Sea and Shore Part 12

"Miriam for the present, if you please. This is no time nor place for ceremony."

"Well, Miriam it shall be," she repeated with laughing eyes (hers were of that sort which close and grow Chinese under the pressure of merriment and high cheekbones combined). "Miriam, I like the name--there is something grand about it."

"But how shall we know where to find your friends when we get to port?"

asked my first attendant. "We _must_ know more than your Christian name for such a purpose. You must place confidence in us, you must indeed!"

"Be patient with me," I entreated. "I am much too feeble yet to give you the details that may be necessary. When we reach New York, you shall know every thing: or is it, indeed, to that place this ship is bound?"

"I thought you knew all about your destination by this time," replied Lady Anastasia Raymond. "Yes, yes, New York of course!" and again she laughed. "Didn't you hear Clayton say so?"

Just then a sharp tap at the door was answered by Lady Anastasia, who went quickly from beneath the curtain hung across it (in consideration, no doubt, of the privacy my illness enjoined), but not before I had caught once, and this time clearly, the tones of a voice that thrilled to my life, the same that had haunted my delirious fancy, I now remembered, through the last four-and-twenty hours.

I rose to my elbow impulsively, only to fall back again utterly exhausted.

"Who was that speaking?" I asked, feebly; "can it be possible--" and I wrung my hands.

"It was the ship's doctor," interrupted the woman I had heard called Clayton by her mistress. "He had not time to do more than inquire about you, I suppose, there are so many ill in the steerage; but he has been very kind and will probably return."

"I hope so," I rejoined; "I should like to realize that voice as _his_.

It has haunted me very disagreeably in my dreams, and the tones are those of an old, old acquaintance, one I should be sorry to see here."

"I do not believe you have an acquaintance on the ship," she said, simply, "Under the circ.u.mstances any such person would certainly have discovered himself; your situation would have moved a heart of stone."

"But it is sometimes wise for the wicked to lie _perdu_," I murmured, and conjecture was busy in my brain. "I should be glad, too, to see the captain of this vessel at his earliest convenience," I added, after a pause.

"Will you be so good as to apprise him in person of my earnest wish? It would be a real charity."

"Oh, certainly; but I am afraid he cannot come to-night. It is nearly evening now, and he never leaves the deck at this hour, nor until very late."

"To-morrow, then, I must insist on this interview, since I reflect about it for several reasons."

"To-morrow he shall come," she said, sententiously; "and now try and sleep again. It is very necessary you should gather strength, for we shall be in port shortly, when all will be confusion."

I went to sleep, I remember, murmuring to myself: "The hands were the hands of Jacob, but the voice was the voice of Esau;" and my bewildered faculties found rest until the morning's dawn.

After a hasty toilet made by the careful hands of Mrs. Clayton, a matutinal visit made by Mrs. or Lady Raymond, who always rose early as she informed me, and a cup of tea, very soothing to my prostrated nerves, the potentate of the Latona was duly announced.

Our ship's master was a tall, gaunt, sandy-haired man, with steady gray eyes, hard features, and enormous hands and feet, the first freckled and awkward, the last so long as very nearly to span the s.p.a.ce between his seat (a small Spanish-leather trunk) and the berth I reposed in. He entered without his hat; and the swoop of the head he made to avoid the entanglement of the curtain was supposed to do double duty, and serve as a bow to the inmate of his state-room as well, for his I supposed it to be at the time, and he did not contradict me.

"I hope you find yourself comfortable, marm, on board of my ship."

"And in your state-room, captain!" I interrupted promptly.

"Wall, you see it all belongs to me, kinder," he said, after seating himself, as he rubbed his huge, projecting knees, plainly indicated through his nankeen trousers, with his capacious, h.o.r.n.y hands. "I'm not very particular, though, where I sleep on shipboard, but at home there's few more so."

"I thought a captain was more at home on shipboard than anywhere else,"

I pursued mechanically; "such is the theory at least."

"Oh, not at all, not at all; when he has a snug nest on land, with a wife and children waiting to receive him. You might as well talk of a man in the new settlements bein' more at home in his wagon than in his neat, hewn-log cabin."

"A very good simile, captain, and one that kills the ancient theory outright. Let me thank you, however, before we proceed further, for all the kindness and attention I have received in this floating castle of yours, both from you and others. I hope and believe that my companions in misfortune have fared as well."

"Wall, they have not wanted for nothing as far as I knew--the poor baby in particular;" and, as he spoke, he roughed his hair with one hand and smiled into my face a huge, honest, gummy smile, inexpressibly rea.s.suring.

"The man is hideous and repulsive," I thought; "but infinitely preferable, somehow, to the specimen of English aristocracy and her maid who have const.i.tuted themselves so far my guardian angels"--a twinge of ingrat.i.tude here, which I resented instantly by settling my patriotic prejudices to be at the root of the thing, and rebuking my mistrust sternly though silently. "Yet that voice--how could I be mistaken?" and again I addressed myself to the task before me, having gotten through all preliminaries.

While I sat hesitating as to what I should say, so as to both guard against and conceal my suspicions from the captain's scrutiny, if, indeed, he might be supposed to possess such a quality, I observed that he drew from his pocket a long slip of newspaper, in which he appeared to bury himself for a time, when not glancing furtively at me, as if waiting impatiently for the coming revelation.

"I have sent for you, Captain Van Dorne," I said, at last, in very low and even tones, not calculated to reach outside ears, however vigilant, and yet not suppressed by any means to whispers--"I have sent for you,"

and my heart beat quickly as I spoke, "not merely to thank you for your hospitable kindness, but because I wish, for reasons that I cannot now explain, to place myself under your especial care until I reach my friends."

"Certainly, certainly; but you _air_ among your friends already if you could only think so," he answered, evasively, still caressing his potato knees with large and outspread hands.

"Do not for one moment deem me unmindful of much kindness, or ungrateful to those who have bestowed it," I hastened to explain. "Yet I cannot deny that a fear possesses me that among your pa.s.sengers may be found one whom I esteem, not without sufficient cause, my greatest enemy."

"Poor thing! poor thing! what put such a strange fancy into your head?

An enemy in my ship! Why, there is not a man on board who would not cut off his right hand rather than harm one hair of your poor, witless, defenseless head! There was not a dry eye on the deck when you and the rest wuz lifted from the raft!"

"I understand this prevalence of sympathy for misfortune perfectly, and honor it; yet I have heard a voice since my immurement in this cabin which must belong"--and I whispered the dreaded name--"to Mr. Basil Bainrothe!"

As I spoke I eyed him steadily, and I fancied that his cheek flushed and his eye wavered--that clear and honest eye which had given him a high place in my consideration from the moment I met its gaze.

"You must have been delirious-like when you conceited you heerd that strange voice," he said, presently. "I'll send you my pa.s.senger-list if you choose, and you can read it over keerfully. I don't think you'll find _that_ name, though, in its kolynms," shaking his head sagaciously.

"Captain Van Dorne, do you mean to say there is no such pa.s.senger in your ship's list as Basil Bainrothe?" I asked, desperately.

"That's what I mean to say."

"Give me your honor on this point. It is a vital one to me. Your honor!"

He hesitated and looked around. Just at this moment of apparent uncertainty, a slight tap was heard on the ground-gla.s.s eye above us that threw a sullen and unwilling light upon the scene of our interview.

It seemed to nerve him strangely.

"On my word of honor, as an American seaman, I a.s.sure you that the name of Basil Bainrothe is not on the ship's list at this present speaking;"

and, as he spoke, he held up his right hand, adding, as he dropped it, doggedly, "Ef the man's on board I don't know it!"

"It is enough--I believe you, Captain Van Dorne. And now I want to ask you, as a parting grace, to convey me yourself to the Astor House, and place my watch" (detaching it from my neck as I spoke) "in the hands of the proprietors as a proof of my honest intentions. For yourself, I shall seek another opportunity."

"Not at all--not at all!" he interrupted. "Keep your watch, young lady.

No such pledge will be required by them proprietors; and, as to myself, if it had not been for this paper," drawing from his pocket, and flattening on his knees as he spoke, the slip I had before observed, then glancing at me sharply, "I could never have believed that such a pretty-spoken, pretty-behaved young creetur could have been _non com_.

But pshaw! what am I talking about? This paper is as old as last year's krout! You don't keer nothing about seeing of it, do you, now?" and he crumpled it in his hand.

"Not unless it concerns me in some way, Captain Van Dorne," I said, coldly. His manner had suddenly become offensive to me, and I longed to see him depart, having transacted my affairs, as far, at least, as I deemed it prudent to insist on such transaction.

"It may be," I added, "that, on reaching the port of New York, a friend or friends who expected me on the Kosciusko may be in waiting to receive me; that is, if the fate of that vessel be not already known. In that case, I shall not be obliged to avail myself of your services, and will acquaint you; but, otherwise, promise that you will conduct me from the ship yourself, either to the hotel or to your wife, as you prefer."

"Wall, I promise you," he said, doggedly, as he prepared literally to undouble his long frame before executing another dive beneath my door-guarding drapery, and with this brief a.s.surance I was fain to rest content.

At all events, I was rea.s.sured on one subject--those honest eyes, that frank if ugly mouth had no acquaintance with lies, or the father of them, I saw at once; and the voice of the ship's doctor had for the nonce deceived my practised ear, overstrung by suspicion--enfeebled by suffering.