Chapter Seventeen.A Hopeless Quest.“Sentry, let go the life-buoy!” cried out Commander Nesbitt at once to the marine guard on duty on the poop, as the shout reached his ears; and then, facing round again forward, he said, “Bosun’s mate, call away the lifeboat crew!”On the order being given, the marine had instantly pulled the trigger releasing the slip by which the patent buoy was suspended over the stern, whereupon it dropped into the sea below; the same mechanism igniting the port fire with which it was charged, although it was not yet dark, as the friction-tube had been put in a short while previously when the watch was relieved at Eight Bells, it being the rule on board for the gunner’s mate to do this every day before sunset and take out the percussion-tube again in the morning at daybreak when the hands turned out to wash and scrub decks.So, no sooner had the buoy touched the water than it floated away, flaming in our wake; the lurid blue light casting a spectral glare on the phosphorescent foam of the broken wave crests that contrasted weirdly with the last expiring gleams of the setting sun, now nearly hidden by the pall-like black cloud, which had gradually risen along the horizon and stretched itself across the whole western sky, creeping up steadily towards the zenith and shutting out little by little the last bit of blue.At the sound of the boatswain’s pipe, too, the cutter’s crew had begun to muster on the poop, the leading hands unloosing the gripes with which the boat was secured and the coxswain attending to the tiller; while two or three of the men had already put on their cork jackets and taken their seats on the thwarts, ready for lowering away, the little craft being swung out from the davits to leeward.Excitement there was, of course, amongst us all, everybody looking eager enough, as was natural; but I noticed that, while the commander’s orders were executed with the utmost promptitude, there was no reckless hurry and confusion.The most perfect order and discipline prevailed, everything being done systematically, although the accident had occurred so suddenly and unexpectedly; ay, and despite the fact that every soul on board, from Captain Farmer, who had come out of his cabin again immediately on hearing the lifeboat’s crew called away, down to the youngest cadet and powder-monkey, was willing and anxious to do his best to save our unfortunate shipmate, without one of us knowing as yet who the poor fellow was whose life was thus imperilled.No; nor, indeed, did we learn his name until after the topsails had been double-reefed and hoisted again and the ship hove-to with her maintopsail to the mast—which was accomplished in less time, I believe, than was ever known before, the operation not taking more than three minutes from first to last!Then it was that we heard who had been lost overboard.“It’s poor Popplethorne,” said Charley Gilham, the third lieutenant, who had rushed up to the poop from amidships, where he had been stationed, to take command of the lifeboat. “He fell from the upper rigging as he was climbing up into the foretop. The sail ballooned out; and then, slatting against the yard as the brace was hauled in, the clewline caught him unexpectedly, tripping him up and knocked him out of the rigging headlong into the sea!”“Poor young fellow!” said Captain Farmer. “Do you think he was hurt at all, or fell clear of the ship?”“I’m afraid not, sir,” replied Mr Gilham, sorrowfully, as he grasped the after falls and sprang into the cutter. “One of the foretopmen, who witnessed the accident, says that he appeared to cannon off something below, bounding out from the ship’s side before striking the water, when he sank like a stone.”“I’m afraid, then, there’s no hope of picking him up,” said the captain. “Are you all ready, Gilham?”“All ready, sir.”“Lower away, then,” cried Captain Farmer. “We can but try to save him!”With that, down went the boat into the water alongside, in such a speedy fashion that the after falls slipping too quickly through the lieutenant’s fingers peeled off the skin from the palms of his hands: though Mr Gilham was quite unconscious of the injury he had received until he returned on board, his attention being absorbed in the attempt to save the unhappy midshipman by endeavouring to reach the spot where he had gone down, by this time half-a-mile or so astern.Meanwhile, the commander had stationed lookout men on the crossjack yard and mizzen top, as well as in the weather rigging, to seek for any trace of the poor fellow.The captain and a dozen of the officers or more were also on the alert, scanning the broken surface of the choppy sea surrounding us; but, alas, it was all in vain, no dark speck was to be seen anywhere in the distance resembling the head of the poor fellow trying to keep himself afloat, although the signal staff of the life-buoy could be made out distinctly from the deck, without the assistance of its flaming fuse, which the shades of evening rendered all the more visible as daylight waned.Beyond this and the boat, which was cruising about beyond the buoy, away to leeward, roving hither and thither on its vain quest, there was nothing in sight of us on board the ship, either from the hammock nettings or mast-head.No, nothing but the restless, rolling billows, tossing up their white caps in triumph over the victim who had fallen a sacrifice to Neptune; and the breaking waves, that seemed to chuckle with malicious glee while the remorseless deep below seemed to give vent every now and again to a hoarse roar of triumph!“Signalman, hoist the cutter’s recall,” said Captain Farmer, presently; after an age of waiting and looking out, as it appeared to me, during which not a word was spoken by anyone. “There is no use searching any more now. If he were afloat, they would have found him long since!”“Alas! I’m afraid there’s no hope,” replied the commander. “He will never be seen again, sir, I think, till the sea gives up its dead!”“No, poor fellow. May he rest in peace.”Captain Farmer raised his cap reverently as he said this; the commander doing the like and adding in his deep voice—“Amen to that, sir.”The signalman had run up B flag for the cutter’s return; but, as no notice was apparently taken of the signal, the captain ordered one of the bow guns to be fired.Even then, however, the boat did not at once obey this imperative command, rowing off, indeed, in the opposite direction still, as if those in charge of her had noticed some object in the water, which we could not observe from the ship.A minute or two later, we could see the cutter come to a stop; when, by the aid of the telescope, Larkyns, who was standing by the side of Captain Farmer, said he was sure he saw them pick up something and that they had now turned and were making for the ship.All of us grew excited again on hearing this news, hoping for the best; and as the cutter came closer, the captain, who could not restrain his impatience, hailed her!“Boat, ahoy!” he sang out. “Have you got him?”Charley Gilham, who was sitting in the sternsheets, with his head bent down, looked up on hearing the captain’s call.“No, sir,” he hailed back. “Only his cap!”The boat came alongside in silence, and the falls were hooked on; when, it was hoisted up to the davits slowly, the men hauling in a sort of spiritless way, as if saddened by the painful episode, while even the boatswain’s pipe seemed to whistle in a subdued tone in the minor key!On reaching the deck, the lieutenant came up to the captain with poor Popplethorne’s cap, turning it over as he presented it to him to draw his attention to it.It was torn and bloody on one side.“The topman was right, sir, you see,” he said to Captain Farmer. “He must have struck some part of the ship heavily when he fell from aloft before going overboard.”“Yes,” replied the captain. “I see.”Just then, Mr Jellaby, who had gone forward in the meantime to see if there were any traces there of the accident, returned aft, looking more serious than I had ever seen him before.“His head struck against one of the flukes of the sheet-anchor, sir,” he reported to Captain Farmer who had sent him on the errand. “The bill of it, just abaft the fore-rigging to port, is now spattered with the poor little chap’s brains. I wonder nobody observed it before, sir.”“He would, therefore, have been killed instantly and did not suffer any pain,” said the captain. “Poor young fellow, poor young fellow! He was a most promising lad and always smart at his duty!”“Trim sails!” cried out the commander at this juncture, in a voice husky with emotion; as if anxious to hide his feelings, now that the captain had pronounced his requiem to the memory of our late shipmate. “Brace up the mainyard!”At once our sails filled, when the ship was put upon her course again; and, the watch being then set, we all went below, the boatswain piping the hands down to supper, for it was nearly Three Bells and more than an hour after the usual time for that meal.Naturally everybody in the gunroom was full of the accident, the fellows all thinking more of poor Dick Popplethorne when dead, for the moment at least, than they had ever done while he was living; and I, myself, could not help remembering the strange coincidence of his laughing over Mr Jellaby’s yarn about the marine as we were sailing down Channel only a few days before and being especially merry over the young sentry’s mistake in calling out “Dead boy” when the bell struck.Poor chap, he was a dead boy now, indeed; although, he had been alive and as hearty and jolly as any of us that very afternoon down there at dinner in the mess.It was almost incredible to recollect this! “I have just calculated,” observed Mr Stormcock amidst the general talk about our late messmate, as if stating a most important fact, “that the youngster fell overboard in latitude 48 degrees north, pretty nearly, and longitude 8 degrees 10 minutes west—a trifle to the westward of where we met that confounded Frenchman.”“I don’t see how that information can be of any use to his friends, Stormcock,” said Mr Fortescue Jones, with a coarse laugh. “We can’t very well put up a tombstone over him in the Bay of Biscay.”“For shame, sir!” exclaimed little Tom Mills, who was huddled up crying in a corner of the gunroom, Dick Popplethorne having been an old home friend. “Don’t make fun of the po–poor fellow now he’s dead!”“That’s right, youngster,” put in Mr Stormcock. “Stick up for your friend. I didn’t mean anything against him for a moment, for I always found him a good sort of chap; though, I can’t say I had very much to do with him.”“Well, for my part, I won’t say I’m sorry he has lost the number of his mess,” said that brute Andrews. “He was as big a bully as Larkyns, and I don’t owe him any good will, I can tell you.”“You cowardly cur!” exclaimed Tom Mills, his face flaming up, though the tears were still coursing down his cheeks. “You know you wouldn’t say that if Larkyns were here now.”“Wouldn’t I, cry babby?”Tom did not reply to this in words; but he sent a telescope, that lay at the end of one of the tables near him, flying across the gunroom, catching Andrews a crack on his uplifted arm.This saved his head, fortunately for him, Tom’s shot being a vicious one and well aimed!“What do you mean by that?” said the ill-natured brute. “Do you want to fight?”“Not with you,” rejoined Tommy, whose anger had conquered his grief, speaking with much dignity. “I only fight with gentlemen, and you’re a snob! No gentleman would speak ill of those unable to defend themselves, or say a thing behind a fellow’s back which he would not have the pluck to do when he was present. Andrews, you’re a cad and a coward!”“Stow that, youngster!” interposed Mr Stormcock, as little Tommy rose up and made towards the cad, who, however, showed no inclination to resent the insult offered him. “I won’t allow any quarrelling in the mess! If you want to fight, my boys, you must go into the steerage.”Andrews, I noticed, did not offer to stir, however, in response to this suggestion of the master’s mate, which he would certainly have done if he had been possessed of an ounce of courage in his nature.Tom and I both agreed on this when talking over the matter subsequently; so, seeing what a chicken-hearted fellow he was, mycockylittle chum sat down again and began tucking into his tea, Andrews getting up presently and sneaking away when he thought the coast clear.Mr Stormcock proved to be a false prophet with regard to the foul weather that evening; for, when I went up on deck again to have a look round before turning in, although it was still blowing fresh from the westwards, the black cloud that had previously covered the sky had partly cleared away, leaving only a few fleecy flying masses in its stead.Between them the moon fitfully shone occasionally and an odd star or two peeped out here and there; while our good ship was bowling along under her topgallants, which had been set again by the commander over the double-reefed topsails, with her courses and jib and spanker, and the foretopmast staysail, continuing under the same canvas during the night, without hauling a sheet or tautening a brace, the wind hardly shifting half-a-point all the while.We made such progress, too, towards the spot where the French ship reported having passed the wreck of which we were in search, that, at Six Bells in the morning watch, the lookout man forward, who had been specially ordered to keep a good watch to windward, hailed the deck.“Sail in sight, sir!” he sang out, just as the hands were in the middle of their breakfast. “She’s hull down on the weather bow!”
“Sentry, let go the life-buoy!” cried out Commander Nesbitt at once to the marine guard on duty on the poop, as the shout reached his ears; and then, facing round again forward, he said, “Bosun’s mate, call away the lifeboat crew!”
On the order being given, the marine had instantly pulled the trigger releasing the slip by which the patent buoy was suspended over the stern, whereupon it dropped into the sea below; the same mechanism igniting the port fire with which it was charged, although it was not yet dark, as the friction-tube had been put in a short while previously when the watch was relieved at Eight Bells, it being the rule on board for the gunner’s mate to do this every day before sunset and take out the percussion-tube again in the morning at daybreak when the hands turned out to wash and scrub decks.
So, no sooner had the buoy touched the water than it floated away, flaming in our wake; the lurid blue light casting a spectral glare on the phosphorescent foam of the broken wave crests that contrasted weirdly with the last expiring gleams of the setting sun, now nearly hidden by the pall-like black cloud, which had gradually risen along the horizon and stretched itself across the whole western sky, creeping up steadily towards the zenith and shutting out little by little the last bit of blue.
At the sound of the boatswain’s pipe, too, the cutter’s crew had begun to muster on the poop, the leading hands unloosing the gripes with which the boat was secured and the coxswain attending to the tiller; while two or three of the men had already put on their cork jackets and taken their seats on the thwarts, ready for lowering away, the little craft being swung out from the davits to leeward.
Excitement there was, of course, amongst us all, everybody looking eager enough, as was natural; but I noticed that, while the commander’s orders were executed with the utmost promptitude, there was no reckless hurry and confusion.
The most perfect order and discipline prevailed, everything being done systematically, although the accident had occurred so suddenly and unexpectedly; ay, and despite the fact that every soul on board, from Captain Farmer, who had come out of his cabin again immediately on hearing the lifeboat’s crew called away, down to the youngest cadet and powder-monkey, was willing and anxious to do his best to save our unfortunate shipmate, without one of us knowing as yet who the poor fellow was whose life was thus imperilled.
No; nor, indeed, did we learn his name until after the topsails had been double-reefed and hoisted again and the ship hove-to with her maintopsail to the mast—which was accomplished in less time, I believe, than was ever known before, the operation not taking more than three minutes from first to last!
Then it was that we heard who had been lost overboard.
“It’s poor Popplethorne,” said Charley Gilham, the third lieutenant, who had rushed up to the poop from amidships, where he had been stationed, to take command of the lifeboat. “He fell from the upper rigging as he was climbing up into the foretop. The sail ballooned out; and then, slatting against the yard as the brace was hauled in, the clewline caught him unexpectedly, tripping him up and knocked him out of the rigging headlong into the sea!”
“Poor young fellow!” said Captain Farmer. “Do you think he was hurt at all, or fell clear of the ship?”
“I’m afraid not, sir,” replied Mr Gilham, sorrowfully, as he grasped the after falls and sprang into the cutter. “One of the foretopmen, who witnessed the accident, says that he appeared to cannon off something below, bounding out from the ship’s side before striking the water, when he sank like a stone.”
“I’m afraid, then, there’s no hope of picking him up,” said the captain. “Are you all ready, Gilham?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Lower away, then,” cried Captain Farmer. “We can but try to save him!”
With that, down went the boat into the water alongside, in such a speedy fashion that the after falls slipping too quickly through the lieutenant’s fingers peeled off the skin from the palms of his hands: though Mr Gilham was quite unconscious of the injury he had received until he returned on board, his attention being absorbed in the attempt to save the unhappy midshipman by endeavouring to reach the spot where he had gone down, by this time half-a-mile or so astern.
Meanwhile, the commander had stationed lookout men on the crossjack yard and mizzen top, as well as in the weather rigging, to seek for any trace of the poor fellow.
The captain and a dozen of the officers or more were also on the alert, scanning the broken surface of the choppy sea surrounding us; but, alas, it was all in vain, no dark speck was to be seen anywhere in the distance resembling the head of the poor fellow trying to keep himself afloat, although the signal staff of the life-buoy could be made out distinctly from the deck, without the assistance of its flaming fuse, which the shades of evening rendered all the more visible as daylight waned.
Beyond this and the boat, which was cruising about beyond the buoy, away to leeward, roving hither and thither on its vain quest, there was nothing in sight of us on board the ship, either from the hammock nettings or mast-head.
No, nothing but the restless, rolling billows, tossing up their white caps in triumph over the victim who had fallen a sacrifice to Neptune; and the breaking waves, that seemed to chuckle with malicious glee while the remorseless deep below seemed to give vent every now and again to a hoarse roar of triumph!
“Signalman, hoist the cutter’s recall,” said Captain Farmer, presently; after an age of waiting and looking out, as it appeared to me, during which not a word was spoken by anyone. “There is no use searching any more now. If he were afloat, they would have found him long since!”
“Alas! I’m afraid there’s no hope,” replied the commander. “He will never be seen again, sir, I think, till the sea gives up its dead!”
“No, poor fellow. May he rest in peace.”
Captain Farmer raised his cap reverently as he said this; the commander doing the like and adding in his deep voice—
“Amen to that, sir.”
The signalman had run up B flag for the cutter’s return; but, as no notice was apparently taken of the signal, the captain ordered one of the bow guns to be fired.
Even then, however, the boat did not at once obey this imperative command, rowing off, indeed, in the opposite direction still, as if those in charge of her had noticed some object in the water, which we could not observe from the ship.
A minute or two later, we could see the cutter come to a stop; when, by the aid of the telescope, Larkyns, who was standing by the side of Captain Farmer, said he was sure he saw them pick up something and that they had now turned and were making for the ship.
All of us grew excited again on hearing this news, hoping for the best; and as the cutter came closer, the captain, who could not restrain his impatience, hailed her!
“Boat, ahoy!” he sang out. “Have you got him?”
Charley Gilham, who was sitting in the sternsheets, with his head bent down, looked up on hearing the captain’s call.
“No, sir,” he hailed back. “Only his cap!”
The boat came alongside in silence, and the falls were hooked on; when, it was hoisted up to the davits slowly, the men hauling in a sort of spiritless way, as if saddened by the painful episode, while even the boatswain’s pipe seemed to whistle in a subdued tone in the minor key!
On reaching the deck, the lieutenant came up to the captain with poor Popplethorne’s cap, turning it over as he presented it to him to draw his attention to it.
It was torn and bloody on one side.
“The topman was right, sir, you see,” he said to Captain Farmer. “He must have struck some part of the ship heavily when he fell from aloft before going overboard.”
“Yes,” replied the captain. “I see.”
Just then, Mr Jellaby, who had gone forward in the meantime to see if there were any traces there of the accident, returned aft, looking more serious than I had ever seen him before.
“His head struck against one of the flukes of the sheet-anchor, sir,” he reported to Captain Farmer who had sent him on the errand. “The bill of it, just abaft the fore-rigging to port, is now spattered with the poor little chap’s brains. I wonder nobody observed it before, sir.”
“He would, therefore, have been killed instantly and did not suffer any pain,” said the captain. “Poor young fellow, poor young fellow! He was a most promising lad and always smart at his duty!”
“Trim sails!” cried out the commander at this juncture, in a voice husky with emotion; as if anxious to hide his feelings, now that the captain had pronounced his requiem to the memory of our late shipmate. “Brace up the mainyard!”
At once our sails filled, when the ship was put upon her course again; and, the watch being then set, we all went below, the boatswain piping the hands down to supper, for it was nearly Three Bells and more than an hour after the usual time for that meal.
Naturally everybody in the gunroom was full of the accident, the fellows all thinking more of poor Dick Popplethorne when dead, for the moment at least, than they had ever done while he was living; and I, myself, could not help remembering the strange coincidence of his laughing over Mr Jellaby’s yarn about the marine as we were sailing down Channel only a few days before and being especially merry over the young sentry’s mistake in calling out “Dead boy” when the bell struck.
Poor chap, he was a dead boy now, indeed; although, he had been alive and as hearty and jolly as any of us that very afternoon down there at dinner in the mess.
It was almost incredible to recollect this! “I have just calculated,” observed Mr Stormcock amidst the general talk about our late messmate, as if stating a most important fact, “that the youngster fell overboard in latitude 48 degrees north, pretty nearly, and longitude 8 degrees 10 minutes west—a trifle to the westward of where we met that confounded Frenchman.”
“I don’t see how that information can be of any use to his friends, Stormcock,” said Mr Fortescue Jones, with a coarse laugh. “We can’t very well put up a tombstone over him in the Bay of Biscay.”
“For shame, sir!” exclaimed little Tom Mills, who was huddled up crying in a corner of the gunroom, Dick Popplethorne having been an old home friend. “Don’t make fun of the po–poor fellow now he’s dead!”
“That’s right, youngster,” put in Mr Stormcock. “Stick up for your friend. I didn’t mean anything against him for a moment, for I always found him a good sort of chap; though, I can’t say I had very much to do with him.”
“Well, for my part, I won’t say I’m sorry he has lost the number of his mess,” said that brute Andrews. “He was as big a bully as Larkyns, and I don’t owe him any good will, I can tell you.”
“You cowardly cur!” exclaimed Tom Mills, his face flaming up, though the tears were still coursing down his cheeks. “You know you wouldn’t say that if Larkyns were here now.”
“Wouldn’t I, cry babby?”
Tom did not reply to this in words; but he sent a telescope, that lay at the end of one of the tables near him, flying across the gunroom, catching Andrews a crack on his uplifted arm.
This saved his head, fortunately for him, Tom’s shot being a vicious one and well aimed!
“What do you mean by that?” said the ill-natured brute. “Do you want to fight?”
“Not with you,” rejoined Tommy, whose anger had conquered his grief, speaking with much dignity. “I only fight with gentlemen, and you’re a snob! No gentleman would speak ill of those unable to defend themselves, or say a thing behind a fellow’s back which he would not have the pluck to do when he was present. Andrews, you’re a cad and a coward!”
“Stow that, youngster!” interposed Mr Stormcock, as little Tommy rose up and made towards the cad, who, however, showed no inclination to resent the insult offered him. “I won’t allow any quarrelling in the mess! If you want to fight, my boys, you must go into the steerage.”
Andrews, I noticed, did not offer to stir, however, in response to this suggestion of the master’s mate, which he would certainly have done if he had been possessed of an ounce of courage in his nature.
Tom and I both agreed on this when talking over the matter subsequently; so, seeing what a chicken-hearted fellow he was, mycockylittle chum sat down again and began tucking into his tea, Andrews getting up presently and sneaking away when he thought the coast clear.
Mr Stormcock proved to be a false prophet with regard to the foul weather that evening; for, when I went up on deck again to have a look round before turning in, although it was still blowing fresh from the westwards, the black cloud that had previously covered the sky had partly cleared away, leaving only a few fleecy flying masses in its stead.
Between them the moon fitfully shone occasionally and an odd star or two peeped out here and there; while our good ship was bowling along under her topgallants, which had been set again by the commander over the double-reefed topsails, with her courses and jib and spanker, and the foretopmast staysail, continuing under the same canvas during the night, without hauling a sheet or tautening a brace, the wind hardly shifting half-a-point all the while.
We made such progress, too, towards the spot where the French ship reported having passed the wreck of which we were in search, that, at Six Bells in the morning watch, the lookout man forward, who had been specially ordered to keep a good watch to windward, hailed the deck.
“Sail in sight, sir!” he sang out, just as the hands were in the middle of their breakfast. “She’s hull down on the weather bow!”
Chapter Eighteen.On the Deck of the Derelict.“Where away, my man?” shouted Commander Nesbitt, who, at the same moment, came up on the poop and was scanning the horizon on his own account. “How does she bear, eh?”“Two points off the weather bow, sir,” replied the lookout from the foretopsail yard. “We’re rising her now, sir; and I can see one of her masts, though the rest of her spars seem to have gone by the board.”“All right, my man, keep her in your eye,” sang back the commander, who then turned to the helmsman. “Give her more lee helm, quartermaster; and see if you can’t luff her up a couple of points! Watch, trim sails! Head lee braces! Brace up your head yards!”With this, we hauled our wind; and, by bracing the yards sharp up and keeping her full and bye, we were able to bring the ship’s head a bit more to the westward than we had been previously sailing, steering now south-west by south instead of sou’-sou’-west as before, which was as near as we could get her to proceed in the direction where the lookout man had reported the vessel.By Eight Bells, we could make out the derelict clearly from the deck; and, shortly after breakfast when we had closed her within half-a-mile, we could see that somehow or other she had got terribly knocked about, her bulwarks having been carried away, as well as most of her spars and rigging, only the stump of her mainmast being left still standing, with the yard, which had parted at the slings, hanging down all a-cockbill.There was a portion of the shrouds left, also, and the backstay; but, of everything else, as far as we could judge at that distance, a clean sweep had been made fore and aft and the vessel seemed to be a complete wreck.The commander’s keen eyes, however, caught sight of something, which at the first glance had escaped the notice of both lookout and signalman; not to speak of the many officers who stood around on the poop, scrutinising the dismantled vessel through their glasses, none of whom had observed this object until Commander Nesbitt pointed it out.“Hullo!” he exclaimed abruptly. “What is that lashed to the rigging on her port beam?”Every glass was instantly directed to the point he had indicated.“It’s a man, sir,” said the signalman, noticing the object on its now being pointed out to him, very wise after the event, as most of us are disposed to be in everyday life. “I think I can see him move, sir.”“Yes, by Jove!” cried Mr Jellaby, who stood near, holding on to one of the davits, jumping up on the gunwale to have a better view. “There he is waving one of his arms now!”“I don’t know about that, imagination sometimes goes a great way in these matters,” observed Commander Nesbitt, after carefully inspecting the battered hulk with the glass Mr Jellaby handed him; “but, at all events, we’ll send a boat aboard and see. Bosun’s mate, pipe the watch to stand by to heave the ship to! Clew up the courses. Square the main yard!”Larkyns, being, as I mentioned before, signal midshipman, had gone down to report the fact of our being close up with the wreck to Captain Farmer, who now appeared on the scene of action.He at once gave an order for the first cutter to be lowered and preparations made for boarding the strange vessel, an order which was immediately carried into effect.“Mr Jellaby had better go in charge of the boat, sir, I should think,” suggested the commander. “There’s a bit of a sea running and I don’t like sending a midshipman in such a case; for, you know, sir, we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders.”“All right, Nesbitt,” replied the captain; “do as you like.”This was a great disappointment to Ned Anstruther, who had come on deck fully equipped for the expedition in his sea boots and monkey jacket.He had hurriedly dressed himself on hearing the cutter piped away as he was her proper officer, it being the general custom on board a man-of-war for each of the ship’s boats to be under the charge of one of the midshipmen, who invariably goes away in her under all circumstances of wind or weather for whatever duty she may be required.There is little doubt that it is mainly owing to this practice of being early trained to exercise their judgment and discretion, and taught to command as well as to obey when young, that the officers of our service acquire that dash and readiness of action which is usually found lacking, it may be asserted without being accused of any insular prejudice or partiality, amongst those of other nations, who never have the same opportunities extended to them as a rule until they are almost too old to learn.Boat service has been the school that brought forth the Nelsons and Rodneys of the past, as it has produced the Hornbys and Kanes and Beresfords of the navy of to-day, so to speak; and, whether our sailors have to fight behind wooden walls or in armoured turrets, the practice will continue to teach self-reliance and the use of brains.Ay, boat service will always stand our sailors, officers and men alike, in good stead; despite the fact that they go to sea now in “floating factories” instead of on board ships such as our forefathers learnt their seamanship in, and that modern scientists, who treat everything on strictly theoretical principles, and, though have never smelt blue water, lay down laws for our guidance in the naval tactics of the future, dictating how we are to act and fight and manoeuvre under any and every possible prearranged contingency!It was an awful sell, therefore, for poor Ned Anstruther when Mr Jellaby was deputed to the charge of his boat and he was thus “left out in the cold,” as the saying goes!Nor was his mortification in any way lessened when the commander told him that the reason why he would not let him go, was because he could not swim properly; for there might be danger in getting alongside the wreck, with the wind and sea that was on.So, Ned did not appear at all pleased when the lieutenant stepped forward to take his place in the cutter, giving him an envious look when he took his seat in the sternsheets prior to her being lowered down. I, too, cast an appealing glance at Mr Jellaby; and this, fortunately for me, Commander Nesbitt intercepted.“I suppose you would like to go, youngster, eh?” he said to me. “Well, you may, if you like. I know that you can keep yourself afloat, at any rate if you get capsized, from what I learnt of your experiences the other day at Spithead; and, perhaps, Mr Jellaby may find you of use. Jump in, my boy.”It is hardly necessary to say how promptly I obeyed the order.As my dear old Dad would have expressed it, “Sharp was the word and quick the action.”All the cutter’s passengers, however, were not yet aboard.“Hold on, there!” cried Captain Farmer, as the falls were slackened off and the boat slowly lowered down into the heaving water alongside, the waves coming half-way up the counter to meet her. “I think the doctor had better go with you, Mr Jellaby. There may be some poor fellow on the wreck in need of immediate medical aid; and it will be a great saving of time, indeed, it may be the means of saving a life, if it be on the spot instead of your having to send back to the ship for it. Sentry, pass the word below for Dr Nettleby.”We did not have to wait long; for, almost as soon as the captain’s message could have reached the main deck, the doctor made his appearance on the poop, accompanied by my old friend, Corporal Macan, carrying a surgical case and a roll of bandages, while the neck of a suspicious-looking flask could be also seen peeping out from one of his pockets.In another minute or so, Dr Nettleby and his factotum managed to slide down by the aid of the after life-line into the sternsheets of the boat; though, they took their seats in a rather hurried fashion beside the lieutenant and myself.Then, watching our opportunity to lower away, we managed so to time it that the cutter lighted on the crest of one of the rollers.This took us some yards away from the ship’s side with the following swell of the sea; when our oars were dropped into the water at the word of command and we made for the wreck.It was a stiff piece of work reaching her, for wind and waves were both against us and rowing difficult; the cutter at one moment being on the top of a mountainous billow and the next plunged deep down into a yawning valley of green water, the broken ridges of which curled over our gunwales on either hand, threatening to overwhelm us till we, rose again beyond their clutch.But, the men “putting their backs into it,” and the coxswain steering judiciously so as to prevent the boat from broaching to, we finally got alongside the battered hulk.We boarded her under the forechains to leeward, as she was down by the head, with a considerable list to port; and this seemed the safest point at which to approach her.Getting close up, the bowman at once threw a grapnel that caught in some of the loose ropes hanging over the side; and, before we were well alongside, Mr Jellaby had scrambled up on to the forecastle of the ill-fated vessel.Dr Nettleby and myself were not far behind him, Corporal Macan and Bill Bates, the coxswain of the cutter, following to render any assistance that might be necessary; the boat meanwhile being veered away to the end of the grapnel rope so as to be out of harm’s way and yet within easy reach of us as soon as we might want to go on board her again.On gaining the deck, the scene presented to our gaze was piteous beyond all description, the ship appearing to have been first run into by some other craft and then left to drift about at the mercy of the elements.Her starboard bow had been cut right through up to the head of the foremast, which had been carried away completely, with all its spars and rigging, as well as the bowsprit and maintopmast.In addition to these, the mizzen and everything aft had gone; not a stick being left standing in her save the stump of the mainmast, as our lookout man had reported soon after just sighting her, as well as part of the lower rigging amidships.Besides this, a section of the mainyard that had snapped in two at the slings was still held aloft by the truss, the other end of the spar having brought up, against the chain-plates, the brace being twisted round the shrouds and deadeyes in the most wonderful way!Mr Jellaby, however, did not stop to notice these details, but made his way as well as he could through the maze of tangled cordage and heaps of wreckage that lay about in every direction towards the portion of the main rigging yet remaining intact, where, lashed to a fragment of the bulwarks that had not been washed away, was the figure of the man Commander Nesbitt had noticed.There was no doubt now of his being alive; for, he was gesticulating violently and waving his arms about like those of a windmill.The rolling of the ship and the clean breach which the sea made across the open deck amidships rendered the task of reaching the poor fellow all the harder; but, watching his chance between the lurches of the water-logged barque and clambering over the wreckage that rilled the waist from the forecastle up to the main hatchway, Mr Jellaby was able at last to get near enough to hear the voice of the man, who was a most ragged and miserable-looking creature, and was yelling out wildly as if he were insane in the intervals of his frantic motions, when there was a lull in the noise of the waves.“He’s saying something, doctor,” he cried to Dr Nettleby, who had pluckily followed him up close, albeit so much older a man. “See if you can make him out; I don’t understand the lingo.”The doctor listened for a moment and shook his head.“It’s no language that I can recognise,” he said after a pause, as if thinking over all the dialects he had ever come across in his wanderings. “The poor chap has evidently gone mad and is jabbering some gibberish or other. Look how his eyes are rolling!”By this time, however, I had managed to come up to where Mr Jellaby and the doctor were holding on to the backstay, and as the wind just then dropped for an instant and the deafening din of the clashing waters ceased, I caught a word or two out of a long sentence which the unfortunate man screamed out at the moment at the top of his voice.“He’s talking Spanish, sir!” I exclaimed, much to the surprise of my seniors. “I can make out something that sounds like ‘por Dios,’ which means ‘for the love of God,’ sir.”“Indeed!” said Mr Jellaby, gripping hold of one of the clewlines which hung down from the broken yard and swayed about in the wind, preparing to swing himself across the encumbered deck to the port shrouds beyond, where the man was lashed. “I didn’t know you were so good a linguist, young Vernon. By Jove, you’ll be of more use than I thought you would be when the commander told me to take you with me.”“Oh!” I cried, rather shamefaced at this, “I only know a little of the language. I learnt it when I was in the West Indies with my father. We lived in one of the islands where there were a lot of Spaniards, and I heard their lingo spoken often enough.”“Well, anyway, it’s lucky that you know something about it now, for you can keep your ears cocked and hear what the poor beggar says, while we try to release him from his uncomfortable billet. Here, Bates, bear a hand!”So saying, Mr Jellaby swung himself across the frothing chasm that lay between him and the object of his pity, with the coxswain of the cutter after him, while Dr Nettleby and I remained by the mainmast bitts, Corporal Macan busying himself in getting the doctor’s medical traps ready for immediate use.I soon had to exercise my new office of interpreter, for the man began shouting again on seeing Mr Jellaby and the coxswain near him.“Ah del buque!” he screamed out, holding up, as if to signal with it, one of his emaciated hands, the bony fingers of which looked like those of a skeleton.“Como se llama el buque?”“He says ‘ship ahoy!’ sir,” I explained to the doctor. “‘What ship is that?’”“Tell him who we are, then,” replied Dr Nettleby. “He is probably out of his mind, but it may quiet him.”“Somos marineros Inglesas—we are English sailors,” I therefore cried in as shrill a key as I could to reach his ear, raking up the almost forgotten memories of my early years, and, I’m afraid, speaking very bad Spanish. “Del buque de guerra el Candahar de la regna Ingleterra—we belong to Her Majesty’s ship,Candahar!”Bad Spanish or not, however, the poor fellow understood me.“Gracias a Dios!” he said, his wild eyes brightening with a gleam of intelligence, as Mr Jellaby and Bill Bates, having unloosed him from the ropes by which he was seized up to the rigging, brought him across the deck to the doctor, who at once put a small quantity of brandy between his lips. “Habran llegado a tiempo.”“What is that, eh?”“‘Thanks be to God,’” I replied, translating what he had said. “‘You’ve just come in time.’”“He never made a truer statement,” observed the doctor, significantly, as he plied him gently from time to time with the spirit, keeping his hand on his pulse the while. “In another half-hour he would have been a dead man; for, his circulation is down to nothing!”Presently, the effects of the brandy told upon the poor fellow and he sprang suddenly to his feet by a sort of spasmodic effort, knocking Corporal Macan backwards into the water which was washing about the deck around us as he stood up.“Ah los marineros cobardes!” he cried. “Vamos printo, hascia abajo!”“Hullo, Vernon,” said Mr Jellaby. “What’s he talking about now, eh?”“I believe he’s referring to the crew who deserted the ship and left him behind to his fate, sir,” I answered, “for he has spoken of the ‘cowardly sailors,’ as he calls them. I think they must have been curs, sir, to have left him to die tied up like that, sir!”“Anything else, eh?”“He also says, ‘be quick and look below.’ I suppose he means for us to examine the vessel’s hold.”“Si si—yes, yes,” exclaimed the rescued man as I said this, seeming to understand what I suggested. “Abajo—abajo—go below! go below!”He nodded his head also as he spoke, looking towards the after part of the wreck and pointing downwards with his finger; while a shudder of horror passed over his corpse-like face, the dark hair surrounding which made it look all the paler.“By Jove, I think there is something in what you say, my boy,” cried the lieutenant, moving away at once in the direction indicated as quickly as he could, telling the coxswain to follow him. “I ought to have overhauled the cabin before. The sea is getting up again, I notice; and, we’ll soon have to shove off from here if we wish to get back to our own ship again!”The moment the Spaniard saw Mr Jellaby start off on this mission, he drew a deep breath of satisfaction.“Buena, buena—good, good!” he murmured softly, as if talking to himself. “Soy muy mal—I feel very ill!”He then threw up his arms and dropped down as if he had been shot, Corporal Macan just catching him in time, crying out in a loud tone as he fell, louder indeed than he had yet spoken, as if giving a peremptory order—“Fonde el ancla!”“Begorrah, I can’t say to his ankles!” said the Irishman, not understanding of course what he said, and mistaking the sound of the words. “Till him they’re all right, sor. Faix it’s all I can do to hould his arms, let alone his legs, sure!”“Nonsense, Macan,” I cried, not able to keep from laughing. “He didn’t say anything about his ankles, or legs either.”“Thin, what did he say, sor, if ye’ll excuse me for axin?”“‘Fonde el ancla,’” I replied, “means, you donkey, to ‘let go the anchor!’”
“Where away, my man?” shouted Commander Nesbitt, who, at the same moment, came up on the poop and was scanning the horizon on his own account. “How does she bear, eh?”
“Two points off the weather bow, sir,” replied the lookout from the foretopsail yard. “We’re rising her now, sir; and I can see one of her masts, though the rest of her spars seem to have gone by the board.”
“All right, my man, keep her in your eye,” sang back the commander, who then turned to the helmsman. “Give her more lee helm, quartermaster; and see if you can’t luff her up a couple of points! Watch, trim sails! Head lee braces! Brace up your head yards!”
With this, we hauled our wind; and, by bracing the yards sharp up and keeping her full and bye, we were able to bring the ship’s head a bit more to the westward than we had been previously sailing, steering now south-west by south instead of sou’-sou’-west as before, which was as near as we could get her to proceed in the direction where the lookout man had reported the vessel.
By Eight Bells, we could make out the derelict clearly from the deck; and, shortly after breakfast when we had closed her within half-a-mile, we could see that somehow or other she had got terribly knocked about, her bulwarks having been carried away, as well as most of her spars and rigging, only the stump of her mainmast being left still standing, with the yard, which had parted at the slings, hanging down all a-cockbill.
There was a portion of the shrouds left, also, and the backstay; but, of everything else, as far as we could judge at that distance, a clean sweep had been made fore and aft and the vessel seemed to be a complete wreck.
The commander’s keen eyes, however, caught sight of something, which at the first glance had escaped the notice of both lookout and signalman; not to speak of the many officers who stood around on the poop, scrutinising the dismantled vessel through their glasses, none of whom had observed this object until Commander Nesbitt pointed it out.
“Hullo!” he exclaimed abruptly. “What is that lashed to the rigging on her port beam?”
Every glass was instantly directed to the point he had indicated.
“It’s a man, sir,” said the signalman, noticing the object on its now being pointed out to him, very wise after the event, as most of us are disposed to be in everyday life. “I think I can see him move, sir.”
“Yes, by Jove!” cried Mr Jellaby, who stood near, holding on to one of the davits, jumping up on the gunwale to have a better view. “There he is waving one of his arms now!”
“I don’t know about that, imagination sometimes goes a great way in these matters,” observed Commander Nesbitt, after carefully inspecting the battered hulk with the glass Mr Jellaby handed him; “but, at all events, we’ll send a boat aboard and see. Bosun’s mate, pipe the watch to stand by to heave the ship to! Clew up the courses. Square the main yard!”
Larkyns, being, as I mentioned before, signal midshipman, had gone down to report the fact of our being close up with the wreck to Captain Farmer, who now appeared on the scene of action.
He at once gave an order for the first cutter to be lowered and preparations made for boarding the strange vessel, an order which was immediately carried into effect.
“Mr Jellaby had better go in charge of the boat, sir, I should think,” suggested the commander. “There’s a bit of a sea running and I don’t like sending a midshipman in such a case; for, you know, sir, we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders.”
“All right, Nesbitt,” replied the captain; “do as you like.”
This was a great disappointment to Ned Anstruther, who had come on deck fully equipped for the expedition in his sea boots and monkey jacket.
He had hurriedly dressed himself on hearing the cutter piped away as he was her proper officer, it being the general custom on board a man-of-war for each of the ship’s boats to be under the charge of one of the midshipmen, who invariably goes away in her under all circumstances of wind or weather for whatever duty she may be required.
There is little doubt that it is mainly owing to this practice of being early trained to exercise their judgment and discretion, and taught to command as well as to obey when young, that the officers of our service acquire that dash and readiness of action which is usually found lacking, it may be asserted without being accused of any insular prejudice or partiality, amongst those of other nations, who never have the same opportunities extended to them as a rule until they are almost too old to learn.
Boat service has been the school that brought forth the Nelsons and Rodneys of the past, as it has produced the Hornbys and Kanes and Beresfords of the navy of to-day, so to speak; and, whether our sailors have to fight behind wooden walls or in armoured turrets, the practice will continue to teach self-reliance and the use of brains.
Ay, boat service will always stand our sailors, officers and men alike, in good stead; despite the fact that they go to sea now in “floating factories” instead of on board ships such as our forefathers learnt their seamanship in, and that modern scientists, who treat everything on strictly theoretical principles, and, though have never smelt blue water, lay down laws for our guidance in the naval tactics of the future, dictating how we are to act and fight and manoeuvre under any and every possible prearranged contingency!
It was an awful sell, therefore, for poor Ned Anstruther when Mr Jellaby was deputed to the charge of his boat and he was thus “left out in the cold,” as the saying goes!
Nor was his mortification in any way lessened when the commander told him that the reason why he would not let him go, was because he could not swim properly; for there might be danger in getting alongside the wreck, with the wind and sea that was on.
So, Ned did not appear at all pleased when the lieutenant stepped forward to take his place in the cutter, giving him an envious look when he took his seat in the sternsheets prior to her being lowered down. I, too, cast an appealing glance at Mr Jellaby; and this, fortunately for me, Commander Nesbitt intercepted.
“I suppose you would like to go, youngster, eh?” he said to me. “Well, you may, if you like. I know that you can keep yourself afloat, at any rate if you get capsized, from what I learnt of your experiences the other day at Spithead; and, perhaps, Mr Jellaby may find you of use. Jump in, my boy.”
It is hardly necessary to say how promptly I obeyed the order.
As my dear old Dad would have expressed it, “Sharp was the word and quick the action.”
All the cutter’s passengers, however, were not yet aboard.
“Hold on, there!” cried Captain Farmer, as the falls were slackened off and the boat slowly lowered down into the heaving water alongside, the waves coming half-way up the counter to meet her. “I think the doctor had better go with you, Mr Jellaby. There may be some poor fellow on the wreck in need of immediate medical aid; and it will be a great saving of time, indeed, it may be the means of saving a life, if it be on the spot instead of your having to send back to the ship for it. Sentry, pass the word below for Dr Nettleby.”
We did not have to wait long; for, almost as soon as the captain’s message could have reached the main deck, the doctor made his appearance on the poop, accompanied by my old friend, Corporal Macan, carrying a surgical case and a roll of bandages, while the neck of a suspicious-looking flask could be also seen peeping out from one of his pockets.
In another minute or so, Dr Nettleby and his factotum managed to slide down by the aid of the after life-line into the sternsheets of the boat; though, they took their seats in a rather hurried fashion beside the lieutenant and myself.
Then, watching our opportunity to lower away, we managed so to time it that the cutter lighted on the crest of one of the rollers.
This took us some yards away from the ship’s side with the following swell of the sea; when our oars were dropped into the water at the word of command and we made for the wreck.
It was a stiff piece of work reaching her, for wind and waves were both against us and rowing difficult; the cutter at one moment being on the top of a mountainous billow and the next plunged deep down into a yawning valley of green water, the broken ridges of which curled over our gunwales on either hand, threatening to overwhelm us till we, rose again beyond their clutch.
But, the men “putting their backs into it,” and the coxswain steering judiciously so as to prevent the boat from broaching to, we finally got alongside the battered hulk.
We boarded her under the forechains to leeward, as she was down by the head, with a considerable list to port; and this seemed the safest point at which to approach her.
Getting close up, the bowman at once threw a grapnel that caught in some of the loose ropes hanging over the side; and, before we were well alongside, Mr Jellaby had scrambled up on to the forecastle of the ill-fated vessel.
Dr Nettleby and myself were not far behind him, Corporal Macan and Bill Bates, the coxswain of the cutter, following to render any assistance that might be necessary; the boat meanwhile being veered away to the end of the grapnel rope so as to be out of harm’s way and yet within easy reach of us as soon as we might want to go on board her again.
On gaining the deck, the scene presented to our gaze was piteous beyond all description, the ship appearing to have been first run into by some other craft and then left to drift about at the mercy of the elements.
Her starboard bow had been cut right through up to the head of the foremast, which had been carried away completely, with all its spars and rigging, as well as the bowsprit and maintopmast.
In addition to these, the mizzen and everything aft had gone; not a stick being left standing in her save the stump of the mainmast, as our lookout man had reported soon after just sighting her, as well as part of the lower rigging amidships.
Besides this, a section of the mainyard that had snapped in two at the slings was still held aloft by the truss, the other end of the spar having brought up, against the chain-plates, the brace being twisted round the shrouds and deadeyes in the most wonderful way!
Mr Jellaby, however, did not stop to notice these details, but made his way as well as he could through the maze of tangled cordage and heaps of wreckage that lay about in every direction towards the portion of the main rigging yet remaining intact, where, lashed to a fragment of the bulwarks that had not been washed away, was the figure of the man Commander Nesbitt had noticed.
There was no doubt now of his being alive; for, he was gesticulating violently and waving his arms about like those of a windmill.
The rolling of the ship and the clean breach which the sea made across the open deck amidships rendered the task of reaching the poor fellow all the harder; but, watching his chance between the lurches of the water-logged barque and clambering over the wreckage that rilled the waist from the forecastle up to the main hatchway, Mr Jellaby was able at last to get near enough to hear the voice of the man, who was a most ragged and miserable-looking creature, and was yelling out wildly as if he were insane in the intervals of his frantic motions, when there was a lull in the noise of the waves.
“He’s saying something, doctor,” he cried to Dr Nettleby, who had pluckily followed him up close, albeit so much older a man. “See if you can make him out; I don’t understand the lingo.”
The doctor listened for a moment and shook his head.
“It’s no language that I can recognise,” he said after a pause, as if thinking over all the dialects he had ever come across in his wanderings. “The poor chap has evidently gone mad and is jabbering some gibberish or other. Look how his eyes are rolling!”
By this time, however, I had managed to come up to where Mr Jellaby and the doctor were holding on to the backstay, and as the wind just then dropped for an instant and the deafening din of the clashing waters ceased, I caught a word or two out of a long sentence which the unfortunate man screamed out at the moment at the top of his voice.
“He’s talking Spanish, sir!” I exclaimed, much to the surprise of my seniors. “I can make out something that sounds like ‘por Dios,’ which means ‘for the love of God,’ sir.”
“Indeed!” said Mr Jellaby, gripping hold of one of the clewlines which hung down from the broken yard and swayed about in the wind, preparing to swing himself across the encumbered deck to the port shrouds beyond, where the man was lashed. “I didn’t know you were so good a linguist, young Vernon. By Jove, you’ll be of more use than I thought you would be when the commander told me to take you with me.”
“Oh!” I cried, rather shamefaced at this, “I only know a little of the language. I learnt it when I was in the West Indies with my father. We lived in one of the islands where there were a lot of Spaniards, and I heard their lingo spoken often enough.”
“Well, anyway, it’s lucky that you know something about it now, for you can keep your ears cocked and hear what the poor beggar says, while we try to release him from his uncomfortable billet. Here, Bates, bear a hand!”
So saying, Mr Jellaby swung himself across the frothing chasm that lay between him and the object of his pity, with the coxswain of the cutter after him, while Dr Nettleby and I remained by the mainmast bitts, Corporal Macan busying himself in getting the doctor’s medical traps ready for immediate use.
I soon had to exercise my new office of interpreter, for the man began shouting again on seeing Mr Jellaby and the coxswain near him.
“Ah del buque!” he screamed out, holding up, as if to signal with it, one of his emaciated hands, the bony fingers of which looked like those of a skeleton.
“Como se llama el buque?”
“He says ‘ship ahoy!’ sir,” I explained to the doctor. “‘What ship is that?’”
“Tell him who we are, then,” replied Dr Nettleby. “He is probably out of his mind, but it may quiet him.”
“Somos marineros Inglesas—we are English sailors,” I therefore cried in as shrill a key as I could to reach his ear, raking up the almost forgotten memories of my early years, and, I’m afraid, speaking very bad Spanish. “Del buque de guerra el Candahar de la regna Ingleterra—we belong to Her Majesty’s ship,Candahar!”
Bad Spanish or not, however, the poor fellow understood me.
“Gracias a Dios!” he said, his wild eyes brightening with a gleam of intelligence, as Mr Jellaby and Bill Bates, having unloosed him from the ropes by which he was seized up to the rigging, brought him across the deck to the doctor, who at once put a small quantity of brandy between his lips. “Habran llegado a tiempo.”
“What is that, eh?”
“‘Thanks be to God,’” I replied, translating what he had said. “‘You’ve just come in time.’”
“He never made a truer statement,” observed the doctor, significantly, as he plied him gently from time to time with the spirit, keeping his hand on his pulse the while. “In another half-hour he would have been a dead man; for, his circulation is down to nothing!”
Presently, the effects of the brandy told upon the poor fellow and he sprang suddenly to his feet by a sort of spasmodic effort, knocking Corporal Macan backwards into the water which was washing about the deck around us as he stood up.
“Ah los marineros cobardes!” he cried. “Vamos printo, hascia abajo!”
“Hullo, Vernon,” said Mr Jellaby. “What’s he talking about now, eh?”
“I believe he’s referring to the crew who deserted the ship and left him behind to his fate, sir,” I answered, “for he has spoken of the ‘cowardly sailors,’ as he calls them. I think they must have been curs, sir, to have left him to die tied up like that, sir!”
“Anything else, eh?”
“He also says, ‘be quick and look below.’ I suppose he means for us to examine the vessel’s hold.”
“Si si—yes, yes,” exclaimed the rescued man as I said this, seeming to understand what I suggested. “Abajo—abajo—go below! go below!”
He nodded his head also as he spoke, looking towards the after part of the wreck and pointing downwards with his finger; while a shudder of horror passed over his corpse-like face, the dark hair surrounding which made it look all the paler.
“By Jove, I think there is something in what you say, my boy,” cried the lieutenant, moving away at once in the direction indicated as quickly as he could, telling the coxswain to follow him. “I ought to have overhauled the cabin before. The sea is getting up again, I notice; and, we’ll soon have to shove off from here if we wish to get back to our own ship again!”
The moment the Spaniard saw Mr Jellaby start off on this mission, he drew a deep breath of satisfaction.
“Buena, buena—good, good!” he murmured softly, as if talking to himself. “Soy muy mal—I feel very ill!”
He then threw up his arms and dropped down as if he had been shot, Corporal Macan just catching him in time, crying out in a loud tone as he fell, louder indeed than he had yet spoken, as if giving a peremptory order—
“Fonde el ancla!”
“Begorrah, I can’t say to his ankles!” said the Irishman, not understanding of course what he said, and mistaking the sound of the words. “Till him they’re all right, sor. Faix it’s all I can do to hould his arms, let alone his legs, sure!”
“Nonsense, Macan,” I cried, not able to keep from laughing. “He didn’t say anything about his ankles, or legs either.”
“Thin, what did he say, sor, if ye’ll excuse me for axin?”
“‘Fonde el ancla,’” I replied, “means, you donkey, to ‘let go the anchor!’”
Chapter Nineteen.Mutiny or Murder?“Poor fellow!” said Dr Nettleby, on my thus translating the Spaniard’s exclamation for Corporal Macan’s benefit. “I’m afraid he has dropped his anchor in real earnest.”“Oh, doctor,” I cried, “you don’t mean that he is dead?”“Not quite yet, but pretty nearly so,” he replied, feeling the man’s pulse again and then putting his hand to his heart. “I do wish Jellaby would come out of that cabin; for, I should like to take our patient to the ship at once and put him under treatment without further delay as he’s in a very bad way. I can’t think what’s keeping the lieutenant so long!”“Shall I go and see, sir?”“I wish you would, my boy. Really, I don’t like the look of the weather at all!”“Faix, sor, naythor does I, sure,” I heard the corporal say as I turned to go in search of Mr Jellaby, who having made his way to the after part of the vessel, with the coxswain, had been out of our sight now for some time. “It’ll be blowin’ great guns in a brace of shakes, or I’m a Dutchman, for the say is gettin’ purty rough already, an’, begorrah, it’s wishin’ I wor safe aboord the ouldCandaharagen, I am; ay, an’ alongside ov the cook’s galley sure!”I could not catch what the doctor said in reply to this, being too much occupied in looking after my own safety while trying to pick my steps towards the stern; for there was a lot of loose dunnage washing backwards and forwards as the hulk rolled sluggishly from side to side and tons of water continually came in as the waves broke over her, causing me to keep my weather eye open and clutch hold of every stray rope I could grip that was secured in any way to prevent me from going overboard. The noise of the wind and sea and creaking and groaning of the poor ship’s timbers, too, was something awful.When I succeeded at last on getting aft, I found the entrance to the cabin from the deck was blocked by the wreck of the mizzenmast.By means of this, I climbed up on to the poop, the proper ladder belonging to which had also been smashed by the fall of the spars from aloft, as well as the covering of the booby hatch and skylight; a yawning chasm of splintered glass and broken framework only now representing the latter structure, while the former had disappeared entirely.The companion way, however, seemed still firm enough, although nearly filled up with fragments of wood and odds-and-ends of all sorts, besides being about a foot or so of water over all at the bottom of the stairway; and, I was just on the point of adventuring down in my quest of the lieutenant, when the latter emerged from the passage that led into the cabin or saloon below, followed by Bill Bates.Mr Jellaby’s face was as pale as that of the man we had rescued.So was the coxswain’s; and both seemed to start on seeing me as if I had been a ghost.“Good heavens, my boy!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “How did you get here?”“The doctor sent me, sir,” I answered glibly. “He was getting anxious about you and thought something had happened.”“By Jove, you gave me quite a turn after coming out of that infernal den there!” he said with a shudder, pointing over his shoulder. “I never saw such a sight in my life. Did you, Bates?”“No, sir,” replied the coxswain. “I hopes to God, sir, I never shall again, sir!”“What is it, sir?” I asked, all my curiosity aroused. “May I come down and see the place, sir?”“No, Vernon, it’s not fit for a boy like you to look at such a horrible sight. Why, it would haunt your memory for months, as I’m sure it will mine!”So saying, he began to mount the companion way towards me slowly, but had hardly ascended a couple of steps when he came to a halt, looking up for a moment as if undecided in his mind.“Stay; I think you may come down, youngster, after all,” he said at length. “Perhaps it might be as well that you should see with your own eyes what Bates and I have seen; for, then you will serve as an additional witness in the event of there being any future inquiry. I hope you have a good strong stomach, my boy, and are not squeamish?”“Oh, no, sir,” I rejoined as I followed him down the steps again to the gangway below, “I’m not squeamish.”“Well, then,” he cried, throwing open the opposite door which gave entrance to the cabin directly under the broken skylight, “look in there!”It was fortunate that I had a steady nerve and was not easily frightened, for the sight that met my gaze would have startled most grown-up persons, let alone one of my age!The place was in as great confusion as the open deck above, the sea having worked its ravages here as well as there and littered it with lumber of every description, which the water that had likewise gained admittance was washing about the floor, in company with the overturned tables and chairs.Broken plates and dishes were mixed up with stray articles of clothing; while books and empty bottles, which, strangely whole, bobbed up and down amidst the general ruin, floated in and out between the heavier dunnage.I noticed even a mandoline, with a blue riband attached to it cruising round the bottles; which seemed quite out of its latitude there! But, this was not all.There was a strange, sickly smell in the room; and what was that looking up at me from the rubbish-strewn deck close to where I stood by the cabin door?I almost shrieked out as it caught my wandering glance, the eyes seeming to look right into mine, opened wide in one fixed stare.It was the face of a dead woman, over whose marble-like features the water rippled as the ship lurched, tossing her long hair about as if playing with it and giving her the appearance of being alive.“Poor thing!” I whispered to Mr Jellaby, who was near me and also gazing down at her, the presence of the dead making me drop my voice. “She was drowned, I suppose?”“Murdered!” he replied laconically, drawing my attention to a terrible cut across her neck, which I had not observed before, almost severing the head from the body. “Look there—and there, Vernon!”I followed the motions of his directing hand, and saw, first, a poor little dead baby floating about in the corner of the cabin; and then, behind the door by which we had entered, the corpse of a big, handsome man propped up against one of the lockers, in a kneeling position.The man was only half-dressed, being in his shirt and trousers, as if caught unawares, holding a cocked revolver yet in his rigid fingers, stretched out in steady aim; while, at the further end of the cabin, where there was another doorway, communicating apparently with the main saloon, lay four ruffianly-looking fellows, all with long Spanish knives in their hands tightly clutched as if to strike.These scoundrels had evidently killed the lady and little baby, and had then been shot by the poor chap on his knees, before he had himself fallen a victim to the cowardly stab from behind of a fifth scoundrel.The latter he had got down, however, before he died; for, he was kneeling on his chest, as the second lieutenant pointed out to me prior to our leaving this chamber of horrors, though the villain’s dagger was still sticking in the brave fellow’s back.I could see this now for myself as a gleam of sunshine came down through the shattered skylight, showing up all the hideous details of the place, with the sides of the cabin and the bulkhead dividing it from the passage, as well as the deck beams overhead, all spattered with blood; albeit, the water sluicing about below had removed all traces of the sad tragedy from thence long since.“Let us go now,” said Mr Jellaby, as soon as I had taken in all these sickening surroundings, leading the way out of the accursed place. “We have stopped here long enough!”“We have indeed, sir,” I replied, following him up the companion, with Bill Bates bringing up the rear in silence. “But, what do you think has happened, sir?”“It’s a case of mutiny first, most probably; and then, murder,” said the second lieutenant, gravely, stepping over the coaming of the hatchway on to the deck of the poop as he emerged from the companion way.“We’ll never know the rights of it, however, unless the doctor manages to bring round that poor chap we released from the rigging, who must have been tied up by the mutineers and thus escaped them somehow or other! I couldn’t find a log-book or anything else in the cabin which would give us a scrap of information about the vessel or those belonging to her; and, all the rest of the wreck is under water—indeed, I don’t think she’s far off sinking.”“Beg pardon, sir,” observed the coxswain, interrupting him. “The ship’s just sent up our recall, and she’s bearing away now to pick us up to leeward when we cast off from here, sir.”“Yes, my man, I see, and I notice, also, she has sent down her topgallants and taken in another reef,” returned Mr Jellaby, proceeding to work his way back amidships to those we had left there, wading through the water and wreckage and tophamper strewing the waist. “The old doctor, too, looks in a precious wax and is carrying on at a grand rate about our keeping him waiting, I bet. He’s jawing away now to that knowing hand of a marine of his; so the sooner we see about getting him aboard our old barquey again the better!”He could not have come to a wiser conclusion, for the wind had increased in force rapidly, even during the short interval since I had left the deck, now blowing more than half a gale; while the sea was beginning to run high, breaking over the bows of the half-submerged hulk, sending up columns of spray that wetted us where we were and almost drenching Doctor Nettleby and the corporal, who were attending to the poor Spaniard amidships, just under the lee of the mainmast.“You’re a nice fellow!” cried the doctor to Mr Jellaby on our approaching near enough to hear what he said. “It won’t be your fault if we’re not all drowned here like rats in a hole and never reach the ship. As for the cutter, I believe she’s swamped already!”He was in a fine rage, certainly; but, the lieutenant, whose good temper was proof against any amount of irritability, soon calmed him down.“I beg your pardon, doctor,” he said, as he hailed the bowman of the cutter, which was not swamped as yet, although making very bad weather of it, telling him to haul up alongside under the lee of the wreck. “I really beg your pardon, doctor, but I could not be any quicker; for the captain ordered me to examine the vessel and see if I could find her papers.”He thereupon described to Doctor Nettleby what the three of us had seen in the cabin; when that gentleman was as much shocked as we were.“Can I do anything, Jellaby?” he asked. “Are you sure they were all lifeless?”“As dead as herrings, doctor.”“Then there would be no use in my going down to see the poor creatures?”“My dear sir, you couldn’t do them an ounce of good, for they’re long past the reach of all human aid!” replied the lieutenant, while he gave a helping hand to Corporal Macan to lift up the still unconscious Spaniard whom we had rescued, the sole survivor, so far as we knew, of all those who had perhaps started gaily enough on their disastrous voyage in the now dismantled and water-logged barque. “Besides, my dear doctor, we haven’t got the time. If we don’t clear out of this pretty sharp, we’ll all go below, I’m afraid! Steady there, Bates, with that grapnel rope! You’ll have the boat coming broadside on against the wreck, if you don’t take care and she’ll be stove in. Be smart now and rig-out that clewline there to the brace-block at the end of the yardarm. It will serve to lower down this poor beggar into the boat, which you must all fend off. Let her just come under the spar handsomely, without touching the side.”These directions being carefully adhered to, we contrived, by using great caution, though not without considerable risk, to lower down the almost lifeless man into the cutter; after which we descended ourselves, Mr Jellaby being the last to leave the hapless hulk, letting go the grapnel as he dropped into the sternsheets.The doctor and I caught him as he joined us, everyone else having enough to do to keep the boat steady with the oars; while Bates, of course, was busy with the tiller, which he kept amidships.As the boat drifted past the low rail of the vessel, now almost level with the water, which partly sheltered us from the full force of the wind and waves, I had the opportunity, when we glided under the stern, to read her name emblazoned thereon in large gilt letters.It wasLa Bella Catarina.“Give way, men!” cried the lieutenant, on our getting out into the open sea the next moment beyond the hull of the derelict, the coxswain heading the cutter directly for our ship, which had run down to leeward of the wreck so that we could fetch her more easily. “Pull all you can, my lads. Our lives depend on it!”We were about half-way towards theCandahar, which had gone about on the port tack, beating to windward and coming up to meet us, the crew of the boat bending their backs and pulling their hardest till the stout ash blades nearly doubled in two with the strain, while the big, rolling sea raced after us, trying to catch us up; when, all of a sudden, the man holding the stroke oar on the after thwart uttered an exclamation which made the lieutenant look behind.“By Jove!” he cried, “we’ve had a narrow shave.”The doctor and I both turned round at this.We were only just in time to see the ill-fated vessel which we had so recently left, rear herself end on and sink beneath the waves, bow foremost!
“Poor fellow!” said Dr Nettleby, on my thus translating the Spaniard’s exclamation for Corporal Macan’s benefit. “I’m afraid he has dropped his anchor in real earnest.”
“Oh, doctor,” I cried, “you don’t mean that he is dead?”
“Not quite yet, but pretty nearly so,” he replied, feeling the man’s pulse again and then putting his hand to his heart. “I do wish Jellaby would come out of that cabin; for, I should like to take our patient to the ship at once and put him under treatment without further delay as he’s in a very bad way. I can’t think what’s keeping the lieutenant so long!”
“Shall I go and see, sir?”
“I wish you would, my boy. Really, I don’t like the look of the weather at all!”
“Faix, sor, naythor does I, sure,” I heard the corporal say as I turned to go in search of Mr Jellaby, who having made his way to the after part of the vessel, with the coxswain, had been out of our sight now for some time. “It’ll be blowin’ great guns in a brace of shakes, or I’m a Dutchman, for the say is gettin’ purty rough already, an’, begorrah, it’s wishin’ I wor safe aboord the ouldCandaharagen, I am; ay, an’ alongside ov the cook’s galley sure!”
I could not catch what the doctor said in reply to this, being too much occupied in looking after my own safety while trying to pick my steps towards the stern; for there was a lot of loose dunnage washing backwards and forwards as the hulk rolled sluggishly from side to side and tons of water continually came in as the waves broke over her, causing me to keep my weather eye open and clutch hold of every stray rope I could grip that was secured in any way to prevent me from going overboard. The noise of the wind and sea and creaking and groaning of the poor ship’s timbers, too, was something awful.
When I succeeded at last on getting aft, I found the entrance to the cabin from the deck was blocked by the wreck of the mizzenmast.
By means of this, I climbed up on to the poop, the proper ladder belonging to which had also been smashed by the fall of the spars from aloft, as well as the covering of the booby hatch and skylight; a yawning chasm of splintered glass and broken framework only now representing the latter structure, while the former had disappeared entirely.
The companion way, however, seemed still firm enough, although nearly filled up with fragments of wood and odds-and-ends of all sorts, besides being about a foot or so of water over all at the bottom of the stairway; and, I was just on the point of adventuring down in my quest of the lieutenant, when the latter emerged from the passage that led into the cabin or saloon below, followed by Bill Bates.
Mr Jellaby’s face was as pale as that of the man we had rescued.
So was the coxswain’s; and both seemed to start on seeing me as if I had been a ghost.
“Good heavens, my boy!” exclaimed the lieutenant. “How did you get here?”
“The doctor sent me, sir,” I answered glibly. “He was getting anxious about you and thought something had happened.”
“By Jove, you gave me quite a turn after coming out of that infernal den there!” he said with a shudder, pointing over his shoulder. “I never saw such a sight in my life. Did you, Bates?”
“No, sir,” replied the coxswain. “I hopes to God, sir, I never shall again, sir!”
“What is it, sir?” I asked, all my curiosity aroused. “May I come down and see the place, sir?”
“No, Vernon, it’s not fit for a boy like you to look at such a horrible sight. Why, it would haunt your memory for months, as I’m sure it will mine!”
So saying, he began to mount the companion way towards me slowly, but had hardly ascended a couple of steps when he came to a halt, looking up for a moment as if undecided in his mind.
“Stay; I think you may come down, youngster, after all,” he said at length. “Perhaps it might be as well that you should see with your own eyes what Bates and I have seen; for, then you will serve as an additional witness in the event of there being any future inquiry. I hope you have a good strong stomach, my boy, and are not squeamish?”
“Oh, no, sir,” I rejoined as I followed him down the steps again to the gangway below, “I’m not squeamish.”
“Well, then,” he cried, throwing open the opposite door which gave entrance to the cabin directly under the broken skylight, “look in there!”
It was fortunate that I had a steady nerve and was not easily frightened, for the sight that met my gaze would have startled most grown-up persons, let alone one of my age!
The place was in as great confusion as the open deck above, the sea having worked its ravages here as well as there and littered it with lumber of every description, which the water that had likewise gained admittance was washing about the floor, in company with the overturned tables and chairs.
Broken plates and dishes were mixed up with stray articles of clothing; while books and empty bottles, which, strangely whole, bobbed up and down amidst the general ruin, floated in and out between the heavier dunnage.
I noticed even a mandoline, with a blue riband attached to it cruising round the bottles; which seemed quite out of its latitude there! But, this was not all.
There was a strange, sickly smell in the room; and what was that looking up at me from the rubbish-strewn deck close to where I stood by the cabin door?
I almost shrieked out as it caught my wandering glance, the eyes seeming to look right into mine, opened wide in one fixed stare.
It was the face of a dead woman, over whose marble-like features the water rippled as the ship lurched, tossing her long hair about as if playing with it and giving her the appearance of being alive.
“Poor thing!” I whispered to Mr Jellaby, who was near me and also gazing down at her, the presence of the dead making me drop my voice. “She was drowned, I suppose?”
“Murdered!” he replied laconically, drawing my attention to a terrible cut across her neck, which I had not observed before, almost severing the head from the body. “Look there—and there, Vernon!”
I followed the motions of his directing hand, and saw, first, a poor little dead baby floating about in the corner of the cabin; and then, behind the door by which we had entered, the corpse of a big, handsome man propped up against one of the lockers, in a kneeling position.
The man was only half-dressed, being in his shirt and trousers, as if caught unawares, holding a cocked revolver yet in his rigid fingers, stretched out in steady aim; while, at the further end of the cabin, where there was another doorway, communicating apparently with the main saloon, lay four ruffianly-looking fellows, all with long Spanish knives in their hands tightly clutched as if to strike.
These scoundrels had evidently killed the lady and little baby, and had then been shot by the poor chap on his knees, before he had himself fallen a victim to the cowardly stab from behind of a fifth scoundrel.
The latter he had got down, however, before he died; for, he was kneeling on his chest, as the second lieutenant pointed out to me prior to our leaving this chamber of horrors, though the villain’s dagger was still sticking in the brave fellow’s back.
I could see this now for myself as a gleam of sunshine came down through the shattered skylight, showing up all the hideous details of the place, with the sides of the cabin and the bulkhead dividing it from the passage, as well as the deck beams overhead, all spattered with blood; albeit, the water sluicing about below had removed all traces of the sad tragedy from thence long since.
“Let us go now,” said Mr Jellaby, as soon as I had taken in all these sickening surroundings, leading the way out of the accursed place. “We have stopped here long enough!”
“We have indeed, sir,” I replied, following him up the companion, with Bill Bates bringing up the rear in silence. “But, what do you think has happened, sir?”
“It’s a case of mutiny first, most probably; and then, murder,” said the second lieutenant, gravely, stepping over the coaming of the hatchway on to the deck of the poop as he emerged from the companion way.
“We’ll never know the rights of it, however, unless the doctor manages to bring round that poor chap we released from the rigging, who must have been tied up by the mutineers and thus escaped them somehow or other! I couldn’t find a log-book or anything else in the cabin which would give us a scrap of information about the vessel or those belonging to her; and, all the rest of the wreck is under water—indeed, I don’t think she’s far off sinking.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” observed the coxswain, interrupting him. “The ship’s just sent up our recall, and she’s bearing away now to pick us up to leeward when we cast off from here, sir.”
“Yes, my man, I see, and I notice, also, she has sent down her topgallants and taken in another reef,” returned Mr Jellaby, proceeding to work his way back amidships to those we had left there, wading through the water and wreckage and tophamper strewing the waist. “The old doctor, too, looks in a precious wax and is carrying on at a grand rate about our keeping him waiting, I bet. He’s jawing away now to that knowing hand of a marine of his; so the sooner we see about getting him aboard our old barquey again the better!”
He could not have come to a wiser conclusion, for the wind had increased in force rapidly, even during the short interval since I had left the deck, now blowing more than half a gale; while the sea was beginning to run high, breaking over the bows of the half-submerged hulk, sending up columns of spray that wetted us where we were and almost drenching Doctor Nettleby and the corporal, who were attending to the poor Spaniard amidships, just under the lee of the mainmast.
“You’re a nice fellow!” cried the doctor to Mr Jellaby on our approaching near enough to hear what he said. “It won’t be your fault if we’re not all drowned here like rats in a hole and never reach the ship. As for the cutter, I believe she’s swamped already!”
He was in a fine rage, certainly; but, the lieutenant, whose good temper was proof against any amount of irritability, soon calmed him down.
“I beg your pardon, doctor,” he said, as he hailed the bowman of the cutter, which was not swamped as yet, although making very bad weather of it, telling him to haul up alongside under the lee of the wreck. “I really beg your pardon, doctor, but I could not be any quicker; for the captain ordered me to examine the vessel and see if I could find her papers.”
He thereupon described to Doctor Nettleby what the three of us had seen in the cabin; when that gentleman was as much shocked as we were.
“Can I do anything, Jellaby?” he asked. “Are you sure they were all lifeless?”
“As dead as herrings, doctor.”
“Then there would be no use in my going down to see the poor creatures?”
“My dear sir, you couldn’t do them an ounce of good, for they’re long past the reach of all human aid!” replied the lieutenant, while he gave a helping hand to Corporal Macan to lift up the still unconscious Spaniard whom we had rescued, the sole survivor, so far as we knew, of all those who had perhaps started gaily enough on their disastrous voyage in the now dismantled and water-logged barque. “Besides, my dear doctor, we haven’t got the time. If we don’t clear out of this pretty sharp, we’ll all go below, I’m afraid! Steady there, Bates, with that grapnel rope! You’ll have the boat coming broadside on against the wreck, if you don’t take care and she’ll be stove in. Be smart now and rig-out that clewline there to the brace-block at the end of the yardarm. It will serve to lower down this poor beggar into the boat, which you must all fend off. Let her just come under the spar handsomely, without touching the side.”
These directions being carefully adhered to, we contrived, by using great caution, though not without considerable risk, to lower down the almost lifeless man into the cutter; after which we descended ourselves, Mr Jellaby being the last to leave the hapless hulk, letting go the grapnel as he dropped into the sternsheets.
The doctor and I caught him as he joined us, everyone else having enough to do to keep the boat steady with the oars; while Bates, of course, was busy with the tiller, which he kept amidships.
As the boat drifted past the low rail of the vessel, now almost level with the water, which partly sheltered us from the full force of the wind and waves, I had the opportunity, when we glided under the stern, to read her name emblazoned thereon in large gilt letters.
It wasLa Bella Catarina.
“Give way, men!” cried the lieutenant, on our getting out into the open sea the next moment beyond the hull of the derelict, the coxswain heading the cutter directly for our ship, which had run down to leeward of the wreck so that we could fetch her more easily. “Pull all you can, my lads. Our lives depend on it!”
We were about half-way towards theCandahar, which had gone about on the port tack, beating to windward and coming up to meet us, the crew of the boat bending their backs and pulling their hardest till the stout ash blades nearly doubled in two with the strain, while the big, rolling sea raced after us, trying to catch us up; when, all of a sudden, the man holding the stroke oar on the after thwart uttered an exclamation which made the lieutenant look behind.
“By Jove!” he cried, “we’ve had a narrow shave.”
The doctor and I both turned round at this.
We were only just in time to see the ill-fated vessel which we had so recently left, rear herself end on and sink beneath the waves, bow foremost!
Chapter Twenty.“A Bit of a Blow!”The doctor did not like the flippant way in which the lieutenant alluded to our providential escape.“You ought to thank God, Mr Jellaby, with all your heart that you have not gone down in her,” he said in a grave and impressive tone, looking him full in the face. “It is far too serious a matter for you to speak of so lightly. Just think, man, we’ve only been saved by a hair’s-breadth from death!”The lieutenant, however, was incorrigible.“A miss is as good as a mile, doctor,” he rejoined with a laugh, which made all the boat’s crew grin in sympathy, his devil-may-care philosophy appealing more strongly to their sailor nature than the doctor’s moral reflections. “Stand by, bows!”On this, the bowmen unshipped their oars with great care, so as not to cause any rocking; and, laying them in dexterously, faced round at the same time, one holding a boathook ready and the other the grapnel with a coil of rope attached, prepared to fling it when we were near enough to the ship.Our gallant vessel was plunging along athwart our course as if she meant to give us the go-by, the sea foaming up at her bows in a big wave that curled up in front of her forefoot and broke over her figurehead as she dipped, sending the surf high in the air in a sheet of foam over her forecastle.Those on board, though, had no intention of abandoning us, as we could quickly see, had we needed any assurance on the point.Just as she was within half a cable’s length of our starboard beam, we could hear the sound of the shrill boatswain’s pipe above the splash of the sea; when she came up to the wind so close to the cutter that it looked as if she was going to run us down instanter.But, we knew better than that.“Way enough!” shouted Mr Jellaby; and, by an adroit turn of the tiller, the boat’s nose shoved in under her lee to port into the slack water made by her hull. “Be ready with that grapnel there forrud!”There was no necessity, however, for using this, for Commander Nesbitt had stationed a man in the chains to watch for us; and, immediately we rounded-in under the counter the seaman payed out a long grass rope attached to a buoy, which, as it floated past the bowman was easily able to pick up with his boathook and make fast beneath the thwarts of the cutter forwards.We were, by this means, hauled up alongside until we were right below the quarter, with the side of our noble vessel towering above us like a great wall, and swinging over our heads; the creaking boat falls, oscillating backwards and forwards as if they were a couple of pendulums, rendering it very difficult to hook on the cutter, especially as she was lifted up one moment by a wave passing under the keel to the main deck ports, and lowered the next down to the ship’s bilge.But, at last, the task was accomplished, and then at the pipe of the boatswain, which we could now hear more clearly than before, the cutter, with all her crew and passengers still in her, was run up to the davits and secured, the ship at once filling and bearing away on her course again, now close-hauled on the starboard tack.Captain Farmer was standing on the poop talking with the commander when we gained the deck; and, as Mr Jellaby at once went up to them to make his report, while Dr Nettleby was busying himself with superintending the removal of the man we had rescued, who had not yet regained consciousness, down to the sick bay, a couple of other marines being called to help the corporal, I thought I might as well go below also and shift my uniform, which was pretty nearly soaked through, making me feel very cold and uncomfortable.This was a day of surprises.For, no sooner had I got down to my chest in the steerage and begun to peel off my wet clothes, than Ned Anstruther came up to me.I thought at first he was going to congratulate me on having got off from the wreck before she foundered, all on board, having, of course, seen her sink.But, greatly to my astonishment, my watch-mate raised a rope’s-end which he held in his outstretched hand and proceeded to lay it across my shoulders; the beggar giving me several sharp cuts with the “colt” ere I realised what he was up to.“That will teach you not to supplant me and go in my boat again, you young rascal!” he cried, pegging away merrily with the rope’s-end on my bare back. “I intend to give you one of the best thrashings you ever had in your life for doing it!”“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, trying to ward off the cuts with my arm. “Anstruther, you’re mad, I think! I never wished to supplant you. It was the commander who would not let you go in the cutter, not I.”“Oh, was it?” said he, ironically, still laying on as hard as he could with the rope’s-end, which really stung me very much. “Well, as I can’t lick him, my joker, I shall lick you!”“Will you?” I retorted; and, finding expostulation of no avail, I tried retaliation, commencing now to hit out with my fists in return. “Two can play at that game, old fellow; and as you force me to do it, take that and that!”My action followed suit to my words, as I gave him a smart “one, two” with my left, which knocked him backwards against Mr Stormcock just as the latter was coming out of the gunroom.“Hullo, what is this?” cried the master’s mate, as Ned Anstruther, cannoned off his stomach, sending him flying across the deck from the ship lurching. “Fighting again? By jingo, I never saw such a pack of young gamecocks in my life. There was, cheeky little Tom Mills wanting to peg into that swab Andrews last night, and now here are you two at it hammer and tongs. Why, I thought you were chums and both of you in the same watch, the very closest of friends.”“Of course we are,” said I, laughing at the comicality of the situation, which struck me all of a moment. “Anstruther and I are very good friends. I’m sure I don’t want to do him any harm.”“So I should think,” replied Mr Stormcock, drily. “It looks uncommonly like it, judging by the way you are slogging each other about! But come now, I won’t have any more of this. Shake hands and make it up at once, do you hear, or I’ll report you to the commander.”“Why,” exclaimed my antagonist, rubbing his eye ruefully, “Commander Nesbitt is the cause of it all!”“Indeed!” said Mr Stormcock, with a whistle of surprise at this extraordinary assertion. “How do you make that out?”“Because he sent Jack Vernon in the first cutter in my place.”“Oh, you ass! It was for that, then, that you were fighting this poor chap here, who I’m sure you ought to be grateful to for taking a very nasty job off your hands. See, he’s not only wet to the skin, but narrowly escaped going to the bottom, as you know; and now, in return for this kindness, you try to wop him, and end in getting wopped instead yourself. Anstruther, you’re an ass, and more than that, you’re an ungrateful ass; and I’ve half a mind to thrash you myself for your conduct to Vernon!”“I never thought of it in that light,” said Ned, holding out his fist to me in a different fashion to that in which I had presented mine to him shortly before. “Let us be friends again, old chap. I’m very sorry I struck you, Jack; but I was so jealous of your going off in the cutter and angry at being left behind that I didn’t think of what I was doing.”“Well, I’m sorry I hit you, too, my dear Ned,” said I, shaking hands in a cordial grip. “I hope I didn’t hurt you much.”“You’ve only given me a black eye, which will make me go on the sick list,” he replied with a grin. “I can’t very well appear on the quarter-deck with the ‘Blue Peter’ hoisted; for, the cap’en would notice it in a minute and ask me how I came by it.”“There would be no difficulty about that,” interposed Mr Stormcock; “you could tell him the commander gave it to you, for you said just now he was the cause of all the row, you know.”This made us both laugh, and dinner being now ready, Ned Anstruther and I went into the gunroom together as soon as I had completed my interrupted toilet.Here, sitting side by side, the best of friends, and enjoying our pea soup, no one looking at us not in the secret would have readily imagined that any such “little unpleasantness,” as I have described had just occurred between us two; though, I am happy to be able to state, this was our first and last quarrel, Ned and I remaining the closest chums ever after and never subsequently having even a word squabble.During the afternoon, the wind veered to the north-west, blowing stronger after the sun passed the meridian and increasing hourly so much in force that, at Four Bells, we hauled down the jib and close-reefed the spanker, the mizzen topsail being also taken in at the same time.There was every indication of our having a gale, the barometer having fallen considerably since the morning; while the sea got up more and more and the horizon ahead became banked with a mass of blue-black clouds as dark as night, patches of lighter vapour also scudding rapidly across the sky.At Six Bells things began to look serious, the wind now shrieking as it tore through the rigging and the heavy rolling waves to break inboard, washing the decks fore and aft; so, the hands were turned up to furl the mainsail and take in the spanker.This relieved the ship somewhat; but, as she still laboured very much, the topsails were close-reefed and a reef taken in the foresail, the men being almost blown off the yards when aloft while doing this and having hard work to get down safely on deck again when the job was done, the force of the gale being such that they were flattened against the rigging and had to hold on “by the skin of their teeth,” as sailor folk say.Even this amount of canvas, however, reduced though it was, presently proved too much for her; and the commander therefore gave the order to furl the foresail and haul down the foretopmast staysail, a storm staysail being set on the forestay to keep the vessel under steerage way as she tore through the tempest-tossed water like a maddened thing, rolling her gunwales under and pitching sometimes to that extent that she seemed about to dive into the deep never to rise again.There were four men at the wheel; and yet, with all their exertion, it was impossible to preserve a straight course, for the ship yawed from side to side, as if seeking to escape the following seas that raced after her, rearing their threatening crests right over the taffrail.So, fearing that we might get pooped, we now furled the foretopsail and lay-to under our close-reefed maintopsail and storm staysails; thus awaiting what might further be in store for us, although it did not then seem possible that anything could be worse!We were all soon undeceived, however, on this point; although we had about half-an-hour’s let off, during which interval the commander and gunnery lieutenant employed themselves in having the guns secured with double breechings and stout seven-inch hawsers triced up along the decks in their rear, a separate tackle being bent on into this and passing under the neck ring of each of the long thirty-two pounders, in order to prevent their taking charge and waltzing about amidships when the vessel rolled.Ay, and she did roll, too!The decks also were battened down to keep out the floods of water, which she was continually taking in over the bows, from passing too freely below, where a considerable quantity had already, indeed, gone, making us rather damp down in the steerage.Lifelines were likewise rove on the poop and upper deck, where it was now impossible to move a step without having something to lay hold of.This was not only on account of the heavy lurches the vessel gave from port to starboard and then back again to port; but, the planks were wet and slippery, and besides, as she plunged and pitched, head to sea, great green, rolling waves would break on the forecastle and pour down into the waist, rushing aft like a river and sweeping anyone off his legs who was caught unprepared.The wind itself was blowing so strongly that I couldn’t stand upright, having to shelter myself under the lee of the bulwarks when I was on the poop.But, this was nothing to what came later, old Boreas then putting a fresh hand to his bellows.Hardly had the guns been properly secured and everything made snug and fast below and aloft, when the gale recommenced with tenfold violence; constant squalls bursting over the ship, accompanied by showers of hail that pattered on the planks like rifle bullets and took the skin off any fellow’s face that was exposed to it without protection.It made mine smart, I know!In the midst of one of these sharp squalls, the maintopsail was blown to pieces with a report that sounded as if a gun had been fired off close to my ear; and, at the same moment, there was a loud crack heard from the top as if something had given way in addition to the sail.Nothing, though, could be done about this for the moment, more pressing business being on hand; for, in consequence of the topsail giving, the ship’s head payed off and getting into the hollow of the sea she precious nearly rolled her masts out her in less time than one could count.“Down with that fore staysail,” shouted the commander through his speaking trumpet. “Look alive man and set the topsail at once!”His voice could not be distinguished beyond the length of the trumpet he roared through; but the boatswain’s mates passed on the order from hand to hand until it reached the first lieutenant and the master, both of whom were stationed forwards, where it was instantly acted on and the ship’s head brought back to the wind.After this the storm staysail was rehoisted and we lay-to again in comparative safety.Mr Cleete, the carpenter, then went up into the maintop to see what had happened to cause the loud crack we had heard.He came back from his perilous journey with the unwelcome news that the topsail yard had been sprung and was in a very ticklish state, the carpenter adding that the spar ought to be fished as soon as possible or it might part company.It had to remain as it was, however, for the present, the commander not wishing to peril the men’s lives needlessly by sending them aloft unless it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the ship; for it was not any easy thing to shift such a big spar as the topsail yard in a gale of wind. “If it chooses to go by the board before it could be seen to,” said he, “why, well and good, go it must, that’s all!”So Commander Nesbitt evidently thought, I was sure, from the way in which he shrugged his shoulders and pointed in dumb show aloft and then to the sea, when the carpenter tried to press the claims of the topsail yard on his notice.When the hands were sent down and the watch set at Eight Bells, to my inexperienced eyes the hurricane appeared to be at its height; the howling of the wind and angry roar of the clashing waves being absolutely awful to listen to, drowning as they did every other sound on board the ship on deck.Nor was it any the better below, the groaning of the timbers there, as of a lost soul crying out in its last agony, with the rattling of crockery and other mess gear, adding to the tumult without, made a perfect pandemonium of the gunroom.A fellow could not hear what another said, though it were shouted in his ear as loudly as the speaker could bawl; albeit some of my messmates certainly had powerful lungs of their own—lungs which they were not chary of testing when occasion offered!I turned in early; but, not being able to sleep for the racket that was going on, I returned to the deck, remaining there in the most sheltered corner I could find with Tom Mills, the two of us watching with spellbound attention until close on midnight the wonderful struggle between the spirits of the air and the demons of the deep—the pale-faced moon shining out occasionally from the dark vault of the heavens overhead, lighting up the stormy sea that served as the battle-ground of the storm fiends with her sickly gleams and making it seem like a field of snow, its vast expanse being covered with yeasty foam as far as the eye could reach.The gale lasted all that night and the following day; when, late in the evening, the weather commenced to moderate, the wind calming down finally towards the close of the middle watch next morning.It had then been blowing for thirty-six hours, during the whole of which time neither Captain Farmer nor the commander had left the deck; while most of the officers and men also had remained up on duty, it being a case almost of “all hands” from the beginning of the tempest to its end!
The doctor did not like the flippant way in which the lieutenant alluded to our providential escape.
“You ought to thank God, Mr Jellaby, with all your heart that you have not gone down in her,” he said in a grave and impressive tone, looking him full in the face. “It is far too serious a matter for you to speak of so lightly. Just think, man, we’ve only been saved by a hair’s-breadth from death!”
The lieutenant, however, was incorrigible.
“A miss is as good as a mile, doctor,” he rejoined with a laugh, which made all the boat’s crew grin in sympathy, his devil-may-care philosophy appealing more strongly to their sailor nature than the doctor’s moral reflections. “Stand by, bows!”
On this, the bowmen unshipped their oars with great care, so as not to cause any rocking; and, laying them in dexterously, faced round at the same time, one holding a boathook ready and the other the grapnel with a coil of rope attached, prepared to fling it when we were near enough to the ship.
Our gallant vessel was plunging along athwart our course as if she meant to give us the go-by, the sea foaming up at her bows in a big wave that curled up in front of her forefoot and broke over her figurehead as she dipped, sending the surf high in the air in a sheet of foam over her forecastle.
Those on board, though, had no intention of abandoning us, as we could quickly see, had we needed any assurance on the point.
Just as she was within half a cable’s length of our starboard beam, we could hear the sound of the shrill boatswain’s pipe above the splash of the sea; when she came up to the wind so close to the cutter that it looked as if she was going to run us down instanter.
But, we knew better than that.
“Way enough!” shouted Mr Jellaby; and, by an adroit turn of the tiller, the boat’s nose shoved in under her lee to port into the slack water made by her hull. “Be ready with that grapnel there forrud!”
There was no necessity, however, for using this, for Commander Nesbitt had stationed a man in the chains to watch for us; and, immediately we rounded-in under the counter the seaman payed out a long grass rope attached to a buoy, which, as it floated past the bowman was easily able to pick up with his boathook and make fast beneath the thwarts of the cutter forwards.
We were, by this means, hauled up alongside until we were right below the quarter, with the side of our noble vessel towering above us like a great wall, and swinging over our heads; the creaking boat falls, oscillating backwards and forwards as if they were a couple of pendulums, rendering it very difficult to hook on the cutter, especially as she was lifted up one moment by a wave passing under the keel to the main deck ports, and lowered the next down to the ship’s bilge.
But, at last, the task was accomplished, and then at the pipe of the boatswain, which we could now hear more clearly than before, the cutter, with all her crew and passengers still in her, was run up to the davits and secured, the ship at once filling and bearing away on her course again, now close-hauled on the starboard tack.
Captain Farmer was standing on the poop talking with the commander when we gained the deck; and, as Mr Jellaby at once went up to them to make his report, while Dr Nettleby was busying himself with superintending the removal of the man we had rescued, who had not yet regained consciousness, down to the sick bay, a couple of other marines being called to help the corporal, I thought I might as well go below also and shift my uniform, which was pretty nearly soaked through, making me feel very cold and uncomfortable.
This was a day of surprises.
For, no sooner had I got down to my chest in the steerage and begun to peel off my wet clothes, than Ned Anstruther came up to me.
I thought at first he was going to congratulate me on having got off from the wreck before she foundered, all on board, having, of course, seen her sink.
But, greatly to my astonishment, my watch-mate raised a rope’s-end which he held in his outstretched hand and proceeded to lay it across my shoulders; the beggar giving me several sharp cuts with the “colt” ere I realised what he was up to.
“That will teach you not to supplant me and go in my boat again, you young rascal!” he cried, pegging away merrily with the rope’s-end on my bare back. “I intend to give you one of the best thrashings you ever had in your life for doing it!”
“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, trying to ward off the cuts with my arm. “Anstruther, you’re mad, I think! I never wished to supplant you. It was the commander who would not let you go in the cutter, not I.”
“Oh, was it?” said he, ironically, still laying on as hard as he could with the rope’s-end, which really stung me very much. “Well, as I can’t lick him, my joker, I shall lick you!”
“Will you?” I retorted; and, finding expostulation of no avail, I tried retaliation, commencing now to hit out with my fists in return. “Two can play at that game, old fellow; and as you force me to do it, take that and that!”
My action followed suit to my words, as I gave him a smart “one, two” with my left, which knocked him backwards against Mr Stormcock just as the latter was coming out of the gunroom.
“Hullo, what is this?” cried the master’s mate, as Ned Anstruther, cannoned off his stomach, sending him flying across the deck from the ship lurching. “Fighting again? By jingo, I never saw such a pack of young gamecocks in my life. There was, cheeky little Tom Mills wanting to peg into that swab Andrews last night, and now here are you two at it hammer and tongs. Why, I thought you were chums and both of you in the same watch, the very closest of friends.”
“Of course we are,” said I, laughing at the comicality of the situation, which struck me all of a moment. “Anstruther and I are very good friends. I’m sure I don’t want to do him any harm.”
“So I should think,” replied Mr Stormcock, drily. “It looks uncommonly like it, judging by the way you are slogging each other about! But come now, I won’t have any more of this. Shake hands and make it up at once, do you hear, or I’ll report you to the commander.”
“Why,” exclaimed my antagonist, rubbing his eye ruefully, “Commander Nesbitt is the cause of it all!”
“Indeed!” said Mr Stormcock, with a whistle of surprise at this extraordinary assertion. “How do you make that out?”
“Because he sent Jack Vernon in the first cutter in my place.”
“Oh, you ass! It was for that, then, that you were fighting this poor chap here, who I’m sure you ought to be grateful to for taking a very nasty job off your hands. See, he’s not only wet to the skin, but narrowly escaped going to the bottom, as you know; and now, in return for this kindness, you try to wop him, and end in getting wopped instead yourself. Anstruther, you’re an ass, and more than that, you’re an ungrateful ass; and I’ve half a mind to thrash you myself for your conduct to Vernon!”
“I never thought of it in that light,” said Ned, holding out his fist to me in a different fashion to that in which I had presented mine to him shortly before. “Let us be friends again, old chap. I’m very sorry I struck you, Jack; but I was so jealous of your going off in the cutter and angry at being left behind that I didn’t think of what I was doing.”
“Well, I’m sorry I hit you, too, my dear Ned,” said I, shaking hands in a cordial grip. “I hope I didn’t hurt you much.”
“You’ve only given me a black eye, which will make me go on the sick list,” he replied with a grin. “I can’t very well appear on the quarter-deck with the ‘Blue Peter’ hoisted; for, the cap’en would notice it in a minute and ask me how I came by it.”
“There would be no difficulty about that,” interposed Mr Stormcock; “you could tell him the commander gave it to you, for you said just now he was the cause of all the row, you know.”
This made us both laugh, and dinner being now ready, Ned Anstruther and I went into the gunroom together as soon as I had completed my interrupted toilet.
Here, sitting side by side, the best of friends, and enjoying our pea soup, no one looking at us not in the secret would have readily imagined that any such “little unpleasantness,” as I have described had just occurred between us two; though, I am happy to be able to state, this was our first and last quarrel, Ned and I remaining the closest chums ever after and never subsequently having even a word squabble.
During the afternoon, the wind veered to the north-west, blowing stronger after the sun passed the meridian and increasing hourly so much in force that, at Four Bells, we hauled down the jib and close-reefed the spanker, the mizzen topsail being also taken in at the same time.
There was every indication of our having a gale, the barometer having fallen considerably since the morning; while the sea got up more and more and the horizon ahead became banked with a mass of blue-black clouds as dark as night, patches of lighter vapour also scudding rapidly across the sky.
At Six Bells things began to look serious, the wind now shrieking as it tore through the rigging and the heavy rolling waves to break inboard, washing the decks fore and aft; so, the hands were turned up to furl the mainsail and take in the spanker.
This relieved the ship somewhat; but, as she still laboured very much, the topsails were close-reefed and a reef taken in the foresail, the men being almost blown off the yards when aloft while doing this and having hard work to get down safely on deck again when the job was done, the force of the gale being such that they were flattened against the rigging and had to hold on “by the skin of their teeth,” as sailor folk say.
Even this amount of canvas, however, reduced though it was, presently proved too much for her; and the commander therefore gave the order to furl the foresail and haul down the foretopmast staysail, a storm staysail being set on the forestay to keep the vessel under steerage way as she tore through the tempest-tossed water like a maddened thing, rolling her gunwales under and pitching sometimes to that extent that she seemed about to dive into the deep never to rise again.
There were four men at the wheel; and yet, with all their exertion, it was impossible to preserve a straight course, for the ship yawed from side to side, as if seeking to escape the following seas that raced after her, rearing their threatening crests right over the taffrail.
So, fearing that we might get pooped, we now furled the foretopsail and lay-to under our close-reefed maintopsail and storm staysails; thus awaiting what might further be in store for us, although it did not then seem possible that anything could be worse!
We were all soon undeceived, however, on this point; although we had about half-an-hour’s let off, during which interval the commander and gunnery lieutenant employed themselves in having the guns secured with double breechings and stout seven-inch hawsers triced up along the decks in their rear, a separate tackle being bent on into this and passing under the neck ring of each of the long thirty-two pounders, in order to prevent their taking charge and waltzing about amidships when the vessel rolled.
Ay, and she did roll, too!
The decks also were battened down to keep out the floods of water, which she was continually taking in over the bows, from passing too freely below, where a considerable quantity had already, indeed, gone, making us rather damp down in the steerage.
Lifelines were likewise rove on the poop and upper deck, where it was now impossible to move a step without having something to lay hold of.
This was not only on account of the heavy lurches the vessel gave from port to starboard and then back again to port; but, the planks were wet and slippery, and besides, as she plunged and pitched, head to sea, great green, rolling waves would break on the forecastle and pour down into the waist, rushing aft like a river and sweeping anyone off his legs who was caught unprepared.
The wind itself was blowing so strongly that I couldn’t stand upright, having to shelter myself under the lee of the bulwarks when I was on the poop.
But, this was nothing to what came later, old Boreas then putting a fresh hand to his bellows.
Hardly had the guns been properly secured and everything made snug and fast below and aloft, when the gale recommenced with tenfold violence; constant squalls bursting over the ship, accompanied by showers of hail that pattered on the planks like rifle bullets and took the skin off any fellow’s face that was exposed to it without protection.
It made mine smart, I know!
In the midst of one of these sharp squalls, the maintopsail was blown to pieces with a report that sounded as if a gun had been fired off close to my ear; and, at the same moment, there was a loud crack heard from the top as if something had given way in addition to the sail.
Nothing, though, could be done about this for the moment, more pressing business being on hand; for, in consequence of the topsail giving, the ship’s head payed off and getting into the hollow of the sea she precious nearly rolled her masts out her in less time than one could count.
“Down with that fore staysail,” shouted the commander through his speaking trumpet. “Look alive man and set the topsail at once!”
His voice could not be distinguished beyond the length of the trumpet he roared through; but the boatswain’s mates passed on the order from hand to hand until it reached the first lieutenant and the master, both of whom were stationed forwards, where it was instantly acted on and the ship’s head brought back to the wind.
After this the storm staysail was rehoisted and we lay-to again in comparative safety.
Mr Cleete, the carpenter, then went up into the maintop to see what had happened to cause the loud crack we had heard.
He came back from his perilous journey with the unwelcome news that the topsail yard had been sprung and was in a very ticklish state, the carpenter adding that the spar ought to be fished as soon as possible or it might part company.
It had to remain as it was, however, for the present, the commander not wishing to peril the men’s lives needlessly by sending them aloft unless it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the ship; for it was not any easy thing to shift such a big spar as the topsail yard in a gale of wind. “If it chooses to go by the board before it could be seen to,” said he, “why, well and good, go it must, that’s all!”
So Commander Nesbitt evidently thought, I was sure, from the way in which he shrugged his shoulders and pointed in dumb show aloft and then to the sea, when the carpenter tried to press the claims of the topsail yard on his notice.
When the hands were sent down and the watch set at Eight Bells, to my inexperienced eyes the hurricane appeared to be at its height; the howling of the wind and angry roar of the clashing waves being absolutely awful to listen to, drowning as they did every other sound on board the ship on deck.
Nor was it any the better below, the groaning of the timbers there, as of a lost soul crying out in its last agony, with the rattling of crockery and other mess gear, adding to the tumult without, made a perfect pandemonium of the gunroom.
A fellow could not hear what another said, though it were shouted in his ear as loudly as the speaker could bawl; albeit some of my messmates certainly had powerful lungs of their own—lungs which they were not chary of testing when occasion offered!
I turned in early; but, not being able to sleep for the racket that was going on, I returned to the deck, remaining there in the most sheltered corner I could find with Tom Mills, the two of us watching with spellbound attention until close on midnight the wonderful struggle between the spirits of the air and the demons of the deep—the pale-faced moon shining out occasionally from the dark vault of the heavens overhead, lighting up the stormy sea that served as the battle-ground of the storm fiends with her sickly gleams and making it seem like a field of snow, its vast expanse being covered with yeasty foam as far as the eye could reach.
The gale lasted all that night and the following day; when, late in the evening, the weather commenced to moderate, the wind calming down finally towards the close of the middle watch next morning.
It had then been blowing for thirty-six hours, during the whole of which time neither Captain Farmer nor the commander had left the deck; while most of the officers and men also had remained up on duty, it being a case almost of “all hands” from the beginning of the tempest to its end!