The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Marriage at Sea, by W. Clark Russell

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Title: A Marriage at Sea

Author: W. Clark Russell

Release Date: May 24, 2010 [EBook #32516]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MARRIAGE AT SEA ***

Produced by Al Haines

A MARRIAGE AT SEA

BY

W. CLARK RUSSELL

METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.

LONDON

_First Issued in this Cheap Form in 1919_

This Book was First Published (Two Vols.) . . . February 1891

Second Edition (One Vol.) . . . . . . . . . . . February 1892

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. THE RUE DE MAQUETRA
II. THE ELOPEMENT
III. AT SEA
IV. SWEETHEARTS IN A DANDY
V. DIRTY WEATHER
VI. SWEETHEARTS IN A STORM
VII. THE CARTHUSIAN
VIII. OUTWARD BOUND
IX. WE ARE MUCH OBSERVED
X. A SINGULAR PROPOSAL
XI. GRACE CONSENTS
XII. A MARRIAGE AT SEA
XIII. THE MERMAID
XIV. HOMEWARD BOUND
XV. THE END
POSTSCRIPT

A MARRIAGE AT SEA

CHAPTER I

THE RUE DE MAQUETRA

My dandy-rigged yacht, the _Spitfire_, of twenty-six tons, lay in
Boulogne harbour, hidden in the deep shadow of the wall against which
she floated. It was a breathless night, dark despite the wide spread
of cloudless sky that was brilliant with stars. It was hard upon the
hour of midnight, and low down where we lay we heard but dimly such
sounds of life as was still abroad in the Boulogne streets. Ahead of
us loomed the shadow of a double-funnelled steamer--an inky dye of
scarcely determinable proportions upon the black and silent waters of
the harbour. The Capecure pier made a faint, phantom-like line of
gloom as it ran seawards on our left, with here and there a lump of
shadow denoting some collier fast to the skeleton timbers.

The stillness was impressive; from the sands came a dull and distant
moan of surf; the dim strains of a concertina threaded the hush which
seemed to dwell like something material upon the black, vague shape of
a large brig almost directly abreast of us. We were waiting for the
hour of midnight to strike and our ears were strained.

"What noise