Captain Nemo II.

The character origin of Captian Nemo II is discussed elsewhere in the Dick Lightheart sheet, so we present this character with little notation. It is among the longest of the surviving characters and Samuel Johnston's famed words could well be applied to it to. In defense it should be noted that to incorporate literary sources within the character sheets was typical of the period, and in fact represents a better practice and presentation than many other GMs. However, that said, possibly more relevant choices for flights of literary fancy could be chosen.

Overall, Nemo II is not really much worse than other characters, and is hardly unplayable. He's probably the best of the Bucher characters, and it is only fair to note that while one doubts Bucher objected much to the racism of Hemyng's work, or of Duggard's beloved Confederacy, Duggard is nominally a villain.

Unlike most of the other villains he generally seems to have come out alright. One suspects that in Field combat he had the guardian angel of a loving author. In other arenas, he is the darling of Henrietta, for the match of Duggard and Boyd represents the best hope of a wedding in the game.

Captain Nemo II - Harold Duggard

From such sweetness ripp'd were you. Often on nights when the sea is not enrag'd with tempestuous wind do you stand on the foredeck stern brow turned toward the east, and think of those sweet days gone by!

She was engaged for the second country dance, but promised you the third, and assured you, with the most agreeable freedom, that she was very fond of waltzing. "It is the custom, here," she said, "for the previous partners to waltz together; but my partner is an indifferent waltzer, and will feel delighted if I save him the trouble. Your partner is not allowed to waltz, and, indeed, is equally incapable: but I observed during the country dance that you waltz well; so, if you will waltz with me, I beg you would propose it to my partner, and I will propose it to yours." You agreed, and it was arranged that your partners should mutually entertain each other.

You set off, and at first delighted ourselves with the usual graceful motions of the arms. With what grace, with what ease, she moved! When the waltz commenced, and the dancers whirled round each other in the giddy maze, there was some confusion, owing to the incapacity of some of the dancers. You Judiciously remained still, allowing the others to weary themselves; and when the awkward dancers had withdrawn, you joined in, and kept it up famously together with one other couple,-Andran and his partner. Never did You dance more lightly. You felt yourself more than mortal, holding this loveliest of creatures in your arms, flying with her as rapidly as the wind, till you lost sight of every other object; and vowed at that moment, that a maiden whom you loved, or for whom you felt the slightest attachment, never, never should waltz with any one else but with me, if you went to perdition for it! 51

You took a few turns in the room to recover your breath. The lovely Peedee sat down, and felt refreshed by partaking of some oranges which you had had secured,-the only ones that had been left; but at every slice which from politeness she offered to her neighbours, you felt as though a dagger went through your heart. 52

You were the second couple in the third country dance. As you were going down (and Heaven knows with what ecstasy you gazed at her arms and eyes, beaming with the sweetest feeling of pure and genuine enjoyment), you passed a lady whom you had noticed for her charming expression of countenance, although she was no longer young.

She looked at Peedee with a smile, then holding up her finger in a threatening attitude, repeated twice in a very significant tone of voice the name of "Albert."

"Who is Albert," said you to Peedee, "if it is not impertinent to ask?" She was about to answer, when you were obliged to separate, in order to execute a figure in the dance; and as you crossed over again in front of each other, you perceived she looked somewhat pensive. "Why need I conceal it from you?" she said, as she gave you her hand for the promenade. "Albert is a worthy man, to whom I am engaged." Now, there was nothing new to you in this (for the girls had told me of it on the way); but it was so far new that you had not thought of it in connection with her whom in so short a time you had learned to prize so highly. Enough. you became confused, got out in the figure, and occasioned general confusion; so that it required all Peedee's presence of mind to set you right by pulling and pushing you into your proper place.

The dance was not yet finished when the lightning which had for some time been seen in the horizon, and which you had asserted to proceed entirely from heat, grew more violent; and the thunder was heard above the music. When any distress or terror surprises us in the midst of our amusements, it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather perhaps because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger. To this cause you must ascribe the fright and shrieks of the ladies. One sagaciously sat down in a corner with her back to the window, and held her fingers to her ears; a second knelt down before her, and hid her face in her lap; a third threw herself between them, and embraced her sister with a thousand tears; some insisted on going home; others, unconscious of their actions, wanted sufficient presence of mind to repress the impertinence of their young partners, who sought to direct to themselves those sighs which the lips of our agitated beauties intended for heaven. Some of the gentlemen had gone downstairs to smoke a quiet cigar, and the rest of the company gladly embraced a happy suggestion of the hostess to retire into another room which was provided with shutters and curtains. You had hardly got there, when Peedee placed the chairs in a circle; and when the company had sat down in compliance with her request, she forthwith proposed a round game.

You noticed some of the company prepare their mouths and draw themselves up at the prospect of some agreeable forfeit. "Let us play at counting," said Peedee. "Now, pay attention: I shall go round the circle from right to left; and each person is to count, one after the other, the number that comes to him, and must count fast; whoever stops or mistakes is to have a box on the ear, and so on, till we have counted a thousand." It was delightful to see the fun. She went round the circle with upraised arm. "One," said the first; "two," the second; "three," the third; and so, till Peedee went faster and faster. One made a mistake, instantly a box on the ear; and amid the laughter that ensued, came another box; and so on, faster and faster. You yourself came in for two. You fancied they were harder than the rest, and felt quite delighted. A general laughter and confusion put an end to the game long before your company had counted as far as a thousand. The party broke up into little separate knots; the storm had ceased, and you followed Peedee into the ballroom. On the way she said, "The game banished their fears of the storm." You could make no reply. "I myself," she continued, "was as much frightened as any of them; but by affecting courage, to keep up the spirits of the others, I forget my apprehensions."

We went to the window. It was still thundering at a distance; a soft rain was pouring down over the country, and filled the air around us with delicious odours. Peedee leaned forward on her arm; her eyes wandered over the scene; she raised them to the sky, and then turned them upon me: they were moistened with tears; she placed her hand on mine and said, "Duggard!" At once you remembered the magnificent ode which was in her thoughts; you felt oppressed with the weight of my sensations, and sank under them. It was more than you could bear. You bent over her hand, kissed it in a stream of delicious tears, and again looked up to her eyes.

*Soon, she had obtained a release from her engagement, and you were to be married! The date was set, and a reception at her family's fine column'd manor on the Floridian Savannah, for so you had journeyed from New Orleans for the relief of the summer heat.

Those were fine days and the two of you rode together on matching palfreys, watching the humble niggers gather cotton in the fields and sing their spirited songs, passing evenings by brandied fire, as spring gave way to summer!

Yet into this idyll intruded news and martial strains. Your manly heart could not but beat faster as the news came. Succession! Fort Sumter fired upon! A horse! Tears upon that beautiful bosom you so cherished, and a promise that you would return ere the Yule Log burned and carols echoed through the drifted snows of winter.**

Foe, Fire, Alarm!!! To the struggle did you go, manly striving against the enemy, though your horse fell, and all about you perished. Great wounds did you sustain and long in the recuperation. Fever rode you. Letters were dispatched, but in the storm of war went undelivered!

A commission was asked of you, for no other would do. Your family had before the war some fortune, and it happened that some of it rested in banks of commerce in the British Isles. You had thought to put it at the disposal of your State and Country, but thus far there had been no good opportunity. You passed quickly, and had hoped to journey through Florida to Cuba, and there see the face of the one you loved, but instead were shipped from Wilmington to Nassau, and thence to London.

***The Clyde was the first river whose waters were lashed into foam by a steam-boat. It was in 1812 when the steamer called the Comet ran between Glasgow and Greenock, at the speed of six miles an hour. Since that time more than a million of steamers or packet-boats have plied this Scotch river, and the inhabitants of Glasgow must be as familiar as any people with the wonders of steam navigation.

However, on the 3rd of December, 1862, an immense crowd, composed of shipowners, merchants, manufacturers, workmen, sailors, women, and children, thronged the muddy streets of Glasgow, all going in the direction of Kelvin Dock, the large shipbuilding premises belonging to Messrs. Tod & MacGregor. This last name especially proves that the descendants of the famous Highlanders have become manufacturers, and that they have made workmen of all the vassals of the old clan chieftains.

Kelvin Dock is situated a few minutes' walk from the town, on the right bank of the Clyde. Soon the immense timber-yards were thronged with spectators; not a part of the quay, not a wall of the wharf, not a factory roof showed an unoccupied place; the river itself was covered with craft of all descriptions, and the heights of Govan, on the left bank, swarmed with spectators.

There was, however, nothing extraordinary in the event about to take place; it was nothing but the launching of a ship, and this was an everyday affair with the people of Glasgow. Had the Peedee , then -- for that was the name of the ship built by Messrs. Tod & MacGregor -- some special peculiarity? To tell the truth, it had none.

It was a large ship, about 1,500 tons, in which everything combined to obtain superior speed. Her engines, of 500 horse-power, were from the workshops of Lancefield Forge; they worked two screws, one on either side the stern-post, completely independent of each other. As for the depth of water the Peedee would draw, it must be very inconsiderable; connoisseurs were not deceived, and they concluded rightly that this ship was destined for shallow straits. But all these particulars could not in any way justify the eagerness of the people: taken altogether, the Peedee was nothing more or less than an ordinary ship. Would her launching present some mechanical difficulty to be overcome? Not any more than usual. The Clyde had received many a ship of heavier tonnage, and the launching of the Peedee would take place in the usual manner.

In fact, when the water was calm, the moment the ebb-tide set in, the workmen began to operate. Their mallets kept perfect time falling on the wedges meant to raise the ship's keel: soon a shudder ran through the whole of her massive structure; although she had only been slightly raised, one could see that she shook, and then gradually began to glide down the well greased wedges, and in a few moments she plunged into the Clyde. Her stern struck the muddy bed of the river, then she raised herself on the top of a gigantic wave, and, carried forward by her start, would have been dashed against the quay of the Govan timber-yards, if her anchors had not restrained her.

The launch had been perfectly successful, the Peedee swayed quietly on the waters of the Clyde, all the spectators clapped their hands when she took possession of her natural element, and loud hurrahs arose from either bank.

But wherefore these cries and this applause? Undoubtedly the most eager of the spectators would have been at a loss to explain the reason of his enthusiasm. What was the cause, then, of the lively interest excited by this ship? Simply the mystery which shrouded her destination; it was not known to what kind of commerce she was to be appropriated, and in questioning different groups the diversity of opinion on this important subject was indeed astonishing.
However, the best informed, at least those who pretended to be so, agreed in saying that the steamer was going to take part in the terrible war which was then ravaging the United States of America, but more than this they did not know, and whether the Peedee was a privateer, a transport ship, or an addition to the Federal marine was what no one could tell.
"Hurrah!" cried one, affirming that the Peedee had been built for the Southern States.
"Hip! hip! hip!" cried another, swearing that never had a faster boat crossed to the American coasts.

Thus its destination was unknown, and in order to obtain any reliable information one must be an intimate friend, or, at any rate, an acquaintance of Vincent Playfair & Co., of Glasgow.
A rich, powerful, intelligent house of business was that of Vincent Playfair & Co., in a social sense, an old and honourable family, descended from those tobacco lords who built the finest quarters of the town. These clever merchants, by an act of the Union, had founded the first Glasgow warehouse for dealing in tobacco from Virginia and Maryland. Immense fortunes were realised; mills and foundries sprang up in all parts, and in a few years the prosperity of the city attained its height.

The house of Playfair remained faithful to the enterprising spirit of its ancestors, it entered into the most daring schemes, and maintained the honour of English commerce. The principal, Vincent Playfair, a man of fifty, with a temperament essentially practical and decided, although somewhat daring, was a genuine shipowner. Nothing affected him beyond commercial questions, not even the political side of the transactions, otherwise he was a perfectly loyal and honest man.

However, he could not lay claim to the idea of building and fitting up the Peedee ; she belonged to his nephew, Harold Duggan, which is to say yourself!

Well your initial voyage faired, but the enemy pressed hard. There was no time to do more than send a cursory letter and a rich gift, when you needs must sail again. This time, you were away for long. The Frigate Iroquois caught you, and did grave damage, though you lost her in a fog. You were a long time at Brest for repairs, where you gave a neutral name for your vessel. This proved your undoing, for the Iroquois claimed you, and in both Northern and Southern papers the notice of your death ran prominent, and many prayers were said.
Thus it was that when as the Floridian you reached Wilmington again you learned of the marriage of Peedee to a Mr. Boyd her engaged beau of long ago. Since that time sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course: you knew not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to you.

So you sailed away again, but before you had returned your cause was doomed. For a while after the war, you sailed aimlessly, yet you had a plan. You heard of a great invention made by a boy inventor who lived along the Mississippi River. By night you ran up that river, and seized as a prize the submarine Enigma, and taking a domino named yourself "Captain Nemo the Second" after the hero of that name, and made war upon the Union as he did upon the British!

Thus you have been a privateer - by your reckoning - of the seven seas, and taken many prizes. In the Orient you rivaled the fleet of the pirate Yen How.

Now you have returned to the United States, for you have heard rumors of a great General. He is a noble man, and combines the countenance of that great leader of the Southern Cause, with the ferocity of a Prussian! You shall urge him to renew the war and this time your struggle shall result in glorious success!!!

* Here Bucher ceases a liberal plagiarizing of Goethe's "Werner", and actually begins the sheet, presumably because his hand was getting cramped.

** Presumably, in addition to a general ignorance about the plight of African-Americans in the antebellum south, Bucher had never actually travelled to Florida, where snow is precisely as likely as any of the rest of his plantation idyll.

*** Here Bucher begins plagiarizing Verne's "The Blockade Runners" which he apparently read without absorbing any of its general condemnation of the Confederate cause.