I NEW NOVELS. THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND. By Grant Allen. 3 vols. CORINTIIIA MARAZION. By Cecil Griffith 3 vols, A SONG OF SIXPENCE. By Henry Murray. I vol. SANTA BARBARA, (Sec. By Ouida. i vol. IN THE ISIIDST OF LIFE. By Ambrose Bierce. I vol. TRACKED TO DOOM. By Dick Donovan, i vol. COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT, AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE. By Bret Harte. i vol. ADVENTURES OF A FAIR REBEL. By Matt. Crim. I vol. IN A STEAMER CHAIR. By Robert Barr. i vol. THE FOSSICKER : a Romance of Mashonaland. By Ernest Glanville. i vol. London : CHATTO & \YINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W. ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA VOL, L PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA BY W. CLARK RUSSELL AUTHOR O? MY SHIPMATE LOUISE ' THE ROMANXE OF JENNY HARLOWE ETC IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. Xonbon CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1892 — CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME CHAPTER PAOB I. PlERTOWN 1 II. A Boating Teip ....... 30 * ? III. Who am I ' 76 IV. Alphonse's Conjectures Ill ' ' V. On Board Notre Dame . 1S5 VI. A Terrible Night 103 3 VII. Captain Frederick Ladmoee .... 225 I - VIII. A Kind Little Woman 262 ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA CHAPTEE I PIEETOWN I>' the West of England stands a city sur- rounded by hills. Its streets are wide, its shops fine and plentiful, and there are many handsome and some stately terraces of houses in it. In the heart of the city a gem of ecclesiastical architecture rears its admir- able tower, and this fine old structure is known everywhere as the Abbey Church. How am I to convey to one who has never beheld them the beauties of the scene when viewed from some commanding erci- VOL. 1. B 2 ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA nence—say on a rich autumn afternoon whilst the sun paints every object a tender red, and before the shadows have grown long in the valley ? Orchards colour the landscape with the dyes of their fruit and leaves. White houses gleam amidst trees and tracts of vege- tation. The violet shadow of a cloud floats slowly down some dark green distant slope. In the pastures cattle are feeding, and the noise of the barking of dogs ascends from the river-side. Eows and crescents of build- ings hang in clusters upon the hills, blending with the various hues of the country and lendingr a grace as of nature's own to the scene. The river flows with a red glitter in its breast past meadows and gardens and nestling cottages. Many roads more or less steep conduct to the several eminences, in the valley of which peacefully stands this western city. One of them in a somewhat gentle acclivity winds PIER TOWN- 3 eastwards, and as the wayfarer proceeds along this road he passes through a long avenue of chestnuts, which in the heat of the summer cast a delicious shade upon the dust, and here the air is so pure that it acts upon the spirits like a cordial. The ocean is not very many miles distant, and you taste the saltness of its breath in the summer breeze as it blows down the hill-sides, bringing with it a hundred perfumes, and a hundred musical sounds from the orchards and the gardens. About a mile beyond this avenue of chest- nuts there stood—I say there stood, but I do not doubt there still stands—a pretty house of a modern character, such as would be of- fered for letting or for selling as a ' villa resi- dence.' I will speak of it as of a thing that is past. It was situated on the edge of the hill : on one side the white road wound by it ; on the other side its land of about one B 2 4 ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA acre and a half sloped into meadows and pastures, and this wide space of fields sank treeless, defined by hedges, well stocked in the seasons with sheep and cows and other cattle, to the silver line of the river. !N'ow have 1 brought you to my home, to the home in which I was living a little while before the strange and terrible experience that, with the help of another pen, I am about to relate befel me. And that you may thoroughly understand the story which I shall almost immediately enter upon, it is necessary that I should submit a little home picture to you. It was a Sunday afternoon early in the month of October in a year that is all too recent for the endurance of memory. A party of four, of which one was a little boy aged two, were seated at table drinkino^ tea in the dining-room of the house, which stood a mile beyond the chestnut avenue. Upon the — PIERTOWN 5 hearth-rug, where was stretched a soft white blanket, lay a baby of eight months old, tossing its fat pink legs and dragging at the tube of a feeding-bottle. A lady sat at the head of the table. This lady was in her twenty-sixth year no one better knew the date of her birth than I. She was a handsome woman, and presently you will understand why I exhibit no reluc- tance in speaking of her beauty. I will be brief in my description of her, but I will in- vite your attention to a sketch that, in its relations to this tale, carries, as you will dis- cover, a deeper significance than ordinarily accompanies the portraits of the heroes or heroines of romance. She was in her twenty-sixth year, I say. Her hair was dark, not black. I am unable to find a name for its peculiar shade. It was so abundant as to be inconvenient to its owner, whose character was somewhat im- 6 ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA patient, so that every morning's wrestle with the long thick tresses was felt as a trouble and often as a cause of vexatious delay. Her eyebrows were thick and arched, and, as she wore her hair low, but a very little of her white well-shaped brow was to be seen. Her nose was after the Eoman type, but not too large nor prominent, yet it gave her an air as though she held her head high, and it also communicated an expression of eagerness to the whole countenance. Her complexion was a dehcate bloom, her mouth was small, the teeth very white and regular. She had a good figure, a little above the medium height of women, with a promise in her shape of stoutness when her years should have in- creased. She was simply dressed, and wore but little jewellery, no more than a thin watch-chain round her neck and a wedding- ring and two other rings on the same finger. Such was the lady in her twenty- sixth year PIER TOWN 7 who sat at the head of the tea-table on that October Sunday afternoon. At her side was her Httle boy, two years old. He was a beautiful child with golden hair and dark blue eyes. He sat in a high child's chair on his mother's left, and whilst he waited for her to feed him he beat the table with a spoon. At the table on the right sat the husband of this lady, a man entering upon his thirty- first year. He was tall, thin, and fair, and wore small whiskers, and his eyes were a dark grey. Handsome he was not, but he had a well-bred air, and his face expressed a gentle and amiable nature. Confronting the lady at the head of the table was her twin sister. Xearly always between twins there is a strong family like- ness. I have heard of twins who resembled each other so closely as to be mistaken one for the other unless they were together, when, ; 8 ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA to be sure, there must be some subtle differ- ence to distinguish them. There was un- doubtedly a family likeness between these two sisters, but it appeared rather in their smile and in certain small tricks of posture and of gesture, and in their walk and in the attitudes which they insensibly fell into when seated in these things lay a family likeness rather than in their faces. Their voices did not in the least resemble each other's. That of the lady who sat at the head of the table was somewhat high-pitched ; her accents were dehvered with impulse and energy, no matter how trivial might be the subject on which she discoursed. Her sister, on the other hand, had a sweet, low, musical voice ; she pronounced her words with a charming note of plaintiveness, and she never spoke much at a time nor often. Her hair was not so plentiful as her sister's ; it was a light bright brown, with a gloss upon it like that of the PIER TOWN 9 shell of a horse-chestnut, but it had not the rich deep dye of that nut. She wore it with a simplicity that was infinitely becoming to her beauty. Beautiful she was, far more so than her sister ; hers was a beauty far more tender and womanly than her sister's you ; thought of the meekness and the sweetness of the dove in looking at her, and the expression of her dark-brown eyes was dove-like.