“Steward,” exclaimed the chief-officer of the American barque
_Decatur_, lying just then in Table Bay, into which she had put on her
long voyage to Australia, for the purpose of obtaining water and fresh
provisions—“the skipper’s sent word off that there’s two passengers
coming on board for Melbourne; so look spry and get those after-berths
ready, or I guess the ‘old man’ ’ll straighten you up when he does come
along.”
Soon afterwards, the “old man” and his passengers put in an appearance
in the barque’s cutter; the anchor, short since sunrise, was hove up to
the catheads, topsails sheeted home, and, dipping the “stars and bars”
to the surrounding shipping, the _Decatur_ again, after her brief rest,
set forth on her ocean travel.
John Leslie and Francis Drury had been perfect strangers to each other
all their lives long till within the last few hours; and now, with
the frank confidence begotten of youth and health, each knew more of
the other, his failures and successes, than perhaps, under ordinary
circumstances, he would have learned in a twelvemonth. Both were
comparatively young men; Drury, Australian born, a native of Victoria,
and one of those roving spirits one meets with sometimes, who seem
to have, and care to have, no permanent place on earth’s surface,
the _wandergeist_ having entered into their very souls, and taken
full possession thereof. The kind of man whom we are not surprised at
hearing of, to-day, upon the banks of the Fly River; in a few months
more in the interior of Tibet; again on the track of Stanley, or with
Gordon in Khartoum.
So it had been with Francis Drury, ever seeking after fortune in the
wild places of the world; in quest, so often in vain, of a phantasmal
Eldorado—lured on, ever on, by visions of what the unknown contained.
Ghauts wild and rocky had re-echoed the report of his rifle; his
footsteps had fallen lightly on the pavements of the ruined cities of
Montezuma, sombre and stately as the primeval forest which hid them;
and his skiff had cleft the bright Southern rivers that Waterton
loved so well to explore, but gone farther than ever the naturalist,
adventurous and daring as he too was, had ever been. At length, as
he laughingly told his friend, fortune had, on the diamond fields of
Klipdrift, smiled upon him, with a measured smile, ‘twas true, but
still a smile; and now, after an absence of some years, he had taken
the opportune chance of a passage in the _Decatur_, and was off home to
see his mother and sister, from whom he had not heard for nearly two
years.
Leslie was rather a contrast to the other, being as quiet and
thoughtful as Drury was full of life and spirits, and had been trying
his hand at sheep-farming in Cape Colony, but with rather scanty
results; in fact, having sunk most of his original capital, he was now
taking with him to Australia very little but his African experience.
A strong friendship between these two was the result of but a few days’
intimacy, during which time, however, as they were the only passengers,
they naturally saw a great deal of each other; so it came to pass that
Leslie heard all about his friend’s sister, golden-haired Margaret
Drury; and often, as in the middle watches he paced the deck alone, he
conjured up visions to himself, smiling the while, of what this girl,
of whom her brother spoke so lovingly and proudly, and in whom he had
such steadfast faith as a woman amongst women, could be like.
The _Decatur_ was now, with a strong westerly wind behind her, fast
approaching the latitude of that miserable mid-oceanic rock known as
the Island of St. Paul, when suddenly a serious mishap occurred. The
ship was “running heavy” under her fore and main topsails and a fore
topmast staysail, the breeze having increased to a stiff gale, which
had brought up a very heavy sea; when somehow—for these things, even
at a Board of Trade inquiry, seldom do get clearly explained—one of
the two men at the wheel, or both of them perhaps, let the vessel
“broach-to,” paying the penalty of their carelessness by taking their
departure from her for ever, in company with binnacle, skylights,
hencoops, &c., and a huge wave which swept the _Decatur_ fore and aft,
from her taffrail to the heel of her bowsprit, washing at the same time
poor Francis Drury, who happened to be standing under the break of
the poop, up and down amongst loose spars, underneath the iron-bound
windlass, dashing him pitilessly against wood and iron, here, there,
and everywhere, like a broken reed; till when at last, dragged by
Leslie out of the rolling, seething water on the maindeck, the roving,
eager spirit seemed at last to have found rest; and his friend, as
he smoothed the long fair hair from off the blood-stained forehead,
mourned for him as for a younger brother.
The unfortunate man was speedily ascertained to be nothing but a mass
of fractures and terrible bruises, such as no human frame under any
circumstances could have survived; and well the sufferer knew it;
for in a brief interval of consciousness, in a moment’s respite from
awful agony, he managed to draw something from around his neck, which
handing to his friend in the semi-darkness of the little cabin, whilst
above them the gale roared, and shrieked, officers and men shouted
and swore, and the timbers of the old _Decatur_ groaned and creaked
like sentient things—he whispered, so low that the other had to bend
down close to the poor disfigured face to hear it, “For Mother and
Maggie; I was going to tell you about—it, and—Good-bye!” and then with
one convulsive shudder, and with the dark-blue eyes still gazing
imploringly up into those of his friend, his spirit took its flight.
* * * * *
The gale has abated, the courses are clewed up, topsails thrown aback,
and the starry flag flies half-mast high, as they “commit his body to
the deep, to be turned into corruption; looking for the resurrection
of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead.” A sudden, shooting
plunge into the sparkling water, and Francis Drury’s place on earth
will know him no more. Gone is the gallant spirit, stilled the eager
heart for ever, and Leslie’s tears fall thick and heavy—no one there
deeming them shame to his manhood—as the bellying canvas urges the ship
swiftly onward on her course.
* * * * *
Only a Quandong stone, of rather unusual size, covered with little
silver knobs or studs, and to one end of which was attached a stout
silver chain. Leslie, as he turned it over and over in his hand,
thinking sadly enough of its late owner, wondering much what he had
been about to communicate when Death so relentlessly stepped in. The
value of the thing as an ornament was but a trifle, and, try as he
might, Leslie could find no indication that there was aught but met
the eye: a simple Australian wild-peach stone converted into a trifle,
rather ugly than otherwise, as is the case with so many so-called
_curios_. Still, as his friend’s last thought and charge, it was sacred
in his sight; and putting it carefully away, he determined on landing
at Melbourne, now so near, to make it his first care to find out
Drury’s mother and his sister.
* * * * *
“Drury, Drury! Let me see! Yes of course. Mother and daughter brother
too sometimes; rather a wild young fellow; always ‘on the go’ some
where or other, you know. Yes; they used to live here; but they’ve been
gone this long time; and where to, no more than I can tell you; or I
think anybody else about here either.”
So spake the present tenant of “Acacia Cottage, St. Kilda.” in response
to Leslie’s inquiries at the address, to obtain which he had overhauled
the effecs of the dead man, finding it at the commencement of a
two-year-old letter from his mother, directed to “Algoa Bay;” finding,
besides, some receipts of diamonds sold at Cape Town, and a letter
of credit on a Melbourne bank for five hundred pounds; probably, so
Leslie thought to himself, that “measured smile” of which the poor
fellow had laughingly spoken to him in the earlier days of their brief
companionship.
The above was the sum-total of the information he could ever—after
many persistent efforts, including a fruitless trip to Hobart—obtain
of the family or their whereabouts; so, depositing the five hundred
pounds at one of the principal banking institutions, and inserting an
advertisement in the _Age_ and _Argus_, Leslie having but little spare
cash, and his own fortune lying still in deepest shadow, reluctantly,
for a time at least, as he promised himself, abandoned the quest.
* * * * *
Kaloola was one of the prettiest pastoral homesteads in the
north-western districts of Victoria; and its owner, as one evening he
sat in the broad veranda, and saw on every side, far as the eye could
reach, land and stock all calling him master, felt that the years that
had passed since the old _Decatur_ dropped her anchor in Port Phillip
had not passed away altogether in vain; and although ominous wrinkles
began to appear about the corners of John Leslie’s eyes, and gray hairs
about his temples, the man’s heart was fresh and unseared as when, on
a certain day twelve long years ago, he had shed bitter tears over the
ocean grave of his friend. Vainly throughout these latter years had he
endeavored to find some traces of the Drurys. The deposit in the Bank
of Australasia had remained untouched, and had by now swollen to a very
respectable sum indeed. Advertisements in nearly every metropolitan
and provincial newspaper were equally without result; even “private
inquiry” agents, employed at no small cost, confessed themselves at
fault. Many a hard fight with fortune had John Leslie encountered
before he achieved success; but through it all, good times and bad,
he had never forgotten the dying bequest left to him on that dark and
stormy morning in the Southern Ocean; and now, as rising and going
to his desk he took out the Quandong stone, and turning it over and
over, as though trying once again to finish those last dying words left
unfinished so many years ago, his thoughts fled back along memory’s
unforgotten vale, and a strong presentiment seemed to impel him not to
leave the trinket behind, for the successful squatter was on the eve
of a trip to “the Old Country,” and this was his last day at Kaloola;
so, detaching the stone from its chain, he screwed it securely to his
watch-guard, and in a few hours more had bidden adieu to Kaloola for
some time to come.
* * * * *
It was evening on the Marine Parade at Brighton, and a crowd of
fashionably dressed people were walking up and down, or sitting
listening to the music of the band. Amongst these latter was our
old friend John Leslie, who had been in England some three or four
months, and who now seemed absorbed in the sweet strains of Ulrich’s
_Goodnight, my Love_, with which the musicians were closing their
evening’s selection; but in reality his thoughts were far away across
the ocean, in the land of his adoption; and few dreamed that the
sun-browned, long-bearded, middle-aged gentleman, clothed more in
accordance with ideas of comfort than of fashion, and who sat there so
quietly every evening, could, had it so pleased him, have bought up
half the gay loungers who passed and repassed him with many a quizzical
glance at the loose attire, in such striking contrast to the British
fashion of the day.
Truth to tell, Leslie was beginning to long for the far-spreading
plains of his Australian home once more; his was a quiet, thoughtful
nature, unfitted for the gay scenes in which he had lately found
himself a passive actor, and he was—save for one sister, married years
ago, and now with her husband in Bermuda—alone in the world; and he
thinks rather sadly, perhaps, as he walks slowly back through the crowd
of fashionables to the _Imperial_, where he is staying: “And alone most
likely to the end.”
He had not been in his room many minutes before there came a knock
at the door; and, scarcely waiting for answer, in darted a very
red-faced, very stout, and apparently very flurried old gentleman,
who, setting his gold eyeglasses firmly on his nose, at once began:
“Er—ah, Mr. Leslie, I believe? Got your number from the porter, you
see—great rascal, by the way, that porter; always looks as if he wanted
something, you know—then the visitors’ book, and so. Yes; it’s all
right so far. There’s the thing now!”—glancing at the old Quandong
stone which still hung at Leslie’s watch-chain. “I”—he went on—”that
is, my name is Raby, Colonel Raby, and—— Dear me, yes; must apologise,
ought to have done that at first, for intrusion, and all that kind
of thing; but really, you see”—— And here the old gentleman paused,
fairly for want of breath, his purple cheeks expanding and contracting,
whilst, instead of words, he emitted a series of little puffs; and
John, whilst asking him to take a seat, entertained rather strong
doubts of his visitor’s sanity.
“Now,” said he at length, when he perceived signs that the colonel was
about to recommence, “kindly let me know in what way I can be of use to
you.”
“Bother take the women!” ejaculated the visitor, as he recovered his
breath again. “But you see, Mr. Leslie, it was all through my niece.
She caught sight of that thing—funny-looking thing, too—on your chain
whilst we were on the Parade this evening, and nearly fainted away—she
did, sir, I do assure you, in Mrs. Raby’s arms, too, sir; and if I had
not got a cup of water from the drinking fountain, and poured it over
her head, there would most likely have been a bit of a scene, sir, and
then—— We are staying in this house, you know.
We saw you come in just behind us; and so—of course it’s all nonsense,
but the fact is”——
“Excuse me,” interrupted Leslie, who was growing impatient; “but may I
ask the name of the lady—your niece, I mean?”
“My niece, sir,” replied the colonel, rather ruffled at being cut
short, “is known as Miss Margaret Drury; and if you will only have the
kindness to convince her as to the utter absurdity of an idea which she
somehow entertains that that affair, charm, trinket, or whatever you
may call it, once belonged to a brother of hers, I shall be extremely
obliged to you, for really”—relapsing again—“when the women once get
hold of a fad of the kind, a man’s peace is clean gone, sir, I do
assure you.”
“I am not quite sure,” remarked Leslie, smiling, “that in this case at
least it will not turn out to be a ‘fad.’ How I became possessed of
this stone, which I have every reason to believe once belonged to her
brother, and which, through long years, I have held in trust for her
and her mother, is quite capable of explanation, sad though the story
may be. So, sir, I shall be very pleased to wait on Miss Drury as soon
as may be convenient to her.”
* * * * *
A tall, dark-robed figure, beyond the first bloom of maidenhood, but
still passing fair to look upon, rose on Leslie’s entrance; and he
recognised at a glance the long golden hair, and calm eyes of deepest
blue, of poor Drury’s oft-repeated description.
Many a sob escaped his auditor as he feelingly related his sad story.
“Poor Francie,” she said at last—“poor, dear Francie! And this is
the old Quandong locket I gave him as a parting gift, when he left
for those terrible diamond fields! A lock of my hair was in it. But
how strange it seems that through all these years you have never
discovered the secret of opening it. See!” and with a push on one of
the stud-heads and a twist on another, a short, stout silver pin drew
out, and one half of the nut slipped off, disclosing to the astonished
gaze of the pair, nestling in a thick lock of golden threads finer than
the finest silk, a beautiful diamond, uncut, but still, even to the
unpractised eyes of Leslie, of great value.
This, then, was the secret of the Quandong stone, kept so faithfully
for so long a time. This was what that dying friend and brother had
tried, but tried in vain, with his last breath to disclose.
* * * * *
It was little wonder that Leslie’s inquiries and advertisements had
been ineffectual, for about the time Drury had received his last letter
from home, the bank in which was the widow’s modest capital failed,
and mother and daughter were suddenly plunged into poverty dire and
complete. In this strait they wrote to Colonel Raby, Mrs. Drury’s
brother, who, to do him justice, behaved nobly, bringing them from
Australia to England, and accepting them as part and parcel of his
home without the slightest delay. Mrs. Drury had now been dead some
years; and though letter after letter had been addressed to Francis
Drury at the Cape, they had invariably returned with the discouraging
indorsement, “Not to be found,” The Rabys, it seemed, save for a brief
interval yearly, lived a very retired kind of life on the Yorkshire
wolds; still, Margaret Drury had caused many and persistent inquiries
to be made as to the fate of her brother, but, till that eventful
evening on the Marine Parade, without being able to obtain the
slightest clue.
As perhaps the reader has already divined, John Leslie was, after all,
not fated to go through life’s pilgrimage alone. In fair Margaret Drury
he found a loving companion and devoted wife; and as, through the years
of good and evil hap,
The red light fell about their knees,
On heads that rose by slow degrees,
Like buds upon the lily spire,
so did John Leslie more nearly realise what a rare prize he had won.
At beautiful Kaloola, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie still live happily, and the
old Quandong stone, with its occupant still undisturbed, is treasured
amongst their most precious relics.—_Chambers’s Journal._