← catalogue

Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers

by Gordon Stables · English · Gutenberg #38263 · 439,994 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers

Author: Gordon Stables


        
Release date: December 10, 2011 [eBook #38263]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38263

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD LIFE IN THE LAND OF THE GIANTS: A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Wild Life in the Land of the Giants
A Tale of two Brothers
By Gordon Stables
Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London.
This edition dated 1888.

Wild Life in the Land of the Giants, by Gordon Stables.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
WILD LIFE IN THE LAND OF THE GIANTS, BY GORDON STABLES.

CHAPTER ONE.

BOOK I--OUR HOME BY THE SEA.

THE OLD HOME BY THE SEA--AUNT SERAPHEEMA.

Reginald Augustus John Fitzmaurice Jones!

That is my name in full.

There is not the slightest occasion to remember it.

The name is far and away too long, and too tall for ordinary use.  Twice
only have I taken it to church with me, namely, on the day of my
baptism, and on my wedding morn.  On both these occasions it was written
on a bit of paper, and folded up for future use.

On the first occasion it was carefully carried in my father's waistcoat
pocket, and _I_ brought it home.

On the second occasion it was carefully carried in my own waistcoat
pocket, and brought home by one far dearer to me than even a father.

But as regards a name or names rather, my brother did not fare a bit
better than I did.

Rupert Domville Ffoljambe-Foley Jillard Jones!

That is my brother's name in full.  And, indeed, I think it will be
readily admitted that his was a harder case than even mine, and seeing
that I was the elder, this seemed scarcely fair.

Reginald Augustus John Fitzmaurice Jones!  Only fancy a spirited young
man having to make his way in life, and drag through existence with such
a name as that tagged on to him.  For _one_ young man even it would be
bad enough, but there were two of us, and we always drove in couple.

What a deal maiden aunts have to account for, as often as not!  Yes, it
was all owing to Aunt Serapheema, and even to this day I cannot help
thinking she owes us a very ample apology.

Here is how it occurred:

Father--he was Captain Jones then--was sitting all alone one evening in
the room which was designated by courtesy the study, though, as far as
literature is concerned, it contained little else save a few magazines,
the newspapers, and--father's pipe rack.  Well, father was enjoying a
mild cigar by the open window--for it was spring, and the birds were
singing in every bush--when there entered to him--Aunt Serapheema, who
began to cough.

Father put his cigar hastily down on the outside sill of the window,
with a little sigh, for it was one of the Colonel's--Colonel McReady's--
best, and only newly lit.

He hastened to place the high-backed armchair for the lady.  It was like
herself, this chair--straight, tall, dark, and prim.

"The smoke, I suppose, _would_ have annoyed you?"

"It would have, Harold."

"And the open window?"

"That we can do with."

"Ahem!" continued my aunt, smoothing the long black silken mits she
always wore on her hands and arms.  "Ahem!"

"Yes, sister," said my father.

"Yes, _aunt_, if you please.  Remember that in future, Harold; and it
will be as well if, instead of calling Dora, your wife, by the
ridiculous name of Dot, you _now_ address her as `mamma' or `ma.'"

The "now" in aunt's last sentence referred to the birth of my brother
and me.

"If you do not so address her, before very long the boys themselves will
be calling their mother Dot."

"Certainly," said father, "as you wish, sist--I--I mean aunt."

"Well, and it is about the boys I have come to speak, if you will favour
me with a moment's attention."

"Assuredly, sis--a--auntie dear."  And my father pulled himself
together, as if he had been on parade.  "Nothing wrong with the twins, I
trust?"

"No, nothing wrong--as yet.  But you know they must be baptised at an
early date.  Have you considered what names to give them?"

"Well, really--no--I--"

"Of course not.  Men are--merely men.  Luckily your wife and I have been
considering for you.  But have you any suggestion to make?"

"Ahem, well, a--my name has a John in it, and my brother's is Jim.
Short and sweet.  Simple and all the rest of it.  Eh?  What?"

I have been told that Aunt Serapheema did not answer him for fully half
a minute, but subjected him to what might be called a process of ocular
transfixion.  Compared to such a punishment, to be face to face with
Russian bayonets would have been child's play to poor father.

"John! and Jim!" she said at last, slowly rising.  "You may resume your
horrid cigar, Harold.  I did not expect to get much sense out of you,
and I am therefore not disappointed.  On this sheet of paper you will
find the names _we_ have decided upon.  You will note that--at the
earnest request of your wife--the paternal name does find a place, but
_Jim_!"  She transfixed him again, then went gliding to the door, which
father opened and bowed her away.

Then he almost ran to the window, and like the naughty old boy he must
have been, I fear he relit that horrid cigar, singing lightly to himself
as he hunted for the matches.

Now one's birth and baptism may seem very trivial matters to linger
over, especially when one has a life-story like my brother's and mine to
tell.  But events and adventures too will crowd each other fast enough
ere long.  For the brief present I am like some strong swimmer, who is
about to commit himself to battle with the waves of a storm-tossed
ocean, and who, before he takes the plunge, gazes once around and casts
a longing, lingering look behind.

Besides, one's boyhood's days or childhood's hours are the happiest,
without doubt, that ever fall to our lot here below, and we do not know
this till they are for ever fled.  Yes, I grant you that this stage of
our existence is not exempt from grief and sorrow, and very real these
look while they last, though they are easily chased away or kissed away
as the case may be.  Then there is stern education to come up day after
day like a terrible task-master.

As far as my brother and I were concerned, education assumed the
corporeal form of Aunt Serapheema.  My father's study--properly dusted
and disinfected in order to thoroughly exorcise the ghost of Colonel
McReady's cigars--became our schoolroom, the high-backed armchair our
prim preceptor's throne.  Mind you, we always did think auntie somewhat
prim, though it would be neither polite nor politic to tell her so.
Auntie was not only fearfully and wonderfully made as regards
angularity, but she was wonderfully clever as well.  I tremble even yet
when I think of how she used to come down upon us with dates--
figuratively speaking, and how appallingly she used to hurl "ographies"
and "ologies" at our poor little frightened faces.  I always did think
that dates--with the exception of the sticky eating sort--and "ologies"
and "ographies" were sent into the world like thorns and thistles, just
to prick and punish unfortunate boys.

Auntie used to wear glasses--two pairs at once; and it was not when she
looked at you right straight through these glasses that she appeared
dreadful, but when she glanced sternly over them.

She carried, or swayed as a sceptre, a long oaken pointer.  It was not
very thick, but very hard and far-reaching, and when it came down on
your knuckles--oh, it always left a red mark, and sounded as if the
clock were striking one.  It struck one very often every forenoon.

Even out of school auntie had a way of addressing any person that
commanded attention, but alone with her in the schoolroom her voice was
positively thrilling.

It was only natural that both my brother's attention and mine should
waver or wander at times.  Well, my father's first manly word in the
barrack square used to make every soldier stiffen, as it were; but it
was nothing to auntie's caution.  Nowhere near it in regal pomposity.

"Reginald, look towards me!" or--"Rupert Domville, _I_ am talking."

Oh, didn't poor Jill used to jump!

Yes, by Jill I mean my brother.  We had got tired of calling each other
Regie and Bertie, and one night held a consultation in our attic
bedroom.

"Your name," said my brother, "shall be boiled down to plain Jack."

"Well, Master Rupert Domville Ffoljambe-Foley Jillard Jones," I replied,
"if I'm to be boiled down to Jack, you shall be boiled down to Jill."

"Oh, I don't mind a bit.  It's short.  But--a--isn't Jill an old lady's
name?"

"Well, I rather think it is, because Jack and Jill went up the hill, you
know, and I've seen pictures of them, and one was an old lady.  But that
doesn't matter, does it?"

"No, Jack."

"Silly thing, though, to go up a hill to fetch a pail of water.  Was the
well on top of the hill, I wonder?"

"I couldn't say.  But, Jack?"

"Yes, Jill."

"Suppose we play at Jack and Jill to-morrow, just to inoculate our
names, you know."

"Inaugurate, you mean, you silly old Jill."

"Well, it's much the same.  Won't it be fun?"

"Yes, and I'll do it.  Let's fall asleep, and maybe dream about it."

"Let's make some metre first."  This was a favourite pastime of ours--
and we always did have some fun of some kind before we fell asleep.  Our
"poetry," as we called it, certainly was not of much account; but the
play was this: whatever two or three words one of us said, the other had
to match in metre.  To-night it ran as follows--I put our names before
our lines:--

  _Jack_.  "Our Auntie Prim,"
  _Jill_.  "She's got so slim,"
  _Jack_.  "And her eyes are so dim,"
  _Jill_.  "That I'll wager a limb"
  _Jack_.  "She can't see over her spectacle rim."

"Bravo!  Jack," cried Jill, "that's famous."

Then we had a chorus of laughing.  But it was checked as completely and
suddenly as if that traditional pail of water had come souse on both our
heads, for auntie's voice rang up the stair--

"Reginald and Rupert, _I_ am listening."

We covered our heads with the bedclothes, and were as mute as mice, till
the sunshine streamed in at the window next morning, and Sally knocked
with our drop of hot water.

But immediately after school hours we went off with a rush and a run to
the stable, where we found Robert washing Aunt Serapheema's pony's white
feet.

"Robert, we want a pail of water."

"Whatever be ye goin' to do wi' th' pail o' water, lads?"

"Oh, we'll soon tell you," cried I: "I'm Jack, and he's Jill now, and
we're going to play at it real.  We're going to roll down the green
mount same's we often do, you know, only we must have a pail of water."

"Well, well, well," said Robert, "I never!  But sha'n't Oi carry it up
for thee?"

"No, no, that wouldn't leave us half the fun."

The green mount, as it was called, was a grassy hill near the sea, on
which we used to have no end of fun in summer.  It was pretty steep, and
right in view of the dining-room window.

At this window our darling mother, as we always called her, and Aunt
Serapheema were sitting talking quietly, while Sally laid the cloth, and
they were not a little astonished to see us boys lugging painfully up
the hill with a pail of water.  Of course the real Jack and Jill had
gone to _fetch_ water, but we could only carry our programme out in the
way we were doing.

Both mamma and auntie watched us with no little curiosity; while Sally,
near by, stood looking too.

"Are you ready now?" said Jill, when we were near the top, "because
you've got to tumble first, you know."

"I'm ready," I cried.

Down I toppled.

Over went the bucket, and over went Jill.

"Sakes-a-mussy!" shrieked Sally.  "Sakes-a-mussy! missus, they're all
tumbling down together."

Mother cried, "Oh! the dear boys."

Aunt lifted her eyes and mittened palms cloudwards.

But for all that, down we rolled in fine form,--

  Jill over Jack,
  The bucket over Jill,
  Right to the bottom
  Of the big green hill.

That is how we metred it, that evening after the row was all over, and
we were sent to bed.

But it would have defied all the art of metre to describe the plight we
were in when Robert and Sally picked us up, and led us at arm's length
into the kitchen.  For I was soused from head to foot, and Jill had got
it second hand, and as for mud and rents--the least said the soonest
mended.

We didn't play any more at Jack and Jill with real water.

CHAPTER TWO.

WHILE WALKING ON THE SEA-BEACH.

Everybody loved auntie, for with all her strictness, and--to our young
eyes her strange old-world ways, she was so good and so genuine.
Goodness was no penance with auntie; it was not put on and off like a
dress-coat, a silk hat, or a sealskin jacket; it was part and parcel of
her very nature.  I believe that if auntie ever cloaked her real soul's
self at all, it was when she was apparently exceedingly wroth with us,
after some of our little escapades; which we could no more help than a
bird can help flying.  But sitting there in that weird black chair,
lecturing Jill and me with uplifted forefinger, and steadfast glances
_over_, not through, the two pairs of glasses, she certainly did look
thrillingly stern.  And she had a way, too, of making us feel thoroughly
ashamed of ourselves, without saying much or without scolding.

So our love was mingled with a good deal of reverence.  Really I laugh
now when I think of it, but whether you can understand the feeling or
not, we--that is Jill and I--almost revered the chair in which auntie
sat, even when she wasn't sitting in it.  You see we were allowed to
play and dance and jump in the schoolroom on wet days, or when the wind
blew high from the south and west, and dashed the sea's spray over beach
and gardens.  And do what we might, we never could disabuse our minds of
the notion that the chair was a living thing, and took notes of all we
said and did, and would whisper things to auntie when she sat down
again.

At ordinary times, when we might be merely squatting together on a
goatskin rug, reading "Robinson Crusoe," or turning over the leaves of a
huge "Arabian Nights" to look at the pictures, it did not matter much.
But always when I proposed a game at anything very ridiculous--and it
was always I who did make the proposition--before we began, I would
say--

"Wait half a minute, Jill, let's play at the chair being naughty first."

This was only an excuse, of course, to have the chair turned round with
its back to us.

Then I would walk up to it, and with my forefinger raised chidingly--

"You are a naughty old chair," I would say; "you cannot be at rest five
minutes at a time, and I am afraid you are showing your brother a bad
example.  Go into the corner, sir, until I tell you to come out."

"Now then," I would continue, mimicking the fishermen we listened to
hoisting their yawls from the beach and surf.  "Now then, Jill, lend a
hand here, and look lively, lad.  Tackle on to her.  Merrily matches it.
Together.  Heave with a will.  Up with her.  Round she goes, and up she
is, and we go rolling home.  Hurrah!"

When we got the chair fairly round with its back to us we felt at peace
to do as we liked.  We could stand on our heads till our faces got blue
and our eyes felt ready to burst; I could make a go-cart of Jill, and
haul him all round the room with the skipping-rope; he could make a
ship's mast of me, and squirm up and stand on my shoulders to give three
cheers for the Queen and the Royal Navy; we could build a tower with the
chairs, and in fact do anything or everything except spill the ink.
When we did that it cast a damp gloom over our spirits just as it spread
an inky pall over a portion of the table-cloth.

My father was our friend and playmate whenever he came home.  This was
not oftener than twice or thrice a week, for he was doing duty with his
regiment at the somewhat distant naval and military port of P--.  He
would fain have come oftener, but dared not offend so kindly a superior
officer as Colonel McReady.

Now auntie did not actually complain to father, but she used to mention
some of the maddest of our escapades, and with Jill climbing over the
back of his chair, and I, perhaps, standing bolt upright on his knees,
balanced by his hands, father would say--

"You young rascals, what did you do it for?  Eh?"

And this made us laugh like mad things, for we knew father was not
angry.

"Ah, well, auntie dear," he would say, "boys will be boys."

"True," she would reply; "but boys needn't be monkeys, need they,
Harold?"

"And really, Harold," she would add, "the boys would be so different if
you were to show just a little more parental authority."

This always made dear daddie laugh.  I don't know why.  The "parental
authority" somehow tickled him, for, as mother used to say, he looked
more a boy himself than a wise old parent.

But father loved auntie as much as any of us did, and looked up to her
too.  As she was his sister-in-law he needn't have done that, only she
was ever so much older, and, as father would add, "wiser as well."

Here is one proof that she had a deal of power over him:

Father did not hate his uniform; no real soldier does, although I have
heard some say they did; but he did not see the fun, as he called it, of
wearing it when off duty.  He was off duty going to church on Sundays,
but he went in uniform, nevertheless.  Why?  Because auntie like to see
him dressed so.

Mother did not always go to church, because she was delicate; but father
and auntie and we boys invariably did.

Let me think a moment.  How old would we have been then?  Oh, about
nine.  Dressed exactly alike--black jackets alike, broad white collars
alike, tall silk hats alike--the hats were auntie's notion of the
severely genteel--and little rattan canes alike.

Faces and eyes and hair all alike.  So much alike were we, indeed, on a
Sunday morning, that if any one, except mamma and auntie, who I daresay
had their own private marks, called us by our correct names, it was just
guesswork or merely chance.

Father made no attempt at distinguishing us on Sundays and holidays.
If, for example, he had given Jill a penny with a view to lollipops, and
I came round soon after, he would say:

"Let me see, now--I gave you a penny before, didn't I?"

Or he would quiz me, and say, "Are you Jack, or are you Jill?"

It will be observed that father had taken to call us Jack and Jill,
though auntie rather objected.

But hardly any one else knew us apart even on week-days; even Sally was
puzzled, and Robert never made any attempt at nomenclature.

In fact we were a kind of Corsican brothers in similitude, for, if I
remember rightly, they were twins like Jill and me.

On the Sunday afternoons my brother and I were sent, if the weather was
fine, to take a stroll along by the windings and bendings of the beach,
between the green rising hills and banks and the sea.  We went all
alone, and were recommended by auntie to think about all good things as
we walked, to study the strange objects strewn on the sand or left by
the receding waves, to gaze upon the sea, the sky, the rocks, and the
beautiful birds, and to remember our Father in heaven made them all.  We
were not to think our week-day thoughts, but rigidly to banish and
exclude therefrom, tops, whips, balls, and boats; we were not to fling
pebbles, nor jump on seaweed; we must walk erect not too close to the
water, for fear of our boots, and if a shower came on we were to wrap
our pocket-handkerchiefs round our hats and make straight for home.

All these injunctions we did our best to obey, except one which I have
forgotten to name: we were not to laugh.  Now we would have obeyed
auntie even in this, but sometimes we were carried away by curious
things occurring.  Anyhow, it did not take much to make us laugh, I
fear, even on Sunday.  Take one walk as an example.

It was a lovely summer's afternoon, hardly any wind, the sea almost
glassy or glossy--use which word you please; far out were vessels with
all kinds of queer rigs half-becalmed, and close in the foreground the
breakers rolling in so lazily that it seemed a stress for them to break
at all.  There was a dreamy stillness in the air, and even the sea-birds
seemed to feel its influence, and floated half asleep on the sleeping
billows.

Jill and I were walking a little apart when we met a big red dog.  He
half started when he saw the pair of us, glanced quickly from one to the
other, gave a short bark which appeared forced out of him, and trotted
off with his tail between his hocks.  He must have seen, or thought he
saw, something odd about us.

We laughed, but thought of auntie.

Then we went on and on and came to a cottage where there was a very wise
game-cock with a flock of very wise-looking hens.  We always stopped to
look at them, they had such a contented and happy, stay-at-home look
about them.  And, strange to say, this cock used to march his hens down
the garden path, and then they all stopped to study Jill and me.  And
the cock used to eye us with one side of his red head and cry,
"Kr-rr-rr-rr--!" in so droll a way that we laughed again, and this time
forgot all about auntie.

A little farther on we met a whole bevy of schoolgirls, and they all
looked at us, and while the youngest giggled outright, the oldest put
their fingers to their lips to hide their smiles, and we heard one of
them say "hats."  Jill did not like this I know, for he pursed up his
mouth and presently said, "Jack, if it only came on to rain, I'd soon
roll my hat up, wouldn't you?"  I laughed alone this time.

People, older common-people I mean, stopped and stared after us, and
some said queer things, and some called us queer names.  A fisherwoman,
for instance, sang out--

"Hullo! my chickabiddies.  Got out, then?  W'y you looks as much alike
as pigeons' eggs."

A swarthy old sailor hailed us with--

"Whither away, my pirates bold?"  Jill laughed at this.  We loved
pirates.  Then we came to a place where two fishermen, rough and
weather-beaten, in dandy, dark, Sunday sou'-westers, and dark blue
Sunday jerseys and polished top-boots, were leaning against a boat, and
one of them must shake hands politely and say--

"Hullo! my young hearties!  W'y it does one's heart good to look at ye!
Ain't they alike, Bill?  Keep 'em together, Bill, till I run up for
Nancy."

Nancy came, a good-looking, portly fisherman's wife, and for a time she
did nothing but stick her hands in her sides and laugh.  Oh, she _did_
laugh, to be sure!

Then her husband and Bill, his mate, laughed too, and the seagulls
chimed in, and somehow made us think of Punch and Judy.  So then we
laughed also, and a pretty chorus it was.

"Bless the darlings, though," said Nancy; "it's a shame to laugh; we
don't mean anything unmannerly but--ha, ha, ha, he, he, he," and the
chorus was all done over again.

"I say, lads," said the first speaker, "come for a sail with us
to-morrow, or next day, will ye?"

"We would," we replied, both in a breath, and both in the same words
precisely, "if auntie would let us."

"Ah! bless her, bring auntie too.  We'll cushion the boat, Bill, won't
us?"

"That we will, Joe."

"Well, we said we'd tell auntie," and away we went.  We only met one man
who spoke to us going back, and he said--"Good evening, young double and
quits."  Of course we did not say a word to auntie that evening about
the invitation, but after a turn on the beach next day, during which we
met our fisher friends, who renewed the request, we broached the
subject.

Auntie tossed her head a little at first, but when we mentioned about
the cushions she smiled and said--"Good people, I dare say.  Well, it is
evident they know we are gentlefolks.  You can tell them we'll go
to-morrow afternoon."

After school hours Jill and I ran to tell our new-found friends that we
were to be allowed to come, and that auntie was coming as well.

They were so pleased that they kept us a whole hour in their queer,
old-fashioned cottage, in which everything was as strange and wonderful
to us as some of the places we read of in our old story-books.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Poor Jill!  It was really strange the dependence he had upon me, his
twin brother--his elder brother--his second self.  I but mention the
following in proof of this.  It happened about the time we first made
the acquaintance of the boatmen.  Jill had gone to look for nests all by
himself for a wonder.  Unfortunately he fell over a cliff.  Not all the
way down, else there would have been no more Jill--and no more Jack,
perhaps, for I hardly think I could have lived without my brother.  He
had been in his perilous position for hours before found.  Listening at
last near the top of the cliff, I could hear his plaintive, pleading
voice calling me, though he knew not I was there.

"Come to me, Jack, come to me," he prayed, "for I cannot come to you."

I had reason to remember these strange words in after life, as will be
seen.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE STORY OF A SHIPWRECK--A MYSTERY--THE FATE OF POOR JOE.

We all went on that boat cruise--that is, auntie went, and Jill and I.
Auntie appeared to take us with her but we were really taking her.  That
was fun.

There was nothing remarkable about the cruise, except that it was the
first of many far more delightful, for Jill and me.

Auntie behaved like an angel all through, if one could conceive of an
angel wearing two pairs of spectacles one on top of the other and long
black mits.  But auntie's heart contained the angel, and to-day she
never once looked over her glasses--always through them.

The fishermen, Bill and Joe, "ma'am"-ed her and "miss"-ed her, and she
smiled a deal, and did not get even squeamish, for she was a sailor's
daughter, and knew all about boats and ships.

We sailed straight away out, and tacked round an island, and there was a
lumpy bit of a sea on.  But auntie steered part of the way, much to her
own delight and the admiration of Bill and Joe.  Sometimes the boat gave
a jump or fell down with a jerk into the trough of a sea, and the sail
would tighten and the sheet would strain, and perhaps a feather of a
wave would skim across the boat and hit us all; but nothing disturbed
the equanimity of our bold Aunt Serapheema.

She shook hands so prettily, too, with the men and with Nancy, who
curtseyed so low, that she looked like a brig under full sail settling
down by the stern.

The men lifted their hats, and I'm sure each had something in his hand
that auntie had left there; then away we came, and Jill and I jumped on
lumps of seaweed to crack the little bladders all the way home, and
auntie didn't mind a bit.

"It would do _you_ good, mamma," she said to mother at dinner that day,
"to go out for a sail now and then; I must say it has made me feel quite
young again."

The pointer did not strike one o'clock on Jill's knuckles or mine all
next forenoon, so of course we wished that auntie would always go out
a-sailing.

But it was when telling my brother and me stories of a winter's evening
by the fire, or upstairs on the balcony in the sweet summer-time that
auntie was at her very very best.  Then the angel came out in earnest,
and neither Jill nor I were ever a bit afraid of her.  We would sit
close up by her knee, and even lean across her lap, or toy with her
mitted hands as we listened entranced to every word she said.

They were mostly stories of the ocean wave, and of far-away lands and
climes beyond the setting sun.  Indeed what else could a sailor's
daughter, whose father had gone down with his ship in the stormy Bay,
speak to us about, secularly?

But she had the gift of telling Bible stories well also.  The wonderful
adventures of Joseph and his brethren quite enthralled us, and often
after we went to bed I used to try to tell it in the same way and same
words to Jill, but never so entrancingly, though he liked it so much
that he often went to sleep before I had finished.

I said my mother was delicate, and this is the reason why auntie took
such charge of us; but mother invariably came to our room after Sally
had done with us, and would sit by our bedside sewing for an hour
together sometimes.  It was to her we said our prayers.  No, we did not
_say_ them, for mother taught us to think and _pray_ the prayer--to
_wish_ what we said, as it were; and we got into that habit, Jill and I,
so that at any time when praying, with our hearts wandering, as it were,
we believed the good angels never could hear that prayer, and never bear
it away to the good Father on the great white throne of grace.

I dare say few boys love their mother so much as we loved our beautiful
mother, but then one always does think just in that way about one's own
love.  None other can be like it.

Well, at all events, our childhood, what with one thing or another, was
a very happy one, and slipped all too soon away.

Why was it, I wonder, that as far back as I can remember, I always felt
myself my brother's keeper, so to speak?  Mind you, though I was the
cider, it was _only by five minutes_.  But this five minutes appeared to
make me immeasurably wiser than Jill.  I was not stronger, nor bigger,
nor anything, only just five minutes older, and five years wiser.  So
_I_ thought, and so Jill thought, and he never failed to consult me in
all matters, however trivial.

He would just say, with that simple, innocent smile of his:

"Jack, what would you do now?"

And I would tell him, and he would do it straight away.

Of course Jill was very dear to me.  I loved him more than I did myself.
Does that seem a strange confession?  Well, it is true, though.  I
think one reason for this great affection was his likeness to papa.  _I_
saw that, if others did not.  And he even had papa's way of talking and
using little odd words, such as "certainly," "assuredly," and so forth.

For example one day in the schoolroom we were among the "ologies"--
bother them all.

"Reginald Augustus," said auntie, and I pulled myself to "attention" and
braced sharp up, as Bill would say.  "Reginald Augustus, define to us
the meanings of the words `entomology' and `etymology.'"

Now I would have been all right if I hadn't started off by putting the
cart before the horse.

"Entomology," I replied, "is the science that treats of word
derivations, and etymology describes insects."

One o'clock struck on my knuckles, loud enough to be heard over all the
room.

"Rupert Domville," said auntie, "is your brother right in saying that
etymology describes insects?"

"Certainly, auntie."

"But suppose _I_ say that _entomology_, not _ety_mology, is the science
descriptive of insect life, would you _then_ say your brother was
right?"

"_Assuredly_, aunt," said Jill, boldly.

One o'clock rang out sharp and clear on old Jill's knuckles, and we were
both sent to our seats to think.

The cottage we lived in might have just as well been denominated a
villa, only Aunt Serapheema, to whom it belonged, rather despised
high-flown names.  It was a beautiful old house in the suburbs of a
romantic wee fisher village, that nestled under high banks and green
braes, not far from the great naval seaport of P--.

My father's duties at the barracks were not very heavy in our childhood,
for there was no war, and though the ride home was a long one, every
night almost we listened for the clatter of his horse's hoofs, whether
he came or not, and Jill and I bounded to meet him.  His coming was
_the_ one great event of the day or week to us all, and he never failed
to bring light and sunshine to Trafalgar Cottage.

Our mother was very, very beautiful--Jill and I always thought so--and
our father was the beau ideal to our young minds of what a hero ought to
be.  I think I see him now as he used to look standing by his beautiful
black horse, before mounting in the morning, one arm thrown carelessly
over the mane, with his fair hair and his blue eyes smiling as he blew
kisses to the drawing-room window, and had kisses blown back in return.

Of course you will excuse a son speaking thus of his parents.  They
might not have been much to any one else, but they were all the world to
my brother and me.

My father was to be a rich man some day, auntie told us, when he came
into his estates in Cornwall.  Meanwhile he was simply Captain Jones,
and proud and happy to be so.

Ours was not a very large village, though dignified at times by the name
of town by the people themselves, only it was quaint and pretty enough
in the sweet summer-time, when the sky was blue, and the sea reflected
its colour; when the waves sang on the beach, and birds in the hedges
and bushes, on the cliffs, and in the glen; when fisher boats were drawn
up on the sand, or went lazily out towards the horizon in the evening.
Yes, then it was even picturesque, and more than one artist that I
remember of lived quite a long time at the Fisherman's Joy.  They would
be sketching boats and sails and spars, and the natives themselves, all
day, to the great astonishment of the natives.

"He do be uncommon clever-like," I heard one man say; "but surely he
ought to let the loikes of we have our Sunday clothes on afore he paints
us."

The artists thought differently.

Quite a friendship sprang up between our family and the Grays.

But shortly after we made their acquaintance, Bill--who was not a Gray,
his name was Moore--went away, having got, at his own request--he being
a deserving old coast-guardsman--a post as ship keeper on an old hulk,
of which you will hear more soon.  Here he lived alone with his old
woman, as he called his buxom wife.

Then something else really strange happened.  Quite an adventure in a
little way.  Jill had gone to P--with mamma that day, and I was
strolling on the beach, feeling very lonely indeed.  The tide was far
back, and near the water's edge I could see a girl gathering shells.
Strolling down towards her was a fisher lad, about my own age, and some
instinct impelled me to follow.  I was just in time to notice him rudely
snatch at her basket, and empty all the shells, and presently she passed
me crying.

My blood boiled, so I went right on and told the boy he was no
gentleman.

He said he didn't pretend to be, but he could lick me if I wanted him
to, gentleman or not gentleman.

I said, "Yes, I wanted him to."

I never knew I was so strong before.  That lad was soon on his back
crying for mercy, and next minute I left him.

The girl was about seven, but so beautiful and lady-like.

She thanked me very prettily, and we walked on together, I feeling shy.
But I summoned up courage after a time to ask her name.

"Mattie Gray," she replied; "and yonder comes mother."

To my surprise, "mother" was Nancy, the fisherman's wife.

I was invited in, and made a hero of for hours, but somehow I could not
keep from wondering about Mattie.

I told auntie the story that evening.  Now, if there be anything a woman
loves in this world it is a mystery, and auntie was no exception.  So
she and Jill and I all walked over to the cottage next afternoon.

"What a lovely child you have, Mrs Gray!  We have not seen her before."

"No, ma'am, she'd been to school."

"Have you only one?"

"My dear lady," said Nancy, "Mattie isn't ours.  You see, we have only
been here for six months, and people don't know our story.  We come from
far south in Cornwall, and when a baby, bless her, Mattie, as we call
her, came to us in a strange, strange way."

"Tell us," said auntie, seating herself in a chair which Nancy had
dusted for her.

"Oh, it is soon told, ma'am, all that's of it.  We lived on a wild bit
o' coast, ma'am, and many is the ship that foundered there.  Well, one
wild afternoon we noticed a barque trying to round the point, and would
have rounded it, but missed stays like, struck, and began to break up.
We saw her go to pieces before our eyes, for no boat could be lowered.

"At long last, though, my man and his mate determined to venture.  It
was a terrible risk.  But I am a fisherman's wife, and I never said,
`Don't go, Joe.'"

She paused a moment, woman-like, to wipe away a tear.

"And they saved the crew?" asked auntie.

"They came back wi' four in the boat, ma'am.  One was a gentle lady, one
was Mattie, and there were two sailors besides.  They were all Spanish,
Miss.  The poor lady never spoke a word we could understand.  She wore
away next afternoon, but that great box yonder was washed on shore, and
when she saw it she pointed to poor baby, then to the chest, and
smiled--and died."

"And the men, could they tell you nothing?"

"They told the parson something in Spanish, but it wasn't much.
Mattie's mother was a grand dame, and the father had not been on board.
They promised to write and tell us more, but ah!  Miss, we'll never hear
nor know aught else till the sea gives up its dead."

"We read of such things in books," said auntie, "but I never heard so
strange a tale from living lips before.  Come hither, child."

Mattie obeyed, and, marvellous to say, was not a bit afraid of auntie.
She clambered on to her knee and put an arm round her neck, and auntie
looked softened, so much so that for a moment or two I thought I saw a
tear in her eye.  She sat a long time talking, and orphan Mattie went
sound asleep.

After this Mattie came very often to Trafalgar Cottage, and became our
playmate all the winter, out of doors when the weather was fine, and in
the house when it blew wild across the sea.

Jill and I grew very fond of Mattie, but we used to wonder at her
strange beauty.  She was so different from other children, with her
creamy face, her weird black eyes, and long, long hair.  And we used to
wonder also at her cleverness.  I suppose Spanish people have the gift
of tongues, but though Mattie was younger by three years than we, she
could talk far better, and to hear her read was like listening to the
music of birds.

She used to read to us by the hour, Jill and I lying on the floor on
goats' skins, as was our custom, and feeling all the while in some other
world--dreamland, I think they call it.

There were three of us now, for auntie asked permission to teach Mattie
with us.  But one o'clock was never struck on Mattie's little knuckles;
indeed, she was clever even at "ologies," and had all the "ographies" by
heart, and so did not deserve one o'clock.

There were three of us to play on the beach now, and climb the broomy
hills, and gather wild flowers, and look for birds' nests in the spring,
and three of us to go out with Father Gray in his brown-sailed yawl.

There were three of us, never separate all the livelong summer days.

But summer passed away at last, the days shortened in, the sea looked
rougher and colder now, and the vessels out on the grey distance went
staggering past under shortened sails, or flew like ghosts when the wind
blew high.

And then came my first sorrow, the first time that I really knew there
was grief and death in the world.

I will not take long to tell it.  I am but little likely to linger over
so sad and dismal a memory of the past.  Yet every incident in that
day's drama is painted on the tablets of memory in colours that will
never be effaced while life does last.

Little did big brown-bearded Joe Gray think, when he kissed his wife and
Mattie on that bright afternoon, and with his mate put off to sea, that
they would never see him alive again.

The moon rose early, and shone red and clear over the water in a
triangular path of silver, that went broadening away towards the
horizon.  And when hours passed by, and the wind came up with cloud
banks out of the west, Nancy--fisherman's wife though she was--grew
uneasy, and went very often to the door.

The wind grew wilder and wilder, and the air was filled with rain, and
with spray from the waves that broke quick and angrily on the beach.

The big petroleum lamp was lighted and put in the window.  That lamp had
often guided Joe Gray through darkness and storm to his own cottage
door.

They tell me that fisher folks, and toilers by and on the sea have an
instinct that is not vouchsafed to dwellers inland.  Be that as it may,
poor Nancy could rest to-night neither indoors nor out.  But hours and
hours went by, and still the husband came not.  How she strained her
ears to catch some sound above the roaring wind and lashing seas, to
give her joy, only those who have so waited and so watched can tell.

Her only hope at last was that he might have made some other port or
taken shelter under the lee of the island.

The night passed away.  Wee Mattie slept, and towards morning even the
distracted wife's sorrows were bathed for an hour in slumber.  But she
sprang up at last--she thought she heard his voice.

The fire had burned out on the hearth, the lamp was out too, but grey
daylight was shimmering through the uncurtained panes.

"Yes, yes!" she cried.  "Coming, Joe!  Coming, lad!"

And she staggered up and rushed forth.

What was that dark thing on the beach?  It was a great boat--it was his
yawl, bottom up.

She knew little more for a time after that.  She saw people hurrying
towards her and towards the wreck; then all was a mist for hours.

But they found poor Joe beneath the yawl, and they bore him in and laid
him in the little "best" room.  He was dead and stiff, with cold, hard
hands half clenched, and in one a morsel of rope.  It was the end of the
main sheet he had grasped in his hour of agony, and they cut it off and
left it there.

Her grief, they say, when she awoke at last, was past describing.  With
a wail of widowed anguish, that thrilled through the hearts of the
sea-hardened listeners she flung herself on the body.

"My Joe, my Joe--my own poor boy!" she moaned.  "Oh, why has Heaven
deprived me of my man!"

They simply turned away and left her to her grief.  They thought it
best, but there was not a man among them whose face was not wet with
tears.

That was my first sorrow; but, alas! there were more to come.

And it is strange the effect that sorrow has on the young.  Before this,
all my life had seemed one long happy dream.  But all at once I became
awake, and I date my real existence from the day they laid poor Joe Gray
in the little churchyard, high above the sea, that will sing his requiem
for ever and for ay.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE SOUND OF WAR--FIRST SORROWS--A CHANGE IN OUR LIVES.

Like many other poor folks, to the houses of whom Death comes when least
expected, Nancy Gray was left without a penny in the world, and wee
Mattie was doubly an orphan since Daddie Gray was drowned.

When then, after a visit or two to the fisherman's cottage, auntie one
morning announced that she had taken Mattie over to be as one of her own
kith and kin, and that Nancy herself would have employment at Trafalgar
Cottage, none of us was a bit surprised.  It was only the angel in
auntie's heart showing a little more.

So Mattie was henceforth styled "sister" by Jill and me.

Then came sorrow the second.  War broke out at the Cape, the Caffres
were up and killing--butchering, in fact--our poor people at all hands.
Father's regiment was ordered out, and though he himself might have
stayed at home, he elected to go.

What a grief this was for us!  Jill and I looked upon our dear father as
one already dead.

"I'm sure they'll kill _you_, father," Jill sobbed.

"Why _me_, my boy?"

"Because they kill all the prettiest men," said the innocent boy.

Then came a few busy days and tearful days, and--then my father was
gone.  The scene of the departure of the soldiers for the war is
something I will never forget.  What made it all the worse was, that in
returning home our carriage was blocked by a mob, and we had to witness
the passing by of a soldier's funeral.  It was inexpressibly sad, and I
remember my dear mother wept on auntie's breast, till I verily believed
her heart would break.

From that very date our bed was made up in mother's own room.  We were
all she had now.  Besides, something must have told her that she would
not even have us long.

Children's sorrows do not last very long, their souls are very
resilient, and this is wisely ordered.  So by the time we got father's
first letter we had learned to live on in happy hope of soon seeing him
back.

Letter after letter came; some that told of the fighting were sad
enough, but there was no word of our soldier father returning from the
wars.

One day we were all seated at breakfast and talking quite cheerfully,
when the postman's thrilling rat-tat was heard at the door.  That knock
always did make us start, now that father was away at the wars.  And
this very morning, too, we had watched the postman till he went past and
disappeared round the corner, so he must have forgotten our letter and
come with it on his return.  Sally came in with it at last, but seemed
to take such a long time.

"It's from the Cape, ma'am," she said, "and it _isn't in black_."

Girls _are_ so thoughtless.

I cannot tell you how it was, but neither Jill nor I could take our eyes
off poor ma's face when she took the letter, tore it open, and began to
read.  A glance at the envelope told her it was his dear handwriting, so
a gleam of joy came into her eyes, and a fond smile half-played round
her lips.  Alas! both the gleam and the smile were quickly banished, and
were succeeded by a look of utter despair.  Oh, my beautiful mother, how
dazed and strange she appeared!  One glance round the table, then the
letter dropped from her fingers, and we rushed to support her.

But the flood of tears came now fast enough, and as she threw herself on
the sofa in a paroxysm of grief, we really thought her heart would
break.

Speak she could not for a time.

"Oh, mother dear, what is it?"

"Tell us, mother, tell us all."

"Is father killed?"

The sight of our anguish probably helped to stem for a time the current
of her own.

"N-no," she sobbed.  "Father is not killed--but he is wounded--slightly,
he says,--and, I must go away to him."

Here she hugged us to her breast.

"It will not be for long, children--only just a little, little time--and
you must both be so good."

Our turn had come now--our very hearts seemed swamped as the great grief
came swelling over them, like the waves of the ocean.  She let us weep
for a time, she made no attempt either to repress our tears or to stop
our senseless, incoherent talk.

"You cannot go.  You must not leave us."

This, and this alone, was the burden of our song.  Alas! the fiat had
gone forth, and in our very souls we knew and felt it.  Once more she
kissed us, then auntie led us out, saying we must leave mamma a little
while for her good.  We would do anything for ma's good, even to going
away into the schoolroom--which never before had looked so grim and
cheerless--and squatting on our goatskin to cry.  Every now and then
poor Jill would say--

"Don't _you_ cry so, Jack."

And every now and then I would make the same request to him.

They say there is no love equal to that a mother bears for a child; but
tell me this, ye who have known it, what love exceeds that which a fond
and sensitive child bears for a mother? and oh, what else on earth can
fill the aching void that is left when she is gone?

For a time weeping gave us relief, then even that consolation was taken
away.  I just felt that my life's lamp had clean gone out, that there
was no more hope--_could_ be no more hope for me.

It was difficult to realise or grasp all the terrible truth at once.
Mother going away!  Our own dear darling mother, and we, perhaps never,
never to see her more!  Never listen to her voice again at eventide,
singing low to us by the firelight, or telling us tales by our bedside!
Never kneel again by her knees to pray!  Never feel again her soft
good-night kisses, nor the touch of her loving hands!  Never--but here
the tears returned, and once more Jill and I wept in each other's arms.

In times of grief like this I think the mind is more highly sensitised,
as a photographic artist would say, and takes and retains impressions
more quickly.  For the _minutiae_ even of that sad eventful morning are
still retained in my memory in a remarkable way.  I remember the
slightest sounds and most trivial sights heard or seen by Jill and me as
we sat in our listless grief by the window.  I remember the yelp of a
little cur we used to pity, because it was always tied up; the laugh of
a street carter as he talked to a neighbour; the dreary, intermittent
tapping of the twig of a rose-bush against the glass; the low boom of
the breaking waves.  I remember it was raining; that the wind blew high
across the sea; that the sea itself was grey and chafing, and apparently
all in motion in one direction, like some mighty river of the new world;
I remember the dripping bushes in the front garden, and the extra-green
look of the rain-varnished paling around it; and even the little pools
of water on the street, and the buffeted appearance of the few
passengers striving to hold umbrellas up against the toilsome wind.

Mother came quietly in, and--she was smiling now.

How much that smile cost her, mothers alone may tell, but even we knew
it was a smile _without_, to hide the grief _within_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mother went away.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

For many a long month now there was a blank, a void in our hearts and in
our home that nothing could fill.

Except Hope.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast."  Truer words were never
spoken.  When Hope dies, Life itself is soon extinct.

Auntie Serapheema did all she could now to cheer us.  She was far less
prim and stern with Jill and me.  One o'clock struck no more on his
knuckles nor on mine.  She even shortened our school hours, and was
easier with us in the matter of "ologies" and "ographies."  Letters came
frequently and with great regularity, and they were always cheerful.
Father was better, and mother would be happy if they could both get
home, and they hoped to.  Yes, they hoped to, but no letter said when,
or how soon that hope might be realised.

But one of the most cheerful letters was from father himself, in which
he said he trusted to be able to send us both into the Royal Navy as
cadets.  To be naval officers had always been our dream of dreams,
Jill's and mine.  To wear the grand old uniform of blue and gold, to
tread the snowy quarter-deck with swords by our side, and the white flag
fluttering in the sunshine overhead--

  "The flag that braved a thousand years,
  The battle and the breeze--"

to sail the seas, to hear great guns firing, to attack ships and forts,
and do all kinds of gallant deeds for our own glory and our country's
good--this constituted our notions of life as it ought to be led.

We would have to pass, though.  The examination, however, was not a
stiff one.  Jill and I were but little over ten, but thanks to auntie we
knew most of the subjects already well, if not thoroughly.

Would we pass the doctor with flying colours?  Well, we were hardy and
healthy, though at that time of no extra physique.  We must get stronger
somehow.  Auntie consulted the family doctor, she herself suggesting
"dumb-bells."  The doctor's reply was--"Fiddlesticks, madam,
fiddlesticks,"--for doctors do not like other people, especially
female-people, to put words in their mouths.  But auntie was a little
discomposed at the brusque mention of "fiddlesticks."

"What then would _you_ suggest, sir?" she said, pompously.

The doctor simply pointed with his forefinger first at the green hills
and cliffs, then at the sea, took up his hat and marched out of the
room, curtly bowing her "good morning" as he turned in the doorway.

Now, whom should we find in earnest confab with auntie next forenoon but
Bill Moore, the ship keeper.

Jill and I at once beat a discreet retreat.

I must tell you a little more about Bill.  He had not always been simply
Bill Moore, but _Mr_ Moore.  He had, first and foremost as a young man,
taken honours in classics and mathematics at a northern university, then
gone straight "to the dogs"--so they said.  When he in some measure
recovered himself--war being then going on--he had joined the service
(Royal Navy) as a man ready and willing to turn his hand to anything.
Well, they were not so particular in those days; they would not refuse
bone and muscle in whatever shape it came, and Bill had been a handsome
fellow in his day.  He got on in the service, and though he soon became
an A.B., and really preferred to be before the mast, he was rated
schoolmaster for many years, but finally received an appointment as
coast-guardsman, and latterly, as we know, keeper of the hulk, with a
fairly good pension.

He took a great fancy for us, and as somehow or other auntie had an
acute and undying aversion to public schools, when Mr Bill Moore
proposed we should come to the hulk and be drilled by him physically and
mentally, she felt greatly inclined to accede.  Hence the present
interview.

"Perhaps they might do better at a public school, Miss, than with me,
but--"

"I won't hear of a public school," auntie cut in with, curtly.

"Well, Miss, we have a mast and ratlins on my old tub; I would take care
they were well drilled and had plenty of exercise, my wife will look
after their internal comforts, and I can insure their passing their
examinations in a year or two."

"And they would be out of harm's way," mused my aunt.

"We'll have strict discipline, Miss.  They must not leave the ship
without my permission."

"There would be no objection to your having the boys, I suppose?"

"I know the old admiral well, Miss; sailed with him for five long years,
and blew the Russians about a bit.  No, I went straight to him before I
wrote to you."

"And what did he say?"

"`Do what you please with the old _Thunderbolt_,' he said, `only don't
set her on fire.'  These are his words, Miss."

"Well, then, Mr Moore, I think you may consider the matter as settled.
The boys will not be far away, they will be under control and
discipline, they will know something beforehand about ships, and they
can come home, I suppose, now and then to go to church on a Sunday?"

"Oh yes, Miss, and I'm sure my wife and I will be delighted if you and
dear Mattie will come and see us all regularly.  We'll always call these
our red-letter days."

Auntie smiled and promised.  There is no doubt about it.  Mr Bill Moore
knew what ladies' hearts are made of.

So it was all arranged that very day, and in a fortnight after we
started and took up our quarters on board the saucy _Thunderbolt_.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE GALLANT "THUNDERBOLT"--TOM MORLEY, BO'S'N'S MATE--A STRANGE DREAM.

It would be hard to say, perhaps, why the gallant old _Thunderbolt_ was
laid up as a hulk.  She looked a fine old wooden frigate, and had seen a
lot of service in her time.  But the engines had been taken out of her,
and away up the water she lay like a good many more, moored by the head
to swing with the tide, or with any extra strong wind that blew.  She
was evidently considered too good to break up, and she might, the
Admiralty thought, come in handy some day, and even require to be fitted
out for sea again.

Meanwhile she would do as a store, or rather lumber ship.  But at this
time neither stores nor lumber either worth speaking about was on board
of her.

She hardly made any water, though occasionally some hands came off from
the dockyard and pumped her dry, with a deal of din and noise and no end
of talking and chaffing.  In fact the _Thunderbolt_ seemed to have been
forgotten by the big human guns at Somerset House, and for that matter
there was no real use in the bit stump of a lower mast that stuck out of
her forward, nor the morsel of ratlin that led to it, unless to dry
clothes upon.  Her crew, all told, were an old bo's'n's mate and Mr
Moore.  We must call him _Mr_ Moore now, and forget the Bill.

Tom Morley was the bo's'n's name, a rugged old son of a gun as ever any
one clapped eyes upon, with a face as rough and red as a boiled lobster,
and a voice that would have brought down birds out of the air had he
used it to its full extent.  It was a harsh voice, however, and gave you
the idea his air-tubes had been originally lined with emery paper, which
had never worn quite smooth.

Such was Tom, a good-hearted old soul nevertheless, though with a sad
predilection for tossing off cans.  It will be seen, therefore, that he
was a seaman of the old school--one that Dibdin would have delighted to
portray.  Yes, and he often made the decks of the saucy old
_Thunderbolt_ ring with Dibdin's heroic ditties.

Although it might have been difficult to define which was the superior
officer of this hulk, owing to the peculiar rating of Mr Moore, when he
had served afloat, neither was jealous of the other: when Moore was out
of the ship Morley was captain, and _vice versa_; when both were on
board, why then both were captains.  But, between ourselves, I do think
_Mrs_ Moore herself was what the Yankees call "boss of the whole
concarn."  Anyhow, she did just as she pleased, and cooked and washed
for the crew all-told, and hung up the clothes wherever she liked.

Attached to the hulk was a morsel of a dinghy boat not much bigger than
Mrs Moore's washing tub, only differently shaped, in some slight degree
at least.

We youngsters received a hearty welcome when we came off.  Tom had put
on his best coat for the occasion, and much to our delight met us in the
gangway, saluting us in true naval fashion with as much dignity as if we
had been admirals.

"Very glad to see you, young gentlemen," said Tom.  "You are truly
welcome on board the saucy _Thunderbolt_.  And I assure you the sight of
your youthful faces makes me think the old times has all come back
again.  I'd like to be taking up anchor now with a Yee-ho and Heave-O!"

Jill and I laughed and thought Tom very jolly.

"But I say, Captain Moore," he continued, turning to his shipmate, "how
ever are we to tell these youngsters apart?  Why, bother my old wig, if
they ain't as like as two whalers, same rig, too, from top to bottom,
same cut from jib to binnacle.  I say, messmate, if I'd never seen 'em
before and met 'em as I was coming out of the `Jolly Tapsters' I'd
think--I was only seein' one, though there appeared to be two."

"I'll make that all right, Tom," said Mrs Moore, coming up from below
and taking charge of us right away.

And she did too, for when we appeared on deck an hour after, I wore a
red ribbon round my straw hat, and Jill wore a blue, and Tom doffed his
cap, and giving a shout that must have been heard on shore, hailed us at
once as "Admiral Jack of the Red," and "Admiral Jill of the Blue."

We were simply delighted with our accommodation on board, and with
everything on the old hulk fore and aft.

Of course we all lived aft, and dined in state together in the great
cabin, where once a post captain had sat at meals or in council of war,
and in which, probably, before now court-martials had been assembled and
men tried for life itself.

Jill and I had a large cabin to ourselves on the starboard side of the
"saloon," as it would be called in the merchant service, the Moorcs had
theirs on the port side, and the bo's'n's mate occupied quarters in the
ward-room on the deck beneath.  Our cabin was furnished charmingly, but
we each had a swinging cot, though they were in close juxtaposition.
There were curtains to the windows and doorways, and a carpet and
pictures and all complete.

All day long we had different views of our surroundings from the ports
below in our cabin, or from the ward-room.  For according to the tide
the old ship swung; now we would be looking down the harbour among
ships, noble men-of-war and others, and away out seaward, again it would
be the town or dockyard, and at other times the green country.  Oh, it
was very charming and so romantic, I can tell you.

In a day or two we commenced our studies in downright earnest, and a
very pleasant and thorough teacher Mr Moore proved.  But it was all
forenoon work, and not all book work either.  For twice a week or
oftener we were told off to go round the ship with Tom, and he gave us
the name of every part of her hull, and examined us on his lectures
afterwards.

One day a shore boat brought alongside a full rigged ship nearly as long
as a sofa, and this was hoisted carefully on deck and lowered below.  It
was, of course, a model man-o'-war, and old Tom set about next day
putting it "ship-shape and Bristol fashion," as he called it.  He
thoroughly overhauled it, altering here, and adding there, cutting and
criticising all the time.  While he was doing this we were with him,
listening to every word, and gained quite a deal of information about
rigging, etc, in this way.  It took Tom three weeks to refit his model
ship and make her ready for sea, as he called it.  Then--still having us
alongside of him--he manned and provisioned her, taking in stores from
little boats that he brought alongside on the deck.  And though this was
to a large degree dummy work, he would have the thing rightly done.  No
lugger or officer's boat either must come alongside in any save an
orthodox fashion, and if in hauling up stores any hitch happened to the
gearing, he would have it all put carefully to rights before another
cask, or box, or shot, or shell was taken on board.

I think we worked with Tom in this way for three or four months, by
which time we really began to consider ourselves proficient seamen and
officers.

Nor was our exercise forgotten.  This was also Tom's department, and he
would have Jill and I squirming up and down the ratlins and over the top
for an hour at a time.  Or standing face to face with sword-sticks,
going through, at the word of command, each cut and guard and quirk of
the sword exercise.  This we considered grand fun, but it was serious
earnest with honest Tom.

"There ain't no nonsense about this sort of thing, young gentlemen," he
would say.  "I saw you laughing, Admiral Jack, and whatever _you_ does
Admiral Jill does too.  Now if it occurs again on duty I'll mast-head
ye, so look out for squalls.  'Ttention!  On guard!  Point o' your sword
a leetle higher, Admiral Jill.  Shoulders more square, Admiral Jack.
That's better.  Right toe a trifle more fore-and-aft.  So.  Steady as
you go."

But as soon as duty, as Tom called it, was done, we were all as merry as
Eton boys off on a summer holiday.  We had all kinds of games on board,
and plenty of rowing about on the water in that morsel of a dinghy, and
were allowed to go on shore at any reasonable hour and for any
reasonable time.

Tom had always gone in for growing mustard and cress on board, and a bit
o' sea-kale in a flower-pot, but the idea struck Jill and me that we
might carry garden operations out to even greater perfection, and having
asked and obtained permission of Mr Moore, we set to work and soon
arranged in different parts of the deck a series of little flower
gardens made from orange boxes.  And very charming and beautiful they
looked.

So that when auntie came with Mattie one summer's morning, they were
both astonished at our horticultural skill and contrivances.

Tom and Mr Moore always dressed in their best when the ladies were
coming, and a bit of bunting was even hoisted on the top of the mast,
and no clothes permitted to be hung up to air or dry for that day.

Auntie used to make a pic-nic of these visits.  Mrs Moore had the
table-cloth laid with spotless linen and adorned with gay flowers, and
Mummy Gray, as Mattie called her foster-mother, invariably brought a
basket of such good things, that the very thoughts of them beforehand
used to make my mouth water, and of course Jill's as well.

"I'm really delighted, Mr Moore," said Aunt Serapheema, on the
quarter-deck one day, "to see the boys looking so well and happy.  It
was really an excellent thought of yours to have them here, and I have
not the slightest doubt they will prove a credit to your tuition, and
pass their examination with flying colours."

"Bravo!  Miss," cried Tom Morley.  "In my time, Miss, I've heard many's
the little speech on a quarter-deck, but I declare to you, on the honour
of an old sailor, I never heard a neater than that."

"To my mate Tom, here," replied Mr Moore, "belongs the credit more than
to me and my wife, of making the young gentlemen what you see them."

Old Tom Morley scraped and bowed in the most orthodox fashion, and Mr
Moore continued:

"He does keep them at it, Miss.  Why, it's drill, drill, drill, all day
long, and the boys like it, too.  Then he reads to them and tells them
stories in the evening."

"Good books, I hope?"

"Not bad 'uns, Miss, I can assure you.  We've Dickens and Scott, and
that lot, but what we're doin' principally at present is a thorough
overhaul o' Marryat.  He is the chap, Miss, to give a man, or boy
either, a right taste o' the crust o' the service."

Dear Mattie was listening to all this while she stood close by me, with
one wee arm round my wrist, all eyes and smiles.

"What a perfect picture those two little ones look!" said Mrs Moore.
"You are very fond of your little sailor brothers, aren't you, dear?
Which do you like best?"

Mattie's eye wandered from Jill to me, then she dropped her head smiling
on my shoulder.

"I love them both," she said, "but Jack saved my life."

That was only Mattie's romantic way of alluding to our introduction,
when I punched the rude fisher-boy's head on her account.

But there was never a bit of jealousy about Jill.

There was one other thing that Tom taught us, and it is a branch of such
pleasant education that I advise all boys to go in for it, viz, joiner's
and carpenter's work.  We had a regular bench on board and all sorts of
tools, so that we could make almost any sort of article.

We spent the greater part of every evening on board ship, and as Tom was
generally on board also, and had a wealth of wonderful tales to tell,
the time passed very quickly indeed.

We did not forget to read and pray as dear mother told us to, and this
we did every night whether sleepy or not.  Mind, I am not telling this
part of our story for the sake of showing we were good boys.  We were no
better, perhaps no worse, than other lads of our age, but we had then,
as I have had all my life, unbounded faith in prayer, and in the
goodness of the Father who made us.  Besides, there was so much to thank
Him for and to ask Him for, and while on our knees we somehow seemed
always close to our absent mother.  That alone made prayer _so_ sweet.

Like most boys, we rather liked ghost stories, and though I do not
believe it now, we had an idea then, that the old _Thunderbolt_ was
haunted.  You see so many men had been killed on her battle-decks, and
there were so many ugly dark stains about the parts where the guns had
been, that it is no wonder lads so full of romance as we were,
manufactured a ghost or two.

The decks did seem very gloomy and empty just after nightfall, so much
so that, I do not mind confessing, when Jill and I had to go forward, we
walked very closely together indeed, and gave many a fearful quick
glance round, lest we should see a strange light or something even more
startling.

But we never saw anything fearsome, though more than once, after we had
been talking about mysterious things just before getting into our cots,
we did have ugly dreams, and were glad when we saw daylight shimmering
on the water alongside.

Now, all along my influence over Jill had been something quite
marvellous.  It really was as if his soul and mine were linked together
in bonds that nothing could sever.  Our very thoughts and imaginings
were often precisely similar at the same time or times.

Well, knowing this, I should have been most careful in all I did and in
all I said, and I will never, _never_ forgive myself for not being so.
For as you will presently see, my giving way to romantic imaginings and
thoughts, that however pleasant they might be for the present, were
really silly, had terrible results.

Tom Morley used to tell us tales of the pirates of the olden times, a
race of marauders that I need hardly say have been long since swept from
the face of the great deep.

Well, we liked ghosts best, perhaps, but next to them came pirates.

Being older than Jill--by five minutes--I really ought to have known
better, yet one day I proposed playing at pirates.  And soon this became
a regular game of ours.  Tom did not seem to mind it much, though he
himself did not play, but he lent us a couple of old-fashioned horse
pistols, and taught us to load and fire them--one lesson was enough.  Of
course we did not use anything more deadly than a little blotting-paper
to keep the powder in.

Jill was always the pirate.  He used to hail and board the ship from the
bows in fine form, while I represented the crew.  The battle would rage
with pistols and sword-sticks, the former being dispensed with after the
first discharge, and the fight then continued all over the deck, breast
to breast, the excitement increasing every minute.

Sometimes the ship was captured, and I had to represent the crew to the
bitter end, and walk the plank a dozen times.

What we did miss more than anything else was a black flag with skull and
cross-bones.

Happy thought, we would make one!

We worked unknown to Tom at this, however.  I bought the stuff, white
and black, and it cost us a whole week or more to finish the job, but it
was certainly a very creditable piece of work when finished.  Quite a
big thing too, and all complete, and ready to be run up to the halyards
on which Tom hoisted a bit of bunting on high-days and holidays.

We never really thought of running it up, of course, but it was nice to
have it.  We felt then we w'ere pirates, in imagination at all events.

Now here is a singular thing which I must relate.  One morning after
being called by Tom--this was a regular part of Tom's duty--I looked
round to Jill's cot, and there he was sitting bolt upright in it, with
that sunny smile on his innocent sleepy face.

"What's up, Jill?"  I asked.

"You're not," said Jill, "though I heard Tom sing out, `Five bells,
young gentlemen, please,' more than half an hour ago."

Then the next words spoken were said by both at precisely the same time,
_syllabic by syllable as if we had been wound up to it_.

"I've had such a funny dream."

We looked at each other, then I said:

"What was yours, Jill?"

"Nay," said Jill, "you tell me yours first, because you know you are the
eldest."

"Well, I dreamt we had captured the _Thunderbolt_, hoisted the black
flag and run off to sea with her."

"That was exactly my dream," said Jill.

"Did _you_ make Mr Moore and the rest walk the plank?"

"Oh no, Jack, I wouldn't dream of anything so very dreadful.  I didn't
see them anywhere about."

"Neither did I in mine.  But my dream was altogether jolly fun."

"So was mine and--"

"Gone six bells, young gentlemen.  Really if this sort o' thing goes on,
I'll take the number o' your hammocks, and report ye on the quarter-deck
next time your aunt comes on board."

"All right, Captain Tom, we'll be out in five minutes."

And up we jumped, and were speedily dressed, and on deck for our morning
walk.

But we thought no more of the dream.

It went as completely out of our minds as if we had never dreamed it at
all.

But it was brought to our minds about a month afterwards in a way I am
never likely to forget.

Meanwhile we still kept up our game of playing at being pirates.

It was summer now, and dear sister Mattie came often to see us, more
often with her Mummy Gray than with Aunt Serapheema.

Of course we initiated her into the mystery of the pirate-game, and she
took a most active part in it too.  She acted the rich old dowager who
had bags of gold and treasures untold, diamonds and all the rest of it,
and who was eventually captured, and made to walk the plank with the
rest of the unhappy crew.

I never saw any game take such complete possession of a child, as that
pirate-play did of Mattie.  She came oftener on board now than she might
otherwise have done; she entered into the thing heart and soul,
suggesting many improvements we never should have thought about, and
acting her part as if to the manner born.

Of course she was told of the black flag, and must see it, and her eyes
actually sparkled as they fell on the weird white skull and bleached
cross-bones.

Things went on thus for some weeks longer, the pirate-play never losing
interest, and each of us being thorough masters of his or her part.

But one day Mr Moore with his wife were invited to Trafalgar Cottage
and Tom Morley was left in charge of the ship, while at her own special
request Mattie was also left on board.

We could play now to our hearts' content.

But we little knew what was before us.

CHAPTER SIX.

AN APPALLING ADVENTURE--"WE MUST PREPARE FOR INSTANT FLIGHT."

Just after tea, and while Tom was telling some of his most fascinating
stories, and we three children were listening with dilated eyes and
bated breath, we were hailed by a boatman.

"_Thunderbolt_ ahoy!"

"Ay, ay," cried Tom, jumping up and rushing to the gangway--we had been
having tea on the upper deck.

Then up sprang an old shipmate of Tom's, and we heard them talking
earnestly together and looking towards us.  At last Tom advanced almost
shyly.  "I dunno really," he said, "if one o' you young gentlemen would
like to be left in charge of the old _Thunderbolt_ for an hour or so.
Yonder's an old shipmate o' mine, and I'd dearly like to run on shore
for maybe an hour."

"Oh, we'd like it immensely."  We spoke these words both at the same
time, as strangely enough we always did speak brief sentences, when
excited.

"Well then," said Tom, laughing and addressing me, "You're Captain Jack,
this is Commander Jill, and this is Mattie the mate."

"Hurrah!" we shouted.  "Off you trundle, Tom, and see you enjoy yourself
properly; and if you don't report yourself in due form when you come on
board, we'll put you in irons.  D'ye hear?"

"Ay, ay, sir," said Tom, saluting.  Then over the side went he and his
friend, and we saw them--_no more_.

Tom had promised not to be gone longer than eight o'clock, but eight and
nine went by, and still he came not.  The shades of night began to
darken over the water and over the town, and worse than all it came on
to blow.

We did not expect Mrs Moore to come back.  Indeed it had been arranged,
that if she did not return by seven, Tom was to see to putting us all to
bed; and Tom--wicked, thoughtless Tom--had faithfully promised he would.

Alas!  I fear that at that very moment Tom was tossing a can, and
singing one of Dibdin's songs.

"It's very romantic, isn't it?" said Mattie.

We both smiled like automata and said "yes"; but I don't think either of
us thought it was a desirable situation to be left in.

Jill and I were thinking about the ghost.  But it would not do to say a
word concerning this to Mattie.  Each knew, too, what the other was
thinking about.  I am sure enough of this, because when, just as we were
retiring into the great cabin, Jill gave a little glance behind him, and
I said in his ear, "There are no such things, old Jill," he nodded and
smiled.

The wind shortly increased to nearly the force of a gale.  It went
roaring through the rigging of our one mast in a way that was dismal to
listen to, though Mattie assured us it was perfectly delightful.  The
water alongside was all in a seethe, and the great ship wriggled if she
did not roll, and kept pulling at her moorings as if she wanted to go
flying away on the wings of that strong north wind.  We busied
ourselves, now, Jill and I, in getting supper, after which we put Mattie
to bed on the couch.  The three of us determined to turn in
all-standing, as sailors phrase it when they mean that they do not
undress.

But Jill and I took rugs and lay down in the cabin, as we did not want
to be far from Mattie should she call during the night.

We had thought of keeping watch and watch in true navy fashion.  But for
several reasons we abandoned the idea.  First and foremost there really
was nothing to watch except Mattie, and we could watch her better if
beside her; secondly it would be dreadfully dreary; and thirdly there
was the very remotest chance, that the ghost of some of the brave
fellows whose life-blood stained the fighting deck might take it into
its head to visit the _Thunderbolt_ during the storm that was raging.

The three of us said our prayers together, Jill and I kneeling down by
Mattie's couch.  Then we kissed "good night," and she went off like a
top.

After we were quite sure she was sound, Jill looked at me and I looked
at Jill, and up we both got as if we had arranged it all beforehand, and
carefully locked the door and loaded our pistols and lay down again.  We
had no shot, but I said that did not matter, as if the noise of the
pistol did not alarm the ghost and show him he was not wanted, shot
would only go right through him and the holes would fill up again
immediately.

However, we knew ghosts did not like light, so we left the swing lamp
burning and lay down.

Not to sleep, for a time at all events.  We could hear the roar of the
wind now more distinctly, and many strange noises that we could not
understand.  It might have been rats, but there were footsteps so
audible overhead every now and then, that we fully expected to see the
door open and honest Tom appear to report himself.

I'm certain we heard scuffling and stamping outside the door, but at
last all sounds merged into dreams, and if we did start awake now and
then we could not be sure whether the noises that roused us were reality
or imaginary.

We did sleep sound at last, for long hours too; then all at once, as if
by instinct, or, as I said before, as if wound up to it like clockwork
automata, Jill and I both rose up and became fully sensible that we were
standing hand in hand in the centre of the room.

It was grey daylight on a lovely morning--very early, perhaps not quite
three o'clock, and Jill and I both stared in astonishment as we gazed
out of the port.

Why, the town was going round us.  Houses and buildings and vessels were
passing by the window.

Could we be dreaming?  No, yonder was the green of a hill now, and the
clouds moving also.

About the same moment that these wonderful phenomena were being
presented to our eyes, the midshipman on watch on one of the ships--who,
by the way, was half asleep--ran down below and reported to his
commander that a steamer was going up harbour, and would run into the
dockyard.

The commander said, "Get out of here, youngster.  You're mad or
dreaming."

The middy went on deck, but came diving below again immediately, taking
two steps at a time.

"The _Thunderbolt_ has slipped her moorings, and is driving out to sea."

"Ay, lad," said the commander, "that is more like it.  The steamer you
thought moving has been stationary."

And now on board the hulk the real situation began to dawn upon our
minds.

We were being run away with.

Then a great gun reverberated high over the howling wind, and gun after
gun followed.

The good people of the town made quite sure that one of two things had
happened: either a foreign enemy had landed, or the end of the world had
come.

At the first gun Mattie, wideawake, jumped off the couch, and we at once
explained to her the situation.

"Hullo!" she cried, "how nice!  Hullo! hullo!  Let's play at being
pirates."

Her mirth and excitement were infectious.

In a minute or two we were armed and had rushed on deck, and the play
was commenced.

The old _Thunderbolt_ now was making good way down the harbour, and how
she missed fouling and sinking some of the craft is to me a mystery to
this day.  But some of them had a marvellously close shave.

The whole harbour was now alarmed, and the officers and crews swarmed on
the decks of the vessels.  But the stately hulk held on her way,
heading--sometimes sterning--for more open water.

Meanwhile, Pirate Jill was cheering in the ratlines, and finally leaped
down, and the battle began with swords, we, the combatants, shouting as
wildly as we thought was desirable.

We were now bearing close down upon the flag-ship, and could distinguish
the officers on the poop.

"Hurrah!" cried Jill, "let's now play at being pirates proper."

"Hullo!" cried Mattie, "we're all pirates."

I ran speedily off for Tom's old battered speaking trumpet, and we were
very close to the flag-ship when I hailed her, in true pirate fashion.

"Lie to there, till we send a boat on board, or we'll blow you out of
the water."

A chorus of laughter came from quarter-deck and waist.

"Fire!"  I cried.

Bang, bang, went both pistols at once.

"Hullo!" cried Mattie; "Hullo!"

And at the same moment, seeing she had the halyards in her hand, I
looked aloft just in time to see a little black bundle expand into a
huge flag, and lo! fluttering out in the morning air was the dark dread
ensign of the pirate, with its hideous skull and cross-bones.

"Hullo!" cried Mattie once more.

But Jill and I stood aghast!

Then our dream rushed back to our minds.

We did not foul the flag-ship, and were soon rolling away out seawards.
But what had we done?  It was dreadful to think of--hoisted the pirate
flag and fired upon one of her Majesty's flags, right into the teeth of
her officers and crew.

So paralysed were we that we entirely forgot to haul down the flag, and
it was still flying when--an hour afterwards a couple of tugs managed to
get us in tow, and we were once more heading back for the harbour.

The first words the officer of the tug said to me, when he had time to
speak, were--

"Why, you're a pretty lot!  Cutting out a man o' war under the very guns
of the flag-ship, and running off with it.  Ha! ha! ha!"

Whatever the laugh might have meant, it sounded to me like the yell of a
hyena.

"If you please, sir," I advanced, "we didn't run away with the ship; the
ship ran away with us."

"Was it bullum _versus_ boatum," he said, "or boatum _versus_ bullum?"

"I don't talk Turkish," I said.

"Well," he said, "Turkish here or Turkish there, you young pirate, I
suppose you know what you'll catch?"

"Hang us, won't they?"

"Hang you?  Yes.  Drum-head court-martial, and hanging, and serve you
right too.  You don't look very frightened," he added.  "There get away
inside, the lot of you, and thank your stars it is no worse."

We did as we were told, at the same time I could not help wondering what
worse could befall us, than a drum-head court-martial with hanging to
follow.

I stopped behind Jill long enough to ask the officer this question:

"They won't hang our little sister Mattie?"

"No, not likely, we'll make much of her."

He caught Mattie up as he spoke, and soon had her laughing and crowing
like a mad thing as he galloped round the deck with her on his shoulder.

"They won't hang Mattie," I said to Jill.

"No," said Jill, "that is one good thing."

"Well, do _you_ want to be hanged, Jill?"

"I don't think I should like it _much_."

"Well, nothing can save us, you know."

"But flight, Jack."

"Yes, flight, Jill, that's it.  I suppose they won't drum-head us
to-day?"

"I don't know.  I'm not so sure.  A drum-head court-martial _is_ a
drum-head court-martial, you see.  And the beauty of it is--if there be
any beauty about it--that it's got up and got done with at once."

"Well, then, I move we prepare for instant flight."

"Quite right.  I'm all ready as it is.  Let us eat this pie, though."

We did eat the pie.  In fact, we breakfasted very heartily.  But we grew
very sad again when we thought of Mattie we must leave so soon, if
indeed we should be successful in getting away at all.  However, we
could only try.

I got Mattie by the port, and said sadly enough--

"You won't ever, ever forget me, will you, dear Mattie?"  I put the
question with a kiss.

"No, you silly boy; I promise I won't.  But what a silly question.
We'll play at pirates again to-morrow."

I felt very much inclined to cry, but--I did not.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

ALONE ON THE MOOR--ADVENTURE IN THE CAVE.

On looking back through a long vista of years, and considering all the
_pros_ and _cons_ of the case, and remembering that Jill and I were only
boys, I do not think it any wonder we ran away from the dear old
_Thunderbolt_ hulk.  I have always accused myself to myself, for the
folly of having given way to a sudden romantic impulse--for which I,
being the elder of the three on board, am alone accountable--playing at
pirates, firing at a flag-ship, and all the rest of it.

But when our little game was over, and the full enormity of the offence
stared us in the face, and after what the officer of the tug-boat had
told us, I repeat, it is no wonder we ran away.  We were not to know the
officer was, figuratively speaking, laughing in his sleeve at us.  We
believed him.  We were convinced it would end in a drum-head
court-martial, with, next day, poor Jack swung up at one end of the
fore-yard, and poor dear Jill at the other.  A pretty sight that would
have been on a summer's morning.  Romantic?  Oh, yes, I own there would
have been a good deal of romance about it.  Rather much indeed.  Our
position would have been far too exalted to suit even my ambition.

Some one has said that hanging is the worst use you can put a man to, so
it cannot be good for a boy.

That officer of the tug-boat, too, made so awfully light of the matter.

When I had asked him if hanging was very, very, dreadful,--

"Oh, dear me, no, my lad," he replied, laughing, "not half so bad as
having a tooth pulled."

Our darling mother told us never to hate anybody, but I do not think I
loved that officer very much just then.

Well, how did we get away?  The fact is our escape was effected far more
safely and easily than I had anticipated.  I had expected that there
would be a considerable deal of romance about that I felt sure they
would fire shot and shell and shrapnel at the boat that was bearing us
off, and if after throwing ourselves into the water we reached shore
safely, they would send a regiment or two of soldiers at the very least
to pursue us.

The old _Thunderbolt_, when she ran away, "showed a pair of clean
heels," so I heard that tug-boat fellow say, because wind and tide was
hurrying her on.  But it was no such easy matter to get her back; so the
whole morning had fled before she was once more alongside her moorings.
Then the bustle and din and the loud talking were shocking, for nearly
an hour.

Mattie--I was so glad of this--got very sleepy, so we took her into Mrs
Moore's room and placed her on the bed.  She bade us both good-night
prettily, but sleepily, and I was glad of this too, for the
"good-nights" did for the "good-byes."  Ah! little did Mattie think we
were going to leave her, but she did not feel the tear that fell on her
beautiful hair as I bent over her.  It was best.  After this I suppose
it was activity that made us feel brave.  We had to look sharp, I assure
you.  We hurried into our cabin--ours, alas! no more--and exchanged our
hats for caps, and put on our monkey jackets--our winter ones.  This
would not look odd, because there was quite a raw air over the water.
We went and packed our one portmanteau, taking nothing lumbersome, and
no books, except our little Bibles that mamma had given us.

Then I sat down and wrote a letter, a very brief one, to Mattie.  It
only said, in a boy's scrawling hand--

  "Dearest Mattie,--Please always pray for Jack and poor Jill.--Your
  loving and affectionate Jack."

I folded this up, and glided away into the child's room and laid it on
her pillow.  She was sound asleep, but I kissed her brow.  If I had
stopped to look at her, I believe my heart would have broken in two.

Jill was waiting with the bag, and the difficulty was now to get a boat.
We had thought of getting into the dinghy and paying a man to return
it.  It was better we didn't.

I opened the port.  The fresh morning air blew in and calmed me, and
just at that moment, as if a good fairy had sent him, a shore boatman
rounded the stern of the hulk, and was close beneath us.

"Boatman," I said, "can you take us on shore?"

He looked about him a bit and nodded.  Then I dropped my bag, and he
caught it _so_ neatly.

"We'll get in from a lower port," I said.

The man nodded again.  Off Jill and I went down below to poor Tom
Morley's quarters.  Nobody saw us, for everybody was on the upper deck
forward, and making a terrible din.  In three minutes more we were well
away from the ship, but I made Jill lie down for fear of the shot and
shell and shrapnel which I expected to be flying about our ears soon,
and I myself pulled up the neck of my monkey jacket.

The man rowed right away up the harbour, and, to my intense joy, we had
soon put a wall between us and the ships of war.

My heart had been thumping violently, and I dare say so was poor Jill's.

When we landed, and I was diving for my purse to pay the mail, he held
up his hand deprecatingly.

"Look here, youngsters," he said, "I was a boy myself once.  You've got
into a little scrape, and you're going to stop away from school till the
little storm blows over.  I won't take a penny for this job, and I'll
take you both on board free and for nothing.  My name's Joe Saunders;
you can ask for me."

Then we thanked him and shook hands with him, with the tears in our
eyes--in fact I think some rolled over.  Next moment we were off and
away.

We walked very fast and took the quietest streets.  We met some marines,
and our hearts began to beat again; but they hardly looked at us.

When we had gone some distance we were on high ground, and paused to
look back.  We could see the forest of masts rising over the walls and
yards, and the smoke curling up from the chimneys.  And as we gazed two
bells rang out almost simultaneously from all the ships, while
immediately afterwards, sweet and clear in the still morning air, rose
the music of the band on the flag-ship's quarter-deck.

It was very beautiful, but to us inexpressibly saddening.

We hurried on now, and were soon thankful to find ourselves out in the
green country, with music of another kind falling on our ears--the happy
songs of the birds.

We did not stay to listen then, however; we were in far too great a
hurry to put as many miles as the day would admit of between us and the
scenes of our wild piratical escapades.  For we had not a doubt that, as
soon as the _Thunderbolt_ was once safely moored, the hue and cry would
go out for the capture of the daring pirates who had threatened to blow
one of Her Majesty's flag-ships, with a tame admiral on board of it, out
of the water.

So we went on, and on, and on, bearing away to the north, the country
becoming wilder and more desolate at every turn of the road.  When it
was long past midday we began to feel very hungry, and, spying smoke
rising from a little roadside inn not far off, we determined to halt and
refresh ourselves.

A very quiet-looking, motherly sort of woman showed us into a neat
little parlour, and making her acquainted with our desires, she went out
and soon returned with a dinner fit for a king.  Indeed I am sure that
King Charles, when he was in hiding, did not fare half so well.  Here
were new potatoes, and boiled bacon and beans, and a jug of table beer,
to say nothing of the white cloth and the wild flowers.  What more could
a king desire?

We felt exceedingly comfortable after dinner, and much bolder.  Indeed
we felt so far braced up that I determined forthwith to write to Auntie
Serapheema and our darling mother.  We had brought with us our little
writing-cases, so, with Jill looking over my shoulder, I began writing.

Auntie's letter did not take long.  We expressed our sorrow, thanked her
for all her kindness, and told her we were determined to be sailors if
not captured; and that we hoped one day to return to England laden with
jewels and gold, and come back and live happy ever after in Trafalgar
Cottage.  We sent our love to Sally and Robert, and our very dearest
love to little Mattie; and we signed the letter with our names in full.

That last was a stroke of policy, we thought.

Next we commenced writing to papa and mamma.  I wrote letter after
letter and tore them all up, carefully stowing away the pieces in our
bag, lest if left about they might lead to our capture.

I hardly remember what sort of a tear-blotched, loving, and penitent
epistle the last was, but perhaps it would have answered as well as a
longer one.  Just then a postman hove in sight.  He stopped to refresh
himself, and I ran out and gave him the letters.  I had not even
forgotten to put the correct number of stamps on poor mamma's.

So we had crossed the Rubicon.

But having sent the letter to mamma, a load appeared to have fallen off
my mind, all in a heap as it were.

When we asked the landlady how much was to pay, she looked at us and
said, "Sixpence each."

"Which way are you going?" she added.

"North," I answered.

"You'll be on a walking tour, young sirs?"

I nodded.

"Well, you better not walk farther the night.  There isn't another house
now for seven miles.  You're on the moor.  I can give you a clean, nice
bed, and breakfast any time you like in the morning."

I consulted with Jill and we concluded to stay.

When alone again we counted our money.  Financial ruin did not stare us
in the face, for our united fund from the savings of many a lucky
penny--dear aunt was so good to us--came to a few shillings over seven
pounds.  We thought ourselves rich, but determined to be very cautious
nevertheless.

We slept well and did not dream once.  Our bedroom was a little attic,
the window of which looked over the front causeway.  The sound of many
voices awoke us next morning.  I sprang out of bed, and peeped
cautiously out from under a corner of the blind.

To my horror and dismay the roadway was crowded with soldiers, and I
could distinctly see the glitter of fixed bayonets.  Pale and trembling
were both of us now, but we dressed and waited.  After about an hour's
terrible suspense the party broke up, one half--who, by the way, had a
prisoner--going south, and the rest going on in the direction of the
moor.

The men were only hunting for deserters, after all, so our appetite
returned, and we did ample justice to the good things set before us by
the kind landlady.  Then we bade her good-bye, and started.

We had to move with great caution now, for we knew the soldiers were on
ahead, and we did not know what might happen.  However, nothing did
happen all that forenoon.  We must have missed our way somehow, for
instead of coming to the one house the woman spoke of, we came to quite
a little hamlet, with a shop or two, and here, not knowing what might be
before us, we bought provisions enough in the shape of bacon, butter,
bread, and red herrings--we were not dainty--to last us for a week at
least.

Then cautiously inquiring our way north, and after making a hearty lunch
at a small inn, we set out once more, and, feeling very buoyant and
fresh, walked on as straight as the road would take us till nearly
sundown.

We never came to an eminence, however, without getting up and gazing
round us, and when we came to a wooded turn in the road we deserted it
altogether and took to the bush.

Just about sundown we heard voices on ahead, and Jill and I leapt like
deer behind a hedge, and lay as still as snakes do.  We soon saw the
gleam of scarlet.  It was the soldiers returning, and with them, between
men with fixed bayonets, a poor dejected-looking lad with his fatigue
jacket open and soiled, and his head bare.  He was handcuffed.

When right opposite us they all stopped.

"Give us a light, Bill," said one.

They had only stopped to light their pipes, though Jill and I trembled
like aspen leaves.  I noticed that one of the men, after he had taken a
draw or two himself, wiped the pipe-stem and thrust it friendly-like
into the the prisoner's mouth.  He must have been a good man.

But we gathered enough from their conversation, brief as it was, to
quite frighten us.

"He's on the moor," said one, "and they're bound to have him."

"A desperate character, isn't he?"

"Rather.  Kill you as soon as wink."

Then they went on.

Who was this desperate character, abroad on the moor?

"Surely they can't refer to me, Jill?"  I said.

"Oh no," said Jill; "certainly not.  They would have mentioned me, you
know."

"I don't think so, Jill.  You are not such a desperate character as I
am."

"Oh yes; I'm ten times worse," said Jill, awfully.

We soon after came into a country high, bleak, and desolate, with only
here and there a clump of trees.  Hills there were in plenty, but houses
none.

And night was falling fast, and both of us were getting very tired.  We
would have to sleep out, that was evident, and so determined to take the
first available shelter.  So on coming to a bushy gully, with a tiny
streamlet going singing down the centre of it, we left the road and
followed the water upwards, and were soon at the foot of a rock.  To my
surprise, on pulling some bushes aside I found a cave.

Some shepherd's, evidently, we thought, for here was a bed of withered
ferns, soft and dry; and not far from the mouth of the cave a place
where a fire had been.

So we camped at once and lit a fire, for I had forgotten nothing.  We
made the fire between some stones, and placed thereon our tin billy with
water to boil for tea.

We soon had made an excellent supper, and Jill's dear eyes sparkled as
he sipped his tea.

"What a splendid bushman you are, Jack!" he said.  "This is a first-rate
sort of a life, and, don't you know, I wouldn't mind living this way for
a month."

"Well," I said, "it seems pretty safe; and I propose we do stop here for
a few days.  By that time they will think we are far away, and never
look here for us."

"Agreed," said Jill.

Then we went and gathered a quantity of fern, so that we had quite a
delightful bed in the cave; and as night was now over all the wastes
around us, we determined to retire.  The stars were out and glimmering
down, and bats wheeling about, and every now and then the _tu-whit--
tu-whoo_! of the brown owl made us start.  It sounded so close to us,
and oh, it was so mournful!

Other than that there was not a sound to be heard.  We crept in, and I
lit a candle as coolly as if I had been an old campaigner.  I stuck it
between two stones.  Then I read a bit from mother's Bible, and down we
lay after that, leaving the candle burning for company's sake.  We did
not like to be quite in the dark in so eeriesome a place.

But tired as we were, we lay and talked and planned for hours, and when
I looked at my watch--yes, we each had a watch--I was surprised to find
it was nearly twelve o'clock.

"We needn't hurry up in the morning though, Jill."

"Assuredly not," said Jill.

Five minutes after we were sound asleep.

It might have been an hour afterwards, or it might have been two.  I
know not.  But I do know we both awoke with a start at the same moment,
and sat up shaking and trembling with fear.

A terrible-looking man stood in the cave gazing down at us.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

GOOD ADVICE FROM A STRANGE QUARTER--MIDNIGHT AND ANXIETY.

The state of my mind at this moment must have been akin to that of a
snake-charmed bird.  I felt utterly, abjectly helpless.  Had the
apparition taken a knife out and proceeded to kill us, I do not think I
should have lifted a hand or uttered a cry, except a frightened moan
like a person in a nightmare.

He stood and looked down at us long and earnestly.  A strangely haggard,
but not an evil face, black beard of a week's growth perhaps, and short
dark hair hardly seen for the napkin that bound his head instead of a
hat or cap.

We found voice at last, both at the same time.  "Oh, sir," we said,
beseechingly, "do not kill us!"  He started as we spoke the last two
words, started as if stung, and gazed behind him with quick dramatic
action, his black eyes all ablaze for the moment.  So have I often since
seen a hunted wolf look when at bay.

The first words he spoke betrayed him to be a foreigner.

"Kill!" he said, "what for I kill you?  You alone?  All alone?"

"Yes," we replied, "yes, sir, quite alone."

"'Tis goot.  Do not fear me.  Where go you to-morrow day?  What you do
here?"

I glanced at him for a moment before I spoke, and the truth flashed
across my mind.  This was the terrible convict we heard the soldiers say
was abroad on the moor.  He was not in convict dress, and though his
coat was in rags, his boots were good.  We learned from him, afterwards,
that he had exchanged clothes, strange though it appeared, with a
scarecrow.  There was some humour here, though sadly blended with
deepest pathos.

No, this man might rob, but he would not kill us.  He was in trouble
like ourselves.  So we told him we were running away from school.

He looked at us again, and I saw he believed us.  "Angleese, I not speak
much.  I am Espanol.  I am a convict.  Do not fear.  I have never kill
one.  No--no--no."

He sat down beside the candle and took out a knife and a turnip.

Something told me the poor fellow was famishing.  I jumped up and went
to my bag, and placed bread and bacon in his hand.  He ate ravenously
and thanked me.  Perhaps it was only fancy, but I thought I saw tears in
his eyes.

While he ate, much to our astonishment, a little black mouse ran down
his sleeve, and sat on the back of his left hand, which he took care to
keep still.  The creature ate hungrily of the crumbs he gave it, and
when finished, he held out his little finger, around which the mouse
entwined both its little arms, while it licked it as lovingly as a dog
would have done.  Then, at a sign from the convict, it once more
retreated.

I am sure, even now, that it was his love for the gentle wee mouse that
made Jill and I take to this man, and believe what he told us.  Briefly,
his story was this:

"Many years ago, one, two, ten perhaps, I am cast away on this shore.
My mate and me alone live.  We trabel much.  We seek for friend.  No
find.  Then we come to big town, Cardeef, you call it.  Here we find
goot friend.  We go seek for ship then to take us to Cadeeth.  It is
night.  All my money in my belt.  Bad men come out, kill my mate.  I
hear voices, footsteps.  I run up to my mate.  I pull out the ugly
knife.  I am caught there.  I am taken to preeson, tried before
justice--justice, ha! ha!  I not kill my poor mate.  All same.  No one
speak my language well.  I not can speak Angleese den.  I get angry,
wild, mad.  They put me away to preeson.  Twenty year they say.  But now
I am free.  They never get me more.  I die first."

"And the mouse?" said Jill.

"That is my preeson mate.  I think 'tis the speerit of Roderigo, my
friend, in dat little mouse.  The warder want to kill him.  Den I say, I
escape or die.  You may believe me.  'Tis all true.  What for I tell
little chaps like you lie.  I have good friend at home.  I will tell all
dere.  The Espanol Government will make de Angleese restitute.  But dey
cannot bring back Roderigo."

"Did you love Roderigo very much?"

"He was best of friend.  All same as brother.  Yes, I love him.  And
you?  What you do?"

Then, boy-like, we told this man all our terrible tale.  We expected him
to be visibly affected; perhaps, convict though he was, to shrink from
us.

He certainly was visibly affected, but in a way we little expected.  He
laughed outright.

"For ten long year," he said, "I never laugh before."

The little mouse came down his sleeve again and sat on his wrist to wash
his face and blink at the candle.  The convict pointed to it with a
forefinger and laughed again.

"Even Roderigo," he cried, "is much amoose.  Ha, ha, ha!  Ah, boys," he
added, almost immediately getting serious; "you have a home.  Go back to
dat home.  Go back, I say, go back.  I speak as an all unworthy friend."

"But they will hang us for piracy."

"Do not make me laugh more.  It does not become rags and grief to laugh.
See, I am widout money, and naked, still I laugh.  Poor boys, go back!"

I considered for a moment, then abruptly changed the subject.

"How do you expect to get away?  We saw soldiers to-day on the moor.
They were talking about you, and said you could not escape."

His face grew darker and sadder.

Then, with all a boy's generous abandon, I pulled out my purse and
showed him my money.  Even little Roderigo--Jill afterwards declared--
paused in the act of washing his ears and gazed at the glittering coins.

"This is all we have," I said.

"You unwise boy!  I might take all.  I will not refuse de offer of
kindness.  See, I take two.  No more.  This has save my life."

He dipped a finger and thumb into the coins in my palm and took two
sovereigns, and I put away the rest.  He sat a long time silent after
this.  Then he got up, and going out, soon returned with an armful of
ferns, which he placed in a corner.

"I sleep now," he said.  "To-morrow day we talk."

Strange that now we felt no fear of this strange being.  We slept
soundly and well, and daylight was streaming into the cave when we were
aroused.  The convict had lightly touched me on the shoulder.

He was smiling, and looked now neither so haggard nor so terrible as on
the evening before.

"No warm breakfus," he said, smiling.  "Soldiers have pass 'long de
highway.  Think you they seek for de convict to put in preeson, or de
pirate boys to hang?  Eh?"

We both trembled.  But the keen air of the hill gave us an appetite and
we did not miss the tea.

"Now we talk," said the convict.  "I have been think."

"And," I said, firmly, "I have also been thinking.  It may not be so bad
as we thought.  They may not want to hang us.  But they would disgrace
and laugh at us, and I am a soldier's son.  I will not go back.  Would
you, Jill?"

"Assuredly not."

"Den what else you do?"

"Go to sea before the mast."  The convict laughed again before he
replied--"Boys, I speak as your friend.  Do not be fools.  Go to sea?
What?  Who take you?  Though I have been long in preeson, I know all de
law.  At sea what can you do?  No dings.  No capitan will have runaways.
Suppose you do hide, what you calls stowaway.  Den they make you for to
work--"

"We don't mind that."

"Stop till I speak.  Dey bring you back to de same port.  Ha, ha!"

It had never struck us before in this light.  Not that we intended to
stow away, but little goslings that we were, we fancied we had only to
make our way to a seaport and choose a ship, and that any captain would
be delighted to have us without asking any questions.

This convict was speaking sense, but he had already cast down our idols
and banished every morsel of sentiment from our situation.

I could have cried with vexation.

I almost hated the poor fellow now.  Why could he not have left us to go
on a little longer in the flowery lane of our romance?  Presently he
spoke again.

"You have to me been a friend.  Now to you I will be a friend.  I will
go to your aunt."

"No, no, no."

"Stop, my friend.  I will tell her what you do wish me to speak.  No
dings more.  Shall I go?"

"Tell her," I said, "that we are well and happy.  No, tell her we are
wretched.  No, no.  Jill, what shall we tell her?"

"Well," said Jill, with his old smile, "you can't say we're jolly.  Just
say we won't come back.  That we want to get a ship to go to mother."

"_No_, Jill, not like that, a ship to go to sea.  They will not take us
without aunt's leave--then, we must get it."

"Ah!" cried the convict, "dat is sensibeel now.  You speak like one
young man.  I go to-night.  You stay in de cave.  Do not be seen.  I
will quickly return."

"But you will not bring Aunt Serapheema!"

I felt angry at the time for speaking thus, but I could not help it.  To
have been dragged back now would have broken both our hearts, of this I
am convinced.

"No," said the convict.  "As I am a good Catholic--no."

This was enough for me.  I took out once more my little writing-case,
and feeling more happy and hopeful now, I wrote a long letter to auntie.
It might have been but a repetition of the last, but it breathed even
more emphatically than before our firm determination not to return till
we had been to sea, adding that if this dream--that is the very word I
used--were denied to us, we would work for our daily bread with the
sweat of our brow.

It may have been a foolish boyish letter, and I dare say was, but it
spoke our feelings, and no letter can do more than that.

This I entrusted to our friend the Spaniard, and he put it in his
breast.

We kept close to the cave all that day, and several times heard voices
in the distance, but no one came near us.

At night, as soon as the stars shone out, the convict left us, and we
now felt very lonely indeed, but made the best of it, eating a hearty
supper and talking till long past midnight.

As I write, poor Auntie Serapheema's diary lies before me, and as the
following entry refers to Jill and me, I take the liberty of
transcribing it in full.

  "_July_ 25, 18--.  Last night, being the fourth since the
  disappearance of the dear foolish boys, and just as Sarah was bringing
  the Book, there came a knock to the hall door.  Poor Mattie and I both
  started.  Every knock makes us start now.  It was only Robert, but he
  came to say a strange man wanted to see me on business.  I made Sarah
  re-light the lamp in the drawing-room and retire.  He stood near the
  mantelpiece as I entered, and bowed with almost stage politeness.  I
  could see at once he was a foreigner.  Englishmen are not urbane.  He
  was clean shaved with the exception of the moustache, which was long
  and tinged with grey like his hair--also long.  His eyes were very
  dark and piercing, and he looked altogether interesting and like a man
  who had come through some grievous sorrow.  He handed me the bill of
  the reward of 50 pounds for the dear lads.  `Yes, it was I who offered
  it,' I said.  Speaking in broken English, he told me I must take the
  bills in to-morrow, and issue others saying the lads were found.  _He_
  knew where they were, and could arrange for me to meet them.
  `Where?'--`At Bristol.'--`No, nearer?'--`Not a mile,' he said.  Did he
  want the reward then?  I said this to try him.  He did not speak.  He
  appeared about to faint.  I made him sit down, and caused Sarah to
  bring wine and a little food.  While he ate he handed me a letter from
  my most foolish of lads.  I watched him while he refreshed himself.
  Strange to say, a little mouse he called Roderigo came from his sleeve
  and sat in his hand, and he fed it.  It then retired.  I knew then I
  had a strange being to deal with, but I also felt I could trust him.
  But he would give me none of his own history; yet if he had asked me
  then for the whole of the money I would have handed it over.  He only
  asked for twenty pounds to carry out his plans on the morrow.  Yes, in
  answer to his question, he could sleep under my roof and welcome.
  Would I forgive him if he retired soon.  Yes, again; he looked tired
  and was so polite.  He said, was I the boys' eldest sister.  I am
  often taken to be very young.  While we talked Mattie came in.  I was
  surprised to see the child turn red and white by turns as he looked at
  her.  Then she advanced and held out her hand.  She said, `I am glad
  you have come.'  I said, `What do you say, child?'  Her reply was a
  strange one as she gazed from my face to the man's.  `Is that not--oh,
  I cannot call you to name.  But I saw you--and oh, it must have been
  in a dream.'  She looked half in a dream now, and I was about to call
  Sarah, fearing she might be ill, when she smiled, and was soon after
  talking with the mysterious stranger as if they had long known each
  other.  She marvelled much at the little mouse.  He called it his
  friend, his mate, his brother, and though she laughed, she seemed to
  understand him.

  "This morning he went away, and soon returned improved in habiliment.
  Poor fellow, he does not look well off.  Now he has gone, and
  to-morrow I start for Bristol.  But though Mattie would fain come, I
  must go all alone.  That is the agreement."

Here the extract ends.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the day after the Spaniard left us, nothing occurred till near
evening, when we were much frightened by the sudden appearance at the
cave mouth of a huge dog.  We thought it was a bloodhound, and that we
were to be tracked thus, or our friend the Spaniard.  The dog gave one
startled look and retired, and presently, on venturing to look through
the bushes, we found, much to our relief, he was running behind a man on
horseback.

Nothing happened all that night, and next day we felt very uneasy as
hour after hour went by and our new friend never returned.  What could
have occurred?  False I felt he would not prove.  But was he re-taken or
dead?  Oh, that would indeed have been dreadful.

The time went wearily, wearily on.  We never ventured out of the cave,
lest we might be seen, for once again we saw soldiers pass and repass.

When the evening star appeared shining bright and clear over the valley
far beneath us, we felt more safe.  Then the bats went wheeling past and
past, and the mournful cry of the brown owl sounded drearily over the
moor again.

We thought we should pray for our friend.  We did this, lit our candle,
and read from the Book, as dear auntie always called it.  While we were
yet reading we heard the distant sound of wheels, and speedily put the
light out lest it might betray us.

We were badly frightened again when the carriage stopped down on the
bridge.  We ran inside the cave, for we had come out to look, but just
then we heard the owl's cry three times repeated, and this was the
signal.

We got our bag and ran down the brook-side, and there stood the
Spaniard--for he spoke--but so changed we did not know him.

We were so happy then.  And we had more questions to ask than the
faithful man could easily answer.

CHAPTER NINE.

A MIDNIGHT DRIVE--ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL--THE GOOD SHIP "SALAMANDER"--HOW
TOM MORLEY DIED.

My brother and I jumped up into the dog-cart, I making Jill sit in front
for safety's sake, he being the younger, and the roads being hilly in
parts.  Then up jumped our Jehu as I may now call our friend the
Spaniard, all the more truly in that he was arrayed from chin to knee in
a double breasted buff-coloured coachman's coat with buttons of brass.
The coat, when daylight came, looked a little the worse for wear, but,
to use a paradox, this was all the better for the part he was playing.

I had only time to press Adriano's hand and ask for auntie and Mattie
before we started.  They were well and it was all right, and aunt would
meet me at Bristol.

I should have liked to have asked many more questions, but the noise and
jolting of the cart prevented me.  Besides, Adriano seemed but little
inclined to talk, and I noticed that he gave frequent glances from side
to side, scanning as well as he could that portion of the moor which
could be seen in the starlight.

Jill put his hand over the back of the seat and I placed it in my bosom,
and thus felt I had my brother's company and he mine.  There was no need
to speak to him then.  Jill and I understood each other's thoughts by
touch as well as by talk.  But indeed I was myself but in small humour
for conversing.  I felt safe--that was enough for the present; but why
Adriano had brought a cart, or where he was driving us to, I had no
desire to be informed.

In about half an hour, far away on the horizon to the right, I thought I
could perceive the reflection of a great fire behind the hills.  The
flames looked increasing every minute.  Surely, I thought, some forest
must be on fire away over yonder.  But soon the moon rose red and round,
and apparently laughing at the trick it had played me.  I watched it
mount higher and higher, getting paler and more silvery, fighting its
way through the clouds, and changing their blackness into beauty and
brightness, just as our souls may change sorrows and afflictions, if we
but have true faith in the Father.

Ere long, the moon ruled queen of the heavens' blue arch, and the very
stars seemed to pale before its glory.

I could not help thinking as we jogged along, how very differently
things had all turned out from the morning--very far away it seemed--
when poor Jill and I had left the ship with, figuratively speaking, rope
around our necks.  So true is it that we cannot even guess from hour to
hour what is before us.  You may try the experiment, if you please, of
imagining what some place you are going to will be like, or some person
you are going to meet for the first time.  Your imagination will be very
far out indeed.  Still, I am certain of one thing, that if we do our
duty simply and well, and leave the rest in the hands of the Providence
we entrust with our life-guidance, all will turn out for the best.  Who
could have dreamt of our meeting the "terrible" convict, or of his
giving us such honest, fatherly advice.  With our heads full of silly
romance, and our purses brimming over with three pounds ten each, where
would Jill and I have landed.  We would soon have been poor little
ragged, bare-footed boys, with never a penny to buy bread or a
postage-stamp, and oh, I tremble now to think what we might not have
come to.

As I was musing thus, the road began rapidly to descend till we found
ourselves in a deep, wooded ravine and on a bridge.

Adriano had quick eyes.  He saw two men spring from the bank a little
ahead before I did, and slackened speed.  One stood at each side of the
road as we drove very slowly past.

Adriano simply raised his whip hand as Jehus do by way of salute, but
spoke no word.  A moment afterwards, however, he raised his cap as if to
scratch his head and the moon glinted on his grey hair--which _I_ knew
was a wig.

The men were very upright and soldierly in their bearing, but dressed in
dark clothes tightly fitting.

One caught the back-board of the dog-cart, and walked some little way,
helping himself along up the hill by the hold he had taken, which was
only natural.  But my heart began to jump and flicker, and my mouth grew
suddenly dry with dread.  Luckily I did not lose the power of speaking,
nor did I falter much.

"You're late out, my lad?"

"Y-es."

"Going far?"

"Y-es, very far.  Going to see my poor aunt."

I had taken my handkerchief out, for what reason I do not know.  But a
sudden inspiration made me raise it momentarily to my face.

The man noticed it.

"Ah! poor boy," he said; "I hope you'll find her better than you
expect."

"I hope so," I said, and in my heart of hearts I did.

"Death comes sooner or later to us all, lad," he added.  "Good-night."

"Good-night, sir."

Not a word was spoken by any of us in the trap, till we were a good mile
past the place.  Then Adriano turned round.

"Who you think those men are?" he asked.

"I can guess."

"They belong to the preeson.  I know them.  Ha, ha, they not know me."

There were no further adventures that night, but just as day was
breaking slowly in the east, we all alighted near a brook, and Adriano
put a nose-bag on the horse after letting him drink.  Then our friend
took out a basket from the cart.  It contained one of auntie's pies--
auntie was famous for pies--and many other good things.  I could not
help thinking now how truly good at heart she was, and how ungrateful I
had been.  Hope returned to my heart, however, while eating, and I
prayed inwardly I might live to reward her for all her kindness.

We were now in a very lonely and also a very quiet place, so that when
Adriano suggested a few hours' sleep, nothing seemed more natural.  He
gave us a rug and we lay down together, Jill and I under a bush, and
very soon indeed all our tiredness and all our troubles were alike
forgotten.

My watch had run down and so had Jill's, so I have no actual notion how
long we slept, only it must have been for many hours, because the sun
was over in a different part of the sky and we were hungry.  This last,
I have often proved in deserts and wilds, is an excellent way of knowing
the time when you do not happen to possess a watch.

We slept that night at a little country inn, and were up and away before
the sun was well over the woods.  We took our time on the road to-day,
lazed and dawdled in fact, while Jill and I committed all kinds of
frolics.  We culled huge bunches of wild flowers, and even bedecked the
horse's head, so that when we arrived in the evening at a little village
the people at once put us down as boys on a holiday.

Next night we drove into Bristol, and now Jill and I forgot all about
the wild flowers, as we thought of our interview with auntie.

I pictured to myself all sorts of dreadful and impossible situations.
How would she receive us?  How would we advance?  How apologise for all
the trouble and inconvenience we had been to her?  How this, that; and
fifty other things, that were all scattered to the winds when we drove
into the inn yard and found auntie all smiles and ribbons, actually
waiting to help us down out of the trap?

"Poor dear lads, you must be so tired and hungry.  But dinner is waiting
when you've had a wash.  I declare to you, boys, I'm not a bit sorry to
come to Bristol.  It is quite a holiday to me.  And old associations do
so crowd round my heart.  Your grandpa, my dear father, used to sail
regularly from Bristol.  Oh, Reginald, you do look unkempt.  Sleeping in
your clothes, I dare say.  Come along.  We will say good-night, Senor
Adriano.  Be here at ten to-morrow."

And it was not till just before we went down to one of the nicest
dinners ever a boy sat down to, that auntie said, "Now, boys, say not a
word again about the _Thunderbolt_.  All is past and forgiven.  It was
not to be, boys.  You were not destined for the navy."

We clung to her hands, and thanked her.

"And after all," mind you, "I believe with my dear father, that we have
far better sailors in the merchant service than in the navy."

On the whole, then, our reunion was more like coming home after being
away on a holiday than anything else.  So different from anything we
could have expected.

We were too tired to talk much that night, and next morning Adriano bade
us good-bye after doing some business with auntie.

I felt some sorrow at parting; so did Jill.

"Shall we ever, ever see each other again, Adriano?"  I said.

"Quien sabe? de world is not wide to de sailor.  We meet--perhaps.--I go
home now, I hope.  I will see my government--I will return here or to
Cardeef--a free man.  _A dios.  A dios_."

This was a busy day with auntie, and a busy day for us too.  We saw the
inside of many a shipping office before evening, and I was proud to
learn that my Aunt Serapheema was so well known and so highly respected
by every one, but I was not aware then that she was owner of a great
many shipping shares.

I remember what one white-haired old gentleman said to her.

"The boys are big enough for their years, and look strong and well, but
are they not just a little too young?"

"Their grandfather," said auntie, proudly, "went to sea when barely
ten."

"I know your father was an exceptional youngster, and no man could have
died more highly respected.  No man."

"Let me see now," said auntie, speaking more to herself than to Mr
Claremont, "the _Salamander_ belongs to only a few shareholders."

"Belongs mostly to you, Miss Domville."

"And the captain is a gentleman."

"Captain Coates is an excellent fellow."

"Takes his wife with him most trips?"

"He does so in September."

"I love a man who does that.  He is a true sailor."

"Perhaps too soft-hearted, though," said Mr Claremont.  "Don't you
think so, Miss Domville?"

"No, I don't."

"So brusque and cheerful.  Just like your father, Miss.  Just like dear
old Captain Domville."

"And I couldn't be like a better man, could I, Mr Claremont?"

"True, true, true."

"Well, my boys shall go out in September with Captain and Mrs Coates."

"_So_ like her father.  _So_ like her father.  Why, Miss Domville, do
you know that your words sound very like a command?"

"And so they are meant to sound, Mr Claremont," said auntie, laughing.
"But mind you, it is _I_, not you, who are giving it.  It is with me all
responsibility rests, remember.  I, not you, have to account to Major
Jones, their dear father, and to my sister."

"Yes, Miss, yes, yes, yes.  I am just your adviser."

"That's all.  So that settles it."

"_So_ like her father.  So _very_ like her father," said the old
gentleman, as he bowed us to the door.

I looked at Jill after we got into the street, and Jill looked at me,
and the wish uppermost in our minds at that moment was to take off our
caps and shout, as we used to do when playing pirates; and the greatest
sorrow in our hearts at the same moment was that we could not do
anything of the sort, because it would have looked so silly.

When at luncheon that afternoon, auntie told us she would remain with us
until our ship sailed in September, we of course felt very glad.

"But," I said, "will they not miss you at home?"

"I was thinking of Mattie."

"Oh, no," said auntie, "who is to miss me?  Poor dear Mattie has her
Mummy Gray, the canaries have Sarah, and Trots has Robert to wash his
feet and exercise him.  You see, Reginald, I am free.  I love to be
free.  That is the sole reason why I do not get married."

Poor auntie, it struck me even then she did not look much like a
marrying lady; but I did not say anything.

Captain Coates called in the evening.  He was not your beau ideal of a
sailor quite, being rather tall, thin, and dressed like a landsman.  The
peculiar feature of his face was his nose.  It was a big nose, but sharp
and thin.  If his nose had been a circus horse, a clown would hardly
have cared to ride bare-back on it.  I may as well state here, at once,
that Captain Coates never drank anything stronger than tea; still his
nose was somewhat flushed at all times, and more so during an east wind.
Mrs Coates was with him, a round-faced, cosy, bonnie wee woman that
Jill and I took to at once.

She was very proud of her husband, and he was fond of her.

"Jack," she told us that evening, "is every inch a sailor.  Oh, it is
fine to hear him carrying on when we're shortening sail in front of a
puff.  And all the men obey him, too."

Captain Coates laughed aloud--rather a pleasant, hearty laugh it was.

"Obey me, do they!  Quite an exceptional thing on board a ship.
Thunder!  Miss Domville, the man who didn't obey me would soon be
scratching an ailing head."

"That's just his way," Mrs Coates whispered to me.  "Jack is such a
fellow.--Oh, by the way, you're called Jack.  We'll have two?"

"Oh, it won't matter much," I said, "I've a whole barrowful of names
besides to pick and choose from."

"I'm sure you'll like the sea and Captain Coates, and that we shall all
pull together famously.  By the way, Miss Domville, I'm taking a maid
again."

"You had one last time."

"Yes, and a nice handful she was.  Ill for weeks, and I had to attend
upon her.  This is a black girl, so humorous, kindly, and good, and been
to sea quite a long time."

We were very happy that evening, especially when aunt told us that we
were going to India, and that we should call at the Cape and probably
see mamma.

"Oh," I shouted, "I'm so glad that we played pirates."

"So am I," cried Jill, and began to dance.

"Auntie," I said, "promise me one thing.  Oh, you must promise."

"Well, well, if I must promise, what is it?"

"You'll write and tell mamma we've gone to sea.  But don't say _where_.
We want to pop in on her unawares.  Don't we, Jill?"

"Certainly."

"Well," said auntie, "I'll humour you for once."

There is always something in this life happening to mar one's joy, just
when it is at its height.  That is my experience.  But things are wisely
ordered.  Heaven does not desire us to get too fond of this world.  If
it were all sunshine we would be sure to, and forget there is a happier
land beyond the grave.

But before we went to bed, auntie told us about the sad fate of poor Tom
Morley.

She seemed unwilling at first to tell us anything to damp our spirits,
but as we had mentioned Tom, and saw there was something behind her
first simple statement that Tom was dead, we pressed her and she
withheld nothing.

The brief narrative of his latter end was related to her by Tom's own
quondam shipmate, the man who had come on board for him on that
unfortunate evening before our final foolish adventure on the
_Thunderbolt_; and when we heard it from auntie's lips it made an
impression on us I am never likely to forget.

Boys do take fancies for persons, whether men or women, whom they get in
tow with--to use a sea phrase--when young, and I think they are more
likely to be lasting ones if these persons have any memorable oddity
about them.  Tom had several, his hoarse but not unpleasant voice, his
flower-pot coloured face, and his exceeding good nature when off duty.
To put it in few words, he then used to let us do as we liked.  I think
I see Jill yet jumping round him and singing--

  "Dear old Tom Morley,
  Come tell us a storley."

Then we would catch him and "lug him below" (the phrase is Tom's) and
seat him in his armchair, and even light his pipe for him, and then sit
down to listen.

Tom's stories nearly always had much about the same plan of
commencement, which was somewhat as follows:--

"When I was in the old _Semiramis_, young gentlemen, ah! ships were
ships in them days, and officers and men _were_ officers and men, I can
tell you, and knowed their duty, and did it too, no matter what stood in
their way.  Well, one day we were a-cruisin' off a bit o' land,"--and so
on and so forth.

Yes, we did like Tom.  But sad was the pity he had that predilection for
"tossing cans" with friends, else he might have gone aloft in a
different fashion and his body filled an honoured grave.

But Tom met his old messmate that day, and went off with him, and they
must have a can together for old times, and many more than one perhaps.
The evening probably passed away quickly enough, what with talking of
the dear old days "when ships were ships and you I were young, lad."

But, according to his friend, Tom pulled himself up with a round turn at
last, and as he pulled out his big, old-fashioned silver watch.

"Oh dear," he cried, "I'd no idea how the time was flyin'; and those
dear children on board, too, all by their dear little selves.  Now, old
chummy, I'm off.  Duty's duty, and we may meet again another day."

"I don't think you can get off to-night to the _Thunderbolt_," replied
his friend.

"What d'ye mean?" said Tom.

"Why I mean that it's blowin' big guns."

"No matter if it blows fifty-sixes or Armstrongs, Tom's goin' off if
birds can fly."

"There won't be a boat'll take you off to-night, Tom," said the
landlord.

"Then I'll swim," said Tom Morley, doggedly.  "I've done that afore,
when duty was duty."

"I know you has, Tom; but take my advice, don't try any such foolish
game on a night like this, or you'll get left."

"Good-night, landlord.--Come on," cried Tom to his friend.

Away they went together.

It was past ten by the time they reached the usual steps.  No boatman
was there.

"Tom, come on back.  Sleep on shore to-night, old man."

"What," cried Tom, "and those three darlings on board!  Don't ye try to
persuade me, Bill.  You knows Tom o' the old.  Duty is duty, and Tom'll
face it."

The moon was shining quite brightly, and though the water was rough, the
wind was favourable.

"D'ye see the dear old _Thunderbolt_ yonder, Bill?  Well, Tom'll sleep
there to-night or--in a sailor's grave.  I think I see the anxious wee
faces at the port yonder watching for me.  Coming, darlings Tom's
a-coming."

Tom had kicked off his boots as he spoke; then he relieved himself of
what he called his top hamper.  But even now his old shipmate could not
believe him in earnest.  He did, though, when Tom darted from his side
and took a header into the tide.

He swam up close in shore first for a good distance, then struck out
across, but still heading up.  For a time his messmate could even hear
him singing a stave of that charming old song--

"Good-night--all's well."

"The last long notes," said his mate, "rang down the wind like a
death-knell."

And death-knell it was to poor Tom.  If ever he reached the ship's
longitude, he must have been carried past her with fearful speed, and--
the curtain drops.

CHAPTER TEN.

BOOK II--PATAGONIA AND THE LAND OF FIRE.

A STRANGE INTRODUCTION--SAINT HELENA AND FUN ON SHORE--CAPE TOWN.

The amount of good advice vouchsafed to us before sailing, by dear aunt,
was only equalled by the sum total of our own good resolves.  There was
nothing in the world we were not going to do and be that was worth doing
or being.  And every night of our lives for weeks before sailing, we
made some new good intention, and duly entered it in the log of our
memories.

Alas!  I fear that going to sea for the first time is very like entering
upon a new year: there is the same firm determination to do good and to
be good, and one invariably sticks to his intentions boldly--for a week
or a fortnight.

Our life now, I remember, was to be all _couleur de rose_.  There would
not be a single hitch in it; it would spin over the wheels of time as
softly as a well-coiled rope glides through a greased block.  We were
going to work like New Hollanders, and get up to the working of the ship
in a month at the farthest, be able to reef, steer, and box the compass
in another month; we would always be on deck three minutes before the
watch was called; we would show the men a good example--we certainly had
a good opinion of our little selves; we would be always cheerful and
merry and willing; and last, but not least, we would keep such a log as
would be worth handing over to the British Museum when done with.

However, there is no harm in trying to be perfect; on the contrary, it
shows a boy is ambitious, and an ambitious boy is certain to do well and
advance.  He may not obtain to the height of his ambition, but if he
aims high he'll hit high, nevertheless, although he may neither send his
arrow through the moon nor set the Thames on fire.

The _Salamander_ was a sailing ship, but a crack little craft at that,
well-handled, and well-manned.  A barque she was as to rig, but almost
clipper built, without extra narrowness of beam.  She was a strong,
sturdy-timbered, safe ship, and could do a bit of handsome sailing on a
wind.

But being a sailing ship, she had to be towed by such a puffing little
dirty noisy tug, all the way down the river.  This is a sort of a
beginning to a voyage that I never could endure.  When I go to sea, I
like best to get into blue water right away, just as I dearly love to
take a header from the rocks into deep water when bathing--right splash
down among the jelly fishes.

But we hoisted sail at last with a deal of "yee-hoing" and sing-songing,
then the tug and we parted company with a ringing cheer, which Jill and
I took an eminent part in.  Indeed, when the order was given to hoist
the jib, both of us attempted to take an eminent part in that also, and
were thunderstruck at being advised to go aft if we didn't want our toes
tramped.  Why, the scramble in setting sail, the hurrying here and
scurrying there, the noise and shouting, would have left a Rugby
football match far in the rear.

When sail was got up at last, and the water had entirely lost its
pea-soup colour, the _Salamander_ went bobbing and curtseying over the
wee wavelets, swaying about like a pretty Spanish girl dancing a
fandango, and with a motion altogether so pleasant, that I said to Jill
I did not think there was any life in the world so pleasant as a life on
the ocean wave.

Just as I was saying this I received a dig from a thumb in the ribs,
accompanied by that clicking sound a Jehu makes with his mouth when he
wants his horse to "gee up."  I think it is spelt thus: "tsck!"  If not,
I do not know how to spell it.

"Tsck! youngsters, how d'y'e like it?  Eh!  Tsck!  Sorry to leave the
shorie-worry.  Eh?  Tsck."

He was a youth of about fifteen, in blue pilot jacket with brass
buttons, and a cap on the after-part of his head.  He had a short neck
and handsome face, but square chin, which he stuck very much up in the
air when he spoke.  I did not like him, then.

I drew myself up to my full height--four feet six, I think--and asked
him if he was aware he was taking an unwarrantable amount of familiarity
with my ribs.

I was using my very best English on him--auntie's English.

"What's your name, chummy?"

"Captain Coates may be able to inform you."

"Ha! ha! going to ride the high horse.  Eh?"

"What's your name, little un?  Tsck!"  This to Jill.

Jill bridled up now.

"When I'm as big as you, I'll thrash you," said my brother.

"But you'll never be, 'cause I'll keep growing.  See?"

I looked at him disdainfully up and down.

"You don't give promise at present," I said, "of ever attaining heroic
dimensions."

"Eh?" he said, putting a finger behind his left ear, as deaf people do.
"I didn't catch on.  What ship did you say?"

"Because," I added, "you're squat, and you're not wholesome, nor
handsome."

This was hardly handsome of me.

He shook his head now as if in great grief.

"Oh! you ungrateful little griffin," he gasped out.  "Here is poor
innocent me come to chummy with you, and there is you a-rebuffing of me
like everything.  I declare it's enough to make the binnacle pipe its
eye."

Then he brightened up all at once.

"I say," he said, "was that old duchess your aunt?  Uncommon fine old
girl.  Give you any yellow boys, eh?"

I turned on my heel and walked away, arm-in-arm with Jill.

At the same moment Mrs Coates and her black maid came up, and I was
surprised to observe the immediate change in this young officer's
demeanour.  He lifted his hat to the lady, and advanced almost shyly,
certainly deferentially.

"Now, boys," said Mrs Coates, smiling, "let me make you acquainted with
your brother officer, Mr Jeffries.  Mr Jeffries--Master Reginald--
and-all-the-rest-of-it Jones; Master Rupert, etc, Jones--twin brothers,
as you may see."

Mr Jeffries cordially shook hands with us.

"I really was trying to scrape acquaintance with them when you came on
deck, Mrs Coates."

"How did you proceed?" asked the lady.

"Well, I--I fear I dug them in the ribs rather, Mrs Coates, but I now
most humbly apologise."

"And I have to apologise," I returned, "for calling you squat and ugly."
I lifted my hat.

"And I," said Jill, lifting his hat, "have to apologise for saying I
would thrash you--I won't."

"No," said Mr Jeffries, "I dare say you won't yet awhile.  Well, let's
all be pleasant.  We're all in the same boat.  But boys, I'm plain
Peter.  Don't Mr me."

"And I'm Jack."

"And I'm Jill."

"Oh," laughed Mrs Coates, "then I must call my Jack--John."

I could not help thinking this was a very strange introduction, but the
ice was broken, and that was everything.

We had music after dinner, in our pretty little saloon, Mrs Coates and
Peter playing duets together, he with the clarionet--on which charming
instrument every boy should take lessons before going to sea--and she at
the piano.

We youngsters went on deck before turning in.  The stars were all out,
and all sail was crowded; but though well into the Channel, we made but
little way, the sea all round being as calm as an English lake.

We sat down together near the companion.

"You don't think me a very nasty fellow now, do you?" said Peter.

"No, I begin to like you rather."

"Am I very ugly?"

"No, not ugly, but you looked conceited."

"Well, so I perhaps am.  Now, I'm lots older than you, and we've known
each other all the evening, so forgive me for trying plainly to put you
up to ropes.  You're green, and you must get rid of your lime-juice.
Now, _never_ lose your temper."

"Oh!  Jill," I cried, laughing, "Peter is right, and we've broken our
good resolve."

"Always take chaff in the spirit it is meant."

"So we had intended," I sighed, "hadn't we, Jill?"

"Assuredly."

"Well, that's all to-night.  We're friends?"

"We are."

"Then, good-night.  I have got to keep the first morning watch."

"Good-night, Peter."

"Jill," I said, "we've made fools of ourselves already.  Let us go down
below, and turn in."

So we did, and cosy little cribs we had, and a little cabin all to
ourselves--this is most exceptional, mind, but we were very young.

Just after we got up from our knees,--

"Give us the log-books," I said, "Jill."

"I say, Jack," said Jill, sleepily, "maybe it would be as well to write
every day's doings complete every morning."

"I dare say that would be best," I said, "and I must say I'm feeling
very tired."

Next day it was blowing a bit, and we had something else to occupy our
minds than writing logs.  Indeed I never felt so thoroughly bad and
unambitious in my life.  I did try to eat some breakfast, but the fish
got it after.  Jill was the same, _so_ ill, and the ship would keep
capering about in a way that made me wish I'd been a soldier instead of
a sailor.

"How're you getting on?"  Peter often asked kindly.  "Oh, you are not
nearly so bad as I was at first, and on the day the mate rope-ended me
off to my watch."

"Isn't it blowing hard?"  I ventured to ask.

"Blowing? dear life no, it's a glorious breeze."

The glorious breeze--how I hated such glory--kept at it for many days.
The sea got rougher and the waves higher, and we got worse.  I do not
think anything would have induced me to go near a ship again, if a good
angel had only put me down then at the door of Trafalgar Cottage.

But every one was kind to us.

Then one day the mate--he was rather a tartar--put us both in separate
watches, and after this I think our sufferings began in earnest.

Not a word had yet been written in the log, so that was our third good
intention thrown to the winds.

It really seemed to me that the mate was cruel; he did not kick us
about, but he sent us flying, on very short notice too.  And we dared
not say a word.  Then we had all kinds of little menial offices to
perform, even for the captain's cat and for two beautiful dogs that
belonged to the mate.  To be sure, there was a boy or two forward, but
the mate told us--Jill and me--that he wanted to make men of us.  He
explained that no officer could ever know when a thing was well done
unless he knew how to do it himself.

Going aloft was at first fearful work.  I'll never forget, though, lying
out on a yard making a sham of reefing, and holding on like a fly on a
roof, praying, and expecting every moment to be hurled into the sea.  It
came easier at last, and before we reached Saint Helena, where we lay
in, I could do a deal both below and aloft, and had hands and feet as
good as the captain's cat.

Now if ever the lines of any two boys were cast in pleasant places on
going first to sea, they were Jill's and mine, and yet we were not
happy.  What would it have been had we been subjected to the thousand
and one little tyrannies of ship life most apprentices have to endure?
I'm not going to describe them, because I am telling a story, not giving
a lecture; nor do I wish to say a word to prevent bold, hardy lads from
adopting the sea as a profession; but let no one go to be a sailor lured
by the romance and glamour thrown over it in too many sea novels.

Peter and we got on shore together at Saint Helena.  This was a treat,
because we were now quite friendly, and I had not forgotten the good
advice he gave us the first evening we met.

Leila, Mrs Coates' maid, also had a passage on shore in the same boat,
and Peter, much to the amusement of the men--with whom, by the way, he
was a great favourite--pretended to make love to her all the way.  He
told her, to begin with, that her name was sweetly poetic, and pretty.
So far he was right.  Then he said her teeth were like pearls.  Leila
grinned, simpered, and showed her teeth.  And really Peter was not far
wrong.  Having adhered to the truth so far, I believe Leila was in a
position to believe anything.  So Peter praised her eyes next.  He said
they reminded him of koh-i-noors floating in a bucket of tar, and he
referred to the coxswain to say whether he was not right.  The coxswain
confessed that diamonds were never so numerous where he had been, as to
float them on tar, but that Leila was pretty enough to make a fellow
pitch a ball of spun-yard at the captain's head if she asked him to.

For this pretty compliment the coxswain received a dig in the ribs from
Leila that well-nigh sent him overboard among the sharks and turtles,
and certainly took his breath away.

"Oh!" cried the coxswain.  "If that's your way of showing your
affection, my beauty, a little of it goes a long way."

"What for you tease a poor girl, then?"

"Your hair, my Leila--" began Peter again.

"Cut it short, Mr Jeffries," cried the coxswain, laughing; "why, sir,
you can't praise that!"

"Cut it short!" said Peter; "why it couldn't be shorter.  But look at
those crisp wee ringlets, how they curl round one's affections, how they
entwine themselves with every poetic feeling--"

"Way enough--oars," shouted the coxswain.

There was indeed way enough.  The good fellow had not been keeping his
weather eye lifting, and now the boat took the beach with such force
that nearly all hands caught crabs, the bewitching Leila among the rest.

Peter made haste to help her up, and assisted her on shore.  He even
carried his politeness so far as to offer her his arm along the beach.

"You go 'long now," she replied.  "You nothing but one piccaninny.  I
not can gib dis heart ob mine to a child so small as you."

Jill and I laughed, and Peter laughed good-naturedly, and fell back.

"Bother it all, boys, she's got the best of me after all."

Here, in James's Town, as in other places, my brother and I attracted
universal attention, among blacks and whites, by our wonderful
resemblance to each other.  And they did not hesitate to show it.  For
instance, I was some distance behind Jill and Peter, when I met a bluff
old sailor.

"Hullo! matie," he shouted, "blessed if I ain't three sheets in the
wind.  I could have sworn I met you a minute ago, and there you are
again.  I'll go back and have a sleep.  Can't go on board like this."

But when he saw the two of us together, he concluded to go on board,
after treating himself to another glass of beer, and drinking our
healths.  So we had to "shout" as Peter called it.

Before we entered the little inn, which was kept by a highly respectable
man of colour, Peter pushed me unceremoniously into a little stable
place, and told me to wait till come for.

I obeyed, feeling sure Peter was up to some lark.  About five minutes
after, the door was opened, not by Peter, but by a black man in a white
jacket.

He sprang back in amazement when he saw me.

"You must be de debbil, sah," he said.

"Thank you," I replied, "but _you're_ more of his colour."

The explanation is this: after calling for beer and sherbet, Peter, who
knew the landlord, having been here before, said--

"Now, Mr Brown, you see this young gentleman," alluding to Jill.

"Yes, sah," said Mr Brown, "pertiklerly handsom boy, sah."

"True," said Peter, "but his chief peculiarity is his ubiquitousness."

"Yes, sah, sure 'nuff, sah; come to look again, he is rather
obliquitous."

"He can go through a key-hole."

The man drew back.

"Now, come and I'll show you."  And upstairs the three went; and after
making sure the window was properly fastened, Jill was duly locked into
the room, and the landlord put the key in his pocket.  In a minute after
they returned.  The room was empty to all appearance--Jill, in fact, was
behind a chair in a corner.  The landlord peeped under the bed, then
stared in blank amazement.

"Now come on," cried Peter, "we'll find him out of doors.  Go and look
in your little stable."

And there, of course, Mr Brown found me.  Meanwhile Jill had got
downstairs, and had hidden himself in the parlour, so that Peter had an
opportunity of ringing the changes on this trick in several ways.

Finally we both appeared at once.

"I'm going to pay for the sherbet," said I and Jill both in a breath,
and both extending our hands at once.

"No, sah," said Mr Brown, "I not touch it.  P'r'aps sah, the money is
obliquitous too--ha! ha!"

We had a deal of fun that day one way or another, and very much enjoyed
our visit to Napoleon's tomb.  I believe I should have waxed quite
romantic about that, or about some of the splendid views we saw on every
side of us, but who could be romantic with Peter alongside making us
laugh every moment?

After returning, we went to climb ladder hill.  Every one does so,
therefore we must.  The ladder leads up the face of a cliff about four
hundred feet high.

"I think," said Peter, "I see my way to a final joke before going off.
Jill, old man, you hide down here till I shout from the cliff top, then
come slowly up the ladder, rubbing yourself as if you had tumbled."

Then up we went.  We were in luck.  An old gentleman at the top was
watching our ascent from under his white umbrella.  We said "good
afternoon," and passed along some little way, and at a sign from Peter I
got into hiding.

Peter ran back.  "Oh!" he cried, "I fear my young friend has fallen over
the cliff."

"Dear me, dear me," said the old gentleman, looking bewilderedly round,
"_so_ he must have.  How very, very terrible."

"But it won't hurt him, will it?"

"Hurt him? why he'll be cat's meat by this time."

"Oh, you don't know my friend," said Peter.  "He's a perfect little
gutta-percha ball, he is."

Then he shouted, "Jill--Jill, are you hurt?"

And when Jill presently came puffing and blowing up the ladder, and
making pretence to dust his jacket, that old gentleman's face was such a
picture of mingled amazement and terror that I felt sorry for him; so I
suddenly appeared on the scene, and, according to Peter, thus spoiled
the sport.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jill and I had built all sorts of castles in the air anent our arrival
at Cape Town, and the meeting with our darling mother and brave papa.
We were not in the least little bit afraid of a scolding from either.

The _Salamander_ was to lie here for a whole week, so we would be
certain to enjoy ourselves if--ah! there always is an _if_.  I do not
believe there ever was a castle in the air yet that had not a big ugly
ogre living in some corner of it.  Supposing father were killed, or
something happened to mamma.

But here was the _Cape_ at last, and the bay, and the town, and the
grand old hills above.  It was early in the morning when we dropped
anchor, but there was plenty of bustle and stir on the water
nevertheless.  The houses looked very white in the sun's glare, which
was so bright on the water that we could scarcely look on it.  The hills
were purple, grey, and green with patches of bright crimson here and
there, for it was early summer in this latitude.  Indeed, everywhere
around us was ablaze with sunlight and beauty.  But all this fell flat
on Jill and me, and we did not feel any near approach to happiness till
the boat was speeding swiftly towards the landing with us.  For
somewhere in shore yonder lived, we hoped, all we held truly dear.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

LIFE AT SEA--POOR FATHER'S DEATH--MATTIE AND I.

Where did Major Jones of the --th live?

Was the regiment in town?

These were only two out of a dozen questions we asked about two dozen
people on the street.  And greatly to our astonishment, no one could
give us a definite answer.  We thought all the world knew our papa.

At last we met a smart sergeant of marines, who told us afterwards he
was just up from Symon's Town on a few days' outing.  Our father's
regiment had gone to the front, away up country, but he would go with us
to the barracks.  He did so, and got an address--that of the house where
the major used to live; and he walked with us that distance, then bade
us good day.

The door was opened by a little yellow lady wearing a crimson silk
bandana by way of cap.  We had hardly spoken ere she guessed we were the
"young massa boys that Ma'am Jones speak so much about."

"And mother, is she with father?"

"She was wid Capitan Jones, but she come home to-day, sick."

"She is here, then?"

"No, to-day she _come_ home."

"Is she very ill?"

"No, bless de lubly lad, no, no ill at all, only sick."

Here was confusion and grief all mingled up together.

However, we waited.  It was a beautiful room we were in, all jalousied
and curtained, all thoroughly tropical in appearance, while every
nick-nack around us was mother's--her work-box, writing-desk, books,
everything.

A light carriage stopped ere long, and at a glance we could see it was
mother's.  We could not wait any longer, but ran right away down the
garden to meet her.

Then the scene--which must be imagined.

Mamma was looking as well and beautiful as ever.  She was on sick-leave;
that was what the little yellow Malay lady wanted to convey.

What a happy, happy week that was.  And every hour of it we spent with
mother.  The only drawback to our pleasure was that we could not see
poor father.  But when we came back--ah! then.

We had such good news at the end of the week, too--that is good news for
Jill and me, not for the owners' profit, however, including Auntie
Serapheema.  It was simply that, owing to delay in lading and unlading,
the _Salamander_ would not be ready for sea for another week.  This was
a respite we did not fail to take advantage of, and so we spent it in
going everywhere and seeing everything, in company with mother, of
course, and very often Peter.

I felt that I liked Peter now better than ever, because he was so
deferential and polite to mamma.  No Frenchman had more urbanity about
him than Peter, when he concluded to show it.

How Jill and I wished that week had been a year.  The Cape has always
seemed to me a very delightful dreamy sort of a place.  The scenery is
so grand, there is health in every breeze, and the people do not hurry
along in life as they do in the States of America, where one is
surrounded by such a stream of fast-flowing life that he thinks he is
behind the age if he does not sail with it.  But at the Cape one can
take time to vegetate and enjoy his existence.

Up anchor and away again.  A few tears at parting, and hopes of a speedy
reunion.  It had felt funny, as Jill expressed it, to find mamma amidst
such tropical surroundings, but there was a good time coming, and we
might soon see her back in dear old Trafalgar Cottage.

Of course Peter and we had fun at the Cape, and Peter played a good many
more of his monkey tricks; but one particular monkey trick was played on
me by a smart-looking Portuguese fellow, whom I will not forget, but am
never likely to meet, so I make a virtue of necessity by forgiving him.

It was on the forenoon of our sailing.  Jill was already on board, and I
myself was about to put off in the very last boat, when the man came up
and politely touched his cap.

"I sent them all off, sir," he said, "and this is the little bill."

I glanced at it.  One pound 5 shillings 6 pence for various little
nick-nacks, chiefly preserved fruits and other eatables.

"Ha!"  I said to myself, "this is strange."  Then aloud: "I never
ordered these things, my man."

"You forget, sir.  Only last night, sir, and you gave me sixpence to be
sure to take them off in time.  Will you come with me to the store?"

"No, no," I said; "it was my brother, doubtless.  Here you are, one
pound six shillings.  Keep the sixpence because I suspected you."

I did not see my brother to speak to till dinnertime.

"Fork over, old man," I said, throwing him the bill.  "I paid that for
you, and don't you forget your liabilities when next you leave a foreign
port."

Jill glanced at the bit of paper, and his look of blank astonishment
told me at once I had been very neatly victimised.  So much for being a
twin.

Peter exploded in a hearty fit of laughter, which went rippling round
the table; and though I looked a little blank--Jill said "blue"--for a
time, I presently joined in the mirth.

"You see, my boy," said Captain Coates, "that it is quite an expensive
thing to keep a double."

"Long may he keep his double," said Mrs Coates.

I grew serious all at once.  I glanced just once at poor Jill's innocent
face, while a strange feeling of gloom rushed over my heart.

Keep my double!  Why surely, I thought, it could never be otherwise.  I
must always have Jill--always, always.  I could no more live without
that brother of mine than I could exist without the air I breathe.

Perhaps dear Mrs Coates noticed the air of concern her words had
inadvertently called up, for she made haste to change the subject.  I do
not know whether she did so very artistically or not, but very
effectually.

"Have ever you seen oysters growing on trees, Mr Jeffries?" she asked.

How closely the sublime is ever associated with the ridiculous in this
world!  Mirth itself or folly is never really very far away from grief.
The one merely turns its back to the other.

Oysters growing on a tree indeed!  Yet I could not repress a smile, and
I dare say Mrs Coates noticed she was victorious.

"Oysters growing on trees?  Yes, years and years ago."  I often noticed
that peculiarity about Peter: he used to speak as if he were indeed a
very old man.  And, mind you, one's peculiarities should always be
respected, even if they convey to your mind the idea that the owner is
affected with pride.  Because every one has peculiarities, and they are
often faults; but all have faults.

I think in the present instance Peter would have been pleased if Jill or
I had contradicted him, but we did not.  Jill merely said:

"Wouldn't I like to have trees like these growing in my garden."

Then Captain Coates explained that Peter referred to the mangrove trees,
with huge bare root-tops, that grew by the seashore in Africa, and
graciously permitted the succulent bivalves to cling to them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have heard it said, reader, that there was not much romance about the
merchant service; that, like the glory of war, it all clung to the Royal
Navy.  This is not quite true, and were I but to describe one half the
adventures--none _very_ wild, perhaps--and half the fun we had for the
next four years of our life at sea, giving an account at the same time
of the storms and dangers we encountered, and a pen-and-ink picture
graphically told of the lovely lands and seas we made the acquaintance
of, it would be one of the most readable books ever printed.  But I have
that to tell of poor Jill and myself which I believe will be far more
absorbing than the every-day events in the life of a sailor.

Our voyage, then, to Bombay was all that could be desired.  Now that
Jill and I really felt ourselves to be seafarers in the strict sense of
the word, we settled down to our life, and began to enjoy it.

This is a feeling that comes sooner or later to all who make going to
sea their profession, and it is born of the fact that your ship becomes
your home; so that on shore you always feel out for the day or the week,
as the case may be, but as soon as your foot is on deck you feel back
and settled down.  It is this feeling I doubt not which makes every true
sailor love his ship.

From Bombay we went to China, and thence to Sydney, and it was there the
great grief found us, a grief which made Jill and I feel we had left our
boyhood behind us and grown suddenly old.

We had lost our father!

He had died, as heroes die, fighting at the head of his regiment, sword
and revolver in hand, against fearful odds.

I shall not dwell on this sorrow; it had better be imagined.  It was
Mrs Coates who broke the news to us, after taking us below to our
cabin.  She let us weep as young orphan brothers would, in each other's
arms, unrestrained for a long time, before she broke gently in with the
remark:

"Dear boys, God is good to you; you still have your mother."

Oh yes, we still had our mother, and when the first wild transports of
our grief were past, our thoughts sorrowfully reverted to her, and her
lonely life in auntie's cottage by the sea.

I think the first comfort we really had was in our manly resolves to do
everything that was right, and to be everything that was brave and good,
for the sake of this widowed mother of ours, and out of respect to the
memory of our hero father.

But as I have said, the grief made us old, and mind you, age goes not
with years; the poor miserable children that beg in the streets of
London, half naked and in rags, whose parents are more unnatural than
the wildest beasts, they, I say, are as old in spirit and heart, and
often in wisdom, as happy young men and women of over twenty-one.

It was strange, too, that, children though we were, we could not help
feeling that henceforward we would be our mother's protectors.

Ah, I have to confess, though, that, so hard was the blow to bear, so
intense was the grief we experienced for father's death, we saw no
silver lining to the cloud for many a day, and, at night, neither Jill
nor I could get our hearts quite round those beautiful words in God's
own prayer, "Thy will be done."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And so months and years flew by, and Jill and I grew big and strong, and
at the age of sixteen we brothers took the position of second and third
mates on the _Salamander_.  There really was no such rating as third
mate, but the captain and everyone else who had anything to do with the
ship, knew well we would not be parted if possible.

In all these years we had only been twice home, for our ship had what
might be called a roving commission.  Captain Coates was part owner of
her and the rest of the owners knew well he would do all for the best,
so that when abroad he invariably took whatever turned uppermost in the
shape of trade.  When unlading at one port, he seldom knew where he
would be sailing to next.  Sometimes we would take several trips back
and fore between the same two ports.  In a word, Captain Coates despised
no trade or trip either by which he saw his way to make an honest penny.

On our last return home, we found that mamma was much more cheerful and
resigned, that Auntie Serapheema had not yet got married.  It was not
even rumoured that she had refused many offers.  She seemed wholly bound
up in mamma.

Mummy Gray, Sarah, and Robert, were just as we had left them, Robert and
Trots the pony being both stiffening a trifle with age.

Mattie was grown almost out of "kenning," as the Scotch say.  She had
slipped up, but she was none the less wonderfully beautiful.

Peter told her in his off-hand way, in Auntie's presence too, that when
she was a few years older he might possibly make love to her, and
probably marry her, but not to build upon this as a promise.

Mattie told him he was an old man, and he had better marry Sarah.  She
said Robert wouldn't mind, because Robert had Trots, the pony.

Mattie, and Jill, and I, visited the _Thunderbolt_.  Mr Moore was still
in charge, and we talked much of old times and poor Tom Morley, but we
did not play at pirates, though Mrs Moore pulled out the black flag and
displayed it.  She was always going to keep it, she said, as a memento
of days gone by.

On board the hulk, Mattie took me aside to show me something, which she
did with sparkling eyes and a heightened colour.  It was only the little
letter that I had put on her pillow.

"But," said Mattie, "of course we always pray for you when far away at
sea, only there is one word in this letter that I don't like, quite I
mean."

"And what is that, Mattie?"

"Why do you say, `Poor Jill'?"  I do not know how it was, but at that
very moment a kind of shadow passed over my heart: I cannot otherwise
define it--a kind of cold feeling.

"I don't know, Mattie," I replied, looking, I'm sure more serious than I
intended, for my looks were mirrored in Mattie's face.  "I don't know,
Mattie; but I often think something will happen to `poor Jill'--"

"There it is again--`poor Jill.'"

"Only," I added, "Heaven, forbid it should be in my lifetime, Mattie."

"Amen," said the child.

It was while I was at home this time--this last time for many years--
that a very curious thing happened.  A sailor died at Cardiff, and on
his death-bed called a priest and confessed to him that he alone had
been the murderer of Roderigo, the Spanish sailor and companion of
Adriano, who had suffered so long in prison.

I felt extremely happy about this, and so did auntie.  She, of course,
had not known the story of the man at the time when he was instrumental
in saving Jill and me from probably an ugly fate.  I had told her
afterwards, however, when I knew Adriano had gone out of the country.
And, with some show of reason perhaps, both auntie and Mummy Gray
connected him and the murdered Roderigo with the mystery that enshrouded
Mattie's life.

"He will come again some day," auntie said, "and we will know all."

"Yes," said Mummy Gray, solemnly, "I hope so."

The Queen granted Adriano a free pardon.  Auntie was disloyal enough to
laugh when she read that piece of intelligence in the newspaper.

"Pardon for what?" she said, "after having kept the poor dear sailor in
prison and bondage for so many terrible years.  It sounds like adding
hideous insult to awful injury."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"COME TO ME, JACK, I CANNOT COME TO YOU."

Peter Jeffries, now chief mate of the dear old _Salamander_, could no
more help chaffing Jill and me, than a monkey can help pulling its
mother's tail.  And we used to tell him so.

For instance, brother and I nearly always kept watch together, merely
for company's sake.  You see we were both put in the same watch because
the _Salamander_ required no third mate.  So Peter did not hesitate to
remind us often enough that we were only one man between the two of us.
But the fact was we were kept together on the _Salamander_, at auntie's
wish, in order to become perfect sailors under bold Captain Coates, and
not, as Peter would have it, that we might have our socks seen to by
Mrs Coates, and our pocket-handkerchiefs aired by the black but comely
Leila.

However, by way of paying him out for it, Jill would sometimes keep
Peter's watch for him, and let him have four hours extra in, thus
returning wheat for chaff.

During the next year of our life, Jill and I grew to to be quite men--
seventeen, you know, or nearly--and Jill reminded Peter that he could
thrash him now, for we really were taller.

The resemblance between us was not a whit marred, and to tell you the
truth we took a pride in it, and, just for the fun of the thing, always
dressed exactly alike, even to our scarves.

About this time we were bound from the Cape to Rio, which we made in
fine form, though we kept a good look-out for Russian cruisers, it being
war time.  We often met ships that made us fidget for the time being,
but the danger was never extreme at the best.

From Rio we started for San Francisco, meaning at first to go round the
Horn, but Captain Coates changed his mind, and determined to penetrate
through the Straits of Magellan.

We received the first intimation of the captain's intention from Peter,
when he came on deck one lovely morning to join my brother and me in our
walk.

There was about a six-knot breeze blowing aslant our course from the
south-west by west, so though every stitch of canvas was set, there was
not a deal doing.

"The old man says you're to keep a few points closer to the wind," said
Peter.

"All right," I replied, giving the necessary orders.

Peter was in one of his funny moods to-day, I knew, because he asked
Jill if, having nothing else to do, he would mind whistling for some
more wind.

"For a capful, if you like," said Jill, merrily; "may I have your cap to
hold it in?"

"Now, youngster, I own you're smart, but never cheek your superior
officer.  Besides, I'm older than either of you, and if you're both good
boys I'm going to marry your sister."

We laughed outright.

"Thank you," said Jill, "that is very good.  I remember you told Mattie
herself that last time we were home, and I thought at the time cheek
couldn't well go further."

"If anybody marries Mattie," continued Jill, "it must be Jack."

"Jack!  What!  Marry his sister?"

I grew suddenly serious.

"My dear Peter," I said, "it is strange that through all these years it
never occurred to me to tell you that Mattie is not our sister, though
we call her so, and love her just the same, but--"

"Just the same as a sister?" said Peter, interrupting me.  He had a
smile on his face, but it was a made one--one of those smiles that curl
round the lips, but never reach as far as the eyes; at the same time in
those eyes was a look of such earnestness as I but seldom saw there.

Jill and I were standing side by side looking at Peter, and as the
latter spoke, our hands touched.  I knew then, as I do now--though
neither my brother nor I ever spoke of it--that the same thought
thrilled through both of us: "Could Peter be in love with our little
Mattie?  To be sure she was barely fifteen, but then--"

"I _ought_ to have told you," I continued, "that there is a sad mystery
about Mattie's birth and parentage."

"Ha!" said Peter, "a story, eh?  Well, we will have it to-night in the
first watch."

"Very well."

Peter brightened up again immeasurably.

"Do you know why we altered course?" he asked.

"Usual thing, I suppose."

"No, not the usual thing.

"We're going to try to push through the straits.  Fine weather, clear
skies, a spanking bit of a breeze, and good luck will do it, though it
is risky enough in all weathers for sailing ships, 'cause of course
you're in and out, off and on, tacking and running, and all kinds of
capers, and never off a lee-shore, morn, noon, and night, till you're
out into the Pacific Ocean.

"Ever hear of Magellan, Greenie?" he continued, looking at poor Jill.
He often called Jill "Greenie," which he said was a pet name.

Now Jill and I knew all the history of the great navigator of ancient
times.  Our Aunt Serapheema took good care of that.

"Magellan? let me see," said Jill.  "Oh yes, there used to be a Magellan
who kept a draper's shop in Upper High Street."

"Well," said Peter, "that is true enough, but I hardly think that is the
man.  However, I've been through the straits before."

"Do they charge anything for letting you through," said Jill, quietly.

Peter laughed till he had to wriggle about in all directions.  "I tell
you what it is, Greenie, you'll be the death of me some day.  Well, we
shall touch at the Land of the Giants."

"Are there really giants?"

"I'm not going to spin any yarn from personal experience, child, because
I can't to any extent.  But our bo's'n told me it _was_ a land of
giants.  There are giant plains--they call them pampas--giant lakes and
rivers, giant hills and forests--awful in their gloom--giant men and
women, giant cocks and hens--"

"Yes, the ostriches."

"And the whole is defended round the coast by giant cliffs, alive with
giant birds; but we'll see for ourselves in a day or two, Greenie, if
you'll only whistle for the wind."

"If it comes."

"Yes, _if_ it comes."

That same night in the first watch, which happened to be Peter's, we
told, or rather _I_ told, him all I knew of Mattie's history.

He was silent for some time afterwards, leaning quietly over the weather
bulwarks, watching the phosphorescence in the sea.  That was a glorious
sight indeed, but Peter was not thinking about that at all.  "Did it
ever occur to you, Jack," he said at length, "that this Adriano whom you
so befriended--"

"Who so befriended us."

"--Might be one of the sailors saved from the wreck? might be even
Mattie's father?"

"No, no, no," I cried, "not that, Peter.  It certainly was unaccountable
that when she first saw Adriano she seemed to recognise him, but
remember that she could have been little over a year old when the
shipwreck occurred.  Besides, I wouldn't like to think of Adriano,
friend and all as he must always rest in my memory, being Mattie's
father."

"Liking has nothing to do with it one way or another."

"No, certainly not."

"Assuredly not," from Jill.

"But," I insisted, "the two shipwrecked sailors assured Nancy Gray that
the lady's husband had not been on board."

"Jack," said Peter, "you're a capital sailor, but you would have made
but a poor lawyer.  Depend upon it there are wheels within wheels in the
mystery that surrounds poor Mattie."

"It will be all the better if it is never cleared up," I said firmly,
"and I hope it won't be--there!"

"Well, I think otherwise.  But one of the two men told the clergyman
something.  Do you know what that was?"

"No, and it didn't seem to signify."

"Didn't it?  There again I differ, and if you won't think me officious,
I'm going to probe this matter as deeply as I can."

"Do as you please, Peter; I only hope you won't find out--"

"What?"

"Anything disagreeable."

"No fear of that, Jack.  I pride myself in being able to read character,
and there is that in Mattie's face and eyes that tells me she is a lady
born."

"That has not been denied, Peter."

"No, but not only of gentle but unsullied birth."

As he spoke there came again, I thought, that same strange dreamy look
in Peter's eyes; but I could not be sure, though the light from the
companion fell full in his face.

He extended his hand, and I grasped it.  It was as if we were signing a
compact of some kind, I hardly knew what.

Then Jill and I went below.

Mrs Coates sat near the stove, which was burning brightly, in her
little rocking chair, reading; her black maid sitting not far off
sewing; in front of the fire a big pleasant-faced cat was singing a duet
with the brightly burnished copper kettle, and the great lamp swung in
its gymbals from a beam over head.

I could not help pausing in the doorway for a moment to admire the
homelike cosiness of the scene.  By and by down came Captain Coates.

"Jill, my lad," he said, as he seated himself by the little piano, "trot
on deck and relieve Peter a bit."

When Peter came down he went at once for his clarionet, and we had very
sweet music indeed.

This, or something like it, is the way we usually spent our evenings in
fine weather.

In two days time we were, or thought we were, not far off the entrance
to the First Narrows, but the horizon was hazy.

The same afternoon a great red-funnelled steamer hove in sight, and came
ploughing and churning on in our direction.  She was English, and
homeward bound.  How glad we were!  We did not take ten minutes to
finish our letters.  They carried all kinds of tender messages and
wishes and hopes, and told how well and happy we were and expected to
remain.

I went in charge of the boat with the letters, and was very kindly
received.  As I stood on the deck of the fine steamer, I really could
not help wishing I was going home.  It was but for a moment; then I
remembered I had duties that called me elsewhere.

The ships parted with cheers, and the flock of seagulls, Cape pigeons,
and albatrosses that had been following the steamer divided, one half
going on after her, the others electing to share our fortunes, and pick
up our cook's tit-bits from off the water.

We were now in Possession Bay, which surrounds the entrance to the First
Narrows of Magellan Straits; but though the wind was fair, there was a
strange haze lying low all round the horizon, so our good captain
determined to keep "dodging" or tacking about till the weather should
clear.

Captain Coates had told us at dinner that for his part he would sooner
go round the Horn any day, than through the Straits, but he had
important business at Sandy Point--a Chilian town of small dimensions on
the Patagonia shore--and--"duty is duty."

The sun went down blood-red in the haze, and with as little sail as
possible on her we went tacking to and fro.  Two great albatrosses were
sailing round and round, sometimes coming so close that we could hear
the rustle of their feathers and note the glitter of their green eyes
and the shape of their powerful beaks.  I could not help thinking of the
words of Coleridge in that weird poem, "The Ancient Mariner."

  At length did come an albatross,
      Thorough the fog it came,
  As if it had been a Christian soul
      We hailed it in God's name.

  And a good south wind sprang up behind,
      The albatross did follow,
  And every day for food or play
      Came to the mariner's "hollo!"

It may have been these lines that I conned over to myself, or the
mournful sough to that was in the wind to-night; but, at all events,
some sort of heaviness seemed to lie about my heart that I could not
account for.

About three hours after sunset, the moon had asserted itself.  Very high
in air it shone, right overhead almost, and although but half a moon,
was exceedingly bright and silver-like.  But half-moons give the stars a
chance, and to-night, though the haze lay houses high all along the
horizon, the sky above was darkly blue, and so clear that you could mark
the changing radiance of colour of many of the stars that sparkled as
dew-drops do in the sun's rays.

I noted all this with satisfaction, I cannot say with pleasure.  There
was that unbanishable feeling of heaviness at my heart, which I have
mentioned.  It was getting late, however, so I went below to our cosy
saloon, and was soon chatting cheerfully with our little mother, Mrs
Coates.  As I was turning to come down the companion, I had heard Peter
sing out to Jill, "Oh, look at that great grampus!"  And both had gone
to see it.

We expected the captain down every minute to play, as was his wont, and
rather wondered he did not come.

Suddenly on deck was heard the sound of footsteps hurrying aft, and at
the same moment that awful shout--who that has ever heard it is likely
to forget it till his dying day--?

"Man overboard!"

Mrs Coates started to her feet, clutching at the arm of the chair to
prevent herself from falling.

With a sudden and terrible fear at my heart I went rushing up the
ladder.

Peter was there--alone.

"Where is Jill?"  I gasped.

"It is he," was all he could answer.

I knew where he had fallen, from the direction in which all eyes were
turned.  A life-buoy had already been thrown, and the usual hurried
orders were being issued.

From out of the dark depths of the sea I thought I could hear my
brother's voice, as I had heard it once before, in innocent pleading
tones, when he was a child--

"Come to me, Jack, come to me; I cannot come to you."

Next moment _I_ was in the water, and the ship was some distance off.
She seemed to move _so_ fast away.

Here was the life-buoy.  In my anguish I dashed it aside.  _I_ could
support my brother.  Many a time I had done so in the waves before our
cottage door at home.

I felt glad the ship had gone, with her noise and bustling decks.  I
could listen.

"Jill," I shouted, "coo-ee!  Jill, I'm here."

Then, to my joy, a faint answering shout came down the wind.

On--on--on I swam.  Taking desperate strokes.  Shouting one moment,
listening the next.

At last, at last.

He was sinking, but I was not weary.

I remember hearing the clunk-clank of the oars of a coming boat.

Then that was lost to me; there came a terrible roaring in my ears,
sparks flashed across my eyes, and--

When next I became conscious, I was lying in my bunk.

One anxious glance upwards.  Oh, joy! it was Jill's hand I held in mine.

So I slept.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN--FIRELANDERS--THE STORM--THE SHIP STRIKES.

To rub shoulders with death always leaves a chilly feeling in my heart
for a day or two.  It is as though the King of Terrors had just
encircled me for one brief moment in his icy mantle, and let me free
again.

I felt thus next morning, anyhow, but very thankful to Heaven, when I
saw Jill quietly dressing.  I did not chide him.

"Are you better, brother?" he said, with his father's smile.

I knew he was penitent, and grateful, and all the rest of it, because he
said "brother."  At ordinary times I was simply "Jack."

I was softened.

"I'm all right," I answered.  "But, Jill, you _must_ be more careful."

"I'll try, brother."

Then I turned out, and began to dress, singing as usual.

Mrs Coates did come to breakfast, but looked worn and nervous.  Peter
was full of banter and nonsense.  Captain Coates was keeping watch to
let Peter "feed," as Peter called it.  But presently our worthy skipper
would come below, and make a terrible onslaught on the cold ham.
Nothing ever interfered with his appetite much.  He was a philosopher,
although a lean one, and always looked upon the bright side of life, and
the bread-and-butter side.

"I sha'n't get over the fright for a month," said poor Mrs Coates.
"Peter tells me he was standing on the bulwark, hardly holding on to
anything."

"I've scolded him well," I said, "and if we meet the mail boat I've a
good mind to send him back to mother and Mattie."

"Wouldn't you feel lop-sided, Jack, without the child?" said Peter.
"And the _Salamander_ would only have half a second mate.  No; we'll
stick to Jill, only next time he wants a cold bath, we'll find means to
oblige him without having to call all hands."

"Mrs Coates, I'll have another egg, please," said Jill.

"Well," said Peter, "by all the coolness--"

"Hands make sail!"

This last was a shout on deck, and in five minutes more we were all
"upstairs," as Mrs Coates phrased it.

We were entering the First Narrows, the low, moundy shores of Patagonia
on our right, the gloomy grandeur of the frowning mountains of Tierra
del Fuego on our left, the sea all dark between.

I have said "gloomy grandeur," but gloom can hardly be associated with
glaciers, ice, and snow; and surely, too, the myriads of wheeling birds
were doing all they could to dispel the gloom; still, it lay on the sea,
it hung on the dark cliffs, and hovered on the mists that had not yet
risen from the mountain summits.

Indeed, everything in and around this strange ocean highway has an air
of gloom.  You cannot help feeling you are at the end of the world.
There is something weird in the very appearance of the water, weird and
treacherous too; and albeit the forests that clothe the lower sides of
the mountains, some hundred miles farther on, are wildly picturesque,
surmounted as they are by rugged hills, snow-white cliffs, and
glittering glaciers, they look black, inhospitable, threatening.

The weather continued fine, the wind was fair.  We kept quietly on all
day, through the Second Narrows, and into Broad Reach, the captain
having timed things well.  The wind was now more abeam, but less in
force, so that we should make a pleasant night of it.

Never have I seen a more glorious sunset than we now had.  To gaze on
that splendid medley of light and colour, that hung over the western
hills, seemed to give one a foretaste of the beauty of heaven itself.
But with all its dazzling, thrilling loveliness, it did not make us feel
happy.  At all events it kept us silent.

Next day, early, we reached Sandy Point.  A strange wee town of long,
low wooden huts with shingle roofs, a little church, a great prison, and
a ricketty pier, very foreign-looking, and not at all elevating to the
mind.  But the gentleman--a Chilian he was--who came off to transact
business with Captain Coates was the quintessence of politeness, doubly
distilled.

We had to stop two hours here, so Jill and I, with Mrs Coates, went on
shore to see the giants, and buy guanaco skins for our friends at home.

The giants were not in.  At least I saw none of them.  But there were
shops, and I fear that both Jill and I spent more money on ostrich
feathers than we had any right to do.

Early in the afternoon we once more weighed anchor, and stood away down
the Reach, the breeze keeping steadily up all day, but, unfortunately
for us, going down with the sun.  It was my watch from twelve till four;
the moon did not shine out brightly to-night, being obscured with
clouds, a by no means unusual occurrence in this dreary region.

Jill did not keep me company either; he was tired, he said, and had
turned early in.  Perhaps it was this fact that was the occasion of my
strange depression of spirits, a depression which I could neither walk
off nor talk off, nor gambol off, albeit I tried hard to do so with our
dogs, the beautiful deerhound and collie.  They indeed appeared as
little inclined for play to-night as I had ever seen them.

"They seems to have something on their minds," said Ritchie, a sturdy
old sailor who had sailed the seas off and on for twenty years.

"You're not superstitious, Ritchie?"  I asked.

Ritchie took three or four pulls at his pipe before he replied.

"I dunno, young sir, what you'd call superstitious, but I've seen some
queer things in my time, and something was sure to 'appen arterwards.
Once, sir--"

"Stay, Ritchie," I cried.  "Don't let's have any of your ghost stories
to-night I couldn't stand them.  The truth is, I'm a bit down-hearted."

"Go and have a tot o' rum; I'll j'ine you."

"No, Ritchie, that wouldn't do either you or me good in the long run.
But I dare say I'm feeling a trifle lonely; my brother isn't the thing,
I fear."

"Nonsense, sir, nonsense.  Never saw him looking better, nor you either,
sir.  I knows what's the matter."

"Well?"

"It's the _musgo_ that's coming."

"The musgo?"

"_Ay_, you're new to the Straits, I must remember.  The musgo is a fog,
`a fiend fog' I've heard it called.  You always feel low-like afore it
rolls down.  To-morrow, sir, you'll hardly see your finger afore you."

"So dark!"

"It's dark and it's white--just as if it rolled off the snow, and so
cold.  You'll see."

"You said this moment, Ritchie, I wouldn't see."

This was a most miserable attempt at a joke on my part, and I felt so at
the time.

Ritchie laughed as if it was his duty to laugh.

"Look, look!"  I cried.  "Look at the fire away in shore yonder, near
the cliff foot."

"I sees him."

"And look, another on the lee bow--if we have a lee bow to-night--
another on the quarter, and is that one far away yonder like a star?"

"That's one.  Them's the canoe Indians a signalling to each other."

"The natives of Tierra del Fuego?"

"Yes, drat 'em, and a bad, treacherous lot they be.  They're saying
now--`Look out, there is a barque becalmed.'"

"Would they attack a ship?"

Ritchie laughed.

"Give them a chance only," he said, "and there isn't a more murderous,
bloodthirsty lot ever launched a boat.

"I was broken down here once, or a bit farther up.  It was in the little
steamer _Cordova_, a Monte Videan.  Smashed our seven, we did.  Very
little wind, and hardly a bit o' sail to hoist.  They weren't long in
spotting the difficulty.  Durin' the day, a miserable-looking woman and
boy came in a canoe to sell skins and to beg.  They must 'ave spotted
that we had only a few hands.  For at the darkest hour of midnight the
ship was attacked."

"Anything occur?"

"Well, it was like this: There wasn't a longer-headed chap ever sailed
than our skipper.  A Scot he was, and clever for that.  He knew these
Fuegian fiends well, and was prepared.

"We had lights ready to get up at a moment's notice.  If we'd had arms
we'd have used those, but with the exception of two or three revolvers
we were defenceless.  But we had coals, lumps as big as the binnacle.
And we had boiling water and the hose ready.  Mercy on us though, young
sir, I think I hear the blood-curdling yell of those savages now, as
they boarded at our bows.  Up went the lights.  Up came the hose, and--
they caught a Tartar.  It was cruel?  Maybe, but it was self-defence."

"And the coals?"

"We sank their canoes with these.  A kick would knock a Fuegian canoe in
bits any day, so our task was easy.  They sent an arrow to the very
heart of poor Bill Wheeler, and he fell backwards dead, and they
harpooned another of our men; but few of them went back with a whole
skin, I'll warrant."

Before my watch was over there was no more wind than would have sufficed
to move a child's paper boat, but the night was not quite so dark, the
moon escaping now and then to cast a few silvery rays on the water or
light up the rugged tops of the distant sierras, then being speedily
engulfed once more in great inky-dark clouds.

The situation was by no means a desirable one, for currents run here
like mill streams, and we were a measurable distance from the wild,
desolate shore.

Ritchie was right; and when I went on deck next morning before
breakfast, I found that the musgo was thick and white around us, and
though it was easy enough to see one's finger at arm's length, it is no
exaggeration to say it was impossible to see the jib-boom end from the
foremast.

We must have been somewhere off Point Gallant, in an ugly place, so it
is no wonder the captain concluded to anchor if he could get near enough
to find soundings.

The wind was rising now, and though but in puffs which just gave the
_Salamander_ a send now and then, we were forging ahead at perhaps two
knots an hour.

It continued like this all day long, but the wind had increased by
evening, and almost threatened a gale.  We could not now be far off the
English Reach, which, as a glance at a map will show you, is narrow, and
therefore dangerous in the extreme.  So long, therefore, as we had a
surety of width of water, we determined to lay to with as little sail as
possible on her.

Night seemed to come on a full hour sooner.  It was a night I shall
never forget.  Anxiety was depicted on every face that there was a
chance of getting a glimpse at.  And though the captain tried to speak
cheerfully in his wife's presence, it was evident his thoughts were not
with his words.  Every extra puff of the still rising wind must have
felt going through his heart like a knife.  I know it did through mine.
Even Peter was serious for once.

On going forward I saw Ritchie standing by the winch.

"What do you think of it now, Ritchie?"  I asked.

"Think of it, lad?" he replied.  "I think it's likely to be a case with
the old _Salamander_ before four bells in the morning watch."

"You're a pessimist," I said.  This was a favourite expression of poor
aunt's.

"It's the _mist_ that'll do it," he said.  "Look, see sir, if the wind
gets no higher the musgo will continue.  Then we may drift quietly on
shore and strike.  If it does blow a real gale, away goes the musgo and
out comes the moon; that would be a poor enough outlook, but we'd see
what we were doing."

Hour after hour went by, and though the storm increased, there was never
a sign of the musgo rolling off.  No one thought of turning in to-night.
The captain never even suggested when he came below, as he now and then
did, that even Mrs Coates should go to her cabin.

There was something very awful in this waiting, waiting, waiting.  And
for what?  Had any one dared ask himself this question, he would hardly
have been brave enough to have answered it.

It must have been about four in the morning.  I could not say for
certain, for bells I do not think had even been struck, when suddenly,
without a moment's warning, the wind increased to a shrieking, roaring
squall of more than gale-force, and next minute we had struck and were
engulfed in breakers.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

WE LEAVE THE DOOMED SHIP--PURSUED BY SAVAGES.

I was in the saloon at the time, and everything seemed to fall together,
as it were.  It felt as if the ship's bottom were dashed _in_ and
upwards, and when I struck a light--for the lamp had been extinguished,
though it did not leave the gymbals--all was chaos in our once cosy wee
saloon.  Piano, chairs, books, ornaments, all mixed up together.  I
hastened to help Mrs Coates to her feet, and called to the steward to
gather up the burning coals off the deck, else with the spilt oil we
should be on fire.

No need, for a green sea came tumbling down the companion, and surged
foaming in at the doorway, till we stood ankle deep in water.  Another
and another followed.  The wind roared with redoubled violence.  Then
louder than the wind and the voice of the sea, came the crash of a
falling mast.  The squall appeared to have done its worst now, and
though the seas continued to break against and over us, it was more in
sheets of spray than in green water.  We had gone on shore stem
foremost, and were firmly wedged between two low bush-clad cliffs.

Now slowly, almost imperceptibly, the wind went down, and the musgo
rolled away, and when morning broke cold and drearily over the sea and
hills, the sky was comparatively clear, our position could be clearly
defined and our danger could be faced.

Three poor fellows had fallen under the wreck, and were either killed at
once or quickly drowned.  A few others were wounded or bruised, and all
were shaken.

The boats to the number of three--whalers they were--remained intact.

We were in a kind of wooded cove, with hills rising high at each side
save on the sea-board, and far away above us was a region of ice and
snow, with a cataract tumbling its waters apparently out of the very sky
itself.

When the sun rose at last, dismal as was our plight, I could not help
admiring, nay, even marvelling at, the beauty of the scenery around us.
It was grand beyond compare.

We were in no immediate danger.  We appeared to have been lifted in on
the top of an immense wave, and deposited between the cliffs and on a
hard flat bottom, from which we could not slide.  There were timbers
from her lower sides floating about us even now that told their own sad
tale.

The ship was doomed, but we who were spared had much, very much, to be
thankful for.

The captain consulted with Ritchie, who was carpenter on board, besides
holding some other rating.  He was not only the oldest on board, but by
far the most experienced.  It was resolved at once to put ourselves in a
state of preparation, for the savages would assuredly find us out before
long.

Then we went to prayers.

I need hardly say they were solemn and heart-felt.

There was no time to be lost now, however.  We must get ready at once to
leave the wreck, and in boats make the best of our way eastward towards
Sandy Point.  Whether we could do so in peace and safety remained to be
seen.

We were in the hands of an all-seeing Providence; we could but say "Thy
will be done," and leave the rest to Him.

"We had better bury the dead on shore, Ritchie?" said the captain.

He really was asking a question for information.  He seemed to quite
defer to Ritchie.

"I wouldn't do that, sir.  These canoe Indians are cannibals, and
they'll have 'em up and eat them as sure as one belayin' pin's like
another.  No, sir, it'll be just as quick to tack 'em up and give 'em a
sailor's grave."

"You see to that then, Ritchie.  Will you take charge of the boat, Mr
Jack?  Thank you."

The broken and buried corpses of the poor fellows were speedily sewn in
hammocks, which were heavily weighted with iron, and taken out to sea as
far as we dared to go; and then, while the solemn burial service was
read by Ritchie, one by one they were dropped overboard, and sank into
the murky water with sullen booming plash.  As he closed the book,
Ritchie looked round him on all sides, but there was no sign of savages
to be seen, neither smoke on shore nor canoe at sea.  Nor was there any
sound to break the stillness except the plaintive cry of a sea-bird; and
yet who could tell what eyes of Indians the forest might not hide?

On our return we found our comrades all very busy indeed.

Poor Mrs Coates, looking very pale and resigned, sat on the companion.
Woman-like, even in this dire strait she had not forgotten to bring a
basket with her, and Leila clutched another.  Both were warmly clad, and
both wore guanaco mantles, the very garments we had purchased at Sandy
Point.

Captain Coates put another question to Ritchie:

"Should we or should we not fire the ship, Mr Ritchie, think you?"

"For the matter o' that," replied Ritchie, "I'd as soon feed snakes in
the woods as put any good thing in the way o' these cannibal fiends, but
I think, sir, leaving the ship for them will be our salvation.  You ask
my opinion, sir, and I give it.  The wind is changing round already.
It's a way the winds have here, where the Pacific and the Atlantic seem
to me to fight for mastery like.  We needn't be in a hurry then to leave
the ship till they come."

"You feel sure they'll come?"

"Ah! never doubt 'em, sir.  When they see we're leaving the ship, they
won't chase us till they've cleared the wreck.  My advice is, have up
the 'baccy for 'em all ready, and the rum too.  Let them look for
everything else."

"You seem obliging to them."

"There's a method in my obligingness, sir.  Let's leave the rum in
different jars about, and cut the 'baccy all in bits and scatter it over
the decks.  Wolves, sir, fighting over a dead horse'll be nothing to the
scramble they'll have for the 'baccy and rum."

The boats were now lowered and laden with the ship's valuables.  Each
boat was well provisioned, and supplied with water and rum, and also
armed.

The men were twenty and two, all told, giving about five to each of two
whalers, and seven to the largest whaler or cutter, as she was sometimes
called.  The captain himself took charge of this, his wife and Leila as
passengers; Peter took command of the second boat, and I of the third,
in my boat Ritchie being rifleman.  Jill, it is needless to say, came
with me, his elder brother.  Ah! that five minutes of difference in our
ages made me the man, you see, and Jill the child, and I would not have
had it otherwise for all the world.

The day wore on.  Noon passed, yet never a sign of Indian was seen.  So
we did what all right-thinking Englishmen would have done under the
circumstances.  We dined.

We made both ladies swallow a ration of rum.  Poor Mrs Coates' eyes
watered, and Leila became a little hysterical and finally cried.

The wind went round and round, till at last it was fair.

Everything looked _so_ propitious.  But why did not the savages appear?

"I have it, sir," said Ritchie.  "They're waiting to attack us at night,
and I now propose we start.  They're hidden somewhere, depend upon it."

Ritchie was right, and no sooner had we got fairly into the offing, than
out their canoes swarmed after us.

"Keep well together in a line," cried the captain, "and stand by to give
them a volley."

Ritchie stood up in his boat, and shouted at the foremost boat in broken
Spanish.  He tried to tell them that the tobacco was in the ship.

But on they came.  Mrs Coates and Leila were made to lie down in the
boat, and only just in time, for a shower of arrows flew over us next
minute.

"Fire!"

Half a dozen rifles rang out in the still air, dusky forms sprang up in
the canoes and fell to rise no more.  Again and again our guns spread
death in their ranks, and the nearer they came the hotter they had it.

We had spears in the boats, boarding pikes and axes.  Would we have to
use them?  For a moment it s

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/38263