CHAPTER XXXVIISAVED BY A MIRACLE
Serge had noticed for some time that the movements of the tiny craft in which he and Phil Ryder were navigating the mighty waters of Bering Sea were heavy and lagging. It seemed to have lost life and buoyancy. Instead of gliding smoothly through the water, it seemed to drag, as though its bottom were foul with grasses or barnacles. Serge of course knew that this could not be the case, and, after puzzling over the matter for some time, concluded that the fault did not lie so much with the boat as in its exhausted crew, who no longer possessed the strength necessary to force it ahead with the same speed as formerly.
All at once he felt a movement of the bidarkie’s skin between its wide-spread ribs, and heard a peculiar sobbing or sucking sound that instantly explained the situation. It also filled him with a dread before which even the fact that they were drifting helplessly over the vast expanse of the great northern sea seemed insignificant.
A bidarkie, or “bidarka,†as it is often spelled, made of green sea-lion skins stretched as tightly as possible over a wooden or bone frame, allowed to dry in the wind until they become taut and smooth as a drum-head, and then liberally coated with seal-oil, is, for twenty-four hours or so, one of the swiftest, safest, smoothest, and most graceful of craft. A few years ago two wrecked sailors made a two-thousand mile voyage from one of the Aleutian Islands to San Franciscoin a nineteen-foot bidarkie, but they hugged the coast, took inside passages wherever it was possible, and camped on shore every night. By so doing they were enabled to lift their frail craft from the water, and allow it to dry six, eight, or ten hours out of every twenty-four. Thus it retained its shape and remained serviceable during the whole of that tremendous voyage. If they had not been able to do this, their bidarkie would have been worthless by the end of forty-eight hours, the one great fault of this craft being that after a while its skin covering becomes water-soaked and will stretch. In this condition it sags in and out between the ribs with strange sounds, until the boat becomes wellnigh unmanageable. By-and-by, if the soaking and stretching process continues, the skins are so softened that the sinew threads with which they are sewn together pull out and the seams open. Then in a moment the bidarkie fills and sinks like a lump of lead.
In the present case the softening process had begun, and Serge was aware of it. Before another day was done their frail craft would have ceased to float, and they—well, they would be beyond the reach of human aid or knowledge. Their bodies would be hidden deep beneath the cold green surface of Bering Sea, while their unknown fate would serve as a matter for sad conjecture for many a day to the dear ones whom they should never again see.
All this flashed through the lad’s mind in an instant, with the bidarkie’s first sobbing intimation that its strength was nearly gone, and he was on the point of sharing his unhappy knowledge with his companion. But why should he? Poor Phil was wretched enough already. No; he would keep the discovery to himself, and his well-loved comrade should be spared its added terror as long as possible. So, when the latter laiddown his paddle, declaring himself utterly exhausted, Serge answered, “So am I, and, what is worse, I don’t believe we will be able to stand watch during the night. Certainly both of us can’t keep awake all the time, and so, old fellow, I would advise you to get a nap if you can. Before sleep overpowers me I will wake you, and so we will keep watch by turn as best we may.â€
“What shall we watch for?†asked Phil, in a hopeless tone.
“For the vessel that is to pick us up, to be sure,†replied Serge.
The former uttered a bitter little laugh, as he said: “Then we might as well watch with our eyes shut. There is no wind to move a sailing-vessel, even if there were one in all this great awful sea, which I doubt. As for a steamer, she would have to pass within fifty feet before any one aboard could either see or hear us. So I am going to try and forget our troubles in sleep, and would advise you to do the same. Good-night, old man.â€
With this the disheartened lad slipped wearily down into the bottom of the canoe until his head rested on the hatch-coaming, in which position he was speedily oblivious of his melancholy surroundings. He dreamed of his adored father and dear Aunt Ruth, and was once more in his far-away, well-loved Eastern home. So he smiled as he slept.
As Serge sat there alone amid the immensity of that silent sea, he too thought of his home in green Sitka, of the mother and sisters who were watching for him, and he groaned aloud as he realized how little chance he had of ever seeing them again. Then the brave father, whose memory had been with him all these years, seemed to appear to him with loving words. By these he was so soothed and comforted that, aftera while, he too slipped down, and, with his white face upturned to the dim sky, dropped into a slumber so profound that it seemed as though nothing could ever waken him from it.
So for an hour, or perhaps more, the bidarkie, still upbearing its precious human freight, drifted through limitless watery space unguided and unwatched, save by Him who watches over all and takes note of all in this His world.
As she drifted, the tiny craft became aware of a sister-ship towering dim and formless through the mist, but drifting like herself. There is a bond of sympathy between drifting ships, called by some people the attraction of floating bodies, that impels the smaller to seek the company of the larger. So the little ship drew gradually nearer and nearer to its big sister, and was disappointed when the latter began to move away. In another minute she would have disappeared, and the sleeping lads would never have known of her presence any more than she knew of theirs, had not something so incredible and wellnigh impossible happened that it might never happen again in all the years of the world.
Just as the steamer began to move away, for the ship that had come so silently drifting through the fog was no other than the steamerNorsk, which had left St. Paul that very afternoon, something small and sharp struck Serge Belcofsky’s face with stinging force. He started up with a piercing scream of pain and fright, but instantly wide awake.
His scream was answered by a loud “Hello! Who’s there?†uttered in a clear, manly voice from the stern of the vanishing ship.
“Help! Help! Don’t leave us! Help! Help!†yelled Phil and Serge, wild with excitement, hope, and fear. At the same time they tried with desperateenergy to paddle after the vision of safety that had so suddenly come to them, and now seemed about to disappear as mysteriously as it had come. It did indeed glide out of sight in the all-enshrouding fog; but ere they lost hearing of the many sounds now arising from it, a ship’s boat, manned by lusty oarsmen who uttered cheery shouts of encouragement, shot out of the mist and, guided by the voices of the lads, came towards them. In the bow stood the sturdy, well-balanced figure of a man of thirty, holding a flaring torch above his head. The closely-bearded face thus revealed was to Phil and Serge as the face of an angel, and one they would never forget.
This man was Gerald Hamer, a Western Yankee, and leader of the Yukon Trading Company, that theNorskwas taking to Fort St. Michaels. It was he who, leaning over the after-rail of the ship, just as her engines were started, after being stopped for an hour for some slight repairs, heard and answered the despairing call for help, that apparently came from the very waters beneath him. The captain lay ill in his cabin, and the first officer, a thick-headed fellow, who understood English very imperfectly, was in charge of the ship.
When Gerald Hamer ran forward, told him of what he had heard, and begged him, in the name of humanity, to stop his ship and send a boat to the relief of those who were crying for help, the fellow refused to do so.
“Ids some of dem nadives,†he said; “ve cannod vaste dime on dem.â€
“Natives nothing! you thundering blockhead!†roared Gerald Hamer. “If they were, you’d stop and see what trouble they were in, or I’d know why. But I tell you they are white men, and Americans. I know the Yankee tongue when I hear it, if you don’t; so stop your ship, and stop her quick, too, or, by Hookey, I and my men will stop her for you!â€
Thick-headed as he was, the mate realized in a moment that he could not safely refuse to obey this command, backed as it was by a score of sturdy Americans who, at the sound of their leader’s voice, were gathering about him like a swarm of angry hornets. So he gave the requisite order in a surly tone, and the recently-started engines were again stopped.
“Bud I shall nod risg my mans for dot dirdy nadives,†he said. “If a boad goes, den musd you dake it yourselluf.â€
“Take it myself! Certainly I will!†cried Gerald Hamer. “Do you suppose I’d let you or your lubberly crew have the honor of rescuing one of my countrymen? Not much! Here, men, I want half a dozen volunteers for dangerous boat-duty. Now don’t all speak at once.â€
But they did, and, as though with the voice of one man, raised a mighty shout of “Aye, aye, sir!â€
Their leader smiled as he detailed six men to lower a boat and go with him in it. To the others he said: “You fellows stay here, and see that this ship doesn’t move an inch till I come back. Not an inch, if I’m gone a year. Do you hear?â€
“Aye, aye, sir!â€
“And keep the ship’s bell ringing eight bells till I get back, too, so that I can locate her if we get out of sight.â€
“Aye, aye, sir!†and for the next fifteen minutes it seemed as though the clangor of that brazen-throated bell might have been heard from Bering Strait to Oonimak.
“White men, as I said; and Americans, I’ll be bound!â€cried Gerald Hamer, as the light of his torch fell on the object of his search. “Great Scott! they’re only boys, and their craft is a water-logged bladder! How in the name of the good and the great— Butthere, lads! no matter—you are safe now. Your troubles are all over.â€
“‘WHITE MEN, AS I SAID; AND AMERICANS, I’LL BE BOUND!’â€
“‘WHITE MEN, AS I SAID; AND AMERICANS, I’LL BE BOUND!’â€
As he spoke these last words the strong man’s voice grew husky, and his eyes moistened, for poor Phil’s overstrained nerves had given way, and he was sobbing hysterically, while Serge also seemed on the very point of breaking down.
Very tenderly were the rescued lads lifted from the frail little craft, that had upheld them so bravely, into the ship’s boat. They were too stiff and numbed to stand. They could not even sit up, but sank limply into the bottom of the boat, their heads pillowed on coats gladly offered by members of the crew.
Then, with the bidarkie in tow, the boat was headed back through the fog towards the clanging bell. Ten minutes later, Phil and Serge, each surrounded by a group of rough but willing nurses, were between warm blankets, their bidarkie had been hoisted on deck, and the good shipNorskwas cleaving the waters of Bering Sea, on her way to the distant port of St. Michaels.