terrible word "but." Looked at in certain lights, what could be more crus.h.i.+ng or heart-breaking than that?

And then again, Mary Phillips may not have understood what I said to her through the speaking-trumpet. A grim humor of despair suggested that at that distance, and in that bl.u.s.tering wind, the faithful maid-servant might have thought that instead of shouting that I loved my Bertha, I was asking her if they had plenty of salt pork and hardtack. It was indeed a time of terrible suspense.

I did not know Bertha's address in England. I knew that she had friends in London and others in the country; but I was sure that I would find her if she were on the island. I arrived in London very early in the morning, too early to expect to find open any of the banking-houses or other places where Americans would be likely to register. Unable to remain inactive, I took a cab and drove to the London docks.

I went to inquire the whereabouts of Captain Guy Chesters.

This plan of action was almost repulsive to me, but I felt that it offered an opportunity which I should not neglect. I would certainly learn about Bertha if I saw him, and whether it would be anything good or anything bad I ought to know it.

In making my inquiries the cabman was of much a.s.sistance to me. And after having been referred from one person to another, I at last found a man, first mate of a vessel in the docks, who knew Captain Chesters, and could tell me all about him.

"Yes, sir," said he, "I can tell you where to find Captain Chesters.

He's on sh.o.r.e, for he doesn't command the _Glanford_ now, and as far as I know he hasn't signed articles yet either as skipper or mate in any other craft. The fact is, he's engaged in business, which I suppose he thinks better than sailing the sea. He was married about a month ago.

It's only two or three days since he's got back from a little land trip they took on the Continent. I saw him yesterday; he's the happiest man alive. But it's as like as not that he's ready for business now that he's got through with his honeymoon, and if it's a skipper you're looking for you can't find a better man than Captain Guy, not about these docks."

I stood and looked at the man without seeing him, and then in a hollow voice asked: "Where does he live?"

"A hundred and nine Lisbury Street, Calistoy Road, East. Now that I've told you, I wish I hadn't. You look as though you were going to measure him for a coffin."

"Thank you," said I, and walked away.