Nevermore - Rolf Boldrewood

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quote the nursery classic. All were there.

      Men of good family, like himself, chiefly younger sons, however, who had quitted Britain in order to enlarge the proverbial slenderness of a cadet's purse—

      'One was a peer of ancient blood,

       In name and fame undone—

       And one could speak in ancient Greek,

       And one was a bishop's son.'

      The soigné ex-guardsman, for whom the last Derby had been the knell of fate, he was there, plainly dressed and unpretentious of manner, yet bearing the unmistakable stamp of the class whom King Fashion delighted to honour. The middle-aged club lounger, who thought the new game of Golden Hazard, at which the stakes were reported to be so heavy and the players so inexperienced, worth a voyage and a deal or two—he was there. The farmer's son, who had hunted too much; the farm labourer, who was a bit of a poacher; the gamekeeper, who had kept an eye on him; the shopman, whose soft hands had never done a day's hard work; the groom, the coachman, the gardener, each and every one of the members of the staff of rural and city life—were there. With some exceptions, they were chiefly young, and now, as the fear and discomfort of the early part of the voyage wore off, the natural characters of the individuals commenced to exhibit themselves.

      It was pathetic to see the trustful confidence with which delicately-nurtured women, following their improvident or heedless mates, clung to the idea that, once safely landed in the wondrous land of gold, all would be well. They had left in the old land all that had made the solace of their lives, their tenderest memories and inherited affection. After unutterable wretchedness and discomfort, they were now voyaging towards a land the characteristics of which were practically an unknown to them as those of the interior of Africa, and yet, 'O woman, great in thy faith!' those victims of ironic fate were cheerful, even gay. As they looked in the eyes of their husbands or the faces of their children and saw them happy and sanguine, they dreaded no cloud in the tropic sky, neither storm nor disaster, poverty nor danger, to come in the far south land.

      With many young men on board, and others who, though no longer young, were not disinclined for games of chance, it was only to be expected that a little card-playing should go on. Lance was naturally fond of all games of hazard—bad, indeed, born and bred in him—derived from whatever ancestor—the true gambler's passion. He had enjoyed no great opportunity of developing it yet. All games of chance had been strictly interdicted at Wychwood. Now that he had come into freer atmosphere—into another world, socially considered—he felt a newly-arisen desire for play, so strong and unconquerable that it astonished himself. He had, of course, £200 or £300 with him, not intending to land in Australia quite penniless. This was more than many of his shipmates could boast of possessing, and he passed among them, in consequence, as quite a capitalist; in his way. Though he played regularly, almost daily in fact, he was more than moderately successful. The evil genius of chance, who lures men to their destruction by ensuring their success in their early hazards, was not absent on this occasion. Lance won repeatedly, so much so that his good fortune began to be as much a matter of general observation as his apparent easiness as regarded money.

      It may be imagined that Trevanion's circle of acquaintances became enlarged. Inexperienced youngsters like himself mingled every day, when the weather permitted, with men who had played for high stakes in good London clubs. Success, of course, varied. Many of the callow gamblers lost all they had, and had, perforce, to look forward to landing in Melbourne without a penny in the world.

      Among those who were proverbially unsuccessful was a young man, who, from that and other reasons, commenced to attract an unusual share of attention from the other passengers. He and Lance Trevanion were decidedly unsympathetic. They were always pitted against one another in play. They appeared to be rivals in all things. More than once they had been on the verge of a quarrel, which the bystanders had prevented from being fought out. What was perhaps really curious was the fact, which all were quick to remark, that the two men resembled each other in personal appearance to a most uncommon degree. Lawrence Trevenna, for such was his name, was probably a year older, but otherwise had much the same figure, features, and complexion. The eyes, too, strange to say, were of the same shape and colour; and, as the two men faced each other in the quarrel before mentioned, more than one looker-on remarked the curious peculiarity—the strange unearthly glitter, the lurid light, which shone forth in the hour of wrath and defiance. No one had noticed it before in either face. 'They were as much alike,' said the second mate, who was standing by, somewhat disappointed that the fight did not come off, 'as if they were brothers. There couldn't have been a closer match.'

      As it turned out, they had never seen one another before—in fact, came from different parts of England. The other man, when looked at closely, was decidedly coarser in feature and less refined in type. His conversation, too, disclosed the fact that his early education had been indifferent. Handsome and stalwart as he was, under no circumstances could he be considered to rank as a gentleman. That his temper was violent was put beyond a doubt by the savage outbreak which led to the quarrel. It was not certain that he would have got the best of it in a hand-to-hand encounter, but his expression on reluctantly retiring was of unequivocal malevolence, as was indeed exhibited by his parting speech.

      'I'll meet with you another day,' he said. 'Australia is not such a big place, after all. You may not have so many backers next time.'

      'It's perfectly indifferent to me,' answered Trevanion, 'when or how we meet. I dare say my hands will save my head there, as they can do here. People shouldn't play for money who can't keep their tempers when they lose.'

      The passengers of the Red Jacket had in a general way too much to think about to bother their heads about the accidental likeness existing between two young fellows in the second class, still the story leaked out. It was said 'that one of them was an eldest son and heir to an old historic name and a fine estate. The other was a very fine young man, but evidently a nobody, inasmuch as he dropped his aitches and so on. But they were so wonderfully alike that you could hardly tell them apart. It would be worth while to get up amateur theatricals and play the Corsican Brothers. Effect tremendous, you know! Queerest thing of all, too, they'd never met before and didn't like each other now they had met.'

      'Strange things, doubles,' said Captain Westerfield, late of H.M. 80th Regiment. 'Not so very uncommon though. Most men in society have one. My fellow turned up at Baden, most extraordinary resemblance, wasn't an Englishman either. Raffish party too, spy and conspirator persuasion, that sort of thing. Did me good service once, though. Story too long to tell now.'

      'Oh, Captain Westerfield, do tell it to us,' said the fascinating Mrs. Grey, as they walked back to the first-class region, after inspecting the two Dromios.

      'Some day, perhaps,' murmured the Captain.

      The Red Jacket held on her way with unslackened speed. Night and day, fair weather and foul, with winds ahead or astern, it was all the same to Captain Forbes. Never was an inch of canvas taken in before the 'sticks' began to give token of ill-usage. 'What she couldn't carry she might drag,' was his usual reply to remonstrating passengers. And he had his accustomed luck. In the murkiest midnight, or when fogs made the best lights invisible a ship's length in advance, the Red Jacket ran into no homeward-speeding bark. Nor did any other reckless-driving vessel, with a captain vowed to make the passage of the season, encounter him. The long, low coast-line of Australia and the Otway light were sighted at as nearly as possible the hour when they were expected to be visible, and through the Rip and up the vast land-locked haven of Port Phillip Bay went the Racer of the Ocean one afternoon, fully two days in advance of the shortest passage which had ever been known in those days between the old old world and that new one which so long lay unknown and unpeopled beneath the Southern Cross.

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      So this was Melbourne! At least the nearest that the Red Jacket could get to it, on account of certain natural obstacles. But it lay only seven miles off, that is by the river, of which they

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