WARDLAW senior was not what you would call a tender-hearted man; but he
was thoroughly moved by General Rolleston's distress, and by his
fortitude. The gallant old man! Landing in England one week and going
back to the Pacific the next! Like goes with like; and Wardlaw senior,
energetic and resolute himself, though he felt for his son, stricken down
by grief, gave his heart to the more valiant distress of his
contemporary. He manned and victualed the _Springbok_ for a long voyage,
ordered her to Plymouth, and took his friend down to her by train.
They went out to her in a boat. She was a screw steamer, that could sail
nine knots an hour without burning a coal. As she came down the Channel,
the general's trouble got to be well known on board her, and, when he
came out of the harbor, the sailors, by an honest, hearty impulse that
did them credit, waited for no orders, but manned the yards to receive
him with the respect due to his services and his sacred calamity.
On getting on board, he saluted the captain and the ship's company with
sad dignity, and retired to his cabin with Mr. Wardlaw. There the old
merchant forced on him by loan seven hundred pounds, chiefly in gold and
silver, telling him there was nothing like money, go where you will. He
then gave him a number of notices he had printed, and a paper of advice
and instructions. It was written in his own large, clear, formal hand.
General Rolleston tried to falter out his thanks. John Wardlaw
interrupted him.
"Next to you I am her father; am I not?"
"You have proved it."
"Well, then. However, if you do find her, as I pray to God you may, I
claim the second kiss, mind that; not for myself, though; for my poor
Arthur, that lies on a sick-bed for her."
General Rolleston assented to that in a broken voice. He could hardly
speak.
And so they parted: and that sad parent went out to the Pacific.
To him it was indeed a sad and gloomy voyage; and the hope with which he
went on board oozed gradually away as the ship traversed the vast tracks
of ocean. One immensity of water to be passed before that other immensity
could be reached, on whose vast, uniform surface the search was to be
made.
To abridge this gloomy and monotonous part of our tale, suffice it to say
that he endured two months of water and infinity ere the vessel, fast as
she was, reached Valparaiso. Their progress, however, had been more than
once interrupted to carry out Wardlaw's instructions. The poor general
himself had but one idea; to go and search the Pacific with his own eyes;
but Wardlaw, more experienced, directed him to overhaul every whaler and
coasting vessel he could, and deliver printed notices; telling the sad
story, and offering a reward for any positive information, good or bad,
that should be brought in to his agent at Valparaiso.
Acting on these instructions they had overhauled two or three coasting
vessels as they steamed up from the Horn. They now placarded the port of
Valparaiso, and put the notices on board all vessels bound westward; and
the captain of the _Springbok_ spoke to the skippers in the port. But
they all shook their heads, and could hardly be got to give their minds
seriously to the inquiry, when they heard in what water the cutter was
last seen and on what course.
One old skipper said, "Look on Juan Fernandez, and then at the bottom of
the Pacific; but the sooner you look there the less time you will lose."
From Valparaiso they ran to Juan Fernandez, which indeed seemed the
likeliest place; if she was alive.
When the larger island of that group, the island dear alike to you who
read, and to us who write, this tale, came in sight, the father's heart
began to beat higher.
The ship anchored and took in coal, which was furnished at a wickedly
high price by Mr. Joshua Fullalove, who had virtually purchased the
island from Chili, having got it on lease for longer than the earth
itself is to last, we hear.
And now Rolleston found the value of Wardlaw's loan; it enabled him to
prosecute his search through the whole group of islands; and he did hear
at last of three persons who had been wrecked on Masa Fuero; one of them
a female. He followed this up, and at last discovered the parties. He
found them to be Spaniards, and the woman smoking a pipe.
After this bitter disappointment he went back to the ship, and she was to
weigh her anchor next morning.
But, while General Rolleston was at Mesa Fuero, a small coasting vessel
had come in, and brought a strange report at second-hand, that in some
degree unsettled Captain Moreland's mind; and, being hotly discussed on
the forecastle, set the ship's company in a ferment.