LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 5, 5 June 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE DOOMED SHIP.

[From “ Chambers’s Journal."] Continued.

1 We soou got the ship under double-reefed topsails, with a stiff gale blowing, the sky black and ugly, and the sea getting up, promising tough work before the night was out ; but if it hadn’t been for what I’d seen below, the gale might have tlowed itself blue in the face without my troubling myself about it. Well, as the dog-watch from six to eight was well nigh over, I thought I wouldn’t say anything to the skipper afore morning ; but somehow my mind couldn’t rest easy ; it was no use frightening my shipmates ;'so, after a deal of tack.ug about in my mind, I determined to make a clean breast of it; for, thinks I, if he knows anything, there’s no harm done ; and if he doesn’t, he’ll be warned in time. Well, sir, I hung about the quarter-deck waiting till the skipper came below, and then I sent the steward in to say I wanted to speak a word with him.

‘Well, my man,’ says he, ‘what do you want ? ’

4 Excuse me, sir,’ I says, *• but I’ve got a queer yarn to tell you.’ So lup and told him from beginning to end. As I finished, his face was ghastly pale ; his eyes wandered to the door of the cabin, where his beautiful young wife was lying, and his hands were clenched convulsively together. He didn’t utter a sound, but seemed as if he was awaking out of a dream, putting things together bit by bit, till it was all clear to him as the noon-day sun. Presently, he lifted up his eyes, and clasped his hands, saying : ‘0 God,' help my poor wife!’ and though he was a strong, hearty young fellow, there was a tear trickling down his cheek as if he’d been |a woman. I don’t think he was conscious of my presence just then; the shock had dazed him, like; he knew better than I thought how he’d been caught in a (rap : how he’d been betrayed by a villain, a false, black-hearted villain ; and the hopelessness of escape paralysed him. For my part, I’d expected nothing of this kind : I was not behind the scenes so much as he ; so, though I’d felt it my duty to make a report, yet I hoped the skipper would only laugh at me, and call me a fool for my pains. Leastways, I’d said to myself, most likely, after all, he’ll be able to explain the affair, and set my mind easy. When I saw him like this, ray heart failed me. I had a poor girl, too,that was as precious to me as his wife to him. So I says : ‘ I suppose there’s no doubt, sir, of this ship being the old Reindeer ?’ ‘ He looked up at me with such a face of horror and despair as I hope never to see again on mortal man. It moved me so, rough fellow though I was, and not much given to feeling, that I could have cried like a child. It was his wife, his bride, the cherry, loving, laughing girl yonder, that was tearing his heart, to think he had dragged her to a lloatiug tomb, and become a murderer, like, of the creature he’d have died for.

“It is true, Eobins. Heaven have mercy upon us. My wife, my poor wife 1 ’ ‘Just then, the door of the cabin opened, and the beautiful face of his wife, with a bonny smile lighting on it up, peeped into the cuddy (I think she had rather gloried in the noise and confusion of the squall), thinking her husband was alone, no doubt, for her hair was falling loosely over her shoulders, and she was partly undressed. ‘ Harry, dear,’ she says in a cheerful voice, lor his back was towards her, and I was standing well back in the shade, 1 when are you coming ? ’ ‘ Her voice seemed to electrify the skipper : his face became livid with passion ; but he answered quietly enough : ‘ I am engaged for a few minutes, Lillie ; I will be with you presently.’ 1 When she was gone, the skipper turned upon me almost fiercely. ‘ I am betrayed, Eobins, ruined, ay, murdered ! But woe to the man who has done it. The vengeance of Heaven will light upon him, and blight him and his. Don’t mention this affair to a soul ; it can do no good. Poor fellows, it is no fault of mine. It will only unman them, and we must do what we can to save ourselves, in spite of these villains. Then let them look out.’ There was a gleam in his eye as he said this that meant mischief, though he was a quiet and good-natured a man as ever I sailed with. ‘ Send the carpenter to me ; and not a word, on your life.’ ‘ I left the cuddy with a d.nrk rear in my heart that I had never known before ; our doom was sealed, sure enough, thought I; a mere question of time ; a few hours more, perhaps, and these fiends would clutch the blood-money. There was murder, I’m afeard, in more than one heart that night on board of the Maid Orleans. 1 Man the pumps ! ’ was the first cry I heard when I got on deck, and I shuddered from head to foot. 1 There’s a deal of water in her,’ the boatswain muttered as I passed him on my way to deliver the message to the carpenter. It was my middle watch, that is, from twelve to four, so I turned into my bunk pretty well knocked up with the work of the day, but for the life of me I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. The skipper haunted me with his wild despairing face, and seemed to reproach me with not having .spoken before ; and then the soft loving eyes of his wife pleading for mercy, poor young thing, ay, there they were, once so bright and merry, pleading with the villains who had betrayed her husband, and sent them both to sea in a living tomb. Then I thought; of Pollp, and wondered what she was doing, and whether she was saying a prayer for poor Jack Eobins. I dozed off at last, but was soon roused by a man coming into the forecastle and grumbling to a chum of his, ■ ‘ They say she’s sprung a leak, Jim, It’ll be all hands in a few minutes.’ “ How’s the wind 7’ growled the other, an old sea-dog that had weathered a hundred storms. ‘Freshening fast. The old man’s been on deck all the watch.’ Then the man, having lighted his pipe,, sneaked out again, whilst old Jones turned over to make the besl use of his time. Eight bells struck at last, and as it was my time at the wheel I turned out smart. The vessel was laboring heavily in an ugly sea, under close-reefed topsails, and the wind whistled through the rigging like the hiss of an angry fiend. The dull jerking sound of the pumps, at which four of the watch w T ere working, told its own tale ; and as I reached the poop, the carpenter came up from below with a face as white as a ghost. He went aft to the skipper, and I guessed pretty well what sort of a report be had to make. The ship, top deeply laden, was straining and groaning in the waters like a wearied horse, each wave that broke against her sending a quiver through her frame, opening up the weak spots in her hull, that let the cruel water in at each fresh blow. It was an awful feeling that stole over me just then. If she had sprung a leak in the ordinary course of things I should have taken as a mishap all she might meet with, and been the first to cheer up, and run the risk of life with a light heart; but to know for certain that we were doomed beforehand, that we were the victims of a plot, our lives sacrificed for profit, our blood held of no account by a set of inhuman monsters, —this cut to my very soul, raising a storm of savage wrath within me such as I never felt before or since. ‘Pump, poor wretches 1’ I exclaimed to myself ; ‘ay, pump your arms off ; but it’s no us, a steam-engine could’nt save us.’ ‘ A sail on the lee bow.’ ‘ The voire came like an angel’s through the roar of the elements. The boy, a smart chubby-faced lad, who was a general favorite cm board, poor fellow ! had been sent aloft to secure the topgallant-sail, that was blowing itself loose from the gaskets, and his cry Bent a thrill of hope through my heart, ‘Ay, ay !’ shouted the skipper ; ‘ weather main brace. Keep her away a couple of points, Eobins.’ There was a terrible excitement in the skipper’s eye as he spoke to me, and a hard ring in his voice that told its own tale, ‘Jump aloft there, Mr Short, and see what you can make of her !’ says he to the mate ; then turning again to me, he added : 1 It’s our only chance, Eobins ; the carpenter reports four feet of water in her. Thank heaven for this mercy !’ ‘ A large vessel under double-reefed topsails. close hauled,’ reported the mate, as he came down from aloft, for the clouds had broken away from the moon just then, and the wind slackened a bit, ‘ Get the rockets up, Mr Short, and the blue-iights ready.’ ‘ Ay, ay, sir !’ replied Short, as good a seaman as ever trod a plank. Meantime, with the yards squared, and a reef shaken out of the topsails, the Maid was rushing over the waters, af if anxious to give her doomed crew a chance of rescue, before the greedy ocean should swallow her in its huge maw ; whilst, as she rose on the crests of the waves, I could distinguish the dim outline of the strange ship about two points on the lee-bow. What a time that was. The watch laboring at the pumps, a sort of hush on the rest of the crew, who had remained on deck, as if aware that the doomed ship was running a race with time for dear life ; the skipper with one hand on the taffrail, and a speaking-trumpet in the other, casting fearful glances over the side, as if measuring each dip of the unhappy vessel into the waters ; and below, sleeping calmly, as if pillowed on her mother’s breast, his beautiful wife, all unconscious that grim death was within a few of feet her innocent heart.’ ‘ You grow eloquent, old man,’ I said, as the old sailor paused for a few moments as he thoughtfully refilled his pipe, To Vo continued,