The Seafarers

That Bella Waldron should have felt sad, and her night's rest have been disturbed in consequence, was, in the circumstances, most natural. For one cannot suppose that any young...

A year before this momentous day when Arabella Waldron was to set sail for India in her uncle's full-rigged ship, the Emperor of the Moon, there had come to her that supreme joy...

The 'captain' led the way into the five stalls he had booked, followed, of course, by the elder ladies, and, as Stephen Charke naturally went last, it fell out that Bella and he...

The lunch at Whale Island was over, and there was a slight breathing-space ere the garden-party, which followed it, began. Meanwhile, from Southsea pier, from down by the pontoo...

Nine months had passed since the entertainment of the foreign fleet at Portsmouth--months that had been pregnant with events concerning the three persons with whom this narrativ...

Events are now drawing near to that night when Bella was to have those distressing dreams which have been mentioned at the opening of this narrative; all was arranged for her de...

From the time the men had sheeted home the topsails as the _Emperor of the Moon_ got under way until now when, having left the Cape of Good Hope behind her, she was travelling t...

The saving of this creature, which Bella elected to call Bengalee, because she said she was sure it came from Bengal, and also because she had once sung a song having that name,...

Never, perhaps, on all that old highway of the waters, that silent road along which so many had steered their course to fabled Ormuz and to Ind, nor amidst fierce sea-fights 'tw...

The sailor is, as all the world knows, a light-hearted, mercurial creature. Face to face with death in some form or other during every hour of his life--although, often, the mer...

The southerly wind did not hold as it should have done considering the time of year, and the consequence was that the _Emperor of the Moon_ was by no means making such a passage...

It was from this time that there began to creep over the ship a feeling shared by all, both fore and aft, that the voyage would not end without something untoward happening. Wha...

Mrs. Pooley, Bella and Gilbert sat alone in the saloon that night, the faces of the two women being careworn and depressed in appearance, while on that of the young naval office...

But still the days went on and no wind came--the one thing which, even now, after they had been becalmed for nearly a week, might have saved the ship from any fearful calamity t...

Four seamen only left untouched by blindness now, and two officers, to work a ship of six hundred tons! How was it to be, how could it ever be, done? The task was hopeless, and...

Another day had passed and the south wind still blew gently, neither increasing nor decreasing in force, so that the log showed that the _Emperor of the Moon_ had progressed bet...

Had Bella known more about a ship and its intricacies she would have understood that, notwithstanding some one had undoubtedly gone overboard, the sailor, whoever he was, could...

'How in Heaven's name has she ever done it?' muttered Charke to himself, three minutes later, as, dripping like a dog dragged out of a pond, he still stood by the wheel while ho...

The Indian Ocean lay beneath the purple-scarlet rays of the setting sun as calmly and as peacefully as though, across its treacherous bosom, nothing more violent than a cat's-pa...

She moved away from him now that the night was at hand, intending to seek a little knoll that was hollowed out by Nature so that it presented the appearance of a small cave of a...

They had both slept again by the time that the morning broke with the suddenness of the tropics, while the coming of the sun was heralded by the pale primrose hue which all who...

'She is perfectly sound and watertight,' he called back to her as, with the hand which was uninjured, he threw the oar over the boat's stern, and worked her out from the shore....

When the sun began to drop towards where Africa lay, afar off and invisible, and when (because of the dense foliage which crowned the slopes of the island that rose behind the b...

'No,' he said to Bella some time later, and when he had returned to her, 'no other signs than these. Nothing,' while, as he spoke, he pointed to the jacket and cap at his feet....

'My God!' exclaimed Gilbert, as, beneath that light touch, he awoke and saw Stephen Charke by his side, 'is it a dream! You--you here! Saved! Thank God for all His mercies. I th...

They had progressed so far towards the cliffs above the little bay or cove, where Gilbert was, that now they had but to cross the summit of one more spur and then they would be...