CHAPTER XX.

MOONLIGHT ON THE SEA.

At such times as the Divine service on Sunday, when there was a great muster of the crew, Hawkshaw always remained below on one pretence or other, unless he had assured himself that his two _bêtes noire_, the Barradas, were neither at the wheel nor in "the church," which was so easily improvised upon the quarter-deck.

On these occasions, it was observable that Rose Basset and the young Scotch doctor always read from the same book.

This did not fail to attract the notice of Captain Phillips, who, being unable to resist a joke thereon, gave them once or twice a remarkably knowing wink, in the very middle of the service he was reading so solemnly, a proceeding which very much scandalised Mr. Samuel Quail, and made Rose colour and glance nervously at her papa.

And there was one Sunday when, after prayers had been read, the crew dismissed forward to smoke, sing, or mend their clothes, as usual on Sundays, and the passengers had assembled in the cabin for lunch, he proceeded to quiz poor Rose and the doctor, by offering, in his "double capacity of skipper and parson, to perform a Scotch marriage for them on the high seas."

Rose reddened again with so much real annoyance at this broad jest, that Captain Phillips offered a species of salt-water apology, which rather made the matter worse; so the handsome young doctor blushed too, all the more so, perhaps, that his soup was scalding hot, and the thermometer on the bulkhead stood at eighty in the shade.

"After the rigs I have seen run by those who live by salt water," continued the jolly captain, "I have always thanked my stars--wherever they may be--that I am still a bachelor; yet had I, in other times, met such a young lady as you, Miss Rose, mayhap I'd have struck my colours and changed my mind--who knows? But perhaps things are best as they are."

"You should be ashamed of saying so, captain," said Rose; "and I am certain that some one has missed a good kind husband, through your mistake."

"Mayhap, miss, mayhap; but 'tis too late now for old Jack Phillips to 'bout ship, and make a fool of himself, by hauling up for the gulf of matrimony."

"Gulf? Fie, captain!" exclaimed Rose; "you should call it a bay, or happy haven."

"Do you know, captain, how they treated old bachelors in Sparta?" asked the doctor.

"Stopped their grog, mayhap, or keel-hauled 'em, I shouldn't wonder."

"They were stripped of their clothes, and in the coldest days of winter were forced to run through the principal streets, chanting songs, full of sharp sarcasms upon their own condition."

"Deuced hard lines, doctor; was there any other nice little thing they made us do?"

"Yes," resumed the doctor, furbishing up his Scotch latinity to punish the captain for making Rosa blush, "Athenæus, the grammarian of Naucratis----"

"My eyes! there's a name to turn in of a night with!"

"Well, he tells us that there was, every year, a laughable festival celebrated in a great temple, at which all the bachelors of a certain age were compelled to attend, that the ladies might taunt, mock them, and slap their faces as much as they pleased."

Honest Phillips rubbed his curly head, the brown hair of which was becoming thickly seamed with gray, slapped his sturdy thigh, and burst into a hearty fit of laughter.

"Overhaul the charts, Quail, and see where this same Sparta lies. Its latitude and longitude won't do for me, Sam. Another glass of wine, ladies, and then I must be off to relieve the deck, and let Mr. Manfredi down."

The night that followed this day was peculiarly lovely--lovely even beyond what night is in the tropics at times.

Mr. Basset, the captain, Mr. Quail, and the second mate were having a quiet rubber in the cabin; Hawkshaw had fallen asleep on one of the lockers, or pretended to do so; Rose and Dr. Heriot were promenading the deck aft the mainmast, in very close conversation, and Ethel was seated alone near the taffrail, at the stern of the _Hermione_, which was gliding through the water with an almost imperceptible motion, for the wind was light and steady.

She was alone, for no one was near her, save the man at the wheel, Zuares Barradas, who seemed oblivious of all save his duty. The light of the binnacle lamps fell steadily on his dark olive face, his bare neck, arms, and breast, on which the figure of a Madonna had been graven with gunpowder, on the rings in his ears, and on his black, glittering eyes.

The ship had her three courses, top and topgallant sails, royals, and lower studding-sails set; and this vast cloud of canvas shone white as snow in the moonlight, the bellying curve of every sail being beautifully and softly rounded into shadow by the chastened radiance, and with every heave she gave upon the long glassy rollers, the reef-points pattered like a shower upon the taut and swollen bosom of the sail.

Star after star twinkled out and was lost, and then seen again under the arched leach of each square of canvas, as the ship rose and fell with each successive heave. Forward she was sunk in silence; the watch were clustered in a group near the chocks of the long-boat or main-hatch; the rest of the crew were all seated together about the windlass and forecastle-bitts.

Nothing broke the silence, save Mr. Basset's voice, or Captain Phillips's laugh, in the lighted cabin, the occasional rattle of the rudder in its case, the wash of the passing sea under the counter, or the gurgle of the long wake astern, that seemed like a path of green fire amid the eddying bosom of the deep, the unfathomable deep, that held, as Ethel believed, the remains of him she loved and mourned, as a widow, in her heart of hearts.

Full of thoughts of home, of sadness, and of the past, Ethel reclined against the taffrail, with a heart inspired by deep and indescribable emotions; and her dark, swimming eyes wandered with admiration over the phantom-like outline of the vast white ship, gliding in awful silence unerringly over the solitude of the broad ocean, beneath the mighty dome of the star-studded sky.

Her thoughts were finding vent in tears, when she found that some one was near her. Passing a handkerchief across her eyes, she drew her cloak closely round her as this person came forward, and politely touched his cap. It was Manfredi, the handsome and pleasing young Italian mate.

"Pardon me, Miss Basset," said he, in his distinct yet somewhat broken English; "I have been observing you for some time, and am very sorry to see you so _triste_--so sad."

"I was not sad, Mr. Manfredi."

"Oh yes you were," said he, with smiling earnestness.

"The great beauty of the night impressed me. To you, perhaps, it may be little worth noticing after the skies of your native Italy."

"The skies are clearer here than in Italy; the air is purer and freer," he replied, with a sad smile.

"When so far away, do you never wish for home?"

"I did so once."

"And now?"

"I have no home, save on the sea."

This was said with such a melancholy and pathetic brevity, that Ethel gazed at the young man inquiringly, but in silence.

"I had a home in Italy once, madam--a home, though humble, as happy, perchance, as yours in England; but the Austrians came and brought death and sorrow upon it, so I turned my back on the place where the olives and acacias grew before my father's house, and returned there no more."

"The Austrians," repeated Dr. Heriot, who, with Rose leaning on his arm, had now joined them; "we, in England, occasionally heard of great outrages committed by them."

The black eyes of Manfredi sparkled, and a sigh escaped him.

"Mr. Manfredi is sighing," said the heedless Rose; "depend upon it that love has something to do with his memories of Italy."

"You mistake, madam," said the third mate, with a smile at the lively girl, whose fair English face and fine merry eyes looked so beautiful in the moonlight, that the younger Barradas at the wheel regarded her more than his compass, so that frequently the sails shivered aloft, and he was somewhat wild in his steering; "my memories of Italy are, many of them, pure and charming, as if love formed a portion of them; and yet I wish all these memories to die together."

"What kind of paradox is this, my dear Manfredi?" asked Dr. Heriot.

"It is no paradox."

"We have a Scottish writer who says that 'No thought, no delightful memory, ever dies; it may remain silent for a season, but it will come from those inexpressibly deep regions of memory; it will come at some time to brighten the present, and to brighten the recollection of the past."

The face of the young Scotchman flushed as he spoke, with Rose's pretty hand trembling on his arm; but the Italian only smiled sadly, and said:

"You mistake me, doctor. The pure and tender memories of my home are so inseparably blended with the sad and bitter, that I have no desire but to forget them altogether, for the former add but poignancy to the latter. Surely you must have heard the story of my brother, little Attilio Manfredi, whose assassination was termed the great crime of the House of Hapsburg? As such it went the circuit of the English newspapers, which received the story from the _Monitore Toscana_, whose sheets were under the revision of the assassin, the Austrian commandant."

After a silence of a minute, for the Italian seemed labouring under deep emotion, Dr. Heriot said:

"No; I do not remember of this, Manfredi."

"Pray tell us about it," said Rose.

"Pray do," added Ethel.

"Wait, ladies, please, until the wheel is relieved, and I shall tell you a sad but simple tale of barbarous cruelty."

A tall, rawboned Yankee sailor, with a hooked nose and villainous square jaw, now relieved Zuares Barradas, who civilly touched his hat and went forward, just as the whist-players came on deck, and proceeded to exchange tobacco-pouches and light their pipes.

Immediately on discovering that the helmsman was changed, Hawkshaw appeared on deck and joined the group, to whom Manfredi proceeded to explain what he meant by relating one of the darkest stories that ever disgraced the pretty voluminous annals of continental military tyranny.