Rogues and Vagabonds

The ship was going down!

The sky was cloudless, the sun rode high in the heavens, and the waves glistened in the clear, bright light. It was a glorious summer day-a time when life pulsed joyously, and everything invited a man to forget his troubles, close his eyes, and lie basking in the warmth.

A soft, invigorating breeze fanned the pallid cheeks of the eager watchers; the eyes worn with long vigils glistened in the silver light that fell on them; the glowing orb above sent its rays upon haggard faces and seemed to make them smile.

The ship was going down-going down in a calm sea. Here, shut off from all human aid-here, with no one to know the secret of that last hour of anguish and despair-Death had come to the fifty souls left on board the Bon Espoir. They were alone upon the trackless ocean. Around them lay leagues of lonely water. Their fate would be a mystery. As the weeks went on, and no tidings came of the ship, her name would be upon every tongue, and strange conjectures as to her fate would drop from thousands of lips.

The world would picture the good ship caught in some furious tempest, dashed to pieces, and engulfed amid the roar of the billows, the howling of the wind, and the wild cries for help of terror-stricken men.

But there was no tempest, no wind to howl-only a gentle zephyr, that kissed the men's checks as gently as their mothers did in their happy childhoods; no billows to seethe-only little playful wavelets that lapped against the ship's side gently, and seemed to say, 'You are ours; presently we shall dance and sport above you, and toss your bodies softly to and fro in the merry sunshine.'

A night had passed since the crew and passengers of the Bon Espoir knew they were doomed. She had sprung a leak in midocean on the previous night, in a lonely part, far out of the regular track, where for weeks and weeks never a sail might be seen.

The night was dark.

The sea was rough, and there had been a panic. The boats had been filled with passengers and some of the crew at once. The captain had shouted to them to keep near the ship, but the order had been disobeyed. When the light dawned those on board the Bon Espoir scanned the horizon, and saw no floating thing upon the waves.

A light mist hung like a veil over the waters, narrowing their range of vision. The wind had sunk, the waves were at rest, and the sun bursting through the mist gleamed upon a vast expanse of smiling sea.

Those who had stuck to the ship, hoping against hope that she might keep afloat yet until they fell into the track of other vessels, took counsel together and talked of a raft when every effort to save the vessel had been found useless.

But they were in a latitude where the storm came swiftly on the calm; where, with little warning, the baby waves swelled into gigantic billows, and the sighing zephyr, gathering sudden strength, shrieked aloud and lashed the sea to fiercest fury.

The sailors who remained were principally foreigners. They had remained on the ship all night, refusing to work when they found the water gaining on them. They had gone below, torn their hair, beaten their breasts, cried aloud to the saints. Then they attacked the spirit store, and drank till they reeled down and slept a brutish, drunken sleep where they lay.

The passengers still left were all men, but unskilled. Without the aid of the sailors they could not make a raft. The sailors were not in a condition to move-certainly not to work. They had resigned themselves to their fate now. That strange sense of calm which comes mercifully even to cowards when hope is absolutely dead had fallen on them all.

They stood leaning over the ship's sides, waiting for the end, their faces pale, their eyes haggard, and their thoughts far away.

Some of them had wives and children at home, and the images of their beloved ones rose up before them. They seemed to pierce the space and see the place that would know them no more. One man whispered to those who stood near him that he had heard his little boy cry "Father!" and another said that in the night he had seen his wife hearing his little ones their prayers, and when they said "God bless papa!" she looked up, and her eyes were filled with tears.

There were yet some hours between them and death, and they could still talk to each other.

It seemed a relief to do so; it created a companionship in misery; they cheered each other with their voices.

There was a clergyman among the passengers, and, as the captain went away to his post after a few last words of encouragement to the little band, the reverend gentleman asked their attention for a moment.

Earnestly and calmly, as became an English gentleman in the presence of death, the man of God prayed to the Throne of Grace for strength and sustenance in this hour of supreme peril. Briefly he addressed his little flock of doomed ones, and then went his way, deeming the last moments of his fellow-voyagers sacred to themselves.

As he was walking quietly aft, he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.

He turned, and found that one of the passengers had followed him. He was a quiet, gentlemanly man, who had hardly spoken to any one during the voyage. He was tall, dark, and well built, apparently a man of five or six and thirty. The face was pleasing at first glance, the features being well cut, and not too prominent. But on a closer inspection the defects were apparent. The lips were sensual; the eyes had that strange look which one sees in the hunted animal. The fear of something behind was apparent upon the face the moment the features were disturbed from their repose. A dark moustache covered the too thick upper lip, and the rest of the face was bronzed with long travel and exposure to sun and sea. One thing would instantly attract the attention of the ordinary observer-the strange way in which "indecision" was expressed in his countenance. His eyes and his lips would have revealed the secret of his character to a physiognomist at once.

He had evidently made up his mind in a hurry to say something to the clergyman. Directly that gentleman turned kindly, and asked what service he could render him, he hesitated.

'I beg your pardon,' he said, after a pause; 'but can I speak with you alone?'

They walked to a deserted part of the ship.

'I am going to make an extraordinary statement to you,' said the passenger, his undecided eyes now looking in the clergyman's face and now resting on the deck; 'but I think I ought to. You are a clergyman, and I know no one better to whom in the hour of death I can confess a secret that should not die with me.'

The clergyman surveyed his interviewer earnestly for a moment.

'Is it a crime?' he asked.

The passenger nodded.

'I don't want to die with it on my mind,' he murmured. 'I fancy when the-the end comes, I shall die easier.'

'My friend,' said the clergyman, kindly, 'do not imagine that a confession at the last moment takes guilt from the soul. To confess a crime to one who is about to share your fate is, perhaps, rather a superstitious than a religious deed. Let us understand each other. We both believe that we are about to die. You confess to me, perhaps thinking that no possible harm can come to you from it-that you run no such risk as you would in confessing under other circumstanccs.'

'I haven't thought about that,' answered the passenger, almost in a whisper. 'Let me tell some human being my secret, and it will at least be off my mind. I feel as if the secret would choke me if I kept it any longer. I cannot die with murder on my soul.'

'Murder!' exclaimed the clergyman, starting back; then, recovering himself, he added, 'Speak on; but I warn you that whatever you tell me, should we, by the Lord's will, be saved, I will keep as no secret. Neither shall you deny it. Write.'

The clergyman drew out his pocket-book, and handed it, with a pencil, to the passenger.

The latter hesitated.

Presently, with a supreme effort, he wrote:-

'On board the Bon Espoir.

'The ship is sinking rapidly. I, Gurth Egerton, believing that I am about to die, do solemnly declare that on the night of the 15th of September, 18-, I stabbed my cousin, Ralph Egerton, in a gambling-house, kept by a man named Heckett, and that the wound proved fatal. I freely make this confession, and may God forgive me.

'Signed, Gurth Egerton.'

The clergyman took the book from him and read it. Then he wrote something beneath it.

The confession once made, a swift revulsion of feeling came over Gurth Egerton. He reached out his hand, as though he would have snatched it back.

The clergyman closed the book and thrust it into his pocket.

'Unhappy sinner!' he said; 'even now you repent the acknowledgment of your awful crime. Pray, for your time is short. Remember, should God spare me, I will use every effort to bring you to justice.'

As the last words left his lips, and Gurth Egerton, with a white face, was about to turn away, a loud cry rang out from the look-out man.

'A sail! A sail!'

The doomed men rushed to the side of the vessel and strained their eyes. In that wild moment of sudden hope all was forgotten. Gurth Egerton flew to the vessel's side.

Yes. Far away in the distance, but still visible, were the white sails of a ship.

Hope sprang up with renewed vigour in every breast. Strong men laughed and cried and hugged each other. A strange delirium animated them.

One or two of the sailors awoke from their drunken sleep, and came staggering on deck.

The excitement was at its height, each man shouting above his neighbour what was to be done to attract the passing ship's attention, when suddenly the vessel heeled over, there was a gurgling sound, the roar and rush of a huge volume of water pouring in, and then down like a stone, to the depths of the ocean, went the Bon Espoir.

* * *

The waves danced and glittered in the sunlight. Over the spot where the ship and her living freight had sunk the blue waves closed, and there was nothing to tell of their vanished prey.

A bottle bobbed about, carried now here now there by the playful waves. As the Bon Espoir sank, the clergyman's hand had hurled it far out to sea. It contained a leaf torn from his pocket-book.

The ship Diana, bound for Baltimore, sailed late that afternoon over the spot where the Bon Espoir had sunk.

A sailor who was in the rigging cried out that he could see something that looked like a barrel floating in the sea some distance away.

A boat was manned and put off.

In half an hour it returned with a strange story.

To the barrel they had seen in the water clung a man in the last stage of exhaustion. They had released him, and brought him with them.

Tenderly the sailors lifted a half-drowned body from the stern of the boat, and it was hoisted on board.

The surgeon of the Diana took it in charge, and pronounced it to be still alive.

Presently the half-drowned man opened his eyes.

'What ship?' asked the captain, when he had recovered sufficiently to speak.

'From the Bon Espoir,' answered the man, feebly. 'She sprang a leak and went down.'

'Who are you?'

The man hesitated a moment. His senses were evidently half scattered.

'My name is George Englehardt, of Philadelphia,' he said presently.

Then he looked round anxiously.

'Are there any saved except me?' he asked, in a faint whisper.

'Not a soul.'

The man heaved a deep sigh, and relapsed once more into unconsciousness.

* * *