enough to hurl overboard its rubber-encased budget of American news, to be scuffled for in the swell by the rival oarsmen of the cape, and borne by the successful boat to the island, where relays of telegraph clerks then waited day and night to serve Europe with tidings of the republic’s fight for life.
This concentration of thought upon steamer runs and records, to the exclusion of interest in mere Europe, has descended like a mantle upon the first-cabin passengers of our own later generation. But the voyagers in the Moldavian had a peculiar warrant for their concern. They had left America on Saturday, April 15, bearing with them the terrible news of Lincoln’s assassination in Ford’s Theatre, the previous evening, and it meant life-long distinction—in one’s own eyes at least—to be the first to deliver these tidings to an astounded Old World. Eight days’ musing on this chance of greatness had brought them to a point where they were prepared to learn with equanimity that the rival Bahama had struck a rock outside, somewhere. One of their number, a little Jew diamond merchant, now made himself quite popular by relating his personal recollections of the calamity which befel her sister ship, the Anglia, eighteen months ago, when she ran upon Blackrock in Galway harbor.
One of these first-cabin passengers, standing for a time irresolutely upon the outskirts of this gossiping group, turned abruptly when the under-sized Hebrew addressed a part of his narrative to him, and walked off alone into the shadows of the stern. He went to the very end, and leaned over the taff-rail, looking down upon the boiling, phosphorescent foam of the vessel’s wake. He did not care a button about being able to tell Europe of the murder of Lincoln and Seward—for when they left the secretary was supposed, also, to have been mortally wounded. His anxieties were of a wholly different sort.
He, The O’Mahony of Muirisc, was plainly but warmly clad, with a new, shaggy black overcoat buttoned to the chin, and a black slouch hat drawn over his eyes. His face was clean shaven, and remarkably free from lines of care and age about the mouth and nostrils, though the eyes were set in wrinkles. The upper part of the face was darker and more weather-beaten, too, than the lower, from which a shrewd observer might have guessed that until very recently he had always worn a beard.
There were half a dozen shrewd observers on board the Moldavian among its cabin passengers—men of obvious Irish nationality, whose manner with one another had a certain effect of furtiveness, and who were described on the ship’s list by distinctively English names, like Potter, Cooper and Smith; and they had watched the O’Mahony of Muirisc very closely during the whole voyage, but none of them had had doubts about the beard, much less about the man’s identity. In truth, they looked from day to day for him to give some sign, be it never so slight, that his errand to Ireland was a political one. They were all Fenians—among the advance guard of that host of Irishmen who returned from exile at the close of the American War—and they took it for granted that the solitary and silent O’Mahony was a member of the Brotherhood. The more taciturn he grew, the more he held aloof, the firmer became their conviction that his rank in the society was exalted and his mission important. The very fact that he would not be drawn into conversation and avoided their company was proof conclusive. They left him alone, but watched him with lynx-like scrutiny.
The O’Mahony had been conscious of this ceaseless observation, and he mused upon it now as he watched the white whirl of churned waters below. The time was close at hand when he should know whether it had meant anything or not; there was comfort in that, at all events. He was less a coward than any other man he knew, but, all the same, this unending espionage had worn upon his nerve. Doubtless, that was in part because sea-voyaging was a novelty to him. He had not been ill for a moment. In fact, he could not remember to have ever eaten and drunk more in any eight days of his life. If it had not been for the confounded watchfulness of the Irishmen, he would have enjoyed the whole experience immensely. But it was evident that they were all in collusion—“in cahoots,” he phrased it in his mind—and had a common interest in noting all his movements. What could it mean? Strange as it may seem, The O’Mahony had never so much as heard of the Fenian Brotherhood.
He rose from his lounging meditation presently, and sauntered forward again along the port deck. The lights from the coast were growing more distinct in the distance, and, as he paused to look, he fancied he could discern a dark line of shore below them.
“I suppose your ancistral estates are lyin’ further west, sir,” spoke a voice at his side. The O’Mahony cast a swift half-glance around, and recognized one of the suspected spies.
“Yes, a good deal west,” he growled, curtly.
The other took no offense.
“Sure,” he went on, pleasantly, “the O’Mahonys and the O’Driscolls, not to mintion the McCarthys, chased each other around that counthry yonder at such a divil of a pace it’s hard tellin’ now which belonged to who.”
“Yes, we did hustle round considerable,” assented The O’Mahony, with frigidity.
“You’re manny years away from Ireland, sir?” pursued the man.
“Why?”
“I notice you say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ It takes a long absence to tache an Irishman that.”
“I’ve been away nearly all my life,” said The O’Mahony, sharply—“ever since I was a little boy and turning on his heel, he walked to the companionway and disappeared down the stairs.
“Faith, I’m bettin’ it’s the gineral himself!” said the other, looking after him.
To have one’s waking vision greeted, on a soft, warm April morning, by the sight of the Head of Kinsale in the sunlight—with the dark rocks capped in tenderest verdure and washed below by milkwhite breakers; with the smooth water mirroring the blue of the sky upon its bosom, yet revealing as well the marbled greens of its own crystalline depths; with the balmy scents of fresh blossoms meeting and mingling in the languorous air of the Gulf Stream’s bringing—can there be a fairer finish to any voyage over the waters of the whole terrestrial ball!
The O’Mahony had been up on deck before any of his fellow-passengers, scanning the novel details of the scene before him. The vessel barely kept itself in motion through the calm waters. The soft land breeze just availed to turn the black column of smoke rising from the funnel into a sort of carboniferous leaning tower. The pilot had been taken on the previous evening. They waited now for the tug, which could be seen passing Roche’s Point with a prodigious spluttering and splashing of side-paddles. Before its arrival, the Moldavian lay at rest within full view of the wonderful harbor—her deck thronged with passengers dressed now in fine shore apparel and bearing bags and rugs, who bade each other good-bye with an enthusiasm which nobody believed in, and edged along as near as possible where the gang-plank would be.
The O’Mahony walked alone down the plank, rebuffing the porters who sought to relieve him of his heavy bags. He stood alone at the prow of the tug, as it waddled and puffed on its rolling way back again, watching the superb amphitheatre of terraced stone houses, walls, groves and gardens toward which he had voyaged these nine long days, with an anxious, almost gloomy face. The Fenians, still closely observing him, grew nervous with fear that this depression forboded a discovery of contra-brand arms in his baggage.
But no scandal arose. The custom officers searched fruitlessly through the long platforms covered with luggage, with a half perfunctory and wholly whimsical air, as if they knew perfectly well that the revolvers they pretended to be looking for were really in the pockets of the passengers. Then other good-byes, distinctly less enthusiastic, were exchanged, and the last bonds of comradeship which life on the Moldavian had enforced snapped lightly as the gates were opened.
Everybody else
