Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=u3spAQAAIAAJ
(the University of California)
THE SEAFARERS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A Bitter Heritage.
Fortune's My Foe.
The Scourge of God.
Across the Salt Seas.
The Clash of Arms.
Denounced.
In the Day of Adversity.
The Hispaniola Plate.
The Desert Ship.
A Gentleman Adventurer.
The Silent Shore.
His Own Enemy.
THE SEAFARERS
BY
JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
AUTHOR OF 'THE CLASH OF ARMS'
'FORTUNE'S MY FOE,' 'ACROSS THE SALT SEAS'
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON LIMITED
HENRIETTA STREET W.C.
1900
TO
ALL OLD FRIENDS AND COMRADES
WHO HAVE BEEN, OR ARE STILL
SEAFARERS
EITHER IN THE ROYAL NAVY
OR OTHER BRANCHES OF THE SEA SERVICE
I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
CONTENTS
CHAP.
1. 'Sweeter than Blue-Eyed Violets or the Damask Rose'
2. Stephen Charke
3. 'Let those love now who never loved before'
4. Portsmouth _en fête_
5. 'So farewell, Hope!'
6. 'And bend the gallant Mast, my Boys'
7. 'An Ocean Waif'
8. 'His Name is--What?'
9. 'Through the Salt Sea Foam'
10. The Growing Terror
11. The Terror increases
12. Stricken
13. 'Spare her! Spare her!'
14. Struck down
15. A Light from the Past
16. Man overboard
17. 'Farewell, my Rival'
18. 'She will never know'
19. 'I almost dreaded this Man once'
20. 'I do believe you'
21. Washed ashore
22. A Sailor's Knife
23. 'The Tiger did that'
24. Beaten! Defeated!
25. 'I have loved my last'
26. 'Here is my Journey's End'
CHAPTER I
'SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS OR THE DAMASK ROSE'
That Bella Waldron should have felt sad, and her night's rest have
been disturbed in consequence, was, in the circumstances, most
natural. For one cannot suppose that any young girl leaves her home,
her mother, and her country without much grief and perturbation;
without tears and sorrow and heavy sighs, as well as tremendous fears
that she may never return to, nor see, them again. And such is what
Bella was about to do when this particular night should have come to
an end: she was about to traverse not one ocean, but two; to pass from
a life that, if not luxurious, was at least comfortable, to another
which, if more brilliant, would undoubtedly be strange, and,
consequently, not easily to be adopted at first. In fact, to go from
one side of the world to the other.
Yet, all the same, it was singular that, between her intervals of
weeping and sobbing, and when she had at last cried herself to sleep,
she should have been tormented with such frightful dreams as those
which came to her. Dreams of horrors that in their weirdness became
almost ludicrous, or would have been ludicrous to those who, knowing
of them, did not happen to be experiencing them. Thus, the idea of a
crocodile regarding one with a glittering eye from its ambush in the
sand, seems for some reason, in our waking moments, to conjure up a
comical sense of terror--perhaps because of the 'glittering eye'; yet
there was nothing comical about it to the mind of Bella as she awoke
with a shriek from her sleep after the vision of the creature had had
momentary existence in the cells of her brain. And, even when she was
thoroughly awakened and knew that she had only been suffering from a
bad dream, she still shuddered at the recollection, and muttered, 'It
appeared as if it was creeping towards me to seize me with its horrid
jaws! Oh, it was dreadful!'
Then she slept again--only, however, to dream of other things. Of a
desolate shore at first, with, upon it, a misty creature waving its
hands mournfully above its head, those hands being enveloped in some
gauzy material, so that the figure appeared more like a skirt-dancer
than aught else; then, of two lions fighting savagely; and then of a
vast black cave with an opening as high as St. Paul's and as wide as a
railway terminus is long, against which, armed with a spear and
protected with a buckler, she seemed to stand trembling. Trembling,
too, because she could not see one yard into the deep and profound
darkness before her, yet into which, as she peered furtively and with
horror, she appeared to perceive things--forms half-animal and
half-human--crawling, revolving, creeping about. Then, again, she
awoke with a start.
But by now the room was light with the gray, mournful glimmer of the
approaching dawn; so light that she could see her wicker-basket trunks
in their American-cloth wrappers standing by the wall, with the lids
open against it; soon, too, she heard the sparrows twittering outside,
as well as other congenial suburban sounds, such as the newspaper boys
shrieking hideously to one another, and the milkman uttering piercing
yells; and--though it was her last day in England--she was glad to
spring out of bed and know herself once more a unit in the actual
world instead of a wanderer in a world of dreams.
'I wish,' the girl muttered to herself, standing by the window and
drawing up the blind half-way, whereby she was enabled to see that the
gray dawn of a May morning gave promise of a warm, fine day later on,
'that, if I were to have such bad dreams at all, I might have been
spared them on the very day of my departure for the other side of the
globe. I am not superstitious, yet, yet--well!--I shall think of this
dream, I know, for many a day to come.' Then she slipped on her
dressing-gown, thrust her pretty little white feet into some warm,
felt bath-slippers, and, opening her door quietly, because it was
still early and she did not wish to awaken those in the house who
might be asleep, she went across the passage to her mother's room.
Yet, ere she did so, let us regard this young girl, whose story and
adventures we are now to follow--this girl whose dreams of leering
crocodiles and dark, mystic caves, with hideous creatures gyrating in
them, will, as we shall see, be far outnumbered and outshone by the
actual realities that she will experience in her passage across the
world. For it had been resolved on by Fate, or Providence, or Destiny,
or whatever one may term that power which controls our earthly
existence, that to Bella Waldron were to come experiences, strange,
horrible, and fantastic, such as the last decade of our expiring
century rarely assaults men with, and women hardly ever. Standing
there in the now clear light of the morning, her long dressing-gown
enshrouding her tall, shapely, and _svelte_ figure, and with her
masses of hair hanging dishevelled--hair a warm brown with golden
gleams in it, such as has the ripening corn--an observer would decide
at once that she was beautiful. Beautiful, also, by the gift of clear,
hazel-gray eyes--eyes that were pure and innocent in their glance;
beautiful as well by her softly-rounded face, her rich red lips--the
upper one divinely short--and also by her colouring. If, too, one
applies to her the lines of that old poet dead and gone two hundred
years ago, the words describing Gloriana:--
More fair than the red morning's dawn,
Sweeter than pearly dews that scent the lawn,
Than blue-eyed violets, or the damask rose
When in her hottest fragrancy she glows,
Bella Waldron may be considered as depicted.
'Mother,' she said, going in now to the room where the poor lady whom
she addressed had herself passed a sad and tearful night, bemoaning
the fact that soon--in a few hours--indeed now--because the fateful
day had come--her child was to be torn from her. 'Oh, mother! It is
to-day--to-day! Oh, my darling! how can I part from you?' And then,
folding her mother in her arms while she sat on the bedside, the two
women wept together.
'Yet,' said Mrs. Waldron, to whom advancing years brought the power of
philosophic resignation, if not the thorough strength to overcome that
which rendered her unhappy, 'yet, Bella, my dearest, it is so much for
you. Such a position, such a future! Oh, think of it! A position you
could scarcely ever have hoped to obtain. And the love, my child, the
love! Think how Gilbert loves you and you love him. For you do love
him, Bella. Of all men, he is the one for you.'
'With my whole heart and soul I love him!' her daughter answered.
'Mother, if I had never met him I do not believe I could have ever
loved any other man. Ah, I am glad Juliet called Romeo the god of her
idolatry! It has taught me how to think of Gilbert.'
'And the position, Bella. The position--think of that! In our
circumstances, even though you come of a good stock and are descended
from ladies and gentlemen on both sides from far-off years, you could
never have hoped to make such a match.'
'The position is nothing to me, mother. I love Gilbert fondly. I long
to be his wife. Why should I think of the position?'
'Every woman must think of it, child. When you are as old--and
worn--as I am, you--you will teach your own children to think of it.
It is everything to be the wife of a gentleman, better still the wife
of a man of rank. Everything! Short of being the wife of a
distinguished man, a man whose name is on everybody's tongue, there is
no other position so good. And, even then, that distinguished man may
not be a gentleman as well. That would be dreadful. Yet your husband
will be both. Think, Bella! He is sure to become a nobleman, and he
may become the most renowned admiral in the Navy.'
'You dear old mother! But I love Gilbert because he is Gilbert.
Otherwise, neither the nobility which is certain, nor the renown which
is prospective, would take me across the world to him. Do you think I
would go to Bombay to marry the heir to a title or a possible admiral
if I did not love him?'
'Heaven forbid!' Mrs. Waldron replied, as she sat up in her bed and
smoothed her hair. 'Heaven forbid! Yet,' she murmured, perhaps a
little weakly for a lady who had just delivered herself of such
admirable sentiments, 'yet I do honestly think, darling, that the love
you bear each other--yes! above all, the love--and the position--I
must think of the position, Bella!--and the certainty of a brilliant
future for you, reconcile me a little to parting with you. Some day,
when you are a mother, you will understand me.'
'I understand you now, darling. Yet, yet--ah!' and now she sobbed on
her mother's shoulder--'yet, to think of our being parted for so
long--for three years! Gilbert must remain on the station for that
length of time.' Now it is certain that Mrs. Waldron was sobbing too,
yet, because there was something of the Spartan mother, something,
too, of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, about her, she calmed her
sobs. For she, too, had been ruthlessly torn by an all-conquering
lover, who would take no denial, from her parents, arms. Yet that
lover had had no such proud future to offer her as the Gilbert of whom
they spoke had to offer his beloved Arabella; for her there had been
nothing to flavour her existence except the glorious spice tasted by
us all--of loving and being loved. And now--now that she was what she
called old--which was not the case, since she was still short of her
forty-fifth year--now she knew--and, knowing, said--that love
accompanied by brilliant prospects and an assured future was the most
satisfactory of all loves.
'Your father,' Mrs. Waldron said, 'remained on his station, the
Pacific, for seven years, and we were separated all that time. He
there, I here, in London. And in lodgings, Bella--oh those lodgings
and that cooking!--you remember, darling? You must remember the
lodgings and the cooking, child though you were. And he was not a
future peer, though he did once think he might become an admiral.'
'Forgive me, mother,' Bella said, kissing her mother again and again.
'I will not repine any more. I ought not to do so, I know. For is not
my Gilbert the handsomest, bravest sailor that ever wore the Queen's
uniform? And it won't be so long after all. Only--only--I do wish
there wasn't that awful journey. Oh if there were only a bridge!' and
for the first time she smiled. 'Or a railway,' she added.
'I am sure, Bella,' her mother said, forgetting how she would feel
that evening when her child was gone, and neither the bright voice nor
brisk footsteps would be heard any more in the house, 'I am sure you
cannot complain of the manner in which you are going out. The vessel
may not be as comfortable as they say the great liners are, but at
least your uncle is the captain, and it is his own ship. And that
cabin he showed us yesterday, when we went down to Gravesend, is far
better than anything you could get in any liner, even the best. I had
one once, when I went out to join your father at Halifax, in which
there was nowhere but the pockets of my clothes to keep things in,
while the other lady above me could open the scuttle as she lay in her
berth. And your cabin is as big as a dining-room, with a sofa----'
'You dear, darling mother!' Bella exclaimed. 'You are an angel to
comfort me thus, when I know all the time that your heart is as sad as
mine. Oh if we had not to part!' And again the two women hugged and
kissed each other.