Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, Vol. 2 (of 3) — John Shaqi
Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, Vol. 2 (of 3)Russell, William Clark
General
Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Russell, William Clark
English fiction -- 19th century; Sea stories
‘I thought as much. But it won’t do. Ye’ll have to come out of this.’ I
looked at him. ‘And you’ve been meddling with your bandage. Did not I
tell you to leave it alone? Oh, vanity, vanity! is not thy name woman?
Did ye want to see how much beauty you’ve lost? Come to the light that
I may see what you’ve been doing to yourself.’ He undid the bandage,
and said: ‘Well, it’s mending apace, it’s mending apace. Another day
of that wrap and you shall have my permission to appear as you are.’
He then with an air of roughness, but with a most tender hand, bound my
brow afresh.
‘Now Miss C----,’ said he; ‘but am I to call ye Calthorpe? Half the
ninnies are swearing _that’s_ your name, on no better authority than
the dim recollection of a little old man who would swear to a ducal
likeness in a cook’s mate, if by so doing he could find an excuse to
air his acquaintance with the nobility--what I want to say is this:
I’m your medical adviser, and I desire to see ye with some memory
in your head that the captain may be able to send you home. But if
you intend to mope in this cabin, sitting in yon bed and glaring at
vacancy, as though the physical faculty of memory was a ghost capable
of shaping itself out of thin air and of rushing into your body with
a triumphant yell, then it’s my duty to tell you that, instead of your
memory revisiting its old haunt, the ghost or two of sense that still
stalks in your brain will make a bolt o’ t, leaving ye clean daft. Ye
understand me?’
‘I do not,’ said I.
‘Do you understand me when I say you must get out of this cabin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you understand me when I say that you must mix with the passengers,
take your place at the saloon table, and humanise yourself into the
likeness of others by conversing, listening to the piano playing,
walking the deck and surveying the beauties of the ocean? Do you
understand that?’
‘Yes,’ said I.
‘You look frightened. There is nothing to be afraid of. But you must do
what you’re told, or how are you to get home?’
‘I will do anything,’ I cried passionately, ‘that will give me back my
memory.’
‘Very well,’ said he, ‘to-morrow you shall begin. To-morrow you must
become a passenger and cease to be a stowaway. Why, only think of what
your mind may be meessing. The saloon dinner tables are stripped,
there are people amusing themselves at cards and chess, and there is a
young lady at the piano singing, like a nightingale. She is singing, a
beautiful Scotch song, and the singer herself is a beautiful woman, and
how am I to know that there may not be a magic leagues out of sight of
my poor skill to touch, to arouse, to give life, colour and perfume to
that delicate flower of memory which you believe lies dead in you?’
I started up. ‘I will go and listen to the singing.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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