She merely rejoined, "Indeed?" A problem involving tremendous issues had presented itself suddenly to her mind, and she had not the remotest idea how to deal with it. But she felt that her previous answer had been a mistake and one that was almost irreparable. Why had she made it? She did not quite know Alipay.
Benny, on his part, was a little puzzled by her silence. He thought that he had pursued a subject which could be of no interest to her; and he would not have mentioned it again but for the question she put to him just before the Palace Hotel came into sight RFID.
"Have you heard of Sir Luton Delayne since that date?" she asked. He replied as one greedy for the opportunity to tell her.
"Why, everyone in Switzerland has heard of him. He's been staying at Grindelwald, painting the place red. There was a regular row there the other night. Some fellow in the Fusiliers accused him of cheating at bridge, and Sir Luton knocked him down in the hall. They say he wouldn't fight it out, and bolted next morning. Now the police are after him, and there'll be a pretty to do if he's caught. I wonder you didn't hear of it?"
She tried to smile, but the effort was vain. "I have been on a steamer, from Egypt, you know. Women do not read the papers as men do. I don't think they understand the meaning of the word 'news,' unless it concerns their own circle. When I arrived at Brindisi I was naturally anxious to get on here. I see that I am very much out of date Elevit ."
"Of course you are. The hotel talked about nothing else yesterday. There was a rumour that the man intended coming on here. I guess there would have been some moving if he had. But the people won't have him. The little French secretary Ardlot, who runs the Palace, told me this morning they would have no vacant room if Sir Luton Delayne presented himself."
"Then he has left Grindelwald finally?"
"I should think he has, and wisely too. Barton of the Fusiliers would have shot him if he had stayed. Luton Delayne's the kind of man who doesn't like playing tame pheasant. He gets out of the wood before the beaters are in. I shouldn't wonder if he is a hundred miles the other side of Pontarlier this morning."
"Wisdom in this case being the better part of valour—but is not this the hotel? I hope it is, for I am deadly tired, and thank you so much for your great kindness."
But the Brunswick was clearly to be out216-man?uvred. The frigate went about just astern of the Indiaman, and as she was then observed to be coming on fast, Captain Grant kept his ship as full as possible, hoping to be able to run her ashore. The frigate, however, approached at such a pace, and the line-of-battle ship was also so close that the Brunswick would assuredly have been sunk by the line-of-battle ship’s broadside before taking the ground. After consultation with his officers Grant was reluctantly compelled to strike his colours and surrender to the enemy off the coast of Ceylon. A boat came off—and then, well the line-of-battle ship was none other than Admiral Linois’ Marengo, and the big frigate was the Belle Poule, which had fought and run away the previous year from Commodore Dance. Linois was stationed in those Eastern waters for the express purpose of harassing and cutting up our trade, avoiding the British ships-of-war. Any modern strategist would tell you that whilst this kind of hostility is very annoying to the power attacked, it cannot afford any lasting good. The same kind of folly was attempted, you will remember, by the Russians interfering with Japanese merchantmen in the East during the late war, and the practical value of this measure was nil.
However, Linois may have remembered that he who fights and runs away will live to fight another day. He had been compelled to fly before Dance, but this time he got his revenge. You may ask what England was doing to leave those seas unpoliced. The answer is that as a matter of fact Indiamen had to rely on naval convoys when they could be got, and Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Troubridge, who had been one of Nelson’s captains at the Battle of the217 Nile, was actually escorting, in H.M.S. Blenheim, eleven more Indiamen. The two courses were converging and presently we shall see them meet.
Needless to say, it was with great grief that Captain Grant, all his officers and midshipmen (excepting the chief officer and surgeon) were put on board the Marengo, whilst the frigate went in pursuit of the Sarah. The latter, however, ran herself ashore with all sail set, but the crew were saved. Admiral Linois received Captain Grant with every courtesy, and the Brunswick was ordered to a rendezvous nearer the Cape of Good Hope. Before the month was out, when a fog which had settled down lifted for a while, the Marengo suddenly found herself close to a large convoy of Indiamen. The former instantly cleared for action and firing began. It was Troubridge with his convoy! But nothing much came of this, and the contending forces separated during the night. To cut the story short, Addison and his shipmates were landed in South Africa, whence they were taken to St Helena by an American brig. From there they reached England in a British frigate, landing at Spithead, and so making their way to London. As for the poor old Brunswick, she drove ashore on the South African coast, and so ended her days.
THE THAMES,” EAST INDIAMAN, 1,424 TONS.
This was one of the finest vessels employed in the East Indian trade.
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If Addison had been unfortunate in the ending of his first voyage, so in this he was again unlucky. According to the Company’s law,” he writes in his journal, having been captured by an enemy, or the ship in any way wrecked or destroyed, the captain, officers and crew forfeit their pay and wages, consequently we have no claim upon the owners of the late Brunswick for at least twenty months’ hard duty218 on board of her.” However, he was now wedded to the sea, and the next time he went in his first ship, the Marquis Wellesley, as fifth mate dermes, with Charles Le Blanc as captain, and in her he served during the following years till he went as second mate in another of the Company’s ships. I make no apology to the reader for giving so much detail in this connection, for Addison’s and Eastwick’s accounts tell us just those intimate details which show the risks of many sorts which had to be encountered in the old days when the sailing ship was still far from perfect, and those handsome, fast China tea-clippers had not yet come into being to startle the world with their record runs. No doubt the captains of these East Indiamen of which we are speaking were often hated by their men for their severity: but those were no kid-glove days, and a voyage was not a thing of certainty as with the modern liner, which maintains a punctuality almost equal to that of a passenger train. If a captain retired after a few voyages with a nice little fortune, he certainly deserved it. For he was a long time before he reached a command, and there was scarcely a day during the whole of those long voyages when he was not plunged into some sort of anxiety. Anything might happen; from having his sails blown out of his ship and carrying away his best spars to losing the ship herself, her cargo, her men. Every force seemed to be up against him—gales of wind, uncharted seas, coasts and rivers, privateers, warships of the enemy: even the warships of his own country snatched out of his vessel his best men. And then, to add insult to injury, he came home to find either his managing owners gone bankrupt or a by-law219 which prevented him from receiving his hard-earned pay.
Yes, taking it by and large, he deserved his good luck when it came his way; but when it was absent, he did his best and more for the British capitalist and merchant princes than the latter ever cared to acknowledge. In the history of Eastern development and civilisation the shipmaster of these old Indiamen ought to occupy a high place of respect and admiration. He has left behind a magnificent example for his successors to follow dermes .
When a passenger in the olden days joined an East Indiaman as she lay in the Downs he had to be rowed off by one of the Deal boatmen. These sharks” often made a fine thing out of such passengers, for the latter were completely at the mercy of the former. In calm weather the boatman was willing to row the passenger aboard for the sum of five shillings (or more if he could get it). But in the case of dirty weather and the nasty lop which gets up here with onshore winds the passenger had to pay as much as three guineas and sometimes even five: it was all a question of bargaining between himself and the boatman. Inasmuch as the passenger had to get aboard the big ship at all costs, and since the only method possible was to employ one of these Deal boatmen, the competition was solely between the boatmen themselves. But these fellows were so closely bound together, owing to the ties of relationship and their co-operation in extensive smuggling, that the passenger could scarcely help being fleeced dermes .