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<p class="center half-title">THE DEATH SHIP</p>

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<h1>
THE DEATH SHIP<br />
A STRANGE STORY;<br />
</h1>

<p class="center spaced space-above">
<small>
AN ACCOUNT OF A CRUISE IN "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN," COLLECTED<br />
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MR. GEOFFREY FENTON, OF POPLAR,<br />
MASTER MARINER.<br />
<br />
BY<br />
</small>
W. CLARK RUSSELL,<br />
<small>
AUTHOR OF<br />
"THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR," "THE GOLDEN HOPE," "A SEA QUEEN,"<br />
ETC., ETC.<br />
</small>
<br />
IN THREE VOLUMES<br />
<br />
VOL. III<br />
<br />
LONDON<br />
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED<br />
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET<br />
1888<br />
<i>All Rights Reserved</i><br />
</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<div class="center">
PRINTED BY<br />
TILLOTSON AND SON, MAWDSLEY STREET<br />
BOLTON<br />
</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<h2>CONTENTS<br />
OF<br />
THE THIRD VOLUME.
</h2>


<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="">
<tr><td align="right">CHAPTER</td><td align="left">&nbsp;</td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">I.&mdash;</td><td align="left">WE TELL OUR LOVE AGAIN</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">II.&mdash;</td><td align="left">WE SIGHT A SAIL</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">III.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE DEATH SHIP IS BOARDED BY A PIRATE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IV.&mdash;</td><td align="left">MY LIFE IS AGAIN ATTEMPTED</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">V.&mdash;</td><td align="left">A TEMPEST BURSTS UPON US</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VI.&mdash;</td><td align="left">WE SPRING A LEAK</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VII.&mdash;</td><td align="left">IMOGENE FEARS FOR ME</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">VIII.&mdash;</td><td align="left">LAND</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">IX.&mdash;</td><td align="left">WE BRING UP IN A BAY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">X.&mdash;</td><td align="left">THE WEATHER HELPS MY SCHEME</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XI.&mdash;</td><td align="left">MY POOR DARLING</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">XII.&mdash;</td><td align="left">I AM ALONE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr>
</table></div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>

<div class="center"><big>THE DEATH SHIP.</big><br /></div>

<h2>CHAPTER I.<br />
WE TELL OUR LOVE AGAIN.</h2>


<p>I had passed from the deck, where I slept, to
the cabin in too great a hurry to notice the
weather. Now, reaching the poop, I stood a
moment or two to look around, being in my
way as concerned about the direction of the
wind as Vanderdecken himself.</p>

<p>It still blew fresh, but the heavens lay open
among the clouds that had thickened their
bulk into great drooping shining bosoms, as
though indeed the crystalline blue under
which they sailed in solemn procession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
mirrored the swelling brows of mighty snow-covered
mountains. The sea ran in a very
dark shade of azure, and offered a most
glorious surface of colours with the heave
of its violet hills bearing silver and pearly
streakings of sunshine and foam upon their
buoyant floating slopes, and the jewelled
and living masses of froth which flashed
from their heights and stormed into their
valleys as they raced before the wind which
chased them with noisy whistlings and notes
as of bugles. The Death Ship was close-hauled&mdash;when
was the day to come when
I should find her with her yards squared?&mdash;but
on the larboard tack, so that they
must have put the ship about since midnight;
and the sun standing almost over the
mizzen topsail yard-arm showed me that we
were doing some westing, for which I could
have fallen on my knees and thanked God.</p>

<p>The captain and the mate were on deck,
Vanderdecken abreast of the tiller, Van<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
Vogelaar twenty paces forward of him, both
still and stiff, gazing seawards with faces
whose expressionlessness forbade your comparing
them to sleeping dreamers. They
looked the eternity that was upon them, and
their ghastliness, the age and the doom of
the ship, fell with a shock upon the perception
to the horrible suggestions of those two
figures and of the face at the tiller, whose
tense and bloodless skin glared white to the
sun as the little eyes, like rings of fire eating
into the sockets beneath the brows, glanced
from the card to the weather edges of the
canvas.</p>

<p>Yet I found comfort in their entranced
posture and disregard of me, for the less I
engaged their attention the safer I should be
whilst in their ship, and memory being with
them a deceptive and erratic quality, I might
hope in time to find that they had forgot to
hate me.</p>

<p>I quitted the poop, not choosing to keep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
myself in view of Vanderdecken and Van
Vogelaar, and walked about the quarter-deck,
struggling hard with the dreadful despondency
which clouded my mind, whilst imagination
furiously beat against the iron-hard conditions
which imprisoned me, as a bird rends its
plumage in a cage, till my heart pulsed with
the soreness of a real wound in my breast.
The only glimmer of hope I could find lay, as
I had again and again told Imogene, in the
direction of the land. But who was to say
how long a time would pass before the needs
of the ship would force Vanderdecken shore-wards?
And if the wind grew northerly and
came feeble, how many weeks might we have
to count ere this intolerable sailer brought
the land into sight? Oh! I tell you, such
speculations were sheerly maddening when I
added to them the reflection that the heaving
of the land into view might by no means
prove a signal for our deliverance.</p>

<p>However, by the time Imogene arrived on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
deck I had succeeded in tranquilising my
mind. She took some turns with me and
then went to the captain on the poop and
stayed with him, that is, stood near him,
though I do not know that they conversed,
till he went to his cabin; whereupon I joined
her, neither of us deigning to heed the mate's
observation of us, and for the rest of the
morning we were together, knitting our
hearts closer and closer whilst we talked of
England, of her parents, the ship her father
had commanded, and the like, amusing ourselves
with dreams of escape, till hope grew
lustrous with the fairy light our amorous
fancies flung upon it. And lo! here on the
deck of this Death Ship, with Van Vogelaar
standing like a statue within twenty paces of
us, and the dead face of a breathing man at
the tiller, and silent sailors languidly stirring
forwards or voicelessly plying the marline-spike
or the serving-mallet aloft, where the
swollen canvas swayed under the deep-breasted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
clouds like spaces of ancient tapestry
from which time has sponged out all bright
colours&mdash;here, in this fated and faded craft,
that surged with the silence of the tomb in
her through hissing seas and aslant whistling
winds, did I, in the course of our talk, find
myself presently speaking of my mother,
of the little town in which she lived,
of the church to which, under God, I would
lead my sweetest, there to make her my
bride!</p>

<p>She blushed rosy with delight, and I
marked the passionate gladness of her love
in the glance she gave me, as she lifted the
fringes of her white eyelids to dart that
exquisite gleam, whilst she held her chaste
face drooped. But looking, as though some
power drew me to look, at Van Vogelaar,
I met his malignant stare full, and the chill
and venom of his storm-bruised countenance
fell upon my heart like a sensible atmosphere
and poison.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>

<p>For the life of me I could not help the
shudder that ran through my frame. "Do
you believe," said I, "that the men of this
Death Ship have any power of blighting
hope and emotion by their glance? The
mere sighting of this vessel, it is said, is
sufficient to procure the doom of another!"</p>

<p>She shook her head as though she would
say she could not tell.</p>

<p>"There is something," said I, "to ice the
strongest man's blood in the expression Van
Vogelaar sometimes turns upon me. There
is an ancient story of a bald-pated philosopher
who, at a marriage-feast, looked and
looked a bride, and the wondrous pavilion
which the demons she commanded had
built, into emptiness. He stared her and her
splendours into thin air, sending the bridegroom
to die with nothing but memory to
clasp. There may be no philosophy in
yonder Dutch villain, but surely he has all
the malignity of Apollonius in his eyes."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>

<p>"Do you fear he will stare me into air?"
said she, smiling.</p>

<p>"I would blind him if I thought so," said
I, with a temper that owed not a little
of its heat to the heavy fit of superstition
then upon me. "In the times of that
rogue it was believed a man could pray
another dead; but did one ever hear of
a stare powerful enough to dematerialise
a body? Sweet one, if that pale ruffian
there could look you into space, what form
would your spirit take? Would you become
to me, as did the girl of his heart to the old
poet&mdash;</p>

<div class="poem">
"The very figure of that Morning Star<br />
That, dropping pearls and shedding dewy sweets,<br />
Fled from the greedy waves when I approached."<br />
</div>

<p>"He cannot part us!" she exclaimed.
"Let me be your Morning Star, indeed,
flying to you from the greedy waves, not
from you, Geoffrey! Do not speak to me of
Van Vogelaar, nor look his way. Tell me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
again, dear, of your mother's home; talk to
me of flowers&mdash;of English flowers&mdash;and of
that old church."</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER II.<br />
WE SIGHT A SAIL.</h2>


<p>As the day advanced, the breeze weakened,
the sea grew smoother, the surge flattened
to the swell, and the wind did little more
than crisp with snowy feathers those long,
low, broad-browed folds swinging steadily
and cradlingly out of the heart of the mighty
southern ocean. Every cloth the Braave
carried had been sheeted home and hoisted.
She looked as if she had been coated with
sulphur, as she slipped rolling up one slant
and down another brimming to her channels;
the hue of her was as if she had been
anchored all night near to a flaming hill
and had received for hours the plumy,
pumice-coloured discharge of the volcano.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
There was nothing to relieve this sulphurous
reflection with flash or sparkle; the sunshine
died in the green backs of the brass swivels,
it lay lustreless upon the rusty iron cannons,
it found no mirror in the dry and honeycombed
masts, and it touched without vitalising
the rounded canvas, whose breasts had
nothing of that hearkening, seeking look
which you find in the flowing swelling of a
ship's sails yearning horizon-wards to the
land beyond the sea.</p>

<p>She was heading about north west by
north, on the larboard tack, the yards as hard
fore and aft as they would lie; and though
she was making more leeway than headway,
'twas certain her bowsprit&mdash;for the first time
during the days I had spent in her&mdash;was
pointing fair for the Cape passage. It was
this that had softened Vanderdecken's fierceness.
As bit by bit the Death Ship stole up
to this heading, so had his temper improved;
insomuch that throughout the afternoon he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
had exhibited towards me a manner marked
in no small degree by the haughty courtesy
and solemn and stately urbanity which I had
observed in his treatment of me in the first
day or two of my being with him. This,
I promise you, singularly rejoiced me, as
exhibiting precisely the influence necessary
to neutralise the hideous malignity of the
mate. It also showed that he was still so
much a sea-captain in soul as to be rendered
bland and obliging, or savage and dangerous,
by the turn of the weather, or rather by the
direction and strength of the wind. Indeed,
had his character contained more strokes of
the humanity that is familiar to us, I should
have heartily sympathised with the rage
which contrary gales aroused in him. But
the Curse had made a <i>lusus naturæ</i> of him.
Much of what had, in 1653, been sailorly had
been eaten out by time, and he flourished
chiefly on those instincts which had miserably
won him his doom. Hence, however greatly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
you wished to feel pity, you found you could
not compassionate him as you would a living
and real person. And of this, indeed, I
was especially sensible that afternoon, whilst
watching him and reflecting that though to
be sure he could speak to me now without
striving to blast me with his eyes and to
damn me with his frown, yet let the wind
suddenly head us and blow hard, and 'twas
odds but that I should be hiding away from
him, in the full conviction that it might need
but a single indiscreet word to procure my
being thrown overboard.</p>

<p>It was half-past five o'clock in the afternoon.
I had come up from supper, leaving
Vanderdecken smoking at the head of the
table. Imogene had gone to her cabin for her
hat. Van Vogelaar was off duty, and very
likely lying down. Arents had the watch.
There was a fine sailing wind blowing, and
but for the choking grip of the trim of the
yards on the creaking, high, old fabric, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
believe the ship would have got some life out
of it.</p>

<p>It was the first dog-watch&mdash;an idle hour&mdash;and
all the ghostly crew were assembled
forward, every man smoking, for tobacco was
now plentiful; and their postures, their faces,
their different kinds of dress, their lifelessness,
save for the lifting of their hands to their
pipes, and above all their silence, made a
most wonderful picture of the decks their
way; the foreground formed of the boats,
a number of spare booms, the close quarters
for the live-stock, the cook-house chimney
coming up through the deck and trailing a
thin line of blue smoke, whilst under the
arched and transverse foot of the foresail
you saw the ship's beak, the amazing relic of
figure-head, the clews of the sprit-sail and
sprit-topsail pulling aslant&mdash;between being
the men, a dismal, white and speechless
company, with the thick fore-mast rising
straight up out of the jumble of them, whilst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
the red western light flowed over the pallid
edges of the canvas, that widened out to the
crimson gold whose blaze stole into the
darkened hollows this side and enriched the
aged surfaces with a rosy atmosphere.</p>

<p>I stood right aft, carelessly running my
eye along the sea-line that floated darkening
out of the fiery haze under the sun on our
weather-beam, till in the east it curved in a
deep, blue line so exquisitely clear and pure
that it made you think of the sweep of a
camel's hair-brush dipped in indigo. I gazed
without expectation of observing the least
break or flaw in that lovely, darkling continuity,
and 'twas with a start of surprise and
doubt that I suddenly caught sight of an
object orange-coloured by the light far down
in the east, that is to say, fair upon our lee-quarter.
It was a vessel's canvas beyond
question; the mirroring of the western glory
by some gleaming cloths; and my heart
started off in a canter to the sight, it being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
impossible now for a ship to heave into view
without filling me with dread of a separation
from Imogene, and agitating me with other
considerations, such as how I should be dealt
with, on a ship receiving me, if they discovered
I had come from the Flying Dutchman.</p>

<p>I waited a little to make sure, and then
called to the second mate, who stood staring
at God knows what, with unspeculative eyes.</p>

<p>"Herr Arents, yonder is a sail&mdash;there, as
I point."</p>

<p>He quickened out of his death-like repose
with the extraordinary swiftness observable
in all these men in this particular sort of
behaviour, came to my side, gazed attentively,
and said, "Yes; how will she be heading?"
He went for the glass, and whilst he adjusted
the tubes to his focus Captain Vanderdecken
arrived with Imogene.</p>

<p>"What do you see, Arents?" asked the
captain.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>

<p>"A sail, sir, just now sighted by Herr
Fenton."</p>

<p>Vanderdecken took the glass and levelled
it, and after a brief inspection handed me the
tube. The atmosphere was so bright that
the lenses could do little in the way of clarification.
However, I took a view for courtesy's
sake, and seemed to make out the square
canvas and long-headed gaff-topsail of a
schooner as the sails slided like the wings
of a sea-bird along the swell.</p>

<p>"How doth she steer, mynheer?" said
Vanderdecken, as I passed the telescope to
Arents.</p>

<p>"Why," I answered, "unless the cut of
her canvas be a mere imagination of mine,
she is close-hauled on the larboard tack and
looking up for us as only a schooner knows
how."</p>

<p>"What do you call her?" he exclaimed,
imperiously.</p>

<p>"A schooner, sir."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p>

<p>Whether he had seen vessels of that rig
since their invention I could not know, but it
was certain the word schooner conveyed no
idea. It was amazing beyond language that
hints of this kind should not have made his
ignorance significant to him.</p>

<p>The sight of the amber shadow on the lee
quarter put an expression of anxiety into
Imogene's face. She stood looking at it
in silence, with parted lips and shortened
breathing, her fragile, her too fragile profile
like a cameo of surpassing workmanship,
against the soft western splendour, the gilding
of which made a trembling flame of one
side of the hair that streamed upon her back.
Presently turning and catching me watching
she smiled faintly, and said in our tongue,
"The time was, dear, when I welcomed a
strange sail for the relief&mdash;the break&mdash;it
promised. But you have taught me to dread
the sight now."</p>

<p>I answered, speaking lightly and easily,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
and looking towards the distant sail as
though we talked of her as an object of slender
interest, "If our friend here attempts to
transfer me without you, I shall hail the
stranger's people and tell them what ship this
is, and warrant them destruction if they offer
to receive me."</p>

<p>The time passed. Imogene and I continued
watching, now and again taking a turn
for the warmth of the exercise. As on the
occasion of our pursuit by the Centaur, so
now Vanderdecken stood to windward, rigid
and staring, at long intervals addressing
Arents who, from time to time, pointed the
glass as mechanically as ever Vanderdecken's
piping shepherd lifted his oaten reed to his
mouth.</p>

<p>Shortly after six, arrived Van Vogelaar,
who was followed by the boatswain, Jans;
and there they hung, a grisly group, whilst
the crew got upon the booms, or overhung
the rail, or stood upon the lower ratlines, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
their backs to the shrouds, suggesting interest
and excitement by their posture alone, for, as
to their faces, 'twas mere expressionless glimmer
and too far off for the wild light in their
eyes to show.</p>

<p>Thus in silence swam the Death Ship,
heaving solemnly as she went, with tinkling
noises breaking from the silver water that
seethed from her ponderous bow, as though
every foam bell were of precious metal and
rang a little music of its own as it glided
past. But by this time the sail upon our
lee-quarter had greatly grown, and the
vigorous red radiance, rained by the sinking
luminary in such searching storms of light
as crimsoned the very nethermost east to the
black water-line, clearly showed her to be a
small but stout schooner, hugging the wind
under a prodigious pile of canvas, and eating
her way into the steady breeze with the ease
and speed of a frigate-bird that slopes its
black pinions for the windward flight. Her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
hull was plain to the naked eye and resembled
rich old mahogany in the sunset. Her sails
blending into one, she might, to the instant's
gaze, have passed for a great star rising out
of the yellow deep and somewhat empurpled
by the atmosphere. It was our own desperately
sluggish pace that made her approach
magical for swiftness; but there could be
no question as to the astonishing nimbleness
of her heels.</p>

<p>After a while, Vanderdecken and his men
warmed to the sight, and fell a-talking to one
another with some show of eagerness, and
a deal of pointing on the part of Jans and
Arents, whilst Van Vogelaar watched with a
hung head and a sullen scowl. Occasionally,
Vanderdecken would direct a hot, interrogative
glance at me; suddenly he came to
where we stood.</p>

<p>"What do you make of that vessel,
mynheer?" said he.</p>

<p>"Sir," I replied, "to speak honestly, I do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
not like her appearance. Two voyages ago
my ship was overhauled by just such another
fellow as that yonder; she proved to be a
Spanish picaroon. We had a hundred-and-fifty
troops who, with our sailors, crouched
behind the bulwarks and fired into her
decks when she shifted her helm to lay us
aboard, and this reception made her, I
suppose, think us a battle-ship, for she
sheared off with a great sound of groaning
rising out of her, and pelted from us under
a press as if Satan had got hold of her tow-rope."</p>

<p>"What country does her peculiar rig
represent?" he asked, looking at the vessel
with his hand raised to keep the level rays
of the sun off his eyes.</p>

<p>"I cannot be sure, mynheer; French
or Spanish; I do not believe her English
by the complexion of her canvas. She
may prove an American, for you may see
that her cloths are mixed with cotton."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>

<p>The word American seemed to puzzle
him as much as the word schooner had,
for in his day an American signified an
Indian of that continent. However, I
noticed that if ever I used a term that
was incomprehensible to him, he either dismissed
it as coming from one who did
not always talk as if he had his full mind,
or as some English expression of which
the meaning&mdash;as being English&mdash;was of
no concern whatever to his Dutch prejudices.</p>

<p>"Doth she suggest a privateer to your
judgment?" he inquired.</p>

<p>I answered "Yes; and more likely a
pirate than a privateer, if indeed the terms
are not interchangeable."</p>

<p>On this he went to the others, and they
conversed as if he had called a council of
them; but I could not catch his words, nor
did I deem it polite to seem as if I desired to
hear what was said.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>

<p>"Do you really believe her to be what you
say, Geoffrey?" said Imogene.</p>

<p>"I do, indeed. The dusk will have fallen
before we shall have her near enough to
make out her batteries and judge of her
crew; but she has the true piratical look,
a most lovely hull&mdash;low-lying, long and
powerful&mdash;do you observe it, dearest? A
cutwater like a knife, a noble length of
bowsprit, and jibbooms, and a mainsail
big enough to hold sufficient wind to send
a Royal George along at ten knots. If she
be not a picaroon, what is her business
here? No trader goes rigged like that
in these seas. 'Twould be otherwise were
this the Pacific. She may be a letter of
marque."</p>

<p>"Look!" cried Imogene, "she hoists her
flag."</p>

<p>I hollowed my hands and used them for
telescopes. The bunting streamed away over
the stranger's quarter, but it was a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
big flag, and its size, coupled with the
wonderful searching light going to her
in crimson lancing beams out of the hot
flushed west, helped me to discern the
tricolour.</p>

<p>"French!" I exclaimed, fetching a quick
breath.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken had seen the flag, and
was examining it through his ancient
tubes. After a little he gave the glass
to Van Vogelaar, who, after inspecting the
colour, handed it to Arents; then Jans
looked.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken called to me, "What signal
is that she hath flying?"</p>

<p>I responded, "The flag of the French
Republic."</p>

<p>He started, gazed at the others, and then
glanced steadfastly at me as if he would
assure himself that I did not mock him. He
turned again to the schooner, taking the
telescope from Jans.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span></p>

<p>"The French Republic!" I heard him say,
with a tremble of wonderment in his rich
notes. The mate shrugged his shoulders,
with a quick, insolent turning of his back
upon me; and the white, fat face of Jans
glimmered past him, staring with a gape
from me to the schooner. But now the
lower limb of the sun was upon the sea-line;
it was all cloudless sky just where he was,
and the vast, rayless orb, palpitating in
waving folds of fire, sank into his own
wake of flames. The heavens glowed
red to the zenith, and the ruby-coloured
clouds moving before the wind looked like
smoke issuing from behind the sea where
the world was burning furiously. The
grey twilight followed fast, and the ocean
turned ashen under the slip of moon
over the fore yard-arm. The stealing in
of the dusk put a new life into the wind,
and the harping in our dingy, faded
heights was as if many spirits had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
gathered together up there and were
saluting the moon with wild hymns faintly
chanted.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER III.<br />
THE DEATH SHIP IS BOARDED BY A PIRATE.</h2>


<p>I will not say that there is more of melancholy
in the slow creeping of darkness over
the sea than in the first pale streaking of the
dawn, but the shining out of the stars one by
one, the stretching of the great plain of the
deep into a midnight surface, whether snow-covered
with tossing surges or smooth as
black marble and placid as the dark velvet
sky that bends to the liquid confines, has a
mystic character which, even if the dawn
held it, would be weak as an impression
through the quick dispelling of it by the
joyous sun, but which is accentuated in the
twilight shadows by their gradual darkening
into the blackness of night. I particularly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
felt the oncoming of the dusk this evening.
The glory of the sunset had been great, the
twilight brief. Even as the gold and orange
faded in the west so did the canvas of our
ship steal out spectrally into the grey gloom
of the north and east; the water washed past
wan as the light of the horny paring of moon;
the figures of the four men to windward were
changed into dusky, staring statues, and the
wake sloped out from the starboard quarter
full of eddying sparkles as green as emeralds.
The canvas of the schooner, that had shone
to the sunset with the glare of yellow satin,
faded into a pallid cloud that often bothered
the sight with its resemblance to the large
puffs of vapour blowing into the east.</p>

<p>"I should be glad to know her intentions,"
said I, uneasily. "If she be a piratical craft
it will not do for you to be seen by her
people, Imogene. Is it curiosity only that
brings them racing up to us? May be&mdash;may
be! They will be having good glasses aboard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
and have been excited by our extraordinary
rig."</p>

<p>"Why should I not be seen, Geoffrey?"
asked my innocent girl.</p>

<p>"Because, dearest, they may fall in love
with and carry you off."</p>

<p>"But if they should take us both?" said
she, planting her little hand under my arm.</p>

<p>"Ay, but one would first like to know their
calling," I replied, straining my eyes at the
vessel that, at the pace she was tearing
through it, would be on our quarter within
hailing distance in twenty minutes.</p>

<p>What did Vanderdecken mean to do?
He made no sign. Fear and passion enough
had been raised in him by the Centaur's pursuit;
was I to suppose that yonder schooner
had failed to alarm him because he was
puzzled by her rig and by the substitution of
the tricolour for the royal <i>fleur de lys</i>?</p>

<p>"Speak to him, Imogene," said I, "that I
may follow. They may resent any hints<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
from me if I break in upon them on a
sudden.</p>

<p>"Captain," she called in her gentle voice,
"is not that vessel chasing us?"</p>

<p>He rounded gravely upon her: "She is
apparently desirous of speaking with us, my
child. She will be hailing us shortly."</p>

<p>"But if she be a pirate, captain?"</p>

<p>"Doth Herr Fenton still think her so?"
he demanded.</p>

<p>"She has the cut of one, sir," said I; "and
in any case her hurry to come at us, her
careful luff and heavy press of sail, should
justify us in suspecting her intentions and
preparing for her as an enemy."</p>

<p>"Will the Englishman fight, think ye,
captain, if it comes to that?" exclaimed Van
Vogelaar, in his harshest, most scoffing voice.</p>

<p>Taking no notice of the mate, I said in a
low voice to Imogene, speaking quickly,
"<i>They</i> have nothing to fear. It is not for a
Frenchman's cutlass to end these wretches'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
doom. I am worried on your account.
Dearest, when I bid you, steal to my cabin&mdash;you
know where it is?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"And remain there. 'Tis the only hiding-place
I can think of. If they board us and
rummage the ship&mdash;well, I must wait upon
events. In a business of this kind the turns
are sudden. All that I can plan now is to
take care that you are not seen."</p>

<p>I should have been glad to arm myself,
but knew not where to seek for a weapon;
but thinking of this for a moment, it struck
me that if the schooner threw her people
aboard us, my being the only man armed
might cost me my life; therefore, unless the
whole crew equipped themselves I should
find my safest posture one of defencelessness.</p>

<p>"Do these men never fight?" I asked
Imogene.</p>

<p>"There has been no occasion for them
to do so since I have been in the ship,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
she answered. "But I do not think they
would fight. They are above the need of
it."</p>

<p>"Yet they have treasure, they value it,
and this should prove them in possession of
instincts which would prompt them to protect
their property."</p>

<p>"God manages them in His own fashion,"
said she. "They cannot be reasoned about
as men with the hot blood of life in them
and existing as we do."</p>

<p>Yet their apathy greatly contradicted the
avidity with which they seized whatever of
treasure or merchandise they came across
in abandoned ships, nor could I reconcile it
with the ugly cupidity of the mate and the
lively care Vanderdecken took of those capacious
chests of which he had exposed to me
the sparkling contents of two. Blind as they
were, however, to those illustrations of the
progress of time which they came across in
every ship they encountered, they could not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
be insensible to the worthlessness of their
aged and cankered sakers and their green
and pivot-rusted swivels. Their helplessness
in this way, backed by the perception in them
all that for some reason or other no harm
ever befel them from the pursuit of ships or
the approach of armed boats, might furnish a
clue to the seeming indifference with which
they watched the pale shadow of the schooner
enlarging upon the darkling froth to leeward,
though I am also greatly persuaded that
much of the reason of their stolidity lay in
their being puzzled by the rig of the schooner
and the flag she had flown; nor perhaps were
they able to conceive that so small a craft
signified mischief, or had room for sailors
enough to venture the carrying of a great tall
craft like the Braave. But Vanderdecken
could not know to what heights piracy had
been lifted as a fine art by the audacity and
repeated triumphs of the rogues whose real
ensign, no matter what other colours they fly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
is composed of a skull, cross-bones, and hour-glass
upon a black field.</p>

<p>The moon shed no light; but the wind was
full of a weak dawn-like glimmer from the
wash of the running waters and from the
stars which shone brightly among the clouds.
In all this while the schooner had never
started a rope-yarn. Her white and leaning
fabric, swaying with stately grace to the
radiant galaxies, resembled an island of ice in
the gloom, and the illusion was not a little
improved by the seething snow of the cleft
and beaten waters about her like to the boiling
of the sea at the base of a berg. She
showed us her weather side, and heeled so
much that I could not see her decks, but
there was nothing like a gun-muzzle to be
perceived along her. A gilt band under her
wash-streak shone out dully at intervals to
her plunges, as though a pencil had been
dipped in phosphorus and a line of fire
drawn.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>

<p>She was looking up to cross our wake and
settle herself upon our weather quarter.
Nothing finer as a spectacle did I ever behold
at sea than this spacious-winged vessel
when she crossed our wake, rearing and
roaring through the smother our own keel
was tossing up, flashing into the hollows and
through the ridges with spray blowing aft
over her as though she were some bride
of the ocean and streamed her veil behind
her as she went, the whole figure of her
showing faint in the dull light of the night,
yet not so feeble in outline and detail but
that I could distinguish the black, snake-like
hull hissing through the seas, her sand-coloured
decks, a long black gun on the
forecastle, and a glittering brass stern-chaser
abaft the two black figures gripping the tiller,
the great surface of mainsail going pale to
its clew at the boom end, a full fathom
over the quarter, the swelling and mounting
canvas, from flying-jib to little fore-royal,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
from the iron-hard stay-foresail to the
thunderous gaff-topsail on high, dragging and
tearing at the sheets and bringing shroud
and backstay, guy and halliard, sheet and
brace so taut that the fabric raged past with
a kind of shrieking music, filling the air
as though some giant harp were edging
the blast with the resonance of fifty wind-wrung
wires. Great heaven! how did my
heart go to her! Oh, for two months' command
of that storming clipper with Imogene
on board!</p>

<p>'Twas a rush past with her; all that I saw
I have told you, saving a few men in the
bows and a couple of figures watching us
near to the two helmsmen. If she mounted
guns or swivels along her bulwarks I did not
see them.</p>

<p>I overheard Vanderdecken exclaim, "It is
as I surmised; she hath but a handful of a
crew; she merely wishes to speak us."</p>

<p>Van Vogelaar returned some gruff answer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
in which he introduced my name, but that
was all I heard of it.</p>

<p>Once well on our weather quarter, the
schooner ported her helm, luffing close;
her gaff-topsail, flying-jib, royal and topgallant
sail melted to the hauling upon clewlines
and downhauls as though they had been
of snow and had vanished upon the black
damp wind; but even with the tack of her
mainsail up, they had to keep shaking the
breeze out of the small sail she showed, to
prevent her from sliding past us.</p>

<p>"Oh, ze sheep ahoy!" sung out one of the
two figures on the quarter-deck, the man
coming down to the lee rail to hail, "What
sheep air you?"</p>

<p>As with the Centaur, so now, Vanderdecken
made no response to this inquiry.
He and the others stood grimly silent
watching the schooner, as immobile as
graven images.</p>

<p>I said to Imogene, "'Tis dark enough to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
show the phosphor upon the ship. That
should give them a hint. Mark how vividly
the shining crawls about these decks."</p>

<p>"Ze sheep ahoy!" shouted the man from
the schooner that lay to windward, tossing
her bows and shaking the spray off her like
any champing and curvetting steed angrily
reined in and smoking his impatience through
his nostrils. "What sheep air you?"</p>

<p>Vanderdecken stepped his towering figure
on to the bulwark; "The Braave," he cried,
sending his majestic voice ringing like a note
of thunder through the wind.</p>

<p>"Vhat ees your country?" yelled the other.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken did not apparently understand
the question, but probably assuming
that these sea-interrogatories followed in the
usual manner, answered, "From Batavia to
Amsterdam," speaking as the schooner's man
did in English, but with an accent as strongly
Dutch as the other's was French.</p>

<p>Thought I, he will see that we are a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
Holland ship, and as France and their
High Mightinesses are on good terms he
may sheer off. But even as this fancy or
hope crossed my mind, a sudden order was
shouted out on the schooner and in a breath
the vessel's hatches began to vomit men.
They tumbled up in masses, blackening the
white decks, and a gleam of arms went
rippling among them.</p>

<p>"Captain Vanderdecken!" I bawled, "that
fellow is a pirate! Mind, sir, or she will be
aboard of you in another minute!" And not
stopping to heed the effect of my words, I
grasped Imogene by the hand and ran with
her off the poop. "Get you to my cabin,
dearest, they are pirates and will be tumbling
in masses over the rail directly."</p>

<p>I pressed my lips to her cheek and she
glided like a phantom down the hatch-ladder.</p>

<p>What I relied on by advising her concealment
I could not have explained; since those
who rummaged the vessel were pretty sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
to enter the cabins. But my instincts urging
me to hide her away from the first spring of
the men on to our deck, I took their counsel
as a sort of mysterious wisdom put into me
by God for her protection; it coming to this
in short&mdash;that there might be a chance of
their overlooking her if she hid below, whereas
they were bound to see her if she remained
on deck, to be ravished by her beauty, and,
supposing them pirates, to carry her off as a
part of their booty, according to the custom
of those horrid villains.</p>

<p>I stepped away from the hatch, lest it
might be supposed I was guarding it, and
stationed myself in the deep shadow under
the quarter-deck ladder, where it and the
overhanging deck combined cast an ink-like
shade. There was small need to look for
the schooner, you could hear her hissing like
red-hot iron through the water as she came
sweeping down upon our quarter under a
slightly ported helm, ready to starboard for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
the heave of the grapnels and the foaming
range alongside. There was no show of
consternation among the crew of the Death
Ship; nay, if emotion of any sort were at all
visible, you would have termed it a mere kind
of dull, muddled, Dutch curiosity. I had
fancied they would jump to arm themselves
and assume some posture of defence; instead
of this they had gathered themselves together
in several lounging groups about the waist
and gangway, many of them with pipes in
their mouths, the fire of which glowed in
bright, red spots against the green and
lambent glitterings upon such woodwork as
formed their background; and thus they
hung with never a monosyllable uttered
among them, their silence, their indifference,
their combination of ghostly characteristics,
with their substantial, glooming shapes, more
terrifying to my mind than had every man of
them a carbine pointing from his shoulder,
with a crew forward as numerous again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
standing match in hand at twenty murdering
pieces!</p>

<p>All in an instant the shadow of the
schooner's canvas was in the air deepening
the gloom upon our decks with a midnight
tincture; you heard the snarling wash of
water boiling between the two vessels; the
claws of the grapnels flung from the bows
and stern of the Frenchman gripped our aged
bulwark with a crunching sound, and the
mystical fires in the wood burnt out to the
biting iron like lighted tinder blown upon.
Then, in a breath, I saw the heads of twenty
or thirty fellows along the line of the bulwark
rail, and as they sprang as monkeys might
into our ship, one of them that grasped a
pistol exploded it, and the yellow flash was
like the swift waving of a torch, in the glare
of which the faces of the silent, staring, indifferent
sailors of the Braave glanced in a very
nightmare of white, unholy countenances.</p>

<p>There was some yelping and howling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
among the Frenchmen as they tumbled inboard&mdash;indeed,
the seamen of that nation
cannot budge an inch without making as
much noise as would last a British forecastle
several voyages; but their clamour sounded
to me very much like the cries of men who
did not relish their errand and raised these
shouts for the same reason that sets a boy
whistling on a road in a dark night. They
jumped from the rail in slap-dash style indeed,
waving their cutlasses and flourishing their
pikes; but whether it was that they were
suddenly confounded by the silence on our
decks, or that they had caught sight in the
pistol flash of the faces of the Death Ship's
crew, or that the suspicion of our true character,
which must have been excited in them
by the glow upon our hull and by the ancient
appearance of our spars, was quickly and in
a panic way confirmed and developed by the
glitterings upon our deck, the aspect of our
ordnance, the antiquity suggested by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
arrangement of our quarter-deck and poop&mdash;all
of these points visible enough in the wild,
faint light that swarmed about the air but all
of them taking ghostly and bewildering, ay,
and terrifying emphasis from the very dusk
in which they were surveyed; whatever the
cause, 'tis as sure as that I live who write this,
that instead of their making a scamper along
the decks, charging the Dutch seamen, flinging
themselves down the hatchways and the
like, all which was to have been expected, they
suddenly came to a dead stand, even massing
themselves in a body and shoving and elbowing
one another, for such courage, maybe, as
is to be found in the feel of a fellow-being's
ribs, whilst they peered with eyes bright with
alarm at the phlegmatic sailors of Vanderdecken
and around then at the ship, talking
in fierce short whispers and pointing.</p>

<p>It takes time to record the events of thirty
seconds, though all that now happened might
have been compassed whilst a man told that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
space. 'Twas as if the frosty, blighting Curse
of the ship they had dashed into had come
upon their tongues, and hearts and souls.
Over the side, where the grappling schooner
lay, heaving with a cataractal roaring of water
sounding out of the sea between, as the Flying
Dutchman rolled ponderously towards
her, loud orders in French were being delivered,
mixed with passionate callings to the
boarders upon our decks; the schooner's
sails waved like the dark pinions of some
monstrous sea-fowl past ours, which still
drew, no brace having been touched. I
guessed there were thirty in all that had
leapt aboard, some of them negroes, all of
them wildly attired in true buccaneering
fashion, so far as the darkness suffered my
eyes to see, in boots and sashes, and blouses
and lolling caps; there they stood in a
huddle of figures with lightning-like twitching
gleams shooting off their naked weapons as
they pointed or swayed or feverishly moved,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
staring about them. Some gazed up at the
poop, where, as I presently discovered, stood
the giant figure of Vanderdecken, his mates
and the boatswain beside him, shapes of
bronze motionlessly and silently watching.
But the affrighting element&mdash;more terrible
than the hellish glarings upon the planks,
bulwarks and masts, more scaring than the
amazing suggestions&mdash;to a sailor's eye&mdash;of
the old guns, the two boats and all other such
furniture as was to be embraced in that gloom&mdash;was
the crowd of glimmering faces, the
mechanic postures, the grave-yard dumbness
of the body of spectral mariners who surveyed
the boarding party in clusters, shadowy, and
spirit-like.</p>

<p>I felt the inspiration, and, with a pang of
Heaven-directed sympathy with the terrors
working in the Frenchmen's breasts, which
needed but a cry to make them explode, I
shouted from the blackness of my ambush, in
a voice to which my sense of the stake the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
warning signified in its failure or success, lent
a hurricane note: "<i>Sauvez vous! Sauvez
vous! C'est l'Hollandais Volant!</i>"</p>

<p>What manner of Paris speech this was,
and with what accent delivered, I never
paused to consider; the effect was as if a
thunder-bolt had fallen and burst among
them. With one general roar of <i>l'Hollandais
Volant!</i> the whole mob of them fled to the
side, many dropping their weapons the better
to scramble and jump. Why, you see that
shout of mine exactly expressed their fears,
it made the panic common; and 'twas with
something of a scream in their way of letting
out the breath in their echoing of my shout
that they vanished, leaping like rats without
looking to see what they should hit with
their heads or tails.</p>

<p>I sprang up the quarter-deck ladder to observe
what followed, and beheld sure enough,
the towering outline of Vanderdecken standing
at the rail that protected the fore-part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
of the poop-deck gazing down upon the
schooner with his arms folded and his attitude
expressing a lifelessness not to be conveyed
by the pen, though the greatest of living
artists in words ventured it. Against the
side were the two mates and Jans looking
on at a scene to whose stir, clamour, excitement,
they seemed to oppose deaf ears and
insensible eyes. Small wonder that the
Frenchmen should have fled to my shout,
fronted and backed as they were in that
part of the ship into which they had leapt,
and where they had come to an affrighted
stand, by the grisly and sable shapes of
Vanderdecken and his comrades aft, and by
the groups of leprous-tinctured anatomies
forward.</p>

<p>I peered over the rail. The two vessels
lay grinding together, and as the tall fabric
of the Death Ship leaned to the schooner,
you thought she would crush and beat her
down, but with the regularity of a pulse the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
dark folds of water swept the little vessel
clear, sometimes raising her when our ship
lay aslant to the level of our upper deck, and
giving me, therefore, a mighty good prospect
of what was happening in her. Both vessels
were off the wind and were surging through
it with a prodigious hissing betwixt their
sides.</p>

<p>The fright of the boarders had proved
contagious. I shall never forget the sight!
Small as the schooner was, there could not
have been less than ninety men on her decks,
and they made a very hell of the atmosphere
about them with the raving notes in their
cries and bawlings. My knowledge of
French was small, but some of their screams
I could follow, as for instance: "'Tis the
Flying Dutchman!"</p>

<p>"Cut us adrift! Cut us adrift!"</p>

<p>"Flatten in those head-sheets! Shove her
off! Shove her off! Pole her, my children,
with a couple of sweeps!"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>

<p>"Now she starts. No! What holds
her? Ha! ha! the weather topsail-brace
has fouled the Hollander's fore-topsail yard-arm.
No use going aloft! Let go of it&mdash;let
go of it&mdash;that it may overhaul itself!"</p>

<p>Imagine about four-score throats&mdash;some
with the guttural thickness of the negro's
utterance&mdash;all together roaring and delivering
orders such as those of which I have given
you specimens! Figure the decks throbbing
with men rushing with apparent aimlessness
from one side to the other, from one end to
the other&mdash;not a vestige of discipline among
them&mdash;a drowning yell or two coming up
from between the ships where some wretch
that had fallen overboard was holding on&mdash;the
sails shaking, the water washing
beyond in a glaring white that gave a
startling distinctness to the shape of the
schooner as she rose softly to the level of
our upper deck bulwarks upon the seething
snow!</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>

<p>Why, no matter how strongly imagination
should present the picture, what is the simulacrum
as compared to that reality which I
need but close these eyes to witness afresh?
The wildness of the scene took a particular
spirit from the frowning, rocking mass of
the Death Ship&mdash;the tomb-like silence in her&mdash;the
still and glooming shapes watching
the throes and convulsions of the terrified
Frenchmen and negroes from the poop and
forward over the rail&mdash;the diabolic glowing
in her timbers&mdash;the swaying of her dusky
canvas like the nodding of leviathan funeral
plumes&mdash;the dance of the slender slip of
moon among the rigging, defining the vast
platforms of the barricaded tops, monstrous
bulgings of blackness up there as though a
body of electric cloud swung bulbously at
each lower masthead.</p>

<p>They had the sense to cut the lines which
held them by their grapnels to our ship, and
presently to my great joy&mdash;for if they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
true pirates, as there was good reason to believe
from their appearance and manner of
laying us aboard, 'twas impossible to feel
sure that the fiercer spirits among them
might not presently rally the rest&mdash;the
schooner went scraping and forging past
ahead of us; snapping her topgallant mast
short off, with the royal yard upon it, by
some brace, stay or backstay fouling us in
a way the darkness would not suffer me to
witness, and in a few minutes she had
crossed our bows and was running away
into the north east, rapidly expanding her
canvas as she went, and quickly melting
into the darkness.</p>

<p>I stopped to fetch a few breaths and to
make sure of the Frenchman's evanishment
by watching. More excitement and dread
had been packed into this time than I know
how to tell of.</p>

<p>I slipped to the hatch on the upper deck,
descended a tread or two, and softly called.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
In a minute I espied the white face of my
dearest upturned to me amidst the well-like
obscurity.</p>

<p>"They are gone," said I, "the danger is
over."</p>

<p>She instantly stepped up.</p>

<p>"I heard you cry out 'The Flying Dutchman!
Save yourselves!'" she exclaimed,
with a music almost of merriment in her
voice. "It was a bold fancy! What helter-skelter
followed!"</p>

<p>I took her hand and we entered the
cabin. The richly-coloured old lamp was
alight, the clock ticked hoarsely, you heard
the scraping of the parrot clawing about
her cage.</p>

<p>"Oh," she cried, "what a dismal place
is that they have given you to sleep in!
I believed I was hardened to the dreadful
flickerings upon the deck and sides, but
they scared me to the heart in that cell&mdash;and
the noises too in the hold! Oh, Geoffrey,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
how severe is our fate! Shall we ever
escape?"</p>

<p>"Yes, my dearest, but not by ships, as I
have all along told you. A chance will offer,
and be you sure, Imogene, it will find me
ready. Wondrous is God's ordering! Think,
my dear, that in the very Curse that rests
upon this ship has lain our salvation! Suppose
this vessel any other craft and boarded
by those villains, negroes of the Antilles, and
white ruffians red-handed from the Spanish
Main&mdash;'tis likely they were so and are
cruising here for the rich traders&mdash;by this
time where would my soul be? and <i>you</i>&mdash;ay,
there is a virtue in this Curse! It
is a monstrous thought&mdash;but, indeed, I
could take Vanderdecken by the hand
for the impiety that has carried you clear
of a destiny as awful in its way as the
doom these unhappy wretches are immortally
facing."</p>

<p>She shuddered and wept a little, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
looked at me with eyes the brighter for those
tears which I dared not kiss away in that
public cabin.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER IV.<br />
MY LIFE IS AGAIN ATTEMPTED.</h2>


<p>Vanderdecken and the mate came below
soon after this, and Prins set a bowl of punch
before them. The captain seated himself in
his solemn way, and the mate took Imogene's
place&mdash;that is, over against my seat&mdash;she
being at my side. They filled their pipes
and smoked in a silence that, saving
Vanderdecken's asking me to drink, would,
I believe, have remained unbroken but for
Imogene.</p>

<p>She said: "Captain, there is no fear, I
hope, of those pirates attempting to board us
again in the darkness?"</p>

<p>"Did Herr Fenton tell you they were
pirates?" he replied, with the unsmiling softness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
of expression he was used to look upon
her with.</p>

<p>"Surely they were pirates?" she cried.</p>

<p>"Be it so, my child," said he, "what doth
it signify? They are gone; I do not fear
they will return."</p>

<p>Being extremely curious to know what
sense he had of this strange adventure, I
exclaimed, "It is very surprising, mynheer,
that a score of ruffians, armed to the teeth,
should fling themselves into this ship for no
other purpose, seemingly, than to leap out of
her again."</p>

<p>"They imagined us English, Herr Fenton,"
said Van Vogelaar, with a snarl in his
voice and a sneer on his lip.</p>

<p>I did not instantly catch the drift of his
sarcasm.</p>

<p>"Doth any man suppose," said Vanderdecken,
rearing his great figure and proudly
surveying me, "that the guns of our admirals
have thundered in vain? You seek an interpretation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
of the Frenchman's behaviour?
Surely by this time all Englishmen should
understand the greatness of the terror our
flag everywhere strikes! Twice you have
witnessed this&mdash;in the hasty retreat of your
man-of-war, and this night in the conduct of
the French schooner. Tell me," he cried,
with new fires leaping into his eyes, "how I
am to resolve the panic-terror of the boarding
party, if I am not to believe that until they
were on our decks, had looked round them
and beheld our men, they knew not for
certain the nation to which the Braave
belonged?"</p>

<p>I bowed very gravely as I acquiesced.</p>

<p>"Skipper," cried Van Vogelaar, "is it not
likely that they imagined us English? They
showed no fear till our country spoke in the
faces of our sailors."</p>

<p>A faint smile of scorn curled the lips of
Imogene, but the contempt of her English
heart quickly faded into an expression of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
compassion and sadness when she let her
eyes travel from the sinister and ugly mate
to the majestic countenance of the commander.
But no more was said. The two
men puffed at their pipes and sipped at their
silver mugs in silence, and at long intervals
only did Imogene and I exchange a word.</p>

<p>That they should so easily have been able
to satisfy the surprise which the behaviour of
the schooner must have excited in them was
astonishing. Yet a little reflection made me
see that, since they did not know they were
accurst and were ignorant of the horror and
terror with which mariners of all countries
viewed them, it was almost inevitable they
should attribute the flight of ships from them
either to a selfishness and indifference to
their needs or to the dread which they inspired
as a vessel that flew the Dutch flag.
Yet may I, without irreverence, suggest that
much of the venom of the Curse must be
neutralised by their ignorance of their condition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
and their inability to drive conjecture
to the truth of whatever befel them? The
shaping of their doom is beyond the power of
reason to grasp, and I feel, therefore, the
impiety of criticism. Nevertheless, I must
say that, since it is Heaven's will these
wretches should be afflicted with earthly immortality,
it is inexplicable that the torments
which perception of the truth would create,
should be balsamed into painlessness by
ignorance. For hath not the Curse the idleness
of that kind of human revenge which
strikes and mutilates an enemy already dead?</p>

<p>Imogene withdrew to her cabin at about
half-an-hour after nine; Vanderdecken went
on deck and I sat alone smoking, thinking of
the surprising events of the evening, scheming
how to escape and making my heart very
heavy with a passionate hopeless yearning
for the time to come when, secure upon the
soil of our beloved land, I should be calling
the delicate, lovely, lonely girl&mdash;the amber-haired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
fairy of this Death Ship&mdash;my own!
The slow, rusty, saw-like ticking of the ancient
clock was an extremely melancholy noise,
and I abhorred its chimes too, not because of
the sound, that was very sonorously melodious,
but because it startled the parrot into
its ugly, hobgoblin croak. It was a detestable
exclamation to salute the ears of a man
whose thoughts ran in the very strain of that
coarse, comminatory confirmation of them.</p>

<p>The ancient salt and weedy smell of the
ship&mdash;a distinguishable thing in the after part&mdash;if
it was somewhat mitigated forward by
the greasy smoke and steam of the cook-house&mdash;lent
a peculiar accentuation to the various
shinings of the lamp, in whose many-coloured
radiance some of the dusky oval-framed
paintings loomed out red, others green, the
ponderous beams of the upper deck blue, the
captain's tall, velvet-backed chair yellow, and
so on; all these tints blending into a faint
unearthly atmosphere as they stole dying to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
the bulkhead of the state-room, behind
whose larboard door my love lay sleeping.</p>

<p>I was glad to quit the place, and went
on deck. There was nothing to be seen
saving the foam that flashed near and
crawled afar, the glitter of the low-lying
stars like the sparkle of torches on ships
dipping upon the horizon, a sullen movement
of dark clouds on high, and the moon red as
an angry scar up-curled over the western
horizon. 'Twas on a sudden I noticed that
we were making a fair wind of the breeze.
Yes, on looking aloft I perceived that the
yards were braced in, lying so as to show the
wind to be blowing about one point abaft
the beam. It was strange that in the cabin
I had not heard any noise to denote that the
men were trimming sail, no sound of rope
flung down in coils, no rusty cheeping cry
from the aged blocks, no squeak of truss or
parrel, or tread of foot. That was, maybe,
because the men had fallen dumbly, as usual,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
to the job of hauling and pulling, so that my
attention had not been drawn to such noises
as were raised. Be this as it may, for the
first time since I had been in the ship the
wind had come fair. By the situation of the
Cross, I guessed she was being headed about
west-north-west, which would carry us to
Agulhas, and also into the Ethiopic Sea.</p>

<p>For a little bit I was sensible of a degree
of excitement; there had come a break; it
was no longer a hopeless ratching to the
north, then a bleak, slanting drift into the
mighty solitude of the south; the ship was
going home! But with that thought my
spirits sank. Home? What home had she
but these wild, wide waters? What other
lot than the gentle cradling or tempestuous
smiting of these surges, the crying of the
winds of the southern ocean in her rigging,
the desolate scream of the lonely sea-bird in
her wake, the white sunshine of the blue
heavens, the levin-brand of the electric storm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
the midnight veil of the black hurricane, the
wide, snow-like light of the northern moon,
over and over again! No! I was mortal, at
least, with the plain understanding of a
healthy man, and was not to be cheated by a
flowing sheet as though mine, too, was the
unholy immortality with its human yearnings
and earthly labours of the men who manned
this Death Ship. The change was but one
of the deceits of their heavy sentence, and
with an inward prayer that for me and for my
precious one it might work out some profitable
issue, I went to my cabin.</p>

<p>The door hung on a hook that held it open
by the length of a finger; outside swung the
lamp that sent light sufficient to me through
the interstice. At midnight, this lamp was
borne away by Prins, whose final duty before
going to his sleeping-place lay in this. It
was a regular custom, and whenever it happened
that I stayed on deck beyond midnight,
then I had to "turn in," as best I could, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
the dark. Yet, dark I could not term my
cabin at night, 'twas rather "darkness visible,"
as Milton hath it; for though the glowing
crawlings yielded no radiance, no, no more
than a mirrored star shining out of the wet
blackness of a well, yet such objects as intercepted
it, it revealed, as a suspended coat,
for instance, that, hanging against the bulkhead,
had its figure limned against the
phosphor, as though 'twas blotted there in
ink, very faithful in outline.</p>

<p>There was enough in the events of the
evening to keep my brain occupied and my
eyes open, and I lay thus for some half-hour,
thinking and watching the unnatural lights,
and wondering why they should be there,
since I had never beheld the like glowing in
the most ancient marine structure I had ever
visited, when, on a sudden, I was sensible of
someone standing outside the cabin door and
listening, as it appeared. It was a peculiar,
regular breathing sound, that gave me to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
know this&mdash;a respiration as rhythmic as that of
a sleeping man whose slumber is peaceful.
An instant after I heard the <i>click</i> of the hook
of the door lightly lifted out of the staple, but
all so quietly that the noise would have been
inaudible amid the straining of the rocking
vessel if my attention had not been rendered
piercing by that solemn and strong breathing,
rising very plainly above the sounds in the
hold.</p>

<p>I sprang on to the deck; being in my
socks I fell on my feet noiselessly. Against
the greenish glitterings about the cabin I
easily made out the figure of a man, standing
within the door, holding it in a posture of
eager listening. My breath grew thick and
short; the horror of this situation is not to
be conceived. It was not as though I were
in an earthly ship, for in that case, no matter
who the midnight intruder, he would have
had a mortal throat for my fingers to close
upon. But whoever this shape might be he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
belonged to the Death Ship, and 'twas
frightful to see his outline, black as the
atmosphere of a churchyard grave, thrown
out, in its posture of watching and listening,
by the fiery, writhing fibrines of the phosphor,
to know that the deep and hollow
breathing came from a figure in whom life
was a monstrous simulation, to feel that his
confrontment by an Hercules or a Goliath
would as little quail his endevilled spirit as
the dead are to be terrified by the menaces
of the living.</p>

<p>I watched with half-suffocated respiration.
Since his outline was plain it was sure mine
was so likewise; but I could not distinguish
that he was looking towards the place where
I stood, that is, in the middle of the after
bulkhead, a couple of paces from the foot of
the bed, whither I had backed on his entering.</p>

<p>He very softly closed the door, on which I
drew myself up waiting for the onslaught I
was certain he designed, though when I considered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
what thing it was I should be dealing
with, the sense of my helplessness came very
near to breaking me down. Having closed
the door he approached the bed, and bent his
head down as though listening; then, with
amazing swiftness, stabbed at the bed four
times, each blow, with the vehemence of it,
making a distinct sound; after which he hung
over the bed with his arm uplifted and his
head bent as though he would make sure by
listening that he had dispatched me. His
figure was so plain that it was as if you should
cut out the shape of a man in black paper and
paste it upon a dull yellow ground. From
the upraised hand I could distinguish the
projection of a knife or small sword not less
than a foot long. He was not apparently
easily satisfied that I lay dead; for he kept
his menacing, hearkening posture while I
could have counted sixty; he then went
lightly to the door, opened it and passed
out.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>

<p>Whether he walked in his sleep&mdash;and certainly
his motions were those of a somnambulist&mdash;or
whether he was influenced by some
condition of his doom, of a character as
unconjecturable as the manner in which
vitality was preserved among the crew, who
were years and years ago dead in time, I
could not conceive; but, resolved to discover
him if I could, I followed on his heels, catching
the door as it swung from his grasp; but
there was no need to close it nor slip a foot
beyond the coaming; for, the glimmer all
about serving my sight, I saw him enter the
cabin opposite&mdash;that in which Van Vogelaar
slept, whereby I knew who it was that would
have assassinated me that night had I slept
when I lay down.</p>

<p>You will easily credit that this man had
murdered sleep so far as I was concerned. I
would not go on deck, and I would not lie
down either, for what I had beheld had so
wrought in my imagination that the mere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
idea of resting upon the holes which the
villain's blade had made in the aged mattress
filled me with horror. So for the rest of the
night I walked about the cabin or rested on
the edge of the bed, praying for daylight, and
repeatedly commending myself to God; for,
this being the second time my life had been
attempted by the same hand, I could not
question, if it was the will of Heaven this
hideous cruise should be prolonged, the third
venture would be successful, and in the
dreadful loneliness and luminous blackness
of that cabin I viewed myself as a dead man,
and could have wept with rage and grief
when thinking of my helplessness and of
Imogene's fate.</p>

<p>However, I clearly saw that no good could
attend my telling Vanderdecken of his mate's
hunger for my life. If Van Vogelaar had
walked in his sleep he would not know what
he had done; he would call me a liar for
charging him with it, and I might count<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
upon Vanderdecken siding with him in any
case. The Dutch are a less savage people
than they were, but in the age to which this
ship's company belonged they were the most
inhuman people in Europe, perhaps in the
world, and such were the barbarities they
were guilty of, that the passage of two centuries&mdash;and
it would be the same if it were
the passage of two hundred centuries&mdash;leaves
their crimes as fresh and smoking to God as
the blood of their victims at the time of their
being done to death. Consider their treatment
of sailors: how for a petty theft they
would proclaim a man infamous at the fore-mast;
torture him into confession by attaching
heavy weights to his feet, running him
aloft, and then letting him fall; keel-haul
him, that is, draw him several times under the
ship's keel; affix him to the mast by nailing
him to it by a knife passed through his
hand; flog him to the extent of three hundred
to five hundred strokes, then pickle his bleeding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
mangled back; fling him ironed into the
hold: there half-starve him till they met with
a bare, barren, lonely rock upon which they
would set and leave him. Read how they
treated the English at Amboyna! No! I had
the Dutch of the seventeenth century to deal
with in these men, not the Hollanders of my
day, borrowing fine airs from the Germans
and sweetening their throats with French <i>à
la mode</i> phrases. But how to escape them?
There were moments when I paced my cabin
like a madman and with a madman's thoughts
in me too.</p>

<p>I brought a haggard face with me to the
breakfast table, and Imogene surveyed me
with an eye full of inquiry and anxiety. My
thoughts, acting with my wakefulness, had
told, and I fancied that even Vanderdecken
suffered his gaze to rest upon me as though
he marked a change. Van Vogelaar's
manner satisfied me that he had acted in his
sleep or under some spell that stupefied the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
understanding whilst it gave the spirit full
play, for he discovered nothing of that wonder
and terror which had been visible in him
when I entered the cabin after his former
attempt to destroy me, which certainly had
not been the case had he quitted my
bedside in the belief that I was dead of my
wounds.</p>

<p>Vanderdecken talked of the fair wind; a
sort of satisfaction illuminated his sombre
austerity; though his dignity was prodigious
and his commanding manner full of an
haughty and forbidding sternness, he was
nevertheless politer to me than he had ever
yet been, going to the length of talking
about the food on the table, the excellent
quality of the African Guinea fowl and
bustard, recommending me to taste of a dish
of marmalade, and relating a story of a
privateer having left behind him, in a ship he
had clapt aboard of, a number of boxes which
seemed to be full of marmalade, but which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
in reality were loaded with virgin silver.
But it was the fair wind that produced this
civility, though after last night's business
'twas welcome enough let the cause be what
it would.</p>

<p>No sooner had Imogene and I a chance
of speaking alone than she asked me what
was the matter. I told her how Van
Vogelaar had entered my cabin and stabbed
at my bed. She turned white; her beautiful
eyes grew large and bright with terror; she
clasped her hands and for some moments
could not speak. Her agitation diminished,
however, when she understood that Van
Vogelaar walked in his sleep, though she
was still very white when she cried: "If
you had been sleeping when he entered you
would now be dead!"</p>

<p>I answered: "What he does in his sleep
he may do awake. This action is like the
whispers of a dreamer, babbling out his
conscience. It is in his soul to kill me, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
long thinking upon it has moved him to the
deed in his sleep."</p>

<p>"Oh, Geoffrey, did I not beg you to secure
your door?"</p>

<p>"Ay&mdash;that shall be looked to in future, I
warrant you. But why should this man, of all
the others, especially thirst for my life? How
have I wronged him?"</p>

<p>She replied by pointing out that the crew
of my ship had fired upon him; also that in
the days of his natural life he was no doubt a
villain at heart and that all the features of his
devilish nature attended him through his
doom; that being more jealous, rapacious
and avaricious than the others, he might
regard my presence as a menace to his share
of the treasure, and hunger after my destruction;
so that, come what might, I should
never be able to report the wealth that lay in
the ship's hold.</p>

<p>There was no doubt my darling was right,
impossible as I found it to reconcile these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
earthly and human passions and motives
with his supernatural being; and particularly
the indifference he exhibited on the previous
evening when the Frenchman came running
us aboard, with his concern for his share in
the gold, jewels and plate below. But I had
long abandoned all speculation concerning
what I must term the intellectual aspect of
these miserable creatures. You will suppose
that we found a fruitful text in this mate's
somnambulistic attack upon me, and that we
talked at great length about our chances of
escape and the necessity Van Vogelaar's
malignant hate put me under of inventing
some method to deliver ourselves by, be
the risks of it what they might. Yet it was
but talk.</p>

<p>Indeed, never did prisoners' outlook appear
more hopeless. Compared to this floating
jail, compassed about by the mighty sea, the
walls of a citadel were as paper, the bars
of a dungeon's window as packthread. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
the most bitter and invincible barrier of
all was Captain Vanderdecken's resolution to
carry Imogene with him in this ship to
Amsterdam.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER V.<br />
A TEMPEST BURSTS UPON US.</h2>


<p>I did not, as I had told Imogene, need a
second hint to secure my life by night, however
it might fall out with me in the day.
By looking about I met with a piece of ratline
stuff which I hid in my cabin, and when the
night came I secured one end to the hook of
the door, passing the other end through the
staple and then making it fast to my wrist;
so that, the door being shut, no one could
enter without tweaking or straining my arm
with such violence as was sure to awake me.</p>

<p>Meanwhile the fair wind hung very steady,
blowing about south, a pleasant breeze that
yielded a pure blue sky and small puff-shaped
clouds exceedingly white; the sea was also of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
a very lovely sapphire, twinkling and sparkling
in the north like a sheet of silver cloth
set a-trembling. The Braave stole along
softly, with but little seething and hissing
noises about her now that her yards lay
braced well in. I would think whilst I
watched her flowing sheets, the long bosoms
of her canvas swelling forwards with the slack
bolt-ropes arched like a bow, and the mizzen
rounding from its lateen yard, backed by the
skeleton remains of the great poop lantern,
that she needed but the bravery of fresh
paint, a new ancient, pennons and streamers,
bright pettararoes or swivels, glass for the
lanterns and gilt for her galleries and beak, to
render her as picturesque and romantic a
vessel as ever sailed in that mighty procession,
in whose van streamed the triumphant
insignia of the great Spanish, Dutch and
Portuguese Admirals.</p>

<p>'Twas impossible to doubt that every man
in the ship believed that he was going home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
this time. There was an air of alacrity in
them that had never before been noticeable.
They would look eagerly seawards over the
bows, gazing thus for long minutes at a time.
Whenever the log was hove I'd mark one or
more inquire the speed of the men who had
held the reel or dragged in the line, as they
went forward. They smoked incessantly,
with an air of dull and heavy satisfaction in
their faces.</p>

<p>I observed a lifting, so to speak, of the
stupor off Vanderdecken. His trances&mdash;I
mean those sudden fits of death-like insensibility
which I can only liken to cataleptic
attacks&mdash;were few, whence I concluded that
his spirit, or whatever might be the nature of
the essence that owned his great and majestical
frame for a tabernacle&mdash;had gathered an
increase of vitality from the invigorated hope
and brisk desires which the fair wind had
raised. In Van Vogelaar I witnessed no
change. Possibly the dark shadows of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
fears being on him held him gloomy and
malignant to my sight. Likewise, I was
careful to keep a wide space between us, save
at meals, and never to have my back upon
him, for to be sure, if I was to be murdered
by the rogue, it should not be for the want of
a bright look-out on my part.</p>

<p>This state of things continued for three
days. A powerful current runs to the westward
in these seas, and adding its impulse
to our progress, I calculated that in those
seventy-two hours we made not less than an
hundred and thirty-three leagues. As time
passed my wonder increased, for though I
knew not our position, and never durst ask
Vanderdecken what situation his dead-reckoning
assigned us, I could not conceive&mdash;recollecting
the place in which the Saracen
was when we sighted the Death Ship&mdash;that
we had been blown, during the time I had
been on board, into a very remote sea; and
hence 'twas reasonable that I should think it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
wanted but a few days sailing after this
pattern to carry us round the Cape. Therefore
I say my wonder grew, for whilst it
was impious to suppose that the Devil could
contrive that this ship should outwit the
Sentence, yet our steady progress caused me
to waver in my faith in the stern assurance
of the vessel's doom.</p>

<p>I would say to Imogene: "The breeze
holds; see how steady is the look of the
southern sky! Is it possible that this wind
will carry her round?"</p>

<p>To which she would answer: "No, the
change will come. Oh, Geoffrey, it will come,
though no more than the ship's length lay
between her and the limit which you believe
the Curse has marked out for her upon this
sea."</p>

<p>Then I would agree with her. But afterwards,
coming on deck in the afternoon, or
next morning, and finding the Death Ship
pushing along, her head pointing north-west,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
her sails full, the wake sliding away astern
in a satin smoothness, wonder and doubt
would again possess me, and twenty odd
fancies occur, such as, "Suppose the Sentence
has been remitted! Suppose it be
the Will of Heaven this ship should return
to Amsterdam, that a final expiation of
Vanderdecken's wrong-doing might be
accomplished in his and his miserable crew's
beholding with their own eyes the extinction
of those houses they had yearned for, and
the tombs&mdash;if aught of memorial in that way
remain&mdash;of those hearts whose beating they
hoped to feel upon their own?"</p>

<p>Such thoughts would set me talking to
Imogene.</p>

<p>"Conceive of this ship's arrival in the
Texel! What consternation, what astonishment
would she arouse! What mighty
crowds would flock to view her!" And in the
hurry and ardency of my imagination, I would
go on figuring the looks and behaviour of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
the people as our ghastly crew stepped
ashore, asking one and another after their
wives and children, those Alidas, Geertruidas,
Titias, Emelies, Cornelias, Johannas, Fedoras,
Engelinas, and Christinas, and those Antonys,
Hendricks, Jans, Tjaarts, Lodewyks, Abrahams,
Willems, Peters, and Fredericks, whose
very memory, let alone their dust, was as
utterly gone as the ashes in any pipe forward
there when the fire had been tapped out of
the bowl overboard.</p>

<p>During the night of the third day the wind
held steadily. I left the deck a little before
midnight, having passed some hours of the
darkness in the company of my love, and
our sails were then full with the prosperous
wind, the ship passing along over the quiet
sea in a great shadow, the stars very piercing,
and the light of their colours sharp and
lovely; but on coming from my cabin next
morning, I found the breeze gone; the ship
was rolling upon a swell coming with some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
power from the westwards; and the dead
cloths of the canvas striking a small thunder
into the motionless air as they beat against
the masts with the weary, monotonous swaying
of those spars.</p>

<p>The change had come! The swell was
full of foreboding; it was as my heart had
foreseen, spite of the wonder and inventions
of my imagination; but nevertheless, the
perception of that polished sea heaving into
the dimness of the distant sky, the sight of
the deadness of the calm that had slued the
Death Ship till her sprit-topsail veiled and
disclosed the oozing sun as she bowed with
her beak pointing into the east, brought
a disappointment that sickened me to the
soul.</p>

<p>"Great God," I cried within myself, "is
this experience to end only with my death!"
and I entered the cabin in so melancholy a
mood that I could scarce hold up my head
for the heaviness in my eyes and brain.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span></p>

<p>Imogene was alone. I kissed her hand
and fondled it. She instantly observed my
depression, and said, gently, "I feared this
calm would dishearten you. But it was inevitable,
dear. It was impossible a change of
some kind should be delayed."</p>

<p>"Yes, but it breaks me down to think of
another long, soul-starving, stormy drive into
the south-east, another terrible spell of
Vanderdecken's savage manners&mdash;of Van
Vogelaar's murderous attempts, and of the
hopelessness afterwards. Oh, my love! the
hopelessness afterwards!&mdash;when the weather
breaks and the wind blows fair again. Will
it never end?"</p>

<p>She cast her eyes down with a swift motion
of her finger to her lips. I turned, as
Vanderdecken approached. The darkness of
his inward rage lay heavy upon the folds
of his brow; 'tis no exaggeration to apply
to his appearance the strong words of
Beaumont:</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>

<div class="poem">
"There are a thousand furies in his looks,<br />
And in his deadly silence more loud horror<br />
Than, when in Hell, the tortur'd and tormentors<br />
Contend whose shrieks are greatest!"<br />
</div>

<p>He came without speaking to his chair, turning
his fiery eyes from Imogene to me without
saluting us. A moment after Van Vogelaar
arrived.</p>

<p>We took our places, but none spoke. One
side-long look the mate darted at me under
his parchment-coloured lids, and malice and
hate were strong in it. I could see that
Imogene was awed and terrified by the captain's
manner. You dreaded to hear him
speak. His stillness was that of a slowly
ripening tempest and his sultry, forbidding,
darkening bearing seemed to thicken the
very atmosphere about him till you drew your
breath with labour. He drank a silver cupfull
of wine, but ate nothing.</p>

<p>The mate on the other hand plied his
knife and fork with a surly heartiness. For
my part, I felt as though a mouthful must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
choke me; yet I made out to eat that
these men should not think I was afraid.
I believe Imogene would have gone to
her cabin but for her anxiety to support
and encourage me, so to say, by her
presence.</p>

<p>"What horrible curse do we carry in this
ship," presently exclaimed Vanderdecken,
speaking with a hoarse muttering that had
no note of the familiar melodious richness,
"that all winds which might blow us westwards
die before the meridian of Agulhas is
reached? What is there in these masts to
poison the breeze? Do we spread sails
woven in the Devil's loom? Have we a
Jonah among us?"</p>

<p>"Skipper!" cried Van Vogelaar, "Is it
Herr Fenton, think you? Measure the luck
he carries by what hath happened since he has
been in this ship. Six days of storm!" He
held up his fingers with a furious gesture.
"Twice, in a few hours, have our lives, our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
treasure, our ship been imperilled! Note,
now, this westerly swell, this stagnant atmosphere,
and a dimness in the west that will
have grown into storm and wind ere the
afternoon watch be ended."</p>

<p>"He speaks to my prejudice," I exclaimed,
addressing Vanderdecken; "let him be candid.
His tongue is injurious to the Hollander's
love of honour. Mynheer, consider:
He talks of the six days of storm&mdash;that
weather had been brewed before my ship
sighted yours. Of the English man-of-war
and the French pirate; why not of the wreck
that yielded you a bountiful store of needful
things? He knows&mdash;as you do, Herr Vanderdecken,
that Englishmen&mdash;least of all
English mariners&mdash;are not among those who
practise sorcery. This change is the concern
of that Being who has yet to judge this man.
If he charges me with the control of the
elements, then, by the Majesty of Heaven,
he basely lies even in his rash and impious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
effort to do me, a weak and erring mortal,
honour!"</p>

<p>With which I turned upon the villain and
stared at him with eyes fuller of more potent
fury flashed into them by the rage of my
healthy, earthly manhood than could possibly
possess him out of that dusty sepulchre of
his body which lived by the Curse alone.
He shrunk away from me, looking at his
skipper.</p>

<p>"Captain Vanderdecken," broke in the
sweet voice of Imogene, "you will not let
Herr Van Vogelaar's intemperate accusations
influence your love of justice. Herr Fenton
is not accountable for this calm; 'tis monstrous
to suppose it. Charge me sooner with witchcraft;
I have been longer in this ship than
he; in that time you have met many adverse
winds; and if his being an Englishman is
his wrong, hold me also answerable for the
failure of your hopes, since I am English too!"</p>

<p>He looked at her, then at me, then back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
to her, and methought her beauty coloured
the stormy cloud of his expression with a
light of its own, not softening it, but robbing
it somewhat of its terror. He moved his lips,
talking to himself, folded his arms and leaned
back, staring straight up at the deck.</p>

<p>I fancied by saying more yet I could mend
my case, and would not meet Imogene's eye
for fear of being checked.</p>

<p>"Captain Vanderdecken, I am here as a
shipwrecked man&mdash;dependent upon your
generosity as a fellow-being, of which you
have given me so abundant an illustration that
my heart sinks when I consider that I am
too poor to make you any return saving in
thanks. Had I tenfold the powers your
mate imputes to me, could I work you evil?
Give me the control of the wind, and such a
gale would follow this ship that you should
be speedily counting the date of your arrival
at Amsterdam in hours. Is it reasonable
that I should seek to delay this voyage? I,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
who have but these clothes in which I stand&mdash;who
am divorced from my home&mdash;who am
helpless and defenceless among the enemies
of my country&mdash;among men from whom I
should have nothing to hope if they had not
long given the world to know that their generosity
as foes is alone equalled by their
heroism as mariners!"</p>

<p>He had slowly turned his eyes upon me
when I began to speak, and now made a
haughty gesture with his hand as if bidding
me hold my peace. And perhaps my conscience
felt the rebuke, though he merely
designed to let me know that I had said
enough; for, between ourselves, I had as little
opinion of Dutch generosity as I had of
Dutch valour, and should have despised myself
for this flattering had I been talking to
human beings.</p>

<p>Happily nothing more came of the tempest
that lay muzzled in the captain's breast.
Whether my standing up for myself, my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
heated manner towards his mate, gave a new
turn to his mood, he did not speak again of
the change of weather, and as speedily as
ceremony would permit, I got up, made my
bow, and went on deck.</p>

<p>The appearance in the west was sullen
enough, though merely with a faintness there
that was unrelieved by any edging or
shouldering outline of cloud. A few patches
of vapour lay streaked along the sky, otherwise
the heavens hovered in an unstained
hollow, but of a faded, watery blue, unwholesome
and with a sort of blindness of fog in it;
and up in the north-east hung the sun, shorn
of his rays, a squeezed yet uncompacted mass
of dazzle, like as I have seen him show when
setting in a belt of vapour that has not
entirely hid him, and casting a wake as dim
as burning oil. The swell had grown in
weight even while we had been breaking our
fast. There being not the faintest draught
of air to steady the vessel&mdash;no, not so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
as to put the most delicate curl of shadow
upon the heads of the muddy-blue, grease-smooth,
liquid roundings which came with a
sulky brimming to the channels. She rolled
with stupid heaviness, her sails rattling like
a discharge from great ordnance, and a sort
of song-like cries twanging out from the sharp
fierce strains put upon the shrouds and backstays,
and many noises in her hold. You
would have thought that her huge round-tops
and heavy furniture of spar and rigging
would have given some regularity to her
pendulous swaying: but the contrary was
the case, her action being so jerky, abrupt, and
unforegatherable by the legs, that walking
was impossible.</p>

<p>I passed the morning partly on deck, partly
in the cabin, nearly all the while in Imogene's
society, Vanderdecken's passionate mood
being too vehement to suffer him to notice
either me or my dearest. Indeed, I sought
the cabin chiefly to remove myself from his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
sight, for as the weather darkened round
his wrath mounted with it&mdash;visible in his
tempestuous stridings, and above all, in the
flaming and cursing eyes he would again and
again level at the heavens; and I sometimes
felt that nothing less than my life might be
the forfeit of my even provoking his regard
and constraining his attention to me in his
present satanic posture of mind.</p>

<p>When the dinner hour came, he fiercely
ordered Prins to bring him some drink on
deck: he could not eat. All the morning he
had been directing his gaze into the south
and north and east for any blurr of the
polished folds that should exhibit movement
in the air in those quarters; and from the
undulating sea-line, which he searched in
vain, his eyes seemed to reel with the very
sickness of wrath into the west where, as I
knew, the Curse was busy.</p>

<p>Imogene and I were as mute as images at
table. We had agreed not to utter a syllable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
whilst the mate was present, and some time
before he had finished his meal, we left the
cabin for the quarter-deck, where we sat
hidden from Vanderdecken, who marched
about the poop near the tiller, with a tread
whose echo rang through the solid deck, and
with a mien that made me ready to witness
him at any minute repeat, waking and sensible,
the horrid blasphemous part he had
performed in his sleep.</p>

<p>The faintness in the west deepened into
thickness. The atmosphere grew hot, and
the fanning of the canvas that had before
filled the decks with chilling draughts became
a refreshment. By two o'clock in the afternoon
the heads and shoulders of ponderous storm-clouds
had shaped themselves above the
dingy blueish obscurity in the west; they
jutted up with a ghastly sheen of sickly
bronze upon their peaks and brows and made
a very frightful appearance. You would have
thought there was a great motionless fold of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
heat suspended, viewless, in the middle of
the heavens, and that it was magnetically
drawing up volumes of black fumes from
some pestilential land lying hidden behind
the sea. The strange light, rusty with the
ominous storm-tinge, made the sea appear
round and hard, cheating the eye with the
illusive complexion, till the eastern sea-line
looked thirty leagues distant, and not closer
westwards either, spite of its fading out in a
jumble of ugly shadow that way. The sky
still had a dirty sort of blue where the sun
went out behind it, and I tell you 'twas scaring
to find him sunk out of sight in a kind of
ether whose hue, deceptive as it was, caused
it to look clear enough for him to float in.
It was in its way a sheer drowning of the
luminary, like the foundering of a flaming
fabric in the sea.</p>

<p>The gloom stole gradually into darkness
as though some giant hand was warily drawing
a sable curtain over our mastheads.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
Never did I watch the growth of a storm
with such awe as now filled me. To my
alarmed sight, the gathering seemed like an
embodiment of the Curse in dreadful, swelling,
livid vapours, whose dull hectic, whose
sallow bronze glaring out of the murkiness,
showed like the overflowing of the blue and
scarlet and sunlight fires pent up in those
teeming surcharged bosoms. My plain sense
assured me that the tempest could not hold
for this Death Ship the menace that would
render its aspect terrifying to the mariner on
board an earthly craft; yet it was impossible
for my instincts as a seaman to accommodate
themselves to the supernatural conditions
which begirt me, and I found myself trembling
for the safety of the ship when I discovered
that the tempest was suffered to grow
without an order being given to the men to
shorten sail and prepare for it.</p>

<p>I left Imogene and stepped furtively along
the quarter-deck to command the poop, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
saw Vanderdecken standing aft, surveying
the storm with his arms folded, his chin
depressed, and his face staring out ashenly
against the gloom. I watched him for some
minutes, but never once did he stir. Arents
and Van Vogelaar were on the other side of
the deck, leaning over the rail, gazing at God
knows what, but never speaking as I could
be sure in the silence that rested upon the
ship. The men hung about in groups forward;
mere cunningly devised shapes of
human beings without the faintest stir of restlessness
among them. Many of them
smoked, and the pale wreaths went from their
paler lips into the air straight as staffs.</p>

<p>"Imogene, look at that sky!" I whispered,
"did mortal ever behold the like of it?"</p>

<p>'Twas two o'clock; a tempest-coloured
twilight, in which the sails to the flattened
swell swayed like visionary wings grown
languid with long flight, and feebly hovering
and almost noiselessly beating over the ship;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
out of the gloom over the side came now and
again the yearning moan of water, foamlessly
laving the bends and run of the vessel; in
each death-like pause you heard the silence
tingling in the air with the low phantasmal
muttering of a weltering sea, a sound as of
an imagination of unreal breakers upon a
faery shore.</p>

<p>With hands clasped upon my arm, my
darling looked as I pointed. In the extreme
west the shade of the heavens was a sort of
dismal slate, and there was an incessant
winking of lightning all about it, like a mad
dancing of stars of piercing brilliance; this
enlarged into dense masses of dark vapour
streaked as sand is ribbed by the action of
surf; then zenith-wards was a space of faint
green sky, very dim as though beheld through
smoke, and past this lay a floating body of
thin vapour thickening over our mastheads
into an amazing appearance of clouds like to
the bush that shags the New Holland slopes,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
merging eastwards into a vast array of clouds
twisted into the aspect of whirlpools, and
in their brooding motionlessness resembling
vortices suddenly arrested when most madly
gyrating. But this description, though imitated
to the life, conveys not the least idea of the
horrid appearance of that sky, for there is
nothing in words to express the effect upon
the mind of the contrast of the several shades
of colour all combinating to fill the sea with a
malignant hue, and the keen throbbing of the
lightning low down, the washing sweep of the
sick and ghastly ocean into the western
dusk, the stooping soot of the vaporous
maelstroms overhead, only waiting, as it
seemed, for some storm-signal to start off
every one of them into a very madness of
revolution, boiling out into wet and crimsoned
tempests.</p>

<p>After a little all these appearances melted
into one great cloud of an indigo tint, ridged
with layers of black vapour and blackening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
into very midnight on the western seaboard
where the lightning was shooting. The sea
had strangely flattened; the weighty swells
which had precoursed the growth of the
storm had run away down the eastern waters;
it was as though the hot heaviness of the
rising and spreading blackness had pressed
down the ocean into a smooth plain.</p>

<p>As not an order had yet been given, not a
clewline nor a halyard touched, I had made
up my mind to presently behold an astonishing
exhibition of magic; that is to say, I was
to witness a sudden violent blast of storm
strike this Death Ship with every sail she
carried abroad, and no harm to come to her
from it. All at once there was a great stroke
of lightning that flashed up the heavy oppressive
obscurity, and the whole ship leapt
to the eye in a blaze of emerald fire. There
fell a few huge drops of rain, covering the
decks with circles as big as saucers. A sullen
shock of thunder boomed in a single report<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
out of the west, and then it was that the
voice of Vanderdecken rang out like a
vibratory echo of the deep storm-note that
had died away.</p>

<p>"Clew up the topsails and topgallant
sails!"</p>

<p>"In sprit-sail and get the yard fore and
aft!"</p>

<p>"Some hands this way and stow the
mizzen!"</p>

<p>"Lower the main-yard and furl the sail!"</p>

<p>"Stand by to double reef the fore-course!"</p>

<p>These and other orders he delivered one
by one, and they were repeated by the two
mates and the boatswain.</p>

<p>I cannot believe that any fantastic vision
was ever wilder, stranger, more impressive
than the picture offered by the Death Ship
when her men went to work to snug her
down. Their mechanically-moving shapes
hauling upon the ropes, running like shadows
along the decks, vanishing in the sullen,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
swarming thickness as they mounted the
shrouds, every man as silent as a spectre;
the fitful trembling out of the whole vessel to
the white and green and violet glimmer of
the yet distant lightning; the dark sea dimly
glancing into a kind of light, wan and indeterminable
as the sheen of stars in polished
steel, under the play of those western glitterings;
the blackness overhead now settled
down to the eastern seaboard, over the
horizon of which there yet hovered a streak
of dusty green&mdash;it was a spectacle to need
the hand of Dante or Milton.</p>

<div class="poem">
Compar'd to these storms, Death is but a qualm,<br />
Hell somewhat lightsome, the Bermudas calm;<br />
Darkness, Light's eldest brother, his birthright<br />
Claims o'er the World!<br />
</div>

<p>It was as black as night. What the men
were about, with what dispatch they worked,
it was impossible to see. No songs or cries
came from them to enable me to guess their
movements. If ever Imogene and I exchanged
a word it was in a whisper, so heart<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
subduing was the darkness and the horrible
element of suspense and uncertainty in it. I
had her close to the cabin-front under the
poop, ready for the shelter of it at the outburst.
Ten minutes went by, and then it
seemed to me as if a deeper shade yet had
penetrated the darkness. Suddenly, I heard
a far-off humming noise, a kind of growling
sound, not to be likened to thunder, though
you seemed to catch the note of that too in
the multitudinous crying. It was as if the
denizens of a thousand forests were flying
before the roaring of a tornado among the
trees, every savage beast raising its own
savage cry as it went, the whole uproar so
remote as to resemble a mountain's reverberation
of the horrible clamour leagues and
leagues distant inland.</p>

<p>"What is that?" cried Imogene.</p>

<p>Ere I could speak, the heavens were split
in twain by a blast of lightning that looked
to fly like a dazzling shaft of flame from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
north sheer over our mastheads into the
south. It was almost instantly followed by a
crash of thunder, ear-splitting as the explosion
of the batteries of a dozen first-rates all discharged
at one moment. And then fell the
rain in a whole body of water, charged with
hailstones as big as pigeon's eggs. The fall
raised such an uproar on our decks that you
looked to see the whole substantial fabric
shattered by it. The surface of the sea
foamed in fire to that lashing of water and
hail. There was now a perpetual blaze of
lightning, but the thunder merely deepened
the prodigious noise of the rushing wet without,
its claps being distinguishable in the
dreadful tumult. We had immediately withdrawn
to the cabin, and closing the door,
stood looking on through the window. The
decks were full of water, which, cascading
through the ports and all other freeing orifices,
added its roaring to the other notes of the
tempest. The ship seemed on fire to as high<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
as we could see with the hellish and continual
flaming of the lightning.</p>

<p>'Twas of several colours, and in the same
breath you saw spars, rigging, bulwark-rails,
all blazing out as though lumined with
brushes dipped in blue and crimson, and star-white
and yellow and dark violet fires.</p>

<p>But no wind as yet; not a breath! That
I could tell by the droop of the fore-course
hanging by its gear, and faintly fanning dark
and wet from its yard. But I knew it could
not be far off. Those sounds I had heard as
of a thousand affrighted wild beasts were&mdash;my
ear well knew the noise&mdash;the echoings
high in the middle air of a prodigious wind
bellowing as it swept the ocean into white
rage. My heart beat swiftly; all was so
fearfully real that I could not grasp the supernatural
conditions of the life of this ship and
crew, which had otherwise assured me that
the Curse that triumphed over the monarch
Death must be superior to the wildest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
hurricane that ever piled the ocean into
mountains.</p>

<p>"Hark!" I exclaimed, "it is upon us!" and
as I spoke the gale smote us like a bolt from
heaven, falling upon us with a long and frightful
scream and amid a volley of lightning that
made the sky a blinding purple dazzle from
sea-line to sea-line. I held with both hands
to one side of the frame of the window, and
Imogene, half-swooning with terror, lay against
me, nothing but my body saving her from
being dashed against the side of the cabin.
Such was the sharpness of the angle to which
the first frenzy of the liberated hurricane
heeled the vessel, that for some minutes I
veritably believed she was foundering. The
ocean boiled in a flat plain of froth, and the
ship lay steady upon the enraged whiteness,
with the rail of her bulwarks under, and you
heard amid the seething and shrill shrieking
of the wind, the sound of the water pouring
on to her decks over the upper and quarter-deck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
and forecastle-rails, as the cataract
thunders, coiling with a pure head, over the
edge of some rocky abrupt. If I had opened
the door&mdash;if indeed I could have taken
action on that violent headlong steep of deck&mdash;it
would have merely been to drown the
cabin and Imogene and myself. There was
nothing to be done but attend the issue, and
for several minutes, I say, I stood holding
on, my dearest clasping me and so supporting
herself, scarce knowing whether the vessel
was under water or not, unable to speak for
the horrible clamour without, the lightning
continuously holding the fabric visible through
the window in its mani-coloured blaze, and
the enduring steadiness of the hull upon the
flat foam putting a terror into the situation
you would not have remarked in her labouring
in a hollow sea.</p>

<p>Presently, to my great joy, I perceived that
she was recovering her upright posture. They
had succeeded in getting her to pay off, and
after a little, giving her tall stem to the gale,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
she went before it as upright as a church, the
water on her decks pouring away overboard,
the piercing fury of the wind robbed to the
extent of the velocity with which the vessel
drove, and no other sound rising up off the
sea but the amazing hissing of foam.</p>

<p>"Curse or no Curse," said I, "Vanderdecken
knows his business as a sailor, and
call me a Dutchman if here has not been
a noble stroke of seamanship!"</p>

<p>"Wy zyn al Verdomd!" said the parrot.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER VI.<br />
WE SPRING A LEAK.</h2>


<p>I never remember the like of such a storm
as this in these seas, though I have made the
passage of the Cape four times and have met
some frightful weather off the great Agulhas
Bank. Amazing suddenness and violence in
the first bursting of a storm you have reason
to expect in the inter-tropical regions eastwards
of the African continent, but not down
here. Captain George Bonny, of the ship
Elizabeth Tudor, is the only person that I
am acquainted with who has had experience
of so sudden a tempest as I have attempted
to describe off this African headland; and
who is to say that he had not happened upon
the neighbourhood of the Death Ship and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>
unwottingly tasted somewhat of the doom of
that vessel, whose passage over the limits of
her fate the storm the Elizabeth Tudor
encountered was designed to furiously arrest?</p>

<p>Be this as it will. I passed from the cabin
into as raging and affrighting a scene as was
ever witnessed in any ocean. The sky was
made unearthly by the flashes of lightning,
whose blinding leaps seemed to bring the
blackness down like a wall upon the eyes,
and if ever an interval lasted long enough to
suffer the light to resume its powers, then
you found that blackness horrible with the
unspeakable shade it took from the plain of
boiling froth that stretched like a world
covered with snow to the sea-girdle, fading
from startling, staring, glaring whiteness
around us into a pallid, ghastly dimness,
where it sank and melted into the levin-riven
inky folds.</p>

<p>I struggled on to the poop and crawled on
my hands and knees to the little deck-house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
against the foremost end of which I stationed
myself; and here I was protected from the
rain and wind. Straight as an arrow over
the seething smother the Death Ship was
running, and her keel slided smooth as a
sledge through the feathery surface. The
tempest lay like a red-hot iron sheet upon
the waters, making it boil and furiously hiss,
but stifling all life of billow, ay, of ripple
even, out of it. The men had contrived to
shorten sail down to the double-reefed fore-course,
and under that strip of curved and
lifted canvas&mdash;a steel-hard belly, black as a
cloud against the white water beyond the
bows&mdash;the ship was driving, three men at
the great tiller, and others attending the
tackles attached to it. With every blue or
green or yellow flash, you saw the rain
sweeping along in crystal lines, complexioned
by the electric dartings, now like silver wire,
now as if the heavens were shedding blood.
'Twas like a sea of water in the wind, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
shrill harsh singing of it above, and the
vehement sobbing of it upon the decks, were
sounds of themselves amid the universal
shrieking and hissing. There was an incessant
explosion of thunder, sometimes right
overhead, the echoes answering in volleys,
and the rattling sharper than the speaking of
great guns in mountain scars and hollows.
The dazzling play made a fiery tapestry of
the scene, and the flying ship came and went
in flames, leaping out of the black tempest,
then vanishing like a burning shape, eclipsed
and revealed by the speeding of sooty
vapours.</p>

<p>Amid these fierce swift shinings I would
catch sight of the towering form of Vanderdecken
standing at the mizzen-rigging, one
hand on a shroud or backstay, sloping his
figure against the tempest and his beard
blown straight out before him. The others
being abaft the little house I could not see.
The scene now did indeed astonishingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
realise the doubtful traditions which depicture
the Flying Dutchman perpetually sailing amid
storm. Since I had been on board I had
viewed her in many conditions of weather;
but though her supernatural qualities and
characteristics best appeared when they stole
out to the faint, waving silver of the moonshine
trembling along the oil-like blackness
of a midnight calm, yet she could never
be more impressive than when, as she was
now, fleeing like a witch driven mad by
pursuing demons, whose numbers darkened
the heavens, the lightning streaming about
her like ordnance in Titanic hands fired to
bring her to, all her rigging in a scream as
she ran, showing in the spaces of dusk
betwixt the flashes a great, black, phantasmal
shape upon the floor of ringing and frenzied
whiteness which the tempest swept along
with her, and which broke not therefore in
the lightest curl from her stern, nor yielded a
hand's-breadth of wake.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p>

<p>She was flying dead into the east, and
every minute her keel passed over as many
fathoms of sea as would take her hours of
plying to recover. I frequently directed my
eyes at Vanderdecken, suspecting his wrath,
and prepared for a tragical exhibition, whose
furiousness should be in awful correspondence
with this insanity of sea and sky, but had the
life been struck out of him as he stood there
his posture could not have been more fixed
and unmoving.</p>

<p>It was, however, impossible for such wind
as this to blow many minutes without raising
a sea. The increased soaring and falling of
the black wing of canvas forward against the
boiling that rose in a faintness of spume and
lustre of its own into the air denoted the
gradual hollowing of the water, and then no
sooner had the talons of the storm succeeded
in scooping shallow troughs out of the levelness
of foaming snow than the surge grew
magically. Every liquid side was shouldered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
by the tempest into hills, and the hills
swelled into such mountains as you must
come down into these seas to behold the like
of. Half-an-hour after the first of the hurricane
the ship was plunging and laying
along amid a very cauldron of infuriate
waters, scarcely visible amid the fleecy fog of
spray, heights of the sea reaching to her tops,
spouting their prodigious lengths alongside,
sometimes tumbling in thunder upon her
forward decks, sometimes curling in blown
snakings ahead of her. Heavy as had been
some of the hours of my first six days
of storm, the wildest of that time was but
as a feather to the weight of this tempest.
The lightning ceased, and but for the evening
that was now descending, and that had put
the shadow of night into the shade of the
storm, the heavens must have shown somewhat
pale by the thinning of the electrical
vapour; but this scarce perceptible clearance
did but leave larger room for the wind, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
was now blowing with extraordinary spite.
It would be impossible for the ship to run
long before the swollen acclivities, whose
foaming heads appeared to brush the black
ceiling under which they coursed as they
arched in the wake of the vessel's narrow
stern, and methought they would have to
bring her to speedily if she was not to be
pooped and swept and smothered.</p>

<p>Even whilst I thus considered, the tempestuous
voice of Vanderdecken swept in a
roar along the deck.</p>

<p>"Settle away the fore-yard and secure the
sail!"</p>

<p>"Some men aft here to the mizzen and
show the foot of it as she rounds!"</p>

<p>'Twas more like the spiriting of canvas
than the hands of men going prosaically to
work on jeers and clew-garnets when the
fore-yard slowly slided down to the bulwark-rails,
and the sail was smothered as though
frapped by airy fingers forked out of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
whirling dusk. Some of the crew with glimmering
faces came crawling aft, probing the
solid substance of the wind with figures
bowing sheer into it, and all in silence the
helm was put down amid a sudden mad
flogging of liberated cloths aft, and the ship
lying along gave her round bow and side to
the seas which flashed in storms of water over
her as she met them to the pressure of the
hard-over rudder.</p>

<p>Once with the sea fair upon the bow, the
ancient structure rose as buoyantly as a
wooden castle to the heave of the mighty
surge, for all her labouring with full decks
and the veiling of her by clouds and storms
of spray. But had her situation looked to be
one of frightful and imminent peril, I must
by this time have viewed it with unconcern.
The sense of the Curse that held the ship
vital was strong in me. Out of the first
terrific blast of the hurricane 'twas odds if the
newest and stoutest ship could have emerged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
without damage, supposing she had not been
sunk outright; yet did this vessel survive
that fearful outfly, aged as she was. Not a
yarn of her old ropes broken, nor a spar nor
yard, whose rottenness caused them to glow
in the dark, sprung or strained; more
staunchly than could have been possible to
her, even in the hour of her launch, did she
breast the great black seas which swept her
to their mountain-tops with yelling rigging
and masts aslant, to hurl her a breathless
moment afterwards into stagnant valleys,
echoing the thunder of the gale that touched
not their depths.</p>

<p>I quitted the deck and returned to Imogene
in the cabin. The lighted lamp swung wildly,
and though the uproar of the tempest was
muffled below, yet the noise of straining
was so great that I had to put my lips close
to my dear girl's ear to make myself heard.
I gave her a description of the sea,
acquainted her with the posture in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
ship lay, and told her that the incredible
violence of the storm was promise enough
that it would not endure; though it was
horrible to think of the miles we had been
forced to run into the eastwards, and of the
leagues off our course the drift of the ship,
even in twelve hours, would compel us to
measure.</p>

<p>Prins came to inquire if we would eat. We
answered "No." That evening was the most
dismal I had ever spent in the accursed ship.
I held my sweetheart's hand, and speech
being, as I have said, as good as impossible,
I afflicted myself with a thousand miserable
thoughts and dark and ugly fancies. Great
heaven! With what loathing did I regard the
sickly mask of the ship's side, the gloomy
ovals, the ghastly revelry of the lantern's
colours flashing to the prodigious swinging of
the tempest-tossed fabric! And from time
to time the parrot, affrighted by the noises
and by the dashing of her cage against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
bulkhead, burst suddenly out with her horrid
croak of "Wy zyn al Verdomd!"</p>

<p>Neither Vanderdecken nor his mate came
below. Nothing could better have illustrated
their ignorance of their true state than the
anxieties which held them to the deck in the
heart of that raging wind. Their solicitude
might indeed deserve another name for the
impious passions which informed it, yet it
had a character sailorly enough to make it
intelligible to human sympathy, and 'twas
truly soul-subduing to sit in that cabin and
hear the uproar of the tormented waters
without, the outcry in the rigging, the straining
and groaning below, and think of those
men&mdash;of Vanderdecken, at all events&mdash;watching
his ship as though Batavia were but six
weeks distant and Amsterdam a certain port
presently.</p>

<p>At half-past nine Imogene withdrew. I
led her to her cabin door, tenderly kissed her,
then returning called for a cup of spirits and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
water and went to my sleeping place. I
thought to have stayed a minute on deck to
look about me, but the wind came with so
much fury of wet in it that, having no mind
to turn in with drenched clothes, I hastily
raised the hatch and dropped below. I believe
I lay awake the greater part of the
night. My memory is not clear owing to the
confusion my brain was in. It was not only
a feeling akin to conviction that my fate was
sealed, that my dearest and I were never to
be rescued nor suffered to deliver ourselves
from this Death Ship, though to be sure such
apprehensions, so keen and fierce, might have
caused a stouter mind than mine to fall distraught,
the movements of the ship were so
excessive, being very high, light and broad,
and the seas so extraordinarily hollow, that,
without disordering me with sickness, they
wrought an alarming giddiness in me, and I
lay as one in a sort of fit.</p>

<p>In some such condition as this I languished,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
I believe, through the greater part of the
night, but contrived to snatch sleep enough
to refresh me, so that when I awoke I felt
better, the dizziness gone and with it something
of the distress of mind. The action of
the ship showed that the gale was considerably
abated, but I had no sooner my senses
than I took notice of an unusual sound, like
a slow and measured beating in the ship, as
though some stout fellow with a heavy mallet
regularly struck a hollow object in the hold.
This excited my curiosity, and I went on
deck. The moment my head was through
the hatch I saw what produced the noise.
The men were pumping. There was but
one pump seemingly that would work, and
this four seamen were plying, the water
gushing freely from the pipe and washing
away overboard through the scuppers.</p>

<p>The old engine made so melancholy and
uncommon a sound that I might have lain a
week in my bed speculating upon it, without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
even hitting the truth. I took notice that
the water came up clear and bright as glass,
a sure sign that it was entering freely. A
sullen shade still hung in the weather, the
sky was of slate, with a small scud flying
under it of the hue of sulphur, but the breeze
was no more than a fresh gale of which we
were making a fair wind, the yards braced
very nearly square, and the Braave sulkily
swinging through it with a noise of boiling at
her bows.</p>

<p>I was not a little excited by this combination
of glass-bright gushing and square yards,
and after going forward for the comfort and
sweetness of a canvas bucketful of salt water
foaming like champagne as I lifted it out of
the snow-flaked, dark-green surge, I walked
on to the poop, where stood Arents alone,
and stepped up to the binnacle. The card
made a west-north-west course, the wind
on the larboard quarter. I ran my eye over
the sea, but the olive-complexioned hue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
worked with a sulky sinuosity naked against
the livid shadow, and the deep looked indescribably
gloomy and swollen and confused,
though the sun had been risen above
half-an-hour. Arents was not a man I held
in awe, albeit many might have deemed his
unearthly pallor more dreadful than most of
the others because of the great breadth of
fat and hairless face it overlay; yet I was
determined not to question him lest he
should repulse me. I therefore contented
myself with a short salute and lay over the
rail watching the swollen bodies of water and
wondering what plan Vanderdecken was now
upon, until the chimes of the clock in the
cabin made me know it was breakfast time.</p>

<p>The captain came to the table with a
stern and bitter expression in his countenance.
It was possible he had been on deck throughout
the greater part of the night, but he
exhibited no trace of the fatigue you would
expect to see in one that was of this earth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>
Methought, as I glanced at him, that sleep
must be a mockery to these men, who, being
deathless, stood in no need of that repose
which counterfeiting death, reinvigorates our
perishable frame every morning with a quickening
as of a resurrection. What has one to
whom the grave is denied to do with slumber?
Yet if a whiter pallor was possible in Vanderdecken
I fancied I witnessed it in him now.
His eyes were angry and bright; the skin of
his forehead lay in folds upon his heavy
brows, and yet there was the stillness of a
vitality, numbed or blasted by disappointment
or exhausted by passion, in his manner.</p>

<p>Van Vogelaar did not arrive, maybe he
was sleeping, with Arents' leave, well into his
watch on deck. Imogene had a wan and
drooping look. She answered my concerned
gaze by saying she had not slept, and she
smiled as she spoke, but never more sadly to
my knowledge; it seemed but as a light
playing over and revealing her melancholy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
Lovely she appeared, but too fragile for my
peace, and with too much of the sorrowful
sweetness of the moon-lily when it hangs
down its white beauty and contracts its milky
petals into leanness with the waning of the
silver orb it takes its name from.</p>

<p>Suddenly she pricked her ears. "What is
that sound?" she exclaimed, in English.</p>

<p>"It is the seamen pumping the water out
of the ship," I replied.</p>

<p>"Strange!" she said. "Long before dawn I
heard it indistinctly and have ever since been
listening to it with a languid, drowsy wonder,
not imagining its nature. It has been working
continuously. Is there water in the ship?"</p>

<p>"I have not dared inquire," I answered,
with a side-long look at Vanderdecken, who
ate mechanically without heeding us.</p>

<p>"Captain," she said, softly, touching him
on the arm with her hand, which glittered
with his jewels, "the men have been pumping
for some hours&mdash;why? Will you tell me?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>

<p>He brought his eyes slowly to hers with
a blank look that caused her to repeat her
question.</p>

<p>Whereupon he answered: "The heavy
working of the ship in the small hours has
caused her to start a butt or hidden end."</p>

<p>"She is leaking?"</p>

<p>He answered: "Yes, my child."</p>

<p>"Can the leak be stopped?" she asked,
encouraged to these questions by my glances.</p>

<p>"No, 'tis below her water-line. But it
does not gain. Continuous pumping keeps
the water level. We shall have to careen to
get at the leak."</p>

<p>"Are we sailing to the coast?" she asked.</p>

<p>"Yes," he answered.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>

<h2>CHAPTER VII.<br />
IMOGENE FEARS FOR ME.</h2>


<p>On hearing that we were sailing to the coast
my delight was so keen that I came near to
suffocating myself by the sudden checking of
the shout of joy that rose to my throat like
an hysteric throttling thickness in the windpipe.
To be sure, had anyone asked what
there was in the news to fill me with this
transport I should not have been able to offer
a sufficient reason, for it was not as though
Vanderdecken meant to steer for a port. I
was sensible that he would head for some
desolate bay upon a hot shore of sand,
backed by great mountains, and leagues
distant from any settlement, whether Dutch
or British. Yet so great had been the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
depression excited by the tempest and the
barrenness of our chances, that the mere circumstance
of a change having come about,
the mere happening of a departure from our
rueful business of beating to the windward,
raised my spirits to a very great height;
nor must it be forgotten that though I
conjectured in darkness, I had for a long
time felt persuaded that if ever we were
to remove ourselves from the Death Ship,
the only opportunity that could offer would
attend our dropping anchor off the African
Coast.</p>

<p>I will not say that Vanderdecken did not
observe the change in my countenance when
he made his answer to Imogene. But whatever
might have been his reflections they
were concealed by his frowning brow and the
dark and stormy shadow of passion upon his
face. He ceased to speak when she ceased
to question, and went on deck without calling
for his usual pipe of tobacco, which was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
very remarkable illustration in him of his
wrath and concern.</p>

<p>"Dearest," said I, going to Imogene's side,
"it has been a dark and cheerless night with
you I fear. Would to God it were this day
in my power to give redness to the roses that
now lie white in your cheeks. Yet this is
great news that Vanderdecken has given us."</p>

<p>She smiled in a questioning way.</p>

<p>"Why," said I, answering her, "'tis very
certain that we shall never escape from this
Death Ship whilst she sails the seas. But
though I could not here say for the life of me
what the land may do for us, I feel that the
coming to an anchor close to it may give us
a chance, and it will go hard indeed if a
sailor's cunning, sharpened by despair, does
not contrive some remedy for this horrible
enthralment."</p>

<p>She mused a little and said, "Geoffrey, I
have made up my mind to this: if you can
carry me away with you I will go&mdash;whatever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
resolution you may form will be mine, as shall
be your fortune. But, dearest," says she,
smiling to my grasp of her hand, "I am also
determined that your liberty shall not depend
upon my escape; if you are able to get away
alone, but not with me, then I stay."</p>

<p>"Ah!" said I, shaking my head, "your
gaze cannot have sunk very deep into me or
you would not talk thus."</p>

<p>She put her finger upon my lip. "Geoffrey,
consider this. You are a man, you are
young, the world is before you, liberty is your
precious jewel&mdash;nay, you have a home and a
mother to return to. I am an orphan&mdash;lonely
in this great world of water as any sea-bird
that solitarily follows our ship. I sometimes
feel that there is a cold hand on my
heart and that my time is not long. If it
is to be my destiny to remain in this vessel, I
am too certain of a short residence to fear it."</p>

<p>She stopped suddenly and wept.</p>

<p>We were alone, and I took her in my arms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
I saw how it was with her, how the fear of
the tempest, how sleeplessness, had wrought
in her delicate health and depressed her
powers, and I comforted and cherished her
as my heart's love best knew how; yet her
foreboding concerning her time in this world
struck a chill into my blood, for it just then
found solemn accentuation in her unusual
pallor, her languid eyelids, the sadness of her
smile, her low voice and tears.</p>

<p>However, I borrowed comfort from the
reflection that the health of the heartiest
maiden might well fail in such an existence
as this girl passed, spite of the wine-like
invigoration of the salt winds; that she had
survived hard upon five years of experiences
so wild and amazing that a few weeks had
tended not a little to pale my own face and
even rob me of something of my manhood;
that it was inevitable she should break down
from time to time, but that her sweetness
would soon bloom and be coloured into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
loveliness of health when this Death Ship
had become a thing of the past, and when I
had safely lodged her as my bride in my
mother's pretty home, with flower-gardens
and fields to wander in, upon floors unrocked
by billows, in rooms irradiated at night by
fires never more mystical than the soft flame
of oil or the silver of star and moonshine.</p>

<p>The weather brightened as the day advanced.
By noon the sky had broken into
lagoons of blue, with fine large clouds that
rained here and there upon the horizon and
filled the air down there with broken shafts
of rainbow, like to windgalls, only that the
colours were very sharp and even glorious.
There was now plenty of sunshine to give life
and splendour to the ocean, whose dye of
azure looked the purer and more sparkling
for its cleansing by the great wind and rain
and fire-bolts of the past night. The swell
of the sea was from the southward, no longer
a turbulent movement, but a regular respiratory<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
action, with weight and volume yet that
made you think of the deep as a sentient
thing, with something of the violence of its
hellish conflict yet lurking in its rhythmic
breathing.</p>

<p>About this hour a number of whales showed
their black, wet backs at the distance of a
mile. The sunshine turned their spoutings
into very beautiful fountains, which fell in
showers of diamonds and rubies and emeralds;
and their great shapes and solemn
movements, with now and again the dive of
one with a breathless lingering of tail that
showed like a gigantic fan of ebony, or the
rise of another, floating its sparkling blackness
above the violet fold of a brimming
swell, as though a little island had been hove
to the surface by some deep-sea convulsion,
afforded Imogene and me some twenty minutes
of very agreeable diversion. The wind was
a trifle to the southward of west, a brisk
breeze, and the ship swarmed and swirled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
and rolled along at a speed of some five or
six marine miles in the hour, every cloth
abroad and already dried into its usual dingy
staring tones. But the pump was worked
without intermission. The clanging of the
brake upon its pin, the gushing of the bright
water flowing to the scuppers and flooding
the deck thereabouts with every roll, the
hissing of the slender cascades over the side,
grew into sounds as familiar as the creaking
of the bulkheads, or the cries of the rudder
upon its ancient rusty pintles.</p>

<p>Those pumping gangs made a strange,
mysterious sight. They toiled, but their
labour was not that of living seamen who
change their posture again and again, who
let go an instant with one hand to smear
the sweat from their brows or to bite an
end of tobacco, who break into choruses
as they ply their arms or growl out curses
upon this hardest of marine tasks, or raise
a cheerful call of encouragement one to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
another. There was the same soullessness
in this as in all else they did. No dew was
distilled from their death-like faces. Once at
the pump they never shifted their attitudes.
A seaman of seventy, and perhaps older yet,
would work side by side with one of twenty
years, and at the end of the hour's labour&mdash;for
each gang was relieved every hour&mdash;the
aged sailor would exhibit no more fatigue
than the younger one. Their aspects came
out startlingly as they stood close together,
their countenances bearing expressions as
undeterminable as the faint smile or the dim
frown of horror or the slumberous placidity
on the features of the dead; and never was
the sense of the wild conjecture of the
Saracen's mad captain so borne into me as
when I viewed one group after another
coming to this pumping business, and contrasted
their faces and perceived how every
man&mdash;young, middle-aged and old&mdash;showed
in dreadful vitality the appearance he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
have offered at the hour of his death, no
matter his years, had the Curse not stood
between him and the grave.</p>

<p>That afternoon, happening to be alone on
the poop&mdash;I mean, without Imogene&mdash;for
when she was absent I was more alone,
though the whole of that ship's grisly company
had gathered around me, than ever I
could have been if marooned on some mid-ocean
rock&mdash;and listening a little to the
monotonous beat of the pump-gear, a thought
came into my head and I stepped over to
Vanderdecken, who leaned upon the weather-rail,
his chin upon his hand.</p>

<p>"Mynheer," said I, "I ask your pardon
for breaking in upon you. The labour of
pumping is severe&mdash;I know it from several
stern experiences." He lifted his head and
slowly looked round to me. "This ship," I
continued, "has rescued me from death and
proved an asylum to me. 'Tis but right I
should share in the general toil. Suffer me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
then, mynheer, to take my turn at the pump
with the others."</p>

<p>He eyed me a little with his wonderful
fiery gaze, and answered: "It is not necessary.
Our company is numerous, there are
hands enough. Besides, sir, there is no
urgency, the water doth not gain if it do not
decrease."</p>

<p>I bowed, and was leaving him, but he
added: "I fear you have but an imperfect
knowledge of the character of the Dutch.
Yet you tell me you have often visited
Rotterdam."</p>

<p>"It is true, mynheer, but only as a sailor
liberated o' nights and forced therefore to
form his judgment on such company as the
ale-house supplies."</p>

<p>"That seems so," said he, "otherwise you
would suspect from such treatment as we
have shown you that we regard you as a
guest, and it is not customary among us to
use our guests as labourers."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>

<p>I bowed again, contenting myself with
merely thinking how, as a guest, I went in
fear of my life&mdash;to say no more. I thought,
however, I would use his seeming willingness
to converse with me, and said in as deferential
a manner as I could command, "Sir,
the mere circumstance of my being your
guest should properly teach me to believe
that a time must come when I shall have
wearied your courtesy by imposing too great
a burden of my company upon it."</p>

<p>I paused, hoping he would make haste to
assure me to the contrary; but he did not
speak, merely eyeing me steadfastly.</p>

<p>"You will therefore judge, mynheer," I
continued, "that I am actuated by no idle
motive of curiosity in asking you whether
your present design is to steer the ship to a
port?"</p>

<p>"To what port?" he exclaimed.</p>

<p>I told him I did not know.</p>

<p>"Nor I," said he. "What settlement is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
there on this seaboard? You do not suppose
that, with yonder pump going day and night,
I should be willing to head for any other
point of the coast than the nearest bay in
which to careen and get at the leak?"</p>

<p>"Will that bay, mynheer," said I, still
speaking with the utmost modesty and deference,
"be far distant?"</p>

<p>He answered: "It lies a few miles south
of the parallel of thirty-four degrees. To
reach it we shall have to sail an hundred and
eighty leagues."</p>

<p>"Five hundred and forty miles!" I exclaimed,
with an involuntary dejected glance
aloft and at the passing water. "At this
rate of progress, sir, the passage will occupy
about five days."</p>

<p>Our gaze met as I said this and I observed
a sudden fire in his eyes.</p>

<p>"Does the execution of any project you
have in your mind depend upon the time we
will take in reaching the coast?" said he, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
suspicion sounding fiercely in the rich deep
notes of his utterance.</p>

<p>I felt the blood in my face as I answered:
"Mynheer, I have no project. Methought,
if you sailed to a port, you would rid yourself
of my company. I have been long in your
ship; every day increases my sense of trespass&mdash;&mdash;"
which said, I broke off, being
really dismayed by the passionate fixity of
his regard. Such a searching for the heart
in one's face was unbearable. My imagination,
perhaps my conscience, imparted a
wizard-like power to his burning eyes, and I
felt that if I lingered, I should be constrained
into a revelation of my intention to escape
with Imogene, as certain birds are fascinated
into motionlessness and charmed to their
devourment by the gaze of serpents. With
the abruptness of alarm I bowed and left
him. As I walked I could feel that his
searching, scorching gaze followed me.</p>

<p>However, it was something to have found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
out our whereabouts, to have gathered his
intention, and to be able to calculate the time
of our arrival off the coast. On this I plumed
myself, making pretty sure that if my questions
had caused him to suspect some project
in my mind, his memory would loose its hold
of the thing after a few hours. But I was
mistaken, as you shall now see.</p>

<p>Whilst we were seated at the last meal, and
with us in that Death Ship formed of soup or
wine for drink, and such victuals as remained
from dinner, I observed a peculiar air of distress
and anxiety in Imogene's face. I do not
know that she made the least effort to disguise
it. A sharp gleam of resentment would
sparkle in the soft violet depths of her eyes
as she now and then turned them on Van
Vogelaar or Vanderdecken, and then as they
came to me they would soften into an exquisite
wistfulness that was very near to a
look of grievous pain.</p>

<p>On the captain filling his pipe I went on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
deck and stood out of sight of the cabin on
the poop-front, wondering what Imogene's
manner signified. Presently she joined me.</p>

<p>The sun was gone down; the stars shone
singly or in clouds of bright dust over our
northward-pointing bowsprit, and the air
was soft and faint with the delicate light
of the moon that was drawing out of her
first quarter, and that could now rain her
pearls with power into the dark waters under
her.</p>

<p>"What is amiss, dearest?" said I, taking
her hand in mine, and moved in a way I
could not give expression to by the pallor
of her face, her eyes showing large and dark,
the paleness of lip and hair and throat&mdash;her
whole countenance, yes and her figure too;
stealing out of their realness into an elfin-like
unsubstantiality to the wan complexion of the
moon.</p>

<p>She answered: "Did not I tell you I was
sorry you had questioned Vanderdecken?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
He is full of suspicion, and there is always
Van Vogelaar at hand to exasperate his
captain's temper and fancies by the poison
of his own reptile-nature."</p>

<p>"Has Vanderdecken spoken to you of my
questions?"</p>

<p>"No," she replied. "What has happened
is this:&mdash;Half-an-hour before supper I was
in my cabin. The air was close, and I put
the door on the hook and was near it combing
my hair. Vanderdecken came into the
cabin and spoke to Prins. Soon afterwards
Van Vogelaar entered, and told the captain
that he had been among the crew and informed
them that he hoped to make the coast
in four or five days, and that on their arrival
at Amsterdam they would receive additional
pay for their labour at the pump. They
talked a little, but I should not have heeded
them had not I suddenly caught the sound of
your name. On this I left off combing my
hair and crept close to the door. Vanderdecken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
said:  'I believe he hath some
scheme. He shrunk from my gaze and the
colour mounted to his cheeks. He quitted
me with the air of one whose conscience is
like an exposed nerve.'"</p>

<p>"Heaven defend us!" I exclaimed, "your
true Dutchman is very fit to be a hangman.
Yet this unholy creature did certainly look at
me to some purpose. 'Twas time I walked
off!"</p>

<p>She continued: "Van Vogelaar answered,
'I would not trust that man further away from
me than my hand could seize him. Skipper,
I ask your pardon, but was it wise, think
you, to exhibit samples of the treasure below
to this Englishman? There is a noble
fortune for him in those chests could he but
come at them. What sort of egg is that
which, beyond question, his mind is sitting
upon, and that will be presently hatched?
He is eager to learn your intentions. He
manifests this eagerness in defiance of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
contempt and anger with which you have
again and again crushed down his curiosity
into the silence of terror. Suppose he hath
some plot to secure the stranding of this ship;
or that he intends her a mischief that shall
force us to beach and perhaps abandon her?
He is a sailor and an Englishman; we are
Hollanders! Skipper, the like of that man
needs no help from sorcery to contrive our
ruin.' Vanderdecken answered, 'He must
be got rid of,' in a voice that showed how
Van Vogelaar's talk worked in him. I did
not need to look, Geoffrey, to know what
sort of expression his face wore. They were
silent awhile. Vanderdecken then said:
'Twould be mere barbarous, useless murder
to take his life; there is no evidence against
him. But we have a right to protect ourselves
since he hath been mad and ungenerous
enough to raise our suspicions&mdash;&mdash;' Van
Vogelaar interrupted: ''Tis more than suspicion&mdash;'tis
conviction with me, skipper&mdash;&mdash;'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
'This occurs to me as a remedy,' said Vanderdecken:
'he must be set ashore before we
sail; but he shall not be left to starve. A
musket and ammunition will provide him
with food, and he shall have a week's provisions.
He is young, and with stout legs,
and cannot miss his way to our Settlement if
he hold steadfastly to the coast.' The mate
said, 'Ay, that will be dismissing him lovingly.'
They then went to the other end
of the cabin and talked, but I could not hear
them."</p>

<p>"It would be barbarous, useless murder,"
I cried, "to hang, or stab or drown me, but
kindness, nay, lovingness, to set me ashore
with a week's provisions and a fowling-piece,
to give me a night to be torn to pieces in by
wild beasts, or a week to be enslaved by the
Homadods, or a month to perish of hunger!
The villains! Is this to be their usage of
me?"</p>

<p>"Geoffrey, if they put you on shore I will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
follow. The future that is good enough
for you is good enough for me. And, indeed,
I would rather die a hard death on shore
than be left to miserably live with men
capable of cruelly destroying you."</p>

<p>I reflected a little, and said, "Their resolution
keeps me safe for the present, at all
events. If I am to be marooned they will
let me alone meanwhile. Therefore I consider
that their determination greatly improves our
chances.... No! there is nothing in
their intention to scare me. I like their
meaning so well that our prayer to God must
be that Vanderdecken may not change his
mind."</p>

<p>She was at a loss to understand me until I
pointed out that, as I gathered from her
report, they would not send me ashore until
just before they were about to sail, so that I
should have plenty of time to look about me
and consider the surest method of escaping,
whilst the ship was being careened and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
leak repaired and the vessel in other ways
doctored.</p>

<p>"And, dearest," said I, "it has come to
this with you, too: that sooner than remain
with these fierce and dreadful people you will
take your chance of that African coast you so
greatly feared."</p>

<p>"I will share your fortune, Geoffrey, be it
life or death&mdash;let come what will," said she,
nestling close and looking up at me out of
the phantom faintness of her face with her
large eyes in whose liquid darkness the moon
was reflected in two stars.</p>

<p>"My precious one! I could not leave thee!
If the terrors of the shore&mdash;the fears of the
savage, the wild beast, the poisonous serpent&mdash;triumphed
over your desire of escape, I
would remain with you, Imogene, if they
would let me. 'Twould be a hard fate for
us both, dearest, to wear out our lives in this
ship. But we cannot be parted&mdash;not of our
own will, at least, however God may deal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
with us, or the knife or yard-arm halter of
these villains. Wherever you are I must
be&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Yes!" she cried, passionately.</p>

<p>"It may not indeed come to our delivering
ourselves by using the coast. Another
scheme is in my head, though of it I will
say nothing, since too much of fortune must
enter it to fit it for cold deliberation. But it
may end in our escaping to the land and
lurking there in hiding till the ship sails.
And it makes my heart feel bold, Imogene,
to hear you say that sooner than languish and
miserably end your days in this accursed
fabric you will dare with me the natural
perils of that shore."</p>

<p>And I say this: that had I been sure our
life would prove the forfeit of attempting to
escape by the coast, I would have welcomed
death for her and myself sooner than live to
think of her locked up in this detested ship,
passing the long horrid days in the society<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
of unearthly men condemned of Heaven, and
stealthily weeping away her heart at the
thought of our severance.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
LAND.</h2>


<p>But for Imogene having overheard his conversation
with Van Vogelaar, I should never
have been able to guess that there was any
change in Vanderdecken's resolution respecting
me; I mean any change in his intention
to carry me to Europe in his ship. There
was the same uniformity in the variety of his
moods; he was sullen, haughty, morose,
often insanely fierce, sometimes talkative,
then falling into trances, in all such exhibitions
as heretofore. In Van Vogelaar, however,
there was a slight alteration. At
moments I caught him peering at me with
a look in his eyes that might have answered
very well as a dark malicious merriment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
soul of which the countenance was capable of
expressing the villainous qualities only, I
mean, not the mirth also. Sometimes he
would make as though to converse; but this
I cut short, repelling him very fearlessly now
that I understood his and his captain's plans,
and that I had nothing to fear this side the
execution of it.</p>

<p>On my side, I was extremely wary, walking
cautiously in all I said and did, and never
venturing a remark to Imogene, even when
we had reason to believe we were absolutely
alone, without sinking my voice after a careful
probing glance around as if I expected to
see an human ear standing out on any beam
or bulkhead my sight went to.</p>

<p>I busied myself in certain preparations
in which I got Imogene to help me. Since,
in any case, our escape to the land would
have to be profoundly secret, 'twas necessary
we should get ready a small stock
of food to carry away with us, and I told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
Imogene to make some bags out of the
stoutest stuff she could come at to store it in,
and to privately convey to me such provisions
as I indicated, which she, as well as I, was
to secrete when alone, during Prins' absence,
when the table was prepared.</p>

<p>I said: "You have needles and thread?"
for she had told me that some of the apparel
Vanderdecken lent or gave her she had been
obliged to alter. "We shall require three or
four bags. Linen will do for the material."</p>

<p>"There is plenty of linen," said she. "I
will make the bags. But what is your project,
Geoffrey? Tell me your full scheme&mdash;I
may be able to put something to it."</p>

<p>"I have two schemes," I answered: "but
I will speak only of the one that concerns the
shore. Vanderdecken is sure to bring up
close to the land; I have little doubt of being
able to swim the distance, and shall make a
small frame of wood to sit about your waist
on which you will float when I lower you into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
the water, and then I shall softly let myself
down and tow you to the land by swimming."</p>

<p>I thought to see her countenance change,
but she regarded me fearlessly, indeed with
an emotion as of triumph colouring her face.</p>

<p>"How am I to enter the water?" she
asked.</p>

<p>"I will lower you from the quarter-gallery
outside your cabin," I replied, "the height is
not great. The blackness under the counter
will hide you, and I shall contrive to float us
both away very quietly."</p>

<p>She said, gazing at me fondly and smiling:
"Everything is feasible so far, Geoffrey. But
now imagine us arrived on shore."</p>

<p>"I must carry you as far as your strength
will suffer," I replied. "Of course, Vanderdecken
will send in pursuit of us, but there
should be no lack of dense vegetation full of
hiding places. Yet in this as in all other
things, my dearest, we must rely upon God's
help. That given there is nothing to fear;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
denied&mdash;then it would be better for me if I
threw myself overboard at once."</p>

<p>"Geoffrey," she said, "I do not question
you, dear heart, for dread of what we may
encounter, but merely that by letting your
plans lie in my mind my girlish spirit may
grow used to them and unswervingly help
you when the time comes."</p>

<p>"Brave little woman!" I cried, "do not
believe I could misjudge you. You would
ask me what is to follow when this vessel
quits the coast and leaves us alone there?
How can I answer? We must attempt
what others have successfully achieved, and
struggle onwards to some settlement. I
know&mdash;I know, my darling, that the outlook
is black and affrighting. But consider what
our choice signifies; the fate that awaits us if
you remain and I am marooned; or the
chances&mdash;meagre indeed, but chances, nevertheless&mdash;which
offer if we escape to the land.
And we shall be together, dearest!"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>

<p>I kissed her brow, and her love leapt in
her to my impassioned greeting; beautiful as
she was, yet did she appear transfigured by
the rich hue in her cheeks, her smile, the
sparkle of her chaste and maidenly joy in the
dark heaven of her eyes. Call me not cruel
for thus deliberately preparing to bring her
face to face with the horrors of the African
coast&mdash;with those barbarous features which
her heart had long ago recoiled from the mere
thought of. She was my sweetheart&mdash;my
affianced&mdash;my life's blood. Oh! how dear
to me for her beauty, her sweetness, her
passion for me, the miracle of our meeting,
her loneliness under the sun and stars of the
mighty Southern Ocean, amid shapes more
spectral than ghosts, more horrible with their
survival of human vices than had they been
dead bodies quickened into life without soul
or brain.</p>

<p>How could I leave her? How could I
endure the idea of my being forced ashore&mdash;alone&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
of her sailing away forever from
me in this grisly company? I had considered
all these things; how if we gained the beach
she would have to walk, as far as her limbs
suffered, in drenched clothes and her delicate
flesh chilled to the bone; how in our hiding-place
the dews of a deadly climate would fall
upon her by night, with creeping abominations
of reptile and vermin swarming in the
tangle where she lay&mdash;enough! I say that
all perils which experience or imagination
could crowd into such a deliverance as that
I had in my mind and was steadfastly working
out had been present to me from the
beginning&mdash;but to what purpose? Only to
make me feel with the power of every
instinct, with the impulse and strength of all-influencing
and heated passions, that my
fortune must be hers and that we could not
part!</p>

<p>A sailor will wonder perhaps to hear me
speak of three or four bags of provisions, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
wonder also that I should not see that
if there was the least movement in the
water when I lowered Imogene with these
bags about her into it, the provisions would
be spoiled by the wet. But 'tis proper to say
here that this proposal to float her in a frame
and tow her ashore by swimming was but an
alternative scheme which, at all hazards, I
would go through with, if the other and less
perilous venture should prove impracticable,
and in case this should be so, I said nothing
to her about it, that by her growing accustomed
to the dismal and dangerous project
she would not tremble and shrink if it came,
as I feared it might, to our having to escape
ashore. Three small bags secured about my
darling's shoulders, well out of the water,
were less likely to be wetted than one big
one that must needs hang low, trice it as I
might; and anyway the three would be as
good as one, let the manner of our escape be
what it would.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>

<p>She made me these bags, and I hid them
in my cabin, along with some biscuit which
had been taken from the wreck, a few pieces
of salted meat cooked, a small jar of flour, a
little silver cup for drinking, and other compact
and portable things, such as the flat
banana cakes the cook sent to the cabin, a
bottle of marmalade of the size of a small
pickle jar, and the like. These things she
and I took from the table by degrees, and
they were not missed. I would have given a
finger for a musket and powder and balls;
but if there was an arms-chest on board
neither she nor I knew where to find it.
And suppose it had been possible to me to
have secreted a musket&mdash;what they used, I
believe, for shooting game and cattle were
match-locks with barrels about three and a
half feet long, and the bore of the bigness of
a horse-pistol, and cartridges in small hollow
canes, each holding a charge of powder&mdash;ammunition
was not to be had without asking.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>

<p>She stitched me four bags, but three I
found when loaded would be as heavy a load
as it was prudent to put upon her; because
when I came to look about me for wood for
a frame for her to float in I could only meet
with five small pieces, and even the purloining
of these was attended with prodigious
anxiety and trouble, as you will judge when
I say that to get them I had to watch till I
was unobserved and then kick a piece, as if
by accident, under a gun, or to any corner
where it might lie until I could carry it below
under cover of the night.</p>

<p>All these things I hid under the bed-place
in my cabin, where I had very little fear of
their being found; for the good reason that,
to my knowledge, no one ever entered the
berth.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, the wind held bravely, with&mdash;on
the third day&mdash;but a few hours of stagnant
atmosphere and a flat and brilliant sea,
followed by a shift into the westward of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
south that worked into a hearty wind, before
which the Death Ship drove under all cloths,
the clear water gushing from her scuppers
to the clanking and spouting of her
pump. Bearing in mind our situation after
the tempest, as given me by Vanderdecken,
and narrowly, if furtively, observing the
courses we made, I kept a dead reckoning
of our progress&mdash;for by this time I could
measure the vessel's pace with my eye as
correctly as ever the log could give it&mdash;and
when the fifth day arrived I knew that at
eight o'clock that morning either we were
some twelve leagues distant from the African
coast or that Vanderdecken was amazingly
wrong in his calculations.</p>

<p>My excitement bade fair to master me. It
needed a power of will such as I could never
have supposed I possessed to subdue my
demeanour to that posture of calmness which
the captain and his mates were used to see
in me. Happily, Imogene was at hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
to control any exhibition of impatience or
anxiety.</p>

<p>"Let them suspect nothing in your manner,"
she would say. "Van Vogelaar watches
you closely; the least alteration in you might
set him conjecturing. Who knows what
fancies his base and malignant mind is capable
of? His heart is bent on your destruction,
and though he hopes that must follow your
being left alone on the coast, yet a change in
your ordinary manner might fill his cruel soul
with fear that you had some plan to escape
with your life, in which case I fear, Geoffrey,
he would torment and enrage Vanderdecken
into slaying you either here or on shore."</p>

<p>Well, as I have said, at eight o'clock that
morning I reckoned we were some twelve
leagues distant from the coast. The breeze
had slackened somewhat, but it still blew a
fresh air, and the water being quiet and such
small swell as there was, together with the
billows, chasing us, our speed was a fair five<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
and a half knots. Yet there was no sign to
advertise us of the adjacency of land. A few
Cape hens flew along with us on our starboard
beam, but this kind of sea-fowl had
accompanied the ship when we were as far
south as ever we were driven since I had
been in her, and they could not be supposed
to signify more than that we were "off" the
South African headland&mdash;which term may
stand for the measure of a vast extent of sea.
The ocean was of as deep and glorious a blue
as ever I had beheld it in the middle of the
Atlantic. My suspense grew into torment;
anxiety became anguish, the harsher and
fiercer for the obligation of restraint. There
was no dependence to be placed on Vanderdecken's
reckoning. For several days he
had been hove-to, and his log would certainly
neither tell him his drift nor how the currents
served him. My only hope then was in the
supernatural guiding of the ship. I might
believe, at least, that the instincts of the sea-bird<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
would come to one whose dreadful and
ghostly existence lay in an aimless furrowing
of the mighty waters, and that he would
know how to steer when the occasion arose,
as does the ocean-fowl whose bed is the surge
as its pinion is its pillow, but whose nest
must be sought in rocky solitudes, leagues
and leagues below that sea-line in whose
narrow circle you find the creature flying.</p>

<p>I dared not seem to appear to stare
earnestly ahead; the part I had to play was
that of extreme indifference; yet, swift as
were the looks I directed over either bow,
my eyes would reel with the searching,
passionate vehemence of my stare, and the
blue horizon wave to my sight as though it
swam upon a swooning view.</p>

<p>Shortly after twelve o'clock, I was standing
alone on the forward end of the poop,
when I observed a clear shade of blue haze
upon the horizon directly ahead. I watched
it a little while, believing it no more than a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
darkening in the dye of the sky that way;
but on bringing my eyes to it a second time,
I found a fixity in the atmospheric outlining
of the shadow that was not to be mistaken for
anything but the blue faintness and delicate
dim heads of a distant hilly coast. I turned,
with a leap of heart that was a mingling of
rapture and dread, to win Imogene by my
manner to view the land, too; but she
stood with Vanderdecken near the tiller, with
her back upon me, apparently watching the
motions of a bird that steadily flew along
with us, some three cables' length on our
larboard quarter, flying no faster than we
sailed, yet going through the air as straight
as a belated homeward-bound rook. One of
the men forward saw the azure shadow, and
seemed to call the attention of two or three
others to it in that voiceless, mechanical
way, which furnished a ghostlier and grislier
character to the bearing and movements of
the crew than ever they could have taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
from the paleness of their faces, and the
glittering, unreal vitality of their eyes only;
and they went towards the beak to look,
dropping whatever jobs they might have
been upon, with complete disregard of discipline.</p>

<p>Broad as the day was, abounding as the
scene with the familiar and humanising glory
of the blessed golden sunshine and the snow-topped
peaks of shallow liquid sapphire
ridges, yet the figures of those men, showing
under the swelling and lifting foot of the foresail,
peering under the sharp of their hands
against their foreheads, silent in postures of
phlegmatic observation, gave the whole picture
of the ship a wild and dismal colour and
appearance, and the black melancholy, the
cold unholiness of it, stole biting as polar
frost-smoke to the senses through the genial
splendour of the noon-tide. Yet, like those
men, did I stand looking with my hand against
my brow, for there was a wonderful and almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>
blinding magnificence of light upon the
shivering waters under the sun that was
now floated north, but the resplendent haze
did not dim the substantial line that was
growing with a deepening hue into the
atmosphere, and already methought I could
discern the curve and sweep of inland airy
altitudes with the dainty silver of clouds
streaking them.</p>

<p>"Land, Herr Fenton!" cried a voice in
my ear.</p>

<p>I started. Van Vogelaar stood close beside
me, pointing with a pale leathern forefinger,
his harsh and rugged face smileless,
though his eyes grinned with malice as they
lay fastened upon mine.</p>

<p>"I see it, mynheer," I replied, coldly.</p>

<p>"It should rejoice your English soul," he
exclaimed. "Your countrymen will not count
you as a mariner of theirs if you love not the
land! See! Remote and faint though it be,
how substantial even in its blue thinness doth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
it show! No sea-sickness there, Herr Fenton!
No hollow seas yawning black as
vaults!"</p>

<p>Had this man been of the earth I needed
but to catch him by the scroff and breech and
bring his spine to my knee to kill him. And
he looked so much as if I could have served
him so that it was hard to regard him without
pity. I said, quietly, "Will that be the land
the captain desires to make?"</p>

<p>"Ay," he answered, snarlingly, "the Dutch
are sailors."</p>

<p>I thought to myself, yes, when they have
the Devil for a sea-cunny they will hit their
port.</p>

<p>"You will be glad to step ashore if but for
half-an-hour?" said he, looking at me.</p>

<p>"That is a matter that concerns your
master," I answered, turning from him. A
low ha! ha! broke from him, muffled as the
sound of a saw worked under deck, as
musical too, and as mirthless. Yet Imogene's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
quick ear caught it, and she turned swiftly to
look. And methought it had penetrated
further yet, for upon the heels of it, there
rose up, as an echo, from the cabin, that
harsh and rusty cry, "Wy zyn al Verdomd!"</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER IX.<br />
WE BRING UP IN A BAY.</h2>


<p>I could not at that time know what part of
the South African coast was this we had
made, but I have since learnt that it lies a
few miles to the eastward of the meridian of
twenty-two degrees, and about an hundred
and sixty miles from Cape Agulhas. When
it first came into sight, as I have said, it was
but a faint, long-drawn shade in the light
blue of the sky over the horizon, with such a
fairy tincture of flanking eminence beyond
that the whole was as delicately tender as
the visionary shore of a dream.</p>

<p>But before the dinner-hour had come
round we had stolen nearly two leagues
closer to it, and the coast lay plain enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
and very brave with colours, the green of
several dyes, the mountain sky-lines of an
exquisite clearness of cutting in the radiant
atmosphere and against the hard azure
brilliance of the heavens, and the tracts
of white sand low down as lustrous as the
foam of a dissolving surge.</p>

<p>Soon after the land had hove into view,
Imogene joined me. She had kept her
feelings under whilst near Vanderdecken.
Now, by my side, she stood with twenty
emotions working in her, her nostrils quivering,
her lips pale, the colour coming and
going in her cheeks, the bright light that a
passing hope flashed into her eyes dying
out to the tearful shadowing of some bitter
fear.</p>

<p>I said to her, very softly, and keeping my
face as expressionless as my inward agitation
would permit&mdash;for Vanderdecken and his
mates conferred together near us, sometimes
stopping close, sometimes pacing&mdash;"If this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
pace holds our anchor should be down by
dusk."</p>

<p>"What will they do?" she asked.</p>

<p>"I have been asking that question of
myself," I replied. "Were they human&mdash;of
this earth&mdash;I could foretell their movements.
No sooner were they come to an anchor than
they would turn to and get the guns and
cargo over to one side, that by listing the
ship they might bring the leak out of water
and save themselves this starving job of
pumping. But we have to base conjecture
upon men who are neither dead nor alive,
who are Dutchmen besides, I mean of a
dull and apathetic habit, and they may wait
for daylight and so obtain rest, of which
they should get as much as they want with
the reliefs they are able to send to the
pump."</p>

<p>"What should best fit your project,
Geoffrey?"</p>

<p>"Oh," said I, under my breath, "if we are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>
to escape we shall need a deserted deck and
a sleeping ship."</p>

<p>"If this should come about to-night will
you make the venture?"</p>

<p>"I cannot tell. Put it thus: if they shift
the cargo after coming to an anchor with the
idea of raising the leak clear, the work may
occupy them all night. So all night long the
ship will be alive and busy, and there will be
no chance for me."</p>

<p>"But the ship will also be alive if they
continue to ply the pump, which must be
done if she is not to sink."</p>

<p>"Yes," said I, "so I may have to wait till
to-morrow night."</p>

<p>She cried, with a quick blanching of her
face that cruelly proved her stock of strength
but slender, "If they careen the ship to-night
they will be able to repair the leak in the
morning, and be ready to sail before the
evening."</p>

<p>"I do not fear that."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>

<p>"Yet it might happen, Geoffrey! They
will put you on shore before sailing&mdash;&mdash;" She
stopped, bringing her hands together with a
passionate clasp.</p>

<p>"I do not fear that," said I again. "Much
will depend on where the leak is. If it be
low down they may not be able to come at
it without discharging cargo, which, seeing
that they have but those two boats yonder
to work with, and that they will have to
make tents ashore and protect themselves
against the natives&mdash;if any there here be&mdash;should
keep them on the move for a long
month. No, dearest, I do not fear that they
will get away by to-morrow night&mdash;not if
they were ten times as numerous and as
nimble; nor is it probable that Vanderdecken
would suffer me to be marooned till the
ship is ready to start. My one anxiety is
just now the weather. There is tranquility
in that dark blue sky over us; the wind
weakens as we approach the land, and there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
is promise of a calm night. May God help
me to achieve my purpose before another
twelve hours have rolled by."</p>

<p>She looked at me with eagerness and
alarm. "To-night!" she cried. "If this ship
lies here for days, as you imagine, how, when
we are ashore, dare we hope to escape the
strenuous search Vanderdecken is certain to
make for us?" I smiled; she continued, with
a feverish whisper: "Consider, dearest! If
we are captured&mdash;he will have your life!
God knows into what barbarities his rage
may drive him!"</p>

<p>"Dearest," said I, gently, "let us first get
out of the ship."</p>

<p>And here we broke off, for our whispering
had lasted long enough. Soon after this we
went below to dinner. At the start we none
of us spoke, our behaviour and perhaps our appearance
answering very exactly to the poet's
description of a party in a parlour who sat&mdash;</p>

<div class="poem">
"All silent and all damned!"<br />
</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>

<p>Outside, the sun shone gloriously, and the
blue air had the purity of polished glass;
but only a small portion of light found admission
through the small windows in the
cabin front, and we ate and gazed upon one
another in a sullen atmosphere as gloomy
as the expression on Vanderdecken's face.
At this moment I see him plain, as on that
day; his beard falling to his waist, his head
slightly bowed, and his glance travelling in
a gaze that would often stop and become
fixed, his skin bleak and high and drawn
with pallor. He was attired in a sort of
blouse of dark-green cloth, confined about
his waist by a yellow belt fastened by a
small metal clasp, that would have given him
a romantic and buccaneering look but for
the austere majesty and fateful character of
his appearance, which inevitably neutralised
every suggestion that did not accord with
the solemn, horrible mystery of his being.</p>

<p>We sat for some time, as I have said, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
silent as the dead; but on reflecting that there
was nothing, in reason, I could say likely to
procure me a harder fate than that already
designed by these men, I determined to ask
a question or two, and said: "Has your carpenter
ascertained in what part of the ship
the leak is, mynheer?"</p>

<p>He turned his eyes round upon me slowly.
He was indeed stately in all he did. I never
beheld him glance quickly nor start, and the
only time in which his dignity fell, torn in
rags from him, was that night when he acted
over the scene of the Curse in his sleep.</p>

<p>He answered, "Yes."</p>

<p>"Is it far down?" said Imogene.</p>

<p>"The ship will need heeling to four
strakes," he replied.</p>

<p>I dropped my knife on to the deck for the
excuse to pick it up that I might hide the
delight in my face. A list of four strakes
would prove but a very small matter to bring
about, and my fears that the vessel would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
linger for days, perhaps for a month, on this
coast vanished.</p>

<p>"I hope," said I, "it may not prove worse
than a started butt-end."</p>

<p>"It is that, and no more," said he.</p>

<p>"How much more would you have, Herr
Fenton?" exclaimed Van Vogelaar, in his
ugliest manner. "Dost suppose our pump
can deliver half the great South Sea with
every stroke?"</p>

<p>"It should take us four days of easy
working," said I, "to careen, repair, and
start afresh snugly stowed."</p>

<p>"You are in a hurry to get home, sir,
no doubt?" exclaimed Van Vogelaar.</p>

<p>"Sir," said I, "I am addressing the
captain."</p>

<p>"Skipper!" cried the man; "Herr Fenton
is in a hurry to get home! We should put
him in the way of making a speedy passage."</p>

<p>"I expect to return in this ship," said I,
speaking with my eyes on Vanderdecken.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
"I am well satisfied. Nothing stauncher
floats. Consider, mynheer, how nobly she
has acted in the gales we have encountered.
It would please me to entreat you to use
such poor skill as I have as a mariner in
helping your men; but your courtesy is
magnanimous&mdash;of the form that is to be met
in highest perfection in the Hollander of
lineage&mdash;and I will not risk my own civility
by further requests."</p>

<p>He motioned with his hand, contenting
himself with whatever answer the gesture
signified. I perceived there was no further
information to be obtained from him&mdash;from
Van Vogelaar nothing but sneers and insults&mdash;and
so held my peace. Yet I had learnt
something.</p>

<p>When, after dining, I went on deck, the
land looked as near again as it had when I
went below. This was owing to the amazing
transparency and purity of the atmosphere,
insomuch that every twenty fathoms the ship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
measured was like adding a fresh lens to a
perspective glass. Yet it was not until four
o'clock that the coast lay so clear as to render
every detail of it a visible thing, and then the
sight was helped by the sun being on the
larboard side and showering his glory aslant,
which, mingling with the golden splendour
rising out of his wake in the sea, put an extraordinary
shining into the atmosphere, but
without the lustrous haze that had been
rising when he was right over the land and
kindling the water under our bows. 'Twas a
picture of a bay with a shelving beach thickly
green with bushes and trees, in and out of
which there winded lengths and lines of
exceeding white sand that trembled to the
sunshine with the shivering metallic sheen of
frosted silver. The sea went blue as the sky
to the shore and tumbled into foam, in some
places leaping up in creamy dartings, in
others making a small crystal smoke with its
boiling, elsewhere lapping tenderly and expiring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
in ripples. The azure heights beyond,
which had seemed to closely flank the coast
when first beheld, drew inland with our
approach, marking their remoteness by the
retention of their lovely atmospheric delicacy
of colour, and their height by the lengths of
vapour that clung to their mighty slopes at
various altitudes, like fragments of great
silken veils or cloths of pale gold which had
been rent whilst blowing along. The seaboard
went in a rugged line east and west by
the compass, sometimes coming very low
down, sometimes soaring into great forelands,
plentifully covered with wild growths, as you
saw by the several dyes of green that coated
it, and in one place&mdash;about a league from the
bay&mdash;a pale blue smoke rising up denoted a
bush-fire, and, as it was easy to suppose, the
presence of natives.</p>

<p>The sky was catching a tinge of brassy
hardness from the westering sun, and the
complexion of it where the mountain heights<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
were somehow made you think of measureless
miles of hot and cloudy sand glowing
yellowly up into that feverish reflection. The
weak swell that lifted us rolled in wind-wrinkled
folds into the bay, which yawned
unsheltered to the south. I knew from experience
that it needs no great wind on this
coast to raise a monstrous sea, and it was
with unspeakable eagerness and anxiety that
I directed my eyes from the land to the sky
overhead and on our quarters. But the
promise of tranquility seemed to deepen with
the drawing down of the sun. It was sheer
sapphire in the south, melting eastwards into
violet, and the sea that way was like an
English lake, and to the left of the sun
there floated a few purple clouds, which I
watched some time with attention but could
not tell that they moved, though a breeze
was still about us, humming pleasantly aloft,
keeping our old sails rounded, and sending
the aged structure gliding at four knots an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
hour as quietly through it as a seagull
paddling in the level water of an harbour.</p>

<p>But for the tedious clanging of the pump
and the fountain-sounds of its discharge, the
stillness on board would have been as deep
as the hush upon the land. Still, lovely as
was that afternoon, I very well remember
wishing it had been a month earlier or
later than this. We were in the stormy time
of the year in these parts, though it was
summer at home, and a violent change might
quickly come. If it came, Vanderdecken
would have to put to sea, leak or no leak, for
it was not to be supposed that mere hemp
could partake of the Curse; and the cables
which I saw some of the crew getting up out
of the hold and bending to the anchors at
the bows were assuredly not going to hold
this lump of a craft, high out of water and as
thick as a tower aloft, for twenty solid
minutes in a seaway and in the eye of a stout
wind.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span></p>

<p>Therefore it was, when I was alone with
Imogene, the coast being then about a league
distant and the sun low, that I said to her:
"Dearest, I have made up my mind to make
a desperate effort to get away with you
to-night."</p>

<p>"I am ready," she answered, instantly;
"you need but tell me what to do."</p>

<p>"We must make use of this noble
weather," I continued; "it is a fickle season,
a change may come in half-a-dozen hours and
force Vanderdecken to sea with his pump
going. Imogene, it must not find us aboard."</p>

<p>"No."</p>

<p>"There will be no moon till eleven; we
must be away before she rises, for she will
glow brightly in that sky."</p>

<p>"Dearest, I am ready," she repeated.
"But, Geoffrey, risk nothing on the mere
chance that the weather will change. You
might imperil your life by haste&mdash;and to-morrow
night may be as reposeful as this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
that approaches, and with a later moon
too!"</p>

<p>"Yes, but do not bid me risk nothing!" I
exclaimed. "We must risk everything&mdash;our
chances aboard and our chances out of
the ship&mdash;or you are as good as chained to
this vessel for life."</p>

<p>She smiled her acquiescence. I looked at
her with passionate inquiry, but never did a
braver and more resolved heart gaze at a
lover from a maiden's eyes. I found the
fearlessness of her devotion the more admirable
for the dread she had expressed concerning
the perils of the coast, and for her
speaking thus to me with the land close to
and all its wildness and melancholy visible to
her, together with the distant smoke, towards
which I had seen her glance again and again,
and whose meaning she perfectly understood.</p>

<p>The ship swam slowly forwards. The
coast dried the wind out of the atmosphere,
but so much the better, for there was enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
to carry us in, and then it could not die too
soon to serve my turn. All was ready with
the anchors forward, and the men hung about
in pallid gangs waiting for orders to take sail
off the ship. The vitality of the wondrous
craft seemed to lie in the pump and its
automatic plyers, so deep was the silence
among the crew and so still their postures;
but now and again the heavy courses would
swing into the masts to the soft bowing of
the fabric and raise a feeble thunder-note like
to the sound of bowls rolling over hollow
ground. The red light in the west lay upon
the head of the shaggy line of coast, and the
far-off mountains that had been blue went up
in a dim purple to the sky; the crimson haze
seemed to float over the rugged brink and
roll down the slope to the shore, so that the
scene was bathed in a most exquisite delicate
light&mdash;all features touched with red; a bronze
as of English autumn upon the green; the
white sand gleaming rosily, and great spaces<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
of reddish rubble-like ground glowing dark
as blood. But the loneliness! I figured
myself ashore there&mdash;the ship gone&mdash;Imogene
gone! I stood in fancy upon the
beach looking out on this bare sea; an aged,
perhaps worthless firelock by my side, a few
cartridges, a week's store of provisions! The
moan of the surf was in my ear; every
creaking and rustling of the wind in the near
bushes startled me. To right and left rolled
the coast for endless leagues, and the vast
plain of sea, whose multitudinous crying
found echoes in a thousand caverns, east and
west, and in the reverberating heart of giant
cliffs, whose walls were best measured in
parallels and meridians, went down into the
heavens where the uttermost ends of the
earth were.</p>

<p>Yet, hideous as was the prospect of that
shore when I thought of myself marooned
upon it, its horrors shrunk into mere perils,
such as courage, patience and resolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
might overcome, when my imagination put
my darling by my side, and with her hand in
mine, I looked round me upon the vast
scene of solitude. In her weakness I found
my strength; in her devotion my armour.
Great God! How precious to man is Thy
gift of woman's love! But for Imogene
where would have been my purpose and
determination? I have but to recall the
condition of my spirits when I looked at the
shore and thought of myself as alone there
to know.</p>

<p>The sun had been sunk an hour, the twilight
had melted into darkness, and the sky
was full of stars, when the Death Ship floated
in a breathless manner to abreast of the
eastern bluff or foreland of the bay, and with
an air as faint as the sigh of a spirit expiring
upon the black drapery of her higher canvas,
she slided the blotting head of coast on to
her quarter, and came to a dead stand within
half-a-mile of the beach.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>

<p>I heard Vanderdecken tell Arents to drop
the lead over the side. This was done. The
captain exclaimed: "What trend hath she?"</p>

<p>"None, sir. The line is up and down like
an iron bar."</p>

<p>"Clew up the topsails and topgallant-sails.
Up with the courses. See all ready to let go
the anchors, Van Vogelaar."</p>

<p>These orders were re-echoed. In a moment
the decks were alive with dusky shapes of
moving men; one after another the sails
dissolved against the stars like clouds, amid
the hoarse rumbling of blocks, the whistling
of running ropes, the rattle of descending
yards.</p>

<p>"Are you all ready forward?" cried Vanderdecken,
his rich voice going in notes of
deep-throated music up into the gloom.</p>

<p>"All ready!" answered Van Vogelaar from
the forecastle.</p>

<p>"Then let go the anchor!"</p>

<p>The heavy splash of a great weight of iron<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
was followed by a hot seething sound of cable
torn through the hawse-pipe; the water
boiled to the launching blow from the bow
and spread out in a surface of dim green fire.</p>

<p>I watched to see if the vessel would swing:
but there was no air, neither was there tide
or current to slue her, and she hung in a
shadow like that of a thunder-cloud over her
own anchor, her mastheads very softly beating
time to the slow lift and fall of the light
swell.</p>

<p>"Keep all fast with the larboard anchor!"
exclaimed Vanderdecken. "Overhaul the
cable to the fifty fathom scope. Aloft men and
stow the canvas. Carpenter!"</p>

<p>A hoarse voice answered, "Sir?"</p>

<p>"Sound the well and let me know what
water there is."</p>

<p>In a few minutes a lantern flickered like an
<i>ignis fatuus</i> and threw out the sombre shapes
of men as its gleam passed over the decks
which rippled in faint sheets of phosphoric<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
light. He who bore it was the carpenter.
When he came to the pump he handed it to
a seaman whilst he dropped the sounding-rod
down the well. The light was yellow, and
the figures of the fellows who were pumping
and the stooping form of the carpenter stood
out of the gloom like an illuminated painting
in a crypt. A foot or two of water gushing
from the pump sparkled freely to where the
darkness cut it off. Against the glittering
lights in the sky you saw the ink-like outlines
of men dangling upon the yards, rolling up
the canvas. I watched the carpenter pore
upon the rod to mark the height to which the
wet rose; he then came on to the poop and
spoke to Vanderdecken in a voice too low for
me to catch what he said.</p>

<p>Imogene had left me ten minutes before,
and I stood alone in the deeper shade made
in the gloom upon the poop by the mizzen-rigging.
The beating of my heart was painful
with anxiety. From one moment to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
another I could not tell what the next order
might be, and if ever I seemed to feel
a breath of air upon my hot temples, I
trembled with the fear that it was the forerunner
of a breeze. As it stood, 'twas such a
night to escape in that my deepest faith in
God's mercy had never durst raise my hopes
to the height of its beauty and stillness.</p>

<p>On the opposite side of the poop slowly
walked Vanderdecken; in the starlight such
of his skin as showed was as white as wax;
he sometimes looked aloft at the men there,
sometimes around at the ocean, sometimes
coming to a stand to mark the gradual swinging
of the ship that was now influenced by
some early trickling of tide or by the motions
of the small heaving in the sea, or by some
ghostly whisperings of air overhead.</p>

<p>Ten minutes passed. Though the ship
was full of business, not a sound broke from
the men, and the hush you felt upon the dark
line of shore would have been upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
vessel but for the clanking jerks of the pump-brake
and the noise of flowing water.</p>

<p>A figure came up the poop-ladder and
softly approached. It was Imogene. I
lightly called and she came to my side in the
shadow.</p>

<p>"What are they doing?" she asked.</p>

<p>"They are furling the sails; nothing more
as yet," I answered.</p>

<p>"Will they endeavour to lift the leak out
of water to-night?"</p>

<p>"Dearest, I am waiting to see what they
mean to do."</p>

<p>"I will ask Vanderdecken," said she, "he
always answers my questions."</p>

<p>I seized her hand. "No! He may suspect
I sent you. Let us walk carelessly
here and there. Lurking in the shadow
might give an air of conspiracy to the prattle
of infants to the suspicions of such a mind
as his."</p>

<p>We moved towards the taffrail&mdash;the helm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
was lashed and abandoned&mdash;and then quietly
to and fro, speaking under our breath.</p>

<p>"Geoffrey, we may find no water to drink
when we get on shore; have you provided
for that?" she said.</p>

<p>I started. I had thought of all things, as
I fancied; yet I had overlooked the most
essential of our certain needs.</p>

<p>"No, I have not provided for that," I
exclaimed. "How now to manage?"</p>

<p>"I thought of it just now in my cabin.
There is a pitcher there and the sight of it
put it into my head to ask if you had included
water in your stock of provisions. It holds
about two gallons. It has a narrow neck
and may be easily corked. But how can we
convey it ashore. My weight and the bags
and it would sink a bigger frame than the
one that is to float me."</p>

<p>I said: "Is there fresh water in it?"</p>

<p>"It is nearly full. Prins keeps it replenished."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span></p>

<p>I said: "Are bottles to be had?"</p>

<p>She reflected and answered: "There are
jars in which wine is kept, but I do not know
where to find them."</p>

<p>'Twas my turn to think. I then cried:
"There is a silver flagon in the box under
the table; that which Prins took away
last week and brought back filled with
sherry for Vanderdecken. Can you get
it?"</p>

<p>"Yes."</p>

<p>"We may not need it; if so we will leave
it. Vanderdecken shall not say that we have
plundered him though we must risk a graver
charge even than that if there be occasion.
Dearest, convey that flagon to your cabin.
Fill it with fresh water in readiness. We
shall find fresh water sweeter than the richest
wine. Also contrive to have the pitcher
filled to the brim. Prins will do that and
suspect nothing. You will invent a reason,
and when it is filled cork it as securely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
as possible and bind the head with stout rag
that what you use as a cork may not fall
out."</p>

<p>She said she would go and see about it at
once.</p>

<p>"A moment," I whispered. "Is the
window of your quarter-gallery open?"</p>

<p>"No; but I will open it."</p>

<p>"Do so; stand at it till you hear me
cough. Then grasp a rope that I will let
hang against the window and coil it away as
you pull it in."</p>

<p>She understood me with the readiness of a
sailor's child and a sailor's sweetheart, and
left me. The mizzen-yard was lowered; the
sail had been stowed some time. Rove
through a small block at the end of the yard
was a length of thin line termed signal halliards
used for the showing of colours. I
waited till Vanderdecken came to a stand at
the head of the ladder that was, of course, at
the forward end of the poop, and then with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
a mariner's swiftness overhauled the halliards
through the block, catching the end as it fell
that it might not strike the deck, and threw
it over the quarter, coughing distinctly as I
did so. I felt her pull it; I paid it out
cautiously, narrowly watching Vanderdecken
till the whole length was gone, then sauntered
forward to where the shadow of the
mizzen-rigging blackened the air.</p>

<p>I had not stood there a minute when Vanderdecken
cried out, "Van Vogelaar!" The
mate answered from the forecastle.</p>

<p>"Let a hand remain on the main-topsail
yard to receive a tackle for hoisting out both
boats."</p>

<p>I turned my back, putting both my hands
to my face in an ecstatic burst of gratitude
to the great God of Heaven for this signal
mercy. 'Twas what I had been hoping
and waiting for, with a heart sickened by
doubt and fear. The order was given, and
had I been suddenly transported with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
Imogene into a ship bound for England my
soul could not have swelled up with keener
exultation!</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER X.<br />
THE WEATHER HELPS MY SCHEME.</h2>


<p>I will say now that the alternate scheme I
had all along had in my mind was escaping
by means of one of the boats. But I had
held this project back from Imogene; nay,
had kept it in hiding almost away from my
own consideration for fear that I should be
unable to secure a boat. Perhaps, indeed, I
had counted upon Vanderdecken practising
the custom of his day, which was to get the
boats over on coming to an anchor; yet it
was but a hope, and not daring to think too
heartily in this direction I had talked wholly
to Imogene of delivering ourselves by floating
and swimming ashore.</p>

<p>But now the boats were to be lifted over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
the side, and my next proceeding must therefore
be to watch an opportunity to enter one
of them with Imogene and silently sneak
away.</p>

<p>To see what they were about, the men
hung several lanterns about the waist and
gangways. The canvas had been furled, and
the yards lay in thick black strokes against
the stars. The coast looked like peaked
heights of pitch, and the sea, with a sort of
dead gleaming floating in it with the motion
of the folds, spread out brimful to the dim
flashing of the surf. You could hear nothing
for the noise of the pumping, yet it seemed
to me but for that, God knows what mysterious
whisperings, what faint noise of
howling cries, what strange airy creeping of
hisses and the seething of swept and disturbed
foliage and burrowed bush I might
catch the mingled echo of, hovering in a kind
of cloud of sound, and coming, some of it,
from as far away as the deeper blackness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
that you saw in the land where the cerulean
giants of the afternoon steadied their burdened
postures by pressing their brows
against the sky. There was a red spot upon
that part of the coast over which you would
be looking for the crimson forehead of the
moon presently. 'Twas a league off, and
expressed a big area of incandescence, and
was the fire whence the smoke I had noticed
arose.</p>

<p>One after the other they swung the boats
clear of the rail to the water, and secured the
ends of their painters, or the lines by which
they were fastened, to a pin, on either quarter,
thus leaving both boats floating under the
counter. Vanderdecken then gave orders
for the second anchor to be let go, the ship
having some time since slided imperceptibly
back to the fair tension of the cable already
down.</p>

<p>I now thought I had been long enough on
deck, that further lingering must suggest too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
much persistency of observation; so I went
to the cabin. It was empty. I coughed, and
in a minute or two Imogene came from her
berth. The lamp swung over the table and
the white light that fell through the open
bottom of it streamed on my face.</p>

<p>She instantly exclaimed: "You are flushed
and look glad! What is it, Geoffrey?"</p>

<p>"We are as good as free!" I cried. She
stared at me. Then I explained how Vanderdecken
had ordered the boats over as
though in sober truth he had as great a mind
as I that we should escape; how our deliverance
by one of the boats had been my second
but concealed scheme; how both boats were
under the counter, to our hands almost; and
how nothing more remained to be done but
wait a chance of entering one of them and
dropping hiddenly out of sight.</p>

<p>"Then we need not land!" she cried.</p>

<p>I said, "No." She clasped her hands
and looked at me with a rapture that made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
me see how heavy though secret had lain the
horror of escape by the shore upon her.</p>

<p>I said to her: "Slip into your quarter-gallery
and look over and tell me which boat
lies under it, whether the little or the large
one. Also if the rope that holds her is
within reach. Also distinguish what furniture
of oars and sails are in the boats&mdash;if any
there be. I dare not go to your cabin lest
Vanderdecken should arrive as I come out."</p>

<p>She went, and was gone about five
minutes. During this interval I took notice
of a sobering down of the movements of the
men about the deck, as though they were
coming to an end with their various jobs of
coiling away and clearing up. But the pump
gushed incessantly. I grew extremely eager
to know if they meant to handle the cargo
and guns, towards careening the vessel, that
night. But whether or no, I was determined
to leave the Death Ship, and before the moon
rose&mdash;if possible.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>

<p>'Twas now a little after seven o'clock.
Imogene returned. She glanced about her
to make sure I was alone, and seating herself
close to me, said: "It is the bigger boat
that is under my quarter-gallery."</p>

<p>"Good!" I cried. "She will be the safer
for our purpose."</p>

<p>"Where the other boat lies the gloom is
so thick 'tis impossible to see what is in her.
But I can distinctly perceive the outline of a
sail in the big boat."</p>

<p>"There will be a mast as well," said I.
"Since the sail is there she will have been
lowered fully equipped. And the rope that
holds her?"</p>

<p>"It tightens and droops with the lifting of
the boat and the heaving of the ship," she
replied. "But I think it may be grasped by
standing upon the rail of the galley."</p>

<p>This I had expected, for the boat rode to
a very short scope of line.</p>

<p>"Now, dearest," said I, "this is my plan:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
the line you dragged in, when middled and
doubled, will serve me to lower you down
with. When in the boat, you must throw
the line off you, so that I may use it to send
down the pitcher of water and the bags of
provisions. I will then come down by it myself.
Retire as early as you may under
pretence of being weary, then clothe yourself
in your warmest attire and select such apparel
as fits most closely, for flowing drapery cannot
but prove troublesome. Leave your
cabin door unlatched, but seemingly shut,
that I may enter by pushing only. Meanwhile,
stay here. I shall return in a few
minutes."</p>

<p>I walked to my cabin below. The gang of
pumpers clove to the brake like a little
company of spectres clothed as seamen, and
their manner of toiling suggested a horrid
mockery of the labour of earthly beings. I
shot a swift glance along the deck ere
descending the hatch, but, saving the men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
who pumped, could see no more than a
shadow or two moving in the distance
forward. I took the bags of provisions from
under the bed; the smallest of the three
fitted my hat, which I put on my head; the
other two I crammed into my coat pockets,
which were extremely capacious. A goodly
portion of the bag in the larboard pocket
stood up, and the head of the other was very
visible; but I covered them by keeping my
arms up and down; and so conveyed them
to the cabin, which I surveyed through the
door before entering.</p>

<p>Imogene instantly took them to her berth,
and then returned. She had scarce resumed
her seat when Vanderdecken entered. He
came to the table and looked on a moment,
and said: "Imogene, where is Prins?"</p>

<p>"I have not seen him," she answered.</p>

<p>He stepped to the door and called, and
then came to his chair and seated himself,
not offering to speak till Prins arrived.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>

<p>"Get the supper," said he. "Mix a bowl
of brandy punch. My limbs ache. I have
stood too long."</p>

<p>Encouraged to address him by his breaking
the silence, I said, "Mynheer Vanderdecken,
may I ask if it is your intention to
careen to-night?"</p>

<p>He looked at me sullenly and with a frown,
and said: "Why do you inquire?"</p>

<p>"That I may crave a favour, sir. My
cabin is close to the pump; the clattering of
that engine is extremely disturbing, and
therefore I would ask your permission to use
this bench for a bed to-night if you do not
intend to careen to the leak, and so render
further pumping unnecessary."</p>

<p>He considered awhile, eyeing me sternly;
but it was not conceivable that he should find
any other than the surface-meaning in this
request.</p>

<p>He answered: "I do not intend to
careen; the weather hath every promise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
of continued fairness; the men shall have
their night's rest; they will work the more
briskly for it to-morrow. As the pump must
be kept going, your request is reasonable.
You can use this cabin, and Prins shall
give you one of my cloaks to soften your
couch."</p>

<p>I made him a low grateful bow, secretly
accepting his civility, however, as does a man
condemned to death the attentions of a gaoler
or the tenderness of the hangman.</p>

<p>Prins prepared the table for supper, and
then set a bowl of steaming punch before the
captain. Shortly afterwards arrived Van
Vogelaar and Arents. Our party was now
complete, and we fell to. I said: "Gentlemen,
you will forgive the curiosity of an
English mariner who is unused to the discipline
of the Batavian ships. How, Mynheer
Vanderdecken, are the watches among you
arranged when in harbour, as in a sense we
may take ourselves now to be?"</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>

<p>Imogene observing my drift came to my
help and said in Dutch: "The practice is as
with our countrymen, Herr Fenton."</p>

<p>"Then the commandant stands the watch
till midnight, and the mates together till sunrise,"
said I, speaking inaccurately that I
might draw them into speech.</p>

<p>"No," exclaimed Arents. "With us the
commander keeps no watch. The mates
take the deck as at sea, I till midnight,
Van Vogelaar till four, then I again."</p>

<p>"That is as it should be," said I, smiling
into Arents' large, fat, white face.</p>

<p>"And it is very proper," said Van Vogelaar,
in his coarse sarcastic voice, "that English
sailors should apply to the Dutch for correct
ideas on true marine discipline."</p>

<p>"Gentlemen," said I, suavely, "I have
learnt much since I have been with you."</p>

<p>The mate darted one of his ugliest looks
at me. And it was made infernal by the
twist of leering triumph in his heavy lips,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
though he could not suppose I exactly understood
what it meant.</p>

<p>We fell silent. Vanderdecken served out
the punch with a small silver goblet. I
drank but a mouthful or two, dreading the
fumes. The others quaffed great draughts,
making nothing of the potency of the liquor,
nor of the steaming heat of it. Had they
been as I was or Imogene&mdash;human and real&mdash;I
should have rejoiced in their intemperance;
but 'twas impossible to suppose that
the fumes of spirits could affect the brains of
men immortal in misery.</p>

<p>When they had done eating they called
for pipes, and Vanderdecken told Prins to
bring him such and such a cloak, naming
and describing it. The fashion of it was
about eighty years old; 'twas of very dark
velvet, with a silver chain at the throat and
silk under-sleeves. He motioned to Prins to
put it down, giving me to know by the same
gesture that it was at my service. I thanked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
him with a slight inclination of the head,
grateful that he did not speak, as I knew not
what effect the news of my desire to sleep in
the cabin might have upon the malignant
mate's suspicious mind.</p>

<p>Imogene observed a strict silence. Sometimes
I caught her looking at Vanderdecken,
sometimes round upon the cabin. At such
moments there came a softened light of wistfulness
into her eyes; nay, rather let me call
it pensiveness, for there was nothing of
yearning in it&mdash;merely the emotion that
would attend the thought that, under God,
this was the last night she would ever pass
in the Death Ship; the last hours she would
ever spend in the company of Vanderdecken.
The old fabric had for nearly five years been
her ocean home&mdash;the only refuge in the wide
world for her. 'Twas associated with the
desolation of her orphaned state&mdash;with the
anguish of her loneliness in the open boat.
Her very being had merged into the ancient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
timbers&mdash;to the spirit of her life a voice and
an expression had been given by each hollow
straining sound, by the roar of wind in the
rigging, by the musical stirrings of air in the
quiet night, by the sob of gently-passing
waters, by the thunder of the storm-created
surge. And he at whom she gazed&mdash;cruel,
fierce, scowling, imperious as he was&mdash;lifting
God-defying eyes to the heavens, his giant
frame volcanic with the desperate perturbations
of a soul of fire&mdash;yet had that man
ever been gentle to her&mdash;he had tended her
with something of a father's love; he had
held her to his breast as an ocean-stray
for whom, Heaven help him! he believed
that there was an asylum, that there was
affection, that there was motherly and sisterly
sympathy in his distant home at Amsterdam.
She could not have been the Imogene of my
adoration, the fresh, true-hearted virginal
being of this Death Ship, mingling something
of the mystery of the doomed structure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
and something of the mighty deep, with the
pure, chaste, exquisite vitality of a living and
a loving woman, had not her violet eyes
saddened to the thought of parting for ever
from her floating home and from that stately,
bearded figure whose affection for her was
even fuller of pathos than his dream of those
whom he deemed yet slumbered at night in
far-off Amsterdam.</p>

<p>But no sentiment of this kind coloured my
view of him. To me, that was to be put
ashore by his command and left miserably to
perish there, he was a cruel and a murderous
rascal; of which qualities in him I had so
keen a sense that I never for a moment questioned
that if my scheme miscarried and he
found out what I intended, he would have me
swung at the yard-arm right away out of
hand, though it should be pitch dark and they
should have to hang me by lantern-light.</p>

<p>Presently Arents put down his pipe and
went on deck. Van Vogelaar, leaning on his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
elbow midway across the table, muttered with
the long shank of his pipe between his teeth
to Vanderdecken about the routine and rotation
of the pumping-gangs. The captain let
fall a few instructions touching the morning's
work. Imogene rose.</p>

<p>"I am like you, Captain Vanderdecken&mdash;weary,"
she said, smiling, whilst her pale face
fully warranted her assurance. "I shall go
to bed."</p>

<p>"'Tis early," said he, sending a look at the
clock; "you seem dispirited, my dear. It
will not be this brief halt here, I trust? We
shall be under weigh again in a couple of
days, homeward-bound&mdash;one great ocean
already traversed. Think of that!" She
put her fingers to her mouth simulating a
yawn. "But if you are weary," he continued,
"go to rest, my dear."</p>

<p>She smiled at him again, curtsied to me,
and with a half-bow to Van Vogelaar went to
her cabin.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p>

<p>Vanderdecken, dipping the silver goblet
into the punch-bowl, bade me extend my cup.
I thanked him, said my head ached, and that
with his leave I would take the air above for
a spell. On gaining the poop I walked right
aft and looked over the taffrail. The boats
there rose and fell in two lumps of blackness
under the quarters. They strained very
quietly at the lines which held them, and this
enabled me to observe, by noting the trend
of the land, that such surface-motion as the
water had was westerly. I was fretted to
observe the sea unusually phosphorescent.
Every time the rise and fall of the ship's
stern flipped at one or the other of the boat's
lines the sudden drag raised a little foam about
her, and the bubbling flashed like the reflection
of sheet lightning in a mirror. This, I
say, vexed me; for the dip of an oar must
occasion a fire as signalling in its way as a
flare or a lantern, though the boat itself
should be buried in the darkness.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p>

<p>I came away from the taffrail after a very
brief look over. Arents at the head of the
poop-ladder stood apparently gazing at the
men pumping on the main-deck, but I knew
the motionless postures into which he and
the others fell too well to guess that any
speculation would be found in his eyes could
they be peered into. The bush fire burnt
like a great red spark on the black outline to
starboard. Out of the western ocean the
stars looked to be floating as though they
were a smoke of silver sparkles, meeting in a
mass of diamond-light over our swaying
mastheads, with scatterings of brilliant dust
among them, suggesting the wakes of winged
star-ships; but past the starboard yard-arms
all this quick, glorious scintillation of planet
and meteor, of fixed stars and the Magellanic
clouds, with the beautiful Cross sweetly
dominant, went wan and dying into mere
faintness. This however I did not particularly
heed, though the habits of a sailor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
would cause me to fasten my eye upon the
appearance; but presently looking for the
crimson scar of bush-fire, I found it was gone
with many of the stars which had been glittering
above and against it.</p>

<p>A few minutes put an end to conjecture;
'twas a true South African fog coming along,
white as gunpowder smoke, and eating out
the prospect with long feelers and winding
limbs till the whole body was fluffing thick
and soft as feathers about the ship, eclipsing
everything save a golden spike or two of the
lighted lantern that hung against the main-mast
for the comfort or convenience of the
pumpers.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER XI.<br />
MY POOR DARLING.</h2>


<p>It was ten o'clock. For half-an-hour had I
been sitting in the cabin alone waiting for
Vanderdecken to come below and go to bed.
I heard the parrot angrily clawing about her
cage to the chiming of the bell, as if impatient
of the slowness of the strokes and
enraged by their disturbing notes; and when
the last chime died out she violently flapped
her wings and cried, with an edge of scream
in the ordinary harshness of her voice, "Wy
zyn al Verdomd!"</p>

<p>"Verdomd for you, you vile croaker!"
thought I, involuntarily clenching my fist as
I looked towards her. "Such another yell
might bring Van Vogelaar out of his berth."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>

<p>But she was never again to utter that
curse in my hearing.</p>

<p>I went to the cabin door, and found the
thickness boiling black about the decks, not
an outline visible, nothing to be seen but the
lantern-shine, dim as a glow-worm in the
crystalline denseness. The clanking of the
pump seemed to find twenty echoes in the
great concealed fabric of round-tops and
square yards on high. How ghostly the
stillness with which the brake was plied!
You listened till your ear seemed in pain for
the sound of a human laugh, the growl of a
human voice.</p>

<p>Whilst I stood looking into the thickness,
Vanderdecken came down the quarter-deck
ladder. The wet of the fog sparkled in his
beard, and his fur cap glistened to the lamplight.
He stood in the doorway and stared
at me under his great heavy brows as though
surprised, and even startled, to see me; then
exclaimed, "<i>Ach</i>, I had forgotten you sleep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
in this cabin to-night. The lamp can be left
alight, if you please."</p>

<p>"If you please, mynheer," said I, with a note
of careless indifference in my voice. In fact
I would rather have been in darkness, but it
was my policy to seem as if his wishes were
all the same to me, let them run as they
would.</p>

<p>"Tell Prins when he comes, it is my order
he should leave the lamp burning," said he,
speaking quietly and in a manner that recalled
my earliest impressions of him when he
talked low lest he should disturb Imogene.
He gave me a stiff bow and walked to his
cabin.</p>

<p>Five minutes after arrived Prins.</p>

<p>"'Tis the captain's wish," said I, in a low
voice, "that the lamp should be kept alight."</p>

<p>"Good, sir," he replied, imitating my soft
speech.</p>

<p>"It is for my convenience; I sleep here
as you know, that the pump may be less disturbing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
Captain Vanderdecken is good
enough to consult my comfort, but as the light
is bright, pray dim it, Prins. That may be
managed, I hope?"</p>

<p>"Easily," he answered, and climbed upon
the table to come at the lamp.</p>

<p>"So," said he, turning down the mesh,
"how is that, Herr Fenton?"</p>

<p>"A little fainter yet&mdash;so! I thank you,
Prins. Have you made an end of your work?
I am in no hurry to lie down."</p>

<p>He slipped off the table with a look round,
and said: "My work is finished, Herr. You
can take your rest at once for me." He
yawned. "These African fogs make one
gape. Good-night, sir."</p>

<p>"Good-night, Prins."</p>

<p>He halted in the doorway.</p>

<p>"I will shut this door to keep the damp
out," he said. I motioned with my hand as
though bidding him shut it, which he did,
and I was left alone.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>

<p>I wrapped Vanderdecken's large rich cloak
about me, and stretched myself along the
bench, using my arm as a pillow. I resolved
to lie thus for at least half-an-hour, conceiving
that this would be long enough to weary any
one who should take it into his head to watch
me through the cabin window. As to Vanderdecken,
I did not fear his seeing me
whilst he kept his door closed. The bulkhead
of his berth was thick and apparently
seamless, and his door fitted into overlaps of
the jambs, for the exclusion of draughts of air
after the fashion in old shipbuilding. I lay
very quiet hearkening to the dulled beating
of the pump and watching the clock, the
great hand of which was just visible. When
it came round so as to lie upon the quarter
before the hour, I rose with the utmost
stealth, arranging the cloak in such a fashion
as to make the dark shape of it resemble a
recumbent form, and holding my breath, stole
on tiptoe to Imogene's cabin and pushed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
door. It opened; I entered and pushed the
door to again, and it jammed noiselessly upon
the soft substance that had kept it closed
before.</p>

<p>Imogene sat on the side of her bed, that
exactly resembled the bed in Vanderdecken's
room which I have described. She was fully
dressed, and had on a fur or sealskin cap,
with flaps for the ears. A small silver lamp
of a very ancient pattern hung from a hook
in the great beam that traversed the ceiling
of her cabin, but she had trimmed or depressed
the mesh into a feeble gleam. The
little door that led to the quarter-gallery
stood open. I kissed her cold forehead, and
whispered, "Are you ready?"</p>

<p>"Yes!"</p>

<p>I held her hand whilst I could have
counted ten, but found it steadier than mine.</p>

<p>"Come, dearest!" said I, and I stepped
into the gallery.</p>

<p>The fog put an intolerable blackness into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
the air, and the chill of it was like frost upon
the flesh. But for the phosphorescence of
the sea, which I had before lamented, I
should not have been able to see the boat
under the counter. As it was, the tweaking
of the line to the rise and fall of the Death
Ship kept a small stir of water about the
boat; the greenish-yellow shining showed
through the fog and threw out the figure of
the structure. The railing of the gallery rose
to the height of my breast. I leaned over it,
waving my hand in the blackness for the
rope, and not catching it, bade Imogene
seize my coat to steady me, and jumped on
to the rail, and in a moment felt the line and
grasped it; then dismounted, holding the
rope. In a few seconds I had the boat's
head&mdash;that was square and horned, as you
will remember&mdash;fair under the gallery, and
in that posture I secured her by hitching the
slack of the line to the rail.</p>

<p>Everything continued to help us; first the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
fog, that made an astonishing blackness of
the night, though I guessed this would grow
into a pallid faintness presently, when the
moon was up and had gathered power; next
the phosphoric shinings upon which the boat
rose and fell like a great blot of ink; then
the noise of the pump, which, to the most
attentive ear on deck, would absorb all such
feeble sounds as our movements were likely
to cause; and again, there was the small
but constant grinding of the sudden jumping
of the rudder to the action of the swell,
very nicely calculated to lull the suspicions of
Vanderdecken in the adjacent cabin should
he be awake and hear us. But this I did
not fear, for the quarter-gallery was outside
the ship, and we worked in the open air, and
made no noise besides.</p>

<p>Not a moment was to be lost; the halliards
I had unrove from the mizzen-peak lay in a
heap at my feet. I ran the length through,
doubled it, and made a bowline-on-the-bight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
of the two thicknesses. This bight or loop I
slipped over Imogene's shoulders, bringing
the running or lowering part in front of her
that there should be no pressure to hurt her
tender breasts, and then took two turns round
a stancheon on the quarter-gallery.</p>

<p>"Dearest," I whispered, kissing her, "keep
a stout heart and do exactly as I bid. First,
in what part of the cabin shall I find the
pitcher and the provisions?"</p>

<p>"Between the foot of the bedstead and the
door. They are covered with a dress."</p>

<p>"Right. I am now about to lower you
into the boat. I will lower very gently.
The moment your feet touch the boat, cough&mdash;but
not loudly&mdash;as a sign for me to lower
handsomely, for the rise and fall of the boat
necessitates smart action. When you are
safe&mdash;that is when you are gotten into the
middle of the boat&mdash;sit down, and throw the
rope off you. I will then send down the
pitcher and bags by the line which you will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
cast adrift from them. It will then be my
turn to join you."</p>

<p>So saying I took her in my arms and
lifted her on to the rail, seating her there
an instant, then taking in one hand the end
of the rope which was twisted round the
stancheon, with the other I gently slided her
over the rail, easing her down with my arm
round her till she hung by the line. In
another moment she was in the boat.</p>

<p>I hauled up the line, went for the pitcher
and bags and sent them down to her, she
receiving and detaching them from the line
with a promptitude equal to anything I could
have hoped to find in that way in a sailor.
I called to her softly&mdash;that she might know
why I lingered&mdash;"I am going for the
cloak," for the moment I saw it I had made
up my mind to carry it off as a covering for
Imogene.</p>

<p>I opened her cabin door breathlessly and
peered out; then stole soft as a mouse to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
cloak and threw it over my arm. The
interior lay in a sullen gloom to the dim
shining of the lamp. Our stock of provisions
was small, and my eye catching sight of the
chest under the table I recollected having
seen Prins put a canvas bag full of biscuit into
it after supper. This I resolved to take. So
I went to the chest, raised the lid, and found
the bag, but my hurry and agitation being
great I let fall the lid which dropped with a
noisy bang. Heaping curses upon my clumsiness,
I fled like a deer into the cabin and
on to the quarter-gallery, threw the cloak and
bag into the boat, and followed headlong
down the rope I had left dangling from the
rail.</p>

<p>I was scarce arrived when the faint light
that streamed from Imogene's berth into the
quarter-gallery was obscured, and to my
horror I saw the loom of a human shape
overhanging the rail.</p>

<p>"Imogene! Imogene! Come back&mdash;come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
back!" rang out Vanderdecken's deep and
thrilling voice. "Herr Fenton, restore to
me the treasure thou wouldst rob me of and
I swear not a single hair of thy head shall be
harmed."</p>

<p>In mad haste I sawed through the rope
that held the boat with my pocket-knife.
He could not see, but he heard me; and
springing on to the rail, roared, in his
thunderous notes, "Arents, Arents, the
Englishman hath seized one of the boats
and is kidnapping Miss Dudley. Do you
hear me? Speak&mdash;or you swing!"</p>

<p>I heard the clattering of heavy boots
running along the tall echoing poop high
over our heads.</p>

<p>"Sir&mdash;sir&mdash;I am here! Your orders, sir?"
bawled Arents.</p>

<p>Again roared out Vanderdecken, in a
hurricane note fit to awaken the echoes of
the inland mountains, "The Englishman is
kidnapping Miss Dudley, and hath already<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
seized the larger boat. Send the men from
the pump to man the other boat!"</p>

<p>"No, by Heaven, you don't!" I shouted,
mad with the excitement of the minute. The
line that held us was severed; the boat's
head swung round; I leaned half my length
over the gunwale, caught the other boat, and
severed the rope that secured her to the
ship; then, in a frenzy of haste, tumbled a
couple of oars over and pulled away. But
I had not measured five boat's lengths when
the fog in which the ship, even at that
short distance, lay completely swallowed was
gashed and rent by a blaze of red fire. The
explosion of a musket followed. I knew, by
the flame leaping out of the quarter-gallery,
that it was Vanderdecken who had fired, and
with set teeth strained with all my might at
the oars.</p>

<p>A dead stillness reigned. The clanking of
the chains had ceased. I could hear nothing
but the grind of the oars in the pins, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
sound of the water seething to the unnatural
vigour with which I rowed. After a little I
paused to gather from the noise of the surf
how the boat headed. I bent my ear and
found that the boiling was on my left.</p>

<p>"How does it strike you, Imogene?" I
asked, in a broken voice, being terribly
distressed for breath.</p>

<p>She answered, very low, "The sound is
on your left."</p>

<p>"That should signify," said I, "that we
are heading out to sea. The breakers are
heavy in the west, and 'tis down there the
noise of them seems greatest. We must
head right out, or this bay will prove worse
than a rat-trap."</p>

<p>As I spoke I heard the scattering reports
of some six or eight muskets discharged one
after another, but the glare of the explosions
was absorbed by the fog.</p>

<p>"Ha!" cried I; "they shoot in hope!"</p>

<p>I fell to rowing again, and held to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
weighty job stoutly for a good quarter-of-an-hour.
Weighty it was, for not only was the
boat extremely cumbrous about the bows&mdash;if
one square end of her more than another
could be so termed&mdash;the oars were heavy,
the blades being spoon-shaped, though flat,
and the harder to work not only for the
breadth of the boat, but because of the pins
being fixed too far abaft the seats.</p>

<p>I had now not much fear of being chased.
Even if they found the boat I had liberated
by sending men overboard to swim in search
of it&mdash;there was movement enough in the
water to glide it very swiftly into obscurity&mdash;I
did not apprehend they would venture to
pursue me in so great a fog. I threw in my
oars and listened. A faint air stirred in the
blackness, and if I was correct in supposing
that we were heading seawards, then this
draught was coming about south-east. The
sound of the surf was like a weak rumbling of
thunder. I strained my hearing to the right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>&mdash;that
is, to starboard, for I sat with my back
to the bows; but though indeed I could catch
a faint, far-off moan of washing waters that
way, the noise of the boiling was on our
left.</p>

<p>"I am sure we are out of the bay," said I;
"were we penetrating it we should be by this
time among the breakers. I heartily pray
now this fog will soon thin out. It may
whiten into something like light when the
moon rides high. There is a faint wind, and
I should be glad to step the mast and set the
sail. But that isn't to be done by feeling.
Besides, there is no rudder, and what there
may be in the stern to steady an oar with I
cannot conceive."</p>

<p>I paused, thinking she would speak.
Finding she was silent, and fearing her to be
cold and low-hearted, I said: "My dearest,
you will gain confidence with the light.
Meanwhile, we have good reason to be grateful
for this blackness. They might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
killed us could they have seen the boat, for
they were prompt with their fire-arms."</p>

<p>"Geoffrey, dear," she exclaimed, in the
same low voice I had before noticed in her,
"I fear I am wounded."</p>

<p>"Wounded!" I shrieked, springing to my
feet.</p>

<p>"The instant Vanderdecken fired&mdash;if it
was he&mdash;" she continued, "I felt a stinging
blow in my shoulder. I am very cold just
there; I am bleeding, I believe."</p>

<p>"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" I cried,
for now she spoke at some little length I
could hear in her voice the pain she was in;
and the feebleness of her voice was like to
break my heart, as was the thought of her
suffering and bleeding in silence until I had
rowed the boat a long distance from the
ship.</p>

<p>I felt for her, and took her in my arms,
but the shiver that ran through her warned
me that my caress increased her pain. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
would have given ten years of my life for
a light. 'Twas maddening to have to sit in
such blackness, with nothing but a dim star
or two of the green sea-glow rising with the
invisible heave of the water to the gunwale
for the eye to rest upon, and to think of my
precious one bleeding&mdash;perhaps wounded to
death&mdash;utterly concealed from me, so that I
could not staunch her wound, nor comfort
her except by speech, nor help her in any
way. 'Twas the doing of Vanderdecken!
the murderer! Oh, why, when there was all
the wide black air for the shot to whistle
through, had it struck my life, my love, the
darling whom I had snatched to my heart
from the huge desolation of the deep, and
from the horrible companionship of beings
accurst of God?</p>

<p>I groped about for the cloak I had flung
into the boat, and found it; I made a bed of
it, and pulling off my jacket rolled it up into
a pillow. I felt for her again, and told her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
that the bleeding might lessen if she would
lie down. She answered, "I will lie down,
dearest."</p>

<p>I took her in my arms very tenderly and
carefully, and laid her upon the cloak with
the wounded shoulder uppermost, covered
her as far as the skirts of the cloak would
suffer, and chafed her hands. I was in so
great a confusion and agony of mind that had
I heard the dip of the oars astern and knew
Vanderdecken was after me in the other boat,
I should not have let go her hand. I could
not have stirred from my kneeling posture
beside her to help myself. But now that
we were out of the bay, as I might be sure
by the sound of the surf, I knew that our
keel would be in the grip of the westerly
current, and that whether I rowed or not
every hour must increase our distance from
the Death Ship, and improve our prospect of
escape.</p>

<p>I asked her if she was thirsty, understanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
how quickly wounded persons crave in
this direction. She answered "No;" but, as I
believed, out of the sweetness of her heart, to
save me anguish by any kind of confession of
suffering beyond what she had already owned
to. Believing her to be bleeding all the time,
I held her hand, in constant expectation of
feeling it frosted and turning heavy with
death. The sea, in its mighty life of a
thousand centuries, has upborne many dismal
and affrighting pictures to the chill eye of the
moon, to the fiery inspection of the sun, to
the blindness of the cloud-blackened sky; but
none worse than what our boat made; no
torments direr than what I suffered. I could
not see her face to observe whether she
smiled upon me or not; the love in her eyes
was hidden from me, and my heart could
take no comfort from imagination when, for
all I knew, the glazing of approaching dissolution
might have iced those liquid violet
impassioned depths into an unmeaning stare.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p>

<p>Add to her lying in the blackness, wounded
and bleeding; add to the anguish with which
I probed the ebon smother for the merest
glimpse of her, till my eyes burned like red-hot
balls of fire under my brows; add to this,
those elements of mystery, of horror, which
entered into and created that black, sightless
time; the desolate thunder of surf, defining
to the ear the leagues and leagues of savage
coast aswarm with roaring beasts, with hissing
reptiles, with creatures in human form
fiercer and of crueller instincts than either;
the magnitude of the ocean on whose breathing
breast our tiny bark lay rocking; the
wondrous darkness of the deep shadow of
the fog upon the natural gloom of the night;
the commingling of sullen and mysterious
tones in the sulky obscurity&mdash;notes that
seemed to come out of the seaward infinity,
that seemed to rise from each swinging respiring
fold under us, in voiceless sound that
made you think of a moody conscience in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
some labouring breast troubling the ear of
imagination with mutterings whose audibility
was that of the inarticulate speech of phantoms.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>




<h2>CHAPTER XII.<br />
I AM ALONE.</h2>


<p>It was about midnight, as I was able presently
to gather, when a sort of paleness
entered into the fog; and hard upon the
heels of this change, the air, that had been
weakly breathing, briskened somewhat, fetching
a deeper echo from the booming roll of
the surf on the starboard side; and the water
came to the boat in a shivering phosphoric
light of ripples that set her a-dabbling.</p>

<p>The light brightening&mdash;that is the fog
growing more luminous, without appearing
to thin&mdash;the boat's outline lay visible, together
with her furniture, such as the sail
and the oars. I tenderly laid Imogene's cold
hand down, and turning the sail over, found&mdash;as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
I had expected&mdash;the mast lying under
it; and partly peering and partly groping, I
made out an iron clamp fitted to the foremost
thwart or seat, with an hollow under it in the
bottom of the boat for receiving the heel of
the mast.</p>

<p>I lifted the spar and very easily stepped
it, discovering that the halliards for hoisting
the sail were ready rove through a small
block seized to the head of the mast. I
hauled upon this rope to clear the sail, and
perceived it to be shaped like a lug, fitted to
a yard, only the yard was arched, causing the
head of the sail to appear like a bow when
the arrow is drawn upon it. Before setting
the sail I went aft, and by dint of feeling and
staring discovered a rope grummet or hempen
hook fastened to the larboard horn, but close
in, so that it lay out of sight against the
boat's stern. 'Twas very clear that this was
meant to receive an oar for steering; but
whether or not it would serve my turn for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
that purpose; so without more ado I rove an
oar through the grummet, then hoisted the
sail, making the tack fast to the larboard horn
on the bow, and came aft with the sheet.</p>

<p>The boat instantly felt the pressure, and
the wind being abaft the beam, she slipped
along like a sledge, as you will suppose, when
I say that her bottom was shaped like the
side of a pea-shell, and that her whole frame
might have been imitated from one of those
black pods of sea-weed which are furnished
by nature with wire-like projections, and
which may be found in plenty upon our sea-coast.
The oar controlled her capitally.</p>

<p>The double motive I had for getting away
from this place&mdash;first, to run out of the fog
and so get light to enable me to minister to
Imogene, and next to remove myself so far
from the Death Ship as to render pursuit
hopeless even should the thickness in the bay
clear up and enable Vanderdecken to recover
his boat which I had cut adrift; this double<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
motive, I say, lifted my anxiety and eagerness
to the height of madness. My dearest lay
with her head towards me, and in the glistening
white obscurity I could discern her pale
face upon the pillow of my coat, but could not
tell whether her eyes were open or shut.
She did not moan; she lay as still as the
dead. I asked her if she was in pain. She
said "No," but in a voice so feeble that I had
to bend my ear to catch the syllable.</p>

<p>I could not think of her but as slowly
dying to the streaming away of her precious
blood. What to do I knew not; and in
addition to this dreadful state of despair was
the obligation upon me to watch the boat
and shrewdly and seriously attend to my
course by the warning surf-thunder floating
back against the wind from the echoing
strand. From time to time I would address
Imogene, always with a terror in me of
winning no reply, of touching her and
finding her dead. Once she answered that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
she believed the bleeding in her shoulder
had stopped; the icy-coldness was gone, and
there was a small smarting there as if she
had been burnt, but nothing that she could
not easily endure. But I knew by the tone
of her voice that she spoke only to give me
comfort; either that she was suffering above
the power of her love for me to conceal in
her faltering whispers or that her strength
was unequal to the labour of utterance.</p>

<p>Yet, as I have said, what could I do? I
was no chirurgeon; and I wonder that my
heart did not break to the bending of my
scorching eyes upon my love lying wounded
and bleeding at my feet.</p>

<p>An hour passed; the fog still compassed
us, but the white splendour of the moon was
upon it. Methought that I heard Imogene
whisper; I dropped on my knee, and she
asked for water. I let go the steering oar,
that jammed in the grummet and that could
not therefore go adrift, and with great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
trouble found the little cup that I had hidden
in one of the bags, and poured some water
out of the pitcher into it. She moaned in
pain when I put my arm under her head to
raise it; but she drank greedily, nevertheless,
and thanked me in a whisper when I tenderly
let sink her head on to the jacket.</p>

<p>I resumed my place at the oar, and through
the blackness drove the boat, the sail pulling
briskly, the water shining very brightly in
our wake, and, as my ear seemed to fancy,
the noise of the surf dwindling somewhat,
whence I conjectured we were hauling off the
coast and standing more directly seawards.
I do not know that I should have been without
hope for my beloved if it had not been
for the haunting and blasting thought that
nothing but misery could attend association
with Vanderdecken and his doomed ship. It
seemed to me now&mdash;though on board I had
been too eager to escape with her, too
wrapped up in my love for such consideration<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
to occupy my mind&mdash;that nothing less than
the death of one of us could expiate our
involuntary and unhappy connexion with the
banned and fated craft. Ships that spoke
her perished, often with all hands; misfortunes
pursued those who merely sighted her.
What sort of death could the Curse involve
for one who had lived for years or for weeks
in the monstrous fabric, who had conversed
familiarly with her abhorred occupants, who
had been admitted into close inspection of
her secret life, beheld the enactment by Vanderdecken
in his sleep of the impious and
horrible drama of his Christ-defying wrath,
eat of his bread, drank of his cup, yea, and
hearkened with sympathy to his talk of home,
to his yearning speech concerning those he
loved there?</p>

<p>The sense of the doom that was upon her
as upon me&mdash;upon her in her young and
beautiful life, upon me in my love for her,
upon both in the crushing separation of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
grave, whether 'twas for her to die or for me;
oh! I say, the sense of this thing weighed as
iron and as ice upon my heart, crushing out
all hope and leaving me as blind in my soul
as my eyes were in the fog to steer the boat
through the silence of that vaporous night,
hearing nothing but the rippling of the water,
and the blunted edge of the surf's wild beat,
and beholding nothing but the outline of my
dearest&mdash;of my dearest&mdash;stricken and dying
at my feet!</p>

<p>Suddenly the fog broke up. It was then
about two o'clock. The vapour floated into
league-long streaks, lunar-tinted here and
there into an ærial mockery of the rainbow,
and over the edge of one great steam-like
body the moon with an ice-like, diamond-splendour
of radiance looked down upon us
out of a pool of black sky. The lustre had
something of the sharpness of daylight, only
that the flooded pearl of it wore the complexion
of death, all things showing out wan;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
and in that illumination the delicate gold of
Imogene's hair melted into the extreme
pallor of the forehead on which it stirred to
the wind, and her lips were of the colour of
her cheeks, and her half-closed lids like wax.</p>

<p>I let go the oar to kneel and look at her.
She lay so still, with such unheeding eyes,
that I made sure she was dead, and my brain
reeled as though my heart had stopped.</p>

<p>I said hoarsely and hollowly, "Imogene."</p>

<p>The fringe of her eyelids trembled, and I
marked a faint smile on her lips.</p>

<p>"Dearest," cried I, "how is it with thee?"</p>

<p>She returned no answer.</p>

<p>I said "I shall be able to see the wound
now, and perhaps check the bleeding. I can
cut the dress clear of the shoulder and you
need not stir."</p>

<p>She exclaimed&mdash;but, my God, how feebly!&mdash;"Dearest,
let me lie as I am," speaking
with a sort of sigh between each word.
And then she added, "Kiss me."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p>

<p>I pressed my lips to hers; they were cold
as the mist that was passing away in wreaths
and clouds. I saw how it was and let her
have her way. It would have been cruel to
touch her with more than my lips. And
even though I should have cut away her
apparel to the wound and saw it, what could
I do? Suppose the bleeding internal&mdash;the
bullet lodged within, the lung touched, or
some artery severed?</p>

<p>A wild feeling seized me; I felt that I must
leap upon a seat and rave out madly or my
head would burst. The efforts to control
myself left me trembling and weeping. I
wiped from my brow the sweat that had leapt
in drops there out of my weakness, and put
my hand upon the oar afresh. The fog had
settled away to leeward; it looked like a
vast cliff of snow-covered ice, and the moonshine
worked in it in shifting veins of delicate
amber and dim steel-blue. Out of it, trending
a little to the south of west, rolled the loom of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
the dusky land; it died out in the showering
haze of the moonlight, whence ran the dark
sea-line to right astern of us&mdash;nothing in
sight but the land growing out of the fog.
Over the horizon the stars hung like dew-drops,
giving back the glory of the central
luminary and set twinkling by the wind.
They soared in sparkling dust, rich with large
jewels, till they died out in the cold silvering
of the sky round about the moon.</p>

<p>My hysteric fit sobered down and I fell to
sharply thinking. The nearest refuge was
Simon's Bay, and that would lie some three
or four hundred miles distant. How long
would it take me to sail the boat there?
Why, 'twas a thing idle to calculate. Give
me steady favourable winds and smooth seas
and I could answer; but here was a boat
that, like the ship she belonged to, was fit
only to be blown along. She could not beat,
she had no keel for holding to the water.
Hence progress, if any was to be made, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
so utterly a matter of chance that conjecture
fell dead to the first effort of thought. If I
was blown out to sea we might be picked up
by a ship; if we were blown ashore I might
contrive to find a smooth spot for landing; if
the wind came away from the east and south
it might, if it hung there, drive me round
Agulhas and perhaps to Simon's Bay. That's
how it stood&mdash;no better anyhow; but how
much worse you may reckon when you reflect
in what part of the ocean we were, when you
consider the season of the year, how few in
comparison with the mighty expanse of those
waters were the ships which sailed upon it,
how worthless the boat as a sea-going fabric,
how huge the billows which the gales raised,
how murderous the shore to which the
breakers, roaring on it, might forbid escape.</p>

<p>Twice my darling moaned for water. Each
time she thanked me with a smile, but the
mere task of swallowing seemed to rob her
lips of the power of pronouncing words. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
moon went down in the west towards the
black line of land, and when it hung a rusty-red
over the ebon shadow under which trickled
the blood-like flakes of its reflection, the
dawn broke. For above an hour I had not
been able to see Imogene, so faint had fallen
the light of the westering orb, and for longer
than that time had she neither moaned, nor
whispered, nor stirred.</p>

<p>I directed my burning eyes into the east
for the sun, and when the pink of him was
in the sky, ere yet his brow had levelled
the first flashing beam of day, I looked at
Imogene.</p>

<p>I looked, and yet looked; then knelt. She
was smiling, and by that I believed she lived;
but when I peered into the half-closed lids&mdash;oh,
great God! The sun flamed out of the
sea in a leap then, and I sprang to my feet
and cursed him with a scorching throat for
finding me alone!</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>

<p>The sequel to this extraordinary narrative
must be told by another pen.</p>

<p>On the morning of the second day of
October, one thousand seven hundred and
ninety-six, the full-rigged ship Mary and
James, bound from Tonquin to London,
dropped anchor in Table Bay. She had
scarcely swung to her cable when the gig
was lowered, and her master, Captain William
Thunder, a small, bow-legged man, with a
fiery nose and a brown wig, entered her and
was rowed ashore. He marched, or rather
rolled, into the town, which in those days
was formed of a mere handful of low-roofed,
strongly-built houses, and knocking at one
of them, situated not a musket shot distant
from the grounds of the building of the
Dutch East India Company, inquired for
Mr. Van Stadens. The coloured slave, or
servant, showed him into a parlour, and
presently Mr. Van Stadens, an extremely
corpulent Dutchman, entered.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>

<p>They talked awhile of business, for Van
Stadens was the South African agent for the
owner of the Mary and James, and then said
Captain Thunder:</p>

<p>"Mr. Van Stadens, I'm going to tell you
the most wonderful thing you ever heard in
all your life."</p>

<p>"By Gott, Toonder, and so shall you,"
replied Van Stadens.</p>

<p>"See here," said the captain, polishing his
forehead with so much energy that he unconsciously
shifted his wig, "we were about
ninety miles to the eastwards of Agulhas, the
weather clear, the wind about south, a quiet
breeze, the ship under all plain sail, and the
second officer in charge of the deck, when a
hand aloft sung out there was a vessel three
points on the lee bow. When we had her in
sight from the poop and caught her fair in
the glass, I was so much struck by the cut of
her canvas, which was a lug, narrow in the
head and secured to a yard more arched than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
either of my legs, that I bore down to see
what was to be made of her by a close
squint."</p>

<p>"So," said Van Stadens, crossing his legs
and putting his hands upon his waistcoat in a
posture of prayer.</p>

<p>"She proved to be a canoe or boat," continued
Captain Thunder, "rounded at bottom
like one of Crusoe's periaguas, with horns
sticking out at each square end of her. She
was, or I should say she had been, painted
red inside. The blades of her oars, shaped
like a Japanese fan, were also painted red.
Her sail looked to be an hundred years old&mdash;I
never saw the like of such canvas. The
most perfect description of its colour, patches,
texture would have sounded an abominable
lie to me if I hadn't viewed it myself."</p>

<p>"So," said Van Stadens, nodding upon his
four chins, which resembled layers of pale
gutta-percha, with the elastic properties of
that stuff.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p>

<p>"In fact," said Captain Thunder, "she
was of the exact fashion of the boats you see
in old Dutch paintings&mdash;ship's boats, I mean."</p>

<p>"How oldt?" asked Van Stadens.</p>

<p>"Two hundred years old," said Captain
Thunder.</p>

<p>"Goot. Is dot der fonder, Toonder?"</p>

<p>"Not by all the distance from here to the
top of Table Mountain, Mr. Van Stadens,"
answered the captain. "I said to the second
mate, 'That's no natural boat, Mr. Swillig.
If she belongs to the age in which she
appears to have been built she ought to have
been powder or ooze a hundred and fifty
years ago. Can you make out anybody in
her?' He said 'No,' and argued with me
that there was something unnatural about her,
and recommended that we should haul to the
wind again and appear as if we hadn't seen
her, but my curiosity was tickled and we
stood on. Well, Mr. Van Stadens, we passed
close and what we saw fetched a groan out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
every man that was looking and brought our
main-topsail to the mast in the wink of a
muskeety's eye, sir. A girl lay dead in the
bottom of the boat. She looked beautiful
in death, in life she must have been as lovely
as the prettiest of the angels of God. But
her dress! Why, Mr. Van Stadens, it
belonged to the time the boat was built in.
Ay, as I sit here to say it!"</p>

<p>The Dutchman shook his head.</p>

<p>"You shall see it for yourself, sir&mdash;you
shall see it for yourself!" cried Captain
Thunder, with excitement. "We all said
she had been floating about in that boat for
two hundred years, and was a dead saint
watched by the eye of God, and not to be
corrupted as you and me would be. There
were three Dagos in our crew, and when
they saw her they crossed themselves. But
that wasn't all&mdash;not nearly all. In the bows
lay the figure of a seaman&mdash;an English sailor,
dressed as my mate is. We thought he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
dead, too, till we lowered a boat, when on a
sudden he lifted his head out of his arms and
looked at us. There was a shine in his eye
that showed us his wits were gone. Such a
haggard face, Mr. Van Stadens!&mdash;unshaven
for weeks, and his hair all of a mat; yet you
saw he had been a handsome man and was
a young one too. Well, his being alive
settled any hesitation I might have felt had
they both been corpses. I sung out to my
second mate to bring him aboard and the
girl's body also, proposing decent burial; but
the sailor man wasn't to be coaxed out of the
boat; he grinned with rage to Mr. Swillig's
invitations, flung himself upon the girl's body,
howling like a dog when my men boarded
him, and caused such a scuffle and a melee
that both boats came very near to being
swampt. They bound him with the painter,
and brought him and the corpse on board
along with three bags of provisions-such
bags, Mr. Van Stadens, and such provisions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
sir! But ye shall see 'em&mdash;ye shall see 'em,
and a pitcher half full of water and a silver
cup&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"Eh?" grumbled Van Stadens.</p>

<p>"A silver cup."</p>

<p>"So," said the Dutchman. "Now ve com
to der fonders."</p>

<p>"Ay, sir, as you say. Look here!"</p>

<p>He pulled a ring out of his waistcoat
pocket and held it up. It was a diamond
ring of splendour and beauty. The gems
flashed gloriously and Van Stadens gaped at
their brilliance like a wolf yawning at the
moon.</p>

<p>"Vere got you dot, Toonder?</p>

<p>"Off the girl's finger. 'Tis but one, Mr.
Van Stadens."</p>

<p>"But fon, hey! By toonder, Toonder,
but dot ring is der fonderfullest part of your
story as yet."</p>

<p>He took it in his hand and his eyes danced
greedily to the sparkle of the beautiful bauble.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p>

<p>"Well," continued Captain Thunder, "we
put the man into a spare cabin, and gave the
job of watching him to the steward, a stout
hearty fellow. The girl was stone-dead, of
course. I ordered her dress, jacket and hat
to be removed, likewise the jewellery about
her&mdash;specially a noble rope of pearls&mdash;&mdash;"</p>

<p>"By toonder, no! You shoke, Toonder!"
cried Van Stadens.</p>

<p>"Ye shall see with your own eyes&mdash;ye
shall see with your own eyes!" exclaimed the
captain. "I gave these orders more with
the idea of the things proving of use to
identify her by than for their value. I never
saw such under-linen, sir. 'Twas exquisitely
fine and choice. Beyond description, Mr.
Van Stadens. There was a ball-wound in
her shoulder, with a caking of blood about it.
That the fellow below had done this thing I
could not suppose. There were no arms of
any kind&mdash;if you except a big clasp knife&mdash;on
him or in his boat. We buried the poor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
sweet, murdered thing in her fine linen,
giving her a sailor's hammock for a coffin
and a sailor's toss for a last farewell. As for
the boat, she looked unnatural and unlucky,
and I think my men would have mutinied
if I had ordered them to sling her over
the side. We unstepped the mast and sent
her adrift for the <span class="smcap">MAN</span> she belongs to to
pick up, if so be he stands in need of
her."</p>

<p>"Vot <span class="smcap">MAN</span>?" inquired Van Stadens.</p>

<p>"Vanderdecken," responded Captain Thunder,
in a low voice, and with as much awe in
his face as his fiery pimple of a nose would
suffer to appear.</p>

<p>"Vot!" shouted Van Stadens. "Der
Flying Deutchman!"</p>

<p>Captain Thunder nodded. The other
smiled, and then broke into a roar of
laughter.</p>

<p>"Hark, Mr. Van Stadens, wait till I've
done," exclaimed Thunder, with his face full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
of blood. "All that day the man remained
moody, with a lunatic's sullenness. He
refused to eat or drink. I was in and out a
dozen times but couldn't get him to speak.
Well, sir, at nine o'clock in the night the
steward came and told me he was asleep.
He was watched all night, but never stirred;
all next night, and the day after that, and the
night after that, sir, but he never stirred.
For sixty hours he slept, Mr. Van Stadens,
or may I not leave this room alive! and I
thought he meant dying in that fashion.
Then he awoke, sat up and talked rationally.
His mind had come back to him and he was
as sensible as you or me."</p>

<p>"Vell?"</p>

<p>"Well, he fed and rested a bit, and then
feeling stronger, he told me his story." And
here Captain Thunder repeated what is
already known to the reader.</p>

<p>Mr. Van Stadens listened with his fat face
full of incredulity.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>

<p>"'Tis fonderful, inteet," said he, "but it
isn't true."</p>

<p>"I believe every word of it," said Thunder.
"Blast the Flying Dutchman! who doubts
him?"</p>

<p>"Your sailor man is mad," said Van
Stadens.</p>

<p>"Oh, indeed," sneered Thunder. "Then
account to me for the boat I saw him in, for
his female companion lying dead of a gunshot
wound; for this," said he, holding up the
diamond ring, "and for other matters I'll
show you when we get aboard."</p>

<p>"Ve vill go on boort at oonst," cried Van
Stadens.</p>

<p>They repaired to the ship and found
Geoffrey Fenton in the cabin. He looked
haggard, weak, extremely sorrowful; but he
was as sane as ever he had been at any time
of his life. Thunder introduced Van Stadens,
and to this Dutchman Fenton repeated his
story, relating it so artlessly, with such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
minuteness of detail, above all unconsciously
using so many old-fashioned Dutch words,
which he had acquired from Vanderdecken,
that the wonder in Van Stadens' face grew
into a look of stupefaction. He muttered,
frequently, "Fonderful! fonderful! By toonder,
amazing!" But the measure of Captain
Thunder's triumph over the agent's incredulity
was not full till the articles belonging to
Fenton&mdash;for so they were regarded&mdash;were
produced. Van Stadens examined the pearls,
the rings which poor Imogene had worn, the
silver goblet, the antique dress, jacket and
sealskin cap, Vanderdecken's velvet cloak,
the pitcher, the articles of food which had
been preserved, these things, I say, Van
Stadens examined with mingled admiration
and consternation, such as a man might feel
to whom another exhibits a treasure he has
sold his soul to the Devil for.</p>

<p>"Do you believe now!" cried Captain
Thunder.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p>

<p>"It is fonderful! it is fonderful!" returned
the Dutchman. "Do you go home with
Toonder, Herr Fenton?"</p>

<p>"No," said Thunder, "I am sorry; I dare
not do it. The crew have got scent of the
experiences of our friend here and wouldn't
sail with him for tenfold the value of the
plate and silver in the Death Ship's hold."</p>

<p>"I do not blame them," said Fenton, with
a melancholy smile.</p>

<p>"What I have proposed to Mr. Fenton is
this, Mr. Van Stadens," said the captain:
"You are a man of honour and will see that
right is done to this poor gentleman."</p>

<p>"So," said Van Stadens.</p>

<p>"Let these articles be sold," continued
Thunder.</p>

<p>"All but the diamond ring," interrupted
Fenton.</p>

<p>"All but the diamond ring," said the
captain. "No one need know how they
were obtained; not a syllable of Mr. Fenton's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
story must be repeated; otherwise he'll get
no ship to carry him home."</p>

<p>Van Stadens turned to Fenton and said
in Dutch: "I will buy these goods from
you. Their value shall be assessed to our
common satisfaction. Meanwhile, a room
in my house&mdash;my house itself&mdash;is at your
service. Remain awhile to recruit your
strength, and I will secure you a passage to
Amsterdam in the Indiaman that is due here
about the end of this month."</p>

<p>They shook hands, and half-an-hour later
Fenton had taken leave of Captain Thunder
and his ship.</p>

<p>It is proper to say here that the hospitable
but shrewd Dutchman gave Fenton eight
hundred dollars for the Vanderdecken relics,
and when Fenton had sailed, sold them for
three thousand ducatoons, of eighty stivers
each, after clearing some thousands of dollars
by exhibiting them.</p>

<p>The subsequent safe arrival of Geoffrey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
Fenton in Europe may be gathered from his
narrative. Necessity forced him back to his
old vocation and he continued at sea, holding
various important commands down to the age
of sixty. Among his papers is a curious note
relating to the fate of the vessels which had
encountered the Death Ship during the time
to which his narrative refers. The Plymouth
snow, after speaking the Saracen, was never
again heard of; the Saracen was lost on one
of the islands of the Chagos Archipelago, but
her people were saved to a man by the boats.
The Centaur, three days after sighting the
Death Ship, was dismasted in a hurricane
and struggled into Simon's Bay in a sinking
condition. The fate of the French corsair is
not known, but it is satisfactory to know
that the James and Mary reached the Thames
in safety after an uneventful passage.</p>


<div class="center">THE END.</div>

<hr class="chap" />

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Each in a Single Volume, with Frontispiece, price 5s.
</p>


<p class="center">I.&mdash;SAM SLICK'S NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE.</p>

<p>"The first volume of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett's Standard Library of Cheap Editions
forms a very good beginning to what will doubtless be a very successful undertaking.
'Nature and Human Nature' is one of the best of Sam Slick's witty and humorous productions,
and well entitled to the large circulation which it cannot fail to obtain in its
present convenient and cheap shape. The volume combines with the great recommendations
of a clear, bold type and good paper, the lesser, but attractive merits of being well
illustrated and elegantly bound."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">II.&mdash;JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.</p>

<p>"The new and cheaper edition of this interesting work will doubtless meet with great
success. John Halifax, the hero of this most beautiful story, is no ordinary hero, and
this his history is no ordinary book. It is a full-length portrait of a true gentleman, one
of nature's own nobility. It is also the history of a home, and a thoroughly English one.
The work abounds in incident, and many of the scenes are full of graphic power and true
pathos. It is a book that few will read without becoming wiser and better."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>

<p>"This story is very interesting. The attachment between John Halifax and his wife is
beautifully painted, as are the pictures of their domestic life, and the growing up of their
children; and the conclusion of the book is beautiful and touching."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">III.&mdash;THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS.</p>

<p class="center">BY ELIOT WARBURTON.</p>

<p>"Independent of its value as an original narrative, and its useful and interesting
information, this work is remarkable for the colouring power and play of fancy with
which its descriptions are enlivened. Among its greatest and most lasting charms is its
reverent and serious spirit."&mdash;<i>Quarterly Review.</i></p>

<p>"Mr. Warburton has fulfilled the promise of his title-page. The 'Realities of Eastern
Travel' are described with a vividness which invests them with deep and abiding interest;
while the 'Romantic' adventures which the enterprising tourist met with in his
course are narrated with a spirit which shows how much he enjoyed these reliefs from
the ennui of every-day life."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>


<p class="center">IV.&mdash;NATHALIE.</p>

<p class="center">BY JULIA KAVANAGH.</p>

<p>"'Nathalie' is Miss Kavanagh's best imaginative effort. Its manner is gracious and
attractive. Its matter is good. A sentiment, a tenderness, are commanded by her which
are as individual as they are elegant. We should not soon come to an end were we to
specify all the delicate touches and attractive pictures which place 'Nathalie' high among
books of its class."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">V.&mdash;A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"These thoughts are good and humane. They are thoughts we would wish women to
think: they are much more to the purpose than the treatises upon the women and daughters
of England, which were fashionable some years ago, and these thoughts mark the
progress of opinion, and indicate a higher tone of character, and a juster estimate of
woman's position."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"This excellent book is characterised by good sense, good taste, and feeling, and is
written in an earnest, philanthropic, as well as practical spirit."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">VI.&mdash;ADAM GRAEME OF MOSSGRAY.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</p>

<p>"'Adam Graeme' is a story awakening genuine emotions of interest and delight by its
admirable pictures of Scottish life and scenery. The plot is cleverly complicated, and
there is great vitality in the dialogue, and remarkable brilliancy in the descriptive passages,
as who that has read 'Margaret Maitland' would not be prepared to expect?
But the story has a 'mightier magnet still,' in the healthy tone which pervades it, in its
feminine delicacy of thought and diction, and in the truly womanly tenderness of its
sentiments. The eloquent author sets before us the essential attributes of Christian
virtue, their deep and silent workings in the heart, and their beautiful manifestations in
the life, with a delicacy, a power, and a truth which can hardly be surpassed."&mdash;<i>Morning
Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">VII.&mdash;SAM SLICK'S WISE SAWS AND
MODERN INSTANCES.</p>

<p>"We have not the slightest intention to criticise this book. Its reputation is made, and
will stand as long as that of Scott's or Bulwer's novels. The remarkable originality of
its purpose, and the happy description it affords of American life and manners, still continue
the subject of universal admiration. To say thus much is to say enough, though we
must just mention that the new edition forms a part of the Publishers' Cheap Standard
Library, which has included some of the very best specimens of light literature that ever
have been written."&mdash;<i>Messenger.</i></p>


<p class="center">VIII.&mdash;CARDINAL WISEMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS
OF THE LAST FOUR POPES.</p>

<p>"A picturesque book on Rome and its ecclesiastical sovereigns, by an eloquent Roman
Catholic. Cardinal Wiseman has here treated a special subject with so much generality
and geniality that his recollections will excite no ill-feeling in those who are most conscientiously
opposed to every idea of human infallibility represented in Papal domination."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">IX.&mdash;A LIFE FOR A LIFE.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"We are always glad to welcome Mrs. Craik. She writes from her own convictions,
and she has the power not only to conceive clearly what it is that she wishes to
say, but to express it in language effective and vigorous. In 'A Life for a Life' she is
fortunate in a good subject, and she has produced a work of strong effect. The
reader, having read the book through for the story, will be apt (if he be of our persuasion)
to return and read again many pages and passages with greater pleasure
than on a first perusal. The whole book is replete with a graceful, tender delicacy;
and, in addition to its other merits, it is written in good careful English."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"'A Life for a Life' is a book of a high class. The characters are depicted with a
masterly hand; the events are dramatically set forth; the descriptions of scenery and
sketches of society are admirably penned; moreover, the work has an object&mdash;a clearly
defined moral&mdash;most poetically, most beautifully drawn, and through all there is that
strong, reflective mind visible which lays bare the human heart and human mind to the
very core."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">X.&mdash;THE OLD COURT SUBURB.</p>

<p class="center">BY LEIGH HUNT.</p>

<p>"A book which has afforded us no slight gratification."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"From the mixture of description, anecdote, biography, and criticism, this book is very
pleasant reading."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>

<p>"A more agreeable and entertaining book has not been published since Boswell produced
his reminiscences of Johnson."&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></p>


<p class="center">XI.&mdash;MARGARET AND HER BRIDESMAIDS.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE VALLEY OF A HUNDRED FIRES."</p>

<p>"We recommend all who are in search of a fascinating novel to read this work for
themselves. They will find it well worth their while. There are a freshness and originality
about it quite charming, and there is a certain nobleness in the treatment both of
sentiment and incident which is not often found."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">XII.&mdash;THE OLD JUDGE; OR, LIFE IN A COLONY.</p>

<p class="center">BY SAM SLICK.</p>

<p>"A peculiar interest attaches to sketches of colonial life, and readers could not have a
safer guide than the talented author of this work, who, by a residence of half a century,
has practically grasped the habits, manners, and social conditions of the colonists he describes.
All who wish to form a fair idea of the difficulties and pleasures of life in a new
country, unlike England in some respects, yet like it in many, should read this book."&mdash;<i>John Bull.</i></p>


<p class="center">XIII.&mdash;DARIEN; OR, THE MERCHANT PRINCE.</p>

<p class="center">BY ELIOT WARBURTON.</p>

<p>"This last production of the author of 'The Crescent and the Cross' has the same
elements of a very wide popularity. It will please its thousands."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>

<p>"Eliot Warburton's active and productive genius is amply exemplified in the present
book. We have seldom met with any work in which the realities of history and the
poetry of fiction were more happily interwoven."&mdash;<i>Illustrated News.</i></p>


<p class="center">XIV.&mdash;FAMILY ROMANCE; OR, DOMESTIC ANNALS
OF THE ARISTOCRACY.</p>

<p class="center">BY SIR BERNARD BURKE, ULSTER KING OF ARMS.</p>

<p>"It were impossible to praise too highly this most interesting book, whether we should
have regard to its excellent plan or its not less excellent execution. It ought to be found
on every drawing-room table. Here you have nearly fifty captivating romances with the
pith of all their interest preserved in undiminished poignancy, and any one may be read
in half an hour. It is not the least of their merits that the romances are founded on fact&mdash;or
what, at least, has been handed down for truth by long tradition&mdash;and the romance
of reality far exceeds the romance of fiction."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>


<p class="center">XV.&mdash;THE LAIRD OF NORLAW.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</p>

<p>"We have had frequent opportunities of commending Messrs. Hurst and Blackett's
Standard Library. For neatness, elegance, and distinctness the volumes in this series
surpass anything with which we are familiar. 'The Laird of Norlaw' will fully sustain
the author's high reputation. The reader is carried on from first to last with an energy
of sympathy that never flags."&mdash;<i>Sunday Times.</i></p>

<p>"'The Laird of Norlaw' is worthy of the author's reputation. It is one of the most
exquisite of modern novels."&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></p>


<p class="center">XVI.&mdash;THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN ITALY.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. G. GRETTON.</p>

<p>"Mrs. Gretton had opportunities which rarely fall to the lot of strangers of becoming
acquainted with the inner life and habits of a part of the Italian peninsula which is the
very centre of the national crisis. We can praise her performance as interesting, unexaggerated,
and full of opportune instruction."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>

<p>"Mrs. Gretton's book is timely, life-like, and for every reason to be recommended. It
is impossible to close the book without liking the writer as well as the subject. The work
is engaging, because real."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">XVII.&mdash;NOTHING NEW.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"'Nothing New' displays all those superior merits which have made 'John Halifax'
one of the most popular works of the day. There is a force and truthfulness about these
tales which mark them as the production of no ordinary mind, and we cordially recommend
them to the perusal of all lovers of fiction."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">XVIII.&mdash;LIFE OF JEANNE D'ALBRET, QUEEN OF
NAVARRE.</p>

<p class="center">BY MISS FREER.</p>

<p>"We have read this book with great pleasure, and have no hesitation in recommending
it to general perusal. It reflects the highest credit on the industry and ability of Miss
Freer. Nothing can be more interesting than her story of the life of Jeanne D'Albret,
and the narrative is as trustworthy as it is attractive."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">XIX.&mdash;THE VALLEY OF A HUNDRED FIRES.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "MARGARET AND HER BRIDESMAIDS."</p>

<p>"If asked to classify this work, we should give it a place between 'John Halifax' and
'The Caxtons.'"&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>

<p>"The Spirit in which the whole book is written is refined and good."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"This is in every sense a charming novel."&mdash;<i>Messenger.</i></p>


<p class="center">XX.&mdash;THE ROMANCE OF THE FORUM; OR, NARRATIVES,
SCENES, AND ANECDOTES FROM COURTS OF JUSTICE.</p>

<p class="center">BY PETER BURKE, SERJEANT AT LAW.</p>

<p>"This attractive book will he perused with much interest. It contains a great variety
of singular and highly romantic stories."&mdash;<i>John Bull.</i></p>

<p>"A work of singular interest, which can never fail to charm and absorb the reader's
attention. The present cheap and elegant edition includes the true story of the Colleen
Bawn."&mdash;<i>Illustrated News.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXI.&mdash;ADÈLE.</p>

<p class="center">BY JULIA KAVANAGH.</p>

<p>"'Adèle' is the best work we have read by Miss Kavanagh; it is a charming story,
full of delicate character-painting. The interest kindled in the first chapter burns brightly
to the close."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"'Adèle' will fully sustain the reputation of Miss Kavanagh, high as it already ranks."&mdash;<i>John
Bull.</i></p>

<p>"'Adèle' is a love-story of very considerable pathos and power. It is a very clever
novel."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXII.&mdash;STUDIES FROM LIFE.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"These 'Studies' are truthful and vivid pictures of life, often earnest, always full of right
fueling, and occasionally lightened by touches of quiet, genial humour. The volume is remarkable
for thought, sound sense, shrewd observation, and kind and sympathetic feeling
for all things good and beautiful."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>

<p>"These 'Studies from Life' are remarkable for graphic power and observation. The
book will not diminish the reputation of the accomplished author."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXIII.&mdash;GRANDMOTHER'S MONEY.</p>

<p class="center">BY F. W. ROBINSON.</p>

<p>"We commend 'Grandmother's Money' to readers in search of a good novel. The
characters are true to human nature, and the story is interesting."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXIV.&mdash;A BOOK ABOUT DOCTORS.</p>

<p class="center">BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON.</p>

<p>"A book to be read and re-read; fit for the study as well as the drawing-room table and
the circulating library."&mdash;<i>Lancet.</i></p>

<p>"This is a pleasant book for the fireside season, and for the seaside season. Mr. Jeaffreson
has, out of hundreds of volumes, collected thousands of good things, adding thereto
much that appears in print for the first time, and which, of course, gives increased value
to this very readable book."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXV.&mdash;NO CHURCH.</p>

<p class="center">BY F. W. ROBINSON.</p>

<p>"We advise all who have the opportunity to read this book. It is well worth the
study."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"A work of great originality, merit, and power."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXVI.&mdash;MISTRESS AND MAID.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"A good wholesome book, gracefully written, and as pleasant to read as it is instructive."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"A charming tale, charmingly told."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>

<p>"All lovers of a good novel will hail with delight another of Mrs. Craik's charming
stories."&mdash;<i>John Bull.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXVII.&mdash;LOST AND SAVED.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON.</p>

<p>"'Lost and Saved' will be read with eager interest by those who love a touching story.
It is a vigorous novel."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>

<p>"This story is animated, full of exciting situations and stirring incidents. The characters
are delineated with great power. Above and beyond these elements of a good novel,
there is that indefinable charm with which true genius invests all it touches."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXVIII.&mdash;LES MISERABLES.</p>

<p class="center">BY VICTOR HUGO.</p>

<p><i>Authorised Copyright English Translation.</i></p>

<p>"The merits of 'Les Miserables' do not merely consist in the conception of it as a
whole; it abounds with details of unequalled beauty. M. Victor Hugo has stamped upon
every page the hall-mark of genius."&mdash;<i>Quarterly Review.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXIX.&mdash;BARBARA'S HISTORY.</p>

<p class="center">BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.</p>

<p>"It is not often that we light upon a novel of so much merit and interest as
'Barbara's History.' It is a work conspicuous for taste and literary culture. It is a very
graceful and charming book, with a well-managed story, clearly-cut characters, and
sentiments expressed with an exquisite elocution. The dialogues especially sparkle with
repartee. It is a book which the world will like. This is high praise of a work of art
and so we intend it."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXX.&mdash;LIFE OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</p>

<p>"A good book on a most interesting theme."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>

<p>"A truly interesting and most affecting memoir. 'Irving's Life' ought to have a niche
in every gallery of religious biography. There are few lives that will be fuller of instruction,
interest, and consolation."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXI.&mdash;ST. OLAVE'S.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JANITA'S CROSS."</p>

<p>"This novel is the work of one who possesses a great talent for writing, as well as
experience and knowledge of the world. The whole book is worth reading."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"'St Olave's' belongs to a lofty order of fiction. It is a good novel, but it is something
more. It is written with unflagging ability, and it is as even as it is clever. The author
has determined to do nothing short of the best, and has succeeded."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXII.&mdash;SAM SLICK'S TRAITS OF AMERICAN HUMOUR.</p>

<p>"Dip where you will into this lottery of fun, you are sure to draw out a prize. These
'Traits' exhibit most successfully the broad national features of American humour."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXIII.&mdash;CHRISTIAN'S MISTAKE.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"A more charming story has rarely been written. It is a choice gift to be able thus to
render human nature so truly, to penetrate its depths with such a searching sagacity, and
to illuminate them with a radiance so eminently the writer's own."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXIV.&mdash;ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLEN.</p>

<p class="center">BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.</p>

<p>"No account of this story would give any idea of the profound interest that pervades
the work from the first page to the last."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"A novel of uncommon merit. Sir Walter Scott said he would advise no man to try
to read 'Clarissa Harlowe' out loud in company if he wished to keep his character for
manly superiority to tears. We fancy a good many hardened old novel-readers will feel
a rising in the throat as they follow the fortunes of Alec and Annie."&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXV.&mdash;AGNES.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</p>

<p>"'Agnes' is a novel superior to any of Mrs. Oliphant's former works."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"Mrs. Oliphant is one of the most admirable of our novelists. In her works there
are always to be found high principle, good taste, sense, and refinement. 'Agnes' is
a story whose pathetic beauty will appeal irresistibly to all readers."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXVI.&mdash;A NOBLE LIFE.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"Few men and no women will read 'A Noble Life' without feeling themselves the
better for the effort."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>

<p>"A beautifully written and touching tale. It is a noble book."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>

<p>"'A Noble Life' is remarkable for the high types of character it presents, and the
skill with which they are made to work out a story of powerful and pathetic interest."&mdash;<i>Daily
News.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXVII.&mdash;NEW AMERICA.</p>

<p class="center">BY W. HEPWORTH DIXON.</p>

<p>"A very interesting book. Mr. Dixon has written thoughtfully and well."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>

<p>"We recommend everyone who feels any interest in human nature to read Mr.
Dixon's very interesting book."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXVIII.&mdash;ROBERT FALCONER.</p>

<p class="center">BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.</p>

<p>"'Robert Falconer' is a work brimful of life and humour and of the deepest human
interest. It is a book to be returned to again and again for the deep and searching
knowledge it evinces of human thoughts and feelings."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">XXXIX.&mdash;THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"'The Woman's Kingdom' sustains the author's reputation as a writer of the purest
and noblest kind of domestic stories."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"'The Woman's Kingdom' is remarkable for its romantic interest. The characters are
masterpieces. Edna is worthy of the hand that drew John Halifax."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">XL.&mdash;ANNALS OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE.</p>

<p class="center">BY GEORGE WEBBE DASENT, D.C.L.</p>

<p>"A racy, well-written, and original novel. The interest never flags. The whole work
sparkles with wit and humour."&mdash;<i>Quarterly Review.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLI.&mdash;DAVID ELGINBROD.</p>

<p class="center">BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.</p>

<p>"A novel which is the work of a man of genius. It will attract the highest class of
readers."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLII.&mdash;A BRAVE LADY.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"We earnestly recommend this novel. It is a special and worthy specimen of the
author's remarkable powers. The reader's attention never for a moment flags."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>

<p>"'A Brave Lady' thoroughly rivets the unmingled sympathy of the reader, and her
history deserves to stand foremost among the author's works."&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLIII.&mdash;HANNAH.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"A very pleasant, healthy story, well and artistically told. The book is sure of a wide
circle of readers. The character of Hannah is one of rare beauty."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>

<p>"A powerful novel of social and domestic life. One of the most successful efforts of a
successful novelist."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLIV.&mdash;SAM SLICK'S AMERICANS AT HOME.</p>

<p>"This is one of the most amusing books that we ever read."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>

<p>"'The Americans at Home' will not be less popular than any of Judge Halliburton's
previous works."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLV.&mdash;THE UNKIND WORD.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"These stories are gems of narrative. Indeed, some of them, in their touching grace
and simplicity, seem to us to possess a charm even beyond the authoress's most popular
novels. Of none of them can this be said more emphatically than of that which opens the
series 'The Unkind Word.' It is wonderful to see the imaginative power displayed in
the few delicate touches by which this successful love-story is sketched out."&mdash;<i>The Echo.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLVI.&mdash;A ROSE IN JUNE.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</p>

<p>"'A Rose in June' is as pretty as its title. The story is one of the best and most
touching which we owe to the industry and talent of Mrs. Oliphant, and may hold its own
with even 'The Chronicles of Carlingford.'"&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLVII.&mdash;MY LITTLE LADY.</p>

<p class="center">BY E. FRANCES POYNTER.</p>

<p>"This story presents a number of vivid and very charming pictures. Indeed, the whole
book is charming. It is interesting in both character and story, and thoroughly good of
its kind."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLVIII.&mdash;PH&OElig;BE, JUNIOR.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</p>

<p>"This last 'Chronicle of Carlingford' not merely takes rank fairly beside the first
which introduced us to 'Salem Chapel,' but surpasses all the intermediate records.
Ph&oelig;be, Junior, herself is admirably drawn."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>


<p class="center">XLIX.&mdash;LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.</p>

<p class="center">BY PROFESSOR CHARLES DUKE YONGE.</p>

<p>"A work of remarkable merit and interest, which will, we doubt not, become the most
popular English history of Marie Antoinette."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>


<p class="center">L.&mdash;SIR GIBBIE.</p>

<p class="center">BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.</p>

<p>"'Sir Gibbie' is a book of genius."&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p>

<p>"This book has power, pathos, and humour."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">LI.&mdash;YOUNG MRS. JARDINE.</p>

<p class="center">BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."</p>

<p>"'Young Mrs. Jardine' is a pretty story, written in pure English."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>

<p>"There is much good feeling in this book. It is pleasant and wholesome."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">LII.&mdash;LORD BRACKENBURY.</p>

<p class="center">BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.</p>

<p>"A very readable story. The author has well conceived the purpose of high-class
novel-writing, and succeeded in no small measure in attaining it. There is plenty of
variety, cheerful dialogue, and general 'verve' in the book."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">LIII.&mdash;IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS.</p>

<p class="center">BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</p>

<p>"In 'It was a Lover and his Lass,' we admire Mrs. Oliphant exceedingly. It would be
worth reading a second time, were it only for the sake of one ancient Scottish spinster,
who is nearly the counterpart of the admirable Mrs. Margaret Maitland."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">LIV.&mdash;THE REAL LORD BYRON&mdash;THE STORY OF
THE POET'S LIFE.</p>

<p class="center">BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON.</p>

<p>"Mr. Jeaffreson comes forward with a narrative which must take a very important
place in Byronic literature; and it may reasonably be anticipated that this book will be
regarded with deep interest by all who are concerned in the works and the fame of this
great English poet."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>


<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">WORKS BY THE AUTHOR OF<br />
'SAM SLICK, THE CLOCKMAKER.'<br />
<i>Each in One Volume, Frontispiece, and Uniformly Bound, Price 5s.</i>
</p>


<p class="center">NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE.</p>

<p>"We enjoy our old friend's company with unabated relish. This work is a rattling
miscellany of sharp sayings, stories, and hard hits. It is full of fun and fancy."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"Since Sam's first work he has written nothing so fresh, racy, and genuinely humorous as
this. Every line of it tells in some way or other&mdash;instructively, satirically, jocosely, or
wittily. Admiration of Sam's mature talents, and laughter at his droll yarns, constantly
alternate as with unhalting avidity we peruse the work. The Clockmaker proves himself
the fastest time-killer a-going."&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></p>


<p class="center">WISE SAWS AND MODERN INSTANCES.</p>

<p>"This delightful book will be the most popular, as beyond doubt it is the best, of all the
author's admirable works."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>

<p>"The book before us will be read and laughed over. Its quaint and racy dialect will
please some readers&mdash;its abundance of yarns will amuse others. There is something to
suit readers of every humour."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"The humour of Sam Slick is inexhaustible. He is ever and everywhere a welcome
visitor; smiles greet his approach, and wit and wisdom hang upon his tongue. We promise
our readers a great treat from the perusal of these 'Wise Saws,' which contain a
world of practical wisdom, and a treasury of the richest fun."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">THE OLD JUDGE; OR, LIFE IN A COLONY.</p>

<p>"By common consent this work is regarded as one of the raciest, truest to life, most
humorous, and most interesting works which have proceeded from the prolific pen of its
author. We all know what shrewdness of observation, what power of graphic description,
what natural resources of drollery, and what a happy method of hitting off the
broader characteristics of the life he reviews, belong to Judge Haliburton. We have all
those qualities here; but they are balanced by a serious literary purpose, and are employed
in the communication of information respecting certain phases of colonial experience
which impart to the work an element of sober utility."&mdash;<i>Sunday Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">TRAITS OF AMERICAN HUMOUR.</p>

<p>"No man has done more than the facetious Judge Haliburton, through the mouth of the
inimitable 'Sam,' to make the old parent country recognise and appreciate her queer
transatlantic progeny. His present collection of comic stories and laughable traits is a
budget of fun, full of rich specimens of American humour."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>

<p>"Yankeeism, portrayed in its raciest aspect, constitutes the contents of these superlatively
entertaining sketches. The work embraces the most varied topics&mdash;political parties,
religious eccentricities, the flights of literature, and the absurdities of pretenders to learning,
all come in for their share of satire; while we have specimens of genuine American
exaggerations and graphic pictures of social and domestic life as it is. The work will
have a wide circulation."&mdash;<i>John Bull.</i></p>


<p class="center">THE AMERICANS AT HOME.</p>

<p>"In this highly entertaining work we are treated to another cargo of capital stories
from the inexhaustible store of our Yankee friend. In the volume before us he dishes up,
with his accustomed humour and terseness of style, a vast number of tales, none more
entertaining than another, and all of them graphically illustrative of the ways and manners
of brother Jonathan. The anomalies of American law, the extraordinary adventures
incident to life in the backwoods, and, above all, the peculiarities of American society, are
variously, powerfully, and, for the most part, amusingly exemplified."&mdash;<i>John Bull.</i></p>

<p>"In the picturesque delineation of character, and the felicitous portraiture of national
features, no writer equals Judge Haliburton, and the subjects embraced in the present
delightful book call forth, in new and vigorous exercise, his peculiar powers. 'The
Americans at Home' will not be less popular than any of his previous works."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">WORKS BY THE AUTHOR OF<br />
JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.<br />
<i>Each in One Volume, Frontispiece, and Uniformly Bound, price 5s.</i>
</p>

<p class="center">JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN.</p>

<p>"This is a very good and a very interesting work. It is designed to trace the career
from boyhood to age of a perfect man&mdash;a Christian gentleman, and it abounds in incident
both well and highly wrought. Throughout it is conceived in a high spirit, and written
with great ability. This cheap and handsome new edition is worthy to pass freely from
hand to hand as a gift-book in many households."&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>

<p>"The story is very interesting. The attachment between John Halifax and his wife is
beautifully painted, as are the pictures of their domestic life, and the growing up of their
children, and the conclusion of the book is beautiful and touching."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"The new and cheaper edition of this interesting work will doubtless meet with great
success. John Halifax, the hero of this most beautiful story, is no ordinary hero, and this
his history is no ordinary book. It is a full-length portrait of a true gentleman, one of
nature's own nobility. It is also the history of a home, and a thoroughly English one.
The work abounds in incident, and is full of graphic power and true pathos. It is a book
that few will read without becoming wiser and better."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>


<p class="center">A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN.</p>

<p>"A book of sound counsel. It is one of the most sensible works of its kind, well written,
true-hearted, and altogether practical. Whoever wishes to give advice to a young lady
may thank the author for means of doing so."&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>

<p>"These thoughts are worthy of the earnest and enlightened mind, the all-embracing
charity, and the well-earned reputation of the author of 'John Halifax.'"&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>

<p>"This excellent book is characterised by good sense, good taste, and feeling, and is
written in an earnest, philanthropic, as well as practical spirit."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">A LIFE FOR A LIFE.</p>

<p>"We are always glad to welcome this author. She writes from her own convictions,
and she has the power not only to conceive clearly what it is that she wishes to say, but
to express it in language effective and vigorous. In 'A Life for a Life' she is fortunate
in a good subject, and she has produced a work of strong effect. The reader, having read
the book through for the story, will be apt (if he be of our persuasion) to return and read
again many pages and passages with greater pleasure than on a first perusal. The whole
book is replete with a graceful, tender delicacy; and, in addition to its other merits, it is
written in good careful English."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<p class="center">NOTHING NEW.</p>

<p>"'Nothing New' displays all those superior merits which have made 'John Halifax'
one of the most popular works of the day."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>

<p>"The reader will find these narratives calculated to remind him of that truth and
energy of human portraiture, that spell over human affections and emotions, which have
stamped this author as one of the first novelists of our day."&mdash;<i>John Bull.</i></p>


<p class="center">THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM.</p>

<p>"'The Woman's Kingdom' sustains the author's reputation as a writer of the purest
and noblest kind of domestic stories. The novelist's lesson is given with admirable force
and sweetness."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"'The Woman's Kingdom' is remarkable for its romantic interest. The characters
are masterpieces. Edna is worthy of the hand that drew John Halifax."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">STUDIES FROM LIFE.</p>

<p>"These studies are truthful and vivid pictures of life, often earnest, always full of right
feeling, and occasionally lightened by touches of quiet genial humour. The volume is remarkable
for thought, sound sense, shrewd observation, and kind and sympathetic feeling
for all things good and beautiful."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">CHRISTIAN'S MISTAKE.</p>

<p>"A more charming story, to our taste, has rarely been written. Within the compass
of a single volume the writer has hit off a circle of varied characters, all true to nature&mdash;some
true to the highest nature&mdash;and she has entangled them in a story which keeps us
in suspense till the knot is happily and gracefully resolved; while, at the same time, a
pathetic interest is sustained by an art of which it would be difficult to analyse the secret.
It is a choice gift to be able thus to render human nature so truly, to penetrate its depths
with such a searching sagacity, and to illuminate them with a radiance so eminently the
writer's own. Even if tried by the standard of the Archbishop of York, we should expect
that even he would pronounce 'Christian's Mistake' a novel without a fault."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>

<p>"This is a story good to have from the circulating library, but better to have from one's
bookseller, for it deserves a place in that little collection of clever and wholesome stories
which forms one of the comforts of a well-appointed home."&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>


<p class="center">MISTRESS AND MAID.</p>

<p>"A good, wholesome book, as pleasant to read as it is instructive."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"This book is written with the same true-hearted earnestness as 'John Halifax.' The
spirit of the whole work is excellent."&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>

<p>"A charming tale charmingly told."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>


<p class="center">A NOBLE LIFE.</p>

<p>"This is one of those pleasant tales in which the author of 'John Halifax' speaks out
of a generous heart the purest truths of life.'&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>

<p>"Few men, and no women, will read 'A Noble Life' without finding themselves the
better."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>

<p>"A story of powerful and pathetic interest."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>


<p class="center">A BRAVE LADY.</p>

<p>"A very good novel, showing a tender sympathy with human nature, and permeated
by a pure and noble spirit."&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>

<p>"A most charming story."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>

<p>"We earnestly recommend this novel. It is a special and worthy specimen of the
author's remarkable powers. The reader's attention never for a moment flags."&mdash;<i>Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">HANNAH.</p>

<p>"A powerful novel of social and domestic life. One of the most successful efforts of a
successful novelist."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>

<p>"A very pleasant, healthy story, well and artistically told. The book is sure of a wide
circle of readers. The character of Hannah is one of rare beauty."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>


<p class="center">THE UNKIND WORD.</p>

<p>"The author of 'John Halifax' has written many fascinating stories, but we can call to
mind nothing from her pen that has a more enduring charm than the graceful sketches in
this work. Such a character as Jessie stands out from a crowd of heroines as the type of
all that is truly noble, pure, and womanly."&mdash;<i>United Service Magazine.</i></p>


<p class="center">YOUNG MRS. JARDINE.</p>

<p>"'Young Mrs. Jardine' is a pretty story, written in pure English."&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></p>

<p>"There is much good feeling in this book. It is pleasant and wholesome."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"A book that all should read. Whilst it is quite the equal of any of its predecessors
in elevation of thought and style, it is perhaps their superior in interest of plot and
dramatic intensity. The characters are admirably delineated, and the dialogue is natural
and clear."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">WORKS BY<br />
MRS. OLIPHANT.<br />
<i>Each in One Volume, Frontispiece, and Uniformly Bound, Price 5s.</i>
</p>


<p class="center">ADAM GRAEME OF MOSSGRAY.</p>

<p>"'Adam Graeme' is a story awakening genuine emotions of interest and delight by its
admirable pictures of Scottish life and scenery. The plot is cleverly complicated, and
there is great vitality in the dialogue, and remarkable brilliancy in the descriptive passages,
as who that has read 'Margaret Mailand' would not be prepared to expect?
But the story has a 'mightier magnet still,' in the healthy tone which pervades it, in its
feminine delicacy of thought and diction, and in the truly womanly tenderness of its
sentiments. The eloquent author sets before us the essential attributes of Christian
virtue, their deep and silent workings in the heart, and their beautiful manifestations in
the life, with a delicacy, a power, and a truth which can hardly be surpassed."&mdash;<i>Morning
Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">THE LAIRD OF NORLAW.</p>

<p>"We have had frequent opportunities of commending Messrs. Hurst and Blackett's
Standard Library. For neatness, elegance, and distinctness the volumes in this series
surpass anything with which we are familiar. 'The Laird of Norlaw' will fully sustain
the author's high reputation. The reader is carried on from first to last with an energy
of sympathy that never flags."&mdash;<i>Sunday Times.</i></p>

<p>"'The Laird of Norlaw' is worthy of the author's reputation. It is one of the most
exquisite of modern novels."&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></p>


<p class="center">IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS.</p>

<p>"In 'It was a Lover and his Lass,' we admire Mrs. Oliphant exceedingly. Her story is
a very pretty one. It would be worth reading a second time, were it only for the sake of
one ancient Scottish spinster, who is nearly the counterpart of the admirable Mrs. Margaret
Maitland."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">AGNES.</p>

<p>"'Agnes' is a novel superior to any of Mrs. Oliphant's former works."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"Mrs. Oliphant is one of the most admirable of our novelists. In her works there are
always to be found high principle, good taste, sense, and refinement. 'Agnes' is a story
whose pathetic beauty will appeal irresistibly to all readers."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">A ROSE IN JUNE.</p>

<p>"'A Rose in June' is as pretty as its title. The story is one of the best and most
touching which we owe to the industry and talent of Mrs. Oliphant, and may hold its own
with even 'The Chronicles of Carlingford.'"&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>


<p class="center">PH&OElig;BE, JUNIOR.</p>

<p>"This last 'Chronicle of Carlingford' not merely takes rank fairly beside the first
which introduced us to 'Salem Chapel,' but surpasses all the intermediate records.
Ph&oelig;be, Junior, herself is admirably drawn."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>


<p class="center">LIFE OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING.</p>

<p>"A good book on a most interesting theme."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>

<p>"A truly interesting and most affecting memoir. 'Irving's Life' ought to have a niche
in every gallery of religious biography. There are few lives that will be fuller of instruction,
interest, and consolation."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>


<p class="center">LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">WORKS BY<br />
GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.<br />
<i>Each in One Volume, Frontispiece, and Uniformly Bound, Price 5s.</i>
</p>


<p class="center">ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLEN.</p>

<p>"No account of this story would give any idea of the profound interest that pervades
the work from the first page to the last."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"A novel of uncommon merit. Sir Walter Scott said he would advise no man to try
to read 'Clarissa Harlowe' out loud in company if he wished to keep his character for
manly superiority to tears. We fancy a good many hardened old novel-readers will feel
a rising in the throat as they follow the fortunes of Alec and Annie."&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p>

<p>"The whole story is one of surpassing excellence and beauty."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>

<p>"This book is full of good thought and good writing. Dr. Mac Donald looks in his stories
more to the souls of men and women than to their social outside. He reads life and
Nature like a true poet."&mdash;<i>Examiner.</i></p>


<p class="center">ROBERT FALCONER.</p>

<p>"'Robert Falconer' is a work brimful of life and humour and of the deepest human
interest. It is a work to be returned to again and again for the deep and searching
knowledge it evinces of human thoughts and feelings."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"This story abounds in exquisite specimens of the word-painting in which Dr. Mac Donald
excels, charming transcripts of Nature, full of light, air, and colour."&mdash;<i>Saturday
Review.</i></p>

<p>"This noble story displays to the best advantage all the powers of Dr. Mac Donald's
genius."&mdash;<i>Illustrated London News.</i></p>

<p>"'Robert Falconer' is the noblest work of fiction that Dr. Mac Donald has yet produced."&mdash;<i>British
Quarterly Review.</i></p>

<p>"The dialogues in 'Robert Falconer' are so finely blended with humour and pathos as
to make them in themselves an intellectual treat to which the reader returns again and
again."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>


<p class="center">DAVID ELGINBROD.</p>

<p>"A novel which is the work of a man of genius. It will attract the highest class of
readers."&mdash;<i>Times.</i></p>

<p>"There are many beautiful passages and descriptions in this book. The characters are
extremely well drawn."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"A clever novel. The incidents are exciting, and the interest is maintained to the
close. It may be doubted if Sir Walter Scott himself ever painted a Scotch fireside with
more truth than Dr. Mac Donald."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>

<p>"David Elginbrod is the finest character we have met in fiction for many a day. The
descriptions of natural scenery are vivid, truthful, and artistic; the general reflections are
those of a refined, thoughtful, and poetical philosopher, and the whole moral atmosphere
of the book is lofty, pure, and invigorating."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>


<p class="center">SIR GIBBIE.</p>

<p>"'Sir Gibbie' is a book of genius."&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p>

<p>"This book has power, pathos, and humour. There is not a character which is not
life-like. There are many powerful scenes, and the portraits will stay long in our
memory."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"'Sir Gibbie' is unquestionably a book of genius. It abounds in humour, pathos,
insight into character, and happy touches of description."&mdash;<i>Graphic.</i></p>

<p>"'Sir Gibbie' contains some of the most charming writing the author has yet produced."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>

<p>"'Sir Gibbie' is one of the most touching and beautiful stories that has been written
for many years. It is not a novel to be idly read and laid aside; it is a grand work, to be
kept near at hand, and studied and thought over."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<p class="center">LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">EDNA LYALL'S NOVELS<br />
EACH IN ONE VOLUME CROWN 8vo, 6s.
</p>


<p class="center">DONOVAN:</p>

<p class="center">A MODERN ENGLISHMAN.</p>

<p>"This is a very admirable work. The reader is from the first carried away by the
gallant unconventionality of its author. 'Donovan' is a very excellent novel; but it is
something more and better. It should do as much good as the best sermon ever written
or delivered extempore. The story is told with a grand simplicity, an unconscious poetry
of eloquence which stirs the very depths of the heart. One of the main excellencies of
this novel is the delicacy of touch with which the author shows her most delightful characters
to be after all human beings, and not angels before their time."&mdash;<i>Standard.</i></p>


<p class="center">WE TWO.</p>

<p>"A work of deep thought and much power. Serious as it is, it is now and then brightened
by rays of genuine humour. Altogether this story is more and better than a novel."&mdash;<i>Morning
Post.</i></p>

<p>"There is artistic realism both in the conception and the delineation of the personages;
the action and interest are unflaggingly sustained from first to last, and the book is pervaded
by an atmosphere of elevated, earnest thought."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>


<p class="center">IN THE GOLDEN DAYS.</p>

<p>"Miss Lyall has given us a vigorous study of such life and character as are really worth
reading about. The central figure of her story is Algernon Sydney; and this figure she
invests with a singular dignity and power. He always appears with effect, but no liberties
are taken with the facts of his life. The plot is adapted with great felicity to them.
His part in it, absolutely consistent as it is with historical truth, gives it reality as well as
dignity. Some of the scenes are remarkably vivid. The escape is an admirable narrative,
which almost makes one hold one's breath as one reads."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>


<p class="center">KNIGHT-ERRANT.</p>

<p>"'Knight-Errant' is marked by the author's best qualities as a writer of fiction, and
displays on every page the grace and quiet power of her former works."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"The plot, and, indeed, the whole story, is gracefully fresh and very charming; there
is a wide humanity in the book that cannot fail to accomplish its author's purpose."&mdash;<i>Literary
World.</i></p>

<p>"This novel is distinctly helpful and inspiring from its high tone, its intense human
feeling, and its elevated morality. It forms an additional proof, if such were needed,
that Miss Lyall has a mandate to write."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>


<p class="center">WON BY WAITING.</p>

<p>"The Dean's daughters are perfectly real characters&mdash;the learned Cornelia especially;&mdash;the
little impulsive French heroine, who endures their cold hospitality and at last wins
their affection, is thoroughly charming; while throughout the book there runs a golden
thread of pure brotherly and sisterly love, which pleasantly reminds us that the making
and marring of marriage is not, after all, the sum total of real life."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>


<p class="center">LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED.</p>


<hr class="chap" />

<h2>
HURST &amp; BLACKETT'S<br />
LIST OF NEW WORKS.<br />
</h2>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;">
<img src="images/emblem.jpg" width="300" height="297" alt="" />
</div>

<div class="center">
LONDON:<br />
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, W.<br />
</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">
<span class="smcap">13, Great Marlborough Street, London.</span><br />
</p>

<p class="center">MESSRS. HURST AND BLACKETT'S</p>

<p class="center">LIST OF NEW WORKS.</p>


<blockquote>

<p>BANDOBAST AND KHABAR; <span class="smcap">Reminiscences of
India</span>. By <span class="smcap">Colonel Cuthbert Larking</span>. With twelve Illustrations,
from original Drawings by the Author. 1 vol. small 4to. 10s. 6d.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The author's accounts of tiger hunts will be entertaining both to those who
have met and those who desire to meet the king of the Indian fauna in his own
dominions."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>

<p>"Colonel Larking is to be the more congratulated on having written a readable
work of travel in an already well-known country."&mdash;<i>Society Herald.</i></p>

<p>"The book may be recommended to the attention of people either proceeding
to our great Eastern possessions, or having friends out there."&mdash;<i>Queen.</i></p>

<p>"Any person contemplating a short trip to India will find in this book some
useful hints with regard to outfit, &amp;c."&mdash;<i>Field.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>REMINISCENCES OF ETON (KEATE'S TIME).
By the <span class="smcap">Rev. C. Allix Wilkinson</span>, M.A., Author of "Reminiscences
of the Court and Times of King Ernest of Hanover."
With Portrait of Dr. Keate. 1 vol. crown 8vo. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mr. Wilkinson's book is thoroughly fresh and entertaining; it is crammed
full of good stories, and will be a joy to all Etonians."&mdash;<i>Graphic.</i></p>

<p>"The author puts before us a book full of anecdotes on all sorts of subjects
arising out of his main text."&mdash;<i>Queen.</i></p>

<p>"Mr. Wilkinson has written an exceedingly good book on Eton. It is the work
of a thoroughly enthusiastic Etonian."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>

<p>"The author gives a lively and amusing account of scholastic doings during his
nine years' sojourn."&mdash;<i>Whitehall Review.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>LADY HAMILTON AND LORD NELSON. An
Historical Biography based on Letters and other Documents in
the possession of <span class="smcap">Alfred Morrison</span>, Esq., of Fonthill, Wiltshire.
By <span class="smcap">John Cordy Jeaffreson</span>, Author of "The Real Lord Byron,"
&amp;c. 2 vols. crown 8vo. 21s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mr. Jeaffreson may be thanked for the new and favourable light which he has
been able to throw upon the public and private conduct both of Lady Hamilton
and of Nelson."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>

<p>"It only remains for us to compliment Mr. Jeaffreson upon the reliable, painstaking,
thorough way in which he has dealt with the story of Lady Hamilton,
without offending the moral sense of his readers."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>

<p>"Mr. Jeaffreson has brought to bear his great mastership of detail and skill in
marshalling facts, and at least a genuine tribute of admiration may be offered to
the author for the discreet and scholarly manner in which he has treated a matter
bristling with dangers to an inexperienced or careless writer."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>

<p>"It would be difficult indeed not to be grateful to Mr. Jeaffreson for the two attractive
volumes which he has devoted to Lady Hamilton."&mdash;<i>Whitehall Review.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>FOUR MONTHS' CRUISE IN A SAILING
YACHT. By <span class="smcap">Lady Ernestine Edgcumbe</span> and <span class="smcap">Lady Mary
Wood</span>. With Illustrations. 1 vol. crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The whole journey is recounted in such a way as to make the narrative
agreeable reading, and to intending travellers in the same track it contains many
useful hints and suggestions."&mdash;<i>Queen.</i></p>

<p>"As a whole, the book may be commended as a pleasant and thoroughly English
account of a pastime peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon race."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>SHIKAR SKETCHES: <span class="smcap">With Notes on Indian
Field Sports</span>. By <span class="smcap">J. Moray Brown</span>, late 79th Cameron Highlanders.
With Eight Illustrations, by <span class="smcap">J. C. Dollman</span>, R.I. 1 vol.
small 4to. 10s. 6d.</p></blockquote>

<p>"A glorious book. It is palpably the work of a true sportsman."&mdash;<i>Horse and Hound.</i></p>

<p>"The Sketches are delightfully written, models of clear, bright, racy narrative,
and containing just those particulars that a sportsman wishes to know."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>

<p>The author goes through the round of Indian sport, and writes in such a
pleasant fashion as to make his pages agreeable reading to all for whom the
subject itself has attractions; the book has the additional advantage of some
spirited illustrations."&mdash;<i>The Field.</i></p>

<p>"Mr. Moray Brown records his long experiences among big game in India with
capital spirit and style; there are some thrilling pages on pig-sticking and tiger-shooting."&mdash;<i>The
World.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>THROUGH CYPRUS. By <span class="smcap">Agnes Smith</span>, Author
of "Glimpses of Greek Life and Scenery," &amp;c. 1 vol. demy 8vo.
With Illustrations and Map of the Author's Route. 15s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The cheerful and observant authoress has much that is new to tell us."&mdash;<i>Daily
Telegraph.</i></p>

<p>"'Through Cyprus' may be heartily commended to readers who are fond of
an entertaining and chatty narration of incidents of travel."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>REMINISCENCES OF THE COURT AND
TIMES OF KING ERNEST OF HANOVER. By the Rev. <span class="smcap">C.
A. Wilkinson</span>, M.A., His Majesty's Resident Domestic Chaplain.
<i>Second and Cheaper Edition.</i> 1 vol. crown 8vo. With portrait of
the King. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mr. Wilkinson's descriptions of the Court balls, where even the ladies took
precedence according to military rank, of the characters he met with, and of the
Hanoverian clergy of those days, will be found decidedly interesting."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>

<p>"An interesting book, which abounds in characteristic stories of the old king,
in anecdotes of many celebrities, English and foreign, of the early part of this
century, and, indeed, of all kinds and conditions of men and women with whom
the author was brought in contact by his courtly or pastoral office."&mdash;<i>St. James's
Gazette.</i></p>

<p>"One of the most interesting and amusing books of this season; it abounds in
good and new stories of King Ernest, and also of a perfect host of celebrities, both
English and German."&mdash;<i>Truth.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS. By
<span class="smcap">Edward Walford</span>, M.A., Author of 'The County Families,' &amp;c.
2 vols. crown 8vo. 21s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"'Chapters from Family Chests' are a great deal more exciting and absorbing
than one half the professedly sensational novels."&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>

<p>"Mr. Walford's volumes abound in what is known as the romance of real life,
and are extremely interesting reading."&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>PLAIN SPEAKING. By Author of "John Halifax,
Gentleman." 1 vol. crown 8vo. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"We recommend 'Plain Speaking' to all who like amusing, wholesome, and
instructive reading. The contents of Mrs. Craik's volume are of the most multifarious
kind, but all the papers are good and readable, and one at least of them
of real importance."&mdash;<i>St. James's Gazette.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>RECORDS OF SERVICE AND CAMPAIGNING
IN MANY LANDS. By <span class="smcap">Surgeon-General Munro</span>, M.D., C.B.,
Author of "Reminiscences of Military Service with the 93rd
Sutherland Highlanders," &amp;c. <span class="smcap">Dedicated by Permission to
H. R. H. the PRINCESS LOUISE</span>. 2 vols. crown 8vo. 21s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The story which Dr. Munro has to tell is one which never flags or ceases to
be instructive as well as interesting."&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></p>

<p>"These Records should be in the hands of every soldier, for the sake of the
information which they give and the spirit which informs them."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>

<p>"Full of interesting notes on the army and army life."&mdash;<i>Graphic.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p><span class="smcap">THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGNS, 1882 to 1885,
and the Events which led to them.</span> By <span class="smcap">Charles Royle</span>,
Barrister-at-Law. 2 vols. demy 8vo. With Maps and Plans. 30s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mr. Royle has done well in the interests of historical completeness to describe
not only the entire military drama, but also the political events connected with
it, and whoever reads the book with care has gone a considerable way towards
mastering the difficult Egyptian question."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"The Egyptian fiasco has found in Mr. Royle a most painstaking, accurate, and
judicious historian. From a literary point of view, his volumes may be thought
to contain too many unimportant incidents, yet their presence was necessary,
perhaps, in a complete record, and the most fastidious reader will unhesitatingly
acquit Mr. Royle of filling his pages with anything that can be called padding."&mdash;<i>St.
James's Gazette.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>EIGHTEENTH CENTURY WAIFS. By <span class="smcap">John
Ashton</span>, Author of 'Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne,' &amp;c.
1 vol. small 4to. 12s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The matter contained in this book is always pleasing and instructive. There
is certainly not a dull page in the volume."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>

<p>"Mr. Ashton has produced a volume of light and pleasant character."&mdash;<i>Morning
Post.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="smcap">MONSIEUR GUIZOT in Private Life (1787-1874).</span>
By His Daughter, Madame <span class="smcap">de Witt</span>. Translated by Mrs.
<span class="smcap">Simpson</span>. 1 vol. demy 8vo. 15s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Madame de Witt has done justice to her father's memory in an admirable record
of his life. Mrs. Simpson's translation of this singularly interesting book is
in accuracy and grace worthy of the original and of the subject."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>WORDS OF HOPE AND COMFORT TO
THOSE IN SORROW. Dedicated by Permission to <span class="smcap">The Queen</span>.
<i>Fourth Edition</i>. 1 vol. small 4to. 5s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"These letters, the work of a pure and devout spirit, deserve to find many
readers. They are greatly superior to the average of what is called religious
literature."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>

<p>"These letters are exceptionally graceful and touching, and may be read with
profit."&mdash;<i>Graphic.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>WITHOUT GOD: <span class="smcap">Negative Science and Natural
Ethics</span>. By <span class="smcap">Percy Greg</span>, Author of "The Devil's Advocate,"
"Across the Zodiac," &amp;c.  1 vol. demy 8vo. 12s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"This work is ably written; there are in it many passages of no ordinary power
and brilliancy. It is eminently suggestive and stimulating."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>WOMEN OF EUROPE IN THE FIFTEENTH
AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Napier Higgins</span>.
Vols. 1 and 2, demy 8vo. 30s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The volumes contain biographies of women more or less directly connected
with the history of Scandinavia, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, and Poland
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The work is likely to be of permanent
value to the students of history."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">THE NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS.<br />
PUBLISHED BY HURST &amp; BLACKETT.
</p>


<blockquote>

<p><span class="smcap">THE GOLDEN HOPE: A Romance of the Deep.</span>
By <span class="smcap">W. Clark Russell</span>, Author of "A Sea Queen," "The Wreck
of the Grosvenor," &amp;c. 1 vol. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mr. Clark Russell is at his best in 'The Golden Hope,' which means that this
book of his is one of the finest books of its kind in our language."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>A HOUSE PARTY. By <span class="smcap">Ouida</span>. (<i>Second Edition</i>)
1 vol. crown 8vo. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The sketches of character are hit off with accuracy of observation and with a
firm and clear outline."&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>ON THE SCENT. By <span class="smcap">Lady Margaret Majendie</span>,
Author of 'Dita,' 'Once More,' 'Sisters-in-Law,' &amp;c.  1 vol.
crown 8 vo. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"A bright and wholesome story."&mdash;<i>St. James's Gazette.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>ONLY A CORAL GIRL. By <span class="smcap">Gertrude Forde</span>,
Author of "Driven Before the Storm," &amp;c. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"'Only a Coral Girl' will delight many readers by the excellent feeling and
healthy purpose with which it is animated."&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p><span class="smcap">A FAIR CRUSADER; A Story of To-day.</span> By
<span class="smcap">William Westall</span>, Author of "Larry Lohengrin," "A Queer
Race," &amp;c. 2 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The interest does not halt for a moment in these pages, full of incident and
adventure."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>A BRETON MAIDEN. By <span class="smcap">A French Lady</span>,
Author of "Till my Wedding-Day." 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Time and space alike would fail us to note the many fine points of this
admirable novel."&mdash;<i>Academy.</i></p>

<p>"The author's local colouring is always good, and she has perfectly caught the
spirit of the time she depicts."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>BORN IN THE PURPLE. By <span class="smcap">Maxwell Fox</span>.
3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"'Born in the Purple' is not wanting in originality, and on the whole is free
from the reproach of dulness."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>A NEW FACE AT THE DOOR. By <span class="smcap">Jane Stanley</span>,
Author of "A Daughter of the Gods." 2 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"All the characters are well described, the young people being drawn with a
clever hand, and standing out distinctly in their several ways as real persons."&mdash;<i>Queen.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>A WILY WIDOW. By <span class="smcap">Henry Cresswell</span>, Author
of "A Modern Greek Heroine," &amp;c. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mr. Cresswell writes extremely well on a plot that suits him. His brighter
pages are almost as captivating as the painful interest of his more tragic ones,
and altogether the story is readable and thrilling."&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>


<blockquote>


<p><span class="smcap">BERNARD AND MARCIA: A Story of Middle
Age.</span> By <span class="smcap">Elizabeth Glaister</span>. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The three volumes tell in a smooth, graceful fashion the story of two lovers
whose uncovenanted friendship for each other survives a host of trials, and at
last, though somewhat late in life, is rewarded."&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>THE DEATH SHIP: <span class="smcap">A Strange Story</span>. An
account of a Cruise in 'The Flying Dutchman,' collected from
the Papers of the late <span class="smcap">Mr. Geoffrey Fenton</span>, of Poplar, Master
Mariner. By <span class="smcap">W. Clark Russell</span>, Author of 'The Wreck of the
Grosvenor,' 'The Golden Hope,' &amp;c. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>


<blockquote>

<p>THE YOUNGEST MISS GREEN. By <span class="smcap">F. W.
Robinson</span>, Author of 'Grandmother's Money,' &amp;c. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>


<blockquote>

<p>A DAUGHTER OF DIVES. By <span class="smcap">Leith Derwent</span>,
Author of 'Circe's Lovers,' 'King Lazarus,' &amp;c. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Readers will find Mr. Leith Derwent's plot interesting, exciting, and original,
and worked out with considerable acquaintance of peoples and climes."&mdash;<i>Piccadilly.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>THE DUCHESS. By the Author of 'Molly Bawn,'
'Phyllis,' &amp;c. 1 vol. crown 8vo. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The author of 'Molly Bawn' is always interesting and vivacious, and her
story of 'The Duchess' is one of her most exciting and clever novels."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. By
<span class="smcap">Harry Landar</span>. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Some of the scenes are pathetic and interesting to a degree, and there is
scarcely a chapter that could be passed over from absence of interest."&mdash;<i>The
Society Herald.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>A MODERN DELILAH. By <span class="smcap">Vere Clavering</span>. 3v.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The novel deserves praise for its naturalness and ease of style, and for the
simple force with which its main characters are presented."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>NINETTE: <span class="smcap">an Idyll of Provence</span>. By the Author
of 'Vèra,' 'Blue Roses,' &amp;c. (<i>Second Edition.</i>) 1 vol. crown 8vo. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"The tale in itself is true to nature and tenderly pathetic."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>

<p>"This is a particularly well-told story."&mdash;<i>Globe.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>THE LASSES OF LEVERHOUSE. By <span class="smcap">Jessie
Fothergill</span>, Author of 'Kith and Kin,' 'The First Violin,' &amp;c.
1 vol. crown 8vo. 6s.</p></blockquote>

<p>"There is a youthful freshness and heartiness in the author's way of telling her
story which makes the book peculiarly enjoyable."&mdash;<i>Scotsman.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>A BITTER REPENTANCE. By <span class="smcap">Lady Virginia
Sandars</span>. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Lady Virginia Sandars' new novel is told with more than average skill; the
author has a fertile imagination, which enables her to vary, <i>ad libitum</i>, the situations
in which she places her personages."&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>IN WHITE AND GOLD. A Story. By Mrs. <span class="smcap">F.
H. Williamson</span>. 3 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mrs. Williamson has evidently lived among the people whose doings she describes
and whose sayings she records with a natural fidelity which reminds one
of Anthony Trollope."&mdash;<i>World.</i></p>


<blockquote>

<p>JOY COMETH IN THE MORNING: <span class="smcap">A Country
Tale</span>. By <span class="smcap">Algernon Gissing</span>. 2 vols.</p></blockquote>

<p>"Mr. Gissing writes with subdued humour, knows how to touch a situation
with restrained pathos, and keeps his pastoral romance strictly within the limits
of his knowledge and sympathy; the result is a most agreeable story of English
country life."&mdash;<i>Saturday Review.</i></p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p class="center">SIX-SHILLING NOVELS<br />
EACH IN ONE VOLUME CROWN 8vo.
</p>


<p>THE DUCHESS.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By the Author of 'Molly Bawn,' 'Phyllis,' 'Airy Fairy
Lilian,' 'Lady Branksmere,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>NINETTE: An Idyll of Provence.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By the Author of 'Vèra,' 'Blue Roses,' 'The Maritime Alps
and their Seaboard,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>THE LASSES OF LEVERHOUSE.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By <span class="smcap">Jessie Fothergill</span>, Author of 'Kith and Kin,' 'The
First Violin,' 'Probation,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>THE GOLDEN HOPE.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By <span class="smcap">W. Clark Russell</span>, Author of 'A Sea Queen,' 'The
Wreck of the Grosvenor,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>ON THE SCENT.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By <span class="smcap">Lady Margaret Majendie</span>, Author of 'Dita,' 'Once
More,' 'Sisters-in-Law,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>HIS LITTLE MOTHER.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' 'A Life for a
Life,' 'Christian's Mistake,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>MY LORD AND MY LADY.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Forrester</span>, Author of 'Omnia Vanitas,' 'Viva,'
'Mignon,' 'Dolores,' 'Rhona,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>SOPHY: or the Adventures of a Savage.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By <span class="smcap">Violet Fane</span>, Author of 'Denzil Place,' 'Anthony
Barrington,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>A HOUSE PARTY.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By <span class="smcap">Ouida</span>, Author of 'Under Two Flags,' 'Puck,'
'Othmar,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>OMNIA VANITAS: A Tale of Society.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By Mrs. <span class="smcap">Forrester</span>, Author of 'My Lord and My Lady,'
'Viva,' 'Mignon,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>THE BETRAYAL OF REUBEN HOLT.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By <span class="smcap">Barbara Lake</span>.</p></blockquote>


<p>PLAIN SPEAKING.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' 'His Little
Mother,' 'A Life for a Life,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p>THE BRANDRETHS.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>By the Right Hon. <span class="smcap">A. J. B. Beresford-Hope</span>, Author of
'Strictly Tied Up,' Etc.</p></blockquote>


<p class="center space-above">LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED.</p>



<hr class="chap" />
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