IT was blowing a moderate gale, and the "Aurania," steaming at full
speed into it, rolled viciously. A half-moon shone out low down beneath
wisps of whirling cloud, and the big black seas shook their frothing
crests high aloft against the silvery light as they swept in long
succession out of the night. The steamer met them with dipping
forecastle from which the spray blew aft in clouds, lurched and hove her
streaming bows high above the froth, rolled until one rail seemed level
with the sea, and slid down into the hollow, out of which her head swung
slowly up to meet the onslaught of the next. Bitter spray was flying
everywhere, her decks ran water; but it was only between foremast and
forecastle head she shipped it in cascades, and little groups of
passengers stood where they could find shelter. They had finished their
dinner with some difficulty, and because the vessel rolled so that it
was not an easy task to keep one's seat or footing had found their
attempts to amuse themselves below a waste of effort.
Bernard Appleby stood a little apart from one group of them under the
lee of a deck-house. Tony had lent him fifty pounds, and he had taken
the cheapest berth obtainable which would permit him to travel saloon.
This was apparently a reckless extravagance, but Appleby had inherited a
certain shrewdness from his father, who had risen from the ranks, and
decided that the risk was warranted. He would, he told himself,
certainly make acquaintances, and possibly a friend, during the passage,
while he knew that the majority of those who travelled by those vessels
were Americans who had acquired a competence by commerce, and could
therefore direct him how to find an opening for his energies if they
felt inclined. He had already made the acquaintance of five or six of
them, and acquired a good deal of information about the great Republic,
which did not, however, promise to be of much use to him.
Still, he was by no means dejected. Bernard Appleby had a good courage,
and there was in him a longing for adventure which he had hitherto held
in check. He knew that the gates of the old life were closed against
him, but this caused him no regret, for he had not the least desire to
go back to it. Indeed, he wondered how he had borne the monotonous
drudgery he detested, and practised an almost Spartan self-denial so
long, and it was with a curious content he looked forward into the night
over the plunging bows. The throb of hard-driven engines, roar of wind,
and crash of shattered seas that fell back seething from the forecastle,
stirred the blood in him. It all spoke of stress and effort, but there
was a suggestion of triumph in it, for while the white-crested phalanxes
arrayed themselves against her the great ship that man had made went on,
battered and streaming, but irresistible. Appleby felt that there were
in him capacities for effort and endurance equal to those of other men
who had fought their way to fortune, if he could find a field for them.
Then he became interested in his companions. There were two women among
them, and he could see the figure of one silhouetted against the blue
and silver of the night when the steamer rolled. It was a dainty figure
in spite of the big cape that fluttered about it; while the loose wisps
of hair that blew out from under the little cap in no way detracted from
the piquancy of the half-seen face and head. Appleby recognized the girl
as Miss Nettie Harding, whom he sat opposite to at the saloon table.
"Keep a good hold, Miss Harding!" said one of the men beside her. "This
boat is trying to roll her funnels out of her, and it seems to me quite
possible for one to pitch right over the rail."
The girl's laugh reached Appleby through the roar of the gale, as she
stood, poised lightly, with one hand on the guardrail that ran along the
deck-house, and the deck slanting like a roof beneath her, while the
white chaos of a shattered sea swirled by, as it seemed, directly
beneath her. Then she fell against the deck-house as the steamer rolled
back again until her streaming plates on that side were high above the
brine, and a woman said, "Can't you be careful, Nettie?"
There was a crash beneath the dipping bows, a great cloud of spray
whirled up, and a man's voice said: "Hold on, everybody! She has gone
slap into an extra big one."
There was a few seconds interval while the wet deck rose up before the
roll began, and then the "Aurania" swung back with a vicious jerk.
Appleby heard a faint cry, and saw Miss Harding reel away from the deck-
house. The sea lay apparently straight beneath her, with the steamer's
slanted rail a foot or two above it. Almost simultaneously he sprang,
and felt the girl's shoulder under his hand. How he span her round and
thrust himself behind her he did not know, but next moment he struck the
rail a heavy blow, and the girl crushed him against it. He afterwards
decided that they could scarcely have fallen over it; but that fact was
not apparent just then, and flinging himself on hands and knees he
dragged the girl down with him. As he did so two of her companions came
sliding down to their assistance, and the four glissaded back to the
deck-house amidst several inches of very cold water as the following
roll began. Appleby helped Miss Harding to her feet, and into the
lighted companion, where she turned to him, flushed, gasping, and
dripping, with a grateful smile.
"That was awfully good of you," she said. "I should have been hurt
against the rail, anyway, if you hadn't got in front of me. But your
face is bleeding. I hope I didn't hurt you."
Appleby said he was not hurt in the least, though his shoulder felt
unpleasantly sore; and leaving her with an elder lady who came in with
the rest he hastened to his state-room, where he struggled into dry
clothing, an operation which is not altogether simple on board a rolling
steamer. There was also a lacerated bruise on his forehead which
required some little attention, and while he was occupied with it a man
who tapped upon the door came in. He was apparently of middle age, and
had a shrewd, lean face, with blue eyes that had a twinkle in them. He
sat down and waited until Appleby turned to him. Then he held out a
card.
"I guess you will know my name, but there's my address. Put it in your
wallet," he said.
"Mr. Cyrus P. Harding," said Appleby. "What can I do for you?"
The man laughed pleasantly. "That is rather what I should ask you.
Anyway, I want to thank you for the help you rendered my daughter."
Appleby made a little whimsical gesture. "The conventional answer fits
the case. It was nothing, sir."
"Well," said Harding dryly, "it would have been a good deal to me if my
girl had gone out over the rail."
"I don't think that could have happened."
Harding nodded, but the twinkle snowed more plainly in his eyes. "I
don't either, but I guess you were not quite sure of it then, and there
are men who would have made the most of the thing. I understand you got
between her and the rail, anyway, and that is what gave you the bruise
on the head."
"I'm glad I had so much sense. I have, however, had more serious
bruises, and may get them again. I hope Miss Harding is none the worse."
"No," said Harding. "She seems quite pleased with herself. It's an
adventure, and she likes them. She will thank you to-morrow, and I don't
want to intrude on you. Still, you haven't told me what to call you, and
I hope to see more of you."
Appleby was a young man, and the fall against the rail had shaken him,
or his answer would have been more prompt and decided.
"Walthew Broughton," he said.
Harding, he fancied, looked at him curiously, and then smiled as he went
out; but there was a trifle more color than usual in Appleby's face when
he took up the card. It bore a business address in New York, but there
was written across it, apparently in haste, "Sonoma, Glenwood, Hudson
River."
"I wonder if that has any special significance," he said. "I will not
force myself upon the man, but it's quite evident I can't afford to
stand off if he means to be friendly."
He met Miss Harding on deck next morning, and she graciously allowed him
to find her a chair, pack her wraps about her, and then sit close by
talking to her for half an hour, which he had cause for surmising
excited the indignation of other passengers. He found her vivacious,
witty, and almost astonishingly well-informed, for Nettie Harding had
enjoyed all the advantages the great Republic offers its daughters, and
these are many. Still, he knew that it is a mistake to overdo anything,
and, though Miss Harding still appeared contented with his company, took
himself away when two or three of her feminine companions appeared. They
had questions to ask and Nettie Harding laughed.
"Then the Englishman can talk?" said one.
"Yes," said Nettie Harding reflectively, "he can. Still, he's sensible,
and doesn't say too much. I'm rather fond of those quiet men. There was
another point that pleased me. He didn't hang about where he would be
sure to meet me, and then appear astonished when what he expected
happened, as some men would have done, but waited until I walked up to
him."
"After all, he only picked you up off the deck. There was really no
danger; and I would like to have kodaked you holding on to each other.
In daylight it would have made quite an amusing picture."
"Anyway, I must have hurt him, because he put himself between the rail
and me," said Nettie Harding. "You see, I do weigh something, though I'm
a good deal lighter than you are, Miriam."
Miriam, whose proportions were not exactly sylph-like, appeared slightly
nettled, but the others laughed.
"He is quite good-looking," said one of them. "Now, such a send-off
would make a good beginning for a romance. Quite sure you don't mean to
fall in love with him, Nettie? No doubt he's poor but distinguished, or
he wouldn't be coming out to us."
Miss Harding smiled, but there was a trace of softness in her eyes,
which were of a fine deep tint of blue. "I don't think so, and there is
a difficulty. I'm in love already--with the man I'm going to marry."
A girl who had not spoken nodded sympathetically, for she knew the story
of Nettie Harding's engagement to an officer of the United States navy
who was far from rich.
"This year--next year, Nettie?" she said.
Miss Harding smiled a little. "This one's nearly through, and I'm going
to Cuba early in the next."
"Cuba can't be a nice place just now, with the patriots and filibusters
running loose all over it," said the girl called Miriam. "What do you
want to go there for?"
"My father's going. He has a good many dollars planted out there, and I
fancy he is getting anxious about them. I quite often go round with him;
and Julian will be away in the Bering Sea."
She rose, for a cold wind still swept the sun-flecked Atlantic; but she
spoke to Appleby at lunch, and also at dinner that evening, after which
her father carried him off to the smoking-room. There was a considerable
difference between their ages and views of life, but a friendship that
was free alike from patronage or presumption sprang up between them in
spite of it. Cyrus Harding was an American, and what is usually termed a
self-made man, but he did not attempt to force his belief in himself and
his country upon everybody else, though it was sincere enough. He was
typically lean in face and frame, but his dress was as unostentatious as
his speech, and he wore no diamonds, which are, indeed, not usually
displayed by men of substance in his country. The little glint in his
keen blue eyes, together with the formation of his mouth and chin,
however, hinted that he possessed a good deal of character.
Being a man who noticed everything, he was quite aware that Appleby
spent at least an hour in the aggregate in his daughter's company every
day, and said nothing. Nettie was, he knew, a very capable young woman,
and Appleby, he fancied, a gentleman, which was, in the meanwhile,
sufficient for him. A friendship may also be made rapidly at sea, and on
the seventh day out he asked Appleby a question. They were leaning on
the rail together cigar in hand while the ship rolling her mastheads
athwart the blue swung with an easy lurch over the long smooth heave of
shining sea.
"What is bringing you out to our country?" he said.
Appleby laughed. "What I expect is quite the usual thing. The difficulty
of getting a living in the old one."