Morley Ashton: A Story of the Sea. Volume 1 (of 3)

CHAPTER XIII.

ACTON CHINE.

More than three weeks have now elapsed since that eventful evening which saw Hawkshaw and Morley Ashton ascending the steep pathway that leads to Acton Chine, and which, moreover, saw the first-named personage traversing the same path homeward—but alone.

Though Morley was flung over the cliff, and though the turf which he grasped gave way, so that he actually fell into the yawning gulf below, he was not fated to perish.

But before the turf parted in his despairing grasp, poor Morley lived a lifetime, as it were, of keen agony.

He knew the profundity of the awful abyss that yawned in blackness far down beneath him, and he heard the roaring of the fierce waves, that leaped and boiled as if impatient of their prey.

The chine we have stated as being about 400 feet in height; its depth, to the bottom of the sea, we have no means of knowing, the foundation of its rocks being far below where mortal eye can fathom.

After the name of Ethel escaped him, he had no power to utter another cry, for the terrible expression which he read in the malignant face of Hawkshaw, while standing safely on the brink above, paralysed him, and he remained silent—but silently desperate, in his wild and despairing attempts to raise himself up, and to regain a footing on the cliff; but he had no purchase (to use a mechanical term); thus, while clinging by his hands, his feet and knees scraped fruitlessly on the hard face of the basaltic rocks.

Mechanically, too, he moved his body, as one who, in sleep, dreams, and is afraid of falling.

He felt the turf rending, the last clutch of life parting, by the very efforts he made to save it. Then a blindness seemed to come upon him—a mist, through which the form of Hawkshaw seemed dilated to colossal proportions, towering between him and the sky like a destroying angel, while the roaring of the sea beneath seemed to fill all space, as with the roll of thunder.

Bead-drops of agony oozed upon his icy brow, while despair and the terror of death were in his heart, and though the whole episode lasted little more, perhaps, than a single minute, Morley Ashton lived, as we have stated, a lifetime of agony!

The turf gave way! a sigh—it seemed his parting soul—escaped him; he fell, and vanished from the eyes of Hawkshaw.

But Heaven had ordained that the poor lad was not to perish. About thirty-five, perhaps forty feet below the verge of the chine, there extends a ledge or abutting piece of rock, about five feet broad, and eight or ten feet long, so far as the eye may judge of it from the seaward, as mortal hand has never measured it; and on this natural shelf he fell heavily, and almost senseless by emotion and the shock.

A thick coarse moss, of a kind that has grown there for ages, mingled with a species of guano deposited by the sea-birds, received him softly, and broke the force of his fall, which, had the face of the basalt been bare, must have produced the most fatal injuries.

For some time Morley thought all was over, and he lay still—half stunned alike by the shock and by the suddenness of the whole event. Then his heart filled with a gush of gratitude to Heaven that he was saved, till reflection brought a thrill of horror that he was now utterly lost.

He heard still the ceaseless roaring and bellowing of the breakers, gurgling, sucking, and surging in the chine; he heard also the wild screaming of the sea-birds above and below him, as the astonished gulls and cormorants wheeled in circles, or alighted on the shelf of rock beside him, and flapped their wings with a sharp and at times booming sound.

The evening passed away, and night came on before Morley dared to stir, to move, or look about him. In all its starry splendour, he could see the Plough and the glorious stream of the Milky Way.

Then the moon, that whilom rose as we have said, red and round as a crimson shield, at the far verge of the watery horizon, had gradually reached almost to the zenith, when her disc, small and sharply defined, shone like a ball of glowing silver amid the sparkling ether.

A broad flake of her glorious sheen poured aslant into the gaping chine, increasing, perhaps, its weird and ghastly aspect; but this broad stream of light enabled poor Morley to examine the place of his fall, and he soon saw in all their details the horrors of his hopeless situation.

Above, the rock ascended sheer as a wall to the height we have stated—a wall up which it was hopeless to think of climbing.

Below, the cliff receded from the ledge on which he lay, so that in reality the sea was foaming completely beneath him.

From the land-side his position could neither be seen nor even discovered in any way whatever; and even if it were so, in what way were the finders to succour him?

How many ships might pass before even a sailor's ready eye might detect a human figure perched so far up, among the hungry cormorants and shrieking sea-mews?

Without shelter, food, or water, how long could he survive on the giddy shelf of that storm-beaten sea-cliff, where he dared not close an eye lest he might roll into eternity below?

To ascend was impracticable; to descend was to die!

How awful it was to see the white sea-birds skimming the ocean with wings outspread, or floating in the air, and know that they were more than 300 feet below him!

If descried by the crew of a fisher-boat, the idea occurred to him of risking a plunge into the water: but from this desperate thought his heart recoiled at once. To fall whizzing through the air from such a height would insure his falling breathless into the sea, so that its waves would close over him when his lungs were empty, and he would never rise again.

Days might pass, and nights would certainly pass, during which no eye could see him, save those of the sea-birds that wheeled in circles round him, as if impatient of their repast, from which his apparent life and power of action—as he "who-whooped" from time to time to scare them—as yet denied their craving beaks and bills, but only as yet, for he anticipated with horror a time when, faint and expiring, they might pounce down in one voracious flock and rend him piecemeal.

And thus Ethel, life, hope, and the world, were all cut off from him at one fell swoop, by a single blow of Hawkshaw's felon hand.

Conquered, powerless, and crushed by the united horrors of his situation; unseen, unknown, left to die within a pistol-shot of help, within forty feet of safety, he cowered his face between his knees, and murmuring, "Oh, villain! villain!" he wept like a child.

So the breakers continued to boom, so sickening in their monotony, far down below, and the night passed on. Morley strove to pray, but his mind was a chaos; he could neither thank Heaven for his first escape, nor implore aid for the future. For a time he was stupefied.

So the wild sea-birds—the black-billed auk, the mouse-coloured guillemot, the huge white gull, the rank, coarse cormorant, whose shape Milton describes Satan as assuming, when devising death, he perched upon the Tree of Life—continued to wheel and scream around the miserable Morley, who remained on his lofty perch in an agony of spirit.

The sea ebbed and flowed again; the moon paled and waned; the clouds gathered in heaven and divided again. Day stole over the brightening ocean, and gradually a bright May morning—the same morning when, creeping from Rose's side, the weeping Ethel drew the curtains of her window, and looked forth upon the upland path that led to this fatal spot.

The morning star twinkled brightly and propitiously above the edge of the chine, and then its light faded into radiance of the growing dawn.

And with day came hope, that if he was doomed to die it might not be unseen. Morley wiped his damp brow and eyes with his handkerchief, for though the season was summer, the atmosphere was damp and chill upon the cliff above the sea.

He heard once the voice of a lark, but it was high above him.

From the place where he sat, Morley's eye could command a range of about eight miles of sea, and as the day dawned he anxiously swept the offing, but in vain; nothing was visible, but what the Ancient Mariner saw, "the sea and sky, the sea and sky," till about sunrise, when a white sail and the smoke of a steamer, both hull down, could be seen at the horizon, some thirty miles off; thus, so far as succour was concerned, they might as well have been beyond the equator.

Fourteen hours had he now been missing.

What would be the emotions, the bewilderment, the grief of Ethel?—what the specious, the artful, it might be the villainous story framed by Hawkshaw to account for his disappearance? It might be one that would blast his character, blacken his memory, and sever even her love from him.

Was not a murderer capable of anything?

Now a fisher-boat, brown and tarry, with a patched lugsail, of no particular hue, bellying out in the fresh morning breeze, with the snow-white foam bubbling under her sharp prow, shot into sight about two miles off.

Morley shouted, though he might have saved himself the trouble, for the two men who formed her crew could no more have heard him than if he had been in the moon; but he could not repress the impulse that made him halloo to them again and again.

He waved his white handkerchief frantically. If observed, it would seem but a sea-bird's wing at such a distance; but the two black specks in the fishing-boat were seated with their backs to the shore, one intent upon handling his tiller, the other grasped the sheet, and both were enjoying their pipes and gazing seaward; so the boat, with her bellying sail, and foam-dripping prow, passed on, and Morley remained still unseen and alone.

Other three boats passed, under a press of sail, towards the fishing ground; but they were far off—so far that he scarcely made any attempt to signal them.

He felt no hunger; but now a thirst, which he had no means of allaying, and which the saline property of the atmosphere tended to increase, came upon him to add to his troubles and misery of mind and body.

Now a steamer passed, bound for Ireland, or the Isle of Man.

She was nearly ten miles off; but in the hope some idling tourist or passenger might be scanning the coast with a telescope or lorgnette, he continued, with anxious vigour, to wave his handkerchief, but waved it in vain, for she sped on her course and rapidly disappeared, though the long, smoky pennant, emitted by her funnel, lingered for hours across the sky before it melted into thin air and passed away.

And still the angry waves boomed below, and the greedy sea-birds wheeled and screamed around him. How he longed for wings like the latter!

"Oh, Heaven!" he exclaimed, "aid, inspire, and sustain me for a little time, or let me perish at once, and end this day of horror!"

More than once, he actually conceived the idea of endeavouring to lure a couple of gulls within his grasp, and then to plunge into the sea, in the hope that their flapping and outspread pinions might break the force of his descent; and once safely in the ocean, he knew that he could swim round the chine, and reach the level beach that lies about a quarter of a mile to the westward of it.

But he might as well have hoped to catch the distant clouds or the hues of the rainbow, as those wild gulls and gannets.

So the weary day passed on, and, with horror, he contemplated the prospects of another night of hopeless watching, of sleeplessness and thirst, for he dared not close his eyes, even for a moment, lest drowsiness should come upon him, when he might topple from his perch into the eternity that yawned below.

The rising wind moaned in the chine, and waved the tufts of samphire below, and those of the grass forty feet above his head.

The sun was verging to the westward. The breeze, which had been soft and mild all day, changed, and blew keenly against the cliff, rolling the sea in billows before it; and now, about six o'clock in the evening, so far as Morley could judge—as his watch had been broken in his fall—a smart, square-rigged vessel—a ship, as he soon perceived—lying as near the wind as she could, on a long starboard tack, came gradually near the shore.

When she first hove in sight she might have been six miles off, but was running steadily towards the chine.

Morley knew that she would come within half a mile, or less, of the coast, without going about or shortening sail, as the water was so deep; so he resolved not to miss this chance of life and rescue!

To have a larger signal than his handkerchief, he drew off his white shirt, and, holding it by the sleeves, permitted the whole garment to wave out like a banner on the wind.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE RESCUE.

On came the beautiful ship, with all her white canvas shining in the setting sun. Her deck, on which, from his fearful perch, Morley could look completely down, was spotless, and her crew seemed pigmies, herself a toy, but one, nevertheless, instinct with life, as she flew before the breeze, careening gracefully over, with the white foam curling under the bows, and sweeping past her counter, to form a long grey wake in the green sea astern.

Frantically Morley waved his impromptu banner, his signal of distress; and long he continued to do so, bathed in perspiration, and enduring an agony of hope and anxiety, before he could perceive the crew hastening to the bows, the forecastle bitts, and some ascending into the fore-rigging, as if to have a better look at him.

"Hurrah! and blessed be God, they have seen me!" he exclaimed.

At that moment up went the scarlet ensign to the gaff-peak, from whence it was dipped once, and hoisted again, as a signal that he had been observed.

On she comes; and now she is about half a mile distant from the rocks of Acton Chine. A man is heaving the lead in the fore-chains, but no soundings are there for more than forty fathoms; and borne over the water, and upward through the ambient air, the words of command came clearly to Morley's excited ear.

Now the headsails shiver, heavily flap the jib, forestaysail, and foretopmast-staysail, round swings the main and maintopsail yards sharp to windward, and now she lies to, with her broadside to the shore.

A quarter-boat is lowered; six men—Morley can count them—drop into her; something is thrown in, Morley knows not what, but a telescope would have revealed that it is a coil of stout rope.

Now the oars are shipped. Bravo! she is shoved off, and the dripping blades flash in the last rays of the setting sun, as she darts from the ship's side, and sweeps round the promontory, and out of sight, towards the little cove, where Morley knew there was a landing-place and little strip of white sand.

Morley waited nearly an hour—it seemed an age—after this. The ship still lay off the rocky shore, rolling heavily on the ground swell—so heavily, that the cracking flap of her loose canvas reached his ear sometimes. Once the mainyard was slued round, and sail was made on her for a little way, as if she had been drifted by wind and current rather too close in shore; but again the yard was backed, and, as before, she lay to, motionless and still.

The sun had gone down, dusk was stealing over the land, and the warm saffron flush that bathed the western sea and sky became obscured by masses of copper-coloured clouds.

Morley's heart beat wildly; he listened, but heard only the boom of the eternal breakers in the horrid grave that yawned below, and the screaming of the sea-birds around him.

Suddenly he heard a cheer—the mingled shout of several voices—ring in mid-air above him. Oh, how his poor heart bounded at the sound!

He looked upward, as he had done a hundred times before, but saw nothing, save the impending rock, for a time, till suddenly something appeared to swing over it, between him and the sky.

Down it came, and soon he grasped it, and the rope to which it was attached.

Wrapped round with a seaman's neckerchief, it proved to be a pint bottle, with a memorandum, written in pencil, twisted round the neck.

"Take a pull at the bottle, to give you strength, and lash the line round you; tie the knot well, for your life depends on it. Then pass up the word to hoist away, and never fear but we shall pull you up."

Such were the directions pencilled on the scrap of paper.

With a sigh of joy and gratitude, Morley, faint, weary, and trembling in every limb and every nerve, uncorked the bottle, which contained brandy-grog—stiff half-and-half. As directed, he took a hearty "pull" thereat, for strength and coolness were alike necessary now.

He then cast the bottle into the profundity below. No sound followed its descent: and the fall of a sixty-four-pound shot would have caused none there.

He tied the rope round his body, under the arm-pits, but with considerable difficulty, as his hands trembled like aspen leaves.

"All ready? heave away!" he shouted.

After a time the rope was tightened from above; a few sharp tugs followed, as if those who sought to save him wished to assure themselves that all was secure below.

Then followed the familiar "Yeo-heo!" of merchant seamen when pulling together, and Morley felt his scalp bristling as he was lifted off his feet and swung into mid-air.

The hated ledge of rock—hated, though, but for its lucky intervention, he must long ago have "slept the sleep that knows no waking"—receded below him, and he was dragged up the face of the bluff so speedily that all his care was requisite, by the use of hands and feet, to save his face and knees from being bruised and torn.

At last he reached the verge—that awful verge, close to where the tufts of grass had parted in his seeming death-grasp. Here a stoppage, a trivial delay, occurred; Morley was too blind and giddy to know why or wherefore, but he was not without fear that the knot his feeble hands had tied might break loose, or that the chafed cord might part, here, as it were, upon the threshold of the world and a new lease of existence; nor did he feel secure until he felt himself grasped bodily by the strong hands of several sturdy seamen, dragged in, as it were, and landed like a huge fish on the grass. Pale, panting, weak, weary, and becoming breathless, he fainted outright.

"Here's a coil, mate," said one of the seamen. "The poor fellow has gone right off into a swound, and is as useless as a wet swab."

"What's to be done now, Mr. Morrison?" asked another.

"We can't leave him, dying, it may be, of starvation," replied the seaman addressed—one in authority, apparently, and who spoke English correctly, but with a Scottish accent. "No house is nearer than yonder hamlet. He is well rigged, and don't look like a poor samphire gatherer, after all. How the dickens did he get up or get down there, unless on a grey gull's back?"

"Take a leg and an arm, Bill. Heave ahead. We must get him down from this 'tarnal steep bluff, somehow."

And, carrying Morley as carefully as they could, the seamen, who were six in number, proceeded downwards by the narrow path which led to the beach.

So intent had these worthy fellows been on their humane operations, that they had completely failed to observe how the dense clouds had been banking up to seaward; how the waves were curling up, white and frothy, and how the wind was freshening, till it swept the spoon-drift off each foaming crest, into the trough between; or how the ship had doused her royals, and handed her topgallant-sails, to make all snug for the coming blast.

"We have not a moment to lose," said Morrison, the mate. "It is almost dark already, lads—very dark for a May night. A breeze in shore is coming on fast. Let's be off to the ship without delay."

"But this poor fellow, sir."

"Can't be left to die upon the beach. It would be clear murder, mates."

"Let us take him aboard with us, and send him ashore with the first in-shore craft we overhaul after he gets his sea-legs."

"In, in! Here comes the gale! Out oars! Shove off!"

And thus Morley Ashton, still insensible, or completely stupefied and passive, in three minutes more was speeding over the rising waves, as fast as six oars could bear him, towards the unknown ship.

CHAPTER XV.

AN OLD SHIPMATE.

For twenty-four hours after he was on board, Morley Ashton was alternately faint and delirious. His nervous system had been overstrained, and thus, for a time, he knew not where he was, by whom rescued, or by whom surrounded, and, at times, he still fancied himself on his awful perch above Acton Chine, and still in his ears he seemed to hear the roar of the waves and the screaming of the sea-birds.

Meanwhile a heavy gale had sprung up, and the ship which sheltered him had been compelled to stand off to sea, pursuing her course south-south-west, and thus the land had vanished astern some seven hours before Morley recovered complete consciousness, and began to look curiously and inquiringly around him.

Was he in a dream?

Whence the strange and not unfamiliar odour of new paint and tar, and the close atmosphere, so undeniably that of a ship's cabin? Then there were the creaking of timbers, the jarring of all sorts of things, the swaying to and fro of a chained lamp, of a brass tell-tale compass, that swung in the skylight—the swaying, also, of berth-curtains on brass rods and rings, the rattle of racks and plates and dishes in an open locker, the clatter of blocks on deck, and the gurgling wash of water against the outer sheathing, with the jolting of the rudder, and the rasping of its chains.

Aided by the gleams of uncertain radiance that came down the square skylight, and sometimes with prismatic hues through the yokes that were inserted in the planking of the deck, Morley looked around him, and became assured, beyond a doubt, that he was a-bed in the cabin of a ship under sail, and in no dream at all.

At that moment footsteps were heard descending the companion ladder, and a seaman, muffled in a storm jacket and sou'-wester, both of which were shining with salt spray, approached the berth in which Morley lay.

"Bartelot—Tom Bartelot! old friend and school-fellow," he exclaimed, with bewilderment, "where on earth did you come from?"

"Not from among the clouds and gulls, as you did, Morley," replied the other, laughing.

"And so—so you are beside me!"

"Of course I am, and right glad to see you again, Ashton; but this is a queer business of yours, old fellow."

"How?—why?—where am I?"

"Aboard my ship, to be sure."

"Then I have had fever again, and have never been at home; have never seen Ethel! Have never been thrown into Acton Chine! I have had dreams, Tom—oh, such dreams!"

"I rather think you have, Morley."

"How mad I must have been, and such queer things I must have said. Did I speak about the Bassets and the Isle of France? I would have sworn that I had seen Ethel, had spoken to her, and—and kissed her many times. Dear Ethel! And so we are still on board your brig in the Bonny River?"

"Now, what are you talking about? You are most awfully at sea, in more ways than one!" exclaimed Bartelot, thrusting his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and regarding Morley with great surprise. "My poor chum, Ashton, you are not aboard my old brig, the Rattler, of Liverpool, at Foche Point, with the yellow flag—the sign of fever—flying at the foremasthead, but aboard of my new ship, the Princess, of London, of 300 tons register (we won't say what burden) and Al at Lloyd's, bound for Rio de Janeiro, with a mixed cargo, and now about eighty miles off the Land's End and Cape Cornwall."

"Tom, Tom, how you bewilder me," groaned Morley.

"We are just clearing St. George's Channel with a glorious breeze—quite aft—though it will soon be upon the starboard quarter, I fear. So now, my boy, tell me how the deuce you came to be perched up aloft among the gulls and gannets on yonder rocks? A most fearful place it is, and a world of trouble it cost my first mate, Bill Morrison, to get you towed up in safety."

The silence almost of stupefaction succeeded this information, and some time elapsed before Morley could understand or realise the truth of it.

Meanwhile, let us describe Captain Thomas Bartelot, of the ship Princess, of London.

He had a free, open, jovial, and merry expression, a fresh and ruddy complexion, a pleasant voice, and a very winning manner. He was a stout, rather gentlemanly man, about ten years older than Morley, but more muscular, better developed, and thicker, especially about the arms, the biceps whereof indicated that he had been used to a good deal of pulling and hauling in his time. He had on a glazed sou'-wester, the strings and ear-laps of which he untied, and a storm-jacket of tarred canvas, secured by horn-buttons, of which attire he now proceeded to disencumber himself, for on deck the weather had been rough, and the spray was flying in showers of foam over the catheads, occasionally over the quarter, and he "had just left the ship in charge of Morrison," he said, "and come below for the double purpose of seeing how Morley was getting on, and procuring a caulker from the steward's locker." After a pause, during which time the said "caulker" was imbibed from a square case-bottle: "When you were brought on board, Morley, by Morrison and the boat's crew, I was so surprised at recognising you," said Bartelot, "that I scarcely knew whether my head or heels were on the deck. You were in a death-like faint, or I would have sent you ashore again. The night was fast becoming dark, and the weather foul. We couldn't keep dodging about the coast, as Admiral Fitzroy had telegraphed, 'Gales of wind expected from all quarters;' so I resolved to give the land a wide berth (lucky it was for you that we hugged it so close!) and stood off to sea. I am sorry for that, Morley, but I couldn't help it, old boy; insurance brokers, ship agents, and owners won't stand trifling nowadays, so console yourself that it was no worse. You couldn't have fallen into better hands than Tom Bartelot, eh? Look there," he continued, pointing to a small yellow map of Britain, framed and glazed on the bulkhead, and having all the coast surrounded by little black spots. "Each of these spots, Morley, marks a wreck of last year. It is the 'Wreck Chart,' published by the Life-boat Institution, and it shows quite enough of black spots in the Bristol Channel to warrant me in getting out to sea; and somehow, to my mind, we have had three gales now for one we used to have before Admiral Fitzroy took to telegraphing about his south and north cones, storm-drums, and what not. Old Gawthrop, one of our men, swears he whistles up the very gales he telegraphs. But speak, Morley, why don't you say something? Am I to have all the talking to myself?"

"Oh, Tom, I owe my life to you."

"To Bill Morrison, rather."

"Who is he?"

"My Scotch mate."

"But this adventure, and my being taken off to sea, I know not whither——"

"Rio de Janeiro, I told you."

"It ruins my prospects for ever!"

"Sorry to hear you say so; but we'll put you aboard the first homeward-bound craft we overhaul. Till then, you are heartily welcome to swing your hammock in my cabin, and to share our junk and grog."

"Thanks, thanks, old fellow; but a homeward-bound ship will avail me little."

"The deuce!—would you wish to swim or fly?"

"Unless I could be landed near Acton-Rennel, and within a week, it matters not where I am; for Ethel Basset, if she lives—survives my supposed loss—don't laugh in that way, Tom, please—must be, like myself——"

"How—where?"

"Upon the sea."

"Drink this," said Bartelot, handing him a tumbler of wine-and-water; "and now tell me all about this matter, for I own to being rather curious about it."

Morley related his story briefly and rapidly.

"My berth was secured and paid for on board the Hermione, of London."

"I know the craft well, and jolly Jack Phillips, her captain, too," said Bartelot; "a fine old fellow he is, and your friends are in capital hands."

"I was to have sailed with them for the Isle of France," said Morley, in a voice like a groan; "sailed once more in search of fortune—the blind jade! Ah, Tom, the Romans were right when they depicted her as a woman, for she has much to do in the happiness or misery of man."

"Is that the wine or water talking now?" asked Tom, supplying himself with another measure, nautically named "a caulker," from the before-mentioned square case-bottle.

"Don't chaff me, Tom, for mine is an evil destiny."

"Oh, bother! don't talk of destiny, like a fellow in tights, with a broad-brimmed tile, addressing the lustre, or the footlights, at the Surrey. Every man who has a steady heart—a heart, mind you, that don't yaw even when the wind is foul—and keeps a strong hand on the tiller of perseverance, is the maker of his own destiny. I learned that long ago, before I knew the mizzen-top from a marlin-spike. This spirit will make a man go right before the wind, through even Hamlet's 'sea of troubles,' and never heed the waves or breakers thereof."

"Why, Tom," said Morley, with a sad smile, "you are a regular salt-water preacher."

"A philosopher if you will; but no preacher—oh, d——n it, I haven't come to that. I suppose that piratical beggar—what's his name?"

"Hawkshaw—Cramply Hawkshaw," replied Morley, through his clenched teeth.

"I suppose he will consider you quite a gone 'coon, as the Yankees say; but you must haul up for the Mauritius (if we can find a ship for thence at Rio, which is not very likely) and have the fellow exposed, tried, and punished as he deserves."

"Punished! how know I that ere I can reach the Mauritius, penniless as I am——"

"Penniless! You young swab, don't you know that you can command my purse—no great matter certainly—to the last farthing?"

"Thanks, my dear Bartelot."

"Well, as you were about to say, before you may reach the Mauritius——"

"He may be—he may be——"

"What?"

"The husband of Ethel Basset."

"Whe-e-e-uh!" whistled Tom Bartelot.

"How can I foresee what one so subtle, so daring, so reckless as Hawkshaw may achieve!"

"Well, drink your wine-and-water; remain quiet in the meantime. You may keep all your night watches below if you like, and, till you regain your strength, content yourself with exercise by day—a Dutchman's promenade, three steps and overboard, eh?"

There was a pause, during which Morley sighed deeply.

"Cheer up, Morley," said jolly Tom Bartelot; "look firmly ahead, and boldly face the little spray and black scud of misfortune. Pursue your present way contented for some time at least, with confidence and hope, and never look astern. It is no use, as nothing ever comes that way, either for good or for evil. It would be a poor love that won't outlast a sea voyage, however long it might be, and if Miss Basset forgets you——"

"Forgets me—agony! Tom, she may be made to believe that I have deserted her."

"Impossible!"

"That I have been murdered, then!"

"Hawkshaw would not tell upon himself, surely?"

"That I fell over the cliff and was drowned!"

"Ah—that would be a likely tale enough."

"I know not what specious tale the villain may form to deceive Ethel and her father," continued Morley, impetuously.

"When at Rio, write to her all about it."

"Write! By the ship that bore my letter, I would fly to her."

"I should prefer sailing; but every man to his taste. In another day or so, according to your own showing, she will be upon the sea!"

"True—true, and with that wretch, most probably," said Morley, relapsing into wretchedness, and striking his forehead with his hand.

"Come, come," urged Bartelot, patting him on the shoulder, "turn out and take a sniff of the breeze on deck. Another glass of wine first; drink and be jolly, man. What says the old song? for it is an old song of Captain Topham's, and none of mine, be assured!

"'You bid me my jovial companions forsake,
The joys of a rural recess to partake;
With you, my good friend, I'll retreat to the vine,
Its shelter be yours, but its nectar be mine;
For each 'twill a separate pleasure produce,
You cool in its shade, while I glow with its juice;
For own no delight with his rapture can vie,
Who always is drinking, yet always is dry.'"

"Many a night have we sung that together when in the Bonny River, on board the dear old Rattler," said Morley, listening with pleasure to the song which Bartelot trolled forth with a fine mellow voice.

"Ah!—the Rattler," said Bartelot, sighing; "they broke her up for firewood—think of that. I sent my old mother at Liverpool a table made out of her timber."

"Go ahead, Tom—finish your song."

"Ah, there is life in the old dog yet, I see," replied Bartelot as he resumed:

"'The lover (that's you, Morley) may talk of his flames
            and his darts,
His judgment of eyes and his conquest of hearts;
May smile with the wanton, and sport with the gay,
Enjoy when he can and desert when he may;
Yet the warmest adherents of love must deplore
That its favours when tasted are favours no more;
Then how can such joys with his ecstasy vie,
Who always is drinking, yet always is dry?'"

As Tom concluded (he was not a bit of a toper, as we shall show ere long, though he sang so bacchanalian a ditty), the sunlight died away, the cabin became gloomy, the rolling of the ship and the noise on deck increased.

"The gale freshens," said he, "and the glass is falling fast. We shall have the wind blowing great guns to-night, so we must close our shutters, as I once heard a lubber call them. Don't you remember, Mr. de Vavasour Spout, the Cockney supercargo? Steward, pass the word to Mr. Morrison to have the dead lights shipped. I must be off to the deck, Morley, and have some more cloth taken off her—send down the topgallant yards, get the lumber out of the tops, and bend the trysail aft."

Morley was too feeble to leave his berth for that night, especially as the Princess encountered a heavy gale of wind.

He could slumber, but his dreams were wild, and disturbed by starts, visions, and memories of all he had undergone; and every thought of Acton Chine and its horrors caused a shudder to pass through his frame.

CHAPTER XVI.

UNDER THE TROPIC OF CAPRICORN.

Next morning, when Morley ventured up, everything was dripping wet; on deck and aloft all bore cheerless evidence of a rough night that had passed.

The Princess had but little canvas spread, for the sea was rising still; the fore, main, and mizzen topsails were taken off her, and ere long she was speeding before the wind and sea under a close-reefed foresail and storm staysail.

Morrison, one of the most powerful men on board, with another grim old seaman, named Noah Gawthrop, whose weather-beaten visage resembled nothing on land or sea but a knot on a gnarled oak tree, were at the wheel, and it was with the utmost difficulty they could keep the helm, so heavily did breaker after breaker poop the ship.

Though heavy, the wind was fair for the Princess, but it bore her away from the shores of Britain, was Morley's first and regretful idea.

No other craft was in sight, and the gray sky imparted an opaque tint to the dark and tumbling sea, which seemed to follow her brine-dripping sides, as swiftly she darted on, at times cleaving asunder, or riding across, the long rolling mountains of water that burst in hissing showers over the varnished bowsprit and gilded catheads, over the iron windlass and forecastle bitts, and after drenching the cowering watch, poured away through the scuppers to leeward as the buoyant ship rose on each successive wave, like a gallant sea-bird trussing her pinions.

Amid that waste of waters, no living thing was visible from the deck, save a brown flock of Mother Carey's chickens, the stormy petrels, tripping with outspread wings up the slope of one wave and down the slope of another.

Though accustomed to the sea, by his past voyaging, Morley gazed around him with a bewildered air. He addressed something—he knew not what—to the men at the wheel, but the Scotch mate was too full of anxiety about his steering to reply, and, as for Mr. Noah Gawthrop, he heard the remark with stolid indifference, and expectorated vociferously to leeward.

The bronzed face and keen gray eyes of the Scotchman were turned alternately to the leech of the close-reefed foresail, the bellying of the storm staysail, and the compass-box, while his feet were planted firmly on the deck-grating, and his weather-beaten hands grasped the wheel like his shipmate on the other side.

Neither of these men ever spoke to each other. Instinct and skill taught them simultaneously and mutually when to keep her full and by, when to let her yaw, or when to let her ship a sea.

Wearied with toil, and the double watching of the past night, Captain Bartelot was asleep in his damp clothes on the cabin-locker. So noon passed away, and still the Princess flew on through mist and spray, under her close-reefed foresail and storm staysail.

Another vessel, similarly stripped of canvas, flew past them on the opposite tack, and, like a spectre, disappeared in the wrack and gloom; but, anon, the wind and sea went gradually down together, the clouds burst asunder, and the sun came joyously forth.

The gale gradually abated to a fine spanking breeze, the mainsail was set, and the reefs shaken out of the foresail; topsail after topsail were hoisted and sheeted home. Then followed the studding-sails and royals, and the Princess, with everything on her that "would draw," swept out into the waters of the mighty Atlantic.

A lovely evening followed, and a rosy sunset, but not a ship was in sight, and Morley now calculated that they must be more than 200 miles from land.

"By Jove, this is excellent!" exclaimed Tom Bartelot, lounging back in his chair, after a late dinner (for on this day the cook's fire had been washed out of the caboose); "how happy I am to have you here, Morley. Confess, old fellow, that you couldn't have fallen into better hands."

"I do confess it most willingly; but, my dear old friend, I must be set on shore, if possible, at the first opportunity. I have Hawkshaw to punish, and Ethel to save from the insult of his presence."

"On shore, with the breeze blowing thus—the Scilly Isles more than 150 miles astern, and not a sail in sight."

"But, Ethel—the Bassets—what will they think of my sudden disappearance? What story may that rascal tell them?"

"Nothing that you can't unsay by-and-bye."

"Unsay when it may be too late."

"Too late!"

"And to have Ethel left in the power, or rather, subjected to the wiles and addresses of one so cruel, so artful."

"Tut, tut, if she would slip from her moorings by the old man's side, to sail in company with a rascally pirate, she's not worth much, friend Morley, and certainly not worth regretting."

"Ethel shall judge what I have suffered, by what she is suffering herself."

"Try some of that brandy-and-water, and don't get into the doldrums. Light a cheroot—there's a box of capital ones on the locker behind you. Have patience; in a few months at farthest——"

"Months! You talk to me of patience, Tom, as if you had never seen me practise it."

"In what way?"

"Have you forgotten when I was broiling, for a pittance, on the Bonny river? how I toiled, worked, aye, slaved, and cheered myself with the thoughts of Ethel Basset, and an English home? For three years I had patience, amid adversity and illness. Heaven knows how I got through those three years, Tom."

"Just as you shall get over the three months that must pass before you reach the Mauritius after visiting Rio."

"Well, I returned, as I have told you, to find that her future home was to be elsewhere than in England; that we were to be separated, perhaps, hopelessly; that I had a rival, too, a kinsman, a protégé of her father's, a son of a certain Tom Hawkshaw, of Lincoln's Inn—a fellow without honour, honesty, money, or scruple."

"I'd like to give him a dip at the end of a deep-sea line."

"Sail, homeward-bound, on the weather-bow!" reported Morrison, one morning, a few days after this.

Morley's heart leaped, and he rushed on deck to look at the stranger—a smart bark, close-hauled, with all her starboard-tacks aboard. She was evidently a foreigner, being painted a pale pea-green.

"A Baltic craft, I take her to be," said Morrison. "Here she comes, running sharp on a wind, with a bone in her teeth."

"A bone?" repeated Morley.

"Yes; the spray flying under her cutwater, and over her catheads. Don't you remember the fun we used to have with De Vavasour Spout, the cockney supercargo, when talking all manner of nautical rubbish to him. Morrison, run up our ensign; lay the mainyard to the mast; steward, hand up the trumpet, we'll overhaul her."

The orders were promptly obeyed; the stranger also backed his mainyard, and showed his ensign—black and white.

"Prussian," said Morrison.

"Bound for the Elbe," added Bartelot, whose hail was answered in a hoarse dissonance, that made even Noah Gawthrop's grim visage relax with a smile, as he sent the debris of his quid to leeward, and anathematised foreigners in general, and their Hugos in particular, while each vessel stood off on her course again.

"No chance for you, Morley," said Bartelot, "so we'll give it up and think no more about it."

Ten days elapsed after this, and, in all that space never once did the Princess come within hail of a homeward-bound ship, so Morley strove to resign himself to his fate.

"Rio de Janeiro be it," said he.

He took his watch with the rest of the crew, and endeavoured to make the time pass; but weary, weary was his lot for days and weeks—days and weeks of mental suffering, during which he fretted, chafed, and loathed, at times, the floating prison which bore him away, almost hopelessly, from the watery path which he now concluded Ethel must be traversing—she, due southward, towards the sun; and he, south-westward, towards the land of fire.

It is an age of swift postal arrangements, of telegrams, magnetic and electric, but nothing could avail Morley there on the wide, wide sea; the appliances of modern science were there as nugatory and of as little avail as in the days when Columbus ploughed the same waters in search of the western world—he had nothing to console him save patience and hope.

She might be dying of grief for his loss, for people sometimes do die of grief, though, pardon me for the heresy, fair reader, people seldom die for love; and, unless assisted by some good genii or spirits of the air, Morley was powerless, and without the means of acquainting her that he was safe, alive, well, and had miraculously escaped a most foul and deliberate attempt to assassinate him.

So, weary were the days and more weary the nights, while the swift ship flew on, making a most prosperous voyage towards a clime of sunnier skies and brighter seas than those of England; but, weary though it seemed, and insufferably slow, the time passed, nevertheless.

Each day the sun grew hotter and rose higher overhead.

The Line was passed; Father Neptune came on board in all the splendour of oakum wig, tar, and yellow ochre; and Morley, having crossed the Line before, escaped being shaved with a hoop and bathed in salt water, though old Noah Gawthrop, who personated the god of the ocean, and Morrison, who personated Amphitrite, the mother of Triton, had some very waggish views respecting him. And now the atmosphere was hot, indeed.

"When I was last at Rio," said old Noah, whose voice, like worthy Tom Pipes's, had "a cadence like that of an east wind singing through a cranny"—"the crabs and winkles were roasted in their shells upon the shore."

The winds continued favourable; the Princess steadily held her course, and the day on which they would probably see Rio Janeiro was already confidently spoken of by Tom Bartelot and his first mate, Bill Morrison, for both were practical seamen, and holders of first-class certificates.

Though a grave and stern man, and one deeply imbued with many of the northern superstitions of his country, with a few—but luckily a very few—of its theological whim-whams, Morrison became a great friend of Morley, and, though a believer in mysterious lights, warnings, and presentiments, in second sight, second hearing, and so forth, he was remarkably well informed, well educated, and spoke Latin, and more than one European language fluently.

His face was browned by long exposure to every climate in the world; he had faced all the dangers of the deep, and their name is legion; he was hardy, tough, and athletic, and, being at times conversational, he learned from Morley, long ere the voyage was over, the whole history of his love, rivalry, and adventures.

"Take heart, young gentleman," said he, as they kept their watch together on a lovely moonlight night, when drawing near the tropic of Capricorn; "when I was a bairn at home, my mother (God bless her puir auld body!) aye taught me that 'the ways o' Providence were dark and intricate, perplexed wi' mazes and distressed wi' errors,' and I have seen but little reason to alter my opinion in manhood, or as I grow aulder in the horn, as we say in Scotland. But something tells me that you will bring this rascally piccaroon up wi' a round turn yet."

"But Miss Basset?"

"If she countenanced him," interrupted the Scotchman, turning his keen gray eyes and knitted brows to Morley, "why, then, I say, e'en let her go with a flowing sheet."

"Which means——"

"That you'll be well free of so unseaworthy a craft."

So, at this period of their story, the loved and the loving, Morley Ashton and Ethel Basset, are both traversing the same mighty ocean. Morley knew that, if Ethel lived, she would now inevitably be sailing for the Isle of France; but she, alas! believed that her lover was no more, and lost to her indeed for ever!

Will they ever meet more?

They may meet peacefully and happily again, never to separate; or, it may be, that they shall be united never more on this side of the grave, for both are now upon the sea, and the perils encountered by those who go down into the great deep and see the wonders thereof—wreck, storm, fire, mutiny, piracy, and famine—may be the lot of one or of both.

The wheel of fortune turns, and anon we shall see!

CHAPTER XVII.

SECOND HEARING.

The Scotch mate, Morrison, spun many a strange yarn to Morley, when together they kept their watches at night under the glorious radiance of a tropical moon, when the vast sea shone like a silver flood, over which the Princess glided before the trade wind, with all her canvas, topsails, and topgallant sails set.

"When falling over those rocks, on which we found you, Ashton," said he, on one of those occasions, "did you utter any person's name?"

"Not that I remember of—why?" asked Morley, with surprise.

"Because—I have known of such things—that person might have heard your cry, however far distant."

"I do not understand."

"I mean on the principle, or rather the theory, of polarity. In the terror and despair of such a moment, your thoughts would flash, or rush to some one whom you loved—say Miss Basset—who became the recipient of the force, the hearer of your cry, by that faculty which is called in some countries second hearing."

Morley, though he coloured at Ethel's name, smiled, for he knew that this was another of Morrison's strange theories.

"I never heard of an instance of this," said he; "have you?"

"I shall tell you," replied Morrison; "but, perhaps, you won't believe me?"

"Why?"

"Because you English are so sceptical about the mystic, generally."

"I shall try, however."

"When I was third mate of the Queen of Scots, a clipper ship of Aberdeen, on a voyage home from Memel, we encountered in the North Sea a dreadful gale from the westward. We stripped the ship of everything, until at length we hove her to under a close-reefed main-topsail.

"The night was dark—black as pitch, as the saying is; the sea white as snow with foam, and the wind blew as if the clerk of the weather was determined to blow his last.

"The captain was on deck, holding on by the weather mizzen rattlings by one hand, while the other held his speaking trumpet.

"'Away! forward! Morrison,' he shouted to me, 'and see the flying-jib stowed,' for somehow it had got loose.

"It was a perilous duty to perform at such a time, and in such a wild night. So, being loth to order a man for it, I undertook the task myself.

"I felt my way, like a man in the dark, along the wet and slippery bowsprit, which one moment seemed tilted up in the air, and the next went surging, cap under, in the seething trough of the sea, when the bows of the Queen plunged down. Then I felt as if my heart was in my mouth, for I was but a young sailor, and thought of what would come of poor old mother and dad at home, if I should perish, and there would be no share of my wages to get monthly from our owners.

"At that moment I planted my feet on the leeward foot-rope, and nearly fell into the world of waters that yawned and whirled below.

"In my fall I caught a rope, and swung at the end of it, like a salmon grilse at the end of a line.

"None spoke to me, lest even to suggest anything might cost me my life, and none could aid me, for I was beyond the ship altogether. My shipmates seemed paralysed by the same peril that filled my own heart with despair and dread of death. I was but a youth; so the exclamation, 'God help me, mother!' escaped me, and was swept away by the howling wind.

"At length, favoured by a lurch of the ship, I somehow regained my footing on the bowsprit, stowed the jib in its netting, crept along the dripping spar, and regained the deck, where the men crowded round me with congratulations on my escape; for, had I remained even one moment longer among the foot-ropes, I should never have been seen again, as thrice in succession, with awful rapidity, the ship went forward, plunging bows and bowsprit under the sea with such force, that the starboard cathead and all our headrails were swept away.

"Well, sir, at that very hour—aye, at that very moment—my poor old mother, who was a-bed and asleep in her cottage by the Don, was awakened by a voice, which, with true maternal instinct and terror, she knew to be mine, crying as if in agony, and from a vast distance—'God help me, mother!'

"In the still and silent night, it rang dreadfully in her startled ears, and in her anxious heart. She roused her neighbours, and declared—poor auld body—with loud lamentations, that her dear Willie, her sailor laddie, her only bairn, was drowned; but it was only my thoughts that had rushed homeward, and she had received them in her sleep.

"It was, indeed, my voice she had heard, swept—He who holds the great deep in the hollow of his hand alone knows how—over the wide, roaring waste of the North Sea, and she never ceased to mourn for me, till our ship was signalled off the Girdleness, and all reported safe on board."

As Morley was neither so superstitious nor so deeply read as his Scotch friend, and consequently was ignorant of Dr. Ennemoser's queer theory of polarity, he could only listen in silence, as this was only one of many anecdotes such as Morrison was wont to beguile the watches of the night with.

At the time he fell over the cliff, and clutched the turf at Hawkshaw's feet, the name of "Ethel" escaped him, as we have related; but Morley had no recollection of the circumstance, and though at that dread moment his very soul seemed to fly to her, no warning voice came to poor Ethel's ear, so, in this instance, the first mate's theory was at fault.

"How steadily the trade wind holds," said he. "Watch, ahoy there, forward! set the royals and top-gallant studding-sails, and up with the flying jib—quick, lads, rouse it out of the netting, and hoist away."

These orders were promptly obeyed, and faster flew the Princess through the phosphorescent water, which seemed to smoke under her counter, and gleamed in millions of sparks in the long wake, that could be traced astern for miles upon the moonlit sea.

"I have sometimes wondered, Mr. Ashton, what would be the emotions of a murderer, at such a moment as that I endured, when clinging among the hamper of the wet bowsprit, on that night in the North Sea, or when in any similar peril," observed the mate, recurring to his anecdote, as they trod to and fro.

"His emotions would be anything but enviable. That man, Hawkshaw, must feel himself a deliberate and cold-blooded assassin, and I frequently wonder how he comforts himself."

"I should not like to go to sea with that fellow," said the mate; "no ship that has a murderer on board can reach its destination in safety, or at least without accident."

"Another of your theories, I hope; but pray don't say so," said Morley, thinking of the Bassets; "yet he was only an assassin in intent—not fact. Moreover, he may not be on board the Hermione at all."

"Will you be surprised if I tell you that I was once accused of murder?" asked Morrison, turning his grave, grim Scotch face with a smile to Morley; "aye, and marooned, too, as one, though innocent as the babe that is unborn. It is a queer yarn, so I don't mind telling it to you.

"Before I shipped aboard the Queen of Scots, I was a foremast man of a Peterhead whaler that was bound for a fishing trip to the north.

"Off the Noss-head, a rocky bluff on the south of Sinclair's Bay, and which has a dry cavern in it always full of seals, we encountered a tremendous storm, which carried away our flying jib-boom snapping it like a clay pipe right off at the cap; at the same time we lost our long-boat with all our live stock; so, amid whirlwinds of foam, we ran round Stromo, hauled up for Thurso Bay, and came to anchor under the lee of the land in Scrabster Roads to refit.

"Our skipper ordered another long-boat from old Magnus Sigurdson, a boat-builder at Scrabster, who had a fine one nearly complete, and ready on the stocks in his yard, and which, for certain reasons of his own, he was remarkably anxious to get rid of at almost any price. Thus, ere she was brought aboard and lashed to the boat-chocks amidships, strange stories concerning her preached the ears of our crew, when drinking in the public-houses of Thurso.