THE LIVID FACE.
The event of the night shed a gloom, a horror, over all in the cabin
next day; nor was the alarm in the breasts of Captain Phillips and
his mates in the least soothed, when it was remarked that the cook's
grindstone was kept at work all the forenoon, and a most ominous
sharpening of sheath and clasp-knives went on, while sundry jokes
were uttered audibly about "Mister Manfreddy having gone on a visit
to Mr. David Jones and Old Mother Carey, without his umbrella, too;"
"and the rain a fallin' like Niagary," as Badger, the Yankee, added,
with a diabolical grin.
The morning sky was gray and cloudy; a heavy sea was still on, and
not a sail was in sight, so Captain Phillips swept the horizon with
his telescope in vain.
At breakfast Ethel and her sister were informed that Mr. Manfredi had
fallen overboard in the night, and been drowned. No hint of foul
play was given them, at their father's special request; but they wept
and mourned for the poor young fellow, of whom they now recalled to
memory so many pleasing traits and anecdotes; among others, the sad
story of his little brother, Attilio, who had been so savagely shot
by the Austrians at Pistoja.
His seat at table, his place in the cabin were empty; his face and
form were no longer seen, and his step and voice were no longer heard.
The suddenness of the catastrophe seemed most difficult of
realisation; and the words of Dana, in a passage of one of his works,
which Dr. Heriot pointed out to Rose, came painfully and truthfully
home to all their hearts.
"Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man
dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and the mourners go
about the streets; but, when a man falls overboard at sea and is
lost, there is a suddenness in the event which gives it an air of
awful mystery. Then at sea you miss a man so much. A dozen men are
shut up together in a little bark upon the wide wide sea, and for
months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own; but
one is suddenly taken from among them, and they miss him at every
turn. There are no new forms or faces to fill up the gap. There is
always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one more wanting when
the small night-watch is mustered. There is one less to take the
wheel, one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form
and the sound of his voice--for habit had made them almost necessary
to you, and each of your senses feels the loss."
"So we shall never see him again--never!" said Ethel, with her eyes
full of tears; "so kind, good, and gentle."
"And so handsome, too!" added Rose.
"A better seaman never trod a deck," sighed Mr. Quail.
"Damnation!" was the singular addendum of Captain Phillips, through
his clenched teeth, when thinking of the secret he had not revealed,
and the crime which, as yet, he dared not attempt to punish.
So Ethel put past "I Promessi Sposi," which had Manfredi's name
written on the fly-leaf of the first volume, as the relic of a friend
with whom she had spent many happy hours, whom she never more could
see, and on whose vast tomb, the boundless ocean, she almost
shuddered to look--for was not Morley Ashton sleeping there too?
So the gloomy day passed slowly on, and night came on.
Retired to their little cabin, Ethel and Rose were disrobing for
rest--Nance Folgate had long since gone to sleep--and now,
relinquishing the sad subject of Manfredi, Rose, with a blush on her
charming face, was detailing to Ethel, for the second time, her
interview with Leslie Heriot, whose ring--containing a large Scottish
pearl, set with diamonds--glittered on the engaged finger of her left
hand.
"And you are sure that you love him, Rose?" said Ethel, as she took
her sister's face caressingly and affectionately between her soft
hands.
"Dearly, devotedly," was the energetic reply. "How could I do
otherwise, when he is such a kind, darling fellow--and so handsome
too?"
"Have you weighed well the probabilities of the future?"
"What do you mean, Ethel dear?"
"What papa may think."
"Oh, Leslie will speak to papa to-morrow, or on the next day, at the
latest."
Ethel smiled sadly at her sister's confidence.
"Our voyage will soon be over, dear Rose," said she, shaking her head
seriously. "Once round the Cape of Good Hope, we shall be speedily
at the Isle of France, and then your dream of joy will have an end--a
rough awaking; not so sad or rough as mine, but a gloomy reality, and
a doubtful future, nevertheless."
Poor Rose's usually merry eyes now filled with large tears, and she
permitted the braids of her fine dark hair, which her slender fingers
were wreathing up for the night, to roll down in unheeded masses over
her bare bosom and back, which shone white as the new-fallen
snowdrift, in the light of the cabin lamp that swung above her.
"And Jack Page--poor Jack Page!" said Ethel, smiling, to arouse
Rose's spirit; "is he quite forgotten--eh?"
"Oh bother Jack Page!" replied Rose, crimsoning, and with the
faintest tinge of irritation in her tone, as she proceeded vigorously
to knot up the masses of black hair. "He was a pleasant enough
fellow to flirt with, or play croquet with at Laurel Lodge (dear old
Laurel Lodge! ah, heavens! Ethel, shall we ever see it again?) He
was a good fellow for fishing or sailing on the mere----"
"And to botanise with, and to gather wild flowers on Cherrywood
Hill," added Ethel, a little maliciously.
"Yes; but he gave himself such insufferable airs after he became a
rifle volunteer; and as for loving him, I should almost as soon think
of loving your adorer, the gallant Captain Hawkshaw. By-the-by, how
taciturn he has become of late."
"Perhaps he finds his task a hopeless one," said Ethel, with a
haughty smile.
"He seems quite changed somehow," said Rose, slipping into bed, "does
he not, Ethel dear? Why don't you speak to me?" added Rose, with
sudden alarm, and springing from her berth, on perceiving her sister
standing pale and motionless, her lips parted, her dark eyes dilated
with terror, and their gaze fixed on the little circular window of
their cabin, which was simply a pane of thick glass, about nine
inches in diameter, framed in an iron ring, and secured by a powerful
bolt.
Rose gazed in the same direction, and beheld, to her intense dismay,
the whole aperture filled by a human face--a man's apparently--pale,
livid, green, and distorted, as viewed through the coarse crystal,
with large keen eyes, that glared in upon them.
Whoever the person was that dared thus to violate their privacy, he
occupied a position of extreme peril, for the little window in
question was below the plank sheer of the ship, and considerably
abaft the mizzen chains, so that the eavesdropper must have been
swinging alongside, almost with his heels in the foam that boiled
under the ship's counter.
Could the sea give up its dead?
Was it a spectre--Manfredi, or Morley Ashton?
Such were Rose's first ideas, as she clung in terror to her rigid but
more resolute sister, who sprang forward and vainly attempted with
her delicate hands to wrench round the bolt, and open the little
window; but at that moment a fierce and sardonic smile seemed to
spread over that livid and distorted visage, which instantly
vanished, and then nothing was seen through the aperture but the vast
sea that rolled in the starlight far away.
"Papa--Nurse Folgate!" screamed Rose; but the old woman slept like
one of the seven sleepers.
"Hush!" said Ethel, "'twas only some insolent seaman; but we must
prevent a recurrence of this," she added, as she rapidly hung a
species of curtain over the window. "Good heavens, Rose! to think
how often this may have happened before, and we in total ignorance of
it; but the captain shall be told in the morning."
"Oh, Ethel!" exclaimed Rose, "how terrified I am."
"Why?"
"At first I thought it was his ghost."
"Whose?"
"Poor Mr. Manfredi's."
"Nonsense, child!"
"A ghost on board of a ship, how dreadful that would be! Almost as
bad as a fire, for there would be no escaping from it."
Inspired by natural emotions of doubt, Ethel opened the door and
peeped out into the great cabin. All was still and quiet there, at
least nothing was heard but the jarring of the rudder in its case,
and of the brass swings of the lamp and tell-tale compass, with the
heavy creaking of the ship's timbers, the backwash under the counter,
and one other sound, to which she had become pretty familiar about
this time--to wit, the profound snoring of Mr. Quail, as he lay at
full length on the cabin locker, with his peacoat spread over him,
and his sou'-wester at hand, ready to relieve the deck when the
middle-watch was called.
She secured the door, perhaps more carefully than usual. She knelt
down by Rose's side to say her prayers, after which they retired
together, but lay long awake, conversing of that future, the events
of which, happily, they could so little foresee, until they dropped
asleep, Rose with her charming face half pillowed on Ethel's snowy
shoulder.
All remained still in the ship; but while the two sisters slept with
arms entwined, each "hushed like the callow cygnet in its nest,"
anxious hearts were watching over them elsewhere; and they formed the
subject of a somewhat unusual, but animated, discussion among the
seamen--a discussion of which, as yet, they were happily ignorant.