Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.An Indian Ocean Hurricane.I am not writing this story as a mere diary of travel, and will therefore push on as rapidly as possible to the point where the real living interest of the voyage began, contenting myself with a mere brief reference to the various spots at which we touched. We took eight days to make the passage to Aden, where we arrived early on a certain morning, leaving at five o’clock the same afternoon, after a visit to the famous Tanks. Our next port of call was Zanzibar, whence we proceeded to Durban, in Natal. From Durban we proceeded to Mauritius, remaining in Port Louis harbour two days to permit of a visit to that extraordinary natural curiosity, the Peter Botte Mountain.From Mauritius we sailed for Colombo. The weather was glorious when we left Port Louis, and for two days afterward, with moderate breezes from the south-east; toward sunset, on our third day out, however, we began to notice signs of a change. The barometer had started to decline shortly after noon; and as the afternoon advanced the breeze weakened, so that from a speed of fourteen knots we dropped down to a bare five, although we were under royals, had all our staysails set, and were showing our whole flight of starboard studding sails as well, the wind being about a point and a half abaft the beam. At the same time the aspect of the sky underwent a subtle change. The clear, rich blue of the vault became gradually obscured by a veil, at first scarcely perceptible, of dirty, whitish-grey haze, from which, by the time of sunset, every trace of blue had completely vanished.Gradually, too, the sun became shorn of his rays, although there was no perceptible diminution of heat, until at length when the great luminary was upon the point of sinking below the horizon, he had changed into the semblance of a huge, shapeless mass of molten copper hanging suspended in the midst of an almost equally shapeless conglomeration of flame and smoke. Then he slowly vanished from view; the flaming, smoky western sky seemed to blaze up for a few moments into a still fiercer conflagration, the hues deepened until they became a mingling of blood and soot, when with startling suddenness they died out and an inky blackness enveloped the ship. At the same time the small remains of the wind died away, leaving the yacht rolling and lurching heavily upon a sea that seemed to have no run in it, but heaved itself up into great hummocks, only to subside again in the same purposeless manner.It was drawing on toward the end of the first dog-watch, and as a matter of fact I was off duty. But one never spends a dog-watch below in the tropics if it can be avoided, and Kennedy and I had gone up on the poop together to watch the sunset and discuss with Briscoe, the second mate, the meaning of the portents. Kennedy had never before been in that part of the world, but I had, and while he did not quite know what to make of the aspect of the sky, I had already made up my mind pretty well regarding what was in store for us, and had expressed my opinion as to what we might expect. The first mate did not altogether agree with me, and had proposed that we should refer the matter to Briscoe, who, like myself, knew, or professed to know, the Indian Ocean pretty well. So up we went; and presently, when the last gleam of light was vanishing from the sky, Kennedy beckoned Briscoe to him and said:“Well, Mr Briscoe, what d’ye think all that grand show away to the west’ard means? Mr Leigh here, who has been in these parts before, says he belaives we’re in for a hurricane.”“Hurricane be hanged!” retorted Briscoe, who always seemed to find a peculiar pleasure in belittling any opinion that I might express. “What we are in for is a thunderstorm that will make some of ye sit up and take notice. I guess it will bring with it some pretty considerable squalls, so it will be a good plan to stow a few of them flyin’ kites of ours. They’re doin’ no good anyway, and will only thrash themselves threadbare if we leave ’em abroad.”“That’s so, and I guess you’d better see about it at once, Mr Briscoe,” remarked Mrs Vansittart, emerging from the companion at that moment. She had apparently heard Briscoe’s last words as she came up the companion way. “I’ve just been looking up the weather remarks in theIndian Ocean Directory,” she continued; “and from what it says I guess there’s a hurricane brewing, Mr Kennedy, so—”“Why,” interrupted Kennedy, “that’s what Mr Leigh here says. But Mr Briscoe, who ought to know something about the Indian Ocean, says no, it’s only going to be a thunderstorm, probably accompanied by heavy squalls.”“And do you know the Indian Ocean, Mr Leigh? Have you ever been here before?” demanded the skipper.“Several times, madam,” I answered. “And once I was caught in a hurricane which dismasted us. The appearance of the sky then was very much what it was this evening, while the barometer behaved pretty similarly to what ours has been doing.”“Then that settles it,” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart. “There are two to one—theIndian Ocean Directoryand Mr Leigh against you, Mr Briscoe; and I guess we’ll prepare for the hurricane. Stow all the light canvas; stow everything, in fact, except the fore and main topsails and the fore-topmast staysail; then we shall be ready for anything that comes—eh, Mr Leigh?”“Assuredly much better prepared than we are at the present moment,” I said. “But if I may be permitted to offer a suggestion—”“You may, Mr Leigh,” replied the skipper. “Yes; go ahead. What do you advise?”“Well, madam,” I said, “since you are good enough to give me leave, I would advise that the staysail be stowed also, the topsail yards lowered to the caps,”—we carried patent reefing topsails—“the royal and topgallant yards and topgallant masts sent down on deck, as well as the studding sails out of the tops; and that extra lashings be put upon the boats and booms. Then I have no doubt we shall ride out whatever may come with reasonable comfort and safety. And when it comes, I would heave the ship to with her close-reefed fore topsail aback; also I would have a small tarpaulin ready to lash in the weather mizen rigging in case the topsails should blow away. Finally, I would direct Mackenzie to see that his engine is all ready for starting at a moment’s notice, if need be.”“Sakes alive!” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, “do you really believe it’s going to be so bad as all that?”“I certainly think it not at all improbable, madam,” I said.“Then I guess we’ll do as you say,” exclaimed the lady. “It’s the right thing to err on the safe side, and I won’t take any chances. But it will be bad for the men to have to work in this darkness. When does the moon rise?”“She is due to rise at about eight forty-five to-night,” I said. “But I am afraid it will be useless for us to look for any help from her; we shall get no light from her to-night.”“You think not?” she said. “Then—ah! there is four bells,” as Briscoe, having descended to the main-deck, came up on the poop and struck the bell. “Let the men get to work at once, Mr Kennedy, both watches, and see that Mr Leigh’s suggestions are carried out. And, say, I guess I won’t risk having the topsails blown away; we’ll furl everything while we’re about it; and if the hurricane comes we’ll heave to under bare poles. How will that do, Mr Leigh?”“Admirably, madam,” I replied. “You will then have done everything possible to provide for the safety of the ship; and when the blow comes, as I feel sure it will, there will be no need to risk the lives of any of the crew.”The necessary orders were at once given, and we all repaired to our several stations. My duty was to supervise operations on the mizenmast, Kennedy having charge of the men working upon the mainmast, and Briscoe supervising those upon the foremast, and when I went aft I found Miss Anthea and her brother seated in a couple of basket chairs by the taffrail. It was necessary for me to stand quite close to them for a few minutes; and I had no sooner taken up my position than I heard the boy say to his sister, in tones loud enough to reach my ears:“Say, ’Thea, why does Momma pay so much attention to what the Britisher says? I guess I don’t like it—and I don’t like him, either. I am going to speak to her about it. Who is he, that he is to be consulted before Kennedy and Briscoe? They’re Amuricans, while he is only a Britisher, and they’ve been to sea longer than he has; and anyway, an Amurican is a darn sight better than a Britisher any day.”“Yes, I guess you are right, Ju,” replied the young lady; “only you need not allow your dislike to betray you into vulgarity. I hate Englishmen, but I do not find it necessary to use the word ‘darn’, and I wish you wouldn’t; it is only common, vulgar people who use it. And I wouldn’t speak to Momma either, if I were you; it is not worth while. Momma thinks the man is clever, but, of course, he isn’t, and she will find it out sooner or later.”So that was it! I had often wondered at the attitude of latent hostility of these two youngsters toward me; and now I understood. They hated Englishmen! Well, their hatred did not trouble me in the least; it was passive, or at all events was only so far active as to prompt them now and then to make offensive remarks in my hearing, and taking into consideration who and what they were, I could put up with a good deal of that. But it had the effect of putting me upon my mettle. I was determined to prove to them that they were mistaken in their estimate of Englishmen, not because I attached any value personally to their good or bad opinion, but because eventually they would be man and woman, if they lived, and, from the position which their wealth would give them, would have the power of influencing the opinion of their fellow countrymen to a certain limited extent. I felt that it was my duty to do what I could to lessen the unreasoning dislike of my fellow countrymen which I had noticed in so many Americans.It was at this time a dead calm, with a very heavy, confused swell running, so that the only sounds heard, apart from our own voices, were the wash and gurgle of the water alongside, as the ship wallowed uneasily, the loud rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, and the creaking of the spars. Moreover, it was intensely dark—to such an extent indeed that I found it impossible to superintend operations from the deck. Presently, therefore, I sprang into the mizen rigging and made my way aloft to the mizen topmast crosstrees, from which I directed the operation of sending down the royal and topgallant yards, and afterwards took a hand in sending down the topgallant mast, having the satisfaction of finding, when I returned to the deck, that we on the mizenmast had beaten both Briscoe and Kennedy. I reckoned that, on board a well-disciplined, old-fashioned British man-o’-war, the task of sending down royal and topgallant yards and masts and stowing all canvas would have been accomplished, under similar circumstances, in about twelve minutes, at the utmost; but it took us thirty-five minutes by the ship’s clock. This I thought not at all bad, however; for in the first place we were nothing like so heavily manned as a man-o’-war of our size would have been, nor had our hands the constant practice in such evolutions that a frigate’s crew would have had. But the main thing was that our lady skipper was satisfied, and was good enough to say so.It remained intensely dark until close upon ten o’clock that night, when the thinnest imaginable suggestion of moonlight came filtering weakly through the dense curtain of cloud that now overspread the heavens, just enough of it to enable us to see objects close at hand and avoid hurting ourselves by running foul of them, as we had been doing while moving about the decks. The weather still remained stark calm, and the ship was rolling so furiously that I should not have been at all surprised to see the masts go over the side at any moment. The gear was all good and new, however, and held bravely; but the motion was so intensely disagreeable, and we shipped so much water over both rails, flooding the main-deck and necessitating the battening down of the hatches, that at length Mrs Vansittart gave orders to start the engine, and the ship was then put stem-on to the swell, which had now become more regular, setting out from about North-North-East. This action brought us immediate relief, as it enabled the helmsman to keep the ship out of the trough, though the violent rolling was exchanged for almost as violent a pitching. But the thunderstorm which Briscoe still persistently maintained was coming, failed to eventuate; and hour after hour dragged away with no indication of any immediate change, save that the feeble glimmer of moonlight, instead of increasing, gradually died away again, leaving us in almost as bad a plight as before.At midnight, when I went on deck to keep the middle watch, Mrs Vansittart was still up; and I thought that her temper seemed to be rather on edge, perhaps owing to the strain of the long-spun-out suspense. At least she responded rather sharply to Kennedy’s and my greeting when we joined her on the poop.I thought that perhaps Briscoe had been talking to her during his watch, and doing his best to discredit my judgment, for no sooner had we joined her than she turned upon me, and, in very incisive tones, informed me that she had come to the conclusion that I had been mistaken, and that there was going to be no hurricane after all, otherwise it would have come before then. But I knew that the Indian Ocean hurricane sometimes takes a long time brewing; indeed, in the case of my previous experience it had threatened for more than ten hours before it actually burst upon us. I explained this to her; and also said that there was nothing in the aspect of the weather to make me alter my original opinion. We were still engaged in debating the matter when a peculiar low, moaning sound became audible in the air, rapidly increasing to a weird, unearthly howl, and a wild, scuffling gust of hot wind swept over us from the north and went whining away astern of us until we lost sound of it altogether.“It is coming at last, madam,” I said; “we shall probably have three or four more such gusts as that, each lasting longer than the one preceding it, and—”“And, begorra, here comes number two, now!” exclaimed Kennedy, as a similar sound once more became audible; and with a vicious swoop another gust smote us so fiercely that the yacht stopped dead, unable to make headway against it. For a full minute or more it seemed as though half a dozen separate and distinct winds were battling together for the mastery, the yacht being the centre and focus round which the battle raged. We on the poop were buffeted helplessly this way and that, so that it was only with the utmost difficulty we could keep our feet; indeed, Mrs Vansittart was literally lifted off her feet for a moment and blown across the deck with such violence that, had she not luckily been forced straight into my arms, so that I was able to catch and hold her, she would probably have been seriously injured by being dashed furiously against the poop rail.She thanked me breathlessly as I dragged her by main force to the mizenmast and passed a couple of turns of the topgallant halyard round her waist, securing her to a belaying pin; and by the time that this was done the gust, like the first, had passed. I begged her to go below, before worse happened, assuring her that Kennedy, who was in charge, would know exactly what to do; but the little lady was grit to the backbone, and positively refused to leave the deck. On the contrary, she ordered Kennedy to counter-brace the yards with the head yards aback, and then heave the ship to on the port tack, after which everybody but ourselves and the look-outs was to go below, and while she was giving these orders she deftly passed a few more turns of the halyard about herself, so that she could not possibly be blown away unless the mizenmast was blown out of the ship. Also she begged the loan of my black silk neck scarf, which she tied over her head and under her chin, so that her yachting cap might not be blown overboard, as mine had been.By this time the air all about us was in a state of continuous agitation, the wind sometimes swooping down upon us in savage gusts, and anon easing up for a moment until it was scarcely more than a zephyr; but these lulls momentarily became of briefer duration, until in the space of about ten minutes it was blowing hard but very unsteadily, the heavy gusts following each other with ever-increasing rapidity. And now we felt the full benefit of our earlier preparations; for with the counter-bracing of the yards—a task accomplished in less than a minute—everything that was possible had been done; and all that remained was to ride out the gale as best we could.We were now afforded an opportunity—the first that had ever occurred, as Kennedy yelled for my information—to see what a really magnificent sea boat we had under our feet, for under the scourging of that terrible wind the sea rose with appalling rapidity, notwithstanding that the top of every sea, as it rose, was torn off and swept to leeward in blinding and drenching clouds of spindrift. And although our engine had been stopped, the ship lay to in the most perfect manner, heading well up into the wind and taking the seas, as they came at her, as buoyantly as a gull, shipping very little water except what came aboard in the form of spindrift or scud water, with an occasional spattering over the weather cathead.But this was only the beginning of the hurricane—merely its awakening, so to speak. With the passage of the minutes the wind steadily increased in strength until the wailing and shrieking of it through the spars and rigging aloft resembled the tones of a mighty organ, drowning every other sound; while the yacht lay down to it until her lee rail was completely buried and the water was right up to her main-hatch coamings. As the wind increased, however, we rode somewhat easier, for after a time it became impossible for the sea to rise; indeed, the strength of the wind was such that it actually flattened the sea down, every wave, as it reared its head, being swept away as a deluge of spray. The air was full of it—as full as it is of water during a tropical shower; and the only manner in which we could distinguish it from rain was by the salt taste of it upon our lips.I think the worst feature of it all, however, was the hideous darkness in which we were enwrapped; for outside the small circle of light emanating from the skylights it was impossible to see anything save a faint, ghostly white radiance representing the phosphorescent surface of the foaming sea, in the midst of which the hull of the yacht stood out black, vague, and shapeless, it being impossible to see the whole length of her because of the dense clouds of spindrift which enveloped us.At length it occurred to me to wonder how our lady skipper was faring in the midst of this awful turmoil of wind and sea; and, watching my opportunity, I made a dash for the spot where, dimly outlined in the sheen of light from the foremost skylight, I could just distinguish her form huddled up against the foot of the mizen mast. As I reached her I noticed that she seemed to be hanging limply in her lashings, and, stooping closer, I presently discovered that the plucky little lady had fainted. The buffeting of the wind and the pitiless incessant pelting of the spray had been too much for her; and unable to call for assistance, or to escape unaided, she had succumbed. This fact established, I lost no time in summoning Kennedy to my assistance, when, having cast her adrift, we managed between us to convey her safely to the companion and carry her below to her cabin. We then roused the doctor and Lizette, the chief stewardess, and turned her over to their care, after which we left her there and returned to the deck to complete our watch.I think that middle watch was the longest four hours hat I had ever spent, chiefly because of its extreme discomfort and the fact that there was nothing to do. First of all, I was drenched to the skin, the conversation in which I was engaged with Mrs Vansittart when the hurricane started having rendered it impossible for me to go below and get into my oilskins. Then there was the unceasing buffeting of the wind, which seemed at times as though it would drag me limb from limb. There was also the continuous scourging of the spray, which stung like the lash of a million whips; and finally, there was the oppression of a very real anxiety, for, as I think I have mentioned, the yacht was as heavily rigged as a frigate, and notwithstanding the relief afforded by sending down her tophamper, she lay down so alarmingly that at length I began seriously to question whether it would not eventually end in her turning turtle. Eight bells came at length, however; and when shortly afterward I got below, shed my streaming garments, towelled myself dry, and tumbled into my bunk, my discomfort and anxiety promptly left me as I sank into a sound and dreamless sleep.

I am not writing this story as a mere diary of travel, and will therefore push on as rapidly as possible to the point where the real living interest of the voyage began, contenting myself with a mere brief reference to the various spots at which we touched. We took eight days to make the passage to Aden, where we arrived early on a certain morning, leaving at five o’clock the same afternoon, after a visit to the famous Tanks. Our next port of call was Zanzibar, whence we proceeded to Durban, in Natal. From Durban we proceeded to Mauritius, remaining in Port Louis harbour two days to permit of a visit to that extraordinary natural curiosity, the Peter Botte Mountain.

From Mauritius we sailed for Colombo. The weather was glorious when we left Port Louis, and for two days afterward, with moderate breezes from the south-east; toward sunset, on our third day out, however, we began to notice signs of a change. The barometer had started to decline shortly after noon; and as the afternoon advanced the breeze weakened, so that from a speed of fourteen knots we dropped down to a bare five, although we were under royals, had all our staysails set, and were showing our whole flight of starboard studding sails as well, the wind being about a point and a half abaft the beam. At the same time the aspect of the sky underwent a subtle change. The clear, rich blue of the vault became gradually obscured by a veil, at first scarcely perceptible, of dirty, whitish-grey haze, from which, by the time of sunset, every trace of blue had completely vanished.

Gradually, too, the sun became shorn of his rays, although there was no perceptible diminution of heat, until at length when the great luminary was upon the point of sinking below the horizon, he had changed into the semblance of a huge, shapeless mass of molten copper hanging suspended in the midst of an almost equally shapeless conglomeration of flame and smoke. Then he slowly vanished from view; the flaming, smoky western sky seemed to blaze up for a few moments into a still fiercer conflagration, the hues deepened until they became a mingling of blood and soot, when with startling suddenness they died out and an inky blackness enveloped the ship. At the same time the small remains of the wind died away, leaving the yacht rolling and lurching heavily upon a sea that seemed to have no run in it, but heaved itself up into great hummocks, only to subside again in the same purposeless manner.

It was drawing on toward the end of the first dog-watch, and as a matter of fact I was off duty. But one never spends a dog-watch below in the tropics if it can be avoided, and Kennedy and I had gone up on the poop together to watch the sunset and discuss with Briscoe, the second mate, the meaning of the portents. Kennedy had never before been in that part of the world, but I had, and while he did not quite know what to make of the aspect of the sky, I had already made up my mind pretty well regarding what was in store for us, and had expressed my opinion as to what we might expect. The first mate did not altogether agree with me, and had proposed that we should refer the matter to Briscoe, who, like myself, knew, or professed to know, the Indian Ocean pretty well. So up we went; and presently, when the last gleam of light was vanishing from the sky, Kennedy beckoned Briscoe to him and said:

“Well, Mr Briscoe, what d’ye think all that grand show away to the west’ard means? Mr Leigh here, who has been in these parts before, says he belaives we’re in for a hurricane.”

“Hurricane be hanged!” retorted Briscoe, who always seemed to find a peculiar pleasure in belittling any opinion that I might express. “What we are in for is a thunderstorm that will make some of ye sit up and take notice. I guess it will bring with it some pretty considerable squalls, so it will be a good plan to stow a few of them flyin’ kites of ours. They’re doin’ no good anyway, and will only thrash themselves threadbare if we leave ’em abroad.”

“That’s so, and I guess you’d better see about it at once, Mr Briscoe,” remarked Mrs Vansittart, emerging from the companion at that moment. She had apparently heard Briscoe’s last words as she came up the companion way. “I’ve just been looking up the weather remarks in theIndian Ocean Directory,” she continued; “and from what it says I guess there’s a hurricane brewing, Mr Kennedy, so—”

“Why,” interrupted Kennedy, “that’s what Mr Leigh here says. But Mr Briscoe, who ought to know something about the Indian Ocean, says no, it’s only going to be a thunderstorm, probably accompanied by heavy squalls.”

“And do you know the Indian Ocean, Mr Leigh? Have you ever been here before?” demanded the skipper.

“Several times, madam,” I answered. “And once I was caught in a hurricane which dismasted us. The appearance of the sky then was very much what it was this evening, while the barometer behaved pretty similarly to what ours has been doing.”

“Then that settles it,” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart. “There are two to one—theIndian Ocean Directoryand Mr Leigh against you, Mr Briscoe; and I guess we’ll prepare for the hurricane. Stow all the light canvas; stow everything, in fact, except the fore and main topsails and the fore-topmast staysail; then we shall be ready for anything that comes—eh, Mr Leigh?”

“Assuredly much better prepared than we are at the present moment,” I said. “But if I may be permitted to offer a suggestion—”

“You may, Mr Leigh,” replied the skipper. “Yes; go ahead. What do you advise?”

“Well, madam,” I said, “since you are good enough to give me leave, I would advise that the staysail be stowed also, the topsail yards lowered to the caps,”—we carried patent reefing topsails—“the royal and topgallant yards and topgallant masts sent down on deck, as well as the studding sails out of the tops; and that extra lashings be put upon the boats and booms. Then I have no doubt we shall ride out whatever may come with reasonable comfort and safety. And when it comes, I would heave the ship to with her close-reefed fore topsail aback; also I would have a small tarpaulin ready to lash in the weather mizen rigging in case the topsails should blow away. Finally, I would direct Mackenzie to see that his engine is all ready for starting at a moment’s notice, if need be.”

“Sakes alive!” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, “do you really believe it’s going to be so bad as all that?”

“I certainly think it not at all improbable, madam,” I said.

“Then I guess we’ll do as you say,” exclaimed the lady. “It’s the right thing to err on the safe side, and I won’t take any chances. But it will be bad for the men to have to work in this darkness. When does the moon rise?”

“She is due to rise at about eight forty-five to-night,” I said. “But I am afraid it will be useless for us to look for any help from her; we shall get no light from her to-night.”

“You think not?” she said. “Then—ah! there is four bells,” as Briscoe, having descended to the main-deck, came up on the poop and struck the bell. “Let the men get to work at once, Mr Kennedy, both watches, and see that Mr Leigh’s suggestions are carried out. And, say, I guess I won’t risk having the topsails blown away; we’ll furl everything while we’re about it; and if the hurricane comes we’ll heave to under bare poles. How will that do, Mr Leigh?”

“Admirably, madam,” I replied. “You will then have done everything possible to provide for the safety of the ship; and when the blow comes, as I feel sure it will, there will be no need to risk the lives of any of the crew.”

The necessary orders were at once given, and we all repaired to our several stations. My duty was to supervise operations on the mizenmast, Kennedy having charge of the men working upon the mainmast, and Briscoe supervising those upon the foremast, and when I went aft I found Miss Anthea and her brother seated in a couple of basket chairs by the taffrail. It was necessary for me to stand quite close to them for a few minutes; and I had no sooner taken up my position than I heard the boy say to his sister, in tones loud enough to reach my ears:

“Say, ’Thea, why does Momma pay so much attention to what the Britisher says? I guess I don’t like it—and I don’t like him, either. I am going to speak to her about it. Who is he, that he is to be consulted before Kennedy and Briscoe? They’re Amuricans, while he is only a Britisher, and they’ve been to sea longer than he has; and anyway, an Amurican is a darn sight better than a Britisher any day.”

“Yes, I guess you are right, Ju,” replied the young lady; “only you need not allow your dislike to betray you into vulgarity. I hate Englishmen, but I do not find it necessary to use the word ‘darn’, and I wish you wouldn’t; it is only common, vulgar people who use it. And I wouldn’t speak to Momma either, if I were you; it is not worth while. Momma thinks the man is clever, but, of course, he isn’t, and she will find it out sooner or later.”

So that was it! I had often wondered at the attitude of latent hostility of these two youngsters toward me; and now I understood. They hated Englishmen! Well, their hatred did not trouble me in the least; it was passive, or at all events was only so far active as to prompt them now and then to make offensive remarks in my hearing, and taking into consideration who and what they were, I could put up with a good deal of that. But it had the effect of putting me upon my mettle. I was determined to prove to them that they were mistaken in their estimate of Englishmen, not because I attached any value personally to their good or bad opinion, but because eventually they would be man and woman, if they lived, and, from the position which their wealth would give them, would have the power of influencing the opinion of their fellow countrymen to a certain limited extent. I felt that it was my duty to do what I could to lessen the unreasoning dislike of my fellow countrymen which I had noticed in so many Americans.

It was at this time a dead calm, with a very heavy, confused swell running, so that the only sounds heard, apart from our own voices, were the wash and gurgle of the water alongside, as the ship wallowed uneasily, the loud rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, and the creaking of the spars. Moreover, it was intensely dark—to such an extent indeed that I found it impossible to superintend operations from the deck. Presently, therefore, I sprang into the mizen rigging and made my way aloft to the mizen topmast crosstrees, from which I directed the operation of sending down the royal and topgallant yards, and afterwards took a hand in sending down the topgallant mast, having the satisfaction of finding, when I returned to the deck, that we on the mizenmast had beaten both Briscoe and Kennedy. I reckoned that, on board a well-disciplined, old-fashioned British man-o’-war, the task of sending down royal and topgallant yards and masts and stowing all canvas would have been accomplished, under similar circumstances, in about twelve minutes, at the utmost; but it took us thirty-five minutes by the ship’s clock. This I thought not at all bad, however; for in the first place we were nothing like so heavily manned as a man-o’-war of our size would have been, nor had our hands the constant practice in such evolutions that a frigate’s crew would have had. But the main thing was that our lady skipper was satisfied, and was good enough to say so.

It remained intensely dark until close upon ten o’clock that night, when the thinnest imaginable suggestion of moonlight came filtering weakly through the dense curtain of cloud that now overspread the heavens, just enough of it to enable us to see objects close at hand and avoid hurting ourselves by running foul of them, as we had been doing while moving about the decks. The weather still remained stark calm, and the ship was rolling so furiously that I should not have been at all surprised to see the masts go over the side at any moment. The gear was all good and new, however, and held bravely; but the motion was so intensely disagreeable, and we shipped so much water over both rails, flooding the main-deck and necessitating the battening down of the hatches, that at length Mrs Vansittart gave orders to start the engine, and the ship was then put stem-on to the swell, which had now become more regular, setting out from about North-North-East. This action brought us immediate relief, as it enabled the helmsman to keep the ship out of the trough, though the violent rolling was exchanged for almost as violent a pitching. But the thunderstorm which Briscoe still persistently maintained was coming, failed to eventuate; and hour after hour dragged away with no indication of any immediate change, save that the feeble glimmer of moonlight, instead of increasing, gradually died away again, leaving us in almost as bad a plight as before.

At midnight, when I went on deck to keep the middle watch, Mrs Vansittart was still up; and I thought that her temper seemed to be rather on edge, perhaps owing to the strain of the long-spun-out suspense. At least she responded rather sharply to Kennedy’s and my greeting when we joined her on the poop.

I thought that perhaps Briscoe had been talking to her during his watch, and doing his best to discredit my judgment, for no sooner had we joined her than she turned upon me, and, in very incisive tones, informed me that she had come to the conclusion that I had been mistaken, and that there was going to be no hurricane after all, otherwise it would have come before then. But I knew that the Indian Ocean hurricane sometimes takes a long time brewing; indeed, in the case of my previous experience it had threatened for more than ten hours before it actually burst upon us. I explained this to her; and also said that there was nothing in the aspect of the weather to make me alter my original opinion. We were still engaged in debating the matter when a peculiar low, moaning sound became audible in the air, rapidly increasing to a weird, unearthly howl, and a wild, scuffling gust of hot wind swept over us from the north and went whining away astern of us until we lost sound of it altogether.

“It is coming at last, madam,” I said; “we shall probably have three or four more such gusts as that, each lasting longer than the one preceding it, and—”

“And, begorra, here comes number two, now!” exclaimed Kennedy, as a similar sound once more became audible; and with a vicious swoop another gust smote us so fiercely that the yacht stopped dead, unable to make headway against it. For a full minute or more it seemed as though half a dozen separate and distinct winds were battling together for the mastery, the yacht being the centre and focus round which the battle raged. We on the poop were buffeted helplessly this way and that, so that it was only with the utmost difficulty we could keep our feet; indeed, Mrs Vansittart was literally lifted off her feet for a moment and blown across the deck with such violence that, had she not luckily been forced straight into my arms, so that I was able to catch and hold her, she would probably have been seriously injured by being dashed furiously against the poop rail.

She thanked me breathlessly as I dragged her by main force to the mizenmast and passed a couple of turns of the topgallant halyard round her waist, securing her to a belaying pin; and by the time that this was done the gust, like the first, had passed. I begged her to go below, before worse happened, assuring her that Kennedy, who was in charge, would know exactly what to do; but the little lady was grit to the backbone, and positively refused to leave the deck. On the contrary, she ordered Kennedy to counter-brace the yards with the head yards aback, and then heave the ship to on the port tack, after which everybody but ourselves and the look-outs was to go below, and while she was giving these orders she deftly passed a few more turns of the halyard about herself, so that she could not possibly be blown away unless the mizenmast was blown out of the ship. Also she begged the loan of my black silk neck scarf, which she tied over her head and under her chin, so that her yachting cap might not be blown overboard, as mine had been.

By this time the air all about us was in a state of continuous agitation, the wind sometimes swooping down upon us in savage gusts, and anon easing up for a moment until it was scarcely more than a zephyr; but these lulls momentarily became of briefer duration, until in the space of about ten minutes it was blowing hard but very unsteadily, the heavy gusts following each other with ever-increasing rapidity. And now we felt the full benefit of our earlier preparations; for with the counter-bracing of the yards—a task accomplished in less than a minute—everything that was possible had been done; and all that remained was to ride out the gale as best we could.

We were now afforded an opportunity—the first that had ever occurred, as Kennedy yelled for my information—to see what a really magnificent sea boat we had under our feet, for under the scourging of that terrible wind the sea rose with appalling rapidity, notwithstanding that the top of every sea, as it rose, was torn off and swept to leeward in blinding and drenching clouds of spindrift. And although our engine had been stopped, the ship lay to in the most perfect manner, heading well up into the wind and taking the seas, as they came at her, as buoyantly as a gull, shipping very little water except what came aboard in the form of spindrift or scud water, with an occasional spattering over the weather cathead.

But this was only the beginning of the hurricane—merely its awakening, so to speak. With the passage of the minutes the wind steadily increased in strength until the wailing and shrieking of it through the spars and rigging aloft resembled the tones of a mighty organ, drowning every other sound; while the yacht lay down to it until her lee rail was completely buried and the water was right up to her main-hatch coamings. As the wind increased, however, we rode somewhat easier, for after a time it became impossible for the sea to rise; indeed, the strength of the wind was such that it actually flattened the sea down, every wave, as it reared its head, being swept away as a deluge of spray. The air was full of it—as full as it is of water during a tropical shower; and the only manner in which we could distinguish it from rain was by the salt taste of it upon our lips.

I think the worst feature of it all, however, was the hideous darkness in which we were enwrapped; for outside the small circle of light emanating from the skylights it was impossible to see anything save a faint, ghostly white radiance representing the phosphorescent surface of the foaming sea, in the midst of which the hull of the yacht stood out black, vague, and shapeless, it being impossible to see the whole length of her because of the dense clouds of spindrift which enveloped us.

At length it occurred to me to wonder how our lady skipper was faring in the midst of this awful turmoil of wind and sea; and, watching my opportunity, I made a dash for the spot where, dimly outlined in the sheen of light from the foremost skylight, I could just distinguish her form huddled up against the foot of the mizen mast. As I reached her I noticed that she seemed to be hanging limply in her lashings, and, stooping closer, I presently discovered that the plucky little lady had fainted. The buffeting of the wind and the pitiless incessant pelting of the spray had been too much for her; and unable to call for assistance, or to escape unaided, she had succumbed. This fact established, I lost no time in summoning Kennedy to my assistance, when, having cast her adrift, we managed between us to convey her safely to the companion and carry her below to her cabin. We then roused the doctor and Lizette, the chief stewardess, and turned her over to their care, after which we left her there and returned to the deck to complete our watch.

I think that middle watch was the longest four hours hat I had ever spent, chiefly because of its extreme discomfort and the fact that there was nothing to do. First of all, I was drenched to the skin, the conversation in which I was engaged with Mrs Vansittart when the hurricane started having rendered it impossible for me to go below and get into my oilskins. Then there was the unceasing buffeting of the wind, which seemed at times as though it would drag me limb from limb. There was also the continuous scourging of the spray, which stung like the lash of a million whips; and finally, there was the oppression of a very real anxiety, for, as I think I have mentioned, the yacht was as heavily rigged as a frigate, and notwithstanding the relief afforded by sending down her tophamper, she lay down so alarmingly that at length I began seriously to question whether it would not eventually end in her turning turtle. Eight bells came at length, however; and when shortly afterward I got below, shed my streaming garments, towelled myself dry, and tumbled into my bunk, my discomfort and anxiety promptly left me as I sank into a sound and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Four.I save Julius’s Life.When, shortly before eight bells, I was called by the wardroom steward, I at once became aware that a change of some sort had occurred in the weather. For, on the one hand, the list of the ship to starboard seemed to be no longer so heavy as it had been when I turned in; while, on the other, the motion was far and away greater—so violent indeed was it that, seasoned as I was to the movements of a heaving deck, I experienced the greatest difficulty in maintaining my balance. When presently I went on deck, my previous impressions were fully confirmed; for although it was still blowing a whole gale, the maniacal fury of the hurricane was past, while the sea, no longer flattened down and kept practically level by the irresistible strength of the tempest, had risen rapidly and was now an almost terrifying sight to behold. Especially was this the case when the ship settled into the trough, with one great foaming liquid mountain rushing away to leeward of her, while another enormous grey-back, towering above us as high as our lower mast-heads, came swooping down upon us from to windward with hissing angry crest, threatening to hurl itself bodily down upon our decks and sink us out of hand.Yet that threat was never fulfilled, for the yacht was behaving magnificently. She came to in most perfect style as she climbed the breast of each oncoming comber, heeling steeply to it the while and turning up a bold weather bow to meet its onslaught. Then, as the crest curled in over her turtle-back topgallant forecastle, smothering it in whirling and blowing foam and spray, she would swing upright and, with a lift of her stern and an easy weather roll, go sliding down into the trough beyond, her head paying off as she did so. And although she was still under bare poles, with her head yards aback, I could see, upon looking over the side, that she was forging ahead at a speed of about a knot and a half.But although the wind was no longer blowing with hurricane force it still had the strength of a heavy gale, and while a reference to the barometer showed that the mercury had begun to rise, there was no other sign of improvement in the weather. The sky was almost as black and threatening in its aspect as ever, with innumerable shreds and tatters of dirty whitish-grey cloud sweeping athwart at a speed that made one giddy to look at; while there could be no question that the sea was gathering height, weight, and volume with the passage of every minute. The air was still heavily charged with flying spume and spindrift, necessitating the use of oilskins and sou’westers, and keeping our spars, rigging, and decks streaming; but we could see with tolerable clearness for at least a mile in every direction.Yet although the general feeling out on deck was one of dampness and discomfort, we had not the added misery of cold to deal with. On the contrary, it was so warm that shortly after I went on deck, having breakfasted, I felt my long oilskin coat and sea boots so uncomfortably warm that I presently slipped below again for a moment, and, removing them and my socks, donned a short oilskin jacket and returned to the deck barefooted, for the sake of the greater comfort. I took it for granted that Miss Anthea would never dream of turning out in such weather, while I felt sure that Mrs Vansittart would excuse me, under the circumstances, the more so as she had often before come on deck while we were paddling about, barelegged, washing decks. And indeed when, shortly afterward, she emerged through the companion way, encased in a thin mackintosh reaching to the hem of her dress, and with a light sou’-wester on her head which in nowise detracted from her good looks, she at once set me at my ease by laughingly complimenting me upon the sensible character of my attire. Then, in a very different tone of voice, she thanked me for having come to her rescue on the previous night when, overcome by the terrific buffeting of the hurricane, she had swooned while lashed to the mast.We—that is to say, Mrs Vansittart, Kennedy, and I—were still standing together under the lee of the wheelhouse, discussing the weather generally, and the probable duration of the gale in particular, when the boy Julius came up from below, emerging from the companion way at the precise moment when the ship, with a terrific lee roll, was climbing to the summit of an exceptionally heavy sea. Precisely how it happened I could not possibly say, it occurred so suddenly, and moreover I only saw the last part of it; but I imagine that the lad must have lost, or inadvertently released, his hold upon the side of the companion at the critical moment when the velocity of the ship’s roll was at its highest. Be that as it may, Julius no sooner stepped out on deck than he went with a run straight to the lee rail of the poop, fetched up against it with a force that must have knocked the breath out of him, and then—although the rail was breast-high to him—in some inconceivable fashion seemed to lurch forward upon it, turn a complete somersault over it, and plunge headlong into the sea. It was Mrs Vansittart’s shriek of “Julius!” and her look of petrified horror, that caused me to wheel round, and I was just in time to see the lad go whirling over the rail.One’s thoughts move with lightning-like rapidity in moments of emergency, and as I saw the boy going I thought, “Kennedy is no good; those heavy sea boots of his would drag him down and sink him in a few seconds; I must go myself!” And as the thought flashed through my brain I tore off my oilskin jacket and, shouting to Kennedy, “Lifebuoy—bend to signal halyards!” made a dash for the rail, while Mrs Vansittart’s shrieks lent wings to my feet.As I reached the rail the ship topped the surge, which went rushing and roaring away beneath her and to leeward in a tremendous boil of foam, in the rear of which there was a space of almost glass-smooth indigo-coloured water, down through which I thought I saw something that might be the boy’s body. Without hesitating an instant I vaulted the rail, landing upon the curved turtle-back outboard, flung my hands above my head, and plunged straight for the spot where, a moment before, I thought I had seen the lad’s body.I went deep, kicking and striking out vigorously as I felt the water close about me, for the thought occurred to me that if the boy had really hurt himself badly when colliding with the rail, he would probably not rise to the surface at all, but would slowly sink. As I forced my way downward I looked about me, and presently saw a glimmering white something far below which might be the object of my quest, for the boy was dressed entirely in white. Desperately I urged myself downward, the gloom increasing with every stroke; and at length, when I felt as though my lungs would burst and I could not retain my breath another second, I grabbed something, I scarcely knew what, and turning, struck upward toward the blue glimmer of light far overhead.How I managed to hold my breath during that seemingly endless climb to the surface I cannot say, but I did it somehow, my head emerging from the water at the very instant when the air escaped from my lungs in one long gasp. I quickly filled them again, looked to see what I had brought to the surface with me, and found that, as I expected, it was the apparently lifeless form of Master Julius. I had grabbed the lad by his ankle, so that he hung head downward in my grasp. That would never do; so, treading water vigorously, I shifted the position of the body until I had the head resting upon my shoulder; and at that moment I felt myself being hove up, up, up, and the next instant a very mountain of water went hissing and roaring over my head, plunging me helplessly hither and thither and momentarily threatening to tear my prize from my hold.As soon as I had again got my breath, I looked round for the yacht. She was nowhere in sight; but presently, as I began to wonder what had become of her, I saw her topmast-heads swing into view beyond the head of the comber that had just swept past me, and then up she swept until the whole of her hull was visible. I saw a crowd of people gathered aft by the taffrail, and others in the rigging, all peering out under the sharp of their hands in various directions. Then, as the craft surmounted the grey-back and came sliding down its weather slope, rolling to windward until I could see nearly half her main-deck, one of the figures suddenly pointed toward me, and in an instant every face turned my way, while one man, whom I presently recognised as Kennedy, put one hand to the side of his mouth, as though shouting, while he pointed with the other.Not a word could I hear, however, for my ears were still full of water, while such sound as entered them was merely the hiss and roar of the sea. But I guessed what the mate was pointing at, the more readily as I saw one man paying out a thin line over the rail; so I looked eagerly about me, and presently saw, some thirty fathoms away, a white lifebuoy floating in the midst of a wide surface of foam, the ship at this time being perhaps twice as far from me as the lifebuoy. But just as I started to strike out for the buoy, another heavy sea swept over me, treating me pretty much as the first had done, and all but suffocating me into the bargain.I thought that, hampered as I was with the boy’s inert body, I should never reach the buoy, for I seemed utterly unable to make so much as an inch of progress in that frightful sea; and once, after I had been overwhelmed about a dozen times, the thought came to me that if I wanted to save myself I must give up the idea of saving the body, which after all would be a useless task, since I felt certain that the lad was dead. But no; I could not return to the ship and face the lad’s mother empty-handed. I could picture her despair under such circumstances, for Julius was Mrs Vansittart’s only son, and, spoiled as he was, I believed that she loved him more than her husband, more than her daughter, more than her own life. No, it was not to be thought of; I had undertaken the task and I must execute it. I had raised her hopes, and I would not disappoint them if God would only give me strength to reach that buoy.At length, after what seemed like a century of effort, I did reach it, and, laying my hand upon its nearest rim, tilted it over my head and under my armpits, at the very moment—as I afterward learned—when those aboard had paid out four sets of signal halyards to the bare end of the fourth set!And now came the delicate and difficult task of hauling me alongside in the shortest possible space of time, without parting the halyards on the one hand or drowning me on the other. But Kennedy was the man for the job. Even as I vaulted the rail and plunged into the water his active mind, aided by past experience, had enabled him not only to grasp the full import of my hasty words concerning the lifebuoy and the signal halyards, but also to foresee exactly what must inevitably happen. And while he was in the very act of unreeving the peak ensign halyards, preparatory to bending them on to the lifebuoy which his ready knife had slashed off the taffrail, he was shouting for somebody to pass the word for Mackenzie, the engineer.When Mac, already issuing from his cabin to learn what all the sudden outcry was about, received the message and came rushing aft in response to the call, he in turn was fully prepared for the order which Kennedy gave him, to go below and set his engine going dead easy astern. Thus by the time that I reached and got into the buoy, the ship’s way through the water was stopped, and, highly dangerous though such a proceeding undoubtedly was, under the circumstances, they were able to haul me gradually alongside and up under the counter without mishap, the engine of course being stopped again at the right moment. And when once they had got me under the lee quarter of the ship all the rest was of course comparatively easy. Two of the hands standing by hove me a couple of standing bowlines on ropes’ ends, one of which I slipped over the inanimate Julius’s head and under his armpits; and when I saw that they had got the body safely in over the rail I slipped into the other myself, and was hauled aboard amid the triumphant yells of the crew—to swoon as my feet touched the deck.But there was nothing much the matter with me. I had swooned simply through over-exertion, coupled perhaps with the reaction at finding myself once more safely aboard the yacht; and Harper, the surgeon, having had the foresight to order someone to stand by with brandy as a restorative, in case of need, they soon brought me round again. By Kennedy’s orders I was helped below to my cabin, to turn in and rest for a bit, learning, as I went, that Harper and the boy’s mother had taken charge of the lad the moment that he was hauled aboard, and had carried him below to his cabin. I afterward heard, however, that before she quitted the deck, Mrs Vansittart had given orders that she was to be informed, at the earliest possible opportunity, how things were going with me; and I further learned that, upon being told I was doing well, she fell upon her knees by the side of her boy’s bed and, bursting into tears, sobbed forth audible thanks to God for my preservation.As for me, after vomiting a considerable quantity of salt water, I was helped to undress, given a vigorous towelling, and put into my bunk, where, having swallowed a tumblerful of hot brandy and water, I quickly dropped off to sleep, and remained asleep until after four bells of the afternoon watch had struck. Then, feeling pretty much my former self, although a bit shaky on my pins, and very sore about the chest, I turned out, donned a dry suit of clothes, and sallied forth to the wardroom, with the twofold object of ascertaining if there was any news as to Master Julius’s fate and getting something to eat.Upon entering the wardroom I found Kennedy, Mackenzie, Grimwood the purser, and, somewhat to my astonishment, the doctor, present and chatting animatedly. Moreover, I gathered that they were talking about me, for as I passed through the open doorway Kennedy looked up and exclaimed:“And begorra here’s himself, no less! Talk of the—Here, bring yourself to an anchor on the sofa, lad, and let’s have a look at ye! Faith! but your morning’s experience has taken it out of ye, by the looks of ut. But never ye mind that, me bhoy, ye’ll weather it all right, and ye’ll always have the memory of havin’ done a gallant thing, whatever happens. By the Piper, lad, we’re all proud of ye, from the skipper downward.”They all came crowding round me as I sank upon the sofa, and insisted upon shaking hands with me, saying so many nice and complimentary things to me that I presently began to feel quite abashed. Then Harper interfered authoritatively.“There!” he exclaimed, waving the crowd away, “that will do, you chaps. Let up upon the youngster a bit and give him a chance. What you want,” he continued, turning to me and laying his fingers upon my pulse, “is a meal first—not a heavy meal, but something good and nourishing, and then another spell of sleep. Mac, have the goodness to press the button for the steward, and I’ll give him an order. How is your appetite, my British hero?”“Why,” said I, “to confess the truth I turned out because I felt hungry, and came in here with the hope of getting something to eat. But, Doctor, I want to know about the boy. I did the best I could for him, and was determined to bring him back with me if I was fortunate enough to fetch the ship again; but I felt certain there was no life left in him, even before I got hold of the buoy.”“And that is just where you were mistaken, young man. Oh! here you are, steward,” as that individual entered in response to the summons of the bell. “I want you to go to the cook and tell him—from me, you understand—to give you a good big basin of that chicken broth I instructed him to prepare, and bring it here for Mr Leigh, with a slice of bread from a loaf baked yesterday, if anything of the sort remains. Then, when you have brought the broth, go to Mr Marsh and ask him to give you a small bottle of Mumm, and bring it along here. Now get a move on, and let me have those things quick.”“Well, Doctor, what about Master Julius?” I prompted, as the steward retired.“Why, as it happened, he was not dead when we hauled him aboard,” replied Harper, “though he was so near to it that it cost me two solid hours or more of strenuous work to restore animation. But I believe I shall pull him through now, with luck. He dropped off to sleep about half an hour ago, and I left him in charge of his mother and the chief stewardess, with instructions to send for me upon the instant of his waking. How do you like your broth?”“It is delicious,” I replied, “and I am enjoying it; although I feel a bit mean in taking it, for I suppose it was prepared for Julius, wasn’t it?”“Don’t you trouble about that, young un,” returned the doctor. “The cook has my orders; and if he has attended to them—as I have no doubt he has—there will be plenty for the pair of you. Will you have some more?”But I declined; I had had quite sufficient, I said. Thereupon Harper opened the half-bottle of wine which the steward had brought, poured the contents into a tumbler, and ordered me to toss it off and then go back to my bunk and get another sleep.“Sleep just as long as you care to,” he said, “and don’t worry about watches until I give you leave. A night in ought to fix you up again, I think; but we will see what you look like when you turn out for breakfast to-morrow.”I was soon asleep again, but the first bugle call for dinner awakened me, and, feeling a good deal better, I turned out and dressed, noticing, as I did so, that the ship’s movements were very much easier and more rhythmical than when I had lain down. Indeed, I had the feeling that she was sailing again; and, glancing through my porthole, I found that this was so, and that the weather had cleared. The sea, now a deep sapphire blue, had gone down very considerably, the sky was clear of clouds, and upon looking more closely at the water I was able to detect the shadow of the ship upon it, and thereby determine that she was under her three topsails, courses, fore-topmast staysail, and spanker. And by the swirl of yeast past my port I estimated that she must be reeling off about eight knots.While I was still engaged in dressing there came a gentle tap at my door, to which I answered “Come!” whereupon the door opened and Harper entered.“So you are turning out again,” he said, after standing and looking at me a moment. “How do you find yourself?”“Oh! ever so much better,” I replied; “indeed, I think I may say that I am practically all right again. The soreness of my chest is all but gone, and—”“Let me feel your pulse,” he commanded; and I stretched out my arm to him.He laid his finger on my pulse and kept it there for about half a minute.“Yes,” he said, “you’ll do; nothing very much the matter with you. Now, look here, boy, Mrs Vansittart has instructed me to come and see how you are getting on, and to say that if you feel equal to it, she would like you to join the saloon party at dinner to-night—just themselves, you and I, you know, alone. The fact is that they are all eager to tell you what they feel about your exploit of this morning, and they will not be happy until they have done so. Do you feel equal to the ordeal; or shall I go back and say that they must excuse you for a little while longer? I think you can stand it, you know. What say you?”“Oh, yes!” I replied, “I dare say I can stand it. I suppose it will have to come sometime, so I might as well get it over and done with. But, I say, Doctor, just give them a hint to go easy with their thanks, will you, there’s a good fellow. If there is one thing I hate more than anything else, it is being made a fuss of. You understand me?”“Why, of course Ido, my dear chap,” was the reply. “It is frightfully trying, I know; but you mustn’t grudge them the satisfaction of expressing their gratitude to you—see? I’ll take care that they shall not carry the thing too far. I’ll tell ’em that you’re not in condition to stand very much excitement just yet. Well, then, so long. See you again later.”As soon as I had finished dressing I seated myself in the very comfortable revolving chair in front of my writing desk, to await the second bugle call to dinner; but I had scarcely done so when a steward came along to my cabin, bearing a medicine glass containing a draught which he said the doctor had sent me, with instructions that I was to take it at once. I accordingly tossed it off; and a few minutes later the second dinner call sounded, and I made my way aft and up the companion way to the drawing-room, where I found Mrs Vansittart, her daughter, Monroe, and the doctor already assembled.As one of the stewards flung open the door and announced me, Mrs Vansittart came forward, seized my hands in both of hers, and looked up into my face with eyes that were swimming with tears. For a moment her lips quivered, speechless; then, recovering command of herself, she said:“Welcome—a thousand welcomes, Mr Leigh! Doctor Harper has explained to us that it is only by making a great effort you find yourself able to meet us to-night and give us a chance to express our lifelong gratitude to you for your noble, gallant deed.” Again her emotion overcame her; and presently, after a brave but ineffectual struggle to be formal and restrained, she suddenly let herself go, and, bursting into tears, exclaimed:“Oh! you dear, dear boy, Walter, how can I ever thank you enough? I am a happy, grateful woman to-night, for the doctor has just assured me that Julius will certainly recover; whereas, but for you, he would—would—have been—” She could get no further; so in lieu of words the dear lady lifted my hands to her lips and kissed them repeatedly. Then, to my intense relief, Harper stepped forward, and, gently taking her by the arm, led her to a seat, saying:“Now, my dear lady, this will never do, you know. You must pull yourself together, or I shall have another case upon my sick list. If I had suspected that this was going to happen I would not have allowed Leigh to come to you so soon. This has been a very trying day for you, I know, but—”“Yes, it has, Doctor,” she sobbed, “and of course it has upset me a bit; but just leave me alone for a minute or two, and I shall be all right again.”While she was saying this, Miss Anthea came forward, and, frankly extending her hand, expressed her own thanks to me for having saved her brother’s life. “And, Mr Leigh,” she continued in a low voice, “I take back every one of those horrid things that I’ve said about Englishmen in your hearing. I am downright ashamed of myself. Will you forgive me?”“Why, of course I will, very freely and willingly,” I said. “Please forget all about them, as I shall.”“Thank you!” she said. “My brother—”But at this moment Marsh flung open the door, and, in his most impressive manner, announced that dinner was served, thus putting an end to what I felt to be a most embarrassing situation.“You are to take me down to dinner, if you please, Mr Leigh,” said Miss Anthea, linking her arm in mine. “I insisted upon it,” she explained, “because I want to make you understand how sorry and ashamed I am at the way I have behaved to you all through the voyage—”“But,” I said, “I thought it was agreed that that should be all forgotten.”“So it shall be,” she said, “since you are so generous as to wish it. But before we entirely relegate the matter to oblivion, I want to explain that my stupid prejudice against Englishmen is not at all founded upon experience, for the few Englishmen whom I have met—true, they have been very few—have all been unexceptionable. I don’t know why it is, but it seems to be the fashion for us Americans to speak and think of Englishmen as being of a different clay from ourselves, something infinitely inferior to us in every respect—effete, and all that sort of thing; and so much is this the case that a good many of us really come to believe it at last. There! I have made my confession, criedpeccavi, and have been forgiven; and I feel ever so much happier. Now, please tell me about yourself. I want to know whether you have quite recovered from the effect of your dreadful exertions this morning. My! I don’t believe I shall ever forget how I felt when I rushed up on deck to find out what all the confusion was about, and saw you swimming in the water, ever so far away, with Julius hanging over your shoulder.”

When, shortly before eight bells, I was called by the wardroom steward, I at once became aware that a change of some sort had occurred in the weather. For, on the one hand, the list of the ship to starboard seemed to be no longer so heavy as it had been when I turned in; while, on the other, the motion was far and away greater—so violent indeed was it that, seasoned as I was to the movements of a heaving deck, I experienced the greatest difficulty in maintaining my balance. When presently I went on deck, my previous impressions were fully confirmed; for although it was still blowing a whole gale, the maniacal fury of the hurricane was past, while the sea, no longer flattened down and kept practically level by the irresistible strength of the tempest, had risen rapidly and was now an almost terrifying sight to behold. Especially was this the case when the ship settled into the trough, with one great foaming liquid mountain rushing away to leeward of her, while another enormous grey-back, towering above us as high as our lower mast-heads, came swooping down upon us from to windward with hissing angry crest, threatening to hurl itself bodily down upon our decks and sink us out of hand.

Yet that threat was never fulfilled, for the yacht was behaving magnificently. She came to in most perfect style as she climbed the breast of each oncoming comber, heeling steeply to it the while and turning up a bold weather bow to meet its onslaught. Then, as the crest curled in over her turtle-back topgallant forecastle, smothering it in whirling and blowing foam and spray, she would swing upright and, with a lift of her stern and an easy weather roll, go sliding down into the trough beyond, her head paying off as she did so. And although she was still under bare poles, with her head yards aback, I could see, upon looking over the side, that she was forging ahead at a speed of about a knot and a half.

But although the wind was no longer blowing with hurricane force it still had the strength of a heavy gale, and while a reference to the barometer showed that the mercury had begun to rise, there was no other sign of improvement in the weather. The sky was almost as black and threatening in its aspect as ever, with innumerable shreds and tatters of dirty whitish-grey cloud sweeping athwart at a speed that made one giddy to look at; while there could be no question that the sea was gathering height, weight, and volume with the passage of every minute. The air was still heavily charged with flying spume and spindrift, necessitating the use of oilskins and sou’westers, and keeping our spars, rigging, and decks streaming; but we could see with tolerable clearness for at least a mile in every direction.

Yet although the general feeling out on deck was one of dampness and discomfort, we had not the added misery of cold to deal with. On the contrary, it was so warm that shortly after I went on deck, having breakfasted, I felt my long oilskin coat and sea boots so uncomfortably warm that I presently slipped below again for a moment, and, removing them and my socks, donned a short oilskin jacket and returned to the deck barefooted, for the sake of the greater comfort. I took it for granted that Miss Anthea would never dream of turning out in such weather, while I felt sure that Mrs Vansittart would excuse me, under the circumstances, the more so as she had often before come on deck while we were paddling about, barelegged, washing decks. And indeed when, shortly afterward, she emerged through the companion way, encased in a thin mackintosh reaching to the hem of her dress, and with a light sou’-wester on her head which in nowise detracted from her good looks, she at once set me at my ease by laughingly complimenting me upon the sensible character of my attire. Then, in a very different tone of voice, she thanked me for having come to her rescue on the previous night when, overcome by the terrific buffeting of the hurricane, she had swooned while lashed to the mast.

We—that is to say, Mrs Vansittart, Kennedy, and I—were still standing together under the lee of the wheelhouse, discussing the weather generally, and the probable duration of the gale in particular, when the boy Julius came up from below, emerging from the companion way at the precise moment when the ship, with a terrific lee roll, was climbing to the summit of an exceptionally heavy sea. Precisely how it happened I could not possibly say, it occurred so suddenly, and moreover I only saw the last part of it; but I imagine that the lad must have lost, or inadvertently released, his hold upon the side of the companion at the critical moment when the velocity of the ship’s roll was at its highest. Be that as it may, Julius no sooner stepped out on deck than he went with a run straight to the lee rail of the poop, fetched up against it with a force that must have knocked the breath out of him, and then—although the rail was breast-high to him—in some inconceivable fashion seemed to lurch forward upon it, turn a complete somersault over it, and plunge headlong into the sea. It was Mrs Vansittart’s shriek of “Julius!” and her look of petrified horror, that caused me to wheel round, and I was just in time to see the lad go whirling over the rail.

One’s thoughts move with lightning-like rapidity in moments of emergency, and as I saw the boy going I thought, “Kennedy is no good; those heavy sea boots of his would drag him down and sink him in a few seconds; I must go myself!” And as the thought flashed through my brain I tore off my oilskin jacket and, shouting to Kennedy, “Lifebuoy—bend to signal halyards!” made a dash for the rail, while Mrs Vansittart’s shrieks lent wings to my feet.

As I reached the rail the ship topped the surge, which went rushing and roaring away beneath her and to leeward in a tremendous boil of foam, in the rear of which there was a space of almost glass-smooth indigo-coloured water, down through which I thought I saw something that might be the boy’s body. Without hesitating an instant I vaulted the rail, landing upon the curved turtle-back outboard, flung my hands above my head, and plunged straight for the spot where, a moment before, I thought I had seen the lad’s body.

I went deep, kicking and striking out vigorously as I felt the water close about me, for the thought occurred to me that if the boy had really hurt himself badly when colliding with the rail, he would probably not rise to the surface at all, but would slowly sink. As I forced my way downward I looked about me, and presently saw a glimmering white something far below which might be the object of my quest, for the boy was dressed entirely in white. Desperately I urged myself downward, the gloom increasing with every stroke; and at length, when I felt as though my lungs would burst and I could not retain my breath another second, I grabbed something, I scarcely knew what, and turning, struck upward toward the blue glimmer of light far overhead.

How I managed to hold my breath during that seemingly endless climb to the surface I cannot say, but I did it somehow, my head emerging from the water at the very instant when the air escaped from my lungs in one long gasp. I quickly filled them again, looked to see what I had brought to the surface with me, and found that, as I expected, it was the apparently lifeless form of Master Julius. I had grabbed the lad by his ankle, so that he hung head downward in my grasp. That would never do; so, treading water vigorously, I shifted the position of the body until I had the head resting upon my shoulder; and at that moment I felt myself being hove up, up, up, and the next instant a very mountain of water went hissing and roaring over my head, plunging me helplessly hither and thither and momentarily threatening to tear my prize from my hold.

As soon as I had again got my breath, I looked round for the yacht. She was nowhere in sight; but presently, as I began to wonder what had become of her, I saw her topmast-heads swing into view beyond the head of the comber that had just swept past me, and then up she swept until the whole of her hull was visible. I saw a crowd of people gathered aft by the taffrail, and others in the rigging, all peering out under the sharp of their hands in various directions. Then, as the craft surmounted the grey-back and came sliding down its weather slope, rolling to windward until I could see nearly half her main-deck, one of the figures suddenly pointed toward me, and in an instant every face turned my way, while one man, whom I presently recognised as Kennedy, put one hand to the side of his mouth, as though shouting, while he pointed with the other.

Not a word could I hear, however, for my ears were still full of water, while such sound as entered them was merely the hiss and roar of the sea. But I guessed what the mate was pointing at, the more readily as I saw one man paying out a thin line over the rail; so I looked eagerly about me, and presently saw, some thirty fathoms away, a white lifebuoy floating in the midst of a wide surface of foam, the ship at this time being perhaps twice as far from me as the lifebuoy. But just as I started to strike out for the buoy, another heavy sea swept over me, treating me pretty much as the first had done, and all but suffocating me into the bargain.

I thought that, hampered as I was with the boy’s inert body, I should never reach the buoy, for I seemed utterly unable to make so much as an inch of progress in that frightful sea; and once, after I had been overwhelmed about a dozen times, the thought came to me that if I wanted to save myself I must give up the idea of saving the body, which after all would be a useless task, since I felt certain that the lad was dead. But no; I could not return to the ship and face the lad’s mother empty-handed. I could picture her despair under such circumstances, for Julius was Mrs Vansittart’s only son, and, spoiled as he was, I believed that she loved him more than her husband, more than her daughter, more than her own life. No, it was not to be thought of; I had undertaken the task and I must execute it. I had raised her hopes, and I would not disappoint them if God would only give me strength to reach that buoy.

At length, after what seemed like a century of effort, I did reach it, and, laying my hand upon its nearest rim, tilted it over my head and under my armpits, at the very moment—as I afterward learned—when those aboard had paid out four sets of signal halyards to the bare end of the fourth set!

And now came the delicate and difficult task of hauling me alongside in the shortest possible space of time, without parting the halyards on the one hand or drowning me on the other. But Kennedy was the man for the job. Even as I vaulted the rail and plunged into the water his active mind, aided by past experience, had enabled him not only to grasp the full import of my hasty words concerning the lifebuoy and the signal halyards, but also to foresee exactly what must inevitably happen. And while he was in the very act of unreeving the peak ensign halyards, preparatory to bending them on to the lifebuoy which his ready knife had slashed off the taffrail, he was shouting for somebody to pass the word for Mackenzie, the engineer.

When Mac, already issuing from his cabin to learn what all the sudden outcry was about, received the message and came rushing aft in response to the call, he in turn was fully prepared for the order which Kennedy gave him, to go below and set his engine going dead easy astern. Thus by the time that I reached and got into the buoy, the ship’s way through the water was stopped, and, highly dangerous though such a proceeding undoubtedly was, under the circumstances, they were able to haul me gradually alongside and up under the counter without mishap, the engine of course being stopped again at the right moment. And when once they had got me under the lee quarter of the ship all the rest was of course comparatively easy. Two of the hands standing by hove me a couple of standing bowlines on ropes’ ends, one of which I slipped over the inanimate Julius’s head and under his armpits; and when I saw that they had got the body safely in over the rail I slipped into the other myself, and was hauled aboard amid the triumphant yells of the crew—to swoon as my feet touched the deck.

But there was nothing much the matter with me. I had swooned simply through over-exertion, coupled perhaps with the reaction at finding myself once more safely aboard the yacht; and Harper, the surgeon, having had the foresight to order someone to stand by with brandy as a restorative, in case of need, they soon brought me round again. By Kennedy’s orders I was helped below to my cabin, to turn in and rest for a bit, learning, as I went, that Harper and the boy’s mother had taken charge of the lad the moment that he was hauled aboard, and had carried him below to his cabin. I afterward heard, however, that before she quitted the deck, Mrs Vansittart had given orders that she was to be informed, at the earliest possible opportunity, how things were going with me; and I further learned that, upon being told I was doing well, she fell upon her knees by the side of her boy’s bed and, bursting into tears, sobbed forth audible thanks to God for my preservation.

As for me, after vomiting a considerable quantity of salt water, I was helped to undress, given a vigorous towelling, and put into my bunk, where, having swallowed a tumblerful of hot brandy and water, I quickly dropped off to sleep, and remained asleep until after four bells of the afternoon watch had struck. Then, feeling pretty much my former self, although a bit shaky on my pins, and very sore about the chest, I turned out, donned a dry suit of clothes, and sallied forth to the wardroom, with the twofold object of ascertaining if there was any news as to Master Julius’s fate and getting something to eat.

Upon entering the wardroom I found Kennedy, Mackenzie, Grimwood the purser, and, somewhat to my astonishment, the doctor, present and chatting animatedly. Moreover, I gathered that they were talking about me, for as I passed through the open doorway Kennedy looked up and exclaimed:

“And begorra here’s himself, no less! Talk of the—Here, bring yourself to an anchor on the sofa, lad, and let’s have a look at ye! Faith! but your morning’s experience has taken it out of ye, by the looks of ut. But never ye mind that, me bhoy, ye’ll weather it all right, and ye’ll always have the memory of havin’ done a gallant thing, whatever happens. By the Piper, lad, we’re all proud of ye, from the skipper downward.”

They all came crowding round me as I sank upon the sofa, and insisted upon shaking hands with me, saying so many nice and complimentary things to me that I presently began to feel quite abashed. Then Harper interfered authoritatively.

“There!” he exclaimed, waving the crowd away, “that will do, you chaps. Let up upon the youngster a bit and give him a chance. What you want,” he continued, turning to me and laying his fingers upon my pulse, “is a meal first—not a heavy meal, but something good and nourishing, and then another spell of sleep. Mac, have the goodness to press the button for the steward, and I’ll give him an order. How is your appetite, my British hero?”

“Why,” said I, “to confess the truth I turned out because I felt hungry, and came in here with the hope of getting something to eat. But, Doctor, I want to know about the boy. I did the best I could for him, and was determined to bring him back with me if I was fortunate enough to fetch the ship again; but I felt certain there was no life left in him, even before I got hold of the buoy.”

“And that is just where you were mistaken, young man. Oh! here you are, steward,” as that individual entered in response to the summons of the bell. “I want you to go to the cook and tell him—from me, you understand—to give you a good big basin of that chicken broth I instructed him to prepare, and bring it here for Mr Leigh, with a slice of bread from a loaf baked yesterday, if anything of the sort remains. Then, when you have brought the broth, go to Mr Marsh and ask him to give you a small bottle of Mumm, and bring it along here. Now get a move on, and let me have those things quick.”

“Well, Doctor, what about Master Julius?” I prompted, as the steward retired.

“Why, as it happened, he was not dead when we hauled him aboard,” replied Harper, “though he was so near to it that it cost me two solid hours or more of strenuous work to restore animation. But I believe I shall pull him through now, with luck. He dropped off to sleep about half an hour ago, and I left him in charge of his mother and the chief stewardess, with instructions to send for me upon the instant of his waking. How do you like your broth?”

“It is delicious,” I replied, “and I am enjoying it; although I feel a bit mean in taking it, for I suppose it was prepared for Julius, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t you trouble about that, young un,” returned the doctor. “The cook has my orders; and if he has attended to them—as I have no doubt he has—there will be plenty for the pair of you. Will you have some more?”

But I declined; I had had quite sufficient, I said. Thereupon Harper opened the half-bottle of wine which the steward had brought, poured the contents into a tumbler, and ordered me to toss it off and then go back to my bunk and get another sleep.

“Sleep just as long as you care to,” he said, “and don’t worry about watches until I give you leave. A night in ought to fix you up again, I think; but we will see what you look like when you turn out for breakfast to-morrow.”

I was soon asleep again, but the first bugle call for dinner awakened me, and, feeling a good deal better, I turned out and dressed, noticing, as I did so, that the ship’s movements were very much easier and more rhythmical than when I had lain down. Indeed, I had the feeling that she was sailing again; and, glancing through my porthole, I found that this was so, and that the weather had cleared. The sea, now a deep sapphire blue, had gone down very considerably, the sky was clear of clouds, and upon looking more closely at the water I was able to detect the shadow of the ship upon it, and thereby determine that she was under her three topsails, courses, fore-topmast staysail, and spanker. And by the swirl of yeast past my port I estimated that she must be reeling off about eight knots.

While I was still engaged in dressing there came a gentle tap at my door, to which I answered “Come!” whereupon the door opened and Harper entered.

“So you are turning out again,” he said, after standing and looking at me a moment. “How do you find yourself?”

“Oh! ever so much better,” I replied; “indeed, I think I may say that I am practically all right again. The soreness of my chest is all but gone, and—”

“Let me feel your pulse,” he commanded; and I stretched out my arm to him.

He laid his finger on my pulse and kept it there for about half a minute.

“Yes,” he said, “you’ll do; nothing very much the matter with you. Now, look here, boy, Mrs Vansittart has instructed me to come and see how you are getting on, and to say that if you feel equal to it, she would like you to join the saloon party at dinner to-night—just themselves, you and I, you know, alone. The fact is that they are all eager to tell you what they feel about your exploit of this morning, and they will not be happy until they have done so. Do you feel equal to the ordeal; or shall I go back and say that they must excuse you for a little while longer? I think you can stand it, you know. What say you?”

“Oh, yes!” I replied, “I dare say I can stand it. I suppose it will have to come sometime, so I might as well get it over and done with. But, I say, Doctor, just give them a hint to go easy with their thanks, will you, there’s a good fellow. If there is one thing I hate more than anything else, it is being made a fuss of. You understand me?”

“Why, of course Ido, my dear chap,” was the reply. “It is frightfully trying, I know; but you mustn’t grudge them the satisfaction of expressing their gratitude to you—see? I’ll take care that they shall not carry the thing too far. I’ll tell ’em that you’re not in condition to stand very much excitement just yet. Well, then, so long. See you again later.”

As soon as I had finished dressing I seated myself in the very comfortable revolving chair in front of my writing desk, to await the second bugle call to dinner; but I had scarcely done so when a steward came along to my cabin, bearing a medicine glass containing a draught which he said the doctor had sent me, with instructions that I was to take it at once. I accordingly tossed it off; and a few minutes later the second dinner call sounded, and I made my way aft and up the companion way to the drawing-room, where I found Mrs Vansittart, her daughter, Monroe, and the doctor already assembled.

As one of the stewards flung open the door and announced me, Mrs Vansittart came forward, seized my hands in both of hers, and looked up into my face with eyes that were swimming with tears. For a moment her lips quivered, speechless; then, recovering command of herself, she said:

“Welcome—a thousand welcomes, Mr Leigh! Doctor Harper has explained to us that it is only by making a great effort you find yourself able to meet us to-night and give us a chance to express our lifelong gratitude to you for your noble, gallant deed.” Again her emotion overcame her; and presently, after a brave but ineffectual struggle to be formal and restrained, she suddenly let herself go, and, bursting into tears, exclaimed:

“Oh! you dear, dear boy, Walter, how can I ever thank you enough? I am a happy, grateful woman to-night, for the doctor has just assured me that Julius will certainly recover; whereas, but for you, he would—would—have been—” She could get no further; so in lieu of words the dear lady lifted my hands to her lips and kissed them repeatedly. Then, to my intense relief, Harper stepped forward, and, gently taking her by the arm, led her to a seat, saying:

“Now, my dear lady, this will never do, you know. You must pull yourself together, or I shall have another case upon my sick list. If I had suspected that this was going to happen I would not have allowed Leigh to come to you so soon. This has been a very trying day for you, I know, but—”

“Yes, it has, Doctor,” she sobbed, “and of course it has upset me a bit; but just leave me alone for a minute or two, and I shall be all right again.”

While she was saying this, Miss Anthea came forward, and, frankly extending her hand, expressed her own thanks to me for having saved her brother’s life. “And, Mr Leigh,” she continued in a low voice, “I take back every one of those horrid things that I’ve said about Englishmen in your hearing. I am downright ashamed of myself. Will you forgive me?”

“Why, of course I will, very freely and willingly,” I said. “Please forget all about them, as I shall.”

“Thank you!” she said. “My brother—”

But at this moment Marsh flung open the door, and, in his most impressive manner, announced that dinner was served, thus putting an end to what I felt to be a most embarrassing situation.

“You are to take me down to dinner, if you please, Mr Leigh,” said Miss Anthea, linking her arm in mine. “I insisted upon it,” she explained, “because I want to make you understand how sorry and ashamed I am at the way I have behaved to you all through the voyage—”

“But,” I said, “I thought it was agreed that that should be all forgotten.”

“So it shall be,” she said, “since you are so generous as to wish it. But before we entirely relegate the matter to oblivion, I want to explain that my stupid prejudice against Englishmen is not at all founded upon experience, for the few Englishmen whom I have met—true, they have been very few—have all been unexceptionable. I don’t know why it is, but it seems to be the fashion for us Americans to speak and think of Englishmen as being of a different clay from ourselves, something infinitely inferior to us in every respect—effete, and all that sort of thing; and so much is this the case that a good many of us really come to believe it at last. There! I have made my confession, criedpeccavi, and have been forgiven; and I feel ever so much happier. Now, please tell me about yourself. I want to know whether you have quite recovered from the effect of your dreadful exertions this morning. My! I don’t believe I shall ever forget how I felt when I rushed up on deck to find out what all the confusion was about, and saw you swimming in the water, ever so far away, with Julius hanging over your shoulder.”

Chapter Five.We fall in with a Derelict; and meet with an Accident.That evening, short though it was—for Harper insisted that we should all retire early—was the most delightful that I had ever spent, although everybody would persist in talking of what they termed my “exploit”, the ladies telling me over and over again how profound was their gratitude to me for saving the life of the being who was evidently, to them, the most important person in the world, while the men said all sorts of complimentary and flattering things about my courage in plunging overboard in such a tremendous sea, and so on, so that my cheeks were aflame with blushes all the time. But the absolute sincerity of their gratitude and admiration and the friendly warmth of their feeling toward me were so transparently evident in everything they said, that despite the feeling of embarrassment that oppressed me, I was very happy, the more so that nothing was said or even hinted at concerning a reward for what I had done. For—perhaps because of my youth—my pride was intensely sensitive; and while I greatly valued their gratitude and friendship—and I may as well be frank enough to add, their admiration—any hint of reward would have wounded my self-respect to the quick.In consequence of the doctor’s injunction as to our early retirement that night, we did not adjourn to the drawing-room, as usual, but when the cloth was removed Mrs Vansittart announced her intention of remaining with us while we sipped our coffee and Harper and Monroe smoked their cigars; and Miss Anthea also remained. And it was then that I learned how very narrow had been the escape of the lad Julius from drowning.It appeared that when, owing to the sudden and violent lurch of the ship, he had been hurled athwart the deck and against the lee rail of the poop, the impact of his body upon the hard wood was so severe that the breath was completely knocked out of him, while the pain must have been so great as practically to paralyse him for the moment and render him quite unable to do anything to help himself. Hence the probability was that, once in the water, he would have sunk for good and all, and that but for my promptitude in diving after him he would never again have been seen. And when at length he was got aboard, he was so nearly gone that Harper’s skill and resources were taxed to their uttermost for more than two hours before any sign of returning animation manifested itself; while it was not until the afternoon was well advanced that the medico was able to assert with assurance that the lad would recover. Even so, there was the probability that, with all the care and skilful treatment he could possibly receive, it would be at least three or four days before Julius could be up and about again.According to routine, it was my eight hours out that night; but Harper’s fiat had already gone forth that I was to spend the whole night in my bunk. Therefore upon leaving the dining-room I at once retired to my cabin, turned in, and slept soundly until I was called at eight o’clock on the following morning, when I arose, thoroughly recuperated, and feeling as well as ever.The first thing I noticed, while dressing, was that it was a brilliantly fine morning, for the sunshine was streaming powerfully in through my port, flooding the cabin with its radiance; and the next thing was that the ship’s motion was easy and buoyant, from which I inferred that the gale was over and that we had passed beyond the area over which it had swept. But in this last supposition I was mistaken, as was to appear later. Still, when I went on deck everything went to justify the belief, for the sky was cloudless, the wind had sunk to a royal breeze from the eastward, the sea had gone down, leaving nothing but a long low northerly swell, and we were reeling off our twelve knots easily and comfortably, as I learned had been the case ever since midnight.When I climbed to the poop, Mrs Vansittart was already there, attired in a fine-weather rig of white, with a white cover on her yachting cap. She immediately came up to me and, shaking hands, expressed the hope that I had entirely recovered from the effects of yesterday’s ducking and exertions. Then, as I replied in the affirmative and in return enquired how her son was progressing, she deftly drew me aft to the taffrail, out of earshot of Briscoe, the second mate, who was sourly regarding us both, and said:“Now, Walter, there is just a word or two that I want to say to you, and this is as good an opportunity as any to say it. I will not repeat what I said to you last night in reference to my gratitude to you for saving dear Julius’s life, for I hope I then made it quite clear to you that I shall always regard myself as under an obligation to you which it will be quite impossible for me ever adequately to repay. But this is what I wish you to understand. I have decided that in the interests of good discipline, and to guard against the possibility of arousing unworthy jealousy,”—here, whether by accident or design, she allowed her gaze to rest for a moment upon the second mate’s somewhat ungainly figure—“I shall treat you, while on duty, precisely as I do my other officers, making no distinction whatever in my behaviour between you and them. I feel sure that you would prefer it so; would you not? Of course. Very well, then, that is clearly understood between us; but I thought it best to mention the matter, so that there shall be no misapprehension.“And now, as to Julius. The dear boy is very much better, I am thankful to say; but Dr Harper thinks it is best that he should remain in bed for to-day at least. I find that he has not the faintest recollection of what happened to him after he fell into the water until he came to himself in his bed, so I have told him everything, and made it perfectly clear to him that he owes his life to you. Of course he is grateful, and wishes you to go down and see him a little later on in order that he may personally thank you; but—well—if he should seem not quite so grateful to you as he ought to be I beg that you will not think badly of him, Walter. Having been unconscious all the time that he was in the water, I can quite understand—cannot you?—that he is unable to appreciate very clearly the awful risk you ran in effecting his rescue, and the magnitude of his indebtedness to you. And—yes—there is another thing. He is an only son—and—well, I am beginning to think that perhaps we have all united together to spoil him a bit, so that, you see—”The poor lady was becoming more and more embarrassed with every word she uttered, I therefore thought it high time to come to her relief; so I said:“Dear madam, I beg that you will not distress yourself by attempting any further explanation. I see exactly how the matter stands; and believe me, I shall not be in the smallest degree disappointed if I find that Julius’s gratitude is less eloquent in its expression than your own. After all, he is still very young; he has no knowledge of what actually happened, except what you have told him; and I doubt very much whether any boy of his age possesses the capacity to conjure up a very lively feeling of gratitude for an obligation of which he knows nothing except from hearsay. Therefore I hope that you will not allow yourself to worry over any seeming lukewarmness on his part.”“Thank you, Walter; a thousand thanks!” she said, laying her hand upon my arm. “It is generous of you to feel about it as you do, and it increases the load of my obligation to you. But I see that you perfectly understand, so I will say no more about it. As soon as Dr Harper says you can see Julius, I will send for you.”The interview with Julius took place shortly after six bells in the forenoon watch, the boy’s mother and the doctor being present; and after what the former had said to me by way of preparation, I was not at all surprised to find that Master Julius’s thanks were expressed in a very perfunctory, offhand manner, with not much of the ring of sincerity about them. But I made allowances for him, for I saw that the lad was still only in the early stage of convalescence; also, it was perfectly clear that he did not in the least realise the fact that he had all but lost his life.The cabin in which he lay was very large, light, airy, and most beautifully furnished, with every convenience and luxury that the most fastidious person could possibly desire; and it was quite painful to see its occupant, on his handsome and capacious brass bedstead, under a most beautiful embroidered silk coverlet, and surrounded by everything that heart could wish for, lying there wan, peevish, irritable, dissatisfied with everybody and everything, seemingly because his doting parents had gratified his every whim and humoured his every caprice. It was quite evident that he regarded me with almost if not quite as great distaste as ever; he even seemed to consider it a grievance that he owed his life to a despised Britisher; and seeing how acutely his mother was distressed at his ungracious manner toward me, I contented myself by saying a few words of sympathy with him on his illness, and brought my visit to a speedy close.Five bells in the afternoon watch had just been struck, and I was once more on duty, when a man who had been sent aloft to attend to some small matter hailed the deck from the main topsail yard to report that, some ten miles distant, and broad on our weather beam, there was something that had the appearance of a dismasted wreck. In reply to this the skipper, who was on deck, requested Kennedy to take the ship’s telescope up into the main topmast crosstrees and ascertain what the object really was. This was done; and in due time the mate came down and reported that the object, as seen through the glass, proved to be a biggish lump of a craft, either a ship or a barque, totally dismasted, with the wreckage of her spars still floating alongside, and to all appearance derelict. We at once hauled our wind, and shortly afterward tacked; and by eight bells we were up with the wreck and hove to within biscuit-toss to leeward of the craft. Then Briscoe, the second mate, in charge of one of the whalers, was sent away to give the derelict—for such she seemed to be—an overhaul.The craft was a wooden vessel, of about our own tonnage, painted black with a broad white ribbon chequered with false ports; she had a Dutch look about her; and, from her model, was evidently somewhat elderly. She had been ship-rigged, and from the appearance of the wreckage alongside had been caught unawares, very probably by the recent hurricane, and dismasted. She had a short, full poop, and as she rolled heavily toward us we caught sight of what looked like the shattered framework of a deckhouse close abaft the stump of her foremast; also, there were the remains of two boats dangling from davits on her quarters; from all of which appearances we concluded that she had passed through a pretty desperate experience.But what had become of her crew? There had been no sign of them when we closed with and hailed her, nor had any of them appeared since; yet the wreckage of the boats hanging from her davits made it difficult for us to believe that they had abandoned the ship. True, there was no sign of a longboat such as is usually stowed on the main-hatch of a merchantman, but we could hardly believe that the crew had taken to her in preference to the two quarter boats; for after the fall of the spars it would have been difficult to launch so heavy a boat, unless indeed they had run her overboard, fisherman fashion, through the wide gap in her bulwarks amidships on both sides, where not only the planking but also the stanchions had been swept away.Shortly after the departure of Briscoe we drifted into a position which enabled us to get a view of the stranger’s stern. This confirmed our first surmise respecting her origin, for beneath a row of smashed cabin windows we read the words: “Anna Waarden. Amsterdam.”Briscoe remained aboard the wreck about three-quarters of an hour; and, upon his return, reported that the craft was derelict, and that there was nothing to show how the crew had left her, except that it appeared to have been with the utmost suddenness, for there was no sign of their having taken anything with them. Even the ship’s papers—which he found in the captain’s stateroom and brought away with him—had been left behind; and that the disaster could only have occurred very recently was proved by the logbook, which had been entered up to within a few hours of the moment when the hurricane struck us, while Briscoe had found the chronometer still going.He added that he had sounded the well and found barely a foot of water in it; and that, after careful examination, he had come to the conclusion that the hull was sound. If Mrs Vansittart would supply him with a crew, he believed he could fit the craft with a jury rig and take her into port. The logbook showed that she had sailed from Batavia, homeward bound for Amsterdam, sixteen days before the date upon which we fell in with her; while her papers made it clear that she was laden with a cargo quite rich enough to justify the attempt at salvage. The result of this report was that Mrs Vansittart summoned the crew aft, explained to them, through Kennedy, the nature of the second mate’s report and his request to be allowed to salve the hull and cargo, and then called for volunteers for the job.The prospect of salvage money proved tempting enough to induce some twenty men to come forward, of whom Kennedy chose fifteen, including the boatswain’s and carpenter’s mates; whereupon the purser was instructed to make up the men’s accounts to date and pay them off. While the first part of this business—namely, the making up of the accounts—was being attended to, those who had volunteered went below and packed their kits, then brought them on deck and threw them into the first cutter, which Mrs Vansittart gave them, after which they went aboard the Hollander and got to work.The arrangement was that if Briscoe found the ship sound, he was, if possible, to follow us to Colombo. If the yacht should be there upon his arrival, he was to turn over his salvaged vessel to the proper authorities, and, with his crew, rejoin theStella Maris. But if for any reason this plan should be found impracticable, he was to act according to his own discretion, preferably navigating the ship to the nearest port at which she could be refitted, and thence taking her home.Half an hour afterward Grimwood, the purser, reported that he had made up his accounts and withdrawn from the safe the amount of money required to pay off the volunteers, whereupon I was ordered to take the whaler, which was still in the water, veered astern, convey the purser aboard the other craft, and, while he was engaged upon his business, take a look round and consult with Briscoe, to determine whether the latter had all that he was likely to require.Investigation showed, as was of course to be expected, that the craft was amply supplied with provisions and water for a long voyage, and also that both were undamaged, while she was also well found in every other respect. As soon, therefore, as the purser had finished his task—not without having some of his accounts disputed—we bade the adventurers farewell, wished them a safe and prosperous voyage, climbed down into our boat, and returned to the yacht, which, after I had made my report to the skipper, filled away and proceeded for Colombo, just as the sun was dipping below the horizon.I may mention here that we saw no more of Briscoe and his crew. They did not turn up at Colombo during our sojourn there; and it was not until long afterward that I learned that, after a very protracted and adventurous voyage, theAnna Waardensafely reached Durban, where she refitted, ultimately arriving safely in Amsterdam.At ten o’clock in the morning of the fifth day after parting company with Briscoe, we entered Colombo harbour and came to an anchor in six fathoms. The boy Julius was by this time sufficiently recovered to show once more on deck, but his health was still such as to cause his mother some anxiety; therefore, after anxious consultation with Harper, it was arranged that he should be taken up to Kandy and given a fortnight’s thorough change of air and scene. The whole party—that is to say, Mrs Vansittart, her son and daughter, and Monroe—therefore packed up their traps and went ashore immediately after luncheon; and we saw no more of them for a full fortnight. At least we saw no more of them down aboard the yacht; but after they had been gone some three or four days Kennedy received an invitation to go up to Kandy, to dine and spend the next day there; and when he returned he brought with him a similar invitation for me, it being now impossible for us both to be out of the ship together, since, immediately upon Briscoe’s departure, I had been temporarily promoted to the position of second mate, with the promise of permanent confirmation in the event of Briscoe not rejoining us. So in my turn, up I went to Kandy, and enjoyed the trip immensely, being most warmly received by everybody except Julius, who seemed wholly unable to conquer his antipathy toward me.When the party returned to the yacht they were all, Julius included, looking vastly better for their sojourn among the hills; indeed the boy appeared better in health than I had ever seen him before, and I thought there was a shade of improvement in his temper also. They came aboard about half-past five o’clock in the evening, and, we having been previously warned by letter, the moment that they stepped in on deck we hove up our anchor, started our engine, and proceeded to sea, in order that we might avoid spending the night in the insufferable heat of the harbour. We kept the engine going until we had rounded Dondra Head and were heading north, with Adam’s Peak square off our port beam, when we made sail, bound for Calcutta, where we arrived exactly a week later.We lay at Calcutta a whole month, during which Mrs Vansittart and her party toured India from end to end, seeing, according to her own account, everything worth seeing. And while she was thus engaged, we of the wardroom did our modest best to enjoy ourselves, first of all seeing everything that was worth seeing in and about the city; and afterward engaging a native pilot to take us in the motor launch to the Sunderbunds, where, braving malaria, snakes, and all other perils, we spent a week shooting, the four of us who constituted the party bagging seven tigers between us, to say nothing of other and less formidable game.From Calcutta we sailed for Moulmein, where we remained four days, getting a hurried glimpse of Burma and the Burmese; then we sailed for Singapore, at the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula. But on the night of our third day out from Moulmein, while we were bowling merrily along with a spanking wind abeam, reeling off a good twelve knots by the log, we struck something which we conjectured to be a piece of practically submerged wreckage; for when we afterwards came to investigate the matter, the look-out on the forecastle head vowed by all his gods that, although he was keenly alert, he had seen nothing. The incident occurred during the middle watch, while Kennedy was in charge, consequently I was below and asleep at the time. But I was awakened by the shock, although it was not very severe. Kennedy rushed aft to the taffrail to see if he could catch a glimpse of the object, whatever it might be; but although the night was starlit it was too dark to see very distinctly, and although he imagined that, as he stood there at gaze, he saw something break water some eight or ten fathoms astern, he could not be sure.He wheeled about, and, running forward to the break of the poop, gave orders to let fly the royal and topgallant halyards and sheets and to back the mainyard, also instructing the carpenter to sound the pump well. For a few moments, while these things were doing, there was some confusion, what with the watch bustling about the decks, and those below rushing up on deck to see what had happened—among them being Mrs Vansittart, who appeared on the poop wrapped in a dressing-gown. But presently the ship was brought to the wind and hove to, and the confusion began to subside, especially when the carpenter reported that the ship was making no water.Mrs Vansittart, apprehensive that we might have run down some small native craft, ordered our remaining cutter to be lowered and sent me away in charge to investigate; but after pulling about for more than an hour I was unable to find anything, and at length returned to the ship in response to a rocket recall. Meanwhile, the carpenter had been below, and, after a most careful investigation, had returned with the report that he could find no indication that the ship had sustained the slightest damage; consequently, upon my return, the cutter was hoisted up and sail was again made. But on the morrow, with the arrival of daylight, the discovery was made that all three blades of our propeller had been completely shorn off, a mishap which, a little later on, resulted in landing us in what might have been a very awkward mess.Possibly this accident may have had the effect of reminding our lady skipper of something that had all but slipped her memory. Be that as it may, the loss of our propeller blades had no sooner been discovered than she issued certain orders, in response to which several heavy cases were swayed up on deck and opened, with the result that when the sun went down that night theStella Mariswas an armed ship, sporting two main-deck batteries of beautiful four-inch quick-firing guns of the most up-to-date pattern, six of a side, with two one-pound Hotchkisses on her forecastle, and four Maxims on her poop.

That evening, short though it was—for Harper insisted that we should all retire early—was the most delightful that I had ever spent, although everybody would persist in talking of what they termed my “exploit”, the ladies telling me over and over again how profound was their gratitude to me for saving the life of the being who was evidently, to them, the most important person in the world, while the men said all sorts of complimentary and flattering things about my courage in plunging overboard in such a tremendous sea, and so on, so that my cheeks were aflame with blushes all the time. But the absolute sincerity of their gratitude and admiration and the friendly warmth of their feeling toward me were so transparently evident in everything they said, that despite the feeling of embarrassment that oppressed me, I was very happy, the more so that nothing was said or even hinted at concerning a reward for what I had done. For—perhaps because of my youth—my pride was intensely sensitive; and while I greatly valued their gratitude and friendship—and I may as well be frank enough to add, their admiration—any hint of reward would have wounded my self-respect to the quick.

In consequence of the doctor’s injunction as to our early retirement that night, we did not adjourn to the drawing-room, as usual, but when the cloth was removed Mrs Vansittart announced her intention of remaining with us while we sipped our coffee and Harper and Monroe smoked their cigars; and Miss Anthea also remained. And it was then that I learned how very narrow had been the escape of the lad Julius from drowning.

It appeared that when, owing to the sudden and violent lurch of the ship, he had been hurled athwart the deck and against the lee rail of the poop, the impact of his body upon the hard wood was so severe that the breath was completely knocked out of him, while the pain must have been so great as practically to paralyse him for the moment and render him quite unable to do anything to help himself. Hence the probability was that, once in the water, he would have sunk for good and all, and that but for my promptitude in diving after him he would never again have been seen. And when at length he was got aboard, he was so nearly gone that Harper’s skill and resources were taxed to their uttermost for more than two hours before any sign of returning animation manifested itself; while it was not until the afternoon was well advanced that the medico was able to assert with assurance that the lad would recover. Even so, there was the probability that, with all the care and skilful treatment he could possibly receive, it would be at least three or four days before Julius could be up and about again.

According to routine, it was my eight hours out that night; but Harper’s fiat had already gone forth that I was to spend the whole night in my bunk. Therefore upon leaving the dining-room I at once retired to my cabin, turned in, and slept soundly until I was called at eight o’clock on the following morning, when I arose, thoroughly recuperated, and feeling as well as ever.

The first thing I noticed, while dressing, was that it was a brilliantly fine morning, for the sunshine was streaming powerfully in through my port, flooding the cabin with its radiance; and the next thing was that the ship’s motion was easy and buoyant, from which I inferred that the gale was over and that we had passed beyond the area over which it had swept. But in this last supposition I was mistaken, as was to appear later. Still, when I went on deck everything went to justify the belief, for the sky was cloudless, the wind had sunk to a royal breeze from the eastward, the sea had gone down, leaving nothing but a long low northerly swell, and we were reeling off our twelve knots easily and comfortably, as I learned had been the case ever since midnight.

When I climbed to the poop, Mrs Vansittart was already there, attired in a fine-weather rig of white, with a white cover on her yachting cap. She immediately came up to me and, shaking hands, expressed the hope that I had entirely recovered from the effects of yesterday’s ducking and exertions. Then, as I replied in the affirmative and in return enquired how her son was progressing, she deftly drew me aft to the taffrail, out of earshot of Briscoe, the second mate, who was sourly regarding us both, and said:

“Now, Walter, there is just a word or two that I want to say to you, and this is as good an opportunity as any to say it. I will not repeat what I said to you last night in reference to my gratitude to you for saving dear Julius’s life, for I hope I then made it quite clear to you that I shall always regard myself as under an obligation to you which it will be quite impossible for me ever adequately to repay. But this is what I wish you to understand. I have decided that in the interests of good discipline, and to guard against the possibility of arousing unworthy jealousy,”—here, whether by accident or design, she allowed her gaze to rest for a moment upon the second mate’s somewhat ungainly figure—“I shall treat you, while on duty, precisely as I do my other officers, making no distinction whatever in my behaviour between you and them. I feel sure that you would prefer it so; would you not? Of course. Very well, then, that is clearly understood between us; but I thought it best to mention the matter, so that there shall be no misapprehension.

“And now, as to Julius. The dear boy is very much better, I am thankful to say; but Dr Harper thinks it is best that he should remain in bed for to-day at least. I find that he has not the faintest recollection of what happened to him after he fell into the water until he came to himself in his bed, so I have told him everything, and made it perfectly clear to him that he owes his life to you. Of course he is grateful, and wishes you to go down and see him a little later on in order that he may personally thank you; but—well—if he should seem not quite so grateful to you as he ought to be I beg that you will not think badly of him, Walter. Having been unconscious all the time that he was in the water, I can quite understand—cannot you?—that he is unable to appreciate very clearly the awful risk you ran in effecting his rescue, and the magnitude of his indebtedness to you. And—yes—there is another thing. He is an only son—and—well, I am beginning to think that perhaps we have all united together to spoil him a bit, so that, you see—”

The poor lady was becoming more and more embarrassed with every word she uttered, I therefore thought it high time to come to her relief; so I said:

“Dear madam, I beg that you will not distress yourself by attempting any further explanation. I see exactly how the matter stands; and believe me, I shall not be in the smallest degree disappointed if I find that Julius’s gratitude is less eloquent in its expression than your own. After all, he is still very young; he has no knowledge of what actually happened, except what you have told him; and I doubt very much whether any boy of his age possesses the capacity to conjure up a very lively feeling of gratitude for an obligation of which he knows nothing except from hearsay. Therefore I hope that you will not allow yourself to worry over any seeming lukewarmness on his part.”

“Thank you, Walter; a thousand thanks!” she said, laying her hand upon my arm. “It is generous of you to feel about it as you do, and it increases the load of my obligation to you. But I see that you perfectly understand, so I will say no more about it. As soon as Dr Harper says you can see Julius, I will send for you.”

The interview with Julius took place shortly after six bells in the forenoon watch, the boy’s mother and the doctor being present; and after what the former had said to me by way of preparation, I was not at all surprised to find that Master Julius’s thanks were expressed in a very perfunctory, offhand manner, with not much of the ring of sincerity about them. But I made allowances for him, for I saw that the lad was still only in the early stage of convalescence; also, it was perfectly clear that he did not in the least realise the fact that he had all but lost his life.

The cabin in which he lay was very large, light, airy, and most beautifully furnished, with every convenience and luxury that the most fastidious person could possibly desire; and it was quite painful to see its occupant, on his handsome and capacious brass bedstead, under a most beautiful embroidered silk coverlet, and surrounded by everything that heart could wish for, lying there wan, peevish, irritable, dissatisfied with everybody and everything, seemingly because his doting parents had gratified his every whim and humoured his every caprice. It was quite evident that he regarded me with almost if not quite as great distaste as ever; he even seemed to consider it a grievance that he owed his life to a despised Britisher; and seeing how acutely his mother was distressed at his ungracious manner toward me, I contented myself by saying a few words of sympathy with him on his illness, and brought my visit to a speedy close.

Five bells in the afternoon watch had just been struck, and I was once more on duty, when a man who had been sent aloft to attend to some small matter hailed the deck from the main topsail yard to report that, some ten miles distant, and broad on our weather beam, there was something that had the appearance of a dismasted wreck. In reply to this the skipper, who was on deck, requested Kennedy to take the ship’s telescope up into the main topmast crosstrees and ascertain what the object really was. This was done; and in due time the mate came down and reported that the object, as seen through the glass, proved to be a biggish lump of a craft, either a ship or a barque, totally dismasted, with the wreckage of her spars still floating alongside, and to all appearance derelict. We at once hauled our wind, and shortly afterward tacked; and by eight bells we were up with the wreck and hove to within biscuit-toss to leeward of the craft. Then Briscoe, the second mate, in charge of one of the whalers, was sent away to give the derelict—for such she seemed to be—an overhaul.

The craft was a wooden vessel, of about our own tonnage, painted black with a broad white ribbon chequered with false ports; she had a Dutch look about her; and, from her model, was evidently somewhat elderly. She had been ship-rigged, and from the appearance of the wreckage alongside had been caught unawares, very probably by the recent hurricane, and dismasted. She had a short, full poop, and as she rolled heavily toward us we caught sight of what looked like the shattered framework of a deckhouse close abaft the stump of her foremast; also, there were the remains of two boats dangling from davits on her quarters; from all of which appearances we concluded that she had passed through a pretty desperate experience.

But what had become of her crew? There had been no sign of them when we closed with and hailed her, nor had any of them appeared since; yet the wreckage of the boats hanging from her davits made it difficult for us to believe that they had abandoned the ship. True, there was no sign of a longboat such as is usually stowed on the main-hatch of a merchantman, but we could hardly believe that the crew had taken to her in preference to the two quarter boats; for after the fall of the spars it would have been difficult to launch so heavy a boat, unless indeed they had run her overboard, fisherman fashion, through the wide gap in her bulwarks amidships on both sides, where not only the planking but also the stanchions had been swept away.

Shortly after the departure of Briscoe we drifted into a position which enabled us to get a view of the stranger’s stern. This confirmed our first surmise respecting her origin, for beneath a row of smashed cabin windows we read the words: “Anna Waarden. Amsterdam.”

Briscoe remained aboard the wreck about three-quarters of an hour; and, upon his return, reported that the craft was derelict, and that there was nothing to show how the crew had left her, except that it appeared to have been with the utmost suddenness, for there was no sign of their having taken anything with them. Even the ship’s papers—which he found in the captain’s stateroom and brought away with him—had been left behind; and that the disaster could only have occurred very recently was proved by the logbook, which had been entered up to within a few hours of the moment when the hurricane struck us, while Briscoe had found the chronometer still going.

He added that he had sounded the well and found barely a foot of water in it; and that, after careful examination, he had come to the conclusion that the hull was sound. If Mrs Vansittart would supply him with a crew, he believed he could fit the craft with a jury rig and take her into port. The logbook showed that she had sailed from Batavia, homeward bound for Amsterdam, sixteen days before the date upon which we fell in with her; while her papers made it clear that she was laden with a cargo quite rich enough to justify the attempt at salvage. The result of this report was that Mrs Vansittart summoned the crew aft, explained to them, through Kennedy, the nature of the second mate’s report and his request to be allowed to salve the hull and cargo, and then called for volunteers for the job.

The prospect of salvage money proved tempting enough to induce some twenty men to come forward, of whom Kennedy chose fifteen, including the boatswain’s and carpenter’s mates; whereupon the purser was instructed to make up the men’s accounts to date and pay them off. While the first part of this business—namely, the making up of the accounts—was being attended to, those who had volunteered went below and packed their kits, then brought them on deck and threw them into the first cutter, which Mrs Vansittart gave them, after which they went aboard the Hollander and got to work.

The arrangement was that if Briscoe found the ship sound, he was, if possible, to follow us to Colombo. If the yacht should be there upon his arrival, he was to turn over his salvaged vessel to the proper authorities, and, with his crew, rejoin theStella Maris. But if for any reason this plan should be found impracticable, he was to act according to his own discretion, preferably navigating the ship to the nearest port at which she could be refitted, and thence taking her home.

Half an hour afterward Grimwood, the purser, reported that he had made up his accounts and withdrawn from the safe the amount of money required to pay off the volunteers, whereupon I was ordered to take the whaler, which was still in the water, veered astern, convey the purser aboard the other craft, and, while he was engaged upon his business, take a look round and consult with Briscoe, to determine whether the latter had all that he was likely to require.

Investigation showed, as was of course to be expected, that the craft was amply supplied with provisions and water for a long voyage, and also that both were undamaged, while she was also well found in every other respect. As soon, therefore, as the purser had finished his task—not without having some of his accounts disputed—we bade the adventurers farewell, wished them a safe and prosperous voyage, climbed down into our boat, and returned to the yacht, which, after I had made my report to the skipper, filled away and proceeded for Colombo, just as the sun was dipping below the horizon.

I may mention here that we saw no more of Briscoe and his crew. They did not turn up at Colombo during our sojourn there; and it was not until long afterward that I learned that, after a very protracted and adventurous voyage, theAnna Waardensafely reached Durban, where she refitted, ultimately arriving safely in Amsterdam.

At ten o’clock in the morning of the fifth day after parting company with Briscoe, we entered Colombo harbour and came to an anchor in six fathoms. The boy Julius was by this time sufficiently recovered to show once more on deck, but his health was still such as to cause his mother some anxiety; therefore, after anxious consultation with Harper, it was arranged that he should be taken up to Kandy and given a fortnight’s thorough change of air and scene. The whole party—that is to say, Mrs Vansittart, her son and daughter, and Monroe—therefore packed up their traps and went ashore immediately after luncheon; and we saw no more of them for a full fortnight. At least we saw no more of them down aboard the yacht; but after they had been gone some three or four days Kennedy received an invitation to go up to Kandy, to dine and spend the next day there; and when he returned he brought with him a similar invitation for me, it being now impossible for us both to be out of the ship together, since, immediately upon Briscoe’s departure, I had been temporarily promoted to the position of second mate, with the promise of permanent confirmation in the event of Briscoe not rejoining us. So in my turn, up I went to Kandy, and enjoyed the trip immensely, being most warmly received by everybody except Julius, who seemed wholly unable to conquer his antipathy toward me.

When the party returned to the yacht they were all, Julius included, looking vastly better for their sojourn among the hills; indeed the boy appeared better in health than I had ever seen him before, and I thought there was a shade of improvement in his temper also. They came aboard about half-past five o’clock in the evening, and, we having been previously warned by letter, the moment that they stepped in on deck we hove up our anchor, started our engine, and proceeded to sea, in order that we might avoid spending the night in the insufferable heat of the harbour. We kept the engine going until we had rounded Dondra Head and were heading north, with Adam’s Peak square off our port beam, when we made sail, bound for Calcutta, where we arrived exactly a week later.

We lay at Calcutta a whole month, during which Mrs Vansittart and her party toured India from end to end, seeing, according to her own account, everything worth seeing. And while she was thus engaged, we of the wardroom did our modest best to enjoy ourselves, first of all seeing everything that was worth seeing in and about the city; and afterward engaging a native pilot to take us in the motor launch to the Sunderbunds, where, braving malaria, snakes, and all other perils, we spent a week shooting, the four of us who constituted the party bagging seven tigers between us, to say nothing of other and less formidable game.

From Calcutta we sailed for Moulmein, where we remained four days, getting a hurried glimpse of Burma and the Burmese; then we sailed for Singapore, at the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula. But on the night of our third day out from Moulmein, while we were bowling merrily along with a spanking wind abeam, reeling off a good twelve knots by the log, we struck something which we conjectured to be a piece of practically submerged wreckage; for when we afterwards came to investigate the matter, the look-out on the forecastle head vowed by all his gods that, although he was keenly alert, he had seen nothing. The incident occurred during the middle watch, while Kennedy was in charge, consequently I was below and asleep at the time. But I was awakened by the shock, although it was not very severe. Kennedy rushed aft to the taffrail to see if he could catch a glimpse of the object, whatever it might be; but although the night was starlit it was too dark to see very distinctly, and although he imagined that, as he stood there at gaze, he saw something break water some eight or ten fathoms astern, he could not be sure.

He wheeled about, and, running forward to the break of the poop, gave orders to let fly the royal and topgallant halyards and sheets and to back the mainyard, also instructing the carpenter to sound the pump well. For a few moments, while these things were doing, there was some confusion, what with the watch bustling about the decks, and those below rushing up on deck to see what had happened—among them being Mrs Vansittart, who appeared on the poop wrapped in a dressing-gown. But presently the ship was brought to the wind and hove to, and the confusion began to subside, especially when the carpenter reported that the ship was making no water.

Mrs Vansittart, apprehensive that we might have run down some small native craft, ordered our remaining cutter to be lowered and sent me away in charge to investigate; but after pulling about for more than an hour I was unable to find anything, and at length returned to the ship in response to a rocket recall. Meanwhile, the carpenter had been below, and, after a most careful investigation, had returned with the report that he could find no indication that the ship had sustained the slightest damage; consequently, upon my return, the cutter was hoisted up and sail was again made. But on the morrow, with the arrival of daylight, the discovery was made that all three blades of our propeller had been completely shorn off, a mishap which, a little later on, resulted in landing us in what might have been a very awkward mess.

Possibly this accident may have had the effect of reminding our lady skipper of something that had all but slipped her memory. Be that as it may, the loss of our propeller blades had no sooner been discovered than she issued certain orders, in response to which several heavy cases were swayed up on deck and opened, with the result that when the sun went down that night theStella Mariswas an armed ship, sporting two main-deck batteries of beautiful four-inch quick-firing guns of the most up-to-date pattern, six of a side, with two one-pound Hotchkisses on her forecastle, and four Maxims on her poop.

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