‘What are we waiting for? why, two more passengers—grand ladies as they tell me—and the captain has gone ashore to fetch them,’ the first mate of the ‘Granville’ barque, of London, made answer to Frederick Conyngham, and he breathed on his fingers as he spoke, for the north-west wind was blowing across the plains of the Medoc, and the sun had just set behind the smoke of Bordeaux.
The ‘Granville’ was lying at anchor in the middle of the Garonne river, having safely discharged her deck cargo of empty claret casks and landed a certain number of passengers. There are few colder spots on the Continent than the sunny town of Bordeaux when the west wind blows from Atlantic wastes in winter time. A fine powder of snow scudded across the flat land, which presented a bleak brown face, patched here and there with white. There were two more passengers on board the ‘Granville,’ crouching in the cabin—two French gentlemen who had taken passage from London to Algeciras in Spain, on their way to Algiers.
Conyngham, with characteristic good-nature, had made himself so entirely at home on board the Mediterranean trader that his presence was equally welcomed in the forecastle and the captain’s cabin. Even the first mate, his present interlocutor, a grim man given to muttered abuse of his calling and a pious pessimism in respect to human nature, gradually thawed under the influence of so cheerful an acceptance of heavy weather and a clumsy deck cargo.
‘The ladies will be less trouble than the empty casks, at all events,’ said Conyngham, ‘because they will keep below.’
The sailor shook his head forebodingly and took an heroic pinch of snuff.
‘One’s as capable of carrying mischief as the other,’ he muttered in the bigoted voice of a married teetotaller.
The ship was ready for sea, and this mariner’s spirit was ever uneasy and restless till the anchor was on deck and the hawser stowed.
‘There’s a boat leaving the quay now,’ he added. ‘Seems she’s lumbered up forr’ard wi’ women’s hamper.’
And indeed the black form of a skiff so laden could be seen approaching through the driving snow and gloom. The mate called to the steward to come on deck, and this bearded servitor of dames emerged from the galley with uprolled sleeves and a fine contempt for cold winds. A boy went forward with a coil of rope on his arm, for the tide was running hard and the Garonne is no ladies’ pleasure stream. It is not an easy matter to board a ship in mid-current when tide and wind are at variance, and the fingers so cold that a rope slips through them like a log-line. The ‘Granville,’ having still on board her cargo of coals for Algeciras, lay low in the water with both her anchors out and the tide singing round her old-fashioned hempen hawsers.
‘Now see ye throw a clear rope,’ shouted the mate to the boy who had gone forward. The proximity of the land and the approach of women—a bête noire no less dreaded—seemed to flurry the brined spirit of the Granville’s’ mate.
Perhaps the knowledge that the end of a rope, not judged clear, would inevitably be applied to his own person, shook the nerve of the boy on the forecastle—perhaps his hands were cold and his faculties benumbed. He cast a line which seemed to promise well at first. Two coils of it unfolded themselves gracefully against the grey sky, and then Confusion took the others for herself. A British oath from the deck of the ship went out to meet a fine French explosion of profanity from the boat, both forestalling the splash of the tangled rope into the water under the bows of the ship, and a full ten yards out of the reach of the man who stood, boathook in hand, ready to catch it. There were two ladies in the stern of the boat, muffled up to the eyes, and betokening by their attitude the hopeless despair and misery which seize the southern fair the moment they embark in so much as a ferry boat. The fore part of the heavy craft was piled up with trunks and other impedimenta of a feminine incongruity. A single boatman had rowed the boat from the shore, guiding it into mid-stream, and there describing a circle calculated to insure a gentle approach on the lee side. This man, having laid aside his oars, now stood, boathook in hand, awaiting the inevitable crash. The offending boy in the bows was making frantic efforts to haul in his misguided rope, but the possibility of making a second cast was unworthy of consideration. The mate muttered such a string of foreboding expletives as augured ill for the delinquent. The boatman was preparing to hold on and fend off at the same moment—a sudden gust of wind gave the boat a sharp buffet just as the man grappled the mizzen-chains—he overbalanced himself, fell, and recovered himself, but only to be jerked backwards into the water by the boathook, which struck him in the chest.
‘à moi!’ cried the man, and disappeared in the muddy water. He rose to the surface under the ship’s quarter, and the mate, quick as lightning, dumped the whole coil of the slack of the main sheet on to the top of him. In a moment he was at the level of the rail, the mate and the steward hauling steadily on the rope, to which he clung with the tenacity and somewhat the attitude of a monkey. At the same instant a splash made the rescuers turn in time to see Conyngham, whose coat lay thrown on the deck behind them, rise to the surface ten yards astern of the ‘Granville’ and strike out towards the boat, now almost disappearing in the gloom of night.
The water, which had flowed through the sunniest of the sunny plains of France, was surprisingly warm, and Conyngham, soon recovering from the shock of his dive, settled into a quick side-stroke. The boat was close in front of him, and in the semi-darkness he could see one of the women rise from her seat and make her way forward, while her companion crouched lower and gave voice to her dismay in a series of wails and groans. The more intrepid lady was engaged in lifting one of the heavy oars, when Conyngham called out in French:
‘Courage, mesdames! I will be with you in a moment.’
Both turned, and the pallor of their faces shone whitely through the gloom. Neither spoke, and in a few strokes Conyngham came alongside. He clutched the gunwale with his right hand, and drew himself breast high.
‘If these ladies,’ he said, ‘will kindly go to the opposite side of the boat, I shall be able to climb in without danger of upsetting.’
‘If mama inclines that way I think it will be sufficient,’ answered the muffled form which had made its way forward. The voice was clear and low, remarkably self-possessed, and not without a suggestion that its possessor bore a grudge against some person present.
‘Perhaps mademoiselle is right,’ said Conyngham with becoming gravity, and the lady in the stern obeyed her daughter’s suggestion, with the result anticipated. Indeed, the boat heeled over with so much goodwill that Conyngham was lifted right out of the water. He clambered on board and immediately began shivering, for the wind cut like a knife.
The younger lady made her way cautiously back to the seat which she had recently quitted, and began at once to speak very severely to her mother. This stout and emotional person was swaying backwards and forwards, and, in the intervals of wailing and groaning, called in Spanish upon several selected saints to assist her. At times, and apparently by way of a change, she appealed to yet higher powers to receive her soul.
‘My mother,’ said the young lady to Conyngham, who had already got the oars out, ‘has the heart of a rabbit, but—yes—of a very young rabbit.’
‘Madame may rest assured that there is no danger,’ said Conyngham.
‘Monsieur is an Englishman—’
‘Yes, and a very cold one at the moment. If madame could restrain her religious enthusiasm so much as to sit still, we should make better progress.’
He spoke rather curtly, as if refusing to admit the advisability of manning the boat with a crew of black-letter saints. The manner in which the craft leapt forward under each stroke of the oars testified to the strength of his arms, and madame presently subsided into whispers of thankfulness, having reason, it would seem, to be content with mere earthly aid in lieu of that heavenly intervention which ladies of her species summon at every turn of life.
‘I wish I could help you,’ said the younger woman presently, in a voice and manner suggestive of an energy unusual to her countrywomen. She spoke in French, but with an accent somewhat round and full, like an English accent, and Conyngham divined that she was Spanish. He thought also that under their outer wraps the ladies wore the mantilla, and had that graceful carriage of the head which is only seen in the Peninsula.
‘Thank you, mademoiselle, but I am making good progress now. Can you see the ship?’
She rose and stood peering into the darkness ahead—a graceful, swaying figure. A faint scent as of some flower was wafted on the keen wind to Conyngham, who had already decided with characteristic haste that this young person was as beautiful as she was intrepid.
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘it is quite close. They are also showing lights to guide us.’
She stood looking apparently over his head towards the ‘Granville,’ but when she spoke it would seem that her thoughts had not been fixed on that vessel.
‘Is monsieur a sailor?’
‘No, but I fortunately have a little knowledge of such matters—fortunate, since I have been able to turn it to the use of these ladies.’
‘But you are travelling in the “Granville.”’
‘Yes; I am travelling in the “Granville.”’
Over his oars Conyngham looked hard at his interlocutrice, but could discern nothing of her features. Her voice interested him, however, and he wondered whether there were ever calms on the coast of Spain at this time of the year.
‘Our sailors,’ said the young lady, ‘in Spain are brave, but they are very cautious. I think none of them would have done such a thing as you have just done for us. We were in danger. I knew it. Was it not so?’
‘The boat might have drifted against some ship at anchor and been upset. You might also have been driven out to sea. They had no boat on board the “Granville” ready to put out and follow you.’
‘Yes; and you saved us. But you English are of a great courage. And my mother, instead of thanking you, is offering her gratitude to James and John the sons of Zebedee, as if they had done it.’
‘I am no relation to Zebedee,’ said Conyngham with a gay laugh. ‘Madame may rest assured of that.’
‘Julia,’ said the elder lady severely, and in a voice that seemed to emanate from a chest as deep and hollow as an octave cask, ‘I shall tell Father Concha, who will assuredly reprove you. The saints upon whom I called were fishermen, and therefore the more capable of understanding our great danger. As for monsieur, he knows that he shall always be in my prayers.’
‘Thank you, madame,’ said Conyngham gravely.
‘And at a fitter time I hope to be able to tender him my thanks.’
At this moment a voice from the ‘Granville’ hailed the boat, asking whether all was well and Mr. Conyngham on board. Being reassured on this point, the mate apparently attended to another matter requiring his attention, the mingled cries and expostulations of the cabin boy sufficiently indicating its nature.
The boat, under Conyngham’s strong and steady strokes, now came slowly and without mishap alongside the great black hull of the vessel, and it soon became manifest that, although all danger was past, there yet remained difficulty ahead; for when the boat was made fast and the ladder lowered, the elder of the two ladies firmly and emphatically denied her ability to make the ascent. The French boatman, shivering in a borrowed great coat, and with a vociferation which flavoured the air with cognac, added his entreaties to those of the mate and steward. In the small boat Conyngham, in French, and the lady’s daughter, in Spanish, represented that at least half of the heavenly host, having intervened to save her from so great a peril as that safely passed through, could surely accomplish this smaller feat with ease. But the lady still hesitated, and the mate, having clambered down into the boat, grabbed Conyngham’s arm with a large and not unkindly hand, and pushed him forcibly towards the ladder.
‘You hadn’t got no business, Mr. Conyngham,’ he said gruffly, ‘to leave the ship like that, and like as not you’ve got your death of cold. Just you get aboard and leave these women to me. You get to your bunk, mister, and stooard’ll bring you something hot.’
There was nought but obedience in the matter, and Conyngham was soon between the blankets, alternately shivering and burning in the first stages of a severe chill.
The captain having come on board, the ‘Granville’ presently weighed anchor, and on the bosom of an ebbing tide turned her blunt prow towards the winter sea. The waves out there beat high, and before the lights of Pauillac, then a mere cluster of fishers’ huts, had passed away astern, the good ship was lifting her bow with a sense of anticipation, while her great wooden beams and knees began to strain and creak.
During the following days, while the sense of spring and warmth slowly gave life to those who could breathe the air on deck, Conyngham lay in his little cabin and heeded nothing; for when the fever left him he was only conscious of a great lassitude, and scarce could raise himself to take such nourishment as the steward, with a rough but kindly skill, prepared for him.
‘Why the deuce I ever came—why the deuce I ever went overboard after a couple of se?oras—I don’t know,’ he repeated to himself during the hours of that long watch below.
Why, indeed? except that youth must needs go forth into the world and play the only stake it owns there. Nor is Frederick Conyngham the first who, having no knowledge of the game of life, throws all upon the board to wait upon the hazard of a die.