The ex

all

which it has been assailed ever since it came into office. treme men of the Liberal party, who cannot rest unless all their nostrums are carried out without delay, or even without consideration, and who looked for a repetition of the great legislative achievements which made the late Gladstone Administration conspicuous among administrations of the century, will no doubt be angry and disappointed. But the wiser and more moderate men, who know that the Liberal party can afford to wait, will contemplate without despair the enforced postponement of startling legislation and exciting schemes of radical reform.

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FRASER'S MAGAZINE.

JUNE 1882.

BY

THE LADY MAUD.'

CHAPTER IX.

Y half-past ten I was very sleepy. Miss Tuke had come on deck, and kept Sir Mordaunt and me company in a few turns; but Norie, who made one of us, managed to hook her arm under his, pretending that the deck was not safe walking, as though he (whose gait was a convulsive stagger compared with her beautiful, elastic, buoyant tread) could prop her up. But she was disposed to be complaisant, and presently he sneaked her over to the lee side of the deck. If this did not delight me, I was solaced by remembering that she had often snubbed him briskly enough, and I construed her kindness into a little compliment to his amiable reception of her mild derision.

But, as I say, at half-past ten I felt very sleepy. There was nothing in sight, the wind was piping grandly, and the yacht having been put about for a short board, so as not to miss the wreck by going to leeward of her, had settled down on the port tack, and was jerking along, her weather leeches shivering, and her sharp nose biting an opening through the short, black, foam-topped surges. It seemed a pity to be cruising about after a kind of phantom ship when we could have laid our course at nine knots an hour, and made perhaps a fair run out of these humbugging latitudes. But there was too much humanity, though based methought on a somewhat airy foundation, in my friend's resolution, to allow me to utter a word against it.

I was awakened by a sharp rapping on my door, and on opening my eyes was surprised to find the daylight broad upon the port-hole, for it did not seem to me that I had been asleep above an hour. I asked who that was, whereupon the steward put his head in and told me that the wreck was close by, and Sir Mordaunt would be glad if I'd come on deck. I immediately rose and dressed myself. It was easy to judge without going on deck that there was a considerable sea running and a very strong wind blowing, for the yacht was plunging sharply, and every now and again I could hear the sharp

rattle of spray upon deck, while the washing of the sea against the side of the schooner was exceedingly heavy and noisy. In less than five minutes I was out of my cabin.

Sir Mordaunt stood close against the companion, gazing to leeward, and when he saw me he pointed with great excitement to the sea, crying, 'There she is, Walton! I told you the signal was not put into the sky for nothing. How are we to rescue them?'

I looked, and saw a large water-logged vessel-apparently a barque -upon our lee beam. She was a complete wreck, and recalling the features of the mirage we had beheld on the preceding day, I perceived that this was the vessel that had painted the reflection in the air. Her foremast was gone just under the top, though the foreyard still swung upon it, supported, it seemed to me, by the truss. Her main topmast was standing, but her mizen-mast had carried away short off at the deck, and stood up like a huge bunch of sharp, jagged, white splinters about two feet high. Portions of her deck forward were blown out. Only a sailor can figure to his mind the image of confusion and wreckage aloft, masses of black rigging hanging over either bulwark, the maintop-gallant-mast swinging over the topsail-yard, upon which the furled sail lay in rough heaps of canvas, with the gaskets hastily and clumsily passed, as though by men who had worked in an extremity.

But this was not the spectacle that fixed my eyes. The hull of the vessel was sunk to about six inches below her washboard, so that nothing but her bulwarks prevented the water from standing to that height upon her decks; but about three feet abaft the starboard forerigging the bulwarks were smashed level with the decks, making a fissure about two yards wide, through which, as the hull slowly rolled, with the most sickening, languid movement that can be imagined, the water flashed out in a roaring coil of foam, as though a sluicegate had been opened. She had apparently had a deck-load of timber, for though most of it was gone, a number of planks still littered the decks, lying one athwart the other in hideous confusion, with fragments of the galley and fore-deck-house, which had been split to pieces, lying amongst them, together with such a raffle of gear, broken spars, pieces of canvas, and the like, that no description could give you the barest idea of the dreadful picture of shipwreck that immersed hull presented.

There was another deck-house aft, close to the wheel (or where the wheel had stood), which the furious seas had left uninjured; and upon the top of this structure were three men and a woman, lashed to a thin iron rail that ran around the top of the house. On examining them through a binocular glass, I perceived that two of the men were scarcely clothed, having no more than their shirts and drawers on, whilst the woman had a sailor's jacket buttoned over her shoulders; but her black hair was loose, and blew out in a cloud from her head-a small matter for me to take notice of, and yet one that

beings. Meanwhile, and very frequently, the seas, dashing themselves against the weather bulwarks of the wreck, shot up in long sparkling masses of green water, that blew in scattering clouds over the deck, and again and again the men and the woman were hidden from our gaze by bursts of spray which momentarily veiled the whole of the after part of the barque.

It was indeed blowing a very stiff breeze of wind, and the pitching of the yacht to the strong Atlantic sea that was running was made fast and almost furious by her being hove to under a treblereefed gaff-foresail, with her nose right into the wind, to prevent her forging ahead of the wreck.

I do not say that the sight of those men of themselves would not have made a most thrilling and irresistible appeal to us for succour; but how that appeal was heightened, so that it raised a passion of anxiety in us—and at least I can speak for myself and Sir Mordaunt -by the presence of the poor woman, I will leave it to your own heart to conceive. All our crew stood forward looking at the wreck, and constantly directing their glances at us, as if to guess our intentions, and Purchase and Tripshore were together near the wheel.

me.

'Walton,' said Sir Mordaunt, who seemed to be stirred to the very soul by the sight of those people on the barque, 'you'll not wish me to apologize for rousing you up at this hour. I want you to advise Purchase is dead against our lowering a boat in this sea, and says we should stand by the vessel until the weather moderates. But this wind may last for another week, or it may freshen into a gale and blow us away. Meanwhile, how long have those people been in that situation? For all we know, they may be starving, Walton. You see they have no boat, and cannot come to us. We are bound to succour them, and at once.'

I took a hurried look around at the sea, and said, 'Yes, at once.' 'At all events the attempt must be made,' he continued, in a manner so agitated that his words rolled over one another as they tumbled out of his mouth. I'll cheerfully share the danger. I’il go in the boat.'

'No, no,' said I; if you'll put the job into my hands, I'll answer for the right kind of attempt to save them being made.'

'You're a good fellow,' he cried; for God's sake go to work.' His charging me with this matter convinced me that he had found old Purchase more obstinate than he liked to admit. But it was impossible to look at the wreck and wonder at his emotion. The people made no signs to us, unless a sign was meant by the woman, who sometimes raised her hand. They hung together like corpses; but no doubt their reason for keeping still was that if they unlashed themselves they stood a great chance of being swept overboard. Although we were hove well to windward, and abeam of the wreck, the send of the sea was settling us faster to leeward than she was travelling, and every heave carried us nearer. This, however, was no great matter, for the yacht was perfectly under command, and a shift

of the helm would speedily forge us ahead of the wreck. As it was, we were now near enough to make our voices heard, so jumping on to the rail, I hailed the vessel. One of the men, he that was most fully dressed, replied by lifting his arm.

'Are you English?' I shouted.

He motioned affirmatively. This was fortunate, for had they been foreigners I must have found great difficulty in making my meaning intelligible. At my first call the men clapped their hands like shells to their ears to catch my words, and the passion of eagerness expressed by this posture made them the most moving figures in the world.

'We mean to send a boat,' I hallooed; 'but as we can't risk sheering alongside, we'll drop under your stern, and as we pass you must jump. Do you follow me?'

The man again raised his hand.

'See that you get the woman over first!'

This injunction was likewise heard and understood. I sprang on to the deck and ran up to the mate.

'Mr. Tripshore,' said I, 'yonder is the biggest boat,' pointing as I spoke,' and fortunately she hangs to leeward. Will you please sing out for volunteers? I'll take charge, and if you'll accompany me I shall be glad.'

'I'll go, sir,' said he, promptly; and immediately went along the deck and called for volunteers. All the men came tumbling aft— that is, all the sailors among them. My utter disregard of old Purchase had put him into a great passion; and he was additionally mortified by the quickness of the men to come into an errand which he had advised Sir Mordaunt against.

'It's nothen short o' murder!' he rattled out, straddling up to Sir Mordaunt, and struggling to control his rage. If Mr. Walton's a sailor, he'll know that this here is no fit sea for a yacht's boat to be lowered into.'

'Keep back!' shouted Sir Mordaunt, impetuously. Mr. Walton knows what he is about. Don't interfere with him.'

What more passed I cannot say, being busy from that moment with choosing my men for the boat. She was a six-oared boat; but I could not fully man her, for, though I saw it would be hard work pulling to windward, which we should have to do to regain the stern of the vessel, yet those people on the wreck would make the boat dangerously deep in such a sea if six men manned her. I therefore chose three of the best hands, and told Tripshore to take stroke.

'When we go clear,' I called to Sir Mordaunt, let Purchase make a board to windward, and then wear and heave the yacht to, to leeward of the wreck.' And so saying, I jumped into the sternsheets, shipped the rudder, the men seized their oars, and we were lowered.

The boat hung by patent clips, that is, by hooks which flew open