Chapter VIII: Part 8

There was scarcely enough wind for us to work out of the harbour, as the set of the sea carried us strongly towards the bluff of rock that stretches nearly across the entrance. But as I have said, there were few boats could go to windward of the Wave, and perhaps none that "went about" more readily, and with less loss. So we managed to shave past, and came into full view of the little squadron. We were signalised at once, not by the ordinary bits of bunting, but by general acclamation, and waving of handkerchiefs by our fair friends. On board the largest yacht, a committee of ladies had established themselves, with plenary powers of command. This was the Queen Bee, whose motions the rest were to follow. At the moment of our coming in sight she set the example of making sail, and making the best of our way to our rendezvous; and forthwith all the rest, who had been lying-to for us, followed her motions. The idea of the party was to get, as best we could, with the light breeze that then served, to the rendezvous. For our return, we were almost sure of the land-breeze, which would help us along homeward without any trouble. They were all in tip-top spirits,--especially, I thought, on board the Commodore. In about half an hour we ranged up along-side of her, and there we found collected what might be called the bouquet of the party. Among them was Virginie, whom I had half hoped to find, but whom I could not flatter myself that I really did find, subdued at the parting with so many of her friends--more especially at parting with myself. She bore the air of happiness triumphant. Still I could not but fancy, when she waved her pretty hand to me, that it was with something of _empressement_. I know that I must have been considerably _empressé_ in my salutation; for a host of latent associations stirred within me, at this, as I deemed it, farewell meeting. I had no desire to make myself ridiculous; so I kept my own counsel as well as I could. But I felt seriously unhappy, and repented for the moment that I had obeyed the invitation. I will not detail the history of the fête--it passed with every advantage of weather and sociability. The poor sentimentalists, if any there were besides myself, must have felt themselves sadly out of their element. All seemed as jovial as though no such thing as parting existed as a human necessity. Amid all I grew sadder and sadder, and blamed my own folly in coming. Already I thought that many of the damsels showed an unaccustomed disregard of my presence, as though it were no longer worth while to distinguish with attention a man who was on the eve of leaving them for ever. Virginie was unequivocally an exception to this rule. She was, as she ever had been, kind; and made many inquiries as to my future movements, even speculating on our meeting again. But she seemed thoroughly content that I should go, and as though no such dream had ever entered her head as that I might, under any circumstances, remain with her. Altogether I was so far from entering into the spirit of the party that I suffered an access of misanthropy. In my own mind I condemned her as having been utterly spoiled by education and early associations. She had been used to intimacy with so many, and such constantly changing friends, that she was utterly incapable of the stability of friendship. The devotion of love could not, I thought, be found with her; and without this devotion hearts are not given.

On the melancholy pasturage of my own thoughts I became at last so visibly doleful, that I acted quite as a wet blanket on the party. Some of the giddier among the girls rallied me, more wittily than compassionately, on my love-tokens; and wished to try me by a sort of jury, to discover which of themselves it was that caused my grief. The effect of this badinage on me was to kindle no little exasperation against the principal persecutors, and to make me pretty considerably unamiable to all. I felt that I was behaving in a way that would be likely to leave behind me no good impression, and yet I could not constrain myself to propriety.

Thus far my expedition seemed to have answered ill. I have now to tell how it anon seemed to threaten worse, and then turned out in the happy issue which I at present enjoy.

The time came for us to think of returning. There was every probability of our finding this an easy task, as we were able pretty well to calculate on the rising of the land-breeze. The wind had fallen during the day, and for some hours there had been a dead calm. The breeze that was to succeed it was very long in coming. The revellers were so well pleased with their entertainment that no thought was breathed of getting ready for a start, till the gentle sighing of the neighbouring sugar canes told us that the elements would serve our turn. Such a large and straggling party was not got together and re-embarked without difficulty; and the upshot of all was that, by the time we were under weigh homewards, it was well on in the evening. This gave us little uneasiness; the nights were clear, the breeze was generally steady, and as the land lay pretty well astern, the only difficulty that occurred to me was concerning the orderly behaviour of some of the men, who had taken too much wine to be quite manageable.

As it concerns our subsequent adventure, I may as well say that none of the uproarious ones were on board the Wave. They none of them would patronise a craft (so they said) which was commanded by such a long-faced skipper. So Hamilton and myself were the complement returning, as we had been coming. He was as sober as a judge, and just as much disposed as ever to be "handy Billy," or, in common language, to do a turn of work wherever he might be useful. I should think that we must have numbered, in all, at least twenty boats. It did not seem unlikely that some of them might fall on board of each other, as they were crowded very thickly, and some of them kept poor watch. Some of the steersmen were too jolly to be careful, and the girls did not by any means call them to order. It is almost a peculiarity of colonial girls to be without fear. Perhaps it is because they see so much of change, that few things strike them as strange,--and it is strangeness that generally terrifies. As I had sold my yacht, and bargained for her price, I felt that I ought to be particularly careful of what had become another man's property. I was unwilling to run the risk of injuring even her paint-work, which I supposed to be about the extent of damage threatened by a collision. So I held on till the whole set of them were started, and then got under weigh, keeping in their wake. There was no great distance between us, only just sufficient to keep us well clear of them.

Merry sounds of song and talk resounded from the tiny specks that floated on ocean. Good-humoured hails were sent back to me, and many an offer made of a tow-rope to help me to my station. Some of them had musical instruments with them, and gave the harmony of voice and string to be blended with the evening air. A happier or securer party never enjoyed themselves, nor any, I should say, that fancied for themselves a more perfect exemption from the possibility of danger.

Things went thus for about an hour and a half, the gradual change of evening into night being scarcely perceptible in the lengthened twilight. The wind, which had been gradually falling, seemed then fairly to expire. Nothing more was to be done by sailing, and the boats remained bobbing up and down in the slight swell, without the least homeward motion. It was plainly a case of "out oars." Sadly against the grain did it go with us to pull off our jackets and set to work; but there remained no choice. We could not stay there all night, and if we meant to fetch our port we must pull. Some of them managed very well, as they were helped by the man-of-war boats that had joined the cruise. They got considerably ahead, and thus a division was produced in our little flotilla. The Wave was amongst the sternmost, as for want of hands we had been able to do but little; and besides that, we were in no working humour. One by one they all forged ahead so far as to be out of sight at that time of night; yet still not so far but that we occasionally heard them hailing, or singing at their oars.

As we had no fancy for a hard spell at pulling, we took things coolly as they came. We kept all sail set to take advantage of any little breeze that might come, and meanwhile waited as patiently as we could. Some three-quarters of an hour probably passed in this way, and then the face of the night began to undergo a change. The clouds showed a disposition to concentrate in a particular point over to landward, and light catspaws to play upon the water. Soon the breeze steadied a bit, and allowed us to lie on our course; and before long we were going through the water at the rate of five knots. We held on thus, till I knew that we must be coming close on to the ugly reef that lies about three miles S.S.W. of Port St Louis. The clouds had become blacker, and without doubt a squall was brewing. Judging from experience, I fancied that it would be only of rain; and, at any rate, it seemed not yet to be so near as to require us to take in canvass. So we held on everything, and I ran forward to look out for the reef, and left Hamilton at the tiller. I at no time particularly liked to have him for a steersman, but now I had no choice, for he would not by any means have done for a look-out man.

"Now Hamilton," I said, "look out, keep her as she goes a bit, and have one eye to windward, for there is a regular sneezer brewing, and we shall have it hot and strong in a jiffey."

As I ran forward, I looked at him to see whether he appeared to be at all in a stew, but was rejoiced to find him cool as a cucumber. He stepped confidently to his post, and looked out to windward like a regular sea-dog.

We had now come to that point of our course where the wind ceased to be right astern. The head of the coast makes it necessary to beat up a bit, in order to weather the headland. We were perfectly able to do this, and to have even a point or two to spare, only we should want a more skilful helmsman than Hamilton. However, we were just clearing the reef, and in a minute or so more I should be able to return to my post. Meanwhile, I kept her as she was a bit, till I should be able to put her round myself.

I had been for some minutes too much occupied with the pilotage to think of the weather, so had implicitly trusted the observation of this to my watch-mate. He ever and anon reported things looking worse and worse.

A fine dust of rain, as it were beating into my face, made me look up, and I saw that we were in for it.

"Stand by there," I sang out.

"Ay, ay," said Hamilton, and he did stand by with the air of a regular blue jacket.

This was all the caution for which I had time. The same moment the squall broke heavily upon us, and the poor little Wave was thrown nearly right on her beam ends.

"Luff there," I cried, "luff, man, quick."

"Ay, ay," was the ready rejoinder, but alas! just the contrary was the thing done. Whether Hamilton was flurried, or whether he never rightly knew what luffing meant, he put the helm hard up. In swinging off before the squall, she caught the full force of the wind, and for one moment I thought all was over with us. She went so far over that it seemed impossible that she should not capsize. But at the same instant, and before one could well think of the predicament, a jerk was felt, an explosion as of a pistol was heard, and the little craft righted. The mainsail had been blown clear away from the stay-rope, and was fluttering about in ribbons.

In a moment I saw the danger of our position. The squall had been the first burst of a regular built gale, which was now blowing tremendously off shore. Had we been all a-taunto we might have managed to beat against it, but even then it would have been a tedious business, and would have required careful steering. At present, with only our jib standing, it was perfectly impossible to dream of such a thing. No earthly power could prevent our drifting out to sea.

Does any man who has not been placed in such a position, think that he can realise the feelings of two human beings thrown thus, like us, waifs on the wide ocean. I believe that no man can; but to assist the imagination of such a one, let him consider one or two things. The waters before us came, with scarcely the break of an island, from the ice-fields of the south pole,--and behind us the waste might almost be called boundless. In a few minutes we should, as things went, find ourselves clear of the lee of the land, and then the Indian coast might be considered the nearest breakwater. The billows that would roll after us would come with all the force collected within such mighty limits, under the excitement of the gale. Had our bark been of proportions to combat the elements, we could have found no safety in an unvictualed refuge. She would at most have afforded us the means of prolonging agony. But I cannot say that the want of provisions seemed to me then to enhance the horrors of our condition. Our death by drowning seemed so certain, and so immediately imminent, that no room remained for remoter apprehensions.

For one moment, I believe, we both lost our self-possession. Hamilton was alarmed at the heeling over, and at the noise, but, when the boat righted, he seemed to think all the danger was over. My blank look, however, somewhat alarmed him, and he did not quite understand why it was that we were sailing off shore at such a rate. "Halloo," said he, "what makes you look so grave? A miss is as good as a mile. We're all right now, a'int we?" I did not answer him in words; but leaving him to gather intelligence from my looks, I ran to the tiller to see whether there remained any hope of getting her sufficiently near to the wind to enable us to fetch any part of the coast.

The attempt was but a forlorn hope. I might just as well have tried to sail her in the wind's eye. I could not "bring her to" in the least, but she went tearing on right before the wind. "Hamilton," I said, "we are in a bad way. She cannot beat against this gale under her jib, and you know that we have not a stitch of spare canvass."

Strange as it may seem, he did not seem at first to catch the idea of the danger we really were in. He had so accustomed himself to think of one kind of peril only, that he could see nothing alarming in our state so long as we carried on under easy canvass.

"Do you mean to say," he at last asked gravely, "do you mean to say that we are in any danger?"

"Danger!" I said, "do you think there is much safety to be found in a craft like this, out on the Indian Ocean, with a gale blowing?"

"Out on the ocean!"--here his face fell with the expression of a dawning apprehension; "what have we to do with the ocean?"

"How are we to keep out of it? Our last chance was to get her round and run her on the reef,--a poor chance, but all that we could dream of. You saw me try her just now, and saw that it was impossible."

"Then you mean to say nothing can prevent our drifting out to sea?" My silence and dejection gave him the sorrowful answer.

Poor Hamilton! he was a brave enough fellow in his way, and willing to stand any risk for the good of the service,--this was all in the way of business, and he felt it to be right enough,--but the idea of being drowned on a pic-nic excursion seemed to strike him as something altogether out of his way. I will not say that he was afraid on the occasion, because I do not believe he would admit the influence of fear. But he gave me the idea of a man labouring under the strangeness of an inadmissible proposition. It seemed as though a strong sense of injured innocence were mixed with his apprehensions, as if he felt himself to have been _done_ and ill-treated.

"You don't mean to say that you cannot get her round?" this was said to me in a tone that seemed to imply that I could if I would. "If I could," I answered, "I should have run her on the reef; she would certainly soon go to pieces there, but it was our only chance."

"Never mind her going to pieces," said he; "I will pay half the damage."

It annoyed me, even at that terrible moment, to hear our condition made a question of pounds, shillings, and pence. I felt angry, too, with him, when I reflected that we had been brought to this predicament simply by his clumsiness. I so far gave way to anger as to tell him that, if we got safe to land I never would go sailing with him again, nor trust myself on salt water with a watch-mate who didn't know what "luff" meant, and who wanted to sail in the wind's eye under a jib. Poor Hamilton, who now seemed fully to appreciate our peril, contented himself with assuring me that I might rest quiet, for I never should go sailing again with him, or with anybody else.

A growing and abiding sense of the truth of this probability soon checked the spirit of squabbling within each of us. We were every moment drifting out farther and farther. So long as the lights of the island had been visible, they had imparted some degree of comfort. They at least showed whither our course would lay in case matters should so far mend as to enable us to choose our own course. But our distance was each moment increasing, and the night was waxing darker continually. A few more minutes, and the lights were hidden from us; and we were left simply and literally without any knowledge of our position, on the Indian Ocean. The sea had got up, prodigiously, the wind blew harder than ever, and the night was as dark as pitch. Though she was flying before the wind, we could not keep the sea out of her,--it washed in over her quarter every few minutes, and it was all that we could do to keep her free by baling. Happily we had a couple of buckets with us, that served the turn well.

I shudder when I look back to this part of that fearful night. Later on in the season of our peril we did not feel so acutely the horrors of our position, because our sensibilities had been then pretty well exhausted by the struggle for existence. So little hope remained at last that our spirits scarcely retained the vitality necessary for suffering. We were as though already dead, and already taken away from living pains and feelings. But with the earlier part of the evening are connected associations of far more active pain--I mean during that part when I had not resigned hope. I know that there is a theory current that the living spirit never resigns hope; that a man sinking alone in the midst of the Atlantic, or bowed down for the stroke of the descending guillotine, never believes it to be impossible that he shall escape. I cannot pledge my own experience to the truth of this theory. The spirit of man is so firmly wedded to hope, that it is in extremity only that this blessing can be torn from us. But the divorce may be effected at last, even while the tide of life beats in the veins. I am quite sure that, during some hours of this night, we both felt perfectly devoid of hope, and that we could not have felt more certain of death had we actually passed the gloomy portals. But this was only latterly, when our physical energies had succumbed under protracted exertion, when every expedient we could devise for prolonging our chance seemed to have failed. At first I could not make up my mind that our case was hopeless, nor familiarise myself with the idea of approaching death. No rational ground remained of expecting any thing that could rescue us; and yet I could not forego the expectation that something would turn up. Our perishing seemed too bad a thing to be true. It could not be that our jocund morning should have such an issue; that we, so recent from the companionship of youth and grace, should be hurried to the contact of death. And yet all the while that I thus yielded to the promptings of natural instinct, I felt that we were drifting on each moment rapidly to the catastrophe.

While any room for activity remains, there is to be found some relief in exertion. The full bitterness of our condition was not felt till we had tried every device that we could think of, and had been reduced to inaction--without resignation. Our last resource was one on which I had been sanguine enough to build up some hope. It occurred to me that if we were to let go her anchor, the weight of that, together with her eighteen fathom of chain, might bring her bodily up. I only regretted that we had no spare spars wherewith to form a sort of breakwater, for I have great faith in the powers of a boat to ride out a gale and heavy sea under the lee of such a defence. Still I thought that we might manage to check her way effectually before we had driven too far out to sea; and then in the morning we might still find ourselves in sight of the island. There are circumstances under which one learns to make much of a very little hope, and I had made the most I could of this. We watched till we got into a smooth place, and then "let go." The extremity of peril had been reserved for this moment. The sudden check certainly brought her up as we expected, but other effects of our manœuvre followed which were beyond our calculation. She rounded to abruptly, and swung head to wind. But the weight of her anchor and chain hanging at her bows seemed as if they would pull her under water. The depression was so great that we saw that not a minute was to be lost, and that our only chance lay in heaving up again as quickly as possible. In our haste we both ran forward to the windlass, and by so doing nearly completed our destruction, for the additional weight had a most alarming effect on her immersion. It became evident that we must at once get rid of the weight, and that it must be done without any additional strain. Our only plan was to slip the cable, and let both it and the anchor go by the run. This I accordingly did; but not even in this extreme peril without a pang of regret. Being relieved, she rose instantly, and in a moment was before the wind again. It had been a narrow escape for us, and, but that we had chosen a smooth place, we must have been swamped there and then. She had shipped a great deal of water, and we had hard work to clear her; and then once more all our work to begin again, for she shipped seas almost as quickly as we could bale them out.

For some little time we worked like men, and as if we really thought that we might work to good purpose. But soon it became quite manifest that we must be beaten. Our utmost exertion barely sufficed to keep her clear; and any little respite that we allowed to ourselves begat a terrible accumulation of water. This could not go on long. Hamilton was the first to admit this conclusion, and to give up the struggle for existence. I observed the particular moment when hope died within him, and noted it by the token of his sinking listlessly on the locker, and expressing in his countenance no sign of interest in our proceedings. To him there remained no more of the interest of speculation; there was for him but one idea, that of death, present and painful. I cannot say that I considered it all over with us yet. I am far from laying claim to any superior degree of courage, or thinking myself a braver man than was my companion. Perhaps my love of life was greater--at any rate I did not yet give in, and by after inquiry I know that Hamilton did. I am thankful that it was so; for my experience made me afterwards acquainted with this state of feeling, and taught how paralysing are its effects. It may be that, had I earlier shared my friend's despondency, we neither should have survived to tell the tale. What I contrived to do, though little enough, was yet sufficient probably to make the difference of some hour or so in our foundering, and this respite proved our salvation.

Each moment that passed was bearing us out continually farther into the waste of waters. The gale howled, the waters foamed in rage, and washed over our gunwale; my shipmate had resigned himself to his fate, and replied not by word or sign to any consolation that I tried to suggest. All ground of hope seemed stricken from us; and yet, by a sort of perversity, I would not consent to the verdict that seemed to have gone forth against us. Such a struggle against adverse circumstance, where it is according to the habitual tone of a man's spirit, entitles him to the name of magnanimous; with me, it was rather a particular phase of obstinacy. One single chance yet remained to us--scarcely enough for rational hope; but yet enough to justify resistance to actual despair. As the wind then blew, it was just possible that we should drift off the Island of Bourbon, or, at any rate, come near enough to be picked up by some of her vessels. It was, indeed, a slender chance, but being our all, I made the most of it; so much, indeed, did I make of it, that I verily believe I should have felt quite confident of making the port, if I had had the means of steering. As it was, we drifted along, without any sail set, and without any compass to point us our whereabout. But the time was coming for me when I was to experience the pangs that attend the death of hope within us. This I regard as the painful part of this night's history. In the earlier stage, there was the relief of exertion; in the later stages there was the insensibility of apathy. The time of sharp anguish was during the transition from the one state to the other.

The _coup-de-grace_ came thus. Some half hour or so after the affair of the anchor, while we were drifting before the sea, we perceived a light ahead. Of course, this must be a vessel, most probably a _chasse marée_ belonging to the island. It was scarcely possible that we should reach this vessel, but of course we were violently agitated, at sight of her, with new-born hope. Hamilton even roused up and did what he could to help in keeping us afloat; which condition it was very doubtful whether we should be able to preserve long enough to enable us to come up with the stranger. She proved to be beating to windward, and we saw presently that one of her tacks would bring her within hail of us. To see this was to pass at once from despair to confidence. We regarded ourselves as saved, and scarcely heeded the time that must pass before she could come up with us; a time, every minute of which was fraught with peril, that might shut out from us the prospective help. As she drew near, one only fear remained, lest she might pass us unobserved in the obscurity of night; and so diminutive, an object were we, and so little to be expected in that place, that there was some room for the fear. As she neared us we shouted loudly, but the din of the elements was not to be overcome by our puny voices. But on a night like that, it was necessary to keep a good look-out, and we knew that she must have watchful eyes peering into the darkness. I had on board a brace of pistols ready charged, which having been stowed away in the locker had been kept dry. We fired one after the other, when quite close to the vessel, and succeeded in attracting their notice. We even made out in the murky air, to which our eyes were becoming accustomed, one or two figures of men, who ran forward to see what was the matter. But the _chasse marée_ held on her way, unheeding. When almost under her bows, we called out to them in agony, to heave to, and take us on board. But to our utter horror they held on their way, taking no notice of us except by some unintelligible cries. The _chasse marée_ passed on, as if she thought it matter of little heed that two human beings were left to perish in the elemental strife of that dark night.

To this moment I cannot understand this adventure. It is scarcely possible to believe that any ship's crew of men could have the horrid barbarity to leave unsuccoured a boat perishing in that wild night. And yet it is, perhaps, quite impossible to believe that they could have thought us sea-worthy and safe. Our signal, our cries, the dismantled condition of our boat, all spoke for themselves. Bitter, surely, must be the recollections of that vessel's company! dark must be the character of that life, in which such an act of barbarism was an unobserved passage. That skipper's worst enemy might wish for him that he might have the knowledge of our escape; that so the pillow of his death may be spared the visitation of that terrible reminiscence.

We looked a moment at each other aghast. We could not believe that the promised succour had eluded us; that we were deserted by brother man on the wide ocean. But wind and water raging around us howled into our very souls the fact. From that time I may say that I gave up hope, that I became as dead; and when at last safety sprang up, it was as from the grave that I rose to grasp it.

From this time I have little more to speak of than a dull and stupid endurance. A period of pain there was to go through, when my mind was bewildered with thoughts of home, and of those I loved in my present abode. There was a bitter pang to think that I must resign my young existence, and there was a realising of the pains of suffocation. I thought it was a horrid death to drown. I remembered the popular idea of death by drowning as coming easily; but I _felt_ this to be wrong, and knew by anticipation that I should have a cruel struggle when the water occupied my nose and mouth. Both my companion and myself seemed reduced at last to apathy. We neither spoke nor moved; and both, evidently, thought it vain to continue any longer the struggle for existence. We bade each other farewell, and then uttered no more words. What remained to us of life was given to inward discipline, and to that communing of which the wise man speaks not lightly.

The events that I have been describing, with I fear but little distinctness of arrangement, had carried us on to about midnight. It is difficult to estimate properly the duration of time under such circumstances; but so nearly as I can guess, it must have been about ten o'clock when the _chasse marée_ passed us. It must have been little less than two hours that intervened between this time and the happy turn for the better that was awaiting us. My wonder is that we lasted so long; I cannot conceive how it was that the boat kept above water. The sea washed in continually, and we did nothing to oppose its progress. Certain it is that nothing in the history of escapes, with which I am acquainted, was ever more narrow than my own escape; nor ever did a boat float so exactly up to the indispensable point.

From the stupor of despair I was aroused by the report of a musket; it was enough to break the spell and re-awaken the love of life within us. Somebody was near, and we might yet be saved. Another, and another report followed, and a blue light blazed forth. We then distinctly saw, and not very far from us, a brig hove to, and, as we had not the least doubt, making signals to us. Joyously we sprang to renewed life and hope. We again loaded our pistols and answered the signals of our unexpected deliverer. To our unspeakable joy these were perceived, and soon we saw the brig fill her sails and bear away after us. Our plight was yet bad enough. We certainly were above water, and in sight of succour; but it was very doubtful whether we should be able to last long enough to avail ourselves of the assistance that approached. Our gunwale was nearly level with the water, and in a few more minutes would be submerged. Oh! how did we long to be able to throw overboard every weighty article, and yet we feared to stir lest we should farther disturb the equilibrium. We sat still and motionless on the stern locker, measuring with our eyes the decreasing distance between us and the brig, and calculating the chances which each moment increased in our favour. We feared that the brig might run us down; but we did wrong to her skilful master. They ranged up nearly alongside of us, with main-topsail aback, and threw us out a rope. Hamilton was first, and easily drawn on board, at the expense of little more than an ordinary ducking. My turn came next; and I might have escaped as well as he did, but my worldly feelings had wonderfully revived, and I was no longer content to come off with the mere saving of life; I wanted also to save the boat, which, be it remembered, I had sold, but for which I had not received the purchase-money. I thought that if I could manage to make fast a rope to the step of her mast we might hoist her in bodily, and save her after all. The rescue would then be complete of the whole party. I sang out to them to stand by to haul us in, and rope in hand ran forward to make fast to the mast. But it was not to be. The gallant little boat had done her utmost; and now her time was come. She had saved our lives, but was herself to go down to the abyss of waters. She gave a heavy lurch, and I felt that she was settling. With scarcely the warning of a moment, she dipped her bows under, and sank at once and suddenly like a stone. In that moment the waters were boiling around me, the greedy waves sucked me under; but I held fast the friendly rope. I was drawn on board, but not without some difficulty; for my prolonged exertions had severely tried my powers of endurance, and I could hardly hold on long enough. But saved we were. As I trod the schooner's deck,--as I saw her make sail, and brave the elements which had so nearly wrought our destruction, I felt as though I had seen an angel's arm stretched forth to pluck us from the gulf of waters. I wanted no explanation of the causes which had led her forth; she had met us in extremity, and was to me the arm of Providence. The rescue is as providential in cases where the peril is over in a moment. But there does not seem to be room for such deep impression, where peril merely flashes as the lightning across one's path. The bitterness of death must be tasted by him who is to appreciate the sweetness of deliverance.

On board, we found ourselves in familiar company. Several of our friends were there, and gave us the history of our rescue. At the time when the squall had come on, the other boats had been, as I have said, well ahead of us, and clear of the reef. Some of them had had a little trouble in getting to their moorings, but all were present at muster except ourselves. This would not perhaps have alarmed them, had not the hours continued to pass away without our appearance. By and by their fears were fully excited by the arrival of a man who from the point had seen the accident. He declared that he had seen us blown out to sea, and his report was corroborated by our non-appearance. On this a regular alarm had been sounded in the island. The good old governor had despatched his tender to look out for us, and I know not how many volunteers had started on the same errand. Many were the good fellows who had braved the horrors of that stormy night, that they might have the hope of helping us. The brig was a merchant craft, whose skipper and owner had been induced to start on the cruise. She had been throwing out signals for an hour and a half, and was nearly giving up the search as a bad job. Well for us that she did not!

It was gray morning when the good skipper set us on shore; and I might very well end my yarn, with telling how we heartily shook each other by the hand, and how then I betook myself to those quarters which I had so little expected ever to revisit. But circumstances deeply affecting my after life came as sequels to this adventure, and I think the account of them should come here also. I reached my room without having met a single individual; and tired, wet, and worn out with mental agitation, I threw myself on my bed and slept soundly. My dreams naturally followed in the train of what had been my waking thoughts. Again I was afloat, and again underwent the terrors of foundering at sea. The phantasy of a dreaming spirit presented to my ear the lamentations of my friends. As waking, I had thought in the hour of peril of some one or two who would lament my sad doom; so in my sleep I went yet a step beyond this, and seemed to hear the utterance of the lamentations. These waxed more and more distinct, till the reality of them broke the spell of dreams. I awoke, and yet heard the same conversation.

"Poor fellow! what a dreadful thing!" said one voice.

"Shocking!" said another, which I knew to be that of my old boating antagonist, the first lieutenant of the Bucephalus. "Shocking! I always prophesied that that craft would be his coffin, but little did I think my words would come true."

The good fellow actually wept as he spoke.

"And that poor fellow, Hamilton, who scarcely ever set foot afloat?"

"Well, they're both gone, but not without our doing, all we could to give them a chance--that's one comfort."

I was now fully awake to the consciousness that I was alive and well--and to the understanding that these mates of mine were lamenting my loss. I did not waste any words in endeavouring to convince them that they were mistaken, but, jumping out of bed, I stood before them. The men stared as if they had seen a veritable ghost, but, recovering themselves in a moment, almost wrung my arm off in congratulatory shaking. Intense astonishment was mingled with their delight, and they were perfectly vociferous in demanding an explanation of the phenomenon I presented in my own living person. It turned out that they had been cruising about pretty nearly the whole night, in the hope of falling in with me. They had full confidence in my resolution; and knew that I would not give in while a chance remained, and so they hoped I would manage to keep afloat, till some one of the numerous boats that were out should fall in with me. I have no doubt that they would have prolonged their search throughout the night, had they not fallen in with a craft, (by the description, I doubt not the identical _chasse marée_ that so cruelly deserted us,) which gave them to understand that they had seen us go down. "_Fin, fin, allés_,"[46] with expressive pointing to the depths of ocean, was the answer they had received to their inquiries. With heavy hearts they had returned home; and without meeting any but those whose search had been as ineffectual as their own.

"And now, Jack," said my friend the lieutenant, "now that we have got you within hail once more, safe and sound, who do you suppose it was that sent me here this morning?"

"To tell you the truth, I thought it was a little sentimental excursion on your own account."

"Not a bit of it. A cleverer head than mine or yours either ordered the expedition. Virginie would have it that any intelligence about you would be in one's way here."

"Then you told her nothing of the authentic account of our foundering?"

"Indeed but I did--but she would not believe it. Depend upon it, instinct is a fine thing. Her instinct has proved better than our reason,--for she would have it that you were not drowned, and that news would find its way here."

Then we entered into a sort of _resumé_ of the shore-going events of the last night; of all that the governor had done, and the good fellows who had volunteered to row guard all night with lights. Then it was told me that the ladies had been deeply affected, but none so deeply as Virginie. She had taken no rest all night; but with tearful eyes had looked out for concerted signals of intelligence, and breathlessly questioned every messenger. My sailor friend had been in the same boat with her, and had won from her expressions of gratitude, by his determination to pass the whole night, if necessary, in the search for me. At that moment when we stood speaking, she did not know of my safety.

I determined to be myself the announcer of my prorogued existence, and set off at once to the residence of her father. I had prepared speeches of thankful acknowledgment of her interest in my welfare, and was maturing the intention of letting her see that love for her had been kindled in my breast. But my fine resolves were rendered of little effect, and my speeches broken short by the young lady, who, the moment she beheld me, threw herself--her dear self--right into my arms. She did, indeed, without the least preamble or apologetic qualification.

There is but one issue to such a predicament as this. I had not much time, certainly, for wooing; but I am happy to say, that before long I was wed, and that now I am the husband of Virginie.

SWITZERLAND AND ITALY.

IT is not one of the least curious incidents of the times in which we live, that two directly opposite movements should have taken place in the countries on either side of the Alps, and that their results should have been so extremely different from what might have been expected. In one,--the chosen land of freedom, as it has been called, the last home and refuge of Liberty, when she had deserted other and more genial climes,--the so-called liberals, the democrats, the radicals, have just undertaken a successful crusade against freedom of conscience, and have subdued the aristocratic defenders of religious liberty, even amidst the strongholds of their mountains. In the other,--long the supposed seat of despotism in its purest and most unmitigated form, where liberty and freedom of opinion had not, except during the storm of the French Revolution, ever shown any signs of existence,--a most decisive and energetic movement in favour of political freedom has taken place, and has been originated by the very chief and organ of what the Transmontane people generally consider as the concentrated expression of all that enslaves and subdues the mind. The facts have certainly been unexpected; they have burst upon European statesmen, or at least upon those of the northern and western courts, unawares; and their ultimate consequences appear to be as much beyond their ken as they are beyond their control. The Swiss Federation, notwithstanding the proffered mediation of the great powers, have settled their own matters among themselves; and the Italians seem inclined to _laver leur linge sale en famille_, as Napoleon used to recommend people to do when the operation was of a more than usually unpleasant nature, without saying "by your leave, or with your leave," to any of the barbarians that dwell on the northern sides of the Alps. Austria and France are equally balked in their views upon Switzerland and Italy; and the only power that seems likely to gain any thing by these events will be, in spite of herself, "the perfidious Albion." As usual, however, with English diplomatists, but still more as usual with Whig officials, and with the gaping good-natured multitude of the British Islands, those advantages that may accrue to our country will come, not through any astuteness of the government, or its servants, but through the sheer force of events urging themselves on in their inevitable course, and filling up the series of secondary causes and effects that compose the history of the world.

To any one contemplating the enviable position and the natural advantages of Switzerland, and still more to any one looking at the fundamental character of the Swiss people, it would seem one of the most difficult political problems to find any cause for internal quarrel and disunion, much less for civil war. Blessed as they are with a country that necessitates all the skill and industry of man to bring forth its full powers, but which, when man tills its bosom, and pours the sweat of his brow into its lap, yields him the sweet return of abundant competence and varied riches, the Swiss have long been looked up to with justice as one of the most truly prosperous and thriving people of Europe. They have not been tempted to throw aside the agricultural occupations of their country for the dangerous and transitory fluctuations of commerce; they have remained strong in their national and natural simplicity; rich, and more than rich, in the produce of their lands, raised by the labour of their arms; and, amid the many changes of other states, when once the fever of the revolutionary malady had left them, tranquil and contented, and objects of envy to all surrounding people. Thus national ambition was of necessity limited; external aggrandisement and colonial extension they could know nothing about; their territory was safe from foreign aggression, or was supposed so, and their energies could only expend themselves on the affairs of their own country. Switzerland remained till within the last few years, as it had always been, the "cynosure of neighbouring eyes" to all Europe; and scarcely a traveller ever wandered amidst its vales and mountains, but sighed after a dwelling in that fairy land, and longed for it as his country by adoption next after the land of his birth. Of all people in the world, the Swiss, to external spectators at least, seemed to have the least to wish for, and the least cause to be discontented either with their country or themselves.

And yet, of a sudden, up rises a storm; the Federation splits; and, before men can come to comprehend what the mountaineers are quarrelling about, swords are drawn, shots are fired, a couple of towns are captured, and the war is declared at an end almost before it was known to have commenced. It has been like a drama at the opera. _Scene_, a rocky district, with a town in the distance: enter a chorus of peasants, who sing about liberty. Alarums: a band of soldiers rush in and drive them off the stage. Grand cantata of the president,--and the curtain falls. Some connoisseurs in the boxes call for the manager, and ask when the opera is going to begin, as they wish to intervene: the manager enters from the side-door, bows humbly, and intimates that they may have their tickets returned if they please, the play being over. General disappointment!

Something like this would be the dramatised history of the late Helvetic disturbances; so brief, and we may almost say so ridiculous, has the whole seemed. In most countries, when a civil war is proclaimed, and one-third of the nation declares its intention of separating from the other two-thirds, a struggle of some length and earnestness of purpose may be with tolerable certainty predicted: even in Belgium, we should suppose that a civil war would take a month or two before it could be finally extinguished. But in Switzerland it appears that the feelings of the belligerents, whatever may have been their previous intensity, have found an easy vent for rapid evaporation; and after one or two passes with the sword, the weaker combatant has dropped his point and given up.

There must have been something false and spurious at the bottom of all this, or all the braggadocio of the Federalists and the Sonderbund could never have been dissipated by a few shots at Fribourg and Lucerne: one of the two parties at least could not have been in earnest, or they never would have knocked under so easily and so speedily. Political reasons for war cannot become on a sudden so thoroughly fallacious, nor military resources so thoroughly exhausted, as that one day's skirmishing at Fribourg, and two day's fighting near Lucerne, could suffice to settle the quarrel. We are inclined, therefore, to suspect the weaker party to have been conscious of wrong in this case, though to any impartial observer the acts of aggression lay all at the door of the stronger.