CHAPTER III.

ROSE AND DR. HERIOT.

Supper was over in the cabin, and the little community there would soon be separating for the night, or "turning in," as it is technically named.

"How brightly the stars are shining," said Rose, as she peeped up through the skylight.

"Should you like to go on deck for a moment?" asked Dr. Heriot, in a low voice, as he hastened to her side.

"Yes--for a moment only."

"Take care of chill," said Mr. Basset, warningly.

"Take care rather of yourself, Miss Rose, and, of all things, take care of the doctor," said Captain Phillips, laughing. "Manfredi has charge of the deck; see how she is trimmed aloft. Report to me when you come down, and then I'll turn in."

Rose coloured on hearing the captain's bantering tone, as she threw a shawl over her head and shoulders, took the doctor's ready arm, and hastened up the companion-stair.

Ethel smiled sadly at her joyous and girlish sister, for she had seen how the intimacy between the young doctor and Rose had been ripening; and she wondered, or speculated on, how they would separate when the tedious voyage was over. Then she thought of Morley Ashton, and the fatal blight that had fallen so awfully and mysteriously upon her own first love.

"Miss Basset," said Hawkshaw, rising, "would you wish--

"To go on deck? Oh, no, thank you," said she hurriedly, anticipating and replying to his offer without looking up from "I Promessi Sposi."

Hawkshaw seated himself again, and bit his lip, while that malignant gleam which filled his eyes at times shot from them covertly and unseen.

He made one other effort to engage her in conversation, by saying, in a low voice, as he stooped over her:

"Your sad smiles, Ethel, go straight to my heart, with an effect, believe me, that is cruel--killing!"

"Why! it seems that 'I can smile, and murder while I smile,' as Shakespeare says. Is it so?"

"Bantering--bantering still--even here, when on the verge of destruction, perhaps!" muttered Hawkshaw, as he drew back with another fierce but covert gleam in his stealthy eyes, and Ethel never lifted hers again from her book, until a noise on deck aroused her.

Rose clung closely and affectionately to the doctor's arm, as they traversed the quarter-deck towards the taffrail, and turned to look at the ship, at the sky overhead, through which the wild black scud was driving, and on the mysterious world of water and of darkness, through which she was careering under a press of canvas.

Encouraged by Rose's ready accession to his request, the young man held her right hand in his, and pressed it tenderly to his heart.

There was none near them save the man at the wheel; for it was about the middle of the first watch, or nearer eleven o'clock.

Rose had a presentiment that a crisis was approaching in her relations with the young doctor. The somewhat annoying banter of Captain Phillips, the affectionate warnings of Ethel, and the praises of him so loudly sung by her old nurse, had all, in a manner, prepared her for it, as much as the steady and delicate attention he paid herself.

Nightly, when Rose retired to rest in that little cabin, which seemed so small, so very small, the first night they occupied it, Nance Folgate was wont to chant her praises of the handsome doctor.

"Lor' a mussy me!--for a Scotchman--he is such a sweet dispositioned youth, Miss Rose. Oh, yes! now, ain't he, miss? He gives me no end o' cordials and stuffs when I'm in low spirits, which are often the case, 'specially when it blows 'ard, and the ship tumbles about. There is such a modesty in all his words and ways--now, ain't there? If I was a fine young gal like you, instead o' bein' a poor old toothless thing, I would love him, that I would, when I saw how much he loved me--he is such a nice young man, is the doctor. But why don't you answer, miss?"

If Rose did not reply to such rhapsodies as these, it was not because she disagreed with them; but her young heart was wild with pleasure, and she often affected to be asleep that she might conceal her flushing cheek on her pillow. But if the young doctor had won over the old nurse, it was just as he had won over the quiet and unaffected Mr. Quail, or anyone else, as he was a good obliging fellow, and fond of doing kind offices for all. So Rose, yielding to an irresistible impulse, assented to a tête-à-tête on deck, on the night in question.

After a silence of some minutes--

"How strange it is," said Rose, in her soft, sweet voice, "that amid the wind which moans through the rigging, I seem to hear the sound of bells."

"Bells?"

"Or is it from the bottom of the sea?"

"Don't say so, Rose," replied Heriot.

This sounded strange in both their ears, as he had. never simply called her "Rose" before; yet the implied familiarity was not without its novelty and charm.

"Why may I not say so?" she asked.

"It is an old superstition of our Scottish sailors that the bells of wrecks and sunken ships are rung by mysterious hands at the bottom of the sea, to announce storms and disasters."

"Ah, but you Scots are so superstitious; you live in a land of omens and ghosts, predictions and dreams, even in these fast railway times."

"Yet I would that we were in Scotland now," said Heriot, with a sigh, as he thought of the doubts and clouds that veiled the future.

"We?" repeated Rose, inquiringly, while peeping from her hood and shawl, so that the light of the binnacle lamp fell full on her sweet young face, and very beautiful the dark-eyed girl looked.

"Yes, we," reiterated Heriot, whose heart was rushing to his head as he held, unresisted, her plump little hands in his. "I wish to speak with you, Rose, to--to--I have so long desired--do you--do you care for me Rose, dear Rose?"

"Care for you!" she repeated, faintly.

"Can you love me, dear, dear Rose, as I love you?"

"Yes," said Rose, in a whisper, as her head dropped on Heriot's shoulder, and his lips were pressed on her throbbing brow, for now the great secret was told, and all her pulses beat with a new, happiness.

A few moments of joyous silence followed. Then crossing the deck to leeward, they were more in obscurity; and fortunately for them, Manfredi at that moment went forward, so Heriot pressed Rose to his breast, and said in a low, earnest, and agitated voice:

"But Rose--my beloved Rose; to what end do I love you?--to what purpose?--how taught you love to me? We are to land you at the Isle of France, and then sail on through the Indian Seas--to leave you--leave you there, for I have no home--no settled abode."

("Papa's daughters are unlucky in their lovers," thought Rose.) She replied, however, while tears of apprehension filled her eyes:

"Why cannot you leave the ship? Sailing with it to and fro must be very tiresome."

"Leave it?"

"Yes, and live with us in the Isle of France."

"Live with you, Rose?" said Heriot, with sad perplexity.

"Settle, I mean--at least, while papa is there."

"I cannot, even if I had the means. I am bound to the owners and to Captain Phillips, for this voyage at least, unless the _Hermione_ procures another medical officer."

"At Singapore?"

Heriot smiled sadly at Rose's simplicity.

"Ah, yes--that will be delightful! and if poor dear Morley Ashton, who is dead, were here with us now, how happy Ethel and we should all have been!" exclaimed Rose, while nursing herself into a mood of the most prosperous cheerfulness, as her happy young spirit soared into a bright world all her own, and Heriot caressingly slipped a ring on her "engagement" finger, whispering in her ear:

"It was my mother's, Rose--wear it, at all events, for her sake and mine."

Another kiss and the bond was sealed. Then Rose, in a tumult of joy that could only find vent in tears, hurried below, with her head inclined on Ethel's bosom, told her of all that had passed between Leslie Heriot and herself--a pretty little narrative, interspersed with hesitations, smiles, and blushes, till they were startled by the wild hubbub that reigned on deck, where a terrible catastrophe had occurred.