Dead Men Tell No Tales

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 inSydney 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 andthe bed-rock of most natures. My own experience was confined to the round voyage of theLady Jermyn, in the year 1853. It was no common experience, as was only too well knownat the time. And I may add that I for my part had not the faintest intention of falling in loveon board; nay, after all these years, let me confess that I had good cause to hold myselfproof 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. Iremember her telling me that she had not yet come out, the very first time I assisted her topromenade the poop. My own name was still unknown to her, and yet I recollect beingquite fascinated by her frankness and self-possession. She was exquisitely young, and yetludicrously old for her years; had been admirably educated, chiefly abroad, and, as we weresoon to discover, possessed accomplishments which would have made the plainest oldmaid a popular personage on board ship. Miss Denison, however, was as beautiful as shewas young, with the bloom of ideal health upon her perfect skin. She had a wealth of lovelyhair, with strange elusive strands of gold among the brown, that drowned her ears (Ithought we were to have that mode again?) in sunny ripples; and a soul greater than themind, 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 blackwith passengers and deep with stores, to bounce home with a bale or two of wool, andhardly hands enough to reef topsails in a gale. Nor was this the worst; for not the crew only, but, in many cases, captain and officers as well, would join in the stampede to the diggings;and we found Hobson's Bay the congested asylum of all manner of masterless and desertedvessels. I have a lively recollection of our skipper's indignation when the pilot informedhim of this disgraceful fact. Within a fortnight, however, I met the good man face to faceupon the diggings. It is but fair to add that the Lady Jermyn lost every officer and man in thesame way, and that the captain did obey tradition to the extent of being the last to quit hisship. Nevertheless, of all who sailed by her in January, I alone was ready to return at thebeginning of the following