She levelled the gla.s.s with the ease and precision of an old sailor.

'Yes,' she called to me, while she held the telescope to her eye; 'the man in the jacket and b.u.t.tons is writing in what looks to be a pocket-book; the other bends over him as though to see that the words are correct. I am satisfied!' and, putting the gla.s.s down, she returned to me.

The steamer was now astern of us, showing but little more than the breadth of her, rapidly growing toy-like as she swept onwards, with an oil-smooth wake spreading fan-shaped from her counter, and the white foam curving with the dazzle of sifted snow from either side the iron tooth of her shearing stem. My heart ached with the yearning for home as I followed her. At that moment eight bells was struck forward, and almost immediately Abraham came aft to relieve Mr. Jones, who, after saying a word or two to the boatman, picked up the board and went below.

'There's a hopportunity lost, Mr. Tregarthen,' exclaimed Abraham, looking at the receding steamer; 'not that me and Jacob ain't satisfied, but there's ne'er a doubt that wessel 'ud ha' taken you and the lady, if so be as Capt'n Bunting had asted her.'

'We are kept here against our will,' said I. 'What the man means to do I don't know, but what he _can_ do I now see. Unless I can get those black fellows to back the topsail and put us aboard the next ship when she comes along, here we must stop until it is the Captain's pleasure to release us.'

'But what does he want along of ye?' inquired Abraham, in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice, with a glance at the open skylight.

I looked at Helga, and then said bluntly--for I had some dim hope of this boatman and his mate being able to help us, and the plain truth must therefore be given to them: 'The long and short of it is, Abraham, the Captain greatly admires Miss Nielsen--he has fallen in love with her, in short--and so you have it.'

Helga looked and listened without any air of embarra.s.sment, as though the reference were of general instead of individual interest.

'But he hain't fallen in love with _you_, sir? Why do he want to keep ye both, then? Couldn't he have sent _you_ aboard?'

'You astonish me!' I cried. 'Do you suppose I would leave this lady alone in the vessel?'

'Why, p'raps not,' he answered; 'but, still, 'tain't as if _you_ was a lady, one of her own s.e.x, as was hacting companion to her. Oi don't mean to say that one man's as good as another; but I don't see no call for _you_ to keep all on in this here wessel.'

'What am I to understand you to mean?' cried I. 'That Miss Nielsen is to be left without a protector in the company of a fellow like Captain Bunting?'

'But if he's willing to be her protector, sir, ain't it all right?' he inquired.

'Has not your head been turned?' said Helga warmly, with a flushed face.

He looked stupidly from one to the other of us with a slow gaze and a mind labouring to master the difficulty he could not understand.

'Sorry if I've said anything to offend ye, miss,' said he; 'this here Capt'n's an honourable man, Oi allow, and he's evidently on the look-out for a wife. All I says is, what's the good of his keeping Mr.

Tregarthen away from his home when he's willing to take his place?'

'But he must not take his place!' exclaimed Helga, with glowing eyes, in which I looked to see a tear presently. 'I would drown myself if I were to be left here alone!'

A slow smile animated the leathern countenance of Abraham.

'Then, mum, asking your pardon, all Oi can say is, Mr. Tregarthen should ha' put it differently. When there's wan there's no call for tew, and there being wan already, then, of course, it's the Capt'n's duty to send ye both home as soon as he can.'

'If Captain Bunting persists,' said I, not choosing to follow the line of Abraham's reasoning, 'what is my remedy? You Deal boatmen have the reputation of knowing the law pretty well. First, has he the right to carry us with him against our wishes?'

'There's never much question of right along with sea captains,' he answered. 'My 'sperience is that what the master of a wessel chooses to do he _will_ do, and the rights of it somehow seems to come out of his doing of it.'

'But have we no remedy?' said I.

'Ask yourself the question!' he answered. 'Where's the remedy to be found?' and here he sent his eyes roaming over the sea and up aloft and along the decks.

'Of all Job's comforters!' I exclaimed.

'If I was you,' he continued, apparently not understanding my remark, and sending another cautious look at the open skylight, with a further subduing of his voice, 'what Oi'd do is this: Oi'd just enjoy myself at this 'ere gemman's expense, eat his wittles and drink his rum--and I'm bound to say this, that a better drop o' rum than he keeps in that there locker of his isn't to be met with afloat or ash.o.r.e--I say Oi'd drink and eat at his expense, and keep my spirits as joyful as sarc.u.mstances might permit, but taking care to let him know every day, oy, and p'raps twice a day--say at breakfast and at supper--that the lady and me wants to get home; and this Oi'd dew till we got to port, and then Oi'd bring an action agin him and sail home on the damages, with a few pound to the good.'

He had barely ceased, when he turned sharply round and marched aft, and as he did so the Captain mounted the p.o.o.p ladder, exclaiming:

'What very enjoyable weather, to be sure! Mr. Jones informs me that the message was duly noted. Now, Miss Nielsen, we may take it that our friend Mr. Tregarthen's mind is perfectly at ease.'

CHAPTER II.

I MAKE FREE.

It was four o'clock when the steamer pa.s.sed, and, half an hour later, she was out of sight, so rapid was the combined pace of the vessels. Her name was large upon her stern had we chosen to read it, but the mate was too busy with his board and I with my temper to note the letters, and Helga did not think of doing so, and thus it was that the steamer pa.s.sed away and none of us knew more about her than that she was a Cape Union mail-liner bound to England with now a message, meant for my mother, on board.

The Captain hung about us, and was all blandness, courtesy, and admiration when he addressed Helga or directed his eyes at her. On his first joining us she said quickly, pointing to the steamer that was still in sight:

'Why have you suffered us to lose that opportunity?'

'Mr. Tregarthen's and your company,' he answered, 'makes me so happy that I cannot bear to part with you yet!'

Her little nostrils enlarged, her blue eyes glittered, her breast quickly rose and fell.

'You called yourself a Samaritan yesterday!' she exclaimed, with all the scorn her tender soul was capable of, and her pensive, pretty face could express. 'Is this the way in which Samaritans usually behave?'

He viewed her as though she were a picture that cannot be held in a new position without disclosing a fresh grace.

'You are too good and kind to be cruel,' said he, regarding her with deepening admiration, as it seemed to me. 'The Samaritan played his part fairly well yesterday, I believe?' He blandly bowed to her with a countenance of exquisite self-complacency. 'He is still on board, my dear young lady, with a character in essentials unchanged, merely enlarged.' Here he spread his fingers upon his breast, and expanded his waistcoat, looking at her in a very knowing sort of way, with his head on one side. 'Now that we have sent our message home, there is no hurry.

Our little cruise,' he exclaimed, pointing over the bow, 'is almost entirely tropical, and there is no reason at all why we should not find it delightful!'

I caught Helga's eye, and exhorted her by a glance to keep silent. She fixed her gaze upon the deck, with a lip lightly curled by disgust, and I stepped aft under a pretence to look at the compa.s.s, with so much more contempt and anger than I could hold between my teeth that I dared not speak.

The breeze slackened as the sun sank, and at supper, as the Captain persisted in calling the last meal, the ocean fell calm and the old broad-bowed barque rolled sleepily, but with much creaking of her rheumatic bones, upon a long-drawn polished swell flowing out of the north-east. Her canvas beat the masts and fetched reports out of the tall spars that penetrated the little cuddy like discharges of musketry.

For a long while the Captain gave Helga and me no opportunity for a quiet talk. At table he was more effusive than he had been, distressingly importunate in his attentions to the girl, to whom he would address himself in tones of loverlike coaxing if she happened to say No to his entreaties to her to drink a little wine, to try a slice of ham, and the like. He begged us to make ourselves thoroughly at home; his coloured cook, he said, was not a first-rate hand, but if Miss Helga ever had a fancy, she need but name it, and it would go very hard with the cook if he failed to humour her.

'We are not a yacht,' said he, pulling a whisker and looking around, 'but, most fortunately, gaudy mirrors and handsome carpets and the ginger-bread ornamentations of the pleasure craft need never form any portion of human happiness at sea. The sun looks as brightly down upon the _Light of the World_ as upon the most stately ship afloat, the ocean breeze will taste as sweetly over my bulwark-rails as on the bridge of the gallantest man-of-war that flies the crimson cross;' and thus he went on vapouring as usual in fathoms of commonplace, yet with a bland underlying insistence always upon our being his guests, upon our remaining with him and being happy, as though, indeed, we had cheerfully consented to stop, and were looking forward with great enjoyment to the voyage.

I was as cold and distant as I could well be, answered him in monosyllables, ate as if with aversion, and as though I constrained myself to devour merely to keep body and soul together. But he did not seem to heed my manner in the least; I could swear, indeed, that he did not observe it. He was wholly engrossed in contemplation of Helga, and in the enjoyment of enlarging his waistcoat, and delivering, more or less through his nose, with a fixed smile and somewhat leering eye, the dull, trivial, insipid contents of his mind.

He asked the girl to play draughts with him when Punmeamootty had cleared the table. On her declining, he fetched from his cabin the volume of Jeremy Taylor--it was that divine's 'Holy Living and Dying,' I think--and asked permission to read a few pages aloud. She could not refuse, and I see that extraordinary shipmaster now, standing under the lamp, holding the portly volume up with both hands, smiling upon the page, pausing at intervals to look over the top of the book at the girl with a nod to serve as a point of admiration, and reading nasally without the faintest inflection, so that at a little distance his delivery must have sounded like a continuous groan. He then begged her to read to him.

'What greater treat could we have,' said he, looking at me, 'than to hear the rich, n.o.ble, impressive words of this great Bishop p.r.o.nounced by the charming lips of Miss Helga Nielsen?'

But she curtly refused; and, after hovering about her for another half-hour, during which I could notice a growing air in him that was a distinct intimation, in its way, of his entire satisfaction with the progress he was making, he withdrew to his cabin.

Helga looked at me with weariness and dismay, and moistened her lips.

'This is worse than the raft,' said I.