Across India; Or, Live Boys in the Far East, Oliver Optic [read along books TXT] 📗

on the part of all who sang it. Captain Ringgold rose and bowed his thanks, and Lord Tremlyn spoke again:--

"It is very natural that you should desire to know something about the guests who have been so fortuitously cast into your kindly embrace, and especially in regard to the calamity which has made us the recipients of your generous hospitality; and Captain Ringgold gives us this opportunity to gratify your reasonable curiosity. I am no orator, like my brother, the commander of the Guardian-Mother, and I shall call upon my friend and secretary, who has been travelling with me in India for his health, to give you the desired information." Though it was Sunday, even the commander joined in the applause that greeted the doctor when he mounted the rostrum.

"Mr. Commander, and ladies and gentlemen, I beg to inform you that my Lord Tremlyn is quite as capable of speaking for himself as I am for him; but as I am called upon to make this explanation, I shall do so with pleasure. I have the honor to be the secretary of the Right Honorable Viscount Tremlyn, the son of the noble earl who is Secretary of State for India. He has been on a mission in the interests of his father to obtain certain information, though he holds no official position.

"Sir Modava Rao has held several official positions in India, and is perhaps more familiar with the country and its British and native governments than any other man. He has been travelling with Lord Tremlyn, to assist him in obtaining the information connected with his unofficial mission. My lord has completed the work assigned to him; but the viceroy wished him to visit the Imam of Muscat unofficially for a certain purpose I am not at liberty to state.

"In a small steam-yacht owned by Sir Modava, the most devoted friend of his lordship, in which he had been all around the peninsula, and up several of its rivers, we embarked for Muscat, and safely reached that country. Then the viscount decided to proceed to Aden, where he had important business; for he intended to return to England by the Euphrates route, in order to inform himself in regard to the navigation of the river. We sailed for Aden, believing we should have the calm and pleasant weather of the north-east monsoon.

"Yesterday we encountered the gale from the south-west, which was very unusual. But the Travancore was an able seaboat, and we went along very well until we were run into by a steamer in the darkness and mist early this morning. The side of the little steamer was stove in, and she began to fill. We put on our life-preservers, and prepared for the worst. We stretched a life-line fore and aft, and listened to the gurgling waters below deck. Suddenly, when she was partly filled with water, she capsized. We clung to the life-line, which unhitched forward.

"Of course we expected she would go down; but she did not for several hours. We had our life-preservers on, and we made fast the lines forward, which saved us from being washed off the bottom of the vessel. I had a revolver in my pocket, and when I saw the port light of your steamer, I fired it, and we all shouted at the top of our lungs.

"We could hear the air and the water bubbling and hissing under us at times, and it was understood that the confined air above the water in the hull had kept her afloat. But this air had all escaped as the Guardian-mother approached us, and with no warning she went to the bottom. We were floated by our life-preservers till your boats picked us up, though we were fearfully shaken and tossed about by the waves. Our gallant saviours know how we were rescued--all honor and glory to them!"

The doctor finished his explanation and took his seat.

CHAPTER VIII AN INTERVIEW IN THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN

"Our log-book indicates that we passed a steamer to the northward of us at four bells in the mid-watch," said Captain Ringgold, when Dr. Ferrolan finished his narrative. "She was headed about west by south; and very likely it was the one which ran into the Travancore, for no other was reported."

"She was a vessel of about four hundred tons," added the viscount. "I was in the pilot-house at the time, though the weather was so thick that I could hardly make her out as she slipped off from our starboard bow, and went on her course."

"Didn't she hail you, and offer to stand by you?" inquired the commander.

"I heard something like a shout coming from her, and in a moment she was beyond hailing-distance. I supposed we were going to the bottom in a few minutes, and had my hands full, so that I had no time to look out for her, though I supposed she would come about and render assistance; but we did not hear from her again."

"It is possible that she did so, and was unable to find you, for it was very dark, and the sea was very rough," suggested the commander. "But her conduct looks heathenish, and I will warrant that she was not an English steamer; for the British tars never pass by their fellow-beings on the ocean in distress without rendering assistance."

"It was a new experience to me," added his lordship, "and perhaps I neglected something I ought to have done."

"I think not; for your first and supreme duty at that time was to look out for the safety of your own vessel," replied Captain Ringgold.

"So far as that was concerned, I believe I did all I could do to repair the mischief," continued the viscount. "The chief engineer reported to me that the side of the yacht was stove in near the bow, and that the water was pouring into the hull. He suggested that a double sailcloth be hauled under the vessel. We had no sails, but we promptly made use of an awning, and we succeeded in drawing it under the bottom, and covering the aperture."

"That was precisely the right thing to do," said the commander.

"Probably it enabled us to float a short time longer than we should otherwise have done; but the yacht had taken in too much water before we applied the remedy, for suddenly, on the top of a huge wave, she made a heavy roll, capsized, and came up with her keel in the air. I am only afraid that I did not do all that might have been done."

"I could have done no more if I had been there with all my ship's company," the commander declared; for the amateur captain of the Travancore was a conscientious man, and desired to relieve his mind of all blame for his conduct; and he had really done all that could be done, though the remedy applied was a failure.

"My chief engineer was an experienced man, and I followed his counsels in everything," added the viscount.

"His lordship did all that it was possible for any man to do in such a case," interposed the chief engineer of the Travancore, who was seated on the platform. "I can only thank God that we were all saved, and I am sure that no one is to blame."

"I am told that our cabin waiter and four coolies were picked up by the other steamer," said Lord Tremlyn, as he looked about him.

"That is true, sir," interposed Mr. Boulong, who stood on the deck by the platform. "Sir Modava told me there were eleven persons on board of the wreck. I saw that number saved myself."

The details of the wreck of the Travancore were fully explained, though individuals continued to talk about it until lunch-time. At the mid-day repast the commander gave up his plan of seating the party, and invited the members of it to select their own places; and they all took those they had occupied at breakfast. In the afternoon the rough sea had almost entirely subsided under the influence of the north-east monsoon, and the motion of the steamer was easy and pleasant.

The company assembled in the music-room after a walk on deck, and the captain, with the three notable guests, joined them after they had finished their cigars; for all of them smoked. The "Gospel Hymns" and other hymn and tune books were distributed. It was the usual time for singing, and the trio from the Travancore contributed largely to the volume of tone on the occasion. The new third officer had been stationed in the watch with Mr. Boulong, and Scott had the first part of the afternoon watch. The officers and engineers not on duty, as well as the members of the party from the wreck, gathered at the windows of the music-room, and the commander invited them to take seats in the apartment, thus adding still more to the volume of the harmony. The music was all sacred, and nothing purely secular was permitted by the captain.

Dr. Ferrolan, who had a fine bass voice, was invited to sing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," at the suggestion of Lord Tremlyn. His lordship sang "Oh that I had Wings!" and Mrs. Belgrave, who was the pianist of the occasion, gave a solo, while Sir Modava sang the "Missionary Hymn," which is still a favorite in England and America, translated into the Hindu language. The party who could not understand him followed in the hymn-books.

"I wonder who wrote that beautiful hymn," said Mrs. Blossom, when there was a pause as the singer finished. "It says Heber in my book, but I don't know who he was."

"Reginald Heber was an English clergyman and poet, born in 1783. He was a student in an Oxford college; I forget which," replied Sir Modava.

"Brasenose," prompted the viscount.

"As a student in this college he wrote 'Palestine,' for which he obtained the prize; and it still holds a place in the literature of England. He soon obtained a living, and occupied a prominent position among the clergy of his native island. In 1823 he was made Bishop of Calcutta.

"Three years later, in the midst of his zealous labors in the service of his Master, he died at Trichinopoly of apoplexy, greatly lamented. Perhaps

'From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,'

which you have sung this afternoon, is the widest-known of Bishop Heber's hymns; but will you indulge me if I ask you to sing another of them, which I find in the book I hold in my hand?--

'Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.'"

The hymn was sung to Mozart's music by about twenty voices, and the effect was exceedingly agreeable. Sir Modava seemed to be in a rapture, as the piece was his favorite, and came from one who was connected with his native land.

He was a rather tall and slender man, and all the ladies declared that he was very handsome; and his slightly dusky hue added to, rather than took from, the beauty of his countenance. He wore a small mustache, but no other beard. He was a nervous and highly sensitive person, and there was always a smile on his face. He had already become a favorite among the gentlemen as well as the ladies.

Another meeting was held in the evening, which was varied by some speaking on the part of the gentlemen, including the guests, Uncle Moses, Dr. Hawkes, and the commander. At the conclusion of the exercises, Sir Modava begged the company to close by singing another of Bishop Heber's verses, which he repeated from memory, though it was in one of the books:--

"God that madest earth and heaven,
   Darkness and light;
 Who the day for toil hast given,
   For rest the night,--
 May thine angel guards defend us,
 Slumber sweet thy mercy send us,
   This livelong night!"

With this musical prayer on their lips, the company retired. Most of them went to their staterooms; for the guests were very tired, and the regular inmates of the cabin had left their berths at an unusually early hour in the morning. All of them, whether technically religious or not, had been greatly impressed by the music and the speaking of the evening. Dr. Ferrolan was a more inveterate smoker than his companions in misfortune, and he went with the commander to the deck, and was invited to the captain's cabin, where he was provided with cigars.

"As you have already learned, Doctor, I am greatly interested in the educational feature of my ship," said Captain Ringgold, after they had conversed a while. "I