Dutch the Diver: or, A Man's Mistake. Fenn George Manville

Dutch, quietly, “I will go, and with old Rasp I think we can manage.”

      “Manage!” cried Mr Parkley, “why, you are a host in yourself. But look here, my dear boy. Gentlemen, you will excuse us. Come on deck.”

      He led the way, and Dutch followed him to the side of the schooner, where he took him by the button.

      “I’m so grateful, Pugh,” he exclaimed, “you can’t think; but it won’t do. The business would be all right with another, but I can’t take you away.”

      “Why not?” said Dutch, sharply.

      “Your poor little wife, my boy, I could never look her in the face again.”

      “For God’s sake don’t mention her,” cried Dutch, passionately. “There, there,” he cried, mastering himself, “you need not consider that.”

      “But, my dear Pugh, are you not too hasty – too ready to believe? No, no, it won’t do, you misjudge her. I won’t let you go. In a few days all will be well again.”

      “Parkley,” exclaimed Dutch, hoarsely, “it will never be all right again. I speak to you as I would speak to no other man. Heaven knows how I have loved that woman. But I have no home now. I shall never see her again.”

      “No, no, no, don’t speak like that, my dear boy. You are too rush. Come, have patience, and all will be right. You shall not go.”

      Dutch smiled bitterly.

      “You are mad just now, but it will pass off; and look here, my dear boy, it was all my fault for getting you to take the cursed scoundrel in.”

      “Don’t speak of it, pray,” cried Dutch.

      “I must, my dear boy. Now, look here. After being guilty of one wrong to that poor little woman of yours, how can I do her another by taking her husband away?”

      “I am no longer her husband, and she is no longer my wife,” said Dutch, sternly. “I tell you I shall go.”

      “No, no; I will not let you.”

      “I am your partner, and I shall insist upon it. Stay at home and let me take the lead in the expedition. You may trust me.”

      “Better than I would myself,” said Mr Parkley, warmly.

      “Then let me go. It will be a relief to me from the torture I have suffered these last weeks. Parkley, you cannot dream of what I have felt.”

      “Do you really earnestly mean all this?” said Mr Parkley, gazing in the other’s troubled face.

      “Mean it? Yes, it would be a real kindness.”

      “Time cures all wounds,” said Mr Parkley, “so perhaps it will be best, and you will make arrangements for her while you are away.”

      “She has the house,” said Dutch, bitterly, “and what money I have. I shall write to her mother to join her. Is that enough?”

      Mr Parkley held out his hand, and the two men grasped each other’s for a moment, and then turned back to the cabin.

      “Mr Pugh goes with us, Studwick; Rasp I know will come when he hears that Mr Pugh is with us.”

      “Indeed,” said Dutch, “I should have thought not.”

      “You’ll see,” said Mr Parkley, writing a few lines in his pocket-book and tearing off the leaf. “Now, then, about Rasp. Whom can we trust to take this ashore?”

      “Let me go,” said Mr Meldon, the young doctor, “I will deliver it in safety.”

      “You will?” cried Mr Parkley. “That’s well; but mind you don’t get tampered with, nor the man this is to fetch.”

      Mr Meldon started, being rowed ashore in a boat they hailed. The captain was ready to suspect everyone now, but in an hour old Rasp come grumbling aboard, with a huge carpet bag, which dragged him into the boat in which he came off, and nearly pulled him back into it when he mounted the side.

      “Oh, yes, I’ll go,” he said, as soon as he encountered his employers on the deck. “Hain’t got enough clean shirts, though. I allus thought that Tolly was good for nowt, and the forrener a bad un.”

      “And now, Rasp, I want you to go ashore again for me,” said Dutch.

      “I’ll take him with me,” said the captain, “and keep a sharp look-out. Mr Parkley is going too.”

      “I don’t want no sharp look-outs,” said Rasp, gruffly. “I can take care o’ mysen’.”

      Rasp’s mission was a simple one, namely, to purchase certain articles of outfit, for, with stern determination, the young man had set his face against revisiting his home. Moreover, as if distrustful of himself, he stayed on board, meaning to remain there for good.

      The captain and mate both left for the shore, leaving Dutch in charge of the vessel, and so earnestly did they work that by nightfall they had secured six fresh men, and were hopeful of obtaining another half-dozen – all they required – by the following day.

      The new-comers were of a rougher class than those who had been wiled away, but for all that they were sturdy, useful men, and, anxious as the leaders of the expedition were to start, it was no time for choosing.

      That night, little thinking that every action in connection with the vessel had been closely watched with a powerful glass from the upper window of a house overlooking the estuary, Captain Studwick returned with the mate, taking the precaution to give the men plenty of liquor, and placing them under hatches for safety.

      Rasp had long been back with the necessaries Dutch required, bringing with them a letter, which the young man read, tore to shreds, and then sent fluttering over the side; and at last the party, feeling hopeful of success on the morrow, retired for the night, saving such as had to keep watch.

      The next day, however, brought no success; not a man of those unemployed could be induced to undertake the voyage, and to Captain Studwick’s great annoyance he found that by some means the whole business of the voyage had been turned into ridicule, and the men he addressed responded to his questions with a coarse burst of laughter. With the determination, then, of sailing the next morning with the crew he had, and putting in at Plymouth with the hope of obtaining more, he returned on board, and was in the act of relating his ill-success, when Oakum hailed a boat, pulled towards them by a couple of watermen, with half-a-dozen sailors in her stern.

      It was growing dark, but those on deck could make out that the men had their long bolster-like kits with them, and the captain’s heart beat with joy as he heard, in answer to the hail, that the men had come from one of the sailors’ boarding-houses, having arrived there that afternoon.

      “Simpson’s, on West Quay,” said one of the watermen. “He heerd you were looking out for hands, and he gave me this.”

      He handed a up letter in which the boarding-house keeper asked for five pounds for securing the men and talking them into coming, and as the sailors came on deck, and proved quite willing to sign for the voyage, the money was paid and the boat pushed off.

      They were not a handsome set of men, three being Englishmen, one a Dane, and the other two Lascars, one a long black-haired fellow, the other a short-haired, closely-shaven man, with a stoop, and a slight halt in one leg. He was nearly black, and did not look an attractive addition to the party; but the men declared he was an old ship-mate, and a good hand, evidently displaying an inclination, too, to refuse to go without him, so he was included.

      “I think we can set our friend at defiance now,” said the captain, rubbing his hands as the men went below.

      “I don’t know,” said Mr Parkley. “He’s one of those treacherous, cunning scoundrels that will steal a march on us when it is least expected. It’s a fine night, and not so very dark; the tide serves; so what do you say to dropping down at once, and putting a few miles of sea between us and our friend?”

      “The very thing I should have proposed,” said the captain; “and, what’s more, I say make all sail for our port, in case our friend should charter a fresh vessel