Читать книгу Edith Percival - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 10

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"Great God! the sights that I have seen

When far upon the main,

I'd rather that my death had been

Than see those sights again."—Landon.

"Yours was a narrow escape, Mr. Stanley," said Captain Dale, the commander of the privateer, as, about a week after their deliverance, Fred made his appearance on deck.

Gus was there, too, looking rather pale, but perfectly restored both to health and spirits.

"Yes, sir," replied Fred; "and, though I have been as near death in many shapes before, I never felt it so horrible as when, wild with thirst, I stood expecting it on that frail raft, on the broad Atlantic."

"And your friend," said the captain, smiling, "was in still worse condition when we providentially came across you."

"Egad!" exclaimed Gus, "it came near doing for me. I'll never undertake to sail across the Atlantic on a raft again, if I can help it; at least, not without a beaker of fresh water on board."

"What is your destination now, captain?" inquired Fred.

"Boston; but I mean to capture, if possible, a few Britishers first, to make time pass pleasantly."

"Boston? we're in luck, Fred," observed Gus. "So," he added to the captain, "you sometimes have a skirmish with the British, do you?"

"Yes," replied Dale; "it's only last week I sent a sloop-of-war to Davie Jones; and, with the help of the Lord, and that long Tom there, I trust speedily to send some more of their brethren to look after them."

"Sail ho!" called the shrill tones of the look-out, at this moment.

"Whereaway?" demanded Captain Dale, as he seized a glass, and sprang into the rigging.

"Due east, sir."

"And an Englishman, by Jupiter!" exclaimed the captain, as he again leaped on the deck. "There's something wrong on board of her, too," he continued, "for the crew are running wildly about the deck, sometimes rushing in a body below, and again re-appearing. Can the crew have mutinied?"

Again he gazed long and steadfastly at the vessel.

"Heavens!" he exclaimed, "the ship's on fire!"

"By Jove, so it is," said Fred; and, even as he spoke, a sudden jet of flame shot up the hatchway of the ship.

"And there goes a signal of distress," shouted Gus, as a white pennant suddenly streamed out in the breeze from the mast-head.

"See how the poor wretches are crowding together," exclaimed the captain; "we must not let them perish before our eyes. Who will volunteer to go to the rescue?"

As if by one impulse, men and officers all sprang forward to offer their services.

"No, no," said Captain Dale, good-humoredly, "I cannot let you all go. Here, Mr. Stewart," addressing his first lieutenant, "you will take command of one boat, and—ah! Mr. Stanley, I see by your eager look how anxious you are to lend assistance. Well, you can take charge of the other boat; and," he added, lowering his voice, "look out for the magazine. Now, be off, and God speed you!"

"Ay, ay, sir," came cheerily from a score of lips, as the hardy seamen bent to their oars.

"Give way, my lads!" cried Fred, as he sprang into the stern-sheets and waved his cap in the air.

The men bent to their oars with a will, and the boat cut like a sea-gull through the waters. Fred still stood with his eyes fixed on the burning ship—his handsome face all aglow with excitement.

The scene was inexpressibly grand and terrific. The flames were now bursting out from every part of the ship; while a dark, dense cloud of sulphurous smoke clouded the blue sky above. The fiery monster ran up the shrouds and rigging, twining its fierce tongue around the masts; while occasionally the sullen booming of a gun would float over the waters, as her armament, heated by the flames, went off. The affrighted crew were huddled together—by their frantic gestures and wild signs, striving to urge the boats still faster on, as they beheld the flames rapidly approaching the spot where they stood.

"Give way, my men! give way! Will you see them perish miserably before your eyes?" shouted Fred, his dark eyes blazing with excitement, as he beheld the fiery-tongued monster almost within a few feet of the unhappy wretches, whose skrieks of terror came piercingly to their ears.

And the brave fellows did give way. In that moment they thought not that the men they were going to save were the enemies of their country—they only saw fellow-creatures in danger of perishing by a miserable death; and with the proverbial generosity of sailors, they bent their brawny arms to the task until great drops of perspiration stood in beads on their flushed faces, and the boat skimmed over the water with the velocity of a bird on the wing. In less than ten minutes more, they were within a few yards of the burning ship.

"Leap into the water, and we will pick you up?" shouted Fred—fearing lest, if they approached too near, the boats might swamp from the numbers who would crowd into them.

Without a moment's hesitation, the command was obeyed, and the crews of both boats were soon busily employed in rescuing the poor fellows.

"Is this all?" asked Fred, as the last of those who had leaped from the deck were picked up.

"All, sir," was the universal answer.

"No, sir; it's not all!" said a boy—a mere lad of fourteen—springing from his seat. "There's a lady aboard yet; she is in the cabin, and we forgot her."

"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Fred, his dark face paling with horror—"have you left a woman on board that burning ship to perish?"

"We forgot her, sir," was the muttered response; while more than one eye fell beneath the scornful gaze of those fiery black eyes.

For one moment Fred thought of Captain Dale's command—"Look out for the magazine!"—and paused irresolute. Not for himself—oh, no! His determination was to rescue the lady or die, but for the men intrusted to his care. He felt that he had no right to peril the lives of many to save that of one; and for a moment he stood undecided what course to pursue. Then, as the terrible thought, that a fellow creature and a woman might even at that moment be perishing in the flames, sent the blood curdling to his brave heart, he looked up and said, in a clear and impressive voice, to his own men:

"My brave lads, I cannot leave a woman to perish in that burning ship. I am going on board to rescue her. You will, in the meantime, keep at some distance off; and when I appear on deck, return for me. Should you not see me again," (he paused for a moment), "you will return to the privateer, and tell Captain Dale I have striven to do my duty. That will do. Stand off, and wait for me."

He caught a rope that hung over the vessel's side, and sprang on the burning deck, "whence all but him had fled." There was a moment's profound pause of surprise and admiration in the boat, as the crew of the privateer beheld the tall, slight form of their gallant young leader disappear amid the thick smoke. The crew of the Englishman bent their heads in shame; the scathing, scornful glance in the eagle eye of the young American had brought before them, more forcibly than any words could have done, his lofty contempt for their dastardly conduct.

Meanwhile, through the dense smoke, Fred made his way. A sudden breeze blew the flames aside; and to his inexpressible joy he saw that the flames had not yet reached the cabin. He dashed down the stairs, taking three or four steps at a time, and paused for a moment to glance around.

The walls were of a dark, polished oak, the floor covered with a rich Turkey carpet, whose brilliant hues were bright as the gorgeous plumage of a humming-bird. The chairs and lounges, profusely scattered around, were of dark carved wood—old and quaint in appearance, and cushioned with dark-blue velvet. A guitar lay in a corner, and carelessly scattered by it were several sheets of music. A bookcase, filled with a choice selection of books, stood in one corner; and lying half open on the table, as if it had just been dropped, was a small, elegantly-bound volume of Milton. By it lay a tiny gold locket, containing a miniature. Not doubting but that this belonged to the occupant of the cabin, Fred snatched it up, thinking she might value it, and turned to look for its owner. She was not in the cabin—he saw that at a glance. The door of an adjoining state-room lay half open. It was no time for idle ceremony. Without a moment's hesitation, he dashed it open, and entered; but paused in involuntary awe at the sight which met his eyes.

A young girl, transcendently lovely, was kneeling in the middle of the floor. Her snowy robes fell in spotless folds around her exquisite form; the long silken tresses fell like a shower of rippling sunbeams over her pearly shoulders. The small white hands were clasped over the stainless bosom, that rose and fell with her soft breathing. Every trace of color had faded from that fair face, leaving cheek and brow as white as monumental marble. The large blue eyes, calm and cloudless as mountain lakes, looked from beneath the golden lashes as serene as the heaven to which she seemed about to ascend. On that sweet young face was a look of such rapt, such sublime, such angelic devotion, that Fred for a moment stood, not daring to disturb her.

A sudden crash on deck roused him from the spell into which he was falling. Stepping before her, he said, hurriedly:

"Madam, everything is in flames around you! Come with me, or you will be lost."

At the sound of his voice she sprang to her feet; and with a wild cry of "Saved! saved!" she threw up both snowy arms, and would have fallen fainting to the floor, had he not caught her in his embrace.

Snatching a quilt from the bed, he wrapped it round her slight form and rushed from the cabin. To his unspeakable horror, as he sprang with one bound up the stairway, he found the whole deck had now become one vast sheet of flame. There was no time to lose. Springing like a wounded panther, he cleared the deck with two bounds, and leaped clean over the side into the sea.

A wild cheer arose from the crew of the boat at the sight. Propelled by strong arms and willing hearts, in a moment it was by his side; and in another he stood among them, with his still insensible burden in his arms.

"Pull, men! pull for the love of God!" he shouted, waving his hand in the air. "Work for your lives!"

Like straws the strong oars bent in the brawny hands of the rowers, and like an arrow sped from a bow, the boat shot out from the burning ship.

One moment more, and it would have been too late. With a roar that seemed to rend heaven and earth, the magazine exploded, and the ill-fated ship was blown to atoms. Like a shower of hail, the burning spars and timbers fell all around them. But they were almost miraculously saved; the boat escaped uninjured, and in ten minutes was entirely out of danger.

Everyone drew a deep breath, and from the most callous and hardened heart present went up a prayer of thanksgiving for their unexpected deliverance from death.

Fred seated himself, and throwing off the quilt in which he had enveloped the slender form of the young girl, began to chafe her cold hands and temples.

"Had this young lady no friends on board, that she was thus forgotten," he asked, turning to one of the crew of the Englishman.

"No, sir; not when the vessel caught fire. She was returning from England with her uncle; and one stormy night, about a week ago, he was washed overboard and lost. She never came up to the deck after that; and, in the hurry and fright, when the ship was found to be on fire, we forgot all about her."

"Is she an American?" asked Fred, looking, with a feeling for which he could not account, on the fair face and graceful form lying so still and lifeless in his arms.

"Don't know I'm sure," replied the man.

All Fred's efforts to restore her to consciousness were in vain. She lay, in her snowy drapery, so still, that he most feared life was extinct. A snow-wreath was not more white than the colorless face, off which the bright hair fell over the young man's arm, on which the head reclined. The tiny hands imprisoned in his were cold and lifeless as marble.

With a feeling of intense joy, Fred sprang once more upon the deck of the privateer, and resigned the fainting girl to the hands of the surgeon, and then hastened to exchange his wet clothes for dry ones. Gus, who had arrived in the other boat a few moments before, listened with envy and amazement to his friend's story.

"Well, luck is everything!" he exclaimed, with a sigh, when his friend had concluded; "if every ship in the British navy were to take fire, I don't believe I'd have the good fortune to save a single young lady from a scorching; while you're not well out, when you return with an angel in your arms, wringing wet, and never look any more elated by it than if you were a man of stone. O Fortune! Fortune? thou fickle goddess, if you would only throw such chances in my way as is thrown in the path of this stony-hearted cynic, believe me, I would be far from proving so ungrateful."

"A very good speech for an extempore one," observed Fred, as he coolly lighted a cigar. "And, by the way, here is the doctor, I must ask him how his fair patient is."

"Hech! mon, dinna fash yersel' aboot her, the young leddy is doin' vera weel," observed Sawney; "an' fegs, ye ne'er seen sic 'n beautiful roses in a' yer life as cam in her cheek when I tauld her aboot the canny chiel that plucked her, as it were, a brand frae the burnin'. Hoot! Mr. Stanley, ne'er try to look sae dignified; d'ye think I dinna see the smile in yer black e'e. If yer no prood o' savin' the life o' sic a handsome leddy, ye dinna deserve to hear the message she has sent ye."

"A message for me!" exclaimed Fred, with an impetuosity that brought a sudden crimson to his dark cheek.

"Aye, mon! a message to ye, deil a less. And what for wudna she? Did ye no save her life?"

"But the message! the message!" exclaimed Fred, impatiently.

"Oo! ay! the message! jist sae! 'Tell him,' says she, an' soul o' me! she lookit sae bonnie wi' her blue e'e and her gowden locks as she said it, that I'd a gi'en a hunder' pounds to hae been ye at the time."

"But the message! the message! the message!" cried Fred, losing all patience.

"And she looked handsome, did she?" inquired Gus, as he noticed the impatience of his friend.

"Hech! ye may say that, laddie. Deil a bonnier las ivir I clapt my ain twa een on. An' a doot if she winna load him wi' compliments when he ca's to see her, judgin' frae the message. I'm mair nor half sartin that—"

"But," shouted Fred, in his irritation seizing the doctor by the shoulder, and wheeling him round like a top, "what was the message, you old son of Galen?"

"Hech, sirs! Laird protect us! who ivir heerd mair nor that?" gasped the little doctor, panting for breath, which his extempore waltz had nearly shaken out of his body; "spinnin' a respectable auld body lek me roun' as if I was a tap. 'Twad na be every laddie wad dae sic a dirty trick. Hech! I'm fairly oot o' breath."

"It's excessively aggravating, no doubt," said Gus, soothingly, "but you must pardon my unhappy young friend here, he is a little flighty at times, but perfectly harmless—"

Fred groaned.

"—But when very impatient," continued Gus, secretly enjoying his friend's despair, "he is rather violent. Therefore, my dear doctor, you had better tell him the young lady's message—when I have no doubt, these alarming symptoms will vanish."

"Oo, ay! just so!" said the doctor, retreating a few paces from Fred, and eying him as one might a half-tamed tiger; "she said that ony time this afternoon that wad be conveniant, she wad be maist happy to see ye in the kabbin below. That's a'."

And the little doctor went off muttering "Gude purtect us! wha wad think sic a douce young laddie as that was nae richt aboot the upper warks? Weel, weel, Laird save us!"

"An interview!" exclaimed Gus, with delight, "by Jove! Fred, you are in luck. I can forsee it all—private interview—lady all blushes and gratitude—gentleman all admiration and compliments—see each other every day while on board—grow as thick as pickpockets—moonlight interview—gentleman grows tender—lady refers him to papa—papa informs him she's not his daughter at all, but a princess in disguise, with large estates in a land yet undiscovered—matrimony—champagne, ice-creams, wax-lights, roses, pretty girl's kisses—bride an angel without wings—bridegroom in the seventh heaven—whew! there's the whole thing in a nut-shell. A novel condensed."

Fred bit the end of his cigar to conceal a smile.

"I'd give a trifle to know her name;" continued Gus; "it's a wonder none of the crew of the vessel knew it. Heigho! I suppose I must restrain my impatience until after the interview she has promised you."

Fred, though appearing outwardly indifferent, felt little less anxiety for the interview than his friend.

Having made himself very unnecessarily handsome, by a most careful toilet, he desired the little doctor to inform the lady he was ready to wait upon her.

"Walk doon! walk doon, laddie," said Galen, presently re-appearing, "and for the love o' Heaven!" he added, suddenly remembering Fred's conduct in the morning, "dinna be ony way violent. Laird save me! what wad the puir lassie do if ye took ane o' thaim tantrums in her presence?"

Fred having pledged his word to conduct himself, while before the lady, with due decorum, the doctor bowed him into the cabin, which the captain had generously given up to his fair captive, and, having announced him as being "the laddie that had ta'en her oot o' the burnin' ship," made his best salute, and retired.

The lady, who was seated by the table, arose as Fred entered, and advancing toward him, extended her hand. The youth imagined she looked even fairer now than when he had first seen her. The bright, golden tresses were pushed off her fair brow, and gathered into a burnished knot behind, thus displaying the exquisite symmetry of the superb little head. She was still pale from the effects of her recent fright; but Fred thought he had never beheld a fairer face in all his life.

"My preserver, how can I ever thank you for saving me from such a fearful death," said the softest, sweetest voice in the world. And raising the hand she held in hers, she bent her graceful head, and pressed it to her lips.

The act, simple and natural as it was, brought a sudden flush to Fred's face.

"I need no thanks, fairest lady, for performing a common act of humanity," he said, bowing. "He would, indeed, be a monster who would not endeavor to rescue a fellow-creature from death."

"Oh! it was fearful!" exclaimed the lady, "to stay there alone, expecting momentary death. It seemed to me impossible I could be saved, with everything in flames around me!"

She shuddered at the remembrance, and her face grew a shade paler.

"It seems wonderful to me how you could have been forgotten by all," said Fred.

"So it seemed to me at first, but not now. I never went on deck after the death of my dear uncle"—she paused, and her eyes filled with tears—"he was lost in a dreadful storm, a week before you rescued me. Alas! this seems doomed to be a luckless voyage."

"I fear you will not like your quarters here," said Fred, glancing around the narrow and poorly-furnished cabin, "it is hardly in a fit condition for the reception of a lady."

"Oh! if that were all," she said, with a half sigh, "but I am afraid it will be such a long time before I can reach home."

"I too, have longed for the end of this voyage," said Fred, "but now the time will appear all too short."

She looked up suddenly, to find the deep, dark eyes of the speaker fixed upon her with a look of profound admiration. For a moment, the golden lashes dropped over the blue eyes, and a vivid crimson, whether of anger or embarrassment he knew not, mantled her pale cheeks.

Her manner during the remainder of the interview was so cold and constrained, that he felt sure he had offended, and, with a feeling of vexation, he arose and took his leave.

Fred's dreams, that night, were haunted by a pair of blue eyes, that one moment smiled upon him—the next, were turned coldly away. Once again, in fancy, he was rescuing their owner from the flames, and bearing her off in triumph in his arms, when he awoke to the dull reality that he was clasping, most affectionately, the pillow!

As he dressed, before going on deck, he suddenly remembered he had neglected to ask the young lady her name. Was there ever such stupidity? Then it occurred to him that he had a locket belonging to her, and opening it, he discovered that it contained the miniature of the fair unknown herself.

Now, Mr. Stanley, though by no means given in general to retaining other people's property, immediately experienced a most felonious desire to keep the locket. Accordingly, placing it as near his heart as was convenient, he hastily added a few finishing touches to his costume, and went on deck.

And when he had reached it, a sight met his eyes that transfixed him with amazement. For there, promenading the deck, and leaning most affectionately on the arm of Gus, was the fair unknown. The morning breeze had brought a deep rose-hue to the pearly cheeks; her eyes were bright with pleasure, and smiles were chasing the dimples over her fair, sunshiny face. And there was Gus bending over her, in a way for which Fred could have shot him without remorse, calling up her smiles and blushes at his own magnetic will.

No wonder Fred was amazed, angry, mortified. He had saved her life almost at the risk of his own: and, because he had uttered a few gallant words, she had grown as distantly reserved and dignified as a queen on her throne. And here was Gus Elliott, whom she had never seen before, now her elected champion, and, to judge by appearances, something more than a friend.

As they passed, both looked up and recognized him, she by a formal bow, and Gus by a smile of triumph. With the air of an insulted prince, Fred turned aside, and strolled in an opposite direction, with the firm conviction that there was nothing in the world but ingratitude.

While he still stood absorbed in gloomy thought, he was suddenly aroused by a hearty slap on the shoulder. He looked up haughtily, and Gus met the full light of his fiery eye.

"Fred!" he exclaimed, without heeding his evident anger, "you're the luckiest dog in creation! Guess whom you've saved?"

"Who?" was the eager inquiry.

"My cousin Edith, the eldest daughter of my uncle, Major Percival."