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Etext from Athelstane.co.uk
There is a dividing ridge in the great northern wilderness of America, whereon lies a lakelet of not more than twenty yards in diameter. It is of crystal clearness and profound depth, and on the still evenings of the Indian summer its surface forms a perfect mirror, which might serve as a toilet-glass for a Redskin princess.
We have stood by the side of that lakelet and failed to note the slightest symptom of motion in it, yet somewhere in its center there was going on a constant and mysterious division of watery particles, and those of them which glided imperceptibly to the right flowed southward to the Atlantic, while those that trembled to the left found a resting-place by the frozen shores of Hudson's Bay.
As it is with the flow and final exit of those waters, so is it, sometimes, if not always, with the spirit and destiny of man.
Miles Milton, our hero, at the age of nineteen, stood at the dividing ridge of his life. If the oscillating spirit, trembling between right and wrong, had decided to lean to the right, what might have been his fate no one can tell. He paused on the balance a short time, then he leaned over to the left, and what his fate was it is the purpose of this volume to disclose. At the outset, we may remark that it was not unmixed good. Neither was it unmitigated evil.
Miles had a strong body, a strong will, and a somewhat passionate temper: a compound which is closely allied to dynamite!
His father, unfortunately, was composed of much the same materials. The consequences were sometimes explosive. It might have profited the son much had he studied the Scripture lesson, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” Not less might it have benefited the father to have pondered the words, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.”
Young Milton had set his heart on going into the army. Old Milton had resolved to thwart the desire of his son. The mother Milton, a meek and loving soul, experienced some hard times between the two. Both loved her intensely, and each loved himself, not better perhaps, but too much!
It is a sad task to have to recount the disputes between a father and a son. We shrink from it and turn away. Suffice it to say that one day Miles and his father had a Vesuvian meeting on the subject of the army. The son became petulant and unreasonable; the father fierce and tyrannical. The end was that they parted in anger.
“Go, sir,” cried the father sternly; “when you are in a better frame of mind you may return.”
“Yes, father, I will go,” cried the son, starting up, “and I will never return.”
Poor youth! He was both right and wrong in this prophetic speech. He did return home, but he did not return to his father.
With fevered pulse and throbbing heart he rushed into a plantation that lay at the back of his father's house. He had no definite intention save to relieve his feelings by violent action. Running at full speed, he came suddenly to a disused quarry that was full of water. It had long been a familiar haunt as a bathing-pool. Many a time in years past had he leaped off its precipitous margin into the deep water, and wantoned there in all the abandonment of exuberant youth. The leap was about thirty feet, the depth of water probably greater. Constant practice had rendered Miles so expert at diving and swimming that he had come to feel as much at home in the water as a New-Zealander.
Casting off his garments, he took the accustomed plunge by way of cooling his heart and brain. He came up from the depths refreshed, but not restored to equanimity. While dressing, the sense of injustice returned as strongly as before, and, with it, the hot indignation, so that on afterwards reaching the highway he paused only for a few moments. This was the critical point. Slowly but decidedly he leaned to the left. He turned his back on his father's house, and caused the stones to spurt from under his heels as he walked rapidly away.
If Miles Milton had thought of his mother at that time he might have escaped many a day of bitter repentance, for she was as gentle as her husband was harsh; but the angry youth either forgot her at the moment, or, more probably, thrust the thought of her away.
Poor mother! if she had only known what a conflict between good and evil was going on in the breast of her boy, how she would have agonized in prayer for him! But she did not know. There was, however, One who did know, who loved him better even than his mother, and who watched and guarded him throughout all his chequered career.
It is not improbable that in spite of his resolves Miles would have relented before night and returned home had not a very singular incident intervened and closed the door behind him.
That day a notorious swindler had been tracked by a red-haired detective to the manufacturing city to which Miles first directed his steps. The bills describing the swindler set forth that he was quite young, tall, handsome, broad-shouldered, with black curling hair, and a budding moustache; that he was dressed in grey tweeds, and had a prepossessing manner. Now this chanced to be in some respects an exact description of Miles Milton!
The budding moustache, to be sure, was barely discernible, still it was sufficiently so for a detective to found on. His dress, too, was brown tweed, not grey; but of course dresses can be changed; and as to his manner, there could not be two opinions about that.
Now it chanced to be past one o'clock when Miles entered the town and felt himself impeled by familiar sensations to pause in front of an eating-house. It was a poor eating-house in a low district, but Miles was not particular; still further, it was a temperance coffee-house, but Miles cared nothing for strong drink. Strong health and spirits had served his purpose admirably up to that date.
Inside the eating-house there sat several men of the artisan class, and a few of the nondescript variety. Among the latter was the red-haired detective. He was engaged with a solid beef-steak.
“Oho!” escaped softly from his lips, when his sharp eyes caught sight of our hero. So softly did he utter the exclamation that it might have been a mere remark of appreciation addressed to the steak, from which he did not again raise his eyes for a considerable time.
The place was very full of people — so full that there seemed scarcely room for another guest; but by some almost imperceptible motion the red-haired man made a little space close to himself. The man next to him, with a hook-nose, widened the space by similar action, and Miles, perceiving that there was room, sat down.
“Bread and cheese,” he said to the waiter.
“Bread an' cheese, sir? Yessir.”
Miles was soon actively engaged in mechanically feeding, while his mind was busy as to future plans.
Presently he became aware that the men on either side of him were scanning his features and person with peculiar attention.
“Coldish weather,” remarked the red-haired man, looking at him in a friendly way.
“It is,” replied Miles, civilly enough.
“Rather cold for bathin', ain't it, sir?” continued the detective carelessly, picking his teeth with a quill.
“How did you know that I've been bathing?” demanded Miles in surprise.
“I didn't know it.”
“How did you guess it then?”
“Vell, it ain't difficult to guess that a young feller 'as bin 'avin' a swim w'en you see the 'air of 'is 'ead hall vet, an' 'is pocket-'ankercher lookin' as if it 'ad done dooty for a towel, not to mention 'is veskit 'avin' bin putt on in a 'urry, so as the buttons ain't got into the right 'oles, you see!”
Miles laughed, and resumed his bread and cheese.
“You are observant, I perceive,” he said.
“Not wery partiklarly so,” returned Redhair; “but I do obsarve that your boots tell of country roads. Was it a long way hout of town as you was bathin' this forenoon, now?”
There was a free and easy familiarity about the man's tone which Miles resented, but, not wishing to run the risk of a disagreement in such company, he answered quietly— “Yes, a considerable distance; it was in an old quarry where I often bathe, close to my father's house.”
“Ha! jest so, about 'alf-way to the willage of Ramplin', w'ere you slep' last night, if report speaks true, an' w'ere you left the grey tweeds, unless, p'r'aps, you sunk 'em in the old quarry.”
“Why, what on earth do you mean?” asked Miles, with a look of such genuine surprise that Redhair was puzzled, and the man with the hooked nose, who had been listening attentively, looked slightly confused.
“Read that, sir,” said the detective, extracting a newspaper cutting from his pocket and laying it on the table before Miles.
While he read, the two men watched him with interest, so did some of those who sat near, for they began to perceive that something was “in the wind.”
The tell-tale blood sprang to the youth's brow as he read and perceived the meaning of the man's remarks. At this Redhair and Hook-nose nodded to each other significantly.
“You don't mean to say,” exclaimed Miles, in a tone of grand indignation which confirmed the men in their suspicion, “that you think this description applies to me?”
“I wouldn't insinivate too much, sir, though I have got my suspicions,” said Redhair blandly; “but of course that's easy settled, for if your father's 'ouse is anyw'ere hereabouts, your father won't object to identify his son.”
“Ridiculous!” exclaimed Miles, rising angrily at this interruption to his plans. The two men rose promptly at the same moment. “Of course my father will prove that you have made a mistake, but—”
He hesitated in some confusion, for the idea of re-appearing before his father so soon, and in such company, after so stoutly asserting that he would never more return, was humiliating. The detective observed the hesitation and became jocose.
“If you'd rather not trouble your parent,” said Redhair, “you've got no call to do it. The station ain't far off, and the sooner we get there the better for all parties.”
A slight clink of metal at this point made Miles aware of the fact that Hook-nose was drawing a pair of handcuffs from one of his pockets.
The full significance of his position suddenly burst upon him. The thought of being led home a prisoner, or conveyed to the police-station handcuffed, maddened him; and the idea of being thus unjustly checked at the very outset of his independent career made him furious. For a few moments he stood so perfectly still and quiet that the detectives were thrown slightly off their guard. Then there was an explosion of some sort within the breast of Miles Milton. It expended itself in a sudden impulse, which sent Redhead flat on the table among the crockery, and drove Hook-nose into the fireplace among the fire-irons. A fat little man chanced to be standing in the door-way. The same impulse, modified, shot that little man into the street like a cork out of a bottle, and next moment Miles was flying along the pavement at racing speed, horrified at what he had done, but utterly reckless as to what might follow!
Hearing the shouts of pursuers behind him, and being incommoded by passers-by in the crowded thoroughfare, Miles turned sharply into a by-street, and would have easily made his escape — being uncommonly swift of foot — had he not been observed by an active little man of supple frame and presumptuous tendencies. Unlike the mass of mankind around him — who stared and wondered — the active little man took in the situation at a glance, joined in the pursuit, kept well up, thus forming a sort of connecting-link between the fugitive and pursuers, and even took upon himself to shout “Stop thief!” as he ran. Miles endeavored to throw him off by putting on, as schoolboys have it, “a spurt.” But the active little man also spurted and did not fall far behind. Then Miles tried a second double, and got into a narrow street, which a single glance showed him was a blind alley! Disappointment and anger hereupon took possession of him, and he turned at bay with the tiger-like resolve to run a-muck!
Fortunately for himself he observed a pot of whitewash standing near a half-whitened wall, with a dirty canvas frock and a soiled billycock lying beside it. The owner of the property had left it inopportunely, for, quick as thought, Miles wriggled into the frock, flung on the billycock, seized the pot, and walked in a leisurely way to the head of the alley. He reached it just as the active little man turned into it, at the rate of ten miles an hour. A yell of “Stop thief!” issued from the man's presumptuous lips at the moment.
His injunction was obeyed to the letter, for the would-be thief of an honest man's character on insufficient evidence was stopped by Miles's bulky person so violently that the whitewash was scattered all about, and part of it went into the active man's eyes.
To squash the large brush into the little man's face, and thus effectually complete what his own recklessness had begun, was the work of an instant. As he did it, Miles assumed the rôle of the injured party, suiting his language to his condition.
“What d'ee mean by that, you houtrageous willain?” he cried savagely, to the great amusement of the bystanders, who instantly formed a crowd round them. “Look wot a mess you've bin an' made o' my clean frock! Don't you see?”
The poor little man could not see. He could only cough and gasp and wipe his face with his coat-tails.
“I'd give you in charge o' the pleece, I would, if it wasn't that you've pretty well punished yourself a'ready,” continued Miles. “Take 'im to a pump some o' you, 'cause I ain't got time. Good-day, spider-legs, an' don't go for to run into a hartist again, with a paint-pot in 'is 'and.”
So saying, Miles pushed through the laughing crowd and sauntered away. He turned into the first street he came to, and then went forward as fast as was consistent with the idea of an artisan in a hurry. Being utterly ignorant of the particular locality into which he had penetrated — though well enough acquainted with the main thoroughfares of the city — his only care was to put as many intricate streets and lanes as possible between himself and the detectives. This was soon done, and thereafter, turning into a darkish passage, he got rid of the paint-pot and borrowed costume.
Fortunately he had thrust his own soft helmet-shaped cap into his breast at the time he put on the billycock, and was thus enabled to issue from the dark passage very much like his former self, with the exception of a few spots of whitewash, which were soon removed.
Feeling now pretty safe, our hero walked a considerable distance through the unknown parts of the city before he ventured to inquire the way to thoroughfares with which he was familiar. Once in these, he proceeded at a smart pace to one of the railway stations, intending to leave town, though as yet he had formed no definite plan of action. In truth, his mind was much troubled and confused by the action of his conscience, for when the thought of leaving home and entering the army as a private soldier, against his father's wishes, crossed his mind, Conscience faithfully shook his head; and when softer feelings prevailed, and the question arose irresistibly, “Shall I return home?” the same faithful friend whispered, “Yes.”
In a state of indecision, Miles found himself borne along by a human stream to the booking-office. Immediately in front of him were two soldiers, — one a sergeant, and the other a private of the line.
Both were tall handsome men, straight as arrows, and with that air of self-sufficient power which is as far removed from arrogance as it is from cowardice, and is by no means an uncommon feature in men of the British army.
Miles felt a strong, unaccountable attraction towards the young private. He had not yet heard his voice nor encountered his eye; indeed, being behind him, he had only seen his side-face, and as the expression on it was that of stern gravity, the attractive power could not have lain in that. It might have lain in the youthful look of the lad, for albeit a goodly man in person, he was almost a boy in countenance, being apparently not yet twenty years of age.
Miles was at last roused to the necessity for prompt and decisive action by the voice of the sergeant saying in tones of authority—
“Portsmouth — third — two — single.”
“That's the way to go it, lobster!” remarked a shabby man, next in the line behind Miles.
The grave sergeant paid no more regard to this remark than if it had been the squeak of a mouse.
“Now, then, sir, your carridge stops the way. 'Eave a'ead. Shall I 'elp you?” said the shabby man.
Thus admonished, Miles, scarce knowing what he said, repeated the sergeant's words—
“Portsmouth — third — two — single.”
“Vy, you ain't agoin' to pay for me, are you?” exclaimed the shabby man in smiling surprise.
“Oh! beg pardon. I mean one,” said Miles to the clerk, quickly.
The clerk retracted the second ticket with stolid indifference, and Miles, hastening to the platform, sat down on a seat, deeply and uncomfortably impressed with the fact that he possessed little or no money! This unsatisfactory state of things had suddenly burst upon him while in the act of paying for his ticket. He now made a careful examination of his purse, and found its contents to be exactly seven shillings and sixpence, besides a few coppers in his trousers-pocket.
Again indecision assailed him. Should he return? It was not too late. “Yes,” said Conscience, with emphasis. “No,” said Shame. False pride echoed the word, and Self-will re-echoed it. Still our hero hesitated, and there is no saying what the upshot might have been if the bell had not rung at the moment, and, “Now, then, take your seats!” put an end to the controversy.
Another minute, and Miles Milton was seated opposite the two soldiers, rushing towards our great southern seaport at the rate of forty miles an hour.
Our hero soon discovered that the sergeant was an old campaigner, having been out in Egypt at the beginning of the war, and fought at the famous battle of Tel-el-Kebir.
In his grave and undemonstrative way and quiet voice, this man related some of his experiences, so as not only to gain the attention of his companion in arms, but to fascinate all who chanced to be within earshot of him — not the least interested among whom, of course, was our friend Miles.
As the sergeant continued to expatiate on those incidents of the war which had come under his own observation, three points impressed themselves on our hero: first, that the sergeant was evidently a man of serious, if not religious, spirit; second, that while he gave all due credit to his comrades for their bravery in action, he dwelt chiefly on those incidents which brought out the higher qualities of the men, such as uncomplaining endurance, forbearance, etcetera, and he never boasted of having given “a thorough licking” to the Egyptians, nor spoke disparagingly of the native troops; lastly, that he seemed to lay himself out with a special view to the unflagging entertainment of his young comrade.
The reason for this last purpose he learned during a short halt at one of the stations. Seeing the sergeant standing alone there, Miles, after accosting him with the inevitable references to the state of the weather, remarked that his comrade seemed to be almost too young for the rough work of soldiering.
“Yes, he is young enough, but older than he looks,” answered the sergeant. “Poor lad! I'm sorry for him.”
“Indeed! He does not seem to me a fit subject for pity. Young, strong, handsome, intelligent, he seems pretty well furnished to begin the battle of life — especially in the army.”
“'Things are not what they seem,'“ returned the soldier, regarding his young questioner with something between a compassionate and an amused look. “'All is not gold that glitters.' Soldiering is not made up of brass bands, swords, and red coats!”
“Having read a good deal of history I am well aware of that,” retorted Miles, who was somewhat offended by the implication contained in the sergeant's remarks.
“Well, then, you see,” continued the sergeant, “all the advantages that you have mentioned, and which my comrade certainly possesses, weigh nothing with him at all just now, because this sudden call to the wars separates him from his poor young wife.”
“Wife!” exclaimed Miles; “why, he seems to me little more than a boy — except in size, and perhaps in gravity.”
“He is over twenty, and, as to gravity — well, most young fellows would be grave enough if they had to leave a pretty young wife after six months of wedded life. You see, he married without leave, and so, even if it were a time of peace, his wife would not be recognized by the service. In wartime he must of course leave her behind him. It has been a hard job to prevent him from deserting, and now it's all I can do to divert his attention from his sorrow by stirring him up with tales of the recent wars.”
At this point the inexorable bell rang, doors were banged, whistles sounded, and the journey was resumed.
Arrived at Portsmouth, Miles was quickly involved in the bustle of the platform. He had made up his mind to have some private conversation with the sergeant as to the possibility of entering her Majesty's service as a private soldier, and was on the point of accompanying his military traveling companions into the comparative quiet of the street when a porter touched his cap—
“Any luggage, sir?”
“Luggage? — a — no — no luggage!”
It was the first moment since leaving home that the thought of luggage had entered into his brain! That thought naturally aroused other thoughts, such as lodgings, food, friends, funds, and the like. On turning to the spot where his military companions had stood, he discovered that they were gone. Running to the nearest door-way he found it to be the wrong one, and before he found the right one and reached the street the two soldiers had vanished from the scene.
“You seem to be a stranger here, sir. Can I direct you?” said an insinuating voice at his elbow.
The speaker was an elderly man of shabby-genteel appearance and polite address. Miles did not quite like the look of him. In the circumstances, however, and with a strangely desolate feeling of loneliness creeping over him, he did not see his way to reject a civil offer.
“Thank you. I am indeed a stranger, and happen to have neither friend nor acquaintance in the town, so if you can put me in the way of finding a respectable lodging — a — a cheap one, you will greatly oblige me.”
“With pleasure,” said the man, “if you will accompany—”
“Stay, don't trouble yourself to show me the way,” interrupted Miles; “just name a house and the street, that will—”
“No trouble at all, sir,” said the man. “I happen to be going in the direction of the docks, and know of excellent as well as cheap lodgings there.”
Making no further objection, Miles followed his new friend into the street. For some time, the crowd being considerable and noisy, they walked in silence.
At the time we write of, Portsmouth was ringing with martial music and preparations for war.
At all times the red-coats and the blue-jackets are prominent in the streets of that seaport; for almost the whole of our army passes through it at one period or another, either in going to or returning from “foreign parts.” But at this time there was the additional bustle resulting from the Egyptian war. Exceptional activity prevailed in its yards, and hurry in its streets. Recruits, recently enlisted, flocked into it from all quarters, while on its jetties were frequently landed the sad fruits of war in the form of wounded men.
“Have you ever been in Portsmouth before?” asked the shabby-genteel man, on reaching a part of the town which was more open and less crowded.
“Never. I had no idea it was so large and bustling,” said Miles.
“The crowding and bustling is largely increased just now, of course, in consequence of the war in Egypt,” returned the man. “Troops are constantly embarking, and others returning. It is a noble service! Men start in thousands from this port young, hearty, healthy, and full of spirit; they return — those of them who return at all — sickly, broken-down, and with no spirit at all except what they soon get poured into them by the publicans. Yes; commend me to the service of my Queen and country!”
There was a sneering tone in the man's voice which fired his companion's easily roused indignation.
“Mind what you say about our Queen while in my company,” said Miles sternly, stopping short and looking the man full in the face. “I am a loyal subject, and will listen to nothing said in disparagement of the Queen or of her Majesty's forces.”
“Bless you, sir,” said the man quickly, “I'm a loyal subject myself, and wouldn't for the world say a word against her Majesty. No more would I disparage her troops; but, after all, the army ain't perfect, you know. Even you must admit that, sir. With all its noble qualities there's room for improvement.”
There was such an air of sincerity — or at least of assumed humility — in the man's tone and manner that Miles felt it unjustifiable to retain his indignation. At the same time, he could not all at once repress it, and was hesitating whether to fling off from the man or to forgive him, when the sound of many voices, and of feet tramping in regular time, struck his ear and diverted his attention. Next moment the head of a regiment, accompanied by a crowd of juvenile admirers, swept round the corner of the street. At the same instant a forest of bayonets gleamed upon the youth's vision, and a brass band burst with crashing grandeur upon his ear, sending a quiver of enthusiasm into the deepest recesses of his soul, and stirring the very marrow in his bones!
Miles stood entranced until the regiment had passed, and the martial strains were softened by distance; then he looked up and perceived that his shabby companion was regarding him with a peculiar smile.
“I think you've a notion of being a soldier,” he said, with a smile.
“Where is that regiment going?” asked Miles, instead of answering the question.
“To barracks at present; to Egypt in a few days. There'll be more followin' it before long.”
It was a distracting as well as an exciting walk that Miles had through the town, for at every turn he passed couples or groups of soldiers, or sailors, or marines, and innumerable questions sprang into and jostled each other in his mind, while, at the same moment, his thoughts and feelings were busy with his present circumstances and future prospects. The distraction was increased by the remarks and comments of his guide, and he would fain have got rid of him; but good-feeling, as well as common-sense, forbade his casting him off without sufficient reason.
Presently he stopped, without very well knowing why, in front of a large imposing edifice. Looking up, he observed the words Soldiers' Institute in large letters on the front of it.
“What sort of an Institute is that?” he asked.
“Oh! it's a miserable affair, where soldiers are taken in cheap, as they say, an' done for,” returned the shabby man hurriedly, as if the subject were distasteful to him. “Come along with me and I'll show you places where soldiers — aye, and civilians too — can enjoy themselves like gentlemen, an' get value for their money.”
As he spoke, two fine-looking men issued from a small street close to them, and crossed the road — one a soldier of the line, the other a marine.
“Here it is, Jack,” exclaimed the soldier to his friend; “Miss Sarah Robinson's Institoot, that you've heard so much about. Come an' I'll show you where you can write your letter in peace—”
Thus much was overheard by Miles as they turned into a side-street, and entered what was obviously one of the poorer districts of the town.
“Evidently that soldier's opinion does not agree with yours,” remarked Miles, as they walked along.
“More's the pity!” returned the shabby man, whose name he had informed his companion was Sloper. “Now we are getting among places, you see, where there's a good deal of drinking going on.”
“I scarcely require to be told that,” returned Miles, curtly; for he was beginning to feel his original dislike to Mister Sloper intensified.
It did not indeed require any better instructor than eyes and ears to inform our hero that the grog-shops around him were full, and that a large proportion of the shouting and swearing revellers inside were soldiers and seamen.
By this time it was growing dark, and most of the gin-palaces were beginning to send forth that glare of intense and warm light with which they so knowingly attract the human moths that constitute their prey.
“Here we are,” said Sloper, stopping in front of a public-house in a narrow street. “This is one o' the respectable lodgin's. Most o' the others are disreputable. It's not much of a neighborhood, I admit.”
“It certainly is not very attractive,” said Miles, hesitating.
“You said you wanted a cheap one,” returned Sloper, “and you can't expect to have it cheap and fashionable, you know. You've no occasion to be afraid. Come in.”
The arguments of Mr Sloper might have failed to move Miles, but the idea of his being afraid to go anywhere was too much for him.
“Go in, then,” he said, firmly, and followed.
The room into which he was ushered was a moderately large public-house, with a bar and a number of tables round the room, at which many men and a few women were seated; some gambling, others singing or disputing, and all drinking and smoking. It is only right to say that Miles was shocked. Hitherto he had lived a quiet and comparatively innocent country life. He knew of such places chiefly from books or hearsay, or had gathered merely the superficial knowledge that comes through the opening of a swing-door. For the first time in his life he stood inside a low drinking-shop, breathing its polluted atmosphere and listening to its foul language. His first impulse was to retreat, but false shame, the knowledge that he had no friend in Portsmouth, or place to go to, that the state of his purse forbade his indulging in more suitable accommodation, and a certain pride of character which made him always determine to carry out what he had resolved to do — all these considerations and facts combined to prevent his acting on the better impulse. He doggedly followed his guide to a small round table and sat down.
Prudence, however, began to operate within him. He felt that he had done wrong; but it was too late now, he thought, to retrace his steps. He would, however, be on his guard; would not encourage the slightest familiarity on the part of any one, and would keep his eyes open. For a youth who had seen nothing of the world this was a highly commendable resolve.
“What'll you drink?” asked Mr Sloper.
Miles was on the point of saying “Coffee,” but, reflecting that the beverage might not be readily obtainable in such a place, he substituted “Beer.”
Instead of calling the waiter, Mr Sloper went himself to the bar to fetch the liquor. While he was thus engaged, Miles glanced round the room, and was particularly struck with the appearance of a large, fine-looking sailor who sat at the small table next to him, with hands thrust deep into his trousers-pockets, his chin resting on his broad chest, and a solemn, owlish stare in his semi-drunken yet manly countenance. He sat alone, and was obviously in a very sulky frame of mind — a condition which he occasionally indicated through a growl of dissatisfaction.
As Miles sat wondering what could have upset the temper of a tar whose visage was marked by the unmistakable lines and dimples of good-humor, he overheard part of the conversation that passed between the barman and Mr Sloper.
“What! have they got hold o' Rattling Bill?” asked the former, as he drew the beer.
“Aye, worse luck,” returned Sloper. “I saw the sergeant as I came along lead him over to Miss Robinson's trap — confound her!”
“Don't you go fur to say anything agin Miss Robinson, old man,” suddenly growled the big sailor, in a voice so deep and strong that it silenced for a moment the rest of the company. “Leastways, you may if you like, but if you do, I'll knock in your daylights, an' polish up your figur'-head so as your own mother would mistake you fur a battered saucepan!”
The seaman did not move from his semi-recumbent position as he uttered this alarming threat, but he accompanied it with a portentous frown and an owlish wink of both eyes.
“What! have you joined the Blue Lights?” asked Sloper, with a smile, referring to the name by which the religious and temperance men of the army were known.
“No, I ha'n't. Better for me, p'r'aps, if I had. Here, waiter, fetch me another gin-an'-warer. An' more o' the gin than the warer, mind. Heave ahead or I'll sink you!”
Having been supplied with a fresh dose of gin and water, the seaman appeared to go to sleep, and Miles, for want of anything better to do, accepted Sloper's invitation to play a game of dominoes.
“Are the beds here pretty good?” he asked, as they were about to begin.
“Yes, first-rate — for the money,” answered Sloper.
“That's a lie!” growled the big sailor. “They're bad at any price — stuffed wi' cocoa-nuts and marline-spikes.”
Mr Sloper received this observation with the smiling urbanity of a man who eschews war at all costs.
“You don't drink,” he said after a time, referring to Miles's pot of beer, which he had not yet touched.
Miles made no reply, but by way of answer took up the pot and put it to his lips.
He had not drunk much of it when the big seaman rose hurriedly and staggered between the two tables. In doing so, he accidentally knocked the pot out of the youth's hand, and sent the contents into Mr Sloper's face and down into his bosom, to the immense amusement of the company.
That man of peace accepted the baptism meekly, but Miles sprang up in sudden anger.
The seaman turned to him, however, with a benignantly apologetic smile.
“Hallo! messmate. I ax your parding. They don't leave room even for a scarecrow to go about in this here cabin. I'll stand you another glass. Give us your flipper!”
There was no resisting this, it was said so heartily. Miles grasped the huge hand that was extended and shook it warmly.
“All right,” he said, laughing. “I don't mind the beer, and there's plenty more where that came from, but I fear you have done some damage to my fr—”
“Your friend. Out with it, sir. Never be ashamed to acknowledge your friends,” exclaimed the shabby man, as he wiped his face. “Hold on a bit,” he added, rising; “I'll have to change my shirt. Won't keep you waitin' long.”
“Another pot o' beer for this 'ere gen'lem'n,” said the sailor to the barman as Sloper left the room.
Paying for the drink, he returned and put the pot on the table. Then, turning to Miles, he said in a low voice and with an intelligent look—
“Come outside for a bit, messmate. I wants to speak to 'ee.”
Miles rose and followed the man in much surprise.
“You'll excuse me, sir,” he said, when a few yards away from the door; “but I see that you're green, an' don't know what a rascally place you've got into. I've been fleeced there myself, and yet I'm fool enough to go back! Most o' the parties there — except the sailors an' sodgers — are thieves an' blackguards. They've drugged your beer, I know; that's why I capsized it for you, and the feller that has got hold o' you is a well-known decoy-duck. I don't know how much of the ready you may have about you, but this I does know, whether it be much or little, you wouldn't have a rap of it in the mornin' if you stayed the night in this here house.”
“Are you sure of this, friend?” asked Miles, eyeing his companion doubtfully.
“Aye, as sure as I am that my name's Jack Molloy.”
“But you've been shamming drunk all this time. How am I to know that you are not shamming friendship now?”
“No, young man,” returned the seaman with blinking solemnity. “I'm not shammin' drunk. I on'y wish I was, for I'm three sheets in the wind at this minute, an' I've a splittin' headache due i' the mornin'. The way as you've got to find out whether I'm fair an' above-board is to look me straight in the face an' don't wink. If that don't settle the question, p'r'aps it'll convince you w'en I tells you that I don't care a rap whether you go back to that there grog-shop or not. Only I'll clear my conscience — leastways, wot's left of it — by tellin' ye that if you do — you — you'll wish as how you hadn't — supposin' they leave you the power to wish anything at all.”
“Well, I believe you are a true man, Mister Molloy—”
“Don't Mister me, mate,” interrupted the seaman.
“My name's Jack Molloy, at your service, an' that name don't require no handle — either Mister or Esquire — to prop it up.”
The way in which the sailor squared his broad shoulders when he said this rendered it necessary to prop himself up. Seeing which, Miles afforded the needful aid by taking his arm in a friendly way.
“But come, let us go back,” he said. “I must pay for my beer, you know.”
“Your beer is paid for, young man,” said Molloy, stopping and refusing to move. “I paid for it, so you've on'y got to settle with me. Besides, if you go back you're done for. And you've no call to go back to say farewell to your dear friend Sloper, for he'll on'y grieve over the loss of your tin. As to the unpurliteness o' the partin' — he won't break his heart over that. No — you'll come wi' me down to the Sailors' Welcome near the dock-gates, where you can get a good bed for sixpence a night, a heavy blow-out for tenpence, with a splendid readin'-room, full o' rockin' chairs, an' all the rest of it for nothin'. An there's a lavatory — that's the name that they give to a place for cleanin' of yourself up — a lavatory — where you can wash yourself, if you like, till your skin comes off! W'en I first putt up at the Welcome, the messmate as took me there said to me, says he, 'Jack,' says he, 'you was always fond o' water.' 'Right you are,' says I. 'Well,' says he, 'there's a place in the Sailors' Welcome where you can wash yourself all day, if you like, for nothing!'
“I do b'lieve it was that as indooced me to give in. I went an' saw this lavatory, an' I was so took up with it that I washed my hands in every bason in the place — one arter the other — an' used up ever so much soap, an' — would you believe it? — my hands wasn't clean after all! Yes, it's one the wery best things in Portsm'uth, is Miss Robinson's Welcome—”
“Miss Robinson again!” exclaimed Miles.
“Aye — wot have you got to find fault wi' Miss Robinson?” demanded the sailor sternly.
“No fault to find at all,” replied Miles, suffering himself to be hurried away by his new friend; “but wherever I have gone since arriving in Portsmouth her name has cropped up!”
“In Portsmouth!” echoed the sailor. “Let me tell you, young man, that wherever you go all over the world, if there's a British soldier there, Miss Sarah Robinson's name will be sure to crop up. Why, don't you know that she's 'The Soldiers' Friend'?”
“I'm afraid I must confess to ignorance on the point — yet, stay, now you couple her name with 'The Soldier's Friend,' I have got a faint remembrance of having heard it before. Have I not heard of a Miss Weston, too, in connection with a work of some sort among sailors?”
“Aye, no doubt ye have. She has a grand Institoot in Portsm'uth too, but she goes in for sailors only — all over the kingdom — w'ereas Miss Robinson goes in for soldiers an' sailors both, though mainly for the soldiers. She set agoin' the Sailors' Welcome before Miss Weston began in Portsm'uth, an' so she keeps it up, but there ain't no opposition or rivalry. Their aims is pretty much alike, an' so they keep stroke together wi' the oars. But I'll tell you more about that when you get inside. Here we are! There's the dock-gates, you see, and that's Queen Street, an' the Welcome's close at hand. It's a teetotal house, you know. All Miss Robinson's Institoots is that.”
“Indeed! How comes it, then, that a man — excuse me — 'three sheets in the wind,' can gain admittance?”
“Oh! as to that, any sailor or soldier may get admittance, even if he's as drunk as a fiddler, if he on'y behaves his-self. But they won't supply drink on the premises, or allow it to be brought in — 'cept inside o' you, of coorse. Cause why? you can't help that — leastwise not without the help of a stomach-pump. Plenty o' men who ain't abstainers go to sleep every night at the Welcome, 'cause they find the beds and other things so comfortable. In fact, some hard topers have been indooced to take the pledge in consekince o' what they've heard an' seen in this Welcome, though they came at first only for the readin'-room an' beds. Here, let me look at you under this here lamp. Yes. You'll do. You're something like a sea-dog already. You won't object to change hats wi' me?”
“Why?” asked Miles, somewhat amused.
“Never you mind that, mate. You just putt yourself under my orders if you'd sail comfortably before the wind. I'll arrange matters, an' you can square up in the morning.”
As Miles saw no particular reason for objecting to this fancy of his eccentric friend, he exchanged his soft cap for the sailor's straw hat, and they entered the Welcome together.
It was not long before our hero discovered the reason of Jack Molloy's solicitude about his appearance. It was that he, Miles, should pass for a sailor, and thus be in a position to claim the hospitality of the Sailors' Welcome, — to the inner life of which civilians were not admitted, though they were privileged, with the public in general, to the use of the outer refreshment-room.
“Come here, Jack Molloy,” he said, leading his friend aside, when he made this discovery. “You pride yourself on being a true-blue British tar, don't you?”
“I does,” said Jack, with a profound solemnity of decision that comported well with his character and condition.
“And you would scorn to serve under the French flag, or the Turkish flag, or the Black flag, or any flag but the Union Jack, wouldn't you?”
“Right you are, mate; them's my sentiments to a tee!”
“Well, then, you can't expect me to sail under false colors any more than yourself,” continued Miles. “I scorn to sail into this port under your straw hat, so I'll strike these colors, bid you good-bye, and make sail for another port where a civilian will be welcome.”
Molloy frowned at the floor for some moments in stern perplexity.
“You've took the wind out o' my sails entirely, you have,” he replied at last; “an' you're right, young man, but I'm troubled about you. If you don't run into this here port you'll have to beat about in the offing all night, or cast anchor in the streets, for I don't know of another lodgin' in Portsm'uth w'ere you could hang out except them disrepitible grog-shops. In coorse, there's the big hotels; but I heerd you say to Sloper that you was bound to do things cheap, bein' hard up.”
“Never mind, my friend,” said Miles quickly. “I will manage somehow; so good-night, and many thanks to you for the interest you have taken in—”
“Avast, mate! there's no call to go into action in sitch a hurry. This here Sailors' Welcome opens the doors of its bar an' refreshment-room, an' spreads its purvisions before all an' sundry as can afford to pay its moderate demands. It's on'y the after-cabin you're not free to. So you'll have a bit supper wi' me before you set sail on your night cruise.”
Being by that time rather hungry as well as fatigued, Miles agreed to remain for supper. While they were engaged with it, he was greatly impressed with the number of sailors and marines who passed into the reading-room beyond the bar, or who sat down at the numerous tables around to have a hearty supper, which they washed down with tea and coffee instead of beer or gin — apparently with tremendous appetite and much satisfaction.
“Look ye here,” said Jack Molloy, rising when their “feed” was about concluded, “I've no doubt they won't object to your taking a squint at the readin'-room, though they won't let you use it.” Following his companion, Miles passed by a glass double door into an enormous well-lighted, warm room, seventy feet long, and of proportionate width and height, in which a goodly number of men of the sea were busy as bees — some of them reading books or turning over illustrated papers and magazines, others smoking their pipes, and enjoying themselves in rocking-chairs in front of the glowing fire, chatting, laughing, and yarning as free-and-easily as if in their native fo'c's'ls, while a few were examining the pictures on the walls, or the large models of ships which stood at one side of the room. At the upper end a full-sized billiard-table afforded amusement to several players, and profound interest to a number of spectators, who passed their comments on the play with that off-hand freedom which seems to be a product of fresh gales and salt-water. A door standing partly open at the upper end of this apartment revealed a large hall, from which issued faintly the sound of soft music.
“Ain't it snug? and there's no gamblin' agoin' on there,” remarked Molloy, as they returned to their table; “that's not allowed — nor drinkin', nor card-playin', but that's all they putt a stop to. She's a wise woman is Miss Robinson. She don't hamper us wi' no rules. Why, bless you, Jack ashore would never submit to rules! He gits more than enough o' them afloat. No; it's liberty hall here. We may come an' go as we like, at all hours o' the day and night, an' do exactly as we please, so long as we don't smash up the furnitur', or feed without payin', or make ourselves a gineral noosance. They don't even forbid swearin'. They say they leave the matter o' lingo to our own good taste and good sense. An' d'you know, it's wonderful what an' amount o' both we've got w'en we ain't worried about it! You'll scarce hear an oath in this house from mornin' to evenin', though you'll hear a deal o' snorin' doorin' the night! That's how the place takes so well, d'ee see?”
“Then the Welcome is well patronized, I suppose?”
“Patronized!” exclaimed the seaman; “that's so, an' no mistake. Why, mate — But what's your name? I've forgot to ax you that all this time!”
“Call me Miles,” said our hero, with some hesitation.
“Call you Miles! Ain't you Miles?”
“Well, yes, I am; only there's more of my name than that, but that's enough for your purpose, I daresay.”
“All right. Well, Miles, you was askin' how the house is patronized. I'll tell 'ee. They make up about two hundred an' twenty beds in it altogether, an' these are chock-full a'most every night. One way or another they had forty-four thousand men, more or less, as slep' under this roof last year — so I've bin told. That's patronisin', ain't it? To say nothin' o' the fellers as comes for — grub, which, as you've found, is good for the money, and the attendants is civil. You see, they're always kind an' attentive here, 'cause they professes to think more of our souls than our bodies — which we've no objection to, d'ee see, for the lookin' arter our souls includes the lookin' arter our bodies! An' they don't bother us in no way to attend their Bible-readin's an' sitchlike. There they are in separate rooms; if you want 'em you may go; if you don't, you can let 'em alone. No compulsion, which comes quite handy to some on us, for I don't myself care much about sitchlike things. So long's my body's all right, I leaves my soul to look arter itself.”
As the seaman said this with a good-natured smile of indifference, there sprang to the mind of his young companion words that had often been impressed on him by his mother: “What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” but he made no reference to this at the time.
“Hows'ever,” continued Molloy, “as they don't worrit us about religion, except to give us a good word an' a blessin' now an' again, and may-hap a little book to read, we all patronizes the house; an it's my opinion if it was twice as big as it is we'd fill it chock-full. I would board as well as sleep in it myself — for it's full o' conveniences, sitch as lockers to putt our things in, an' baths, and what not, besides all the other things I've mentioned — but the want o' drink staggers me. I can't git along without a drop o' drink.”
Miles thought that his nautical friend appeared to be unable to get along without a good many drops of drink, but he was too polite to say so.
“Man alive!” continued Jack Molloy, striking his huge fist on his thigh with emphasis; “it's a wonderful place is this Welcome! An' it's a lively place too. Why, a fellow hanged his-self in one o' the bunks overhead not long ago.”
“You don't mean that?” exclaimed Miles, rather shocked.
“In course I does. But they heard 'im gaspin', an cut him down in time to save him. It was drink they say as made him do it, and they got him to sign the pledge arterwards. I believe he's kep' it too. Leastwise I know many a hard drinker as have bin indooced to give it up and stuck to it — all through comin' here to have a snooze in a comfortable hunk. They give the bunks names — cubicles they calls 'em in the lump. Separately, there's the 'Commodore Goodenough Cot,' an' the 'Little Nellie Cot,' an' the 'Sunshine Cot' — so called 'cause it hain't got a port-hole to let in the daylight at all; and the 'Billy Rough 'un'—”
“The what?”
“'The Billy Rough 'un' — arter the ship o' that name, you know—”
“Oh! you mean the Bellerophon.”
“Well, young man, an' didn't I say the 'Billy Rough 'un'? Then there's the— But what's your hurry?” said the seaman, as Miles rose.
“It's getting late now, friend. If I'm to find another lodging I must be off. Doubtless, I'll find some respectable house to take me in for the night.” Miles suppressed a yawn as he put on his cap.
“I don't believe you will,” returned Molloy, also rising, and giving full vent to a sympathetic and vociferous yawn. “Hows'ever, w'en a young feller insists on havin' his way, it's best to give him plenty of cable and let him swing. He's sure to find out his mistake by experience. But look ye here, Miles, I've took a fancy to you, an' I'd be sorry to think you was in difficulties. If,” he continued, thrusting a hand into his breeches-pocket, and bringing up therefrom a mass of mixed gold, silver, and copper — “if you don't objec' to accep' of a loan of—”
“Thank you — no, my friend. It is very kind of you,” said Miles quickly; “but I have quite enough for present necessities. So good-night.”
“All right,” returned the sailor, thrusting the money back into his pocket. “But if you should ever want a jaw with Jack Molloy while you're in this here port you've only got to hail him at the Sailors' Welcome, an' if he should happen to be out, they always can tell you where he's cruisin'. Good-night, an' luck go wi' ye!”
Another tremendous yawn finished the speech, and next moment Miles found himself in the street, oppressed with a strange and miserable sensation which he had never before experienced. Indeed, he had to lean against the house for a few minutes after coming out into the fresh air, and felt as if the power of connected thought was leaving him.
He was aroused from this condition by the flashing of a light in his eyes. Opening them wide, be beheld a policeman looking at him earnestly.
“Now, then, young fellow,” said the guardian of the night; “d'you think you can take care of yourself?”
“Oh! yes, quite well. It's only a giddy feeling that came over me. I'm all right,” said Miles, rousing himself and passing on.
He staggered slightly, however, and a short “Humph!” from the policeman showed that he believed the youth to be something more than giddy.
Ashamed to be even unjustly supposed to be intoxicated, Miles hurried away, wondering very much what could be the matter with him, for he had not tasted a drop of strong drink, except the half-glass of beer he had swallowed before Molloy chanced to knock it out of his hand. Suddenly he remembered that the sailor had said the beer was drugged. If he could have asked the barman who had served him, that worthy could have told him that this was true; that the whole glassful, if swallowed, would, ere long, have rendered him insensible, and that what he had already taken was enough to do him considerable damage.
As he walked onward, he became rapidly worse; the people and the streets seemed to swim before him; an intense desire to sleep overpowered every other feeling, and at last, turning into a dark entry, he lay down and pillowed his head on a door-step. Here he was found by a policeman; a stretcher was fetched, and he was conveyed to the station as “drunk and incapable!”
When brought before the Inspector the following morning, shame and reckless despair were the tenants of his breast. Those tenants were not expelled, but rather confirmed in possession, when the Inspector — after numerous questions, to which Miles returned vague unsatisfactory replies — adopted the rôle of the faithful friend, and gave him a great deal of paternal advice, especially with reference to the avoidance of strong drink and bad companions.
Miles had the wisdom, however, to conceal his feelings, and to take the reproof and advice in good part. Afterwards, on being set free, he met a recruiting sergeant, who, regarding him as a suitable subject for the service of her Majesty, immediately laid siege to him. In his then state of mind the siege was an easy one. In short, he capitulated at once and entered the Queen's service, under the name of John Miles.
We need scarcely say that his heart misgave him, that his conscience condemned him, and that, do what he would, he could not shut out the fact that his taking so hasty and irrevocable a step was a poor return for all the care and anxiety of his parents in years gone by. But, as we have said, or hinted, Miles was one of those youths who, when they have once made up their minds to a certain course of action, fancy that they are bound to pursue it to the end. Hence it was that he gave his name as John Miles instead of Miles Milton, so that he might baffle any inquiries as to what had become of him.
Once enlisted, he soon began to realize the fact that he was no longer a free agent — at least not in the sense in which he had been so up to that period of his life. Constant drill was the order of the day for some weeks; for there was a demand for more troops for Egypt at the time, and regiments were being made up to their full strength as fast as possible.
During this period Miles saw little of his companions in arms personally, save that group of recruits who were being “licked into shape” along with him. At first he was disappointed with these, for most of them were shy, unlettered men; some, raw lads from the country; and others, men who seemed to have been loafers before joining, and were by no means attractive.
The drill-sergeant, however, was a good, though stern man, and soon recognized the differences in character, aptitude, and willingness among his raw recruits. This man, whose name was Hardy, made a powerful impression on our hero from the first; there was something so quiet and even gentle about him, in spite of his firm and inflexible demands in regard to the matters of drill and duty. To please this man, Miles gave himself heart and soul to his work, and was soon so efficient as to be allowed to join the regiment.
And here he found, to his surprise and satisfaction, that the sergeant and young soldier with whom he had traveled to Portsmouth were members of the company to which he was attached. As we have said, Miles had taken a great fancy at first sight to the young private, whose name was William Armstrong. Our hero was of an affectionate disposition, and would have allowed his warm feelings to expend themselves on a dog rather than have denied them free play. No wonder, then, that he was attracted by the handsome manly countenance and deferential manner of Armstrong, who, although an uneducated youth, and reared in the lower ranks of life, was gifted with those qualities of the true gentleman which mere social position can neither bestow nor take away. His intellect also was of that active and vigorous fiber which cannot be entirely repressed by the want of scholastic training.
The affection was mutual, for the contrasts and similarities of the two men were alike calculated to draw them together. Both were tall, broad, square-shouldered, erect, and soldierly, yet, withal, modest as well in demeanor as in feeling, and so exactly like to each other in size and figure, and in the quiet gravity of their expressions, that they might well have been taken for twin brothers. When, in uniform, the two strode along the streets of Portsmouth, people were apt to turn and look at them, and think, no doubt, that with many such men in the British army it would go hard with the foes of Old England!
The bond of union was still further strengthened by the fact that while the comparatively learned Miles was enthusiastic and communicative, the unlettered Armstrong was inquisitive and receptive, fond of prying into the nature of things, and always ready as well as competent to discuss — not merely to argue. Observe the distinction, good reader. Discussion means the shaking of any subject into its component parts with a desire to understand it. Argument has come very much to signify the enravelment of any subject with a view to the confusion and conquest of an opponent. Both young men abhorred the latter and liked the former. Hence much of their harmony and friendship.
“Will you come with me up town?” said Armstrong to Miles one day, as he was about to quit the barrack-room. “I'm going to see if there's any news of my Emmy.”
“I did not know you expected her,” said Miles. “Come along, I'm ready.”
“I don't expect her yet,” returned Armstrong, as they left the barracks; “I only look for a letter, because it was on Wednesday that I wrote telling her of my going to Egypt, and she can scarce have had time to get ready to come down, poor girl! In fact I am going to engage a room for her. By the way, I heard this morning that there's to be another draft for Egypt, so you'll have a chance to go.”
“I'm rejoiced to hear it,” returned Miles; “for, to say the truth, I had been growing envious of your good fortune in being ordered on active service.”
“Hooroo, Armstrong, where away now?” cried an unmistakably Irish voice, as a smart little soldier crossed the street to them, and was introduced to Miles as Corporal Flynn, belonging to another company in his own regiment.
“My blissin' on ye, Miles. John, is it?”
“Yes, John,” replied our hero, much amused at the free-and-easy address of the little corporal.
“Well, John Miles,” he said, “I don't know whether ye'll laugh or cry whin I tell ye that you'll likely be warned this evenin' for the draft that's goin' to Aigypt.”
“I certainly won't cry,” returned Miles, with a laugh. Yet the news brought a sudden feeling into his breast which was strongly allied to the opposite of laughter, for the thought of parting from father and mother without bidding them farewell fell upon his spirit with crushing weight; but, like too many men who know they are about to do wrong, Miles hardened his heart with the delusive argument that, having fairly taken the step, it was impossible for him now to retrace it. He knew — at least he thought — that there was still the possibility of being bought off, and that his stern father would only be too glad to help him. He also knew that at least he had time to write and let them know his circumstances, so that they might run down to Portsmouth and bid him good-bye; but he had taken the bit in his teeth, and now he resolved to abide the consequences.
Turning from his companions while they conversed, he looked into a shop-window.
“Your chum's in the blues,” said the lively corporal, in a lower voice.
“Young fellows are often in that state after joining, ain't they?” returned Armstrong.
“True for ye — an' more shame to them, whin they ought to be as proud as paycocks at wearin' her gracious Majesty's uniform. But good luck to 'ee! I must be off, for I'm bound for Aigypt mesilf.”
“I am glad that I shall have the chance of seeing your wife, for I've been much interested in her since your friend Sergeant Gilroy told me about her,” said Miles, as they resumed their walk. “Surely it is hard of them to refuse to let her go with the regiment.”
“Well, it is hard,” returned the young soldier; “but after all I cannot find fault with the powers that be, for I married with my eyes open. I knew the rule that those who marry without leave must leave their wives at home, for only a certain number of families can go abroad with a regiment — and that only in peace-time.”
“It might have been well,” continued Armstrong, slowly, while a sad expression clouded his face for a few moments, “if I had waited, and many a time has my conscience smitten me for my haste. But what could I do? Emmy most unaccountably fell in love wi' me — thank God! for I do think that the greatest earthly blessing that can be given to mortal man is the love of a gentle, true-hearted girl. The wealth of the Indies cannot purchase that, and nothing else in life can supply the want of it. Can you wonder that I grasped the treasure when within my reach?”
“I certainly cannot; and as certainly I do not blame you,” returned the sympathetic Miles.
“Of course I fell in love with Emmy,” continued the soldier, with a slightly confused look. “I could no more help that than I could help growing up. Could I?”
“Certainly not,” said Miles.
“Well, you see,” continued his friend, “as the affair was arranged in heaven, according to general belief, what was I that I should resist? You see, Emmy's father, who's a well-to-do farmer, was willing, and we never gave a thought to Egypt or the war at the time. She will be well looked after while I'm away, and I'll send her every penny of my pay that I can spare, but—”
He stopped abruptly, and Miles, respecting his feelings, remarked, by way of changing the subject, that the pay of a private soldier being so small very little could be saved out of that.
“Not much,” assented his comrade; “but, little as it is, we can increase it in various ways. For one thing, I have given up smoking. That will save a little; though, to say truth, I have never expended much on baccy. Then I have joined Miss Robinson's Temperance Band—”
“Strange how often that lady's name has been in my ears since I came to Portsmouth!” said Miles.
“Not so strange after all,” returned Armstrong, “when one reflects that she has been the means of almost changing the character of the town within the last few years — as far at least as concerns the condition of soldiers, as well as many of the poorer classes among its inhabitants — so Sergeant Gilroy tells me.”
As some of the information given by Sergeant Gilroy to the young soldier may be interesting to many readers, we quote a few of his own words.
“Why, some years ago,” he said, “the soldiers' wives, mothers, and sisters who came down here to see the poor fellows set sail for foreign parts found it almost impossible to obtain lodgings, except in drinking-houses which no respectable woman could enter. Some poor women even preferred to spend a winter night under railway arches, or some such shelter, rather than enter these places. And soldiers out of barracks had nowhere else to go to for amusement, while sailors on leave had to spend their nights in them or walk the streets. Now all that is changed. The Soldiers' Institute supplies 140 beds, and furnishes board and lodging to our sisters and wives at the lowest possible rates, besides reception-rooms where we can meet our friends; a splendid reading-room, where we find newspapers and magazines, and can write our letters, if we like, in peace and quiet; a bar where tea and coffee, bread and butter, buns, etcetera, can be had at all reasonable hours for a mere trifle; a coffee and smoking room, opening out of which are two billiard-rooms, and beyond these a garden, where we can get on the flat roof of a house and watch the arrival and departure of shipping. There is a small charge to billiard-players, which pays all expenses of the tables, so that not a penny of the Institute funds is spent on the games. Of course no gambling is allowed in any of Miss Robinson's Institutes. Then there are Bible-class rooms, and women's work-rooms, and a lending library, and bathrooms, and a great hall, big enough to hold a thousand people, where there are held temperance meetings, lectures with dissolving views, entertainments, and 'tea-fights,' and Sunday services. No wonder that, with such an agency at work for the glory of God and the good of men, Portsmouth is almost a new place. Indeed, although Miss Robinson met with powerful opposition at first from the powers that be, her Institute is now heartily recognized and encouraged in every way at the Horse Guards. Indeed, it has recently been visited by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge, and highly approved of by these and other grandees.”
While the two soldiers were chatting about the past and present of the Institute they arrived at its door.
“Here we are. Come into the reception-room, Miles, while I make inquiry about my letters.”
They entered the house as he spoke. The reception-room is on the right of the passage. Armstrong opened the door and looked in, but, instead of advancing, he stood transfixed, gazing before him open-mouthed as though he had seen a specter, for there, in front of the fire, sat a beautiful, refined-looking girl, with golden hair and blue eyes, gazing pensively at the flickering flames.
Miles was not kept long in suspense as to who she was.
“Emmy!”
“Oh, Willie!”
These were exclamations which would have revealed all in a moment, even though Emmy had not sprung up and rushed into Willie's open arms. How she ever emerged from the embrace of those arms with unbroken bones is a mystery which cannot be solved, but she did emerge in safety, and with some confusion on observing that Miles had witnessed the incident with admiring gaze!
“Never mind him, Emmy,” said the young soldier, laughing; “he's a good friend, a comrade. Shake hands with him.”
The action, and the ease of manner with which Emmy obeyed, proved that grace and small hands are not altogether dependent on rank or station.
“Excuse me,” said Miles, after a few words of salutation; “I'll go and have a look at the library.”
So saying he quitted the room, leaving the young couple alone; for there chanced to be no other visitors to the reception-room at the time. In the lobby he found several soldiers and a couple of sailors enjoying coffee at the bar, and was about to join them when a man came forward whose dress was that of a civilian, though his bearing proclaimed him a soldier.
“Hallo, Brown,” exclaimed one of the soldiers, “d'ye know that a troop-ship has just come in!”
“Know it? of course I do; you may trust the people of this house to be first in hearing such news.”
“Mr Tufnell told me of it. I'm just going down to the jetty to boil the kettle for them.”
As he spoke, two ladies of the Institute descended the broad staircase, each with a basket on her arm.
They entered into conversation for a few minutes with the soldiers at the bar, and it was abundantly evident to Miles, from the kindly tone of the former and the respectful air of the latter, that they were familiar acquaintances, and on the best of terms.
“Are you all ready, Brown?” asked one of the ladies of the soldier-like civilian, whom we have already mentioned.
“All ready, Miss; a man has already gone to order the bread and butter and light the fire. I hear the vessel is crowded, so we may expect a full house to-night.”
Miles pricked up his ears on hearing this, and when Brown went out, leaving the two ladies to finish their conversation with the soldiers, he followed him.
“Pardon me,” he said, on overtaking the man. “Did I understand correctly that a troop-ship has just arrived?”
“Right,” said Brown. “I am just going down to the embarkation jetty to get coffee ready for the men. You seem to have joined but a short time, apparently, for though I am familiar with your uniform I have not seen yourself before.”
“True, it is not long since I joined, and this is my first visit to the Institute.”
“I hope it won't be the last, friend,” returned Brown heartily. “Every soldier is welcome there, and, for the matter of that, so is every sailor and marine.”
“I have heard as much. May I accompany you to this jetty to see the troops arrive, and this coffee business that you speak of?”
“You may, and welcome,” said Brown, leading his companion through the town in the direction of the docks, and chatting, as they walked along, about the army and navy; about his own experiences in the former; and about the condition of soldiers at the present time as contrasted with that of the days gone by.
Bronzed faces under white helmets crowded the ports and bulwarks of the great white leviathan of the deep — the troop-ship Orontes — as she steamed slowly and cautiously up to the embarkation jetty in Portsmouth harbor.
On the jetty itself a few anxious wives, mothers, and sisters stood eagerly scanning the sea of faces in the almost hopeless endeavor to distinguish those for which they sought. Yet ever and anon an exclamation on the jetty, and an answering wave of an arm on the troop-ship, told that some at least of the anxious ones had been successful in the search.
“Don't they look weather-beaten?” remarked Miles to his companion.
“Sure it's more like sun-dried they are,” answered a voice at his side. Brown had gone to the shed to prepare his coffee and bread against the landing of the troops, and a stout Irishwoman had taken his place. Close to her stood the two ladies from the Institute with baskets on their arms.
“You are right,” returned Miles, with a smile; “they look like men who have seen service. Is your husband among them?”
“Faix, I'd be sorprised if he was,” returned the woman; “for I left him in owld Ireland, in the only landed property he iver held in this world — six futt by two, an' five deep. He's been in possession six years now, an' it wouldn't be aisy to drive him out o' that, anyhow. No, it's my son Terence I've come to look afther. Och! there he is! Look, look, that's him close by the funnel! Don't ye see 'im? Blissins on his good-lookin' face! Hooroo! Terence — Terence Flynn, don't ye recognize yer owld mother? Sure an' he does, though we haven't met for tin year. My! hasn't he got the hair on his lips too — an' his cheeks are like shoe-leather — my darlint!”
As the enthusiastic mother spoke in the tones of a public orator, there was a general laugh among those who were nearest to her; but she was forgotten immediately, for all were too deeply intent on their own interests to pay much regard to each other just then.
The great vessel was slow in getting alongside and making fast to the jetty — slow at least in the estimation of the impatient — for although she might leap and career grandly in wanton playfulness while on her native billows, in port a careless touch from her ponderous sides would have crushed part of the jetty into fragments. Miles therefore had ample time to look about him at the various groups around.
One young woman specially attracted his attention, for she stood apart from every one, and seemed scarcely able to stand because of weakness. She was young and good-looking. Her face, which was deadly pale, contrasted strongly with her glossy raven-black hair, and the character of her dress denoted extreme poverty.
The ladies from the Institute had also observed this poor girl, and one of them, going to her side, quietly addressed her. Miles, from the position in which he stood, could not avoid overhearing what was said.
“Yes, Miss, I expect my husband,” said the woman in answer to a question. “He's coming home on sick-leave. I had a letter from him a good while ago saying he was coming home in the Orontes.”
“I hope you will find that the sea air has done him good,” said the lady, in that tone of unobtrusive sympathy which is so powerfully attractive, — especially to those who are in trouble. “A sea voyage frequently has a wonderful effect in restoring invalids. What is his name?”
“Martin — Fred Martin. He's a corporal now.”
“You have not recognized him yet, I suppose?”
“Not yet, Miss,” answered Mrs Martin, with an anxious look, and shivering slightly as she drew a thin worn shawl of many patches closer round her shoulders. “But he wouldn't expect me to meet him, you see, knowing that I'm so poor, and live far from Portsmouth. But I was so anxious, you see, Miss, that our kind Vicar gave me enough money to come down.”
“Where did you spend the night?” asked the lady, quickly.
The poor woman hesitated, and at last said she had spent the night walking about the streets.
“You see, Miss,” she explained apologetically, “I didn't know a soul in the town, and I couldn't a-bear to go into any o' the public-houses; besides, I had no money, for the journey down took nearly all of it.”
“Oh, I am so sorry that you didn't know of our Institute,” said the lady, with much sympathy in voice and look; “for we provide accommodation for soldiers' wives who come, like you, to meet their husbands returning from abroad, and we charge little, or even nothing, if they are too poor to pay.”
“Indeed, Miss! I wish I had known of it. But in the morning I had the luck to meet a policeman who directed me to a coffee-tavern in a place called Nobbs Lane — you'll not know it, Miss, for it's in a very poor part o' the town — where I got a breakfast of as much hot pea-soup and bread as I could eat for three-ha'pence, an' had a good rest beside the fire too. They told me it was kept by a Miss Robinson. God bless her whoever she is! for I do believe I should have been dead by now if I hadn't got the rest and the breakfast.”
The woman shivered again as she spoke, and drew the thin shawl still closer, for a sharp east wind was blowing over the jetty at the time.
“Come with me; you are cold. I know Nobbs Lane well. We have a shed and fire here on the jetty to shelter people while waiting. There, you need not fear to miss your husband, for the men won't land for a long time yet.”
“May I follow you, madam?” said Miles, stepping forward and touching his cap in what he supposed to be the deferential manner of a private soldier. “I am interested in your work, and would like to see the shed you speak of.”
The lady looked up quickly at the tall young soldier who thus addressed her.
“I saw you in the lobby of the Institute this morning, did I not?”
“You did, madam. I was waiting for a friend who is a frequenter of the Institute. One of your own people brought me down here to see the arrival of the Orontes, and the coffee-shed; but I have lost him in the crowd, and know not where the shed is.”
“Here it is,” returned the lady, pointing to an iron structure just behind them. “You will find Mr Brown there busy with the coffee, and that small shed beside it is the shelter-room. You are welcome to inspect all our buildings at any time.”
So saying, the lady led Mrs Martin into the shed last referred to, and Miles followed her.
There was a small stove, in the solitary iron room of which the shed consisted, which diffused a genial warmth around. Several soldiers' wives and female relatives were seated beside it, engaged in quieting refractory infants, or fitting a few woollen garments on children of various ages. These garments had been brought from the Institute, chiefly for the purpose of supplying the wives and children returning from warmer climes to England; and one of them, a thick knitted shawl, was immediately presented to Mrs Martin as a gift, and placed round her shoulders by the lady's own hands.
“You are very kind, Miss,” she said, an unbidden tear rolling down her cheek as she surveyed the garment and folded it over her breast.
“Have you any children?” asked the lady.
“None. We had one — a dear baby boy,” answered the young wife sadly, “born after his father left England. God took him home when he was two years old. His father never saw him; but we shall all meet again,” she added, brightly, “in the better land.”
“Ah! it makes me glad to hear you say that God took him home. Only the spirit of Jesus could make you regard heaven as the home where you are all to meet again. Now I would advise you to sit here and keep warm till I go and make inquiry about your husband. It is quite possible, you know, that he may be in the sick bay, and they won't let any one on board till the vessel is made fast. You are quite sure, I suppose, that it was the Orontes in which your husband said he was coming?”
“Yes, quite sure.”
The lady had asked the question because a vague fear possessed her regarding the cause of the soldier's not having been seen looking eagerly over the side like the other men.
Hurrying from the shed, with her basket on her arm, she made for the gangway, which had just been placed in position. She was accompanied by her companion, also carrying her basket. Miles took the liberty of following them closely, but not obviously, for he formed only one of a stream of men and women who pushed on board the instant that permission was given.
While one of the ladies went in search of one of the chief officers, the other quietly and unobtrusively advanced among the returning warriors, and, opening her basket, drew therefrom and offered to each soldier an envelope containing one or two booklets and texts, and a hearty invitation to make free use of the Soldiers' Institute during their stay in Portsmouth.
A most bewildering scene was presented on the deck of that great white vessel. There were hundreds of soldiers in her, returning home after longer or shorter absences in China, India, the Cape, and other far-away parts of the earth. Some were stalwart and bronzed by the southern sun; others were gaunt, weak, and cadaverous, from the effect of sickness, exposure, or wounds; but all were more or less excited at having once again set eyes on Old England, and at the near prospect of once more embracing wives, mothers, and sweethearts, and meeting with old friends. The continual noise of manly voices hailing, exclaiming, chaffing, or conversing, and the general babel of sounds is indescribable. To Miles Milton, who had never before even imagined anything of the sort, it seemed more like a vivid dream than a reality. He became so bewildered with trying to attend to everything at once that he lost sight of the shorter of the ladies, whom he was following, but, pushing ahead, soon found her again in the midst of a group of old friends — though still young soldiers — who had known the Institute before leaving for foreign service, and were eagerly inquiring after the health of Miss Robinson, and Tufnell the manager, and others.
During his progress through this bustling scene, Miles observed that the soldiers invariably received the gifts from the lady with respect, and, many of them, with hearty expressions of thanks, while a few stopped her to speak about the contents of the envelopes. So numerous were the men that the work had to be done with business-like celerity, but the visitor was experienced. While wasting no time in useless delay, she never hurried her movements, or refused to stop and speak, or forced her way through the moving throng. Almost unobserved, save by the men who chanced to be next to her, she glided in and out amongst them like a spirit of light — which, in the highest sense, she was — intent on her beneficent mission. Her sole aim was to save the men from the tremendous dangers that awaited them on landing in Portsmouth, and bring them under Christian influence.
Those dangers may be imagined when it is told that soldiers returning from abroad are often in possession of large sums of money, and that harpies of all kinds are eagerly waiting to plunder them on their arrival. On one occasion a regiment came home, and in a few days squandered three thousand pounds in Portsmouth. Much more might be said on this point, but enough has been indicated to move thoughtful minds — and our story waits.
Suddenly the attention of Miles, and every one near him, was attracted by the loud Hibernian yell of a female voice exclaiming—
“Oh, Terence, me darlin' son, here ye are; an' is it yersilf lookin' purtier a long way than the day ye left me; an' niver so much as a scratch on yer face for all the wars ye've bin in — bad luck to thim!”
Need we say that this was Mrs Flynn? In her anxiety to meet her son she had run against innumerable men and women, who remonstrated with her variously, according to temperament, without, however, the slightest effect. Her wild career was not checked until she had flung herself into the arms of a tall, stalwart trooper with drooping moustache, who would have done credit to any nationality under the sun, and whose enthusiasm at the happy meeting with his mother was almost as demonstrative as her own, but more dignified.
Others there were, however, whose case was very different. One who came there to meet the strong healthy man to whom she had said good-bye at the same spot several years before, received him back a worn and wasted invalid, upright still with the martial air of discipline, but feeble, and with something like the stamp of death upon his brow. Another woman found her son, strong indeed and healthy, as of yore, but with an empty sleeve where his right arm should have been — his days of warfare over before his earthly sun had reached the zenith!
Whilst Miles was taking note of these things, and moralizing in spite of his distaste just then to that phase of mental occupation, the other lady of the Institute appeared and spoke hurriedly to her companion.
“Go,” she said, “tell Mrs Martin that her husband is not on board the Orontes. Let Tufnell, if he is at the shed, or our missionary, take her up to the Institute without delay. Let them take this note to Miss Robinson at the same time.”
The younger lady looked inquiringly at her companion, but the latter pushed on hurriedly and was soon lost in the crowd, so she went at once on shore to obey her instructions.
Being thus left to look after himself, Miles went about gazing at the varied, interesting, and curious scenes that the vessel presented. No one took any notice of him, for he was only one soldier among hundreds, and so many people from the shore had been admitted by that time that strange faces attracted no attention.
We have referred chiefly to soldiers' friends, but these, after all, formed a small minority of the visitors, many of whom were tradesmen of the town — tailors, shoemakers, and vendors of fancy articles — who had come down with their wares to tempt the returning voyagers to part with their superfluous cash. Even in the midst of all the pushing and confusion, one man was seen trying on a pair of boots; near to him was a sailor, carefully inspecting a tailor's book of patterns with a view to shore-going clothes; while another, more prompt in action, was already being measured for a suit of the same.
Descending to the 'tween-decks, our hero found that the confusion and noise there were naturally greater, the space being more limited and the noise confined. There was the addition of bad air and disagreeable smells here; and Miles could not help reflecting on the prospect before him of long voyages under cramped circumstances, in the midst of similar surroundings. But, being young and enthusiastic, he whispered to himself that he was not particular, and was ready to “rough it” in his country's cause!
In a remarkably dark region to which he penetrated, he found himself in the women's quarters, the disagreeables of which were increased by the cries of discontented children, and the yells of inconsolable infants — some of whom had first seen the light of this world in the sad twilight of 'tween-decks! Shrinking from that locality, Miles pursued his investigations, and gradually became aware that sundry parrots and other pets which the soldiers and sailors had brought home were adding their notes of discord to the chorus of sounds.
While he was looking at, and attempting to pat, a small monkey, which received his advances with looks of astonished indignation, he became conscious of the fact that a number of eyes were looking down on him through a crevice at the top of a partition close to his side.
“Who are these?” he asked of a sailor, who stood near him.
“Why, them are the long-term men.”
“I suppose you mean prisoners?”
“Yes; that's about it,” replied the tar. “Soldiers as has committed murder — or suthin' o' that sort — an' got twenty year or more for all I knows. The other fellers further on there, in chains, is short-term men. Bin an' done suthin' or other not quite so bad, I suppose.”
Miles advanced “further on,” and found eight men seated on the deck and leaning against the bulkhead. If his attention had not been drawn to them, he might have supposed they were merely resting, but a closer glance showed that they were all chained to an iron bar. They did not seem very different from the other men around them, save that they were, most of them, stern and silent.
A powerful feeling of compassion rose in our hero's breast as he looked at these moral wrecks of humanity; for their characters and prospects were ruined, though their physique was not much impaired. It seemed to him such an awful home-coming, after, perhaps, long years of absence, thus, in the midst of all the bustle and joy of meetings and of pleasant anticipations, to be waiting there for the arrival of the prison-van, and looking forward to years of imprisonment instead of reunion with friends and kindred.
At sight of them a thought sprang irresistibly into our hero's mind, “This is the result of wrong-doing!”
His conscience was uncomfortably active and faithful that morning. Somehow it pointed out to him that wrong-doing was a long ladder; that the chained criminals before him had reached the foot; and that he stood on the topmost rung. That was all the difference between them and himself — a difference of degree, not of principle.
Pushing his way a little closer to these men, he found that his was not the only heart that pitied them. His friend, the younger lady, was there speaking to them. He could not hear what she said, for the noise drowned her voice; but her earnest, eager look and her gesticulations told well enough that she was pointing them to the Savior of sinners — with what effect, of course, he could not tell, but it was evident that the prisoners at least gave her their attention.
Leaving her thus engaged, Miles continued for a considerable time his progress through the ship. Afterwards he observed, by a movement among the men, that a detachment was about to land. Indeed he found that some of the soldiers had already landed, and were making their way to the coffee-shed.
Following these quickly to the same place, he found that innumerable cups of hot coffee and solid slices of bread and butter were being served out as fast as they could be filled and cut. A large hole or window opened in the side of the shed, the shutter of which was hinged at the bottom, and when let down formed a convenient counter.
Behind this counter stood the two ubiquitous ladies of the Institute acting the part of barmaids, as if to the manner born, and with the same business-like, active, yet modest, ready-for-anything air which marked all their proceedings.
And truly their post was no sinecure. To supply the demands of hundreds of hungry and thirsty warriors was not child's-play. Inside the shed, Miles found his friend Brown busy with a mighty caldron of hot water, numerous packets of coffee, and immense quantities of sugar and preserved milk. Brown was the fountain-head. The ladies were the distributing pipes — if we may say so; and although the fountain produced can after can of the coveted liquid with amazing rapidity, and with a prodigality of material that would have made the hair of a private housewife stand on end, it was barely possible to keep pace with the demand.
At a large table one of the missionaries of the Institute cut up and buttered loaves at a rate which gave the impression that he was a conjurer engaged in a species of sleight-of-hand. The butter, however, troubled him, for, the weather being cold, it was hard, and would not spread easily. To overcome this he put a pound or so of it on a plate beside the boiler-fire to soften. Unfortunately, he temporarily forgot it, and on afterwards going for it, found that it had been reduced to a yellow liquid. However, hungry soldiers, rejoicing in the fact of having at last reached home, are not particular. Some of them, unaccustomed, no doubt, to be served by ladies, asked for their supply deferentially, accepted it politely, and drank it with additional appreciation.
“We want more, Brown,” said one of the ladies, glancing back over her shoulder as she poured out the last drop from her large jug; “and more buns and bread, please.”
“Here you are, Miss,” cried Brown, who was warm by that time in spite of the weather, as he bore his brimming and steaming pitcher to the window — or hole in the wall — and replenished the jugs. “The buns are all done, an' the bread won't hold out long, but I've sent for more; it won't be long. I see we shall need several more brews,” he added, as he turned again towards the inexhaustible boiler.
“Shall I assist you?” said Miles, stepping into the shed and seizing a loaf and a knife.
“Thank you. Go ahead,” said Brown.
“Put another lump of butter near the fire,” said the missionary to our hero; “not too close. I melted the last lump altogether.”
“A cup o' coffee for my Terence, an' wan for mesilf, my dear,” exclaimed a loud voice outside.
There was no mistaking the speaker. Some of the men who crowded round the counter laughed, others partially choked, when the strapping Terence said in a hoarse whisper, “Whist, mother, be civil; don't ye see that it's ladies, no less, is sarvin' of us?”
“Please, ma'am, can I 'ave some coffee?” asked a modest soldier's wife, who looked pale and weary after the long voyage, with three children to look after.
A cup was promptly supplied, and three of the newly-arrived buns stopped the mouths of her clamorous offspring.
“Can ye give me a cup o' tea?” demanded another soldier's wife, who was neither so polite nor so young as the previous applicant.
It is probable that the ladies did not observe the nature of her demand, else they would doubtless have explained that they had no tea, but a cup of coffee was silently handed to her.
“Ah! this is real home-tea, this is,” she said, smacking her lips after the first sip. “A mighty difference 'tween this an' what we've bin used to in the ship.”
“Yes, indeed,” assented her companion. Whether it was tea she had been accustomed to drink on board the troop-ship we cannot tell, but probably she was correct as to the “mighty difference.” It may be that the beverages supplied in foreign lands had somewhat damaged the power of discrimination as to matters of taste in these soldiers' wives. At all events an incident which occurred about the same time justifies this belief.
“Mr Miles,” said the missionary, pausing a moment to wipe his brow in the midst of his labors, “will you fetch the butter now?”
Miles turned to obey with alacrity — with too much alacrity, indeed, for in his haste he knocked the plate over, and sent the lump of butter into the last prepared “brew” of coffee!
“Hallo! I say!” exclaimed Brown, in consternation. “More coffee, Brown,” demanded the ladies simultaneously, at that inauspicious moment.
“Yes, Miss, I — I'm coming — directly,” cried Brown.
“Do be quick, please!”
“What's to be done?” said Brown, making futile endeavors to fish out the slippery mass with the stirring-stick.
“Shove it down and stir it well about,” suggested Miles.
Whether conscience was inoperative at that moment we know not, but Brown acted on the suggestion, and briskly amalgamated the butter with the coffee, while the crowd at the port-hole politely but continuously demanded more.
“Don't be in a 'urry, Tom,” cried a corporal, removing his pith helmet in order to run his fingers through his hair; “it's a 'eavenly state o' things now to what it was a few years ago, w'en we an' our poor wives 'ad to sit 'ere for hours in the heat or cold, wet or dry, without shelter, or a morsel to eat, or a drop to drink, till we got away up town to the grog-shops.”
“Well, this is civilization at last!” remarked a handsome and hearty young fellow, who had apparently been ignorant of the treat in store for him, and who sauntered up to the shed just as the butter-brew was beginning to be served out.
“Why, I declare, it's chocolate!” exclaimed one of the women, who had been already served with a cup, and had resolved to “go in,” as she said, for another pennyworth.
“So it is. My! ain't it nice?” said her companion, smacking her lips.
Whether the soldiers fell into the same mistake, or were too polite to take notice of it, we cannot tell, for they drank it without comment, and with evident satisfaction, like men of simple tastes and uncritical minds.
We turn now to a very different scene.
In one of the private sitting-rooms of the Institute sat poor young Mrs Martin, the very embodiment of blank despair. The terrible truth that her husband had died, and been buried at sea, had been gently and tenderly broken to her by Miss Robinson.
At first the poor girl could not — would not — believe it. Then, as the truth gradually forced itself into her brain, she subsided into a tearless, expressionless, state of quiescence that seemed to indicate a mind unhinged. In this state she remained for some time, apparently unconscious of the kind words of Christian love that were addressed to her.
At last she seemed to rouse herself and gazed wildly round the room.
“Let me go,” she said. “I will find him somewhere. Don't hinder me, please.”
“But you cannot go anywhere till you have had food and rest, dear child,” said her sympathetic comforter, laying her hand gently on the girl's arm. “Come with me.”
She sought to lead her away, but the girl shook her off.
“No,” she exclaimed, starting up hastily, so that the mass of her dark hair fell loose upon her shoulders, contrasting forcibly with the dead whiteness of her face and lips. “No. I cannot go with you. Fred will be getting impatient. D'you think I'll ever believe it? Dead and buried in the sea? Never!”
Even while she spoke, the gasp in her voice, and the pressure of both hands on her poor heart, told very plainly that the young widow did indeed believe it.
“Oh! may God Himself comfort you, dear child,” said the lady, taking her softly by the hand. “Come — come with me.”
Mrs Martin no longer refused. Her spirit, which had flashed up for a moment, seemed to collapse, and without another word of remonstrance she meekly suffered herself to be guided to a private room, where she was put to bed.
She never rose from that bed. Friendless, and without means, she would probably have perished in the streets, or in one of the dens of Portsmouth, had she not been led to this refuge. As it was, they nursed her there, and did all that human skill and Christian love could devise; but her heart was broken. Towards the end she told them, in a faint voice, that her Fred had been stationed at Alexandria, and that while there he had been led to put his trust in the Savior. She knew nothing of the details. All these, and much more, she had expected to hear from his own lips.
“But he will tell me all about it soon, thank God!” were the last words she uttered as she turned her eyes gratefully on the loving strangers who had found and cared for her in the dark day of her calamity.
Miles and his friend Brown, after their work at the jetty, had chanced to return to the Institute at the moment referred to in the last chapter, when the poor young widow, having become resigned, had been led through the passage to her bedroom. Our hero happened to catch sight of her face, and it made a very powerful impression on him — an impression which was greatly deepened afterwards on hearing of her death.
In the reception-room he found Armstrong still in earnest conversation with his wife.
“Hallo, Armstrong! still here? Have you been sitting there since I left you?” he asked, with a smile and look of surprise.
“Oh no!” answered his friend; “not all the time. We have been out walking about town, and we have had dinner here — an excellent feed, let me tell you, and cheap too. But where did you run off to?”
“Sit down and I'll tell you,” said Miles.
Thereupon he related all about his day's experiences. When he had finished, Armstrong told him that his own prospect of testing the merits of a troop-ship were pretty fair, as he was ordered for inspection on the following day.
“So you see,” continued the young soldier, “if you are accepted — as you are sure to be — you and I will go out together in the same vessel.”
“I'm glad to hear that, anyhow,” returned Miles.
“And I am very glad too,” said little Emily, with a beaming smile, “for Willie has told me about you, Mr Miles; and how you first met and took a fancy to each other; and it will be so nice to think that there's somebody to care about my Willie when he is far away from me.”
The little woman blushed and half-laughed, and nearly cried as she said this, for she felt that it was rather a bold thing to say to a stranger, and yet she had such a strong desire to mitigate her husband's desolation when absent from her that she forcibly overcame her modesty. “And I want you to do me a favor, Mr Miles,” she added.
“I'll do it with pleasure,” returned our gallant hero.
“I want you to call him Willie,” said the little woman, blushing and looking down.
“Certainly I will — if your husband permits me.”
“You see,” she continued, “I want him to keep familiar with the name I've been used to call him — for comrades will call him Armstrong, I suppose, and—”
“Oh! Emmy,” interrupted the soldier reproachfully, “do you think I require to be kept in remembrance of that name? Won't your voice, repeating it, haunt me day and night till the happy day when I meet you again on the Portsmouth jetty, or may-hap in this very room?”
Miles thought, when he heard this speech, of the hoped-for meeting between poor Mrs Martin and her Fred; and a feeling of profound sadness crept over him as he reflected how many chances there were against their ever again meeting in this world. Naturally these thoughts turned his mind to his own case. His sinful haste in quitting home, and the agony of his mother on finding that he was really gone, were more than ever impressed on him, but again the fatal idea that what was done could not be undone, coupled with pride and false shame, kept him firm to his purpose.
That evening, in barracks, Miles was told by his company sergeant to hold himself in readiness to appear before the doctor next morning for inspection as to his physical fitness for active service in Egypt.
Our hero was by this time beginning to find out that the life of a private soldier, into which he had rushed, was a very different thing indeed from that of an officer — to which he had aspired. Here again pride came to his aid — in a certain sense, — for if it could not reconcile him to his position, it at all events closed his mouth, and made him resolve to bear the consequences of his act like a man.
In the morning he had to turn out before daylight, and with a small band of men similarly situated, to muster in the drill-shed a little after eight. Thence they marched to the doctor's quarters.
It was an anxious ordeal for all of them; for, like most young soldiers, they were enthusiastically anxious to go on active service, and there was, of course, some uncertainty as to their passing the examination.
The first man called came out of the inspection room with a beaming countenance, saying that he was “all right,” which raised the hopes and spirits of the rest; but the second appeared after inspection with a woe-begone countenance which required no interpretation. No reason was given for his rejection; he was simply told that it would be better for him not to go.
Miles was the third called.
As he presented himself, the doctor yawned vociferously, as if he felt that the hour for such work was unreasonably early. Then he looked at his subject with the critical air of a farmer inspecting a prize ox.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Nineteen, sir.”
“Are you married?”
Miles smiled.
“Did you hear me?” asked the doctor sharply. “You don't need to smile. Many a boy as long-legged and as young as you is fool enough to marry. Are you married?”
Miles flushed, looked suddenly stern, squared his shoulders, drew himself up with an air that implied, “You won't catch me tripping again;” and said firmly, yet quite respectfully—
“No, sir.”
The doctor here took another good look at his subject, with a meaning twinkle in his eye, as if he felt that he had touched a tender point. Then he felt his victim's pulse, sounded his chest, and ordered him to strip. Being apparently satisfied with the result of his examination, he asked him if he “felt all right.”
Reflecting that his mother had often told him he was made up of body, soul, and spirit, and that in regard to the latter two he was rather hazy, Miles felt strongly inclined for a moment to say, “Certainly not,” but, thinking better of it, he answered, “Yes, sir,” with decision.
“Have you anything to complain of?” asked the doctor.
The mind of our hero was what we may style rapidly reflective. In regard to the decrees of Fate, things in general, and his father's conduct in particular, he had a decided wish to complain, but again he laid restraint on himself and said, “No, sir.”
“And do you wish to go to Egypt?”
“Yes, sir!” was answered with prompt decision.
“Then you may go,” said the doctor, turning away with an air of a man who dismisses a subject from his mind.
When all the men had thus passed the medical examination, those of them who were accepted mustered their bags and kits before Captain Lacey, commander of the company to which they were attached, and those who wanted anything were allowed to draw it from the stores.
Captain Lacey was a fine specimen of a British soldier — grave, but kind in expression and in heart; tall, handsome, powerful, about thirty years of age, with that urbanity of manner which wins affection at first sight, and that cool, quiet decision of character which inspires unlimited confidence.
As the troop-ship which was to convey them to Egypt was to start sooner than had been intended, there was little time for thought during the few hours in England that remained to the regiment. The men had to draw their pith helmets, and fit the ornaments thereon; then go the quartermaster's stores to be fitted with white clothing, after which they had to parade before the Colonel, fully arrayed in the martial habiliments which were needful in tropical climes. Besides these matters there were friends to be seen, in some cases relatives to be parted from, and letters innumerable to be written. Miles Milton was among those who, on the last day in Portsmouth, attempted to write home. He had been taken by Sergeant Gilroy the previous night to one of the Institute entertainments in the great hall. The Sergeant had tried to induce him to go to the Bible-class with him, but Miles was in no mood for that at the time, and he was greatly relieved to find that neither the Sergeant nor any of the people of the Institute annoyed him by thrusting religious matters on his attention. Food, lodging, games, library, baths, Bible-classes, prayer-meetings, entertainments were all there to be used or let alone as he chose; perfect freedom of action being one of the methods by which it was sought to render the place attractive to the soldiers.
But although Miles at once refused to go to the class, he had no objection to go to the entertainment.
It was a curious mixture of song, recitation, addresses, and readings, in which many noble sentiments were uttered, and not a few humorous anecdotes and incidents related. It was presided over by Tufnell, the manager, a soldierly-looking man, who had himself originally been in the army, and who had, for many years, been Miss Robinson's right-hand man. There could not have been fewer than a thousand people in the hall, a large proportion of whom were red-coats and blue-jackets, the rest being civilians; and the way in which these applauded the sentiments, laughed at the humor, and rejoiced in the music, showed that the provision for their amusement was thoroughly appreciated.
Whether it was the feeling of good-fellowship and sympathy that pervaded the meeting, or some word that was dropped at a venture and found root in his heart, Miles could not tell, but certain it is that at that entertainment he formed the resolution to write home before leaving. Not that he had yet repented of the step he had taken, but he was sorry for the manner in which he had done so, and for allowing so much time to elapse that now the opportunity of seeing his parents before starting was lost.
As it was impossible for him to write his letter in the noise of the barrack-room, he went off next day to the reading-room of the Institute, and there, with no other sounds to disturb him than the deep breathing of some studious red-coats, and the chirping pen of a comrade engaged like himself, he began to write.
But his thoughts somehow would not work. His pen would not write. He even fancied that it had a sort of objection to spell. So it had, when not properly guided by his hesitating hand. The first part went swimmingly enough:—
“Dearest mother,
I'm so sorry—“
But here he stopped, for the memory of his father's severity re-aroused his indignation, and he felt some doubt as to whether he really was sorry. Then, under the impulse of this doubt, he wrote a long letter, in imagination, in which he defended his conduct pretty warmly, on the ground that he had been driven to it.
“Driven to what?” asked Something within him. “To the course which I have taken and am now defending,” replied Something-else within him hotly.
“Then the course was a wrong one, else you wouldn't have to defend it!” rejoined the first Something.
“Well — yes — n_no, it wasn't,” returned the second Something doggedly.
Before this internal dispute could be carried further, Miles was aroused by a sudden burst of noisy voices, as if a lunatic asylum had been let loose into the hall below. Rising quickly, he hurried down with his studious comrades to see what it could be all about.
“It's only another troop-ship come in, and they've all come up here without giving us warning to get ready,” said Tufnell, as he bustled about, endeavoring to introduce order into what appeared to Miles to be the reproduction of Babel, minus the bricks.
The fact was that a troop-ship having arrived rather suddenly, a sergeant had driven up in hot haste from the docks to make arrangements for the reception of the soldiers' wives and children!
“Look sharp!” he cried, on entering the hall abruptly; “sixteen families are on their way to you.”
“All right; we can take 'em in,” was the prompt reply; and orders were given to set the food-producing machinery of the establishment instantly in motion. But almost before the preparation had fairly begun, the advance-guard of the army, largely composed of infantry, burst upon them like a thunder-clap, and continued to pour in like a torrent. There were men shouting, women chattering, tired children whining, and excited children laughing; babies yelling or crowing miscellaneously; parrots screaming; people running up and down stairs in search of dormitories; plates and cups clattering at the bar, as the overwhelmed barmaids did their best to appease the impatient and supply the hungry; while the rumbling of control-wagons bringing up the baggage formed a sort of bass accompaniment to the concert.
“You see, it varies with us a good deal,” remarked Brown to Miles, during a lucid interval, “Sometimes we are almost empty, a few hours later we are overflowing. It comes hard on the housekeeper, of course. But we lay our account wi' that, and, do you know, it is wonderful what can be done in trying circumstances, when we lay our account wi' them! — Yes, Miss, it's all ready!” shouted the speaker, in reply to a soft female voice that came down the wide staircase, as it were, over the heads of the turbulent crowd.
In a moment he disappeared, and Tufnell stood, as if by magic, in his place.
“Yes,” said the manager, taking up his discourse where the other had left off; “and in a few minutes you'll see that most of these wives and children of the soldiers will be distributed through the house in their bed-rooms, when our ladies will set to work to make acquaintance with them; and then we'll open our stores of warm clothing, of which the poor things, coming as they do from warm climates, are often nearly or quite destitute.”
“But where do you get these supplies from?” asked Miles.
“From kind-hearted Christians throughout the country, who send us gifts of old and new garments, boots and shoes, shawls and socks, etcetera, which we have always in readiness to meet sudden demands; and I may add that the demands are pretty constant. Brown told you just now that we have varied experience. I remember once we got a message from the Assistant Quartermaster-General's office to ask how many women and children we could accommodate, as a shipful was expected. We replied that we could take 140, and set to work with preparations. After all, only one woman came! To-day we expected nobody, and — you see what we have got!”
The genial countenance of the manager beamed with satisfaction. It was evident that “what he had got” did not at all discompose him, as he hurried away to look after his flock, while the originator — the heart and soul of all this — although confined to her room at that time with spine complaint, and unable to take part in the active work, as she had been wont to do in years gone by, heard in her chamber the softened sound of the human storm, and was able to thank God that her Soldiers' Institute was fulfilling its destiny.
“Hallo! Miles!” exclaimed Armstrong, over the heads of the crowd; “I've been looking for you everywhere. D'you know we run a chance of being late? Come along, quick!”
Our hero, who, in his interest in the scene, had forgotten the flight of time, hurried out after his comrade as the band struck up “Home, sweet Home,” and returned to barracks, utterly oblivious of the fact that he had left the unfinished letter to his mother on the table in the reading-room.
Next morning young Milton — or, as he was called by his comrades, John Miles — rose with the depressing thought that it was to be his last day in England. As he was dressing, it flashed across him that he had left his unfinished letter on the reading-room table, and, concluding that it would be swept away in the rush of people there — at all events that, not having been folded or addressed, it could not be posted — his depression was deepened.
The first thing that roused him to a better frame of mind was the smell of tea!
Most people are more or less familiar with teapots; with the few teaspoonfuls of the precious leaf which thrifty housekeepers put into these pots, and the fragrant liquid that results. But who among civilians, (save the informed), can imagine a barrack-room teapot?
Open your ears, O ye thrifty ones! while we state a few facts, and there will be no need to tell you to open your eyes.
Into the teapot which supplied Miles with his morning cup there was put, for one making, eight pounds of tea! — not ounces, observe, but pounds, — twenty-nine pounds of sugar, and six gallons — an absolute cowful — of milk! The pot itself consisted of eight enormous coppers, which were filled with boiling water to the brim.
“Yes, sir,” remarked the military cook, who concocted the beverage, to a speechless visitor one day; “it is a pretty extensive brew; but then, you see, we have a large family!”
A considerable portion of this large family was soon actively engaged in preparation for immediate embarkation for Egypt. Then the General made the men a farewell speech. It was a peculiar speech — not altogether suited to cheer timid hearts, had any such been there, but admirably adapted to British soldiers.
“Men,” said he, “I am very glad to see you parade looking so well and clean and comfortable and ready for active service. You will be dirty enough, sometimes, where you are going, for the country is hot and unhealthy, and not over clean. You will have hardships, hard times, and plenty of hard work, as well as hard beds now and then, and very likely the most of you will never come back again; but you would be unworthy of the name of British soldiers if you allowed such thoughts to trouble your minds. I sincerely express the hope, however, that you will all come home again safe and sound. I have not the slightest doubt that every man of you will do his duty in the field faithfully and well; but I'm not so sure of your wisdom in camp and barracks, so I will give you a word of advice. There is far more danger in getting drunk in hot countries than in England. Let me advise you, then, not to get drunk; and I would warn you particularly against the vile stuff they will offer for sale in Egypt. It is rank poison. If you had stomachs lined with brass you might perhaps stand it — not otherwise. Then I would warn you against the sun. In Egypt the sun is sometimes like a fiery furnace. Never expose yourself when you can avoid doing so, and, above all, never go outside your tents without your helmets on. If you do, you'll repent it, and repentance will probably come too late. I wish you all a prosperous voyage, and may God keep you all!”
Delivered in a sharp, stern, unsentimental tone, this brief speech had probably a much more powerful effect on the men than a more elaborate exhortation would have had. The impression was deepened by the remarks of an old officer, who made a very brief, soldierly speech after the General, winding up with the information that he had himself been in Egypt, and assuring them that if they did not take care of themselves there was little chance of a man of them returning alive!
“May you have a pleasant passage out,” he said, in conclusion; “and, in the name of the Portsmouth Division, I wish you victory in all your battles, and a hearty good-bye.”
The men who were not going away were then called on to give their departing friends three cheers, which they did with right good-will. Captain Lacey, who was in charge of the detachment, stepped to the front, drew his sword, gave the order to shoulder arms, form fours, right turn, quick march, and away they went with the united bands of two regiments playing “The girl I left behind me!”
The girls they were about to leave behind them were awaiting them at the barrack-gates, with a considerable sprinkling of somewhat older girls to keep them company. Many of the poor creatures were in tears for the men whom they might never see again, and lumps in several manly throats rather interfered with the parting cheer delivered by the detachment at the gate. Most of them accompanied the soldiers as far as the Dockyard gates. Emily Armstrong was not among them. She had parted the previous night from her husband at his earnest request, and returned by rail to her father's house, there to await, as patiently as she might, the return of her “Willie.”
“Noble defenders of our country!” observed an enthusiastic citizen, as they passed through the gates.
“Food for powder,” remarked a sarcastic publican, as he turned away to resume his special work of robbing powder of its food and his country of its defenders.
Proceeding to the Embarkation Jetty, the detachment was marched on board the troop-ship, where the men were at once told off to their respective messes, and proceeded without delay to make themselves at home by taking possession of their allotted portion of the huge white-painted fabric that was to bear them over the waves to distant lands.
Taking off their belts and stowing them overhead, they got hold of their bags, exchanged their smart uniforms for old suits of clothes, and otherwise prepared themselves for the endurance of life on board a transport.
To his great satisfaction, Miles found that several of the comrades for whom he had by that time acquired a special liking were appointed to the same mess with himself. Among these were his friend Willie Armstrong, Sergeants Gilroy and Hardy, Corporal Flynn, a private named Gaspard Redgrave, who was a capital musician, and had a magnificent tenor voice, Robert Macleod, a big-boned Scotsman, and Moses Pyne, a long-legged, cadaverous nondescript, who was generally credited with being half-mad, though with a good deal of method in his madness, and who was possessed of gentleness of spirit, and a cheerful readiness to oblige, which seemed a flat contradiction of his personal appearance, and rendered him a general favorite.
While these were busy arranging their quarters a soldier passed with several books in his hand, which he had just received from one of the ladies from the Institute.
“Hallo, Jack!” cried Moses Pyne; “have the ladies been aboard?”
“Of course they have. They've been all over the ship already distributin' books an' good-byes. If you want to see 'em you'll have to look sharp, Moses, for they're just goin' on shore.”
“See 'em!” echoed Moses; “of course I wants to see 'em. But for them, I'd be—”
The rest of the sentence was lost in the clatter of Moses' feet as he stumbled up the ladder-way. Remembering his letter at that moment, Miles followed him, and reached the gangway just as the visitors were leaving.
“Excuse me,” he said to one of them, stopping her.
“Oh! I'm so glad to have found you,” she said.
“I have been looking for you everywhere. Miss Robinson sent you this little parcel of books, with her best wishes, and hopes that you will read them.”
“Thanks, very much. I will, with pleasure. And will you do me a favor? I left a letter on the reading-room table—”
A sudden and peremptory order of some sort caused a rush which separated Miles from the visitor and cut short the sentence, and the necessity for the immediate departure of all visitors rendered its being finished impossible.
But Miss Robinson's representative did not require to be told that a forgotten letter could only want posting. On returning, therefore, to the Institute, she went at once to the reading-room, where she found no letter! Making inquiry, she learned from one of the maids that a sheet of paper had been found with nothing on it but the words, “Dearest mother, I'm so sorry”; and that the same had been duly conveyed to Miss Robinson's room. Hasting to the apartment of her friend, she knocked, and was bidden enter.
“You have got an unfinished letter, it seems?” she began.
“Yes; here it is,” interrupted Miss Robinson, handing the sheet to her assistant. “What a pity that it gives no clew to the writer — no address!”
“I am pretty sure as to the writer,” returned the other. “It must have been that fine-looking young soldier, John Miles, of whom we have seen a little and heard so much from Sergeant Gilroy.”
Hereupon an account was given of the hurried and interrupted meeting on board the troop-ship; and the two ladies came to the conclusion that as nothing was known about the parents or former residence of John Miles no steps of any kind were possible. The letter was therefore carefully put by.
That same evening there alighted at the railway station in Portsmouth an elderly lady with an expression of great anxiety on her countenance, and much perturbation in her manner.
“Any luggage, ma'am?” asked a sympathetic porter — for railway porters are sometimes more sympathetic than might be expected of men so much accustomed to witness abrupt and tender partings.
“No; no luggage. Yes — a small valise — in the carriage. That's it.”
“Four-wheeler, ma'am?”
“Eh! no — yes — yes.”
“Where to, ma'am?” asked the sympathetic porter, after the lady was seated in the cab.
“Where to?” echoed Mrs Milton, (for it was she), in great distress. “Oh! where — where shall I drive to?”
“Really, ma'am, I couldn't say,” answered the porter, with a modest look.
“I've — I — my son! My dear boy! Where shall I go to inquire? Oh! what shall I do?”
These would have been perplexing utterances even to an unsympathetic man.
Turning away from the window, and looking up at the driver, the porter said solemnly—
“To the best 'otel you know of, cabby, that's not too dear. An' if you've bin gifted with compassion, cabby, don't overcharge your fare.”
Accepting the direction, and exercizing his discretion as well as his compassion, that intelligent cabby drove, strange to say, straight to an hotel styled the “Officers' House,” which is an offshoot of Miss Robinson's Institute, and stands close beside it!
“A hofficer's lady,” said the inventive cabby to the boy who opened the door. “Wants to putt up in this 'ere 'ouse.”
When poor Mrs Milton had calmed her feelings sufficiently to admit of her talking with some degree of coherence, she rang the bell and sent for the landlord.
Mr Tufnell, who was landlord of the Officers' House, as well as manager of the Institute, soon presented himself, and to him the poor lady confided her sorrows.
“You see, landlord,” she said, whimpering, “I don't know a soul in Portsmouth; and — and — in fact I don't even know how I came to your hotel, for I never heard of it before; but I think I must have been sent here, for I see from your looks that you will help me.”
“You may depend on my helping you to the best of my power, madam. May I ask what you would have me do?”
With much earnestness, and not a few tears, poor Mrs Milton related as much of her son's story as she thought necessary.
“Well, you could not have come to a better place,” said Tufnell, “for Miss Robinson and all her helpers sympathize deeply with soldiers. If any one can find out about your son, they can. How were you led to suspect that he had come to Portsmouth?”
“A friend suggested that he might possibly have done so. Indeed, it seems natural, considering my dear boy's desire to enter the army, and the number of soldiers, who are always passing through this town.”
“Well, I will go at once and make inquiry. The name Milton is not familiar to me, but so many come and go that we sometimes forget names.”
When poor Mrs Milton was afterwards introduced to Miss Robinson, she found her both sympathetic and anxious to do her utmost to gain information about her missing son, but the mother's graphic descriptions of him did not avail much. The fact that he was young, tall, handsome, curly-haired, etcetera, applied to so many of the defenders of the country as to be scarcely distinctive enough; but when she spoke of “My dear Miles,” a new light was thrown on the matter. She was told that a young soldier answering to the description of her son had been there recently, but that his surname — not his Christian name — was Miles. Would she recognize his handwriting?
“Recognize it?” exclaimed Mrs Milton, in a blaze of sudden hope. “Aye, that I would; didn't I teach him every letter myself? Didn't he insist on making his down-strokes crooked? and wasn't my heart almost broken over his square O's?”
While the poor mother was speaking, the unfinished letter was laid before her, and the handwriting at once recognized.
“That's his! Bless him! And he's sorry. Didn't I say he would be sorry? Didn't I tell his father so? Darling Miles, I—”
Here the poor creature broke down, and wept at the thought of her repentant son. It was well, perhaps, that the blow was thus softened, for she almost fell on the floor when her new friend told her, in the gentlest possible manner, that Miles had that very day set sail for Egypt.
They kept her at the Institute that night, however, and consoled her much, as well as aroused her gratitude, by telling of the good men who formed part of her son's regiment; and of the books and kind words that had been bestowed on him at parting; and by making the most they could of the good hope that the fighting in Egypt would soon be over, and that her son would ere long return to her, God willing, sound and well.
While his mother was hunting for him in Portsmouth, Miles Milton was cleaving his way through the watery highway of the world, at the rate of fifteen knots.
He was at the time in that lowest condition of misery, mental and physical, which is not unfrequently the result of “a chopping sea in the Channel.” It seemed to him, just then, an unbelievable mystery how he could, at any time, have experienced pleasure at the contemplation of food! The heaving of the great white ship was nothing to the heaving — well, it may perhaps be wiser to refrain from particulars; but he felt that the beating of the two thousand horse-power engines — more or less — was child's-play to the throbbing of his brain!
“And this,” he thought, in the bitterness of his soul, “this is what I have sacrificed home, friends, position, prospects in life for! This is — soldiering!”
The merest shadow of the power to reason — if such a shadow had been left — might have convinced him that that was not soldiering; that, as far as it went, it was not even sailoring!
“You're very bad, I fear,” remarked a gentle voice at the side of his hammock.
Miles looked round. It was good-natured, lanky, cadaverous Moses Pyne.
“Who told you I was bad?” asked Miles savagely, putting a wrong — but too true — interpretation on the word.
“The color of your cheeks tells me, poor fellow!”
“Bah!” exclaimed Miles. He was too sick to say more. He might have said less with advantage.
“Shall I fetch you some soup?” asked Moses, in the kindness of his heart. Moses, you see, was one of those lucky individuals who are born with an incapacity to be sick at sea, and was utterly ignorant of the cruelty he perpetrated. “Or some lobscouse?” he added.
“Go away!” gasped Miles.
“A basin of—”
Miles exploded, literally as well as metaphorically, and Moses retired.
“Strange,” thought that healthy soldier, as he stalked away on further errands of mercy, stooping as he went to avoid beams — “strange that Miles is so changeable in character. I had come to think him a steady, reliable sort of chap.”
Puzzling over this difficulty, he advanced to the side of another hammock, from which heavy groans were issuing.
“Are you very bad, corporal?” he asked in his usual tone of sympathy.
“Bad is it?” said Flynn. “Och! it's worse nor bad I am! Couldn't ye ax the captin to heave-to for a—”
The suggestive influence of heaving-to was too much for Flynn. He pulled up dead. After a few moments he groaned—
“Arrah! be off, Moses, av ye don't want my fist on yer nose.”
“Extraordinary!” murmured the kindly man, as he removed to another hammock, the occupant of which was differently constituted.
“Moses,” he said, as the visitant approached.
“Yes, Gaspard,” was the eager reply, “can I do anything for you?”
“Yes; if you'd go on deck, refresh yourself with a walk, and leave us all alone, you'll con — fer — on—”
Gaspard ceased to speak; he had already spoken too much; and Moses Pyne, still wondering, quietly took his advice.
But if the Channel was bad, the Bay of Biscay was, according to Flynn, “far badder.”
Before reaching that celebrated bay, however, most of the men had recovered, and, with more or less lugubrious aspects and yellow-green complexions, were staggering about, attending to their various duties. No doubt their movements about the vessel were for some time characterized by that disagreement between action and will which is sometimes observed in feeble chickens during a high wind, but, on the whole, activity and cheerfulness soon began to re-animate the frames and spirits of Britain's warriors.
And now Miles Milton began to find out, as well as to fix, in some degree, his natural character. Up to this period in his life, a mild existence in a quiet home, under a fairly good though irascible father and a loving Christian mother, had not afforded him much opportunity of discovering what he was made of. Recent events had taught him pretty sharply that there was much room for improvement. He also discovered that he possessed a very determined will in the carrying out of his intentions, especially when those intentions were based upon his desires. Whether he would be equally resolute in carrying out intentions that did not harmonize with his desires remained to be seen.
His mother, among her other teachings, had often tried to impress on his young mind the difference between obstinacy and firmness.
“My boy,” she was wont to say, while smoothing his curly head, “don't mistake obstinacy for firmness. A man who says 'I will do this or that in spite of all the world,' against advice, and simply because he wants to do it, is obstinate. A man who says, 'I will do this or that in spite of all the world,' against advice, against his own desires, and simply because it is the right thing to do, is firm.”
Remembering this, and repenting bitterly his having so cruelly forsaken his mother, our hero cast about in his mind how best he could put some of her precepts into practice, as being the only consolation that was now possible to him. You see, the good seed sown in those early days was beginning to spring up in unlikely circumstances. Of course the habit of prayer, and reading a few verses from the Bible night and morning, recurred to him. This had been given up since he left home. He now resumed it, though, for convenience, he prayed while stretched in his hammock!
But this did not satisfy him. He must needs undertake some disagreeable work, and carry it out with that degree of obstinacy which would amount to firmness. After mature consideration, he sought and obtained permission to become one of the two cooks to his mess. Moses Pyne was the other.
Nothing, he felt, could be more alien to his nature, more disgusting in every way to his feelings — and he was right. His dislike to the duties seemed rather to increase than to diminish day by day. Bitterly did he repent of having undertaken the duty, and earnestly did he consider whether there might not be some possible and honorable way of drawing back, but he discovered none; and soon he proved — to himself as well as to others — that he did indeed possess, at least in some degree, firmness of character.
The duties that devolved on him were trying. He had to scrub and keep the mess clean and tidy; to draw all the provisions and prepare them for cooking; then, to take them to the galley, and fetch them when cooked. That this last was no simple matter, such as any shore-going tail-coated waiter might undertake, was brought forcibly out one day during what seamen style dirty weather.
It was raining at the time. The sea was grey, the sky was greyer, and as the steamer itself was whitey-grey, it was a grave business altogether.
“Is the soup ready, Moses?” asked Miles, as he ascended towards the deck and met his confrère coming down.
“I don't know. Shall I go an' see?”
“No; you can go and look after the table. I will fetch the soup.”
“A nasty sea on,” remarked a voice, which sounded familiar in Miles's ears as he stepped on deck.
“Hallo! Jack Molloy!” he exclaimed, catching hold of a stanchion to steady himself, as a tremendous roll of the vessel caused a sea to flash over the side and send a shower-bath in his face. “What part of the sky did you drop from? I thought I had left you snug in the Sailors' Welcome.”
“Werry likely you did, John Miles,” answered the tar, balancing himself with perfect ease, and caring no more for spray than if he had been a dolphin; “but I'm here for all that — one o' the crew o' this here transport, though I means to wolunteer for active sarvice when I gets out. An' no wonder we didn't come across each other sooner! In sitch a enormous tubful o' lobsters, etceterer, it's a wonder we've met at all. An' p'r'aps you've bin a good deal under hatches since you come a-boord?”
Molloy said this with a knowing look and a grin. Miles met the remark in a similar spirit.
“Yes, Jack, I've been paying tribute to Neptune lately.”
“You looks like it, Miles, judgin' by the color o' your jib. Where away now?”
“Going for our soup.”
“What! made you cook o' the mess?”
“Aye; don't you wish you were me?”
Another roll and flash of spray ended the conversation and separated the friends.
The pea-soup was ready when our hero reached the galley. Having filled the mess-tureen with the appetizing mixture, he commenced the return journey with great care, for he was now dependent entirely on his legs, both hands being engaged. Miles was handy, if we may say so, with his legs. Once or twice he had to rush and thrust a shoulder against the bulwarks, and a dash of spray served for salt to the soup; but he was progressing favorably and had traversed full three-quarters of the distance to the hatch when a loud “Hooroo!” caused him to look round smartly.
He had just time to see Corporal Flynn, who had slipped and fallen, come rolling towards him like a sack of flour. Next moment he was swept off his legs, and went into the lee scuppers with his comrade in a bath of pea-soup and salt-water!
Fortunately, the obliging wave which came in-board at the same moment mingled with the soup, and saved both men from a scalding.
Such mishaps, however, were rare, and they served rather to enliven the voyage than otherwise.
Besides the duties already mentioned, our hero had to wash up all the dishes and other things at meal-hours; to polish up the mess-kettles and tin dishes; and, generally, to put things away in their places, and keep things in apple-pie order. Recollecting another of his mother's teachings — “Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well” — he tried his best, and was so ably seconded by the amiable Moses, that the Miles-Moses mess came to be at last regarded as the best-kept one on board.
One morning, after clearing up the dishes and putting things in order, Miles went on deck for a little fresh air. On the way up he met an elderly gentleman whose dress proclaimed him a clergyman.
He looked earnestly at our hero, and, nodding kindly, spoke a few words to him in passing. Miles had been aware that there was a clergyman on board going out to Egypt with his family — whether in connection with the troops or for health he did not know. He was much impressed with the looks and expression of this man. It seemed to him as if there were some sort of attractive power about him which was unaccountably strong, and he felt quite interested in the prospect of hearing him preach on the following Sunday.
While on deck the previous day, he had seen the figures of two ladies, whom he rightly judged to be the family above referred to, but as there was nearly the whole distance of the ship's length between them, he could not distinguish their faces.
On taking his place when Sunday came, he observed that the family were present, seated, however, in such a position that he could only see their backs. Speculating in a listless way as to what sort of faces they had, he whiled away the few minutes before the service began.
He was recalled from this condition by the tones of the clergyman's voice, which seemed to have the same effect on him as his look and manner had the day they first met. During the sermon Miles's attention was riveted, insomuch that he almost forgot where he was. The text was a familiar one — “God is Love,” — but the treatment of it seemed entirely new: the boundless nature of that love; its incomprehensible and almighty force; its enduring certainty and its overwhelming immensity, embracing, as it did, the whole universe in Christ, were themes on which the preacher expatiated in a way that Miles had never before dreamed of.
“All subordinate love,” said the preacher, in concluding, “has its source in this. No wonder, then, that it is spoken of in Scripture as a love 'which passeth knowledge.'“
When the men rose to leave, it could be easily seen that they were deeply impressed. As they went out slowly, Miles passed close to the place where the ladies sat. The slighter of the two was talking in a low tone to her companion, and the young soldier was struck with the wonderful resemblance in her tone to that of the preacher. He wondered if her face also resembled his in any degree, and glanced back, but the head was turned away.
“I like that parson. He has got brains,” remarked Sergeant Hardy, as he walked along the deck with Sergeant Gilroy and Corporal Flynn.
“Sur' an' I like him too,” said the corporal, “for he's got heart!”
“Heart and brains,” returned Gilroy: “a grand combination! What more could we want?”
“Don't you think that tongue is also essential?” asked Miles. “But for the preacher's eloquence his heart and brain would have worked in vain.”
“Come now, John Miles, don't you be risin' up into poethry. It's not yer natur — though ye think it is. Besides, av a man's heart an' brains is all right, he can make good use of 'em widout much tongue. Me own notion is that it's thim as hasn't got much to spake of, aither of heart or brain, as is over-fond o' waggin' the tongue.”
“That's so, Flynn. You're a living example of the truth of your own opinion,” retorted Miles.
“Och! is it angered ye are at gittin' the worst o' the argiment?” rejoined the corporal. “Niver mind, boy, you'll do better by and by—”
As Flynn descended the ladder while he spoke, the sense of what he said was lost, but the truth of his opinion still continued to receive illustration from the rumbling of his voice, until it was swallowed up in the depths of the vessel.
Next day our hero received a shock from which he never finally recovered!
Be not alarmed, reader; it was not paralytic in its nature. It happened on this wise:
Miles had occasion to go to the fore part of the ship on some culinary business, without his coat, and with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Arrived there, he found that the captain was taking the ladies round the ship to point out some of its interesting details. As Miles came up, the younger lady turned round so as to present her full face to him. It was then that poor Miles received the shock above referred to. At that moment a little boy with wings and a bow stepped right in front of the young lady and shot straight at Miles Milton! The arrow entered his heart, and he — no, he did not fall; true men in such circumstances never fall! They stand transfixed, sometimes, or stupefied. Thus stood Miles and stared. Yes, though naturally modest and polite, he stood and stared!
And small blame to him, as Flynn might have said, for before him stood his ideal of a fairy, an angel, a sylph — or anything beautiful that best suits your fancy, reader! Sunny hair, sunny eyes — earnest and inquiring eyes — sunny smiles, and eyebrows to match. Yes, she had eyebrows distinctly darker than her hair, and well-defined over a pair of large brown eyes.
Poor Miles was stricken, as we have said; but — would you believe it? — there were men there looking at that girl at that time who, to use their own phraseology, would not have accepted a dozen of her for the girls they had left behind them! One young fellow in particular murmured to himself as follows — “Yes, very well in her way, no doubt, but she couldn't hold a candle to my Emmy!” Perhaps the most cutting remark of all — made mentally, of course — was that of Sergeant Grady, who, for reasons best known to himself, had left a wife, describable as a stout well-favored girl of forty, behind him.
“In twenty years or so,” he thought, “she may perhaps be near as good-lookin' as my Susy, but she'll never come quite up to her — never!”
“Come this way, Mrs Drew,” said the captain. “I will show you the men's quarters. Out of the way, my man!”
Flushing to the roots of his hair, Miles stepped hastily aside.
As he did so there was heard an awful rend of a sort that tests the temper of women! It was followed by a musical scream. The girl's dress had caught on a block tackle.
Miles leaped forward and unhooked it. He was rewarded with a smiling “Thank you,” which was followed by a blush of confusion as Miss Drew's mother exclaimed, “Oh! Marion — how could you?” by way of making things easier for her, no doubt!
“You did that, young man, about as smart as I could a' done it myself,” growled a voice behind him.
The speaker was Jack Molloy, and a general titter followed Miles as he hurried away.
As we have said, the weather became much worse when the troop-ship drew near to the Bay of Biscay; and it soon became evident that they were not to cross that famous portion of the Atlantic without experiencing some of the violent action for which it is famed. But by that time most of the soldiers, according to Molloy, had got their sea-legs on, and rather enjoyed the tossing than otherwise.
“I do like this sort o' thing,” said a beardless young fellow, as a number of the men sat on camp-stools, or stood on the weather-side of the deck, chatting together about past times and future prospects.
“Ha!” exclaimed a seaman, who stood near them coiling up a rope; “hold on till you've got a taste o' the Bay. This is a mill-pond to that. And you'll have the chance to-night. If you don't, I'm a Dutchman.”
“If I do, you'll have a taste of it too, old salt-water, for we're in the same boat,” retorted the young red-coat.
“True, but we ain't in the same body;” returned the sailor. “I should just like to see your four-futt legs wobblin' about in a nor'-west gale. You'd sing another song.”
“Come, Macleod,” cried Moses Pyne, “tip us a Gaelic song.”
“Hoots, man, wull ye be wantin' to be made sea-seek? — for that's what'll do it,” said the big Scotsman. “Na, na, let Gaspard sing us 'The Bay o' Biscay O!' That'll be mair appropriate.”
There was a general chorus of assent to this; and as Gaspard Redgrave was an obliging man, untroubled by false modesty, he cleared his throat and began. His voice, being a really splendid one, attracted all the men who chanced to be within range of it: among others, Miles, who was passing at the moment with a bag of biscuits in one hand and a meat-can in the other. He leaned up against one of those funnels which send fresh air down to the stokers of steam-ships. He had listened only a few moments when Marion Drew glided amongst the men, and seemed to stand as if entranced with delight in front of him, steadying herself by a rope, for the vessel was pitching a good deal as well as rolling considerably.
At the first chorus the crowd burst forth with wild enthusiasm—
“As we lay, on that day,
In the Bay of Biscay O!”
Dwelling with unnecessary length and emphasis on the “O!”
At the close of the second verse the men were preparing to burst forth again when Miles observed an approaching billow which caused him to start in alarm. Although unused to the aspect of waves, he had an instinctive feeling that there was danger approaching. Voices of warning were promptly raised from different parts of the vessel, but already the loud chorus had begun and drowned every other sound. Miles dropped his biscuits and sprang towards Marion, who, with flashing eyes and parted lips, was gazing at Gaspard. He just reached her when the wave burst over the side, and, catching most of the men quite unprepared, swept them with terrible violence towards the lee-side of the deck.
Marion was standing directly in the line of this human cataract, but Miles swung her deftly round into the lee of the funnel, a handle of which she happily caught, and clung to it like a limpet.
Her preserver was not so fortunate. The edge of the cataract struck him, swept him off his legs, and hurled him with many comrades against the lee bulwarks, where he lay stunned and helpless in the swishing water.
Of course soldiers and sailors ran from all parts of the vessel to the rescue, and soon the injured men were carried below and attended to by the doctors; and, considering the nature of the accident, it was matter for surprise that the result was no worse than some pretty severe contusions and a few broken ribs.
When Miles recovered consciousness, he found himself in his hammock, with considerable pain in various parts of his body, and the Reverend James Drew bending over him.
“You're all right now, my fine fellow,” he said, in a low comforting voice. “No bones broken, so the doctors say. Only a little bruised.”
“Tell me, sir,” said Miles, rousing himself, “is — is your daughter safe?”
“Yes, thanks be to God, and to your prompt assistance, she is none the worse — save the fright and a wetting.”
Miles sank back on his pillows with a feeling of profound satisfaction.
“Now, you must try to sleep if you can,” said the clergyman; “it will do you good.”
But Miles did not want anything to do him good. He was quite content to lie still and enjoy the simple fact that he had rescued Marion, perhaps from death — at all events from serious injury! As for pain — what was that to him? was he not a soldier — one whose profession requires him to suffer anything cheerfully in the discharge of duty! And was not love the highest duty?
On the strength of some such thoughts he forgot his pain and calmly went to sleep.
The wave which had burst with such disastrous effect on the deck of the troop-ship was but the herald of one of those short, wild storms which occasionally sweep with desolating violence over the Atlantic Ocean, and too frequently strew with wreck the western shores of Europe.
In the Bay of Biscay, as usual, the power of the gale was felt more severely than elsewhere.
“There's some sort o' mystery about the matter,” said Jack Molloy to William Armstrong, as they cowered together under the shelter of the bridge. “Why the Atlantic should tumble into this 'ere bay with greater wiolence than elsewhere is beyond my comprehension. But any man wi' half an eye can see that it do do it! Jist look at that!”
There was something indeed to look at, for, even while he spoke, a mighty wave tumbled on board of the vessel, rushed over the fore deck like Niagara rapids in miniature, and slushed wildly about for a considerable time before it found its way through the scuppers into the grey wilderness of heaving billows from which it sprang.
The great ship quivered, and seemed for a moment to stagger under the blow, while the wind shrieked through the rigging as if laughing at the success of its efforts, but the whitey-grey hull rose heavily, yet steadily, out of the churning foam, rode triumphant over the broad-backed billow that had struck her, and dived ponderously into the valley of waters beyond.
“Don't you think,” said the young soldier, whose general knowledge was a little more extensive than that of the seaman, “that the Gulf Stream may have something to do with it?”
Molloy looked at the deck with philosophically solemn countenance. Deriving no apparent inspiration from that quarter, he gazed on the tumultuous chaos of salt-water with a perplexed expression. Finally and gravely he shook his weather-beaten head—
“Can't see that nohow,” he said. “In course I knows that the Gulf Stream comes out the Gulf o' Mexico, cuts across the Atlantic in a nor'-easterly direction, goes slap agin the west of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and then scurries away up the coast o' Norway — though why it should do so is best known to itself; p'r'aps it's arter the fashion of an angry woman, accordin' to its own sweet will; but what has that got for to do wi' the Bay of Biscay O? That's wot I wants to know.”
“More to do with it than you think, Jack,” answered the soldier. “In the first place, you're not quite, though partly, correct about the Gulf Stream—”
“Well, I ain't zactly a scienkrific stoodent, you know. Don't purfess to be.”
“Just so, Jack. Neither am I, but I have inquired into this matter in a general way, an' here's my notions about it.”
“Draw it fine, Willum; don't be flowery,” said the sailor, renewing his quid. “Moreover, if you'll take the advice of an old salt you'll keep a tighter grip o' that belayin'-pin you've got hold of, unless you wants to be washed overboard. Now then, fire away! I'm all attention, as the cat said at the mouth o' the mouse-hole.”
“Well, then,” began Armstrong, with the slightly conscious air of superior knowledge, “the Gulf Stream does not rise in the Gulf of Mexico—”
“Did I say that it did, Willum?”
“Well, you said that it came out of the Gulf of Mexico — and, no doubt, so far you are right, but what I mean is that it does not originate there.”
“W'y don't you say what you mean, then, Willum, instead o' pitchin' into a poor chap as makes no pretence to be a purfessor? Heave ahead!”
“Well, Jack,” continued the soldier, with more care as to his statements, “I believe, on the best authority, that the Gulf Stream is only part of a great ocean current which originates at the equator, and a small bit of which flows north into the Atlantic, where it drives into the Gulf of Mexico. Finding no outlet there it rushes violently round the gulf—”
“Gits angry, no doubt, an' that's what makes it hot?” suggested the sailor.
“Perhaps! Anyhow, it then flows, as you say, in a nor'-easterly direction to the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. But it does more than that. It spreads as it goes, and also rushes straight at the coasts of France and Spain. Here, however, it meets a strong counter current running south along these same coasts of France an' Spain. That is difficulty number one. It has to do battle wi' that current, and you know, Jack, wherever there's a battle there's apt to be convulsions of some sort. Well, then, a nor'-westerly gale comes on and rolls the whole o' the North Atlantic Ocean against these coasts. So here you have this part of the Gulf Stream caught in another direction — on the port quarter, as you sailors might call it—”
“Never mind wot us sailors might call it, Willum. Wotever you say on that pint you're sure to be wrong. Heave ahead!”
“Well, then,” continued Armstrong, with a laugh, “that's trouble number two; and these troubles, you'll observe, apply to the whole west coast of both countries; but in the Bay of Biscay there is still another difficulty, for when these rushing and tormented waters try to escape, they are met fair in the face by the whole north coast of Spain, and thus—”
“I sees it!” exclaimed Molloy, with a sudden beam of intelligence, “you've hit the nail on the head, Willum. Gulf Stream flies at France in a hot rage, finds a cool current, or customer, flowin' down south that shouts 'Belay there!' At it they go, tooth an' nail, when down comes a nor'-wester like a wolf on the fold, takes the Stream on the port quarter, as you say, an' drives both it an' the cool customer into the bay, where the north o' Spain cries 'Avast heavin', both o' you!' an' drives 'em back to where the nor'-wester's drivin' 'em on! No wonder there's a mortal hullaballoo in the Bay o' Biscay! Why, mate, where got ye all that larnin'?”
Before his friend could reply, a terrific plunge of the vessel, a vicious shriek of the wind, and the entrance of another tremendous sea, suggested that the elements were roused to unusual fury at having the secrets of their operations thus ruthlessly revealed, and also suggested the propriety of the two friends seeking better shelter down below.
While this storm was raging, Miles lay in his hammock, subjected to storms of the bosom with occasional calms between. He was enjoying one of the calms when Armstrong passed his hammock and asked how he was getting on.
“Very well, Willie. Soon be all right, I think,” he replied, with a contented smile.
For at that moment he had been dwelling on the agreeable fact that he had really rescued Marion Drew from probable death, and that her parents gratefully recognized the service — as he learned from the clergyman himself, who expressed his gratitude in the form of frequent visits to and pleasant chats with the invalid.
The interest and sympathy which Miles had felt on first seeing this man naturally increased, and at last he ventured to confide to him the story of his departure from home, but said nothing about the changed name. It is needless to relate all that was said on the occasion. One can easily imagine the bearing of a good deal of it. The result on Miles was not very obvious at the time, but it bore fruit after many days.
The calm in our hero's breast was not, however, of long duration. The thought that, as a private in a marching regiment, he had not the means to maintain Marion in the social position to which she had been accustomed, was a very bitter thought, and ruffled the sea of his feelings with a stiff breeze. This freshened to something like a gale of rebellion when he reflected that his case was all but hopeless; for, whatever might have been the truth of the statement regarding the French army under Napoleon, that “every soldier carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack,” it did not follow that soldiers in the British army of the present day carried commissions in their knapsacks. Indeed, he knew it was by no means a common thing for men to rise from the ranks, and he was well aware that those who did so were elevated in virtue of qualities which he did not possess.
He was in the midst of one of his bosom storms when Sergeant Hardy came to inquire how he did.
Somehow the quiet, grave, manly nature of that sergeant had a powerful effect, not only on Miles but on every one with whom he came in contact. It was not so much his words as his manner that commended him. He was curiously contradictory, so to speak, in character and appearance. The stern gravity of his countenance suggested a hard nature, but lines of good-humor lurking about the eyes and mouth put to flight the suggestion, and acts of womanly tenderness on many occasions turned the scale the other way. A strong, tall, stiffly upright and slow-moving frame, led one to look only for elephantine force, but when circumstances required prompt action our sergeant displayed powers of cat-like activity, which were all the more tremendous that they seemed incongruous and were unexpected. From his lips you looked for a voice of thunder — and at drill you were not disappointed — but on ordinary occasions his speech was soft and low; bass indeed as to its quality, but never harsh or loud.
“A gale is brewing up from the nor'-west, so Jack Molloy says,” remarked Hardy, as he was about to pass on.
“Why, I thought it was blowing a gale now!” returned Miles. “At least it seems so, if we may judge from the pitching and plunging.”
“Ah, lad, you are judging from the landlubber's view-point,” returned the sergeant. “Wait a bit, and you will understand better what Molloy means when he calls this only a 'capful of wind.'“
Miles had not to wait long. The gale when fully “brewed up” proved to be no mean descendant of the family of storms which have tormented the celebrated bay since the present economy of nature began; and many of those who were on board of the troop-ship at that time had their eyes opened and their minds enlarged as to the nature of a thorough gale; when hatches have to be battened down, and the dead-lights closed; when steersmen have to be fastened in their places, and the maddened sea seems to roar defiance to the howling blast, and all things movable on deck are swept away as if they were straws, and many things not meant to be movable are wrenched from their fastenings with a violence that nothing formed by man can resist, and timbers creak and groan, and loose furniture gyrates about until smashed to pieces, and well-guarded glass and crockery leap out of bounds to irrecoverable ruin, and even the seamen plunge about and stagger, and landsmen hold on to ring-bolts and belaying-pins, or cling to bulkheads for dear life, while mighty billows, thundering in-board, hiss along the decks, and everything, above, below, and around, seems being swept into eternity by the besom of destruction!
But the troop-ship weathered the storm nobly; and the good Lord sent fine weather and moderate winds thereafter; and ere long the soldiers were enjoying the sunshine, the sparkling waters, and the sight of the lovely shores of the blue Mediterranean.
Soon after that broken bones began to mend, and bruises to disappear; and our hero, thoroughly recovered from his accident, as well as greatly improved in general health, returned to his duties.
But Miles was not a happy man, for day by day he felt more and more severely that he had put himself in a false position. Besides the ever-increasing regret for having hastily forsaken home, he had now the bitter reflection that he had voluntarily thrown away the right to address Marion Drew as an equal.
During the whole voyage he had scarcely an opportunity of speaking a word to her. Of course the warm-hearted girl did not forget the important service that had been rendered to her by the young soldier, and she took more than one occasion to visit the fore part of the vessel for the purpose of expressing her gratitude and asking about his health, after he was able to come on deck; but as her father accompanied her on these occasions, the conversation was conducted chiefly between him and the reverend gentleman. Still, it was some comfort to hear her voice and see her eyes beaming kindly on him.
Once the youth inadvertently expressed his feelings in his look, so that Marion's eye-lids dropped, and a blush suffused her face, to hide which she instantly became unreasonably interested in the steam-winch beside which they were standing, and wanted to understand principles of engineering which had never troubled her before!
“What is the use of that curious machine?” she asked, turning towards it quickly.
“W'y, Miss,” answered Jack Molloy, who chanced to be sitting on a spare yard close at hand working a Turk's head on a manrope, “that's the steam-winch, that is the thing wot we uses w'en we wants to hoist things out o' the hold, or lower 'em into it.”
“Come, Marion, we must not keep our friend from his duties,” said Mr Drew, nodding pleasantly to Miles as he turned away.
The remark was called forth by the fact that Miles had been arrested while on his way to the galley with a dish of salt pork, and with his shirt-sleeves, as usual, tucked up!
Only once during the voyage did our hero get the chance of talking with Marion alone. The opportunity, like most pieces of good fortune, came unexpectedly. It was on a magnificent night, just after the troop-ship had left Malta. The sea was perfectly calm, yet affected by that oily motion which has the effect of breaking a reflected moon into a million fragments. All nature appeared to be hushed, and the stars were resplendent. It was enough, as Jack Molloy said, to make even a bad man feel good!
“Do 'ee speak from personal experience, Jack?” asked a comrade on that occasion.
“I might, Jim, if you wasn't here,” retorted Molloy; “but it's not easy to feel bad alongside o' you.”
“That's like a double-edged sword, Jack — cuts two ways. W'ich way d'ee mean it?”
“'W'ichever way you please,' as the man said w'en the alligator axed 'im w'ether he'd prefer to be chawed up or bolted whole.”
Concluding that, on the whole, the conversation of his friends did not tend to edification, Miles left them and went to one of the starboard gangways, from which he could take a contemplative view of Nature in her beautiful robe of night. Curiously enough, Marion chanced to saunter towards the same gangway, and unexpectedly found him there.
“A lovely night, Mr Miles,” she remarked.
Miles started, and turned with slight confusion in his face, which, happily, the imperfect light concealed.
“Beautiful indeed!” he exclaimed, thinking of the face before him — not of the night!
“A cool, beautiful night like this,” continued the girl — who was of the romantic age of sixteen — “will remain long, I should think, in your memory, and perhaps mitigate, in some degree, the hardships that are before you on the burning sand of Egypt.”
“The memory of this night,” returned Miles, with fervor, “will remain with me for ever! It will not only mitigate what you are pleased to call hardships, but will cause me to forget them altogether — forget everything!”
“Nay, that were impossible,” rejoined Marion, with a slight laugh; “for a true soldier cannot forget Duty!”
“True, true,” said Miles dubiously; “at least it ought to be true; and I have no doubt is so in many cases, but—”
What more he might have said cannot now be told, for they were interrupted at the moment by Captain Lacey, who, happening to walk in that direction, stopped and directed Miss Drew's attention to a picturesque craft, with high lateen sails, which had just entered into the silver pathway of the moon on the water.
Miles felt that it would be inappropriate in him to remain or to join in the conversation. With a heart full of disappointment and indignation he retired, and sought refuge in the darkest recesses of the pantry, to which he was welcome at all times, being a great favorite with the steward.
Whether it was the smell of the cheese or the ketchup we know not, but here better thoughts came over our hero. Insignificant causes often produce tremendous effects. The touching of a trigger is but a small matter; the effects of such a touch are sometimes deadly as well as touching. Possibly the sugar, if not the cinnamon, may have been an element in his change of mind. At all events it is safe to say that the general smell of groceries was associated with it.
Under the benign influence of this change he betook himself to the berth of the chief ship's-carpenter, with whom also he was a favorite. Finding the berth empty, and a light burning in it, he sat down to wait for his friend. The place was comparatively quiet and retired. Bethinking himself of the little packet which he had received at Portsmouth, and which still lay unopened in the breast-pocket of his shell-jacket, he pulled it out. Besides a Testament, it contained sundry prettily covered booklets written by Miss Robinson and others to interest the public in our soldiers, as well as to amuse the soldiers themselves. In glancing through “Our Soldiers and Sailors,” “Institute Memories,” “Our Warfare,” “The Victory,” “Heaven's Light our Guide,” “Good-bye,” and similar works, two facts were suddenly impressed upon his mind, and strongly illuminated — namely, that there is such a thing as living for the good of others, and that up to that time he had lived simply and solely for himself!
The last sentence that had fallen from the lips of Marion that night was also strongly impressed upon him:— “a true soldier cannot forget Duty!” and he resolved that “Duty” should be his life's watchword thenceforward. Such is the influence that a noble-minded woman may unconsciously have over even an unsteady man!
Soon after this the troop-ship reached the end of her voyage, and cast anchor off the coast of Egypt, near the far-famed city of Alexandria.
Miles Milton's first experience in Alexandria was rather curious, and, like most surprising things, quite unlooked for.
The troops were not permitted to land immediately on arrival, but of course no such prohibition lay on the passengers, who went off immediately. In the hurry of doing so, the clergyman and his family missed saying good-bye to Miles, who happened to be on duty in some remote part of the vessel at the time, and the shore-boat could not be delayed. This caused Mr and Mrs Drew much regret, but we cannot add that it caused the same to Miss Drew, because that young lady possessed considerable command of feature, and revealed no feeling at all on the occasion.
Miles was greatly disappointed when he found that they had gone, but consoled himself with the hope that he could make use of his first day's leave to find them out in the town and say good-bye.
“But why encourage hope?” thought Miles to himself, with bitterness in his heart; “I'm only a private. Marion will never condescend to think of me. What have I to offer her except my worthless self?” (you see Miles was beginning to see through himself faintly.) “Even if my father were a rich man, able to buy me out of the army and leave me a fortune — which he is not — what right have I to expect that a girl like Marion would risk her happiness with a fellow who has no profession, no means of subsistence, and who has left home without money and without leave? Bah! Miles, you are about the greatest goose that ever put on a red coat!”
He was getting on, you see! If he had put “sinner” for “goose,” his shot would have been nearer the mark; as it was, all things considered, it was not a miss. He smarted considerably under the self-condemnation. If a comrade had said as much he would have resented it hotly, but a man is wonderfully lenient to himself!
Under the impulse of these feelings he sought and obtained leave to go into the town. He wished to see how the new Soldiers' Institute being set up there was getting along. He had promised Miss Robinson to pay it a visit. That was his plea. He did not feel called upon to inform his officer of his intention to visit the Drews! That was quite a private matter — yet it was the main matter; for, on landing, instead of inquiring for the spot where the new Institute was being erected, he began a search among the various hotels where English visitors were wont to put up. The search was successful. He found the hotel, but the family had gone out, he was told, and were not expected back till evening.
Disappointment, of course, was the result; but he would wait. It is amazing what an amount of patience even impatient men will exercise when under the influence of hope! There was plenty of time to run down and see the Institute, but he might miss his friends if they should chance to come in and go out again during his absence. What should he do?
“Bother the Institute!” he muttered to himself. “It's only bricks an' mortar after all, and I don't know a soul there.”
He was wrong on both of these points, as we shall see.
“What's the use of my going?” he murmured, after a reflective pause.
“You promised the ladies of the Portsmouth Institute that you'd go to see it, and report progress,” said that extraordinary Something inside of him, which had a most uncomfortable way of starting up and whispering when least expected to do so.
“And,” added Something, “every gentleman should keep his word.”
“True,” replied Miles, almost angrily, though inaudibly; “but I'm not a gentleman, I'm only a private!”
“Goose!” retorted that pertinacious Something; “is not every private a gentleman who acts like one? And is not every gentleman a blackguard who behaves as such?”
Miles was silenced. He gave in, and went off at once to visit the Institute.
As he walked down the long straight street leading to the Grand Square, which had been almost destroyed by the bombardment, he passed numerous dirty drinking-shops, and wondered that English soldiers would condescend to enter such disgusting places. He was but a young soldier, and had yet to learn that, to men who have been fairly overcome by the power of the fiend Strong Drink, no place is too disgusting, and no action too mean, so that it but leads to the gratification of their intolerable craving. It is said that in two streets only there were 500 of these disreputable drinking-shops.
All sorts and conditions of men passed him as he went along: Turks, Greeks, Arabs, Negroes, Frenchmen, Italians, and Englishmen, the gay colors of whose picturesque costumes lent additional brilliancy to the sunny scene. The sight of the dark-skinned men and veiled women of the Arab quarter did more, however, than anything else to convince our hero that he had at last really reached the “East” — the land of the ancient Pharaohs, the Pyramids, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, and of modern contention!
Presently he came upon the piece of waste ground which had been chosen as the site of the new Institute. It was covered with the ruins — shattered cement, glass, tiles, and general wreckage — of the buildings that had stood there before the bombardment, and on three sides it was surrounded by heaps of stones, shattered walls, and rubbish, some acres in extent. But the place had the great advantage of being close to the old harbor, not far from the spot where ancient Alexandria stood, and was open to the fresh, cooling breezes that came in from the sea.
Arab workmen were busily employed at the time on the foundations of the building, under the superintendence of an unmistakable and soldierly-looking Englishman, whose broad back was presented to Miles as he approached. Turning suddenly round, Mr Tufnell, the manager of the Portsmouth Institute, confronted the visitor with a stern but perspiring visage, which instantly became illuminated with a beaming smile.
“What! Tufnell!” exclaimed our hero, in amazement.
“Aye, Miles; as large as life.”
“Larger than life, if anything,” said Miles, grasping the proffered hand, and shaking it warmly. “Why, man, the air of Egypt seems to magnify you.”
“More likely that the heat of Egypt is making me grow. What are you rubbing your eyes for?”
“To make sure that they do not deceive,” answered Miles. “Did I not leave you behind me at Portsmouth?”
“So you did, friend; but the voyage in a troop-ship is not the fastest method of reaching Egypt. As you see, I've overshot you in the race. I have come to put up the new building. But come to my palace here and have a talk and a cup of coffee. Glad to see that the voyage has agreed with you.”
They reached the palace to which the manager referred, and found it to be a cottage of corrugated iron amidst the rubbish.
“Here,” said Tufnell, offering his friend a chair, “I spend all my time and reign supreme — monarch of all I survey. These are my subjects,” he added, pointing to the Arab workmen; “that wilderness of rubbish is my kingdom; and yon heap of iron and stone is the material out of which we mean to construct our Alexandria Institute. To save time, (the most valuable article in the world, if you'll believe me), Miss Robinson, as, perhaps, you may have heard, bought an old iron edifice in London, known as the Brompton Oratory, and sent it out here — like a convict — at Government expense. You see, not only the public, but Government, have now come to recognize the value of her work for soldiers.”
“And your subjects, the Arabs — are they obedient and loyal?” asked Miles.
“Pretty well; but they give me some trouble now and then. The other day, for instance, we had a sad accident, which at one time I feared would land us in serious difficulties. It is necessary, you must know, in laying foundations here, to dig through the sand some twelve to fifteen feet till water is reached, and then we lay a solid stone foundation about nine feet wide. Well, while digging this foundation, the sand fell in on one of the workmen. I off coat at once and set to work with a shovel, shouting to the fellows to help me. Instead of helping, they rushed at me in a body to prevent my interfering in the matter. Then they quarreled among themselves as to the best way of getting the man out, and the result was that the poor fellow was suffocated, though he might easily have been rescued by prompt action. But that was not the end of it! The relations and friends of the man came down, made Eastern howling and lamentation over him, and laid his corpse at the door of my cottage, holding me responsible for his life, and demanding compensation! And it was not till I had paid a few francs to every brother and cousin and relative belonging to him that their grief was appeased and the dead body carried away.
“Still the matter did not end here, for next day the workmen said the accident was owing to the omission of a sacrifice at the commencement of the work, and they must have a lamb to kill on the ground, or more lives would certainly be lost. So I bought them a lamb, which they duly killed, cooked, and ate, after sprinkling its blood on the four corners of the foundation and on the walls. I had the skin of this lamb dressed and sent home as a curiosity.” See note 1.
“You appear to have pretty rough times of it then, on the whole,” said Miles.
“I never counted on smooth times,” returned Tufnell; “besides, being used to roughing it, I am always glad to do so in a good cause. My palace, as you see, is not a bad one, though small. It is pretty hot too, as you seem to feel; and they tell me there will be some interesting variety in my experiences when the rainy season sets in! I wouldn't mind it so much if I could only be left to sleep in peace at nights. I stay here, you see, night and day, and what wi' the Arabs prowling around, whispering and trying to get in, and the wild dogs makin' the neighborhood a place o' public meeting — barking, howling, and quarreling over their sorrows like human bein's, they don't give me much rest.”
“I have read of these dogs before,” said Miles. “Are they really as wild and dangerous as they get credit for?”
“If you'd seen the fight I had wi' them the other night you'd have no doubt on that point. Why, a gang of 'em made a regular attack on me, and if it hadn't been that I was pretty active with my sword-stick, they'd have torn me in bits. Let me advise you never to go out after nightfall without one. Is that one in your hand?”
“No, it is merely a cane.”
“Well, exchange with me. There's no saying when you may want it.”
Tufnell took a light sword-stick which lay on the table and handed it to Miles, who accepted it laughingly, and without the slightest belief that he should ever have occasion to use it.
In chatting about the plans of the building and the prospects of success, our hero became at last so deeply interested — partly, no doubt, because of his friend's enthusiasm — that he forgot the flight of time, and the evening was advancing before he rose to leave.
“Now, Tufnell,” he said suddenly, “I must be off, I have another call of importance to make.”
“What! won't you stop and have a cup of coffee with me?”
“Impossible. My business is urgent. I want to see friends whom I may not have the chance of seeing again. Good-night.”
“Good-night, then, and have a care of the dogs, specially after nightfall.”
On returning to the hotel shortly after sunset, Miles came to the conclusion that his love must certainly be “true,” for its course was not running “smooth.” His friends had not yet returned. Mrs Drew had indeed come back, alone in a cab, but she had “von headik an' vas go to the bed.”
Waiting about in front of the hotel for an hoar or two proved to be too much for our hero's nerves; he therefore made up his mind to exhaust his nervous system by means of a smart walk. Soon he found himself in a lonely place, half-way between the Grand Square and the Ramleh Gate, with a deliciously cool breeze playing on his brow, and a full moon sailing overhead.
No one was moving about on the road along which he walked. He had it all to himself at first, and the evening would have been quiet as well as beautiful but for the yelping dogs which had, by that time, come out of their day-dens to search and fight for food and hold their nightly revels.
All round him were the heaps of rubbish caused by bombardment, and the ruined houses which war had rendered tenantless, though here and there the uprising of new buildings proved that the indomitable energy of man was not to be quelled by war or anything else. A flickering oil-lamp placed here and there at intervals threw a sickly yellow light into dark recesses which the moonbeams failed to reach. Intermingled with these were a few date-palms and bananas. After a time he observed a couple of figures in advance of him — a man and woman — walking slowly in the same direction.
Not wishing to have his thoughts disturbed, he pushed on, intending to pass the wayfarers. He had got to within a hundred paces of them when he became aware of a violent pattering sound behind him. Stopping and looking back he saw a pack of eight or nine of the wild, half-famished dogs of the place coming along the road at full gallop. He was quite aware that they were the savage, masterless creatures which keep close in hiding during the day, and come out at night to search for something to devour, but he could not bring himself to believe that any sort of dog was a dangerous animal. He therefore merely looked at them with interest as being natives of the place!
They passed without taking notice of him — as ugly and wolfish a pack as one could wish to see — led by a big fellow like a ragged disreputable collie. They also passed, with apparent indifference, the wayfarers in advance, who had stopped to look at them.
Suddenly, and without a note of warning, the whole pack turned and rushed back, yelling fiercely, towards the man and woman. The latter clung to the left arm of the former, who raised his stick, and brought it down with such good-will on the skull of the foremost dog that it reeled back with an angry howl. It was not cowed, however, for it came on again, but the man, instead of striking it, thrust the end of his stick down its throat and checked it a second time. Still unsubdued, the fierce animal flew at him once more, and would certainly have overcome him if Miles had not run to the rescue at the first sign of attack. Coming up quickly, he brought his cane down on the dog's head with all his might, having quite forgotten the sword in the excitement of the moment! The blow did nothing to the dog, but it shattered the cane, leaving the sword exposed! This was fortunate. A quick thrust sent the dog flying away with yells of pain and fear, followed by all his companions, who seemed to take their cue entirely from their leader.
Turning to congratulate the wayfarers on their escape, Miles confronted Mr Drew and his daughter Marion!
If he had encountered the glare of the great sea-serpent he could scarcely have been taken more completely aback.
“My dear young friend,” said the clergyman, recovering himself and grasping the passive hand of the young soldier with enthusiasm, though he could not help smiling at his obvious embarrassment, “you seem to have been raised up to be our rescuer!”
“I hope I have been raised up for something even more satisfactory than that,” thought Miles, but he did not say so! What he did say — in a stammering fashion — was to the effect that he hoped he might be called on to — to — render many more such trifling services — no — he did not quite mean that, but if they should ever again be in danger, he hoped they would call on him to — to — that is—
“But I hope sincerely,” he added, changing the subject abruptly, “that you are not hurt, Miss Drew?”
“Oh dear no; only a little frightened. But, father, are you sure that you are not hurt?”
“Quite sure; only a little sprain, I think, or twist in my right ankle. The attack was so sudden, you see, that in the hurry to meet it my foot turned over. Give me your arm, my young friend. There; it will be all right in a few minutes. How you tremble, Marion! Your nerves have received a greater shock than you imagine, and a lame man is but a poor support. Give her your other arm, Mr Miles. You are stout enough to support us both.”
Stout enough to support them both! Aye, at that moment Miles felt stout enough to support the entire world, like Atlas, on his own broad shoulders! With a blush, that the moon generously refused to reveal, Marion laid her hand lightly on the soldier's arm. It was much too light a touch, and did not distribute with fairness the weight of his burden, for the old gentleman hung heavily on the other arm. Mr Drew walked very slowly, and with evident pain, for the twist of the ankle had been much more severe than he at first imagined.
“You will come in and sup with us,” said Mr Drew, on at last reaching the hotel door.
“Impossible. I am exceedingly sorry, but my time has almost expired. Indeed, I fear it has expired already, and duty comes before everything else. Your daughter taught me that lesson, sir, on board ship!”
“Oh you hypocrite!” remarked his familiar and plain-spoken internal friend; “where was this grand sense of duty when you left home in a rage without 'by your leave' to father or mother?” Miles could make no reply. He had a tendency to silence when this friend spoke, and returned to barracks in a pensive mood, just in time, as Armstrong said, to save his bacon.
Note 1. This fleece is now, among other curiosities, at the Portsmouth Institute.
The troops sent out to Egypt at that time were much wanted to reinforce the southern frontier and defend it from the attacks of Osman Digna, who, with a large host of the dusky warriors of the Soudan, was giving the defenders much trouble, and keeping them incessantly on the qui vive.
Miles Milton had no time while in Alexandria for anything but duty. He saw Marion only once again before leaving, but did not find an opportunity to converse with her alone. To do him justice, he had not the most distant intention of declaring the state of his feelings, even if the opportunity had been given. He merely desired to be in her company for a little on any terms whatever!
On that occasion, however, he contrived to scorch his heart with a double dose of jealousy, for he found two young men visiting the clergyman, each of whom seemed to be a friend of the family. One was a spendthrift named Rentworth — a young traveller of that loose, easy-going type which is occasionally met with in foreign parts, squandering the money of a rich father. He was a decidedly handsome young fellow, but with the stamp of dissipation already on his countenance. The other was a telegraph engineer, with honesty and good-nature in every line of his plain countenance.
Both of these youths paid marked attention to Marion — at least Miles thought so — and he hated them both accordingly; all the more that he felt their eyes to be fixed upon him while he was bidding her “farewell.” He did not say “Good-bye.” That was too commonplace — in the circumstances almost childish.
There was one gleam of comfort in the fact, however, that Marion echoed the word, and that he thought — indeed he was sure — her hand trembled slightly as she returned, or rather received, his squeeze. Miles was very stern of countenance and remarkably upright in figure while these adieux were being said — for the glare of his rivals, he thought, was upon him.
How the poor fellow got through the preparations and packing and parades that were necessary when the order came abruptly for the regiment to start for Suez we cannot tell. He went about everything mechanically, or like a man in a dream. And it was not till they had fairly started in the railway train that he became alive to the serious fact that he was actually off to the wars!
The accommodation for passengers in that train was not good. Distinctly bad, indeed, would be the proper term to apply to the kind of cattle-truck in which Miles found himself with a detachment of the gallant 310th Infantry; and soon the blinding dust of Egypt reminded our young soldier that the real battle of life had fairly begun.
“You'll get over it in time, my poor fellow,” said his friend Armstrong, who sat beside him.
“You need the same consolation yourself, friend Willie,” retorted Miles, wiping the dust out of the corners of his eyes.
“I didn't mean that,” returned his friend. “You know what I mean! But cheer up; absence makes the heart grow fonder — at the same time it makes a fellow fit for duty. I have gone through it myself, and know all about it.”
Miles flushed and felt inclined at first to resent this allusion to the state of his affections, but he was fortunately saved from taking any notice of it by a sudden burst of laughter among the men at a remark from Corporal Flynn, who, although this was his first visit to Egypt, had undertaken to point out to his comrades the various localities which he chose to assume were more or less connected with Scripture history!
The first part of the journey was not particularly interesting, and what with the fine sand and the great heat the men began to experience the discomforts of an Eastern climate, and to make frequent application to their water-bottles. It would have been well if they had contented themselves with water, and with the cold tea which some of them had been provident enough to save up at breakfast; but when they reached the first station where there was a five minutes' halt, some of them managed to smuggle strong drink into the train. One immediate result was that the men became more noisy.
“Come, give us a song, Gaspard,” cried several voices, apparently inspired at the same moment with the same idea and desire.
“Wan wid a rousin' chorus, boy,” cried Flynn.
Gaspard complied, being ever ready to oblige, but whether it was the heat, or the dust, or the “rousin'“ chorus, or the drink, the song was a partial failure. Perhaps it was the excess of tremulo induced by the motion of the train! At all events it fell flat, and, when finished, a hilarious loud-voiced man named Simkin, or Rattling Bill, struck up “Rule Britannia,” which more than made amends for the other, and was sung with intense vigor till the next station was reached.
Here more drink was smuggled on board the train, and, as a natural consequence, men became troublesome. A morose man named Sutherland, who was apt to grow argumentative and quarrelsome in his cups, made an assertion in reference to something terrestrial, which had no particular interest for any mortal man. Simkin contradicted it. Sutherland repeated it. Simkin knocked Sutherland's helmet overboard. Sutherland returned the compliment in kind, and their comrades had to quell an intestine war, while the lost head-pieces were left on the arid plain, where they were last seen surrounded by wonder-stricken and long-legged natives of the Flamingo tribe.
This loss was a serious one, for exposure of the head to the sun in such a climate is exceedingly dangerous, and the old hands had great difficulty in impressing the fact on Rattling Bill and Sutherland, who, with the obstinacy of “greenhorns,” made light of the danger, and expressed disbelief in sunstroke.
Of course considerable interest was manifested when the station of Tel-el-Kebir was reached.
“It's two mile from this, I've bin towld,” said Flynn, “where the great battle was fowt.”
“How d'ee know that, Flynn?” asked one.
“How do I know anything I'm towld but by belaivin' it?” returned the corporal.
“It's my opeenion,” said the big Scotsman Macleod, “that if there had been ony better troops than Egeeptians to fecht wi', oor men an' my Lord Wolseley wadna hae fund it sic an easy job.”
“But it is said that the Egyptians were brave enough, and fought and died like men till they were fairly overpowered,” said Moses Pyne, who, being young and ardent, besides just, felt bound to stand up for dead foes.
“I'm no objeckin' to their bravery,” returned the Scot. “They did the best they could; but what was to be expeckit o' a wheen men that was dragged to the field against their wull, an' made to fecht afore they weel kent hoo to use their airms?”
“Anyhow they gave us a chance to show what British soldiers can do,” said Rattling Bill.
“An' sure there's plenty more where they came from to give us another chance,” said Flynn.
“That's true, boys. Three cheers for the heroes of Tel-el-Kebir, dead and livin'!” cried Armstrong, setting the example.
The response was prompt and hearty, and for a few moments a forest of white helmets waved in the air.
The enthusiasm was not allowed to cool, for the next station was Kassassin, where the Life Guards and our cavalry made their midnight charges; and where there occurred, perhaps, one of the longest day's fighting in the war of 1882. Here, also, they saw the graves of the poor fellows who fell at that time, but the sight did not depress the men much. The somewhat lugubrious Sutherland alone seemed to take a serious view of such matters.
“It's a' vera weel for licht-hearted lads like you to laugh an' cheer,” he said, “but there's naething mair certain than that some o' you that's laughin' an' cheerin' yenoo, an' boastin' o' lickin' the Soudan neegers, 'll fill sandy graves afore lang.”
“You don't know that, Scotty. Pr'a'ps we'll all escape and return to old England together,” said one of his comrades.
“Arrah! if I did git into wan o' the sandy graves ye spake of,” remarked Flynn, “I do belaive I'd rise out of it just for the pleasure o' contradictin' you, Sutherland.”
“H'm! nae doot. Contradictiousness whiles maks fowk lively that wad be dull an' deed eneuch withoot it. But did onybody iver hear o' a reg'ment gaun' oot to the wars an' comin' back jist as it went? That's the question—”
“As Hamlet's ghost said when he was takin' a night-walk to cool his-self,” interposed Simkin.
“It wasna his ghost; it was his faither's ghost,” cried Sutherland; “an' I'm no' sure that—”
“Howld yer tongues, both o' ye!” cried Flynn; “sure the loss o' yer helmets is beginning to tell on yer heads already. What can the line be I see in the distance over there? I do belaive it's another o' thim broad rivers that seem to cut up this land all into stripes.”
“Why, it's the canal, man,” cried Moses Pyne, who was more or less enthusiastic about all the sights and scenes they were passing. “Don't ye see the ships?”
“Sure enough, you're right, Moses, as ye ginerally are whin you're not wrong. There's some ships comin' wan way, an' some goin' the other. Och! but he is a great jainius that Frenchman as tied the two says togither — Lips — Lisps — what is it they calls him? I've clane forgot.”
“Lesseps,” said Miles, as he gazed with unusual interest on this wonderful highway of nations.
The troops reached Suez after a ten hours' journey, the distance being about 230 miles. Our hero made the acquaintance here of a private of marines named Stevenson, with whom he afterwards served in the Soudan, and with whom he became very friendly, not only because their spirits were sympathetic, but because, having been brought up in the same part of England, they had similar memories and associations in regard to “home.” Only those who have wandered long and far from their native land can understand the attractive influence that arises between men who meet abroad, and find that they can chat about the same places and persons in the “old country.”
It was Saturday when the troops arrived at Suez, and the heavy dew that fell rendered the night bitterly cold, and felt to be so all the more because of the intense heat of the day. Sunday began with “rousing out” at six, breakfast at seven, parade at eight, and “divine service" thereafter. As there was no clergyman at the place at the time, the duty was performed by one of the officers. Doubtless among the officers there are men who not only can “read prayers” well, but who have the spirit of prayer in them. That such, however, is not always the case may be gathered from the remark of one of the men upon this occasion.
“W'y, you know, Tom,” said this rather severe critic to his comrade confidentially, “there's one advantage in fast readin', that it gets the business soon over, which is some sort o' comfort to fellows that has got to attend whether they like it or not, hot or cold, fresh or tired, unless dooty prevents. But the hofficer that did dooty to-day seemed to me to 'ave made a wager to read the prayers against time, an' that can do no good at all to any one, you know. Far better, in my opinion, to 'ave no service at all. No wonder men won't listen. Why, it's a mockery — that's what it is.”
A walk round Suez with Armstrong and Stevenson till tattoo at 9:30 finished the day, and convinced Miles and his friends that the sooner they bade adieu to that place the better for all of them.
Their wishes were gratified almost sooner than they wished!
At Suez Miles Milton first made acquaintance with the shady side of war.
Before the commanding officer, after parade next morning, they received marching orders, and kit-muster followed. In the afternoon the Loch-Ard steamer came in from Suakim, with sick, wounded, and invalids, and a large party was told off to assist in landing them and their baggage. Miles was one of the party. The dock where the vessel lay was three miles off, and the greater part of this distance the invalids were brought by train; but the latter part of the journey had to be done on foot by those who could walk, and on stretchers by those who could not.
Oh! it was pitiful to see those battered, sunburnt, bloodless young men, with deep lines of suffering on their faces, aged before their time, and the mere wrecks of what they once were. Men who had gone to that region strong, active, ruddy, enthusiastic, and who, after a few months, returned thus feeble and shattered — some irreparably so; others with perhaps years of joyless life before them; a few with the unmistakable stamp of death already on their brows.
There were about forty altogether. Some, as we have said, were carried from the vessel, and not one of the forlorn band could get on without the assistance of their fresh comrades from England.
One tall, deep-chested young soldier, who must have been a splendid specimen of manhood when he landed in Egypt, was supported on one side by Miles, and on the other by Stevenson.
“Halt a moment,” said the invalid, in a weak voice and with an apologetic smile. “I — I can't get along quite as fast as I used to.”
His trembling legs and bowed back did not require the tongue or the large sunken eyes to confirm that obvious truth.
“Poor fellow!” said Miles — with difficulty, owing to the lump in his throat — “you ought to have had a stretcher. Here, sit down a bit on this stone. Have you been wounded?”
“Aye,” returned the man with a look of quiet resignation that seemed to have become habitual to him, “I have been wounded, but not by spear or bullet. It's the climate that has done for me. I used to think that nothing under the sun could quell me, but the Lord has seen fit to bring down my pride in that matter. At the same time, it's only fair to say that He has also raised me up, and given me greater blessings than He has taken away. They told me in Portsmouth that He would, and it has come true.”
“At the Institute?” asked Stevenson, eagerly.
“Aye — the Soldiers' Institute,” answered the invalid.
“God bless you!” returned the marine, grasping his hand. “It was there I was brought to God myself. Cheer up, brother! You'll soon be in hospital, where good food an' physic an' nursing will bring you round, may-hap, an' make you as ship-shape as ever.”
“It may be so, if He wills it so,” returned the trooper softly; “but I have a little book called 'Our Warfare,' and a letter from the 'Soldier's Friend' in my pocket, which has done me more good than all the hospitals and physic in Egypt can do. Come, let us go on. I'm better now.”
Rising and putting a long arm round the shoulders of each of his new friends, the trooper slowly brought up the rear of the touching procession which had already passed them on its way to Suez.
In the vessel which had brought those unfortunate men from Suakim, Miles and his comrades soon found themselves advancing down that region of sweltering heat called the Red Sea. The sight of the disabled men had naturally, at first, a depressing effect on the men; but the influence of robust health, youth, strong hope, and that light-hearted courage which makes the British soldier so formidable to his foes, soon restored to most of them their wonted free-and-easy enjoyment of the present and disregard for the future. Even the serving out of cholera-belts and pocket-filters failed to allay their exuberant spirits.
The Loch-Ard, although doubtless a good ship for carrying coals, was very ill-suited to convey troops. But in times of war, and in distant lands, soldiers lay their account with roughing it.
They soon found that a little of the physic which is supposed to be “rough on rats” would have been of advantage; for the very first night many of the men were awakened by those creatures nibbling at their toes! Everything on board was dirty: the tin pannikins were rusty, the biscuit was mouldy and full of creatures that the captain called weevils and Macleod styled wee-deevils. Some of the biscuit was so bad that it had to be thrown away, and the remainder eaten, as Moses said, with closed eyes!
“It's an ill wind that blaws naebody guid,” said Macleod to Moses Pyne, as he came on deck to enjoy a pipe after their first dinner on board. “What d'ee think that queer cratur Flynn is doin' doon below?”
“Nothing very useful, I daresay,” said Moses.
“Ye're wrang for ance. He's lyin' in ambush there, makin' war on the rats — aye, an' he's killed twa or three a'ready!”
“You don't say so! I'll go and see the fun.”
So saying Moses went below, but had just reached the foot of the ladder when a boot caught him violently on the shins.
“Hi! hallo! ho!” shouted Moses.
“Och! git out o' the line o' fire wid ye! There's another!” growled Flynn, as he fired a second boot, which whizzed past the intruder, and a sharp squeak told that it had not been fired in vain!
Moses beat a hasty retreat, and the Irishman continued the fight with that indomitable perseverance for which his countrymen are famous. There is no saying how long the action would have lasted, but in his energy he knocked away the support of a shelf behind him and a small cask of large nails, taking him in rear, sent him sprawling on the deck and routed him.
This misadventure did not, however, terminate the war. On the contrary, rat-hunting became a favorite pastime during the voyage down the Red Sea. Our hero, of course, took his turn at the fighting, but we believe that he never received a medal for his share in that war.
They spent one Sunday on the deep, but the only record made of it in the journal of the soldier from which most of our facts are gathered is that they “had prayers in racing style — against time!”
As if to cleanse themselves from the impropriety of this act the soldiers had a grand washing of clothes on the following day, and the day after that they arrived at Suakim.
“It is what I call a dreary, dismal-looking town,” said Miles to Armstrong, as they approached.
“Might be worse,” replied his friend.
“Ye aye tak a cheery view o' things, Airmstrong.”
“An' what for no?” asked Sutherland.
“You may well ask why not,” said Sergeant Hardy. “I think it wisest to look always on the bright side of things.”
“Whether it's dreary or pleasant we'll have to make the best we can of it, boys,” said Stevenson; “for this is to be our home for some time to come.”
“Horrible!” growled Simkin, whose spirit was essentially rebellious.
“Ochone!” sighed Flynn, who, we need scarcely say, was essentially jolly.
Further remark was cut short by the voice of Captain Lacey ordering the men to fall in, as the colonel in command was coming on board to inspect them.
The night of the arrival of the 310th was dreadfully hot, insomuch that many of the men found it impossible to sleep. But in the silence of that night food for reflection was supplied to the wakeful, in the form of sounds that were new to many, but soon became familiar to all — namely, the boom of big guns and the rattle of musketry. Osman Digna was making one of his customary attacks on the town, and the defenders were repelling him. Of course the sanguine among the new arrivals were much excited, and eager to join in the fray; but their services were not required that night. Osman and his dusky hordes were being repulsed as usual, and the reinforcements were obliged to content themselves with merely listening to the sounds of war.
No time was lost in sending the newly-arrived troops to their sphere of duty.
There was something appropriate in their landing on that day of gunpowdery memories, the 5th of November. It was four o'clock when they disembarked. By four-thirty they were drawn up and inspected by the General, and immediately thereafter marched off in detachments to their respective stations — to Sphinx Redoubt, Fort Commodore, Bulimba, and other points of defence.
The detachment in which Miles Milton found himself was led by Captain Lacey to Sphinx Redoubt, where he was greatly pleased to find that his new friend, private Stevenson of the marines, was also stationed with some of his comrades.
There are probably times in the experiences of most of us when we seem to awake out of a long dream and begin to appreciate fully that the circumstances in which we are placed are stern realities after all. Such a time of awakening came to our hero when he and his comrades each received fifty rounds of ball-cartridge, and stood ready to repel assault on the defences of Suakim.
Hitherto drill and reviews had seemed to him a good deal like playing at soldiers. Even when the distant sound of the big guns and the rattle of small arms touched his ear, the slumber of unbelief was only broken — not quite dispelled. But now, weighted with the deadly missiles, with rifle in hand, with ears alert to every sound, and eyes open to every object that might present itself on the sandy waste beyond the redoubt, and a general feeling of expectancy pervading his thoughts and feelings, he became clearly convinced that the recent past was no flight of the imagination — that he was in very truth a soldier, and that his fighting career had in reality begun!
Now, it may not be out of place here to state that our hero was not by nature a combative man. We think it necessary to point this out, because the somewhat pugnacious introduction of Miles into our story may have misled the reader on this point. His desire for a soldier's life was founded on a notion that it would prove to be a roving, jovial, hilarious sort of life, with plenty of sport and adventure in foreign lands. Of course he knew that it implied fighting also, and he was quite ready for that when it should be required of him; but it did not occur to him to reflect very profoundly that soldiering also meant, in some instances, exposure to withering heat during the day and stifling heat during the night; to thirst that seems unquenchable, and fatigue from prolonged duty that seems irreparable; to fits of sickness that appear to eliminate from stalwart frames all the strength they had ever possessed; and fits of the “blues” that render the termination of life a subject of rather pleasant contemplation than otherwise. But all these things he found out at Suakim!
Moreover, it had not occurred to him to think deeply on the fact that fighting meant rushing at a fellow-man whose acquaintance he had not made before; against whom he had not the slightest feeling of ill-will, and skewering him with a bayonet, or sending a bullet into him which would terminate his career in mid-life, and leave a wife and children — perhaps a mother also — disconsolate. But he also found that out at Suakim!
We repeat that Miles had no desire to fight, though, of course, he had no objection. When the officer in command sent him and his comrades to their station — after the ball-cartridge supply just referred to — and told them to keep a sharp look-out, for Osman Digna was giving them a great deal of trouble at the time, and pointed out where they were to go if attacked, and warned them to be ready to turn out on the instant that the bugle should sound the alarm, Miles was as full of energy and determination to fight and die for his country as the best of his comrades, though he did not express so strong a wish for a “brush with the enemy,” as some of them did, or sympathize much with Corporal Flynn when he said—
“It's wishin' I am that Osman an' his dirty naygurs would come down on us this night, for we're fresh an' hearty, just off the say, burnin' for fame an' glory, ivery mother's son of us, an' fit to cut the black bastes up into mince-meat. Och! but it's thirsty I am!”
“If ye spoke less an' thocht mair ye wadna be sae dry, maybe,” remarked Saunders, in a cynical tone.
“Hoots, man, let the cratur alane,” said Macleod, as he busied himself polishing up some dim parts of his rifle. “It's no muckle pleesure we're like to hae in this het place. Let the puir thing enjoy his boastin' while he may.”
“Sure an' we're not widout consolation anyhow,” retorted the corporal; “for as long as we've got you, Mac, and your countryman, to cheer us wid your wise an' lively talk we'll niver die o' the blues.”
As he spoke a tremendous explosion not far off caused the redoubt to tremble to its foundations. At the same moment the alarm sounded, the men sprang up, seized their arms, and stood ready for an attack; but to their surprise no attack was made.
“Surely it must have been one of the mines you were telling me about,” said Miles, in a low voice to Sergeant Gilroy, who stood near to him.
“It was one of them unquestionably, for a corporal of the Berkshire regiment told me Lieutenant Young placed the mine there yesterday.”
While Gilroy was speaking, Lieutenant Young himself came along, engaged in earnest conversation with Captain Lacey, and stood still close beside Miles.
“What puzzles me, is that they have not followed it up with a few volleys, according to their usual custom,” said the former, in a low voice. “Luckily they seldom do any harm, for they are uncommonly bad shots, but they generally try their best to do us mischief, and always make a good deal of noise about it.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Captain Lacey, “your mine has done so much execution this time, and killed so many men, that they've got a fright and run away.”
“It may be so, but I think not. The Soudanese are not easily frightened, as we have some cause to know.”
“Have you many mines about?” asked the captain.
“Yes, we have a good many. And they form a most important part of our defence, for we are not very well supplied with men, and the Egyptian troops are not to be depended on unless backed up by ours. These mines require to be carefully handled, however, for our shepherds take the cattle out to graze every day, so that if I were to fail to disconnect any of them in the mornings, we should have some of our cattle blown up; and if I failed to connect them again at night, the enemy would attack us more vigorously. As it is, they are very nervous about the mines. They have pluck to face any foe that they can see, but the idea of an unseen foe, who lurks underground anywhere, and may suddenly send them into the sky like rockets, daunts them a bit.”
“And little wonder!” returned the captain. “From what you say I judge that you have the management of most of the mines.”
“Of all of them,” answered the lieutenant, with a modest look.
There was more than modesty in this young officer of Engineers; there was heroism also. He might have added, (though he did not), that this duty of connecting and disconnecting the mines each night and morning was such a dangerous service that he declined to take men out with him, and invariably did the work personally and alone.
The mystery of the explosion on the night we write of was explained next morning when a party sallied forth to see what damage had been done. They found, instead of dismembered men, the remnants of a poor little hare which had strayed across the fatal line of danger and been blown to atoms. Thus do the lives of the innocent too often fall a sacrifice to the misdeeds of the guilty!
Next night, however, the defenders were roused by a real attack.
The day had been one of the most trying that the new arrivals had yet experienced. The seasoned men, who had been formed by Nature, apparently, of indestructible material, said it was awful. The thermometer stood at above 110 degrees in the shade; there was not a breath of air moving; the men were panting, almost choking. Even the negroes groaned, and, drawing brackish water from a well in the fort, poured it over their heads and bodies — but with little benefit, for the water itself was between 95 and 100 degrees!
“It'll try some o' the new-comers to-night, if I'm not mistaken,” remarked one of the indestructible men above referred to, as he rose from dinner and proceeded to fill his pipe.
“Why d'you think so?” asked Sergeant Hardy, whose name was appropriate, for he continued for a long time to be one of the indestructibles.
“'Cause it's always like this when we're goin' to have a horrible night.”
“Do the nights vary much?” asked Armstrong, who was still busy with his knife and fork.
“Of course they do,” returned the man. “Sometimes you have it quite chilly after a hot day. Other times you have it suffocatin' — like the Black Hole of Calcutta — as it'll be to-night.”
“What sort o' hole was that?” asked Simkin, whose knowledge of history was not extensive.
“It was a small room or prison into which they stuffed a lot of our men once, in India, in awful hot weather, an' kep' them there waitin' till the Great Mogul, or some chap o' that sort, should say what was to be done wi' them. But his Majesty was asleep at the time, an' it was as much as their lives was worth to waken him. So they had to wait, an' afore he awakened out o' that sleep most o' the men was dead — suffocated for want o' fresh air.”
“I say, Mac, pass the water,” said Moses Pyne. “It makes a feller feel quite gaspy to think of.”
The weather-prophet proved to be right. That night no one could sleep a wink, except the big Scotsman Macleod. To make matters worse, the insects of the place were unusually active. One of them especially, not much bigger than a pin-point, was irritating out of all proportion to its size, and it kept up, during the night, the warfare which the innumerable flies had waged during the day.
“It's no use trying to sleep, Willie,” said Miles to Armstrong, who was next to him, as they lay on the flat roof of the redoubt, with their rifles resting on the sandbags which formed a slight protection from the enemy's fire when one of the frequent attacks was made on the town.
“So I find,” returned his friend. “I have tried everything. Counting up to hundreds of thousands has made me rather more wakeful. I find that thinking of Emmy does me most good, but even that won't produce sleep.”
“Strange!” remarked Miles. “I have been trying the same sort of thing — without success. And I've had an unusually hard day of it, so that I ought to be ready for sleep. You were in luck, being on police-duty.”
“H'm! I don't think much of my luck. But let's hear what you have been up to all day.”
“Well, first, I began by turning out at 5:30 a.m,” said Miles, rolling with a sigh on his other side, for a uniform, cross-belts, boots, ammunition, etcetera, don't, after all, form an easy night-dress. “After a cup of coffee I fell in with a lot of our fellows, and was told off for fatigue-duty. Worked away till 7:30. Then breakfast. After that I had to clear up the mess; then got ready for inspection parade at 9:30, after which I had to scrub belts, and clean up generally. Dinner over, I was warned to go on night-guard; but, for some reason which was not stated to me, that was changed, and I'm not sorry for it, because the heat has taken a good deal out of me, and I prefer lying here beside you, Willie, to standing sentry, blinking at the desert, and fancying every bush and stone to be a dusky skirmisher of Osman Digna. By the way, if that mountain range where the enemy lies is twelve or fourteen miles distant from the town, they have a long way to come when they take a fancy to attack us — which is pretty often too. They say he has got two hundred thousand men with him. D'you think that can be true?”
A gentle trumpet-note from his friend's nose told Miles that he had brought about what thoughts of Emmy had failed to accomplish!
Thoughts of Marion had very nearly brought himself to a similar condition, when a trumpet-blast, the reverse of gentle, roused the whole line of defence, and, immediately after, sharp firing was heard in the direction of the right Water fort, which was manned by marines with two Krupp guns and a Gardner. A few rounds from the big guns drove the enemy back in that direction.
Miles and those around him, however, had not to turn out. Owing to their position on the roof of the Sphinx Redoubt, they had only to roll on their fronts, rest their rifles on the sandbags, and they were at once ready for action.
Round the various forts and redoubts deep and broad trenches had been dug, and they were rendered otherwise as strong as possible. The right and left Water forts formed the first line of defence. The latter fort, being manned by Egyptian troops, was more frequently favored with the attentions of Osman than the others, for the marines were splendid men, and the native chief was well aware of that. All the places around, which offered the slightest shelter to the enemy, had been carefully measured as to distance, so that the exact range could be fixed at a moment's notice. Then the war-vessels and one of the forts were furnished with electric lights, so that by bringing these to bear on the foe, as well as the big and little guns — not to mention mines and rifles — the attacking host had always a warm reception when they paid a visit to the town, and never stayed long!
The defenders required all these aids, however; for, besides a regiment of Egyptian infantry, a company of Royal Engineers, and about 500 marines, there was only one small battalion of British troops and a regiment of Egyptian cavalry. These last were extremely useful. Every day they went out scouting and clearing around Suakim, and had frequent skirmishes with the enemy, in all of which they were said to have behaved very well indeed.
Our party on the redoubt had not lain there long when a sheet of flame seemed to flash out of the darkness in front of them. It was followed by the rattle of small arms. Instantly the redoubt replied; bullets whizzed overhead, and our hero received what has of late been called a “baptism of fire.”
But he was so busy plying his own weapon that he scarcely realized the fact that death was ever and anon within a few inches of him, until a bullet ripped the sandbag on which his rifle rested and drove the sand into his face. He became a wiser man from that hour, and soon acquired the art of performing his duty with the least possible exposure of his person, and that for the briefest possible space of time!
Like a first-rate detective, the electric light sought out and exposed their foes; then withering volleys sent them scurrying across the country back to their native hills.
“Sure it's wid wan eye open we've got to slape whin the murtherin' rascals come down on us like that,” observed Corporal Flynn, when the firing had slackened to a few dropping shots on both sides.
“Av they'd only stand fornint us in the open, it's short work we'd make o' them. There's no more pluck in them than in my smallest finger.”
It seemed as if righteous retribution were being meted out that night, for a spent ball entered the fort at that moment and, strange to say, hit the extreme tip of the corporal's little finger!
A howl, as much of surprise as pain, apprised his comrades of the fact, and a hearty laugh followed when the trifling extent of the injury was ascertained.
“Serves you right, Flynn, for boasting,” said Armstrong, with a grim smile, as he stretched himself out and rested his head on a sandbag. “Moreover, you are unjust, for these black fellows are as brave a lot o' men as British troops have ever had to face. Good-night, boys, I'm off to the land of Nod!”
Uncertain moonlight, with a multitude of cloudlets drifting slowly across the sky so as to reveal, veil, partially obscure, or sometimes totally blot out the orb of night, may be a somewhat romantic, but is not a desirable, state of things in an enemy's country, especially when that enemy is prowling among the bushes.
But such was the state of things one very sultry night when our hero found himself standing in the open alone, and with thoughts of a varied and not wholly agreeable nature for his companions.
He was on sentry duty.
It was intensely dark when the clouds partially veiled the moon, for she was juvenile at the time — in her first quarter; and when the veil was partially removed, the desert, for it was little better, assumed an indistinct and ghostly-grey appearance.
Somber thoughts naturally filled the mind of our young soldier as he stood there, alert, watchful, with weapons ready, ears open to the slightest sound, and eyes glancing sharply at the perplexing shadows that chased each other over the ground like wanton Soudanese at play. His faculties were intensely strung at what may well be styled “attention,” and riveted on that desert land to which Fate — as he called his own conduct — had driven him. Yet, strange to say, his mysterious spirit found leisure to fly back to old England and revisit the scenes of childhood. But he had robbed himself of pleasure in that usually pleasant retrospect. He could see only the mild, sorrowful, slightly reproachful, yet always loving face of his mother when in imagination he returned home. It was more than he could bear. He turned to pleasanter memories. He was back again at Portsmouth, in the reading-room of the Soldiers' Institute, with red-coated comrades around him, busy with newspaper and illustrated magazine, while the sweet sound of familiar music came from the adjoining rooms, where a number of Blue Lights, or rather red-coats, who were not ashamed to own and serve their Maker, were engaged with songs of praise.
Suddenly he was back in Egypt with his heart thumping at his ribs. An object seemed to move on the plain in front of him. The ready bayonet was lowered, the trigger was touched. Only for a moment, however. The shadow of a cloud had passed from behind a bush — that was all; yet it was strange how very like to a real object it seemed to his highly-strung vision. A bright moonbeam next moment showed him that nothing to cause alarm was visible.
Mind is not so easily controlled as matter. Like a statue he stood there in body, but in mind he had again deserted his post. Yet not to so great a distance as before. He only went the length of Alexandria, and thought of Marion! The thought produced a glow, not of physical heat — that was impossible to one whose temperature had already risen to the utmost attainable height — but a glow of soul. He became heroic! He remembered Marion's burning words, and resolved that Duty should henceforth be his guiding-star!
Duty! His heart sank as he thought of the word, for the Something within him became suddenly active, and whispered, “How about your duty to parents? You left them in a rage. You spent some time in Portsmouth, surrounded by good influences, and might have written home, but you didn't. You made some feeble attempts, indeed, but failed. You might have done it several times since you landed in this country, but you haven't. You know quite well that you have not fully repented even yet!”
While the whispering was going on, the active fancy of the youth saw the lovely face of Marion looking at him with mournful interest, as it had been the face of an angel, and then there came to his memory words which had been spoken to him that very day by his earnest friend Stevenson the marine: “No man can fully do his duty to his fellows until he has begun to do his duty to God.”
The words had not been used in reference to himself but in connection with a discussion as to the motives generally which influence men. But the words were made use of by the Spirit as arrows to pierce the youth's heart.
“Guilty!” he exclaimed aloud, and almost involuntary followed, “God forgive me!”
Again the watchful ear distinguished unwonted sounds, and the sharp eye — wonderfully sharpened by frequent danger — perceived objects in motion on the plain. This time the objects were real. They approached. It was “the rounds” who visited the sentries six times during each night.
In another part of the ground, at a considerable distance from the spot where our hero mounted guard, stood a youthful soldier, also on guard, and thinking, no doubt, of home. He was much too young for service in such a climate — almost a boy. He was a ruddy, healthy lad, with plenty of courage and high spirit, who was willing to encounter anything cheerfully, so long as, in so doing, he could serve his Queen and country. But he was careless of his own comfort and safety. Several times he had been found fault with for going out in the sun without his white helmet. Miles had taken a fancy to the lad, and had spoken seriously but very kindly to him that very day about the folly of exposing himself in a way that had already cost so many men their lives.
But young Lewis laughed good-naturedly, and said that he was too tough to be killed by the sun.
The suffocating heat of that night told upon him, however, severely — tough though he was or supposed himself to be — while he kept his lonely watch on the sandy plain.
Presently a dark figure was seen approaching. The sentinel at once challenged, and brought his rifle to the “ready.” The man, who was a native, gave the password all right, and made some apparently commonplace remark as he passed, which, coupled with his easy manner and the correct countersign, threw the young soldier off his guard. Suddenly a long sharp knife gleamed in the faint light and was drawn across the body of Lewis before he could raise a hand to defend himself. He fell instantly, mortally wounded, with his entrails cut open. At the same moment the tramp of the rounds was heard, and the native glided back into the darkness from which he had so recently emerged.
When the soldiers came to the post they found the poor young soldier dying. He was able to tell what had occurred while they were making preparations to carry him away, but when they reached the fort they found that his brief career had ended.
A damp was cast on the spirits of the men of his company when they learned next day what had occurred, for the lad had been a great favorite; but soldiers in time of war are too much accustomed to look upon death in every form to be deeply or for long affected by incidents of the kind. Only the comrades who had become unusually attached to this poor youth mourned his death as if he had been a brother in the flesh as well as in the ranks.
“He was a good lad,” said Sergeant Gilroy, as they kept watch on the roof of the fort that night. “Since we came here he has never missed writing to his mother a single mail. It is true, being an amiable lad, and easily led through his affections, he had given way to drink to some extent, but no later than yesterday I prevailed upon him to join our temperance band—”
“What? become a Blue Light!” exclaimed Sutherland, with something of a sneer in his tone.
“Ah, comrade; and I hope to live to see you join our band also, and become one of the bluest lights among us,” returned the sergeant good-humoredly.
“Never!” replied Sutherland, with emphasis; “you'll never live to see that.”
“Perhaps not, but if I don't live to see it some one else will,” rejoined the sergeant, laying his hand gently on the man's shoulder.
“Is that you again? It's wishin' I am that I had you in ould Ireland,” growled Corporal Flynn, referring to Osman Digna, whose men had opened fire on the neighboring fort, and again roused the whole garrison. “Slape is out o' the question wi' such a muskitos buzzin' about. Bad luck to 'ee!”
“What good would it do to send him to Ireland?” asked Simkin, as he yawned, rolled over, and, like the rest of his comrades, loaded his rifle.
“Why, man, don't ye see, av he was in ould Ireland he couldn't be disturbin' our night's rest here. Moreover, they'd make a dacent man of 'im there in no time. It's always the way; if an English blackguard goes over to Ireland he's almost sure to return home more or less of a gintleman. That's why I've always advised you to go over, boy. An' maybe if Osman wint he'd— Hallo!”
A flash of light and whistling of bullets overhead effectually stopped the Irishman's discourse. Not that he was at all alarmed by the familiar incident, but being a change of subject it became more absorbingly interesting than the conversation, besides necessitating some active precautions.
The firing seemed to indicate an attack in several places along the line of defence. At one of the posts called the New House the attack was very sharp. The enemy could not have been much, if at all, over three hundred yards distant in the shelter of three large pits. Of course the fire was vigorously returned. A colonel and major were there on the redoubt, with powerful field-glasses, and directed the men where to fire until the General himself appeared on the scene and took command. On the left, from Quarantine Island, the Royal Engineers kept up a heavy cross-fire, and on the right they were helped by a fort which was manned by Egyptian troops. From these three points a heavy fire was kept up, and continued till six o'clock in the morning.
By that time, the enemy having been finally driven out of the pits, a party was sent across to see what execution had been done. It was wonderfully little, considering the amount of ammunition and energy expended. In the first pit one man was found dead; a bullet had entered his forehead and come out at the back of his head. Moving him a little on one side they found another man under him, shot in the same way. All round the pit inside were large pools of blood, but no bodies, for the natives invariably dragged or carried away their dead when that was possible. In the other two pits large pools of blood were also found, but no bodies. Beyond them, however, one man was discovered shot through the heart. He had evidently been dragged along the sand, but the tremendous fire of the defenders had compelled the enemy to drop him. Still further on they found twelve more corpses which had been dragged a short way and then left.
Close to these they observed that the sand had been disturbed, and on turning it up found that a dozen of bodies had been hastily buried there. Altogether they calculated that at least fifty of the enemy had been killed on that occasion — a calculation which was curiously verified by the friendly tribes asking permission to bury the dead according to the Soudanese custom. This was granted, of course, and thus the exact number killed was ascertained, but how many had been wounded no one could tell.
“Fifty desolated homes!” remarked one of the men, when the number of killed was announced at mess that day. He was a cynical, sour-visaged man, who had just come out of hospital after a pretty severe illness. “Fifty widows, may-hap,” he continued, “to say nothin' o' child'n — that are just as fond o' husbands an' fathers as ours are!”
“Why, Jack Hall, if these are your sentiments you should never have enlisted,” cried Simkin, with a laugh.
“I 'listed when I was drunk,” returned Hall savagely.
“Och, then, it sarves ye right!” said Flynn. “Even a pig would be ashamed to do anythin' whin it was in liquor.”
The corporal's remark prevented the conversation taking a lugubrious turn, to the satisfaction of a few of the men who could not endure to look at anything from a serious point of view.
“What's the use,” one of them asked, “of pullin' a long face over what you can't change? Here we are, boys, to kill or be killed. My creed is, 'Take things as they come, and be jolly!' It won't mend matters to think about wives and child'n.”
“Won't it?” cried Armstrong, looking up with a bright expression from a sheet of paper on which he had just been writing. “Here am I writin' home to my wife — in a hurry too, for I've only just heard that word has been passed, the mail for England goes to-day. I'm warned for guard to-night, too; an' if the night takes after the day we're in for a chance o' suffocation, to say nothing o' insects — as you all know. Now, won't it mend matters that I've got a dear girl over the sea to think about, and to say 'God bless her, body and soul?'“
“No doubt,” retorted the take-things-as-they-come-and-be-jolly man, “but — but—”
“But,” cried Hall, coming promptly to his rescue, “have not the Soudanese got wives an' children as well as us?”
“I daresay they have — some of 'em.”
“Well, does the thought of your respective wives an' children prevent your shooting or sticking each other when you get the chance?”
“Of course it don't!” returned Armstrong, with a laugh as he resumed his pencil. “What would be the use o' comin' here if we didn't do that? But I haven't time to argue with you just now, Hall. All I know is that it's my duty to write to my wife, an' I won't let the chance slip when I've got it.”
“Bah!” exclaimed the cynic, relighting his pipe, which in the heat of debate he had allowed to go out.
Several of the other men, having been reminded of the mail by the conversation, also betook themselves to pen and pencil, though their hands were more familiar with rifle and bayonet. Among these was Miles Milton. Mindful of his recent thoughts, and re-impressed with the word Duty, which his friend had just emphasized, he sat down and wrote a distinctly self-condemnatory letter home. There was not a word of excuse, explanation, or palliation in it from beginning to end. In short, it expressed one idea throughout, and that was — Guilty! and of course this was followed by his asking forgiveness. He had forgiveness — though he knew it not — long before he asked it. His broken-hearted father and his ever-hopeful mother had forgiven him in their hearts long before — even before they received that treasured fragment from Portsmouth, which began and ended with:
“Dearest Mother, I am sorry—”
After finishing and despatching the letter, Miles went out with a feeling of lightness about his heart that he had not felt since that wretched day when he forsook his father's house.
As it was still early in the afternoon he resolved to take a ramble in the town, but, seeing Sergeant Gilroy and another man busy with the Gardner gun on the roof of the redoubt, he turned aside to ask the sergeant to accompany him; for Gilroy was a very genial Christian, and Miles had lately begun to relish his earnest, intelligent talk, dashed as it was with many a touch of humor.
The gun they were working with at the time had been used the day before in ascertaining the exact range of several objects on the ground in front.
“I'll be happy to go with you, Miles, after I've given this gun a clean-out,” said Gilroy. “Turn the handle, Sutherland.”
“I'll turn the handle if it's a' richt,” said the cautious Scot, with some hesitation.
“It is all right,” returned the sergeant. “We ran the feeder out last night, you know, and I want to have the barrels cleaned. Turn away.”
Thus ordered a second time, Sutherland obeyed and turned the handle. The gun went off, and its contents passed through the sergeant's groin, making a hole through which a man could have passed his arm.
He dropped at once, and while some ran for the doctor, and some for water, others brought a stretcher to carry the poor fellow to hospital. Meanwhile Miles, going down on his knees beside him, raised his head and moistened his pale lips with water. He could hardly speak, but a smile passed over his face as he said faintly, “She'll get my presents by this mail. Write, Miles — break it to her — we'll meet again — by the side of Jesus — God be praised!”
He ceased, and never spoke again.
Gilroy was a married man, with five children. Just before the accident he had written to his wife enclosing gifts for his little ones, and telling, in a thankful spirit, of continued health and safety. Before the mail-steamer with his letter on board was out of sight he was dead!
One day Miles and his friend Armstrong went to have a ramble in the town of Suakim, and were proceeding through the bazaar when they encountered Simkin hurrying towards them with a much too serious expression on his face!
“Have you heard the n_news?” he asked, on coming up.
“No; what's up?”
“The old shep_shepherd's bin killed; all the c_cattle c_captured, an' the Egyptian c_cavalry's bin sent out after them.”
“Nonsense! You're dreaming, or you've bin drinking,” said Miles.
“Neither dreamin' nor drinkin',” returned Simkin, with indignation, as he suddenly delivered a blow at our hero's face. Miles stopped it, however, gave him a playful punch in the chest, and passed on.
At first Simkin seemed inclined to resent this, but, while he swayed about in frowning indecision, his comrades left him; shaking his head, therefore, with intense gravity, he walked away muttering, “Not a bad fellow Miles, after all, if he w_wasn't so fond o' the b_bottle!”
Miles was at the same moment making the same remark to his friend in reference to Simkin, and with greater truth.
“But I don't wonder that the men who drink go in for it harder than ever here,” continued Miles. “There is such hard work, and constant exposure, and so little recreation of any sort. Yet it is a pity that men should give way to it, for too many of our comrades are on the sick-list because of it, and some under the sod.”
“It is far more than a pity,” returned Armstrong, with unwonted energy. “Drink with its attendant evils is one of the great curses of the army. I have been told, and I can well believe it, that drink causes more loss to an army than war, the dangers of foreign service, and unhealthy climates, all put together.”
“That's a strong statement, Willie, and would need to be founded on good authority. Who told you?”
“Our new parson told me, and he is in my opinion a good authority, because he is a Christian, if ever a man was; and he is an elderly man, besides being uncommonly clever and well informed. He told us a great many strong facts at the temperance meeting we held last night. I wish you had been there, Miles. It would have warmed your heart, I think.”
“Have you joined them, Willie?”
“Yes, I have; and, God helping me, I mean to stick by them!”
“I would have gone to the meeting myself,” said Miles thoughtfully, “if I had been asked.”
“Strange,” returned Armstrong, “that Sergeant Hardy said to me he thought of asking you to accompany us, but had an idea that you wouldn't care to go. Now, just look at that lot there beside the grog-shop door. What a commentary on the evils of drink!”
The lot to which he referred consisted of a group of miserable loungers in filthy garments and fez-caps, who, in monkey-like excitement, or solemn stupidity, stood squabbling in front of one of the many Greek drinking-shops with which the town was cursed.
Passing by at the moment, with the stately contempt engendered by a splendid physique and a red coat, strode a trooper — one of the defenders of the town. His gait was steady enough, but there was that unmistakable something in the expression of his face which told that he was in the grip of the same fiend that had captured the men round the grog-shop door. He was well-known to both Armstrong and Miles.
“Hallo! Johnson,” cried the latter. “Is there any truth in the—”
He stopped, and looked steadily in the trooper's eyes without speaking.
“Oh yes, I know what you mean,” said Johnson, with a reckless air. “I know that I'm drunk.”
“I wouldn't say exactly that of you,” returned Miles; “but—”
“Well, well, I say it of myself,” continued the trooper. “It's no use humbuggin' about it. I'm swimmin' wi' the current. Goin' to the dogs like a runaway locomotive. Of course I see well enough that men like Sergeant Hardy, an' Stevenson of the Marines, who have been temperance men all their lives, enjoy good health — would to God I was like 'em! And I know that drinkers are dyin' off like sheep, but that makes it all the worse for me, for, to tell you the honest truth, boys — an' I don't care who knows it — I can't leave off drinkin'. It's killin' me by inches. I know, likewise, that all the old hard drinkers here are soon sent home ruined for life — such of 'em at least as don't leave their miserable bones in the sand, and I know that I'm on the road to destruction, but I can't — I won't give it up!”
“Ha! Johnson,” said Armstrong, “these are the very words quoted by the new parson at the temperance meetin' last night — an' he's a splendid fellow with his tongue. 'Hard drinker,' says he, 'you are humbuggin' yourself. You say you can't give up the drink. The real truth is, my man, that you won't give it up. If only I could persuade you, in God's strength, to say “I will,” you'd soon come all right.' Now, Johnson, if you'll come with me to the next meetin'—”
“What! me go to a temperance meetin'?” cried the trooper with something of scorn in his laugh. “You might as well ask the devil to go to church! No, no, Armstrong, I'm past prayin' for — thank you all the same for invitin' me. But what was you askin' about news bein' true? What news?”
“Why, that the old shepherd has been killed, and all our cattle are captured, and the Egyptian cavalry sent after them.”
“You don't say so!” cried the trooper, with the air of a man who suddenly shakes off a heavy burden. “If that's so, they'll be wantin' us also, no doubt.”
Without another word he turned and strode away as fast as his long legs could carry him.
Although there might possibly be a call for infantry to follow, Miles and his friend did not see that it was needful to make for their fort at more than their ordinary pace.
It was a curious and crowded scene they had to traverse. Besides the grog-shops already mentioned there were numerous coffee-houses, where, from diminutive cups, natives of temperate habits slaked their thirst and discussed the news — of which, by the way, there was no lack at the time; for, besides the activity of Osman Digna and his hordes, there were frequent arrivals of mails, and sometimes of reinforcements, from Lower Egypt. In the side-streets were many smithies, where lance-heads and knives were being forged by men who had not the most distant belief that such weapons would ever be turned into pruning-hooks. There were also workers in leather, who sewed up passages of the Koran in leathern cases and sold them as amulets to be worn on necks and arms. Elsewhere, hairdressers were busy greasing and powdering with the dust of red-wood the bushy locks of Hadendoa dandies. In short, all the activities of Eastern city life were being carried on as energetically as if the place were in perfect security, though the only bulwark that preserved it, hour by hour, from being swept by the innumerable hordes of Soudan savagery, consisted of a few hundreds of British and Egyptian soldiers!
Arrived at the Sphinx Fort, the friends found that the news was only too true.
The stolen cattle belonged to the people of Suakim. Every morning at six o'clock it was the custom of the shepherds to go out with their herds and flocks to graze, there being no forage in or near the town. All had to be back by sunset, when the gates were locked, and no one was allowed out or in till six the next morning. The women, who carried all the water used in the waterless town, had of course to conform to the same rule. Like most men who are constantly exposed to danger, the shepherds became careless or foolhardy, and wandered rather far with their herds. Osman was too astute to neglect his opportunities. On this occasion an old shepherd, who was well-known at Sphinx Redoubt, had strayed too far. The Soudanese swept down, cut off his retreat, killed him, and, as we have said, carried off his cattle.
It was to retrieve, if possible, or avenge this disaster that the Egyptian cavalry sallied forth. They were seen galloping after the foe when Miles reached the roof of the redoubt, where some of his comrades were on duty, while Captain Lacey and several officers were looking on with field-glasses.
“They are too late, I fear, to do much good,” remarked one of the officers.
“Don't I wish I was goin' wid them!” whispered Corporal Flynn to a comrade.
“Ye wad be a queer objec' on the ootside o' a horse,” remarked Macleod cynically.
“Why, Mac, ye wouldn't have me go inside of a horse, would ye?”
“It wad be much the same which way ye went,” returned the Scot.
“Ah, thin, the horse wouldn't think so, unless he was a donkey!”
“Well done!” exclaimed Captain Lacey at that moment, as the cavalry cut off and succeeded in recapturing a few of the cattle, and gave the enemy several volleys, which caused them to beat a hasty retreat. This, however, turned out to be a ruse on the part of Osman, who had his men concealed in strong force there. He tried to draw the cavalry away from Suakim, and was very nearly successful. In the ardor of pursuit the Egyptians failed to observe that the Soudanese were creeping round their rear to cut off retreat. On discovering their mistake, and finding that their small force of two hundred men was being surrounded by thousands of Arab warriors, it was almost too late. Turning at once, they galloped back, and could be seen, through the field-glasses, turning now and then gallantly to engage the pursuing foe.
No help could be rendered them at first, as they were beyond the range of all the forts; nevertheless, they got in safely, with little injury to man or beast, and driving before them the animals that had been recovered.
Next day the body of the poor old shepherd was brought in and buried, without a coffin, by his relations.
Miles, being off duty at the time, went to see the funeral, and found that Eastern and Western ideas on this point, as on many others, are wide as the poles asunder. No doubt the grief of the near relations was as real as it was demonstrative, but it required more credulity than he possessed to enable him to believe that the howling, shouting, and singing of many mourners was indicative of genuine feeling. The creation of noise, indeed, seemed to be their chief method of paying respect to the dead.
As deaths in Suakim were very numerous at this time, owing to much sickness among natives as well as troops, the sounds of mourning, whether by volley or voice, became so frequent that orders were at last given to cease firing over the soldiers' graves when they were buried.
Just ahead of the shepherd's body came some poor women, who were weeping, falling down at intervals, and kissing the ground. On reaching the wall round the land side of the town these women stopped, formed a circle, and kneeled on the sand while the body was passing them, then they leaned forward and kissed the ground, continuing in that position till all the procession had passed. There the women remained, not being allowed to go to the grave, and the singing and shouting were continued by boys, who kept running round the bier as it was borne along. On reaching the grave the body was put in with the face toward the east, and covered up with stones and mortar. Then the grave was filled up with sand, a brief prayer was offered — the mourners kneeling — after which the people went home.
Sad thoughts filled the mind of our young soldier as he returned to the fort, but the sadness was soon turned to indignation when he got there.
For some time past a Soudanese youth of about seventeen or eighteen years of age had been coming about the Sphinx Redoubt and ingratiating himself with the men, who took a great fancy to him, because he was amiable in disposition, somewhat humorous as well as lively, and handsome, though black! They used to give him something to eat every time he came, and made quite a pet of him. One day while he was out in the open country, Osman's men captured this youth and took him at once before their leader, who, probably regarding him as a deserter, ordered both his hands to be cut off close to the wrists. The cruel deed was done, and the poor lad was sent back to Suakim. It was this that roused the wrath of Miles as well as that of his comrades. When they saw the raw stumps and the haggard look of the poor fellow, who had suffered much from loss of blood, they got into a state of mind that would have made them ready to sally forth, if so required, and assault the entire Soudan in arms!
“Och! av I only had 'im here,” said Flynn, clenching his teeth and fists at the same time. “It's — it's — it's—”
“Mince-meat you'd make of him,” said Moses.
“No — it's cat's mate — the baste!”
The others were equally angry, though not quite so emphatic, but they did not waste their time in useless regrets. They hurried the young Soudanese to the doctor, who carefully dressed his wounds, and every care was thereafter taken of him by the men, until completely restored to health.
It may interest the reader to know that this poor fellow was afterwards well looked after. Some sort of employment in the garrison was obtained for him, and he was found to be a useful and willing servant, despite the absence of his hands.
That night a furious sand-storm burst upon the town, accompanied by oppressive heat.
“It always seems to me,” said Miles to Gaspard Redgrave, who lay next him, “that mosquitoes and sand-flies, cats and dogs, and in fact the whole brute creation, becomes more lively when the weather is unusually hot. Just listen to these cats!”
“Like a colony of small children being murdered,” said Gaspard.
“It's awfu',” observed Saunders, in a kind of solemn astonishment as a frightful caterwaul burst upon their ears. “I wadna like to hear teegers in the same state o' mind.”
“Or elephants,” murmured Moses Pyne, who was more than half asleep.
The cats were indeed a great nuisance, for, not satisfied with getting on the flat roofs of the houses at nights, and keeping up a species of war-dance there, they invaded the soldiers' quarters, upsetting things in the dark — thus demonstrating the absurdity of the proverb that cats see best in the dark — stealing whatever they could lay hold of, and inducing half-slumbering men to fling boots and shoes, or whatever came most handy, at them.
Rats also were innumerable, and, to the great surprise — not to say indignation — of the men, neither dogs nor cats paid the least attention to the rats!
After a time the storm, both of animate and inanimate nature, began to abate, and the weary overworked soldiers were dropping off to sleep when a tremendous explosion effectually roused them.
“There goes another mine!” cried Armstrong, starting up.
“It don't require a prophet to tell us that,” growled Gaspard, as he yawned and slowly picked up his rifle.
Explosions were of quite common occurrence at that time, but had to be attended to nevertheless.
That Osman had taken advantage of the very dark night to make an earlier attack than usual was evident, for shots were fired immediately after the explosion occurred, as usual. These were replied to, but the effect of the explosion, it was supposed, must have been unusually severe, for the enemy withdrew after exchanging only a few shots.
This surmise was afterwards proved to be correct. On going to the spot the following morning, they found that at least a dozen of their foes must have been blown up, for legs and arms and other human remains were picked up in all directions. These the soldiers gathered, with the aid of the friendly natives, and burned.
No attack was made for four days after that, but then the untiring enemy became as troublesome as ever.
Spies afterwards said that when Osman heard of this incident, and of the number of men killed, he said, “it served them right. They had no business to go touching things that did not belong to them!”
Energetic and exhilarating exercise has sometimes the effect of driving away sickness which doctors' stuff and treatment fail to cope with successfully. In saying this we intend no slight either to doctors' stuff or treatment!
After the troops had been some time at Suakim the effect of the climate began to tell on them so severely that a very large proportion of Europeans were in hospital, and many who strove hard to brave it out were scarcely fit for duty.
Great heat did not, however, interfere with Miles Milton's health. He was one of those fortunates who seem to have been made of tougher clay than the average of humanity. But his friend Armstrong was laid up for a considerable time. Even Robert Macleod was knocked over for a brief period, and the lively Corporal Flynn succumbed at last. Moses Pyne, however, stood the test of hard work and bad climate well, and so, for a time, did Sergeant Hardy. It was found generally that the abstainers from strong drink suffered less from bad health and unwholesome surroundings than their fellows, and as there were a good many in the regiment, who were constantly endeavoring to convince their comrades of the advantages of total-abstinence, things were not so bad as they might have been.
It was about this time that one of the generals who visited Suakim instituted athletic games, thereby vastly improving the health and spirits of the men. And now Miles Milton learned, for the first time, what an immense power there lies in “scientific training!”
One evening, when out walking with Stevenson, he took it into his head to race with him, and, having been a crack runner at school, he beat him easily.
“Why, Miles,” said his friend, when the short race was over, “I had no idea you could run so well. If you choose I will put you in training for the coming sports. You must know that I have run and walked and competed in the track many a time at home, and have trained and brought out runners who had no notion of what was in them till I proved it to them by training. Will you go in for it, and promise to do as I bid you?”
“I have no objection,” replied Miles, with a light laugh.
If he had known what his friend intended to do he might not have agreed so readily, for, from that hour till the day of the sports, Stevenson made him go through an amount of running — even after being made stiff by previous runs — that he would never have agreed to undertake unless forced to do so. We say forced, because our hero regarded a promise once given as sacred. His was a curiously compound nature, so that while in some points of conduct he was lax — as we have seen — in others he was very strict. He was peculiarly so in regard to promises. His comrades soon came to know this, and ultimately came to consider him a very reliable man.
Having, then, promised his friend to keep sternly to his work, he did so, with the result that his strength increased wonderfully. Another result was that he carried off the first prize in all the races.
In order to make the most of time and avoid the evils of noonday heat, it was arranged that the races, etcetera, for the Egyptian soldiers and natives in Government employ should come off in the morning, and that the British troops should run in the later and cooler parts of the day. With the temperature at 120º in the shade it would have been dangerous for Europeans to compete. The sports, including our familiar cricket, were greatly enjoyed, and the result was a decided improvement in the health of the whole force.
Boat-races were also included in these sports. At the conclusion of one of these, Miles, to his great surprise, encountered his old acquaintance of the Sailors' Welcome, big Jack Molloy.
“Why, Jack!” exclaimed Miles, as the hearty tar wrung his hand, “who'd have expected to see you here?”
“Ah, who indeed? an' I may say ditto.”
“I'm very glad to see you, Molloy, for, to say truth, I thought I had seen the last of you when we parted in the troop-ship. I've often thought of you since, and of our first evening together in the — the — what was its name?”
“The Sailors' Welcome — man alive! I wonder you've forgot it. Blessin's on it! I ain't likely to forget it. Why, it was there, (did I ever tell you?) the wery night arter I met you, that a messmate took me to the big hall, back o' the readin'-room. It's no use me tryin' fur to tell you all I heard in that there big hall, but when I come out — blow'd if I didn't sign the pledge right away, an' I ain't took a drop o' grog since!”
“Glad to hear it, Jack, for, to say truth, I never saw the evil of grog so clearly as I have since coming out here and seeing strong stout men cast down by it in dozens, — many of them kind-hearted, right-thinking men, whom I would have thought safe from such a thing. Indeed I have more than half a mind to join the Good Templars myself.”
“Young man,” said Molloy, sternly, “if it takes the death of dozens o' stout kind-hearted men to force you to make up half your mind, how many d'ee want to die before you make up the whole of it?”