Chapter One.

Mark Seaworth.

Picture a wide expanse of ocean, smooth as a polished mirror, and shining like molten silver; a sky of intense blue, without a cloud or speck, forming a vast arch resting on the water; no land or rock in sight; the boundless sea on every side; the sun travelling slowly and majestically along the arch, and casting his burning rays upon the glittering plain below.

Let us pause and contemplate that scene. What grandeur and sublimity there is in it! What a magnificent edifice does it seem! When compared with it, how utterly insignificant and contemptible do all the works of man’s hands appear! Then watch the sun sink with rays of glory in the west; the bright rich tinge glowing for a time, and gradually fading away before the obscurity of night; the stars coming forth and shining with a splendour unknown in northern climes; and then the moon, a mass of liquid flame, rising out of the dark sea, and casting across it a broad path of the silvery light. Watch the tranquil luminary glide also through her destined course, till once more the sun rushes upward from his ocean-bed in a sheet of fire, and claims supremacy over the world. This is one of the many grand and wonderful objects beheld by those who sail across the ocean, and amply does it repay for a long voyage those who have taste to appreciate its beauties.

Now let us return to the scene as I first described it, and, by looking closer into the picture, we shall observe a boat floating in its very centre. There are no masts or sails, nor are there any oars moving. The boat lies motionless like a log on the water. She is a large boat, a ship’s launch; her gunwale seems battered in as if she had undergone some hard usage. Above it nothing is seen moving; and, at the first glance, it would seem that there are no human beings on board. On looking down into the boat, however, we discover several persons, but whether dead or alive it is difficult to say, they are so quiet and so silent. Towards the bow are the forms of two men. They are on their backs—one is at the bottom of the boat, the other stretched along the thwarts, in uneasy postures. Their eyes are open and glaring unmoved at the bright sun; their lips are parted, black, and dry; the hand of death has, alas! at all events, fallen on them; nothing living could present such an aspect. By their dress and their complexion they seem to be British seamen. There is a small breaker or keg in the boat, but the hung is out—it is empty. There is also a bag, containing some hard ship-biscuit; it is still half full, but there is no other provision.

In the after part of the boat there is a sort of awning, formed of a shawl stretched across the gunwale, with a mat on the top of it, so as to form a thick shade. Near it, with her back leaning against the side of the boat, sits a dark-skinned woman. She has a turban on her head, and massive gold ear-rings in her ears, and bracelets round her arms, and anklets of gold round her legs, and her loose dress is of gay-coloured striped cotton of delicate texture. She is alive, but faint and weak; and, by her dim eye and short-coming breath, death seems to be approaching with stealthy strides to claim her as his own. Still, the soul is struggling to triumph over the weakness of the flesh. With an anxious gaze she looks beneath the awning, for there is something there which claims her constant solicitude. She turns her gaze towards the forms of the two seamen—she does not seem to know that they are dead. A faint cry comes from under the awning. Again she looks towards the bow of the boat; she sees that her companions in misery are not watching her. She now stealthily draws from beneath the folds of her dress, where she has carefully concealed it, a bottle of water. Did she, then, while the seamen slept, steal the water from the cask to preserve the existence of those committed to her fostering charge, and far more precious to her, in her sight, than her own life? There can be no doubt she did so. She discovers that she is not observed. There is a small tin pannikin near her, and several pieces of biscuit. She crumbles the biscuit, as well as she can with her weak fingers, into the pannikin, and then pours upon them a few drops of the precious fluid. She looks at the water with longing eyes, but will not expend even one drop to cool her parched lips. She mixes the biscuit

till it is completely softened, and then casting another furtive glance towards the bow, unconscious that the dead only are there, she carefully lifts up the awning. A low weak voice utters the word “Aya;” it is that of a child, some three or four years old perhaps; at the same time there is a plaintive cry from a younger infant. A smile irradiates the countenance of the Indian woman, for she knows that her charges are still alive. She leans forward, though her strength is barely sufficient to enable her to move, and puts the food into the mouths of the two children. The eldest, a boy, swallows it eagerly; for though somewhat pale, his strength seems but little impaired. The infant is a girl: she takes the mixture, so little suited to her tender years, but without appetite; and it would appear that in a very short time her career, just begun on earth, will be brought to a speedy close.

When the food is consumed, the nurse sinks back to her former position. She tries to swallow a piece of the biscuit, but her parched lips and throat refuse to receive the dry morsel, and the water she will not touch. Again the children cry for food, and once more she goes through the operation of preparing it for them as before; but her movements are slower, and she now has scarcely strength to carry the food to the mouths of the little ones.

The day passes away, the night goes by, the morning comes, and still the calm continues. The children awake and cry out for food. The nurse turns her languid eyes towards them, but her strength has almost gone; she even forgets for an instant the meaning of that cry. There is a struggle going on within her. At last her loving, faithful, and enduring spirit overcomes for a time the weakness of her body; she prepares the mess, and feeds the children. She gazes sorrowfully at the bottle—the last drop of water is consumed. She leans back, her bosom heaves faintly; the effort has been more than her failing strength would bear. She turns her eyes towards them; they are the last objects of any earthly thing she is destined to behold. A dimness comes stealing over them. Her thoughts are no longer under control, her arms fall by her side, her head droops on her chest, she has no strength to raise it. In a few hours more the faithful nurse will have ceased to breathe, and those young children will be left alone with the dead on the wild waste of waters.

But, reader, do not for one moment suppose that therefore they are doomed to perish. There is One above, the eternal, all-powerful God of goodness and love, who is watching over those helpless infants. His arm can stretch to the uttermost parts of the earth, and over the great waters: even now it is put forth to shield them, though we see it not. Even without a human hand to administer their food, in that open boat on the wide sea, over which a storm might presently rage, while billows may rise, threatening to overwhelm them, far away from land or living beings but themselves, those children are as secure, if so God wills it, as those who are sleeping on beds of down within palace walls; because, remember, reader, that He is all-powerful, and He is everywhere. Trust in Him; never despond; pray to Him for help at all times—in times of peace and prosperity, in times of danger and difficulty; and oh! believe that most assuredly He will help and protect you in the way He knows is best for your eternal happiness.

This is the lesson I would teach; for this is the lesson I have learned by means of all the difficulties and dangers I have undergone during the scenes of wild and extraordinary adventure which I have encountered in my course through life. Often and often, had I not been convinced of this great truth, I should have yielded to despair; and the longer I have lived, and the more dangers I have passed through, the more firmly convinced have I become of it. Often have I felt my own utter helplessness—the impossibility that the strength of man could avail me—when standing, it seemed, on the very brink of destruction; and in a way beyond all calculation, I have found myself rescued and placed in safety. It was for this reason that I have drawn the picture which I have exhibited to you. Ungrateful indeed should I be, and negligent of my bounden duty, did I not do my utmost to teach the lesson I have learned from the merciful protection so often afforded me; for know that I was one of those helpless infants! and the picture before us shows the first scene in my life of which I have any record; and this is the moral I would inculcate—“That God is everywhere.”

Chapter Two.

A large ship was floating on the ocean. I use the term floating, for she could scarcely be said to be doing anything else, as she did not seem to be moving in the slightest degree through the water. Some straw and chips of wood, which had been thrown overboard, continued hour after hour alongside. She was, however, moving; but it was round and round, though very slowly indeed, as a glance at the compass would have shown. The sea was as smooth as glass, for there was not a breath of air to ruffle it; there was, in fact, a perfect calm.

The ship was a first-class Indiaman, on her outward voyage to the far-famed land of the East; and she belonged to that body of merchant princes, the East India Company. In appearance she was not altogether unlike a frigate with her long tier of guns, her lofty masts, her wide spread of canvas, and her numerous crew; but her decks were far more encumbered than those of a man-of-war, and her hold was full of rich merchandise, and the baggage of the numerous passengers who occupied her cabins. Her sails, for the present, however, were of no use; so, having nothing else to do, for the sole purpose, it would seem, of annoying the most sensitive portion of the human beings on board, they continued, with most persevering diligence, flapping against the masts, while the ship rolled lazily from side to side. The decks presented the appearance of a little world shut out from the rest of mankind; for all grades, and all professions and trades, were to be found on board. On the high poop deck, under an awning spread over it to shelter them from the burning rays of the sun, were collected the aristocratical portion of the community. There were there to be found ladies and gentlemen, the sedate matron, and the blooming girl just reaching womanhood, the young wife and the joyous child; there were lawyers and soldiers, sailors and merchants, clergymen and doctors, some of them holding high rank in their respective professions. The captain, of course, was king, and his mates were his ministers; but, like the rest, he was bound by laws which he dared not infringe, even had he desired to have done so.

On the deck below were seen craftsmen of all sorts, occupied in their respective callings. Carpenters hard at work with plane and saw; blacksmiths with bellows and anvil; tailors and cobblers, barbers and washerwomen, painters and armourers, rope-makers and butchers, and several others, besides the seamen engaged in the multifarious duties in which officers know well how to employ them. Among the crew were seen representatives of each quarter of the Old World. There were Malays and other Asiatics, and the dark-skinned sons of Africa, mingled among the hardy seamen of Britain, each speaking a different jargon, but all taught by strict discipline to act in unison.

Besides the human beings, there were cattle and sheep destined for the butcher’s knife—cows to afford milk to the lady passengers, the invalids, and the children—even horses were on board, valuable racers or chargers, belonging to some of the military officers; there were several head of sheep penned up in the long-boat; and there were pigsties full of grunting occupants, who seemed to be more happy and to have made themselves far more at home than any of their four-footed fellow-voyagers. Ranging at liberty were several dogs of high and low degree, from the colonel’s thorough-bred greyhound to the cook’s cur, a very turnspit in appearance; nor must I forget Quacko, the monkey, the merriest and most active of two-legged or four-legged beings on board. It might have puzzled many to determine to which he belonged, as he was seen dressed in a blue jacket and white trousers, sitting up on the break of the forecastle, his usual playground in fine weather, cracking nuts, or peeling an orange like a human being, while his tongue was chattering away, as if he had a vast amount of information to communicate.

Then there were poultry of every description: ducks and geese, and turkeys and cocks and hens, quacking, and cackling, and gobbling, and crowing in concert: indeed, to shut one’s eyes, it was difficult not to suppose that one was in a well-stocked farm-yard; but on opening them again, one found one’s self surrounded by objects of a very different character to what one would there have seen. Instead of the trees, there were the tall masts, the rigging, and sails above one’s head, the bulwarks instead of the walls of the barns, the black and white seamen with thick beards instead of the ploughmen and milk-maids, and the wide glittering ocean instead of the muddy horse-pond.

This was the scene on the upper deck: below, it was stranger still. There were two decks, one beneath the other, both with occupants; there were cooks at the galley fire, whose complexion no soot could make blacker, and servants in white dresses and embroidered shawls, running backwards and forwards with their masters’ tiffins, as luncheons are called in India.

There were numerous cabins, many occupied by persons whose sole employment was to kill time, forgetting how soon time would kill them in return, and they would have to sum up the account of how they had spent their days on earth.

In the lower deck there were soldiers with their wives and children, and seamen, some sleeping out their watch below, and others mending their clothes, while a few were reading—a very few, I fear, such books as were calculated to afford them much instruction. Below, again, in the dark recesses of the hold, there were seamen with lanterns getting up stores and provisions of various sorts. In one place were seen three men—it was the gunner and his two mates. They had carefully-closed lanterns and list shoes on their feet. They were visiting the magazine, to see that the powder was dry. They were from habit careful, but custom had made them thoughtless of danger; yet one spark from the lantern would in a moment have sent every one of the many hundred living beings on board that ship into eternity. The flannel bags containing the powder were removed to be carried up on deck to dry, the door was carefully closed and locked, and the gunner and his mates went about their other avocations.

From long habit, people are apt to forget the dangers which surround them, though they are far greater than those in which the passengers of the good ship Governor Harcourt were placed at the moment the magazine was opened; and I am very certain that not one of them contemplated the possibility of being blown up, without an instant warning, into the air.

I have indulged in a somewhat long description of this little world in miniature, although I was not one of its inhabitants; but it was a scene not without interest, and I have had many opportunities of judging of the correctness of the picture which was given me by a friend then on board the Governor Harcourt. We will now return to the more refined groups sitting and lying about listlessly on the poop deck.

As among the party were several people who exercised a considerable influence over my career, a description of them is necessary. The person of most consideration, on account of his wealth and position, as well as his high character, was a gentleman verging upon sixty years of age. In stature and figure he was not what would be called dignified; but there was that in the expression of his countenance which made persons of discernment who studied his features feel inclined to love and respect him. The broad forehead, the full mild eye, and the well-set mouth, told of intellect, kindness, and firmness.

The careless and indifferent might have called him the stout old gentleman with yellow cheeks. I mean people—and there are many such in the world—who are unable to perceive the noble and good qualities in a man, and only look at his outward form and figure. If they hear a person called a great man, like Lord Nelson or the Duke of Wellington, they call him great also; but many would not be able to point out the real heroic qualities of these heroes. I cannot now stop to describe in what real heroic qualities consist, further than to assure my young friends that the great men I have instanced are not properly called heroes simply because they were commanders-in-chief when great battles have been gained. Napoleon gained many victories; but I cannot allow that he can justly be called a hero. My object is to show you the importance of not judging of people by their outward appearance; and also, when you hear men spoken of as great men, to ask you to consider well in what their greatness consists. But to return to my kind and generous benefactor,—for so he afterwards proved to me,—Sir Charles Plowden. In outward form to the common eye he was not a hero, but to those who knew him he was truly great, good, and noble. He was high in the civil service of the Honourable East India Company, all the best years of his life having been passed in the East.

A book was in his hand, at which his eye every now and then glanced; but he appeared to look at it rather for the sake of finding matter for thought, than for the object of getting rapidly through its contents.

At a little distance from him sat a lady, busily employed in working with her needle. She was young and if not decidedly pretty, very interesting in appearance. Though she was looking at her work, from the expression of her countenance it might be perceived that she was listening attentively to a gentleman seated by her side, who was reading to her in that clear low voice, with that perfect distinctness of enunciation, which is so pleasant to the ear. A stranger might have guessed, from the tone of tenderness, yet of perfect confidence, in which he occasionally spoke to her, and the glance of affection which she gave him in return, that they were husband and wife; nor would he have been mistaken.

They were Captain and Mrs Clayton, who were returning to India after their first visit to England since their marriage. His appearance and manners were very gentlemanly and pleasing, and he was a man much esteemed by a large circle of acquaintance. They had now been married about eight years, and had no children. Mrs Clayton had gone out to India at the age of seventeen with her father, a colonel in the army, and soon after her arrival she was won and wed by Captain Clayton, so that she was still a very young woman.