A Desperate Voyage Part 1

A Desperate Voyage.

by Edward Frederick Knight.

CHAPTER I

In Carey Street, Chancery Lane, on the ground floor of a huge block of new buildings facing the Law Courts, were the offices of Messrs. Peters and Carew, solicitors and perpetual commissioners of oaths. Such was the t.i.tle of the firm as inscribed on the side of the entrance door in the middle of a long list of other names of solicitors, architects, and companies, whose offices were within. But the firm was now represented by Mr. Carew alone; for the senior partner, a steady-going old gentleman, who had made the business what it was, had been despatched by an attack of gout, two years back, to a land where there is no litigation.

Late one August evening Mr. Henry Carew entered his office. His face was white and haggard, and he muttered to himself as he pa.s.sed the door. He had all the appearance of a man who has been drinking heavily to drown some terrible worry. His clerks had gone; he went into his own private room and locked the door. He lit the gas, brought a pile of papers and letters out of a drawer, and, sitting down by the table, commenced to peruse them. As he did so, the lines about his face seemed to deepen, and beads of perspiration started to his forehead. It was for him an hour of agony. His sins had found him out, and the day of reckoning had arrived.

One might have taken Henry Carew for a sailor, but he was very unlike the typical solicitor. He was a big, hearty man of thirty-five, with all a sailor's bluff manner and generous ways. His friends called him Honest Hal, and said that he was one of the best fellows that ever lived. We have it on the authority of that immortal adventuress, Becky Sharp, that it is easy to be virtuous on five thousand a year. Had Mr. Carew enjoyed such an income, he would most probably have lived a blameless life and have acquired an estimable reputation; for he had no instinctive liking for crime; on the contrary, he loathed it.

But one slight moral flaw in a man's nature--so slight that his best friends smile tolerantly at it--may, by force of circ.u.mstance, lead ultimately to his complete moral ruin. It is an old story, and has been the text of many a sermon. The trifling fault is often the germ of terrible crimes.

Carew's fault was one that is always easily condoned, so nearly akin is it to a virtue; these respectably connected vices are ever the most dangerous, like well-born swindlers. Carew was a spendthrift. He was ostentatiously extravagant in many directions. He owned a smart schooner, which he navigated himself, being an excellent sailor, and the quant.i.ties of champagne consumed by his friends on board this vessel were prodigious.

When his steady old partner died, Carew began to neglect the business for his pleasures. Soon his income was insufficient to meet his expenses. Speculation on the Stock Exchange seemed to him to be a quicker road to fortune than a slow-going profession. So this man, morally weak though physically brave, not having the courage to curtail his extravagances, hurried blindly to his destruction. He gambled and lost all his own property; for ill-luck ever pursued him. Even then it was not too late to redeem his position. But he was too great a coward to look his difficulties in the face; therefore, having the temptation to commit so terribly easy a crime ever before him in his office, he began--first, timidly, to a small extent; then wildly, in panic, in order to retrieve his losses--to speculate with the moneys entrusted to him by his clients. He p.a.w.ned their securities; he forged their names; he plunged ever deeper into crime--and all in vain.

When it was too late, he swore to himself, in the torments of his remorse, that if he could but once win back sufficient to replace the sums he had stolen, he would cut down all his expenses, forswear gambling and dishonesty, and stick to his profession.

At last it came to this. He sold his yacht and everything else he possessed of value. He realised what remained of the securities under his charge, and then placed the entire sum as cover on a certain stock, the price of which, he was told, was certain to rise. It was the gambler's last despairing throw of the dice. The stock suddenly fell; settling day arrived, and his cover was swept away--he had lost all!

So he sat in his office this night and faced the situation in an agony of spirit that was more than fear. For this was no unscrupulous, light-hearted villain. An accusing conscience was ever with him, and every fresh descent in crime meant for him a worse present h.e.l.l of mental torture.

He felt that it was idle to hope now, even for a short reprieve. Clients were suspicious. In a day or two at most all must be known. Disgrace and a felon's doom were staring him in the face. It would be impossible for him to raise even sufficient funds to escape from England to some country where extradition treaties were unknown. Carew realised all this. He had forced himself to look through his papers and discover the total of his liabilities. It was a sum he could by no effort refund.

He laughed aloud--a savage, discordant laugh, as might be that of some lost soul.

"Yes, it is all over," he thought; "I throw up the cards. But I will not endure the disgrace of a public trial, the ignominy of a convict's life; and after that to come out of jail with my soul eaten out by long years of penal servitude, with the brand of a felon on my name. Oh no--not that! After all, a man has always one last privilege left him; he holds in his own hands the power of terminating his own miserable existence.

Yes; I will kill myself, and have done with it all!"

In the contemplation of suicide he became calmer. Now that he had determined on death, his terrible anxiety left him, and the heroism of despair supported him.

"I feel a peace of mind at this moment such as has not come to me for many wretched months," he said to himself. "There is almost a pleasure in knowing that one has got to the bottom of one's cup of suffering, that there can be nothing worse to come."

He meditated quietly for some time as to how he should take away his life. At last he came to a decision, and a strange smile lit up his face. "Yes, that is an admirable plan; now for the means of carrying it out. First, I must have a sovereign or so. I can p.a.w.n my watch. Now for the ballast." He glanced round the room. "Yes, that will do." He rose and collected several heavy leaden paperweights from the different desks in the offices and put them into his pockets. "That will be sufficient.

Now I will go to Brighton. It is a glorious evening. I will smell the sea-air once more. I will have a last dinner at an hotel; and then at night, when the tide is high, I will throw myself off the pier; this weight of lead will keep me down. And the next morning my creditors may seize my body: they are welcome to it."

At that moment a loud knock came at the outer door. He turned pale and nearly fainted at the sound. Was he to be balked of those last few hours of freedom which he had promised himself? Were these the officers of justice who had come to apprehend him? Once more the dew of agony burst out on his brow; he groaned aloud; then, summoning resolution, the desperate man approached the door.

But it was only the postman, after all. "Idiot that I am not to have known the knock! but my brain swims to-night. A letter for me. What is this?"

He read the letter slowly through; then he put his hand to his forehead.

A revulsion of feeling had suddenly come to him that confused and stunned him. "Oh, merciful Heaven!" he said, "is this but a cruel trick of Fortune to tempt me with a vain hope? I had quite reconciled myself to death--and now this comes. Perhaps it is but a short reprieve, and its price will be all that agonising suspense again. No, let me die; and yet"--he glanced at the letter again--"surely I have here a means of escape. If I can but collect my scattered wits and recover my cunning, I can save myself. I can live, but it will mean crime again--always crime!

Oh, is it worth it?"

After a painful mental struggle, he came to a determination. "Yes, I will live," he said.

The letter was as follows:--

"DEAR CAREW,--You have often promised to cruise with me in my boat.

I am off to-morrow for Holland. Can you join me? Come and look me up to-night, and arrange it all.--Yours sincerely,

"ARTHUR ALLEN."

CHAPTER II

Arthur Allen, barrister-at-law, was of about the same age as his friend Carew; a man possessed of private means sufficient for his needs, into whose chambers so few briefs found their way that he had for some years dispensed with the services of a clerk. But, as one would have surmised after glancing at the strong, intelligent face, he was a man by no means lacking in energy, and not of idle disposition: as a matter of fact, a scholar, and one who had taken high honours at his university, he still maintained his studious habits, and, having practically abandoned a profession that was uncongenial to him, he devoted himself to literary pursuits; and his thoughtful articles in the reviews and in the newspaper to which he was attached brought him in no insignificant addition to his income.

No mere bookworm, he had been an athlete in his youth; but now his one outdoor form of amus.e.m.e.nt was the sailing of his little yacht, on which, always acting as his own skipper, he had taken many a delightful cruise in home and distant waters. He was an enthusiastic lover of the sea.

This was the one taste he had in common with Carew. It was at some yacht club, of which they were both members, that they had become acquainted.

It was a lovely August evening. The windows of Allen's bachelor chambers in the Temple were open, and through them could be seen that fair oasis of London's desert of bricks and mortar, Fountain Court, with its stately buildings, ancient trees, and quiet garden with splas.h.i.+ng fountains in its midst. Nor was the view confined; for, beyond the chapel and the green, could be perceived the broad, gleaming Thames, and the distant Surrey sh.o.r.e, glorified by a faint mist; a peaceful, old-world spot, with a contemplative air about it, for it is haunted by the memories of much departed greatness. Allen was reclining in a comfortable arm-chair, drawn up to the open window, in whose recesses geraniums bloomed, their vivid blossoms occasionally shaking beneath the breath of the soft south wind that had come directly from the cool river.

He smoked his pipe as he looked out upon the sweet sunset scene, his mind happily occupied in planning his coming cruise, when his meditations were interrupted by a knock at the outer door. He rose to admit his visitor, opened the door, and there stood before him Henry Carew in serge suit and yachting cap, a small Gladstone bag in his hand.

"Hallo, Carew, old man! you have not been long replying to my letter. I was afraid you would have left the office before it reached you. Come in."

"Are you alone?" inquired Carew, in a low voice.

"Yes, quite alone. I am smoking a pipe of peace by myself. You have just come at the right time."

They entered the room, and then, as the light of the sunset fell upon the solicitor's face, Allen perceived its haggard expression.

"How queer you look, Carew!" he exclaimed. "Are you ill?"

"Ill--no, not at all; but worried--worried almost out of my life,"

replied Carew wildly, throwing himself into a chair, and putting his face between his hands.

Allen sat in a chair opposite to him, refilled and lit his pipe, and, as he smoked, gazed at his friend with feelings of perplexed compa.s.sion.

"Have a pipe, old fellow; there is nothing like a pipe for worry."

"A pipe?" cried Carew, with contemptuous bitterness. "No; but have you some brandy? Give me some brandy."

"Certainly, Carew," and the barrister produced a spirit-case, some gla.s.ses, and water.

Carew poured a quant.i.ty of spirit into a gla.s.s and drank it neat. He was usually a temperate man.

"That is not the way to clear one's brain for confronting one's troubles," remarked Allen.

"No, you are right. It is foolish of me. Allen, I have come to say that I shall be very glad to accompany you on your cruise."