 | CHAPTER VIII. The Red Rover |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
—“But, for the miracle,
I mean our preservation, few in millions
Can speak like us.”
—Tempest.
The “Dolphin” might well have been likened to a
slumbering beast of prey, during those moments of
treacherous calm. But as nature limits the period
of repose to the creatures of the animal world, so it
would seem that the inactivity of the freebooters
was not doomed to any long continuance. With the
morning sun a breeze came over the water, breathing
the flavour of the land, to set the sluggish ship
again in motion. Throughout all that day, with a
wide reach of canvas spreading along her booms,
her course was held towards the south. Watch succeeded
watch, and night came after day, and still no
change was made in her direction. Then the blue
islands were seen heaving up, one after another, out
of the sea. The prisoners of the Rover, for thus
the females were now constrained to consider themselves,
silently watched each hillock of green that
the vessel glided past, each naked and sandy key, or
each mountain side, until, by the calculations of the
governess, they were already steering amid the western
Archipelago.
During all this time no question was asked which
in the smallest manner betrayed to the Rover the
consciousness of his guests that he was not conducting
Gertrude wept over the sorrow her father would
feel, when he should believe her fate involved in
that of the unfortunate Bristol trader; but her tears
flowed in private, or were freely poured upon the
sympathizing bosom of her governess. Wilder she
avoided, with an intuitive consciousness that he was
no longer the character she had wished to believe;
but to all in the ship she struggled to maintain an
equal air and a serene eye. In this deportment, far
safer than any impotent entreaties might have proved,
she was strongly supported by her governess, whose
knowledge of mankind had early taught her that
virtue was never so imposing, in the moments of
trial, as when it knew best how to maintain its equanimity.
On the other hand, both the Commander of
the ship and his lieutenant sought no other communication
with the inmates of the cabin, than courtesy
appeared absolutely to require.
The former, as though repenting already of having
laid so bare the capricious humours of his mind,
drew gradually into himself, neither seeking nor permitting
familiarity with any; while the latter appeared
perfectly conscious of the constrained mien
of the governess, and of the altered though still pitying
eye of her pupil. Little explanation was necessary
to acquaint Wilder with the reasons of this
change. Instead of seeking the means to vindicate
his character, however, he rather imitated their reserve.
Little else was wanting to assure his former
friends of the nature of his pursuits; for even Mrs
Wyllys admitted to her charge, that he acted like
one in whom depravity had not yet made such progress
as to have destroyed that consciousness which
is ever the surest test of innocence.
We shall not detain the narrative, to dwell upon
the natural regrets in which Gertrude indulged, as
this sad conviction forced itself upon her understanding,
not think it wrong to indulge, that one, who certainly
was master of so many manly and generous qualities,
might soon be made to see the error of his life,
and to return to a course for which even her cold
and nicely judging governess allowed nature had so
eminently endowed him. Perhaps the kind emotions
that had been awakened in her bosom, by the events
of the last fortnight, were not content to exhibit
themselves in wishes alone, and that petitions more
personal, and even more fervent than common, mingled
in her prayers; but this is a veil which it is not
our province to raise, the heart of one so pure and
so ingenuous being the best repository for its own
gentle feelings.
For several days the ship had been contending
with the unvarying winds of those regions. Instead of
struggling, however, like a cumbered trader, to gain
some given port, the “Rover” suddenly altered her
course, and glided through one of the many passages
that offered, with the ease of a bird that is settling
swiftly to its nest. A hundred different sails were
seen steering among the islands, but all were avoided
alike; the policy of the freebooters teaching them
the necessity of moderation, in a sea so crowded
with vessels of war. After the vessel had shot
through one of the straits which divide the chain of
the Antilles, she issued in safety on the more open
sea which separates them from the Spanish Main.
The moment the passage was effected, and a broad
and clear horizon was seen stretching on every side
of them, a manifest alteration occurred in the mien
of every individual of the crew. The brow of the
Rover himself lost its contraction; and the look of
care, which had wrapped the whole man in a mantle
of reserve, disappeared, leaving him the reckless,
wayward being we have more than once described.
Even the men, whose vigilance had needed no quickening
were known to swarm in the narrower seas, appeared
to breathe a freer air, and sounds of merriment and
thoughtless gaiety were once more heard in a place
over which the gloom of distrust had been so long
and so heavily cast.
On the other hand, the governess saw new ground
for uneasiness in the course the vessel was taking.
While the islands were in view, she had hoped, and
surely not without reason, that their captor only
awaited a suitable occasion to place them in safety
within the influence of the laws of some of the
colonial governments. Her own observation told
her there was so much of what was once good, if not
noble, mingled with the lawlessness of the two principal
individuals in the vessel, that she saw nothing
that was visionary in such an expectation. Even
the tales of the time, which recounted the desperate
acts of the freebooter, with not a little of wild and
fanciful exaggeration, did not forget to include numberless
striking instances of marked, and even chivalrous
generosity. In short, he bore the character
of one who, while he declared himself the enemy
of all, knew how to distinguish between the weak
and the strong, and who often found as much gratification
in repairing the wrongs of the former, as in
humbling the pride of the latter.
But all her agreeable anticipations from this quarter
were forgotten when the last island of the groupe
sunk into the sea behind them, and the ship lay alone
on an ocean which showed not another object above
its surface. As if now ready to lay aside the mask,
the Rover ordered the sails to be reduced, and, neglecting
the favourable breeze, the vessel to be
brought to the wind. In a word, as if no object called
for the immediate attention of her crew, the
“Dolphin” came to a stand, in the midst of the water,
her officers and people abandoning themselves
dictated.
“I had hoped that your convenience would have
permitted us to land in some of his Majesty's islands,”
said Mrs Wyllys, speaking for the first time since her
suspicions had been awakened on the subject of her
quitting the ship, and addressing her words to the
self-styled Captain Heidegger, just after the order
to heave-to the vessel had been obeyed. “I fear
you find it irksome to be so long dispossessed of your
cabin.”
“It cannot be better occupied,” he rather evasively
replied; though the observant and anxious governess
fancied his eye was bolder, and his air under
less restraint, than when she had before dwelt on
the same topic. “If custom did not require that a
ship should wear the colours of some people, mine
should always sport those of the fair.”
“And, as it is?”—
“As it is, I hoist the emblems that belong to the
service I am in.”
“In fifteen days, that you have been troubled with
my presence, it has never been my good fortune to
see those colours set.”
“No!” exclaimed the Rover, glancing his eye at
her, as if to penetrate her thoughts: “Then shall
the uncertainty cease on the sixteenth.—Who's there,
abaft?”
“No one better nor worse than Richard Fid,”
returned the individual in question, lifting his head
from out a locker, into which it had been thrust, as
though its owner searched for some mislaid implement,
and who added a little quickly, when he ascertained
by whom he was addressed, “and always
at your Honour's orders.”
“Ah! 'Tis the friend of our friend,” the Rover
observed to Mrs Wyllys, with an emphasis which
the other understood. “He shall be my interpreter.
you.”
“A thousand at your service, sir,” returned Richard,
unhesitatingly complying; “for, though no great
talker, I have always something uppermost in my
mind, which can be laid hold of at need.”
“I hope you find that your hammock swings easily
in my ship?”
“I'll not deny it, your Honour; for an easier craft,
especially upon a bow-line, might be hard to find.”
“And the cruise?—I hope you also find the cruise
such as a seaman loves.”
“D'ye see, sir, I was sent from home with little
schooling, and so I seldom make so free as to pretend
to read the Captain's orders.”
“But still you have your inclinations,” said Mrs
Wyllys, firmly, as though determined to push the investigation
even further than her companion had
intended.
“I can't say that I'm wanting in natural feeling, your
Ladyship,” returned Fid, endeavouring to manifest
his admiration of the sex, by the awkward bow he
made to the governess as its representative, “tho'f
crosses and mishaps have come athwart me as well as
better men. I thought as strong a splice was laid, between
me and Kate Whiffle, as was ever turned into
a sheet-cable; but then came the law, with its regulations
and shipping articles, luffing short athwart
my happiness, and making a wreck at once of all
the poor girl's hopes, and a Flemish account of my
comfort.”
“It was proved that she had another husband?”
said the Rover, nodding his head, understandingly.
“Four, your Honour. The girl had a love of
company, and it grieved her to the heart to see an
empty house: But then, as it was seldom more than
one of us could be in port at a time, there was no
such need to make the noise they did about the trifle.
the land-sharks. Had every woman in the parish as
many husbands as Kate, the devil a bit would they
have taken up the precious time of judge and jury,
in looking into the manner in which a wench like
her kept a quiet household.”
“And, since that unfortunate repulse, you have
kept yourself altogether out of the hands of matrimony?”
“Ay, ay; since, your Honour,” returned Fid, giving
his Commander another of those droll looks, in
which a peculiar cunning struggled with a more direct
and straight-going honesty; “since, as you say
rightly, sir; though they talked of a small matter of
a bargain that I had made with another woman, myself;
but, in overhauling the affair, they found, that,
as the shipping articles with poor Kate wouldn't
hold together, why, they could make nothing at all
of me; so I was white-washed like a queen's parlour,
and sent adrift.”
“And all this occurred after your acquaintance
with Mr Wilder?”
“Afore, your Honour; afore. I was but a younker
in the time of it, seeing that it is four-and-twenty
years, come May next, since I have been towing at
the stern of master Harry. But then, as I have had
a sort of family of my own, since that day, why, the
less need, you know, to be birthing myself again in
any other man's hammock.”
“You were saying, it is four-and-twenty years,”
interrupted Mrs Wyllys, “since you made the acquaintance
of Mr Wilder?”
“Acquaintance! Lord, my Lady, little did he
know of acquaintances at that time; though, bless
him! the lad has had occasion to remember it often
enough since.”
“The meeting of two men, of so singular merit,
the Rover.
“It was, for that matter, remarkable enough, your
Honour; though, as to the merit, notwithstanding
master Harry is often for overhauling that part of
the account, I've set it down for just nothing at all.”
“I confess, that, in a case where two men, both
of whom are so well qualified to judge, are of different
opinions, I feel at a loss to know which can
have the right. Perhaps, by the aid of the facts, I
might form a truer judgment.”
“Your Honour forgets the Guinea, who is altogether
of my mind in the matter, seeing no great
merit in the thing either. But, as you are saying, sir,
reading the log is the only true way to know how
fast a ship can go; and so, if this Lady and your
Honour have a mind to come at the truth of the affair,
why, you have only to say as much, and I will
put it all before you in creditable language.”
“Ah! there is reason in your proposition,” returned
the Rover, motioning to his companion to follow
to a part of the poop where they were less exposed
to the observations of inquisitive eyes. “Now, place
the whole clearly before us; and then you may consider
the merits of the question disposed of definitively.”
Fid was far from discovering the smallest reluctance
to enter on the required detail; and, by the
time he had cleared his throat, freshened his supply
of the weed, and otherwise disposed himself to proceed,
Mrs Wyllys had so far conquered her reluctance
to pry clandestinely into the secrets of others,
as to yield to a curiosity which she found unconquerable,
and to take the seat to which her companion
invited her by a gesture of his hand.
“I was sent early to sea, your Honour, by my father,”
commenced Fid, after these little preliminaries
a man that passed more of his time on the water
than on dry ground; though, as he was nothing more
than a fisherman, he generally kept the land aboard;
which is, after all, little better than living on it altogether.
Howsomever, when I went, I made a broad
offing at once, fetching up on the other side of the
Horn, the very first passage I made; which was no
small journey for a new beginner; but then, as I
was only eight years old”—
“Eight! you are now speaking of yourself,” interrupted
the disappointed governess.
“Certain, Madam; and, though genteeler peopie
might be talked of, it would be hard to turn the conversation
on any man who knows better how to rig
or how to strip a ship. I was beginning at the right
end of my story; but, as I fancied your Ladyship
might not choose to waste time in hearing concerning
my father and mother, I cut the matter short, by
striking in at eight years old, overlooking all about
my birth and name, and such other matters as are
usually logged, in a fashion out of all reason, in your
every-day sort of narratives.”
“Proceed,” she rejoined, with a species of compelled
resignation.
“My mind is pretty much like a ship that is about
to slip off its ways,” resumed Fid. “If she makes
a fair start, and there is neither jam nor dry-rub,
smack see goes into the water, like a sail let run in
a calm; but, if she once brings up, a good deal of
labour is to be gone through to set her in motion
again. Now, in order to wedge up my ideas, and
to get the story slushed, so that I can slip through it
with case, it is needful to overrun the part which I
have just let go; which is, how my father was a
fisherman, and how I doubled the Horn—Ah! here
I have it again, clear of kinks, fake above fake, like
a well-coiled cable; so that I can pay it out as easily
of ratling stuff. Well, I doubled the Horn, as I was
saying, and might have been the matter of four years
cruising about among the islands and seas of those
parts, which were none of the best known then, or,
for that matter, now. After this, I served in his Majesty's
fleet a whole war, and got as much honour as
I could stow beneath hatches. Well, then, I fell in
with the Guinea—the black, my Lady, that you see
turning in a new clue-garnet-block for the starboard
clue of the fore-course.”
“Ay; then you fell in with the African,” said the
Rover.
“Then we made our acquaintance; and, although
his colour is no whiter than the back of a whale, I
care not who knows it, after master Harry, there is
no man living who has an honester way with him,
or in whose company I take greater satisfaction. To
be sure, your Honour, the fellow is something contradictory,
and has a great opinion of his strength,
and thinks his equal is not to be found at a weatherearing,
or in the bunt of a topsail; but then he is no
better than a black, and one is not to be too particular
in looking into the faults of such as are not actually
his fellow creatures.”
“No, no; that would be uncharitable in the extreme.”
“The very words the chaplain used to let fly
aboard the `Brunswick!' It is a great thing to have
schooling, your Honour; since, if it does nothing
else, it fits a man for a boatswain, and puts him in
the track of steering the shortest course to heaven.
But, as I was saying, there was I and Guinea shipmates,
and in a reasonable way friends, for five years
more; and then the time arrived when we met with
the mishap of the wreck in the West-Indies.”
“What wreck?” demanded his officer.
“I beg your Honour's pardon; I never swing my
the wind; and, before I tell the particulars of the
wreck, I will overrun my ideas, to see that nothing
is forgotten that should of right be first mentioned.”
The Rover, who saw, by the uneasy glances that
she cast aside, and by the expression of her countenance,
how impatient his companion was becoming
for a sequel that approached so tardily, and how
much she dreaded an interruption, made a significant
sign to her to permit the straight-going tar to take
his own course, as the best means of coming at the
facts they both longed so much to hear. Left to
himself, Fid soon took the necessary review of the
transactions, in his own quaint manner; and, having
happily found that nothing which he considered as
germain to the present relation was omitted, he proceeded
at once to the more material, and what was
to his auditors by far the most interesting, portion of
his narrative.
“Well, as I was telling your Honour,” he continued,
“Guinea was then a maintopman, and I was
stationed in the same place aboard the `Proserpine,'
a quick-going two-and-thirty, when we fell in with a
bit of a smuggler, between the islands and the Spanish
Main; and so the Captain made a prize of her,
and ordered her into port; for which I have always
supposed, as he was a sensible man, he had his orders.
But this is neither here nor there, seeing that
the craft had got to the end of her rope, and foundered
in a heavy hurricane that came over us, mayhap
a couple of days' run to leeward of our haven.
Well, she was a small boat; and, as she took it into
her mind to roll over on her side before she went to
sleep, the master's mate in charge, and three others,
slid off her decks to the bottom of the sea, as I have
always had reason to believe, never having heard
any thing to the contrary. It was here that Guinea
first served me the good turn; for, though we had
was the first time he ever jumped overboard to keep
me from taking in salt water like a fish.”
“He kept you from drowning with the rest?”
“I'll not say just that much, your Honour; for
there is no knowing what lucky accident might have
done the same good turn for me. Howsomever, seeing
that I can swim no better nor worse than a double-headed
shot, I have always been willing to give
the black credit for as much, though little has ever
been said between us on the subject; for no other
reason, as I can see, than that settling-day has not
yet come. Well, we contrived to get the boat afloat,
and enough into it to keep soul and body together,
and made the best of our way for the land, seeing
that the cruise was, to all useful purposes, over in
that smuggler. I needn't be particular in telling this
lady of the nature of boat-duty, as she has lately
had some experience in that way herself; but I can
tell her this much: Had it not been for that boat in
which the black and myself spent the better part of
ten days, she would have fared but badly in her own
navigation.”
“Explain your meaning.”
“My meaning is plain enough, your Honour, which
is, that little else than the handy way of master Harry
in a boat could have kept the Bristol trader's launch
above water, the day we fell in with it.”
“But in what manner was your own shipwreck
connected with the safety of Mr Wilder?” demanded
the governess, unable any longer to await the dilatory
explanation of the prolix seaman.
“In a very plain and natural fashion, my Lady, as
you will say yourself, when you come to hear the
pitiful part of my tale. Well, there were I and
Guinea, rowing about in the ocean, on short allowance
of all things but work, for two nights and a day,
heading-in for the islands; for, though no great navigators,
away lustily, when you consider it was a race in
which life was the wager, until we made, in the
pride of the morning, as it might be here, at east-and-by-south,
a ship under bare poles; if a vessel
can be called bare that had nothing better than the
stumps of her three masts standing, and they without
rope or rag to tell one her rig or nation. Howsomever,
as there were three naked sticks left, I have
always put her down for a full-rigged ship; and,
when we got night enough to take a look at her hull,
I made bold to say she was of English build.”
“You boarded her,” observed the Rover.
“A small task that, your Honour, since a starved
dog was the whole crew she could muster to keep
us off. It was a solemn sight when we got on her
decks, and one that bears hard on my manhood,”
continued Fid, with an air that grew more serious
as he proceeded, “whenever I have occasion to
overhaul the log-book of memory.”
“You found her people suffering of want!”
“We found a noble ship, as helpless as a hallibut
in a tub. There she lay, a craft of some four hundred
tons, water-logged, and motionless as a church. It
always gives me great reflection, sir, when I see a
noble vessel brought to such a strait; for one may
liken her to a man who has been docked of his fins,
and who is getting to be good for little else than to
be set upon a cat-head to look out for squalls.”
“The ship was then deserted?”
“Ay, the people had left her, sir, or had been
washed away in the gust that had laid her over. I
never could come at the truth of them particulars.
The dog had been mischievous, I conclude, about
the decks; and so he had been lashed to a timberhead,
the which saved his life, since, happily for him,
he found himself on the weather-side when the hull
righted a little, after her spars gave way. Well, sir,
see, though we spent half a day in rummaging round.
in order to pick up any small matter that might be
useful; but then, as the entrance to the hold and
cabin was full of water, why, we made no great
affair of the salvage, after all.”
“And then you left the wreck?”
“Not yet, your Honour. While knocking about
among the bits of rigging and lumber above board.
says Guinea, says he, `Mister Dick, I hear some one
making their plaints below.' Now, I had heard the
same noises myself, sir; but had set them down as the
spirits of the people moaning over their losses, and
had said nothing of the same, for fear of stirring up
the superstition of the black; for the best of them
are no better than superstitious niggers, my Lady;
so I said nothing of what I had heard, until he saw
fit to broach the subject himself. Then we both
turned-to to listening with a will; and sure enough
the groans began to take a human sound. It was a
good while, howsomever, before I could make up
whether it was any thing more than the complaining
of the hulk itself; for you know, my Lady, that a
ship which is about to sink makes her lamentations
just like any other living thing.”
“I do, I do,” returned the governess, shuddering.
“I have heard them, and never will my memory
lose the recollection of the sounds.”
“Ay, I thought you might know something of the
same; and solemn groans they are: But, as the hulk
kept rolling on the top of the sea, and no further
signs of her going down, I began to think it best to
cut into her abaft, in order to make sure that some
miserable wretch had not been caught in his hammock,
at the time she went over. Well, good will,
and an axe, soon let us into the secret of the moans.”
“You found a child?”
“And its mother, my Lady. As good luck would
and as yet the water had not reached them. But
pent air and hunger had nearly proved as bad as the
brine. The lady was in the agony when we got her
out; and as to the boy, proud and strong as you now
see him there on yonder gun, my Lady, he was just
so miserable, that it was no small matter to make
him swallow the drop of wine and water that the
Lord had left us, in order, as I have often thought
since, to bring him up to be, as he at this moment is,
the pride of the ocean!”
“But, the mother?”
“The mother had given the only morsel of biscuit
she had to the child, and was dying, in order that
the urchin might live. I never could get rightly into
the meaning of the thing, my Lady, why a woman,
who is no better than a Lascar in matters of strength,
nor any better than a booby in respect of courage,
should be able to let go her hold of life in this quiet
fashion, when many a stout mariner would be fighting
for each mouthful of air the Lord might see fit
to give. But there she was, white as the sail on
which the storm has long beaten, and limber as a
pennant in a calm, with her poor skinny arm around
the lad, holding in her hand the very mouthful that
might have kept her own soul in the body a little
longer.”
“What did she, when you brought her to the
light?”
“What did she!” repeated Fid, whose voice was
getting thick and husky, “why, she did a d—d
honest thing; she gave the boy the crumb, and motioned,
as well as a dying woman could, that we
should have an eye over him, till the cruise of life
was up.”
“And was that all?”
“I have always thought she prayed; for something
passed between her and one who was not to
her eyes were turned aloft, and her lips moved. I
hope, among others, she put in a good word for one
Richard Fid; for certain she had as little need to be
asking for herself as any body. But no man will
ever know what she said, seeing that her mouth was
shut from that time for ever after.”
“She died!”
“Sorry am I to say it. But the poor lady was
past swallowing when she came into our hands, and
then it was but little we had to offer her. A quart
of water, with mayhap a gill of wine, a biscuit, and
a handful of rice, was no great allowance for two
hearty men to pull a boat some seventy leagues within
the tropics. Howsomever, when we found no
more was to be got from the wreck, and that, since
the air had escaped by the hole we had cut, she was
settling fast, we thought it best to get out of her;
and sure enough we were none too soon, seeing that
she went under just as we had twitched our jollyboat
clear of the suction.”
“And the boy—the poor deserted child!” exclaimed
the governess, whose eyes had now filled to overflowing.
“There you are all aback, my Lady. Instead of
deserting him, we brought him away with us, as we
did the only other living creature to be found about
the wreck. But we had still a long journey before
us, and, to make the matter worse, we were out of
the track of the traders. So I put it down as a case
for a council of all hands, which was no more than
I and the black, since the lad was too weak to talk,
and little could he have said otherwise in our situation.
So I begun myself, saying, says I, `Guinea, we
must eat either this here dog, or this here boy. If
we eat the boy, we shall be no better than the people
in your own country, who, you know, my Lady,
are cannibals; but if we eat the dog, poor as he is,
and to give the child the other matters.'—So Guinea,
he says, says he, `I've no occasion for food at all;
give 'em to the boy,' says he, `seeing that he is little,
and has need of strength.' Howsomever, master
Harry took no great fancy to the dog, which we soon
finished between us; for the plain reason that he
was so thin. After that, we had a hungry time of it
ourselves; for, had we not kept up the life in the
lad, you know, it would have slipt through our
fingers.”
“And you fed the child, though fasting yourselves?”
“No, we wer'n't altogether idle, my Lady, seeing
that we kept our teeth jogging on the skin of the
dog, though I will not say that the food was over
savoury. And then, as we had no occasion to lose
time in eating, we kept the oars going so much the
livelier. Well, we got in at one of the islands after
a time, though neither I nor the nigger had much to
boast of as to strength or weight when we made the
first kitchen we fell in with.”
“And the child?”
“Oh! he was doing well enough; for, as the doctors
afterwards told us, the short allowance on which
he was put did him no harm.”
“You sought his friends?”
“Why, as for that matter, my Lady, so far as I
have been able to discover, he was with his best
friends already. We had neither chart nor bearings
by which we knew how to steer in search of his
family. His name he called master Harry, by which
it is clear he was a gentleman born, as indeed any
one may see by looking at him; but not another
word could I learn of his relations or country, except
that, as he spoke the English language, and was
found in an English ship, there is a natural reason
to believe he is of English build himself.”
“Did you not learn the name of the ship?” demanded
the attentive Rover, in whose countenance
the traces of a lively interest were very distinctly
discernible.
“Why, as to that matter, your Honour, schools
were scarce in my part of the country; and in
Africa, you know, there is no great matter of learning;
so that, had her name been out of water, which
it was not, we might have been bothered to read it.
Howsomever, there was a horse-bucket kicking about
her decks, and which, as luck would have it, got
jammed-in with the pumps in such a fashion that it
did not go overboard until we took it with us. Well,
this bucket had a name painted on it; and, after we
had leisure for the thing, I got Guinea, who has a
natural turn at tattooing, to rub it into my arm in
gunpowder, as the handiest way of logging these
small particulars. Your Honour shall see what the
black has made of it.”
So saying, Fid very coolly doffed his jacket, and
Iaid bare, to the elbow, one of his brawny arms, on
which the blue impression was still very plainly visible.
Although the letters were rudely imitated, it
was not difficult to read, in the skin, the words “Ark,
of Lynnhaven.”
“Here, then, you had a clue at once to find the
relatives of the boy,” observed the Rover, after he
had deciphered the letters.
“It seems not, your Honour; for we took the
child with us aboard the `Proserpine,' and our worthy
Captain carried sail hard after the people; but
no one could give any tidings of such a craft as the
`Ark, of Lynnhaven;' and, after a twelvemonth, or
more, we were obliged to give up the chase.”
“Could the child give no account of his friends?”
demanded the governess.
“But little, my Lady; for the reason he knew but
little about himself. So we gave the matter over altogether;
us, turning-to to educate the boy. He got his seamanship
of the black and myself, and mayhap some
little of his manners also; and his navigation and
Latin of the Captain, who proved his friend till such
a time as he was able to take care of himself, and,
for that matter, some years afterwards.”
“And how long did Mr Wilder continue in a
King's ship?” asked the Rover, in a careless and
apparently indifferent manner.
“Long enough to learn all that is taught there,
your Honour,” was the evasive reply.
“He came to be an officer, I suppose?”
“If he didn't, the King had the worst of the bargain.—But
what is this I see hereaway, atween the
backstay and the vang? It looks like a sail; or is
it only a gull flapping his wings before he rises?”
“Sail, ho!” called the look-out from the mast
head. “Sail, ho!” was echoed from a top and from
the deck; the glittering though distant object having
struck a dozen vigilant eyes at the same instant. The
Rover was compelled to lend his attention to a summons
so often repeated; and Fid profited by the circumstance
to quit the poop, with the hurry of one
who was not sorry for the interruption. Then the
governess arose too, and, thoughtful and melancholy,
she sought the privacy of her cabin.
| CHAPTER VIII. The Red Rover | |