CONCLUSION.
I have but little more to add, for with this last episode the course
of wild adventures upon which I had been so strangely hurried, nearly
closes.
A few hours after the death of Antonio, when Hislop and I, with
Lambourne, Carlton, and other survivors of the _Eugenie_ were waiting
in the office of the British Consul to make some arrangements for
rewarding José Estremera for his great kindness to us all, we met
Captain the Hon. Egerton B----, of H.M. ship _Active_, who was so
struck with our story that he offered us all a passage to England, an
offer which we accepted with gratitude.
His ship was leaving the African squadron, and returning home to be
repaired.
"Rodney--Rodney," said he, ponderingly, when the Consul introduced
me; "you ought to have been a sailor, for your name is well known in
the service;" and his words brought the memory of my poor mother's
ambition back to me, and I thought of the old picture which hung in
the dining-room at home.
After a brief conference with his shipmates Tattooed Tom now came
forward, and twirling his fragment of a hat, said that "if the noble
captain had no objection, as he, Ned Carlton, Probart, and the other
poor fellows of the _Eugenie_ were out of a berth, and at uncommon
low water, they would gladly ship aboard the _Active_, and enter her
Majesty's service."
Captain B----, who saw at a glance that they were all first-class
seamen, readily accepted the offer, and promised them the usual
bounty; on which they gave three loud cheers for the Queen, and it
came from their throats not the less heartily that they were far away
from her and in a foreign land, all tattered as they were, with
scarcely a shirt to their backs.
"Heaven bless you, my lads," said Hislop; "this is the best thing you
can do; and believe me, Captain B----, you will find my old shipmates
neither waisters nor green-hands, but thorough A.B.'s."
As they all loved him, another cheer for Hislop followed, and while
the captain went off to the _Active_ in his gig, we all adjourned to
a posada to have a last friendly glass together.
Soon after, as the war steamer was to sail that evening, a boat under
a midshipman came off for us, and then we bade farewell to José
Estremera, to his mate, Manuel Gautier, to Fra Anselmo, and the old
Governor of Surabaya.
"Come, Dick--we have no time to lose," said Hislop; "let us be off to
the ship while daylight lasts; these fellows in Teneriffe haven't
missed their diamond yet!"
I shall never forget my emotions of joy when the boat with Hislop and
the rest of us came sheering alongside the _Active_.
She was so clean, so trig, so square aloft; with the bright copper
gleaming in the water below; her black bulwarks and red portholes,
through which her sixty-eights and thirty-twos peered above the
brine; the snow-white hammock cloths, with the gold epaulets of the
lieutenant of the watch glittering above them; the red-coated marines
on her poop and forecastle; the great scarlet ensign of "Old England"
floating at the gaff-peak:--and that no part of the illusion might be
wanting, a little marine fifer, playing shrilly but sweetly "Home,
sweet home," in one of the boats that lay alongside by the guess-warp
boom.
She was so thoroughly British in her aspect, so unlike any thing we
had seen in the seas we had traversed, that we felt _at home_ the
moment our feet were on her deck of good old English oak--ay, as much
at home as if we stood upon the chalky South Foreland, and saw the
green hop-fields of fertile Kent at our feet, with the gray towers of
Dover and the white spires of Deal in the distance. Old Lambourne
uttered a shout, and pointed to the Union Jack.
One must be abroad and far away to feel to the full the emotions that
are excited, and the confidence which is inspired on seeing the old
flag, that has swept every sea and shore, waving in its pride from
the gaff-peak of a British man-of-war!
It is then that we feel "what a sway _one little island_ has
exercised over this mighty earth."
Hislop and I dined with Captain B----, who was anxious to hear our
story in detail.
Our shipmates were told off to their several divisions, and we were
placed in the ward-room mess for the remainder of the voyage.
We sailed that night, and under steam and canvas, as we bore away to
the north, we soon saw the Peak of Adam sinking into the dark blue
sea.
"Adieu to the Canaries," said Hislop, waving his hat; "the next shore
we see will be Europe,--the white cliffs of Old England, perhaps."
But next day we sighted the great pitons of the Salvage Islands, a
group of uninhabited rocks which are claimed by the Portuguese
(perhaps because no one else cares about them), and which are
surrounded by dangerous shoals. One of these isles closely resembles
the fantastic rocks of the Needles, at the west end of the Isle of
Wight.
On the Salvages the canary birds are so numerous, that an old voyager
says, "it is impossible to walk without crushing their eggs."
We touched at Madeira, and after a delightful voyage of about sixteen
days, ran up the Channel, and came to anchor in the Downs on the 20th
of October.
* * * * *
I had been absent from home more than a year, when I found myself in
London--in mighty London, with its dark forests of masts and its
darker cathedral dome, that meets the eye from every point of
view:--a wondrous and bewildering change, after traversing so long
the wide and lonely sea!
With a heart swollen by anxiety to learn tidings of my father, my
mother, and sisters, I reached the counting-house of my uncle's firm,
Rodney and Co., in the city, but there was something so peculiar in
my aspect, which pertained neither to sea nor shore, and was
unmistakably outlandish, that old John Thomas, the porter, seemed
inclined to shut the door in my face.
A short explanation, however, soon overcame his scruples, and I was
then admitted.
My uncle was at Erlesmere; but his head clerk assured me that my
family were all well, though they had long since given me up for
dead, as a handsome (he assured me it was very handsome) white marble
tablet erected to my memory in the Rectory church remained to testify.
My letters from Cuba had never reached home!
As I had no desire to shock my parents by a sudden surprise, a
telegram preceded me, and in less than an hour I was off by the
express-train for Erlesmere. But with all its speed, the express
seemed too slow for me. Marc Hislop accompanied me until he could
get a ship; but before looking for that he meant to visit his old
mother, who lived somewhere in Scotland.
After all that we had undergone, all that I had to show my family
were the sword and old book found in the water-logged brig, the
creese of a mutinous Lascar, the ring given me by the Governor of
Surabaya, and though mentioned last not esteemed the least, our
diamond, of which Marc Hislop and I have not yet ascertained the
value, or I should rather say its proper claim to the designation of
a diamond.
For Marc Hislop's sake, more than my own, I trust that our sanguine
expectations may be realized, and that it may, at all events, furnish
him, out of his share of the prize, with the means of providing
comfortably for the mother who so admirably trained him up to a love
of knowledge and to a sense of duty.
I have now realized the truth of Goethe's maxim: "He that looks
forward sees one way to pursue; but _he who looks backward sees
many_."
And so, tempered by a year of adversity, enlightened by its
experience and suffering, I have returned, more than ever determined
to make up for lost time, and to work my way manfully to King's
College, Cambridge; after which, the reader who has accompanied me so
far, may perhaps hear of me again.
THE END.