Short Stories. Kyrle Bellew

down the companion, which faced the helmsman, and was the only entrance on deck from the saloon.

      "I asked the helmsman how long the young man had been on deck. I was somewhat taken back when he assured me there had been no one there. I thought I had been dreaming, so did not press the matter.

      "Shortly afterward the moon, which had been obscured through the clouds and made everything—covered as it was with snow—bright as day. As I turned aft in my walk I saw the man in the ulster leaning over the lee rail close to the helm. I walked aft to speak to him. As I approached he turned toward me in the moonlight, and to my horror I saw the face of Fanny ——. The figure stood for a moment and then seemed to go overboard.

      "I shouted out 'Down with the helm! Man overboard!"

      "The watch came tumbing aft. In a moment all hands were on deck. The ship flew up the wind and I swung her main-yard aback.

      "'Who is it, Mr. Bellew?' asked the Captain.

      "'The passenger, sir,' I answered, 'with the long ulster.' We lowered a boat, but there was no trace of him. The muster-roll was called and the young fellow was gone sure enough.

      ​"We braced up our yards and filled away again, and after a few days ran into fine weather and forgot all about the lost passenger, who was duly entered in the log book as lost overboard.

      "One day in the tropics the captain gave orders to have the hatches off and let some air into the hold. The last hatch to be removed was the booby hatch aft, an ornamental teakwood affair on which passengers used to sit, and which formed quite a feature of the quarter-deck. As we raised the hatches a peculiarly sickening smell came up from the hold.

      "'There's dead rats there, sir, sure,' said the carpenter to me.

      "Off came the hatches, and there, to our horror, in the fierce sunlight of the tropics, with everything bright and gay about us—children laughing and playing, every one happy—we disclosed the bloated and composed corpse of the young man in the brown ulster. By his side was a broken case of wine, and two or three empty bottles, showing plainly how he had died.

      "The problem of how he got into the hold was soon solved. There was a large brass ventilator just abaft the main fife-rail, and knowing that drink was stowed down there he had lowered himself down to get it.

      "On my arrival in the Thames our long-looked-for mail was brought on board by our agents. Among the first letters I opened was one bearing the Melbourne post-mark. I opened it hurriedly, for I was anxious for news. It was from a stranger, simply inclosing a newspaper paragraph:

      "'On Sunday last at No.— —— Street, East Melbourne, Fanny, only daughter of Thomas ——, Esq., died, of inflammation of the lungs.'

      "My mind rushed back to the night off Cape Horn when I had seen her face in the moonlight. I turned the leaves of the log-book and there, on the same date ​as the notice in the newspaper clipping was the entry: 'Richard ——, passenger; jumped or fell overboard, 3 A.M., signed, 'KYRLE BELLEW, Second Officer, Ship T—— S——.'"

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POOR DEVIL

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      "Ah! old man. That's it; that's just it! What did I do it for? Hanged if I know; because I was a born fool I suppose. Did I care for her? Is it me? Not I, faith—at least—no. You see it was this way, Harry. Ah, but the year's too long—an—you're nearest the billy old man, slue yourself round and lift it Off. So—"

      It was Christmas Eve. Not the long chill-nighted eve of jolly old England, but hot—blazig hot, and up on the reefs at Solferino, away to the north of the Clarence river, New South Wales.

      We were up there amongst the first of the rush. Gold! But the times were bad now, the wages low.

      Jack and I were mates. He'd been at sea; so had I. Met at the store and mated over Laird's rum—warranted. Egad, it wanted some passport down a fellow's throat, for the drays hadn't been up for over a month; and I swear there wasn't a sign of old Jamaica three weeks before, at the long weather-board shanty that did duty for everything in the shape of civilization on the reefs. Jack wasn't half a bad sort, frank, free—and twenty-three. We mated.

      It seems years ago. The first time I saw him, was with a swag over his shoulder, an unmistakable serge shirt on his back, a thatch of his head that a "Conway" boy would have revelled in, jerked jauntily back with the peak at "full cock;" a six-shooter stuck in his belt, and altogether looking about as jolly and new-chumish as any fellow who had yet come up to the rush.

      Work was over for the day, and there were eight thousand of us—of all nations and all colours—lounging about the camp. The store was in our ​centre—Jimmy Laird's "claim" we used to call it—and, by Jove, it was the richest claim on the whole diggings.

      The boys hailed Jack with a shout. He just stopped for a moment, and the collie trotting beside him settled into a long, low growl.

      "Shut up Kaiser" and then he walked into the thick of us.

      He was too free and jolly not to take all hearts, and before he'd settled down amongst us an hour, his voice was ringing through the place in a rattling song, and he'd made a dozen friends.

      "Where'll I camp at all to-night, I wonder!"

      I offered him a corner in my hut, and he came. That's how we met. He shouted rum—and then we went down the creek together—and never parted again on Solferino.

      We built our humpy down in a quiet nook away from the camp, pegged out a claim on the "Don Juan" line, and worked it, till the lead ran out and times got hard. Ours was a strange, wild life, with a lot of ups and downs—chiefly downs; but we got on well together, and were happy.

      Christmas Eve! We'd just came from the store—been laying in a stock for the next day.

      Christmas Eve, with a cloudless, clear night, and a grand moon. Our iron bark fire crackled cheerfully, the cool air just lifting up the smoke which, as it rose, mixed with the long branches of the trees above. We didn't feel like turning in, so stretched out upon the grass, and set to thinking.

      Kaiser cruised round a bit, but soon settled; and turning his wistful eyes first at one and then at the other of us, snugged his nose down between his paws and went to sleep.

      I was thinking of home away in England, wondering what they were doing there. Next day an empty chair would be placed at the table in my old place, and a dear voice, I was destined never to hear again, ​would say, "God bless my boy, and absent friends."

      "Say, old man," said Jack after a bit, "did you know I was married?"

      "You—good God!—no."

      "Begorra, then, it's a fact."

      "Where's your wife?"

      "Devil a bit of me knows. Somewhere South, I think."

      "You think! Scissors, man, if I'd a wife—I'm thinking, I'd know."

      "Yes—happen you would," and his hand wandered towards Kaiser.

      A log of wood, burnt through in the middle, fell in two upon the fire, sending up a cloud of smoke and sparks.

      "Curse the smoke!" and turning away his head for a moment, Jack wiped his eyes with the rough sleeve of his shirt.

      "If you don't know where she is, old man," I said, "what did you do it for?"

      It was at this point Jack spoke the opening sentences of this story.

      I handed him the billy, and lifting off the lid, he took a drink of the stuff inside; we called it tea.

      I knew, if I waited, he'd tell me all the story, for we were true mated, and his bothers were mine, as much as mine were his. He took a pipe from