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