Part 19 (1/2)

”What a lonely life to lead!” said Conal next day at breakfast.

”Yes,” said Morgan, ”and I shouldn't care to get spliced and settle down here all my life, pretty and all as the girls are.”

”Well, you would live long and be healthy anyhow if you did,” said Captain Talbot.

The mate laughed as he helped himself to another huge slice of barracouta.

”Never mind that, sir. I wouldn't marry and live in Tristan if they gave me three wives.”

”But aren't these girls shy?” said Frank. ”Why, I asked one innocently enough to give me a kiss, and she blushed like a blood orange.”

”Did she give you the kiss?” asked Morgan mischievously.

”No, that she didn't, but--I took it.”

The _Flora M'Vayne_ lay here for a whole week, fis.h.i.+ng and curing each catch.

This was a rare holiday for the islanders, who were the gayest of the gay all the time.

One morning a sailor of the crew sought an interview with Captain Talbot on the quarter-deck.

”Well, my man?”

”Well, sir, it's like this. I've fallen in love here with the slickest-lookin' bit of a la.s.s I ever clapped eyes upon 'twix' here, sir, and San Domingo; and if you please, capting, I wants to stay here and marry her right away, and live happy hever arterwards.”

The captain laughed.

”My good fellow,” he said, ”I am truly sorry to disappoint you; but you signed articles for all the cruise, you know, and I fear I can't let you go. I'd be one hand short, you see.”

”That you would not, sir, for there is Billy Ibsen, as good a seaman, I believe, as ever 'auled taut a lee main brace, and he'll be 'appy to exchange.”

”Well then, Smith, if that's the case, and the subst.i.tute is suitable, I mustn't throw any obstacles in your way.”

And so all ended well. Ibsen proved fit, and Smith went on sh.o.r.e. When the _Flora_ sailed away he was the last man visible, standing on an eminence waving a red bandanna, with the girl of his choice standing modestly by his side.

Little did this island la.s.sie think when the s.h.i.+p hove in sight that it was bringing her a lover and a husband.

But although rare at Tristan Da Cunha, the young ladies of that solitary rock, in the midst of the Atlantic broad and wild, do sometimes count upon the possibility of such an event, and may be heard singing:

”He's coming from the north that will marry me, He's coming from the north, and oh happy I will be, With a broad-sword by his side and a buckle on his knee, And I know it, oh, I know it, that he'll marry me”.

But the Tristan Da Cunha people are moral and good, and although they have no parson on board they have services on Sunday. As to marriage--well, the governor does the splicing, and it is considered quite as binding as if the ceremony had been performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Southward now they sailed away in a delightful breeze, and when the sun was slowly sinking towards the western sea, the weird wee island of Tristan appeared but as a hazy cloud far away on the northern horizon.

So strange a place our young heroes had never visited before, and for many days it seemed but an island of dreamland.

But that island, readers, is still there amidst its waste of waters, and it is within the kaleidoscope of events, that some of you may yet visit its iron-bound and surf-beaten sh.o.r.es.