OrnamentationCHAPTER XVI.SPATTERDOCK POINT.
Ornamentation
Thethree boys in the boat soon reached the stern of the burning steamboat. Here the wind kept them entirely free from smoke and sparks, and they rowed several times around the stern, shouting loudly, so as to attract the attention of any one who might be on board.
But no answer came to them, and they saw no signs of any living being on the vessel. The tide carried them along with the steamboat, but the wind had so much influence on the larger craft that Chap had to row quite steadily to keep up with her.
Phil, who was forward, threw the rope of the small boat over the chain on the rudder of the steamboat, and held fast.
“Look out!” cried Chap, as he turned around. “We don’t want to go down with her if she sinks!”
“You needn’t be afraid of that,” replied Phil; “I’ll let go in time.”
“She’s not going to be in any hurry to sink,” said Phœnix. “The fire is all forward and in her upper works; but there’s no use in hanging on to her, there’s nobody on board.”
“Boys,” cried Phil, “this chain is loose at the other end! We’re pulling it out. The pilot-house and wheel must be all burnt up.”
“Let’s pull the whole of it out!” cried Chap. “We might as well save something from the fire. We could use the chain in our work on the wreck.”
“We couldn’t get it loose from the rudder,” said Phil, “and it wouldn’t be ours if we did save it.”
“It’s a great pity,” said Phœnix, “that this big steamboat should burn up, and everything be lost. There are people on the shore on the other side, and the folks are coming over the field on our side, but none of them can do any good.”
“Nothing could do any good,” said Chap, “except a steamboat with a fire-engine on board. It would be no use for any other kind of boat to come near her.”
“If she would only drift ashore,” said Phœnix, “it would be better than her sinking out here.”
“The current is so strong it keeps her out,”said Chap. “If the tide wasn’t running down so hard the wind would blow her in on our side.”
“If we could get this rudder round,” said Phil, “and keep it hard up, I believe the wind would take her in shore.”
“Yes,” said Chap; “but how are you going to do it? You couldn’t push a rudder around and make it fast.”
“Boys,” cried Phil, “let’s go aboard! There isn’t any danger, and if we can find a tiller up there we can ship it, and perhaps we can steer the old Wistar in shore.”
“But how would you get up?” asked Phœnix.
“If we stand up in the bow we can reach that little window,” said Phil. “If somebody below would give us a boost then we could throw up one hand and get hold of the railings. After that it would all be easy enough.”
“But who is going to boost the last fellow?” asked Chap.
“One of us ought to stay in the boat anyway,” said Phil, “to row around and pick us up if we have to jump overboard.”
“You talk as if you were going, anyway,” said Chap.
“I’d like to,” answered Phil; “and suppose, Chap, you stay in the boat. You can boost better than any of us, because you are so tall.”
“All right!” said Chap. “I suppose somebody ought to stay in the boat.”
“It will be a ticklish job,” remarked Phœnix, as he took off his coat. “But I guess we’ll try it.”
Chap now stood up in the boat, balancing himself as carefully as he could, and when Phil had taken hold of the window-sill, which he could just reach, Chap gave him a lift which enabled him, at the first grasp, to seize the railing of the lower deck.
For a moment he dangled there, looking into the window. He could see nothing, for there were goods piled up inside. Then he got one foot on the window-sill, and scrambled on board.
Phœnix found the feat more difficult. His first trouble was that he could not reach the window-sill. Chap offered to lift him bodily, but Phœnix objected.
“If I haven’t got hold of something above,” he said, “we’ll go over, boat and all.”
Then Chap hauled out an old box from under the stern, and set it upon one of the seats. On this Phœnix cautiously mounted, and reached the window-sill. Then Chap attempted to boost him, but Phœnix was so heavy that he found it no easy thing to do.
On his first attempt his vigorous efforts nearlyupset the boat, but he succeeded at last, and when Phœnix got hold of the railing he very quickly hauled himself up.
He found Phil hard at work untying a tiller which had been made fast on one side of the deck.
“Get that other end loose,” cried Phil, “and we’ll ship her in a minute.”
The boys quickly unfastened the tiller, and then they ran it into one of the square holes in the end of the rudder-post, which projected above the lower deck on which they stood.
“Now, pull around!” cried Phil. “Push her over towards the wind!”
Phil had frequently been out with his uncle in a sail-boat, and had some pretty clear ideas about navigation. The boys pushed against the end of the tiller with all their force, and gradually it moved around. The smoke rolled up from the forward part of the vessel, the sparks flew far ahead; but there was no heat at the stern of the boat, and the boys did not believe that there was any fire beneath them.
“Hurrah!” cried Chap, from below. “She’s going around a little! Stick to her, boys, and hold her hard. If it’s too much for you, I’ll get aboard and help.”
“Don’t you do it!” shouted Phil. “We wantthat boat to be ready for us. Don’t you leave her, Chap.”
“All right!” shouted Chap. “Put her round harder yet, boys, and hold her.”
The Thomas Wistar, now held by her rudder, was being gradually turned by the wind, so that her bow was directed towards the Hyson Hall side of the river. The breeze was still on one side of her, but more astern than it had been, and it was evident that if the rudder could be held in its present position she would, before long, be blown in shore; but whether or not Phil and Phœnix could remain aboard long enough for this to happen was a question both to them and to Chap, who kept an anxious watch on them from below. Even now, for aught any of them knew, the fire might be spreading beneath them.
“I do believe,” said Phil, “that this deck is beginning to feel hot under my feet.”
“I guess it’s because you’re so hot yourself,” said Phœnix. “We’d see smoke coming out of some of the cracks if the fire was getting under us.”
There was no doubt, however, that the fire was approaching the stern of the vessel. The wind was not blowing so hard as it had been, and whenever there was a partial lull in it the boys would feel great puffs of heat, and clouds of smoke wouldgather over them; then, when the breeze freshened again, the heat and the smoke would be blown away, and they could breathe freer. They could see people on shore, who were shouting to them, but the fire made such a roaring noise they could not hear what was said.
“Lash that tiller to the railings and come off!” shouted Chap, who kept his boat quite near them. “The fire will spread to the stern before you know it, and the whole thing will blaze up in a flash. Come off, I tell you, if you don’t want to be cooked alive.”
“I wish we could find a piece of rope,” said Phil, “and we’d tie this tiller fast, and get off.”
“I believe we chucked those bits overboard when we cut the tiller loose,” said Phœnix, “for I can’t see them; but they weren’t strong enough, anyway.”
“It will take a pretty stout rope to hold this tiller,” said Phil.
He was right, for every muscle of the boys was strained to keep the rudder in its position. If it had not been for the great strength of Phœnix, it is probable that they could not have done it.
The wind now seemed to have shifted, for a sudden cloud of smoke was blown right over the stern of the boat. In ten seconds more the boys would have let go the tiller and jumped overboard,but the smoke was blown away again, and they stood to their work.
“I hate to give it up now,” said Phil. “We must be going in, for the shore is getting nearer and nearer.”
Chap, who kept steadfastly on the windward side of the steamboat, and as near as possible to his friends, had been about to shout when the last puff of smoke came over them, that if they didn’t come off he would come on board and pitch them off, but suddenly changed his tune. He had fallen a little astern, and glancing shoreward, had pulled his boat to the other side of the Wistar, where he could see both the shore and her bow. Pulling back to the boys, he shouted,—
“Stick to her! Stick to her! She’s heading splendidly for Spatterdock Point! She’ll be aground in a minute!”
This encouragement came none too soon. The air was getting decidedly hot around the boys, and the sides of the saloon cabin, which rose before them and prevented their seeing the fire, were beginning to smoke. This was not certainly a sign of immediate danger, for the cabin was probably filled with smoke, which was escaping from the cracks around the windows, which, fortunately, were all closed.
Phœnix had just been on the point of proposingthat they should get out of this thing as quickly as they could, when Chap’s words came, and he forbore.
The eyes of the boys smarted with smoke and heat, and their backs and legs began to ache with the great strain of holding that swashing rudder. If the boat had been going faster through the water they could not have done it.
But their hearts held out, and if they were nearing the shore they would not give out just yet.
Directly, there was a gentle jar, which ran from the bow to the stern, and which the boys distinctly felt beneath their feet.
“The bow has touched!” shouted Phil. “Now put the rudder round and let the wind blow her stern in shore.”
With renewed vigor the boys pushed the end of the tiller to the other side of the deck, and, as Phil had said, the wind slowly blew the stern of the boat shoreward.
“She’s all right now!” cried Phil. “Let her go and skip.”
Whereupon they skipped.
Over the railings and down the side of the steamboat they went, sliding or dropping, they scarcely knew which, and if Chap had not been ready with his boat, they would both have gone into the water. There was no more danger thanthere had been a few minutes before, but the moment their work was done a panic had seized them, and they felt they could not get away from that steamboat too soon.
“If you fellows had fallen into the water,” said Chap, as he hurriedly pulled ashore, “you would have taken your deaths of cold, for I never saw you look so hot.”
By the time the Wistar had been blown ashore, there was a little crowd of people on the beach. Some of them had followed the burning steamboat for some distance, and had run over the fields to the river when they saw her coming in. Even Joel’s apathy had yielded to the general excitement, and he waded into the water and pulled in the bow of the boys’ boat before it touched the sand.
“If ever there was a pair of boys,” he said, addressing the red-faced Phil and Phœnix, “as wanted a gar-deen, it’s you two. If your uncle had seen you aboard that bonfire,” he continued, addressing Phil, “he’d ’a’ gone wild.”
Neither Phil nor Phœnix made any reply to this remark, but walking up the bank out of the way of the heat and the smoke, they sat down to watch the subsequent proceedings. For the present they felt as if they had done enough. Chap, however, rushed in among the people,hoping at last that he might be able to do something.
Now that the boat was securely aground in shallow water, and there was a good chance of their getting off if the fire came too near, the men on shore, who would not have dared to go near the blazing steamer when she was out in the river, showed a determination to do what they could to save at least a portion of the boat and cargo.
The boards were torn from a neighboring fence and placed from the shore to the lower deck of the Wistar, and up these slippery and very much inclined gang-planks several men quickly clambered. A heavy hawser which lay on deck was passed on shore, and the boat was made fast to a tree.
The forward part of the Thomas Wistar was now burned to the water’s edge, and although the freight in that part of the vessel was still burning, it was believed the fire did not now extend abaft the engine.
Late in the afternoon, a steam-tug from the city, which had been telegraphed for from Boontown, arrived, with a fire-engine on board, and the fire on the Thomas Wistar was soon extinguished.
Long before this event occurred, however, three very hungry boys went up to Hyson Hall to dinner.