The Seafarers

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John Bloundelle-Burton. The Seafarers

CHAPTER I 'SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS OR THE DAMASK ROSE'

CHAPTER II. STEPHEN CHARKE

CHAPTER III 'LET THOSE LOVE NOW WHO NEVERLOVED BEFORE'

CHAPTER IV. PORTSMOUTH EN FÊTE

CHAPTER V 'SO FAREWELL, HOPE!'

CHAPTER VI 'AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS'

CHAPTER VII 'AN OCEAN WAIF'

CHAPTER VIII 'HIS NAME IS-WHAT?'

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X. THE GROWING TERROR

CHAPTER XI. THE TERROR INCREASES

CHAPTER XII 'STRICKEN'

CHAPTER XIII 'SPARE HER! SPARE HER!'

CHAPTER XIV. STRUCK DOWN

CHAPTER XV. A LIGHT FROM THE PAST

CHAPTER XVI. MAN OVERBOARD

CHAPTER XVII 'FAREWELL, MY RIVAL'

CHAPTER XVIII 'SHE WILL NEVER KNOW'

CHAPTER XIX 'I ALMOST DREADED THIS MAN ONCE'

CHAPTER XX 'I DO BELIEVE YOU'

CHAPTER XXI. WASHED ASHORE

CHAPTER XXII. A SAILOR'S KNIFE

CHAPTER XXIII 'THE TIGER DID THAT'

CHAPTER XXIV. BEATEN! DEFEATED!

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

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A year before this momentous day when Arabella Waldron was to set sail for India in her uncle's full-rigged ship, the Emperor of the Moon, there had come to her that supreme joy which is the most sweet experience of a young girl's life. The man she was madly in love with had asked her to be his wife, and, so far as it was possible to forecast the future, it seemed that before them both there stretched a long vista of happy years to be spent together, or as many years together as a sailor and his wife can pass during the greater part of their lives. Yet, who can foretell the future-even so much as what to-morrow may bring forth? To-day we are here, to-morrow we are gone. A bicycle accident has done for us, or we have caught a fever or pneumonia, and we are no more. How, then, was Bella to know that events would so shape themselves that, ere she had been a year engaged to her future husband, she would be on board the Emperor of the Moon, bound for the other side of the world, and that during her passage in the good old ship, named after an ancient play-a representation of which one of the late owners had witnessed in his boyhood-she would encounter such calamities and perils? But let us not anticipate. Rather, instead, let us describe who Bella was, and how she came to love and to be loved, to be wooed and won.

Our English girl! The girl fairly tall, and full to the brim with health; full, too, of a liking for all exercise which befits the dawning woman-for boating, riding, walking, cycling: not ashamed to acknowledge that she likes a good dance and that she has a good appetite for a ball supper; one who is, withal, not a fool! Where in all the world can you find anything better than that-better than the honest girls who have been our mothers, are our wives, and, please God, are what our daughters will be?

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'How lovely!' the girl exclaimed.

'Ha! humph!' said Pooley, rather doubtfully, he being a man who entirely disapproved of disobedience in any shape or form from a subordinate. 'Anyhow, his experiences weren't lovely at first. They don't take runaways in the best ships, you know. However, he stuck to it-he had burnt his boats as far as regards his father-and-well! – he holds a master's certificate now, and he's both a good sailor and a good fellow. He is in the Naval Reserve, too, and has had a year in a battleship.'

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