Miss Cheyne of Essilmont, Volume 2 (of 3)

TOM LLANYARD.

'Is it it love itself,' asks a writer, 'or the lover that a young girl thinks most of, when she becomes conscious of this dual existence in her heart? I am inclined to think it is the former. The novelty of her own sensations occupies her more than the person to whom she owes their birth and existence.'

It may be thus with some, but it was not so with Alison Cheyne, for she thought of Bevil--Bevil Goring only--as the embodiment of her love and of all she could love.

All idea of going to Madeira had been abandoned, and Cadbury suggested that, after cruising a little in the Channel, they should land in France and visit Paris, Brussels, or some other place, when the change of scene might cause some favourable change in Alison's mind; and when--he was not without the secret and evil hope of contriving to lose or drop Sir Ranald by the way!

Thus, next morning saw the Firefly still hugging the coast of France, and in sight of the Hôtel de Ville of Boulogne, and the hill to the westward thereof, surmounted by the stately column of Napoleon.

Attended by pretty Daisy Prune, who could not make out the situation in any way, so far as her mistress was concerned (and who was the object of much nautical admiration among the yachtsmen forward), Alison came on deck attired in her warm sealskin jacket, with her little hands deep in her muff, and a thick veil tied tightly over her face, and Tom Llanyard hastened aft to give her his hand to a comfortable seat, to place a hassock under her feet, and wrap a couple of railway rugs around her--all of which he did deftly and ere Lord Cadbury could reach her.

Cadbury and her father were below in the cabin writing letters to be posted on shore; thus, for a time, Alison was left to her own reflections.

Now Tom Llanyard was not unused, we have said, to having ladies on board the Firefly; but he knew not what to make of Alison, she was every way, in tone and aspect, so unlike the much be-rouged fair ones with golden locks with whom Cadbury had more than once sought seclusion on the world of waters, or amid the pretty seaports of the Mediterranean.

The rich hue of her abundant hair, the pensive sadness of her sweet face, and the extreme gentleness of her voice, all attracted the honest seaman greatly towards her; and she had little hands and feet that a sculptor might rave about. Her grey-blue, soft, and velvety eyes were gazing dreamily and listlessly at the outlines of the French cliffs with that unseeing expression peculiar to those whose minds are preoccupied.

'What can she be thinking about?' surmised Tom, as he drew near, with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his short blue pea-jacket. 'A primrose on the river's brink will be a good deal to her, no doubt; as a writer has it, "she would romance about it, and poetise about it, and weave all sorts of fantastic stories about it to herself, and it would be a very wonderful primrose indeed before she had done with it."'

So thought Tom while watching her, but Alison had one idea in her mind--Bevil Goring, and how he would be construing her sudden disappearance.

The monotonous wash of the waves through which the yacht was running, the hum of the wind through the rigging overhead, and the measured pattering of the reef points on the canvas as the vessel rolled a little, lulled her. That strange sense of a double existence which comes over us at times--especially in those of excitement or sorrow--was with her now, and she seemed to hear the voice of Bevil and be with him again under the shadow of the great beech-trees, where perhaps at that moment he was watching and waiting for her in wonder at her non-appearance, and where so often amid all their love talk he had paid her what a novelist calls 'the best compliment man can pay woman--that of addressing her as a rational being.'

If they never met again, how should she be able to live through all the years of her life without him? Might it not be that in separation Bevil might cease to love her--might only remember her father's insulting conduct to him at Chilcote, and in time learn to love some one else, so that if again they met it could only be as strangers?

Strangers! Then, at the ideas her busy mind conjured up, tears began to ooze slowly from her eyes under the concealment of her veil.

She thought often of the hound she had seen, or imagined she had seen, on that eventful night; the memory of it haunted her painfully; and doubtless she would now have dismissed it from her mind as an optical delusion, but for its appearance being so strangely corroborated by Archie stating that the baying of one in the garden had awakened her father.

In her heart at times fear and pity for the latter struggled with passionate resentment at Lord Cadbury as a schemer who had separated her from her lover. Her father's worldliness was, perhaps, far more a matter of habit and education than nature. He was, however, now like most men of rank--Scottish men of rank, more than any in Europe--selfish to the heart's core; sorry we are to write it, but the history of the past has too often proved this to be the case.

'That is the old castle of Boulogne, Miss Cheyne,' said Tom Llanyard, drawing near her, and finding it impossible not to say something; 'and now we can make out the arched gateways in the ramparts.'

'I have been there,' replied Alison, 'and know the place well--the Hôtel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, and all the pretty promenades.'

Indeed, she knew the place rather too well, as her father had been compelled to retire there more than once, from motives of prudence and economy.

'Where are we sailing to?' she asked, after a pause.

'I scarcely know, Miss Cheyne; Lord Cadbury's orders are that we are to hug the coast of France and keep under easy sail. I thought, perhaps, you might know,' he added.

'No, I know nothing,' she answered, wearily.

'Surely it can't be that this mere girl is about to chuck herself away on a brute like Cadbury!' thought Tom, as he looked with sympathy on her blanched face and quivering lip.

'Thank you--you are very kind to me,' said Alison, as he readjusted the rugs and wraps about her.

'Kind to you!' ejaculated Tom--'who on earth or sea either would not be kind to you!'

Alison smiled at his blunt energy, and she rather clung to the society of this good, cheery, honest fellow, and felt, when with or near him, a sense of protection.

'It is evident that Cadbury is up to some game,' thought Tom; 'but it is the way of the world--the world in which these people live. Her youth and beauty, poor girl, will be his; his rank and money, the old bloater, will be hers--so the odds are evens, and they are quits.'

In the vexation this reflection gave him Tom took off his naval cap and passed a hand over his forehead. As he did so, Alison for the first time remarked that a deep red scar traversed it from the right temple to the left eyebrow.

'You must at some time have met with a terrible accident, Captain Llanyard,' said she, sympathetically; 'what a pity that wound is in your forehead!'

'I thank you, Miss Cheyne, for the interest it gives me in your eyes. I was in the Queen's service when I got that wound, and nearly lost the number of my mess thereby. Shall I tell you about it?'

'If you please.'

'Eight years ago I was serving with the China squadron, and, having been left sick at Canton, took a passage in the steamer Kent to join my ship, which was lying off Macao. She had a great many male passengers on board--all narrow-eyed, greedy, and ferocious-looking Chinese. They were about thirty in number, and we had barely cleared the Tigris and made a good offing when I discovered, by my knowledge of the lingo, that every one of them was a pirate, and that the whole gang had taken their passage together with the intention of seizing the ship and cargo, after killing every other soul on board.

'Strange to say, as if they had some mysterious prevision of what was about to ensue, a shoal of sharks followed us from the mouth of the Tigris.

'I had barely informed the captain of what I had discovered when we heard a row forward in the forecastle, where they got up a sham disturbance, and all suddenly appeared with arms--swords, pistols, and knives, which they had secreted under their clothes. The mate went forward to quell the noise, but was instantly cut down.

'No one on board had any weapons but myself and the captain. We had both revolvers, and I had my sword; but what could we do among so many? The crew betook themselves to handspikes and boat-hooks, and a close conflict ensued, in which the captain and many shared the fate of the mate; the scene became horrible, and the deck was covered with blood.

'Fighting only to protract life, and not with the hope of escaping death, I made a terrible resistance. The six chambers of my revolver disposed of six of the gang; with my sword I cut down two more, when it broke off at the hilt. I was helpless then, got this cut across my head, and was forced to leap overboard, where, all but blinded by my own blood, I clung to the fore chains, oblivious of the sharks that were gliding stealthily about, while the yells, shouts, and explosion of fire-arms continued on deck until all the crew were disposed of, save a few who contrived to secrete themselves below.

'Then the ship was ransacked from stem to stern; twelve thousand dollars in notes of the Hong Kong banks were taken from repositories of the purser; a hundred cases of rich silk and all the most valuable things that could be found were brought on deck; the boats were hoisted out, and in them, laden with plunder, the pirates departed for the shore, leaving the Kent floating like a log on the water, with the blood trickling from her scuppers into the moonlighted sea.

'I managed to scramble on board, and never shall I forget the sight her decks presented, for the bodies of the dead were hacked and mutilated beyond all recognition. I bound up my wound, when almost fainting with exhaustion and loss of blood. A gunboat bound for Macao overhauled us next day, and with her I rejoined my ship; but the damage done to my figure-head will never pass away, and times there are when it causes me to feel giddy and strange even still.'

Finding that he had procured a listener, though a rather appalled one, Tom told her many other anecdotes of the sea; but they were all of a gloomy and depressing kind, and had reference to wrecks and rafts of starving castaways, of pest-stricken ships found with all their crews dead but one man, of cannibals and sharks, and much more to the same purpose, for no other element is so full of mystery to the imaginative mind as the world of waters; and so thought Alison, as the Firefly floated in her aimless voyage upon it, and she surveyed around her the vastness of the sea, with that strange fascination it possesses--'glorious with light or dreadful with darkness, instinct with silent shadow always gliding over its everlasting motion, it appeals to the senses as a kind of materialised eternity, a wondrous world, barren and lonely, whereon not the giddiest flow of wind that ever crisped its ripples can match the capriciousness of its fathomless and mighty heart.'