THE TRIALS OF FAITH
He following day, the 27th of October, was a dark one in the calendar of
a fair and good young lady. Two years would then have passed since Faith
Darling, at the age of twenty, had received sad tidings, which would
make the rest of her life flow on in shadow. So at least she thought,
forgetful (or rather perhaps unconscious, for she had not yet learned
the facts of life) that time and the tide of years submerge the loftiest
youthful sorrow. To a warm and stedfast heart like hers, and a nature
strong but self-controlled, no casual change, or light diversion, or
sudden interest in other matters, could take the place of the motive
lost. Therefore, being of a deep true faith, and staunch in the belief
of a great God, good to all who seek His goodness, she never went away
from what she meant, that faith and hope should feed each other.
This saved her from being a trouble to any one, or damping anybody's
cheerfulness, or diminishing the gaiety around her. She took a lively
interest in the affairs of other people, which a “blighted being”
declines to do; and their pleasures ministered to her own good cheer
without, or at any rate beyond, her knowledge. Therefore she was liked
by everybody, and beloved by all who had any heart for a brave and
pitiful story. Thus a sweet flower, half closed by the storm, continues
to breathe forth its sweetness.
However, there were times when even Faith was lost in sad remembrance,
and her bright young spirit became depressed by the hope deferred that
maketh sick the heart. As time grew longer, hope grew less; and even the
cheerful Admiral, well versed in perils of the deep, and acquainted with
many a wandering story, had made up his mind that Erle Twemlow was
dead, and would never more be heard of. The rector also, the young man's
father, could hold out no longer against that conclusion; and even the
mother, disdaining the mention, yet understood the meaning, of despair.
And so among those to whom the subject was the most interesting in the
world, it was now the strict rule to avoid it with the lips, though the
eyes were often filled with it.
Faith Darling at first scorned this hard law. “It does seem so unkind,”
she used to say, “that even his name should be interdicted, as if he had
disgraced himself. If he is dead, he has died with honour. None who ever
saw him can doubt that. But he is not dead. He will come back to us,
perhaps next week, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps even while we are afraid
to speak of him. If it is for my sake that you behave thus, I am not
quite so weak as to require it.”
The peculiar circumstances of the case had not only baffled enquiry,
but from the very beginning precluded it. The man with the keenest eyes,
sharpest nose, biggest ears, and longest head, of all the many sneaks
who now conduct what they call “special enquiries,” could have done
nothing with a case like this, because there was no beginning it. Even
now, in fair peace, and with large knowledge added, the matter would
not have been easy; but in war universal, and blank ignorance, there was
nothing to be done but to sit down and think. And the story invited a
good deal of thinking, because of its disappointing turn.
During the negotiations for peace in 1801, and before any articles were
signed, orders were sent to the Cape of Good Hope for the return of a
regiment of the line, which had not been more than three months there.
But the Cape was likely to be restored to Holland, and two empty
transports returning from India were to call under convoy, and bring
home these troops. One of the officers was Captain Erle Twemlow, then
about twenty-five years of age, and under probation, by the Admiral's
decree, for the hand of the maiden whose heart had been his from a time
to itself immemorial. After tiresome days of impatience, the transports
arrived under conduct of a frigate; and after another week, the soldiers
embarked with fine readiness for their native land.
But before they had cleared the Bay, they met a brig-of-war direct
from Portsmouth, carrying despatches for the officer in command of the
troops, as well as for the captain of the frigate. Some barbarous tribes
on the coast of Guinea, the part that is called the Ivory Coast, had
plundered and burnt a British trading station within a few miles of Cape
Palmas, and had killed and devoured the traders. These natives must be
punished, and a stern example made, and a negro monarch of the name of
Hunko Jum must have his palace burned, if he possessed one; while his
rival, the king of the Crumbo tribe, whose name was Bandeliah, who had
striven to protect the traders, must be rewarded, and have a treaty
made with him, if he could be brought to understand it. Both sailors
and soldiers were ready enough to undertake this little spree, as they
called it, expecting to have a pleasant run ashore, a fine bit of sport
with the negroes, and perhaps a few noserings of gold to take home to
their wives and sweethearts.
But, alas! the reality was not so fine. The negroes who had done all
the mischief made off, carrying most of their houses with them; and
the palace of Hunko Jum, if he possessed one, was always a little
way further on. The Colonel was a stubborn man, and so was the
sea-captain--good Tories both, and not desirous to skulk out of scrapes,
and leave better men to pick up their clumsy breakages. Blue and red
vied with one another to scour the country, and punish the natives--if
only they could catch them--and to vindicate, with much strong language,
the dignity of Great Britain, and to make an eternal example.
But white bones are what the white man makes, under that slimy sunshine
and putrefying moon. Weary, slack-jointed, low-hearted as they were, the
deadly coast-fever fell upon them, and they shivered, and burned, and
groaned, and raved, and leaped into holes, or rolled into camp fires.
The Colonel died early, and the Naval Captain followed him; none stood
upon the order of their going; but man followed man, as in a funeral, to
the grave, until there was no grave to go to. The hand of the Lord
was stretched out against them; and never would one have come back
to England, out of more than five hundred who landed, except for the
manhood and vigour of a seaman, Captain Southcombe, of the transport
Gwalior.
This brave and sensible man had been left with his ship lying off to be
signalled for, in case of mishap, while his consort and the frigate were
despatched in advance to a creek, about twenty leagues westward, where
the land-force triumphant was to join them. Captain Southcombe, with
every hand he could muster, traced the unfortunate party inland, and
found them led many leagues in the wrong direction, lost among quagmires
breathing death, worn out with vermin, venom, and despair, and hemmed
in by savages lurking for the night, to rush in upon and make an end of
them. What need of many words? This man, and his comrades, did more than
any other men on the face of this earth could have done without British
blood in them. They buried the many who had died without hope of the
decent concealment which our life has had, and therefore our death longs
for; they took on their shoulders, or on cane wattles, the many who had
made up their minds to die, and were in much doubt about having done it,
and they roused up and worked up by the scruff of their loose places the
few who could get along on their own legs. And so, with great spirit,
and still greater patience, they managed to save quite as many as
deserved it.
Because, when they came within signal of the Gwalior, Captain
Southcombe, marching slowly with his long limp burdens, found ready on
the sand the little barrel, about as big as a kilderkin, of true and
unsullied Stockholm pitch, which he had taken, as his brother took
Madeira, for ripeness and for betterance, by right of change of climate.
With a little of this given choicely and carefully at the back of every
sick man's tongue, and a little more spread across the hollow of his
stomach, he found them so enabled in the afternoon that they were glad
to sit up in the bottom of a boat, and resign themselves to an All-wise
Providence.
Many survived, and blessed Captain Southcombe, not at first
cordially--for the man yet remains to be discovered who is grateful to
his doctor--but gradually more and more, and with that healthy action
of the human bosom which is called expectoration, whenever grateful
memories were rekindled by the smell of tar. But this is a trifle; many
useful lives were saved, and the Nation should have thanked Captain
Southcombe, but did not.
After these sad incidents, when sorrow for old friends was tempered by
the friendly warmth afforded by their shoes, a muster was held by the
Major in command, and there was only one officer who could neither
assert himself alive, nor be certified as dead. That one was Erle
Twemlow, and the regiment would rather have lost any other two officers.
Urgent as it was, for the safety of the rest, to fly with every feather
from this pestilential coast, sails were handed, boats despatched, and
dealings tried with Hunko Jum, who had reappeared with promptitude, the
moment he was not wanted. From this noble monarch, and his chiefs, and
all his nation, it was hard to get any clear intelligence, because their
own was absorbed in absorbing. They had found upon the sands a cask of
Admiralty rum, as well as a stout residue of unadulterated pitch. Noses,
and tongues, and historical romance--for a cask had been washed ashore
five generations since, and set up for a god, when the last drop was
licked--induced this brave nation to begin upon the rum; and fashion (as
powerful with them as with us) compelled them to drink the tar likewise,
because they had seen the white men doing it. This would have made it
hard to understand them, even if they had been English scholars, which
their ignorance of rum proved them not to be; and our sailors very
nearly went their way, after sadly ascertaining nothing, except that the
cask was empty.
But luckily, just as they were pushing off, a very large, black head
appeared from behind a vegetable-ivory tree, less than a quarter of a
mile away, and they knew that this belonged to Bandeliah, the revered
king of the Crumbos, who had evidently smelled rum far inland. With
him they were enabled to hold discourse, partly by signs, and partly by
means of an old and highly polished negro, who had been the rat-catcher
at the factory now consumed; and the conclusion, or perhaps the
confusion, arrived at from signs, grunts, grins, nods, waggings of
fingers and twistings of toes, translated grandiloquently into broken
English, was not far from being to the following effect:
To wit, that two great kings reigned inland, either of them able to eat
up Hunko Jum and Bandeliah at a mouthful, but both of them too proud to
set foot upon land that was flat, or in water that was salt. They ruled
over two great nations called the Houlas, and the Quackwas, going out of
sight among great rivers and lands with clear water standing over them.
And if the white men could not understand this, it was because they
drank salt-water.
Moreover, they said that of these two kings, the king of the Houlas was
a woman, the most beautiful ever seen in all the world, and able to
jump over any man's head. But the king of the Quackwas was a man, and
although he had more than two thousand wives, and was taller by a
joint of a bamboo than Bandeliah--whose stature was at least six feet
four--yet nothing would be of any use to him, unless he could come to an
agreement with Mabonga, the queen of the Houlas, to split a durra straw
with him. But Mabonga was coy, and understanding men, as well as jumping
over them, would grant them no other favour than the acceptance of their
presents. However, the other great king was determined to have her
for his wife, if he abolished all the rest, and for this reason he had
caught and kept the lost Englishman as a medicine-man; and it was not
likely that he would kill him, until he failed or succeeded.
To further enquiries Bandeliah answered that to rescue the prisoner was
impossible. If it had been his own newest wife, he would not push out a
toe for her. The great king Golo lived up in high places that overlooked
the ground, as he would these white men, and his armies went like wind
and spread like fire. None of his warriors ate white man's flesh; they
were afraid it would make them cowardly.
A brave heart is generally tender in the middle, to make up for being so
firm outside, even as the Durian fruit is. Captain Southcombe had walked
the poop-deck of the Gwalior many a time, in the cool of the night, with
Erle Twemlow for his companion, and had taken a very warm liking to him.
So that when the survivors of the regiment were landed at Portsmouth,
this brave sailor travelled at his own cost to Springhaven, and told
the Rector the whole sad story, making it clear to him beyond all doubt,
that nothing whatever could be done to rescue the poor young man from
those savages, or even to ascertain his fate. For the Quackwas were an
inland tribe, inhabiting vast regions wholly unknown to any European,
and believed to extend to some mighty rivers, and lakes resembling
inland seas.
Therefore Mr. Twemlow, in a deep quiet voice, asked Captain Southcombe
one question only--whether he might keep any hope of ever having, by
the mercy of the Lord, his only son restored to him. And the sailor
said--yes; the mistake would be ever to abandon such a hope, for at
the moment he least expected it, his son might stand before him. He
pretended to no experience of the western coast of Africa, and niggers
he knew were a very queer lot, acting according to their own lights,
which differed according to their natures. But he was free to say, that
in such a condition he never would think of despairing, though it might
become very hard not to do so, as time went on without bringing any
news. He himself had been in sad peril more than once, and once it
appeared quite hopeless; but he thought of his wife and his children at
home, and the Lord had been pleased to deliver him.
The parson was rebuked by this brave man's faith, who made no pretence
whatever to piety; and when they said Goodbye, their eyes were bright
with the goodwill and pity of the human race, who know trouble not
inflicted as yet upon monkeys. Mr. Twemlow's heart fell when the sailor
was gone, quite as if he had lost his own mainstay; but he braced
himself up to the heavy duty of imparting sad news to his wife and
daughter, and worst of all to Faith Darling. But the latter surprised
him by the way in which she bore it; for while she made no pretence
to hide her tears, she was speaking as if they were needless. And
the strangest thing of all, in Mr. Twemlow's opinion, was her curious
persistence about Queen Mabonga. Could any black woman--and she supposed
she must be that--be considered by white people to be beautiful? Had
Captain Southcombe ever even seen her; and if not, how could he be in
such raptures about her attractions? She did not like to say a word,
because he had been so kind and so faithful to those poor soldiers, whom
it was his duty to bring home safe; but if it had not been for that, she
might have thought that with so many children and a wife at Limehouse,
he should not have allowed his mind to dwell so fondly on the personal
appearance of a negress!
The Rector was astonished at this injustice, and began to revise his
opinion about Faith as the fairest and sweetest girl in all the world;
but Mrs. Twemlow smiled, when she had left off crying, and said that
she liked the dear child all the better for concluding that Ponga--or
whatever her name was--must of necessity and at the first glance fall
desperately in love with her own Erle. Then the Rector cried, “Oh, to
be sure, that explained it! But he never could have thought of that,
without his wife's assistance.”
Two years now, two years of quiet patience, of busy cheerfulness now and
then, and of kindness to others always, had made of Faith Darling a lady
to be loved for a hundred years, and for ever. The sense of her sorrow
was never far from her, yet never brought near to any other by herself;
and her smile was as warm, and her eyes as bright, as if there had never
been a shadow on her youth. To be greeted by her, and to receive her
hand, and one sweet glance of her large goodwill, was enough to make an
old man feel that he must have been good at some time, and a young man
hope that he should be so by-and-by; though the tendency was generally
contented with the hope.