Chapter 1

THE WRECK OF THE ‘BON ESPOIR.’

The ship was going down!

The sky was cloudless, the sun rode high in the heavens, and the waves
glistened in the clear, bright light. It was a glorious summer day—a
time when life pulsed joyously, and everything invited a man to forget
his troubles, close his eyes, and lie basking in the warmth.

A soft, invigorating breeze fanned the pallid cheeks of the eager
watchers; the eyes worn with long vigils glistened in the silver light
that fell on them; the glowing orb above sent its rays upon haggard
faces and seemed to make them smile.

The ship was going down—going down in a calm sea. Here, shut off from
all human aid—here, with no one to know the secret of that last hour of
anguish and despair—Death had come to the fifty souls left on board the
_Bon Espoir._ They were alone upon the trackless ocean. Around them lay
leagues of lonely water. Their fate would be a mystery. As the weeks
went on, and no tidings came of the ship, her name would be upon every
tongue, and strange conjectures as to her fate would drop from
thousands of lips.

The world would picture the good ship caught in some furious tempest,
dashed to pieces, and engulfed amid the roar of the billows, the
howling of the wind, and the wild cries for help of terror-stricken
men.

But there was no tempest, no wind to howl—only a gentle zephyr, that
kissed the men’s checks as gently as their mothers did in their happy
childhoods; no billows to seethe—only little playful wavelets that
lapped against the ship’s side gently, and seemed to say, ‘You are
ours; presently we shall dance and sport above you, and toss your
bodies softly to and fro in the merry sunshine.’

A night had passed since the crew and passengers of the _Bon Espoir_
knew they were doomed. She had sprung a leak in midocean on the
previous night, in a lonely part, far out of the regular track, where
for weeks and weeks never a sail might be seen.

The night was dark.

The sea was rough, and there had been a panic. The boats had been
filled with passengers and some of the crew at once. The captain had
shouted to them to keep near the ship, but the order had been
disobeyed. When the light dawned those on board the _Bon Espoir_
scanned the horizon, and saw no floating thing upon the waves.

A light mist hung like a veil over the waters, narrowing their range of
vision. The wind had sunk, the waves were at rest, and the sun bursting
through the mist gleamed upon a vast expanse of smiling sea.

Those who had stuck to the ship, hoping against hope that she might
keep afloat yet until they fell into the track of other vessels, took
counsel together and talked of a raft when every effort to save the
vessel had been found useless.

But they were in a latitude where the storm came swiftly on the calm;
where, with little warning, the baby waves swelled into gigantic
billows, and the sighing zephyr, gathering sudden strength, shrieked
aloud and lashed the sea to fiercest fury.

The sailors who remained were principally foreigners. They had remained
on the ship all night, refusing to work when they found the water
gaining on them. They had gone below, torn their hair, beaten their
breasts, cried aloud to the saints. Then they attacked the spirit
store, and drank till they reeled down and slept a brutish, drunken
sleep where they lay.

The passengers still left were all men, but unskilled. Without the aid
of the sailors they could not make a raft. The sailors were not in a
condition to move—certainly not to work. They had resigned themselves
to their fate now. That strange sense of calm which comes mercifully
even to cowards when hope is absolutely dead had fallen on them all.

They stood leaning over the ship’s sides, waiting for the end, their
faces pale, their eyes haggard, and their thoughts far away.

Some of them had wives and children at home, and the images of their
beloved ones rose up before them. They seemed to pierce the space and
see the place that would know them no more. One man whispered to those
who stood near him that he had heard his little boy cry “Father!” and
another said that in the night he had seen his wife hearing his little
ones their prayers, and when they said “God bless papa!” she looked up,
and her eyes were filled with tears.

There were yet some hours between them and death, and they could still
talk to each other.

It seemed a relief to do so; it created a companionship in misery; they
cheered each other with their voices.

There was a clergyman among the passengers, and, as the captain went
away to his post after a few last words of encouragement to the little
band, the reverend gentleman asked their attention for a moment.

Earnestly and calmly, as became an English gentleman in the presence of
death, the man of God prayed to the Throne of Grace for strength and
sustenance in this hour of supreme peril. Briefly he addressed his
little flock of doomed ones, and then went his way, deeming the last
moments of his fellow-voyagers sacred to themselves.

As he was walking quietly aft, he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.

He turned, and found that one of the passengers had followed him. He
was a quiet, gentlemanly man, who had hardly spoken to any one during
the voyage. He was tall, dark, and well built, apparently a man of five
or six and thirty. The face was pleasing at first glance, the features
being well cut, and not too prominent. But on a closer inspection the
defects were apparent. The lips were sensual; the eyes had that strange
look which one sees in the hunted animal. The fear of something behind
was apparent upon the face the moment the features were disturbed from
their repose. A dark moustache covered the too thick upper lip, and the
rest of the face was bronzed with long travel and exposure to sun and
sea. One thing would instantly attract the attention of the ordinary
observer—the strange way in which “indecision” was expressed in his
countenance. His eyes and his lips would have revealed the secret of
his character to a physiognomist at once.

He had evidently made up his mind in a hurry to say something to the
clergyman. Directly that gentleman turned kindly, and asked what
service he could render him, he hesitated.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, after a pause; ‘but can I speak with you
alone?’

They walked to a deserted part of the ship.

‘I am going to make an extraordinary statement to you,’ said the
passenger, his undecided eyes now looking in the clergyman’s face and
now resting on the deck; ‘but I think I ought to. You are a clergyman,
and I know no one better to whom in the hour of death I can confess a
secret that should not die with me.’

The clergyman surveyed his interviewer earnestly for a moment.

‘Is it a crime?’ he asked.

The passenger nodded.

‘I don’t want to die with it on my mind,’ he murmured. ‘I fancy when
the—the end comes, I shall die easier.’

‘My friend,’ said the clergyman, kindly, ‘do not imagine that a
confession at the last moment takes guilt from the soul. To confess a
crime to one who is about to share your fate is, perhaps, rather a
superstitious than a religious deed. Let us understand each other. We
both believe that we are about to die. You confess to me, perhaps
thinking that no possible harm can come to you from it—that you run no
such risk as you would in confessing under other circumstanccs.’

‘I haven’t thought about that,’ answered the passenger, almost in a
whisper. ‘Let me tell some human being my secret, and it will at least
be off my mind. I feel as if the secret would choke me if I kept it any
longer. I cannot die with murder on my soul.’

‘Murder!’ exclaimed the clergyman, starting back; then, recovering
himself, he added, ‘Speak on; but I warn you that whatever you tell me,
should we, by the Lord’s will, be saved, I will keep as no secret.
Neither shall you deny it. Write.’

The clergyman drew out his pocket-book, and handed it, with a pencil,
to the passenger.

The latter hesitated.

Presently, with a supreme effort, he wrote:—

‘On board the _Bon Espoir_.

‘The ship is sinking rapidly. I, Gurth Egerton, believing that I am
about to die, do solemnly declare that on the night of the 15th of
September, 18—, I stabbed my cousin, Ralph Egerton, in a
gambling-house, kept by a man named Heckett, and that the wound proved
fatal. I freely make this confession, and may God forgive me.

‘Signed, Gurth Egerton.’

The clergyman took the book from him and read it. Then he wrote
something beneath it.

The confession once made, a swift revulsion of feeling came over Gurth
Egerton. He reached out his hand, as though he would have snatched it
back.

The clergyman closed the book and thrust it into his pocket.

‘Unhappy sinner!’ he said; ‘even now you repent the acknowledgment of
your awful crime. Pray, for your time is short. Remember, should God
spare me, I will use every effort to bring you to justice.’

As the last words left his lips, and Gurth Egerton, with a white face,
was about to turn away, a loud cry rang out from the look-out man.

‘A sail! A sail!’

The doomed men rushed to the side of the vessel and strained their
eyes. In that wild moment of sudden hope all was forgotten. Gurth
Egerton flew to the vessel’s side.

Yes. Far away in the distance, but still visible, were the white sails
of a ship.

Hope sprang up with renewed vigour in every breast. Strong men laughed
and cried and hugged each other. A strange delirium animated them.

One or two of the sailors awoke from their drunken sleep, and came
staggering on deck.

The excitement was at its height, each man shouting above his neighbour
what was to be done to attract the passing ship’s attention, when
suddenly the vessel heeled over, there was a gurgling sound, the roar
and rush of a huge volume of water pouring in, and then down like a
stone, to the depths of the ocean, went the _Bon Espoir._

The waves danced and glittered in the sunlight. Over the spot where the
ship and her living freight had sunk the blue waves closed, and there
was nothing to tell of their vanished prey.

A bottle bobbed about, carried now here now there by the playful waves.
As the _Bon Espoir_ sank, the clergyman’s hand had hurled it far out to
sea. It contained a leaf torn from his pocket-book.

The ship _Diana_, bound for Baltimore, sailed late that afternoon over
the spot where the _Bon Espoir_ had sunk.

A sailor who was in the rigging cried out that he could see something
that looked like a barrel floating in the sea some distance away.

A boat was manned and put off.

In half an hour it returned with a strange story.

To the barrel they had seen in the water clung a man in the last stage
of exhaustion. They had released him, and brought him with them.

Tenderly the sailors lifted a half-drowned body from the stern of the
boat, and it was hoisted on board.

The surgeon of the _Diana_ took it in charge, and pronounced it to be
still alive.

Presently the half-drowned man opened his eyes.

‘What ship?’ asked the captain, when he had recovered sufficiently to
speak.

‘From the _Bon Espoir_,’ answered the man, feebly. ‘She sprang a leak
and went down.’

‘Who are you?’

The man hesitated a moment. His senses were evidently half scattered.

‘My name is George Englehardt, of Philadelphia,’ he said presently.

Then he looked round anxiously.

‘Are there any saved except me?’ he asked, in a faint whisper.

‘Not a soul.’

The man heaved a deep sigh, and relapsed once more into
unconsciousness.