It was a May morning in the English Channel. Over the soft blue of the sky some large clouds as yellow and tender for the eye to dwell upon as the spume of the sea from the receding breaker, with glories in their brows and glories in their skirts, were sailing slowly and stately on the mild breeze that blew sweet with mingled odours of land and brine from the coast of Old England. There was weight enough in the wind to grace the lines of streaming waters as they ran with feathers of foam, and on this wide plain, with the shores of Britain dwelling in a faint, violet shadow upon the starboard horizon north, but one ship was visible and scarce to be wondered at!
War had swept the narrow seas, and for hours in the day little more hove into view whether from the cliffs of our country or from those of the enemy opposite, than sometimes a large convoy glimmering cloud-like as it[Pg 234] floated, some compact, some scattered, under the protection of men-of-war up Channel to London town or to other ports, or down Channel to their several destinations in various parts of the globe.
Or it might be a cloud of steam-like smoke far off indicating an action between single ships. An Englishman had hailed a Frenchman to strike. The Frenchman had answered with a broadside, and before the sun sets the Englishman with her fore-topmast and mizzen topgallant mast gone is making for Plymouth with a prize in tow.
Or again it will be a smuggling lugger chased by a Revenue cutter with a flash of the sea-snow at her stem and the blaze of a long gun on the forecastle.
The ship in sight carried in those days a very unfamiliar rig. She was what is well known now as a barque. She was under all plain sail and showed many wings, and she lifted sails which Lord St Vincent when Captain Jervis was the first to introduce into the Navy, and Merchantmen, always quicker than Navy ships to adopt improvements or changes for the good, were using them when ships of the State, at least a good many of them, were still satisfied with the truck above the topgallant yard.
This vessel was the Minorca, which, as we[Pg 235] know, had left Old Harbour shortly after eight o'clock that morning, and now she had shrunk the Mother Country into a delicate vision, and slightly leaning from the wind was sliding with a steady keel through the water which beautified the copper that shone ruddily under her weather-bow with the prisms and crystals and gems of the ocean fountain. In spite of Admiral Lawrence's admiration of her, she would excite laughter in this age as an example of the stump-ended fabrics which the shipwrights of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries were building for sailors. Yet many of these structures made wonderfully long voyages and kept the seas, touching here and there to careen, for as lengthy a period as the average life of the modern steel fabric.
The Minorca's length did not very greatly exceed her beam. Her bows were round, though they fined down into keenness at her entry under water. She had a large square stern with windows, and her buttocks when her stern fell into the hollow, swept up as much foam as recoiled from the plunge of her bows. Upon the weather-side of the quarterdeck of the ship on this May morning in the English Channel Mr John Eagle, the mate of the vessel, was walking to and fro, sometimes directing his gaze to windward,[Pg 236] sometimes aloft, sometimes sending it along the ship's decks at the men who were employed on the numberless jobs which attend a sailing ship's departure from port. High aloft, perched on the fore-topgallant yard, was the figure of a look-out man, who was told to report anything that hove into sight and to continue to report how the distant sail was heading. These were Mr Lawrence's instructions.
Mr Eagle looked a very mean sort of man as he walked the deck. Neither by form, face, nor manner did he express individuality or character. The sole feature noticeable in him was a look of sullenness, a sour, sneering, quarrelsome air about the mouth, to be found perhaps in the curve of his thin lips.
Whilst he walked Mr Lawrence came up from the cabin through the companion-hatch, and after standing a few moments looking about him, he stepped to the side of Mr Eagle. The contrast between the two men was remarkable. You could scarcely have believed that they belonged to the same nation. Mr Lawrence's tall, elegant, and dignified figure towered above the poor, unshapely conformation of Eagle; his handsome face wore an expression of haughtiness, distance, and reserve. Both Mr Eagle and the boatswain, named Thomas Pledge, who[Pg 237] acted as second mate, and the rest of the crew had already discovered that their captain perfectly well understood and remembered that he had been an officer in the Royal Navy, a sailor of His Majesty the King, that comparatively brief as his story was it was brilliant with heroic incident and adventure, and that instead of being greatly obliged to Captain Acton for this command, he considered that he was acting with a very uncommon degree of condescension in taking charge of a merchant vessel, unless indeed she was a prize to his man-o'-war.
"There is nothing in sight, sir," he exclaimed, as he stood beside Mr Eagle, who had come to a halt on the approach of the other. "You will please see that a sharp look-out is kept for any sort of sail that may heave into view; and I trust to you to keep a sharp look-out yourself. When fairly clear of the Scillies, I may breathe with some ease."
"So far nothing's hove into sight, sir," said Mr Eagle.
"We have a pretty little breeze blowing," said Mr Lawrence, going to the side and looking over, "and we are under all plain sail. The wind's abeam and her speed is under six. Can she walk in strong weather?"
"She's done nine, sir, in my experience of her," answered Mr Eagle. "But it took half[Pg 238] a gale of wind on the quarter to make her do it."
Mr Lawrence came from the ship's side, and said: "Pray continue your walk. I have something of importance to communicate to you," and he looked down into Mr Eagle's face with a curiously mingled expression of contempt, haughtiness and superiority. "It is not customary, I believe," he said, "in the Merchant Service for shipmasters to take their mates into their confidence. It is necessary, however, that I should communicate one or two facts to you in connection with this voyage. I presume you are not aware that Miss Lucy Acton is on board this ship?"
"I saw her come over the side, sir, but didn't know she had stopped," said the mate, with an expression which might have passed for incredulity in the sour, congenital curl of his lips.
"She remained on board, and is in my cabin, and I shall occupy the cabin which was fitted up professedly for a sick-bay."
"Miss Lucy Acton aboard this ship!" cried the mate, giving way to his amazement. "Well, I am truly astonished."
"I don't care a damn about your astonishment, Mr Eagle!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence with haughty severity. "I want you to understand that Miss Lucy Acton is on board this[Pg 239] ship, and I desire that you will regulate your behaviour by thoroughly understanding the facts which I am going to do you the honour to impart."
Mr John Eagle made no answer.
"I first of all wish you to understand," continued Mr Lawrence, "that Miss Acton and I are in love with each other. We desire to be married. Captain Acton objects on the grounds of what I am forced to term my poverty; and certainly this quarter-deck would not know my tread if I were not poor. At the same time the greatest esteem and friendship exists between Captain Acton and myself, and his regard for me is sufficiently expressed by his placing me in command here. Do you follow me, sir?"
"I do, sir."
"Miss Acton and I agreed to elope. We found our opportunity in this vessel. This could only be done by contriving what the French call a ruse. It was to be assumed that her father had fallen ill in this ship whilst inspecting her early this morning, and the stratagem was to be carried out by his dictating a letter to me begging his daughter to come at once to the vessel. This she did, and she is now below. Do you understand me, Mr Eagle?"
"Oh yes, sir, I am a-following of you,"[Pg 240] answered the mate, with a face crippled in meaning by astonishment and by other sensations excited by this extraordinary story.
"Now," continued Mr Lawrence, still preserving his lofty, superior, rather over-bearing manner, as though he would heave Mr John Eagle overboard by scruff and breech if the fellow durst utter a syllable of offence, "it is arranged by Miss Acton and myself that she should feign that I have kidnapped her—sailed away with her, in short, against her will. This attitude we preconcerted, to rescue her from the accusation of having eloped, which might greatly prejudice her in the eyes of her father, and injure her future and fortune. When, therefore, you meet her, which you doubtless will, she will probably with the utmost passion, nay, even with tears in her eyes, declare that she has been torn from her home by a base artifice. And you'll understand, Mr Eagle, that her sighs, her statements, and her tears are merely tricks and parts of a play which has been carefully prearranged between the lady and myself. Do you understand, sir?" he added, looking stormily at his mean little companion from the altitude of his elegant and commanding figure.
"Why, yes, sir, course I do. But I never should ha' thought it. Why of all the young ladies——"
[Pg 241]
"I'm not asking you for any opinion, nor will any view that you can take concern me. You have the facts, and you will repeat them to the crew, to some of whom she may probably appeal, as indeed I have advised, that her pretended situation may seem the more real, and Captain Acton by such evidence be more fully convinced. You and the crew will know what to think. It is simply a love affair and my own and the lady's business essentially," and he stopped in his quarterdeck walk, causing his companion to stop, and flamed threats from a pair of eyes as imperious as ever glared command upon another.
Mr Eagle looked as obedient as a quartermaster to instructions sternly delivered by a flogging captain.
"I have another matter to talk to you about," Mr Lawrence proceeded, "and on this head I have to request without the smallest qualification of what you must regard as my orders that you will preserve silence."
"I beg pardon," interrupted Mr Eagle, "but before you go on I should like to say that I am only mate of this ship and take no interest lyin' outside the sphere of my duties that don't consarn me."
"What I have to say," said Mr Lawrence, "will concern you—at least I think so. It will concern you very much indeed. Yesterday, [Pg 242]Captain Acton placed in my hands sealed orders with strict instructions to summon all hands and to read the document to you and the men, but on no account to break the seal before the ship had arrived at latitude twenty degrees north, and longitude—about—for we never can be sure of that—thirty degrees west."
Mr Eagle's figure started as he walked. He knew his course to Kingston, Jamaica as intimately well as you know your home when crossing from over the way to it. He ventured to stare at Mr Lawrence, who went on:
"The nature of these instructions I can only guess at from several conversations which I have had with Captain Acton, who without being in any degree specific, yet seemed to suffer me to read between the sentences of his conversation. And now, sir," said Mr Lawrence with great austerity, "this is the communication you will preserve strict silence upon until the sealed instructions are read. My belief is—understand me: I say that the idea I have arrived at from Captain Acton's conversation—is that I should carry this ship to a port that certainly is not Kingston nor is it in Jamaica, though I am unable to say more, and that he wishes this vessel to be handed over to the representative of a South American merchant who does business in London. What the port may be I am as curious as you[Pg 243] undoubtedly now are to learn. I believe also that the whole of us from captain to boy will be paid off at this port and sent to England at Captain Acton's expense, and each man will receive treble the amount of the wages that he would have got for his voyage to Kingston and home. All this I infer from Captain Acton's language, and I may be violating his good faith in me in committing even these conjectures to the strict confidence which I am sure you will observe."
Various sensations were depicted in Mr Eagle's face as he listened. First he looked scared, then fierce by mere force of frown and enlargement of eyes, then sceptical with his sour, sneering mouth, then obstinate, sullen, mulish. He perfectly believed in the statement Mr Lawrence had made. Captain Acton, the owner, was a naval officer, and so was Mr Lawrence. They had agreed to abide in this matter of selling the ship and discharging the crew by a custom of their Service, namely, the sealed instructions.
A very short silence followed Mr Lawrence's delivery. Mr John Eagle then said: "You'll find, sir, that when the crew comes to larn that this voyage ain't bein' made to Kingston, Jamaica, but to another place, they'll tarn to and refuse to work the ship, as their agreement was for Kingston and nowhere else."
[Pg 244]
"That will be mutiny. To refuse an order aboard ship is mutiny. In the Navy we hang men for that sort of conduct."
"Well, sir," said Mr Eagle, who uttered his convictions with the misgiving which fear of the listener excites, "my own opinion is that it wouldn't be reckoned as mutiny. It wouldn't be justice if it was called mutiny, and treated as mutiny. 'Taint the crew that breaks the agreement by refusing to do something which they never shipped to undertake, but the owner who gives 'em a job when at sea which they would have declined to hear of had they been told of it ashore. And I'm surprised," he continued, emboldened by Mr Lawrence's silence, "that Captain Acton, who is a gentleman born, and a man one could sarve all his life with satisfaction to himself and employer, should get rid of his ship and crew in such a fashion. But, perhaps, all that you say, sir, won't be found in the instructions you are to read in latitude twenty."
"I am talking to you," said Mr Lawrence, with acid contempt, "not to gather your opinion of Captain Acton and of such instructions as he may have given me, but to acquaint you as an officer of this ship with such facts as I collected from Captain Acton's conversation, which must presently become the property of the whole crew. It seems to me,[Pg 245] sir," he continued, looking at his mean companion in his lofty, imperious, flaming way, "that even on the bare hint of the possibility of such a proceeding as I have stated, you are on the side of the crew, you advocate and express the cause of the crew, you anticipate the action which would be ranked as mutiny, and which would certainly cost human lives, unless, indeed, I decide upon a course of my own, by which I mean that if the crew refuse to work this ship to the place named by Captain Acton, I would steer to the nearest port and get rid of the whole of them and replace them by others; and if they refused to help me to navigate the ship to the nearest place, I would hoist a signal of distress and make my helpless situation known to the first man-o'-war that was not French or Spanish that came along."
Having driven in his nail firmly and deeply enough............