CHAPTER V.

THE GLASS FALLS.

Three days after the events related in the last chapter, the trade winds, which had escorted the _Pandora_ so well on her passage, died away, and left the vessel in a dead calm, till a snorting southerly breeze came over the ocean, and sent her careering along at her best pace.

The wind which rattled through the rigging was cold and chilly, and made the ladies unpack their furs, and huddle round the stove. Few patronised the deck--the air was too keen and searching. It was a marvellous change from the sultry weather of the week before, when Alice Leyton had sat with Captain Lovell under the wheel-house, and most of the passengers felt it acutely.

A huge purple bank, lined with silver, had risen upon the beam, and the sun assumed a watery and unnatural appearance.

Mr Coffin, indifferent to everything but the welfare of the vessel, kept a look-out upon the poop, anxiously watching at intervals the ominous-looking cloud, which was gradually growing larger. With his cap drawn down closely over his eyes, his thick, bull-dog neck encircled by a red worsted muffler, a big quid stuck in his cheeks, and his rough, broad hands embedded in his trousers pockets, he was the model of a British seaman.

But he was by no means morose or ill-tempered. Exceedingly shy and reserved, from ignorance of the ways and manners of society, he seldom commenced a conversation, but if any of the passengers were bold enough to speak to him, they found him unpolished, but kindly in disposition. Under his weather-beaten exterior he hid a warm, good heart, for Mr Coffin had a soul of honour, and a mean or cowardly action would have been utterly beneath him.

‘Good-morning; nice day this, isn’t it?’ remarked Godfrey Harland.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the chief officer; ‘but I am afraid we are going to have a blow. I don’t like the looks of it.’

‘It looks dirty to windward, I must say. Do you think there is mischief in that bank?’

‘I am sure there is,’ said Coffin; ‘we shall have to shorten down before daybreak, but it won’t be much. The glass is falling, too, sir, and perhaps you know the old saying,--’

“When the glass falls low, prepare for a blow, When the glass rises high, let all your kites fly.”

But we shall be prepared. I have the hands up at the fore and main reefing the tackles and spilling lines, and the chain tacks and double sheets are on.’

‘What are they doing to your main-topgallant parcell?’ inquired Harland, looking up aloft at the sailors at work.

‘Well, they are lacing on some new leather parcelling,’ replied the mate solemnly, stroking his chin. ‘The old stuff don’t let the yard travel quick enough for my liking. But, if I’m not very much mistaken, this is not your first voyage, sir,’ he continued, fixing his keen eyes upon Harland’s face.

‘Oh, no,’ replied the other lightly; ‘I have often been on the briny. I owned a yacht in New York once--an eighty-tonner--and all my nautical knowledge was learned aboard her.’

‘Was she square-rigged,’ asked Mr Coffin indifferently.

‘No; fore and aft. As nice a little craft as ever you saw, and, by the holy poker, she could sail too. There were few to beat her.’

‘How do you come, then, to know about main-topgallant parcells, if she wasn’t square-rigged?’ demanded the chief officer, looking full at him.

Harland felt he was caught in his own trap. He had foolishly acknowledged that the only vessel he had sailed in was a moderate-sized yacht, which could have been stowed away, with twenty others, in the _Pandora’s_ hold, and that all his sea knowledge was gained aboard of her. How, then, could he possibly know the names, and understand the use, of gear which was never seen on such small craft?

After spluttering out an unintelligible excuse, he attempted to smooth the matter over by inviting his companion to join him in a glass of grog. But the old sea-dog gruffly refused his offer, and turning away, with a mysterious ‘Humph,’ sent a long squirt of red tobacco juice straight into the stern sheets of the lifeboat. When Harland noticed his altered manner, he sidled away under the lee of the pilot-house, whilst Mr Coffin, after scanning the horizon and satisfying himself that there was nothing in sight, leaned against the taffrail, and thought to himself that--‘Mr Harland was a darned sight too deep for most people, but he had taken him flat aback that time.’

At mid-day the captain shot the sun--a feat which Mr Horace Greenwood came up on deck expressly to see, and was much disappointed when Jack Blythe informed him he was just a minute too late; and by that time the wind had increased a little, blowing from south-west to south-south-west in sudden gusts, and the fore and mizen royals, and the smaller stay sails were made fast.

Alice Leyton, in a dark brown travelling ulster, and a felt hat trimmed with a dainty tuft of feathers, which blew about with the wind, and mingled with her sunny curls, had left the close saloon for the open air, and now stood leaning against the wheel-house, holding on her hat with one hand, whilst the breeze caught her skirts and wound them tightly round her supple figure.

‘Why, Alice,’ exclaimed Jack, as he came up to her, ‘what a brave girl you are to venture on deck! But don’t be blown away. We can’t spare you yet, you know,’ and he passed his arm round her waist to steady her as he spoke.

Alice shrank palpably from his embrace.

‘Don’t, Jack, please. I can stand very well by myself, and some one may be looking.’

‘No one is looking, my dear, and if they were, nothing could be more natural than for me to proffer my assistance to a young female in distress on such a windy day.’

‘I’m not in distress,’ replied Alice, half ready to cry at the situation.

‘Oh, yes, you are. You don’t know what a south-wester is yet. Your petticoats will be over your head in another minute.’

‘Oh,’ cried the girl involuntarily, as her hand left her hat to travel down to her skirts. ‘Jack, let me go back to the saloon at once. I don’t want to stay here any longer.’

‘Indeed I won’t. I see you very seldom now, and I mean to make the most of the opportunity. How long is it since you kissed me? At least three weeks. Don’t you think if you brought your face a little nearer this way, you wouldn’t feel the wind so much? Your cheeks are getting positively crimson with it. You’d better take advantage of my offer, and shelter under my lee.’

‘No, no!’ exclaimed Alice, half in fun and half in earnest, ‘I don’t want to kiss you, Jack. I can manage much better by myself.’

‘Or with the help of Captain Lovell,’ he answered. ‘Isn’t that true, Alice? It isn’t the help that’s disagreeable to you, it’s the helper.’

‘Oh, Jack, how can you say such a thing, when we’ve known each other for so long?’

‘Perhaps we’ve known each other _too_ long, and have come to know each other too well, Alice. However, I won’t tease you. I’ve often refused your kisses, so it’s only fair you should have the option of refusing mine now and then. And I suppose you’re tired of them. It’s no wonder.’

Alice did not know what to say. She longed to tell him the truth, but she dared not. She was too fond of him to care to see his bright face clouded by disappointment, and yet she knew now that she could never marry him. Oh dear, she sighed to herself, what should she do?

‘Jack,’ she commenced timidly, ‘I think you’d soon be sick of me. I don’t think I’m a very nice girl. In fact, I’m _sure_ I’m not. And I shall make a worse wife. I’ve almost made up my mind never to marry at all.’

Jack burst out laughing. He had known it would come to this at last. He had watched the confession drawing nearer day by day. And he was not sorry for it. Only he determined that Alice should not have it all her own way. He must have some fun out of her first.

‘What are you talking about?’ he replied, with affected earnestness. ‘You are a great deal too modest, my darling. You’ll make the very best and sweetest wife in all the world. _I’m_ the proper judge of that. Besides, don’t forget that you are pledged to me, and no power on earth will make me release you from your promise.’

Alice sighed audibly, and looked over the sea.

‘But would it be right, Jack,’ she said presently, ‘for me to marry, if I knew I could not fulfil the duties of a wife?’

‘Much you know about the duties of a wife!’ exclaimed Jack merrily. ‘You can fulfil all _I_ shall require from you: I’ll take my oath of that.’

‘Mother says,’ continued Alice solemnly, ‘that I am utterly unfit for any of the graver requirements of life, and that when my father sees how frivolous and pleasure-seeking I am, he is sure to refuse his consent to my leaving home.’

‘Ah! I can guess now what has brought this serious fit upon you, Alice. Your mother has been frightening you with regard to what Mr Leyton may say to our engagement. But don’t you be afraid, dear. If he should make my position an objection to our immediate marriage, I’ll leave you in his care till I shall have attained higher rank and better pay. And, meanwhile, you can be learning your duties as a wife,’ said Jack slyly.

‘How can I learn with no one to teach me?’ replied Alice sharply. ‘Besides, Jack, it may be years and years before you get promotion! Am I to be an old maid all that time?’

‘Why, I thought you were never going to marry at all just now,’ said her lover. ‘You are only just eighteen, Alice. Surely a few years--say till you’re five-and-twenty--would not be too long to wait for such happiness as ours will be? It isn’t as if you were going to marry Captain Lovell, you know, or some common-place fellow of that sort. I will serve for you as Jacob did for Rachel, and if I can wait seven years for you, surely you will do no less for me, eh?’

‘Oh, no! of course not,’ replied the girl, who had the greatest difficulty to keep the tears back from her eyes. ‘But--but I think I’d rather go down to the saloon, Jack, this wind is so horribly strong it makes my eyes water.’

‘All right, if you wish it, but I must tow you safely to the door,’ replied Jack, as he took her across the deck and saw her disappear in the depths of the saloon cabin, without speaking another word to him.

‘Poor little girl,’ he thought, as he turned laughing away, ‘she’s terribly puzzled to know what to say to me. She would have liked to scratch out my eyes for that remark about Lovell, only she didn’t dare. Well, it’ll come out sooner or later, but it’s not my business to help her make the confession. If she gives me up of her own free will, I shall thank God. But if this is only a passing fancy on her part or _his_, I must go through with it.’ And Vernon Blythe sighed as heavily at the prospect as Alice Leyton had done, as he went to his work.

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