“Constantinople, Odessa, and the Levant.--The 'Cyclops,' five hundred
horse-power, to sail on Wednesday morning, at eight o'clock. For freight
or passage apply to Captain Robert B. Rogers.”
This announcement, which I found amidst a great many others in a frame
over the fireplace in the coffee-room, struck me forcibly, first of all,
because, not belonging to the regular mail-packets, it suggested a cheap
passage; and, secondly, it promised an early departure, and the vessel
was to sail on the very next morning, an amount of promptitude that I
felt would gratify Miss Herbert.
Now, although I had been living for a considerable time back at the cost
of the Imperial House of Hapsburg, my resources for such an expedition
as was opening before me were of the most slender kind. I made a careful
examination of all my worldly wealth, and it amounted to the sum of
forty-three pounds some odd shillings. On _terra firma_ I could, of
course, economize to any extent. With self-denial and resolution I could
live on very little. Life in the East, I had often heard, was singularly
cheap and inexpensive. All I had read of Oriental habits in the “Arabian
Nights” and “Tales of the Genii,” assured me that with a few dates and
a watermelon a man dined fully as well as need be; and the delicious
warmth of the climate rendered shelter a complete superfluity. Before
forming anything like a correct budget, I must ascertain what would be
the cost of my passage to Constantinople, and so I rang for the waiter
to direct me to the address of the advertiser.
“That's the captain yonder, sir,” whispered the waiter; and he pointed
to a stout, weather-beaten man, who, with his hands in the pockets of
his pilot-coat, was standing in front of the fire, smoking a cigar.
Although I had never seen him before, the features reminded me of some
one I had met with, and suddenly I bethought me of the skipper with whom
I had sailed from Ireland for Milford, and who had given me a letter for
his brother “Bob,”--the very Robert Rogers now before me.
“Do you know this handwriting, Captain?” said I, draw-, ing the letter
from my pocket-book.
“That's my brother Joe's,” said he, not offering to take the letter from
my hand, or removing the cigar from his mouth, but talking with all the
unconcern in life. “That's Joe's own scrawl, and there ain't a worse
from this to himself.”
“The letter is for you,” said I, rather offended at his coolness.
“So I see. Stick it up there, over the chimney; Joe has never anything
to say that won't keep.”
“It is a letter of introduction, sir,” said I, still more haughtily.
“And what if it be? Won't that keep? Who is it to introduce?”
“The humble individual before you, Captain Rogers.”
“So, that's it!” said he, slowly. “Well, read it out for me; for, to
tell you the truth, there's no harder navigation to me than one of Joe's
scrawls.”
“I believe I can master it,” said I, opening and reading what originally
had been composed and drawn up by myself. When I came to “Algernon
Sydney Potts, a man so completely after your own heart,” he drew his
cigar from his mouth, and, laying his hand on my shoulder, turned me
slowly around till the light fell full upon me.
“No, Joseph,” said he, deliberately, “not a bit of it, my boy. This
ain't my sort of chap at all!”
I almost choked with anger, but somehow there was such an apparent
earnestness in the man, and such a total absence of all wish to offend,
that I read on to the end.
“Well,” said he, as I concluded, “he used n't to be so wordy as that. I
wonder what came over him. Mayhap he was n't well.”
What a comment on a style that might have adorned the Correct Letter
Writer!
“He was, on the contrary, in the enjoyment of perfect health, sir,” said
I, tartly.
“All I can pick out of it is, I ain't to offer you any money; and as
there is n't any direction easier to follow, nor pleasanter to obey,
here's my hand!” And he wrung mine with a grip that would have flattened
a chain cable.
“What's your line, here? You ain't sodgering, are you?”
“No; I 'm travelling, for pleasure, for information, for pastime, as one
might say.”
“In the general do-nothing and careless line of business? That ain't
mine. No, by jingo! I don't eat my fish without matching, ay, and
salting them too, I ain't ashamed to say. I 'm captain, supercargo, and
pilot of my own craft; take every lunar that is taken aboard. I 've writ
every line that ever is writ in the log-book, and I vaccinated every
man and boy aboard for the natural small-pox with these fingers and
this tool that you see here!” And he produced an old and very rusty
instrument of veterinary surgery from his vest-pocket, where it lay with
copper money, tobacco quids, and lucifer matches.
I quickly remembered the character for inordinate boast-fulness his
brother had given me, and of which he thus, without any provocation on
my part, afforded me a slight specimen. Now, perhaps, at this stage of
my narrative, I might never have alluded to him at all, if it were
not for the opportunity it gives me of recording how nobly and how
resolutely I resisted what may be called the most trying temptation of
human nature. An inveterate dram-drinker has been known to turn away
from the proffered glass; an incurable gambler has been seen to decline
the invitation to “cut in;” dignitaries of the church have begged
off being made bishops; but is there any mention in history of an
anecdote-monger suffering himself to be patiently vanquished, and
retiring from the field without firing off at least an “incident that
occurred to himself”? If ever a man was sorely tried, _I_ was. Here was
this coarsely minded vulgar dog, with nothing pictorial or imaginative
in his nature, heaping story upon story of his own feats and
achievements, in which not one solitary situation ever suggested an
interest or awakened an anxiety; and I, who could have shot my tigers,
crippled my leopards, hamstrung my lionesses, rescued men from drowning,
and women from fire,--with little life touches to thrill the heart and
force tears from the eyes of a stock-broker,--I, I say, had to stand
there and listen in silence! Watching a creature banging away at a
target that he never hit, with an old flint musket, while you held in
your hand a short Enfield that would have driven the ball through the
bull's eye, is nothing to this; and to tell the truth, it nearly choked
me. Twice I had to cough down the words, “Now let me mention a personal
fact.” But I did succeed, and I am proud to say I only grew very red in
the face, and felt that singing noise in the ears and general state of
muddle that forebodes a fit. But I rallied, and said in a voice, slow
from the dignity of a self-conquest,--
“Can you take me as a passenger to Constantinople?”
“To Constantinople? Ay, to the Persian Gulf, to Point de Galle, to
Cochin China, to Ross River; don't think to puzzle me with navigation,
my lad.”
“Are there many other passengers?”
“I could have five hundred, if I 'd take 'em! Put Bob Rogers on a
placard, and see what'll happen. If I said, 'I 'm a-going to sea on a
plank to-morrow,' there's men would rather come along with me than go in
the 'Queen' or the 'Hannibal.' I don't say they 're right, mind ye; but
I won't say they's wrong, neither.”
“Oh, why did n't I meet this wretch when I was a child? Why didn't my
father find a Helot like this, to tell lies before me, and frighten me
with their horrid ugliness?” This was the thought that flashed through
me as I listened. I felt, besides, that such stupid, purposeless
inventions corrupted and blunted the taste for graceful narrative, just
in the same way that an undeserving recipient of charity offends the
pleasure of real benevolence.
“May I ask, Captain Rogers, what is the fare?” said I, with a bland
courtesy.
“That depends upon the man, sir. If you was Ramsam Can-tanker-abad, I'd
say five hundred gold pagodas. If you was a Cockney stripling, with a
fresh-water face, and a spunyarn whisker, I 'd call it a matter of seven
or eight pound.”
“And you sail at eight?”
“To the minute. When Bob Rogers says eight o'clock, the first turn of
the paddles will be the first stroke of the hour.”
“Then book me, pray, for a berth; and, for surety's sake, I'll go aboard
to-night!”
“Meet me, then, here, at ten o'clock, and I 'll take you off in my gig,
an honor to be proud on, my lad; but as Joe's friend, I'll do it.”
I bowed my acknowledgments and went off, neither delighted with my new
acquaintance, nor myself for the patience I had shown him. After all,
I had secured an early passage, and was thus able to show Kate Herbert
that I was not going to let the grass grow under my feet this time, and
that she might reckon on my zeal to serve her in future. As I retraced
my road to the cottage, I forgot all about Captain Rogers, and only
thought of Kate, and the interests that were hers. It was next to
a certainty that her father was yet alive; but how to find him in a
strange land, with a feigned name, and most probably with every aid
and appliance to complete his disguisement! It was, doubtless, a noble
enterprise to devote oneself for such as she was, but not very hopeful
withal; and then I went over various plans for my future guidance: what
I should do if I fell sick? what if my money failed me? what if I
were waylaid by Arabs, or carried away to some fearful region in
the mountains, and made to feed a pet alligator or a domestic
boa-constrictor? I hoped sincerely that I was overestimating my possible
perils, but it was wise to give a large margin to the unknown; and so I
did not curb-myself in the least.
As I entered the grounds, the night was falling, and I could see that
the lamps were already lighted in the drawing-room. What surprised
me, however, was to see a very smart groom, well mounted, and leading
another horse up and down before the door. There was, evidently, a
visitor within, and I felt indisposed to enter till he had gone away. My
curiosity, however, prompted me to ask the groom the name of his master,
and he replied, “The Honorable Captain Buller.”
The very essence of all jealousy is that it is unreasoning. It is well
known that husbands--that much-believing and much-belied class--always
suspect every one but the right man; and now, without the faintest clew
to a suspicion, I grew actually sick with jealousy!
Nor was it altogether blamable in me, for as I looked through the
uncurtained window, I could see the Captain, a fine-looking, rather
tigerish sort of fellow, standing with his back to the fireplace, while
he talked to Miss Herbert, who sat some distance off at a work-table.
There was in his air that amount of jaunty ease and self-possession that
said, “I 'm at home here; in this fortress I hold the chief command.”
There was about him, too, the tone of an assumed superiority, which,
when displayed by a man towards a woman, takes the most offensive of all
possible aspects.
As he talked, he moved at last towards a window, and, opening it, held
out his hand to feel if it were raining.
“I hope,” cried he, “you'll not send me back with a refusal; her
Ladyship counts upon you as the chief ornament of her ball.”
“We never do go to balls, sir,” was the dry response.
“But make this occasion the exception. If you only knew how lamentably
we are off for pretty people, you 'd pity us. Such garrison wives and
daughters are unknown to the oldest inhabitant of the island. Surely
Mrs. Keats will be quite well by Wednesday, and she 'll not be so cruel
as to deny you to us for this once.”
“I can but repeat my excuses,--I never go out.”
“If you say so, I think I'll abandon all share in the enterprise. It was
a point of honor with me to persuade you; in fact, I pledged myself to
succeed, and if you really persist in a refusal, I 'II just pitch all
these notes in the fire, and go off yachting till the whole thing is
over.” And with this he drew forth a mass of notes from his sabretache,
and proceeded to con over the addresses: “'Mrs. Hilyard,' 'Mr. Barnes,'
'Mr. Clintosh,' 'Lady Bladgen.' Oh, Lady Blagden! Why, it would be worth
while coming only to see her and Sir John; and here are the Crosbys too;
and what have we here! Oh! this is a note from Grey. You don't know my
brother Grey,--he 'd amuse you immensely. Just listen to this, by way of
a letter of introduction:--
“'Dear George,--Cherish the cove that will hand you this note as
the most sublime snob I have ever met in all my home and foreign
experiences. In a large garrison like yours, you can have no difficulty
in finding fellows to give him a field-day. I commit him, therefore, to
your worthy keeping, to dine him, draw him forth, and pitch him out of
the window when you've done with him. No harm if it is from the topmost
story of the highest barrack in Malta. His name is Potts,--seriously and
truthfully Potts. Birth, parentage, and belongings all unknown to
“'Yours ever,'
“'Grey Buller.'”
“You are unfortunate, sir, in confiding your correspondence to me,” said
Kate, rising from her seat, “for that gentleman is a friend--a sincere
and valued friend--of my own, and you could scarcely have found a more
certain way to offend me than to speak of him slightingly.”
“You can't mean that you know him--ever met him?”
“I know him and respect him, and I will not listen to one word to his
disparagement. Nay, more, sir, I will feel myself at liberty, if I think
it fitting, to tell Mr. Potts the honorable mode in which your brother
has discharged the task of an introduction, its good faith, and
gentlemanlike feeling.”
“Pray, let us have him at the mess first. Don't spoil our sport till we
have at least one evening out of him.”
But she did not wait for him to finish his speech, and left the room.
It is but fair to own he took his reverses with great coolness; he
tightened his sword-belt, set his cap on his head before the glass,
stroked down his moustache, and then, lighting a cigar, swaggered off to
the door with the lounging swing of his order.
As for myself, I hastened back to the town, and with such speed that
I traversed the mile in something like thirteen minutes. I had no very
clear or collected plan of action, but I resolved to ask Captain Rogers
to be my friend, and see me through this conjuncture. He had just dined
as I entered the coffee-room, and consented to have his brandy-and-water
removed to my bedroom while I opened my business with him.
I will not, at this eleventh hour of revelations, inflict upon my reader
the details, but simply be satisfied to state that I found the skipper
far more practical than I looked for. He evidently, besides, had a taste
for these sort of adventures, and prided himself on his conduct of them.
“Go back now, and eat your dinner comfortably with your friends; leave
everything to me, and I promise you one thing,--the 'Cyclops' shall not
get full steam up till we have settled this small transaction.”