A Marriage at Sea Part 24

"But I am not your wife!" she exclaimed with a pout, softly beating the deck with her foot, "and this ring is unreal--it signifies nothing--"

I interrupted her. "I am not so sure that you are not my wife," said I. She shot a look at me out of her eyes, which were large with alarm and confusion. "At all events, I believe I am your husband, and surely, my precious, you must hope that I am. But whether or not, pray go on wearing that ring. You can pull it off when we get to Penzance, and I will slip it on again when we stand before my cousin."

"It has been a dreadful adventure," said she.

"More memorable than dreadful," I answered, putting her hand under my arm and stepping with her over to where the second mate was standing--the young fellow who had brought us aboard out of the yacht.

He touched his cap very civilly, whilst the skin of his face shrunk into a thousand wrinkles to the grin he put on.

"Surely something will be coming into view soon?" said I.

"Oh, I think so, sir," he answered.

"What is this rate of sailing?"

"About nine knots, sir."

"There it is!" cried I, "and every hour brings New Zealand nearer and makes England more distant."

"Do not talk of New Zealand," exclaimed Grace. "What sort of ships are to be met here?" she added, addressing the second mate.

"All sorts, Miss--, I beg your pardon, I mean ma'am," he answered; "ocean tramps in the main, but a mail liner here and there."

"What are your instructions?" I began, but at that instant I caught sight of old Parsons rising through the hatch with a s.e.xtant in his hand. "Oh, here is the captain coming to take sights," said I; "we must arrive at an understanding with him. I believe he would like to keep us on board as an inducement to others to get married."

He smiled with an air of importance as we advanced, and I imagined in him an effort to give himself the airs of a father, or of a father-in-law. His little damp, deep-sunk eyes, so far as they could express any species of emotion, seemed to survey us with benignity and pride as though he would say, "_That_ couple is my work, ladies and gentlemen. _I_ made them one. Who's next?"

"When you have finished with your s.e.xtant, captain," I exclaimed, "I should like a few words with you."

"Pray talk away," he answered, putting the instrument to his eye.

"What about our getting home?"

"At the first opportunity that comes along, I'll transfer you. Can't do more. Can't send ye home in one of my quarter-boats, you know."

"But your mates have no instructions."

"They shall have all necessary instructions presently. And how do you feel, mem, after that little job below? Being married 's a trying performance. I've known men who'd have been married twenty times over if it hadn't been for the ceremony."

He gazed with an air of satisfaction at her wedding ring, and then applied his eye afresh to the s.e.xtant. My mind was rendered easier by his promise to repeat his earlier instructions to his mates, and until the luncheon bell rang, Grace and I continued to pace the deck. By this time the news of our having been married had travelled forwards, conveyed to the Jacks and to the steerage pa.s.sengers, as I took it, by one of the stewards. It was the sailors' dinner hour, and I could see twenty of them on the forecastle staring at us as one man, whilst every time we advanced to the edge of the p.o.o.p, where the rail protected the deck, there was a universal upturning of bearded, rough faces, with much pointing and nodding among the women.

After all this the luncheon table was something of a relief, despite the rows of people at it. I was afraid from the manner in which Captain Parsons from time to time regarded us that he was rehearsing a speech, a menace I could not think of without silent horror since it must inevitably compel a reply from me. However, nothing was said, and we lunched in peace, much looked at, particularly by the ladies, as you will suppose; but I found Grace easier under this inspection than I should have dared to hope; possibly she was now getting used to it.

She divided her conversation between me and Mr. Higginson, who sat at her left, and she wore a very sweet and easy manner, charming with its girlish grace of dignity. Her breeding showed to perfection at that time, I thought. It was probably rendered more defined to my mind by the looks and behaviour of the other ladies, all of them, to be sure, a very good sort of homely, friendly people, with something of the true lady indeed in Mrs. Barstow.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MERMAID

Nothing was said about the marriage.

The privacy of the affair lay as a sort of obligation of silence upon the kindly-natured pa.s.sengers, and though, as I have said, they could not keep their eyes off us, their conversation was studiedly remote from the one topic about which we were all thinking. Lunch was almost ended when I spied the second mate peering down at us through the gla.s.s of the sky-light, and in a few minutes he descended the cabin ladder, and said something in a low voice to the captain.

"By George, Grace!" said I, grasping her hand as it lay on her lap, and whipping out with the notion put into me by a look I caught from the captain. "I believe the second mate has come down to report a ship in sight."

She started, and turned eagerly in the direction of the captain, who had quickly given the mate his orders, for already the man had returned on deck.

Mrs. Barstow, seated close to the captain, nodded at us, and Parsons himself sung out quietly down the table:

"I believe, Mr. and Mrs. Barclay, this will be your last meal aboard the _Carthusian_."

I sprang with excitement to my feet.

"Anything in sight, captain?"

"Ay, a steamer--apparently a yacht. Plenty of time," added he, rising, nevertheless, leisurely as he spoke, on which all the pa.s.sengers broke from the table--so speedily dull grows the sea-life, so quickly do people learn how to make much of the most trivial incidents upon the ocean--and in a few moments we were all on deck.

"Yes, by Jove, Grace, there she is, sure enough!" cried I, standing at the side with my darling and pointing forward, where, still some miles distant, a point or two on the starboard bow, was a steamer, showing very small indeed at the extremity of the long, far-reaching line of smoke that was pouring from her. A pa.s.senger handed me a telescope; I levelled it, and then clearly distinguished a yacht-like structure, with a yellow funnel, apparently schooner-rigged, with a sort of sparkling about her hull, whether from gilt, or bra.s.s, or gla.s.s, that instantly suggested the pleasure vessel.

It was still the same bright, joyous day that had shone over us all the morning. The sea was of a dark, rich blue, and the run of it cradle-like, with a summer-day lightness and grace in the arching and breaking of the surge. The ship, aslant in the wind, was sailing finely, with a slow, regular, stately swing of her towering fabric of canvas to windward, as she softly rolled on the floating slant of the seas. Turning my face aft, I saw the second mate and an apprentice, or midshipman in b.u.t.tons, in the act of hoisting a string of colours to the gaff-end. The flags soared in a graceful semi-circle, and the whole ship looked brave in a breath with the pulling of the many-dyed bunting, each flag delicate as gossamer against the blue of the sky, and the whole show of the deepest interest as the language of the sea--as the ship's own voice!

Had we been cast away, and in the direst peril, I could scarcely have awaited the approach of that steamer with more breathless expectation.

Where was she bound to? Would she receive us? Should we accept her offer to take us aboard, though she might be heading to some port wide of the place we desired to reach, such as Ireland or the North of Scotland? I could think of nothing else. The captain stood aft watching her, now and again lifting the ship's gla.s.s to his eye; the forecastle was loaded with steerage pa.s.sengers all staring forward; the p.o.o.p too looked full; the very stewards had left the saloon to peer; the cook had quitted his galley, and the Jacks had "knocked-off," as they call it, from the sundry jobs on which they were engaged, as though awaiting the order to bring the main topsail to the mast.

I approached the captain with Grace's hand under my arm.

"She has her answering pennant flying," he exclaimed, letting fall his gla.s.s to accost me, and he called to the second mate to haul down our signal. "I believe she will receive you, Mr. Barclay. She's a gentleman's yacht, and a fine boat at that. So much the better. After the _Carthusian_," he added, with a proud look at his n.o.ble ship, "I dare say you mightn't have found the first thing we fell in with perfectly agreeable."

"Where do you think she's bound, captain?"

"I should say undoubtedly heading for the English Channel," he answered.

"There should be no difficulty in transferring us, I think," said I, with a glance at the sea.

"Bless me, no," he answered, "get her close to leeward, and the ship'll make a breakwater for Mrs. Barclay."

"Captain Parsons, what can I say that will in any measure express my grat.i.tude to you? May I take it that a letter addressed to you to the care of the owners of the _Carthusian_ will be sure to reach you on your return?"

"Oh, yes. But never you mind about that. What I've done has given me pleasure, and I hope that you'll both live long, and that neither of you by a single look or word will ever cause the other to regret that you fell into the hands of Captain Parsons of the good ship _Carthusian_."

Grace gave him a sweet smile. Now that it seemed we were about to leave his ship she could gaze at him without alarm. He broke from its to deliver an order to the second mate, who re-echoed his command in a loud shout. In a moment a number of sailors came racing aft and fell to rounding-in, as it is called, upon the main and main-top sailbraces with loud and hearty songs, which were re-echoed out of the white hollows aloft and combined with the splashing noise of waters and the small music of the wind in the rigging into a true ocean concert for the ear. The machinery of the braces brought the sails on the main to the wind; the ship's way was almost immediately arrested, and she lay quietly sinking and rising with a sort of hush of expectation along her decks, which nothing disturbed save the odd farmyard-like sounds of the live stock somewhere forward.

The steamer was now rapidly approaching us, and by this time without the aid of a gla.s.s I made her out to be a fine screw yacht of some three hundred and fifty tons, painted black, with a yellow funnel forward of amidships, which gave her the look of a gunboat. She had a charthouse, or some such structure near her bridge, that was very liberally glazed, and blinding flashes leapt from the panes of gla.s.s as she rolled to and from the sun as though she were quickly firing cannon charged with soundless and smokeless gunpowder. A figure paced the filament of bridge that was stretched before her funnel. He wore a gold band round his hat and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on his coat. Two or three men leaned over the head rail viewing us as they approached, but her quarter-deck was deserted. I could find no hint of female apparel or of the blue serge of the yachtsman.

Old Parsons, taking his stand at the rail clear of the crowd, waited until the yacht floated abreast, where with a few reverse revolutions of her propeller she came to a stand within easy talking distance--as handsome and finished a model as ever I had seen afloat.

"Ho, the yacht, ahoy!" shouted Captain Parsons.