Part 9 (1/2)
”I spoke from the impulse of the moment. I really have no intention of leaving the navy, which I love as much as any man.”
”I am glad of it,” said Stella, giving him an approving smile.
Jack, who was decidedly matter-of-fact, was wondering what wrongs Stella wished him to redress, when their conversation was interrupted, and he had no opportunity of asking her till they had mounted their horses and were riding homeward. Jack at last put the question.
”In all parts of the world,” answered Stella, with some little hesitation. ”Look, too, over yonder vast continent.” She pointed to the blue mountains of c.u.mana seen across the gulf. ”From north to south wrong and oppression reigns. Even in those states nominally free, one set of tyrants have but been superseded by another as regardless of the rights of the people as the first.”
”I have not often met young ladies imbued with sentiments such as yours,” observed Jack.
”Few young ladies you have met, probably, have fathers like mine,”
answered Stella.
She stopped as if she was saying too much. Jack recollected the observations he had heard at Don Antonio's luncheon-room. Probably the colonel is engaged in one of the many revolutionary schemes connected with the late Spanish South American dependencies, he thought. ”His daughter very naturally has faith in the justice of the cause he has espoused.”
”Yes, I confess that I have adopted my father's sentiments,” said Stella, as if she had known what was pa.s.sing in his mind. ”It is but natural, for we are all in all to each other. My mother is dead, and I have no sister or brother. He might have enjoyed a well-won rest at home without dishonour; but he disdained, while possessing health and strength, to remain in idleness, and I entreated that he would not leave me behind, so we came out here some time ago; and while he has made excursions on the continent, I have mostly resided with our friends here, though I have occasionally accompanied him. We have made some long trips by sea, and I have ridden with him several hundred miles on horseback.”
Jack, who believed that young ladies were most fitly employed in household affairs, or in practising the accomplishments they might have learned with an occasional attendance at a ball or archery meeting, thought his fair companion an enthusiast, a perfect heroine of romance, though he did not tell her so. She possibly considered him somewhat dull and phlegmatic. Jack's notion of duty was to gain as much professional knowledge as possible; to obey the orders he might receive, and to carry them out to the best of his ability.
The mids.h.i.+pmen had no reason to complain of the breakfast spread before them on their return to the house; meats and sweets and fruits, unknown even by name; and such coffee, and perfectly ambrosial cacao. The young ladies seemed to have nothing to do but to amuse them, and perfectly ready they were to be amused, in a quiet way though, for the heat in the middle of the day was too great for much skylarking.
Don Antonio and the other gentlemen had gone into the town but they returned in the evening with Captain Hemming, who invited all the party to take a cruise to the southern end of the island, as he wished to visit the Pitch Lake and the Indian settlements, and to perform certain official duties. The colonel and his daughter, and Don Antonio and his wife, with most of the young ladies, accepted it, and a very delightful trip they had; and, of course, a dance was got up on board, which was more interesting to the fair damsels and the naval officers than any of the natural curiosities the island could afford. It was whispered in the gunroom that they were to have some of their visitors on board for a much longer time, and it at last came out that the captain had promised a pa.s.sage to Colonel O'Regan and his daughter to Jamaica. Adair and Gerald rode out to wish their cousins good-bye. The old lady was as cordial as ever, and all of them made much of the mids.h.i.+pmen; but Terence had a slight suspicion that the younger ones were somewhat piqued that he and Jack had not laid their hearts at their feet. They were very pretty, charming girls, he acknowledged, and he was not certain what might have happened had he remained longer. Perhaps they were just a little jealous of Stella. He thought so when his sweet cousin Maria whispered, ”No one will deny that she is very beautiful, but she is cold as the snow on Chimborazo, and it is said that while playing havoc with the affections of her admirers, she leaves them to their fate with the most callous indifference.”
”Jack Rogers thinks very differently of her,” remarked Adair. ”He says that she is one of the most enthusiastic creatures he has ever met; but still I don't know that he can exactly make her out.”
”No one can,” answered Maria. ”She seems very affectionate to us, and grateful for the attention we have been able to show her, and yet we do not know her better now than we did at first.”
Just then the subject of their conversation approached, and directly afterwards Jack and his brother rode up to pay a short farewell visit, and to escort Stella to the town, where her father was waiting for her to go on board the frigate. The bustle of preparation prevented any further conversation. Donna Katerina a.s.sured Terence that he might rely on being welcomed as a relative should he return to Trinidad, and was equally civil to Jack when, in his usual hearty way, he wished his friends good-bye. He was watched narrowly as he handed Stella into the carriage, but the keenest eyes could not detect anything in his manner beyond the ordinary respect due to a lady.
The captain had come to the landing-place to escort his guests on board the frigate. They reached her side just as the sunset gun was fired.
Stella gave not the slightest start at the sound, but sat as unmoved as her soldier father. Jack remarked the grace and, at the same time, the confidence with which she stepped up the accommodation-ladder, and walked along the deck as if well accustomed to ascending a s.h.i.+p's side.
”I never met a girl better fitted to be a heroine than she is,” he thought. ”Still my sister Mary and Lucy are of the style I fancy best.”
The young lady was followed by her only attendant, a black damsel, carrying her dressing-case, and other articles, which nothing would induce her to commit to the charge of the men who offered to take them.
”Missie Stella tell me not lose dem,” she answered, with a knowing shake of her head. ”No, no, tank yoo.”
Stella retired at an early hour to the cabin the captain had fitted up for her, with a small one close to it for the faithful Polly. She wished to be on deck, she said, to see the s.h.i.+p get under weigh in the morning. She and the colonel were pretty freely discussed in the gunroom and mids.h.i.+pmen's berth. All acknowledged that she was handsome, but some thought her proud and haughty, and others that she was rather slow, whilst Gerald was of opinion that his cousins beat her hollow, in which Tom agreed with him heartily.
”Much more jolly girls they are,” said Tom. ”How they laughed at Spider's antics! I only wish we may find a batch of such cousins in every place we go to with as capital a country-house.”
Terence p.r.o.nounced her a Sphinx. Perhaps he was bia.s.sed by the opinion the fair Maria had expressed. Jack did not altogether like to hear her talked about, especially by the master and purser, or the lieutenant of marines, who called her a monstrously fine woman. The colonel was fair game. No one could make out who he was, what brought him out to that part of the world, or why the captain was so polite to him. Perhaps it was for his daughter's sake. He was stiff and donnish, and had scarcely condescended to speak to any one. Jack and Terence defended him on this point, but still he did not appear to have made a favourable impression during the day he had been on board.
With a leading wind and on the brightest of bright mornings, the frigate was standing towards the Boca de Huevos, one of the dragon's mouths, which lead out of the Gulf of Paria into the open ocean. Everything looked brilliant--the s.h.i.+p herself, the sea, the sky, the land. The pa.s.sage seemed broad enough for a dozen s.h.i.+ps to sail out abreast, between the lofty tree-covered crags which formed the sh.o.r.es of the islands on either side. Still every precaution was taken; the lead was kept going, the crew were at their stations. Stella and her father stood on the deck watching the sh.o.r.e as the s.h.i.+p glided rapidly on.
Lieutenant Jennings was the only person at liberty to attend to them, and he was doing his best to make himself agreeable; but he found, after a few attempts, that he succeeded better with the colonel than with his daughter. ”Grand cliffs those,” he observed; ”awkward for a s.h.i.+p to run against. No chance of our doing so, however.”
”Not so certain of that,” answered the colonel. ”The wind is scant and has fallen.”
The yards were braced sharp up, and the quartermaster was keeping the s.h.i.+p as close to the wind as possible.
”Why we are almost through the pa.s.sage; a few hundred yards more, and we shall be in the open sea,” remarked the lieutenant.
”Without a breeze those few hundred yards will be too much for us,” said the colonel.