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.

She gave him but one glance, yet it was expressive of loathing and fear that were unconquerable—as though he were some thing of horror; but somehow her strength of purpose and defiance piqued or attracted him, and he loved her with all the coarseness of his low nature.

'How she fears that fellow!' thought Ringbolt, who was peeping down the skylight. 'There is some secret—some strange story in all this.'

Of this strange interview, the Vierlander woman could make nothing; but, seeing that her charge was about to sink at their feet, she conveyed her into the little cabin or state-room, in which Ellinor's attire had been changed, and, closing the door, laid her on a bed to recover strength and composure, and there, fainting, feverish, and well-nigh delirious, she clung wildly, as if for protection, to her attendant.

Meanwhile the night darkened, and the fog undoubtedly deepened, so the yacht's bell was clanged ever and anon, while the two 'gentlemen,' with the sailing-master, Ringbolt, and the mate sat down to a luxurious dinner produced by Joe Lobscouse, cook of the
Flying Foam
, who, as a
chef
, was not equal to that of Dewsnap at home, Ragout—but Monsieur Ragout flatly declined to go to sea with that vessel, or 'any oder Voam,' as he always said. But in cooking Joe Lobscouse chiefly excelled in the famous
olla podrida
which bears his name, and is a compound of salt meat, biscuits, potatoes, onions, and spices, all minced and stewed together, and though dearly loved by those before the mast, such a dish was never seen in the cabin, of course.

The wine went freely round, for Dewsnap was lavish with his Clicquot and Mumm's extra dry.

'With all her air of ineffable innocence, I believe that girl to be a deep one,' said he, with a wink to Sleath, as he had no belief in female purity whatever, and had detestable views of society in general.

'She agreed to run away with me once, so why should I not go in for running away with her now?'

'Right you are, my boy!' said Dewsnap.

'You remember that cad, Colville of the Guards?' said Sleath, viciously.

'I have heard of him,' replied Dewsnap, evasively. 'Well?'

'He trumped up a story about this girl being a cousin of his to keep her, and her sister too, by Jove, to himself—a fact, Dolly; told me in London they were his cousins, though he never said so when we were at Dunkeld's place in Scotland. But now he has gone to Cabul, and the devil go with him!'

'What are we to do if the Vierlander woman won't remain on board after the fog lifts?' asked the sailing-master, Ringbolt.

'In that case we should have little difficulty in getting a sharp girl to attend, or, better still, some knowing and suggestive elderly party,' said Sleath.

'All right, sir—one has not far to look in Hamburg for what you want.'

'Dash it all!' exclaimed Dewsnap, who was fast becoming rather inebriated (this was not precisely what he said, but it looks milder in print). 'This girl of yours, Sleath, is likely to give us a deal of bother.'

'Not at all. I shall soon find a way to put an end to her nonsense,' growled Sir Redmond.

Like the latter, Dewsnap always suspected everybody until he knew they were innocent, and, if innocent, he deemed them fools. Thus he never doubted in his mind that the apparent repugnance of Ellinor was all coyness and affectation.

Mr. Adolphus Dewsnap, son of the late Alderman Sir Jephson Dewsnap, Knight, a soap-boiler in Bow, where he made a colossal fortune, was a fool and a cad of the first water, who looked up to Sleath, having a title, as one of 'the upper ten,' though Sleath's father had been, like the said alderman, a boy of the Foundling Hospital, from whence perhaps emanate many of the grotesque names we find in London.

The story of their titles is simple, and one of everyday recurrence.

The fathers of Sleath and Dewsnap had been made respectively a baronet and a knight for services rendered to the Ministry; but as those of the former, though equally important, had been performed with less scruple, he had been rewarded with the diploma of a baronet of Great Britain, and a coat-of-arms, which taxed the ingenuity of the entire College of Heralds.

Sir Redmond Sleath was a man of violent temper naturally, especially when his will was thwarted; thus he felt himself humiliated, and, when inflamed with wine, rendered almost savage by the spirit of opposition and dismay he encountered in Ellinor Wellwood, whom he still viewed as a poor girl, without parents, friends, or protector other than Leslie Colville, and he now was far away indeed.

Dewsnap occasionally had half-tipsy thoughts of pretending to befriend this stray girl, and getting her away somehow 'on his own hook,' as he phrased it to himself.

But he had a wholesome fear of Sleath, for, notwithstanding all his wealth, the latter had obtained somehow a great ascendency over him.

'She knows too much about one now,' muttered Sleath to himself. 'The marriage dodge and the ailing uncle won't do again—so how to deceive her?'

'"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
    Men are deceivers ever."

so says Shakespeare,' said Dewsnap, tipsily rolling his head from side to side; 'and he was right; devilish few of us are worth sighing for, I think.'

'Dolly Dewsnap turned moralist!' exclaimed Sleath, with a scornful laugh.

'Steward, some more moist!' cried Dewsnap. 'We'll drink Miss What-her-name's jolly good health. What says Byron, or some other fellow?

"Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
    The best of life is but intoxication."

So let us—drink—drink as long'sh—there'sh—a shot—in—the—locker!' he added, in a voice that became every moment more thick and 'feathery.'

So in these perilous hands was Ellinor Wellwood now.

But for the presence and companionship of the honest Vierlander woman, to whom she clung, though of whose patois of Danish or North German she could make little or nothing, Ellinor thought she must have died.

Her own clothes had been destroyed by her immersion, and meantime, when quite conscious, she felt it something odious and repellant to wear the clothes of others of whom she knew nothing, but suspected much.

How long was this atrocity to be continued?

She remained resolutely in the little cabin, declining to enter the saloon, or take food or refreshment of any kind, and, when sense quite returned, she watched from the little eyelet-hole—the port was nothing more—of her sleeping-place for a passing ship or boat, to which she might shriek for aid; but dense dark mist obscured everything, and she cast herself on the bed in despair.

The
Flying Foam
was cutter-rigged, and sat in the water gracefully. She was about a hundred and fifty tons burden, and consequently had an immense fore-and-aft boom-mainsail. Her deck was of narrow deal planks, and was always white as snow—white as swab and holystone could make it. Her ten guns were all burnished brass; the binnacles and bitts were of polished mahogany; the cabins were all panelled maple, with gilded mouldings; everything there was alike luxuriant and
recherché
; for the purse the old soap-boiler left to his only son and heir was a pretty long one; yet he was sometimes a little in debt, and found yachting then convenient.

The crew consisted of twelve men all told, including the sailing-master and Joe Lobscouse, the cook.

The former, Rufane Ringbolt, was, if not a good, not a bad-looking man, about forty years of age; his eyes were clear, blue, and penetrating, but cunning, leery, and shifting at times. The expression of his mouth, about the curves especially, was sinister and lascivious. There was a self-confident and reckless bearing about him too aggressive to be that of a gentleman or officer, for he had been the latter once, having served in Her Majesty's navy, but been—dismissed.

He and his captain had both fallen in love with one of those fast young ladies who are to be met with on the promenades of Portsmouth and Plymouth; but, as she preferred the young lieutenant to the elderly captain, the latter was always 'down' on the former, who from that moment became what is known in the service as 'a marked man.'

His temper was sorely tried, and he soon found himself before a court-martial, charged with neglect of duty and insubordination. Never while he lived did Ringbolt forget the day of that court-martial in the cabin of the
Victory
, and amid his potations it always came most vividly before him in its bitter details, with the sunshine streaming through the cabin windows, the ripple on the harbour waves, and Portsmouth Hard in the distance.

There was the exulting and malevolent face of the prosecutor when the court was cleared for 'finding;' there was the ringing of the bell that announced it was reopened, and in custody of the master-at-arms, with cocked hat and drawn sword, he—the prisoner—appeared before the court, all captains in full uniform, whose faces were graven on his memory.

During the proceedings his sword had been laid on the table, with the point towards the president and the hilt towards himself; now he saw that its position was reversed, and he knew that all was over, and he went down the ship's side into a shore boat a broken and degraded man!

And as the young lady, the cause of all the mischief, soon afterwards bestowed her hand upon the elderly captain who had 'smashed him,' Ringbolt had ever after but a very poor opinion of womankind.

He felt some natural curiosity about the damsel he had been the means of bringing on board the cutter, but there all further interest in her ended.

He thought if Sir Redmond Sleath, whose general character was well known to him, knew the lady it was all right; he had no fear of being deemed an accessory in an abduction; for though Mr. Ringbolt did not fear God, like many other men in the world, he mightily feared the police.

As for the Vierlander woman, she thought the ailing girl was the wife of one of the two Englanders, though she saw no wedding-ring on her finger; but then, like all foreigners, she thought the Englanders very eccentric.

For several days the fog, consequent to swollen tides, rested on the Elbe, and the cutter rode with her foresail loose, Sleath having proposed a trip to Heligoland; but Ellinor was ill—almost oblivious of everything, while Dewsnap dared not land her, and yet feared to keep her on board, thinking that Sleath's story of her utter friendlessness might be falsehood after all.