Lord Montagu's Page. G. P. R. James

on the sands in ten minutes! Put about, put about, if you would save the ship!"

      A great deal of hurry and confusion succeeded; and there was much unnecessary noise, and still more unnecessary swearing. The youth who had discovered the danger was the most silent of the party; but he was not inactive, aiding the captain with more strength than he seemed to possess, to bring the ship's head as near to the wind as possible. And the manœuvre was just in time; for the lead at one time showed that they were just up the very verge of the sands at the moment when, answering the helm better than she did at first, she made way toward the west, and the danger was past. In half an hour—for their progress was slow—the light upon the Isle de Re could be distinctly seen, and one by one other lights and landmarks appeared, rendering the rest of the voyage comparatively safe.

      Still the lad kept his place upon the deck, addressing hardly a word to any one, but watching with a keen eye the eastern line of shore, which was every now and then visible notwithstanding the darkness. The moon, too, began to give some light, though she could not be seen; for the clouds were still thick, and their rapid race across the sky told that, though the sea under the lea of the Isle de Re had lost all its fierceness, the gale was blowing with unabated fury.

      The lad quitted his hold of the bulwarks and walked slowly to the captain's side, as if to speak to him; but the skipper spoke first. His professional vanity was somewhat mortified, or perhaps he was afraid that his professional reputation might suffer by the lad's report in the ears of those whose approbation was valuable to him; and consequently he was inclined to put a little bit of defensive armor on a spot where he fancied himself vulnerable.

      "We had a narrow squeak of it just now, Master Ned," he said. "However, it was no fault of mine. I could not help it. It is twenty years since I was last at this d——d place, and the chart they gave me is a mighty bad one. Besides, those beastly gales we have had ever since Ushant might puzzle the devil—and this dark night, too!"

      "You've saved the ship, captain," answered the lad: "that is all we have to do with;" and then, perhaps thinking he might as well add something to help the good skipper's palliatives for wellnigh running the ship ashore, he added, "Besides, there is a strong current running—what between the sands of Oleron and the point of Re, and the Pertuis d'Antioche—I do not know very well how it is; but I was so told by one of the men last time I was here."

      "Ay, 'tis so, I dare say," answered the captain. "Indeed, it must be so; for we could never have got so far to the eastward without one of those currents. I wish to heaven some one would put them all down, for one can't keep them all in one's head, anyhow. You tell the duke, when you see him again, about the currents, Master Ned."

      "What is the use of telling him any thing at all but that we got safe to Rochelle?" asked the lad. "If we get there—as there is now no doubt—he will ask no questions how; and if we don't, anybody may blame us who likes: it will make little difference to you or me."

      The skipper was about to answer; but just at that moment a light broke suddenly out upon that longish point of land which a boat that keeps under the western shore of France has to double—as the reader very well recollects—before it can make the port of La Rochelle; and the boy as suddenly laid his hand on the captain's arm, saying, "Make for that light as near as you can, captain; keep the lead going; drop your anchor as close as you can, and send me ashore in a boat."

      "Why, Master Ned, I was told to land you at Rochelle," replied the other.

      "You were told to do as I bade you," answered the lad, as stoutly as if he had been a captain of horse—adding the saving clause, "in every thing except the navigation of your vessel. I must be put ashore where you see that light. So send down for my bags, have the boat all ready, and when I am landed go on to Rochelle and wait till you hear more."

      The captain of the vessel did not hesitate to obey. The ship ran speedily for the shore and approached perhaps nearer than was altogether safe; the boat was lowered to the water, and the lad sprang in without bidding adieu to any one. There was a heavy sea running upon the coast, and it required no slight skill and strength on the part of the two stout rowers to land him in safety; but he showed neither fear nor hesitation, though probably he knew the extent of the danger and the service better than any one; for, when he sprang out into the shallow water where the boat grounded, he gave each of the men a gold-piece, and then watched them with somewhat anxious eyes till they had got their boat through the surf into the open sea.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      What an extraordinary world it is! Men in general are mere shellfish, unapproachable except at certain tender points; such as the eyes of the crab, or the soft yellow skin under an alligator's gullet—Achilles' heels which have been neglected by the mothers of those sapient reptiles when they were dipped in Styx. But perhaps it is as well as it is; for if a man were tender all over, and once began to think of all the misery that is going on around him, the faces he would make would be horrible to see. Reader, at this very moment there are thousands dying in agony, there are many starving for lack of food, there is a whole host of gentle hearts watching the expiring lamp of life in the eyes of those most dearly loved, there are multitudes of noble spirits and mighty minds struggling in doubt for to-morrow's daily crust, there is crime, folly, sorrow, anguish, shame, remorse, despair, around us on every side; and yet we are as merry as a grasshopper unless somebody snaps off one of our own legs. There is not an instant of time that does not bring with it a thousand waves of agony over the stormy sea of human existence; and yet every man's light boat dances on, and the mariner sings, till one of the many billows overwhelms him. It is quite as well as it is.

      Some, however, are blessed—or cursed, as it may be—with a faculty of feeling for others; and that boy, as he took his way up from the shore toward the little hillock of sand on which a bonfire of pine logs was blazing—with two heavy bags on his arms, and the rain dashed by the fierce wind in his face—could not help thinking of the roofless heads and chilled hearts he knew were in the world.

      "Poor souls!" he thought; "in an hour I shall be warm and dry and comfortable, and to-morrow all this will be forgotten; but for them there is no comfort, no better to-morrow."

      Stay a minute, my lad! Do not go too fast and reckon without your host, either for yourself or others. Joy may light up the dim eye, hope fan the aching brow; and you—after all you have seen and undergone even in your short life—how dare you count upon the events of the next hour—nay, of the next moment?

      He climbed the hill stoutly but slowly; for it was steep, and his bags were heavy. The wicked wind, too, fought with him all the way up, and the rain, which had lately begun to fall, came loaded with small particles of hail, as if it sought to aid the wind in keeping him back till their united force could put out the beacon-fire. But the pine was full of resin, and it burned on, with the flame and the smoke whirled about by the wind but never extinguished, until at length he stood on the windward side of the fire and looked round, as if expecting to see the man who lighted it.

      There was no one there, however; and the youth, who, it must be acknowledged, was of a somewhat eager and impatient temper and apt to come to hasty conclusions, fancied for a moment or two that those he should have found there had grown weary of waiting in that boisterous night, and had left him to enjoy its pleasures or its terrors by himself. A moment after, however, as the flame swayed a little more to the westward, he caught a glimpse of the ground on the other side of the hill sinking rapidly down into a little dell where some less arid soil seemed to have settled—enough at least to bear some scanty herbage, a few low bushes, and some thin pines; and there, amongst the latter, appeared a small fixed light. It might be a candle in a cottage-window, and probably was; for it was too red for a jack-o'lantern.

      "Ah! I can at least find out where I am," thought the lad; "but I dare say the men are there, taking care of their own skins and little caring about mine."

      Thus thinking, he began to descend, and had not proceeded far when a voice hailed him in French. The lad made no answer, but went on; for, to say sooth,