"If it comes on to blow," I put in, "it may take us all we can do to fetch Bermuda. Don't dream of aiming for a further port."
At this moment Miss Robertson returned. I asked her how she had found her father, and she replied, in a low voice, that he was sleeping, but that his breathing was very faint and uncertain, and that he sometimes talked in his sleep.
She could not disguise her anxiety, and I entreated her to go below and watch him and rest herself as well; but she answered that she would not leave the deck until I had finished taking in sail and doing what was necessary.
"You cannot tell me that I am not of use," she added. "I will steer whilst you work, and if you wish to sleep I will watchfor you. Why should I not do so? I can benefit papa more by helping you to save the ship than by leaving you to work alone while I sit with him. I pray God," she said, in her sweet, low, troubled voice, "that all may go well with us. But I have been so near to death that it scarcely frightens me now. Tell me what to do and I will do it—though for your sake alone, as you would have sacrificed your life for mine. I owe you what I can never repay—and how kind, how gentle, how good you have been to my father and me!"
She spoke in so low a voice that it was impossible for any one to hear her but myself; and so greatly did her words effect me—I, who had now learnt to love her, who could indeed have died a hundredfold over for her dear sake, that I dared not trust myself to speak. Had I spoken I should have said what I was sure she would havedisliked to hear from a rough sailor like me: nay, I even turned away from her that I might be silent, recoiling from my own heart's language that seemed but an impertinence, an unfair obtrusion of claims which, even though she admitted them by speaking of my having saved her life, I should have been unmanly to assert.
I quickly recovered myself, and said, forcing alaugh—
"You are as bad a mutineer as the others. But as you will not obey me, I must obey you."
And looking for some moments at the ponderous bank of cloud in the north-west, of which the gathering brightness and intensity of the lightning was illustrating its steady approach, Iexclaimed—
"Are we strong enough to turn to, mates?"
"We can douse that top-gallant sail, Idare say," answered the boatswain. "Up on your pins, steward."
And we trooped along to the main-deck.
The spell of rest, and perhaps the grog, not to mention the tobacco, had done us no harm; the three of us went aloft, carrying the jigger with us which we left in the main-top, and furled the top-gallant sail, if not in man-of-war fashion and with a proper harbour bunt, at all events very securely.
But the main-topsail was another matter. All three of us had to lay out to windward to haul taut one earring; then skim along to the other end of the yard to the other earring; and so up and down, and still more reef-points and still more earrings, until my legs and fingers ached.
This job over, we rested ourselves in the main-top, and then got upon the main-yard, and made shift to pass the yard-arm gaskets round the sail and stow it after a fashion,though I had no doubt that the first gale of wind that struck it would blow it clear of its lashings in a minute.
Then on deck again with the main-topsail halliards to the capstan; and the dawn found the ship under three close-reefed topsails, foresail, and fore-topmast staysail, the whole of the other canvas having been reefed and stowed by three worn-out men, one of whom had been pretty nearly knocked up by the fight with the mutineers, the second of whom was fresh from an imprisonment of three days in a close, stifling, and rat-swarming coal-hole, whilst the third had received such a crack on his wrist as would have sent any man but an English sailor to his hammock and kept him ill and groaning for a month.
END OF VOL. II.
LONDON:PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
Transcriber's NotesPunctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the three volumes of this novel, or to remedy simple typographical errors; otherwise they were not changed.Dialect and other non-standard spellings have not been changed.Spaces before the contraction "'ll" (for "will") have been retained.Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines have been retained.Page82: "Sailors don't no nothing" is printed as "know" in a different edition of this book.Page203: The closing quotation mark after "of them? He didn't understand." perhaps should be after "of them?"
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the three volumes of this novel, or to remedy simple typographical errors; otherwise they were not changed.
Dialect and other non-standard spellings have not been changed.
Spaces before the contraction "'ll" (for "will") have been retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines have been retained.
Page82: "Sailors don't no nothing" is printed as "know" in a different edition of this book.
Page203: The closing quotation mark after "of them? He didn't understand." perhaps should be after "of them?"