Aovelist. A STRANDED SHIP, A STORY OF SEA AND SHORE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1729, 4 August 1883, Page 5

Aovelist. A STRANDED SHIP, A STORY OF SEA AND SHORE.

BY L. CLARKE DAVIS.

" If the red slayer thinks he slays, Or if tho slain thinks ho is slain, They know not well tho subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again." Ralph Waldo Emkhsox.

(Continued.) Now staggering beneath and mounting triumphantly again to the surface of the waves, rearing and plunging like a horse unused to goading and feeling whip and spur for the first time, the yacht sailed on ; when, from the wrecking-station, below about which wreckeis and fishermen had gathered in haste to watch the adventurous craft, a signal was run up. " Make half a point south," it said. Instantly the yacht was squared away as indicated, when, coming full before the wind, her ]ib-shedts were torn away one by one, the top-sail shivered for a moment in the gale and then was ripped out, and fluttered away like a cloud ; yet, all unmindful of the wreck above and below, the man at the helm kept her bow that half a point south, for there lay the narrow inlet, dangerous and uncertain in fairest weather, as its breakers roared and broke, but now a desperate, almost a hopeless chance. Margaret Daunton held the Professor's arm with a fierce grip. " Will the man make the inlet?" she asked. " Is he sure to do it ?" " I don't know ; it is a poor chance," the Professor said. " But why more anxiety for that handsome, daring devil at the helm than for the two or three other men there, Margaret ? " " Can you look at the different men, and ask that ? He stands erect, head and shoulders above them all. From here you can see the coward-look in their shrinking figures, but there is none in his. He is not careless of his life ; he is bending every nerve and muscle to save himself and them, and yet, when he will be within a single moment of his death, he will not more certainly look it in the face than he is doing now. Why bhould I not give my sympathy to the brave man instead of to the cowards there?" "Because, Margaret, the cowards there may have wives and children at home ; and that fellow has none, or he would give this lee-shore a wide berth." Then a cloud of suspicion or doubt fell between these two that had never been there before, And they walked on down the beach ito the inlet in silence which neither cared to .disturb. The Professor was annoyed and vexed by the girl's interest in this ati anger, pvho guided his boat among the breakers with jraeh free and skilful daring ; and she, boo, was annoyed that the Professor, always before just and generous, should withhold any credit from the brave fellow out there, struggling so grandly for life. Yet what could it matter to the old Piofessor for whom she interested herself ? Were not his loves and romances away back theie among the dead Hellenic fables ? He had said bo, yet the man's heart beat uneasily when he saw this girl, whom he had grown to consider his very own by every tie of gratitude and affection, bestowing her sympathy and showing deep feeling for another, and that other a stranger ; dimly seen as yet far out at sea. He had forgotten, in his annoyance at Margaret, to watch the course of the yacht, when a sharp cry from her suddenly drew his attention to the struggling boat. An ugly squall had struck her at an imminent motuent, tearing out the deck fastenings, which Sold the main-sail square away, and in an instaniitwas flung aloft, caught by the gale, ,and vound about and around the pliant mast, which tent like steel. Top-sails and jibs and .saainsaii were gone, and nothing left but the foresail now, which, in the flawy gale, threat--ened momentarily to jibe, in which case all previous efforts would be rendered futile. But ,the blue-coated sailor at the helm held the little vessel on her course as undaunted as if fa? knew every drop of water under him. The (cow and thunder of the surf were too deep for (those £>n shore to hear his voice, but from his gestures they knew that he was giving orders wbieh we?-e not obeyed by the demoralized »crew. , „ The yacht was of twelve feet beam, while ifche entrance to the inlet wa,s barely twenty ftt?t in all. So that even in ease the sailor's quick eye detected the very centre of the channel, he would have scarcely four feet of water os either gunwale. jCapta'u* J3rown stood among his men, who, resting on tk& sides of the life-boats, keenly watched the daring sailor. 11 She never ken make it, Cap'en Brown ; elite luffs, sh'll jibe, an' ef he don't luff, that bit .of canvas 'ill go by the wind," said a smoky- skinned, wheezy- voiced old fellow at the Captain'/* side. "Well now, I don't know about that, William. Its's .oncertain. You see, that young fellow's peart 4 he is, and*he's got true > Srit, an' he's plucky, au J he's got a clear eye 1 a steady, eoolhand, an' h« wouldn't surp. <ue me if h& won, after all/ the Captain toried out, sententiously. J 'x*he yaehi had approached the mouth of rf^the wething hell of the breakers that already sprai ig «* her bows and leaped upon her deck, when Abe lurched to leeward, and her fore-sail, w hich biihexto had stood the fury of the gale unscathed, parted from boom to gaff, and directly was only a flaunting mass of ribbons ! The lils-boats were hurriedly run down to the shore, as quickly manned, and a dozen brawny fisharmen stood by, ready to launch them when the little craft struck the bar. But •she did not strike at all. She was suddenly 'put hard to windward, the gale caught a few yards of the main-sail still unfurled about the 'peak she obeyed the hand at the helm, and £hile the eager crowd looked on and' held rtheir breath while a hundred seconds might Ibe told off, the yacht lifted up her bow again, struck tite crest of the last defeated breaker, lP lungfld aiwUose and plunged and rose, and {the next inqtant sailed quietly into the amruffled surface .ofi&enver. Without any seeming taste or excitement .«foe was battened down; attey some trunks *nd bagg%ge were brought vp from below, her *u™*J5 m .*iu w*™ furled, her rigging .cut

away, her deoks her yawl was launched, the luggage stowed into it, and then the crew and the blue-coated sailor landed. He was met by the wrecking-master, who extended his brawny hand in token of welcome and fellowship for tho old fellow had been a sailor before the other was born. " Thanks for your timely signal, Captain. The little Argo would scarcely have brought us safely to shore without it ; and in that case the golden fleece would have been altogether lost to me, I am afraid." " I dunno about that fleece, Gap'en, but I do know you've just saved your bacon, and although T say it to your face, which I shouln't, you're a brave fellow, and I'd like to shake hands agen if you don't mind it ; also, while you're here, I'd like it mightily if you'd make my house your own, just to stay at or come and go to, as you like ; a bed's better nor a kammock any time, and similarly, dry land better nor water ; but," said the Captain, "why in thunder did you, a peart enough sailor, as I've seen to-day, run onto a lee-shore in a nor'-easler? " " The last thing first, then, Captain. The yacht has settled six inches since she crossed that last breaker; that strained and hammered her to death ; but she was sinking before the gale came on, and I ran on a lee-shore, thinking only of beaching her as a desperate chance for life ; just then I saw your inlet here, made for it, and got my course by your signal, and here I am, and there's my hand, and I will take your bed, and again a thousand thanks to you for my safety." "You ought to thank God for it, young man ; for when the sea rose up to swallow you alive, it was His hand, not mine, that parted the waters and delivered you." "I do -thank God," the sailor said, " with all my heart, my friend, -and " Something just then blanched the brave young fellow's face whiter than the threatened death out, there had done. What was it? What had stopped the ready current of his talk, cut-ting-short his speech? What was it that made his hand tremble up to his mouth in .'i.il weak, uncertain way? Not anything in the old Captain's manner ; not the soft, brown eyes of the girl, timidly bent upon him ; not the quiet, controlled eyes of the man on whose arm she leaned. Yet, for a hurried moment, he was cowed, as no mere physical danger could have done ; he seemed to the girl to have suddenly lost his height of stature and bravery of bearing ; to shrink and tremble before the man at her side. She looked alternately into their faces for an answer to. his curious behaviour ; bui when she turned to the Professor, the usual grave, reticent smile was on his lips, and if the two men had ever met before, there was no sign of it in the Professor's eyes, which looked dully into the eyes of the sailor, absent of meaning or recognition. When, still perplexed at the unsolved riddle, she turned again to the other man, ho was shaking hands gayly enough with the old wrecking-master ; then he gave some directions quietly and coolly to his crew about his luggage and the sinking yacht. His face was turned fully toward her, and she noticed that the pallor and fright were gone from it ; that his manner was easy and possessed ; that, as he looked toward her, there was a bright, boyish smile in his eyes ; and when Captain Brown presented Mr. Luke Connor to her and the Professor, the two men gravely saluted oach other after the fashion of gentlemen, and she noticed the bits of talk succeeding had nothing different in them from other bits of talk likely to chance between two intelligent persons when introduced to each other. "We must congratulate you on your escape," the Professor said. " Your vessel is sinking, I think you told the Captain." " Yes, she leaked badly before, but that last thumping she got in the inlet was too much for her. She will be gone in an hour, if she is t not already aground." "Then," said Margaret, her rare, sweet smile mocking the gravely spoken words, " I am afraid the modern Jason will hare all the dangers of the voyage and pursuit, without finding the treasure he seeks." Luke Connor looked far out to sea as the girl stopped speaking, as if he weighed the dangers he had passed, before he answered her. " I am not so sure of that," he said presently. " The gods of to-day, I fancy, are as vigilant and strong as those older ones ; indeed, lam not sure they are not the same, and who knows that they did not send the New Argo there, to this shore, knowing that here the modern Jason might find what he sought ? Adventurers are sailing to-day over everysea in search of it ; one is hunting it in the mines of California or Australia, another in India or Japan, but everybody is hunting it somewhere. I think the golden fleece of to-day is only another name for happiness, and I am as likely to find it here as elsewhere." The man's voice had grown low and solemn and prophetic, and the girl, noticing his changed manner, looked at him curiously. If then he had given one bold glance info the pure brown eyes before him, or had dared to cast a single admiring look at her, or at the bright masses of the golden hair, waving so luxuriantly about her neck and face, she would have caught the hidden sense of his meaning, and if she had, she would have avoided him forever after. But his eyes did not once meet hers, they being still bent far out at sea ; and the girl, too simple and true to be suspicious or to take alarm, only simply wondored where, among the melancholy groves of that grim shore, the golden prize might hang. But the Professor, quicker of thought than she, and more suspicious too, knew that Margaret had curiously attracted Luke Connor, and that the tawny hair floating about her form typified to the reckless sailor Jason's fabled fleece. The Argo had settled at flood tide, but her deck still showed above the surface of the shallow river. "She lies safe enough there," Luke said. " If you think her traps worth the trouble, she is yours to dismantle, Captain Brown, but her hull is sprained and thmnped to pieces." He looked back regretfully at the sunken wreck. They had been good friends together, the man and his boat. If, as he said, the golden fleece was only another name for happiness, he had sought that in many places in his yacht. They had shared a good many dangers, lived true, brave lives together, struggling and wrestling with tempest and sea, and now the old Argo lay there in that hole of a river, sunk and worthless. It had been a better life than any he knew on shore. That was a fever of dissipation, a round of pleasure that was unwholesome and vile. The only love he knew there was the love that he had bought. The lips that kissed the pure brow of Psyche, had kissed no pure lips since ; the hand made bloody on that long-ago commencement night had never been clear again, he morbidly fancied. Yet in every hour of this man's plunges into vice and ■wretchedness, his true, nobler self cried out for something better—for the sweet, manly life he had once known— for friendship and love. But he knew that men looked coldly onhim ; that fathers of pure girls never asked him to their houses ; that, mixed with the sincereflt interest men ever showed him, there was more than one half morbid curiosity. He knew, when he met his former friends face to face, that if they noticed him at all, which few did, they were quietly wondering, as they passed on their opposite way, .how a murderer must feel ; what must be the daily life of a m»n* who has , escaped hanging, or what distempered fancies of the murdered viotim tortured him by night.

If he could have answered them at all, he •would hare said that no thought of,beinB hanged, that no ghost of the dead man who had wronged his sister, ever came to him by day or night. But while no ghost -ever haunted him, sleeping or waking, the awful crime of which his soul stood guilty was like a second self, clinging close as his skin, urging him forever into the Lethe of riot and dissipation. He only lived to forget, to get rid for awhile of himself; and the pity of it all was, that under the orust of vice that was on it, there was a true, manly, noble self, full of generous impulses, capable of heroic achievements, worthy of good men's honor and affectionate regard; but indeed it was true, he had buried it all very deep, so that men went on remembering his crime, after they should have forgiven and forgotten the actors in it. While the men whom Jie had known in that old, happier time placed a gulf, impossible to bridge over, between him and them, it was curious that women and little children, with their pure, unerring instincts, came close to and loved the man. It might have been partly his genuine, hearty manner, or his superb beauty, alive and magnetic with health and strength, or his free thought and free speech that beguiled them and won their, hearts ; but whatever it was women and children had been very tender of his faults and loving of Luke Connor. As he walked beside Margaret Daunton from the beach to the farm-house, his instincts telling him how pure and gentle a woman she was, his sense showing him how beautiful and intelligent she was, he felt as he had never done before ; his crime weighed heavily upon him, and he knew with deadly certainty that the once sweet waters of life that he had muddied, ne must drink to the end ; that a pure woman, saintly, in thought and deed, was not for him to gather to his breast. Other men, with clean hands and unsullied name, might strive to win, and some one marry her ; but he alone was shut out and under the ban. t In that same hour, if the old Argo, lying a sunken, worthless wreck in the river there, could have been made seaworthy again, he would have plunged once more into the breakers with her, no matter how the bar threatened, nor what storms prevailed or winds blew. Better the sudden death out yonder, than to live to bear this girl's reproach. It was not that she had already become essential to him, but it was natural that a man cut off from white bread for "many long years, should loathe the black loaf forever held to his lips, and hunger for the other; or that a barefooted beggar, passing the boundaries of a fair domain, should pause for a while to behold how fair it was, and then to wish that the title to it should be made clear to him and his heirs forever ; especially natural would it seem if the beggar's tastes fitted him to enjoy such an estate. He, Luke Connor, was the man who had eaten only of the black bread of bought, vicious pleasures, whose nature cried out hungrily for better food ; he was the barefooted beggar, gazing over the wall of a beautiful domain, whose fruitful acres stretched away to the sea and sky-line — a wall which he might never cross, lest the cry of the keeper be raised against him, and he be hunted down. He felt that he was not a man while he could not say to this girl's mother, " Give me your child, for I love her." Other men might go to her, telling the reverential love they felt, but he never might. He could never do that; his hands were bloody ; and if it were right for the State, or Justice, to take life at all, he had no right to his life even. It had been saved, and the State, or Justice, cheated out of it by a quibble, a lawyer's shrewd eloquence, or the whim of a soft-hearted jury ; so he felt that he bore his life even under a false pretence, and that it had been forfeited long ago. Yet no man loved life better than he loved his. It waa sweet and good to him from the rising to the setting of the sun ; and no man would have fought more desperately to preserve it, if a struggle came. BuT it could never be a man's full life v he thought, unless he might love and marry as other men could. He knew the danger before him when it was only an hour old, but he did not flee from it. Let the surly keeper come, he said ; but he would first see the beautiful fields, the long, dim paths, the friendly shadows of the trees, smell the fragrance of the flowers and hear the songs of birds and plash of fountains. Let the keeper come ; the beggar would have climbed the wall and seen with his own eyes how broad and fair the landscape was, and as he was turned out again to wander over the rough highways, eating his hlack bread", what he had- seen and heard would be a pleasant and happy memory to him forever. So, Luke Connor resolved to linger for a day or two, with the beautiful woman, under the old wrecking-master's roof, and then he' would go back to the love that could be bought and pleasures that bury self and bring forgetfulness. But he never would forget, that he had seen Margaret Daunton, and that, for a day or two, he had stood up before her, accounted worthy of her regard and honor. But he did not go after a day or two, nor yet after many days. He, too, after long, rough years, sat down by the sweet waters and ate of th,e blissful lotus, which brought dreamful ease and forgetfulness of crime and trouble. He sent to town to have his horses brought down, he discarded his sailor's suit, and robed himself bravely, as a man does who wishes to appear at his best in the eyes of the woman he loves, The story of that old farm-house was repeating itself at every watering-place, large and small, along the whole Atlantic coast, and at every summer retreat in mountain or valley. The old, old story, forever beautiful and new, of two people of opposite sex, coming directly to believe that " all for love, and the world welF lost " is the only true religion. Margaret Daunton and Luke Connor had learned that faith on the sands, that day by the sea, I think ; but then they only saw, as in a glass, darkly ; and now, after these many days of rides and walks and sunset wanderings they would have died at the stake for it, bravely as any bigot of the olden time for his higher creed. This was all very bad for the grave old Professor indeed. He had made a terrible mistake of it. If he had only, in those old days at home, been less blind, less dqpoted to his stupid books, less interested in his Greek poetry and College duties; if he had only loved his Hellenic heroines less, and cared more for the beautiful, loving girl whom his stupid affection called sister 1 But he h.ad been so secure in his possession of the yellow-haired little girl that _ he had, been in no hurry to fall in love -with and marry her. There, at home^ his dear old mother played house-dog, keeping watch and ward at the gate, driving all poachers away; but here, in this summer holiday, came this barefooted beggar, Luke Connor, claiming the fair domain, and nlaking out a good title to it, too. (To be continued.)