Excerpt
CHAPTER I.SPREADING THE STRANDS.
“Shout three times three, like Ocean’s surges,Join, brothers, join, the toast with me;Here’s to the wind of life, which urgesThe ship with swelling waves o’er sea!” “Masters, I can not spin a yarnTwice laid with words of silken stuff.A fact’s a fact; and ye may larnThe rights o’ this, though wild and roughMy words may loom. ’Tis your consarn,Not mine, to understand. Enough––”
It was in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and five, and in the River Garonne, where a large, wholesome merchant brig lay placidly on the broad and shining water. The fair city of Bordeaux, with its great mass of yellow-tinted buildings, towers, and churches, rose from the river’s banks, and the din and bustle of the great mart came faintly to the ear. The sails of the brig were loosed, the crew were hauling home the sheets and hoisting the top-sails with the clear, hearty songs of English sailors, while the anchor was under foot and the cable rubbing with a taut strain against the vessel’s bluff bows. At the gangway stood a large, handsome seaman, bronzed by the sun and winds of about half a century, dressed in a square-cut blue jacket and loose trowsers, talking to the pilot––a brown little Frenchman, in coarse serge raiment and large, clumsy sabots. The conversation between them was carried on partly by signs, for, in answer to the pilot, the other threw his stalwart arm aloft toward the folds of the spreading canvas, and nodded his head.
“Fort bien! vite donc! mon Capitaine,” said the pilot; “the tide is on the ebb; let us go. Up anchor!”
“Ay, pilot!” replied the captain, pulling out his watch; “in ten minutes. The ladies, you know, must have time to say ‘good-by.’ Isn’t it so, my pilot?”
The gallant little Frenchman smiled in acquiescence, and, taking off his glazed hat with the air of a courtier, said, “Pardieu! certainly; why not? Jean Marie would lose his pilotage rather than hurry a lady.”
Going aft to the raised cabin on the quarter-deck, the captain softly opened the starboard door, and looking in, said, in a kindly tone,
“It is time to part, my friends; the pilot says we are losing the strength of the tide, so we must kiss and be off.”
Two lovely women were sitting, hand clasped in hand, on the sofa of the transom. You saw they were sisters of nearly the same age, and a little boy and girl tumbling about their knees showed they were mothers––young mothers too, for the soft, full, rounded forms of womanhood, with the flush of health and matronly pride tinged their cheeks, while masses of dark hair banded over their smooth brows and tearful eyes told the story at a glance. They rose together as the captain spoke.
“Adieu, chère Rosalie! we shall soon meet again, let us hope, never more to part.”
“Adieu, Nathalie! adieu, dearest sister! adieu! adieu!”
The loving arms were twined around each other in the last embrace; the tears fell like gentle rain, but with smiles of hope and trustfulness they parted....