CHAPTER X.

DRIFTING BACK.

But of every one on board the _Pandora_ Godfrey Harland was in reality the most nervous and uncomfortable. He longed to be able to shut himself up in his own berth, and refuse sustenance, but he could not afford to do it. He felt it was indispensable for him to appear at meals, and pretend to have a good appetite, and to talk and laugh loudly, as he had been wont to do, but he was obliged to pay for it afterwards by drowning his thoughts and dulling his conscience with copious draughts of brandy. And notwithstanding all his efforts to appear jolly and at his ease, he could see that his fellow-passengers were not quite the same to him as they had been before. Although Will Farrell and Mr Fowler had kept their own counsel, hints _would_ leak out--a word was dropped here and there, or a look given--and Mr Harland’s companions began to glance shyly at him. His jests were not responded to; his offers of assistance were rejected; and conversation was hushed as he drew near. Even Grace Vansittart seemed to avoid him, and drop her big brown eyes confusedly when they met his. Harland perceived the general feeling, though no one was brave enough to express it openly, and it drove him to drink. For two nights he drank to intoxication; and after some hours of torpid sleep he ascended the poop deck, where, with bleared eyes and flushed and feverish face, he leaned upon the taffrail. The nervous twitching of the fingers that clawed the buttons of his coat, his startled glances and trembling tongue, showed what havoc the drink had made with him. But the state of the weather was in his favour. Had not the thoughts of the ship’s company been occupied with the fog and its possible danger, his conduct would have been far more noticeable than it was; but all minds were too much wrapped up in their own welfare to have time to concern themselves about the doings of others.

As Godfrey Harland left the saloon, little Winnie Leyton escaped from her mother’s side, and, disobeying orders, clambered step by step up the ladder, and landed herself on the poop deck. Dodging the officer on watch, who happened to be Vernon Blythe (who, she knew well, would soon re-consign her to her mother’s care), the mischievous little imp concealed her tiny person behind the mizenmast, waiting until the young sailor had turned his back, and then pattered aft along the wet deck to Harland’s side. He hated children, and this one beyond others, because both her mother and sister had always displayed a marked aversion to him. So, to her innocent questions and remarks, he made no reply; and, tired of his silence, Winnie ran off to find a more congenial companion, and commenced to play ‘peep-bo!’ with the quarter-master on the lee side of the wheel-house, much to the amusement of that jolly tar. But children soon weary of any employment; so, after standing on the bench and shaking her arch little head, with its golden curls, at him through the window for the space of five minutes, she kissed the helmsman through the pane of glass, and jumped on the deck again.

‘Tum here, tum here!’ she cried presently, tugging at Harland’s coat-tail; ‘tum and see dis tunny ting.’

‘Go along, you little beast! Go down to your mother, and don’t bother me!’ he said angrily, as he shook off the dimpled hand.

Winnie made a wry face, and puckered up her rosebud mouth for a cry. She was not used to be called by such ugly names, and she did not understand them. But she summoned up courage to remark, before she did so--determined, like the majority of her sex, to have the last word,--

‘_Not_ boddering! Dere _is_ a tunny ting--in de water. _Dere!_’

‘It’s only a fish. Run away! I’m busy!’

‘I tink it sark. Do tum and see,’ persisted the child.

‘Where is it then?’ inquired Harland. ‘I suppose you’ll give me no peace till I _have_ looked at it.’

Winnie pulled him along gleefully, delighted at having gained her own way.

‘Dere! _dere!_’ she exclaimed, pointing with her little finger to some object in the water.

But one look was enough for Godfrey Harland. With his eyes starting from their sockets with horror, he covered his face with his hands.

‘My God! my God!’ he exclaimed, in a voice of agony, as he rushed away and left the child by herself.

Winnie was terribly frightened. She couldn’t think what she had said, or done, to make the ‘cross man’ so angry with her; and bursting into a loud howl, she attracted the notice of ‘Brother Jack’ (as she still called him), who ran forward, and took her in his arms.

‘Why, what’s the matter, baby? Have you hurt yourself?’ he inquired tenderly, as he kissed the wet face.

At the same moment he was joined by Alice, who had been sent by Mrs Leyton to bring the truant back.

‘How naughty of you, baby, to run away directly mother left the cabin,’ she began reprovingly, but stopped on seeing her little sister’s tears. ‘Why, who has made you cry, darling? Not Jack?’

‘As if “Jack” _would_,’ replied Vernon, with mock reproach. ‘It’s _you_ who make _Jack_ cry, Miss Alice.’

‘Much you’ve cried for me,’ she answered, in the same tone. ‘Why, you’ve looked twice as young and handsome since I set you free. But what has happened to Winnie?’

‘Man make faces at me,’ sobbed the child.

‘_Man!_ What man?’ demanded Vernon.

‘Dere,’ said Winnie, pointing to the wheel-house.

But when Jack searched in that direction, he found no one. Harland, trembling with terror, had already hidden himself below.

‘I expect it was Mr Harland,’ said Jack. ‘He was the only person on deck a few minutes ago. What did you do to make him angry, Winnie?’

‘Sowed him a fis. I specks it’s dere now.’

‘Well, come along, and show it to Alice and me,’ he said, walking aft with the little child clinging to his hand. ‘We’ll look at Winnie’s “fis,” and see if we can catch it, and cook it for mammy’s dinner.’

‘Oh, Jack, how _sweet_ you are!’ cried Alice enthusiastically.

She was of a romantic disposition, and occasionally given to these little outbursts of sudden regret for the lover whom she had voluntarily relinquished in favour of Captain Lovell. Jack looked at her with a world of merriment in his soft grey eyes.

‘Don’t be a fool, Alice,’ he said, laughing.

‘Oh! but you _are_,’ persisted the girl, with a suspicious mist obscuring her sight; ‘you are so kind to everybody. It seems to me as if you only lived to make other people happy.’

‘You’re very much mistaken then, for I can make myself deucedly disagreeable when I feel inclined. But let’s look out for Winnie’s “fis.” By Jove! Alice, that’s no fish! Wait till I get the glasses.’

‘What is it, Jack?’ asked Alice impatiently, as he took a long survey of the object in question. ‘Can’t you make it out?’

‘It looks like a black log from here; but these glasses are not very clear. But stay! there is something white on it. Good heavens! it is a body! It must be the woman who jumped overboard the other night.’

‘Oh, Jack! how _can_ it be?’

‘I can swear it is the body of a woman, and with a black dress on. Here, Alice, you had better take Winnie below. This is no sight for either of you. And I must go at once and report it to the captain.’

Vernon Blythe was correct. Strange as it may seem, it was the body of poor Maggie Greet, which had risen to the surface on the third day.

The _Pandora_ had gone far ahead in the squall; but since then she had been slowly but surely drifting back again, and was now on the very spot where she had been three nights before, and the murdered woman floated on the waters within a hundred yards of her stern.[A]

A boat was lowered at once, and paddled to the quarter, and the corpse was reverently lifted into it, and carried to the surgery.

There was tremendous excitement throughout the vessel whilst the doctor’s and captain’s examination of the body--at which they invited Fowler and Farrell to be present--was going on; but it resulted in no discovery that could afford a clue to the manner of her death. Her long dark hair had fallen about her face, having been washed down by the action of the waves, and her face and figure were much swollen, and beginning to show signs of discoloration. But there were no marks of violence to be seen, nor any evidence of a struggle having taken place, nor the slightest proof that she had been in any way even acquainted with Godfrey Harland. She still wore Iris’s long cloak, tied round her throat, but the woollen wrap had fallen from her head. The poor dead girl formed a sad and solemn spectacle, and Will Farrell’s grief at the sight of her was profound. After a rigid and careful examination, Mr Fowler led the poor fellow away to his own berth, fearful lest in his pain he should say or do something to cast suspicion on the man they both had in their mind’s eye.

In the dog watch, the body, sewed in a canvas shroud, and heavily weighted at the feet, was laid on a grating covered with the Union Jack, and the bell was tolled to announce that the funeral was about to take place.

The passengers, with serious faces, clustered about the captain and his officers, who stood close to the grating, and the seamen, dressed in their Sunday clothes, clean shorn, and holding their caps in their hands, filled up the background. A burial at sea is one of the most solemn and impressive services imaginable.

The skipper, officiating in the place of a priest, with prayer-book in hand--the silent corpse that lies under the flag, ready to be committed to the deep--the infinite surroundings of water and space--the unfathomable grave--the words which are pronounced as the grating is withdrawn, ‘We therefore commit this body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead’--the hollow splash--and the sobs that often break upon the succeeding silence, form a scene that cannot be wiped from the memory in a lifetime. There were many things to render it more solemn than usual on this occasion. The mystery surrounding the sad fate of the young woman who had been their fellow-passenger affected most of the spectators strangely; and Will Farrell, although he had promised Iris to control himself, and his hated enemy, Godfrey Harland, stood with dry eyes within a few yards of him, broke down so completely, as the body disappeared from view, that his sobs seemed to penetrate every part of the vessel. Iris, though scarcely less affected, made no scene. She trembled like an aspen leaf when she saw her husband take his place amongst the mourners, and grew so deadly white that Vernon Blythe (who never took his eyes off her) thought she was going to faint. But she made a strong effort to recover herself, and stood silent throughout the ceremony. When it was over, indeed, and the passengers were dispersing, she walked to the gangway and took a long look at the water, whilst her tears dropped into it, and she wished her poor faithful Maggie farewell until the light of another world should break upon them. And then she turned, and laid her hand upon Will Farrell’s arm.

‘Come, Mr Farrell,’ she said gently, ‘and _leave the rest to God_!’

As she spoke the words, she raised her eyes, and encountered those of Godfrey Harland, and in that glance the wretched murderer read that his crime was known to her.

When the burial was over, and the sailors had resumed their duties, the bell rang for dinner, but few sat down to it. The women were overcome by the scene they had witnessed, and even the men were not inclined to be jolly or conversational after so solemn a ceremony.

‘Farrell,’ said Mr Fowler, as he entered the former’s berth, and fastened the door securely behind him, ‘I am afraid the examination of to-day will lead to no results. There was absolutely nothing to guide us as to the manner of her death. If it did not occur by accident, we shall have to use other means by which to arrive at the truth.’

‘I feel _sure_ it did not occur by accident,’ returned Farrell. ‘Have you been able to speak to Harland yet?’

‘I have not. He has been drinking very hard the last few days, and kept to his cabin, which is in itself a suspicious circumstance. But I have ascertained from the second officer, young Blythe, that there was something very strange about his conduct when the body was discovered to-day. He did or said something that nearly frightened Mrs Leyton’s youngster into fits. But if he is guilty of the murder, he must be a very hardened villain, for I watched him narrowly during the burial service, and I could not detect the least signs of emotion. One thing only have I ascertained for _certain_, and that is, that he did not attend dinner on the evening of Miss Greet’s disappearance, neither did anybody see him afterwards, until Dr Lennard and Captain Lovell went on deck about eleven o’clock for a smoke, and found him leaning over the mainrail, and apparently gazing at the water. Of this there is no doubt. They are both ready to swear to it. Also, that he had so much chloroform on his handkerchief that the doctor turned quite sick, and begged him to put it away. Harland said he used the chloroform for toothache, and so he may have done. But the doctor has an ugly little story to tell about finding Mr Harland in his surgery on the afternoon of the same day, without his being able to give a good account of himself, and also of one of his bottles of chloroform being missing since.’

‘But what can be clearer?’ exclaimed Farrell.

‘My dear fellow! it may be clear that Mr Harland took the doctor’s chloroform without his authority, but there is no proof he did not use it (as he affirmed) for toothache. We can do nothing in this matter without hard, undeniable proofs.’

‘We shall never do anything!’ cried Farrell despairingly. ‘The brute will go scot-free. It is always so in the world.’

‘Not always, sir; in fact, _my_ experience is that very few criminals escape in the long run; and this business won’t be forgotten against Mr Harland--you may take your oath of that!’

‘I should think I might,’ returned Farrell. ‘_I_ sha’n’t forget it, Mr Fowler, and if the law doesn’t punish him for it, _I will_. I shall live for nothing henceforward, but to see that man die as he killed her. He robbed me of the first half of my life, and just as I hoped I might live to forget all I had gone through on his account, and find some comfort in the love of a true-hearted woman, he robs me of her too, and in the cruellest and most dastardly manner! But he shall answer for it! I swear before God, he shall live to suffer as she suffered,--to die hopeless, as she died! If the hangman refuses the job, I’ll twist the rope round his dirty neck myself!’

‘Hush! hush! you must not speak like that,’ said Mr Fowler; ‘you are excited, and don’t know what you are saying. Go to bed now, my good fellow, and try to sleep. You will be worn out if you keep this sort of thing up much longer!’

‘Yes; I’ll take your advice, and get into my berth. I may as well sleep now; she’s sleeping under the water, and I can never do her any more good in this world. And I shall want all my strength, too, Mr Fowler; I shall want it _for what’s coming_!’

He scrambled into his berth as he spoke, and the kind-hearted detective having administered a sleeping-draught to him, under the guise of a stiff glass of whisky toddy, left him to forget his troubles as best he might.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] A fact.

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