LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1832, 6 January 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE FATE OF THE SCHELDE. [Abridged from the German of Rosenthal Bonin.] I loitered about the harbor in Genoa. Where else should I stay ? A sailor who has trod the deck for ten years doesn’t like climbing round on stony hills, even if they are overgrown with olive and orange and laurel and dotted with marble villas. He can’t stand it long in dark, narrow, up and down-hill streets, even with the most varied and active life that ebbs and flows throngh them. His element is the open sea, and as the woodsman is drawn toward any spot of verdure, if it’s-only a bars dezan of trees, so every moment that the sailor isn’t of necessity mewed up among walla and pavements he is best pleased to spend near the water. He’ll sit beside a frog pond if he can’t get anything better. So, then, I left the people to yell and crowd each other about in the steep and gloomy streets, and looked down into the dirty, green, still water of the inner harbor, and ont into the forest op masts. I idly wondered which vessel would put to sea first, wishing I might sail in her. Everything in the harbor was lying still, The great veasels’of war, with their red iron hulls, were being repaired, and the mail ships were just getting up steam. Tired and disgusted, I gave the front of my hat a jam over my eyes to keep off the sun, and was looking on carelessly at come workmen, when a clap on the shoulder waked me out of my disagreeable reverie. ‘ No ship, I suppose.’ ‘No ship, captain,’ I answered, just as curtly. ‘ Got a good lot of money in your pocket yet ?’ said my questioner, taking stock of me.

‘ Never very much nor very little, captain. I’ve always got a couple of shillings in tow. I was five years on the Buy ter— five on the Dordogne. 1 Cook ?' asked the Hollander, glancing over my small person. ‘ Cook! The devil I’ I burst out; * second mate ; 300 tons burden.’ ‘ Second mate on the Rnyter,’ said the crafty Hollander, to whom the French Dordogne seemed of little account. ‘ Five years, captain.’ * I command the Schelde over there, ’ the stalwart Hollander went on. * Papers all right ?’ I tapped my breast pocket. ‘You may go the office,’ said the captain carelessly, and turning round atarted straight away. I knew the cunning Dutch too well. I didn’t stir from the spot, and’ again watched the work people. When the captain heard no steps behind he came back, and said, laughingly, as he saw me still quietly intent. * CHpperrigged. No green hands. Go as second mate ?’

* No, captain.’ • As second mate to- Rotterdam, and then first mate ?’

‘ Yes, captain. ’■ The bargian was closed, and we went to the office for our agreement.

The Schelde, although she lay in the row of sma’l steamers, was quite a large ship—originally a three-master, bnt changed into a screw without taking away her masts or her character as a sailing vessel. My Schelde leoked too long for a steamer and too heavy for a sailing ship—rather a dangerous build for an unexpected cross sea; though both means of locomotion, together would give her a capital headway. However, there was* no time for speculation. The steps rattled down. I shoved my chest up, the boat pushed off, and there I was on Dutch ground in very sight of the glittering terraces of Genoa, with their palaces and their orange and fig tree. The captain welcomed me with a hand ahske ‘Secmd ma'e, men,’ he intrrdiced me, and my rum flask began the rounds. ' Temperance, mate ? ’ asked my new superior, smiling somewhat peculiarly as he saw me only make a show of drinking. ‘ Temperance, captain, in such heat and no work. I only drink brandy when I’m cold.’

* You must have been a schoolmaster, mate,’ said the man at the wheel, with the broad John Ball face, in a rather disparaging tone. • You’ve hit it, comrade. Three years schoolmaster and seven years skip’s mats.’ Thereupon tho whole crew looked at me with astonishment. We were a motloy company on board —eleven men all told. Two cabin boys, quick, supple Neapolitans, ugly as little monkeys ; three heavy Englishmen, with faces as hard as iron j a dirty Frenchman, with a red silk neckerchief; three tobacco-chewing Dutchmen, caa German, who was eating all the time, and my own small self from under the pale;, clear skies of Sweden.

At threa o’clock in the, afternoon, we received our ship papers. Clouds puffed from the smoke stack, the pilot came and wo went from the confusion of shipping into the outer h and shot along pr.it the great stone dams and the two lighthouses of the beautiful port of Genoa, A few hours later and we were tossing on the restless green waves, the white loam leaping about our bow in a sort of rythm, now forced apart as we cut through, now hissing as we rode over it. Oar cargo was cork-wood and southern fruit. Wt were running under wind and steam. After three days the mountains of

Andalusia appeared on our right, shimmering in a salt violet light, while the bright orange-tinted heights of the African coast announced Gibraltar, the Pillars of Hercules. After passing the Straits, the ocean received us. The great blue waves, rolling np and down, regular as clock work, brought us gradually into the choppy waters of the Channel, and at last we reached Rotterdam safe and sound. Chapter 11. That I have not yet spoken more particularly of my new captain isn’t because he was not interesting. Captain Koltherm’s face spoke the sharpest contradictions. Cool calculation and wild passion, timid repose and fiery vehemence, were expressed by his features at the same moment. Although he spoke but little, I noticed, as the voyage continued, that lie paid more attention to me than was usual to a common under officer. His gleaming eyes of ter resfed on mr, and he handled me wiih a sort of involuntary respect that was soon shar d by the ship’s crew. I kept, how. ever, strictly in my place, was sober and punctual, made no blunders, and stuck to my duty. So I made a great many voyages with him.

* Claret and resin to Hamburg, mate,’ the captain said to me once, when after a voyage from Malta to Amsterdam we had unloaded, and had just had tha decks swabbfd.

‘ Ready to-morrow, captain.’ ‘All light. Always up to time, Hillgreen. You’re a first-rate fellow, mate, but you won’t stick to tie sei,’ eaid the captain, blowing away the tmokc of his Havannah.

‘Net for ever, I hope, captain.’ * The women will got hold of you. You are a good-looking little chap. They are a bad lot, mate—white devils.’ I had already often had occasion to notice Koltherm’s resentment toward the female sex. He had positively an insane hatred of everything that wore petticoats ; and certainly his wife, a rich heiress of Leyden, was said to have treated him badly, though not without fault on his part. There were strange rancours about it; Kolthem had for years been sailing-master for his father-in-law, whose oniy daughter, very blonde and very high tempered, he had married ; then ho had lived a great deal on shore, and began to gamble heavily Gesir.e Koltherm, nee Klugkist, held on to the money with an iron grip. Differences arose betwen the couple—Gesine fierce and relentless, Koltherm stormy and violent. Suddenly Frau Koltherm disappeared, and Captain Koltherm, with his schooner Hetty, had sailed, it was said, to Havannah After two years ha returned without his wife, and gave the curt and limited information that she had preferred to remain in Havannah. Upon this Koltherm fell out with his father-in-law, who resorted to law, and ascertained that Qesina lived under restraint, but ostensibly as a lunatic, at the house of a physician of no good repute. Tha complainant died ; the case fell through. Captain Koltherm gambled no longer, but his wife never appeared. I had been on tha Schelde two years when the talk I had mentioned took place between the captain and me. On the third day after we left port I steered East, before a fresh breeze

Wo were in the latitude of Norderney, although our course lay too far out to bring us in sight of the island, when suddenly, one of the Neapolitans, who was at the masthead looking out, cried ‘ Boat astern ! ’ A boat something like fifteen sea miles from land; that was strange. Every eye was directed astern, and we saw a skiff'tossing about like a cockle shell on the stormy water. Both our ship and the skiff were driven by a rather strong current. * Stop her ! ’ ordered the captain, who was looking attentively through his spyglass. The engine stopped, the sails flapped as she came into the wind and paid off, and we slowly neared the lost boat.

It bore no sail, no mast, no colours, no sign of any life. The captain must have noticed that, but still he cried, * Lay to! ’ and the craft neared each other.

Now we discovered some object lying in the boat; we caught a glimpse of red and white, and of something like a human form. * Thunder, it’s a woman,’ said the second mate, looking at me in astonishment. One of boats was lowered, and in a few minutes a woman’s form, youthful and quite lifeless, was carried up to the deck.

{To be continued.)