James Grant

“ Old Patty Fripp was gone now to God's Acre, and with her ended another of "the innumerable simple and honest lives of pain and love, that are swept away like the dead leaves by the winds of autumn," and there was no one in Finglecombe now, save Mr. Asperges Laud, to lament for Derval Hampton, and, aware of Rookleigh's hatred of the latter, he bewailed his sorrowful destiny in strong language.
"Destiny brings stranger things to pass than ever you dream of," said Rookleigh, with a grimace of triumph. ”

“ In his anxiety to return, to be off again as soon as possible, no man in the ship equalled Derval in his activity, with regard to getting the cargo out and another in, and daily he counted the hours while watching from the deck the lovely low green isles that stud the beautiful bay, the white-walled city, with its two-and-twenty bastions—"the Queen of the East," with all her palaces, villas, and trees, for there the Dutch, true to their national taste, have covered every available spot with verdure, flowers, and the brightest foliage. ”

“ I do not understand how it is," said he, "that I have gone on so far with her without the least encouragement; but a love for her has grown rapidly upon me, and this love has become a part of my life—my very existence."
"You are very young to talk in this fashion," said Lord Oakhampton, uneasily.
"If she would but care for me!" sighed Rookleigh, assuming humility and timidity.
"It is not my Clara's way to care for any man as he may probably care for her." ”

“ Rookleigh became impatient for action, and during these weeks a thoughtful and shadowy expression deepened in the once bright face of Clara, till it became one of such woeful fear, that the heart of the father alternately bled with sorrow for her, and swelled with indignation against Derval.
Every way Clara was a desirable wife, one of whose beauty, at least, any man might well be proud. ”

“ Joe," said Derval, laughing, "I fear you don't know what love is."
"Don't I, though!" exclaimed old Grummet, as he bit a quid off the twist of pigtail that was always in his right-hand pocket. "I often boast myself as one of the not-to-be-done squadron of the Royal Naval Reserve, Mr. Hampton; yet I am always done brown when I am on shore, which is the reason I generally stick close to the ship, as one can't fall in love when in blue water and the anchor's catted." ”

“ But now, regrets for Derval apart, active work was cut out for the crew of the Amethyst.
Thick as bees the dark natives seemed to be swarming around the shores of the bay; the alarm and muster of them seemed to be general, and more than a score of pretty large canoes, full of armed warriors, paddling the water into foam, howling like madmen, and all in a frantic state of activity, shot out of mangrove creeks and other places where they would seem to have been concealed, and very soon the ship was nearly environed with them. ”

“ As Derval entered the cabin, it was lighted only by a swinging lamp in the skylight, where, with the tell-tale compass, it vibrated to and fro with every roll of the ship, and as he made his way towards the berth, where the first mate lay fast asleep with his clothes on, all ready to turn out, he became aware that Rudderhead was in one of his drunken slumbers, for he had a store of spirits in his own baggage, and often imbibed so much as to endanger the ship when in his care. ”

“ They seemed to swarm up out of the deep now on every side; they crowded round the frail raft, which was level with the water, so that every wave rolled over it. Eagerly the sharks watched its only occupant on every hand, their dorsal fins quivering with hungry longings, their rows of awful teeth glittering head over head, side by side, in close ranks. Look which way he might, he saw nothing but eyes and teeth—eyes and teeth—and for well-nigh a week this lasted. He could neither sleep nor lie down, for dread of falling into the sea and being rent piece-meal. ”

“ The wind was not blowing steadily, but, strange to say, came in a series of rapid and dreadful gusts, tearing up the sea in such a fashion that the whole air was a mass of foam as high as the mainyard. The Amethyst careened heavily over to her port side, with her gunnel in the water, and her whole deck afloat with fragments of sail, ropes, spars, and blocks flying about. The masts bent like willow wands, and overhead all the loose rigging flew wildly about in loops and bights. ”

“ This anecdote served to increase Derval's disgust for Rudderhead, who seemed almost to divine that he was the subject of conversation, as he stood on the quarter-deck, with his eyes steadily regarding them in the foretop.
Amid fine weather, and accompanied by steady and pleasant breezes, the Amethyst made the Island of Desolation, or Kerguelen's Land, the abode alone of petrels, albatrosses, gulls, and sea-swallows, on the rifted rocks of which, washed by incessant rains, nothing grows but saxifrage—a lonely and most melancholy place. ”

“ The gale increased, so we hauled to the wind on the port tack, under a close-reefed foresail, main-topsail, and fore-stay sail, and plenty of cormorants were flying about us and perching on the yard-arms. When the gale abated, and all but the watch were thankfully about to turn in, there was a cry of 'Wreck to leeward!' and there came drifting past us a raft made of planks, poles, and spars, on which was a poor wretch, almost naked as he came into the world, famished, starving, and well-nigh raving mad, the last survivor of only four unfortunate fellows who had escaped from a sinking ship. ”

“ As for his growing inheritance, sailor like, he set no store on it then, and actually cared little, if he always had a ship, whether every shilling of it went to Rookleigh, the failings in whose disposition and character seemed to soften by time and distance, and often in lone watches of the night did Derval think he would try to love him, when the selfish little Rook of the nursery became, like himself, a man. ”

“ If any of the natives saw her, as there was every reason to suppose they did, the terrible lesson taught them by the guns and small-arms of the Amethyst, made them conceal themselves, for nothing was seen of them when Derval rushed to the beach, and, without attempting to make a signal or waiting for a boat, and heedless or unthinking of whether there might be sharks in the water, plunged into the waves that rippled on the rocks, and swam off at once, through the debris of battered canoes and dead bodies that were still floating about.
"Man overboard—a rope—a rope—stand by!" ”

“ Rookleigh did not wait for the elucidation of all the reader knows. His brother's sudden appearance in the library was more than enough for him; he evacuated Lord Oakhampton's house with all speed, and even quitted London that night, a prey to baffled spite, ambition, and treachery.
"Oh, Derval, Derval," said Clara, as she reclined upon his breast, "may God forgive that man for all he has made me suffer!" ”

“ She was sweeping away with a queenly grace, when his voice arrested her:
"Miss Hampton, you had better think twice over this," said he, coarsely; "you may not disdain the hand of a man of wealth and position some day."
Her only reply was to ring the bell,
"Show this gentleman out," said she to the servant who appeared; and Rookleigh, baffled for the time, retired, with his heart swollen by passion and resentment.
When next he appeared before Clara, his manner was changed, and her appearance too. ”

“ This intimacy is unseemly. Good heaven! what would society say of it?"
"Society! how I do hate that word, Papa!"
"Indeed! You are young and inexperienced, and it is for me to consider that which may become insolence on his part, and folly on yours."
Never before had her father spoken with such severity of tone, and the soft eyes of Clara filled with unseen tears.
"Ours is a levelling age certainly; but this intimacy carries the game rather far. It is outrageous!" ”

“ All nature looked sweet; but the spring suggested nothing of hope to Clara, and she was past weeping now, in the bitter conviction that it availed her nothing; but a shiver passed over her, when she found that Rookleigh, claiming a bridegroom's privilege, had come upon her unannounced, and was bending smilingly over her—could he do otherwise, for the girl was adorably beautiful, and was so nearly now his own! ”

“ As if his departure had been awaited for by the spirit of the storm, the latter lulled rapidly, and, when day broke, the cheerful cry of "Land ahead!" announced that the bold and rocky south-west cape of Tasmania was only ten miles distant, and bearing north-east, with the mountains, snow-capped ate that season, in the back-ground.
Next day saw the Amethyst working through D'Encastreaux's Channel, sixteen miles eastward of it, to her safe anchorage off Hobart Town, from whence the mail took home the intelligence of Derval Hampton's fate on Turtle Island. ”

“ Reeve Rudderhead was, we have said, a man of enormous strength, bulk, and stature; every muscle and fibre in his form had been developed and turned, as it were, to iron and wire. He was decidedly a fellow to fear physically, and to shun morally. He was quite capable of working anyone a fatal mischief whom he disliked, or who crossed him in the least way, and the contingencies of a seafaring life afford such a character many easy chances for doing so with impunity; thus Derval did not forget his hint and threat about the listener who was lost overboard. ”

“ Refined, proud, and lovely, and she looked—birth stamped on every feature—a peer's daughter every inch, and in every way a picture fair to look upon; and so thought Derval. Never before had he dreamed that a woman could be so fair.
He was invited to stay to dinner; the invitation was repeated for a second occasion and a third. Lord Oakhampton had evidently few friends in that part of the world, was the modest thought of Derval, and the Bermuda Isles formed a safe and easy topic for general conversation when other subjects failed ”

“ As Captain Talbot was anxious to procure some turtle, he gave orders to stand towards it, and about nightfall came to anchor in seven fathoms water, in a fine sandy bay where the waves rippled on the beach as quietly as those of an island lake, and where groves of trees grow close to the water's edge. ”

“ As for you," he added, with one of his ferocious maledictions, "they may pick your bones, and welcome!" Then whirling the heavy hand-spike he carried, circularly in the air, he struck Derval a blow on the back of the head that felled him bleeding, stunned, and senseless, among the brushwood!
The moment he had accomplished this terrible and atrocious act, he went plunging down to the beach, shouting—
"The savages—the natives are upon us; into the boats with you for your lives, and shove off to the ship!" ”

“ Derval's first fear was of snakes, but he saw none.
The multitude of savages that in the morning had been swarming on the shore, had all disappeared, and gone inland to their kraals and villages; but how long would he be able to elude them; and as for their habits and nature, he could not doubt that they were in any way less terrible and revolting than those of other South Sea islanders, most of whom are cannibals. ”

“ The wind was fair, the weather delightful, and the Amethyst in due time crossed the equator.
"Let me be patient, let me be patient!" sighed Derval, when the volcanic peaks of Ascension, the rendezvous of our African squadron, came in sight; and the Amethyst, having sprung one of her topmasts, ran in to refit. ”

“ On the second day the ship sank, one of the men fell off the raft into the water, and was devoured by sharks under the eyes of the three survivors, around whom the sea-lawyers began to gather on every side. A second man died from exhaustion, and the other two threw him into the sea, hoping that then the sharks would go and leave them in peace. But the taste of human flesh seemed to increase their longings, and their numbers also, and still more when the third man fell dead on the raft and his mess-mate was too weak to throw him into the sea. ”

“ How a woman so refined and lady-like as Mrs. Hampton—for she was both in appearance, unquestionably—came to have such a remarkable kinsman it was difficult to say; but from that hour there was a declared feud between him and Derval, and both were prepared to carry it out to the bitter end.
Derval's indignation was very keen. Through all the years he had been away from home, the tender home-love had never died in his honest and passionate heart. To Finglecombe he had sent all he could give—letters, presents, and many a token of regard ”

“ De Murrer; "the devil! don't speak thus; and as for the mere matter of a name, one would think you were an old Scotsman of a hundred years ago, rather than an English girl of the nineteenth century!"
"I only think of what I owe him, Papa," urged Clara, greatly apprehensive that Derval's name would now be struck off the visitor's list—but prudence forbade such an order as yet.
"It is possible you may think too much," continued Lord Oakhampton, greatly ruffled; "but remember, Clara, that this young man is as much out of your world as one of yonder boatmen in the bay!" ”

“ When the Amethyst returned home, and Derval stepped on board of her in the London docks, old Joe Grummet, who was smoking his pipe in the gangway, thought he saw a ghost, and uttered a roar of absolute terror! Most extravagant was the joy of the worthy old salt on being assured of Derval's identity. ”

“ Half a mile distant a partly dismasted ship, with the flag of the Royal Naval Reserve flying reversed at her gaff-peak, could be seen rising and falling beautifully on the long waves, at one time showing all her bows and nearly all her side, anon the whole line of her deck swept of everything from stem to stern, with her drenched crew clinging to the lower rigging or belaying pins. ”