red-coats !

I believe that the first glimpse of that abhorred uni-
form brought my knife down upon the rope. In two
seconds I had slashed through the strands, and the flaccid
machine lifted and bore us from their ken. But I see
their faces yet, as in basso relievo : round-eyed, open-
mouthed ; honest country faces, and boyish, every one ;
an awkward squad of recruits at drill, fronting a red-
headed sergeant ; the sergeant, with cane held horizontally
across and behind his thighs, his face upturned with the
rest, and " Irishman " on every feature of it. And so the
vision fleeted, and Byfield's language claimed attention.
The man took the whole vocabulary of British profanity
at a rush, and swore himself to a standstill. As he j^aused
for a second wind I struck in :

" Mr. Byfield, you open the wrong valve. "We drift, as
you say, towards — nay, over, the open sea. As master of
this balloon I suggest that we descend within reasonable
distance of the brig yonder ; which, as I make out is back-
ing her sails ; which, again, can only mean that she ob-
serves us and is preparing to lower a boat.""

lie saw the sense of this, and turned to business, though
with a snarl. As a gull from the cliff, the Lunar dl
slanted downwards, and passing the brig by less than a
cable's length to leeward, soused into the sea.

I say '^ soused," for I confess that the shock belied the
promise of our easy descent. The Lunar di floated : but
it also drove before the wind. And as it dragged the car
after it like a tilted pail, the four drenched and blinded
aeronauts struggled through the spray and gripped the
hoop, the netting — nay, dug their nails into the oiled silk.



389

In its new element the balloon became inspired with a
sudden infernal malice. It sank like a pillow if we tried
to clinib it : it rolled us over in the brine ; it allowed us
no moment for a backward glance. I spied a small cutter-
rigged craft tacking towards us, a mile and more to leeward,
and wondered if the captain of the brig had left our rescue
to it. He liad not. I heard a shout behind us ; a rattle
of oars as the bowmen shipped them ; and a hand gripped
my collar. So one by one we were plucked — uncommon
specimens I — from the deep; rescued from what Mr.
Sheepshanks, a minute later, as he sat down on a thwart
and wiped his spectacles, justly termed '' a predicament,
sir, as disconcerting as any my experience supplies."



CHAPTER XXXIV



'' But what be ns to do with the balloon, sir ? " the
coxswain demanded.

Had it been my affair I believe I should have obeyed a
ridiculous impulse and begged them to keep it for their
trouble ; so weary was I of the machine. Byfield, how-
ever, directed them to slit a seam of the oiled silk and cut
away the car, which was by this time Avholly submerged
and not to be lifted. At once the Lunar di collapsed and
became manageable ; and having roped it to a ring-bolt
astern, the crew fell to their oars.

My teeth were chattering. These operations of salvage
had taken time, and it took us a further unconscionable
time to cover the distance between us and the brig as she
lay hove-to, her maintopsail aback and her head-sails
drawing.

" Feels like towing a whale, sir," the oarsman behind
me panted.

I whipped round. The voice — yes, and the face — were
the voice and face of the seaman who sat and steered us ;
the voice English, of a sort ; the face of no pattern that I
recognised for English. The fellows were as like as two
peas, as like as the two drovers, Sim and Candlish, had
been : you might put them both at forty ; grizzled men,
pursed about the eyes with seafaring. And now that I
came to look, the three rowers forward, though mere lads,

390



301

repeated their elders' features and build ; the gaunt frame,
the long, serious face, the swarthy complexion and medi-
tative eye — in short, Don Quixote of la Manclia at various
stages of gi-owth. Men and lads, I remarked, wore silver
earrings.

I was speculating on this likeness when we shipped oars
and fell alongside the brig's ladder. At the head of it
my hand was taken, and I was helped on deck with cere-
mony by a tall man in loose blue jacket and duck trousers :
an old man, bent and frail ; by his air of dignity the
master of the vessel, and by his features as clearly the
patriarch of the family. He lifted his cap and addressed
us with a fine but (as I now recall it) somewhat tired
courtesy.

'^'^An awkward adventure, gentlemen."

We thanked him in proper form.

^' I am pleased to have been of service. The pilot-cutter
yonder could hardly have fetched you in less than twenty
minutes. I have signalled her alongside, and she will con-
vey you back to Falmouth ; none the worse, I liope, for
your wetting."

^'A convenience," said I, ''of which my friends will
gladly avail themselves. For my part I do not propose to
return."

He paused, weighing my words ; obviously puzzled, but
politely anxious to understand. His eyes were grey and
honest, even childishly honest, but dulled about the rim
of the iris and a trifle vacant, as though the world with its
train of affairs had passed beyond his active concern. I
keep my own eyes about me when I travel and have sur-
prised just such a look, before now, behind the spectacles
of very old men who sit by the roadside and break stones
for a living.

" I fear, sir, that I do not take you precisely.''



392 ST. IVES

''Why/' said 1, ''if I may gness, this is one of the
famous Falmouth packets?"

" As to that, sir, you are right and yet wrong. She
was a packet, and (if I may say it) a famous one." His
gaze travelled aloft, and, descending, rested on mine with
a sort of gentle resignation. " But the old pennon is
down, as you see. At present she sails on a private advent-
ure and under private commission."

" A privateer ? "

" You may call it that."

"The adventure hits my humour even more nicely.
Accept me. Captain "

" Colenso."

" Accept me. Captain Colenso, for your passenger ; I
will not say comrade-in-arms — naval warfare being so far
beyond my knowledge, which it would, perhaps, be more
descriptive to call ignorance. But I can pay." I thrust
a hand nervously into my breast pocket, and blessed Flora
for her waterproof bag.

" Excuse me. Captain, if I speak with my friend here in
private for a moment."

I drew Byfield aside. " Your notes ? The salt wa-
ter "

"You see," said he, "I am a martyr to acidity of the
stomach."

" Man ! do I invite the confidence of your stomach ? "

" Consequently I never make an ascension unaccompa-
nied by a small bottle of Epsom salts, tightly corked."

" And you threw away the salts and substituted the
notes ? That was clever of you, Byfield."

I lifted my voice. "And Mr. Dalmahoy, I presume,
returns to his sorrowing folk ? "

The extravagant cheerfully corrected me. "They will
not sorrow ; but T shall return to them. Of their grudged



'•CAPTAIN COLENSO" 393

pension I have eighteen pence in my pocket. Bnt I pro-
pose to travel with Sheepshanks, and raise the wind by-
showing his tricks. He shall toss the caber from Land's
End to Forthside, cheered by the plaudits of the interven-
ing taverns and furthered by their bounty. '^

'^'^ A progress which we must try to expedite, if only out
of regard for Mrs. Sheepshanks.^' I turned to Captain
Colenso again. '' Well, sir, will you accept me for your
passenger 2"

^'1 doubt that you are joking, sir.^'

'' And I swear to you that I am not."

He hesitated ; tottered to the companion, and called
down, '^ Susannah ! Susannah ! a moment on deck, if you
please. One of these gentlemen wishes to ship as passen-
ger."

A dark-browed woman of middle age thrust her head
above the ladder and eyed me. Even so might a ruminat-
ing cow gaze over her hedge upon some posting wayfarer.

^MVhat's lie dressed in ?" she demanded abruptly.

"Madam, it was intended for a ball suit."

'^ You will do no dancing here, young man."

^' My dear lady, I accept tiiat and every condition you
may impose. Whatever the discipline of the ship "

She cut me short.

'^ Have you told him, father ?"

« Why, no. You see, sir, I ought to tell you that this
is not an ordinary voyage."

^' Nor for that matter is mine."

"You will be exposed to risks."

"In a privateer that goes without saying."

" The risk of capture."

" Naturally ; though a brave captain will not dwell on
it." And I bowed.

" But I do dwell on it," he answered earnestly, a red



394 ^T. IVES

spot showing on either cheek. " I must tell you, sir, that
we are very likely indeed to fall into an enemy's hands/'

*'Say certain/' chimed in Susannah.

" Yes, I will say we are certain. I cannot in conscience
do less." He sought his daughter's eyes. She nodded.

"0, damn your conscience!" thought I, my stomach
rising in contempt for this noble-looking, but extremely
faint-hearted, privateersman. ^' Come," I said, rallying
him, "we fall in with a Frenchman, or — let us suppose —
an American ; that is our object, eh ? "

" Yes, with an American. That is our object, to be



sure



T"



" Then I warrant we give a good account of ourselves.
Tut, tut, man — an ex-packet captain ! "

I pulled up in sheer wonder at the lunacy of our dispute
and the side he was forcing me to take. Here was I
haranguing a grey-headed veteran on his own quarter-deck
and exhorting him to valour ! In a flash I saAV myself be-
fooled, tricked into playing the patronising amateur, com-
placently posturing for the derision of gods and men.
And Captain Colenso, who aimed but to be rid of me, was
laughing in his sleeve, no doubt. In a minute even
Sheepshanks would catch the jest. Now, I do mortally
hate to be laughed at ; it may be disciplinary for most
men, but it turns me obstinate.

Captain Colenso, at any rate, dissembled his mirth to
perfection. The look which he shifted from me to Susan-
nah and back was eloquent of senile indecision.

" I cannot explain to you, sir. The consequences— I
might mitigate them for you— still you must risk them."
He broke off and appealed to me. I would rather you did
not insist, I would, indeed ! I must beg you, sir, not to
press it."

" But I do press it," I answered, stubborn as a mule.



395

'' I tell you that I am ready to accept all risks. But if you
want me to return with my friends in the cutter, you must
summon your crew to pitch me down the ladder. And
there's the end on't.''

*' Dear, dear ! Tell me at least, sir, that you are an
unmarried man."

^' Up to now I have that misfortune. I aimed a bow at
Mistress Susannah ; but that lady had turned her broad
shoulders and it missed fire. AVhich reminds me/' I
continued, ^^ to ask for the favour of pen, ink and paper.
I wish to send a letter ashore to the mail."

She invited me to follow her ; and I descended to the
main cabin, a spick-and-span apartment, where we sur-
prised two passably good-looking damsels at their house-
work, the one polishing a mahogany swing-table, the
other a brass door-handle. They picked up their cloths,
dropped me a curtsey apiece, and disappeared at a word
from Susannah, who bade me be seated at the swing-table
and set writing materials before me. The room was lit
by a broad stern window, and lined along two of its sides
with mahogany doors leading, as I supposed, to sleeping
cabins ; the panels — not to speak of the brass handles and
finger-plates — shining so that a man might have seen his
face in them to shave by. ''But why all these women on
board a privateer ? " thought I, as I tried a quill on my
thumb-nail and embarked upon my first love-letter.

*' Dearest :

" This line with my devotion to tell you that the balloon has descended
safely, and your Anne finds himself on board "

'' By the way. Miss Susannah, what is the name of this
ship ? "

'' She is called the Lady Nepean; and I am a married
woman and the mother of six."



396 ST. IVES

'' I felicitate you, madam." I bowed, and resumed my
writing :

u the LadyNepean packet, outward bound from Falmouth to "

'' Excuse me, but where the dickens are we bound for ?"

*' For the coast of Massachusetts, I believe."

'' You believe ? "

She nodded. '' Young man, if you'll take my advice,
you'll go back."

^^ Madam," I answered, on a sudden impulse, " I am an
escaped French prisoner." And with that, having tossed
my cap over the mills (as they say) I leaned back in the
settee, and we regarded each other. " — Escaped ! " I
continued, still with my eyes on hers, " with a trifle of
money, but minus my heart. I write this to the fair
daughter of Britain who has it in her keeping. And now
what have you to say ?"

'' Ah, well ! " she mused, '' the Lord's ways be past find-
ing out. It may be the easier for you ! "

Apparently it was the habit of this ship's company to
speak in enigmas. I caught up my pen again :

*' . . . the coast of Massachusetts, in the United States of
America, whence I hope to make my way in good time to France.
Though you have news, dearest, I fear none can reach me for a
while. Yet and though you have no more to write than ' I love you,
Anne,' write it and commit it to Mr. Robbie, who will forward it to
Mr. Romaine, who in turn may find a means to get it smuggled through
to Paris, Rue du Fouarre 16. It should be consigned to the Widow
Jupille, to be called for by the corporal who praised her ' vin blanc*
She will remember ; and in truth a man who had the courage to praise
it deserves remembrance as singular among the levies of France.
Should a youth of the name of Rowley present himself before you,
you may trust his fidelity absolutely, his sagacity not at all. And so
(since the boat waits to take this) I kiss the name of Flora, and sub-
scribe myself —until I come to claim her, and afterw9,rda to eternity —
her prisoner. Ann-b. "



'^ CAPTAIN COLENSO" 397

I liad, in fact, a second reason for abbreviating this letter
and sealing it in a hurry. The movements of the brig,
though slight, were perceptible, and in the close air of the
main cabin my head already began to swim. I hastened
on deck in time to shake hands with my companions and
confide the letter to Byfield with instructions for posting
it. '^ And if your share in our adventures should come
into public question,^' said I, ^^you must apply to a
Major Chevenix, now quartered in Edinburgh Castle, who
has a fair inkling of the facts, and as a man of honour
will not decline to assist you. You have Dalmahoy, too,
to back your assertion that you knew me only as ^Ir.
Ducie.^^ Upon Dalmahoy I pressed a note for his and
Mr. Sheepshanks' travelling expenses. ^' My dear fel-
low,'' he protested, '^'I couldn't dream — if you are sure
it won't inconvenience . . . merely as a loan . . .
and deuced handsome of you, I will say.'' He kept the
cutter waiting while he drew up an I. 0. U. in which I
figured as Bursar and Almoner {honoris causa) to the
Senatus Academicus of Cramond-on-Almond. Mr. Sheep-
shanks meanwhile shook hand Avith me impressively. " It
has been a memorable experience, sir. I shall liave much
to tell my wife on my return."

It occurred to me as probable that the lady would
have even more to say to him. He stepped into the cut-
ter and, as they pushed off, was hilariously bonneted by
Mr. Dalmahoy, by way of parting salute. ''Starboard
after braces ! " Captain Colenso called to his crew. The
yards were trimmed and the Lady Nepean slowly gath-
ered way, while I stood by the bulwarks gazing after my
friends and attempting to persuade myself that the fresh
air was doing me good.

Captain Colenso perceived my uneasiness and advised
me to seek my berth and lie down ; and on my replying



398 ST. IVES

with haggard defiance^ took my arm gently, as if I had
been a wilful child, and led me below. I passed beyond
one of the mahogany doors leading from the main cabin ;
and in that seclusion I ask you to leave me face to face
with the next forty-eight hours. It was a dreadful time.

Nor at the end of it did gaiety wait on a partially re-
covered appetite. The ladies of the ship nursed me,
tickled my palate wdth the lightest of sea diet. The men
strowed seats for me on deck and touched their caps with
respectful sympathy. One and all were indefatigably
kind, but taciturn to a degree beyond belief. A fog of
mystery hung and deepened about them and the Lady
Nepean, and 1 crept about the deck in a continuous evil
dream, entangling myself in impossible theories. To be-
gin with, there "were eight women on board : a number not
to be reconciled with serious privateering ; all daughters
or sons' wives or granddaughters of Captain Colenso. Of
the men — twenty-three in all— those who were not called
Colenso were called Pengelly ; the most of them convicted
landsmen by their bilious countenances and unhandy move-
ments ; men fresh from the plough-tail, by their gait, yet
with no ruddy impress of field-work and the open air.

Twice every day, and thrice on Sundays, this extraor-
dinary company gathered bare-headed to the poop for a
religious service which it would be colourless to call fran-
tic. It began decorously enough with a quavering exposi-
tion of some portion of Holy Writ by Captain Colenso.
But by-and-bye (and especially at the evening office) his
listeners kindled and opened on him with a skirmishing
fire of '^Aniens." Then, worked by degrees to an ecstasy,
they broke into cries of thanksgiving and mutual encour-
agement ; they jostled for the rostrum (a long nine-
pounder swivel) ; and then speaker after speaker declaimed
his souFs experiences until his voice cracked, while the



"captain colenso" 399

others sobbed, exhorted, even leaped in the air. '* Stronger,
brother ! ! ! 'Tis working, 'tis working ! ! ! deliv-
erance ! ! ! streams of redemption ! " For ten minutes
or a quarter of an hour maybe, the ship was a Babel, a
Bedlam. And then the tumult would die down as sud-
denly as it had arisen, and, dismissed by the old man, tlie
crew, with faces once more inscrutable but twitching with
spent emotion, scattered to their usual tasks.

Five minutes after these singular outbreaks it was diffi-
cult to believe in them. Captain Colenso paced the quar-
ter-deck once more with his customary shuffle, his hands
beneath his coat-tails, his eyes conning the ship with their
usual air of mild abstraction. Now and again he paused
to instruct one of his incapables in the trimming of a brace,
or to correct the tie of a knot. He never scolded ; seldom
lifted his voice. By his manner of speech and the ease of
his authority he and his family might have belonged to
separate ranks of life. Yet I seemed to detect method in
their obedience. The veriest fumbler went about his work
with a concentrated gravity of bearing as if he fulfilled
a remoter purpose, and understood it while he tied his
knots into ''grannies" and generally mismanaged the job
in hand.

Towards the middle of our second week, we fell in with
a storm — a rotatory affair, and soon over by reason that we
struck the outer fringe of it— but to a landsman sufficiently
daunting while it lasted. Late in the afternoon I thrust
my head up for a look around. We were weltering along
in horrible forty-foot seas, over which our bulwarks tilted
at times until from the companion hatchway, I stared
plumb into the grey sliding chasms, and felt like a fly
on the wall. The Lady Nepean hurled her old timbers
along under close-reefed maintopsail and a rag of a fore-
sail only. The captain had housed top-gallant masts and



400 ST. IVES

lashed his guns inboard ; yet she rolled so that you would
not have trusted a cat on her storm-washed decks. They
were desolate but for the captain and helmsman on the
poop : the helmsman, a mere lad — the one, in fact, who
had pulled the bow-oar to our rescue — lashed and gripping
the spokes pluckily, but with a white face which told that,
though his eyes were strained on the binnacle, his mind
ran on the infernal seas astern. Over him, in sea-boots
and oilskins, towered Captain Colenso — rejuvenated, trans-
figured ; his body swaying easily to every lurch and plunge
of the brig, his face entirely composed and cheerful, his
saltrimmed eyes contracted a little, but alert and even boy-
ishly bright. An heroical figure of a man !

My heart warmed to Captain Colenso ; and next morn-
ing, as we bowled forward again with a temperate breeze
on our beam, I took occasion to compliment him on the
Lady Nepean's behaviour.

'' Ay," said he, abstractedly ; '' the old girl made pretty
good weather of it ! "

^' I suppose we were never in what you would call real
danger V

He faced me with sudden earnestness. *^' Mr. Ducie, I
have served the Lord all my days and He will not sink the
ship that carries my honour." Giving me no time to puzzle
over this, he changed his tone. ^' You^ll scarcely believe
it, but in her young days she had a very fair turn of speed.''

" Her business surely demands it still," said I. Only an
arrant landsman could have reconciled the lumbering old
craft with any idea of privateering ; but this was my only
theory, and I clung to it.

'' We shall not need to test her."

" You rely on your guns then ? " I had observed the
care lavished on these. They were of brass, and shone
like the door-plates in the main cabin.



401

^'Why as to that/' he answered evasively, '^Fve had to
before now. The last voyage I commanded her — it was
just after the war broke out with America — we fell in with
a schooner off the Banks ; we were outward bound for Hal-
ifax. She carried twelve nine-pounder carronades and
two long nines, besides a big fellow on a traverse ; and we
had the guns you see — eight nine-pounders and one chaser
of the same calibre — post-office guns, we call them. But
we beat her off after two hours of it.""

^'^ And saved the mails V

He rose abruptly (we had seated ourselves on a couple of
hen-coops under the break of the poop). ''You will ex-
cuse me. I have an order to give " ; and he hurried up
the steps to the quarter-deck.

It must have been ten days after this that he stopped
me in one of my eternal listless promenades and invited
me to sit beside him again.

" I wish to take your opinion, Mr. Ducie. You have
not, I believe, found salvation ? You are not one of us,
as I may say ? "

" Meaning by ^ us ^ ? '^

" I and mine, sir, are unworthy followers of the Word
as preached by John Wesley."

*MVhy no, that is not my religion.''

" But you are a gentleman ?" I bowed. '' And on a
point of honour — do you think, sir, that as a servant of the
King one should obey his earthly master even to doing
what conscience forbids ? "

" That might depend "

'' But on a point of honour, sir ? Suppose that you had
pledged your private word, in a just, nay, a generous bar-
gain, and were commanded to break it. Is there anything
could override that ? "

I thought of my poor old French colonel and his broken



402 ST. I YES

parole; and was silent. ''Can you not tell me the cir-
cumstances ? '' I suggested, at length.

lie had been watching me eagerly. But he shook his-
head now, sighed and drew a small Bible from his pocket.
*' 1 am not a gentleman, sir, 1 laid it before the Lord :
but,'^ he continued naively, ''1 wanted to learn how a
gentleman would look at it.'^ He searched for a text,
turning the pages with long, nervous fingers ; but desisted
with another sigh, and a moment later was summoned
away to solve some difficulty with the ship's reckoning.

My respect for the Captain had been steadily growing.
He was so amiable too, so untiringly courteous ; he bore
his sorrow — whatever the cause might be — with so gentle
a resignation, that 1 caught myself pitying even while 1
cursed him and his crew for their inhuman reticence.

But my respect vanished pretty quickly next day. We
were seated at dinner in the main cabin, the captain at the
head of the table, and, as usual, crumbling his biscuit in
a sort of waking trance — when Mr. Eeuben Colenso, his
eldest son, and acting mate, put his solemn face in at the
door with news of a sail about four miles distant on the lee
bow. I followed the captain on deck. The stranger, a
schooner, had been lying-to when first described in the
hazy weather ; but was standing now to intercept us. At
two miles distance — it being then about two o'clock — 1
saw that she hoisted British colours.

'' But that flag was never sewn in England," Captain
Colenso observed, studying her through his glass. His
cheeks, usually of that pallid ivory colour proper to old
age, were flushed with a faint carmine, and 1 observed a