Part 7 (2/2)

An answer must be sent at once. Her husband telegraphed that they would come, but it was not without misgivings that he made this final decision. There was much at stake in an uncertain venture of the kind.

It meant a sacrifice of comfort for his wife and mother, big expense, and perhaps no better health in the end.

However, it seemed worth the risk, and having decided to go he began to look forward to the trip with boyish delight. ”It will be horrid fun,”

he said, ”to be an invalid gentleman on board a yacht, to walk around with a spy-gla.s.s under your arm, to make landings and trade beads and chromos for cocoanuts, and to have the natives swim out to meet you.”

He and Lloyd spent hours laying their course and making out lists of stores with which to furnish the schooner, regardless of the doubt expressed by their friends as to the capacity of the boat. ”They calmly proceeded with their interminable lists and scorned the criticism of a mere land-lubber. All conversation that was not of a nautical character failed to hold their interest.”

Cheered with strong hopes for Louis's future, the family departed for San Francisco on the 28th of May, 1888. Their one regret was the good friends they were leaving behind. This particularly affected Louis, but he tried to hide his feelings by making all sorts of lively and impossible proposals for their joining him later on.

His parting words to Mr. Low were: ”There's England over there--and I've left it--perhaps I may never go back--and there on the other side of this big continent there's another sea rolling in. I loved the Pacific in the days when I was at Monterey, and perhaps now it will love me a little. I am going to meet it; ever since I was a boy the South Seas have laid a spell upon me.”

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

”Since long ago, a child at home, I read and longed to rise and roam, Where'er I went, what'er I willed, One promised land my fancy filled.

Hence the long road my home I made; Tossed much in s.h.i.+ps; have often laid Below the uncurtained sky my head, Rain-deluged and wind buffeted; And many a thousand miles I crossed, And corners turned--love's labor lost, Till, Lady, to your isle of sun I came, not hoping, and like one s.n.a.t.c.hed out of blindness, rubbed my eyes, And hailed my promised land with cries.”

Once, while Louis was a discontented student at the University of Edinburgh, the premier of New Zealand, Mr. Seed, spent an evening with his father and talked about the South Sea Islands until the boy said he was ”sick with desire to go there.”

From that time on a visit to that out-of-the-way corner of the earth was a cherished dream, and he read everything he could lay hands on that told about it.

While in California, the first time, Mr. Virgil Williams, an artist, aroused his interest still more by the accounts of his own trip in the South Seas.

Now his opportunity to see them had actually come. He already knew much of the kind of places and people they were going among.

Three thousand miles across the open sea lay the Marquesas Islands, the first group they hoped to visit, and it was for that port their schooner, the _Casco_, turned her head when she was towed out of the Golden Gate at dawn on the 28th of June.

Besides the family and a servant, Valentine Roch, who had been with them since Bournemouth days, the party consisted of the skipper, Captain Otis, who was well acquainted with the Pacific, a crew of four deck-hands, and a j.a.panese cook.

The _Casco_ was a fore-and-aft schooner, ninety-five feet in length, of seventy tons' burden. ”She had most graceful lines and with her lofty masts, white sails and decks, and glittering bra.s.s work, was a lovely craft to the eye as she sat upon the water.”

”I must try to describe the vessel that is to be our home for so long,”

Mrs. Stevenson, senior, wrote to her sister at Colinton. ”From the deck you step down into the c.o.c.kpit, which is our open air drawing room. It has seats all around, nicely cus.h.i.+oned, and we sit or lie there most of the day. The compa.s.s is there, and the wheel, so the man at the wheel always keeps us company.... At the bottom of the stairs on the right hand side is the captain's room. Straight ahead is the main--or after--cabin, a nice bright place with a skylight and four portholes.

There are four sofas that can be turned into beds if need be, and there are lockers under them in which our clothes are stored away. Above and behind each sofa is a berth concealed by white lace curtains on bra.s.s rods, and in these berths we three women are laid away as on shelves each night to sleep.

”Opposite the entrance is a mirror let into the wall, with two small shelves under it. On each side of this is a door. The one to the right leads ... to Lloyd's cabin, and beyond that again is the forward cabin, or dining room. The door to the left opens into ... Louis'

sleeping-room. It is very roomy with both a bed and a sofa in it, so that he will be very comfortable....

”The dining room has a long table and chairs. Between the doors a very ugly picture of fruit and cake. Louis would fain cover it up if we could spare a flag with which to do it. The doors at the further end lead to the pantry and galley and beyond these are the men's quarters.”

No expense had been spared in building the _Casco_ to make her comfortable. She was intended, however, for cruising in the California waters and was hardly suited to the rough handling she received during the squally weather of the next few months. Fortunately she stood the test well and her pa.s.sengers suffered few discomforts.

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