Lucy's cheeks were carnation; but the next moment they were white, for a terrible event interrupted this chat; two huge waves rolled one behind the other-an occurrence which luckily is not frequent; the boat, descending into the valley of the sea, had the wind taken out of her sails by the high wave that was coming; her sails flapped, she lost her speed, and as she rose again the second wave was a moment too quick for her, and its combing crest caught her. The first thing Lucy saw was Jack running from the helm with a loud cry of fear, followed by what looked an arch of fire, but sounded like a lion rushing growling on its prey, and directly her feet and ankles were in a pool of water. : David bounded aft, swearing and splashing through it, and it turned into sparks of white fire flying this way and that he seized the helm and discharged a loud volley of curses at Jack. "Fling out ballast, ye cowardly, useless lubber!" cried he; and while Jack, who had recoiled into his normal state of nerves with almost ridiculous rapidity, was heaving out ballast David discharged another rolling volley at him. "Oh, pray don't!" cried Lucy, trembling like an aspen leaf. "Oh, think! we shall soon be in the presence of our Maker-of Him whose name Not we," cried David, with broad, cheerful incredulity; "we have lots more mischief to dothat lubber and I. And if he thinks he is going there, let him end like a man, not like a skulking lubber, running from the helm and letting the craft come up in the wind." sick torpor: he lay in a tidy little pool some eight inches deep. The boat was baled and lightened; but Lucy's fears were not set at rest. What was to hinder the recurrence of the same danger, and with more fatal effect? She timidly asked David's permission to let her keep the sea out. Instead of snubbing her as she expected, David consented with a sort of paternal benevolence tinged with incredulity. She then developed her plan; it was that David, Jack, and she, should sit in a triangle, and hold the tarpaulin out to windward, and fence the ocean out. Jack, being summoned aft to council, burst into a hoarse laugh, but David checked him. "There is more in it than you see, Jack; more than she sees, perhaps. My only doubt is whether it is possible; but you can try." Lucy and Jack then tried to get the tarpaulin out to windward instead of which it carried them to leeward, by the force of the wind. The mast brought them up, or heaven knows where their new invention would have carried them. With infinite difficulty they got it down and kneeled upon it, and even then it struggled. But Lucy would not be defeated; she made Jack gather it up in the middle, and roll it first to the right and then to the left, till it became a solid roll with two narrow open edges. They then carried it abaft, and lowered it vertically over the stern port; then suddenly turned it round, and sat down. Crack! the wind opened it, and wrapped it round the boat and the trio. "Hallo!" cried David, "it is foul of the rudder," and he whipped out his knife and made a slit in No! no! It was the sea he ran from. Who the stuff. It now clung like a blister. would not?" "The lubber! If it had been a tiger or a bear, I'd say nothing; but what is the use of trying to run from the sea? Should have stuck to his post and set that thundering back of his up-it's broad enough-and kept the sea out of your boots. The sea indeed! I have seen the sea come on board me, and clear the deck fore and aft, but it didn't come in the shape of a cupful o' water and a spoonful o' foam." Here David's wrath and contempt were interrupted by Jack singing waggishly at his work: "Cease-rude Boreas-blustering-railer!" At which sly hit David was pleased, and burst into a loud boisterous laugh. Lucy put her hands to her ears. "There, Mr. Dodd, will not that keep the sea out?" asked Lucy triumphantly. "At any rate, it may help to keep us ahead of the sea. Why, Jack! I seem to feel it lift her it's as good as a mizen." : "But, oh! Mr. Dodd, there is another danger. We may broach-to." "How can she broach-to when I am at the helm? here is the arm that won't let her broachto." "Then I feel safe." "You are as safe as on your own sofa. It is the discomfort you are put to that worries me." "Don't think so meanly of me, Mr. Dodd. If it was not for my cowardice, I should enjoy this voyage far more than the luxurious ease you think so dear to me; I despise it." "Mr. Dodd, now I am no longer afraid, I am-oh, so sleepy!" 'No wonder; go to sleep. It is the best you can do." "Thank you, sir. I am aware my conversation is not very interesting." 66 You Why did you awake? you were happy. felt no care; and I was happy seeing you so.' Lucy's eyes filled. "Kind, true friend," she murmured; "how can I ever thank you as I ought? I little deserved that you should watch over my Having administered this sudden bloodless scratch, to show that at sea, or ashore, in fair weather or foul, she retained her sex, Lucy disposed herself to sleep. David, steering the boat with his left hand, arranged the cushion with his right. She settled herself to sleep, for an irresis-safety as you have done, and, alas ! risk your own. tible drowsiness had followed the many hours of excitement she had gone through. Twice the heavy plunging sea brought her into light contact with David; she instantly woke and apologised to him with gentle dismay, for taking so audacious a liberty with that great man, commander of the vessel; the third time she said nothing, a sure sign she was unconscious. Then David, for fear she might hurt herself, curled his arm round her, and let her head decline upon his shoulder. Her bonnet fell off; he put it reverently on the other side of the helm. The air now cleared, but the gale increased rather than diminished. And now the moon rose large and bright. The boat and masts stood out like white stonework against the flint-coloured sky, and the silver light played on Lucy's face. There she lay all unconscious of her posture, on the man's shoulder who loved her, and whom she had refused her head thrown back in sweet helplessness; her rich hair streaming over David's shoulder; her eyes closed, but the long lovely lashes meeting so that the double fringe was as speaking as most eyes, and her lips half open in an innocent smile. The storm was no storm to her now. She slept the sleep of childhood, of innocence, and peace; and David gazed and gazed on her, and joy and tenderness almost more than human thrilled through him, and the storm was no storm to him either. He forgot the past, defied the future, and in the delirium of his joy, blessed the sea and the wind, and wished for nothing but, instead of the Channel, a boundless ocean, and to sail upon it thus-her bosom tenderly grazing him, and her lovely head resting on his shoulder-for ever, and ever, and ever. Thus they sailed on for two hours and more, and Jack now began to nod. All of a sudden Lucy awoke, and, opening her eyes, surprised David gazing at her with tenderness unspeakable. Awaking possessed with the notion that she was sleeping at home on a bed of down, she looked dumbfounded an instant; but David's eyes soon sent the blood into her cheek. Her whole supple person turned eel-like, and she glided quickly but not the least brusquely from him; the latter might have seemed discourteous. "Oh! Mr. Dodd," she cried, "what am I doing?" "You have been getting a nice sleep, thank heaven!" Any other but you would have borne me malice, and let me perish, and said, 'It serves her right.'' "Malice! Miss Lucy. What for, in heaven's name?" "For-for the affront I put upon you: for the honour I declined." 66 "Hate cannot lie alongside love in a true heart." "I see it cannot in a noble one. And then you are so generous. You have never once recurred to that unfortunate topic, yet you have gained a right to request me-to re-consider-Mr. Dodd, you have saved my life!" "What, do you praise me because I don't take a mean advantage? That would not be behaving like a man." "I don't know that. You over-rate your sexand mine. We don't deserve such generosity. The proof is, we reward those who are not sodelicate." "I don't trouble my head about your sex. They are nothing to me, and never will be. If you think I have done my duty like a man, and as much like a gentleman as my homely education permits, that is enough for me, and I shall sail for China as happy as anything on earth can make me now." Lucy answered this by crying gently, silently, tenderly. Jack looked out, and there was a mountain of "Yes, and making use of you, even in my sleep; jet rising out of the sea, and, to a landsman's eye, but we all impose on your goodness!" within a stone's throw of them. "Is it the French coast, sir? I must have been little of it goes a long way. I don't know much asleep." myself, but I do know the soundings of the British "French coast? no; Channel Island-smallest Channel. I have made them my study. On the of the lot." "Better give it a wide berth, sir. We shall go smash like a teacup if we run on to one of them rocky islands." "Why, Jack," said David, reproachfully, "am I the man to run upon a lee-shore; and such a night as this?" south side of this rocky point there is forty fathom water close to the shore, and good anchorageground." "Then I wish we could jump over the thundering island, and drop on to the lee-side of it; but as we can't, what's the use?" "We may be able to round the point." "Not likely; you will keep her head for Cherbourg, or St. Malo, sir; it is our only chance." "It is not our only chance, nor our best. We have been running a little ahead of this gale, Jack; there is worse in store for us: the sea is rolling mountains high on the French coast this morning, I know. We are like enough to be pooped before we get there, or swamped on some harbour-bar at last." "Well, sir, we must take our chance." "Take our chance? what with heads on our shoulders, and an angel on board that heaven has given us charge of. No! I shan't take my chance. I shall try all I know, and hang on to life by my eyelids. Listen to me. Knowledge is gold: a "There will be an awful sea running off that point, sir." "Of course there will. I mean to try it, for all that." "So be it, sir; that is what I like to hear. I do hate palaver. Let one give his orders, and the rest obey them. We are not above half a mile from it now." "You had better wake the landsman. We must have a third hand for this." "No," said a woman's voice, sweet, but clear and unwavering. "I shall be the third hand.” "Curse it!" cried David; "she has heard us." "Every word. And I have no confidence in Mr. Talboys: and, believe me, I am more to be trusted than he is. See, my cowardice is all worn out. Do but trust me, and you shall find I want neither courage nor intelligence. David eyed her keenly, and full in the face. She met his glance calmly, with fine nostril slightly expanding, and her compressed lip curving proudly. "It is all right, Jack. It is not a flash in the pan. She is as steady as a rock;" he then addressed her rapidly and business-like, but with deference. "You will stand by the helm on this side, and the moment I run forward, you will take the helm and hold it in this position. That will require all your strength. Come, try it-well done!" "How the sea struggles with me! But I am strong, you see," cried Lucy, her brow flushed with the battle. "Very good! you are strong, and, what is better, resolute. Now, observe me; this is port, this is starboard, and this is amidships." : "I see but how am I to know which to do?" "I shall give you the word of command "And all I have to do is to obey it." "That is all. But you will find it enough, because the sea will seem to fight with you. It will shake the boat to make you let go; and will perhaps dash in your face to make you let go." "Forewarned, forearmed, Mr. Dodd. I will not leave go. I will hold on by my eyelids-sooner than add to your danger." "Ay, ay, sir." "See our sweeps all clear." David now handled the mainsheet, and at the same time looked earnestly at Lucy, who met his eye with a look of eager attention. "Starboard a little. That will do. Steady; steady as you go." As the boat yielded to the helm, Jack gathered in on the sheet, took two turns round the cleat, and eased away till the sail drew its best; so far so good. Both sails were now on the same side of the boat, the wind on her port quarter: but now came the dangerous operation of coming to the wind in a rough and broken sea, among the eddies of wind and tide so prevalent off headlands. David with the mainsheet in his right hand, directed Lucy with his left as well as his voice. "Starboard the helm, starboard yet-now meet her, so," and as she rounded-to, Jack and he kept hauling the sheets aft, and the boat, her course and trim altered, darted among the breakers like a brave man attacking danger. After the first plunge she went up and down like a pickaxe, coming down almost where she went up; but she held her course, with the waves roaring round her like a pack of hell-hounds. More than half the terrible strip was passed. "Starboard yet," cried David; and she headed towards the high mainland, under whose lee was calm and safety. Alas! at this moment a snorter of a sea broke "Jack, she is on fire; she gives me double under her broadside, and hove her to leeward like heart." "So she does me. She makes it a pleasure." They were now near enough the point to judge what they had to do, and the appearance of the sea was truly terrible; the waves were all broken, and a surge of devouring fire seemed to rage and roar round the point, and oppose an impassable barrier between them and the inky pool beyond, where safety lay under the lee of the high rocks. "I don't like it," said David. "It looks to me like going through a strip of hell-fire." "But it is narrow," said Lucy. : "That is our chance and the tide is coming. We will try it. She will drench us, but I don't much think she will swamp us. Are you ready, all hands?" a cork, and a tide eddy catching her under the counter, she came-to more than two points, and her canvas, thus emptied, shook enough to tear the masts out of her by the board. "Port your helm-port! port!" roared David, in a voice like the roar of a wounded lion, and in his anxiety he bounded to the helm himself; but Lucy obeyed orders at half a word, and David, seeing this, sprang forward to help Jack flatten in the foresheet. The boat, which all through answered the helm beautifully, fell off the moment Lucy ported the helm, and thus they escaped the impending and terrible danger of her making stern way. "Helm amidships!" and all drew again; the . black water was in sight. But will they ever "Oh! please wait a minute, till I do up my reach it? she tosses like a cork. Bang! a breaker hair!" caught her bows, and drenched David and Jack to the very bone. She quivered like an aspen-leafbut held on. "Starboard one point," cried David, sitting down and lifting an oar out from the boat; but just as Lucy, in obeying the order, leaned a little over the lee gunwale with the tiller, a breaker broke like a shell upon the boat's broadside abaft, stove in her upper plank, and filled her with water: some flew and slapped Lucy in the face like an open hand. She screamed, but clung to the gunwale, and griped the helm; her arm seemed iron, and her heart was steel. While she clung thus to her work, blinded by the spray, and expecting death, she heard oars splash into the water and mellow stentorian voices burst out singing. In amazement she turned, squeezed the brine out of her eyes, and looked all round and, lo, the boat was in a trifling bubble of a sea, and close astern was the surge of fire raging and growling and blazing in vain; and the two sailors were pulling the boat, with superhuman strength and inspiration, into a monster millpool that now lay right ahead, black as ink and smooth as oil, singing loudly as they rowed : "Cheerily oh, oh! (pull) cheerily oh, oh ! (pull), To port we go, oh (pull), to port we go (pull)." Flare a great flaming eye opened on them in the centre of the universal blackness. "Look! look!" cried Lucy, "a fire in the mountain." It was the lantern of a French sloop anchored close to the shore. The crew had heard the sailors' voices. At sight of it David and Jack cheered so lustily, that Talboys crawled out of the water, and glared vaguely. The sailors pulled under the sloop's lee quarter, a couple of ropes were instantly lowered, the lantern held aloft, ruby heads and hands clustered at the gangway, and in another minute the boat's party were all up on deck under a hailstorm of French, and the boat fast to her stern. |