Colville of the Guards, Volume 3 (of 3)

THE 'FLYING FOAM.'

When Ellinor, whom we left some pages back in a very perilous predicament, opened her eyes again it was on an unfamiliar scene--the cabin of a ship--and on several male faces, all of which were also unfamiliar save one; and her eyes half closed again, as she was too weak and exhausted to disentangle the confusion of her thoughts and, half imagining she was in a horrible dream, would have striven to sleep but for the wet and sodden garments that clung to her.

'What has happened?' she moaned. 'Where am I?'

'Safe aboard the "_Flying Foam_,"' said the voice of the man who had rescued her, the sailing-master of that vessel, Mr. Rufane Ringbolt, whom we shall erelong describe more fully.

Her miserable plight and imminent peril had been seen from the deck by that personage, who at once had a boat lowered from his craft, which lay at anchor in the Elbe. He had saved her, and in a spirit of mischief--or not knowing what else to do with her--had brought her on board the yacht of his employer, Mr. Adolphus Dewsnap, whose present companion and bosom-friend was Sir Redmond Sleath, whose first emotions of perplexity and evil on Ringbolt bringing off a lady changed to those of blank astonishment and high triumph on recognising in the half-drowned girl--Ellinor Wellwood!

Dewsnap rubbed his hands with satisfaction. They had just landed two or three peculiar lady friends at the Brandenburgerhafen to go back to London by steamer, or remain in gay Hamburg as they listed, and already the Flying Foam seemed a little lonely.

'By Jove, you look more beautiful than ever, Ellinor!' exclaimed Sleath, taking her hands in his, as she reclined helplessly on a sofa. 'My friend, Mr. Dewsnap--let me introduce him--Miss Ellinor Wellwood. This is a most unexpected joy!'

'I am glad of the accident which gives me the honour of making your acquaintance, Miss Ellinor,' responded Mr. Dewsnap, near whom she recognised the grinning visage of Mr. John Gaiters, Sleath's devoted valet.

Seeing the helpless and terrified condition she was in, Mr. Ringbolt almost forced her to imbibe a little weak brandy and water from a liqueur-frame that stood on the cabin-table; and then, as there were no female attendants on board the yacht, with considerable readiness and forethought, brought down from the deck a Vierlander boat-woman, who had come off with vegetables for the steward and cook, to attend upon Ellinor.

The Vierlander had some doubts and scruples at first; but when a few twenty-groschen pieces were slipped into her hand these evaporated, and a smile of acquiescence spread over her weather-beaten but pleasant-looking countenance, for she had soft, dark eyes, a nez retrousse decidedly, and, if rather a large mouth, full red lips, as Mr. Ringbolt could remark appreciatively.

She took Ellinor into an inner cabin, and soon changed her wet garments for some that the late fair voyagers had left behind them; and when, in fear and terror, she implored to be set on shore, she was told that it was impossible, as a heavy fog had suddenly settled down on the land and river.

'Oh, heaven, what will become of me? Mary! Mary!' wailed Ellinor, as she clung, as if for protection, to the hands of the picturesquely-clad Vierlander.

'Hope I haven't brought you a Scotch prize aboard, gentlemen,' said Mr. Ringbolt, winking knowingly, as he mixed himself a glass of grog.

'A Scotch prize--what the devil is that?' asked Mr. Dewsnap, whose cognomen among his chums was generally 'Dolly.'

'Well--it means a mistake--worse than no prize--one likely to hamper the captors with heavy legal expenses.'

'A Scotch prize, and no mistake!' exclaimed Sleath, as Ellinor, weak, tottering, and scarcely able to stand or articulate, appeared with her new attendant at the door of the cabin, which was now so darkened by the evening fog that the steward was lighting the lamps.

Sleath, approaching, attempted to take her hand.

'Don't, sir--dare to touch me!' she cried, in a weak voice, while starting back.

'She knows you, Sleath, by Jove!' exclaimed Mr. Dolly Dewsnap, becoming interested.

'Rather,' said Sleath, with an ugly wink. 'Are you not glad to see me so unexpectedly, Ellinor?'

'Glad!' said she, shudderingly.

Her old repugnance was now increased tenfold, and mingled with genuine terror. A man with such a bearing and with such an expression as she read in the cold blue eyes of Sleath, would, she knew, have no mercy, so she turned to Dewsnap; but there was little to encourage her in his leery and blasé, though rather rubicund, visage.

'Put me on shore, sir, I entreat you,' she said.

'It is impossible--utterly impossible, till the fog lifts,' said he, emphatically.

'I shall die!' exclaimed Ellinor, in a low, husky voice, as the light seemed to leave her eyes.

She put her tremulous hands to her slender throat, for a painful lump seemed to rise there--nay, was there--catching her breath, while this meeting again, under all the circumstances, with Sir Redmond Sleath seemed 'one of those strange and almost incredible things which, however, we meet with every day in that marvellous volume of romance, real life.'

She cowered and shrank back before Sleath as if he were some wild animal, which only excited in him a spirit of anger and banter, while his friend Dewsnap knew not what to think of the situation as yet.

'Altona agrees with you,' said the baronet, jauntily. 'You are handsomer than ever. Womanhood gains instead of loses by maturity. But don't be so devilish stuck up! And what were you doing in Altona?'

She made no reply, but now glanced imploringly and appealingly to Ringbolt, while Sleath resumed in this fashion--

'I did not entrap you this evening--I did not run away with you,' said he, surveying with admiration the volume of her rich brown hair, which was then brushed out, and floated damp and at full length over her shoulders, and she figured now in a species of costume such as she had never worn before, including a tailor-made jacket and a round felt hat, part of the wardrobe of one of Mr. Dolly Dewsnap's recent fair voyagers, left for conveyance back to London, and now likely to prove exceedingly useful. And Ellinor was almost passive in the hands of those among whom Fate had so suddenly cast her.

After her recent narrow escape from a dreadful death, and now her present misery, she was too feeble and too full of fear to summon proper pride and just indignation to her aid.

'Fate has given you to me again,' continued Sleath, 'so, why not stoop--yield to the inevitable, and the delight of living for and loving each other! We shall remain on the Continent now, Ellinor, and never again set foot in that cold-blooded England.'

A comical expression twinkled now in the eyes of Mr. Dewsnap, who was an undersized, but fleshy and flashy, personage, about thirty years of age, and vulgar in style and aspect, though dressed in accurate yachting costume, with gilt buttons and glazed boots. He knew not what to think of the situation, we say. Though far from straitlaced--though a thorough-paced scamp, in fact--he was puzzled and doubtful what to think of the past relations of his chum Sir Redmond and this young lady, who, he saw at a glance, was neither fast nor vicious, as most of the baronet's lady friends were; that she was no dove from St. John's Wood, or 'girl of the period' in any way.

While Ringbolt beckoned Gaiters on deck to obtain some information on the subject from him, Sleath began again, in low and softer voice, while hanging over her.

'We were about to run away together before, and would have done so, but for the brute your sister's dog. Now, Ellinor, darling, we shall elope in earnest, and we shall not be the first couple who have done so, and lived happy ever after, like couples in the old story books.'

'Don't be alarmed--don't fear, Miss Ellinor,' said Dewsnap, thinking it necessary to say something, as she turned her haggard eyes on him, and ignored the presence of Sleath.

'Don't fear!' says a writer. 'How often in this world of terror and trouble has that phrase been spoken, and how often will it yet be spoken--in vain.'

'Oh, sir, will you, in mercy, if you are a man, set me on shore?' she implored again.

Dewsnap shrugged his shoulders, and looked at Sleath, while muttering something about 'the fog.'

'No!' exclaimed the latter, emphatically; 'and no accident but one sent from heaven or hell shall rob me of you now!' he added, almost savagely, through his set teeth, as he recalled the castigation he had met with at the hands of Robert Wodrow and his own muttered vow of vengeance.