CHAPTER XII.

ON BOARD THE GOOD SHIP "HERMIONE," OF LONDON.

Amid the glare, the roar, and bustle of the mighty world of London, ten days passed away like a painful dream, an unrealisable phantasmagoria, to Ethel, and like a dream, too, appeared the embarkation at the crowded docks (which seemed crammed with all the vessels in the world) one board the _Hermione_, a fine clipper ship of 500 tons register, which, with all her canvas loose, and blue peter flying at the fore, was towed down the crowded river by a puffing, panting, noisy little paddle-tug, which rejoiced in the name of _Garibaldi_.

Blackwall, with its docks; noble Greenwich, with its terraces and domes; Woolwich, where, now and then, a drum beat sharply, or a cannon boomed through the air, were speedily passed; vast fleets of merchantmen, crowded river steamers, and lumbering barges, sidling down with the tide were glided between; each bend of Father Thames was traversed, and soon the _Hermione_ was off Gravesend so busy as a watering-place, and ever alive with whistling trains and smoking steamers, in its noise, bustle, and gaiety contrasting with sombre Tilbury, on the flat Essex shore, with its brick-faced bastions, double-ditch, and moat--an old cannon or two lying among the sea slime, and a solitary sentinel pacing to and fro before King Charles's Gate.

At Gravesend, where the _Hermione_ lay for a time, with blue peter still flying, and her foretopsail loose, as a double signal "for sea," she was joined by her captain, who came by the down train from town; the tug was paid off and a pilot taken on board, with the last of the sea-going stores.

Then sail was made on the ship, and the sunset of a fine May evening saw her past Sheerness, with its vast basin, docks, and storehouses, and the guard-ship at the Nore, which pealed her evening gun across the silent sea.

The wind was freshening as the eventful day went down.

Ethel and Rose, with old Nance Folgate, were all below now, sick and ill. Mr. Basset and Hawkshaw trod the lee side of the quarter-deck together. Both were silent. Mr. Basset was gazing sadly at the shore along which they were running, and anon at the red hulk of the floating light, which is anchored four miles north-eastward of Sheerness, and the lamps of which were now twinkling amid the haze and obscurity far astern.

Hawkshaw was full of thought, too. He felt a secret joy at being scatheless and free from England; though, when reflecting, he thought, in the words of Jane Eyre: "It is not violence that best overcomes hate, nor vengeance that most certainly heals an injury."

The _Hermione_, we have said, was a 500-ton ship. She was one of the finest of her class that ever left the slips at Blackwall, and this was only her third voyage; thus, in addition to being new, she was well found and well fitted up in every respect.

John Phillips, her captain, was a bluff, ruddy-visaged, jolly little man, with cheeks turned red by exposure to sun and sea-breeze. He had three mates; the senior, Mr. Samuel Quail, was a plain, honest, rough seaman, who expected next voyage to have a ship of his own; the second, Mr. Foster; but the third was Adrian Manfredi, an Italian, a quiet and rather gentlemanly young man, of whom we shall hear more an on.

The _Hermione_ had a surgeon, Leslie Heriot, a Scotsman, of course, and F.R.C.S.E.; a boatswain, carpenter, blacksmith, and a crew of a somewhat mingled kind, as we shall have unfortunate cause to show ere long. She was bound for Singapore, but was to touch at the Isle of France on her way out.

Her cabin was handsome and spacious, and little cabins, called state-rooms, opened off it with sliding doors.

Ethel, Rose, and Nance Folgate had one of them. Mr. Scriven Basset and Hawkshaw had the berth opposite. The others were occupied by the officers of the ship, and all bade fair to form a pleasant little community during the long voyage before them.

For two days the _Hermione_ lay at anchor off Deal; on the third day she put to sea. By this time Ethel and Rose had nearly got what Captain Phillips bluntly termed "their sea-legs under them," and sat on the quarter-deck seats after breakfast, well muffled in cloaks; for though a lovely May sun was shining on the rippling sea, and all over the fertile coast of Kent, the atmosphere was chill, as the breeze swept over the watery Downs.

The day was charming, the wind was fair, and, with everything set upon her that would draw, even to her topgallant studding-sails rigged aloft, the _Hermione_ flew before it.

The chalky cliffs of Kent; Dungeness lighthouse, with its miles of shingly headland; gay Brighton, with its far extent of sandy bay, that stretches from Beechy Head to Selsea Hill; the chalky ranges that look down on the wooded weald of Sussex--were soon passed, and ere long the cliffs of the Isle of Wight, gilded by the evening sun, rose on the starboard bow.

Rose Basset, about whom, attracted by her girlish beauty and _espièglerie_, the young Scotch surgeon and the Italian mate were both disposed to hover, asked questions from time to time--those silly, but, perhaps, natural questions which landfolks will ask on board ship, which, somehow, did not sound quite so silly when asked by the rosy lips of such a pretty girl as Rose--while poor Ethel remained seated in silence, with her eyes fixed on the distant coast, and wondering how far Laurel Lodge and Acton-Rennel were beyond those shadowy cliffs of chalk.

Her reflections or thoughts were all chaos--a mere mass of confusion. Thus, at times she could scarcely realise where she was, or how she came to be on board the _Hermione_, whether the journey by rail to London, her ten days' sojourn there, and her being at present on the sea, were not all a dream--a protracted nightmare, from which she would waken and find herself in her familiar bed-room in dear old Laurel Lodge, which her eyes were never more to see.

She thought, "How bright the evening sun may be shining on it now; how gaily down the long leafy vistas of Acton Chase, and on poor mamma's grave. How little could she have conceived that we should be so far from it? But the Lodge--ah, others inhabit it now; others look through the windows and pass through its rooms; others promenade the gravelled walks and play croquet on its grassy lawn, or cull flowers in its conservatory. The place that knew us once, knows us no more; we shall never see it again; never tread its soil, or breathe its air; never more, never more!"

Her tears fell, tears that fell hot and fast.

"Oh, to be with Morley and at rest," she sighed in her heart. "But then there is papa, poor papa, who loves me so well, and Rose."

Her father's kind and benevolent face, sweet, ruddy Rose's happy smile, and the familiar visage of Hawkshaw (who had become exceeding gentle and attentive), were ever before her. But Laurel Lodge, with its home life, its elegance, and quiet details, with the face, voice, image, existence, and loss of Morley Ashton, seemed all to have passed away to a vast distance from her.

In a very few days she seemed to have lived a great many years in thought and suffering.

"Cheer up, Ethel--permit me to call you so," said Hawkshaw, who had been silently regarding her sweet, pensive face. "Cheer up," he repeated, in a low voice; "think of what is before us in the Mauritius--the lovely Isle of France--the land of Paul and Virginia, that amiable little Virginia, about whom every lady at least once in life sheds so many tears, especially when in her early teens. We must go over all the places depicted by Bernardin St. Pierre in his novel; the Shaddock Grove, the Mount of Discovery, Cape Misfortune, and the Bay of the Tomb--eh?"

"In pity leave me to myself," said Ethel, on whose sensitive ear his half-jocular voice sounded gratingly.

"As you please," he muttered, under his breath, with impatience, as he went to leeward and lit a cigar.

Next evening Ethel wept again, as she saw the last of England--the lovely coast of Devon, with all its apple-bowers mellowing in the sun--fade into a blue streak, that blended with the evening sea.

Then, for the first time, sea and sky, cloud and water were around them, and she strove to rouse herself from the apathy that had been oppressing her faculties, and endeavoured, if she could not speak, at least to listen to the conversation of others.

"Our crew are indeed a mixed lot, Mr. Basset," she heard Captain Phillips say to her father; "mixed in character and in colour; more like a gang shipped in the Mersey than in London."

"How so, sir?" asked Mr. Basset.

"We have Yankees, West Indians, and Mexican Spaniards--some of these last are the worst of the lot."

"Been a good many years in Mexico, Captain Phillips," said Hawkshaw, assuming a jaunty air.

"Have you?"

"Yes, and should like to see some of your fellows."

"They are quarrelsome, I presume," observed Mr. Basset.

"Very, and very apt to use their knives. Keep her away a point or two to the southward, Ellerton," said he to the man at the wheel. "Mr. Quail, desire the watch to bring those lee braces more aft."

"They should be restricted in the use of such weapons as sheath-knives, by law," said Mr. Basset, emphatically, and thinking, perhaps, of his judge's wig, which he had been recently trying on.

"So they should, sir, but the law seldom reaches far into blue water, unless so be as a Queen's pennant is floating over it. Do you see that fellow out upon the arm of the mainyard just now?"

"Ah!--what is he perched up there for?--amusement?" asked Mr. Basset.

"He is busy securing the eye of the stun'sail boom."

"Well, captain?"

"To my mind, he is the very model of a pirate."

They all looked up, and saw a large-boned, powerful, athletic, dark-skinned, and black-whiskered fellow, clad in a red shirt, and a pair of remarkably dirty canvas trousers, secured about his waist by a black belt, in which a long sheath-knife was stuck.

He was astride the yard-arm; the bronze-like soles of his muscular bare feet were turned towards the group, and, as the captain said, he was doing something to the studding-sail boom.

"A foreigner, I presume, by the rings in his ears," said Mr. Basset, with his hands thrust into the pockets of his ample white waistcoat.

"A Mexican Spaniard," said Captain Phillips; "we have two of them on board, brothers, and a pretty pair of rascals they are. But there goes the steward's bell for tea, ladies; Miss Basset, may I have the pleasure of taking you below? She's running on a wind now, and will be pretty steady. Doctor Heriot, oblige me by doing the attentive to Miss Rose."

The young surgeon (whom the captain's request was meant to quiz) hastened, smilingly, to proffer his arm as directed, and the whole party, including Quail, the first mate, Manfredi, the third (as the second had charge of the deck), descended to the cabin, where Rose did the honours of the captain's tea-table, for Ethel was still too weak or too listless to do so.

The last to leave the deck was Cramply Hawkshaw. As he turned to descend, he looked up at the Spanish seaman, whose outline and dark profile were clearly defined against the sky.

"'Tis Pedro Barradas," he muttered; "confusion and a curse! the Barradas here."

His face was white as that of the dead--white as on the fatal evening when he entered Laurel Lodge; and he seemed scarcely to know what he was doing, as with one of his stealthy glances cast around, he descended to the cabin, from which he did not issue for the remainder of that night.