Volume II Part 42 (1/2)
”Ah,” said Mr. Amos,--”I see. My friend will have a safe wife in you.
Do you know, when I first saw you I stood in doubt. I thought you looked like--Well, never mind! It's all right.”
”Right!” said Captain Fox coming up behind them. ”I am glad somebody thinks so. Right!--lying broiling here all day, and sleeping all night as if we were in port and had nothing to do--when we're a long way from that. Drove you down to-day, didn't it?” said he turning to Eleanor.
”It was so hot; I could not get a bit of permanent shade anywhere. I went below for a little while.”
”And yet it's all right!” said the captain. ”I am afraid you are not in a hurry to get to the end of the voyage.”
Mr. Amos smiled and Eleanor blushed. The truth was, she never let herself think of the end of the voyage. The thought would come--the image standing there would start up--but she always put it aside and kept to the present; and that was one reason certainly why Eleanor's mind was so quiet and free and why the enjoyable and useful things of the hour were not let slip and wasted. So her spirits maintained their healthy tone; no doubt spurred to livelier action by the abiding consciousness of that spot of brightness in the future towards which she would not allow herself to look in bewildering imaginations.
Meanwhile the calm came to an end, as all things will; the beneficent trade wind took charge of the vessel again, and they sped on, south, south; till the sky over Eleanor's head was a new one from that all her life had known, and the bright stars at night looked at her as strangers. For study them as she would, she could not but feel theirs were new faces. The captain one day shewed her St. Helena in the distance; then the Cape of Good Hope was neared--and rounded--and in the Indian Ocean the travellers ploughed their way eastward. The island of St. Paul was pa.s.sed; and still the s.h.i.+p sailed on and on to the east.
Eleanor had observed for a day or two that there was an unusual degree of activity among the sailors. They seemed to be getting things into new trim; clearing up and cleaning; and the chain cable one day made its appearance on deck, where room had been made for it. Eleanor looked on at the proceedings, with a half guess at their meaning that made her heart beat.
”What is it?” she asked Captain Fox.
”What's all this rigging up? Why, we expect to see land soon. You like the sea so well, you'll be sorry.”
”How soon?”
”I shouldn't wonder, in a day or two. You will stop in Sydney till you get a chance to go on?”
”Yes.”
”I wish I could take you the whole way, I declare! but I would not take an angel into those awful islands. Why if you get s.h.i.+pwrecked there, they will kill and eat you.”
”There would be little danger of that now, Captain Fox; none at all in most of the islands. Instead of killing and eating, they relieve and comfort their s.h.i.+pwrecked countrymen.”
”Believe that?” said the captain.
”I know it. I know instances.”
”Whereabouts are you going among them?” said he looking at her. ”If I get driven out of my reckoning ever and find myself in those lat.i.tudes, I'd like to know which way to steer. Where's your place?”
He was not uncivil; but he liked to see, when he could manage to bring it, that beautiful tinge of rose in Eleanor's cheeks which answered such an appeal as this.
CHAPTER XV.
IN PORT.
”And the magic charm of foreign lands, With shadows of palm, and s.h.i.+ning sands, Where the tumbling surf O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar, Washes the feet of the swarthy 'Lascar.'--”
It was but the next day, and Eleanor was sitting as usual on deck looking over the waters in a lovely bright morning, when a sound was heard which almost stopped her heart's beating for a moment. It was the cry, rung out from the mast-head, ”Land, ho!”
”Where is it?” she said to the captain, who was behind her. ”I do not see it anywhere.”
”You will see it in a little while. Wait a bit. If you could go aloft I could shew it you now.”
”What land? do you know?”