by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER III
A REVIEW OF THE PAST FOURTEEN MONTHS
The Guardian-Mother had sailed from New York about fourteen months beforeshe appeared in the waters of the Arabian Sea. She was a steam-yacht of 624tons burden, owned by Louis Belgrave, a young man who had just entered hiseighteenth year. His native place was Von Blonk Park, in New Jersey, mostof whose territory had been the farm of the young gentleman's grandfather,who had become a millionaire by the sale of his land.
The terrors of the War of the Rebellion had driven the old man to converthis property into gold, which he had concealed so effectually that no onecould find it. His only son, more patriotic than his father, had enlistedin the loyal army, and had been severely wounded in the brave and faithfuldischarge of his duty, and returned to the home of his childhood a wreck ofhis former self.
His father died during his absence, and Paul Belgrave, the soldier, was hissole heir. His physical condition improved considerably, though he neverceased to suffer from the effects of his wound. The homestead of hisfather, which had not been sold with the rest of his land, afforded theinvalid a sufficient support; and he married Maud Nashwood, the onlydaughter of one of the small magnates of Von Blonk Park, which had nowbecome a thriving town, occupied mainly by business men of New York.
Paul Belgrave was a millionaire without any millions; for he was never ableto find the large property of his deceased parent. For ten years he dugover the cellar bottom of the old house, and the ground in the vicinity;but the missing million entirely eluded his search, and he died as soon ashe gave up all hope of finding the treasure.
Mrs. Belgrave was left with their son, then eight years old; but the estateof her husband, with the property of her father, supported her comfortably.The widow had been married at sixteen; and she had the reputation of beingthe prettiest woman in the Park after her husband died. She had manysuitors, but she finally married a handsome English horse-trainer, whocalled himself Wade Farrongate, though that was not his real name.
For some reason not then apparent, this man at once became the enemy ofLouis Belgrave; and the war between them raged for several years, thoughthe young man did all he could to conciliate his stepfather. The man was arascal, a villain to the very core of his being, though he had attained aposition of considerable influence among the sporting gentry of New Yorkand New Jersey, mainly for his skill as a jockey, and in the management ofthe great races.
Louis discovered a plan on the part of Farrongate to appropriate the stakesand other money dependent upon the great race of the season, and escape toEngland with his wife and stepson. In this scheme Louis, after he hadobtained the evidence of the jockey's villany, went on board of the steamerwhich was to convey them all over the ocean, and succeeded, with no littledifficulty, in convincing his mother of the unworthiness of her husband;and she returned with her son to Von Blonk Park. The young man went back tothe steamer, and by skilful management obtained all the plunder of thevillain, who sailed for England without his treasure.
Farrongate, or rather John Scoble, which was his real name, was a deserterfrom the British army. He was arrested on his return, and compelled toserve out the remainder of his term of service. The death of an uncle inIndia recruited his finances, and he returned to New York. It afterwardsappeared that he had some clew to Peter Belgrave's missing million, and hewas therefore anxious to recover the possession of the wife who hadrepudiated him.
A successful conspiracy enabled him to convey her to Bermuda. At this stageof the drama, Captain Royal Ringgold, an early admirer of the pretty widow,became an active participant in the proceedings, and from that time he hadbeen the director of all the steps taken to recover Louis's mother.
In the interim of Scoble's absence, Louis, assisted by his schoolfellow anddevoted friend, Felix McGavonty, had accomplished what his father hadfailed to achieve in ten years of incessant search: he had found themissing million of his grandfather, and had become a millionaire atsixteen. The young man fancied that yachting would suit him; and heproposed to Squire Moses Scarburn, the trustee of all his property, topurchase a cheap vessel for his use.
The spiriting away of his mother gave a new importance to the nauticalfancy of the young man. Captain Ringgold condemned the plan to buy a cheapvessel. He had made a part of his ample fortune as a shipmaster, and hadbeen an officer in the navy during the last half of the War of theRebellion. He advised the young man's mother, who was also his guardian,and the trustee to buy a good-sized steam-yacht.
A New York millionaire had just completed one of the most magnificentsteamers ever built, of over six hundred tons' burden; but his sudden deathrobbed him of the pleasures he anticipated from a voyage around the worldin her, and the vessel was for sale at a reasonable price. The shipmasterfixed upon this craft as the one for the young millionaire, declaring thatshe would give the owner an education such as could not be obtained at anycollege; and that she could be sold for nearly all she cost when she was nolonger needed.
This argument, and the pressing necessity of such a steamer for therecovery of Mrs. Belgrave, carried the day with the trustee. The vesselwas bought; and as she had not yet been named, Louis called her theGuardian-Mother, in love and reverence for her who had watched over himfrom his birth. After some stirring adventures which befell Louis, the newsteam-yacht proceeded to Bermuda, where Scoble had wrecked his vessel onthe reefs; but the object of the search and all the ship's company weresaved.
The Guardian-Mother returned to New York after this successful voyage,though not till Captain Ringgold had obtained a strong hint that Scoble hada wife in England. The educational scheme of the commander was then fullyconsidered, and it was decided to make a voyage around the world in theGuardian-Mother. She was duly prepared for the purpose by Captain Ringgold.A ship's company of the highest grade was obtained. The last to be shippedwas W. Penn Sharp as a quartermaster, the only vacancy on board. He hadbeen a skilful detective most of his life, and failing health alonecompelled him to go to sea; and he had been a sailor in his early years,attaining the position of first officer of a large Indiaman.
The captain made him third officer at Bermuda, the better to have hisservices as a detective. He had investigated Scoble's record, andeventually found Mrs. Scoble in Cuba, where she had inherited the largefortune of an uncle whom she had nursed in his last sickness. Scoble hadcome into the possession of the wealth of a brother who had recently diedin Bermuda. He had purchased a steam-yacht of four hundred tons, in whichhe had followed the Guardian-Mother, and had several times attempted tosink her in collisions.
Officers came to Cuba to arrest him for his crimes at the races, and he wassent to the scene of his villany, where the court sentenced him to SingSing for a long term. The court in Cuba decreed that his yacht belonged tohis wife; and her new owner, at the suggestion of the commander of theGuardian-Mother, made Penn Sharp, to whom she was largely indebted for thefortune to which she had succeeded, the captain of her. The steam-yacht wasthe Viking, and Mrs. Scoble sailed in her to New York, and then to England,where she obtained a divorce from her recreant husband, and became the wifeof Captain Sharp, who was now in command of the Blanche, the white steamerthat sailed abreast of the Guardian-Mother when the wreck in the ArabianSea was discovered.
From a sailing-yacht sunk in a squall in the harbor of New York, the crewof the steamer had saved two gentlemen. One was a celebrated physician andsurgeon, suffering from overwork, Dr. Philip Hawkes. He was induced toaccept the commander's offer of a passage around the world for his servicesas the surgeon of the ship. His companion was a learned Frenchman,afflicted in the same manner as his friend; and he became the instructor onboard.
Squire Scarburn, Louis's trustee, who was always called "Uncle Moses," wasa passenger. Mrs. Belgrave had taken with her Mrs. Sarah Blossom, as acompanion. She had been Uncle Moses's housekeeper. She was a good-lookingwoman of thirty-six, and one of the "salt of the earth," though hereducation, except on Scripture s
ubjects, had been greatly neglected. FelixMcGavonty, the Milesian crony of Louis, had been brought up by the trustee,and had lived in his family. The good lady wanted to be regarded as themother of Felix, and the young man did not fully fall in with the idea.
When Louis recovered the stolen treasure of the jockey, he had applied toone of the principal losers by the crime, Mr. Lowell Woolridge, thendevoted to horse-racing and yachting, for advice in regard to the disposalof the plunder. All who had lost any of the money were paid in full; andthe gentleman took a fancy to the young man who consulted him. For thebenefit of his son he discarded racing from his amusements. He invitedLouis and his mother to several excursions in his yacht; and the twofamilies became very intimate, though they were not of the same socialrank, for Mr. Woolridge was a millionaire and a magnate of the FifthAvenue.
The ex-sportsman was the father of a daughter and a son. At fifteen MissBlanche was remarkably beautiful, and Louis could not help recognizing thefact. But he was then a poor boy; and his mother warned him not to getentangled in any affair of the heart, which had never entered the head ofthe subject of the warning. When the missing million came to light, she didnot repeat her warning.
After the Guardian-Mother had sailed on her voyage all-over-the-world, MissBlanche took a severe cold, which threatened serious consequences; and thedoctors had advised her father to take her to Orotava, in the CanaryIslands, in his yacht. The family had departed on the voyage; butbefore the Blanche, as the white sailing-yacht was called, reached herdestination, she encountered a severe gale, and had a hole stove in herplanking by a mass of wreckage. Her ship's company were thoroughlyexhausted when the Guardian-Mother, bound to the same islands, discoveredher, and after almost incredible exertions, saved the yacht and the family.
The beautiful young lady entirely recovered her health during the voyage,and Dr. Hawkes declared that she was in no danger whatever. The Blancheproceeded with the steamer to Mogadore, on the north-west coast of Africa,in Morocco. Here the ship was visited by a high officer of the army ofMorocco, who was the possessor of almost unbounded wealth. He wasfascinated by the beauty of Miss Blanche, and his marked attentions excitedthe alarm of her father and mother, as well as of the commander. He hadpromised to visit the ship again, and take the party to all the notedplaces in the city.
The parents and the captain regarded such a visit as a calamity, and thesteamer made her way out of the harbor very early the next morning, towingthe yacht. The Guardian-Mother sailed for Madeira, accommodating her speedto that of the Blanche. The party had been there only long enough to seethe sights, before the high official, Ali-Noury Pacha, in his steam-yachtcome into the harbor of Funchal.
The commander immediately beat another retreat; but the Fatime, as theMoroccan steamer was called, followed her to Gibraltar. Here the Pachadesired an interview with Captain Ringgold, who refused to receive him onboard, for he had learned in Funchal that his character was very bad, andhe told him so to his face. When the commander went on shore he wasattacked in the street by the Pacha and some of his followers; but thestalwart captain knocked him with a blow of his fist in a gutter filledwith mud. Ali-Noury was fined by the court for the assault, and, thirstingfor revenge, he had followed the Guardian-Mother to Constantinople, andthrough the Archipelago, seeking the vengeance his evil nature demanded. Heemployed a man named Mazagan to capture Miss Blanche or Louis, or both ofthem.
Captain Sharp, who was cruising in the Viking with his wife, whileat Messina found the Pacha beset by robbers, and badly wounded. Theex-detective took him on board of his steamer, procured a surgeon, andsaved the life of the Moor, not only in beating off the robbers that besethim, but in the care of him after he was wounded. They became strongfriends; and both the captain and Mrs. Sharp, who had been the most devotedof nurses to him, spoke their minds to him very plainly.
The Pacha was repentant, for his vices were as contrary to the religion ofMohammed as to that of the New Testament. Captain Sharp was confident thathis guest was thoroughly reformed, though he did not become a Christian, ashis nurse hoped he would. Then his preserver learned that the Pacha hadsettled his accounts with Captain Mazagan, and sold him the Fatime.
It appeared when Captain Sharp told his story to the commander of theGuardian-Mother at Aden, that Mazagan had been operating on his own hook inEgypt and elsewhere to "blackmail" the trustee of Louis. The Pacha hadordered a new steamer to be built for him in England; and when she arrivedat Gibraltar, he had given the command of her to Captain Sharp, to whom heowed his life and reformation.
At Aden, Captain Ringgold discovered the white steamer, and fearing she wasthe one built for the Pacha, as Mazagan had informed him in regard to her,he paid her a visit, and found Captain Sharp in command of her. The Moorwas known as General Noury here, and he made an abject apology to thevisitor. Convinced that the Moor had really reformed his life, they werereconciled, and General Noury was received with favor by all the party.
The Blanche was sailing in company of the Guardian-Mother for Bombay whenthe wreck with several men on it was discovered. And now having reviewedthe incidents of the past, fully related in the preceding volumes of theseries, it is quite time to attend to the imperilled persons on the wreck.