The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane

I AM EXCELLENTLY SERVED BY MY FAMOUS INVENTION, AND COME TO ENGLAND NOT MUCH THE WORSE FOR IT

By making vigorous employment of my paddle, first on one side and then on the other, I continued to keep well in the midst of the river, and the tide then ebbing fast, I was quickly swept across the shallows at the mouth, and so out to sea.

And now I thought it proper to hoist my sail; so, laying aside my paddle, I drew up the lateen between my two masts till it was taut, and then making fast the liana found it acted well enough, for at once it filled out very full and fair to the breeze, which was blowing pretty brisk from the southeast.

But now my difficulties and troubles began, for I had no experience in the governing of a sailing boat, and ere I had got to work at my paddle, my raft veered round before the gale, the sail flapping to and fro between the masts, and I had all the pain in the world to get her head round and my sail full again. And when this was achieved, I found a fresh fault, and this was that my buoys were nothing near sufficient to resist the pressure of the sail, so that they dipped deep into the water, the poles to which they were fastened bending to such a degree that I expected nothing less every moment but that they would snap under the strain, and the raft capsize utterly, to my final undoing. Wherefore I was fain to abandon my paddle, and reef the lower part of the sail to lessen the pressure, in which time I again lost the wind, so back to my paddle and more labor to bring me round once more before the breeze.

By this time I perceived that the current of the sea and my bungling together had swept me far from the coast, and rather to the south than to the north. And to my great perplexity I found that I could not get the wind in my sail without drifting still further from the shore to the west, for if I steered to the north, then would the wind go out of my sail, and the craft, losing way would drift with the current to the south, so that if I did nothing matters could be no worse. At last I was constrained to lower my sail altogether and seek to make head against the current by vigorous use of my paddle, first on one side and then on the other, as I say, And, lord! no man could be more encompassed with troubles than I was, or sweat more to overcome them than I did at this time. At length, from sheer exhaustion, I was fain to give over, and let my raft, without sail or oar, go whither it might. I set me down on my deck of rushes, and casting my eyes toward the land was dismayed to find it but an indistinct line on the horizon (I have been out to sea now four hours or more), and to the best of my belief I stood further from Trinidado, after all my trouble than ere I started forth. And let this be a warning to all men that they put not to sea ere they have learned to sail.

When I had refreshed myself with some water and one of my dried pork steaks (which, that they might not be perished by the sea water, I had hanged conveniently high on one of my masts), I rose up, and with a kind of desperate fury essayed again to make a proper course. First, I went at my sail once more, and when I found that of no avail but rather the contrary, I seized my paddle, and worked at it like any galley slave, and though I could see no improvement, yet did I persevere diligently. Then, fancying the breeze was a little abated and blew from another quarter, I went (with a prayer) and once more lifted my sail, but that would not do, and so (with a curse) I dropped it and back to my paddle. In fine, to cut a long story short, I wasted my pains all that day, and had the mortification as I sat down once more to rest my aching limbs, to find the land no longer in sight; nor anything else but the water all around me.

Seeing it was useless to work when I could no longer see for want of light (though not more useless than before, may be), I lay me down on my reeds (the sea, God be praised! having subsided when the wind dropped to an agreeable calm), and presently fell asleep.

The next day there was no need to experiment with my sail, for not a breath of air stirred; so I worked steadily at my paddle pretty nearly the whole day, but I was forced to desist in the noon for some time because of the great heat of the sun, and that while I sheltered myself under the sail, which was, God knows, all the use it ever served me. All that day I heard not a sound but such as I made with my paddles, and the sea was like so much glass extended about me, and a mist all around the horizon caused by the sun sucking up with his great heat the vapors from the water. When the sun set, this mist settled over the whole sea, so that I could see never a star to cheer me, and this made me very sad and prayerful, for it seemed as if a death-pall were being spread over my unhappy being. Then would I gladly have been back with Sir Harry on the island; and thinking of him and our miserable estate, both alone, and like to perish without ever again hearing the sound of a cheerful voice, the tears began to flow from my eyes as from a woman's; and I do think I fell asleep weeping.

About midnight (as I reckon) I was awakened by the freshening of the breeze; yet nothing could I see. I groped my way along very carefully to my masts, that I might have them to hold by, for already the sea was rising; and it was well that I did so, for in an amazingly short space of time the breeze quickened to a gale, and beat the waters so high that I was like to have been swept away by the waves as they burst. I will not dwell on the increasing terrors of that night, for no words can describe the fury of that hurricane, or my dread lest the binding of my logs should be rent asunder and my frail resting-place part under me. And here let me observe that, no matter how a man may desire death at other times, yet in the hour of peril will he ever cling desperately to life.

When morning broke, my case was no better than in the night; and looking around me at the billows that threatened every moment to engulf me, I was appalled, and could but say, over and over again, "God be merciful to me!" For a long while I experienced neither hunger nor thirst but only great fear and terror; but when nature began to crave within me, and I looked to see if I could get at my water vessels, I perceived that they had been washed away in the night, for I had taken no precaution to lash them to the raft for safety. And also I noticed that my deck of rushes was clean gone and my outriggers broken. My only comfort was that the bonds of my raft still, for the most part held good, though the straining of the timbers had loosened them, and it was clear they could support the rubbing of the logs and the wrenching of them but a little longer. I saw that if one or two at the end went, then all must go; therefore, as I crouched between the masts I watched these bonds as a man may watch the preparing of a gallows from which he is in the end to be swung off into eternity. And after my raft had been shot down into a great hollow, and thence rising up, met the fearful buffet of another huge wave, I saw that the end liana was burst asunder. "God be merciful to me!" says I again, and with the greater earnestness that I felt I might the next moment be in his presence.

At this moment, above the bustle and rush of the waves and wind, I heard a report like the firing of a small piece of ordnance, and, casting my eye in that direction, I saw, to my great amazement, a great ship bearing down upon me, and not two fathoms off. And that noise I heard was made by the splitting of her topmast and its striking the side of the vessel as it fell. Scarce had I seen this when the ship, riding down on the wave, ground its foreside against the end of my raft, and the next instant I found myself entangled in the wreck of the broken mast with its yard, which still hung to the ship by its cordage. Some of this cordage passing right athwart me, I sprang up and clasped it; then, though as how I can not tell, but as I best might, I climbed like any monkey upwards, getting no more than a dozen or so good thumps against the ship's side, and knocking the skin off my knuckles, by the way, until I got my head above the bulwarks, where already two stout seamen were severing the wreck from the cordage with hatchets. When these two saw me rise as it were out of the grave over the bulwarks, I say, they were stricken with greater terror than the fury of the tempest had inspired, and fell back from their business with gaping mouths and starting eyes; but as I tumbled over the side and threw myself on the deck, they perceived I was no ghost, but only a poor shipwrecked wretch, they picked me up and bore me into the roundhouse to their captain, for I had no power even to stand, being quite spent with my exertion and trouble of mind.

The captain spoke to me, but I could not understand him, for, as I afterwards found, he was from Holland and spoke Dutch, and I spoke to him with no better effect, for he knew no word of English. Nor did any man on that ship speak anything but Dutch, or understand our tongue. I tried to make him comprehend by signs that I ventured to sea on two logs, but he could make nothing of me till we got to Schiedam (which we did, thanks be to God, in a little over eight weeks), where was a man who spoke English.

The captain was very humane and kind to me, and for my serving him on the voyage, which I did to the best of my ability and cheerfully, he paid me at the same rate he paid his other seamen, besides giving me a decent suit of clothes, of which I stood much in need. Through this good man's generosity was I enabled to pay my passage in a galliot to Yarmouth in England, where, by the good help of Providence, I arrived full safe and sound.

And there had I yet some pieces to spare for my sustenance and to help me onward to Falmouth.

CHAPTER XII

LADY BIDDY GIVES ME A WORD OF COMFORT

I reached Fane Court eighteen months, as near as may be, from the time our first unhappy expedition set out.

When I asked for Sir Bartlemy, the hall servant, seeing me all dusty with travel and out at the heel, told me I must bide my time, as the knight and Lady Biddy Fane were at dinner.

"No matter for that," says I; "tell him his nephew, Benet Pengilly, is here, and I warrant you will fare better than if you kept him waiting for the news."

The fellow started in amaze hearing my name, which was better known to him than my face, and went without a word to carry the tidings of my return to Sir Bartlemy. Almost immediately, afterwards my uncle came out into the hall, and as quickly after him Lady Biddy – Sir Bartlemy as hale and hearty as ever, and Lady Biddy, to my eyes, more beautiful than before; but both pale and greatly amazed in countenance.

"Benet!" gasps the old knight, and that was all he could say. But he held out his hand, which I took and pressed with great love, for my feelings were much softened by hardship, and I was grieved to think of the pain I was to give him instead of the joyful news he looked for. Lady Biddy stepped forward, and her face lighting up with hope, she looked for the moment as if she also might be kind to me, and welcome me for the sake of her lover. But of a sudden she checked herself, seeing my downcast complexion, and bating her breath, she says:

"Where is he? Where are the rest?"

Then says I, with as much courage as I could muster, but with pain that went to my heart —

"I am the only man who has come back." And with that I hung my head, not to see their grief.

"He is not dead – they are not all lost!" I heard her say, in a tone that seemed mingled with, a silent prayer to merciful God.

"No," says I; "Sir Harry is not dead. I left him out there in Guiana; but for the rest, if they be lost, 'tis their just reward."

Then Lady Biddy burst into tears to know that her lover lived, and Sir Bartlemy, taking her by the arm and me by mine, led us into the dining-hall without speaking.

By this time, Lady Biddy's emotion being passed, and her pride returning, she took her arm from her uncle's, as if she would not accept of kindness that was equally bestowed on such as I.

"Sit ye down there, Benet," says my uncle, pushing me to a seat; "and now tell us all as briefly as you may; for I perceive that the case is bad (with a plague to it!) though Harry live (God be thanked!); and if there be a tooth to come out, the quicker it's done the better."

Then I told the bare truth: how Rodrigues and Ned Parsons had led the crew astray and set us ashore, and the means of my coming again to England, in as few words as I could shift with. When I had made an end of this, Lady Biddy was the first to speak.

"Why did not Sir Harry come back with you?" says she.

"He scorns to come back a beggar," says I. "He will never return to England until he can repay his obligations to Sir Bartlemy and ask you to be his wife."

This gave her great joy, admiring in him that quality of pride which she cherished in herself, so that her eyes sparkled again, and her fair bosom swelled with a sigh of satisfaction. Presently she turned again upon me, her pretty lips curved with disdain, and says she:

"And you left him there in that desert alone! Content to save your own life, you abandoned him to hopeless solitude. Oh, that I had been a man in your place!"

I hung my head again in silence, feeling it were better to bear her reproach than to attempt an excuse; for I could not trust my tongue to reveal the main reason of my escaping, for fear I should betray his intention of turning pirate; and this, for the love I bore them, I was resolved to keep secret.

"Nay," says Sir Bartlemy, coming to my help, but with no great enthusiasm neither; "never beat the dog that comes home." He paused, and I could fancy his adding to himself, "Curse him, for a mean-spirited hound, all the same!" Then he continues, in a more hopeful tone, "If he had not come home, how could we have known of Harry's peril? Come, Benet; tell me that in coming hither you hoped to get succor for Harry."

"You might believe that," says I, "of a man with less heart than you credit me withal. I came to beg for help because Sir Harry was too proud to beg it himself."

"I knew as much," says he, taking my hand and shaking it heartily. Then turning to my Lady Biddy, "And now, my dear, what's to do? I have no money, and an expense I must be to you all the days that I live, now that my all is lost, with a pox to those rascals that robbed me! But you of your plenty will charter a ship to go out and fetch this poor man?"

"More than that must be done," says I. "He will only accept such help as will enable him to recover all he has lost."

There was approval in Lady Biddy's looks when I said this.

"Odds my life! he's in the right of it," cries Sir Bartlemy, bumping the table with his fist. "Plague take me if ever I'd come sneaking home with my tail twixt my legs like a whipped cur that has neither the stomach to bite nor to keep away from his sop. I mean nothing ill with regard to you, Benet," he adds, turning about to me, "for I hold you have done the part of a true friend and a good, and have shown more courage and high spirit in this matter than many another. Well, what's to do, girl, eh?" – turning now to Lady Biddy, and rubbing his thighs with his broad hands cheerily.

Lady Biddy, with not less eagerness in her manner, looked to me, and nodded that I should speak all that was in my mind.

"As much must be found as has been lost," says I. "For nothing less in men or treasure will suffice Sir Harry to reach Manoa. And with that it is a venture, and naught can be done without God's good help, for never man saw a country so difficult to penetrate or such currents of rivers to mount. And first, money must be raised."

"Money shall not lack. I will venture my fortune to the last piece," says Lady Biddy.

"Ay, and so would I, if I had aught to lose," cried Sir Bartlemy. "But you, my girl, may well spare enough for this venture, and yet have as much to lay by for another, if that fail."

"No time must be lost," says I.

"Not a moment," cries Lady Biddy, starting up as if she had but to fetch money from her strong chest to accomplish all. "You must see about ships and men at once, uncle."

"Ay," says he, "but who is to command them, and carry help to your sweetheart in Guiana?"

Lady Biddy looked at him, and he at her, wetting his lips, as one with a dainty dish set before him that he would fain eat of.

"I'm an old fellow, but there's life in me yet: there's vigor – there's manhood," says he; "and if I decay 'twill be only for want of use. And I know the seas as well as any man, and I warrant me no crew of mine should take my ship from me, as from this poor lad, who put too great faith in the honesty of seamen. I dream o' nights of ocean seas; and feather-beds I do hate more than any man can – "