Chapter Twelve.The Conversion of Julius.When I went down to breakfast, Anthea and Lizette were already in the dining-room. The former had quite recovered her composure, although her eyelids were still a trifle red and swollen, while her small, beautifully-shaped ear was crimson from the force of the blow which it had received. I have already mentioned that this young lady’s attitude toward me had completely changed from the moment when I saved her brother’s life; her frosty and almost insolent aloofness had entirely disappeared, giving place to a frank and cordial friendliness of disposition rivalling that of her mother, which I admit was mightily agreeable to me. In short, I believed her to be intensely grateful for what I had done on that occasion, and perfectly willing that I should know it. So now I was not at all surprised when, upon my entrance, she came forward and, laying her hand upon my arm, said:“Oh! Mr Leigh, I cannot tell you how dreadfully sorry I am for what has happened. Momma is frightfully angry with you for what she is pleased to term your violent and cowardly behaviour to Julius—they are her words, please remember, not mine: but I think, indeed I am almost certain, that upon reflection she will recognise that no man could stand by and permit to pass, unreproved, such an outrage as that wretched boy inflicted upon me. The fact is—I can see it for myself now—we have all combined together to spoil Julius, with the result that he has become a thoroughly selfish, conceited, unfeeling, unmanageable boy; and it is high time that somebody should intervene. But that somebody must not be you, Mr Leigh; you have no right to interfere, you know, and I am sure that Momma would never tolerate anything of the kind from you.“At the same time I feel impelled to say,”—and here her eyes sparkled and an amused smile lighted up her face—“that I believe your interference has done Julius good. You frightened him, and I think he will feel that henceforth he will have to behave a little more circumspectly while you are around. But I want you, please, to promise me that you will not interfere with him again. I will take up the matter. I will talk very seriously to Momma and see if I cannot open her eyes to the very serious wrong and injury that we are all doing to the boy by petting and pampering him, and humouring his every whim, however outrageous it may be. So you will give me your promise to be very patient with him, won’t you? I know that he has been atrociously rude and provocative to you, but—”“Please say no more,” I interrupted. “I think I may safely promise you that no rudeness or provocation on his part, levelled at me personally, shall be allowed to move me in the slightest degree. But if ever the young monkey again dares to lift his hand against you in my presence, I’ll—I’ll—”“Yes, yes, I know; you needn’t say it,” she interrupted in turn, and once more her eyes sparkled with merriment; “it will be something too awful for words. Well, I’ll tell Julius what you say, and perhaps the information may have a good effect upon him. And now let us to breakfast, for I see Lizette is in a perfect terror lest the coffee should be allowed to go cold.”We sat down to breakfast opposite each other and chatted more merrily and intimately together than we had ever done before. But when the meal was over we put merriment aside, for there was the approaching junk to be thought of and provided for. When we rose from the table I requested Anthea to procure from her mother the keys of the magazine and bring them to me, as I proposed to make every possible provision for the defence of the wreck, should such unhappily prove to be necessary. And while she went to her mother for the required keys, I made my way up on to the poop and took another look at the junk.There she was, close-hauled on the port tack, and evidently working up for the reef. But she was a slow tub, and the breeze was still so light that her sails barely remained “asleep” as she heaved and rolled ponderously upon the long, low, Pacific swell. I plainly saw that I should have ample time for such preparations as it would be possible to make for her reception.I flung a look round the horizon and searched the sky for weather signs. The sky was clear as a bell, of a deep, rich, ultramarine tint in the zenith; shading off by imperceptible gradations to a soft, warm colourlessness at the horizon. There was not the slightest hint of haze or cloud in the whole of the visible vault, and the breeze was a mere warm breathing, with nothing to indicate that it might possibly freshen. Would that it would fall calm before the junk could enter the lagoon! In that case we should be able to judge of her friendliness or otherwise by the number of boats which she would dispatch to us. I went to the flag locker, drew forth our Club ensign, and ran it up, reversed, to the head of the ensign staff—which, for a wonder, had escaped the general destruction—in the hope that this would evoke some sort of response from the crew of the junk, to serve in some measure as a guide to me. I had just belayed the halyards when Anthea came to me with the keys.She glanced from me to the flag and back again, questioningly, and I explained.“I see,” she said. “Very well; here are the keys, but I do hope it will not be necessary to fight. I remember the Malacca Straits affair, when we had the entire crew to help us in defending the ship. Do you think that, situated as we now are, we should have any chance?”“I don’t see why not,” I replied. “Although we are a wreck we can still show a rather formidable set of teeth,”—waving my hand toward the main-deck guns—“to say nothing of the two Maxims, upon which I shall principally pin my faith. The only thing that we must guard against is letting the rascals get too close before plainly declaring their intentions. But that should not be difficult.”“Supposing they are enemies, and should beat us, what do you think our fate would be?” demanded the girl, coming close to me and laying her hand upon my arm in the earnestness of her questioning.I drew in my breath sharply at the mere suggestion. “They must not be allowed to beat us,” I exclaimed harshly. “Such a possibility will not bear thinking of.”“Ah! I understand. So you think it might be as bad as that,” returned my companion; and I saw the colour ebb from her cheeks and lips, leaving them white as marble, while her fingers closed like a vice upon my arm. “But if you should be hurt,” she continued, “what would happen then?”“Itmustn’thappen,” I exclaimed; “it mustn’t! I must take precautions of some sort to provide against such a possibility.”“Of course,” she eagerly agreed. “But, supposing that in spite of your precautions you should be hurt—or killed,”—she shivered violently—“what then?”“I will tell you,” I said, seizing both her hands in mine and crushing them, I fear, in the passion of horror which her persistence conjured up. “I will give you, your mother, and the stewardesses a revolver each, and if by evil chance that junk should prove to be an enemy, and should get the upper hand of us, you must shoot yourselves, rather than fall alive into the hands of the Chinamen! Of course you need not take such a desperate step until the very last moment, when it has become evident that escape is impossible; but when that moment arrives—do you think you will have the courage to do as I say?”“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “I shall—and I will. But—oh! Walter, I hope, I pray, that we may none of us be driven to that frightful alternative. Now I must leave you, for I want to have a good heart-to-heart talk with Momma. But I shall see you again before—before—”“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly, for I saw that the poor girl was becoming a trifle overwrought, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that her emotion carried something of a contagious character with it. It was necessary to get away from emotionalism and down to the commonplaces of life once more, so I nodded smilingly at Anthea and ran briskly below, jingling the keys in my hand as I went.I had said that I should pin my faith principally to the Maxims, if it came to a fight, and so I fully meant to do; at the same time, I by no means overlooked the fact that a four-inch shell or two might prove very convincing arguments, under certain conditions. I therefore began my preparations by conveying eight shells and a corresponding number of cartridges up on deck and loading them into the eight main-deck guns that still remained to us, after carefully sponging out the latter. Next, I gave my attention to the Maxims, preparing them for action with meticulous care, overhauling, cleaning, and oiling the mechanism of them, satisfying myself that they were in perfect working order, placing a belt of cartridges in position in each, and taking care to have an abundant supply of relays in hand. While doing all these things I kept one eye pretty constantly upon the junk, in the hope that she would respond to the display of our ensign by hoisting some sort of signal which I might interpret as that of a friend coming to our rescue in answer to our appeals for help. But she showed no bunting beyond a small whiff at her mainmast head, which meant nothing.Having prepared our artillery, I next turned my attention to the subject of magazine rifles, a dozen of which I brought up on deck. These I loaded and laid handy on the poop, near the Maxims, with a box of cartridges, although I doubted whether, after all our other weapons had played their part, there would be much opportunity to use them. Finally I produced and loaded six revolvers, two of which I thrust into the belt of a cutlass girded round my waist, while the other four I designed for the use of the women in the last dreadful resort. The boy I did not greatly trouble about, feeling pretty certain that he would look after himself.I had finished all my preparations, and was sitting on the poop rail, intently scanning the slowly approaching junk through the ship’s telescope, and taking due note of such details and particulars as were thus brought within my ken, when the slight rustle of feminine garments at my side caused me to lower the glass. Mrs Vansittart was standing at my elbow. She was still very pale, and her eyelids were swollen and red with recent weeping, but she smiled wanly as she offered me her hand.“Walter,” she said, and there was a tremor in her voice as she spoke, while the blood surged up into her cheeks for a moment—“I want to apologise. I am afraid—”“No, certainly not, dear lady!” I cried, seizing her hand; “you must not dream of such a thing. On the contrary, it is for me to apologise to you for my sudden and violent ebullition of temper; and I do, most heartily. I cannot imagine what it was that possessed me just then, but—”Her smile broadened and brightened a little as she raised her left hand to silence me.“You must let me speak, Walter—let me say what I want to say,” she resumed. “Anthea has been talking to me, and she said things that have opened my eyes to what I fear I must call my own folly. She has made me see that I have been altogether wrong in my attitude toward Julius. She has shown me that in the blindness and intensity of my affection for him—he is my only son, you know, Walter—I have indulged him and allowed him to have his own way in everything to such an extent that, unless we are all very careful, he will be utterly spoiled, ruined, and rendered totally unfit to go out into the world and take a worthy place there when the time comes for him to do so. There have been occasions before to-day when I have been troubled by suspicions that something was going wrong with the dear boy, that I was not doing my duty toward him as a wise mother should, but it was not until within the last half-hour that my eyes have been completely opened; and now I intend to adopt an entirely different attitude toward him. But the trouble is that I don’t know how to set about it. How were you brought up, Walter?”I could not avoid smiling at the naïvété of this question, yet I could also sympathise with the questioner.“Well,” said I, “naturally I loved my parents, and they as naturally loved me, but they never allowed their affection to blind them to the little childish faults and failings which, like all other children, I suppose, I soon developed; and they diligently devoted themselves to the task of checking these, so that in addition to loving my parents I was soon taught to honour and obey them. Then, when I was five years old, I was sent to school, where, mixing with other boys, any especial conceit of myself that I might have had was quickly nipped in the bud. At school, in addition to a fair, useful education, I was taught to reverence and respect my seniors and superiors, to be obedient, to submit to discipline, to be honest and truthful, to despise selfishness and viciousness, to fear God and honour the king. That, in brief, was the way of my bringing up, Mrs Vansittart. And although many of the things that I learned had to be hammered into me with a cane wielded by a willing and vigorous arm, I can truthfully assert that I am not a whit the worse, but rather the better for it to-day.”My companion regarded me smilingly for some moments. Then she said:“So that is the story of how you came to be what you are! Well, Walter, I am compelled to admit that your parents were wiser than Mr Vansittart and I have been. But I am going to alter my methods now, and I can only pray that it may not be too late. You and I must talk further upon this matter later on. I think that perhaps you may be able to help me. Now, what about that junk? You were looking at her through the glass when I came up: have you been able to discover anything that would afford us a clue to her character?”“Not very much,” I replied; “but I am bound to confess that what I have seen is not altogether reassuring. For instance, she has not responded to the display of our ensign; and I believe that she would have done so in one form or another if she were coming to our rescue, in answer to our appeals for assistance. Then, although I cannot see her decks very well because of her high bulwarks, she appears to be carrying a good many men—too many, I think, for an honest craft of her size. I notice also that she has a gun—an eighteen-pound smooth-bore, I judge, from its appearance—mounted on her forecastle, while if you will look at her through the glass, you will see three ports in her port bulwarks through which protrude the muzzles of other cannon. These look like twelve-pounders; and I have not the slightest doubt that there are three more of the same kind grinning through her starboard bulwark.”“Yes,” replied Mrs Vansittart, peering through the telescope which I had handed to her. “I see the guns you mention, and I can catch through the portholes glimpses of a number of men moving about the deck. As you say, there appears to be a good many of them; but do you really regard that as a sinister sign? Would not any vessel trading in these waters carry a good strong crew, and guns for self-defence?”“No doubt she would,” I agreed; “and we can only hope that yonder junk is such a craft. We shall know for certain in about two hours from now; in any case I am quite ready for her.”Mrs Vansittart looked round at my preparations and smiled.“Yes,” she assented, “your preparations certainly appear to be reasonably complete. You have done what you could, Walter, haven’t you? Well, I am going below, for the sun is terribly hot, and I must not get a headache just now, if I can possibly avoid it. Of course we shall all come and help you, if there is any fighting to be done.”“Indeed,” I exclaimed, “I beg that none of you will dream of doing anything of the kind! You would only be a source of anxiety and embarrassment to me. I would rather not have even Julius; for I could not trust him. He is not amenable to discipline, and it is quite on the cards that at a critical moment he might take it into his head to do the wrong thing, with disastrous consequences to us all.”“Very well, we shall see,” was the smiling reply as my lady skipper disappeared down the companion way.Again I took up the telescope to resume my study of the junk, which I continued to do for the next half-hour or more. Then Master Julius made his appearance on deck. He came straight up to me, and as I looked at him, expecting some fresh unpleasantness, I detected a new expression in his eyes and on his features. The look of sullenness and discontent had disappeared, and he actually smiled as, looking me square in the eye, he held out his hand and exclaimed:“Say, Mr Leigh, let’s be friends, shall we?”“Sure, old chap!” I replied, adopting an Americanism with which I had become quite familiar, as I grasped his outstretched hand; “the very best of friends, if you like. Why shouldn’t we be? I am perfectly willing, if you are.”“Then it’s a deal,” he answered, seating himself at my side on the poop rail. “Say!” he continued, “do you think we’re going to have to fight that junk?”“It is impossible to say, as yet,” I replied. “I hope not; but if it should be necessary, do you want to take a hand?”“Bet your life I do!” exclaimed the boy. “That’s what I’ve come up to talk about. Momma says that you won’t let me help because I’m not amenable to discipline, and you’re afraid that I won’t do as I’m told. If I promise you, on my word of honour as a gentleman, that I’ll do exactly as you tell me, will you let me come in?”“Certainly I will, and be delighted to have your help,” I replied.“Then it’s a deal,” repeated the lad, again offering his hand.I must confess that I was both puzzled and astounded at the sudden and amazing change that had come over the boy; but the secret soon came out. It appeared that both his mother and his sister had been talking to him as it seemed he had never before been talked to in his life. They had told him a number of home truths in language that it seemed there was no possibility of misunderstanding; and they had done all this so convincingly that the dormant spirit of good that was in him had been effectually awakened. The withering scorn with which his sister had commented upon his behaviour in general and the offensive and contemptible traits of character that he had flaunted so flagrantly in all our faces had scorched and shrivelled his boyish soul; the picture of himself as others saw him was so repulsive that he had been overwhelmed with shame and—better still—repentance, and, if he was to be believed, had caused him to determine upon an altogether new line of action for the future.Scorn, contempt, contumely, dislike, are disagreeable things to swallow, and now that his mother and sister had drawn aside the veil and allowed him to get a glimpse of their real opinion of him, it was rather more than he could bear. His pride and self-respect had been grievously hurt; he did not like to be despised and detested, so he was going now to make everybody respect and admire him. I had no very great faith in this conversion, I must confess—it seemed altogether too sudden to be genuine; but I was not going to say or do anything that might neutralise any good that might have been done. I listened with interest to all that the boy had to say, and replied encouragingly and sympathetically; and so the time passed until Lizette appeared to summon us to luncheon, when the junk was still some two miles in the offing, and working in very slowly. There was no sign of any intention to hoist out boats, or attempt to communicate with us in any way, so I knew that I should have sufficient time to snatch a mouthful of food before the moment for action should arrive, and I descended to the dining-room with an easy mind.
When I went down to breakfast, Anthea and Lizette were already in the dining-room. The former had quite recovered her composure, although her eyelids were still a trifle red and swollen, while her small, beautifully-shaped ear was crimson from the force of the blow which it had received. I have already mentioned that this young lady’s attitude toward me had completely changed from the moment when I saved her brother’s life; her frosty and almost insolent aloofness had entirely disappeared, giving place to a frank and cordial friendliness of disposition rivalling that of her mother, which I admit was mightily agreeable to me. In short, I believed her to be intensely grateful for what I had done on that occasion, and perfectly willing that I should know it. So now I was not at all surprised when, upon my entrance, she came forward and, laying her hand upon my arm, said:
“Oh! Mr Leigh, I cannot tell you how dreadfully sorry I am for what has happened. Momma is frightfully angry with you for what she is pleased to term your violent and cowardly behaviour to Julius—they are her words, please remember, not mine: but I think, indeed I am almost certain, that upon reflection she will recognise that no man could stand by and permit to pass, unreproved, such an outrage as that wretched boy inflicted upon me. The fact is—I can see it for myself now—we have all combined together to spoil Julius, with the result that he has become a thoroughly selfish, conceited, unfeeling, unmanageable boy; and it is high time that somebody should intervene. But that somebody must not be you, Mr Leigh; you have no right to interfere, you know, and I am sure that Momma would never tolerate anything of the kind from you.
“At the same time I feel impelled to say,”—and here her eyes sparkled and an amused smile lighted up her face—“that I believe your interference has done Julius good. You frightened him, and I think he will feel that henceforth he will have to behave a little more circumspectly while you are around. But I want you, please, to promise me that you will not interfere with him again. I will take up the matter. I will talk very seriously to Momma and see if I cannot open her eyes to the very serious wrong and injury that we are all doing to the boy by petting and pampering him, and humouring his every whim, however outrageous it may be. So you will give me your promise to be very patient with him, won’t you? I know that he has been atrociously rude and provocative to you, but—”
“Please say no more,” I interrupted. “I think I may safely promise you that no rudeness or provocation on his part, levelled at me personally, shall be allowed to move me in the slightest degree. But if ever the young monkey again dares to lift his hand against you in my presence, I’ll—I’ll—”
“Yes, yes, I know; you needn’t say it,” she interrupted in turn, and once more her eyes sparkled with merriment; “it will be something too awful for words. Well, I’ll tell Julius what you say, and perhaps the information may have a good effect upon him. And now let us to breakfast, for I see Lizette is in a perfect terror lest the coffee should be allowed to go cold.”
We sat down to breakfast opposite each other and chatted more merrily and intimately together than we had ever done before. But when the meal was over we put merriment aside, for there was the approaching junk to be thought of and provided for. When we rose from the table I requested Anthea to procure from her mother the keys of the magazine and bring them to me, as I proposed to make every possible provision for the defence of the wreck, should such unhappily prove to be necessary. And while she went to her mother for the required keys, I made my way up on to the poop and took another look at the junk.
There she was, close-hauled on the port tack, and evidently working up for the reef. But she was a slow tub, and the breeze was still so light that her sails barely remained “asleep” as she heaved and rolled ponderously upon the long, low, Pacific swell. I plainly saw that I should have ample time for such preparations as it would be possible to make for her reception.
I flung a look round the horizon and searched the sky for weather signs. The sky was clear as a bell, of a deep, rich, ultramarine tint in the zenith; shading off by imperceptible gradations to a soft, warm colourlessness at the horizon. There was not the slightest hint of haze or cloud in the whole of the visible vault, and the breeze was a mere warm breathing, with nothing to indicate that it might possibly freshen. Would that it would fall calm before the junk could enter the lagoon! In that case we should be able to judge of her friendliness or otherwise by the number of boats which she would dispatch to us. I went to the flag locker, drew forth our Club ensign, and ran it up, reversed, to the head of the ensign staff—which, for a wonder, had escaped the general destruction—in the hope that this would evoke some sort of response from the crew of the junk, to serve in some measure as a guide to me. I had just belayed the halyards when Anthea came to me with the keys.
She glanced from me to the flag and back again, questioningly, and I explained.
“I see,” she said. “Very well; here are the keys, but I do hope it will not be necessary to fight. I remember the Malacca Straits affair, when we had the entire crew to help us in defending the ship. Do you think that, situated as we now are, we should have any chance?”
“I don’t see why not,” I replied. “Although we are a wreck we can still show a rather formidable set of teeth,”—waving my hand toward the main-deck guns—“to say nothing of the two Maxims, upon which I shall principally pin my faith. The only thing that we must guard against is letting the rascals get too close before plainly declaring their intentions. But that should not be difficult.”
“Supposing they are enemies, and should beat us, what do you think our fate would be?” demanded the girl, coming close to me and laying her hand upon my arm in the earnestness of her questioning.
I drew in my breath sharply at the mere suggestion. “They must not be allowed to beat us,” I exclaimed harshly. “Such a possibility will not bear thinking of.”
“Ah! I understand. So you think it might be as bad as that,” returned my companion; and I saw the colour ebb from her cheeks and lips, leaving them white as marble, while her fingers closed like a vice upon my arm. “But if you should be hurt,” she continued, “what would happen then?”
“Itmustn’thappen,” I exclaimed; “it mustn’t! I must take precautions of some sort to provide against such a possibility.”
“Of course,” she eagerly agreed. “But, supposing that in spite of your precautions you should be hurt—or killed,”—she shivered violently—“what then?”
“I will tell you,” I said, seizing both her hands in mine and crushing them, I fear, in the passion of horror which her persistence conjured up. “I will give you, your mother, and the stewardesses a revolver each, and if by evil chance that junk should prove to be an enemy, and should get the upper hand of us, you must shoot yourselves, rather than fall alive into the hands of the Chinamen! Of course you need not take such a desperate step until the very last moment, when it has become evident that escape is impossible; but when that moment arrives—do you think you will have the courage to do as I say?”
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “I shall—and I will. But—oh! Walter, I hope, I pray, that we may none of us be driven to that frightful alternative. Now I must leave you, for I want to have a good heart-to-heart talk with Momma. But I shall see you again before—before—”
“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly, for I saw that the poor girl was becoming a trifle overwrought, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that her emotion carried something of a contagious character with it. It was necessary to get away from emotionalism and down to the commonplaces of life once more, so I nodded smilingly at Anthea and ran briskly below, jingling the keys in my hand as I went.
I had said that I should pin my faith principally to the Maxims, if it came to a fight, and so I fully meant to do; at the same time, I by no means overlooked the fact that a four-inch shell or two might prove very convincing arguments, under certain conditions. I therefore began my preparations by conveying eight shells and a corresponding number of cartridges up on deck and loading them into the eight main-deck guns that still remained to us, after carefully sponging out the latter. Next, I gave my attention to the Maxims, preparing them for action with meticulous care, overhauling, cleaning, and oiling the mechanism of them, satisfying myself that they were in perfect working order, placing a belt of cartridges in position in each, and taking care to have an abundant supply of relays in hand. While doing all these things I kept one eye pretty constantly upon the junk, in the hope that she would respond to the display of our ensign by hoisting some sort of signal which I might interpret as that of a friend coming to our rescue in answer to our appeals for help. But she showed no bunting beyond a small whiff at her mainmast head, which meant nothing.
Having prepared our artillery, I next turned my attention to the subject of magazine rifles, a dozen of which I brought up on deck. These I loaded and laid handy on the poop, near the Maxims, with a box of cartridges, although I doubted whether, after all our other weapons had played their part, there would be much opportunity to use them. Finally I produced and loaded six revolvers, two of which I thrust into the belt of a cutlass girded round my waist, while the other four I designed for the use of the women in the last dreadful resort. The boy I did not greatly trouble about, feeling pretty certain that he would look after himself.
I had finished all my preparations, and was sitting on the poop rail, intently scanning the slowly approaching junk through the ship’s telescope, and taking due note of such details and particulars as were thus brought within my ken, when the slight rustle of feminine garments at my side caused me to lower the glass. Mrs Vansittart was standing at my elbow. She was still very pale, and her eyelids were swollen and red with recent weeping, but she smiled wanly as she offered me her hand.
“Walter,” she said, and there was a tremor in her voice as she spoke, while the blood surged up into her cheeks for a moment—“I want to apologise. I am afraid—”
“No, certainly not, dear lady!” I cried, seizing her hand; “you must not dream of such a thing. On the contrary, it is for me to apologise to you for my sudden and violent ebullition of temper; and I do, most heartily. I cannot imagine what it was that possessed me just then, but—”
Her smile broadened and brightened a little as she raised her left hand to silence me.
“You must let me speak, Walter—let me say what I want to say,” she resumed. “Anthea has been talking to me, and she said things that have opened my eyes to what I fear I must call my own folly. She has made me see that I have been altogether wrong in my attitude toward Julius. She has shown me that in the blindness and intensity of my affection for him—he is my only son, you know, Walter—I have indulged him and allowed him to have his own way in everything to such an extent that, unless we are all very careful, he will be utterly spoiled, ruined, and rendered totally unfit to go out into the world and take a worthy place there when the time comes for him to do so. There have been occasions before to-day when I have been troubled by suspicions that something was going wrong with the dear boy, that I was not doing my duty toward him as a wise mother should, but it was not until within the last half-hour that my eyes have been completely opened; and now I intend to adopt an entirely different attitude toward him. But the trouble is that I don’t know how to set about it. How were you brought up, Walter?”
I could not avoid smiling at the naïvété of this question, yet I could also sympathise with the questioner.
“Well,” said I, “naturally I loved my parents, and they as naturally loved me, but they never allowed their affection to blind them to the little childish faults and failings which, like all other children, I suppose, I soon developed; and they diligently devoted themselves to the task of checking these, so that in addition to loving my parents I was soon taught to honour and obey them. Then, when I was five years old, I was sent to school, where, mixing with other boys, any especial conceit of myself that I might have had was quickly nipped in the bud. At school, in addition to a fair, useful education, I was taught to reverence and respect my seniors and superiors, to be obedient, to submit to discipline, to be honest and truthful, to despise selfishness and viciousness, to fear God and honour the king. That, in brief, was the way of my bringing up, Mrs Vansittart. And although many of the things that I learned had to be hammered into me with a cane wielded by a willing and vigorous arm, I can truthfully assert that I am not a whit the worse, but rather the better for it to-day.”
My companion regarded me smilingly for some moments. Then she said:
“So that is the story of how you came to be what you are! Well, Walter, I am compelled to admit that your parents were wiser than Mr Vansittart and I have been. But I am going to alter my methods now, and I can only pray that it may not be too late. You and I must talk further upon this matter later on. I think that perhaps you may be able to help me. Now, what about that junk? You were looking at her through the glass when I came up: have you been able to discover anything that would afford us a clue to her character?”
“Not very much,” I replied; “but I am bound to confess that what I have seen is not altogether reassuring. For instance, she has not responded to the display of our ensign; and I believe that she would have done so in one form or another if she were coming to our rescue, in answer to our appeals for assistance. Then, although I cannot see her decks very well because of her high bulwarks, she appears to be carrying a good many men—too many, I think, for an honest craft of her size. I notice also that she has a gun—an eighteen-pound smooth-bore, I judge, from its appearance—mounted on her forecastle, while if you will look at her through the glass, you will see three ports in her port bulwarks through which protrude the muzzles of other cannon. These look like twelve-pounders; and I have not the slightest doubt that there are three more of the same kind grinning through her starboard bulwark.”
“Yes,” replied Mrs Vansittart, peering through the telescope which I had handed to her. “I see the guns you mention, and I can catch through the portholes glimpses of a number of men moving about the deck. As you say, there appears to be a good many of them; but do you really regard that as a sinister sign? Would not any vessel trading in these waters carry a good strong crew, and guns for self-defence?”
“No doubt she would,” I agreed; “and we can only hope that yonder junk is such a craft. We shall know for certain in about two hours from now; in any case I am quite ready for her.”
Mrs Vansittart looked round at my preparations and smiled.
“Yes,” she assented, “your preparations certainly appear to be reasonably complete. You have done what you could, Walter, haven’t you? Well, I am going below, for the sun is terribly hot, and I must not get a headache just now, if I can possibly avoid it. Of course we shall all come and help you, if there is any fighting to be done.”
“Indeed,” I exclaimed, “I beg that none of you will dream of doing anything of the kind! You would only be a source of anxiety and embarrassment to me. I would rather not have even Julius; for I could not trust him. He is not amenable to discipline, and it is quite on the cards that at a critical moment he might take it into his head to do the wrong thing, with disastrous consequences to us all.”
“Very well, we shall see,” was the smiling reply as my lady skipper disappeared down the companion way.
Again I took up the telescope to resume my study of the junk, which I continued to do for the next half-hour or more. Then Master Julius made his appearance on deck. He came straight up to me, and as I looked at him, expecting some fresh unpleasantness, I detected a new expression in his eyes and on his features. The look of sullenness and discontent had disappeared, and he actually smiled as, looking me square in the eye, he held out his hand and exclaimed:
“Say, Mr Leigh, let’s be friends, shall we?”
“Sure, old chap!” I replied, adopting an Americanism with which I had become quite familiar, as I grasped his outstretched hand; “the very best of friends, if you like. Why shouldn’t we be? I am perfectly willing, if you are.”
“Then it’s a deal,” he answered, seating himself at my side on the poop rail. “Say!” he continued, “do you think we’re going to have to fight that junk?”
“It is impossible to say, as yet,” I replied. “I hope not; but if it should be necessary, do you want to take a hand?”
“Bet your life I do!” exclaimed the boy. “That’s what I’ve come up to talk about. Momma says that you won’t let me help because I’m not amenable to discipline, and you’re afraid that I won’t do as I’m told. If I promise you, on my word of honour as a gentleman, that I’ll do exactly as you tell me, will you let me come in?”
“Certainly I will, and be delighted to have your help,” I replied.
“Then it’s a deal,” repeated the lad, again offering his hand.
I must confess that I was both puzzled and astounded at the sudden and amazing change that had come over the boy; but the secret soon came out. It appeared that both his mother and his sister had been talking to him as it seemed he had never before been talked to in his life. They had told him a number of home truths in language that it seemed there was no possibility of misunderstanding; and they had done all this so convincingly that the dormant spirit of good that was in him had been effectually awakened. The withering scorn with which his sister had commented upon his behaviour in general and the offensive and contemptible traits of character that he had flaunted so flagrantly in all our faces had scorched and shrivelled his boyish soul; the picture of himself as others saw him was so repulsive that he had been overwhelmed with shame and—better still—repentance, and, if he was to be believed, had caused him to determine upon an altogether new line of action for the future.
Scorn, contempt, contumely, dislike, are disagreeable things to swallow, and now that his mother and sister had drawn aside the veil and allowed him to get a glimpse of their real opinion of him, it was rather more than he could bear. His pride and self-respect had been grievously hurt; he did not like to be despised and detested, so he was going now to make everybody respect and admire him. I had no very great faith in this conversion, I must confess—it seemed altogether too sudden to be genuine; but I was not going to say or do anything that might neutralise any good that might have been done. I listened with interest to all that the boy had to say, and replied encouragingly and sympathetically; and so the time passed until Lizette appeared to summon us to luncheon, when the junk was still some two miles in the offing, and working in very slowly. There was no sign of any intention to hoist out boats, or attempt to communicate with us in any way, so I knew that I should have sufficient time to snatch a mouthful of food before the moment for action should arrive, and I descended to the dining-room with an easy mind.
Chapter Thirteen.We are attacked by Chinese Pirate Wreckers.We had finished luncheon, and were all on deck watching the junk, when, about half-past two o’clock—she having by that time arrived within about a mile of the lagoon entrance—we saw her heave to; and a minute or two later it became evident that she was preparing to launch a boat, or boats. She was now close enough in for us to see, with the aid of the telescope, pretty nearly everything that was happening aboard her, and I was far from reassured when I noticed that the man upon the poop—probably the junk’s captain—who was directing operations, wore a formidable-looking broad-bladed Chinese yatagan girded to his side, while, when he faced in our direction once or twice, pointing, I felt almost certain that I could detect one, if not a brace of pistols in his belt.Presently we saw a boat of very respectable dimensions rise above the junk’s bulwarks and slowly disappear over her lee rail; and this was followed by a second, and a third of at least equal size.“Three boats!” I exclaimed. “That settles it. If she were here upon a friendly mission she would not send in three boats to take off half a dozen people. She is a wrecker, and only too probably a pirate as well. Her people know that there are survivors on this wreck—our flare during the night and our ensign to-day will have told them that much—but they do not know how many of us there are; so her skipper is sending in enough men to make quite sure of us, as he believes. And guns, too, by George!” I continued, as I saw an old-fashioned smooth-bore cannon in slings top the rail. “The rascals mean business, that is quite evident; but so do I. I am going below to bring up half a dozen more shells; it is just possible that we may need them. Meanwhile, madam, will you kindly keep an eye on the junk while I am gone, and report to me what you haveseenwhen I return?”Thrusting the glass into Mrs Vansittart’s hands, I hurried away to the magazine and brought out six additional shells, with the necessary cartridges, and, conveying them up on deck, placed them conveniently near the guns of the port battery, which I now saw were the only main-deck pieces that were at all likely to be of use to us.Having at length completed my task, I rejoined the little group upon the poop. I saw that the boats had already pushed off from the junk, and were pulling at a good pace toward the opening in the reef, while the junk herself had filled away again, and was beating up in the same direction.“There are three boats, Walter, as you see,” said Mrs Vansittart, handing over the telescope to me; “and if you look at them carefully through the glass you will also see that they are crowded with men—at least twenty in each boat, I should say. I dare say you will also notice, as I did, the glint of the sun upon many weapons; and, unless I am very greatly mistaken, each boat has a gun mounted in her bows. I am afraid there can be no possible doubt as to the intentions of those men.”“No,” I agreed, as I raised the telescope to my eye; “no doubt whatever. They mean to wipe us out if they can, and then plunder the wreck. But they will not do that while I am alive and able to resist them. Now,” I continued, “you two ladies have each a revolver, and so have the stewardesses. They are fully loaded; and I have already explained to Miss Anthea why I have given them to you. I most fervently hope that there will be no need for you to use them in that way; but should there be—and one never knows; I may be bowled over and killed, or rendered helpless by a shot or a pike-thrust—I implore you not to hesitate too long. It would be infinitely better that you should die instantly and painlessly by a well-directed pistol shot than that you should fall alive into the hands of a crew of Chinese pirates.”The colour ebbed away from the cheeks of Mrs Vansittart and her daughter as I uttered the concluding words, but I saw a look of firmness and determination tightening about their lips while the elder lady said:“Have no fear for us, Walter. I hope, with you, that we may not be driven to any such desperate step; but should we be, we both have courage enough to take it, and so, I think, have the two maids.”“Thank you!” I replied. “It is a relief to me to hear you speak so bravely. But do not act, I pray you, until the very last moment—until it has become clear beyond all question that everything is lost. Now, since those boats are within easy range, I will just give them a hint that we want to have nothing to do with them, and that they had better keep their distance.”I swung myself down off the poop on to the main-deck, and, running to the forward gun of the port battery, which was the gun that could best be brought to bear on the advancing boats at that moment, I levelled the piece, aiming to strike the water at a point a few fathoms ahead of the middle boat of the three—they were advancing in line abreast. I calculated that the shot would rebound and fly over the heads of her crew close enough to frighten them a bit and make them think twice before advancing any farther. It was a rather difficult and risky shot—risky for those in the boat, I mean—but I pulled it off successfully. The shell dashed up a great column of snow-white spray, which completely hid the boat for a moment; and when this cleared away I saw that all the boats’ crews were holding water, evidently taken a good deal by surprise, and apparently undecided what to do.“Bravo, Walter; a beautiful shot!” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, and I saw her snatch up the telescope and peer through it. She held it to her eye for a full minute; then, without lowering the instrument, she cried:“There is a man standing up in the stern-sheets of the middle boat apparently haranguing the crews, for he is flourishing his arms about a great deal. Ah! he has stepped down again; and now—yes—the oarsmen are giving way again. The two outside boats look as though they were turning back—no, they are only opening out into wider order, and are coming on again. Try them with another shot, Walter. Perhaps if you can hit one of those boats the others may be induced to go back.”“Ay, ay!” I replied, with a flourish of my arm; and I carefully sponged out and reloaded the piece. But I did not now want the boats to return; I wanted them to come on and be destroyed. I was by this time convinced that the matter must be fought out to the bitter end, and that we must destroy that junk and the whole of her crew if we would not be ourselves destroyed. If the boats were driven back the vessel would hang about, watching her opportunity, or possibly return some night during the dark and take us unawares. It was their lives or ours that hung in the balance; therefore when I had reloaded the piece I ran my eye along the sights, and was in the act of training them upon the middle boat, when my attention was distracted for a moment by the distant boom of a gun. Looking up, I saw that the junk had fired. I knew by the ring of the report that the gun was shotted, and presently I saw the shot come skipping toward us just inside the reef; but it fell a good way short, and I turned to my own gun again.But now, when I wanted actually to hit the mark, I found that it was not quite so easy as I had imagined. To aim straight was easy enough, but even where they were the boats presented but a small mark, and they were constantly disappearing in the trough of the swell. It was therefore necessary for me to wait until my particular target reappeared before firing, and although the next two shots went very near indeed they did not actually hit. Meanwhile the junk was firing rapidly, making short tacks to keep as nearly abreast of us as might be, and her shot were gradually dropping nearer to us. Seeing this, I insisted that the ladies at least should go below, as now a shot might at any moment come aboard us. Julius begged hard to be allowed to remain, and, his mother raising no objection, I willingly consented, as there was no knowing when I might be glad of his assistance.The three boats were now so close to the passage through the reef that they were obliged to alter their formation to “line ahead” in order to pass through it; and it was at this moment that, with my fourth shot, I caught the leading boat fair and square, and literally blew her to pieces. I thought that perhaps this might check the advance of the remaining two boats; but not a bit of it. They did not even pause to pick up any of the survivors of the leading boat’s crew—probably there were no survivors—but came on with a blood-curdling yell that evoked a faint shriek from, I thought, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the companion. Almost immediately afterward a round shot from the junk struck the water at a little distance away, and then went humming directly over my head, so close that I felt the wind of it.At this juncture I became aware of the fact that the wind, what little there was of it, was falling lighter; our ensign was drooping from its staff all but dead, while the junk’s sails were flapping with her every roll, and the little curl of water about her bows had all but disappeared. This afforded me a grain of comfort, for she could not draw very much nearer, though, to be sure, she was near enough already if her gunners’ eyes were but straight enough to hit us; my great hope was that her heavy rolling would distract their aim, and so cause their shot either to fall short of or to fly over us. But I had no time to meditate at length upon these chances; the two boats were drawing dangerously near, and I must stop them by hook or by crook before they actually got alongside. I therefore quickly recharged my piece and carefully pointed it at the inner end of the passage through the reef. I had barely got this done to my satisfaction, when the leading boat thrust her nose through. Bang! The four-inch barked out its greeting, and a moment later that boat disappeared in flame and smoke, to my intense relief.Mentally I patted myself on the back. “Now, surely,” I thought, “that remaining boat will turn tail, and I shall have a chance to wipe her out on her way back to the junk!” But no; on she came, her crew yelling like demons, and churning the placid waters of the lagoon into foam with their oars. They sprang to their feet at each stroke, that they might throw the whole weight of their bodies into it, while a man standing in the stern-sheets frantically waved a most murderous-looking blade above his head. I jumped to the next gun—there was no time to reload now—and hastily levelled it. As I did so I saw a flash burst from her bows, followed by a gust of smoke; the ball struck the waterway close by my feet and hurtled past, sending a shower of splinters flying, and this distracted my aim. I missed, and the shot harmlessly struck the water some distance astern of the boat, to be greeted by its occupants with a yell of mingled triumph and derision.Matters were becoming frightfully critical now. Should I have time for another shot, I wondered? As the thought flashed through my brain a rifle shot rang out from the poop, and, glancing that way, I saw the boy Julius with a Remington repeater at his shoulder aiming at the rapidly advancing boat. And—what I had absolutely forgotten—I saw also the Maxims standing there, ready for action! To dash up on to the poop and level the port Maxim at the enemy was the work of but a moment, and the next instant the deadly little weapon was thudding away, pouring its leaden stream fair into the boat. At that range—a bare three hundred yards—it was impossible to miss, and in a few seconds every occupant of the boat was either dead or wounded; the oars trailed motionless in the water, the boat lost her way, and in less than a minute it became evident that the craft was sinking, literally riddled with that leaden hail.“Hurrah!” I yelled. “There goes the last of them, and, thank God, that danger’s over! Now for the junk herself. She must be settled, or there will be no safety for us.”I made my way down to the main-deck again, very nearly tumbling head over heels over Mrs Vansittart and her daughter, whom I found seated upon the stairs of the companion way. I paused just long enough to explain the situation to them, and then rushed out on deck in time to see the last boat, submerged to her gunwale, slowly roll over and go down bows first, leaving a few forms feebly struggling on the surface.The junk was by this time completely becalmed and had lost her way; nevertheless she maintained a fairly steady fire upon us, and some of her shot came so unpleasantly close that I thought it well to order Julius down off the poop, where he could be of no further use. I got to work with the main-deck guns again, and, possibly because I could take all the time I pleased over the aiming, did some very neat shooting. I fired six shells in all at the junk, every one of which but the first went home—three of them close to her water-line.They were destructive missiles, those shells, bursting as they hit and blowing great holes in the junk’s sides; and it soon became apparent that the vessel was sinking rapidly. I therefore ceased firing and went up on to the poop to see the last of her. But she died game, for her crew maintained a steady fire upon us until she foundered, her last shot being fired at the very moment when she was plunging stern first beneath the waves. And by an unlucky chance that last shot came slap aboard the wreck, struck the teak poop rail within a foot of where I stood, and scattered a number of splinters, one of which, a heavy one, caught me in the side of the head, very nearly scalped me, and sent me reeling to the deck senseless.I recovered consciousness slowly, my first sensation being that the top of my head seemed to be on fire. Then I became aware that I was being partially supported by somebody’s knee behind my shoulders, and that my head was being bathed. Finally I opened my eyes, to find Mrs Vansittart bending over me with a sponge in her hand, which she was just withdrawing from a basin of bloodstained water, while the boy Julius supported me in a semi-recumbent position as I lay on the deck.“Ah, that is better!” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, as she bent over me. “He is coming to himself. Lizette,” raising her voice; “hurry with that brandy. Is your head very painful, Walter?”“It feels as though it were being held much too close to a fierce fire,” I replied, “and, in addition, it is aching most atrociously. It is most unfortunate that—”“Yes, it is indeed, you poor boy!” replied Mrs Vansittart as I paused, a feeling of deadly nausea sweeping over me. “Ah,” she continued, as the chief stewardess appeared with a tumbler in her hand, “here is the brandy! Sip this, Walter; it will revive you. And as soon as you are able to move, we must get you below, and I must attend to your head and dress it properly. Then you must go to bed and endeavour to get some sleep. You have taken splendid care of us this morning, and now it will be our turn to take care of you.”“Oh, thank you very much!” I murmured; “but I hope this unlucky blow on the head is not going to make me a nuisance to you. As to turning in, I simply cannot do it. A careful watch must be maintained for several hours yet, lest some of the men from that junk should swim to the wreck and get aboard us. Even so few as half a dozen able-bodied Chinamen could make a lot of trouble for us just now.”“Yes,” agreed Julius, “they could. But I guess I’m not going to give them the chance. You’ll just have to turn in, as Momma says, and leave me to look after things. And, see here, Mr Leigh, don’t you worry about anything. I’ll keep a look-out, and if any swimming Chinks come meandering around here, I’ll just give ’em socks, you bet!”This was reassuring; for if the boy was willing to undertake the duty he could quite easily keep a considerable number of swimmers at a distance with the assistance of a Remington. A few sips of brandy served to restore my strength greatly; and presently, with the help of Mrs Vansittart and Lizette, I was able to make my way below to the drawing-room. There I passed a particularly unpleasant three-quarters of an hour while the lady skipper snipped most of my hair off and afterwards coaxed the lacerated scalp back into place, securing it in position with straps of sticking plaster and finishing off by a dressing of healing ointment and bandages.When all was done, the two stewardesses helped me to my own cabin; and after they had left me I somehow managed to undress and get into my bunk, which I was glad enough to do, for I was beginning to feel distinctly ill. I have a hazy recollection that after I had been in my bunk a little while, Mrs Vansittart came to me and administered a dose of medicine, which she told me was intended to make me sleep. Then I seemed to pass into a condition wherein I was the victim of a long succession of hideous nightmares, during which I was either perpetually battling with a thousand awful perils, or was lying helpless in the hands of cruel and relentless savages, who were inflicting the most dreadful torments upon me.It was a close, muggy, and suffocatingly hot day when I at length emerged from this condition of extreme mental and physical suffering. My cabin port stood wide open close to my head, but not even the faintest breath of air came through it. Presently I became aware of a sound which I quickly identified as that of a torrential downpour of tropical rain lashing the surface of the sea outside and the deck above. I stirred uneasily in my bunk, wondering vaguely how long I had lain there, and strove to rise upon my elbow, that I might look through the port. But I might as well have striven to lift the deck over my head; I seemed not to have an ounce of strength left in me, and I sank my head back upon the pillow with a weary sigh. As I did so I became aware of a slight movement beside my bunk, and, turning my eyes in that direction, I saw Miss Anthea in the act of rising to her feet from a chair immediately beneath the port. She had a book in her hand, which she placed face down upon the top of the desk beside her as she rose to her feet. Then, coming to the side of the bunk, she bent over me and gazed into my eyes. Gradually a little smile of gratification illuminated her somewhat pale and worn features and her eyes, which, I noticed, had a very weary look, as though from prolonged sleeplessness.Presently, as I smiled in answer, she spoke.“You are feeling better, Wal—Mr Leigh?” she asked. “Do you know me?”“Assuredly, Miss Anthea,” I answered. “Why should I not know you?” I spoke with most disconcerting difficulty; my words halted, and my lips seemed scarcely capable of forming them.“Oh! but that is splendid,” she exclaimed, straightening her body and clasping her hands together after the manner of a girl who hears good news. “You are feeling better?” she persisted.“Have I been ill, then?” I stupidly asked. Indeed my mind was at that moment tenanted merely by a mass of most confused and incoherent memories, of which I could make little or nothing.“You have indeed,” she replied; “dreadfully ill, raving in delirium, and so violent that it is a miracle you did not do yourself or some of us a serious injury. But,” she continued, stopping me as I attempted to speak, “thank God, that is over now, I hope; and all that remains is for you to take as much nourishment as you can, do as you are told, and get well and strong again as quickly as possible. I must run away and leave you for a few minutes to tell Momma the good news, and arrange to have some food prepared for you.”With a nod and a smile of encouragement she left the cabin, and a minute or two later Mrs Vansittart entered it. She stepped quickly up to the side of my bunk, looked at me, and presently laid her slim, cool fingers upon my pulse, holding them there for several seconds.“Ah!” she commented, as she removed them at length, “I guess you are oceans better than you were at this time yesterday. The fever is gone, and your skin is delightfully cool and moist; moreover, you are in your right mind once more, and that is something gained. I expect the wound in your head is healing, although we haven’t been able to look at it properly for nearly a week. But we will attend to it now, as soon as you have taken a little food. My stars, Walter, we have had a time with you! Lucky for us all that you have taken it into your head to become sensible again, or I guess we’d all have been sick people in another day or two. Do you know how long you’ve been ill?”“No,” I answered; “but I am afraid that it has been much too long. I don’t know where to find words in which to express my regret for—”“Regret!” she repeated. “Regret nothing! You couldn’t help it, my dear boy. You got hurt in defending us, and it was just our duty to look after and nurse you as best we could; and that is all there is to it. You have been ill ten whole days. This is the eleventh morning since the junk appeared. During the best part of those ten days you have been raving in delirium, with occasional outbreaks of violence, when it taxed the energies of all five of us to the utmost to restrain you. Oh, I guess we have had some very lively times with you, Walter, off and on! But, thank God! that is all over now and—Ah! here comes Lizette with some broth for you. We have been hoping for this change for the last five or six hours, and have got all ready for it.“Now, Lizette, I guess you’ve got to climb right up on to this chair, seat yourself on the edge of the bunk, and support Mr Leigh in a sitting posture while I feed him. Take care that you don’t hurt his head. So—that’s right; lean back against the head of the bunk, and rest his head against your shoulder. Gently, girl, gently! I reckon the poor boy is aching all over with weakness. There, that’s all right! Are you pretty comfortable, Walter? Good! Now then, all that you’ve got to do is, just drink this broth right away, rest yourself for a spell, and then I’ll come along again and dress that wound on your head.”
We had finished luncheon, and were all on deck watching the junk, when, about half-past two o’clock—she having by that time arrived within about a mile of the lagoon entrance—we saw her heave to; and a minute or two later it became evident that she was preparing to launch a boat, or boats. She was now close enough in for us to see, with the aid of the telescope, pretty nearly everything that was happening aboard her, and I was far from reassured when I noticed that the man upon the poop—probably the junk’s captain—who was directing operations, wore a formidable-looking broad-bladed Chinese yatagan girded to his side, while, when he faced in our direction once or twice, pointing, I felt almost certain that I could detect one, if not a brace of pistols in his belt.
Presently we saw a boat of very respectable dimensions rise above the junk’s bulwarks and slowly disappear over her lee rail; and this was followed by a second, and a third of at least equal size.
“Three boats!” I exclaimed. “That settles it. If she were here upon a friendly mission she would not send in three boats to take off half a dozen people. She is a wrecker, and only too probably a pirate as well. Her people know that there are survivors on this wreck—our flare during the night and our ensign to-day will have told them that much—but they do not know how many of us there are; so her skipper is sending in enough men to make quite sure of us, as he believes. And guns, too, by George!” I continued, as I saw an old-fashioned smooth-bore cannon in slings top the rail. “The rascals mean business, that is quite evident; but so do I. I am going below to bring up half a dozen more shells; it is just possible that we may need them. Meanwhile, madam, will you kindly keep an eye on the junk while I am gone, and report to me what you haveseenwhen I return?”
Thrusting the glass into Mrs Vansittart’s hands, I hurried away to the magazine and brought out six additional shells, with the necessary cartridges, and, conveying them up on deck, placed them conveniently near the guns of the port battery, which I now saw were the only main-deck pieces that were at all likely to be of use to us.
Having at length completed my task, I rejoined the little group upon the poop. I saw that the boats had already pushed off from the junk, and were pulling at a good pace toward the opening in the reef, while the junk herself had filled away again, and was beating up in the same direction.
“There are three boats, Walter, as you see,” said Mrs Vansittart, handing over the telescope to me; “and if you look at them carefully through the glass you will also see that they are crowded with men—at least twenty in each boat, I should say. I dare say you will also notice, as I did, the glint of the sun upon many weapons; and, unless I am very greatly mistaken, each boat has a gun mounted in her bows. I am afraid there can be no possible doubt as to the intentions of those men.”
“No,” I agreed, as I raised the telescope to my eye; “no doubt whatever. They mean to wipe us out if they can, and then plunder the wreck. But they will not do that while I am alive and able to resist them. Now,” I continued, “you two ladies have each a revolver, and so have the stewardesses. They are fully loaded; and I have already explained to Miss Anthea why I have given them to you. I most fervently hope that there will be no need for you to use them in that way; but should there be—and one never knows; I may be bowled over and killed, or rendered helpless by a shot or a pike-thrust—I implore you not to hesitate too long. It would be infinitely better that you should die instantly and painlessly by a well-directed pistol shot than that you should fall alive into the hands of a crew of Chinese pirates.”
The colour ebbed away from the cheeks of Mrs Vansittart and her daughter as I uttered the concluding words, but I saw a look of firmness and determination tightening about their lips while the elder lady said:
“Have no fear for us, Walter. I hope, with you, that we may not be driven to any such desperate step; but should we be, we both have courage enough to take it, and so, I think, have the two maids.”
“Thank you!” I replied. “It is a relief to me to hear you speak so bravely. But do not act, I pray you, until the very last moment—until it has become clear beyond all question that everything is lost. Now, since those boats are within easy range, I will just give them a hint that we want to have nothing to do with them, and that they had better keep their distance.”
I swung myself down off the poop on to the main-deck, and, running to the forward gun of the port battery, which was the gun that could best be brought to bear on the advancing boats at that moment, I levelled the piece, aiming to strike the water at a point a few fathoms ahead of the middle boat of the three—they were advancing in line abreast. I calculated that the shot would rebound and fly over the heads of her crew close enough to frighten them a bit and make them think twice before advancing any farther. It was a rather difficult and risky shot—risky for those in the boat, I mean—but I pulled it off successfully. The shell dashed up a great column of snow-white spray, which completely hid the boat for a moment; and when this cleared away I saw that all the boats’ crews were holding water, evidently taken a good deal by surprise, and apparently undecided what to do.
“Bravo, Walter; a beautiful shot!” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, and I saw her snatch up the telescope and peer through it. She held it to her eye for a full minute; then, without lowering the instrument, she cried:
“There is a man standing up in the stern-sheets of the middle boat apparently haranguing the crews, for he is flourishing his arms about a great deal. Ah! he has stepped down again; and now—yes—the oarsmen are giving way again. The two outside boats look as though they were turning back—no, they are only opening out into wider order, and are coming on again. Try them with another shot, Walter. Perhaps if you can hit one of those boats the others may be induced to go back.”
“Ay, ay!” I replied, with a flourish of my arm; and I carefully sponged out and reloaded the piece. But I did not now want the boats to return; I wanted them to come on and be destroyed. I was by this time convinced that the matter must be fought out to the bitter end, and that we must destroy that junk and the whole of her crew if we would not be ourselves destroyed. If the boats were driven back the vessel would hang about, watching her opportunity, or possibly return some night during the dark and take us unawares. It was their lives or ours that hung in the balance; therefore when I had reloaded the piece I ran my eye along the sights, and was in the act of training them upon the middle boat, when my attention was distracted for a moment by the distant boom of a gun. Looking up, I saw that the junk had fired. I knew by the ring of the report that the gun was shotted, and presently I saw the shot come skipping toward us just inside the reef; but it fell a good way short, and I turned to my own gun again.
But now, when I wanted actually to hit the mark, I found that it was not quite so easy as I had imagined. To aim straight was easy enough, but even where they were the boats presented but a small mark, and they were constantly disappearing in the trough of the swell. It was therefore necessary for me to wait until my particular target reappeared before firing, and although the next two shots went very near indeed they did not actually hit. Meanwhile the junk was firing rapidly, making short tacks to keep as nearly abreast of us as might be, and her shot were gradually dropping nearer to us. Seeing this, I insisted that the ladies at least should go below, as now a shot might at any moment come aboard us. Julius begged hard to be allowed to remain, and, his mother raising no objection, I willingly consented, as there was no knowing when I might be glad of his assistance.
The three boats were now so close to the passage through the reef that they were obliged to alter their formation to “line ahead” in order to pass through it; and it was at this moment that, with my fourth shot, I caught the leading boat fair and square, and literally blew her to pieces. I thought that perhaps this might check the advance of the remaining two boats; but not a bit of it. They did not even pause to pick up any of the survivors of the leading boat’s crew—probably there were no survivors—but came on with a blood-curdling yell that evoked a faint shriek from, I thought, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the companion. Almost immediately afterward a round shot from the junk struck the water at a little distance away, and then went humming directly over my head, so close that I felt the wind of it.
At this juncture I became aware of the fact that the wind, what little there was of it, was falling lighter; our ensign was drooping from its staff all but dead, while the junk’s sails were flapping with her every roll, and the little curl of water about her bows had all but disappeared. This afforded me a grain of comfort, for she could not draw very much nearer, though, to be sure, she was near enough already if her gunners’ eyes were but straight enough to hit us; my great hope was that her heavy rolling would distract their aim, and so cause their shot either to fall short of or to fly over us. But I had no time to meditate at length upon these chances; the two boats were drawing dangerously near, and I must stop them by hook or by crook before they actually got alongside. I therefore quickly recharged my piece and carefully pointed it at the inner end of the passage through the reef. I had barely got this done to my satisfaction, when the leading boat thrust her nose through. Bang! The four-inch barked out its greeting, and a moment later that boat disappeared in flame and smoke, to my intense relief.
Mentally I patted myself on the back. “Now, surely,” I thought, “that remaining boat will turn tail, and I shall have a chance to wipe her out on her way back to the junk!” But no; on she came, her crew yelling like demons, and churning the placid waters of the lagoon into foam with their oars. They sprang to their feet at each stroke, that they might throw the whole weight of their bodies into it, while a man standing in the stern-sheets frantically waved a most murderous-looking blade above his head. I jumped to the next gun—there was no time to reload now—and hastily levelled it. As I did so I saw a flash burst from her bows, followed by a gust of smoke; the ball struck the waterway close by my feet and hurtled past, sending a shower of splinters flying, and this distracted my aim. I missed, and the shot harmlessly struck the water some distance astern of the boat, to be greeted by its occupants with a yell of mingled triumph and derision.
Matters were becoming frightfully critical now. Should I have time for another shot, I wondered? As the thought flashed through my brain a rifle shot rang out from the poop, and, glancing that way, I saw the boy Julius with a Remington repeater at his shoulder aiming at the rapidly advancing boat. And—what I had absolutely forgotten—I saw also the Maxims standing there, ready for action! To dash up on to the poop and level the port Maxim at the enemy was the work of but a moment, and the next instant the deadly little weapon was thudding away, pouring its leaden stream fair into the boat. At that range—a bare three hundred yards—it was impossible to miss, and in a few seconds every occupant of the boat was either dead or wounded; the oars trailed motionless in the water, the boat lost her way, and in less than a minute it became evident that the craft was sinking, literally riddled with that leaden hail.
“Hurrah!” I yelled. “There goes the last of them, and, thank God, that danger’s over! Now for the junk herself. She must be settled, or there will be no safety for us.”
I made my way down to the main-deck again, very nearly tumbling head over heels over Mrs Vansittart and her daughter, whom I found seated upon the stairs of the companion way. I paused just long enough to explain the situation to them, and then rushed out on deck in time to see the last boat, submerged to her gunwale, slowly roll over and go down bows first, leaving a few forms feebly struggling on the surface.
The junk was by this time completely becalmed and had lost her way; nevertheless she maintained a fairly steady fire upon us, and some of her shot came so unpleasantly close that I thought it well to order Julius down off the poop, where he could be of no further use. I got to work with the main-deck guns again, and, possibly because I could take all the time I pleased over the aiming, did some very neat shooting. I fired six shells in all at the junk, every one of which but the first went home—three of them close to her water-line.
They were destructive missiles, those shells, bursting as they hit and blowing great holes in the junk’s sides; and it soon became apparent that the vessel was sinking rapidly. I therefore ceased firing and went up on to the poop to see the last of her. But she died game, for her crew maintained a steady fire upon us until she foundered, her last shot being fired at the very moment when she was plunging stern first beneath the waves. And by an unlucky chance that last shot came slap aboard the wreck, struck the teak poop rail within a foot of where I stood, and scattered a number of splinters, one of which, a heavy one, caught me in the side of the head, very nearly scalped me, and sent me reeling to the deck senseless.
I recovered consciousness slowly, my first sensation being that the top of my head seemed to be on fire. Then I became aware that I was being partially supported by somebody’s knee behind my shoulders, and that my head was being bathed. Finally I opened my eyes, to find Mrs Vansittart bending over me with a sponge in her hand, which she was just withdrawing from a basin of bloodstained water, while the boy Julius supported me in a semi-recumbent position as I lay on the deck.
“Ah, that is better!” exclaimed Mrs Vansittart, as she bent over me. “He is coming to himself. Lizette,” raising her voice; “hurry with that brandy. Is your head very painful, Walter?”
“It feels as though it were being held much too close to a fierce fire,” I replied, “and, in addition, it is aching most atrociously. It is most unfortunate that—”
“Yes, it is indeed, you poor boy!” replied Mrs Vansittart as I paused, a feeling of deadly nausea sweeping over me. “Ah,” she continued, as the chief stewardess appeared with a tumbler in her hand, “here is the brandy! Sip this, Walter; it will revive you. And as soon as you are able to move, we must get you below, and I must attend to your head and dress it properly. Then you must go to bed and endeavour to get some sleep. You have taken splendid care of us this morning, and now it will be our turn to take care of you.”
“Oh, thank you very much!” I murmured; “but I hope this unlucky blow on the head is not going to make me a nuisance to you. As to turning in, I simply cannot do it. A careful watch must be maintained for several hours yet, lest some of the men from that junk should swim to the wreck and get aboard us. Even so few as half a dozen able-bodied Chinamen could make a lot of trouble for us just now.”
“Yes,” agreed Julius, “they could. But I guess I’m not going to give them the chance. You’ll just have to turn in, as Momma says, and leave me to look after things. And, see here, Mr Leigh, don’t you worry about anything. I’ll keep a look-out, and if any swimming Chinks come meandering around here, I’ll just give ’em socks, you bet!”
This was reassuring; for if the boy was willing to undertake the duty he could quite easily keep a considerable number of swimmers at a distance with the assistance of a Remington. A few sips of brandy served to restore my strength greatly; and presently, with the help of Mrs Vansittart and Lizette, I was able to make my way below to the drawing-room. There I passed a particularly unpleasant three-quarters of an hour while the lady skipper snipped most of my hair off and afterwards coaxed the lacerated scalp back into place, securing it in position with straps of sticking plaster and finishing off by a dressing of healing ointment and bandages.
When all was done, the two stewardesses helped me to my own cabin; and after they had left me I somehow managed to undress and get into my bunk, which I was glad enough to do, for I was beginning to feel distinctly ill. I have a hazy recollection that after I had been in my bunk a little while, Mrs Vansittart came to me and administered a dose of medicine, which she told me was intended to make me sleep. Then I seemed to pass into a condition wherein I was the victim of a long succession of hideous nightmares, during which I was either perpetually battling with a thousand awful perils, or was lying helpless in the hands of cruel and relentless savages, who were inflicting the most dreadful torments upon me.
It was a close, muggy, and suffocatingly hot day when I at length emerged from this condition of extreme mental and physical suffering. My cabin port stood wide open close to my head, but not even the faintest breath of air came through it. Presently I became aware of a sound which I quickly identified as that of a torrential downpour of tropical rain lashing the surface of the sea outside and the deck above. I stirred uneasily in my bunk, wondering vaguely how long I had lain there, and strove to rise upon my elbow, that I might look through the port. But I might as well have striven to lift the deck over my head; I seemed not to have an ounce of strength left in me, and I sank my head back upon the pillow with a weary sigh. As I did so I became aware of a slight movement beside my bunk, and, turning my eyes in that direction, I saw Miss Anthea in the act of rising to her feet from a chair immediately beneath the port. She had a book in her hand, which she placed face down upon the top of the desk beside her as she rose to her feet. Then, coming to the side of the bunk, she bent over me and gazed into my eyes. Gradually a little smile of gratification illuminated her somewhat pale and worn features and her eyes, which, I noticed, had a very weary look, as though from prolonged sleeplessness.
Presently, as I smiled in answer, she spoke.
“You are feeling better, Wal—Mr Leigh?” she asked. “Do you know me?”
“Assuredly, Miss Anthea,” I answered. “Why should I not know you?” I spoke with most disconcerting difficulty; my words halted, and my lips seemed scarcely capable of forming them.
“Oh! but that is splendid,” she exclaimed, straightening her body and clasping her hands together after the manner of a girl who hears good news. “You are feeling better?” she persisted.
“Have I been ill, then?” I stupidly asked. Indeed my mind was at that moment tenanted merely by a mass of most confused and incoherent memories, of which I could make little or nothing.
“You have indeed,” she replied; “dreadfully ill, raving in delirium, and so violent that it is a miracle you did not do yourself or some of us a serious injury. But,” she continued, stopping me as I attempted to speak, “thank God, that is over now, I hope; and all that remains is for you to take as much nourishment as you can, do as you are told, and get well and strong again as quickly as possible. I must run away and leave you for a few minutes to tell Momma the good news, and arrange to have some food prepared for you.”
With a nod and a smile of encouragement she left the cabin, and a minute or two later Mrs Vansittart entered it. She stepped quickly up to the side of my bunk, looked at me, and presently laid her slim, cool fingers upon my pulse, holding them there for several seconds.
“Ah!” she commented, as she removed them at length, “I guess you are oceans better than you were at this time yesterday. The fever is gone, and your skin is delightfully cool and moist; moreover, you are in your right mind once more, and that is something gained. I expect the wound in your head is healing, although we haven’t been able to look at it properly for nearly a week. But we will attend to it now, as soon as you have taken a little food. My stars, Walter, we have had a time with you! Lucky for us all that you have taken it into your head to become sensible again, or I guess we’d all have been sick people in another day or two. Do you know how long you’ve been ill?”
“No,” I answered; “but I am afraid that it has been much too long. I don’t know where to find words in which to express my regret for—”
“Regret!” she repeated. “Regret nothing! You couldn’t help it, my dear boy. You got hurt in defending us, and it was just our duty to look after and nurse you as best we could; and that is all there is to it. You have been ill ten whole days. This is the eleventh morning since the junk appeared. During the best part of those ten days you have been raving in delirium, with occasional outbreaks of violence, when it taxed the energies of all five of us to the utmost to restrain you. Oh, I guess we have had some very lively times with you, Walter, off and on! But, thank God! that is all over now and—Ah! here comes Lizette with some broth for you. We have been hoping for this change for the last five or six hours, and have got all ready for it.
“Now, Lizette, I guess you’ve got to climb right up on to this chair, seat yourself on the edge of the bunk, and support Mr Leigh in a sitting posture while I feed him. Take care that you don’t hurt his head. So—that’s right; lean back against the head of the bunk, and rest his head against your shoulder. Gently, girl, gently! I reckon the poor boy is aching all over with weakness. There, that’s all right! Are you pretty comfortable, Walter? Good! Now then, all that you’ve got to do is, just drink this broth right away, rest yourself for a spell, and then I’ll come along again and dress that wound on your head.”
Chapter Fourteen.The Gale.Another week elapsed before I could convince Mrs Vansittart that I was strong enough to be permitted to rise from my bunk and sit in a chair for a short time; but after that my recovery was rapid. My wound healed nicely, my strength returned, and five days later I was able to dress and, with assistance, make my way up on to the main-deck, where Julius, helped by the others—with a forethought for which I should certainly never have given him credit—had rigged up a sort of makeshift awning for my especial benefit. I learned, with the utmost satisfaction, that since the memorable morning of the junk’s appearance the boy had behaved with almost unbelievable goodness. The talking-to which he had received from his sister seemed to have awakened his better nature, and now they assured me that—as indeed it seemed—he was everything that could be desired. Of one thing at least there could be no possible mistake: his strange antipathy to me had entirely vanished, and he now seemed anxious to be as friendly and agreeable as before he had been objectionable.It was nearly six weeks after the appearance of the junk when at length I felt strong enough to resume my boat-building operations, and even then I was only able at first to do such comparatively light work as shaping and planing planks. Gradually, however, I got back again to the heavier work which came from time to time when it was necessary to shift the framework of the hull while working upon it. Every day witnessed a certain amount of progress, until at length the open shell was finished and caulked. Then by our combined efforts we placed the boat in position ready for launching, bows first, off our sloping deck, since she was now so heavy that no further lifting would be possible. This brought the time on to five months and a few days from the date of the wreck, during the whole of which period we had been favoured with glorious weather, except for a few days of calms, accompanied by heavy rain, about the time when I was emerging from my state of delirium.But a few days after we had completed the shell of the boat, and while I was preparing the planking with which to lay her deck, there occurred signs of a change. The wind, which usually blew a moderate breeze from the eastward, died away to a calm, and the sky became veiled by a thin film of haze that gradually thickened until the sun was completely blotted out. The atmosphere grew almost unbearably sultry, so that we seemed to breathe only with the utmost difficulty, while work, even the lightest, became almost impossible. The barometer fell so rapidly that even the veriest tyro in weather lore could not have mistaken the signs; and that night, or rather in the small hours of morning, a thunderstorm broke over us, the like of which for violence and duration I had never seen.It started dry, and for four hours the heavens were incessantly ablaze with lightnings, the vividness and alarming character of which it is quite impossible to describe, while the continuous crash of thunder, immediately overhead as it seemed, was terrific, causing the very wreck herself to tremble with its vibrations. As I left my cabin and went up on deck to watch it, I felt that sooner or later the wreck must inevitably be struck; and indeed I frequently thought she actually had been, for the lightning seemed to be playing all about her. But I suppose she escaped somehow; or at least, if she was struck, no apparent damage was done.Then, about the time when daylight was beginning to make itself apparent, it suddenly began to rain, the warm fresh water from the clouds pelting down in a perfect deluge and totally obscuring everything beyond a hundred yards’ radius. The water poured off the decks in cataracts, while from the poop it gushed through a scupper which discharged on to the main-deck as though flowing from the spout of a pump. In ten minutes the decks were as effectually cleansed as though they had been scrubbed with soap and water. Thinking it a pity that so much delicious fresh water should be permitted to run to waste, I went below and brought up several small breakers and proceeded to fill them, one after the other, until I had the lot, numbering about twenty, brimming full. And all this time the thunderstorm continued to rage with unabated fury.The filling of the breakers during the continuance of that terrific deluge naturally resulted in my getting wet through to the skin. Upon the completion of my task, therefore, I retired to my cabin and effected a complete change of garments; and I had barely finished my toilet when I heard the sound of the gong summoning the party to breakfast.While I was discarding my drenched garments and donning dry ones, I became aware of the fact that the thunderstorm was at last easing up a little. The lightning flashes were no longer a continuous blaze; the thunder no longer was one continuous, uninterrupted crash and crackle and boom, like the firing of two enormous fleets engaged in fighting a fiercely-contested action, but each peal was separate and distinct, with momentarily increasing intervals between the peals. Thus when we presently met and sat down to breakfast, conversation of a sort was possible, although by no means easy. The topic of the moment was of course the storm, and I was not at all surprised to learn that the entire party had been thoroughly terrified, and were by no means reassured even now, when if was indisputable that the storm was passing.We were all rather inclined to be silent at that meal. Mrs Vansittart and her daughter both confessed to the possession of distracting headaches, the result, no doubt, of their terror, and even Julius was in a distinctly subdued mood; nobody but myself ate at all heartily, and I think they were all glad when I laid down my knife and fork and made it possible for them to rise from the table. The ladies and Julius announced their intention to retire to their respective cabins in the hope of obtaining relief in slumber; and as work on deck was quite out of the question so long as the rain continued, I decided to follow their example, having myself lost some hours of sleep. I accordingly carried out my resolution, and soon sank into a condition of semi-oblivion, during which I was only partially conscious of the fact that, although the rain was still sluicing in torrents, the thunder and lightning had dwindled away to a few distant rumblings and occasional flashes. Finally this consciousness also passed and I fell sound asleep.When I awoke rather more than an hour later, I at once became aware that both the rain and the thunder had entirely ceased. It was still so dark that until I referred to my watch I had the impression that I must have overslept myself, and that the night was coming on. Then I flung open the port of my cabin, which had been closed to exclude the rain, and, poking my head out, saw that the sky was still overcast with enormous masses of blackish, lurid-looking cloud which, as I watched, I saw were working slowly in a strange writhing fashion, as though agitated by several conflicting internal forces.I went up on deck, and observed that the overcast condition of the sky, of which I had obtained a partial view from my cabin port, extended in every direction, right down to the horizon. A visit to the chart-house revealed the fact that the barometer still stood alarmingly low; and it was this fact, perhaps, in conjunction with the disquieting aspect of the sky, that subconsciously awakened in me a sudden anxiety to hasten my work upon the craft which, for want of a better name, I have spoken of as a boat.Be that as it may, I remember that I flung off the light jacket which, for appearance’ sake, I wore at meal times and when otherwise in the company of the ladies, and set to work as though my very life depended upon it. As I have already mentioned, the shell of the boat was finished, caulked, and placed in position ready for launching; and in addition to this the beams upon which the deck was to be laid were fitted and fixed, and the planking planed up and roughly cut to shape. My next task, therefore, was to complete the fitting of the planks and the nailing of them in position, which I at once proceeded to do, with the fixed determination to finish the job before dark. This determination I carried out, although it necessitated my working for an hour by lantern light; and when at length I knocked off, I had the satisfaction of leaving the boat completely decked with the exception of the cockpit, the coaming of which I also insisted on fixing before I could persuade myself to lay down my tools.The day had been one of lowering, breathless calm, with an insufferably close atmosphere that rendered hard work exceedingly trying, and the black, working canopy of cloud that overhung us continued to writhe and twist itself into the most extraordinary shapes, while it showed no sign of dispersing. This state of affairs continued until about four o’clock in the afternoon, when a light, puffy, southerly breeze sprang up which gradually freshened until, when at length I ceased work for the day, it was blowing quite gustily, while a sea came rolling in over the reef that soon caused the wreck occasionally to rock lightly upon her coral bed.I was very tired after my strenuous labours that day; moreover, I had not yet fully recovered the strength that I had lost during my illness; therefore, under ordinary circumstances, I should have gone to my cabin and turned in soon after dinner. But as it was, I felt uneasy. I did not at all like the look of the weather; I felt convinced that we were booked for a blow, possibly a heavy one; and a further reference to the barometer fully confirmed me in that conviction. If my foreboding should prove to be correct, what would be the probable result? Should the wreck but remain where she was, we would no doubt be all right, and nothing worse would befall us than possibly an unpleasant and anxious night. But if she did not, what then? She would gradually bump her way over the few yards of the inner edge of the reef and then reach the lagoon, in which she would probably founder, unless, indeed, she remained afloat long enough to drive across it and fetch up again on the opposite reef.That was a possibility that I had long since recognised; but now, as I looked out into the night and dimly saw the breakers thundering in upon the outer end of the reef, shattering themselves into a wall of madly-leaping water thirty feet high, and then continuing their course across the reef in the form of foam-flecked waves, the power of which was rapidly dissipated as they swept inward toward the wreck, I began to doubt whether theStella Mariswould ever again shift her berth. It is true that those waves, as they swirled and foamed about her, had power enough to cause the hull to rock a little now and again; but as to lifting her bodily and throwing her into the lagoon—well, I thought it unlikely. I reflected that when, in the first instance, she piled herself up, there was a strong breeze blowing and a heavy sea running, and that she had hit the reef stem-on under a heavy press of sail; yet she had not then been flung right across the reef. The seas had brought her so far, and then their power had failed to move her an inch farther. Why should not that be the case now?There was something comforting, almost reassuring, about this line of argument; yet at the back of my mind there was another something that seemed to tell me I must not take my data too much for granted—that there was another possibility of which I must not permit myself quite to lose sight. I therefore set myself to answer the question, in the event of that other possibility happening, How were we to meet it? There was but one answer—with the boat; and unfinished and destitute of equipment as she was, we should undoubtedly be obliged to trust ourselves to her if the worst came to the worst.This point settled, the next question I asked myself was: What should we require to take with us, supposing that it should come to our being obliged to take to the boat in a hurry—that night, in fact? Provisions and water, of course, in such abundance as the boat’s capacity would permit; a pair of oars, a coil of line, a baler, a bucket, a few tools; say, half a dozen rifles, and a good supply of ammunition for same. But why tools? I may be asked. Because if once we were compelled to trust ourselves to a boat without mast or sails, we should be compelled to go practically wherever the wind chose to drive us, and that might be to an uninhabited island, where tools would be worth their weight in gold.The carpenter’s chest stood on the deck close by the boat—I had been using the tools only a few hours earlier—and the thought came to me that they might as well be in as out of her. I therefore emptied the chest, since it was too heavy for me to lift full, and, having decided upon the most suitable spot for it, I stowed it inside the boat, and then proceeded carefully to replace its contents. This done, I hunted up a pair of twelve-foot oars and put them aboard; found a pair of rowlocks, and then, remembering that I had as yet made no provision for shipping them, proceeded to cut out a good stout pair of cleats, which I firmly secured to the gunwale of the boat. There was plenty of rope lying about the deck, neatly done up in coils—the salvage of the running gear; and from this I selected the mizen topgallant halyard as of suitable size, putting it into the boat, unstopping it, and bending one end to a hole in the stem head which I bored for the purpose.Having gone so far, I decided that I would complete my preparations, so that in the event of our being driven to the last extremity, we might be ready. I considered a little as to what I would next put into the boat, and fixed upon a case of ammunition, which I would stow alongside the carpenter’s chest, it being desirable, in order to secure stability, that the heaviest articles should be at the bottom. Accordingly I dived below to the magazine. Now, our Remington-rifle cartridges were done up in small tin boxes of one hundred each, sealed up in air-tight tin cases, which were in turn stowed in stout wooden chests each containing one hundred tins; consequently each chest contained ten thousand rounds. This was a large quantity, yet not too large, I decided, considering the uncertainties of our position; I therefore emptied a case—which, apart from its contents, was fairly heavy to drag up on deck—carried it up to the boat, stowed it in position, and then returned for the small tin cases.The transport and stowage of these occupied some time, involving several journeys up and down between the deck and the magazine, and when I had finished this job I was distinctly tired. Nevertheless I brought up six Remingtons, a cutlass, a brace of automatic pistols, and a box of cartridges for the latter, and stowed them all in the boat before knocking off for a rest. The work had given me an appetite, and since it was now close upon midnight, I went below and routed out a good substantial cold meal, which I consumed while I rested. Then—why attempt to conceal the truth?—overcome, I suppose, by my unusual and protracted exertions, I fell asleep as I sat.I remember that as I slept I dreamed that we were away back there at the entrance to the Straits of Malacca, where we lost the blades of our propeller. I felt again the shock of our collision with the supposed wreckage to which we attributed the loss, and the start I gave awoke me. I instantly became aware that it was blowing heavily, for the howl and whoop of the gale came distinctly to my ears; also the wreck was rolling heavily from side to side, and for a moment I thought she was afloat, until her harsh grinding upon the coral reached me above the tumultuous crying of the wind. I staggered to my feet, for I realised that matters were becoming serious. At that instant I felt the hull lift as the wreck heeled over, and come down again with a jar that all but jolted me off my feet; also, unless I was greatly mistaken, I caught, among the other sounds, the thud of water falling heavily on deck.I made a spring for the ladder, and in a couple of seconds was out on deck, to find myself in the midst of a living gale. Coming up out of a lighted room, I found the night intensely dark; yet as I stood there by the open hatchway, clinging to the main fife-rail, I presently became dimly aware of my more immediate surroundings. As it chanced, it was about the time of full moon, and although the planet herself was completely hidden by the dense masses of cloud that drove wildly athwart the firmament, her light filtered through. Presently I was able to see as far as the outer edge of the reef, where the surf, brilliantly phosphorescent, plunged madly down upon it and burst into leaping fountains of spray that came driving over the wreck like heavy rain, though I knew it was not rain by the bitter, salt taste of it on my lips. The surface of the water all round the wreck and on either hand—in fact, over the whole of the weather portion of the reef—was a mass of swirling, phosphorescent foam, which rose and fell as the rollers came sweeping across the reef. It was these rollers that were causing the ship to roll on her bed of coral, while occasionally one heavier than the others would lift her bodily, break furiously over her, and shift her a foot or more toward the inner edge of the reef, as I judged by the feel of her, before it dashed her down again.Instinctively my glances flew to where the boat should lie. Yes, thank God! she was still where I had left her, held down mainly, I believed, by the weight of the things that I had put in her, for when a sea broke over the deck the water surged past her to leeward with quite weight enough to wash her off had she been empty. I rushed at her, snatched the rope which I had bent to her stem head, led it across the deck to the stump of a stanchion, and made it fast with a clove hitch, thus ensuring that the boat should not be washed off the deck so long as the rope held. Then I stood for a minute or two, looking about me and taking careful note of all the details of the situation.It was in all essentials the complete realisation of the fear which had haunted me ever since the wreck, and which, but a short time before, I had been inclined to deride as highly improbable—the gale, the heavy sea sweeping in across the reef, and the only question whether the wreck would be battered to pieces where she lay or be washed off to founder in the deeper water of the lagoon. A heavier sea than any that had preceded it, surging in at that moment and making a clean breach over the wreck, washed me off my feet, and would have swept me overboard had I not chanced to have in my hand the rope by which I had secured the boat. It lifted the wreck, slued her nearly half round, and swept her a good fathom nearer that danger point, the inner edge of the reef; and I began to realise that the peril was imminent, and momentarily growing more so, and that immediate action was necessary.Without pausing to consider further, I rushed below and hammered at the cabin doors of Anthea and Julius, which were contiguous; and upon receiving a reply, shouted to them to dress at once and join me with all speed in the drawing-room. Then I sped to the stewardesses’ quarters, roused them, and finally made my way to Mrs Vansittart’s cabin, where I met the lady, fully dressed, just emerging.She must have read in my countenance that there was trouble ahead, for she came forward at once with outstretched hands, exclaiming:“What is it, Walter? Does this dreadful gale mean danger to us?”“It does indeed, madam, I greatly fear,” I replied; and I proceeded to explain the situation rapidly to her. While I was doing so, Anthea and her brother made their appearance.Naturally, they were all greatly discomposed at my statement of the imminence of our danger, but never for a moment did they flinch. On the contrary, the women appeared to be a good deal more calm and composed than I was. They asked what they were to do, and when I told them, set to work quietly but expeditiously collecting a quantity of food of various kinds in tins, being assisted in this by the two stewardesses, who now came upon the scene.Meanwhile, the wreck had been bumping more and more heavily as we stood and hurriedly conversed; sea after sea had broken over her, with ever-increasing violence, and I was now in a very fever of anxiety touching the safety of the boat. As soon, therefore, as I had started my little crew to work, I rushed out on deck again, to see how matters were going there.I was no sooner in the open than I perceived that, even during my short absence from the deck, the conditions had changed very materially for the worse. The wind was now blowing with hurricane force, and evidently piling up the water on the reef, for the seas that now swept across it were momentarily gaining in power and weight, almost every one that reached the wreck lifting her bodily and shifting her a fathom or so, ever in the fatal direction of the edge of the reef. But the worst feature of the case, after all, was that, while shifting the wreck, the seas had canted her, so that she now lay fair and square broadside on to them, and every one that struck her made a clean breach over her, and threatened either to destroy or to sweep away our boat. This, even as I stood, was lifted, and would have been washed away but for the restraint of the rope by which I had secured her. I could see plainly, however, that the rope would not bear the strain much longer than a few minutes, or perhaps even seconds, and that if we should lose the boat our doom would be sealed. I therefore rushed back to the drawing-room, called the little party together, bade them take as much as they could carry, and, watching their chance, make a dash for the boat. I set the example by gathering in my arms as many tins and bottles as my hands and arms would hold, rushed out on deck, just missed being washed overboard, and hurriedly tumbled my load into the cockpit anyhow. Then I suddenly remembered that as yet there was no water in the boat, and I dashed aft to where I had left the water breakers which I had filled with rain water, passing the other members of the party on my way.“Do not attempt to return for another load,” I shouted to them as I passed; “get into the boat and stow yourselves under her deck; your weight will be more useful there than anywhere else. I will attend to the rest.” Seizing one of the breakers, I proceeded to roll it quickly along the deck until, after a hazardous and adventurous journey, I arrived at the boat, into which, with Julius’s assistance, I lifted it. We both got into the cockpit to stow the breaker securely—the women having already entered and stowed themselves away—when, just as matters were satisfactorily arranged and I was in the very act of leaving the boat to secure another armful of provisions, a tremendous sea struck the wreck, heeling her over until her starboard waterway was buried. The breaking sea swept the deck like a cataract, lifting the boat clean off it, just as I sprang back into the cockpit; there was a little jerk and a twang as the rope parted, and in an instant we were afloat and driving rapidly away to leeward across the lagoon.
Another week elapsed before I could convince Mrs Vansittart that I was strong enough to be permitted to rise from my bunk and sit in a chair for a short time; but after that my recovery was rapid. My wound healed nicely, my strength returned, and five days later I was able to dress and, with assistance, make my way up on to the main-deck, where Julius, helped by the others—with a forethought for which I should certainly never have given him credit—had rigged up a sort of makeshift awning for my especial benefit. I learned, with the utmost satisfaction, that since the memorable morning of the junk’s appearance the boy had behaved with almost unbelievable goodness. The talking-to which he had received from his sister seemed to have awakened his better nature, and now they assured me that—as indeed it seemed—he was everything that could be desired. Of one thing at least there could be no possible mistake: his strange antipathy to me had entirely vanished, and he now seemed anxious to be as friendly and agreeable as before he had been objectionable.
It was nearly six weeks after the appearance of the junk when at length I felt strong enough to resume my boat-building operations, and even then I was only able at first to do such comparatively light work as shaping and planing planks. Gradually, however, I got back again to the heavier work which came from time to time when it was necessary to shift the framework of the hull while working upon it. Every day witnessed a certain amount of progress, until at length the open shell was finished and caulked. Then by our combined efforts we placed the boat in position ready for launching, bows first, off our sloping deck, since she was now so heavy that no further lifting would be possible. This brought the time on to five months and a few days from the date of the wreck, during the whole of which period we had been favoured with glorious weather, except for a few days of calms, accompanied by heavy rain, about the time when I was emerging from my state of delirium.
But a few days after we had completed the shell of the boat, and while I was preparing the planking with which to lay her deck, there occurred signs of a change. The wind, which usually blew a moderate breeze from the eastward, died away to a calm, and the sky became veiled by a thin film of haze that gradually thickened until the sun was completely blotted out. The atmosphere grew almost unbearably sultry, so that we seemed to breathe only with the utmost difficulty, while work, even the lightest, became almost impossible. The barometer fell so rapidly that even the veriest tyro in weather lore could not have mistaken the signs; and that night, or rather in the small hours of morning, a thunderstorm broke over us, the like of which for violence and duration I had never seen.
It started dry, and for four hours the heavens were incessantly ablaze with lightnings, the vividness and alarming character of which it is quite impossible to describe, while the continuous crash of thunder, immediately overhead as it seemed, was terrific, causing the very wreck herself to tremble with its vibrations. As I left my cabin and went up on deck to watch it, I felt that sooner or later the wreck must inevitably be struck; and indeed I frequently thought she actually had been, for the lightning seemed to be playing all about her. But I suppose she escaped somehow; or at least, if she was struck, no apparent damage was done.
Then, about the time when daylight was beginning to make itself apparent, it suddenly began to rain, the warm fresh water from the clouds pelting down in a perfect deluge and totally obscuring everything beyond a hundred yards’ radius. The water poured off the decks in cataracts, while from the poop it gushed through a scupper which discharged on to the main-deck as though flowing from the spout of a pump. In ten minutes the decks were as effectually cleansed as though they had been scrubbed with soap and water. Thinking it a pity that so much delicious fresh water should be permitted to run to waste, I went below and brought up several small breakers and proceeded to fill them, one after the other, until I had the lot, numbering about twenty, brimming full. And all this time the thunderstorm continued to rage with unabated fury.
The filling of the breakers during the continuance of that terrific deluge naturally resulted in my getting wet through to the skin. Upon the completion of my task, therefore, I retired to my cabin and effected a complete change of garments; and I had barely finished my toilet when I heard the sound of the gong summoning the party to breakfast.
While I was discarding my drenched garments and donning dry ones, I became aware of the fact that the thunderstorm was at last easing up a little. The lightning flashes were no longer a continuous blaze; the thunder no longer was one continuous, uninterrupted crash and crackle and boom, like the firing of two enormous fleets engaged in fighting a fiercely-contested action, but each peal was separate and distinct, with momentarily increasing intervals between the peals. Thus when we presently met and sat down to breakfast, conversation of a sort was possible, although by no means easy. The topic of the moment was of course the storm, and I was not at all surprised to learn that the entire party had been thoroughly terrified, and were by no means reassured even now, when if was indisputable that the storm was passing.
We were all rather inclined to be silent at that meal. Mrs Vansittart and her daughter both confessed to the possession of distracting headaches, the result, no doubt, of their terror, and even Julius was in a distinctly subdued mood; nobody but myself ate at all heartily, and I think they were all glad when I laid down my knife and fork and made it possible for them to rise from the table. The ladies and Julius announced their intention to retire to their respective cabins in the hope of obtaining relief in slumber; and as work on deck was quite out of the question so long as the rain continued, I decided to follow their example, having myself lost some hours of sleep. I accordingly carried out my resolution, and soon sank into a condition of semi-oblivion, during which I was only partially conscious of the fact that, although the rain was still sluicing in torrents, the thunder and lightning had dwindled away to a few distant rumblings and occasional flashes. Finally this consciousness also passed and I fell sound asleep.
When I awoke rather more than an hour later, I at once became aware that both the rain and the thunder had entirely ceased. It was still so dark that until I referred to my watch I had the impression that I must have overslept myself, and that the night was coming on. Then I flung open the port of my cabin, which had been closed to exclude the rain, and, poking my head out, saw that the sky was still overcast with enormous masses of blackish, lurid-looking cloud which, as I watched, I saw were working slowly in a strange writhing fashion, as though agitated by several conflicting internal forces.
I went up on deck, and observed that the overcast condition of the sky, of which I had obtained a partial view from my cabin port, extended in every direction, right down to the horizon. A visit to the chart-house revealed the fact that the barometer still stood alarmingly low; and it was this fact, perhaps, in conjunction with the disquieting aspect of the sky, that subconsciously awakened in me a sudden anxiety to hasten my work upon the craft which, for want of a better name, I have spoken of as a boat.
Be that as it may, I remember that I flung off the light jacket which, for appearance’ sake, I wore at meal times and when otherwise in the company of the ladies, and set to work as though my very life depended upon it. As I have already mentioned, the shell of the boat was finished, caulked, and placed in position ready for launching; and in addition to this the beams upon which the deck was to be laid were fitted and fixed, and the planking planed up and roughly cut to shape. My next task, therefore, was to complete the fitting of the planks and the nailing of them in position, which I at once proceeded to do, with the fixed determination to finish the job before dark. This determination I carried out, although it necessitated my working for an hour by lantern light; and when at length I knocked off, I had the satisfaction of leaving the boat completely decked with the exception of the cockpit, the coaming of which I also insisted on fixing before I could persuade myself to lay down my tools.
The day had been one of lowering, breathless calm, with an insufferably close atmosphere that rendered hard work exceedingly trying, and the black, working canopy of cloud that overhung us continued to writhe and twist itself into the most extraordinary shapes, while it showed no sign of dispersing. This state of affairs continued until about four o’clock in the afternoon, when a light, puffy, southerly breeze sprang up which gradually freshened until, when at length I ceased work for the day, it was blowing quite gustily, while a sea came rolling in over the reef that soon caused the wreck occasionally to rock lightly upon her coral bed.
I was very tired after my strenuous labours that day; moreover, I had not yet fully recovered the strength that I had lost during my illness; therefore, under ordinary circumstances, I should have gone to my cabin and turned in soon after dinner. But as it was, I felt uneasy. I did not at all like the look of the weather; I felt convinced that we were booked for a blow, possibly a heavy one; and a further reference to the barometer fully confirmed me in that conviction. If my foreboding should prove to be correct, what would be the probable result? Should the wreck but remain where she was, we would no doubt be all right, and nothing worse would befall us than possibly an unpleasant and anxious night. But if she did not, what then? She would gradually bump her way over the few yards of the inner edge of the reef and then reach the lagoon, in which she would probably founder, unless, indeed, she remained afloat long enough to drive across it and fetch up again on the opposite reef.
That was a possibility that I had long since recognised; but now, as I looked out into the night and dimly saw the breakers thundering in upon the outer end of the reef, shattering themselves into a wall of madly-leaping water thirty feet high, and then continuing their course across the reef in the form of foam-flecked waves, the power of which was rapidly dissipated as they swept inward toward the wreck, I began to doubt whether theStella Mariswould ever again shift her berth. It is true that those waves, as they swirled and foamed about her, had power enough to cause the hull to rock a little now and again; but as to lifting her bodily and throwing her into the lagoon—well, I thought it unlikely. I reflected that when, in the first instance, she piled herself up, there was a strong breeze blowing and a heavy sea running, and that she had hit the reef stem-on under a heavy press of sail; yet she had not then been flung right across the reef. The seas had brought her so far, and then their power had failed to move her an inch farther. Why should not that be the case now?
There was something comforting, almost reassuring, about this line of argument; yet at the back of my mind there was another something that seemed to tell me I must not take my data too much for granted—that there was another possibility of which I must not permit myself quite to lose sight. I therefore set myself to answer the question, in the event of that other possibility happening, How were we to meet it? There was but one answer—with the boat; and unfinished and destitute of equipment as she was, we should undoubtedly be obliged to trust ourselves to her if the worst came to the worst.
This point settled, the next question I asked myself was: What should we require to take with us, supposing that it should come to our being obliged to take to the boat in a hurry—that night, in fact? Provisions and water, of course, in such abundance as the boat’s capacity would permit; a pair of oars, a coil of line, a baler, a bucket, a few tools; say, half a dozen rifles, and a good supply of ammunition for same. But why tools? I may be asked. Because if once we were compelled to trust ourselves to a boat without mast or sails, we should be compelled to go practically wherever the wind chose to drive us, and that might be to an uninhabited island, where tools would be worth their weight in gold.
The carpenter’s chest stood on the deck close by the boat—I had been using the tools only a few hours earlier—and the thought came to me that they might as well be in as out of her. I therefore emptied the chest, since it was too heavy for me to lift full, and, having decided upon the most suitable spot for it, I stowed it inside the boat, and then proceeded carefully to replace its contents. This done, I hunted up a pair of twelve-foot oars and put them aboard; found a pair of rowlocks, and then, remembering that I had as yet made no provision for shipping them, proceeded to cut out a good stout pair of cleats, which I firmly secured to the gunwale of the boat. There was plenty of rope lying about the deck, neatly done up in coils—the salvage of the running gear; and from this I selected the mizen topgallant halyard as of suitable size, putting it into the boat, unstopping it, and bending one end to a hole in the stem head which I bored for the purpose.
Having gone so far, I decided that I would complete my preparations, so that in the event of our being driven to the last extremity, we might be ready. I considered a little as to what I would next put into the boat, and fixed upon a case of ammunition, which I would stow alongside the carpenter’s chest, it being desirable, in order to secure stability, that the heaviest articles should be at the bottom. Accordingly I dived below to the magazine. Now, our Remington-rifle cartridges were done up in small tin boxes of one hundred each, sealed up in air-tight tin cases, which were in turn stowed in stout wooden chests each containing one hundred tins; consequently each chest contained ten thousand rounds. This was a large quantity, yet not too large, I decided, considering the uncertainties of our position; I therefore emptied a case—which, apart from its contents, was fairly heavy to drag up on deck—carried it up to the boat, stowed it in position, and then returned for the small tin cases.
The transport and stowage of these occupied some time, involving several journeys up and down between the deck and the magazine, and when I had finished this job I was distinctly tired. Nevertheless I brought up six Remingtons, a cutlass, a brace of automatic pistols, and a box of cartridges for the latter, and stowed them all in the boat before knocking off for a rest. The work had given me an appetite, and since it was now close upon midnight, I went below and routed out a good substantial cold meal, which I consumed while I rested. Then—why attempt to conceal the truth?—overcome, I suppose, by my unusual and protracted exertions, I fell asleep as I sat.
I remember that as I slept I dreamed that we were away back there at the entrance to the Straits of Malacca, where we lost the blades of our propeller. I felt again the shock of our collision with the supposed wreckage to which we attributed the loss, and the start I gave awoke me. I instantly became aware that it was blowing heavily, for the howl and whoop of the gale came distinctly to my ears; also the wreck was rolling heavily from side to side, and for a moment I thought she was afloat, until her harsh grinding upon the coral reached me above the tumultuous crying of the wind. I staggered to my feet, for I realised that matters were becoming serious. At that instant I felt the hull lift as the wreck heeled over, and come down again with a jar that all but jolted me off my feet; also, unless I was greatly mistaken, I caught, among the other sounds, the thud of water falling heavily on deck.
I made a spring for the ladder, and in a couple of seconds was out on deck, to find myself in the midst of a living gale. Coming up out of a lighted room, I found the night intensely dark; yet as I stood there by the open hatchway, clinging to the main fife-rail, I presently became dimly aware of my more immediate surroundings. As it chanced, it was about the time of full moon, and although the planet herself was completely hidden by the dense masses of cloud that drove wildly athwart the firmament, her light filtered through. Presently I was able to see as far as the outer edge of the reef, where the surf, brilliantly phosphorescent, plunged madly down upon it and burst into leaping fountains of spray that came driving over the wreck like heavy rain, though I knew it was not rain by the bitter, salt taste of it on my lips. The surface of the water all round the wreck and on either hand—in fact, over the whole of the weather portion of the reef—was a mass of swirling, phosphorescent foam, which rose and fell as the rollers came sweeping across the reef. It was these rollers that were causing the ship to roll on her bed of coral, while occasionally one heavier than the others would lift her bodily, break furiously over her, and shift her a foot or more toward the inner edge of the reef, as I judged by the feel of her, before it dashed her down again.
Instinctively my glances flew to where the boat should lie. Yes, thank God! she was still where I had left her, held down mainly, I believed, by the weight of the things that I had put in her, for when a sea broke over the deck the water surged past her to leeward with quite weight enough to wash her off had she been empty. I rushed at her, snatched the rope which I had bent to her stem head, led it across the deck to the stump of a stanchion, and made it fast with a clove hitch, thus ensuring that the boat should not be washed off the deck so long as the rope held. Then I stood for a minute or two, looking about me and taking careful note of all the details of the situation.
It was in all essentials the complete realisation of the fear which had haunted me ever since the wreck, and which, but a short time before, I had been inclined to deride as highly improbable—the gale, the heavy sea sweeping in across the reef, and the only question whether the wreck would be battered to pieces where she lay or be washed off to founder in the deeper water of the lagoon. A heavier sea than any that had preceded it, surging in at that moment and making a clean breach over the wreck, washed me off my feet, and would have swept me overboard had I not chanced to have in my hand the rope by which I had secured the boat. It lifted the wreck, slued her nearly half round, and swept her a good fathom nearer that danger point, the inner edge of the reef; and I began to realise that the peril was imminent, and momentarily growing more so, and that immediate action was necessary.
Without pausing to consider further, I rushed below and hammered at the cabin doors of Anthea and Julius, which were contiguous; and upon receiving a reply, shouted to them to dress at once and join me with all speed in the drawing-room. Then I sped to the stewardesses’ quarters, roused them, and finally made my way to Mrs Vansittart’s cabin, where I met the lady, fully dressed, just emerging.
She must have read in my countenance that there was trouble ahead, for she came forward at once with outstretched hands, exclaiming:
“What is it, Walter? Does this dreadful gale mean danger to us?”
“It does indeed, madam, I greatly fear,” I replied; and I proceeded to explain the situation rapidly to her. While I was doing so, Anthea and her brother made their appearance.
Naturally, they were all greatly discomposed at my statement of the imminence of our danger, but never for a moment did they flinch. On the contrary, the women appeared to be a good deal more calm and composed than I was. They asked what they were to do, and when I told them, set to work quietly but expeditiously collecting a quantity of food of various kinds in tins, being assisted in this by the two stewardesses, who now came upon the scene.
Meanwhile, the wreck had been bumping more and more heavily as we stood and hurriedly conversed; sea after sea had broken over her, with ever-increasing violence, and I was now in a very fever of anxiety touching the safety of the boat. As soon, therefore, as I had started my little crew to work, I rushed out on deck again, to see how matters were going there.
I was no sooner in the open than I perceived that, even during my short absence from the deck, the conditions had changed very materially for the worse. The wind was now blowing with hurricane force, and evidently piling up the water on the reef, for the seas that now swept across it were momentarily gaining in power and weight, almost every one that reached the wreck lifting her bodily and shifting her a fathom or so, ever in the fatal direction of the edge of the reef. But the worst feature of the case, after all, was that, while shifting the wreck, the seas had canted her, so that she now lay fair and square broadside on to them, and every one that struck her made a clean breach over her, and threatened either to destroy or to sweep away our boat. This, even as I stood, was lifted, and would have been washed away but for the restraint of the rope by which I had secured her. I could see plainly, however, that the rope would not bear the strain much longer than a few minutes, or perhaps even seconds, and that if we should lose the boat our doom would be sealed. I therefore rushed back to the drawing-room, called the little party together, bade them take as much as they could carry, and, watching their chance, make a dash for the boat. I set the example by gathering in my arms as many tins and bottles as my hands and arms would hold, rushed out on deck, just missed being washed overboard, and hurriedly tumbled my load into the cockpit anyhow. Then I suddenly remembered that as yet there was no water in the boat, and I dashed aft to where I had left the water breakers which I had filled with rain water, passing the other members of the party on my way.
“Do not attempt to return for another load,” I shouted to them as I passed; “get into the boat and stow yourselves under her deck; your weight will be more useful there than anywhere else. I will attend to the rest.” Seizing one of the breakers, I proceeded to roll it quickly along the deck until, after a hazardous and adventurous journey, I arrived at the boat, into which, with Julius’s assistance, I lifted it. We both got into the cockpit to stow the breaker securely—the women having already entered and stowed themselves away—when, just as matters were satisfactorily arranged and I was in the very act of leaving the boat to secure another armful of provisions, a tremendous sea struck the wreck, heeling her over until her starboard waterway was buried. The breaking sea swept the deck like a cataract, lifting the boat clean off it, just as I sprang back into the cockpit; there was a little jerk and a twang as the rope parted, and in an instant we were afloat and driving rapidly away to leeward across the lagoon.