Dead Men Tell No Tales | Page 3

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Dead Men Tell No Tales
by E. W. Hornung

CONTENTS
* Chapter I Love on the Ocean
* Chapter II The Mysterious Cargo
* Chapter III To the Water's Edge
* Chapter IV The Silent Sea
* Chapter V My Reward
* Chapter VI The Sole Survivor
* Chapter V I Find a Friend
* Chapter VI A Small Precaution
* Chapter VII My Convalescent Home
* Chapter VIII Wine and Weakness
* Chapter IX I Live Again
* Chapter X My Lady's Bidding
* Chapter XI The Longest Day of My Life
* Chapter XII In the Garden
* Chapter XIII First Blood
* Chapter XIV A Deadlock
* Chapter XV When Thieves Fall Out
* Chapter XVI A Man of Many Murders
* Chapter XVII My Great Hour
* Chapter XVIII The Statement of Francis Rattray
CHAPTER I
Love on the Ocean
Nothing is so easy as falling in love on a long sea voyage, except falling out of love. Especially was this the case in the days when the wooden clippers did finely to land you in Sydney or in Melbourne under the four full months. We all saw far too much of each other, unless, indeed, we were to see still more. Our superficial attractions mutually exhausted, we lost heart and patience in the disappointing strata which lie between the surface and the bed-rock of most natures. My own experience was confined to the round voyage of the Lady Jermyn, in the year 1853. It was no common experience, as was only too well known at the time. And I may add that I for my part had not the faintest intention of falling in love on board; nay, after all these years, let me confess that I had good cause to hold myself proof against such weakness. Yet we carried a young lady, coming home, who, God knows, might have made short work of many a better man!
Eva Denison was her name, and she cannot have been more than nineteen years of age. I remember her telling me that she had not yet come out, the very first time I assisted her to promenade the poop. My own name was still unknown to her, and yet I recollect being quite fascinated by her frankness and self-possession. She was exquisitely young, and yet ludicrously old for her years; had been admirably educated, chiefly abroad, and, as we were soon to discover, possessed accomplishments which would have made the plainest old maid a popular personage on board ship. Miss Denison, however, was as beautiful as she was young, with the bloom of ideal health upon her perfect skin. She had a wealth of lovely hair, with strange elusive strands of gold among the brown, that drowned her ears (I thought we were to have that mode again?) in sunny ripples; and a soul greater than the mind, and a heart greater than either, lay sleeping somewhere in the depths of her grave, gray eyes.
We were at sea together so many weeks. I cannot think what I was made of then!
It was in the brave old days of Ballarat and Bendigo, when ship after ship went out black with passengers and deep with stores, to bounce home with a bale or two of wool, and hardly hands enough to reef topsails in a gale.