Phantom Ship. Frederick Marryat

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СКАЧАТЬ said Amine, as they sat together with their hands entwined, “I shall not feel so much when you are gone. I do not forget that all this was told me before we were wed, and that for my love I took the hazard. My fond heart often tells me that you will return; but it may deceive me — return you may, but not in life. In this room I shall await you; on this removed to its former station, I shall sit; and if you cannot appear to me alive, O refuse me not, if it be possible, to appear to me when dead. I shall fear no storm, no bursting open of the window. O no! I shall hail the presence even of your spirit. Once more: let me but see you — let me be assured that you are dead — and then I shall know that I have no more to live for in this world, and shall hasten to join you in a world of bliss. Promise me, Philip.”

      “I promise all you ask, provided Heaven will so permit; but, Amine,” and Philip’s lips trembled, “I cannot — merciful God! I am indeed tried. Amine, I can stay no longer.”

      Amine’s dark eyes were fixed upon her husband — she could not speak — her features were convulsed — nature could no longer hold up against her excess of feeling — she fell into his arms, and lay motionless. Philip, about to impress a last kiss upon her pale lips, perceived that she had fainted.

      “She feels not now,” said he, as he laid her upon the sofa; “it is better that it should be so — too soon will she awake to misery.”

      Summoning to the assistance of his daughter Mynheer Poots, who was in the adjoining room, Philip caught up his hat, imprinted one more fervent kiss upon her forehead, burst from the house, and was out of sight long before Amine had recovered from her swoon.

      Chapter Eight

      Before we follow Philip Vanderdecken in his venturous career, it will be necessary to refresh the memory of our readers, by a succinct recapitulation of the circumstances that had directed the enterprise of the Dutch towards the country of the East, which was now proving to them a source of wealth, which they considered as inexhaustible.

      Let us begin at the beginning. Charles the Fifth, after having possessed the major part of Europe, retired from the world for reasons best known to himself, and divided his kingdoms between Ferdinand and Philip. To Ferdinand he gave Austria and its dependencies; to Philip, Spain; but to make the division more equal and palatable to the latter, he threw the Low Countries, with the few millions vegetating upon them, into the bargain. Having thus disposed of his fellow-mortals much to his own satisfaction, he went into a convent, reserving for himself a small income, twelve men, and a pony. Whether he afterwards repented his hobby, or mounted his pony is not recorded; but this is certain — that in two years he died.

      Philip thought (as many have thought before and since) that he had a right to do what he pleased with his own. He therefore took away from the Hollanders most of their liberties: to make amends, however, he gave them the Inquisition; but the Dutch grumbled, and Philip, to stop their grumbling, burnt a few of them. Upon which the Dutch, who are aquatic in their propensities, protested against a religion which was much too warm for their constitutions. In short, heresy made great progress; and the duke of Alva was despatched with a large army to prove to the Hollanders that the Inquisition was the very best of all possible arrangements, and that it was infinitely better that a man should be burnt for half an hour in this world than for an eternity in the next.

      This slight difference of opinion was the occasion of a war which lasted about eighty years, and which, after having saved some hundreds of thousands the trouble of dying in their beds, at length ended in the Seven United Provinces being declared independent. — Now we must go back again.

      For a century after Vasco de Gama had discovered the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese were interfered with by other nations. At last the adventurous spirit of the English nation was roused. The passage to India by the Cape had been claimed by the Portuguese as their sole right: they defended it by force. For a long time no private company ventured to oppose them, and the trade was not of that apparent value to induce any government to embark in a war upon the question. The English adventurers, therefore, turned their attention to the discovery of a north-west passage to India, with which the Portuguese could have no right to interfere, and in vain attempts to discover that passage the best part of the fifteenth century was employed. At last they abandoned their endeavours, and resolved no longer to be deterred by the Portuguese pretensions.

      After one or two unsuccessful expeditions, an armament was fitted out and put under the orders of Drake. This courageous and successful navigator accomplished more than the most sanguine had anticipated. He returned to England in the month of May, 1580, after a voyage which occupied him nearly three years; bringing home with him great riches, and having made most favourable arrangements with the king of the Molucca Islands.

      His success was followed up by Cavendish and others, in 1600. The English East India Company, in the meanwhile, received their first charter from the government and had now been with various success carrying on the trade for upwards of fifty years.

      During the time that the Dutch were vassals to the crown of Spain, it was their custom to repair to Lisbon for the productions of the East, and afterwards to distribute them through Europe; but when they quarrelled with Philip, they were no longer admitted as retailers of his Indian produce: the consequence was that, while asserting and fighting for their independence, they had also fitted out expeditions to India. They were successful; and in 1602 the various speculators were, by the government, formed into a company, upon the same principles and arrangement as those which had been chartered in England.

      At the time, therefore, to which we are reverting, the English and Dutch had been trading in the Indian seas for more than fifty years; and the Portuguese had lost nearly all their power, from the alliances and friendships which their rivals had formed with the potentates of the East, who had suffered from the Portuguese avarice and cruelty.

      Whatever may have been the sum of obligation which the Dutch owed to the English for the assistance they received from them during their struggle for independence, it does not appear that their gratitude extended beyond the Cape; for, on the other side of it, the Portuguese, English, and Dutch fought and captured each other’s vessels without ceremony; and there was no law but that of main force. The mother countries were occasionally called upon to interfere; but the interference up to the above time had produced nothing more than a paper war; it being very evident that all parties were in the wrong.

      In 1650 Cromwell usurped the throne of England, and the year afterwards, having, among other points, vainly demanded of the Dutch satisfaction for the murder of his regicide ambassador, which took place in this year, and some compensation for the cruelties exercised on the English at Amboyne some thirty years before, he declared war with Holland. To prove that he was in earnest, he seized more than two hundred Dutch vessels and the Dutch then (very unwillingly) prepared for war. Blake and Van Tromp met, and the naval combats were most obstinate. In the “History of England” the victory is almost invariably given to the English, but in that of Holland to the Dutch. — By all accounts, these engagements were so obstinate, that in each case they were both well beaten. However, in 1654, peace was signed; the Dutchman promising “to take his hat off” whenever he should meet an Englishman on the high seas — a mere act of politeness, which Mynheer did not object to, as it cost nothing. And now, having detailed the state of things up to the time of Philip’s embarkation, we shall proceed with our story.

      As soon as Philip was clear of his own threshold he hastened away as though he were attempting to escape from his own painful thoughts. In two days he arrived at Amsterdam, where his first object was to procure a small, but strong, steel chain to replace the ribbon by which the relic had hitherto been secured round his neck. Having done this, he hastened to embark with his effects on board of the Ter Schilling. Philip had not forgotten to bring with him the money which he had agreed to pay the captain, in consideration of being received on board as an apprentice rather than a sailor. СКАЧАТЬ