Rogues and Vagabonds

was goi

ear, bright light. It was a glorious summer day-a time when life pulsed joyously, and ever

eyes worn with long vigils glistened in the silver light that fell on them; the

had come to the fifty souls left on board the Bon Espoir. They were alone upon the trackless ocean. Around them lay leagues of lonely water. Their fate would be a myste

dashed to pieces, and engulfed amid the roar of the billows, the how

eir happy childhoods; no billows to seethe-only little playful wavelets that lapped against the ship's side gently, and seemed to

doomed. She had sprung a leak in midocean on the previous night, in a lonely part,

ght wa

ew at once. The captain had shouted to them to keep near the ship, but the order had been disobeyed. When t

of vision. The wind had sunk, the waves were at rest, and the sun b

t yet until they fell into the track of other vessels, took counsel together a

little warning, the baby waves swelled into gigantic billows, and the sighing zeph

y found the water gaining on them. They had gone below, torn their hair, beaten their breasts, cried aloud to the saints

he sailors were not in a condition to move-certainly not to work. They had resigned themselves to their fate now. T

aiting for the end, their faces pale, their

that would know them no more. One man whispered to those who stood near him that he had heard his little boy cry "Father!" and another said that in the n

een them and death, and they c

ted a companionship in misery; they

away to his post after a few last words of encouragement to the lit

hrone of Grace for strength and sustenance in this hour of supreme peril. Briefly he addressed his little flo

ly aft, he felt a hand

t. But on a closer inspection the defects were apparent. The lips were sensual; the eyes had that strange look which one sees in the hunted animal. The fear of something behind was apparent upon the face the moment the features were disturbed from their repose. A dark moustache covered the too thick upper lip, and th

ing to the clergyman. Directly that gentleman turned kindl

id, after a pause; 'but ca

a deserted pa

ng in the clergyman's face and now resting on the deck; 'but I think I ought to. You are a clergyman, an

ed his interviewer e

crime?'

senger

ind,' he murmured. 'I fancy when the

ut to share your fate is, perhaps, rather a superstitious than a religious deed. Let us understand each other. We both believe that we are about to die. You

tell some human being my secret, and it will at least be off my mind. I feel as if th

dded, 'Speak on; but I warn you that whatever you tell me, should we, by the Lor

cket-book, and handed it, wit

ter hes

h a supreme ef

d the Bo

n the night of the 15th of September, 18-, I stabbed my cousin, Ralph Egerton, in a gambling-house, kept by

Gurth E

from him and read it. Then h

eeling came over Gurth Egerton. He reached out h

the book and thrust

of your awful crime. Pray, for your time is short. Remember, shou

erton, with a white face, was about to turn a

il! A

ained their eyes. In that wild moment of sudden hope al

ce, but still visible, were

reast. Strong men laughed and cried and hugge

oke from their drunken sleep

sing ship's attention, when suddenly the vessel heeled over, there was a gurgling sound, the roar and rush of

where the ship and her living freight had sunk the blue wave

waves. As the Bon Espoir sank, the clergyman's hand had hurled

sailed late that afternoon over the

t he could see something that looked like a b

manned an

it returned with

g a man in the last stage of exhaustion. They

-drowned body from the stern of th

ook it in charge, and pron

alf-drowned man

ptain, when he had recove

ered the man, feebly. 'She

are

ent. His senses were ev

lehardt, of Philadelph

oked round

except me?' he aske

a s

gh, and relapsed once mo