A Roving Commission Part 44

"Ah, my dear Nat," Madame d.u.c.h.esne said, "we were hoping that you would be able to spare time to call to-day. My husband would have gone off to see you, but he knew that you had a great deal to do. All the town is talking of your capture of the French frigate, and the recapture of the two prizes that she had taken. Several of our friends have come in to tell us about it; but of course we were not surprised, for your capturing the frigate with the _Agile_ was no more wonderful than your taking the _Agile_ with the _Arrow_."

"It was a lucky affair altogether, Madame d.u.c.h.esne."

"I knew that you would say so," Myra said indignantly. "Whatever you do you always say it is luck, as if luck could do everything. I have no patience with you."

"I will endeavour not to use the word again in your presence, Myra," Nat laughed. "But I have no time for an argument to-day, I have only just run in for a flying visit to see how you are. I have no end of things to see to, and I suppose it will be some days before all the business of the prizes is finished, the frigate formally handed over, and the value of the Indiamen and their cargo estimated. However, as soon as I am at all free I will come in for a long talk. You know that there is nowhere that I feel so happy and at home as I do here."

It was indeed three days before he had time to pay another visit.

"It is too bad of you, not coming to dinner," Myra said as he entered.

"We really did expect you."

"I hoped that I should be able to get here in time, but ever since I saw you I have been going backwards and forwards between the ships and the sh.o.r.e, calling at the dockyard and prize court. To-day there has been a regular survey of the Spartane. They were so long over it that I began to think I should not be able to get away at all."

"You will be becoming quite a millionaire," Monsieur d.u.c.h.esne said, "if you go on like this."

"Well, you see, we were lucky--I beg your pardon, Myra--I mean we were fortunate. We had a very small crew on board the _Arrow_, and as it was an independent command, the whole of the prize-money for the capture of the _Agile_ and her prize was divided among us, with the exception of the flag share; and I found, to my surprise, that my share came to 2500. Without knowing anything of the cargoes of the prizes that I have recaptured now, and what will be paid for the _Spartane_, I should think that my share would come to twice as much this time, so that I shall be able before long to retire into private life--that is, if I have any inclination to do so."

"But I suppose," Madame d.u.c.h.esne said, "that if you marry you will want to settle down."

"I am too young to think of such a matter, madame," Nat laughed. "Why, I am only just nineteen, and it will be quite soon enough to think of that in another eight or ten years. But there is no doubt that when the time comes I shall give up the sea. I don't think it is fair to a wife to leave her at home while you are running the risk of being shot. It is bad enough for her in time of peace, but in war-time it must be terrible for her, and it strikes me that this war is likely to be a long one. It seems to me that it is a question for a man to ask himself, whether he loves his profession or a woman better. If he cares more for the sea, he should remain single; if he thinks more of the woman, let him settle down with her."

"That sounds very wise," Monsieur d.u.c.h.esne said with a smile, "but when the time comes for the choice I fancy that most men do not accept either alternative, but marry and still go to sea."

"That is all right when they have only their profession to depend upon,"

Nat said. "Then, if a woman, with her eyes open to the fact that he must be away from her for months, is ready to take a man for better or for worse, I suppose the temptation is too strong to be withstood. Happily it won't be put in my way, for even if I never take another ship I shall have enough to live on quietly ash.o.r.e."

"Now, you must tell us the story of the fight," Myra said.

"The story is told in twenty words," he replied. "She did not suspect that we were an enemy until we had pa.s.sed her, and our broadside told her what we were. As the _Agile_ is faster and much more handy than the frigate, we managed to keep astern of her, and, sailing backwards and forwards, poured our broadsides in her stern, while she could scarce get a gun to bear on us. We managed to cripple her rudder, and after this the fight was virtually over. However, she kept her flag flying till we shot away her mizzen, after which, seeing that she was at our mercy, and that her captain, two lieutenants, and more than half her crew were killed or wounded, she lowered her colours. Now, really that is the whole account of the fight. If I were telling a sailor, who would understand the nautical terms, I could explain the matter more clearly, but if I were to talk for an hour you would understand no more about it than you do now."

An hour later, Nat went out with Monsieur d.u.c.h.esne to smoke a cigar on the verandah, Myra remaining indoors with her mother, who was afraid of sitting out in the cool evening breeze.

"Going back to our conversation about marriage, Nat," Monsieur d.u.c.h.esne said, "it is a question which my wife and I feel some little interest in. You see, it is now more than three years since you saved Myra's life, after which you rendered her and my wife inestimable service. Now, I know that in your country marriages are for the most part arranged between the young people themselves. With us such an arrangement would be considered indecent. If your father and mother were out here, the usual course would be for your mother to approach my wife and talk the matter over with her. My wife would consult with me, and finally, when we old people had quite come to an understanding, your father would speak to you on the subject. All this is impossible here. Now, it seems to my wife and myself that, having rendered such inestimable services to us, and having been thrown with my daughter a good deal--who, I may say, without any undue vanity, is a very attractive young lady--you could scarcely be indifferent to her.

"As you said, according to your British notions you are too young to think of marrying; and, at any rate, my wife has sounded Myra, and the girl has a.s.sured her that you have never said a word to her that would lead her to believe you entertained other than what I may call a brotherly affection for her. Now, I can tell you frankly, that one of our reasons for remaining here for the past six months has been that we desired that the matter should be arranged one way or the other. It has struck us that it was not your youth only that prevented you from coming to me and asking for Myra's hand, but a foolish idea that she is, as is undoubtedly the case, a very rich heiress. Before I go farther, may I ask if that is the case, and if you really entertain such an affection for my daughter as would, putting aside all question of money and of your youth, lead you to ask her hand?"

"That I can answer at once, sir. Ever since I first met her, and especially since I saw how bravely she supported that terrible time when she might fall into the hands of the blacks, I have thought of your daughter as the most charming girl that I have ever met. Of course, I was but a lad and she a young girl--no thought of marriage at that time even entered my mind. During the past three years that feeling has grown, until I have found that my happiness depends entirely upon her. I felt, monsieur, that my lips were sealed, not only by the fact that she was an heiress and I only a penniless lieutenant, but because it would be most unfair and ungenerous were I, on the strength of any services I may have rendered, to ask you for her hand."

"It is not on account of those services, much as we recognize them, that I offer you her hand, but because both her mother and herself feel that her happiness, which is the great object of our lives, is involved in the matter. In most cases, a young lady well brought up does not give her heart until her father presents to her an eligible suitor. This is an exceptional case. I do think that any girl whose life had been saved, as hers was, at the risk of that of her rescuer, and who, during a most terrible time, came to look up to him as the protector of herself and her mother, and who, moreover, was constantly hearing of his daring actions, and to whom her dearest friends also owed their lives, could not but make him her hero. I need not say that the subject has not been mooted to her, and it was because I desired the matter to be settled before we left for Europe that we have lingered here. I am glad indeed that I now know your feeling in the matter. I am conscious that in giving her to you we are securing her happiness. I have, of course, ever since the day when you saved her from that dog, watched your character very closely, and the result has been in all respects satisfactory. Now, I will go in and tell her that I will take her place by her mother's side, and that she may as well come out here and keep you company."

In a minute Myra stepped out on to the verandah.

"It is cool and nice here, Nat. I think it would do mother more good out here than keeping in the house, where in the first place it is hot, while in the second place it gives me the horrors to see the way the moths and things fly into the lights and burn themselves to death."

"No doubt it is pleasanter here," Nat said, wondering how he ought to begin.

"That was very soberly said, Nat," Myra laughed. "One would think that it was a proposition that required a good deal of consideration."

"It was a proposition that received no consideration. In point of fact, just at present, dear, my head is a little turned with a conversation that I have just had with your father."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean that I see before me a great and unlooked-for happiness, a happiness that I had hardly ventured even to hope for, but at present it is incomplete; it is for you to crown it if you can do so. Your father has given his consent to my telling you that I love you. I do love you truly and earnestly, Myra, but I should not be content with anything less than your love. I don't want it to be grat.i.tude. I don't want any thought of that business with the dog, or of the other business with the blacks, to have anything to do with it."

"They must have something to do with it," she said softly, "for it was owing to these that I first began to love you. It was at first, no doubt, a girl's love for one who had done so much for her, but since then it has become a woman's love for the one man that she should choose out of all. I love you, Nat, I love you with all my heart."

Ten minutes later they went hand in hand into the house. Monsieur d.u.c.h.esne had told his wife what had occurred in the verandah, and as they came in she rose and threw her arms round Myra's neck and kissed her tenderly.

"You have chosen wisely, my child, and have made us both very happy. We can give her to you, Monsieur Glover, without one misgiving; we know that in your hands her life will be a happy one. And now," she went on with a smile, "you will have to face that terrible problem you were discussing an hour since. You will have to choose between a wife and the sea."

"The problem may be settled at once, madame," Nat said with a smile.

"At any rate, there is no occasion to choose at present," Madame d.u.c.h.esne went on. "Myra is but just past sixteen, and her father and I both think that it is as well that you should wait at least a couple of years before there is any talk of marriage, both for her sake and yours.

After your brilliant services, especially in capturing the frigate, you are sure of rapid promotion, and it would be a pity indeed for you to give up your profession until you have obtained the rank of captain, when you could honourably retire. We shall leave for England very shortly, France is out of the question. As you said, you and my daughter are both young, and can well afford to wait."

"That is so, madame, we quite acquiesce in your decision. As to your going to England, it is likely that I may be going there myself very shortly. The admiral hinted to-day that, as the dockyard people say that the _Spartane_ can be ready for sea in ten days or so, he will probably send me home in her. He very kindly kept back my report of the action, and merely stated that the French frigate _Spartane_ had been brought in in tow by his majesty's brigantine _Agile_, together with two merchantmen she had captured on her way out, which had also been retaken by the _Agile_, and said that he thought it was only fair that I should carry back my own report and his full despatch on the subject. Of course I may be sent out again, or I may be employed on other service. At any rate I shall be able to get a short leave before I go to sea again. I have been out here now six years, and feel ent.i.tled to a little rest. I would certainly rather be employed in the Mediterranean than here, for there is more chance of seeing real service."

The next day Nat received an order from the admiral to hand over the command of the _Agile_ to Lieutenant Turnbull. Lippincott, who would pa.s.s his examination and receive his step, was to act as first lieutenant, and a midshipman from one of the ships on the station was to be second officer. Nat himself was ordered to superintend the repairs and fitting out for sea of the _Spartane._

"I am awfully sorry that you are going, Glover," Turnbull said. "Of course it is a great pull for me being appointed to the command, but I was very jolly and happy as I was. I don't think there ever was a pleasanter party on board one of his majesty's ships. However, of course it is a great lift for me. I shall try to keep things going as comfortably as you did."

"I have no doubt that you will do that, Turnbull, and you have an able ally in Doyle."

"Doyle was inconsolable when I came on board yesterday and told him that you were going home in the _Spartane_, and that I was to have the command."

"It is the worst news that I have heard for many a day," Doyle had said.

"You are very well, Turnbull, and I have no sort of complaint to make of you, but I am afraid that the luck will go with Glover. It is his luck and not the ship's; whatever he has put his hand to has turned out well.

I don't say that he has not done his work as well as it could be done, but there is no doubt that luck is everything. If one of the _Agile's_ guns had knocked away a mast or spar from the _Arrow_ it would have been all up with you; and again, had a shot from the frigate crippled us, she would have been after taking the _Agile_ into a French port instead of our bringing her in here."

"Yes, but then you see that upon both occasions Glover put his craft where it was difficult to get their guns to bear on her."

"Yes, yes, I know that; but that does not alter it a bit. If there had been only one shot fired, and had we been an unlucky boat, it would, sure enough, have brought one of the spars about our ears."

"Well, Doyle, it may be that it was my luck, and not Glover's, that pulled us through. You see, I should have been shot or had my throat cut by the pirates if we had been taken by them, so possibly I am the good genius of the boat; or it may be Lippincott."

"Botheration to you!" the Irishman said, as he saw by a twinkle in Turnbull's eye that he was really chaffing him; "there is one thing certain, if you get wounded and fall into my hands, you will not regard that as a matter of luck."

"Well, at any rate, doctor, Glover told me half an hour ago of a piece of luck in which none of us here can share. He is engaged to that very pretty French girl whom he is always calling on when we are in port."

"I thought that was what would come of it, Turnbull," Lippincott said; "it would be rum if she hadn't fallen in love with him after all that he did for her."

"I was greatly taken with her myself," the doctor said, "the first time she came on board, but I saw with half an eye that the race was lost before I had time to enter. Besides, I could not afford to marry without money, and one of these poor devils of planters, who have had to run away from Hayti with, for the most part, just the clothes they stood up in, would hardly make the father-in-law yours faithfully would desire. I wonder myself how they manage to keep up such a fine establishment here, but I suppose they had a little put away in an old stocking, and are just running through it. They are shiftless people, are these planters, and, having been always used to luxuries, don't know the value of money."

Turnbull burst into a fit of laughter in which Lippincott joined, for in the early days of the cruise on the _Arrow_ they had heard from Nat how his friends had for generations laid by a portion of their revenues, and allowed the interest to acc.u.mulate, so that, now that the time had come for utilizing the reserve, they were really much richer people than they had been when living on their fine plantation. Doyle looked astonished at their laughter.

"My dear Doyle," Turnbull went on, "it is too comical to hear you talking of a shiftless planter--you, belonging as you do to the most happy-go-lucky race on the face of the earth. Now, I will ask you, did you ever hear of a family of Irish squires who for generations put aside a tenth part of their income, and allowed the interest to acc.u.mulate without touching it, so that, when bad times came, they found that they were twice as well off as they were before?"

"Begorra, you are right, Turnbull; never did I hear of such a thing, and I don't believe it ever happened since the first Irish crossed the seas from somewhere in the east."