MY DANISH SWEETHEART A Novel BY W. CLARK RUSSELL AUTHOR OF 'THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR,' 'THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COLLINGWOOD,' 'A MARRIAGE AT SEA,' ETC., ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. Methuen & Co. 18, BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C. 1891 [_All rights reserved_] CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER PAGE I. A SULLEN DAY 1 II. A NIGHT OF STORM 27 III. IN THE LIFEBOAT 54 IV. HELGA NIELSEN 82 V. DAWN 107 VI. CAPTAIN NIELSEN 136 VII. THE RAFT 162 VIII. ADRIFT 188 IX. RESCUED 215 MY DANISH SWEETHEART. CHAPTER I. A SULLEN DAY. On the morning of October 21, in a year that one need not count very far back to arrive at, I was awakened from a light sleep into which I had fallen after a somewhat restless night by a sound as of thunder some little distance off, and on going to my bedroom window to take a view of the weather I beheld so wild and forbidding a prospect of sea and sky that the like of it is not to be imagined. The heavens were a dark, stooping, universal mass of vapour--swollen, moist, of a complexion rendered malignant beyond belief by a sort of greenish colour that lay upon the face of it. It was tufted here and there into the true aspect of the electric tempest; in other parts, it was of a sulky, foggy thickness; and as it went down to the sea-line it wore, in numerous places, a plentiful dark shading that caused the clouds upon which this darkness rested to look as though their heavy burthen of thunder was weighing their overcharged breasts down to the very sip of the salt. A small swell was rolling in betwixt the two horns of cliff which framed the wide bight of bay that I was overlooking. The water was very dark and ugly with its reflection of the greenish, sallowish atmosphere that tinged its noiseless, sliding volumes. Yet spite of the shrouding shadow of storm all about, the horizon lay a clear line, spanning the yawn of ocean and heaven betwixt the foreland points. There was nothing to be seen seaward; the bay, too, was empty. I stood for a little while watching the cloud of foam made by the swell where it struck upon the low, black ledge of what we call in those parts Deadlow Rock, and upon the westernmost of the two fangs of reef, some little distance away from the Rock, and named by the sailors hereabouts the Twins; I say I stood watching this small play of white water and hearkening for another rumble of thunder; but all remained hushed--not a breath of air--no glance of dumb lightning.