My First Voyage to Southern Seas | Page 5

dreadful state of suspense. My father instantly wrote again
to make further inquiries, but during the time we were waiting for the
reply to the second letter, we saw it stated in the papers that the gallant
frigate had been lost, and that all hands on board had perished. We
grieved much at the idea that Alfred should have left his ship and
brought disgrace upon himself by becoming a deserter. At the same
time, we could not but with gratitude rejoice that he had escaped the
dreadful fate which had overtaken his companions. This circumstance
was one of the first griefs which had befallen our family. My father was
much troubled by it. He wrote again and again to various
correspondents in that part of the world, but received no satisfactory
replies; none of them had heard of Alfred. The surprising thing was that
he did not write himself. His silence was most unaccountable and
painful. We could not believe that he was lost to us for ever, nor could
we suppose for a moment that he whose memory was so fondly
cherished, and who had loved us all so much, had so completely
changed as not to think it worth while even to communicate with us,
and to let us know that he was alive.
"Oh no, no! that is impossible," exclaimed our mother, with tears in her
eyes, when one day our father remarked that lads scarcely were aware
how quickly time flew by, and that they often put off writing home
from day to day till they forgot all about the matter. "I am sure our dear
Alfred would have written if he could. Perhaps he has written, and his
letters have been lost. This is by far the most likely thing to have
occurred. So affectionate, kind, and dutiful as he always was, he
certainly has not forgotten us."
Mary, and Charlotte, and Herbert, all thought the same. So did I. I felt

sure that he had not forgotten us, and that, had he possessed the means
of writing and of sending us a letter, that he would have done so; but I
could not help fancying that he must have been made prisoner by some
savages, or carried into slavery by some Malays or Malagash or other
eastern people, or perhaps that he had been wrecked on some desolate
island from which he had no means of escaping. I reasoned thus: Fond
as he was of the sea, after he had left his ship and virtually quitted the
navy, he was not at all likely to live a shore life. It was much more
probable that he would engage in some trading voyage or other, and the
more romance and adventure it might appear to offer, the more likely
he was to select it; and thus he would have gone away to the South
Seas or to the East Indian Islands, where all the contingencies I have
just spoken of were very likely to occur. It at last became a fixed idea
in my mind that poor Alfred was groaning somewhere or other in
slavery, but the where was the question to solve. I told my sister Mary
my idea, but she entreated me on no account to mention it to our
mother, or to anybody else, as she was certain that it would make them
still more unhappy about him than they were already.
At length a strong desire grew up in my bosom to set out and try to
discover Alfred. I had heard my father quote a Portuguese proverb, "He
who does not want sends, he who wants goes." Now, I certainly wanted
very much indeed to find out where poor Alfred was, and I was ready
and eager to sail the world round to discover him; but I was still very
young, and I knew that there would be a great deal of difficulty in
getting my father to allow me to go, if indeed he would give me
permission at all. When or how the idea came into my mind I could not
tell. There it was, however, and once there it was not likely to die out,
but would grow with my growth and strengthen with my strength, till at
length I was able to act upon it.
About this time I observed a great change coming over my father. He
was kind and affectionate as ever, but his spirits were lower than I had
ever known them; and day after day he came down late from London,
looking weary and fagged. My mother, too, looked anxious and sad.
Whatever was the cause which affected him, she was fully aware of it.
He had always from the first told her how his affairs were going on,

and he was not