Chapter Seventeen.The Barrier Reef.As the light increased, the land in front could be seen more distinctly rising steadily out of the seal with the high elevated peak in the centre which Mr Meldrum had identified the day before as the Mount Ross marked on the chart. The mountain, however, showed now on the port bow; so, the ship must necessarily have run down a considerable portion of the western coast, after they had abandoned the idea of weathering the island on the port tack—which they had done as soon as they were alarmed by the sound of breakers, letting her drive to leeward—before the collision with the berg. This was a discovery which did not appear to give Mr Meldrum much satisfaction.“It’s a great pity,” he said to the captain, “that we could not get round that northerly cape I pointed out to you, before the snowstorm and sea-fog set in! There were one or two good bays there marked on the chart, such as Christmas Harbour and Cumberland Bay, which have been properly sounded and have the points laid down; but of this western coast little appears known, and it has been only from surmise that the outlines of the map have been sketched in. I really don’t think any exploring party has ever visited it since Monsieur Lieutenant de Kerguelen-Trémarec briefly surveyed it in 1772—more than a hundred years ago.”“And it might have changed a lot since then,” observed Captain Dinks.“Yes,” continued Mr Meldrum; “for the French discoverer narrated all sorts of wonders about a raging volcano, with geysers and hot springs like those of Iceland; and if volcanic agency has been at work since then, no doubt the place is very much altered.”“If there is a live crater there, it can’t be so very cold then, eh?”“I don’t know about that,” replied Mr Meldrum. “Away in the north, I have seen boiling water freeze as soon as it was exposed to the outside air; so I don’t suppose it will be much warmer here than we can expect from all accounts.”But, warm or cold, it was the only haven of refuge for the sinking ship, which slowly, and more slowly still, by reason of the stormy sea and shifting wind, the latter of which grew gustier as the morning advanced, made her laboured way towards the land in crab-like fashion—half sailing, half drifting, and burying her bows deeply every now and then in the heavy rollers she was powerless now to ride over, and rising again from the water so sluggishly that it sometimes seemed impossible that she would recover herself, but must founder, whenever she took a deeper plunge than usual.Bye and bye, Mr Lathrope came on deck escorting Kate Meldrum; although our heroine looked more like escorting him, for he was very pale and appeared much thinner than before—if that were possible to one belonging to the order of “Pharaoh’s lean kine!”It was the first appearance of the American outside the cuddy since the accident that had crippled him, and he could not help noticing the altered state of the ship—having last seen her just before she encountered the cyclone.“Snakes and alligators, Cap, but you hev hed it rough, and no mistake!” said he to Captain Dinks, gazing with surprise at the broken bulwarks, which had been torn away when the masts went by the board, the wrecked forecastle, and the unsightly stumps to which the jury-masts had been attached, which now occupied the place of the tall graceful spars and neatly-braced yards, with the canvas smoothly stowed away in shipshape fashion, that he had left so trim when he went below that stormy night. “Why, you’re busted up entirely, I guess!”“Not quite yet, I hope,” replied Captain Dinks, smiling mournfully as he, too, looked around; “but, the oldNancyhas been sadly battered about. Ah, Mr Lathrope, if she hadn’t been a stout built one, she’d have gone to the bottom before this!”“You bet!” said the American, humouring this little remaining bit of pride the old seaman had in the ship he had commanded for so many years, a pride that was mingled with a sorrow at her approaching end, which he could foresee and mourn over, as if the vessel had been a living thing—“she’s been a clipper in her time, and made a smart fit for it; but, the winds and the waves have licked her at last, same as they done me, when they squoze in my durned ribs t’other day.”But, the captain could not laugh at what the other had said as a joke about himself, just in order to banish the poor skipper’s gloom. It seemed to him a sort of sacrilege towards theNancy Bellto liken her mortal injuries to the mere temporary ones of the American; so he turned the conversation.“I hope you feel better now?” he said.“Wa-al, I ain’t downright slick and hearty agin, that’s a fact; fur my innards got a’most druv into smash! But I’m picking up, I guess, and feed reg’ler; so I s’pose I’ll do, Cap, for an old hoss, eh? Durned if I don’t feel kinder peckish now. Hullo, my lily-white friend,” added he, catching sight of Snowball, who was bustling about the galley close to him, for Mr Lathrope had gone down on the main-deck along with Captain Dinks, to inspect the damage to the ship more narrowly than he was able to do on the poop. “Ain’t it near breakfast-time? I hope you’ve got something for us as good as that lobscouse last night: it wer prime, and no mistake!”“Golly, massa, no time for um ’scouse dis mornin’—too busy bilin’ beef; but breakfast in um brace of shakes,” replied the darkey, grinning from ear to ear and showing his white teeth and full lips to great advantage.“I’m durned glad to hear it,” said Mr Lathrope. “Look alive, Ivories, fur I feels a kinder sinkin’ in my stummick that tells me it’s time to stow in grub. You’re a prime cook, let me tell you, darkey, and hev done me a heap of good since I’ve ben aboard!”“Glad massa like um cookin’,” replied Snowball; and he bustled back into his galley with the intention of continuing to deserve the high encomium he had received from such an authority on eating as the steward had reported the American to be, while the latter proceeded to remount the poop ladder and join Kate. She, however, was not now alone, Frank Harness having seized the opportunity of seeing her on deck to come up and speak to her; and the two parted with some little embarrassment as soon as Mr Lathrope approached.Towards mid-day, theNancy Bellhad closed with the land so much that its features could be distinguished. A bare, inhospitable coast it looked!It seemed nothing but a series of abrupt cliffs and headlands, six to eight hundred feet high—as well as could be judged from the distance they were off—at the base of which the waves thundered, sending up columns of spray, without any bay or opening into which they could run the ship with any chance of getting ashore in safety.There was, certainly, a projecting cape stretching far into the sea, like an arm, to the southward, to which point the coast-line trended, and beyond that there might probably be a harbour of some sort for it was to the lee of the island; but then, the wind was now blowing from the southward and westward—the very direction almost they ought to take to give the point a wide berth—and thus, unless it chopped round, it would be utterly impossible for the crippled vessel to round the headland, save by a miracle.Captain Dinks and Mr Meldrum looked at each other in blank dismay; for, the gale seemed to be rising again, while the sea got rougher and rougher every moment, and dark masses of cloud began to pile themselves up along the horizon to seaward. If they were unable to beach the ship soon it was but only too apparent that she would sink from under them in deep water, when—God help those on board!Suddenly, however, when hope abandoned them both, there was a break in the dark sky just overhead and a bit of blue was to be seen, followed presently by a gleam of sunshine which sent a ray of comfort into their hearts and bid them not utterly despair. This caused one, at least, to pluck up his courage again.“It is close on noon now,” said Mr Meldrum, speaking cheerfully, “we had better take an observation, so as to see where we precisely are.”“And what good will that do us?” asked the Captain disconsolately; “no amount of observations are of any use to us now.”But he fetched out his sextant all the same, as well for the mere sake of doing “something” as to oblige Mr Meldrum; and taking advantage of a favourable opportunity, he “took” the sun.“We’re in 49 degrees 10 minutes south latitude,” he observed after a short interval during which he had been calculating his reckoning, “and 68 degrees 45 minutes east longitude—if that information can help us!”“I’ll soon tell you,” answered Mr Meldrum stretching out on the binnacle a chart of Kerguelen Land which he had brought up from the cabin, and marking on it the position of the ship with a pencil. “Yes, it’s exactly as I thought just now. You see that headland, there to starboard? That is the promontory put down here as Cape Saint Louis; and if we can get round it, there, as you see in the chart, we’ll find ourselves in a large sheltered bay, safe from the ocean swell, where we can run her ashore with ease. Why, it is the very thing! how providential it was that I put in this chart by accident along with some others of the Pacific I had amongst my papers! I didn’t know I had it till the other day.”“Ah,” said Captain Dinks, returning to the main question, “but how are we going to weather the point, eh? That’s the difficulty.”“We may do it yet,” replied Mr Meldrum, whose hopes appeared to rise the more the Captain seemed determined to look gloomily on the outlook. “You can see for yourself that we are drifting equally as much to the south as we are sailing towards the coast, and making about the same progress each way. From this circumstance I have little doubt that there is a considerable current running southwards; and if so, it may carry us round the cape—especially should the wind shift to the northward.”“Aye, if it should!” said Captain Dinks sarcastically.“I do not really see why it should not,” persisted Mr Meldrum, “it has already veered about a good deal this morning; and, if you remember, both yesterday afternoon and on the previous day it shifted shortly after sunset to that very direction.”“Yes, I recollect,” said the other with grim humour, “and the shift brought a snowstorm and a fog with it on each occasion! I hope, really, with all my heart, Mr Meldrum,” he added more heartily, “that the weather may be as accommodating as you seem to fancy; but, as a matter of precaution, I will go and see that the boats may be ready, in case we have to abandon the ship soon, which I think will be the end of it all. They are both patched up now, so as to be pretty serviceable; and fortunately, there’ll be no difficulty in getting them over the side, as the bulwarks have been swept away, and all we’ll have to do will be to launch them into the water. I am just going to superintend the stowage of the provisions and water casks. They are piled on the main-deck quite handy; and I will see, too, that the oars and sails are not forgotten.”“Very good,” answered Mr Meldrum. “But I hope we sha’n’t want them after all; and, while you are down there, I’ll remain here and look after the pilotage of the ship—that is, if you’ll send some one below in my place to see to my daughters and their arrangements. I have told Kate already that she must only take the barest necessaries with her, in case we have to embark in the boats, and above all, not to forget warm clothing for herself and Florry; so you’d better advise whoever you send down, to see that Mrs Major Negus does the same. Mr Lathrope is smart enough to look after himself.”“Aye, aye,” said Captain Dinks, as he turned to descend to the main-deck, “I think I’ll send down Frank Harness. He’s the most of a ladies’ man on board the ship, and I imagine that he and Miss Kate will get on pretty well together, eh, Mr Meldrum?”But the other made no reply to this remark. He was too busily engaged just then in looking out across the rolling sea astern, and watching a haze which appeared to be creeping up over the water to the northward, with a dark line of cloud hovering over it, both coming rapidly towards the ship.“Hurrah!” he exclaimed at last in an ecstasy of joy, when his faint hope became confirmed into a certainty; “the wind’s shifting, and chopping round to the north in our favour!”“You don’t say so?” said Captain Dinks equally excited, abandoning the provisioning of the boats and skipping up the poop-ladder like a young two-year-old; “why, yes, really! It’s the best piece of news I ever heard! Put the helm amidships!” he added to the man at the wheel. “We’ll have to ease her round and run before it a bit for the last time; and if the wind only holds to the northward for a short spell, we’ll get round the point yet and lay her old bones ashore decently. Steady, Boltrope, steady!”“Steady it is!” laconically answered the carpenter, whose trick it was at the wheel, obeying the captain’s directions implicitly.“Look alive, McCarthy, and square the yards,” was the captain’s next command; “but do it gingerly, my man, do it gingerly! If we lose the jury-masts now it will be all up with us.”“Aye, aye, sorr,” was the response of the chief mate, as he aided himself in carrying out the order; and the vessel’s head coming round south by west, under the impulse of the helm and the shifting of the sails, she began to exhibit some of her old powers and claw off the land, bringing the cape now to bear upon her port bow well to leeward.In addition to this, it was perceived that she made much better way through the water than when she had been steering direct for the shore, as, from the breeze being now well abeam, it made her heel over on her side, thus elevating her broken bows somewhat and preventing her from dipping her head so frequently in the waves.It was a moment of intense interest and suspense, everybody being on deck to witness the struggle the ship was making against the odds opposed to her.If she got round the point, they would be comparatively safe—at least they thought so; whereas, if the wind failed, or a brace started, or the rudder proved powerless to guide her at a critical period, the vessel would be driven against the iron-bound cliff they were approaching in an oblique line—against whose base the heavy rollers were now thundering with a crashing roar that each instant became louder as they neared the point, throwing their spray high up its precipitous face; and then—Why, they were lost!Frank Harness was at this time standing by the side of Kate and Florry on the poop; but nearer to the former, who had just asked him to save her little sister should the ship strike.“I will,” said he in a whisper close to her ear, “God helping me! and you, too; but call me ‘Frank’ again, Miss Meldrum. You did so once, you know, when you caught me that time I was nearly washed overboard, and saved me!”“Do you remember that?” asked Kate.“I do,” said he; “how could I forget it? Do not fear, I’ll save you and Florry too!”“Thank you, ‘Frank,’ then for your promise,” whispered she—in accents so low that they were almost drowned by the noise of the waves dashing against the cliff; but he heard her, and his face lightened up as brightly as if he had been redeemed from all peril and saw heaven before him.Onward the ship sped, ever drawing closer to that terrible wall of rock and yet gaining at the same time inch by inch on the promontory, that jutted out into the sea like an arm stretched forth to stay her progress; while, as the anxious moments flew by, the northerly wind which had come so opportunely to their rescue gradually rose into a gale, threatening to destroy them—theNancy Bellapproaching the cliff so closely, as she skirted by, that it seemed to those on board that they might have touched it by merely stretching out their hands over the side. The sky, too, was growing darker and darker every moment.They were now quite near the southerly point of the cape, and within half a cable’s length of its precipitous face: five minutes—three minutes—one minute—would settle the question.“Luff, man, luff!” shouted the captain, as all held their breath with excitement.It was a case of touch and go!“Hurrah! down with the helm! she’s done it!” called out Captain Dinks again, as the vessel glided by the last spur of the promontory, and, rounding to on the other side, she seemed to get into smoother water—a fine beach stretching out in the distance a few miles away and no rocks being apparent—“the old ship has conquered, and won the race after all.”His triumph, however, was as short-lived as it was premature.Hardly had theNancy Bellrounded the cape, than the air grew dense around them, and snow began to fall heavily; while a thick fog rising, shut out the shore and every object from view. Then, as Captain Dinks and Mr Meldrum were deliberating whether it would be better under the circumstances to run the ship straight for the beach—which they had calculated to be some five miles in front of them to the south-east or the cape they had just passed—or else to continue pumping until the weather got lighter and they could see better where they were going, the matter was settled for them, in a very unexpected manner, by the ship running on to a sunken ridge of rock immediately under her forefoot; and, in a moment, there she stuck hard and fast, bumping and scraping her bottom, with a harsh, grating sound and a quivering and rending of her timbers, as if every plank below the water-line was being torn out of her piecemeal.TheNancy Bellhad struck on some barrier reef, which guarded at a distance the desolate and inhospitable shore, just at the very moment everything was deemed secure and all danger past! And, as she stranded, the thick-falling white snow which had already covered the decks seemed to be busy wreathing a shroud for the ill-fated ship, while the surges sang her requiem in their dull, heart-breaking roar—the sea-fog hanging over the scene of the calamity the while like a sombre pall.
As the light increased, the land in front could be seen more distinctly rising steadily out of the seal with the high elevated peak in the centre which Mr Meldrum had identified the day before as the Mount Ross marked on the chart. The mountain, however, showed now on the port bow; so, the ship must necessarily have run down a considerable portion of the western coast, after they had abandoned the idea of weathering the island on the port tack—which they had done as soon as they were alarmed by the sound of breakers, letting her drive to leeward—before the collision with the berg. This was a discovery which did not appear to give Mr Meldrum much satisfaction.
“It’s a great pity,” he said to the captain, “that we could not get round that northerly cape I pointed out to you, before the snowstorm and sea-fog set in! There were one or two good bays there marked on the chart, such as Christmas Harbour and Cumberland Bay, which have been properly sounded and have the points laid down; but of this western coast little appears known, and it has been only from surmise that the outlines of the map have been sketched in. I really don’t think any exploring party has ever visited it since Monsieur Lieutenant de Kerguelen-Trémarec briefly surveyed it in 1772—more than a hundred years ago.”
“And it might have changed a lot since then,” observed Captain Dinks.
“Yes,” continued Mr Meldrum; “for the French discoverer narrated all sorts of wonders about a raging volcano, with geysers and hot springs like those of Iceland; and if volcanic agency has been at work since then, no doubt the place is very much altered.”
“If there is a live crater there, it can’t be so very cold then, eh?”
“I don’t know about that,” replied Mr Meldrum. “Away in the north, I have seen boiling water freeze as soon as it was exposed to the outside air; so I don’t suppose it will be much warmer here than we can expect from all accounts.”
But, warm or cold, it was the only haven of refuge for the sinking ship, which slowly, and more slowly still, by reason of the stormy sea and shifting wind, the latter of which grew gustier as the morning advanced, made her laboured way towards the land in crab-like fashion—half sailing, half drifting, and burying her bows deeply every now and then in the heavy rollers she was powerless now to ride over, and rising again from the water so sluggishly that it sometimes seemed impossible that she would recover herself, but must founder, whenever she took a deeper plunge than usual.
Bye and bye, Mr Lathrope came on deck escorting Kate Meldrum; although our heroine looked more like escorting him, for he was very pale and appeared much thinner than before—if that were possible to one belonging to the order of “Pharaoh’s lean kine!”
It was the first appearance of the American outside the cuddy since the accident that had crippled him, and he could not help noticing the altered state of the ship—having last seen her just before she encountered the cyclone.
“Snakes and alligators, Cap, but you hev hed it rough, and no mistake!” said he to Captain Dinks, gazing with surprise at the broken bulwarks, which had been torn away when the masts went by the board, the wrecked forecastle, and the unsightly stumps to which the jury-masts had been attached, which now occupied the place of the tall graceful spars and neatly-braced yards, with the canvas smoothly stowed away in shipshape fashion, that he had left so trim when he went below that stormy night. “Why, you’re busted up entirely, I guess!”
“Not quite yet, I hope,” replied Captain Dinks, smiling mournfully as he, too, looked around; “but, the oldNancyhas been sadly battered about. Ah, Mr Lathrope, if she hadn’t been a stout built one, she’d have gone to the bottom before this!”
“You bet!” said the American, humouring this little remaining bit of pride the old seaman had in the ship he had commanded for so many years, a pride that was mingled with a sorrow at her approaching end, which he could foresee and mourn over, as if the vessel had been a living thing—“she’s been a clipper in her time, and made a smart fit for it; but, the winds and the waves have licked her at last, same as they done me, when they squoze in my durned ribs t’other day.”
But, the captain could not laugh at what the other had said as a joke about himself, just in order to banish the poor skipper’s gloom. It seemed to him a sort of sacrilege towards theNancy Bellto liken her mortal injuries to the mere temporary ones of the American; so he turned the conversation.
“I hope you feel better now?” he said.
“Wa-al, I ain’t downright slick and hearty agin, that’s a fact; fur my innards got a’most druv into smash! But I’m picking up, I guess, and feed reg’ler; so I s’pose I’ll do, Cap, for an old hoss, eh? Durned if I don’t feel kinder peckish now. Hullo, my lily-white friend,” added he, catching sight of Snowball, who was bustling about the galley close to him, for Mr Lathrope had gone down on the main-deck along with Captain Dinks, to inspect the damage to the ship more narrowly than he was able to do on the poop. “Ain’t it near breakfast-time? I hope you’ve got something for us as good as that lobscouse last night: it wer prime, and no mistake!”
“Golly, massa, no time for um ’scouse dis mornin’—too busy bilin’ beef; but breakfast in um brace of shakes,” replied the darkey, grinning from ear to ear and showing his white teeth and full lips to great advantage.
“I’m durned glad to hear it,” said Mr Lathrope. “Look alive, Ivories, fur I feels a kinder sinkin’ in my stummick that tells me it’s time to stow in grub. You’re a prime cook, let me tell you, darkey, and hev done me a heap of good since I’ve ben aboard!”
“Glad massa like um cookin’,” replied Snowball; and he bustled back into his galley with the intention of continuing to deserve the high encomium he had received from such an authority on eating as the steward had reported the American to be, while the latter proceeded to remount the poop ladder and join Kate. She, however, was not now alone, Frank Harness having seized the opportunity of seeing her on deck to come up and speak to her; and the two parted with some little embarrassment as soon as Mr Lathrope approached.
Towards mid-day, theNancy Bellhad closed with the land so much that its features could be distinguished. A bare, inhospitable coast it looked!
It seemed nothing but a series of abrupt cliffs and headlands, six to eight hundred feet high—as well as could be judged from the distance they were off—at the base of which the waves thundered, sending up columns of spray, without any bay or opening into which they could run the ship with any chance of getting ashore in safety.
There was, certainly, a projecting cape stretching far into the sea, like an arm, to the southward, to which point the coast-line trended, and beyond that there might probably be a harbour of some sort for it was to the lee of the island; but then, the wind was now blowing from the southward and westward—the very direction almost they ought to take to give the point a wide berth—and thus, unless it chopped round, it would be utterly impossible for the crippled vessel to round the headland, save by a miracle.
Captain Dinks and Mr Meldrum looked at each other in blank dismay; for, the gale seemed to be rising again, while the sea got rougher and rougher every moment, and dark masses of cloud began to pile themselves up along the horizon to seaward. If they were unable to beach the ship soon it was but only too apparent that she would sink from under them in deep water, when—God help those on board!
Suddenly, however, when hope abandoned them both, there was a break in the dark sky just overhead and a bit of blue was to be seen, followed presently by a gleam of sunshine which sent a ray of comfort into their hearts and bid them not utterly despair. This caused one, at least, to pluck up his courage again.
“It is close on noon now,” said Mr Meldrum, speaking cheerfully, “we had better take an observation, so as to see where we precisely are.”
“And what good will that do us?” asked the Captain disconsolately; “no amount of observations are of any use to us now.”
But he fetched out his sextant all the same, as well for the mere sake of doing “something” as to oblige Mr Meldrum; and taking advantage of a favourable opportunity, he “took” the sun.
“We’re in 49 degrees 10 minutes south latitude,” he observed after a short interval during which he had been calculating his reckoning, “and 68 degrees 45 minutes east longitude—if that information can help us!”
“I’ll soon tell you,” answered Mr Meldrum stretching out on the binnacle a chart of Kerguelen Land which he had brought up from the cabin, and marking on it the position of the ship with a pencil. “Yes, it’s exactly as I thought just now. You see that headland, there to starboard? That is the promontory put down here as Cape Saint Louis; and if we can get round it, there, as you see in the chart, we’ll find ourselves in a large sheltered bay, safe from the ocean swell, where we can run her ashore with ease. Why, it is the very thing! how providential it was that I put in this chart by accident along with some others of the Pacific I had amongst my papers! I didn’t know I had it till the other day.”
“Ah,” said Captain Dinks, returning to the main question, “but how are we going to weather the point, eh? That’s the difficulty.”
“We may do it yet,” replied Mr Meldrum, whose hopes appeared to rise the more the Captain seemed determined to look gloomily on the outlook. “You can see for yourself that we are drifting equally as much to the south as we are sailing towards the coast, and making about the same progress each way. From this circumstance I have little doubt that there is a considerable current running southwards; and if so, it may carry us round the cape—especially should the wind shift to the northward.”
“Aye, if it should!” said Captain Dinks sarcastically.
“I do not really see why it should not,” persisted Mr Meldrum, “it has already veered about a good deal this morning; and, if you remember, both yesterday afternoon and on the previous day it shifted shortly after sunset to that very direction.”
“Yes, I recollect,” said the other with grim humour, “and the shift brought a snowstorm and a fog with it on each occasion! I hope, really, with all my heart, Mr Meldrum,” he added more heartily, “that the weather may be as accommodating as you seem to fancy; but, as a matter of precaution, I will go and see that the boats may be ready, in case we have to abandon the ship soon, which I think will be the end of it all. They are both patched up now, so as to be pretty serviceable; and fortunately, there’ll be no difficulty in getting them over the side, as the bulwarks have been swept away, and all we’ll have to do will be to launch them into the water. I am just going to superintend the stowage of the provisions and water casks. They are piled on the main-deck quite handy; and I will see, too, that the oars and sails are not forgotten.”
“Very good,” answered Mr Meldrum. “But I hope we sha’n’t want them after all; and, while you are down there, I’ll remain here and look after the pilotage of the ship—that is, if you’ll send some one below in my place to see to my daughters and their arrangements. I have told Kate already that she must only take the barest necessaries with her, in case we have to embark in the boats, and above all, not to forget warm clothing for herself and Florry; so you’d better advise whoever you send down, to see that Mrs Major Negus does the same. Mr Lathrope is smart enough to look after himself.”
“Aye, aye,” said Captain Dinks, as he turned to descend to the main-deck, “I think I’ll send down Frank Harness. He’s the most of a ladies’ man on board the ship, and I imagine that he and Miss Kate will get on pretty well together, eh, Mr Meldrum?”
But the other made no reply to this remark. He was too busily engaged just then in looking out across the rolling sea astern, and watching a haze which appeared to be creeping up over the water to the northward, with a dark line of cloud hovering over it, both coming rapidly towards the ship.
“Hurrah!” he exclaimed at last in an ecstasy of joy, when his faint hope became confirmed into a certainty; “the wind’s shifting, and chopping round to the north in our favour!”
“You don’t say so?” said Captain Dinks equally excited, abandoning the provisioning of the boats and skipping up the poop-ladder like a young two-year-old; “why, yes, really! It’s the best piece of news I ever heard! Put the helm amidships!” he added to the man at the wheel. “We’ll have to ease her round and run before it a bit for the last time; and if the wind only holds to the northward for a short spell, we’ll get round the point yet and lay her old bones ashore decently. Steady, Boltrope, steady!”
“Steady it is!” laconically answered the carpenter, whose trick it was at the wheel, obeying the captain’s directions implicitly.
“Look alive, McCarthy, and square the yards,” was the captain’s next command; “but do it gingerly, my man, do it gingerly! If we lose the jury-masts now it will be all up with us.”
“Aye, aye, sorr,” was the response of the chief mate, as he aided himself in carrying out the order; and the vessel’s head coming round south by west, under the impulse of the helm and the shifting of the sails, she began to exhibit some of her old powers and claw off the land, bringing the cape now to bear upon her port bow well to leeward.
In addition to this, it was perceived that she made much better way through the water than when she had been steering direct for the shore, as, from the breeze being now well abeam, it made her heel over on her side, thus elevating her broken bows somewhat and preventing her from dipping her head so frequently in the waves.
It was a moment of intense interest and suspense, everybody being on deck to witness the struggle the ship was making against the odds opposed to her.
If she got round the point, they would be comparatively safe—at least they thought so; whereas, if the wind failed, or a brace started, or the rudder proved powerless to guide her at a critical period, the vessel would be driven against the iron-bound cliff they were approaching in an oblique line—against whose base the heavy rollers were now thundering with a crashing roar that each instant became louder as they neared the point, throwing their spray high up its precipitous face; and then—Why, they were lost!
Frank Harness was at this time standing by the side of Kate and Florry on the poop; but nearer to the former, who had just asked him to save her little sister should the ship strike.
“I will,” said he in a whisper close to her ear, “God helping me! and you, too; but call me ‘Frank’ again, Miss Meldrum. You did so once, you know, when you caught me that time I was nearly washed overboard, and saved me!”
“Do you remember that?” asked Kate.
“I do,” said he; “how could I forget it? Do not fear, I’ll save you and Florry too!”
“Thank you, ‘Frank,’ then for your promise,” whispered she—in accents so low that they were almost drowned by the noise of the waves dashing against the cliff; but he heard her, and his face lightened up as brightly as if he had been redeemed from all peril and saw heaven before him.
Onward the ship sped, ever drawing closer to that terrible wall of rock and yet gaining at the same time inch by inch on the promontory, that jutted out into the sea like an arm stretched forth to stay her progress; while, as the anxious moments flew by, the northerly wind which had come so opportunely to their rescue gradually rose into a gale, threatening to destroy them—theNancy Bellapproaching the cliff so closely, as she skirted by, that it seemed to those on board that they might have touched it by merely stretching out their hands over the side. The sky, too, was growing darker and darker every moment.
They were now quite near the southerly point of the cape, and within half a cable’s length of its precipitous face: five minutes—three minutes—one minute—would settle the question.
“Luff, man, luff!” shouted the captain, as all held their breath with excitement.
It was a case of touch and go!
“Hurrah! down with the helm! she’s done it!” called out Captain Dinks again, as the vessel glided by the last spur of the promontory, and, rounding to on the other side, she seemed to get into smoother water—a fine beach stretching out in the distance a few miles away and no rocks being apparent—“the old ship has conquered, and won the race after all.”
His triumph, however, was as short-lived as it was premature.
Hardly had theNancy Bellrounded the cape, than the air grew dense around them, and snow began to fall heavily; while a thick fog rising, shut out the shore and every object from view. Then, as Captain Dinks and Mr Meldrum were deliberating whether it would be better under the circumstances to run the ship straight for the beach—which they had calculated to be some five miles in front of them to the south-east or the cape they had just passed—or else to continue pumping until the weather got lighter and they could see better where they were going, the matter was settled for them, in a very unexpected manner, by the ship running on to a sunken ridge of rock immediately under her forefoot; and, in a moment, there she stuck hard and fast, bumping and scraping her bottom, with a harsh, grating sound and a quivering and rending of her timbers, as if every plank below the water-line was being torn out of her piecemeal.
TheNancy Bellhad struck on some barrier reef, which guarded at a distance the desolate and inhospitable shore, just at the very moment everything was deemed secure and all danger past! And, as she stranded, the thick-falling white snow which had already covered the decks seemed to be busy wreathing a shroud for the ill-fated ship, while the surges sang her requiem in their dull, heart-breaking roar—the sea-fog hanging over the scene of the calamity the while like a sombre pall.
Chapter Eighteen.A Foul Blow!Every one was on deck at the time—the crew, the officers, the passengers; but, with the exception of a slight scream from Mrs Major Negus, which passed unnoticed, not a single exclamation of terror or alarm was uttered. All seemed completely stupefied by the unexpected shock, their consternation being too great for words—they stood as if spell-bound!Captain Dinks was the first to break the silence.“God forgive me!” he cried out to everybody’s surprise. “It is all my fault!”“Your fault!” repeated Mr Meldrum; “how—why?”“I should have had a man forward, sounding with the lead, but I quite forgot it—quite forgot it; and this has happened.”“Nonsense, man!” said the other to cheer him up—the captain appearing to be more concerned at his own neglect, as he regarded it, than he was at the actual fact of the ship’s striking on the reef—“such a precaution would have been utterly useless! We were probably in deep water a minute before; and even if a man had been stationed in the chains, he could scarcely have had time to have swung the lead and sang out the marks, before she was on the rocks! It is one of those unforeseen calamities that are inevitable and which can never be prevented by any human foresight. I for one, and I’ve no doubt every one else here agrees with me, entirely exonerate you from all blame.”The captain was endeavouring to make some broken reply, as far as his deep emotion would allow, when Mrs Major Negus interrupted him.“Speak for yourself, please, Mr Meldrum,” she exclaimed, elbowing herself forwards in front of the group, her shrill high-pitched voice sounding almost like another scream, as she waved her arms wildly about and addressed Mr Meldrum and Captain Dinks alternately. “Speak for yourself, please, for I don’t agree with you at all! I say it is the captain’s fault; and he knows it, though it’s rather late in the day for him to acknowledge it! And I’d like to know, sir, how I and my darling boy are going to get on shore now in this blinding snowstorm—in such a bleak and dreary outlandish place, too! A nice captain you are; and you bargained to take us safe to New Zealand when you took our passage-money. My poor Maurice, oh my dear boy, you’ll never, never see your father now, for we’ll all be drowned, and Captain Dinks is the cause of it!”So shrieking, she proceeded to weep and wail in a way that made Mr Meldrum lose all patience with her.“Peace, woman!” cried he indignantly. “This is no time for hysterics and such violent displays: you’d better keep them till the fine weather comes, and remain quiet now! The best thing you can do if you hope to escape, is to allow the captain to see about getting the boats ready to take us off, for the ship will probably break up soon.”His latter remark, while it reduced “the Major” to a state of limp collapse that made her silent and subdued, had the effect he intended, of rousing the captain to action—thus causing him to forget for a time his grief at theNancy Bell’sdisaster in having to exert himself so as to provide for the safety of those on board.“Main-deck ahoy there!” he shouted.“Aye, aye, sorr,” answered the first mate, who had remained there, looking to the trimming of the sails while the ship was working up to the cape.“Have the men finished storing those things in the boats yet?”“They’re jist at it now, sorr. We were all a bit flabbergasted when the poor crathur struck; but we’re working hard now, sorr, and the boats will soon be ready to launch into the wather.”“That’s right, McCarthy, we’ve no time to lose. Send one of the hands forwards to see how her head lies.”“Aye, aye, sorr. Mr Adams has gone already sure: an’ I’ve sint the carpenter, Boltrope, to sound the well.”“He’d better by far sound alongside, to see what depth of water we’re in and which would be the best side for launching the boats off!” replied Captain Dinks. “But stay, Harness,” he added, “you can do that. Heave the lead aft here, and then amidships, telling me what soundings you get.”On returning from his mission forwards, Mr Adams reported that the vessel’s bows were fixed hard and fast between two conical points of rock, which were covered by about four fathoms of water; while Frank Harness, who had been sounding round the ship as the captain directed, stated that there were twenty fathoms of water aft and the same on the port side amidships, but on the starboard, or right-hand side, the lead only gave the same depth the second mate had found forward—consequently, the ship’s stern, being so much lighter than the flooded fore-compartment, had slewed round with the sea towards the reef, on which therefore theNancy Bellmust have projected herself more than half her length. Probably, had her bows not been so depressed, she would have gone over it altogether with a scrape, merely taking off her false keel and dead-wood without doing any material damage.As it was, however, there she was; and the question now was whether the tide was at the ebb or flow at the time she struck. If the former, the likelihood was that as soon as the tide began to rise, the vessel would float off and founder, Boltrope having reported that there were eight feet of water in the hold and that it was gaining fast—the pumping operations, of course, having long since been stopped, but, should she have run on the reef at high water, there she was immovably fixed as long as she held together; and in that case they would be able to get ashore to the mainland in comfort, almost at their own convenience, should the weather remain calm, in addition to saving many articles from the wreck that would be of use to them, and a much larger proportion of the ship’s provisions and stores.After the first bumping and scraping that had immediately succeeded her stranding, theNancy Bellhad remained quiet, as if the old ship was glad to be at rest after all the buffeting about and bruisings she had received from the boisterous billows. Hence, the natural alarm that had been excited by the ship’s striking had calmed down, there being nothing in her present situation to heighten the sense of danger; for the vessel was sheltered from the wind under the lee of the cape, and the sea, in comparison with the rough water she had recently passed through and the stormy waves she had battled with when beating round the point, was almost calm. Everybody, therefore, inspired by the example set them by Mr Meldrum and the captain, remained perfectly cool and collected, the crew obeying the orders given them with alacrity and working as heartily as if the poor oldNancy Bellwere still the staunch clipper of yore, careering over the ocean in the full panoply of her canvas plumage and prosecuting her voyage, instead of lying, a broke and battered hulk, hard and fast ashore on an outlying reef of rocks at Kerguelen Land, the “Desolation Island”—name of ominous import—of Antarctic whaling ships!Even Bill Moody, mutinous as he had shown himself before and lazy to a degree, now appeared metaphorically to “put his shoulder to the wheel,” as if to make amends for the past, lending a willing hand to the preparations that were being made by Mr McCarthy for equipping the boats and laying down ways for launching them from the main-deck—there being no davits now, nor any means for rigging a derrick to lift them over the side. Indeed, when Mr Adams ordered a gang to man the pumps again on the carpenter’s reporting that the water was gaining in the hold, the whilom mutineer was one of the first to step forwards for the duty, although Captain Dinks at once countermanded the order, seeing its inutility, and saying that there was no use in working a willing horse to death!“They could never clear her now, Adams,” said he, “pump as hard as they could; and if they did it would be useless, for she’ll never float again. However, if you want to give the men something to do, you can set to work breaking cargo and lightening her amidships, for then we’ll swing further up on the reef and get fixed more firmly.”“Very good, sir,” replied the second mate; and the hands were therefore at once started to open the hatches, getting out some of the heavy goods from the hold below, especially the dead-weight from just abaft the main-mast, that had so deducted from the ship’s buoyancy when sailing on a wind during the earlier part of her voyage.Moody’s change of demeanour had not escaped the notice of the captain; and he commented on it to Mr Meldrum, saying that he thought the lesson he had given him had had a very satisfactory result. “There is nothing,” said he, “so persuasive as a knock-down argument!”The other, however, did not believe in the rapid conversion.“I’ve heard of shamming Abraham before,” said he. “The rascal may have something to gain, and wishes to put you off your guard by his apparent alacrity and willingness to work. If you had seen the scowl he gave you when your back was turned that time after you knocked him down, you wouldn’t trust him further than you could help! I believe all this good behaviour of his is put on, and that you’ll see the real animal come out by and by.”“All right!” said Captain Dinks as cheerfully as if the matter were of no moment to him; “we’ll see! But we must first observe the tide and the ship’s position on the rocks; I think we’ll be able to decide those points before the other matter can be settled, by a long way!”When theNancy Bellstruck, it had been close upon six bells in the second dog-watch—seven o’clock in the evening—the entire afternoon having passed away so rapidly while those on board were anxiously watching the struggle of the vessel against the wind and sea in her endeavours to weather the cape, that, in their intense excitement as they awaited the denouement which would solve all their hopes and fears, they took no heed of the flight of time. It seemed really but a few brief minutes, instead of hours, from the period when Captain Dinks had taken the sun at noon to the terrible moment of the catastrophe.Now, it was midnight, or approaching to it, the intervening period having glided by much more speedily through the fact of everybody having been engaged in doing something towards the common safety of all. Not even the lady passengers had been exempted from the task, Mr Meldrum having told Kate to go below and collect whatever she saw in the cabins that might be of use to them on the island; while Mrs Negus, dropping her dignity for once, cordially assisted. As for Florry and Maurice they participated in the work with the greatest glee, looking upon the wreck as if it had been specially brought about for their enjoyment, like an impromptu picnic—it was the realisation of their wildest childish dreams.All this while the ship lay quiet, as has been stated, save that after a time she took a slight list to starboard, as if settling down on the rocks, a fact which confirmed the captain in his belief that it had been high water when she went on the reef. This increased his satisfaction.“She won’t move now,” said he to Mr Meldrum. “She’s wedged as securely forwards as if she were on her cradle; and, unless a storm comes, she’ll last for a week.”“How about when the tide flows again?” asked the other.“Oh, she can’t float off. That weight of water in the fore compartment has regularly nailed her on the rocks, thus preventing the only danger I feared—that of her slipping off into deep water as the tide ebbed. As she struck when it was flood and jammed herself firmly then on the reef, there she’ll remain when it flows again; so, we have plenty of time before us to transport the whole cargo ashore if we like!”“I hope so, I’m sure,” replied Mr Meldrum; “but you should recollect that, from the experience we’ve already had, the weather is not to be trusted for very long hereabouts. If it comes on to blow again from the south and the sea should get up, we’ll be in a nasty position.”“Don’t croak,” said Captain Dinks, who seemed to have quite recovered his spirits as the others around him became despondent. “Look, the snowstorm has ceased already and the sea-fog is rising and drifting away. Why, we’ll have a fine bright night after all!”It was as the captain had stated. The fog had lifted up and the snow stopped falling; but, his hopes of a fine night were doomed to be disappointed, for, although the sky above cleared for a short spell and allowed a few stray stars to peep out, while an occasional gleam of moonshine lit up the ship’s surroundings, the heavens were soon obscured again with thick driving clouds, the wind shifting to the southward and westward and blowing right into the bay behind Cape Saint Louis, where theNancy Bellwas aground.Presently, a heavy rolling sea began to sweep in upon her from the offing; and as the tide rose again, her stern swung more to the starboard side, being driven up higher on the rocks, while her whole frame became uneasy, rocking to and fro and quivering from abaft the main hatch, the fore part of her grinding and working about in a way that threatened to tear her soon to pieces.“I’m afraid she won’t last till morning,” said Mr Meldrum, who had never left the deck, but was watching the course of events. “We’d better take to the boats while we can. By and by it may be too late!”“Oh no,” replied Captain Dinks, “she’ll hold out all right, and it’s best for us to land by daylight. Besides, I’ve allowed the hands to turn in, save two or three who are keeping a sort of anchor watch, and I’m not going to rouse them out again unnecessarily—poor fellows, they’ve had a hard time of it the last few days!”“Not many of them have taken advantage of your permission,” said Mr Meldrum drily. “I fancy they feel like myself, too uneasy to sleep, with this fresh gale springing up again and the ship rocking about so!” As he spoke, he pointed to a group amidships, where at least half the crew were gathered about the boats, while some others were standing by Snowdrop’s galley and having a warm, for the night was intensely cold.“They can please themselves,” replied the captain sententiously. “If they don’t choose to turn in, they needn’t; but I’m not going to launch the boats yet and leave the ship while it is safe. I’m considering what is best for us all, Mr Meldrum; and, excuse me, but as long as the vessel holds together I’m captain of her, and don’t intend to give over my duty to anybody else.”This was speaking pretty plainly, so Mr Meldrum had perforce to remain silent and nurse his uneasiness; the two pacing up and down the poop on opposite sides, without ever a word passing between them for some time, just as if each ignored the other’s presence.At two o’clock in the morning, however, the wind increased and the heavy waves began to break against the windward side of the ship, dashing over her amidships in columns of spray. She also lurched more to starboard, as if thrown on her bilge, the deck inclining to an angle of forty-five degrees.At the same time, too, the group of men forward could be dimly seen in the half light moving about excitedly. They were evidently tired of their forced inaction; for, their voices could be heard occasionally between the lulls of the breaking waves and sound of the wind whistling by. They were grumbling in tones of dissatisfaction.The climax was put to the matter by the sudden rushing up on deck of Mr McCarthy, whom Captain Dinks had told to go below until the morning watch.“Be jabers, cap’en,” he exclaimed, “she’s druv in her starboard streeks against the rocks, and the wather is pouring in like winking. Faix, it is breaking up she’ll be before were out of her, sure!”Thus urged, the captain at length gave the order to launch the boats. This was, now, a very difficult task, for the water was boiling in eddies round the ship to leeward even on her sheltered side, although a couple of hours before it had been as calm there as a mill-pond, so that a Thames outrigger might have been floated off in safety.As soon as the men heard the tardy word of command, there was a tussle and a rush towards the long-boat, seeing which Captain Dinks, who was standing just over the break of the poop, ran down the ladder-way and stood amongst the excited group, with his arm uplifted to enforce his orders.“Avast there!” cried he; “get away from that long-boat, and prepare to run in the jolly-boat. I want that launched first for the ladies and passengers, and I must see them all safely out of the ship before a man Jack amongst you leaves her! Go down, McCarthy,” he added to the first mate, “and ask the ladies to come on deck, sharp; we’ll have the boat prepared by the time you come up with them.”The crew still hustled round the long-boat, however, and showed signs of insubordination, whilst a voice called out, “Let the passengers be! I say every man for himself now!”“What is that I hear?” exclaimed the captain. “Are you men—are you British seamen—to abandon women and children in time of peril and seek your own safety?”“My life’s as good as anyone else’s, passenger or no passenger,” cried out Bill Moody defiantly, pressing closer to Captain Dinks.“Ah!” ejaculated the latter, “I thought it was you—what! you haven’t learnt your lesson yet, eh?” and he made a grab at the man’s neck as if to grasp it.But, Bill Moody was prepared this time. The captain did not catch him unawares, as he had done on the previous occasion when he had knocked him down with the butt-end of his pistol.Raising a sheath-knife, which he must have had ready drawn for the purpose in his hand, the man plunged it with all his force into the breast of the captain as he approached him.Captain Dinks was borne back and half turned round by the strength with which the blow was delivered. Then, staggering first on to his knees, and exclaiming, “Murder! I’m a dead man! The villain has stabbed me!” he fell forwards on the deck in a pool of blood.
Every one was on deck at the time—the crew, the officers, the passengers; but, with the exception of a slight scream from Mrs Major Negus, which passed unnoticed, not a single exclamation of terror or alarm was uttered. All seemed completely stupefied by the unexpected shock, their consternation being too great for words—they stood as if spell-bound!
Captain Dinks was the first to break the silence.
“God forgive me!” he cried out to everybody’s surprise. “It is all my fault!”
“Your fault!” repeated Mr Meldrum; “how—why?”
“I should have had a man forward, sounding with the lead, but I quite forgot it—quite forgot it; and this has happened.”
“Nonsense, man!” said the other to cheer him up—the captain appearing to be more concerned at his own neglect, as he regarded it, than he was at the actual fact of the ship’s striking on the reef—“such a precaution would have been utterly useless! We were probably in deep water a minute before; and even if a man had been stationed in the chains, he could scarcely have had time to have swung the lead and sang out the marks, before she was on the rocks! It is one of those unforeseen calamities that are inevitable and which can never be prevented by any human foresight. I for one, and I’ve no doubt every one else here agrees with me, entirely exonerate you from all blame.”
The captain was endeavouring to make some broken reply, as far as his deep emotion would allow, when Mrs Major Negus interrupted him.
“Speak for yourself, please, Mr Meldrum,” she exclaimed, elbowing herself forwards in front of the group, her shrill high-pitched voice sounding almost like another scream, as she waved her arms wildly about and addressed Mr Meldrum and Captain Dinks alternately. “Speak for yourself, please, for I don’t agree with you at all! I say it is the captain’s fault; and he knows it, though it’s rather late in the day for him to acknowledge it! And I’d like to know, sir, how I and my darling boy are going to get on shore now in this blinding snowstorm—in such a bleak and dreary outlandish place, too! A nice captain you are; and you bargained to take us safe to New Zealand when you took our passage-money. My poor Maurice, oh my dear boy, you’ll never, never see your father now, for we’ll all be drowned, and Captain Dinks is the cause of it!”
So shrieking, she proceeded to weep and wail in a way that made Mr Meldrum lose all patience with her.
“Peace, woman!” cried he indignantly. “This is no time for hysterics and such violent displays: you’d better keep them till the fine weather comes, and remain quiet now! The best thing you can do if you hope to escape, is to allow the captain to see about getting the boats ready to take us off, for the ship will probably break up soon.”
His latter remark, while it reduced “the Major” to a state of limp collapse that made her silent and subdued, had the effect he intended, of rousing the captain to action—thus causing him to forget for a time his grief at theNancy Bell’sdisaster in having to exert himself so as to provide for the safety of those on board.
“Main-deck ahoy there!” he shouted.
“Aye, aye, sorr,” answered the first mate, who had remained there, looking to the trimming of the sails while the ship was working up to the cape.
“Have the men finished storing those things in the boats yet?”
“They’re jist at it now, sorr. We were all a bit flabbergasted when the poor crathur struck; but we’re working hard now, sorr, and the boats will soon be ready to launch into the wather.”
“That’s right, McCarthy, we’ve no time to lose. Send one of the hands forwards to see how her head lies.”
“Aye, aye, sorr. Mr Adams has gone already sure: an’ I’ve sint the carpenter, Boltrope, to sound the well.”
“He’d better by far sound alongside, to see what depth of water we’re in and which would be the best side for launching the boats off!” replied Captain Dinks. “But stay, Harness,” he added, “you can do that. Heave the lead aft here, and then amidships, telling me what soundings you get.”
On returning from his mission forwards, Mr Adams reported that the vessel’s bows were fixed hard and fast between two conical points of rock, which were covered by about four fathoms of water; while Frank Harness, who had been sounding round the ship as the captain directed, stated that there were twenty fathoms of water aft and the same on the port side amidships, but on the starboard, or right-hand side, the lead only gave the same depth the second mate had found forward—consequently, the ship’s stern, being so much lighter than the flooded fore-compartment, had slewed round with the sea towards the reef, on which therefore theNancy Bellmust have projected herself more than half her length. Probably, had her bows not been so depressed, she would have gone over it altogether with a scrape, merely taking off her false keel and dead-wood without doing any material damage.
As it was, however, there she was; and the question now was whether the tide was at the ebb or flow at the time she struck. If the former, the likelihood was that as soon as the tide began to rise, the vessel would float off and founder, Boltrope having reported that there were eight feet of water in the hold and that it was gaining fast—the pumping operations, of course, having long since been stopped, but, should she have run on the reef at high water, there she was immovably fixed as long as she held together; and in that case they would be able to get ashore to the mainland in comfort, almost at their own convenience, should the weather remain calm, in addition to saving many articles from the wreck that would be of use to them, and a much larger proportion of the ship’s provisions and stores.
After the first bumping and scraping that had immediately succeeded her stranding, theNancy Bellhad remained quiet, as if the old ship was glad to be at rest after all the buffeting about and bruisings she had received from the boisterous billows. Hence, the natural alarm that had been excited by the ship’s striking had calmed down, there being nothing in her present situation to heighten the sense of danger; for the vessel was sheltered from the wind under the lee of the cape, and the sea, in comparison with the rough water she had recently passed through and the stormy waves she had battled with when beating round the point, was almost calm. Everybody, therefore, inspired by the example set them by Mr Meldrum and the captain, remained perfectly cool and collected, the crew obeying the orders given them with alacrity and working as heartily as if the poor oldNancy Bellwere still the staunch clipper of yore, careering over the ocean in the full panoply of her canvas plumage and prosecuting her voyage, instead of lying, a broke and battered hulk, hard and fast ashore on an outlying reef of rocks at Kerguelen Land, the “Desolation Island”—name of ominous import—of Antarctic whaling ships!
Even Bill Moody, mutinous as he had shown himself before and lazy to a degree, now appeared metaphorically to “put his shoulder to the wheel,” as if to make amends for the past, lending a willing hand to the preparations that were being made by Mr McCarthy for equipping the boats and laying down ways for launching them from the main-deck—there being no davits now, nor any means for rigging a derrick to lift them over the side. Indeed, when Mr Adams ordered a gang to man the pumps again on the carpenter’s reporting that the water was gaining in the hold, the whilom mutineer was one of the first to step forwards for the duty, although Captain Dinks at once countermanded the order, seeing its inutility, and saying that there was no use in working a willing horse to death!
“They could never clear her now, Adams,” said he, “pump as hard as they could; and if they did it would be useless, for she’ll never float again. However, if you want to give the men something to do, you can set to work breaking cargo and lightening her amidships, for then we’ll swing further up on the reef and get fixed more firmly.”
“Very good, sir,” replied the second mate; and the hands were therefore at once started to open the hatches, getting out some of the heavy goods from the hold below, especially the dead-weight from just abaft the main-mast, that had so deducted from the ship’s buoyancy when sailing on a wind during the earlier part of her voyage.
Moody’s change of demeanour had not escaped the notice of the captain; and he commented on it to Mr Meldrum, saying that he thought the lesson he had given him had had a very satisfactory result. “There is nothing,” said he, “so persuasive as a knock-down argument!”
The other, however, did not believe in the rapid conversion.
“I’ve heard of shamming Abraham before,” said he. “The rascal may have something to gain, and wishes to put you off your guard by his apparent alacrity and willingness to work. If you had seen the scowl he gave you when your back was turned that time after you knocked him down, you wouldn’t trust him further than you could help! I believe all this good behaviour of his is put on, and that you’ll see the real animal come out by and by.”
“All right!” said Captain Dinks as cheerfully as if the matter were of no moment to him; “we’ll see! But we must first observe the tide and the ship’s position on the rocks; I think we’ll be able to decide those points before the other matter can be settled, by a long way!”
When theNancy Bellstruck, it had been close upon six bells in the second dog-watch—seven o’clock in the evening—the entire afternoon having passed away so rapidly while those on board were anxiously watching the struggle of the vessel against the wind and sea in her endeavours to weather the cape, that, in their intense excitement as they awaited the denouement which would solve all their hopes and fears, they took no heed of the flight of time. It seemed really but a few brief minutes, instead of hours, from the period when Captain Dinks had taken the sun at noon to the terrible moment of the catastrophe.
Now, it was midnight, or approaching to it, the intervening period having glided by much more speedily through the fact of everybody having been engaged in doing something towards the common safety of all. Not even the lady passengers had been exempted from the task, Mr Meldrum having told Kate to go below and collect whatever she saw in the cabins that might be of use to them on the island; while Mrs Negus, dropping her dignity for once, cordially assisted. As for Florry and Maurice they participated in the work with the greatest glee, looking upon the wreck as if it had been specially brought about for their enjoyment, like an impromptu picnic—it was the realisation of their wildest childish dreams.
All this while the ship lay quiet, as has been stated, save that after a time she took a slight list to starboard, as if settling down on the rocks, a fact which confirmed the captain in his belief that it had been high water when she went on the reef. This increased his satisfaction.
“She won’t move now,” said he to Mr Meldrum. “She’s wedged as securely forwards as if she were on her cradle; and, unless a storm comes, she’ll last for a week.”
“How about when the tide flows again?” asked the other.
“Oh, she can’t float off. That weight of water in the fore compartment has regularly nailed her on the rocks, thus preventing the only danger I feared—that of her slipping off into deep water as the tide ebbed. As she struck when it was flood and jammed herself firmly then on the reef, there she’ll remain when it flows again; so, we have plenty of time before us to transport the whole cargo ashore if we like!”
“I hope so, I’m sure,” replied Mr Meldrum; “but you should recollect that, from the experience we’ve already had, the weather is not to be trusted for very long hereabouts. If it comes on to blow again from the south and the sea should get up, we’ll be in a nasty position.”
“Don’t croak,” said Captain Dinks, who seemed to have quite recovered his spirits as the others around him became despondent. “Look, the snowstorm has ceased already and the sea-fog is rising and drifting away. Why, we’ll have a fine bright night after all!”
It was as the captain had stated. The fog had lifted up and the snow stopped falling; but, his hopes of a fine night were doomed to be disappointed, for, although the sky above cleared for a short spell and allowed a few stray stars to peep out, while an occasional gleam of moonshine lit up the ship’s surroundings, the heavens were soon obscured again with thick driving clouds, the wind shifting to the southward and westward and blowing right into the bay behind Cape Saint Louis, where theNancy Bellwas aground.
Presently, a heavy rolling sea began to sweep in upon her from the offing; and as the tide rose again, her stern swung more to the starboard side, being driven up higher on the rocks, while her whole frame became uneasy, rocking to and fro and quivering from abaft the main hatch, the fore part of her grinding and working about in a way that threatened to tear her soon to pieces.
“I’m afraid she won’t last till morning,” said Mr Meldrum, who had never left the deck, but was watching the course of events. “We’d better take to the boats while we can. By and by it may be too late!”
“Oh no,” replied Captain Dinks, “she’ll hold out all right, and it’s best for us to land by daylight. Besides, I’ve allowed the hands to turn in, save two or three who are keeping a sort of anchor watch, and I’m not going to rouse them out again unnecessarily—poor fellows, they’ve had a hard time of it the last few days!”
“Not many of them have taken advantage of your permission,” said Mr Meldrum drily. “I fancy they feel like myself, too uneasy to sleep, with this fresh gale springing up again and the ship rocking about so!” As he spoke, he pointed to a group amidships, where at least half the crew were gathered about the boats, while some others were standing by Snowdrop’s galley and having a warm, for the night was intensely cold.
“They can please themselves,” replied the captain sententiously. “If they don’t choose to turn in, they needn’t; but I’m not going to launch the boats yet and leave the ship while it is safe. I’m considering what is best for us all, Mr Meldrum; and, excuse me, but as long as the vessel holds together I’m captain of her, and don’t intend to give over my duty to anybody else.”
This was speaking pretty plainly, so Mr Meldrum had perforce to remain silent and nurse his uneasiness; the two pacing up and down the poop on opposite sides, without ever a word passing between them for some time, just as if each ignored the other’s presence.
At two o’clock in the morning, however, the wind increased and the heavy waves began to break against the windward side of the ship, dashing over her amidships in columns of spray. She also lurched more to starboard, as if thrown on her bilge, the deck inclining to an angle of forty-five degrees.
At the same time, too, the group of men forward could be dimly seen in the half light moving about excitedly. They were evidently tired of their forced inaction; for, their voices could be heard occasionally between the lulls of the breaking waves and sound of the wind whistling by. They were grumbling in tones of dissatisfaction.
The climax was put to the matter by the sudden rushing up on deck of Mr McCarthy, whom Captain Dinks had told to go below until the morning watch.
“Be jabers, cap’en,” he exclaimed, “she’s druv in her starboard streeks against the rocks, and the wather is pouring in like winking. Faix, it is breaking up she’ll be before were out of her, sure!”
Thus urged, the captain at length gave the order to launch the boats. This was, now, a very difficult task, for the water was boiling in eddies round the ship to leeward even on her sheltered side, although a couple of hours before it had been as calm there as a mill-pond, so that a Thames outrigger might have been floated off in safety.
As soon as the men heard the tardy word of command, there was a tussle and a rush towards the long-boat, seeing which Captain Dinks, who was standing just over the break of the poop, ran down the ladder-way and stood amongst the excited group, with his arm uplifted to enforce his orders.
“Avast there!” cried he; “get away from that long-boat, and prepare to run in the jolly-boat. I want that launched first for the ladies and passengers, and I must see them all safely out of the ship before a man Jack amongst you leaves her! Go down, McCarthy,” he added to the first mate, “and ask the ladies to come on deck, sharp; we’ll have the boat prepared by the time you come up with them.”
The crew still hustled round the long-boat, however, and showed signs of insubordination, whilst a voice called out, “Let the passengers be! I say every man for himself now!”
“What is that I hear?” exclaimed the captain. “Are you men—are you British seamen—to abandon women and children in time of peril and seek your own safety?”
“My life’s as good as anyone else’s, passenger or no passenger,” cried out Bill Moody defiantly, pressing closer to Captain Dinks.
“Ah!” ejaculated the latter, “I thought it was you—what! you haven’t learnt your lesson yet, eh?” and he made a grab at the man’s neck as if to grasp it.
But, Bill Moody was prepared this time. The captain did not catch him unawares, as he had done on the previous occasion when he had knocked him down with the butt-end of his pistol.
Raising a sheath-knife, which he must have had ready drawn for the purpose in his hand, the man plunged it with all his force into the breast of the captain as he approached him.
Captain Dinks was borne back and half turned round by the strength with which the blow was delivered. Then, staggering first on to his knees, and exclaiming, “Murder! I’m a dead man! The villain has stabbed me!” he fell forwards on the deck in a pool of blood.
Chapter Nineteen.Deserted!There was a cry of consternation from the men on seeing the captain fall, for, although the majority of them evidently supported Moody in the rush for the boats, none had dreamt of going to the lengths he did; still, not a man stepped forward to seize the assassin, who, coolly throwing overboard the bloody blade with which the foul blow had been dealt, proceeded to carry out his original intention of casting loose the lashings of the long-boat and launching it over the side, several assisting him as he began the task.However, Mr Meldrum had seen what had happened from the poop, not having followed Captain Dinks too closely, for fear of being again accused of interfering with the duties of the ship.Now, single-handed as he was, he at once dropped on to the lower deck, rushing to where Moody was standing, but the other men got in between and hustled him away; so, seeing that he could do nothing towards arresting the miscreant for the present, he bent over the poor captain and lifted him on his knee to see whether life was quite extinct. Happily he still lived! moaning faintly as Mr Meldrum raised him in his arms; consequently, as it was too dark—for it was just under the break of the poop where the wounded man was lying—for him to see what was the extent of the injury he had received, Mr Meldrum called out loudly for assistance, that he might be able to carry him below to the saloon and bind up the wound properly. It was vitally necessary to staunch the blood speedily, as it was flowing copiously and had already saturated the coat-sleeve of Mr Meldrum’s supporting arm.“What are you calling out for?” shouted out the miscreant Moody in derision. “None of them will hear you through the bulkhead. Let the cursed brute bleed to death and be hanged to him! I’m sorry I didn’t settle him, right out, as I intended!”Somebody did hear, however; for at that moment, Frank Harness—who had been told to go below along with McCarthy and Adams at midnight by the unfortunate captain, who said he would take the sole duty of the ship on himself until the morning watch was called—rushed up the companion way on to the poop.“Did you call, Captain Dinks—Mr Meldrum!” he cried, looking about and seeing nobody there. “I thought I heard someone call out for help!”“I’m here below on the main-deck,” shouted Mr Meldrum. “Call for assistance and come and help me at once. Poor Captain Dinks has been stabbed by one of the crew, and I fear he’s dying!”“Good heavens!” exclaimed Frank in startled surprise, staggered for the moment; but he did not stop long to think or act.“Mr McCarthy!—Mr Lathrope!” he called loudly down the companion. “Come up here at once and leave the ladies for the present. Something dreadful has happened!”Then, without uttering another word, he jumped down alongside of Mr Meldrum on the lower deck; where, catching up a marlinspike that was handy, he rapped vehemently against the coamings of the hatchway, some of the hands having gone to bunk down there since the cargo had been partly removed, on account of the forecastle being quite untenable from the water that had accumulated there, besides which the waves were now washing over it freely.“All hands ahoy!” sang out Frank. “Tumble up, men! Tumble up just as you are! There’s murder afloat!”“Stow that yelling!” cried the group around Moody, who did not wish to be interrupted yet awhile with their plans; but Frank took no notice of their observations, save that a contemptuous smile passed over his face as he compressed his lips.“Who did it?” asked he of Mr Meldrum, looking down at the latter as he bent over the poor captain, supporting his head and shoulders still on his knee so that he might breathe more freely.“That man there,” was the answer, Mr Meldrum pointing to where Moody was standing in the centre of some ten others of the same kidney. “The same man whom Captain Dinks knocked down the other day for insubordination, and whom I saw threaten him afterwards, as I can swear. If the captain dies, he will be tried for wilful murder, and hung, for it was no accidental blow, but a deliberately premeditated deed!”“Oh, Bill Moody? I thought it was that scoundrel!” exclaimed Frank; and in a moment he had leaped fearlessly amidst the throng—with the marlinspike fortunately still in his hand, for he was otherwise weaponless.“Stand back!” shouted one of the men warningly, pushing him away—not in any rough fashion, but as if to keep him out of harm’s way. “We don’t wish to do you any hurt, Mr Harness, but I’d advise you to leave Moody alone! He’s desperate now and might cause you an injury; besides which, he’s one of us, and we don’t intend to give him up!”“Don’t you?” exclaimed Frank, flaming up and struggling with the man who held him back; while the would-be murderer, drawing another knife from his belt, stood apparently at bay waiting for him to come on.“Hillo! what’s all this yere muss about?” called out Mr Lathrope, appearing on the poop at this juncture; “whar’s everybody!”“Here, help!” said Frank. “The crew have mutinied and the captain has been stabbed. I’m trying to get hold of the murderer; but they’re too many for me. Help, Mr Lathrope, help!”“You will have it then, you young devil!” screamed out Moody savagely, making a plunge at Frank with the formidable knife that he had now drawn, which had a much longer blade than that with which he had stricken down the captain. “I’ll soon stop your cursed yelling, my joker, and give you something better to cry for!”“I guess not, sez Con,” drawled out the American, the crack of his six-shooter echoing through the air at the same time that the knife fell to the deck from the miscreant’s hand, which had been neatly perforated by a bullet. The instant he raised it above his head to strike Frank, Mr Lathrope catching sight of it, had “drawn a bead on it,” as he would have expressed it, without delay. “No, sirree, I guess not, as long as old Zach hain’t forgot to handle the shootin’-irons!” he continued. “I fancy, mister, I’ve spiled your murdering little game; an’ now we’ll go in for a rough and tumble, I opine!”So saying, the American, not shooting again for fear of wounding Frank, was down on the main-deck in a jiffey and by the side of the brave young sailor who was tackling the mutineers so gallantly—Mr Meldrum also joining in the struggle, first laying down the now nearly lifeless body of the captain again on the deck, however, and drawing off his coat to place it under his head so as to raise it up. The trio were shortly afterwards reinforced by the arrival of Mr McCarthy, panting and out of breath, with the side of his monkey-jacket half torn off by Major Negus, who had caught hold of it in trying to prevent his rushing up the companion ladder on hearing Frank’s cry for help, the good lady imploring him not to leave her to be murdered!The first mate’s brawny fists, hitting out right and left, did yeoman’s service in the mêlée that ensued, and so did Mr Lathrope, while Frank and Mr Meldrum also fought well; but the four were powerless against Moody’s gang, who numbered a round dozen and had, by battening down the main-hatch, prevented the loyal portion of the crew from coming to their assistance—when, of course, the tables would have been turned.Fortunately, there was no knife used in the fray, beyond the one which Moody had so unceremoniously dropped, and thus further bloodshed was prevented; but some hard knocks were given and received, and the party from the poop did not come off scathless, Mr Lathrope having his rather long nose somewhat flattened and almost turned to one side by a blow from the sledge-hammer fist of one of the mutineers. Mr Meldrum had also been considerably mauled about, and Frank had a splendid black eye. As for the first mate, who had gone into the very thick of it, he “hadn’t a sound bone in the howl of his body from the crown of his head to the sole of his fut”—that is, according to his version of it!The struggle did not last very long, the opposing forces being so unequally matched; so, as soon as Frank and his coadjutors had been borne down by the sheer weight of numbers, their conquerors hustled them into the corner of the deck under the break of the poop, where the captain was still lying, throwing them down beside him and telling them they had better keep quiet now they had had the worst of it, that is if they valued their lives. It was no empty threat, either; for, the mutineers emphasised the order by leaving two of their number on guard over them, with belaying pins in their hands, with which they were told to “knock them on the head” should they stir or call out—a command which they looked quite capable of executing.The gang then proceeded to drag the long-boat to the opening in the broken bulwarks on the starboard side of the ship and launch her into the water, for it was a little smoother there on account of being inclosed like a sort of lagoon between the vessel and the reef. It was a ticklish job, for an occasional roller swelled into the boat from round the stern of the ship; while as the waves that broke over the forecastle and weather quarter of theNancy Bellwashed through the vessel, they poured like a cascade from the inclined deck, threatened to swamp the little raft as she lay tossing uneasily alongside until the mutineers could complete their arrangements for embarkation.There was not much to do, for, thanks to Captain Dinks’ precautions, provisions and small water casks, or barricoes, had already been stowed in the bows and along the sternsheets of the long-boat; so, after chucking in one or two articles which they had brought up from below beforehand on the sly, amongst which was a good-sized barrel of rum, they proceeded to drop down into the boat one by one, Moody going first and the others following until the whole number, a round dozen in all, had got in—the two who had remained as sentries over the poop party being the last.Then the little craft, which appeared loaded down to the gunwales, was shoved off with a cheer of bravado from the side of the ship, and was soon lost to the sight of those left behind. The latter, however, eagerly looked after the boat as it was rapidly borne towards the shore between the heavy rolling waves that raced after it, until it finally disappeared in the night gloom.“Sure an’ it’s a good riddance they are!” exclaimed Mr McCarthy, rising to his feet and shaking out his legs to see how far they were capable of movement after the mauling he had received. “May joy go wid them!”“I hope the hull durned crowd will git swallowed up in Davy Jones’ Locker afore they git ashore, I dew!” said the American fervently, stroking his nose tenderly and speaking more nasally than ever through the injury the organ had received. “Of all the tarnation mean skunks I ever kim across from Maine to California, I guess they’re ’bout the right down slick meanest—not nary a heathen Chinese would ha’ done what they hev! I’d tar and feather them, I would sure, if I hed the chance, right away!”“Never mind them,” interposed Mr Meldrum, whose first care after the mutineers had released him and gone over the side, was to raise up poor Captain Dinks’ head again and feel his pulse. “I have no doubt they will meet with their proper deserts! Let us see to the captain now. I think he had better be moved into the cabin, for this night air is doing him no good; and, besides, we’ll there be able to see to his wound better. However I shall want some assistance.”“I’ll hilp you in a minit, sorr,” ejaculated Mr McCarthy, who, as soon as he had satisfied himself that his limbs were pretty sound, had devoted his energies to opening the hatchway—“that is as soon as I’ve unkivered this limbo and let the other hands come up. Faix, an’ if them divils had not battened it down and Boltrope and the Norwegee could a got at thim, it’s too many for tbim we’d ha’ been, I’m thinking!”“I didn’t see what they were after,” said Frank, “or I would have slipped the cover before they secured it; but I wonder where Mr Adams is all this time? Surely he must have heard the row! He ought to have come to our aid.”“By the powers,” exclaimed the first mate, “I niver thought of him till this blessid minnit! Where, in the name of Moses, can he be? I believe he wint down and turned into his cot when I did.”“He ain’t jined them copperheads and left us in the lurch, hey?” inquired the American. “I didn’t kinder think it on him, though he wer sorter quiet and sly-like.”“No, sorr,” replied Mr McCarthy, “Adams is a first-rate seaman and a good officer too! He would be the last man to join a mutiny. Something must have happened to him, I’m thinking.”“I wonder, too,” said Mr Meldrum, “that my daughter Kate has not come up before from the saloon! She must have known that something unusual was taking place on deck from our calls for help and the report of your pistol, Mr Lathrope?”“I’m durned if I know! I’m all in a tangle, I guess,” answered the American; “but I’ll go down and see, mister.”All this while, Mr McCarthy had been fumbling at the fastenings of the hatchway, where the remainder of the crew were supposed to be imprisoned; but when he and Frank Harness, who lent his assistance, had at last got off the cover by a violent effort, not a soul appeared, rushing up as they expected, nor was there any response to their summons—“All hands on deck!”What could have become of them all?The mysterious silence below was a proof that something unforeseen had happened!
There was a cry of consternation from the men on seeing the captain fall, for, although the majority of them evidently supported Moody in the rush for the boats, none had dreamt of going to the lengths he did; still, not a man stepped forward to seize the assassin, who, coolly throwing overboard the bloody blade with which the foul blow had been dealt, proceeded to carry out his original intention of casting loose the lashings of the long-boat and launching it over the side, several assisting him as he began the task.
However, Mr Meldrum had seen what had happened from the poop, not having followed Captain Dinks too closely, for fear of being again accused of interfering with the duties of the ship.
Now, single-handed as he was, he at once dropped on to the lower deck, rushing to where Moody was standing, but the other men got in between and hustled him away; so, seeing that he could do nothing towards arresting the miscreant for the present, he bent over the poor captain and lifted him on his knee to see whether life was quite extinct. Happily he still lived! moaning faintly as Mr Meldrum raised him in his arms; consequently, as it was too dark—for it was just under the break of the poop where the wounded man was lying—for him to see what was the extent of the injury he had received, Mr Meldrum called out loudly for assistance, that he might be able to carry him below to the saloon and bind up the wound properly. It was vitally necessary to staunch the blood speedily, as it was flowing copiously and had already saturated the coat-sleeve of Mr Meldrum’s supporting arm.
“What are you calling out for?” shouted out the miscreant Moody in derision. “None of them will hear you through the bulkhead. Let the cursed brute bleed to death and be hanged to him! I’m sorry I didn’t settle him, right out, as I intended!”
Somebody did hear, however; for at that moment, Frank Harness—who had been told to go below along with McCarthy and Adams at midnight by the unfortunate captain, who said he would take the sole duty of the ship on himself until the morning watch was called—rushed up the companion way on to the poop.
“Did you call, Captain Dinks—Mr Meldrum!” he cried, looking about and seeing nobody there. “I thought I heard someone call out for help!”
“I’m here below on the main-deck,” shouted Mr Meldrum. “Call for assistance and come and help me at once. Poor Captain Dinks has been stabbed by one of the crew, and I fear he’s dying!”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Frank in startled surprise, staggered for the moment; but he did not stop long to think or act.
“Mr McCarthy!—Mr Lathrope!” he called loudly down the companion. “Come up here at once and leave the ladies for the present. Something dreadful has happened!”
Then, without uttering another word, he jumped down alongside of Mr Meldrum on the lower deck; where, catching up a marlinspike that was handy, he rapped vehemently against the coamings of the hatchway, some of the hands having gone to bunk down there since the cargo had been partly removed, on account of the forecastle being quite untenable from the water that had accumulated there, besides which the waves were now washing over it freely.
“All hands ahoy!” sang out Frank. “Tumble up, men! Tumble up just as you are! There’s murder afloat!”
“Stow that yelling!” cried the group around Moody, who did not wish to be interrupted yet awhile with their plans; but Frank took no notice of their observations, save that a contemptuous smile passed over his face as he compressed his lips.
“Who did it?” asked he of Mr Meldrum, looking down at the latter as he bent over the poor captain, supporting his head and shoulders still on his knee so that he might breathe more freely.
“That man there,” was the answer, Mr Meldrum pointing to where Moody was standing in the centre of some ten others of the same kidney. “The same man whom Captain Dinks knocked down the other day for insubordination, and whom I saw threaten him afterwards, as I can swear. If the captain dies, he will be tried for wilful murder, and hung, for it was no accidental blow, but a deliberately premeditated deed!”
“Oh, Bill Moody? I thought it was that scoundrel!” exclaimed Frank; and in a moment he had leaped fearlessly amidst the throng—with the marlinspike fortunately still in his hand, for he was otherwise weaponless.
“Stand back!” shouted one of the men warningly, pushing him away—not in any rough fashion, but as if to keep him out of harm’s way. “We don’t wish to do you any hurt, Mr Harness, but I’d advise you to leave Moody alone! He’s desperate now and might cause you an injury; besides which, he’s one of us, and we don’t intend to give him up!”
“Don’t you?” exclaimed Frank, flaming up and struggling with the man who held him back; while the would-be murderer, drawing another knife from his belt, stood apparently at bay waiting for him to come on.
“Hillo! what’s all this yere muss about?” called out Mr Lathrope, appearing on the poop at this juncture; “whar’s everybody!”
“Here, help!” said Frank. “The crew have mutinied and the captain has been stabbed. I’m trying to get hold of the murderer; but they’re too many for me. Help, Mr Lathrope, help!”
“You will have it then, you young devil!” screamed out Moody savagely, making a plunge at Frank with the formidable knife that he had now drawn, which had a much longer blade than that with which he had stricken down the captain. “I’ll soon stop your cursed yelling, my joker, and give you something better to cry for!”
“I guess not, sez Con,” drawled out the American, the crack of his six-shooter echoing through the air at the same time that the knife fell to the deck from the miscreant’s hand, which had been neatly perforated by a bullet. The instant he raised it above his head to strike Frank, Mr Lathrope catching sight of it, had “drawn a bead on it,” as he would have expressed it, without delay. “No, sirree, I guess not, as long as old Zach hain’t forgot to handle the shootin’-irons!” he continued. “I fancy, mister, I’ve spiled your murdering little game; an’ now we’ll go in for a rough and tumble, I opine!”
So saying, the American, not shooting again for fear of wounding Frank, was down on the main-deck in a jiffey and by the side of the brave young sailor who was tackling the mutineers so gallantly—Mr Meldrum also joining in the struggle, first laying down the now nearly lifeless body of the captain again on the deck, however, and drawing off his coat to place it under his head so as to raise it up. The trio were shortly afterwards reinforced by the arrival of Mr McCarthy, panting and out of breath, with the side of his monkey-jacket half torn off by Major Negus, who had caught hold of it in trying to prevent his rushing up the companion ladder on hearing Frank’s cry for help, the good lady imploring him not to leave her to be murdered!
The first mate’s brawny fists, hitting out right and left, did yeoman’s service in the mêlée that ensued, and so did Mr Lathrope, while Frank and Mr Meldrum also fought well; but the four were powerless against Moody’s gang, who numbered a round dozen and had, by battening down the main-hatch, prevented the loyal portion of the crew from coming to their assistance—when, of course, the tables would have been turned.
Fortunately, there was no knife used in the fray, beyond the one which Moody had so unceremoniously dropped, and thus further bloodshed was prevented; but some hard knocks were given and received, and the party from the poop did not come off scathless, Mr Lathrope having his rather long nose somewhat flattened and almost turned to one side by a blow from the sledge-hammer fist of one of the mutineers. Mr Meldrum had also been considerably mauled about, and Frank had a splendid black eye. As for the first mate, who had gone into the very thick of it, he “hadn’t a sound bone in the howl of his body from the crown of his head to the sole of his fut”—that is, according to his version of it!
The struggle did not last very long, the opposing forces being so unequally matched; so, as soon as Frank and his coadjutors had been borne down by the sheer weight of numbers, their conquerors hustled them into the corner of the deck under the break of the poop, where the captain was still lying, throwing them down beside him and telling them they had better keep quiet now they had had the worst of it, that is if they valued their lives. It was no empty threat, either; for, the mutineers emphasised the order by leaving two of their number on guard over them, with belaying pins in their hands, with which they were told to “knock them on the head” should they stir or call out—a command which they looked quite capable of executing.
The gang then proceeded to drag the long-boat to the opening in the broken bulwarks on the starboard side of the ship and launch her into the water, for it was a little smoother there on account of being inclosed like a sort of lagoon between the vessel and the reef. It was a ticklish job, for an occasional roller swelled into the boat from round the stern of the ship; while as the waves that broke over the forecastle and weather quarter of theNancy Bellwashed through the vessel, they poured like a cascade from the inclined deck, threatened to swamp the little raft as she lay tossing uneasily alongside until the mutineers could complete their arrangements for embarkation.
There was not much to do, for, thanks to Captain Dinks’ precautions, provisions and small water casks, or barricoes, had already been stowed in the bows and along the sternsheets of the long-boat; so, after chucking in one or two articles which they had brought up from below beforehand on the sly, amongst which was a good-sized barrel of rum, they proceeded to drop down into the boat one by one, Moody going first and the others following until the whole number, a round dozen in all, had got in—the two who had remained as sentries over the poop party being the last.
Then the little craft, which appeared loaded down to the gunwales, was shoved off with a cheer of bravado from the side of the ship, and was soon lost to the sight of those left behind. The latter, however, eagerly looked after the boat as it was rapidly borne towards the shore between the heavy rolling waves that raced after it, until it finally disappeared in the night gloom.
“Sure an’ it’s a good riddance they are!” exclaimed Mr McCarthy, rising to his feet and shaking out his legs to see how far they were capable of movement after the mauling he had received. “May joy go wid them!”
“I hope the hull durned crowd will git swallowed up in Davy Jones’ Locker afore they git ashore, I dew!” said the American fervently, stroking his nose tenderly and speaking more nasally than ever through the injury the organ had received. “Of all the tarnation mean skunks I ever kim across from Maine to California, I guess they’re ’bout the right down slick meanest—not nary a heathen Chinese would ha’ done what they hev! I’d tar and feather them, I would sure, if I hed the chance, right away!”
“Never mind them,” interposed Mr Meldrum, whose first care after the mutineers had released him and gone over the side, was to raise up poor Captain Dinks’ head again and feel his pulse. “I have no doubt they will meet with their proper deserts! Let us see to the captain now. I think he had better be moved into the cabin, for this night air is doing him no good; and, besides, we’ll there be able to see to his wound better. However I shall want some assistance.”
“I’ll hilp you in a minit, sorr,” ejaculated Mr McCarthy, who, as soon as he had satisfied himself that his limbs were pretty sound, had devoted his energies to opening the hatchway—“that is as soon as I’ve unkivered this limbo and let the other hands come up. Faix, an’ if them divils had not battened it down and Boltrope and the Norwegee could a got at thim, it’s too many for tbim we’d ha’ been, I’m thinking!”
“I didn’t see what they were after,” said Frank, “or I would have slipped the cover before they secured it; but I wonder where Mr Adams is all this time? Surely he must have heard the row! He ought to have come to our aid.”
“By the powers,” exclaimed the first mate, “I niver thought of him till this blessid minnit! Where, in the name of Moses, can he be? I believe he wint down and turned into his cot when I did.”
“He ain’t jined them copperheads and left us in the lurch, hey?” inquired the American. “I didn’t kinder think it on him, though he wer sorter quiet and sly-like.”
“No, sorr,” replied Mr McCarthy, “Adams is a first-rate seaman and a good officer too! He would be the last man to join a mutiny. Something must have happened to him, I’m thinking.”
“I wonder, too,” said Mr Meldrum, “that my daughter Kate has not come up before from the saloon! She must have known that something unusual was taking place on deck from our calls for help and the report of your pistol, Mr Lathrope?”
“I’m durned if I know! I’m all in a tangle, I guess,” answered the American; “but I’ll go down and see, mister.”
All this while, Mr McCarthy had been fumbling at the fastenings of the hatchway, where the remainder of the crew were supposed to be imprisoned; but when he and Frank Harness, who lent his assistance, had at last got off the cover by a violent effort, not a soul appeared, rushing up as they expected, nor was there any response to their summons—“All hands on deck!”
What could have become of them all?
The mysterious silence below was a proof that something unforeseen had happened!