Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1886 — A WINTER'S TALE. [ARTICLE]

A WINTER'S TALE.

BY GORDON STABLES, M. D., R. N.

There was man of the world, or seafarer, written in every line and lineament of his ■bold brown face. Nothing of the “Jack” about him, however; nothing of the “common sailor.” Though dressed from cap to boots in pilot cloth, you could see at a glance he was a gentleman. We met on a cold, snowy winter's forenoon at the corner ■of King street, Aberdeen. It was a rough •meeting, for a gust of northeast wind caught me and flung me against him. I apologized, and was cheerfully forgiven. I had time l to cast one glance at the lady who leaned on his arm before they went on. How much out of place she seemed, abroad in such weather! I mentally remarked upon her seeming fragility and—pardon me—her beauty; but her face was very pale, and her •dark eyes shone like diamonds. Yet hers was a beauty of another clime. Was she Spanish, Tyrolese, Italian? I could not guess; but how different she looked from the rose-lipped lasses that passed up and •down the street, whose fresh complexion biting Boreas seemed but to brighten and purity. “I shall meet that pair again somewhere in the world,” I said to myself as I wrapped my plaid more tightly round my chest and walked on. I did meet them again, and sooner than I had expected. Business was taking me to Peterhead the very next day, and I had hardly been seated 41 minute in my second-class compartment before my friends—for I had really begun to look upon them as such—entered and, w ith a pleasant nod and smile of recognition, sat down opposite. At Dyce, where we changed carriages, we again got into a compartment by ourselves. Indeed, there were but few passengers in the train at all. The “storm” was deep in the country. That portion of Aberdeen--shire that skirts the German Ocean is flat and bleak at all times, but I had never seen it look so dreary as it did to-day. The snow-laden wind howled across it, and the deaden-blue sky could seldom be seen. It made one shiver to look out through the • carriage window, especially when one thought of the storm-tossed sea that lay just beyond the woodland yonder, its foaming waters breaking ceaselessly on the frozen sands. The short afternoon wore to a close, and night was falling dark and ■swiftly when the train perceptibly slackened ■speed. The breathing of the sturdy engine became more and more labored, and finally •ceased.

We were stuck in a great wreath or bank of snow. Now we could hear the terrible raging of the snow tempest and the sad wail of the wind. We waited and waited a weary time—it seemed quite two hours—before a creature, more like a Greenland •bear than aught else, so furred with snow was it, opened the door and peeped in. It was the guard. We were miles from a station, he told us; we could not return and it might be many hours before we were relieved —dug out. The prospect was far from cheering, but the man brought us hot water for our feet, and a lamp. We must keep the lamp warm, he said, or the oil would freeze; so we rolled the top of it up :in a spare shawl and put it in a corner. It was a kind of company to us, as the guard had said it would be. We talked for hours. Then we curled up in corners and tried to sleep. In vain. The window rattled and the snow sifted in. We were obliged to tear up our newspapers and stuff the crevices. I dozed at last, and awoke, shivering, in the dark. The oil was frozen. Luckily I had my traveling reading-lamp, and I lit that. But how intensely silent it was! The wind had surely gone down, nor was it so cold. The truth was, as we afterward discovered, we were snowed over—indeed, the cutting was filled in which the train had stuck. When we pulled down the window, there was the snow. We could thrust our arms through it, or rather far into it. We bad some tea, which we tried to heat for the gentle lady over the candle of the lamp,, and succeeded. I pitied her; but. wrapped in her plaids and rugs, she seemed happy and smiling. Was it strange that, so situated, this seafarer and I should begin to talk about the sunny shores and blue sparkling seas of the Indian Ocean? “It was there, on the coast of Africa,”

said the seafarer, “that I wooed and won my wife here. My wooing culminated with a bit of an adventure.” “Do tell me,” I said; ''and make it as long as you possibly can. Spin it out. Dwell longest cn the prettiest parts of it.” He laughed and complied. But I must here make his story shorter. “Although.” lie said, “I am by profession a sailor, still I believe I could make my living on land—indeed, ”he added, glancing affectionately at the pretty face that peeped out from the bundle of plaids and shawls in the corner, “I am not sure that I have not promised to try to do so, at all events. But four years ago I was not a benedict. I was free to rove anywhere in all the world, and rove I did. I had command of a tiny steam ocean yacht, of which I was also half-owner. She was broad in the beam, but of no great draught—precisely the kind of vessel to explore the big rivers of Africa with. “Ah! sir, there is money to be made by that sort of trade, and pleasure to be had, too. What was my cargo? A very pretty one, I can assure you; it consisted of ivory, lions’ and leopards’ skins, gum copal, spices of all kinds, and, last but not least, gold-dust.” “In addition to these oddments, I need hardly tell you that we laid in a good store of ‘curios’ and specimens of all kinds. It was in the collecting of these latter that most of my enjoyment lay. We always filled up, however, with our paying cargo first; then, leaving our yacht at anchor in some cosy reach of tho river—almost hidden, perhaps, by the trees that overhung the water—accompanied by one or two of my men, I would journey inland in search of the beautiful. Or we would drop down the river, cross the bar, and, putting out to sea, spend weeks in and about the numerous lovely little lagoon islands that lie everywhere near the coast south of the equator.” Just at this point the seafarer appeared for a time to forget entirely that he had promised a story of adventure. He let himself drift, as it were, hither and thither on the tideway of his recollection; he gave Memory the tiller-ropes to hold, and permitted her to steer him wheresoever she pleased. It was strange to sit there in semi-dark-ness and silence, buried beneath the snow, on this bitter January night, and listen to the graphic description which this stranger had to give of far-off sunny lands, of crystalline seas slumbering under noonday heat, and reflecting the blues and purples of the skies above them; of coral islands fringed with green, that seemed to float on the liquid horizon; of marine gardens, wide and wild, deep down beneath the translucent waters, where shells of every shade and color, marvelously painted fishes, and creeping things, grotesque and horrible, had their homes amid foliage forever gently waving to and fro as if instinct with a mysterious kind of life; or in groves of sub-oceanic shrubs, whose very stems were opalescent and their branches and fronds radiant with more than rainbow beauty; of the broadbosomed rivers rolling seaward from the interiors; and of the great forest-lands that stretched like an ocean from horizon to horizon, silent as the grave by day, Awakening at night to shriek of wild bird and hungry roar of lion. It was strange, I say, to listen to descriptions of this kind in such a situation —strange, yet pleasant. “The first mate of my little craft,” continued the seafarer, “was a man whom I had always trusted. Judged physiognomically, none would have said that guile lurked in that handsome, open face of his, with its laughing eyes of blue, and fair soft beard. I know now why this fellow played me false, and all I have to say is that if there be an excuse for’ such villainy as he was guilty of, Lawson—that was his name —had it. “Just at the bend of the River Lamoo, some ninety odd miles from the sea, stands a beautiful little Portuguese village and settlement. It has its Governor’s house, its few white inhabitants, its fortification, and its small detachment of soldiers. The woods and forests around are constantly scoured by bands of armed Somali Indians, who bear no good-will to either Portuguese or English. “My welcome to this little village had been a very genuine one. Seated in the hospitable and almost European-like drawing room of my friend, Colonel Lucas, enjoying a quiet game of draughts of an evening, or listening to music, his daughter—who now sits beside us—presiding at the piano or accompanying her own song with the sweet, dreamy notes of the guitar, I could seldom get myself to believe that we were indeed in the center of a savage and all but hostile country. It was so, however. You had but to go to the veranda of a night to hear the lions roar. Away over there, in the depth of the gloomy forest, they lived and prowled; and, too, on the plains and hillsides beyond the woods burned the camp-fires of the Somalis—the most treacherous Indians that the earth holds.” “I know them well,” I added. “I came in time to look upon the village of Gil as my African home, and upon Teresa there is something dearer than a sister. When my yacht was laden at last with everything valuable and negotiable in New York, I used to be off, but in six months’ times I was sure to be back. For two whole years I never changed one of my officers or men. “Teresa has told me since that she used to look out for me and count the days and hours that must elapse before the week of my probable return. Well, you know, sir, I used always to bring her little presents of plants and flower-seeds, the last new books, and the latest music out. “Next to myself —don’t think me vain in saying so—Lawson was the most welcome guest at Colonel Lucas’ bungalow. I cannot even give Lawson the credit of not knowing the state of my feelings toward Teresa, for, indeed, I had made him my confidant. I treated him almost as a brother, and so too did Teresa. He had a different kind of regard for her, and I dare say he came to look upon me as the only barrier to his hopes and happiness. “I was much surprised one morning, just before setting out upon a long expedition inland, to hear Lawson express a wish to become one of our party. He was usually more inclined to enjoy the dolce far niente than anything approaching to an active life. I was not sorry to take him with me, howover. He would bo company, and, besides, his servant, or boy, was an excellent guide or bushman, and mine at that time was laid up—ill. “All went well with us; we bagged many skins; we were well armed, and could defy the Somalis, whether by night or by day. The fifth day had been a very toilsome dne, and almost immediately after supper I stretched myself with my feet to the campfire, and fell soundly asleep at once.

1 Treachery! treachery! When I awoke, sir, all was dark; the fire was out; I was alone ; —deserted. I shouted till hoarse. The I only response was the echo of my own voice and the sullen roar of a lion at no great • distance from me. .“I passed the night in danger and fear, and was thankful when the stars gave place to the sunlight. I am a fair woodsman, i and I now commenced at once to follow the i easy trail left by Lawson and the treacherj ous negroes. 1 went on and on eastward ! all day. I had no arms, and had to feed as ■ the monkeys fed, on fruits; and at night j took refuge in a tree, where, fastened by • my scarf to a bough, I slept, from sheer weariness, an uneasy, dreamful slumber. ' Next day I was so weak and ill that I could hardly walk, yet I dragged myself along till evening; then laid me down, helpless and fever-struck, beneath a tree. “Lawson had returned and reported me dead. “Days went past—l know not how many. I never moved from the spot where I had j fallen. I have a dim kind of recollection I °f’ lying looking up at the cloudi land of green foliage above me, through which the warm sunlight shone one moment—so it seemed to me—and stars shimmered the next; and I often a’ reared conscious of terrible shrieks and noises near me, and of strange black shades leaping and gibbering around. These might have existed only in my fever-dreams; but what I next remember did not. It was a sweet face bending over me, and dark eyes, tear-tilled, that looked wistfully into mine. Something was held to my lips, which I swallowed; then I saw white uniforms gliding about in the bush; then I slept, I suppose, for I next opened my eyej in the bungalow. ‘’Need I say, sir, who my rescuer had been, or who nursed me back to life? Bu« Lawson, sir, took French leave of me and' my yacht, and I hare never seen hilt again.” Curled up in my comer, as soon as the seafarer ceased to speak I fell asleep and dreamt that I myself was back among the coral isles of the Indian Ocean. My waking was a very matter-of-fact one. We had got clear of the snow-bank, and the train was going: puff—puff—puffing slowly on its way to Petqihead.