CHAPTER XLI.
WARDLAW senior was not what you would call a tender-hearted man; but hewas thoroughly moved by General Rolleston's distress, and by hisfortitude. The gallant old man! Landing in England one week and goingback to the Pacific the next! Like goes with like; and Wardlaw senior,energetic and resolute himself, though he felt for his son, stricken downby grief, gave his heart to the more valiant distress of hiscontemporary. He manned and victualed the _Springbok_ for a long voyage,ordered her to Plymouth, and took his friend down to her by train.
They went out to her in a boat. She was a screw steamer, that could sailnine knots an hour without burning a coal. As she came down the Channel,the general's trouble got to be well known on board her, and, when hecame out of the harbor, the sailors, by an honest, hearty impulse thatdid them credit, waited for no orders, but manned the yards to receivehim with the respect due to his services and his sacred calamity.
On getting on board, he saluted the captain and the ship's company withsad dignity, and retired to his cabin with Mr. Wardlaw. There the oldmerchant forced on him by loan seven hundred pounds, chiefly in gold andsilver, telling him there was nothing like money, go where you will. Hethen gave him a number of notices he had printed, and a paper of adviceand instructions. It was written in his own large, clear, formal hand.
General Rolleston tried to falter out his thanks. John Wardlawinterrupted him.
"Next to you I am her father; am I not?"
"You have proved it."
"Well, then. However, if you do find her, as I pray to God you may, Iclaim the second kiss, mind that; not for myself, though; for my poorArthur, that lies on a sick-bed for her."
General Rolleston assented to that in a broken voice. He could hardlyspeak.
And so they parted: and that sad parent went out to the Pacific.
To him it was indeed a sad and gloomy voyage; and the hope with which hewent on board oozed gradually away as the ship traversed the vast tracksof ocean. One immensity of water to be passed before that other immensitycould be reached, on whose vast, uniform surface the search was to bemade.
To abridge this gloomy and monotonous part of our tale, suffice it to saythat he endured two months of water and infinity ere the vessel, fast asshe was, reached Valparaiso. Their progress, however, had been more thanonce interrupted to carry out Wardlaw's instructions. The poor generalhimself had but one idea; to go and search the Pacific with his own eyes;but Wardlaw, more experienced, directed him to overhaul every whaler andcoasting vessel he could, and deliver printed notices; telling the sadstory, and offering a reward for any positive information, good or bad,that should be brought in to his agent at Valparaiso.
Acting on these instructions they had overhauled two or three coastingvessels as they steamed up from the Horn. They now placarded the port ofValparaiso, and put the notices on board all vessels bound westward; andthe captain of the _Springbok_ spoke to the skippers in the port. Butthey all shook their heads, and could hardly be got to give their mindsseriously to the inquiry, when they heard in what water the cutter waslast seen and on what course.
One old skipper said, "Look on Juan Fernandez, and then at the bottom ofthe Pacific; but the sooner you look there the less time you will lose."
From Valparaiso they ran to Juan Fernandez, which indeed seemed thelikeliest place; if she was alive.
When the larger island of that group, the island dear alike to you whoread, and to us who write, this tale, came in sight, the father's heartbegan to beat higher.
The ship anchored and took in coal, which was furnished at a wickedlyhigh price by Mr. Joshua Fullalove, who had virtually purchased theisland from Chili, having got it on lease for longer than the earthitself is to last, we hear.
And now Rolleston found the value of Wardlaw's loan; it enabled him toprosecute his search through the whole group of islands; and he did hearat last of three persons who had been wrecked on Masa Fuero; one of thema female. He followed this up, and at last discovered the parties. Hefound them to be Spaniards, and the woman smoking a pipe.
After this bitter disappointment he went back to the ship, and she was toweigh her anchor next morning.
But, while General Rolleston was at Mesa Fuero, a small coasting vesselhad come in, and brought a strange report at second-hand, that in somedegree unsettled Captain Moreland's mind; and, being hotly discussed onthe forecastle, set the ship's company in a ferment.