Volume II Part 11 (1/2)

'You will signal to her, I hope?' said I.

'Ay,' answered Abraham; 'we'll gi' 'em a flourish of the Jack presently, though there'll be little need, for if our condition ain't going to stop 'em there's nothen in a colour to do it.'

'Abraham,' said I, 'you and Jacob will not, I am sure, think us ungrateful if I say that I have made up my mind--and I am sure Miss Nielsen will agree--that I have made up my mind, Abraham, to leave your lugger for that s.h.i.+p, outward-bound as I can see she is, if she will receive us.'

'Well, sir,' answered Abraham mildly, 'you and the lady are your own masters, and, of course, you'll do as you please.'

'It is no longer right,' I continued, 'that we should go on in this fas.h.i.+on, eating you out of your little floating house and home; nor is it reasonable that we should keep you deprived of the comfort of your forepeak. We owe you our lives, and, G.o.d knows, we are grateful! But our grat.i.tude must not take the form of compelling you to go on maintaining us.'

Abraham took a slow look at the s.h.i.+p.

'Well, sir,' said he, 'down to this hour the odds have been so heavy agin your exchanging this craft for a homeward-bounder that I really haven't the heart to recommend ye to wait a little longer. It's but an oncomfortable life for the likes of you and the lady--she having to loie in a little bit of a coal-black room, forrads, as may be all very good for us men, but werry bad and hard for her; and you having to tarn in under that there opening, into which there's no vartue in sailcloth to keep the draughts from blowing. I dorn't doubt ye'll be happier aboard a craft where you'll have room to stretch your legs in, a proper table to sit down to for your meals, and a cabin where you'll loie snug. 'Sides, tain't, after all, as if she wasn't agoing to give ye the same chances of getting home as the _Airly Marn_ dew. Only hope she'll receive ye.'

'Bound to it,' rumbled Jacob, 'if so be as her cap'n's a _man_.'

I turned to Helga.

'Do I decide wisely?'

'Yes, Hugh,' she answered. 'I hate to think of you lying in that cold s.p.a.ce there throughout the nights. The two poor fellows,' she added softly, 'are generous, kind, large-hearted men, and I shrink from the thought of the mad adventure they have engaged in. But,' said she, with a little smile and a faint touch of colour in her cheeks, as though she spoke reluctantly, 'the _Early Morn_ is very uncomfortable.'

'All we have now to pray for is that the captain of that vessel will take us on board,' said I, fixing my eyes on the s.h.i.+p, that was yet too distant for the naked sight to make anything of. 'I suppose, Abraham,' I spoke out, turning to the man, 'that you will request them to give you a boom for a spare mast?'

'Vy, ask yourself the question, sir,' he answered.

'But suppose they have no spare booms, and are unable to accommodate you?'

'Then,' said he, 'we must up with that there stick,' pointing with his square thumb to the mast that had carried away on the previous night, 'and blow along till we meets with something that _will_ accommodate us.'

'But, honestly, men--are you in earnest in your resolution to pursue this voyage to Australia? You two--the crew now half the working strength you started with--a big boat of eighteen tons to handle, and----' I was on the point of referring to the slenderness of his skill as a navigator, but, happily, snapped my lips in time to silence the words.

Abraham eyed me a moment, then gave me a huge, emphatic nod, and, without remark, turned his back upon me in 'longsh.o.r.e fas.h.i.+on, and leisurely looked around the ocean line.

'Men,' said I, 'that s.h.i.+p may take us aboard, and in the bustle I may miss the chance of saying what is in my mind. My name is Hugh Tregarthen, as you know, and I live at Tintrenale, which you have likewise heard me say. I came away from home in a hurry to get alongside the s.h.i.+p that this brave girl's father commanded; and as I was then, so am I now, without a single article of value upon me worthy of your acceptance; for, as to my watch, it was my father's, and I must keep it.

But if it should please G.o.d, men, to bring us all safely to England again, then, no matter when you two may return, whether in twelve months hence or twelve years hence, you will find set apart for you, at the little bank in Tintrenale, a sum of fifty pounds--which you will take as signifying twenty-five pounds from Miss Helga Nielsen, and twenty-five pounds from me.'

'We thank you koindly, sir,' said Jacob.

'Let us get home, first,' said Abraham; 'yet, I thank ye koindly tew, Mr. Tregarthen,' he added, rounding upon me again and extending his rough hand.

I grasped and held it with eyes suffused by the emotion of grat.i.tude which possessed me: then Jacob shook hands with me, and then the poor fellows shook hands with Helga, whose breath I could hear battling with a sob in her throat as she thanked them for her life and for their goodness to her.

But every minute was bringing the s.h.i.+p closer, and now I could think of nothing else. Would she back her topsail and come to a stand? Would she at any moment s.h.i.+ft her helm and give us a wide berth? Would she, if she came to a halt, receive Helga and me? These were considerations to excite a pa.s.sion of anxiety in me. Helga's eyes, with a clear blue gleam in them, were fixed upon the oncoming vessel; but the agitation, the hurry of emotions in her little heart, showed in the trembling of her nostrils and the contraction of her white brow, where a few threads of her pale-gold hair were blowing.

Jacob pulled the Jack out of the locker, and attached it to the long staff or pole, and fell to waving it as before, when the Hamburger hove into view. The s.h.i.+p came along slowly, but without deviating by a hair's breadth from her course, that was on a straight line with the lugger.

She was still dim in the blue, windy air, but determinable to a certain extent, and now with the naked vision I could distinguish her as a barque or s.h.i.+p of about the size of the _Anine_, her hull black and a row of painted ports running along either side. She sat somewhat high upon the water, as though she were half empty or her cargo very light goods; but she was neat aloft--different, indeed, from the Hamburger.

Her royals were stowed in streaks of snow upon their yards, but the rest of her canvas was spread, and it showed in soft, fair bosoms of white, and the cloths carried, indeed, an almost yacht-like brilliance as they steadily swung against the steely gray of the atmosphere of the horizon.

The s.h.i.+p pitched somewhat heavily as she came, and the foam rose in milky clouds to the hawse-pipes with a regular alternation of the lifting out of the round, wet, black bows, and a flash of suns.h.i.+ne off the streaming timbers. From time to time Jacob flourished his flagstaff, all of us, meanwhile, waiting and watching in silence. Presently, Abraham put his little telescope to his eye, and, after a pause, said: