Part 26 (2/2)
”Now, sir,” said Rolleston, ”trace the course of the boats;” and he handed Wylie a pencil.
The sailor slowly averted his head, but stretched out his hand and took it, and traced two lines, the one short and straight, running nearly northeast. ”That's the way the cutter headed when we lost her in the night.”
The other line ran parallel to the first for half an inch, then, turning, bent backward and ran due south.
”This was our course,” said Wylie.
General Rolleston looked up, and said, ”Why did you desert the cutter?”
The mate looked at old Wardlaw, and, after some hesitation, replied: ”After we lost sight of her the men with me declared that we could not reach either Juan Fernandez or Valparaiso with our stock of provisions, and insisted on standing for the sea-track of Australian liners between the Horn and Sydney.”
This explanation was received in dead silence. Wylie fidgeted, and his eye wandered round the room.
General Rolleston applied his compa.s.ses to the chart. ”I find that the _Proserpine_ was not one thousand miles from Easter Island. Why did you not make for that land?”
”We had no charts, sir,” said Wylie to the merchant, ”and I'm no navigator.”
”I see no land laid down hereaway, northeast of the spot where the s.h.i.+p went down.”
”No,” replied Wylie, ”that's what the men said when they made me 'bout s.h.i.+p.”
”Then why did you lead the way northeast at all?”
”I'm no navigator,” answered the man sullenly.
He then suddenly stammered out: ”Ask my men what we went through. Why, sir” (to Wardlaw), ”I can hardly believe that I am alive, and sit here talking to you about this cursed business. And n.o.body offers me a drop of anything.”
Wardlaw poured him out a tumbler of wine. His brown hand trembled a little, and he gulped the wine down like water.
General Rolleston gave Mr. Wardlaw a look, and Wylie was dismissed. He slouched down the street all in a cold perspiration; but still clinging to his three thousand pounds, though small was now his hope of ever seeing it.
When he was gone General Rolleston paced that large and gloomy room in silence. Wardlaw eyed him with the greatest interest, but avoided speaking to him. At last he stopped short, and stood erect, as veterans halt, and pointed down at the chart.
”I'll start at once for that spot,” said he. ”I'll go in the next s.h.i.+p bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace of my poor lost girl.”
”Can you think of no better way than that?” said old Wardlaw, gently, and with a slight tone of reproach.
”No--not at this moment. Oh, yes, by the by, the _Greyhound_ and _Dreadnaught_ are going out to survey the islands of the Pacific. I have interest enough to get a berth in the _Greyhound.”_
”What! go in a government s.h.i.+p! under the orders of a man, under the orders of another man, under the orders of a board. Why, if you heard our poor girl was alive upon a rock, the _Dreadnaught_ would be sure to run up a bunch of red-tape to the fore that moment to recall the _Greyhound,_ and the _Greyhound_ would go back. No,” said he, rising suddenly, and confronting the general, and with the color mounting for once in his sallow face, ”you sail in no bottom but one freighted by Wardlaw & Son, and the captain shall be under no orders but yours. We have bought the steam-sloop _Springbok_, seven hundred tons. I'll victual her for a year, man her well, and you shall go out in her in less than a week. I give you my hand on that.”
They grasped hands.
But this sudden warmth and tenderness, coming from a man habitually cold, overpowered the stout general. ”What, sir,” he faltered; ”your own son lies in danger, yet your heart goes so with me--such goodness--it is too much for me.”
”No, no,” faltered the merchant, affected in his turn; ”it is nothing.
Your poor girl was coming home in that cursed s.h.i.+p to marry my son. Yes, he lies ill for love of her; G.o.d help him and me too; but you most of all. Don't, general; don't! We have got work to do; we must be brave, sir; brave, I say, and compose ourselves. Ah, my friend, you and I are of one age; and this is a heavy blow for us. And we are friends no more; it has made us brothers. She was to be my child as well as yours; well, now she _is_ my child, and our hearts they bleed together.” At this, the truth must be told, the two stout old men embraced one another like two women, and cried together a little.
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