Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.Driven to Madness.As the key turned in the lock, Walford sank down in a state of semi-stupefaction upon one of the saloon sofas, listening like one in a dream to the distant sound of the men’s voices and the occasional tramp of feet, as the mutineers passed, one by one, down the ship’s side into the boats. A few minutes more and these sounds ceased. He lifted up his head, listening eagerly; but he could hear nothing, save the dismal creaking of the bulkheads, the moaning of the wind, the monotonousswish, swishof the water washing across the deck outside with the roll of the ship, and the dull hum and crackling of the flames as they slowly ate their destructive way further and further into the heart of the doomed craft.“Were they actually gone?” he asked himself. “Was it possible that he was left alone, absolutelyaloneon that burning wreck, thousands of miles from the nearest land, drifting he knew not whither at the mercy of wind and wave, with no hope of rescue and with the certainty that in a day or two at most the fabric which bore him would be so completely enveloped in the flames kindled by his own clumsiness that it would no longer be tenable, and the only alternative open to him would be that of perishing in the fire or flinging himself into the sea, there to battle despairingly for an extra hour or two of life?” He could not believe it, hewouldnot believe it possible that men could be found so inhuman as to leave a fellow-mortal in so desperate a strait; they were only trying him, as they had tried that poor fellow Thomson; and if he would but have patience to wait until the stipulated half-hour had passed, he would find them still there, waiting to receive him into the boat. He laughed aloud, as he thought what a fool he had been to allow himself to be terrified even for a moment, but the laugh was so utterly the reverse of mirthful, so harsh and ghastly, that he stopped abruptly, startled by the hideous strangeness of the sounds. Then he rose and crept on tip-toe towards the saloon-door, and, on reaching it, crouched down and applied first his eye and then his ear to the key-hole. The key had been removed from the lock and the shield had fallen down over the opening outside, so that he was unable to see anything; neither could he detect any sounds indicative of the presence of others on board. Once or twice indeed hethoughthe caught the sound of whispered voices just outside the door, but he could not be sure about the matter; and in an agony of uncertainty he crept back to the sofa to watch the lagging minute-hand of the clock, and wait for the expiration of the half-hour.Oh! what a weary time was that for the lonely watcher, as he sat there with his hands tightly locked together, his frame quivering with anxiety and apprehension, and his eyes fixed upon that inexorable minute-hand, which would not hasten its movement, though his life might be dependent on it. What if the men should grow weary of waiting? A thousand horrible fancies crowded in upon him, until in his distraction he groaned aloud. The suspense became unendurable; and in his anguish he started up to burst open the saloon-door and learn the worst at once, but (remembering Talbot’s threat, and more than half-believing him to be capable of carrying it into execution) turned back again and fell to pacing rapidly to and fro the whole length of the saloon instead.At last! at last! the half-hour of penance was over, and he was free once more. He dashed at the locked saloon-door, and, frantically hammering upon it with his clenched firsts until his knuckles streamed with blood, shouted eagerly—“Talbot! Talbot! the half-hour is up; so open the door, please, and let me out, there’s a good fellow.”Then he applied his ear to the key-hole, listening eagerly for the first sound of approaching footsteps.Five seconds—ten seconds—twenty—thirty—a minute; why did they not come? Was it possible that they had not heard him? He applied his mouth to the joint between the door and its jamb, and again shouted, “Talbot!Talbot!Talbot!” until his voice cracked with the strain he put upon it. Still no answer, no sound save the wail of the wind, the wash of the water, and the creaking of the ship’s timbers. “Good God! were they really gone?Washe, after all, actually left there to die alone?” He seized the handle of the door and tugged at it, fiercely, desperately, with the strength of a madman; but the stout lock stood firm, defying his utmost efforts. Then he suddenly remembered that the captain’s cabin was situated on the other side of the ship, with one door opening into the saloon and the other out on deck. With a single bound and a wild cry he crossed the saloon, and laying his hand upon the handle of the door of the captain’s cabin, turned it; the door swang open. Another bound and he was at the outer door; was it locked? No; a twist of the handle, and he stepped out on deck, with the water surging and splashing over his feet. But what cared he then for such a trifle; he was not even conscious of it. Swiftly his gaze swept round the decks: they were empty. In an instant he was at the gangway and peering over the side. No boats there; nothing but the empty tackles of the quarter-boats alternately swinging in the air and trailing in the water with the roll of the ship. “Wherewere the boats? Ha! towing astern, of course, it would simply mean destruction to them if they attempted to remain alongside in so heavy a sea.” In frantic haste he scrambled up the poop-ladder and rushed aft.The boats were gone!“Then it was an absolute fact that he was left there alone and powerless, doomed to watch with a horrible fascination the steady relentless approach of the Grim Enemy in his most terrible form, and to suffer the while in imaginative anticipation all the agonies of a thousand fiery deaths. Oh, God! it was too much. Mercy! mercy!” And with a demoniac yell he stood clutching and tugging at his hair with both hands, his teeth clenched, his eyes fixed and almost bursting from their sockets, foam bubbling from his lips—a raving madman!This terrible state of distraction endured for nearly an hour, and then a species of numbness seized upon his faculties, his anxiety vanished, and he found his thoughts straying away and fixing themselves upon the veriest trivialities, conjuring up again before his mental vision acts and words which had never recurred to him since the day on which they had been done or said, mischievous practical jokes played off upon some unlucky school-fellow, mess-room jests and tattle, and a thousand other absurdities, at which he laughed aloud. Then disconnected words and phrases rushed helter-skelter through his seething brain, having no meaning, yet causing him the keenest annoyance, because he believed he had heard them before, and was anxious to connect them with the circumstances of their utterance. There was one in particular which especially tormented him. “Go for a cruise on your own account; go for a cruise on your own account,” his brain reiterated with merciless pertinacity. What did it mean? Where had he heard those words before, and who had uttered them? He felt absolutely certain that at some time or other he had heard that phrase spoken, and that it had some intimate connection with himself, that it somehow concerned him vitally. “There was something else, too, said at the same time—something about—about—what was it? Something about—ah! yes—spars and a raft—‘spars—raft—go for a cruise on your own account.’ What could it mean?” Finally a gleam of reason returned to his clouded mind, and he realised dimly that it was of the utmost importance that he should construct a raft and “go for a cruise on his own account.”Having at last grasped this idea, he rose from the seat upon which he had flung himself, and upon which he seemed to himself to have been sitting as long as ever he could remember, and proceeded to carry it out. Sauntering leisurely off the poop, he descended to the waist of the ship, repeating eagerly over and over again the words “spars—raft,” lest he should forget them. There were several spare spars of various sizes, ranging from topmasts down to studding-sail booms, lashed to the deck on each side of the main-hatchway, and these he deliberately set to work to cast adrift. With considerable difficulty he at length succeeded in accomplishing this task, the result being that the spars were set rolling athwart the deck with the roll of the ship. Nothing daunted by this, however, he dashed recklessly in among them, and escaping, heaven knows how, from the incessant danger of fractured limbs, managed to drag out, one after the other, and launch overboard several of the lighter spars. Having commenced the work, he now toiled persistently on, allowing himself neither pause nor rest until he had disposed of every spar which his unaided strength would allow him to move. Then, panting, breathless, and reeking with perspiration, he walked to the side and peered over. The spars were nowhere to be seen; in his madness it had never occurred to him to secure them with ropes, and they had consequently drifted astern, and were of course tossing, some of them miles away, in the wake of the ship.Somehow the loss of the spars caused him no distress; indeed, as a matter of fact, he had again forgotten all about the raft, and had continued to labour on, merely because it had not occurred to him to stop. Now that he had stopped, however, he began to be conscious not only of fatigue, but also of hunger, for he had tasted no food for nearly twenty-four hours, and had been working hard all through the night; so he made his way by instinct into the saloon and thence to the steward’s pantry, where he found an abundance of food, which he attacked ravenously. He then, after satisfying his hunger, bent his steps in the direction of his own state-room, and, entering, flung himself upon the bed, and soon sank into an uneasy and restless sleep.Meanwhile the wind had been steadily dropping, the sea going down at the same time, and when, just before sunset, the glorious orb burst through and dispersed the curtain of storm-tattered clouds which had for so long a time overspread the sky, his golden rays fell upon thePrincess Royal, now no longer rolling gunwale-under, but swinging with a slow stately motion over the long swell, and still drifting lazily to the eastward; her bows heading now this way, now that; her fore-mast burned through and towing over the side; and the flames in complete possession of her as far aft as the main-mast.Walford’s sleep, if such it could be called, lasted all through the night and until just before the dawn. Then the overpowering heat and smoke, the loud crackling roar of the flames, and the fierce ruddy light streaming into the saloon and through the open state-room door aroused him. Sitting up in his berth, he looked around him in a bewildered way, passing his hand impatiently over his brow repeatedly, as if striving to recall distinctly the remembrance of something vaguely haunting his memory, but ever eluding his mental grasp. Glancing vacantly around him, the red glare of the flames fascinated his gaze, and he turned to watch the leaping, flickering flashes of light as they came and went with the sway and roll of the ship.“Red,” he began to mutter, “red as blood. Blood? Who said that I had been the cause of bloodshed? Who dares to say that it is my hand which has splashed those walls—that floor—with such hideous stains? Ha! see how they leap and dance, rise and fall; the place is full of them. Horrible! horrible! Are they there to taunt me, to reproach me, to accuse me? I say I didnotdo it; I am not to blame. How could I know that—that—what was it? Let me think. ‘His blood is upon your hands.’ Whose hands? Not mine, I swear; I could not do it; I have not the nerve, the courage for it. ‘His blood is upon your hands.’ Who said that? It was not said tome. But stay—wasI to blame—wasit my fault? Ugh! what a terrible thing it was to see him standing there with the rope round his neck, to know that they were going to take away his life for a fault which perhaps he would never have committed but forme, and to feel that I had not the courage to intercede in his behalf; to stand there quaking with fear whilsthewas driven to his death. No, no;Idid not drive him to it; it was they; and I had no control over them—but—but—ah! I never tried to save him. Yes, yes, I am coming. Is that you, Thomson? Are you callingme?”He sprang out of his berth, and, making his way through the captain’s cabin, passed out on deck. The first faint rays of the approaching dawn were lighting up the eastern horizon; but he saw them not; they were effectually hidden from his sight by the dazzling brightness of the flames and the dense clouds of smoke which went rolling heavily to leeward before the now scanty wind. The fire had made steady progress during the night, the hull forward being burned down nearly to the waters’ edge; while aft, the flames had extended to the after hatchway, and the main-mast, burnt through at its heel, had gone by the board and fallen forward into the fiercest of the fire, where it was rapidly consuming. Luckily for the wretched Walford, the ship was once more dead before the wind, and the flames were fanned forward; had her head been in the opposite direction, his retreat would have been effectually cut off. As it was, the heat was so intense that he instinctively avoided it by springing up the poop-ladder and making his way as far aft as possible.Arrived at the extreme end of the poop, he stood gazing intently down into the black water, and presently he began muttering again.“Yes,” he said, pointing down into the hollow of the swell as it came creeping up after the ship, “that is the spot where he went down; I saw him; I was standing near the bulwarks, and when he sprang my eyes followed him; I heard his dying cry; and I saw his last agonised upward look of despair as he went down with a plunge into the hollow between the waves, and the waters closed over his head for ever. For ever? Yes, surely—and yet—what is that white gleaming object there now, glaring up at me from beneath the water? It is—itisthe face of the dead man. Ha! see he is beckoning to me. Then itwashis voice I heard calling to me. Listen—what was that? Did you call, Thomson? He will not answer; he is tired of calling; but the white ghastly face is still there, and—see—there too is the beckoning hand. It is my summons, and I must obey.”At that moment the weird plaintive scream of a sea-bird came floating down out of the grey shadows of the dawn, and Walford, starting violently, stood for a moment in an attitude of rapt attention. The cry was repeated; he glared wildly round him for an instant, and then, screaming hoarsely “I come—I come!” sprang over the guard-rails and into the sea.

As the key turned in the lock, Walford sank down in a state of semi-stupefaction upon one of the saloon sofas, listening like one in a dream to the distant sound of the men’s voices and the occasional tramp of feet, as the mutineers passed, one by one, down the ship’s side into the boats. A few minutes more and these sounds ceased. He lifted up his head, listening eagerly; but he could hear nothing, save the dismal creaking of the bulkheads, the moaning of the wind, the monotonousswish, swishof the water washing across the deck outside with the roll of the ship, and the dull hum and crackling of the flames as they slowly ate their destructive way further and further into the heart of the doomed craft.

“Were they actually gone?” he asked himself. “Was it possible that he was left alone, absolutelyaloneon that burning wreck, thousands of miles from the nearest land, drifting he knew not whither at the mercy of wind and wave, with no hope of rescue and with the certainty that in a day or two at most the fabric which bore him would be so completely enveloped in the flames kindled by his own clumsiness that it would no longer be tenable, and the only alternative open to him would be that of perishing in the fire or flinging himself into the sea, there to battle despairingly for an extra hour or two of life?” He could not believe it, hewouldnot believe it possible that men could be found so inhuman as to leave a fellow-mortal in so desperate a strait; they were only trying him, as they had tried that poor fellow Thomson; and if he would but have patience to wait until the stipulated half-hour had passed, he would find them still there, waiting to receive him into the boat. He laughed aloud, as he thought what a fool he had been to allow himself to be terrified even for a moment, but the laugh was so utterly the reverse of mirthful, so harsh and ghastly, that he stopped abruptly, startled by the hideous strangeness of the sounds. Then he rose and crept on tip-toe towards the saloon-door, and, on reaching it, crouched down and applied first his eye and then his ear to the key-hole. The key had been removed from the lock and the shield had fallen down over the opening outside, so that he was unable to see anything; neither could he detect any sounds indicative of the presence of others on board. Once or twice indeed hethoughthe caught the sound of whispered voices just outside the door, but he could not be sure about the matter; and in an agony of uncertainty he crept back to the sofa to watch the lagging minute-hand of the clock, and wait for the expiration of the half-hour.

Oh! what a weary time was that for the lonely watcher, as he sat there with his hands tightly locked together, his frame quivering with anxiety and apprehension, and his eyes fixed upon that inexorable minute-hand, which would not hasten its movement, though his life might be dependent on it. What if the men should grow weary of waiting? A thousand horrible fancies crowded in upon him, until in his distraction he groaned aloud. The suspense became unendurable; and in his anguish he started up to burst open the saloon-door and learn the worst at once, but (remembering Talbot’s threat, and more than half-believing him to be capable of carrying it into execution) turned back again and fell to pacing rapidly to and fro the whole length of the saloon instead.

At last! at last! the half-hour of penance was over, and he was free once more. He dashed at the locked saloon-door, and, frantically hammering upon it with his clenched firsts until his knuckles streamed with blood, shouted eagerly—

“Talbot! Talbot! the half-hour is up; so open the door, please, and let me out, there’s a good fellow.”

Then he applied his ear to the key-hole, listening eagerly for the first sound of approaching footsteps.

Five seconds—ten seconds—twenty—thirty—a minute; why did they not come? Was it possible that they had not heard him? He applied his mouth to the joint between the door and its jamb, and again shouted, “Talbot!Talbot!Talbot!” until his voice cracked with the strain he put upon it. Still no answer, no sound save the wail of the wind, the wash of the water, and the creaking of the ship’s timbers. “Good God! were they really gone?Washe, after all, actually left there to die alone?” He seized the handle of the door and tugged at it, fiercely, desperately, with the strength of a madman; but the stout lock stood firm, defying his utmost efforts. Then he suddenly remembered that the captain’s cabin was situated on the other side of the ship, with one door opening into the saloon and the other out on deck. With a single bound and a wild cry he crossed the saloon, and laying his hand upon the handle of the door of the captain’s cabin, turned it; the door swang open. Another bound and he was at the outer door; was it locked? No; a twist of the handle, and he stepped out on deck, with the water surging and splashing over his feet. But what cared he then for such a trifle; he was not even conscious of it. Swiftly his gaze swept round the decks: they were empty. In an instant he was at the gangway and peering over the side. No boats there; nothing but the empty tackles of the quarter-boats alternately swinging in the air and trailing in the water with the roll of the ship. “Wherewere the boats? Ha! towing astern, of course, it would simply mean destruction to them if they attempted to remain alongside in so heavy a sea.” In frantic haste he scrambled up the poop-ladder and rushed aft.

The boats were gone!

“Then it was an absolute fact that he was left there alone and powerless, doomed to watch with a horrible fascination the steady relentless approach of the Grim Enemy in his most terrible form, and to suffer the while in imaginative anticipation all the agonies of a thousand fiery deaths. Oh, God! it was too much. Mercy! mercy!” And with a demoniac yell he stood clutching and tugging at his hair with both hands, his teeth clenched, his eyes fixed and almost bursting from their sockets, foam bubbling from his lips—a raving madman!

This terrible state of distraction endured for nearly an hour, and then a species of numbness seized upon his faculties, his anxiety vanished, and he found his thoughts straying away and fixing themselves upon the veriest trivialities, conjuring up again before his mental vision acts and words which had never recurred to him since the day on which they had been done or said, mischievous practical jokes played off upon some unlucky school-fellow, mess-room jests and tattle, and a thousand other absurdities, at which he laughed aloud. Then disconnected words and phrases rushed helter-skelter through his seething brain, having no meaning, yet causing him the keenest annoyance, because he believed he had heard them before, and was anxious to connect them with the circumstances of their utterance. There was one in particular which especially tormented him. “Go for a cruise on your own account; go for a cruise on your own account,” his brain reiterated with merciless pertinacity. What did it mean? Where had he heard those words before, and who had uttered them? He felt absolutely certain that at some time or other he had heard that phrase spoken, and that it had some intimate connection with himself, that it somehow concerned him vitally. “There was something else, too, said at the same time—something about—about—what was it? Something about—ah! yes—spars and a raft—‘spars—raft—go for a cruise on your own account.’ What could it mean?” Finally a gleam of reason returned to his clouded mind, and he realised dimly that it was of the utmost importance that he should construct a raft and “go for a cruise on his own account.”

Having at last grasped this idea, he rose from the seat upon which he had flung himself, and upon which he seemed to himself to have been sitting as long as ever he could remember, and proceeded to carry it out. Sauntering leisurely off the poop, he descended to the waist of the ship, repeating eagerly over and over again the words “spars—raft,” lest he should forget them. There were several spare spars of various sizes, ranging from topmasts down to studding-sail booms, lashed to the deck on each side of the main-hatchway, and these he deliberately set to work to cast adrift. With considerable difficulty he at length succeeded in accomplishing this task, the result being that the spars were set rolling athwart the deck with the roll of the ship. Nothing daunted by this, however, he dashed recklessly in among them, and escaping, heaven knows how, from the incessant danger of fractured limbs, managed to drag out, one after the other, and launch overboard several of the lighter spars. Having commenced the work, he now toiled persistently on, allowing himself neither pause nor rest until he had disposed of every spar which his unaided strength would allow him to move. Then, panting, breathless, and reeking with perspiration, he walked to the side and peered over. The spars were nowhere to be seen; in his madness it had never occurred to him to secure them with ropes, and they had consequently drifted astern, and were of course tossing, some of them miles away, in the wake of the ship.

Somehow the loss of the spars caused him no distress; indeed, as a matter of fact, he had again forgotten all about the raft, and had continued to labour on, merely because it had not occurred to him to stop. Now that he had stopped, however, he began to be conscious not only of fatigue, but also of hunger, for he had tasted no food for nearly twenty-four hours, and had been working hard all through the night; so he made his way by instinct into the saloon and thence to the steward’s pantry, where he found an abundance of food, which he attacked ravenously. He then, after satisfying his hunger, bent his steps in the direction of his own state-room, and, entering, flung himself upon the bed, and soon sank into an uneasy and restless sleep.

Meanwhile the wind had been steadily dropping, the sea going down at the same time, and when, just before sunset, the glorious orb burst through and dispersed the curtain of storm-tattered clouds which had for so long a time overspread the sky, his golden rays fell upon thePrincess Royal, now no longer rolling gunwale-under, but swinging with a slow stately motion over the long swell, and still drifting lazily to the eastward; her bows heading now this way, now that; her fore-mast burned through and towing over the side; and the flames in complete possession of her as far aft as the main-mast.

Walford’s sleep, if such it could be called, lasted all through the night and until just before the dawn. Then the overpowering heat and smoke, the loud crackling roar of the flames, and the fierce ruddy light streaming into the saloon and through the open state-room door aroused him. Sitting up in his berth, he looked around him in a bewildered way, passing his hand impatiently over his brow repeatedly, as if striving to recall distinctly the remembrance of something vaguely haunting his memory, but ever eluding his mental grasp. Glancing vacantly around him, the red glare of the flames fascinated his gaze, and he turned to watch the leaping, flickering flashes of light as they came and went with the sway and roll of the ship.

“Red,” he began to mutter, “red as blood. Blood? Who said that I had been the cause of bloodshed? Who dares to say that it is my hand which has splashed those walls—that floor—with such hideous stains? Ha! see how they leap and dance, rise and fall; the place is full of them. Horrible! horrible! Are they there to taunt me, to reproach me, to accuse me? I say I didnotdo it; I am not to blame. How could I know that—that—what was it? Let me think. ‘His blood is upon your hands.’ Whose hands? Not mine, I swear; I could not do it; I have not the nerve, the courage for it. ‘His blood is upon your hands.’ Who said that? It was not said tome. But stay—wasI to blame—wasit my fault? Ugh! what a terrible thing it was to see him standing there with the rope round his neck, to know that they were going to take away his life for a fault which perhaps he would never have committed but forme, and to feel that I had not the courage to intercede in his behalf; to stand there quaking with fear whilsthewas driven to his death. No, no;Idid not drive him to it; it was they; and I had no control over them—but—but—ah! I never tried to save him. Yes, yes, I am coming. Is that you, Thomson? Are you callingme?”

He sprang out of his berth, and, making his way through the captain’s cabin, passed out on deck. The first faint rays of the approaching dawn were lighting up the eastern horizon; but he saw them not; they were effectually hidden from his sight by the dazzling brightness of the flames and the dense clouds of smoke which went rolling heavily to leeward before the now scanty wind. The fire had made steady progress during the night, the hull forward being burned down nearly to the waters’ edge; while aft, the flames had extended to the after hatchway, and the main-mast, burnt through at its heel, had gone by the board and fallen forward into the fiercest of the fire, where it was rapidly consuming. Luckily for the wretched Walford, the ship was once more dead before the wind, and the flames were fanned forward; had her head been in the opposite direction, his retreat would have been effectually cut off. As it was, the heat was so intense that he instinctively avoided it by springing up the poop-ladder and making his way as far aft as possible.

Arrived at the extreme end of the poop, he stood gazing intently down into the black water, and presently he began muttering again.

“Yes,” he said, pointing down into the hollow of the swell as it came creeping up after the ship, “that is the spot where he went down; I saw him; I was standing near the bulwarks, and when he sprang my eyes followed him; I heard his dying cry; and I saw his last agonised upward look of despair as he went down with a plunge into the hollow between the waves, and the waters closed over his head for ever. For ever? Yes, surely—and yet—what is that white gleaming object there now, glaring up at me from beneath the water? It is—itisthe face of the dead man. Ha! see he is beckoning to me. Then itwashis voice I heard calling to me. Listen—what was that? Did you call, Thomson? He will not answer; he is tired of calling; but the white ghastly face is still there, and—see—there too is the beckoning hand. It is my summons, and I must obey.”

At that moment the weird plaintive scream of a sea-bird came floating down out of the grey shadows of the dawn, and Walford, starting violently, stood for a moment in an attitude of rapt attention. The cry was repeated; he glared wildly round him for an instant, and then, screaming hoarsely “I come—I come!” sprang over the guard-rails and into the sea.

Chapter Ten.A Strange Rencontre.We left theAurora, as the reader will remember, at the moment when, by the merest hair’s breadth, she was enabled to avoid what must have been a terribly disastrous collision with the ill-fatedPrincess Royalon the day when the hurricane burst with such destructive effect upon the outward-bound fleet.Deprived of her fore-topsail, the little barque was soon left astern by her two unwelcome neighbours, and—the fleet rapidly dispersing, now that it was no longer possible to regulate the speed of the several craft which composed it—by nightfall her crew found themselves, comparatively speaking, alone, there being only some twenty sail in sight from the deck.That night was a most anxious one for Captain Leicester, the gale being heavier and the sea considerably higher than he had ever before witnessed; theAurora, however, proved to be a capital little sea-boat, riding over the great liquid hills light and dry as a gull; and when at length the morning broke, revealing only two sail in sight, George felt so easy in his mind that he did not hesitate to go below and seek in his comfortable berth an hour or two of that rest which he so greatly needed.The first stroke of the hurricane had been, as is generally the case, the worst; for about half an hour it had blown with frightful and disastrous fury, as has already been described, after which it lulled somewhat, and then had again steadily increased. Accordingly, when Captain Leicester went on deck at noon, he found the gale still gathering strength, the sea higher than ever, and the sky looking more threatening than he remembered to have ever before seen it.The ship was scudding under bare poles, and behaving capitally, too; but George saw that if the sea rose much higher there would be great danger of being “pooped;” so he—like the people on board the unfortunatePrincess Royal—roused out a new foresail and, with very great difficulty, got it bent and set, reefed. This sail dragged the little barque along at a tremendous pace; and from that time there was no further danger of her being “pooped” or overrun by the sea.On the third day the gale broke; and by sundown the weather had so far moderated as to permit of theAurorabeing brought to the wind and hove-to, a manoeuvre which George was most anxious to accomplish, since the ship had, for over seventy-two hours, been running to the eastward, or directly away from her port, at the rate of some ten knots an hour, giving her over seven hundred miles of extra distance to make up. TheAuroraremained hove-to during the whole of that night; but at eight bells next morning she made sail under single-reefed topsails and courses; stretching away to the northward and westward on the port tack. She continued on this tack all day; and went about at the end of the second dog-watch, George’s object being to work his way back to the spot, as nearly as possible, where the fleet had separated, and there wait two or three days if need be, in the hope of falling in with the bulk of them again.Captain Leicester had of course taken full advantage of the return of fine weather to repair damages; the crew had been busy during the whole day getting two new topgallant-masts aloft and rigging them, bending new sails in place of those split or blown away, and so on; theAurorawas consequently, when night fell, all ataunto once more; and a stranger looking at her, would, except for thenewlook of some of the spars and canvas, never have suspected that she had had her wings clipped.At nightfall she was standing to the southward and westward on the port tack, under every stitch of canvas that would draw; the wind was failing fast; the sea had long since ceased to break; there was now only an occasional white fleecy comb to be seen on the crests of the waves; and the ship was gliding gently along, with a slow, steady, rhythmical rising-and-falling motion over the long heavy swell, at the rate of some five knots in the hour. The skipper was in excellent spirits at having escaped so well and so cheaply from the fury of the hurricane; and he remained on deck until midnight, chatting with Mr Bowen, the chief mate.The relief-watch had just been called, and George was waiting to accompany the mate below when his attention was suddenly attracted by a curious appearance in the sky to windward. It was still cloudy; and, low down on the horizon and about two points on the weather bow, he noticed that the clouds were lighter and brighter in tint than anywhere else.“Look, Bowen,” he exclaimed, “do you see that peculiar-looking cloud away there on the horizon, just over our cat-head? What is the meaning of it?”The mate looked in the direction indicated; and his more mature experience at once suggested an explanation.“Looks to me,” he said, “as if there was something afire over there. Here, you Tom,” to a lad belonging to the relief-watch, who had just come on deck, “slip up as far as the fore-topmast cross-trees, and see if you can see anything out of the common away there on the weather bow.”“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the lad; and in another moment he was dancing nimbly up the fore-rigging; his form just dimly discernible in the dark shadow of the sails.Presently he hailed from the cross-trees, “I can’tseenothing, sir; but the sky away over there looks uncommon bright, and it seems toflickernow and then, as if there was a big fire burning under it.”“That’ll do; you can come down again,” answered the chief mate. Then, turning to George, he said—“Depend upon it, sir, there’s a ship afire away over there. Well, we’re steering a course as’ll take us pretty close to her, if so be as thereisone; and I suppose, sir, you’ll feel like giving of her a overhaul, won’t you?”“Most certainly,” answered George earnestly. “We will at least ascertain whether there are any human beings on board her. Mr Ritson,”—to the carpenter, who since Cross’s impressment had acted in the capacity of second mate—“steer your present course, please, as long as the wind will allow you; crack on all you can; and, as soon as the burning ship—or whatever it is—is fairly in sight, give me a call.”He then descended to his cabin, and in another five minutes had fallen into a state of blissful oblivion.At eight bells (or four o’clock a.m.) Ritson knocked at George’s state-room door, after calling the chief mate, and said—“We can see the flames and smoke from the deck, sir, though the ship herself is still hull-down. I’ve been up in the fore-top, howsoever, with the glass, and make her out to be a large ship—close upon a thousand tons, I should say—but I can’t see any people on board of her, nor I can’t make out no sign of boats. She’s all ablaze from for’ard right aft as far as the main-mast, which toppled over and fell for’ard while I was lookin’ at her. I fancy the people must ha’ left her, sir.”“All right, Ritson,” answered George, “I’ll be on deck in a minute or two.”Within the stipulated time Captain Leicester made his appearance on deck, and proceeded at once to the fore-top, where, with the aid of his glass, he made a careful inspection of the burning ship.“Well, Mr Bowen,” he said, when he had completed his examination, and was once more down on deck, “it is as Ritson says: there is no sign of any human being on board her; I have looked long and carefully at her, and am quite sure I should have seen the people moving about, had there been any. We will stand on as we are going, however, and cross her stern; we shall then perhaps get a chance to make out her name. Somehow, she has a familiar look with her, as though I had seen her before; I wonder if she was in the fleet?”“Like enough, sir,” answered Bowen; “we’re right in the track of ’em; and maybe this is one of the slow-coaches as we run away from.”“Possibly,” answered George abstractedly; and then the two fell to pacing slowly fore and aft, from the main-mast to the taffrail, in that persevering way which is so characteristic of seamen.TheAurorawas now sliding gently along at a speed of about four knots, with every sail set that would draw; and gradually she crept up closer and closer to the burning ship, which, meanwhile, was slowly drifting to leeward.The watch on deck were clustered together in a body, forward, watching the unusual sight; the ship being now about a point on the lee bow and about half a mile distant. Suddenly there was a loud shout from them, followed by the cry—“There’s somebody still aboard the burning ship sir!”George and the mate, who at the moment were walking towards the taffrail, with their backs towards the burning ship, turned quickly at the cry, and the former, hastily seizing the telescope which lay ready to hand on the skylight, swiftly brought it to bear. There, sure enough, standing right aft on the raised poop, could be distinctly seen a solitary figure, apparently that of a man. He seemed to be gazing intently into the water astern, pointing and gesticulating, and was evidently wholly unaware of the approach of theAurora.“Yes,” said George, “truly enough thereisa man on board; and he does not seem to have seen us yet; perhaps the glare of the flames has dazzled his eyes. Just step down into the cabin, Mr Bowen, if you please, and bring up a couple of muskets; we will fire them, one after the other, and the reports will call his attention to the fact of our presence.”The mate turned away to do George’s bidding, and he had hardly disappeared down the companion-ladder when the skipper, who had the telescope once more at his eye, saw the figure start—look behind him, as though he had heard some alarming sound—and then spring, in apparent terror, into the sea.“He’s jumped overboard, sir!” reported the men forward, who were now eagerly watching the actions of the stranger.“Ay, ay,” answered Leicester, “I see he has. One of you call the watch below; the rest of you lay aft here and clear away the starboard gig, cast off her lashings, and get her ready for rousing off the gallows and into the water.”The gig which had been hanging at the davits ever since theAuroracleared out of the docks at London, had been destroyed when the ship was thrown on her beam-ends in the hurricane; and the men had been so busy on apparently more important duties that they had had no opportunity of getting another boat ready for service; hence there was now a considerable amount of delay in the launching of the boat which George intended to despatch in search of the swimmer.Mr Bowen soon returned to the deck with the muskets, and handing one to George and retaining the other himself, they fired them one after the other in rapid succession, hoping by this means to attract the unfortunate man’s attention and show him that help was near.George then sprang into the mizzen-rigging and looked anxiously out over the glittering surface of the sea, in the effort to catch a glimpse of the man, should he happen to be still above water. It was not, however, until theAurorawas fairly crossing the wake of the burning ship—which by this time had drifted a considerable distance to leeward—that he was successful. Then, indeed, he did for an instant detect a small dark object on the crest of a sea, standing out in bold relief against the bright ruddy reflection of the flames in the water beyond it. Almost at the instant that he caught sight of it, he lost it again as it disappeared in the hollow of the swell, then once more it rose into view, clearly and unmistakably the head of a man.“All right, I see him,” he exclaimed. “Now then, Mr Bowen, is the boat ready? I am going to that poor fellow’s assistance, so back the main-topsail, if you please, and send the boat after us as quickly as you can.”As the last words left George’s mouth his hands rose above his head, his body curved itself over towards the water, and in an instant he shot downward out of the rigging swiftly as a sea-bird making its swoop, and entered the water without a splash.On coming to the surface, Captain Leicester struck vigorously out at once in the direction of the burning ship, knowing that the man he sought was exactly in line with her, but that he would probably not see him until he was close upon him. He swam steadily on, not hurrying himself, but husbanding his strength as much as possible, and in about ten minutes he caught sight of the object of which he was in search. But the manner in which that object presented itself to his view was so startling that George’s first impulse was to turn round and swim back towards theAurorawith all speed, an impulse which, however, was only felt to be instantly overcome. The man was suddenly revealed, within some six feet or so of George’s grasp, as the latter rose upon the crest of a sea; but, instead of swimming as George expected he would be, the unfortunate creature was lying on his back, his ghastly white face upturned to the sky, and his eyes fixed and staring, with that terrible indescribable expression in them which tells at once and unmistakably the dreadful tale ofmadness.Very naturally, our hero felt a little doubtful as to the expediency of placing himself within the grasp of a madman; he therefore, before closing with him, exclaimed in a loud, cheery voice—“Hillo, there! are you tired? If so, just say the word, and I’ll drop alongside and lend you a hand.”For all the visible effect this speech had on the stranger he might as well have been stone-deaf, for he vouchsafed not the slightest notice.George shouted again, with a like result, and then—still feeling very doubtful as to the best mode of proceeding—he struck out, and swam quietly round the ghastly floating figure. A stroke or two sufficed to place him in such a position as enabled him at last to get a clear and distinct view of the stranger’s features, fully illumined by the glare of the flames, and instant recognition followed.“Walford!” he exclaimed. Then, without another moment’s hesitation, he dashed up and, throwing himself upon his back, seized his rival by the hair and drew him into such a position as permitted of his taking Walford’s head upon his shoulder and supporting it high enough above the surface to prevent the sea washing over it and so suffocating him.Walford offered no resistance, and gave not the faintest sign of being aware of George’s presence; and there the two lay, quietly floating on the bosom of the long heaving swell, until the boat came to their assistance and conveyed them both on board theAurora.On reaching the ship, George had his rival promptly stripped, rubbed vigorously down, and comfortably bestowed in his own berth, well and warmly wrapped up in blankets, with Tom Price—one of the forecastle hands, and a very smart, intelligent young fellow—to watch over him. After which, the skipper gave a little attention to his own comfort, and finally went on deck once more, it being by that time too late to think of turning in again.By the time that George regained the deck, theAurorahad crept to a distance of about four miles from thePrincess Royal. The unfortunate craft was by that time blazing fiercely fore and aft, the fire having at last reached her store-room, in which there was a considerable quantity of highly inflammable material; and half an hour afterwards her powder-magazine (almost every ship of any size in those days was provided with a magazine) exploded; and the charred fragments of half-consumed timber, which were widely scattered over the now sleepily heaving surface of the sea, alone remained as relics of the once noble and stately ship, the destruction of which had been the last link in a chain of disastrous occurrences resulting primarily from the overbearing, tyrannical, and imprudent behaviour of her officers.With the appearance of the sun above the horizon the clouds gradually disappeared, the wind dropped, the surface of the ocean became like heaving oil; and theAurora, losing steerage-way, rolled almost gunwale-to, with her canvas flapping loudly and monotonously against her masts.About two bells (or nine o’clock) one of the hands, upon being sent aloft to “grease down,” reported a sail in the southern quarter, and on the usual inquiry being put to him, as to what he made her out to be, he replied that she was a small topsail-schooner.“A small topsail-schooner!” muttered George. “I wonder what she can be; I cannot remember having seen any such craft in the fleet. Ritson,”—to the carpenter who had charge of the deck,—“do you remember having seen a topsail-schooner among the fleet?”“No, sir; can’t say as I do,” answered Ritson. “Don’t believe therewasany such craft, sir; the smallest, as I remembers was that purty little brig painted all white down to her water-line; perhaps you recollects her, sir?”“Yes,” said Leicester, “I recollect the craft perfectly well; and, as far as my memory serves me, shewas, as you say, the smallest craft in company.”The conversation here dropped for a time, George resuming the somewhat dejected saunter fore and aft from the main-mast to the taffrail, and the half-unconscious whistling for a wind, in which he had before been indulging. His pursuit of this monotonous and uninteresting occupation was interrupted by the steward, who requested him to step down into the cabin, “to take a look at the man as was picked up this morning; as he seems to be took a bit worse, sir.”George at once went below, and found Walford sitting up in the berth, muttering to himself disconnectedly and occasionally addressing with great earnestness the watchful Tom, whose horror-stricken face plainly revealed that his patient’s random observations had been of a somewhat startling character. On entering the state-room, Leicester at once addressed Walford, asking him whether he felt better; and the unfortunate man glanced for a moment in George’s face with an air of semi-recognition; but this immediately passed away, and the incoherent mutterings went on again as before.“That’s just how he’ve been goin’ on for the last half-’our,” explained Tom; “talkin’ about ‘murder’ and ‘hangin’,’ and being left to burn in the ship; it’s enough to give one the ’orrors to listen to him.”George sat down by the side of the cot and listened patiently for nearly an hour to Walford’s rambling talk; and, although he was unable to make out from it a clearly-connected story, he heard enough to give him a shrewd idea of the truth, and to convince him that a terrible tragedy of some kind had occurred on board the ill-fatedPrincess Royal. The patient at length grew calm once more, and, lying back upon his pillow, seemed inclined to sleep, upon which George quietly rose and went on deck again to see how matters were proceeding there.As he meditatively made his way up the companion-ladder, he could not help thinking of the singularity of this last meeting between him and his rival, and comparing it with the one which had occurred on that lovely June evening, on the road to Stoke. As the two men stood there on the white dusty road, with the rays of the declining sun darting down upon them through the foliage of the overhanging trees, and as Walford told the story of his just concluded engagement to Lucy, how little, thought George, could either of them suspect that, when they next came into such close contact, it would be literally on the bosom of the broad Atlantic, up-borne by nothing save its restless waters. Poor Leicester was greatly disturbed by this singular and unconscious claim upon his hospitality which had so recently arisen. He was as generous-hearted a man as the sun ever shone upon, ever ready to give liberally and ungrudgingly to any one who seemed to be in need; but somehow he wished that in the present instance it had fallen to the lot of some one else than himself to play the part of rescuer and benefactor, or that the rescued individual had been any one rather than Walford. The fact was that he wanted to forget, if possible, the keen and bitter pain of his disappointment: and now the presence of his unhappy guest had brought it all back to him and would keep it in poignant remembrance as long as they two should remain together. Then, he bethought himself how selfish a feeling he had been allowing himself to indulge; how utterly he had forgotten that the matter was one with which Lucy’s happiness must be inseparably connected; and that fate—or Providence, rather, as he reverently corrected himself—had in a very great measure confided that happiness to his keeping, by delivering into his care the man upon whom she had bestowed the priceless treasure of her heart’s best love. And as he thought this, he solemnly vowed that he would honestly strive to prove worthy of the trust; that he would be to Lucy’s lover a brother—ay,morethan a brother; that he would nurse and tend him, restore to him his reason if God willed it, and, in any case, watch over and protect him—at the cost of his own life even, if need were—until he could restore him to the arms of the woman who was impatiently awaiting at home his safe return.“His well-being has been confided to me as a sacred trust,” he murmured in conclusion, “and, please God, I will prove myself worthy of it.”With this resolution he dismissed the subject temporarily from his thoughts, and turned his attention once more to the affairs of the ship.Glancing aloft, and then all round the horizon, he observed that it had fallen a flat calm, and that moreover there was no immediate prospect of a breeze. The sky was a clear deep blue in the zenith, merging by imperceptible gradations into a delicate warm grey at the horizon. The water was absolutely without a ripple, there was not so much as the faintest suggestion of a “cat’s-paw” on all its glassy surface; and save for the long sluggish sweep and heave of the swell which, as it undulated past the ship, caught and reflected the varying tints of the sky, it would have been difficult to detect the presence of water at all at a distance of more than a few yards from the ship. TheAurorawas still rolling sluggishly on the sleepy swell; her dazzling white canvas flapping and the slings and trusses of the yards creaking with the roll; the men, rendered languid by the heat, were making such show as they were able of being busy on various odd jobs about the decks or aloft; and the man at the wheel had lashed it and was leaning upon it more than half-asleep. Ritson, apparently for want of something better to do, was seated on the main-topmast cross-trees, with the ship’s telescope in his hand, scrutinising the motions of the distant schooner, whose tiny “royal” was now visible from the deck, gleaming white as snow on the extreme verge of the horizon.Noting all these things at a glance, George turned to saunter aft, thinking that on such a perfectly calm day, and with such still water, he might, by leaning well out over the taffrail, get a glimpse of the ship’s bottom and see whether it had fouled at all, or whether the copper showed any signs of wrinkling. Arrived at the taffrail, he leaned well out over it, and peered down into the water. The first thing which attracted his notice was the deep, pure, beautiful ultramarine tint of the water, as he gazed far down into its unfathomable depths; the next was, the presence of a long greyish-brown object under the ship’s counter, which had escaped his notice at first in consequence of its being in the deepest shadow of the hull. A moment sufficed to satisfy him that it was a huge shark; and as the creature caught sight of him, and with a barely perceptible movement of its fins, backed out a foot or two from under the ship, as if in preparation to make a dart at him in case he should fall into the water, George shuddered at the thought of what might have been his or Walford’s fate, had the monster been in the neighbourhood of the ship a few hours earlier.Sliding his body gently inboard again, Leicester turned to the dozing helmsman, and exclaimed—“Here, you Ned; rouse up, man. There’s a big shark under the counter, so get out the shark-hook, ask the cook for a piece of good fat pork, and muster the watch aft in readiness to haul him inboard, in case we can coax him into swallowing the bait.”

We left theAurora, as the reader will remember, at the moment when, by the merest hair’s breadth, she was enabled to avoid what must have been a terribly disastrous collision with the ill-fatedPrincess Royalon the day when the hurricane burst with such destructive effect upon the outward-bound fleet.

Deprived of her fore-topsail, the little barque was soon left astern by her two unwelcome neighbours, and—the fleet rapidly dispersing, now that it was no longer possible to regulate the speed of the several craft which composed it—by nightfall her crew found themselves, comparatively speaking, alone, there being only some twenty sail in sight from the deck.

That night was a most anxious one for Captain Leicester, the gale being heavier and the sea considerably higher than he had ever before witnessed; theAurora, however, proved to be a capital little sea-boat, riding over the great liquid hills light and dry as a gull; and when at length the morning broke, revealing only two sail in sight, George felt so easy in his mind that he did not hesitate to go below and seek in his comfortable berth an hour or two of that rest which he so greatly needed.

The first stroke of the hurricane had been, as is generally the case, the worst; for about half an hour it had blown with frightful and disastrous fury, as has already been described, after which it lulled somewhat, and then had again steadily increased. Accordingly, when Captain Leicester went on deck at noon, he found the gale still gathering strength, the sea higher than ever, and the sky looking more threatening than he remembered to have ever before seen it.

The ship was scudding under bare poles, and behaving capitally, too; but George saw that if the sea rose much higher there would be great danger of being “pooped;” so he—like the people on board the unfortunatePrincess Royal—roused out a new foresail and, with very great difficulty, got it bent and set, reefed. This sail dragged the little barque along at a tremendous pace; and from that time there was no further danger of her being “pooped” or overrun by the sea.

On the third day the gale broke; and by sundown the weather had so far moderated as to permit of theAurorabeing brought to the wind and hove-to, a manoeuvre which George was most anxious to accomplish, since the ship had, for over seventy-two hours, been running to the eastward, or directly away from her port, at the rate of some ten knots an hour, giving her over seven hundred miles of extra distance to make up. TheAuroraremained hove-to during the whole of that night; but at eight bells next morning she made sail under single-reefed topsails and courses; stretching away to the northward and westward on the port tack. She continued on this tack all day; and went about at the end of the second dog-watch, George’s object being to work his way back to the spot, as nearly as possible, where the fleet had separated, and there wait two or three days if need be, in the hope of falling in with the bulk of them again.

Captain Leicester had of course taken full advantage of the return of fine weather to repair damages; the crew had been busy during the whole day getting two new topgallant-masts aloft and rigging them, bending new sails in place of those split or blown away, and so on; theAurorawas consequently, when night fell, all ataunto once more; and a stranger looking at her, would, except for thenewlook of some of the spars and canvas, never have suspected that she had had her wings clipped.

At nightfall she was standing to the southward and westward on the port tack, under every stitch of canvas that would draw; the wind was failing fast; the sea had long since ceased to break; there was now only an occasional white fleecy comb to be seen on the crests of the waves; and the ship was gliding gently along, with a slow, steady, rhythmical rising-and-falling motion over the long heavy swell, at the rate of some five knots in the hour. The skipper was in excellent spirits at having escaped so well and so cheaply from the fury of the hurricane; and he remained on deck until midnight, chatting with Mr Bowen, the chief mate.

The relief-watch had just been called, and George was waiting to accompany the mate below when his attention was suddenly attracted by a curious appearance in the sky to windward. It was still cloudy; and, low down on the horizon and about two points on the weather bow, he noticed that the clouds were lighter and brighter in tint than anywhere else.

“Look, Bowen,” he exclaimed, “do you see that peculiar-looking cloud away there on the horizon, just over our cat-head? What is the meaning of it?”

The mate looked in the direction indicated; and his more mature experience at once suggested an explanation.

“Looks to me,” he said, “as if there was something afire over there. Here, you Tom,” to a lad belonging to the relief-watch, who had just come on deck, “slip up as far as the fore-topmast cross-trees, and see if you can see anything out of the common away there on the weather bow.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the lad; and in another moment he was dancing nimbly up the fore-rigging; his form just dimly discernible in the dark shadow of the sails.

Presently he hailed from the cross-trees, “I can’tseenothing, sir; but the sky away over there looks uncommon bright, and it seems toflickernow and then, as if there was a big fire burning under it.”

“That’ll do; you can come down again,” answered the chief mate. Then, turning to George, he said—

“Depend upon it, sir, there’s a ship afire away over there. Well, we’re steering a course as’ll take us pretty close to her, if so be as thereisone; and I suppose, sir, you’ll feel like giving of her a overhaul, won’t you?”

“Most certainly,” answered George earnestly. “We will at least ascertain whether there are any human beings on board her. Mr Ritson,”—to the carpenter, who since Cross’s impressment had acted in the capacity of second mate—“steer your present course, please, as long as the wind will allow you; crack on all you can; and, as soon as the burning ship—or whatever it is—is fairly in sight, give me a call.”

He then descended to his cabin, and in another five minutes had fallen into a state of blissful oblivion.

At eight bells (or four o’clock a.m.) Ritson knocked at George’s state-room door, after calling the chief mate, and said—

“We can see the flames and smoke from the deck, sir, though the ship herself is still hull-down. I’ve been up in the fore-top, howsoever, with the glass, and make her out to be a large ship—close upon a thousand tons, I should say—but I can’t see any people on board of her, nor I can’t make out no sign of boats. She’s all ablaze from for’ard right aft as far as the main-mast, which toppled over and fell for’ard while I was lookin’ at her. I fancy the people must ha’ left her, sir.”

“All right, Ritson,” answered George, “I’ll be on deck in a minute or two.”

Within the stipulated time Captain Leicester made his appearance on deck, and proceeded at once to the fore-top, where, with the aid of his glass, he made a careful inspection of the burning ship.

“Well, Mr Bowen,” he said, when he had completed his examination, and was once more down on deck, “it is as Ritson says: there is no sign of any human being on board her; I have looked long and carefully at her, and am quite sure I should have seen the people moving about, had there been any. We will stand on as we are going, however, and cross her stern; we shall then perhaps get a chance to make out her name. Somehow, she has a familiar look with her, as though I had seen her before; I wonder if she was in the fleet?”

“Like enough, sir,” answered Bowen; “we’re right in the track of ’em; and maybe this is one of the slow-coaches as we run away from.”

“Possibly,” answered George abstractedly; and then the two fell to pacing slowly fore and aft, from the main-mast to the taffrail, in that persevering way which is so characteristic of seamen.

TheAurorawas now sliding gently along at a speed of about four knots, with every sail set that would draw; and gradually she crept up closer and closer to the burning ship, which, meanwhile, was slowly drifting to leeward.

The watch on deck were clustered together in a body, forward, watching the unusual sight; the ship being now about a point on the lee bow and about half a mile distant. Suddenly there was a loud shout from them, followed by the cry—

“There’s somebody still aboard the burning ship sir!”

George and the mate, who at the moment were walking towards the taffrail, with their backs towards the burning ship, turned quickly at the cry, and the former, hastily seizing the telescope which lay ready to hand on the skylight, swiftly brought it to bear. There, sure enough, standing right aft on the raised poop, could be distinctly seen a solitary figure, apparently that of a man. He seemed to be gazing intently into the water astern, pointing and gesticulating, and was evidently wholly unaware of the approach of theAurora.

“Yes,” said George, “truly enough thereisa man on board; and he does not seem to have seen us yet; perhaps the glare of the flames has dazzled his eyes. Just step down into the cabin, Mr Bowen, if you please, and bring up a couple of muskets; we will fire them, one after the other, and the reports will call his attention to the fact of our presence.”

The mate turned away to do George’s bidding, and he had hardly disappeared down the companion-ladder when the skipper, who had the telescope once more at his eye, saw the figure start—look behind him, as though he had heard some alarming sound—and then spring, in apparent terror, into the sea.

“He’s jumped overboard, sir!” reported the men forward, who were now eagerly watching the actions of the stranger.

“Ay, ay,” answered Leicester, “I see he has. One of you call the watch below; the rest of you lay aft here and clear away the starboard gig, cast off her lashings, and get her ready for rousing off the gallows and into the water.”

The gig which had been hanging at the davits ever since theAuroracleared out of the docks at London, had been destroyed when the ship was thrown on her beam-ends in the hurricane; and the men had been so busy on apparently more important duties that they had had no opportunity of getting another boat ready for service; hence there was now a considerable amount of delay in the launching of the boat which George intended to despatch in search of the swimmer.

Mr Bowen soon returned to the deck with the muskets, and handing one to George and retaining the other himself, they fired them one after the other in rapid succession, hoping by this means to attract the unfortunate man’s attention and show him that help was near.

George then sprang into the mizzen-rigging and looked anxiously out over the glittering surface of the sea, in the effort to catch a glimpse of the man, should he happen to be still above water. It was not, however, until theAurorawas fairly crossing the wake of the burning ship—which by this time had drifted a considerable distance to leeward—that he was successful. Then, indeed, he did for an instant detect a small dark object on the crest of a sea, standing out in bold relief against the bright ruddy reflection of the flames in the water beyond it. Almost at the instant that he caught sight of it, he lost it again as it disappeared in the hollow of the swell, then once more it rose into view, clearly and unmistakably the head of a man.

“All right, I see him,” he exclaimed. “Now then, Mr Bowen, is the boat ready? I am going to that poor fellow’s assistance, so back the main-topsail, if you please, and send the boat after us as quickly as you can.”

As the last words left George’s mouth his hands rose above his head, his body curved itself over towards the water, and in an instant he shot downward out of the rigging swiftly as a sea-bird making its swoop, and entered the water without a splash.

On coming to the surface, Captain Leicester struck vigorously out at once in the direction of the burning ship, knowing that the man he sought was exactly in line with her, but that he would probably not see him until he was close upon him. He swam steadily on, not hurrying himself, but husbanding his strength as much as possible, and in about ten minutes he caught sight of the object of which he was in search. But the manner in which that object presented itself to his view was so startling that George’s first impulse was to turn round and swim back towards theAurorawith all speed, an impulse which, however, was only felt to be instantly overcome. The man was suddenly revealed, within some six feet or so of George’s grasp, as the latter rose upon the crest of a sea; but, instead of swimming as George expected he would be, the unfortunate creature was lying on his back, his ghastly white face upturned to the sky, and his eyes fixed and staring, with that terrible indescribable expression in them which tells at once and unmistakably the dreadful tale ofmadness.

Very naturally, our hero felt a little doubtful as to the expediency of placing himself within the grasp of a madman; he therefore, before closing with him, exclaimed in a loud, cheery voice—

“Hillo, there! are you tired? If so, just say the word, and I’ll drop alongside and lend you a hand.”

For all the visible effect this speech had on the stranger he might as well have been stone-deaf, for he vouchsafed not the slightest notice.

George shouted again, with a like result, and then—still feeling very doubtful as to the best mode of proceeding—he struck out, and swam quietly round the ghastly floating figure. A stroke or two sufficed to place him in such a position as enabled him at last to get a clear and distinct view of the stranger’s features, fully illumined by the glare of the flames, and instant recognition followed.

“Walford!” he exclaimed. Then, without another moment’s hesitation, he dashed up and, throwing himself upon his back, seized his rival by the hair and drew him into such a position as permitted of his taking Walford’s head upon his shoulder and supporting it high enough above the surface to prevent the sea washing over it and so suffocating him.

Walford offered no resistance, and gave not the faintest sign of being aware of George’s presence; and there the two lay, quietly floating on the bosom of the long heaving swell, until the boat came to their assistance and conveyed them both on board theAurora.

On reaching the ship, George had his rival promptly stripped, rubbed vigorously down, and comfortably bestowed in his own berth, well and warmly wrapped up in blankets, with Tom Price—one of the forecastle hands, and a very smart, intelligent young fellow—to watch over him. After which, the skipper gave a little attention to his own comfort, and finally went on deck once more, it being by that time too late to think of turning in again.

By the time that George regained the deck, theAurorahad crept to a distance of about four miles from thePrincess Royal. The unfortunate craft was by that time blazing fiercely fore and aft, the fire having at last reached her store-room, in which there was a considerable quantity of highly inflammable material; and half an hour afterwards her powder-magazine (almost every ship of any size in those days was provided with a magazine) exploded; and the charred fragments of half-consumed timber, which were widely scattered over the now sleepily heaving surface of the sea, alone remained as relics of the once noble and stately ship, the destruction of which had been the last link in a chain of disastrous occurrences resulting primarily from the overbearing, tyrannical, and imprudent behaviour of her officers.

With the appearance of the sun above the horizon the clouds gradually disappeared, the wind dropped, the surface of the ocean became like heaving oil; and theAurora, losing steerage-way, rolled almost gunwale-to, with her canvas flapping loudly and monotonously against her masts.

About two bells (or nine o’clock) one of the hands, upon being sent aloft to “grease down,” reported a sail in the southern quarter, and on the usual inquiry being put to him, as to what he made her out to be, he replied that she was a small topsail-schooner.

“A small topsail-schooner!” muttered George. “I wonder what she can be; I cannot remember having seen any such craft in the fleet. Ritson,”—to the carpenter who had charge of the deck,—“do you remember having seen a topsail-schooner among the fleet?”

“No, sir; can’t say as I do,” answered Ritson. “Don’t believe therewasany such craft, sir; the smallest, as I remembers was that purty little brig painted all white down to her water-line; perhaps you recollects her, sir?”

“Yes,” said Leicester, “I recollect the craft perfectly well; and, as far as my memory serves me, shewas, as you say, the smallest craft in company.”

The conversation here dropped for a time, George resuming the somewhat dejected saunter fore and aft from the main-mast to the taffrail, and the half-unconscious whistling for a wind, in which he had before been indulging. His pursuit of this monotonous and uninteresting occupation was interrupted by the steward, who requested him to step down into the cabin, “to take a look at the man as was picked up this morning; as he seems to be took a bit worse, sir.”

George at once went below, and found Walford sitting up in the berth, muttering to himself disconnectedly and occasionally addressing with great earnestness the watchful Tom, whose horror-stricken face plainly revealed that his patient’s random observations had been of a somewhat startling character. On entering the state-room, Leicester at once addressed Walford, asking him whether he felt better; and the unfortunate man glanced for a moment in George’s face with an air of semi-recognition; but this immediately passed away, and the incoherent mutterings went on again as before.

“That’s just how he’ve been goin’ on for the last half-’our,” explained Tom; “talkin’ about ‘murder’ and ‘hangin’,’ and being left to burn in the ship; it’s enough to give one the ’orrors to listen to him.”

George sat down by the side of the cot and listened patiently for nearly an hour to Walford’s rambling talk; and, although he was unable to make out from it a clearly-connected story, he heard enough to give him a shrewd idea of the truth, and to convince him that a terrible tragedy of some kind had occurred on board the ill-fatedPrincess Royal. The patient at length grew calm once more, and, lying back upon his pillow, seemed inclined to sleep, upon which George quietly rose and went on deck again to see how matters were proceeding there.

As he meditatively made his way up the companion-ladder, he could not help thinking of the singularity of this last meeting between him and his rival, and comparing it with the one which had occurred on that lovely June evening, on the road to Stoke. As the two men stood there on the white dusty road, with the rays of the declining sun darting down upon them through the foliage of the overhanging trees, and as Walford told the story of his just concluded engagement to Lucy, how little, thought George, could either of them suspect that, when they next came into such close contact, it would be literally on the bosom of the broad Atlantic, up-borne by nothing save its restless waters. Poor Leicester was greatly disturbed by this singular and unconscious claim upon his hospitality which had so recently arisen. He was as generous-hearted a man as the sun ever shone upon, ever ready to give liberally and ungrudgingly to any one who seemed to be in need; but somehow he wished that in the present instance it had fallen to the lot of some one else than himself to play the part of rescuer and benefactor, or that the rescued individual had been any one rather than Walford. The fact was that he wanted to forget, if possible, the keen and bitter pain of his disappointment: and now the presence of his unhappy guest had brought it all back to him and would keep it in poignant remembrance as long as they two should remain together. Then, he bethought himself how selfish a feeling he had been allowing himself to indulge; how utterly he had forgotten that the matter was one with which Lucy’s happiness must be inseparably connected; and that fate—or Providence, rather, as he reverently corrected himself—had in a very great measure confided that happiness to his keeping, by delivering into his care the man upon whom she had bestowed the priceless treasure of her heart’s best love. And as he thought this, he solemnly vowed that he would honestly strive to prove worthy of the trust; that he would be to Lucy’s lover a brother—ay,morethan a brother; that he would nurse and tend him, restore to him his reason if God willed it, and, in any case, watch over and protect him—at the cost of his own life even, if need were—until he could restore him to the arms of the woman who was impatiently awaiting at home his safe return.

“His well-being has been confided to me as a sacred trust,” he murmured in conclusion, “and, please God, I will prove myself worthy of it.”

With this resolution he dismissed the subject temporarily from his thoughts, and turned his attention once more to the affairs of the ship.

Glancing aloft, and then all round the horizon, he observed that it had fallen a flat calm, and that moreover there was no immediate prospect of a breeze. The sky was a clear deep blue in the zenith, merging by imperceptible gradations into a delicate warm grey at the horizon. The water was absolutely without a ripple, there was not so much as the faintest suggestion of a “cat’s-paw” on all its glassy surface; and save for the long sluggish sweep and heave of the swell which, as it undulated past the ship, caught and reflected the varying tints of the sky, it would have been difficult to detect the presence of water at all at a distance of more than a few yards from the ship. TheAurorawas still rolling sluggishly on the sleepy swell; her dazzling white canvas flapping and the slings and trusses of the yards creaking with the roll; the men, rendered languid by the heat, were making such show as they were able of being busy on various odd jobs about the decks or aloft; and the man at the wheel had lashed it and was leaning upon it more than half-asleep. Ritson, apparently for want of something better to do, was seated on the main-topmast cross-trees, with the ship’s telescope in his hand, scrutinising the motions of the distant schooner, whose tiny “royal” was now visible from the deck, gleaming white as snow on the extreme verge of the horizon.

Noting all these things at a glance, George turned to saunter aft, thinking that on such a perfectly calm day, and with such still water, he might, by leaning well out over the taffrail, get a glimpse of the ship’s bottom and see whether it had fouled at all, or whether the copper showed any signs of wrinkling. Arrived at the taffrail, he leaned well out over it, and peered down into the water. The first thing which attracted his notice was the deep, pure, beautiful ultramarine tint of the water, as he gazed far down into its unfathomable depths; the next was, the presence of a long greyish-brown object under the ship’s counter, which had escaped his notice at first in consequence of its being in the deepest shadow of the hull. A moment sufficed to satisfy him that it was a huge shark; and as the creature caught sight of him, and with a barely perceptible movement of its fins, backed out a foot or two from under the ship, as if in preparation to make a dart at him in case he should fall into the water, George shuddered at the thought of what might have been his or Walford’s fate, had the monster been in the neighbourhood of the ship a few hours earlier.

Sliding his body gently inboard again, Leicester turned to the dozing helmsman, and exclaimed—

“Here, you Ned; rouse up, man. There’s a big shark under the counter, so get out the shark-hook, ask the cook for a piece of good fat pork, and muster the watch aft in readiness to haul him inboard, in case we can coax him into swallowing the bait.”

Chapter Eleven.A Suspicious Sail.The man hurried away joyously to do George’s bidding, hailing his comrades aloft to “knock off work and come shark-fishing, all you sea-dogs aloft there,” as soon as he had placed a sufficiently respectful distance between himself and his skipper. There is no sport or pastime in which sailors will engage more eagerly than in the attempt to capture a shark; they regard the creature as their worst and most relentless enemy, and never willingly let slip an opportunity to catch and destroy one, frequently venting their hatred upon the unfortunate fish, when caught, in the utmost refinement of cruelty. Accordingly, no sooner was Ned’s hail heard than, dropping incontinently whatever work they happened to be engaged on, the whole watch, Ritson included, hurried down on deck and aft to the taffrail, to take a share in the sport Ritson, by virtue of his superior rank, assumed the lead at once, and as a matter of course. Taking the hook with its swivel and chain attached, and a piece of fat pork, some three or four pounds in weight, from the now lively and wide-awake Ned, he called out for “a bit of stoutish line,” busying himself meanwhile in burying the hook cunningly in the bait, in order that the shark might not see it—for it is a well-established fact that these monsters, unless very hungry, are acute enough to refuse a bait if the hook is not well hidden. The line, in the shape of the gaff-topsail halliard-fall, hastily unrove for the occasion, was soon forthcoming, and the hook, being at last baited to the second mate’s satisfaction, bent on to the chain.“Now stand clear,” commanded Ritson, as he prepared to pitch the bait overboard, “stand clear all of yer; and when I gives the word to ‘haul in,’ walk away for’ard with the line and bring his head out of water.”A long steady pendulum-like swing or two of the bait followed, and then away it went out over the stern and into the water with a splash. Leicester who was leaning over the taffrail and watching the proceedings with the greatest interest, saw the great fish turn like a flash and rush to the spot where the bait had fallen, turning himself over on his side as he did so.“Hurrah! He bites; he’s got it,” shouted one of the men eagerly. But he spoke rather too soon; Jack Shark was not to be caught quite so easily. Instead of opening his great jaws and swallowing the bait, hook and all, at a gulp, as was expected, he stopped dead in his rush, and began to poke the bait about suspiciously with the point of his shovel-shaped nose; and finally, with a contemptuous whisk of his tail, left it, and resumed his former position under the ship’s quarter.Great was the disappointment of the younger hands at this failure.“He ain’t hungry,” explained one.“Ain’t he?” contemptuously retorted another. “Just you drop overboard and try him, bo’; why he’d take you—sou’wester, water-boots, and all—down that main-hatchway of his’n without winking, and then come back and axe for more. No, no; ’taint that, mates; he’swaitingfor somebody, most likely for the poor chap as the skipper picked up this mornin’!”“Come, stow all that rubbish!” exclaimed the second mate; “how do you expect we’re going to catch the brute if you all stand there palavering like so many fish-wives? It’s enough to frighten him away altogether. Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackles now, all of you; and give me a chance to play him a bit.”The speaker thereupon, by sundry dexterous movements of the wrist, imparted a gentle wriggling motion to the line, which in its turn conveyed a corresponding motion to the bait, the latter being slowly drawn through the water at the same time. This was too much for the shark’s equanimity; and he made another dash at the bait, still refusing to swallow it however. The second mate then tried the virtue of a few quick jerks upon the bait, as though drawing it away from the creature, which had the effect of causing him to turn once more on his side, and make a snap at it, actually taking it into his mouth. Still he would neither swallow it nor close his jaws upon it, but unresistingly suffered it to be jerked out of his mouth again.“We’ll have him yet, boys,” Ritson exclaimed. “Pay out the line to its bare end.”This was done, the shark keeping close to the bait, turning it over and over with his nose, but persistently refusing to take it.“Now walk away steadily for’ard with your line, and stand by for a surge,” was the next command.Away went the men, dragging the line after them, and towing the bait through the water. The shark followed it closely up; and at last, just as the pork was being dragged out of the water altogether, he made a determined jump at it, swallowing it and the hook together; and the next moment the men were brought-up “all standing” by the tremendous strain on the line as the hook buried its barbed point in the creature’s body, while the water was lashed into foam and splashed clear in over the barque’s taffrail in the fish’s frantic efforts to free itself.“Hurrah!” exclaimed Ritson. “Nowyou have him, lads. Hold on every inch of line, or he’ll break away from you yet. Bear a hand here, one of you. Take the spanker-sheet and throw a running-bowline round the line, so’s we can get it down over his fins. That’s your sort, Ned; don’t let him get it into his jaws. Cleverly done; haul taut.Nowwe have him safe. Lead the sheet for’ard, let all hands tail on to it, and we’ll run him up out of the water and in on deck.”The bowline in the end of the sheet having been successfully passed over the fish’s shoulders and under his fins, the rope was laid along the deck, and the watch, leaving one by one the line to which the hook was attached, got hold of the sheet, and then with a joyous shout of “Stamp and go, boys; walk away with him,” they dragged the monster, still struggling furiously, up out of the water and in on deck over the taffrail.For a moment the huge fish lay perfectly still, then he began to plunge about and lash right and left with his tail in a manner which caused the whole ship to resound with the terrific blows; rousing the watch below, and causing them to “tumble up”en masseto ascertain the nature of the disturbance.“’Ware tail,” exclaimed the second mate warningly. “If any of you chaps catches a smack with it across your shins it’ll snap ’em like pipe-stems. Where’s the cook’s axe?”The question was promptly answered by the appearance of cookie himself, his sable visage beaming and his eyeballs rolling with delight as he danced nimbly about the deck, dodging the strokes of that terrible tail, with his gleaming axe upraised in readiness to deal a blow at the first opportunity. At length there was a momentary pause in the tremendous struggles, a pause of which Snowball (all black cooks who go to sea seem to be dubbed “Snowball”) promptly availed himself. A quick flash of his axe-blade in the sun, a dull crunching thud, and the back-bone was severed at the junction of the tail with the body; a lightning-like stroke of his long keen knife followed, and the severed tail was flung quivering aside as a long thin jet of blood spouted out from the body, broadly staining the snow-white deck-planks.But the shark had plenty of fight left in him still, as one of the men speedily discovered when, on thrusting a handspike into the great jaws, the strong, stout wooden bar was promptly bitten in two.“Here, lay hold, two or three of you, and capsize him,” ordered Ritson; “we must make an end of the beast, or some of yer’ll get hurted yet, I can see. Now then,” as three of the men seized the shark by his enormous fins, “one, two, three, and over with him!”With a cry of “Yo, heave he!” and a hearty drag the great fish was turned over on his back; and then Snowball, stepping forward once more, placed himself astride the creature and, with a quick, powerful stroke of his knife, slit open its belly, and so put an end to its sufferings. But so tenacious of life was it that even after the removal of the vital organs the heart was seen to be still expanding and contracting, which it continued to do for fully five minutes after being taken out of the fish. The head was next cut off and the back-bone removed for preservation as “curios,” after which the mutilated carcass was thrown overboard and the decks washed down.Ritson did not wait for the completion of this operation, but, leaving its superintendence to Mr Bowen (who, like the rest of the watch below, had come on deck to see what was the cause of the unusual tumult), retired once more with the telescope to his former post in the main-topmast cross-trees, and resumed his scrutiny of the strange schooner.George noticed this, and vaguely wondering what had so greatly excited his second mate’s curiosity, glanced in the direction to which the telescope was pointing, to find to his surprise that the upper half of the stranger’s topsail was visible from the deck.“Why, Ritson,” he hailed, “the schooner must have a little air of wind, surely; she is nearing us perceptibly.”Ritson, entirely contrary to nautical etiquette, made no reply to the skipper’s hail, but remained with his eye immovably glued to the tube for a full minute longer, when he gently closed the instrument and descended slowly to the deck.Arrived there, he walked up to Captain Leicester, and first glancing cautiously round to make sure that no one was within ear-shot, murmured in a low voice—“She’s heading as straight for us as she can steer, sir,with six sweeps out—three of a side. That means, sir, that her skipper wants so badly to get alongside of us, that he’s noways particular about the trouble he takes to bring him here.”George gave a low involuntary whistle of astonishment.“That is queer news indeed,” he remarked after a contemplative pause. “And you think then, Ritson, that the craft is a—”“A rover, sir; neither more nor less,” answered the second mate. “She ain’t French, I’m certain; she ain’t got the look of it; besides, the Johnnies wouldn’t ventur so far as this in a craft of that size—why she ain’t more than about a hundred and twenty tons at the very outside. No; she’s a rover, that’s whatsheis; a craft with a low beamy hull painted all black, tremendous long spars, and canvas with just no end of a h’ist to it.”“Give me the glass,” said George; “I’ll go as far as the cross-trees and take a look at her myself.”The second mate handed over the telescope, and the skipper, proceeding aloft, soon saw quite enough to satisfy him that Ritson’s conjectures as to the character and intentions of the schooner were only too likely to prove correct.Descending once more to the deck, he held a hurried consultation with his two officers, the result of which was a determination to fight to the last gasp, if the crew were only willing to stand by them. It would be necessary to ascertain their feeling upon the subject before anything could be done; so, it being then within a quarter of an hour of noon, George and the chief mate went below for their quadrants, took the sun’s meridian altitude, and, on the bell being struck to denote the hour of noon and the termination of the morning watch, Captain Leicester gave the word for all hands to muster aft.“My lads,” said George, when the men were all standing before him in obedience to his summons, “I have called you here in order that I may communicate to you a very disagreeable piece of intelligence. Briefly, it is this. The strange schooner yonder is a very suspicious-looking craft; Mr Ritson and I, who have both carefully examined her through the glass, are quite of the same opinion about her, namely, that she isa pirate. She has all the look of one; and her conduct tends greatly to confirm us in our suspicions, for she has rigged out half a dozen sweeps and is sweeping as straight down for us as she can come. Now, lads, I want to know what you propose to do in the event of our suspicions proving correct. Will you allow her to come alongside and throw her bloodthirsty crew in on our deck to cut our throats as if we were so many sheep! Or will you fight for your lives, and take your chance of being able to beat her off?”There was a few minutes of anxious consultation among the men; and then Ned stepped forward as spokesman of the party, and asked—“What would you advise us to do, sir? What do you think of doin’ yourself, sir, if we may make so bold as to axe?”“Mr Bowen, Mr Ritson, and I have resolved to fight as long as we can raise a hand in self-defence,” answered George; “and my advice to you is to do the same. Alone, we three men cannot hope to do much; but with your aid I certainly should not despair of beating off yonder schooner, even though she be full of men. And if the worst comes to the worst and we find that wemustdie, it will be far better to do so with swords in our hands, than to be slaughtered in cold blood.”“Yes, yes; that’s true; none o’ that for me, thank’ee,” and sundry other exclamations of concurrence followed the conclusion of the skipper’s speech; then came another very brief consultation; and finally Ned once more stepped forward and said—“We’ve agreed, sir, as you’re in the rights of it about the fightin’; and we’re quite ready to stand by yer—all hands of us—and do our best.”“Very well,” said George. “Then we will lose no time in making ready for our defence. Mr Bowen, we will have up that brass long nine-pounder which is down below; I provided it for just such an emergency as this.”“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the mate, in a cheery tone of voice which spoke volumes as to his confidence in their ability to beat off the pirate, if such the schooner should prove to be. Then, turning to the men, he continued—“Now then, some of you, whip the tarpaulin off this after hatchway, and lift off the hatches. Mr Ritson, will you be good enough to rouse out a couple of fourfold tackles and get them made fast aloft? We shall require a chain strop also. That’s right, lads; off with those hatches; we’ll soon have the old barkie in fighting trim.”Inspired by the mate’s cheery manner, the men worked with hearty good-will; and in less than an hour they had the long nine-pounder on deck, mounted on its carriage, its tackles hooked on, the gun loaded, cutlasses and pistols distributed, boarding-pikes cast loose, and everything ready for a stubborn resistance.These preliminaries arranged, George and the chief mate made their way aloft as far as the main-top to watch the approach of the suspected schooner, which had by this time crept up to within about nine miles of theAurora. She was still heading straight for the barque; and the telescope enabled them to see that her six sweeps were being vigorously plied; their long steady swing and the perfect time which was maintained in the working of them conclusively showing that they were being handled by a strong gang of men.“Why, she must be full of men, or those long, heavy sweeps could never be kept going for so great a length of time,” remarked George to the mate. “We shall have to devote all our attention to those sweeps in the first instance, I can see. If we are only fortunate enough to knock away two or three of them, it will at leastdelaytheir approach; and if a breeze would only spring up, smart as that schooner looks, I should not despair of being able to show her a clean pair of heels.”“Ay,” answered Bowen, “and we’re going to have a breeze by-and-by; just the way we wants it, too. I can make out the upper edge of a cloud-bank rising now above the horizon to the east’ard there; and if we can only keep yonder cut-throat crew at arm’s length until we get the wind, and if it’ll only come down upon us pretty fresh when itdoescome, I think, as you say, sir, we may give them handsomely the slip.”With the view of getting a still clearer idea as to the possible advent of the desired breeze, Mr Bowen forthwith undertook a journey as far as the main-royal yard, upon which he comfortably established himself, with one arm round the royal-pole, whilst he carefully studied the aspect of the weather, and as carefully scrutinised the horizon to see whether there were any other craft in their immediate neighbourhood. No other sail excepting the schooner, however, was in sight in any direction; and having at length formed a tolerably clear opinion with regard to the weather, he descended again to the main-top, and remarked to George—“That schooner must be coming up at the rate of about three knots, by the look of her.”“Yes; about that,” answered George.“And she’s about eight miles off now, I should say,” continued Bowen.“Yes; about eight miles,” returned George, with his eye still peering through the telescope.“Then,” remarked the mate, “it will take her a matter of some two hours and forty minutes, or thereabouts, to get alongside. And by that time, unless I am greatly mistaken, the first of the breeze will have reached us. I hope we shall get itbeforethen; because in light winds I don’t doubt but what that craft could sail round and round us; but only let it come strong enough to oblige us to stow our royals, and I’ll bet my old hat that we can walk away from her. I’m afraid we sha’n’t scrape clear without finding out the weight of the shot she can pitch at us; but if our lads are only steady when the powder-burning begins, I sha’n’t feel noways very greatly concerned.”With which summing up of the case Mr Bowen dropped into a sitting posture alongside his commander, and, letting his legs dangle down over the outer edge of the top, filled his pipe, and proceeded to regale himself with what he chose to term “two whiffs and a half.”

The man hurried away joyously to do George’s bidding, hailing his comrades aloft to “knock off work and come shark-fishing, all you sea-dogs aloft there,” as soon as he had placed a sufficiently respectful distance between himself and his skipper. There is no sport or pastime in which sailors will engage more eagerly than in the attempt to capture a shark; they regard the creature as their worst and most relentless enemy, and never willingly let slip an opportunity to catch and destroy one, frequently venting their hatred upon the unfortunate fish, when caught, in the utmost refinement of cruelty. Accordingly, no sooner was Ned’s hail heard than, dropping incontinently whatever work they happened to be engaged on, the whole watch, Ritson included, hurried down on deck and aft to the taffrail, to take a share in the sport Ritson, by virtue of his superior rank, assumed the lead at once, and as a matter of course. Taking the hook with its swivel and chain attached, and a piece of fat pork, some three or four pounds in weight, from the now lively and wide-awake Ned, he called out for “a bit of stoutish line,” busying himself meanwhile in burying the hook cunningly in the bait, in order that the shark might not see it—for it is a well-established fact that these monsters, unless very hungry, are acute enough to refuse a bait if the hook is not well hidden. The line, in the shape of the gaff-topsail halliard-fall, hastily unrove for the occasion, was soon forthcoming, and the hook, being at last baited to the second mate’s satisfaction, bent on to the chain.

“Now stand clear,” commanded Ritson, as he prepared to pitch the bait overboard, “stand clear all of yer; and when I gives the word to ‘haul in,’ walk away for’ard with the line and bring his head out of water.”

A long steady pendulum-like swing or two of the bait followed, and then away it went out over the stern and into the water with a splash. Leicester who was leaning over the taffrail and watching the proceedings with the greatest interest, saw the great fish turn like a flash and rush to the spot where the bait had fallen, turning himself over on his side as he did so.

“Hurrah! He bites; he’s got it,” shouted one of the men eagerly. But he spoke rather too soon; Jack Shark was not to be caught quite so easily. Instead of opening his great jaws and swallowing the bait, hook and all, at a gulp, as was expected, he stopped dead in his rush, and began to poke the bait about suspiciously with the point of his shovel-shaped nose; and finally, with a contemptuous whisk of his tail, left it, and resumed his former position under the ship’s quarter.

Great was the disappointment of the younger hands at this failure.

“He ain’t hungry,” explained one.

“Ain’t he?” contemptuously retorted another. “Just you drop overboard and try him, bo’; why he’d take you—sou’wester, water-boots, and all—down that main-hatchway of his’n without winking, and then come back and axe for more. No, no; ’taint that, mates; he’swaitingfor somebody, most likely for the poor chap as the skipper picked up this mornin’!”

“Come, stow all that rubbish!” exclaimed the second mate; “how do you expect we’re going to catch the brute if you all stand there palavering like so many fish-wives? It’s enough to frighten him away altogether. Clap a stopper on your jaw-tackles now, all of you; and give me a chance to play him a bit.”

The speaker thereupon, by sundry dexterous movements of the wrist, imparted a gentle wriggling motion to the line, which in its turn conveyed a corresponding motion to the bait, the latter being slowly drawn through the water at the same time. This was too much for the shark’s equanimity; and he made another dash at the bait, still refusing to swallow it however. The second mate then tried the virtue of a few quick jerks upon the bait, as though drawing it away from the creature, which had the effect of causing him to turn once more on his side, and make a snap at it, actually taking it into his mouth. Still he would neither swallow it nor close his jaws upon it, but unresistingly suffered it to be jerked out of his mouth again.

“We’ll have him yet, boys,” Ritson exclaimed. “Pay out the line to its bare end.”

This was done, the shark keeping close to the bait, turning it over and over with his nose, but persistently refusing to take it.

“Now walk away steadily for’ard with your line, and stand by for a surge,” was the next command.

Away went the men, dragging the line after them, and towing the bait through the water. The shark followed it closely up; and at last, just as the pork was being dragged out of the water altogether, he made a determined jump at it, swallowing it and the hook together; and the next moment the men were brought-up “all standing” by the tremendous strain on the line as the hook buried its barbed point in the creature’s body, while the water was lashed into foam and splashed clear in over the barque’s taffrail in the fish’s frantic efforts to free itself.

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Ritson. “Nowyou have him, lads. Hold on every inch of line, or he’ll break away from you yet. Bear a hand here, one of you. Take the spanker-sheet and throw a running-bowline round the line, so’s we can get it down over his fins. That’s your sort, Ned; don’t let him get it into his jaws. Cleverly done; haul taut.Nowwe have him safe. Lead the sheet for’ard, let all hands tail on to it, and we’ll run him up out of the water and in on deck.”

The bowline in the end of the sheet having been successfully passed over the fish’s shoulders and under his fins, the rope was laid along the deck, and the watch, leaving one by one the line to which the hook was attached, got hold of the sheet, and then with a joyous shout of “Stamp and go, boys; walk away with him,” they dragged the monster, still struggling furiously, up out of the water and in on deck over the taffrail.

For a moment the huge fish lay perfectly still, then he began to plunge about and lash right and left with his tail in a manner which caused the whole ship to resound with the terrific blows; rousing the watch below, and causing them to “tumble up”en masseto ascertain the nature of the disturbance.

“’Ware tail,” exclaimed the second mate warningly. “If any of you chaps catches a smack with it across your shins it’ll snap ’em like pipe-stems. Where’s the cook’s axe?”

The question was promptly answered by the appearance of cookie himself, his sable visage beaming and his eyeballs rolling with delight as he danced nimbly about the deck, dodging the strokes of that terrible tail, with his gleaming axe upraised in readiness to deal a blow at the first opportunity. At length there was a momentary pause in the tremendous struggles, a pause of which Snowball (all black cooks who go to sea seem to be dubbed “Snowball”) promptly availed himself. A quick flash of his axe-blade in the sun, a dull crunching thud, and the back-bone was severed at the junction of the tail with the body; a lightning-like stroke of his long keen knife followed, and the severed tail was flung quivering aside as a long thin jet of blood spouted out from the body, broadly staining the snow-white deck-planks.

But the shark had plenty of fight left in him still, as one of the men speedily discovered when, on thrusting a handspike into the great jaws, the strong, stout wooden bar was promptly bitten in two.

“Here, lay hold, two or three of you, and capsize him,” ordered Ritson; “we must make an end of the beast, or some of yer’ll get hurted yet, I can see. Now then,” as three of the men seized the shark by his enormous fins, “one, two, three, and over with him!”

With a cry of “Yo, heave he!” and a hearty drag the great fish was turned over on his back; and then Snowball, stepping forward once more, placed himself astride the creature and, with a quick, powerful stroke of his knife, slit open its belly, and so put an end to its sufferings. But so tenacious of life was it that even after the removal of the vital organs the heart was seen to be still expanding and contracting, which it continued to do for fully five minutes after being taken out of the fish. The head was next cut off and the back-bone removed for preservation as “curios,” after which the mutilated carcass was thrown overboard and the decks washed down.

Ritson did not wait for the completion of this operation, but, leaving its superintendence to Mr Bowen (who, like the rest of the watch below, had come on deck to see what was the cause of the unusual tumult), retired once more with the telescope to his former post in the main-topmast cross-trees, and resumed his scrutiny of the strange schooner.

George noticed this, and vaguely wondering what had so greatly excited his second mate’s curiosity, glanced in the direction to which the telescope was pointing, to find to his surprise that the upper half of the stranger’s topsail was visible from the deck.

“Why, Ritson,” he hailed, “the schooner must have a little air of wind, surely; she is nearing us perceptibly.”

Ritson, entirely contrary to nautical etiquette, made no reply to the skipper’s hail, but remained with his eye immovably glued to the tube for a full minute longer, when he gently closed the instrument and descended slowly to the deck.

Arrived there, he walked up to Captain Leicester, and first glancing cautiously round to make sure that no one was within ear-shot, murmured in a low voice—

“She’s heading as straight for us as she can steer, sir,with six sweeps out—three of a side. That means, sir, that her skipper wants so badly to get alongside of us, that he’s noways particular about the trouble he takes to bring him here.”

George gave a low involuntary whistle of astonishment.

“That is queer news indeed,” he remarked after a contemplative pause. “And you think then, Ritson, that the craft is a—”

“A rover, sir; neither more nor less,” answered the second mate. “She ain’t French, I’m certain; she ain’t got the look of it; besides, the Johnnies wouldn’t ventur so far as this in a craft of that size—why she ain’t more than about a hundred and twenty tons at the very outside. No; she’s a rover, that’s whatsheis; a craft with a low beamy hull painted all black, tremendous long spars, and canvas with just no end of a h’ist to it.”

“Give me the glass,” said George; “I’ll go as far as the cross-trees and take a look at her myself.”

The second mate handed over the telescope, and the skipper, proceeding aloft, soon saw quite enough to satisfy him that Ritson’s conjectures as to the character and intentions of the schooner were only too likely to prove correct.

Descending once more to the deck, he held a hurried consultation with his two officers, the result of which was a determination to fight to the last gasp, if the crew were only willing to stand by them. It would be necessary to ascertain their feeling upon the subject before anything could be done; so, it being then within a quarter of an hour of noon, George and the chief mate went below for their quadrants, took the sun’s meridian altitude, and, on the bell being struck to denote the hour of noon and the termination of the morning watch, Captain Leicester gave the word for all hands to muster aft.

“My lads,” said George, when the men were all standing before him in obedience to his summons, “I have called you here in order that I may communicate to you a very disagreeable piece of intelligence. Briefly, it is this. The strange schooner yonder is a very suspicious-looking craft; Mr Ritson and I, who have both carefully examined her through the glass, are quite of the same opinion about her, namely, that she isa pirate. She has all the look of one; and her conduct tends greatly to confirm us in our suspicions, for she has rigged out half a dozen sweeps and is sweeping as straight down for us as she can come. Now, lads, I want to know what you propose to do in the event of our suspicions proving correct. Will you allow her to come alongside and throw her bloodthirsty crew in on our deck to cut our throats as if we were so many sheep! Or will you fight for your lives, and take your chance of being able to beat her off?”

There was a few minutes of anxious consultation among the men; and then Ned stepped forward as spokesman of the party, and asked—

“What would you advise us to do, sir? What do you think of doin’ yourself, sir, if we may make so bold as to axe?”

“Mr Bowen, Mr Ritson, and I have resolved to fight as long as we can raise a hand in self-defence,” answered George; “and my advice to you is to do the same. Alone, we three men cannot hope to do much; but with your aid I certainly should not despair of beating off yonder schooner, even though she be full of men. And if the worst comes to the worst and we find that wemustdie, it will be far better to do so with swords in our hands, than to be slaughtered in cold blood.”

“Yes, yes; that’s true; none o’ that for me, thank’ee,” and sundry other exclamations of concurrence followed the conclusion of the skipper’s speech; then came another very brief consultation; and finally Ned once more stepped forward and said—

“We’ve agreed, sir, as you’re in the rights of it about the fightin’; and we’re quite ready to stand by yer—all hands of us—and do our best.”

“Very well,” said George. “Then we will lose no time in making ready for our defence. Mr Bowen, we will have up that brass long nine-pounder which is down below; I provided it for just such an emergency as this.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the mate, in a cheery tone of voice which spoke volumes as to his confidence in their ability to beat off the pirate, if such the schooner should prove to be. Then, turning to the men, he continued—

“Now then, some of you, whip the tarpaulin off this after hatchway, and lift off the hatches. Mr Ritson, will you be good enough to rouse out a couple of fourfold tackles and get them made fast aloft? We shall require a chain strop also. That’s right, lads; off with those hatches; we’ll soon have the old barkie in fighting trim.”

Inspired by the mate’s cheery manner, the men worked with hearty good-will; and in less than an hour they had the long nine-pounder on deck, mounted on its carriage, its tackles hooked on, the gun loaded, cutlasses and pistols distributed, boarding-pikes cast loose, and everything ready for a stubborn resistance.

These preliminaries arranged, George and the chief mate made their way aloft as far as the main-top to watch the approach of the suspected schooner, which had by this time crept up to within about nine miles of theAurora. She was still heading straight for the barque; and the telescope enabled them to see that her six sweeps were being vigorously plied; their long steady swing and the perfect time which was maintained in the working of them conclusively showing that they were being handled by a strong gang of men.

“Why, she must be full of men, or those long, heavy sweeps could never be kept going for so great a length of time,” remarked George to the mate. “We shall have to devote all our attention to those sweeps in the first instance, I can see. If we are only fortunate enough to knock away two or three of them, it will at leastdelaytheir approach; and if a breeze would only spring up, smart as that schooner looks, I should not despair of being able to show her a clean pair of heels.”

“Ay,” answered Bowen, “and we’re going to have a breeze by-and-by; just the way we wants it, too. I can make out the upper edge of a cloud-bank rising now above the horizon to the east’ard there; and if we can only keep yonder cut-throat crew at arm’s length until we get the wind, and if it’ll only come down upon us pretty fresh when itdoescome, I think, as you say, sir, we may give them handsomely the slip.”

With the view of getting a still clearer idea as to the possible advent of the desired breeze, Mr Bowen forthwith undertook a journey as far as the main-royal yard, upon which he comfortably established himself, with one arm round the royal-pole, whilst he carefully studied the aspect of the weather, and as carefully scrutinised the horizon to see whether there were any other craft in their immediate neighbourhood. No other sail excepting the schooner, however, was in sight in any direction; and having at length formed a tolerably clear opinion with regard to the weather, he descended again to the main-top, and remarked to George—

“That schooner must be coming up at the rate of about three knots, by the look of her.”

“Yes; about that,” answered George.

“And she’s about eight miles off now, I should say,” continued Bowen.

“Yes; about eight miles,” returned George, with his eye still peering through the telescope.

“Then,” remarked the mate, “it will take her a matter of some two hours and forty minutes, or thereabouts, to get alongside. And by that time, unless I am greatly mistaken, the first of the breeze will have reached us. I hope we shall get itbeforethen; because in light winds I don’t doubt but what that craft could sail round and round us; but only let it come strong enough to oblige us to stow our royals, and I’ll bet my old hat that we can walk away from her. I’m afraid we sha’n’t scrape clear without finding out the weight of the shot she can pitch at us; but if our lads are only steady when the powder-burning begins, I sha’n’t feel noways very greatly concerned.”

With which summing up of the case Mr Bowen dropped into a sitting posture alongside his commander, and, letting his legs dangle down over the outer edge of the top, filled his pipe, and proceeded to regale himself with what he chose to term “two whiffs and a half.”

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