MY SHIPMATE LOUISE VOL. I. NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES. A FELLOW OF TRINITY. By ALAN ST. AUBYN and WALT WHEELER. 3 vols. THE WORD AND THE WILL. By JAMES PAYN. 3 vols. AUNT ABIGAIL DYKES. By GEORGE RANDOLPH. 1 vol. A WARD OF THE GOLDEN GATE. By BRET HARTE. 1 vol. RUFFINO. By OUIDA. 1 vol. London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly, W. MY SHIPMATE LOUISE The Romance of a Wreck BY W. CLARK RUSSELL [Illustration] IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. London CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1890 PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON TO LEOPOLD HUDSON, ESQ. _Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England Warden of Middlesex Hospital College_ IN GRATITUDE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME CHAPTER PAGE I. DOWN CHANNEL 1 II. THE FRENCH LUGGER 20 III. MY FELLOW PASSENGERS 43 IV. LOUISE TEMPLE 60 V. A MYSTERIOUS VOICE 84 VI. WE LOSE A MAN 108 VII. A SEA FUNERAL 130 VIII. A STRANGE CARGO 161 IX. A SECRET BLOW 182 X. THE HUMOURS OF AN INDIAMAN 203 XI. A STRANGE SAIL 223 XII. A STORM OF WIND 246 XIII. FIRE! 270 XIV. CRABB 292 MY SHIPMATE LOUISE CHAPTER I DOWN CHANNEL We had left Gravesend at four o’clock in the morning, and now, at half-past eight o’clock in the evening, we were off the South Foreland, the ship on a taut bowline heading on a due down Channel course. It was a September night, with an edge of winter in the gusts and blasts which swept squall-like into the airy darkling hollows of the canvas. There was a full moon, small as a silver cannon-ball, with a tropical greenish tinge in its icy sparkling, and the scud came sweeping up over it in shreds and curls and feathers of vapour, sailing up dark from where the land of France was, and whitening out into a gossamer delicacy of tint as it soared into and fled through the central silver splendour. The weight of the whole range of Channel was in the run of the surge that flashed into masses of white water from the ponderous bow of the Indiaman as she stormed and crushed her way along, the tacks of her courses groaning to every windward roll, as though the clew of each sail were the hand of a giant seeking to uproot the massive iron bolt that confined the corner of the groaning cloths to the deck.