The chief officer, the Scotch-faced man I have before written of, sat at the foot of the table, slowly and soberly eating.

"It would be strange, sir," said I, addressing him, "if we do not hereabout speedily fall in with something homeward bound."

"I would, sir," he answered, with a broad Scotch accent.

"Yet not so strange, Mr. M'Cosh," said a pa.s.senger, sitting opposite to me, "if you come to consider how wide the sea is here."

"Well, perhaps not so strange either," said Mr. M'Cosh, in his sawdusty voice, with his mouth full.

"Should you pa.s.s a steamer at night," said I, "would you stop and hail her?"

He reflected, and then said, he "thocht not."

"Then our opportunities for getting home must be limited to daylight?"

said I.

This seemed too obvious to him, I suppose, to need a response.

"Are you in a very great hurry, Mr. Barclay, to get home?" exclaimed a pa.s.senger, with a slight cast in his eye that gave a turn of humour to his face.

"Why, yes," I answered, with a glance at Grace, who was eating quietly at my side, seldom looking up, though she was as much stared at, even after all these hours, as decent manners would permit. "You will please remember that we are without luggage."

"Eh, but that is to be managed, I think. There are many of us here of both s.e.xes," continued the gentleman with the cast in his eye, sending a squint along the row of people on either side of the table. "You should see New Zealand, sir. The country abounds with fine and n.o.ble prospects, and I do not think," he added, with a smile, "that you will find occasion to complain of a want of hospitality."

"I am greatly obliged," said I, giving him a bow; "but New Zealand is a little distant for the moment."

The subject of New Zealand was now, however, started, and the conversation on its harbours, revenue, political parties, debts, prospects, and the like, was exceedingly animated, and lasted pretty nearly through the dinner. Though Grace and I were seated at the foremost end of the table, removed nearly by the whole length of it from the captain, I was sensible that this talk to those near him mainly concerned us. He had, as I have said, Mrs. Barstow on one hand, and on the other sat the lady with the thin lips and sausage curls. I would notice him turn first to one, then to the other, his round sea-coloured face broadened by an arch knowing smile; then Mrs. Barstow would look at us; then the lady with the thin lips would stretch her neck to take a peep down the line in which we sat; others would also look, smirk a bit, and address themselves, with amused faces, in a low voice to Captain Parsons.

All this was not so marked as to be offensive, or even embarra.s.sing, but it was a very noticeable thing, and I whispered to Grace that we seemed to form the sole theme of conversation at the captain's end.

"What can they be talking about?" said I. "I hope they are not plotting to carry us to New Zealand."

"You would not permit it!" she exclaimed, giving me an eager, alarmed look.

"No," said I, "it is too far off. Were it Madeira now--it may come to Madeira yet; but the pity of it is, my sweet," said I, low in her ear, "we are not married, otherwise we might call this trip our honeymoon, and make a really big thing of it by going the whole way to New Zealand."

She coloured and was silent, afraid, I think, of my being overheard, for my spirits were now as good as they were yesterday wretched, and whenever I felt happy I had a trick of talking rather loud.

When dinner was over we went on deck. Mrs. Barstow and the thin-lipped lady carried off Grace for a stroll up and down the planks, and I joined a few of the gentlemen pa.s.sengers on the quarter-deck to smoke a cigar one of them gave me. There was a fine breeze out of the east, and the ship, with yards nearly square, was sliding and rolling stately along her course at some six or seven miles in the hour. The west was flushed with red, but a few stars were trembling in the airy dimness of the evening blue over the stern, and in the south was the young moon, a pale curl, but gathering from the clearness of the atmosphere a promise of radiance enough later on to touch the sea with silver under it and fling a gleam of her own upon our soaring sails.

I had almost finished my cigar--two bells, seven o'clock had not long been struck--when one of the stewards came out of the saloon, and approaching me exclaimed:

"Captain Parson's compliments, sir, and he'll be glad to see you in his cabin if you can spare him a few minutes."

"With pleasure," I answered, flinging the end of my cigar overboard, instantly concluding that he wished to see me privately to arrange about terms and accommodation whilst Grace and I remained with him.

CHAPTER X

A SINGULAR PROPOSAL

I followed the man into the saloon and was led right aft where stood two large cabins. On entering I found Captain Parsons sitting at a table covered with nautical instruments, books, writing materials and so forth. A lighted bracket lamp near the door illuminated the interior, and gave me a good view of the hearty little fellow, and his sea-furniture of cot, locker, chest of drawers, and wearing apparel that slided to and fro upon the bulkhead as it dangled from pegs. His air was as grave, and his countenance as full of importance as such features as his were capable of expressing. Having asked me to take a seat, he surveyed me thoughtfully for some moments in silence.

"Young gentleman," said he at last, "before we man the windla.s.s I have to beg you'll not take amiss any questions I may put. Whatever I ask won't be out of curiosity. I believe I can see my way to doing you and your pretty young lady a very considerable service: but I shall first want all the truth you may think proper to give me."

I heard him with some astonishment. What could he mean? What service had he in contemplation?

"The truth of what, Captain Parsons?" said I.

"Well, now, your relations with Miss Bella.s.sys--it's an elopement, I believe?"

"That is so," I answered, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to feel vexed.

"Though the young lady," he continued, "is not one of my pa.s.sengers in the sense that the rest of 'em are, she is aboard my ship, and as though by the Divine ordering, committed to my care, as are you and every man Jack of the two hundred and four souls who are sailing with me. Of course you know that we shipmasters have very great powers."

I merely inclined my head, wondering what he was driving at.

"A shipmaster," he proceeded, "is lord paramount, quite the c.o.c.k of his own walk, and nothing must crow where he is. He is responsible for the safety and comfort, for the well-being, moral, spiritual, and physical, of every creature aboard his ship; no matter the circ.u.mstances under which that creature came aboard, whether by paying cabin money, by shipwreck, or by signing articles. Miss Bella.s.sys has come into my hands, and it is my duty, as master of this ship, to see that she's done right by."

The conflict of twenty emotions rendered me quite incapable to do anything more than stare at him.

"Now, Mr. Barclay," he continued, crossing his bow legs, and wagging a little stunted forefinger in a kindly, admonishing way, "don't be affronted by this preface, and don't be affronted by what I'm going to ask, for if all be plain sailing, I shall be able to do you and the young lady a real A1, copper-fastened service."

"Pray ask any questions you wish, captain," said I.

"This is an elopement, you say?"

"It is."

"Where from?"

"Boulogne-sur-Mer."

"Bullong-sewer-mare," he repeated. "Was the young lady at school?"

"She was."

"What might be her age, now?"

"She will be eighteen next so-and-so," said I, giving him the month.

He suddenly jumped up, and I could not imagine what he meant to do, till pulling open a drawer, he took out a large box of cigars which he placed upon the table.

"Pray, light up, Mr. Barclay," said he, looking to see if the window of his port-hole was open. "They are genuine Havannah cigars." He lighted one himself and proceeded. "What necessity was there for this elopement?"

"Miss Bella.s.sys is an orphan," I answered, still so much astonished that I found myself almost mechanically answering him as though I were in a witness-box, and he was Mr. Justice Parsons in a wig instead of an old, bow-legged, pimple-nosed, merchant skipper. "Her father was Colonel Bella.s.sys, who died some years ago in India. On her mother's death she was taken charge of by her aunt, Lady Amelia Roscoe. Lady Amelia's husband was a gentleman named Withycombe Roscoe, whose estate in Kent adjoined my father's, Sir Herbert Barclay, the engineer."