The Solitary Passenger;
OR,
The Cruise of the "Monsoon."

CHAPTER I.

THE sea had lashed itself into a white fury, and turgid waves and howling winds contended fiercely for the mastery.

       Now down in the hollow of the waters, now surmounting the foaming aqueous mountains, the gallant barque, the Monsoon, sped bravely on its perilous way.

       "Eight bells" had sounded, and the doomed crew and passengers stood on the poop, determination stamped on the face of every man of them. The ship's complement was twenty persons all told, including the captain's wife, the cook, and a solitary passenger, a Mr. Adelphi Jones, who, having at the age of forty exchanged the business of an egg-merchant for the pleasures of society, was travelling for the benefit of his health.

       "Prepare for death! The vessel has sprung a leak, and can't last an hour," the chief engineer said, firmly.

       A cruel, despairing frown overspread the first mate's features as, hearing this, he glanced at the captain's wife, who did not. deign to return the look.

       "Man the pumps; lower the fore-topmast-staysail; haul down the main-royal; up with the main deck; away with the mizen-middle-staysail stay; port your hel-lum, and let her run, boys," cried gallant Captain Smith through a speaking-trumpet, his stentorian voice riding on the wings of the storm.

       "Think well of what you are doing, Captain," the first mate shouted. "Would it not be better to cut away the jib-boom and the bowsprit, cast adrift the fore-mast and the upper-main-topsail braces, set her head to sea, and pipe 'all hands in the yards?'"

       Captain Smith buttoned his pilot coat, and, shaking his head, said mournfully:

       "Belay there! Useless; my wife!"

       In an instant the solitary passenger eagerly took up the thread of discourse.

       "I will take care of her," he cried.

       "You! Look out, or the top-gallant halliard will be upon you."

       And even as he spoke it fell with a crash, and killed a fireman, laying him athwart the companion hatch.

       "Yes, I, Captain. I will protect her with my life."

       "Brave comrade; if anything happens to me I entrust her into your charge."

       He wrung the young man's hand, and, turning to the crew, shouted out fresh orders.

       By this time the ill-fated barque was slowly but surely sinking lower and lower in the trough of the sea, and no effort to save her or the precious lives of her human freight seemed likely to succeed. The sky was almost black, but ever and anon a flash of lightning lit up the funereal darkness of the Heavens, and added to the awful weirdness of the scene.

       The Monsoon plunged wildly on, its timbers creaking and emitting a noise not unlike the cry of a woman in distress. But, hark! a terrific clap of thunder; great Fore-and-Aft! The main mast had gone by the board.

       The company mutely regarded each other, and sat down to await with tranquillity and resignation their near approaching death. Seven men had fallen dead at the pumps, and the remainder had not sufficient strength to cope successfully with the in-rushing sea.

       The captain, courageous to the last, assisted by Adelphi Jones and the first mate, whose baptismal appellation was Ephraim Brown, worked with a will, but he could do nothing; and at last, with a muffled sob, he seized his wife and, straining her to his breast, climbed up into the rigging and placed her on the main-royal-yard.

       "There is room for one more, only," he cried, descending to the deck.

       "Stay with me, Gilbert," his wife screamed; but he motioned to the solitary passenger, and said,

       "It is my duty, good-bye!"

       A tear trickled down his cheek as he clasped the hand of Adelphi Jones, and said huskily:

       "Good-bye, God bless you."

       "Amen," said all — but the first mate.

       "Try the boats," the boatswain cried, but merely replying, "they are water-logged," the Captain cut away the yard; and shortly, on their extemporised raft, Adelphi Jones and Anastasia Smith were sailing alone on the wide, wide sea.

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CHAPTER II.

THE morning dawned fair and unclouded, and the rippling ocean uncomplainingly bore on its bosom the fragile raft containing Jones and Anastasia Smith. No trace of the last night's storm remained to awake fresh fears in the breast of either of the two companions whom a strange destiny had thrown together.

       "No signs of the Monsoon," Anastasia said.

       "Alas! no. I have dimmed my eye-glass in the attempt to discover her, but I cannot. She is lost, I fear."

       There was a long silence. Each felt the delicacy of the position, and each instinctively knew that the other loved.

       "Mr. Jones," said Anastasia faintly, with a downcast look of sweetest modesty, "have you anything to eat?"

       He dived into the recesses of his Gladstone bag, which as a precautionary measure he had brought with him, and produced a piece of boiled beef, a tin of sausages, an apple, a bottle of lemonade, a piece of Gruy&ègrave;re cheese, and some milk biscuits.

       "A breakfast fit for a King," she said, prettily; and then, daintily touching the unattractive lemonade bottle, ate a biscuit.

       "For a Queen!" he corrected, courteously.

       Their eyes met, and they commenced their meal.

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CHAPTER III.

A WEEK had passed, and the ill-fated survivors of the wreck of the Monsoon were still on the raft. Their scanty stock of provisions had given out, and their terrible loneliness rendered life almost insupportable. For two days they had drunk no water, and it required the exercise of all their powers of self-restraint to prevent them from laving themselves in the salt water which abundantly surrounded them. Jones counselled patience, and Anastasia tried to banish ennui by turning her attention to crochet.

       "What a charming seascape," he remarked, as, shading his eyes with his plate, he looked out on the heaving, far-stretching, billowy ocean.

       "Yes," she replied, "it is even better than an Academy picture."

       "How exquisitely soulful!" he thought, but uttered no word.

       "Shall we never see land?" she asked, despairingly; and her companion mutely shook his head.

       "You; you have not given up all hope?"

       "No, while there is life there is hope. I am hungry, tired, and thirsty, but not hopeless."

       She bent upon him a look of loving admiration, and involuntarily he lowered his eyes.

       "The raft is slightly damp, I fear," he said, very gently; but she made no answer.

       She loved him, her girlish heart had gone out to this young man, who was brave, manly, and noble; and, furthermore, had made her a sandwich out of the last biscuit and last piece of beef. What exquisite devotion! It had gained her heart, and dearly would she have liked to tell her love; indeed, she would have done so had she not been restrained by thoughts of the husband who was lying in the unyielding bosom of the many-sounding ocean. There was one consolatory reflection, and that was, that there was a very strong probability of their dying together.

       "Life without him," she admitted to herself, "would be drear; to die with him were better than to live without him."

       "Mrs. Smith!"

       "Mr. Jones!"

       The spell was broken. Prudence, Loyalty to the late lamented were thrown to the winds, and the sun set on two united hearts, a man and a woman whom Fate had joined together.

       "Anastasia!"

       "Adelphi!"

       The table-cloth which did duty for a sail fluttered in the dying breeze, the sea murmured a requiem to departed misery, and the shipwrecked twain surveyed each other, and —– no provisions.

       "Wife — soon to be in death!"

       "Husband — soon to be in death!"

       Their lips had scarcely met in a holy kiss, when the boom of a cannon was, distantly heard.

       "A cannon shot!" he said.

       "It is a Barque," she added, in excited tones. "I see a fore-royal mast, a main mast square rigged, and a mizen mast clothed with gaff-topsail and spanker. It is a Barque."

       "Very likely," he said, soothingly. "Let me see. Yes, it is a barque that is bearing down upon us!"

       "We are saved," Anastasia cried, hysterically.

       "Give me my eye-glass," he said, and then looked long and steadily at the approaching ship.

       "We are lost. It is a pirate ship."

       "It cannot be."

       "It is! I see the skull and cross bones."

       Anastasia swooned. Jones hauled down the table cloth to let it be apparent that no defence was contemplated, and the ship neared.

       A boat was lowered, and Anastasia and Adelphi were soon standing on the deck of the Monsoon, now re-christened the Buckingham Palace.

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CHAPTER IV.

"SAVED, saved! It is the Monsoon!"

       These were the first words that Anastasia uttered after they were taken on board.

       "Where is the captain — my husband?"

       The crew unanimously laughed deeply and defiantly.

       "Why do you not speak?" she asked, frightened at their guttural jeering.

       "Stand aside, there," came a voice from abaft the binnacle, and the cowed crew, tremblingly, made way for the new comer.

       It was the "first mate — Ephraim Brown."

       How greatly he had changed! — his air was dictatorial, his tones commanding, his dress was studded with cutlasses, broad­swords, daggers, miniature cannon, and other formidable weapons, and he wore a black feather in his eighteen-penny wide-a-wake.

       "Permit me to welcome you to my ship," he said, graciously; but Anastasia recoiled shrieking, and threw herself into the arms of Adelphi Jones.

       "You fear me, my gentle bird, do you? Ha, ha!" And then, "Seize him, and put him in irons!"

       In a twinkling of an eye, Adelphi was overpowered, loaded with chains, and thrown into the hold.

       "He shall die to-morrow," said the first mate. "My men require amusement, and the last of the old crew — by-the-bye, I think that it was your husband — went over yesterday.

       "'Walk the plank' is our favourite game. Ha, ha!

       "Monster," she cried, horrified at his blood-curdling words; "you will force me to do something desperate."

       "Listen," he hissed, drawing her nearer him. "I love you; when you had left the ship I swore a solemn oath to make you mine, and by dint of almost superhuman exertions kept the ship alive. Many were the times when I thought that I should have to yield, but I persevered, and ultimately succeeded. When the storm abated, we patched up the ship and put in at Yokohama where we had drifted. I clandestinely shipped a friendly crew of disreputables, and secreted them in the state cabin. When we were once again afloat on the high seas, I let them out; a mutiny was headed by myself and supported by them, and in less than a day the ship was ours. The survivors of the original crew have since all participated in the cheerful pastime of 'walking the plank.'

       "I am a pirate, a buccaneer — call it which you will — and my ship is the Buckingham Palace."

       He finished, and Anastasia sank on her knees before him.

       "Spare him."

       "Who?" he asked fiercely.

       "Adelphi Jones."

       "The solitary passenger?"

       "The same."

       He ground his teeth together.

       "NEVER. HE DIES AT SUNRISE TO-MORROW."

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CHAPTER V.

A GLORIOUS dawn, ushered in by a gentle sou'-west breeze, which swelled the canvas of the gallant barque, the Monsoon, and fanned her on her placid course.

       The sky was blue, the atmosphere clear, the ship scrupulously clean, and everything was smiling save the condemned man and his devoted Anastasia.

       The "first mate" had made a good breakfast, and was now superintending the arrangements for the "walk," as he humorously put it.

       Drop down a point or two before the wind. Luff! Now, then, you milk-and-water assassins, bring her up! Take in a reef, and hoist the Jolly Roger! Clap on that hatch; run up the main-topgallant sail; shoulder out the rum; and, you aloft, throw the painter overboard!"

       He gave his orders in pleasant nautical style, and surveyed with evident appreciation the plank.

       "Guard, turn out!" the boatswain piped cheerily, and, followed by the weeping Anastasia, the prisoner appeared on the scene.

       "Prepare to die," said the cook, but Adelphi Jones proudly bade him hold his peace, adding, "I crave a moment in which to say farewell to Anastasia."

       The "first mate" squirmed with anger, but the executioner — the cook — insisted, and a most affecting scene followed.

       "Good-bye, Adelphi," the weeping girl sobbed.

       "Good-bye."

       The crew were visibly affected, and even the plank shivered.

       "Time is up," was the brutal cry of the cabin-boy.

•       •       •      •

       The usual speech had been made, the harrowing parting over, and Adelphi Jones walked towards the plank. "Farewell," he cried, with a despairing glance at Anastasia's prostrate form.

       There was profound silence for a second, and then —–

       Stop! I forbid the banns — I mean the execution!" rang through the ship.

       All eyes were turned on the rash, daring intervener, who was courting battle, murder, and sudden death.

       It was the cook, who, whipping out a revolver, shot dead the Pirate Captain, the boatswain, the ship's carpenter, and the Captain's cockatoo; and then, amid ringing cheers, presented the freedom of the ship to Anastasia Smith.

       "My benefactor," Adelphi cried, "you have saved us."

       "Do not thank me," said the simple-minded hero; "forty years ago he recovered three shillings and sixpence from my mother for breach of promise of marriage. I have waited for twenty years for this opportunity.

       "I am now revenged."

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CHAPTER VI.

       LITTLE remains to relate, save the arrival of the ship, re- re-christened the Monsoon, at Honolulu, and the marriage of Anastasia and Adelphi Jones; and all that it is necessary to say about that has been already said.

       The best man was the cook.

       The presents were "costly and numerous."

       Adelphi Jones soon after accepted the position of superintendent of the native Board schools, in deference to the request of a representative native deputation, and Anastasia has started a millinery and artistic dressmaking establishment.

       There is no reason to suppose that they will be unhappy.

JOHN-MARRYAT-CLARK-RUSSELL PEGG.       

(THE END)