Lights glittered gaily all round the harbour; the ramparts of St. Elmo and of Ricazoli, with the mass of the cathedral, where the knights of the Seven Nations sleep in their marble tombs, and where hung of old the silver keys of Acre, Rhodes, and Jerusalem, stood in bold outline against the ruddy, but deepening, twilight sky.
The scene was lovely and stirring withal; but my heart and thoughts were far away from Malta, as we were rowed back between crowded transports, and huge, silent frigates and line-of battle ships, to the _Pride of the Ocean_.
My good friend, Jack Studhome, who knew the cause of my too apparent depression, made light of the matter, and endeavoured, in his own fashion, to soothe and console me while we took a whiff together on deck, before turning in for the night.
"Consider, Norcliff," said he; "Lady Louisa Loftus, sole heiress of Chillingham Park!"
"Ay, there's the rub, Jack--sole heiress. I would rather that she had not a shilling in the world."
"Indeed! Why?"
"Our chances were more equal then."
"Hear me out. Sole heiress of Lord Chillingham--all save his titles! What should, what could, tempt her--already too, in the face of her engagement with you--to throw herself away on old Slubber, who might be her grandfather? Where would be her gain?"
"The title of marchioness, with vast estates," said I bitterly. "In my case, my dear fellow, she would only be Lady Louisa Loftus, wife of a very poor captain of lancers."
"But those newspaper rumours are frequently such impertinent falsehoods. Remember that, if their authors get their columns filled, they care little with what it may be, for a newspaper must contain daily the same amount of words, whether it give news or not. So with messieurs the editors, it is anything for the nonce. Their best productions are in the press to-day, and too often, perhaps, we don't know where to-morrow; so put not your trust in this, Norcliff. And now to bed. We have stable duty at seven, A.M., to-morrow," concluded Studhome.
Next morning, Captain Binnacle, who had been on shore at Valetta, brought off with him the mail, which came from London _via_ Marseilles, and by it I received a welcome letter from Sir Nigel.
It was long and hurried; but was filled chiefly with hunting intelligence. Had Cora written--and why did she not?--I might have had more interesting tidings.
He had bought a couple of hunters from Lord Chillingham but feared they wouldn't do in such a stone-wall county as Fife; and he had secured a new huntsman--such a tip-top fellow! He had hunted all the counties on the Welsh border--could tell the pedigree of a hound at a glance--was perfect in his work, and rode under ten stone. Sir Hubert himself was but a sham when compared to him, and he was sure to figure some day in the columns of _Bell's Life_.
I had full permission to draw for whatever I required; but I scanned the letter in vain for the name of Louisa. Slubber's was spoken of only twice. Indeed, my hearty old uncle viewed that noble peer of the realm with no small contempt.
"I am still at Chillingham Park, with our kind friends; but I must be home in Scotland for the Lanarkshire steeple-chase on Beltane day. There will be some queer jockeyship in the mounts, I fear. Four miles distance will be the run, including thirteen stone walls, four rough burns, two water leaps, and six-and-twenty most infernal fences. I know the course well--by Gryffwraes and Waterlee. (All this stuff, thought I, and not one word of Louisa!) Old Slubber is to be made a marquis, it seems, so the countess talks nothing but 'peerage'--Douglas and Debrett, Lodge, and Sir Bernard Burke. It is all noble 'shop,' and we poor commoners have not the shadow of a chance!
"Slubber is an old humbug; I am as old as he is, perhaps; but I don't wear my hat in the nape of my neck, or use goloshes and an umbrella--never had one in all my life. I don't mount my horse with the aid of a groom, and ride him as if I was afraid he'd take it into his head to run up a tree. I don't take dinner pills and Seltzer water on the sly from the butler; and my stomach, thank God, is not like his--a more delicate piece of machinery than Cora's French watch; for I can take a jolly curler's dinner of salt beef and greens, and can rush my horse at a six-foot wall neck and neck with the lightest lad in your troop.
"So why he's made a marquis, the devil, and that Scoto-Russian, Lord Aberdeen, on whose policy he always gobbles like a turkey-cock, only know."
Sir Nigel's ridicule of Slubber consoled me a little for his omitting the dear name of Louisa. I knew that it was my regard for her that inspired his chief dislike for the lord. But why was the good-hearted baronet so vituperative? Was the senile peer really likely to become a successful lover? Save by the side of his mistress, a lover is never content.
*CHAPTER XXIX.*
We pass the scattered isles of Cyclades, That, scarce distinguished seemed to stud the seas. The shouts of sailors double near the shores, They stretch their canvas, and they ply their oars. Full on the promised land at length we bore, With joy descending on the Cretan shore. DRYDEN.--_Translation of AEn._ iii.
We were favoured by AEolus. One might have supposed that Captain Robert Binnacle had succeeded to the bag of wind which that airy monarch gave to the wise and gentle king of Ithaca. Thus a few days more saw our transport amid the Isles of Greece as she bore through the Archipelago.
One day it was Milo, with Elijah's lofty peak, its smoky spring, and hollow, sea-soaked rocks, that rose upon our lee; the next it was Siphanto's marble shore, where ireful Apollo flooded the golden mines; rugged Chios--in pagan times the land of purity, in later days the land of slaughter; then Mytilene, the most fertile of all the AEgean Isles, where "burning Sappho loved and sung," and where Terpander strung the lyre anew. Now it was Lemnos, where Vulcan fell from heaven, and where his forges blazed; and the next tack brought us to Tenedos, whose name has never changed since Priam reigned in Troy--all names that recalled alike our schoolboy labours, and the departed glories of the Grecian name.
Off Tenedos the _Himalaya_ steamed past us, with two thousand two hundred souls in her capacious womb. Soon after we entered the Hellespont, between the famous castles of the Dardanelles, where Sestos and Abydos stood of old, and the cannon of Kelidbahar (the lock of the sea) on the European side saluted us, while the Turkish sentinels yelled and brandished their muskets; and amid the haze of a summer evening we saw the harbour lights of Gallipoli rise twinkling from the waters of the strait; and when the anchor was let go, the courses were hauled up, and the transport swung at her moorings, we knew that we were hard by the shores of Thrace.
"And where the blazes is this same Seblastherpoll?" asked Lanty O'Regan, my Irish groom, who was taking a survey of the waters where Leander took his nightly bath.
"That place we sha'n't see, Lanty, for many a long and weary day," said his Scotch companion, Pitblado, with more foresight than some of us then possessed.
Few of us slept that night, and all were busy with preparations for landing; for, with all its varieties, we were weary of the voyage, the confinement of the transport, impatient for shore and for action. So vague were the ideas our soldiers had of distance and locality, that most of them expected to find themselves face to face with the Russians at once.
Beverley and Studhome prepared their "disembarkation returns" for the information of the adjutant-general; and these were so elaborate that one might have supposed the worthy man's peace of mind depended entirely on their literary productions. The whole troop had their traps packed, and were ready to start with the first boat, when the order came to land; and almost with dawn next morning an aide-de-camp, sent by Lieutenant-General the Earl of Lucan, commanding the cavalry division, arrived with orders for our immediate disembarkation, as we were to be posted in the Light Brigade, which already consisted of the 8th and 11th Hussars, and the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons.
The news spread through the ship like wildfire, and the cheer which rose above and below almost drowned the welcome notes of the warning trumpet, as it blew "boot and saddle"--a sound we had not heard since the day we marched from Maidstone.
"Gentlemen, welcome to Gallipoli!" said the staff officer, as he clattered into the cabin, with his steel scabbard and spurs, and proceeded forthwith to regale himself with a long glass of Seltzer, dashed with brandy, for the morning breeze was chilly as it swept across the Hellespont.
"It's a queer-looking place, this Gallipoli," said Beverley.
"And a queer-looking place you'll find it, colonel," added the aide-de-camp, as we gathered round him. "You will be more given to airing your clothes than your classics, and won't be much enchanted with your quarters in Roumania. In lack of space and cleanliness, and in the liberal allowance of gnats and fleas, they are all up to Turkish regulation."