Chapter 5

_Yellow Fever and Love-making._

The succeeding three days passed most happily with me. I grew more and more in love with Ellen. We visited all the places of note in the neighborhood of the town, and were even projecting an excursion to Havana in the steamboat, when an event occurred that came very near sending me on a much longer voyage. One afternoon, while waiting for Captain Smith with Langley at the United States Café, I was suddenly taken with a distracting pain through my temples, though just previously I had felt as well as ever in my life. The agony increased, and Langley, to whom I complained, began to be frightened, when luckily Captain Smith arrived, who, upon looking at me, and hearing Langley's account of the matter, immediately called a volante, put me aboard, and drove to Mr. Stowe's house. During the ride I grew worse and worse every moment; the jolting of the carriage almost killed me, and by the time we had arrived at our destination I was nearly crazy. I just remember of being lifted out of the volante, and of seeing the pale, anxious face of Ellen somewhere--and I knew no more of the matter until some sixty hours afterward, one fine morning, when I all at once opened my eyes, and found myself flat on my back, weak as a cat, and my head done up in plaintain-leaves and wet towels. I heard low conversation and the rattle of dice, and casting my eyes toward the verandah, from whence the noise proceeded, I perceived Langley and Mary Stowe very composedly engaged in a game of backgammon. Ellen sat by the jalousie, just within the room, looking very pale, and with a book in her hand, which I judged by the appearance to be a prayer-book. I felt very weak, but perfectly happy, and not being disposed to talk, lay entirely still, enjoying the delicious languor which I felt, and the cool breeze which entered freely from the blinded windows, and listened to the conversation of my friends.

"Come, come, Ellen," said Mary, looking up from the board, "don't look so wobegone--'t is your throw, William--Frank is doing well enough now. The doctor says that when he wakes he will be entirely out of danger, and free from pain. Psha! Will, you take me up. I don't see, my dear, why you should take so much more interest than any one else--is it not ridiculous, William?"

"Perfectly so," replied Langley--"double sixes, by the Lord!--two of 'em, three, four. Now Frank is my shipmate, and, in the main, a tolerable decent fellow; but he isn't worth shedding so many tears about."

"Why, William!" exclaimed Ellen, "you know that you cried like a baby yourself night before last, when he was so very sick."

"Ahem! so I did; but I was so vexed to see our pleasant party to Havana was broken up. Frank was very ill-natured to fall sick just at that time--I'll flog him for it when he gets well."

"You can't do it, Bill Langley," cried I, as loudly as possible, for the first time taking a part in the conversation.

The trio started to their feet at this unexpected display of my colloquial powers; down went backgammon-board, men, dice, prayer-book, and all upon the floor.

"Hillo! Frank!" cried Langley, ranging alongside the bed, "how do you find yourself by this time, my little dear?"

"Perfectly well, only very weak."

"Does your head ache now, Frank?" asked Mary, laying her soft hand upon my forehead.

"Not a bit, only I've got most confounded sore hair."

"Eh! my lad, they talked of leaving you no hair at all," cried Bill, "they thought one spell of shaving your head. Egad! you'd have looked like a bald eagle!"

"Why, what has been the matter with me?" I asked.

"Matter with you! why, man, you have had the yellowest kind of a fever. Touch and go, it was; but you're worth ten dead men this morning."

Ellen during this conversation had left the room, and now returned with her father and the physician, who had called with Captain Smith. I was pronounced in a fair way of speedy recovery. Everybody was very glad, but I noticed that Ellen said nothing; indeed, instead of being overjoyed like my good skipper or Langley, she had to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"Frank," said Langley, when I was finally left alone with that worthy gentleman, "how little Nell did pipe her eye the other night, when we were all so fearful you were going to slip your wind; and just between you and I and the main-mast, I'm walking into her sister's young affections just as the monkey went up the back-stay, hand over hand. _Pre_haps she aint a darling. I've been writing a piece of poetry about her, don't you want to hear it?"

"Oh! be off with your nonsense--I wish to go to sleep."

"Well, go to sleep, and be--cured, you unfeeling wretch;" and Mr. Langley, in a huff, walked out on the verandah, and began to smoke.

Under the kind care of my good friends I grew rapidly better, and at the end of a week was entirely well; but still I enjoyed the society of Ellen so much, that whenever the skipper called upon me, I feigned myself too weak to go to my duty, and pleaded that Langley might stay ashore to take care of me. Captain Smith, though not deceived by this artifice, granted us liberty from day to day; and Bill and I were the two happiest fellows in the world. But there is an end to every thing. One day while sitting in the back verandah with Ellen, her father and mother, in rushed the skipper, in great glee, rubbing his hands.

"Good morning, all hands!" cried he. "How are you, Frank?"

"Oh! I'm not quite so well this morning," I replied, telling a bouncer.

"Well, sir, I've got some news that'll do you as much good as the whole stock in trade of an apothecary taken at one dose. Let's see, to-day is Wednesday, and Friday evening, if good weather for our little plans to work, we shall sail for Boston."

"For Boston!" cried everybody.

"Yes, for Boston! You see, Stowe, Mr. Byrne has heard how dull freights are here, and I have just got a letter from him by Gidding's, of the Duxbury, just arrived, in which he says--or I'll read that part--hum--let's see--oh--'if you have not already engaged a freight, you will immediately sail for Boston. I have an excellent opportunity to charter the Gentile for a China voyage; and I suppose you had as lief go to India again as to Russia.' Bless me if I hadn't! So, my dear fellow, if any of those higgling shippers apply to you, tell 'em to go to the devil with their ha'penny freights. Come, ride down street with me; Gidding's has some letters for you. Good morning, Miss Ellen! Morning, Frank! get well mighty fast, for we must use you a little, you know; and see Langley, and tell him to go aboard immediately after dinner."

"Ay, ay, sir. Come, Ellen, let's walk into the garden and find William and Mary."

We were very soon in the garden, sauntering along a little alley shaded by orange trees.

"It seems to me," said Ellen, half pouting, "that you are mightily pleased about sailing next Friday, instead of staying in Matanzas a week longer."

"Why, yes," I replied, "I must say that I am glad to go home, after an absence of eighteen months."

"I wish I was going to dear old Boston," added Ellen, sighing.

"You are to go this fall, you know."

"Maybe so; but then, Frank, you will not be there, will you?"

"Why, no," I replied, "not if I go with the ship to India; but what difference will that make?"

Ellen made no answer, and I began to feel rather queer, and marvelously inclined to make love. I had always liked Ellen very much, and lately better than ever, but, being a novice in such matters, I was in doubt whether my predilection was really _bona fide_ love or not; it didn't seem like the love I had read about in novels; and yet I felt very miserable at the idea of Ellen's loving anybody else. I was in a desperate quandary.

"Well," said Ellen, after the lapse of a quarter of an hour, "pray what can be the subject of your thoughts?"

I am frank by nature as well as by name; and so, turning to my fair inquisitor, I said, "you know, Ellen, that I am very young yet."

"Yes, Frank."

"And that people at my age very often do not know their own minds."

"Yes, Frank."

"Well, Ellen, I think _now_ that I love you very dearly; and if I were five years older, and felt as I now do, and you were willing, I would marry you right away; but I am young, and may be deceived, and so may deceive you. Now, Ellen, if I should ask you if you loved me, would you tell me?"

"Yes, Frank," said Ellen, very faintly.

"And do you?" I asked; and, like Brutus, paused for a reply.

"Yes, Frank, I like you very much."

"Is that all? _Like_, is a very cold word. Do you love me?"

"Yes, Frank," whispered Ellen, leaning her forehead against my shoulder. "I _think_ I do; _you_ wouldn't say any more than that."

"That is all I wish you to say, my dear little girl," I replied, kissing her white neck and shoulders; "now then, listen. I shall return from India in about two years time, if then we are both of the same mind as now, we will begin to talk about the wedding-day. What do you say to that?"

"Yes, dear Frank."

"Thank you, dearest; now look up one minute."

The reader, if he pleases, may supply in this place a few interjectional kisses from his imagination.

With my arm around Ellen's slender waist, we walked down the shady alleys of the garden in search of Langley and Mary, but for a while were unsuccessful; at last I caught a sight of Mary's white dress in a distant arbor. We approached the bower unperceived by its occupants, and were upon the point of entering, but we luckily discovered in time that we should be altogether _de trop_. Langley was on his knees before the coquettish Mary, making love in his most grandiloquent style.

"Most adorable creature," quoth my romantic shipmate, thumping his right side, "you lacerate my heart by your obdurate cruelty!"

"Get up off your knees, you foolish boy," answered the mischievous girl; "you will certainly stain the knees of your white trowsers."

"Oh! divine goddess! hear me!" persisted my chum, magnanimously disregarding the welfare of his unwhisperables in the present crisis.

"You idolatrous sailor remember the first commandment."

"The devil fly away with the first commandment!" cried poor Langley, sorely vexed. "Most lovely of human beings," he continued with a deep groan, which he intended to be a pathetic sigh, "my heart is on fire."

"May be you've got the fever, William," suggested Mary; "are you in _much_ pain?"

"Yes, great pain," said Bill, with another heart-rending groan.

"Well, then, rise, I insist--Lord! if anybody should catch us in this predicament!"

"Hadn't we better go away?" whispered Ellen, blushing for her sister's sake.

"No, no," I replied, "let's stay and see the fun."

"Not till I persuade you to relent," replied Langley to Mary's oft-repeated request.

"Yes you will. Get up off your knees immediately, or I vow I'll box your ears."

"Strike!" cried Langley, with a theatrical air and tone, at the same time unbuttoning his vest, "strike! and wound the heart which beats for you alone!"

_Slap_--came Mary's delicate hand across the cheek of her disconsolate lover, with a force which brought an involuntary "ouch!" from his lips. "Get up, I say!" _Whack_--_slap_--came two more blows, first on one side of his head and then on the other.

"By G----d! madam!" sputtered Langley, rising in a rage, "I wish you were a man for half a minute."

"Why," said Mary, "in that case you couldn't make love to me with any sort of propriety. Hold, hold, Willy, dear! don't go off angry; sit down here, I insist; nay, now, I'll box your ears again if you don't obey me; there, you'll feel perfectly cool in a moment. For shame! Bill, to get angry at a love-tap from a lady!"

"Love-tap, indeed," muttered Langley, rubbing his cheek. "See where your confounded ring scratched my face."

"Did it? Oh! I'm so sorry!" said Mary. "Hold here, while I kiss the place to make it well; there now, don't it feel much better? See! I've got my lips all blood, haven't I? Shall I wipe it off with my handkerchief, or--"

Langley took the hint and kissed the rich ripe lips of his lovely companion, red with nothing but her own warm blood.

"By Jupiter!" cried my shipmate, "Mary, you are the strangest girl I ever saw. One minute I think you love me, the next that you care nothing at all for me; one minute the most teasing little devil, and the next the dearest creature in all the world."

"What am I now?" asked Mary.

"You are the most angelic, adorable--"

"Take care, sir," cried Mary, shaking her finger; "don't have a relapse, or you'll catch it again."

"Well, what shall I say then?" demanded poor Bill, in despair; "you are as hard to please as the skipper of a mud-scow."

"Talk sensibly if you wish, but don't indulge in such lofty flights, unless you have a mind to soar out of hearing. Now, then, Will, what were you about to say?"

"This," said my shipmate, taking the hand of his charming companion, and speaking like a frank, manly fellow, as he really was, "this, dear Mary, that I love you heartily and truly, and have loved you ever since we were children. At present I am a poor seaman, but I hope in a few years to rise in my profession, till I am able to support a wife in the style to which you have been accustomed, if then you will give me your hand I shall be more happy than I can express. Now, don't tease me any longer, but tell me if I have any chance."

Mary's coquettish air was gone. While Langley had been speaking her face became suffused with a charming blush, which extended even to her heaving bosom, and when he finished she raised her eyes, bright and tearful, to his. "William," said she, "you have spoken candidly, without doubt, and deserve a candid answer. If when you become the mate of a ship you are willing to be burthened with me for a wife, dear Will, you can doubtless have me by asking papa."

"Come, Ellen," said I, "let's go now."