The Missing Merchantman | Page 2

Eva was a beautiful girl, as good as she was beautiful, and
the very apple of her father's eye--which is all that need be said of her,
as she plays no part in the events which it is the purpose of this
narrative to chronicle.
Young Edward Damerell, born and brought up within sight and sound
of the sea, early manifested a natural desire to tread in his father's
footsteps by following the same profession. To this the old gentleman
made no very serious objection, but he would not hear of his son
entering the navy. The service, he insisted, had been ruined by the
introduction of steam and armour-plates. Moreover, he had discovered,
to his cost, that without money and influence, and plenty of both, a man
stood but little chance, in these piping times of peace, of making any
great amount of headway up the ratlins of promotion. "So," said he, "if
Ned chooses to go to sea, he will have to enter the merchant service,
where good seamen are still, and always will be, required."
And this Ned did under the most advantageous circumstances, as
"midshipman-apprentice" on board an Australian clipper belonging to
the "Bruce" line, in which employ he was duly serving his time--very
creditably, indeed, to himself and to the officers who had the training of
him, if the report of the skipper, Captain Blyth, was to be believed. And
he was now, on this particular morning, leaving home once more, after
a month's leave, to join a brand-new steel-built clipper called the Flying
Cloud, the latest addition to the "Bruce" fleet, of which ship Captain
Blyth had been given the command.

As the lad arrived opposite King Street, the point where he would have
to turn off and leave the esplanade and the "front," as the inhabitants
term it, he paused a moment, looked longingly to right and left of him
at the long terraces of neat houses facing the sea, at the "Nothe" on the
opposite side of the harbour, at the sands, the bay, and the long stretch
of bold coast to the northward and eastward, and sighed regretfully at
the thought that he was about to leave the place once more for so long a
time. He was enthusiastically attached to his profession--as every lad
must be if he would make his way in the world-- but he was also
attached to the place of his birth, and infinitely more was he attached to
his father and sister; and though he was too manly to express sorrow at
his departure, the feeling was there and would not be altogether ignored.
It was, therefore, with but an indifferently successful assumption of
cheerfulness that he exclaimed:
"Well, good-bye, old town! Who knows how many weary leagues I
shall have to travel, and through what hardships and perils I may have
to pass, before I tread your streets again!"
And, linking his arms in those of his father and sister, he crossed the
road and passed down the street to the railway-station.
Poor Ned! when he spoke so lightly he little knew that the words had so
prophetic a meaning.
In due course he arrived in London, and, chartering a cab, made the
best of his way to his new ship, which was taking in cargo in the
London Docks. On arriving alongside his first act was naturally to give
a scrutinising look at the craft and to mentally compare her with the
Bride of Abydos, his former ship; and much as he thought of the latter,
he was almost reluctantly compelled to admit that the Flying Cloud
greatly excelled her in every point most highly prized by a seaman. She
was the very latest exponent of the shipbuilder's art, and of the success
which has attended the efforts of the naval architect to combine, in the
highest degree, a large carrying capacity with perfect sea-going powers
and super-excellence in point of speed. She was just a nice, comfortable,
handy size--twelve hundred tons register--steel- built, and of
exceptional strength, classed 100 A1 at Lloyd's; a beamy rather than a

deep vessel, with very fine ends. And an innovation had been
introduced in her construction in the shape of a pair of deep bilge-keels,
which her designer asserted would not only very greatly modify her
rolling, but would also cause her to hang to windward like a yacht. She
was an exceptionally pretty model, with a full poop, and was
full-rigged, her stability being most satisfactorily demonstrated by the
fact that her skysail-yards were aloft and crossed notwithstanding the
circumstance that she had only just begun to receive her cargo. She was
painted grey, with a broad white riband and painted ports, her top-sides
being black. She carried a very handsome, well-executed carving of a
woman, with