The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 38, December, 1860

"Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the port before our situation becomes apparently worse,–that we do not take to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several other becauses,–that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape"–

"Allez au hut!"

"That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal."

"Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?"

"Yes."

She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite faint. Soon recovering herself,–

"And what do you think of the mirage now?" she asked. "Where is Ursule? I must go to her," she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting to her feet.

"Shall I accompany you?"

"Oh, no."

"She lies on a mattress there, behind that group,"–nodding in the implied direction; "and it would be well, if you could lie beside her and get an hour's rest."

"Me? I couldn't sleep. I shall come back to you,–may I?" And she was gone.

Mr. Raleigh still sat in the position in which she had left him, when, a half-hour afterward, she returned.

"Where is your cloak?" he asked, rising to receive her.

"I spread it over Ursule, she was so chilly."

"You will not take cold?"

"I? I am on fire myself."

"Ah, I see; you have the Saturnalian spirit in you."

"It is like the Revolution, the French, is it not?–drifting on before the wind of Fate, this ship full of fire and all red-hot raging turbulence. Just look up the long sparkling length of these white, full shrouds, swelling and curving like proud swans, in the gale,–and then imagine the devouring monster below in his den!"

"Don't imagine it. Be quiet and sit beside me. Half the night is gone."

"I remember reading of some pirates once, who, driving forward to destruction on fearful breakers, drank and sang and died madly. I wish the whole ship's company would burst out in one mighty chorus now, or that we might rush together with tumultuous impulse and dance,–dance wildly into death and daylight."

"We have nothing to do with death," said Mr. Raleigh. "Our foe is simply time. You dance, then?"

"Oh, yes. I dance well,–like those white fluttering butterflies,–as if I were au gré du vent."

"That would not be dancing well."

"It would not be dancing well to be at the will of the wind, but it is perfection to appear so."

"The dance needs the expression of the dancer's will. It is breathing sculpture. It is mimic life beyond all other arts."

"Then well I love to dance. And I do dance well. Wait,–you shall see."

He detained her.

"Be still, little maid!" he said, and again drew her beside him, though she still continued standing.

At this moment the captain approached.

"What cheer?" asked Mr. Raleigh.

"No cheer," he answered, gloomily, dinting his finger-nails into his palm. "The planks forward are already hot to the hand. I tremble at every creak of cordage, lest the deck crash in and bury us all."

"You have made the Sandy Hook light?"

"Yes; too late to run her ashore."

"You cannot try that at the Highlands?"

"Certain death."

"The wind scarcely"–

"Veered a point I am carrying all sail. But if this tooth of fire gnaws below, you will soon see the masts go by the board. And then we are lost, indeed!"

"Courage! she will certainly hold together till you can hail the pilots."

"I think no one need tremble when he has such an instance of fearlessness before him," replied the captain, bowing to Marguerite; and turning away, he hid his suspense and pain again under a calm countenance.

Standing all this while beside Mr. Raleigh, she had heard the whole of the conversation, and he felt the hand in his growing colder as it continued. He wondered if it were still the same excitement that sent the alternate flush and pallor up her cheek. She sat down, leaning her head back against the bulwark, as if to look at the stars, and suffering the light, fine hair to blow about her temples before the steady breeze. He bent over to look into her eyes, and found them fixed and lustreless.

"Marguerite!" he exclaimed.

She tried to speak, but the teeth seemed to hinder the escape of her words, and to break them into bits of sound; a shiver shook her from head to foot.

"I wonder if this is fear," she succeeded in saying. "Oh, if there were somewhere to go, something to hide me! A great horror is upon me! I am afraid! Seigneur Dieu! Mourir par le feu! Périssons alors au plus vite!" And she shuddered, audibly.

Mr. Raleigh passed his arm about her and gathered her closer to himself. He saw at once, that, sensitive as she was to every impression, this fear was a contagious one, a mere gregarian affinity, and that she needed the preponderating warmth and strength of a protecting presence, the influence of a fuller vitality. He did not speak, but his touch must in some measure have counteracted the dread that oppressed her. She ceased trembling, but did not move.

The westering moon went to bury herself in banks of cloud; the wind increasing piped and whistled in strident threatening through the rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all the people. The captain's voice thundered through the tumult, and instantly the mates sprang forward and the jib went crashing overboard. Mr. Raleigh tore his eyes away from the fascination of this terror, and fixed them by chance on two black specks that danced on the watery horizon. He gazed with intense vision a moment. "The tugs!" he cried. The words thrilled with hope in every dying heart; they no longer saw themselves the waiting prey of pain and death, of flames and sea. Some few leaped into the boat at the stern, lowered and cut it away; others dropped spontaneously into file, and passed the dripping buckets of sea-water, to keep, if possible, the flames in check. Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite crossed over to Ursule.

The sight of her nurse, passive in despair, restored to the girl a portion of her previous spirit. She knelt beside her, talking low and rapidly, now and then laughing, and all the time communicating nerve with her light, firm finger-touches. Except their quick and unintelligible murmurs, and the plash and hiss of water, nothing else broke the torturing hush of expectation. There was a half-hour of breathless watch ere the steam-tugs were alongside. Already the place was full of fervid torment, and they had climbed upon every point to leave below the stings of the blistering deck. None waited on the order of their going, but thronged and sprang precipitately. Ursule was at once deposited in safety. The captain moved to conduct Marguerite across, but she drew back and clung to Mr. Raleigh.

"J'ai honte," she said; "je ne bougerai pas plus tót que vous."

The breath of the fierce flames scorched her cheek as she spoke, the wind of their roaring progress swept her hair. He lifted her over without further consultation, and still kept her in his care.

There was a strange atmosphere on board the little vessels, as they labored about and parted from the doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with awe and joy at their deliverance; others broke the tense strain of the last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the panting engines they answered with waiting heart-beats, as it sent them farther from the fearful wonder, now blazing in multiplex lines of fire against the gray horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches the conflagration of a home. Marguerite left her quiet weeping to gaze with him. An hour silently passed, and as the fiery phantom faded into dawn and distance she sang sweetly the first few lines of an old French hymn. Another voice took up the measure, stronger and clearer; those who knew nothing of the words caught the spirit of the tune; and no choral service ever pealed up temple-vaults with more earnest accord than that in which this chant of grateful, exultant devotion now rose from rough-throated men and weary women in the crisp air and yellowing spring-morning.

As the moment of parting approached, Marguerite stood with folded hands before Mr. Raleigh, looking sadly down the harbor.