Chapter Twenty Seven.

Chapter Twenty Seven.The Loss of the “Juanita.”A fortnight was very pleasantly spent by us at the island, during the progress of the repairs, the good people of Bridgetown vieing with each other in their efforts for our amusement, a ball also upon a very grand scale being given in our honour by the officers of the garrison; and then all defects being made good, we once more put to sea.We appeared by this time to have come to the end of our run of good luck, however; for, though we most assiduously worked the entire archipelago, not a sign of an enemy could we find.At length, the period of our cruise having expired, we bore up and returned to Port Royal, where Captain Annesley was received by the admiral with effusion.The frigate remained at anchor in the harbour ten days, during which all hands indulged in a little welcome recreation, the officers attending quality balls, shooting, and visiting at various estates belonging to new-made, but most hospitable Kingstonian friends.I had accepted an invitation from a Mr Finnie—whose acquaintance I had made on my previous visit to Kingston—to spend a few days on his estate among the Blue Mountains and enjoy a little shooting on a small lake adjoining it; and in my indefatigable pursuit of this amusement I managed to contract a severe attack of yellow fever.I was most kindly and carefully nursed through it by Mrs Finnie, and it was chiefly owing to her unceasing attention, under God, that I recovered at all. I was ill for weeks, what with the fever, a relapse, and the terrible prostration which followed; and when at length I was able once more to crawl about, the “Astarte” had been long gone to sea upon a sort of roving commission, from which it was quite uncertain when she would return.Under such circumstances the time soon began to hang heavily on my hands, and I longed for a sniff of the pure salt sea-breeze, once more. I was therefore greatly delighted when, on calling at the country house of the admiral—to whom I had been introduced by Captain Annesley—the following conversation occurred.“Ah! Chester,” said the admiral, “glad to see you on your pins once more; you have had a very narrow squeak of it, I hear.”“Indeed I have, sir,” I replied. “So narrow was it that they had my coffin all ready built for me. I have managed to weather upon Yellow Jack this time, however, thank God; and now, if I could only get to sea again, I believe I should soon pull round and completely recover my strength.”“Ah! say you so? It is quite likely.” The old gentleman was silent for a few minutes, and then, turning abruptly to me, he said,—“Have you heard that the ‘Juanita’—that pirate brigantine which the ‘Astarte’ took among the Roccas—has been brought to Port Royal, and that we are putting a new foremast in her and converting her into a topsail schooner?”“No, sir, I have not,” I replied. “Indeed I have heardnothingin connection with naval matters, for I have not yet been as far as Kingston.”“Umph! Well, wearedoing so,” he said. “How do you think the change will affect her?”“I believe it will be a great improvement. All that heavy gear forward must, I am sure, have been detrimental to her sailing powers, especially in a sea-way.”“To be sure it was. Couldn’t have been otherwise. Then you approve of the change?”“Yes, sir, certainly,” I replied, wondering why on earth so great a personage should attach any importance to the opinion of a midshipman.“Ah! I am glad of that,” returned the admiral; “because, since you have expressed a wish to go to sea again, the idea has come into my head to give her to you—that is to say, until the ‘Astarte’ comes in again.”I murmured something—I hardly knew what—by way of thanks, to which the admiral kindly replied,—“There, there; don’t say a word about it, my dear boy. Annesley has told me all about you, and if the half of what he says be true, I know of no one who is better fitted for the trust than yourself. Besides, I have really nobody else to place in charge. If you feel well enough, you had better run down on board in the course of a day or two, and see how matters are going on. Now come away into the other room and have some lunch.”On the following morning, directly after breakfast, I started in Mr Finnie’s ketureen for Kingston, and, reaching the wharf about noon, chartered that fast-sailing clipper, the “Fly-by-night,” to convey me to Port Royal. The jabber of the black boatmen and the exhilarating sensation of being once more afloat had quite a tonic effect upon my spirits, which rose higher and higher as we tore down past the Palisades, the boat careening gunwale-to, with the hissing, sparkling foam seething past and trailing away in a long wake astern.When I got on board the “Juanita,” I found that they had just stepped the foremast, and a most beautiful spar it was, without a knot in it, and as straight as a ray of light.Fisher, the dockyard foreman, was on board, superintending operations, and from him I learned that it was intended to make some slight alterations in the armament of the craft; for, whereas when captured she carried four long-sixes of a side, it was now proposed to alter the position of the ports, reducing their number to three, and bringing them more toward the middle or waist of the vessel, and mounting three long-nines on each side instead of the four sixes, thus removing the weight from the two ends, and adding three pounds to the weight of her broadside. It was also proposed to take away the long-nine from forward, and to substitute for it a long-eighteen between the masts.These alterations accorded strictly with my own views upon the subject, and were precisely what I should have suggested, had I been asked. There had been some little talk about increasing the height of her bulwarks, but this, I was glad to hear, had been overruled; for it would certainly have gone far toward spoiling her light, jaunty, graceful appearance.It took the dockyard people just another week to complete the proposed alterations, during which I visited the craft every morning, returning to my quarters at Mr Finnie’s in time for their six o’clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher’s hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she had been fitted fore and aft, and which had been stretching all the week and were permanently bent only that same morning, gleamed in the brilliant sunshine, white as snow.Her hull was coppered to about six inches beyond the water-line, and above this she was painted a cool grey up to her rail, this colour being relieved by a narrow scarlet riband along the covering-board. It was a fancy of the admiral, that she should be made as unlike a ship of war as possible, in order that she might be the more thoroughly fitted for her destined work; and, between us all, we certainly managed to meet his wishes in that respect to perfection, for she looked, both in hull and rigging, more like a yacht than anything else.On the following day the stores and ammunition were shipped, and on the day after I called at the admiral’s office for my instructions, joined the ship, and that same evening, as soon as the land breeze set in, proceeded to sea; my orders being to cruise among the Windward Passages for the protection of trade and the suppression of piracy until recalled, and to look in at the post office on Crooked Island about once a month for orders.Keeping close along in under the land, so as to take full advantage of the land breeze, we were off Morant Point by midnight, when we stretched away to seaward, and finally, after being obliged to take to our sweeps to get across the calm belt between theterraland the trade-wind, stood away to the northward, close-hauled upon the starboard tack, toward the Cuban shore.Weathering in due time Cape Maysi, the eastern extremity of the island of Cuba, we shaped a course for Crooked Island Passage, and being then able to get a small pull upon the weather-braces and to ease off the mainsheet a foot or so, we bowled along in a style which filled all hands with delight.On our arrival at Crooked Island we called at the post office, and I left a letter for the admiral, reporting progress. There was a fine full-rigged ship lying there when we arrived, bound for London; she had been there two days, waiting and hoping for the arrival of a man-of-war, under the protection of which to get safely through the Passage. She carried a very rich cargo and some sixteen passengers, most of whom were ladies, and as she only mounted four small guns, and carried no more than just sufficient men to work the ship, her skipper was willing to lose a day or two upon the chance of getting a safe convoy clear of the islands, among which there had been of late some very daring cases of piracy.Finding that the “Centurion”—as his ship was named—was perfectly ready for sea, I arranged with her skipper to sail again that afternoon, which we accordingly did. The “Centurion” proving to be a slow sailer, we were four days taking her out clear of everything, when, having done so without molestation, the two ships parted company, and we bore up for a regular cruise to the southward among the various passages.We fell in with a good many ships, all English, pushing through the various passages, and a few of them asked for convoy; but of pirates, slavers, or French privateers—any of which would have been game for our bag—we saw nothing.At length, having made the circuit of the archipelago once, calling at the post office on reaching it, but finding no orders, we had proceeded so far on our cruise as to have arrived off the Square Handkerchief Shoal on our second round, and were about to bear up through the Silver Kay Passage, when, toward the end of the afternoon watch, the wind suddenly dropped, and by sun-down it had fallen stark calm.The air turned close and hot as the breath of an oven, and as the evening wore on a heavy bank of black cloud worked up from to leeward and slowly overspread the sky, gradually settling down until the vapour appeared to touch our mast-heads.Hawsepipe, a master’s-mate, who was acting as master, had been very fidgety for some time, and at last, “What do you think all this means, Mr Chester?” said he.“I scarcely knowwhatto make of it,” I replied. “I have never seen anything quite like it before. It looks more like an impending thunder-storm than anything else; but itmaybe something very different, and I was about to give the order to shorten sail when you spoke.”“I really think we had better,” he returned. “I see no sign of wind as yet, certainly; still, as we are in no hurry, it would be just as well to be prepared for anything and everything that can possibly happen. What sail shall we get her under?”“Well, being, as you remark, in no sort of hurry, I think we will make our precautions as complete as possible by stowing everything except the fore-trysail and staysail. Let the men commence with the mainsail, as it is the largest and least manageable sail in a breeze.”“All hands, shorten sail!” sang out Hawsepipe.The boatswain’s pipe sounded, his gruff voice reiterated the order, and the men, who had been grouped together on the forecastle discussing the singular appearance of the weather, sprang to their stations.“Main and peak halliards let go! Man the main-tack tricing-line and down with the throat of the sail; round-in upon the mainsheet! Now, then, is there no one to attend to the peak downhaul? That’s right. Now roll up the sail snugly and put the coat on. In with the whole of your square canvas forward. Royal, topgallant, and topsail halliards and sheets let go; man the clewlines, and clew them up cheerily, my lads. Haul down and stow both jibs. Lay aloft there! and see that you stow your canvas snugly, although itistoo dark at present for me to see what you are about.” Thus Mr Hawsepipe, in as authoritative a tone as though he were the first luff of a 120-gun ship.Sail was shortened in considerably less time than it has taken to write the above description; for though this was the first cruise wherein Hawsepipe had been placed in a position of actual authority, he was anything but a tyro in the science of seamanship, and insisted oneverythingon board being done as thoroughly well as it was possible to do it, and the schooner was soon ready for whatever might come.The night grew hotter and hotter, and still the glassy calm continued. The darkness was so intense, so opaque, that on placing my hand close before my eyes, I was quite unable to see it; and the stillness of the air was such that the flame of a lamp brought on deck burned straight up and down, merely swaying a trifle with the heave of the ship upon the long, sluggish swell.This state of things continued until nearly four bells in the first watch, when a startling phenomenon occurred. The curtain of vapour grew more dense even than it had been before, entirely precluding the possibility of any light penetrating from above; notwithstanding which, the atmosphere very gradually became luminous with a ghastly, blue, sulphurous light, until it was possible, not only to see distinctly every object on board the schooner, but also to distinguish the gleaming surface of the water for a distance on every side of some three miles or so.The faces of the men huddled together on the forecastle looked ghastly and death-like in this unearthly light, and the hull, spars, rigging and canvas of the schooner assumed such a weird and supernatural appearance when illumined by it, that she might easily have been mistaken for a cruiser from Phlegethon.But this was not all. About half-an-hour after this singular luminosity of the atmosphere first became apparent, and before the startled seamen had recovered their self-possession, in an instant, without any premonition whatever, there appeared at each mast-head and yardarm, at the jibboom-end—in fact, at the end of every spar on board the schooner—a globe of greenish-coloured light, about the size of an ordinary lamp-globe, each of which wavered and swayed, elongated and flattened, as the ship gently rose and fell over the glassy sea.The men were now thoroughly terrified.“See that, Tom?” exclaimed one. “What d’ye call all them things?”“Why, they be Davy Jones’ lanterns,theybe,” returned Tom; “and right sorry am I to see ’em.”“Davy Jones’ lanterns?” echoed the questioner. “What—you don’t mean as them lights has been h’isted aboard here by the real old genuine Davy hisself, eh?”“That’s just what Idomean, then, and no mistake. My eyes! there’s a show of ’em, too; never seed so many afore in my life. You mark my words, Dick, and see if something out o’ the common don’t happen to this here little barkie afore four-and-twenty hours is over our heads.”“What sort of asomethin’d’ye mean, Tom, bo’?” asked another.“Why, harm or damage o’ some kind,” replied the oracle. “I’ve heerd say as how when them lanterns is showed aboard of a craft, that it’s a sure sign as she’s a doomed ship. I remembers one time when I was in the Chinee seas in the old—Lord ha’ mercy on us! what’s that?”A dazzling, blinding flash, which seemed to set both sky and sea on fire, and a simultaneous crash of thunder of so terrific a character that my ears rang and tingled, and I was stone-deaf for a few minutes afterwards, interrupted the speaker. I reeled under the awful concussion, as though I had received a crushing blow, and for a minute or two I felt dazed to the verge of unconsciousness. Then I became sensible that Hawsepipe was grasping my hand and trying to direct my attention forward; he seemed, too, to be anxious to say something, for his lips were moving rapidly in an excited manner.I looked forward, and—behold!—there lay our foremast, with all attached, over the side; the stump—standing about four feet above the deck—being nothing but a mass of charred and blackened splinters. This was bad enough, but, letting my glance travel forward, I saw that the whole of the men on the forecastle had been struck to the deck by the electric fluid.Hawsepipe, the surgeon, the quarter-master, and I, all rushed forward in a body to the assistance of the unfortunate men, and to ascertain the extent of their injuries. We raised the poor fellows, as we came to them, into a sitting position against the bulwarks, while the surgeon hastily examined them. To our horror it was found that all but four had been killed by that tremendous discharge, the dead men’s bodies being in some cases blackened and charred as if by fire; while, in other cases, their knives and the coin in their pockets were fused into shapeless lumps of metal. The living were carried aft to the cabin, where the surgeon, assisted by Hawsepipe, devoted all his energies to their restoration, while the quarter-master and I returned to the deck to look after the safety of the ship.In the meantime a terrific thunder-storm heralded by that first destructive discharge, had set in, the green and baleful glare of the livid lightning illuminating the scene until it became almost as light as day; while the crashing roll of the thunder was absolutely continuous, and so deafening that I felt stunned and stupefied by it. There was no rain, neither was there any wind, properly speaking, the dead calm being only interrupted now and then by a momentary gust of wind, hot as the blasting breath of a furnace, which passed over us and was gone almost before we had time to realise its presence. These fitful and transient gusts of wind came from all quarters of the compass. I had never before experienced weather of at all a similar character, nor had Simpson, the quarter-master, and we were equally puzzled as to what to expect. The heavens were black as ink, and the clouds, rendered visible by the unearthly bluish-green glare of the lightning, were seen to be writhing and working like tortured serpents; but there was nothing to indicate a probable breeze.There was plenty of work to be done, the clearing away of the wreck being our first task. Simpson and I accordingly armed ourselves with a tomahawk each, and went forward to make a commencement. Simpson began at the jibboom-end, cutting away the stays attached thereto, and working his way in, while I made an attack upon the shrouds and backstays. Our intention was to cut away everything in the first instance, in case of bad weather coming on, and afterwards to save as much of the wreck as we could.I had scarcely begun my task when I fancied I smelt a smell of burning, but for the first minute or so I paid little attention to it, as the air had been for a long time pervaded by a strong choking sulphurous odour. I had struck but a few strokes with my tomahawk however, when a very strong whiff assailed my nostrils, and at the same instant a thin wreath of smoke appeared hovering over the fore-scuttle. Dropping my tomahawk, I darted toward the opening, and, looking down, found the place full of smoke, which appeared to be prevented from rising by the peculiar condition of the atmosphere.“Lay in, Simpson,” I shouted to the quarter-master; “the ship is on fire!”The old fellow, with his arm raised in the act of striking at the jib-stay, turned, and, catching sight of the smoke, bundled inboard in a trice. We descended to the forecastle together, and found it so full of dense pungent smoke that it was impossible to remain there a moment without adopting precautions of some kind to escape suffocation; we accordingly returned to the deck, and, removing our black silk handkerchiefs from our throats saturated them with water, and then bound them tightly about the lower part of our faces, leaving our eyes only uncovered. Thus protected, we once more descended, and were then enabled to remain long enough to assure ourselves that the forecastle was not the seat of the fire. As we returned to the deck up the steep ladder, I detected smoke issuing into the forecastle in dense jets through the joints in the bulkhead, and this, together with the odour, which at that moment became very strong, led me to suspect that the fire was located in the store-room.Saturating our handkerchiefs afresh and readjusting them upon our faces, we rushed aft and descended the main hatchway. Here—that is to say, immediately in the wake of the hatchway—there was very little smoke, but witheverystep forward it became more and more dense, and as we approached the store-room the heat and smoke became so stifling that we could only proceed with the utmost difficulty.At length, however, we managed to reach the store-room door, and then the heat, the heavy smoke, the dull roar and crackling of the flames, gave us unmistakable assurance that we had found the seat of the mischief. I placed my hand upon the thick planking of the bulkhead and found it to be scorching hot.We were unable to remain a moment where we were, so intense was the smoke and heat. We accordingly returned to the deck and summoned Hawsepipe and the doctor to our assistance. We informed them in a few words of this new catastrophe, or rather of the unexpected result of the original one—for I had no doubt whatever that it was the lightning which had set the ship on fire,—and received from them in return the news that the four men had been restored to consciousness, but had not yet recovered the use of their limbs; we then at once set about cutting a hole through the deck into the store-room, hoping that by means of the fire-engine and hose we might yet be able to conquer the flames.A hole was first cut in the deck large enough to admit the end of the hose; the hose was then inserted, and packed carefully round with wet canvas where it passed through the deck, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the access of fresh air to the fire, and we four then manned the engine and proceeded with all our energy to pump water down upon the flames.We had been thus engaged for about a quarter of an hour, the lightning raging round us all the while in undiminished fury, when, in an instant, down came the rain in a perfect flood.“Shut the ports!” yelled Hawsepipe.We understood in a moment the object he had in view, and, leaving the engine, went round the decks, closing the ports and stopping up the scuppers with pieces of canvas, so as to prevent the water from flowing off the deck. The rain was descending in such copious torrents that in a few minutes we were up to our knees in warm, fresh water, when the hose was withdrawn from the hole in the deck and the water allowed to stream down into the store-room. A dense jet of steam rushed up through the hole immediately that we withdrew the hose and its packing.We now had a moment in which to take a look below, and see what result had attended our labours. A glance at the fore-scuttle was anything but reassuring, dense clouds of steam and smoke issuing by this time from the opening, and as we looked the smoke suddenly became tinged with the lurid reflection of flames. I darted to the opening, and looking down as well as I could through the blinding suffocating clouds which rushed up in denser volumes every instant, saw that the bulkhead was burned through, and the flames already spreading in every direction.The fire-engine was instantly started once more, the hose being this time directed down into the forecastle, and for twenty minutes we played upon the fire there—the rain all the while rushing down in sheets and fast filling our decks—without result; at the end of that time it became apparent that the ship was doomed.Hawsepipe and the doctor had meanwhile pressed their investigations farther aft, soon reappearing with the alarming news that the fire was spreading aft with great rapidity.“Then there is nothing for it but to take to the boat without further delay,” said I.And we set about getting her over the side forthwith, our motions being considerably accelerated by the increasing loudness of the roaring crackling sound of the fire, the dense cloud of smoke which now enveloped the ship, and the almost unbearable heat of the deck. The flames spread so rapidly that by the time we had got the boat into the water, with her oars, sails, etcetera, a couple of breakers of water, a bag or two of biscuits, and a miscellaneous collection of small stores from the cabin lockers, the heat and smoke had become so unendurable that we could not remain still a moment, indeed so sorely pressed were we that the poor fellows who had been injured by the lightning, and who had been brought on deck some time before to save them from suffocation, were almostthrownover the side into the boat; we scrambled in after them, and casting off got out the oars, and pulled as fast as we could from the ship, which in another minute was blazing from stem to stern, notwithstanding the still pouring rain.We pushed off in dead silence, and, having pulled far enough away to be clear of the scorching heat, laid with one consent upon our oars to watch the conflagration. We had been lying thus motionless upon the water some three or four minutes, when the mainmast swayed slowly to and fro for a moment, and then fell with a hissing splash into the water alongside, a shower of sparks shooting up at the same moment from the burning bulwarks which had been crushed out by the mast in its fall. We were watching and remarking upon the way in which the planks of the topsides were twisting up and opening out from the timbers under the influence of the tremendous heat, when suddenly an awful recollection flashed upon me.“Pull! pull for your lives!” I screamed. “We have forgotten to drown out the magazine.”Not another word was needed. With one accord the oars dashed into the water, and you may rest assured that we threw our entire weight and strength into each stroke, bending the stout ash staves as though they were pliant whalebone, and all but lifting the boat clear out of the water.We had not pulled more than a dozen strokes before there was a violent concussion, as though we had run stem-on upon a sandbank, the schooner’s sides burst apart, the flaming planks of the deck, with its fittings, the guns, and everything else upon it, soared into the air in the midst of a blinding sheet of flame, and then came the dull, heavy roar of the explosion, and—black darkness.We ceased pulling as the explosion took place, struck powerless for the moment at this sudden and terrible destruction which had befallen the craft so lately our home and ark of safety, and it was only when the fiery fragments began to fall thickly round us that we took to our oars once more.But our troubles had scarcely yet begun, for our oars had hardly dipped in the water when—crash!—there fell a ponderous fragment of one of the schooner’s timbers down upon the boat, literally cutting her in two and killing poor old Simpson on the spot.The boat at once sank from under us, leaving us all struggling for our lives in the water. Hawsepipe was a famous swimmer, and he immediately seized the doctor—who could not swim a stroke—and placed him in a position of temporary safety upon the floating piece of timber which had inflicted upon us this fresh disaster, while I looked after the injured men who, probably owing to the shock of immersion, had suddenly so far recovered the use of their limbs as to be able with very little assistance to gain the same refuge.We now found, what we had been too busy to notice before, that the thunder-storm had nearly worn itself out; an occasional flash, low down upon the horizon, and its long, rumbling accompaniment of distant thunder being all that remained to remind us of it, except the frequent gleam of sheet lightning which continued to play all round the horizon and behind the great banks of cloud into which the black canopy overhead had now broken.The question calling for immediate attention was, how best to provide for our safety. Clinging to the floating timber we were safe only as long as it remained calm; a very gentle sea would be sufficient to wash us from our hold. Looking round me, I perceived that we were at no great distance from the wreck of the foremast, and I thought if all hands could only reach it, we might be able to construct from it and the spars attached to it a raft of sufficient capacity to accommodate us all in some degree of comfort and safety. I mentioned my idea to Hawsepipe, who approved of it greatly; whereupon I left him to look after the survivors while I went to the spar. Reaching it, I was able without much difficulty to form from the halliards of the various sails and the other running-gear still attached to the spars a warp long enough to reach from the foremast to the timber to which the others were clinging, with which I swam back. Bending the end of this warp securely to the piece of timber, Hawsepipe and I then swam to the foremast, and hauling upon the warp, soon had the rest of the party there also.Hawsepipe undertaking with the assistance of the others to cut the yards adrift and separate the topmast from the lower-mast, I took another cruise with the warp, and was fortunate enough, after swimming about for over an hour, to bag a half-burned hen-coop with four dead fowls still therein, three hatches, and the remains of the mainmast with topmast attached, the latter spar being still in good enough condition to be serviceable, and the jibboom. All these things I contrived to get alongside the foremast without interrupting the labours of the others.Hawsepipe evidently knew how to construct a raft upon scientific principles. The foremast he took for a sort of foundation or keel, laying the two topmasts, one on each side and parallel to it, at a distance of about ten feet. The ends of these spars were then crossed by and lashed to the two yardarms of the fore-yard at the end of the raft which he intended for its stern, and to the topsail yardarms at the fore end. This formed a rectangular staging, with the lower-mast running fore and aft through its centre. This staging was then strengthened by lashing the jibboom across it in the middle, and upon the top of all, the hatches and the hen-coop were firmly secured, forming a small platform, upon which, however, there was room for us all with a little crowding. The topgallant yard with the sail still attached was then got on end, one arm being lashed to the foremast, and the other sustained aloft by means of shrouds and stays. The topgallant sail we cut in two diagonally, and thus treated it formed a tolerably serviceable leg-of-mutton sail.It took us so long to do all this, that by the time we had finished, day was breaking; and as the sun rose the clouds cleared away, and the trade-wind once more resumed its sway, the fresh, cool breeze greatly reviving our exhausted energies, while it bore us, at the rate of about a knot and a half per hour, away from the scene of the catastrophe.

A fortnight was very pleasantly spent by us at the island, during the progress of the repairs, the good people of Bridgetown vieing with each other in their efforts for our amusement, a ball also upon a very grand scale being given in our honour by the officers of the garrison; and then all defects being made good, we once more put to sea.

We appeared by this time to have come to the end of our run of good luck, however; for, though we most assiduously worked the entire archipelago, not a sign of an enemy could we find.

At length, the period of our cruise having expired, we bore up and returned to Port Royal, where Captain Annesley was received by the admiral with effusion.

The frigate remained at anchor in the harbour ten days, during which all hands indulged in a little welcome recreation, the officers attending quality balls, shooting, and visiting at various estates belonging to new-made, but most hospitable Kingstonian friends.

I had accepted an invitation from a Mr Finnie—whose acquaintance I had made on my previous visit to Kingston—to spend a few days on his estate among the Blue Mountains and enjoy a little shooting on a small lake adjoining it; and in my indefatigable pursuit of this amusement I managed to contract a severe attack of yellow fever.

I was most kindly and carefully nursed through it by Mrs Finnie, and it was chiefly owing to her unceasing attention, under God, that I recovered at all. I was ill for weeks, what with the fever, a relapse, and the terrible prostration which followed; and when at length I was able once more to crawl about, the “Astarte” had been long gone to sea upon a sort of roving commission, from which it was quite uncertain when she would return.

Under such circumstances the time soon began to hang heavily on my hands, and I longed for a sniff of the pure salt sea-breeze, once more. I was therefore greatly delighted when, on calling at the country house of the admiral—to whom I had been introduced by Captain Annesley—the following conversation occurred.

“Ah! Chester,” said the admiral, “glad to see you on your pins once more; you have had a very narrow squeak of it, I hear.”

“Indeed I have, sir,” I replied. “So narrow was it that they had my coffin all ready built for me. I have managed to weather upon Yellow Jack this time, however, thank God; and now, if I could only get to sea again, I believe I should soon pull round and completely recover my strength.”

“Ah! say you so? It is quite likely.” The old gentleman was silent for a few minutes, and then, turning abruptly to me, he said,—

“Have you heard that the ‘Juanita’—that pirate brigantine which the ‘Astarte’ took among the Roccas—has been brought to Port Royal, and that we are putting a new foremast in her and converting her into a topsail schooner?”

“No, sir, I have not,” I replied. “Indeed I have heardnothingin connection with naval matters, for I have not yet been as far as Kingston.”

“Umph! Well, wearedoing so,” he said. “How do you think the change will affect her?”

“I believe it will be a great improvement. All that heavy gear forward must, I am sure, have been detrimental to her sailing powers, especially in a sea-way.”

“To be sure it was. Couldn’t have been otherwise. Then you approve of the change?”

“Yes, sir, certainly,” I replied, wondering why on earth so great a personage should attach any importance to the opinion of a midshipman.

“Ah! I am glad of that,” returned the admiral; “because, since you have expressed a wish to go to sea again, the idea has come into my head to give her to you—that is to say, until the ‘Astarte’ comes in again.”

I murmured something—I hardly knew what—by way of thanks, to which the admiral kindly replied,—

“There, there; don’t say a word about it, my dear boy. Annesley has told me all about you, and if the half of what he says be true, I know of no one who is better fitted for the trust than yourself. Besides, I have really nobody else to place in charge. If you feel well enough, you had better run down on board in the course of a day or two, and see how matters are going on. Now come away into the other room and have some lunch.”

On the following morning, directly after breakfast, I started in Mr Finnie’s ketureen for Kingston, and, reaching the wharf about noon, chartered that fast-sailing clipper, the “Fly-by-night,” to convey me to Port Royal. The jabber of the black boatmen and the exhilarating sensation of being once more afloat had quite a tonic effect upon my spirits, which rose higher and higher as we tore down past the Palisades, the boat careening gunwale-to, with the hissing, sparkling foam seething past and trailing away in a long wake astern.

When I got on board the “Juanita,” I found that they had just stepped the foremast, and a most beautiful spar it was, without a knot in it, and as straight as a ray of light.

Fisher, the dockyard foreman, was on board, superintending operations, and from him I learned that it was intended to make some slight alterations in the armament of the craft; for, whereas when captured she carried four long-sixes of a side, it was now proposed to alter the position of the ports, reducing their number to three, and bringing them more toward the middle or waist of the vessel, and mounting three long-nines on each side instead of the four sixes, thus removing the weight from the two ends, and adding three pounds to the weight of her broadside. It was also proposed to take away the long-nine from forward, and to substitute for it a long-eighteen between the masts.

These alterations accorded strictly with my own views upon the subject, and were precisely what I should have suggested, had I been asked. There had been some little talk about increasing the height of her bulwarks, but this, I was glad to hear, had been overruled; for it would certainly have gone far toward spoiling her light, jaunty, graceful appearance.

It took the dockyard people just another week to complete the proposed alterations, during which I visited the craft every morning, returning to my quarters at Mr Finnie’s in time for their six o’clock dinner. On the day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher’s hands, and as I left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettier little craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft, and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutely necessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, though light, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which she had been fitted fore and aft, and which had been stretching all the week and were permanently bent only that same morning, gleamed in the brilliant sunshine, white as snow.

Her hull was coppered to about six inches beyond the water-line, and above this she was painted a cool grey up to her rail, this colour being relieved by a narrow scarlet riband along the covering-board. It was a fancy of the admiral, that she should be made as unlike a ship of war as possible, in order that she might be the more thoroughly fitted for her destined work; and, between us all, we certainly managed to meet his wishes in that respect to perfection, for she looked, both in hull and rigging, more like a yacht than anything else.

On the following day the stores and ammunition were shipped, and on the day after I called at the admiral’s office for my instructions, joined the ship, and that same evening, as soon as the land breeze set in, proceeded to sea; my orders being to cruise among the Windward Passages for the protection of trade and the suppression of piracy until recalled, and to look in at the post office on Crooked Island about once a month for orders.

Keeping close along in under the land, so as to take full advantage of the land breeze, we were off Morant Point by midnight, when we stretched away to seaward, and finally, after being obliged to take to our sweeps to get across the calm belt between theterraland the trade-wind, stood away to the northward, close-hauled upon the starboard tack, toward the Cuban shore.

Weathering in due time Cape Maysi, the eastern extremity of the island of Cuba, we shaped a course for Crooked Island Passage, and being then able to get a small pull upon the weather-braces and to ease off the mainsheet a foot or so, we bowled along in a style which filled all hands with delight.

On our arrival at Crooked Island we called at the post office, and I left a letter for the admiral, reporting progress. There was a fine full-rigged ship lying there when we arrived, bound for London; she had been there two days, waiting and hoping for the arrival of a man-of-war, under the protection of which to get safely through the Passage. She carried a very rich cargo and some sixteen passengers, most of whom were ladies, and as she only mounted four small guns, and carried no more than just sufficient men to work the ship, her skipper was willing to lose a day or two upon the chance of getting a safe convoy clear of the islands, among which there had been of late some very daring cases of piracy.

Finding that the “Centurion”—as his ship was named—was perfectly ready for sea, I arranged with her skipper to sail again that afternoon, which we accordingly did. The “Centurion” proving to be a slow sailer, we were four days taking her out clear of everything, when, having done so without molestation, the two ships parted company, and we bore up for a regular cruise to the southward among the various passages.

We fell in with a good many ships, all English, pushing through the various passages, and a few of them asked for convoy; but of pirates, slavers, or French privateers—any of which would have been game for our bag—we saw nothing.

At length, having made the circuit of the archipelago once, calling at the post office on reaching it, but finding no orders, we had proceeded so far on our cruise as to have arrived off the Square Handkerchief Shoal on our second round, and were about to bear up through the Silver Kay Passage, when, toward the end of the afternoon watch, the wind suddenly dropped, and by sun-down it had fallen stark calm.

The air turned close and hot as the breath of an oven, and as the evening wore on a heavy bank of black cloud worked up from to leeward and slowly overspread the sky, gradually settling down until the vapour appeared to touch our mast-heads.

Hawsepipe, a master’s-mate, who was acting as master, had been very fidgety for some time, and at last, “What do you think all this means, Mr Chester?” said he.

“I scarcely knowwhatto make of it,” I replied. “I have never seen anything quite like it before. It looks more like an impending thunder-storm than anything else; but itmaybe something very different, and I was about to give the order to shorten sail when you spoke.”

“I really think we had better,” he returned. “I see no sign of wind as yet, certainly; still, as we are in no hurry, it would be just as well to be prepared for anything and everything that can possibly happen. What sail shall we get her under?”

“Well, being, as you remark, in no sort of hurry, I think we will make our precautions as complete as possible by stowing everything except the fore-trysail and staysail. Let the men commence with the mainsail, as it is the largest and least manageable sail in a breeze.”

“All hands, shorten sail!” sang out Hawsepipe.

The boatswain’s pipe sounded, his gruff voice reiterated the order, and the men, who had been grouped together on the forecastle discussing the singular appearance of the weather, sprang to their stations.

“Main and peak halliards let go! Man the main-tack tricing-line and down with the throat of the sail; round-in upon the mainsheet! Now, then, is there no one to attend to the peak downhaul? That’s right. Now roll up the sail snugly and put the coat on. In with the whole of your square canvas forward. Royal, topgallant, and topsail halliards and sheets let go; man the clewlines, and clew them up cheerily, my lads. Haul down and stow both jibs. Lay aloft there! and see that you stow your canvas snugly, although itistoo dark at present for me to see what you are about.” Thus Mr Hawsepipe, in as authoritative a tone as though he were the first luff of a 120-gun ship.

Sail was shortened in considerably less time than it has taken to write the above description; for though this was the first cruise wherein Hawsepipe had been placed in a position of actual authority, he was anything but a tyro in the science of seamanship, and insisted oneverythingon board being done as thoroughly well as it was possible to do it, and the schooner was soon ready for whatever might come.

The night grew hotter and hotter, and still the glassy calm continued. The darkness was so intense, so opaque, that on placing my hand close before my eyes, I was quite unable to see it; and the stillness of the air was such that the flame of a lamp brought on deck burned straight up and down, merely swaying a trifle with the heave of the ship upon the long, sluggish swell.

This state of things continued until nearly four bells in the first watch, when a startling phenomenon occurred. The curtain of vapour grew more dense even than it had been before, entirely precluding the possibility of any light penetrating from above; notwithstanding which, the atmosphere very gradually became luminous with a ghastly, blue, sulphurous light, until it was possible, not only to see distinctly every object on board the schooner, but also to distinguish the gleaming surface of the water for a distance on every side of some three miles or so.

The faces of the men huddled together on the forecastle looked ghastly and death-like in this unearthly light, and the hull, spars, rigging and canvas of the schooner assumed such a weird and supernatural appearance when illumined by it, that she might easily have been mistaken for a cruiser from Phlegethon.

But this was not all. About half-an-hour after this singular luminosity of the atmosphere first became apparent, and before the startled seamen had recovered their self-possession, in an instant, without any premonition whatever, there appeared at each mast-head and yardarm, at the jibboom-end—in fact, at the end of every spar on board the schooner—a globe of greenish-coloured light, about the size of an ordinary lamp-globe, each of which wavered and swayed, elongated and flattened, as the ship gently rose and fell over the glassy sea.

The men were now thoroughly terrified.

“See that, Tom?” exclaimed one. “What d’ye call all them things?”

“Why, they be Davy Jones’ lanterns,theybe,” returned Tom; “and right sorry am I to see ’em.”

“Davy Jones’ lanterns?” echoed the questioner. “What—you don’t mean as them lights has been h’isted aboard here by the real old genuine Davy hisself, eh?”

“That’s just what Idomean, then, and no mistake. My eyes! there’s a show of ’em, too; never seed so many afore in my life. You mark my words, Dick, and see if something out o’ the common don’t happen to this here little barkie afore four-and-twenty hours is over our heads.”

“What sort of asomethin’d’ye mean, Tom, bo’?” asked another.

“Why, harm or damage o’ some kind,” replied the oracle. “I’ve heerd say as how when them lanterns is showed aboard of a craft, that it’s a sure sign as she’s a doomed ship. I remembers one time when I was in the Chinee seas in the old—Lord ha’ mercy on us! what’s that?”

A dazzling, blinding flash, which seemed to set both sky and sea on fire, and a simultaneous crash of thunder of so terrific a character that my ears rang and tingled, and I was stone-deaf for a few minutes afterwards, interrupted the speaker. I reeled under the awful concussion, as though I had received a crushing blow, and for a minute or two I felt dazed to the verge of unconsciousness. Then I became sensible that Hawsepipe was grasping my hand and trying to direct my attention forward; he seemed, too, to be anxious to say something, for his lips were moving rapidly in an excited manner.

I looked forward, and—behold!—there lay our foremast, with all attached, over the side; the stump—standing about four feet above the deck—being nothing but a mass of charred and blackened splinters. This was bad enough, but, letting my glance travel forward, I saw that the whole of the men on the forecastle had been struck to the deck by the electric fluid.

Hawsepipe, the surgeon, the quarter-master, and I, all rushed forward in a body to the assistance of the unfortunate men, and to ascertain the extent of their injuries. We raised the poor fellows, as we came to them, into a sitting position against the bulwarks, while the surgeon hastily examined them. To our horror it was found that all but four had been killed by that tremendous discharge, the dead men’s bodies being in some cases blackened and charred as if by fire; while, in other cases, their knives and the coin in their pockets were fused into shapeless lumps of metal. The living were carried aft to the cabin, where the surgeon, assisted by Hawsepipe, devoted all his energies to their restoration, while the quarter-master and I returned to the deck to look after the safety of the ship.

In the meantime a terrific thunder-storm heralded by that first destructive discharge, had set in, the green and baleful glare of the livid lightning illuminating the scene until it became almost as light as day; while the crashing roll of the thunder was absolutely continuous, and so deafening that I felt stunned and stupefied by it. There was no rain, neither was there any wind, properly speaking, the dead calm being only interrupted now and then by a momentary gust of wind, hot as the blasting breath of a furnace, which passed over us and was gone almost before we had time to realise its presence. These fitful and transient gusts of wind came from all quarters of the compass. I had never before experienced weather of at all a similar character, nor had Simpson, the quarter-master, and we were equally puzzled as to what to expect. The heavens were black as ink, and the clouds, rendered visible by the unearthly bluish-green glare of the lightning, were seen to be writhing and working like tortured serpents; but there was nothing to indicate a probable breeze.

There was plenty of work to be done, the clearing away of the wreck being our first task. Simpson and I accordingly armed ourselves with a tomahawk each, and went forward to make a commencement. Simpson began at the jibboom-end, cutting away the stays attached thereto, and working his way in, while I made an attack upon the shrouds and backstays. Our intention was to cut away everything in the first instance, in case of bad weather coming on, and afterwards to save as much of the wreck as we could.

I had scarcely begun my task when I fancied I smelt a smell of burning, but for the first minute or so I paid little attention to it, as the air had been for a long time pervaded by a strong choking sulphurous odour. I had struck but a few strokes with my tomahawk however, when a very strong whiff assailed my nostrils, and at the same instant a thin wreath of smoke appeared hovering over the fore-scuttle. Dropping my tomahawk, I darted toward the opening, and, looking down, found the place full of smoke, which appeared to be prevented from rising by the peculiar condition of the atmosphere.

“Lay in, Simpson,” I shouted to the quarter-master; “the ship is on fire!”

The old fellow, with his arm raised in the act of striking at the jib-stay, turned, and, catching sight of the smoke, bundled inboard in a trice. We descended to the forecastle together, and found it so full of dense pungent smoke that it was impossible to remain there a moment without adopting precautions of some kind to escape suffocation; we accordingly returned to the deck, and, removing our black silk handkerchiefs from our throats saturated them with water, and then bound them tightly about the lower part of our faces, leaving our eyes only uncovered. Thus protected, we once more descended, and were then enabled to remain long enough to assure ourselves that the forecastle was not the seat of the fire. As we returned to the deck up the steep ladder, I detected smoke issuing into the forecastle in dense jets through the joints in the bulkhead, and this, together with the odour, which at that moment became very strong, led me to suspect that the fire was located in the store-room.

Saturating our handkerchiefs afresh and readjusting them upon our faces, we rushed aft and descended the main hatchway. Here—that is to say, immediately in the wake of the hatchway—there was very little smoke, but witheverystep forward it became more and more dense, and as we approached the store-room the heat and smoke became so stifling that we could only proceed with the utmost difficulty.

At length, however, we managed to reach the store-room door, and then the heat, the heavy smoke, the dull roar and crackling of the flames, gave us unmistakable assurance that we had found the seat of the mischief. I placed my hand upon the thick planking of the bulkhead and found it to be scorching hot.

We were unable to remain a moment where we were, so intense was the smoke and heat. We accordingly returned to the deck and summoned Hawsepipe and the doctor to our assistance. We informed them in a few words of this new catastrophe, or rather of the unexpected result of the original one—for I had no doubt whatever that it was the lightning which had set the ship on fire,—and received from them in return the news that the four men had been restored to consciousness, but had not yet recovered the use of their limbs; we then at once set about cutting a hole through the deck into the store-room, hoping that by means of the fire-engine and hose we might yet be able to conquer the flames.

A hole was first cut in the deck large enough to admit the end of the hose; the hose was then inserted, and packed carefully round with wet canvas where it passed through the deck, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the access of fresh air to the fire, and we four then manned the engine and proceeded with all our energy to pump water down upon the flames.

We had been thus engaged for about a quarter of an hour, the lightning raging round us all the while in undiminished fury, when, in an instant, down came the rain in a perfect flood.

“Shut the ports!” yelled Hawsepipe.

We understood in a moment the object he had in view, and, leaving the engine, went round the decks, closing the ports and stopping up the scuppers with pieces of canvas, so as to prevent the water from flowing off the deck. The rain was descending in such copious torrents that in a few minutes we were up to our knees in warm, fresh water, when the hose was withdrawn from the hole in the deck and the water allowed to stream down into the store-room. A dense jet of steam rushed up through the hole immediately that we withdrew the hose and its packing.

We now had a moment in which to take a look below, and see what result had attended our labours. A glance at the fore-scuttle was anything but reassuring, dense clouds of steam and smoke issuing by this time from the opening, and as we looked the smoke suddenly became tinged with the lurid reflection of flames. I darted to the opening, and looking down as well as I could through the blinding suffocating clouds which rushed up in denser volumes every instant, saw that the bulkhead was burned through, and the flames already spreading in every direction.

The fire-engine was instantly started once more, the hose being this time directed down into the forecastle, and for twenty minutes we played upon the fire there—the rain all the while rushing down in sheets and fast filling our decks—without result; at the end of that time it became apparent that the ship was doomed.

Hawsepipe and the doctor had meanwhile pressed their investigations farther aft, soon reappearing with the alarming news that the fire was spreading aft with great rapidity.

“Then there is nothing for it but to take to the boat without further delay,” said I.

And we set about getting her over the side forthwith, our motions being considerably accelerated by the increasing loudness of the roaring crackling sound of the fire, the dense cloud of smoke which now enveloped the ship, and the almost unbearable heat of the deck. The flames spread so rapidly that by the time we had got the boat into the water, with her oars, sails, etcetera, a couple of breakers of water, a bag or two of biscuits, and a miscellaneous collection of small stores from the cabin lockers, the heat and smoke had become so unendurable that we could not remain still a moment, indeed so sorely pressed were we that the poor fellows who had been injured by the lightning, and who had been brought on deck some time before to save them from suffocation, were almostthrownover the side into the boat; we scrambled in after them, and casting off got out the oars, and pulled as fast as we could from the ship, which in another minute was blazing from stem to stern, notwithstanding the still pouring rain.

We pushed off in dead silence, and, having pulled far enough away to be clear of the scorching heat, laid with one consent upon our oars to watch the conflagration. We had been lying thus motionless upon the water some three or four minutes, when the mainmast swayed slowly to and fro for a moment, and then fell with a hissing splash into the water alongside, a shower of sparks shooting up at the same moment from the burning bulwarks which had been crushed out by the mast in its fall. We were watching and remarking upon the way in which the planks of the topsides were twisting up and opening out from the timbers under the influence of the tremendous heat, when suddenly an awful recollection flashed upon me.

“Pull! pull for your lives!” I screamed. “We have forgotten to drown out the magazine.”

Not another word was needed. With one accord the oars dashed into the water, and you may rest assured that we threw our entire weight and strength into each stroke, bending the stout ash staves as though they were pliant whalebone, and all but lifting the boat clear out of the water.

We had not pulled more than a dozen strokes before there was a violent concussion, as though we had run stem-on upon a sandbank, the schooner’s sides burst apart, the flaming planks of the deck, with its fittings, the guns, and everything else upon it, soared into the air in the midst of a blinding sheet of flame, and then came the dull, heavy roar of the explosion, and—black darkness.

We ceased pulling as the explosion took place, struck powerless for the moment at this sudden and terrible destruction which had befallen the craft so lately our home and ark of safety, and it was only when the fiery fragments began to fall thickly round us that we took to our oars once more.

But our troubles had scarcely yet begun, for our oars had hardly dipped in the water when—crash!—there fell a ponderous fragment of one of the schooner’s timbers down upon the boat, literally cutting her in two and killing poor old Simpson on the spot.

The boat at once sank from under us, leaving us all struggling for our lives in the water. Hawsepipe was a famous swimmer, and he immediately seized the doctor—who could not swim a stroke—and placed him in a position of temporary safety upon the floating piece of timber which had inflicted upon us this fresh disaster, while I looked after the injured men who, probably owing to the shock of immersion, had suddenly so far recovered the use of their limbs as to be able with very little assistance to gain the same refuge.

We now found, what we had been too busy to notice before, that the thunder-storm had nearly worn itself out; an occasional flash, low down upon the horizon, and its long, rumbling accompaniment of distant thunder being all that remained to remind us of it, except the frequent gleam of sheet lightning which continued to play all round the horizon and behind the great banks of cloud into which the black canopy overhead had now broken.

The question calling for immediate attention was, how best to provide for our safety. Clinging to the floating timber we were safe only as long as it remained calm; a very gentle sea would be sufficient to wash us from our hold. Looking round me, I perceived that we were at no great distance from the wreck of the foremast, and I thought if all hands could only reach it, we might be able to construct from it and the spars attached to it a raft of sufficient capacity to accommodate us all in some degree of comfort and safety. I mentioned my idea to Hawsepipe, who approved of it greatly; whereupon I left him to look after the survivors while I went to the spar. Reaching it, I was able without much difficulty to form from the halliards of the various sails and the other running-gear still attached to the spars a warp long enough to reach from the foremast to the timber to which the others were clinging, with which I swam back. Bending the end of this warp securely to the piece of timber, Hawsepipe and I then swam to the foremast, and hauling upon the warp, soon had the rest of the party there also.

Hawsepipe undertaking with the assistance of the others to cut the yards adrift and separate the topmast from the lower-mast, I took another cruise with the warp, and was fortunate enough, after swimming about for over an hour, to bag a half-burned hen-coop with four dead fowls still therein, three hatches, and the remains of the mainmast with topmast attached, the latter spar being still in good enough condition to be serviceable, and the jibboom. All these things I contrived to get alongside the foremast without interrupting the labours of the others.

Hawsepipe evidently knew how to construct a raft upon scientific principles. The foremast he took for a sort of foundation or keel, laying the two topmasts, one on each side and parallel to it, at a distance of about ten feet. The ends of these spars were then crossed by and lashed to the two yardarms of the fore-yard at the end of the raft which he intended for its stern, and to the topsail yardarms at the fore end. This formed a rectangular staging, with the lower-mast running fore and aft through its centre. This staging was then strengthened by lashing the jibboom across it in the middle, and upon the top of all, the hatches and the hen-coop were firmly secured, forming a small platform, upon which, however, there was room for us all with a little crowding. The topgallant yard with the sail still attached was then got on end, one arm being lashed to the foremast, and the other sustained aloft by means of shrouds and stays. The topgallant sail we cut in two diagonally, and thus treated it formed a tolerably serviceable leg-of-mutton sail.

It took us so long to do all this, that by the time we had finished, day was breaking; and as the sun rose the clouds cleared away, and the trade-wind once more resumed its sway, the fresh, cool breeze greatly reviving our exhausted energies, while it bore us, at the rate of about a knot and a half per hour, away from the scene of the catastrophe.

Chapter Twenty Eight.A Voyage upon a Raft.We had now time to look about us, and to realise our position, which—though it might easily have been worse—was certainly the reverse of enviable.In the first place we were upon a frail raft which, well constructed though it was, could not be expected to hold long together, unless we were favoured with exceptionally fine weather. In the next place everything of which we were possessed in the shape of provisions was comprised in the four dead fowls found in the hen-coop; and of water, or any other liquid with which to quench our thirst, we had not a single drop. On the other hand the island of Saint Domingo was under our lee, at a distance of about ninety miles, and if our raft would only hold together so long and maintain the speed at which it was then travelling, we might hope to reach land in from two and a half to three days.I laid these facts before my companions, directing their special attention to the circumstance that we had to look forward to three days of suffering from thirst, and also from hunger in a minor degree, urging them to the brave endurance of these privations, if necessary, and pointing out to them that though unfortunately we happened to be in one of the least-frequented of the passages, there was a chance, although a somewhat slender one, of our being picked up at any hour, and I wound up by reminding them that, even on that frail raft, we were as much under the protection of Him who holds the waters in the hollow of His hand as we should be were we safe on shore. At the doctor’s suggestion we then all knelt down, while he offered up a brief but earnest prayer for our deliverance. We all felt much more hopeful after this short religious exercise, and went cheerfully about our work of examining the raft, now that we had daylight with us once more, with the object of ascertaining whether it was possible to make any improvement in it or not. The examination, careful and minute though it was, was soon over, and we came to the conclusion that no improvement was possible with the materials at hand, and that, if the lashings did not give way and the weather continued fine, we had not much to fear.Hawsepipe had rigged steering-gear to the raft by lashing a piece of deck-plank, some twelve feet long, to the schooner’s foremast in such a way that half of it was immersed in the water and acted as a rudder, while the other half slanted in over the raft and served as a tiller; it was, in fact, a rude substitute for a steering-oar. This answered its purpose perfectly, in so far as that it enabled us to keep the raft dead before the wind; but when I tried the experiment of edging a couple of points or so to the southward of the direction in which the wind blew, with the view of reaching the Saint Domingo shore as quickly as possible, I found that the speed of the raft lessened sensibly, and that she began to drive slightly sideways through the water—she would not, in short, travel in any direction except dead before the wind, and we were therefore compelled to rest content with that, and to devote all our energies to the most careful steering, so as to run straight to leeward and so get the greatest possible speed out of her.We steered in spells of two hours each, the rest seeking shelter from the sun’s rays in the shadow of the sail, the seamen trying to pass away the time as much as possible in sleep. As the morning wore on, the heat became very great and our thirst grew with it, but we managed to stave off its worst pangs by pouring sea-water plentifully over each other, as we sat in our clothes. About noon we thought of dinner, but, hungry as we by that time were, we scarcely fancied our fare, which was one of the dead fowls, to be eaten raw of course, since we had no means of cooking it. Finding that the rest were equally as squeamish as myself in this respect, I suggested and it was agreed that the fowls should remain untouched until we felt hungry enough to eat the uncooked flesh with a relish. Toward sun-down we had a most unwelcome addition to our company, in the shape of three sharks, which suddenly made their appearance close under the stern of the raft, maintaining their position, at about three yards distance, with a perseverance which was worthy of a better cause. The size of their dorsal fins, which were carried well out of the water, assured us that our followers were sharks of the largest size, and enabled us to form a pretty fair idea of what would be our fate should any of us be unfortunate enough to fall or be washed off the raft.A keen lookout was maintained during the whole of that day, but no sail was seen, and at length the sun went down in a cloudless sky, giving us an assurance of the continuance of fine weather.I anxiously marked the position of the luminary when he reached the horizon, and saw, with a heart-sick feeling which I cannot describe, that we were—and had probably been all day—sailing a course about W.S.W., or two points more to the northward than I had hoped. This was a most serious matter, since it would throw us much farther to the westward, and necessitate our going a much greater distance, probably nearly double, before we could possibly reach land; and I began, for the first time, to fear that we might possibly miss Saint Domingo altogether. And I knew that if we did that we might give ourselves up for lost, as I could not entertain much hope of our being able to hold out until we should reach the Windward Channel, and even if we did, we might still fail to fall in with a ship to pick us up, in which case we should have to go on to Jamaica, which we could scarcely reach, under the most favourable circumstances, in less than a fortnight. These disquieting thoughts, however, I deemed it prudent to confine to my own breast.About midnight my worst apprehensions as to the course of the raft were confirmed by the discovery of breakers ahead, which I knew, from the position of the “Juanita” on the previous night, could indicate nothing else than that we were running down upon the Square Handkerchief Shoal, of which I had hoped to pass clear to the southward.We gave the raft as much starboard helm as she would take, and after a long and most anxious time succeeded in just scraping clear of the breakers, which we found were occasioned by an extensive group of rocks just awash. The sight of these rocks enabled me to identify our position, as I recognised in them the rocks which occupy the north-east corner of the shoal. We were therefore passing as nearly as possible directly across the middle of the shoal, instead of going to the southward of it, as I had hoped.Meanwhile the pangs of hunger and thirst were steadily intensifying with us. Our tongues grew dry and hard, and the doctor’s lips began to crack, while the men could talk of nothing but the clear, gurgling brooks and sparkling cascades by the side of which they had stood in other days.The wind had freshened somewhat during the night, and toward sun-rise a few clouds worked up to windward, the sight of which induced us for a time to hope that we might be blessed with a shower. But they passed over without dropping any of their longed-for moisture upon us, and the sun once more rose up in unclouded splendour to torture us with his scorching rays.Our repugnance to raw fowl had by this time entirely passed away, and although upon examination our poultry turned out to be rather high, one of the defunct chickens was torn asunder, and, being divided among us with the most scrupulous fairness, was devoured in an incredibly short time.“Ah!” exclaimed one of the men, as the last morsel of his allowance disappeared down his throat. “That’s the most tasty snack as I’ve ate for many a long day. It’s a pity there ain’t more of it. But there, I s’pose it won’t do to eat up all our wittals to oncet; let’s be thankful as we’ve had even that small mossel. I say, mates, don’t you find these here fowl-bones very sweet picking?”“Uncommon,” answered another. “There’s a sort of a peculiar flavour with ’em that I don’t disremember to have tasted with fowl-bones when I’ve had ’em for breakfast afore.”There was unquestionably “a sort of a peculiar flavour” with my share, but I should scarcely have referred to it with such gusto as they did, I thought.“Now if I could only have washed my breakfast down with a pannikin of grog,” remarked a third, “I should ha’ said as I’d thoroughly enj’yed it.”“Grog!” exclaimed the first speaker. “Grog be blowed! Whenever I’ve a glass of grog I always wants another on top of it, and so I should to-day. I’d give all the grog as ever was brewed for one good long swig at the spring which bubbles out from under the rocks behind my poor old mother’s house on Dartmoor. Thatissweet water, if you like, mates.”“’Tain’t sweeter, I know, than the water of the trout-stream in which I used to fish with a bit of twine bent on to a crooked pin, when I was a boy,” remarked another. “Many’s the time as I’ve gone down on my hands and knees upon a rock or a little bit of a shingly bar, when I’ve been hot and thirsty—as it might be now—and drunk and drunk until I could drink no more. My eyes! mates, but theywasdrinks, and no mistake.”And so they rambled on, their dry lips smacking with every fresh reminiscence.I knew that this sort of conversation would do more harm than good by intensifying the feeling of burning thirst from which they were suffering, so I cut it short by remarking,—“By the way, lads, speaking of fishing, cannot one or another of you work up one of the nails out of those hatches into a fish-hook with your knives? The others meanwhile might get some threads out of that piece of spare canvas which we cut off the topgallant sail, and twist it up into a fishing-line.”No sooner said than done. The poor fellows were glad of something to employ their minds and fingers upon, and went to work with avidity to carry out the suggestion.By sunset an ordinary three-inch nail had been hammered and bent and scraped down to a very respectable substitute for a hook; while the other three seamen had each contrived to spin up about five fathoms of good strong line. Neither hook nor line, however, was ever used.The breeze again freshened during the night, driving the raft along about two knots in the hour; and again uprose the sun in a cloudless sky.We divided another of the dead fowls between us, but on this morning there was none of the cheerful chat which had accompanied the previous meal. The repulsive food was devoured in silence, due probably in part to the absence of any hopeful topic of conversation, and also, doubtless, to a great extent in consequence of the dry, sore, swollen sensation in the men’s throats. For my own part my throat was in such a state that it was with the utmost difficulty I succeeded in swallowing my own allowance.Hawsepipe, the doctor, and I struck up as lively a conversation as we could, touching the probability of our soon being picked up, and I embraced the opportunity of mentioning casually that in consequence of the great amount of easting in the wind I feared we should not reach land quite as soon as I had at first anticipated. I was almost sorry immediately afterwards that I had mentioned it, when I saw the despairing look which came into the faces of my fellow-sufferers, and the yearning glances upward at the pitiless sky, which showed not the faintest fleece of cloud—not the remotest promise of a single drop of pure, fresh water wherewith to moisten our parched and baked tongues and throats. The thirst-agony now began to paint its effects upon us more and more palpably every hour; our lips being dry, black, and gashed with deep cracks; while our tongues were dry and swollen until they seemed too large for our mouths. The skin upon the faces of my companions was burnt, parched, and shrivelled by the sun, seamed in every direction by cracks, and peeling off in many places; while their eyes glowed and sparkled like coals of fire with the fierce fever which consumed them. The sharks which had stuck to us with such frightful and ominous pertinacity had their number augmented this day by the arrival of three new-comers.“Six of ’em,” muttered the seaman who was steering the raft when the three new arrivals appeared; “that means as six out of us seven is doomed.”Another endless day of indescribable agony—another long night of torment; and again up rose the sun in a pitiless, cloudless sky.Oh! how fervently I longed and prayed for an overcast sky and a pelting rain, even though it were accompanied by the wildest hurricane which ever blew; the worst that could happen to us in such a case would be drowning, the prospect of which seemed to be bliss itself compared with this slow fiery torment of thirst.On this day Tom Miles and Ned Rodgers, two of the four seamen, suddenly sprang to their feet, and with a despairing yell plunged over the side of the raft into the sea before we were aware of or could arrest their terrible intention. There was a frightful splashing in the water astern, as the sea-monsters fought over their prey; then all was quiet again.Two of the sharks had disappeared.My companions regarded this terrible tragedy almost with indifference, and the doctor, in a weak and cracked voice which was scarcely audible, muttered something to the effect that “thosetwowere happily out of their suffering.” Before sunset the poor fellow had followed them, andanother shark had disappeared.Some time during the night I was awakened by Hawsepipe, whose trick at the helm it was. He aroused me by giving me a feeble shake on the shoulder, and, being by this time unable to speak, raised his hand and pointed skyward. I looked up and saw that the firmament was obscured by heavy masses of cloud, which held out the promise of a speedy fall of thrice-blessed rain. I scrambled to my feet and hastened to arouse the two seamen, in order that we might take immediate measures to secure as much as possible of the priceless liquid. One of the poor fellows was in such a weak and exhausted condition that he was unable to rise; the other contrived to do so with the utmost difficulty, and we lowered down the sail, mast and all, so as to form with the canvas a receptacle for the expected blessing.At length it came in a sudden squall of wind, with a few flashes of lightning, and for two or three minutes it poured down almost as heavily as it did on that night—oh! how many ages ago it seemed now—when the “Juanita” was destroyed. We gathered round the sail and drank greedily, recklessly, of the heaven-sent nectar; filled our hats and boots—our only receptacles—with it, and then drank and drank again as long as a drop remained in the sail. And oh! how we grudged the precious drops which poured in a stream through the thin canvas!To describe the reviving effect which this delicious draught had upon our exhausted frames is impossible; our strength and our voices returned to us like magic, our spirits revived, and we felt like new creatures. We re-hoisted the mast and sail into its place with comparative ease, and then, with one accord, knelt down and offered our sincere and heart-felt thanks for the mercy which had been shown us in our extremity; while the raft swept cheerily away before the rising blast at almost double her usual speed.On the following day we were again favoured with an example of the ease with which the Almighty can supply the wants of His creatures, even in such a situation as ours; for during the forenoon a shoal of flying-fish rose out of the water alongside, and passed directly over the raft, nearly a score being intercepted in their flight by our sail, and caught before they were able to flop off into the water again. I thought that any attempt to preserve them would be sure to end in failure by their quickly becoming unfit for human food, and therefore proposed that they should be at once eaten, which proposition, I need scarcely say, met with the cordial approval of my companions, and was immediately carried out. We took with them the remainder of the water which we had caught and preserved in our hats and boots, but found, to our consternation, that a great deal of it had leaked away, and the little that remained had become strongly brackish from the quantity of spray which had flown over us and mingled with it since the freshening of the breeze.The wind remained fresh all that day and rose still higher during the following night, so that our speed gradually increased from a knot and a half to nearly four knots. The sea rose also in proportion, and this caused the raft to work to such an extent that I began to entertain serious fears as to whether it would hold together much longer. Most of the lashings had worked quite loose; but there were now only three of us, and our united strength was wholly inadequate to the tightening of them until the sea should go down.Another night passed, another day, and no more rain had fallen; and then our sufferings returned—as it seemed to us—with tenfold intensity. Our strength went from us like water from a sieve; and when night once more closed down upon our tortured frames we abandoned ourselves, with one accord, to despair; the helm was left to itself, and the raft was allowed to steer herself as best she might. We sank down upon the hatches which formed our deck, and sought to evade in our slumbers some small portion of our horrible torments. As far as I was concerned, however, the effort was in vain; for the moment that sleep stole upon my exhausted frame visions of lakes and springs, murmuring brooks and sparkling fountains of cool, delicious, fresh water arose before me, and I suffered all the agonies of the mythical Tantalus.At length I could endure the torment of dreaming no more, and started to my feet, went to the helm, and got the raft once more before the wind. I had scarcely done so and turned my glances astern for a moment, when, “A sail! A sail!!” I screamed.My two companions started to their feet and hurried to my side, eagerly questioning me as to her whereabouts. I pointed her out to them. There she was, about three miles directly astern, clearly visible in the light of the young moon, which gleamed faintly upon her canvas; but—oh, misery—she was close-hauled upon the starboard tack, dead to windward,and sailing away from us. We shouted until not another sound would our parched throats utter, but it was all of course of no avail; and we were far too low in the water to attract the attention of even the sharpest lookout in that feeble light; the ship swept steadily on and at length passed out of sight below the horizon.Then, as we sank down again in utter abandonment, how bitterly we reproached ourselves and each other for not maintaining a lookout! Had we done so, we should assuredly have made her out while still to windward of her, and could have lowered our sail until she had approached near enough to enable us to run down upon her. However, it was too late now to remind each other of that; the mischief was done; and the only thing that remained was to take care that there should be no recurrence of it.But I will dwell no longer upon the details of those endless days and interminable nights of indescribable torture. Suffice it to say that I endured two more days and nights of suffering, during which I was only dimly cognisant of my surroundings; all my faculties were engaged in the task of wrestling with and assisting my tortured frame to bear up against the terrible anguish which consumed me; at the end of that time exhausted nature could bear no more, and relief at length came with unconsciousness.

We had now time to look about us, and to realise our position, which—though it might easily have been worse—was certainly the reverse of enviable.

In the first place we were upon a frail raft which, well constructed though it was, could not be expected to hold long together, unless we were favoured with exceptionally fine weather. In the next place everything of which we were possessed in the shape of provisions was comprised in the four dead fowls found in the hen-coop; and of water, or any other liquid with which to quench our thirst, we had not a single drop. On the other hand the island of Saint Domingo was under our lee, at a distance of about ninety miles, and if our raft would only hold together so long and maintain the speed at which it was then travelling, we might hope to reach land in from two and a half to three days.

I laid these facts before my companions, directing their special attention to the circumstance that we had to look forward to three days of suffering from thirst, and also from hunger in a minor degree, urging them to the brave endurance of these privations, if necessary, and pointing out to them that though unfortunately we happened to be in one of the least-frequented of the passages, there was a chance, although a somewhat slender one, of our being picked up at any hour, and I wound up by reminding them that, even on that frail raft, we were as much under the protection of Him who holds the waters in the hollow of His hand as we should be were we safe on shore. At the doctor’s suggestion we then all knelt down, while he offered up a brief but earnest prayer for our deliverance. We all felt much more hopeful after this short religious exercise, and went cheerfully about our work of examining the raft, now that we had daylight with us once more, with the object of ascertaining whether it was possible to make any improvement in it or not. The examination, careful and minute though it was, was soon over, and we came to the conclusion that no improvement was possible with the materials at hand, and that, if the lashings did not give way and the weather continued fine, we had not much to fear.

Hawsepipe had rigged steering-gear to the raft by lashing a piece of deck-plank, some twelve feet long, to the schooner’s foremast in such a way that half of it was immersed in the water and acted as a rudder, while the other half slanted in over the raft and served as a tiller; it was, in fact, a rude substitute for a steering-oar. This answered its purpose perfectly, in so far as that it enabled us to keep the raft dead before the wind; but when I tried the experiment of edging a couple of points or so to the southward of the direction in which the wind blew, with the view of reaching the Saint Domingo shore as quickly as possible, I found that the speed of the raft lessened sensibly, and that she began to drive slightly sideways through the water—she would not, in short, travel in any direction except dead before the wind, and we were therefore compelled to rest content with that, and to devote all our energies to the most careful steering, so as to run straight to leeward and so get the greatest possible speed out of her.

We steered in spells of two hours each, the rest seeking shelter from the sun’s rays in the shadow of the sail, the seamen trying to pass away the time as much as possible in sleep. As the morning wore on, the heat became very great and our thirst grew with it, but we managed to stave off its worst pangs by pouring sea-water plentifully over each other, as we sat in our clothes. About noon we thought of dinner, but, hungry as we by that time were, we scarcely fancied our fare, which was one of the dead fowls, to be eaten raw of course, since we had no means of cooking it. Finding that the rest were equally as squeamish as myself in this respect, I suggested and it was agreed that the fowls should remain untouched until we felt hungry enough to eat the uncooked flesh with a relish. Toward sun-down we had a most unwelcome addition to our company, in the shape of three sharks, which suddenly made their appearance close under the stern of the raft, maintaining their position, at about three yards distance, with a perseverance which was worthy of a better cause. The size of their dorsal fins, which were carried well out of the water, assured us that our followers were sharks of the largest size, and enabled us to form a pretty fair idea of what would be our fate should any of us be unfortunate enough to fall or be washed off the raft.

A keen lookout was maintained during the whole of that day, but no sail was seen, and at length the sun went down in a cloudless sky, giving us an assurance of the continuance of fine weather.

I anxiously marked the position of the luminary when he reached the horizon, and saw, with a heart-sick feeling which I cannot describe, that we were—and had probably been all day—sailing a course about W.S.W., or two points more to the northward than I had hoped. This was a most serious matter, since it would throw us much farther to the westward, and necessitate our going a much greater distance, probably nearly double, before we could possibly reach land; and I began, for the first time, to fear that we might possibly miss Saint Domingo altogether. And I knew that if we did that we might give ourselves up for lost, as I could not entertain much hope of our being able to hold out until we should reach the Windward Channel, and even if we did, we might still fail to fall in with a ship to pick us up, in which case we should have to go on to Jamaica, which we could scarcely reach, under the most favourable circumstances, in less than a fortnight. These disquieting thoughts, however, I deemed it prudent to confine to my own breast.

About midnight my worst apprehensions as to the course of the raft were confirmed by the discovery of breakers ahead, which I knew, from the position of the “Juanita” on the previous night, could indicate nothing else than that we were running down upon the Square Handkerchief Shoal, of which I had hoped to pass clear to the southward.

We gave the raft as much starboard helm as she would take, and after a long and most anxious time succeeded in just scraping clear of the breakers, which we found were occasioned by an extensive group of rocks just awash. The sight of these rocks enabled me to identify our position, as I recognised in them the rocks which occupy the north-east corner of the shoal. We were therefore passing as nearly as possible directly across the middle of the shoal, instead of going to the southward of it, as I had hoped.

Meanwhile the pangs of hunger and thirst were steadily intensifying with us. Our tongues grew dry and hard, and the doctor’s lips began to crack, while the men could talk of nothing but the clear, gurgling brooks and sparkling cascades by the side of which they had stood in other days.

The wind had freshened somewhat during the night, and toward sun-rise a few clouds worked up to windward, the sight of which induced us for a time to hope that we might be blessed with a shower. But they passed over without dropping any of their longed-for moisture upon us, and the sun once more rose up in unclouded splendour to torture us with his scorching rays.

Our repugnance to raw fowl had by this time entirely passed away, and although upon examination our poultry turned out to be rather high, one of the defunct chickens was torn asunder, and, being divided among us with the most scrupulous fairness, was devoured in an incredibly short time.

“Ah!” exclaimed one of the men, as the last morsel of his allowance disappeared down his throat. “That’s the most tasty snack as I’ve ate for many a long day. It’s a pity there ain’t more of it. But there, I s’pose it won’t do to eat up all our wittals to oncet; let’s be thankful as we’ve had even that small mossel. I say, mates, don’t you find these here fowl-bones very sweet picking?”

“Uncommon,” answered another. “There’s a sort of a peculiar flavour with ’em that I don’t disremember to have tasted with fowl-bones when I’ve had ’em for breakfast afore.”

There was unquestionably “a sort of a peculiar flavour” with my share, but I should scarcely have referred to it with such gusto as they did, I thought.

“Now if I could only have washed my breakfast down with a pannikin of grog,” remarked a third, “I should ha’ said as I’d thoroughly enj’yed it.”

“Grog!” exclaimed the first speaker. “Grog be blowed! Whenever I’ve a glass of grog I always wants another on top of it, and so I should to-day. I’d give all the grog as ever was brewed for one good long swig at the spring which bubbles out from under the rocks behind my poor old mother’s house on Dartmoor. Thatissweet water, if you like, mates.”

“’Tain’t sweeter, I know, than the water of the trout-stream in which I used to fish with a bit of twine bent on to a crooked pin, when I was a boy,” remarked another. “Many’s the time as I’ve gone down on my hands and knees upon a rock or a little bit of a shingly bar, when I’ve been hot and thirsty—as it might be now—and drunk and drunk until I could drink no more. My eyes! mates, but theywasdrinks, and no mistake.”

And so they rambled on, their dry lips smacking with every fresh reminiscence.

I knew that this sort of conversation would do more harm than good by intensifying the feeling of burning thirst from which they were suffering, so I cut it short by remarking,—

“By the way, lads, speaking of fishing, cannot one or another of you work up one of the nails out of those hatches into a fish-hook with your knives? The others meanwhile might get some threads out of that piece of spare canvas which we cut off the topgallant sail, and twist it up into a fishing-line.”

No sooner said than done. The poor fellows were glad of something to employ their minds and fingers upon, and went to work with avidity to carry out the suggestion.

By sunset an ordinary three-inch nail had been hammered and bent and scraped down to a very respectable substitute for a hook; while the other three seamen had each contrived to spin up about five fathoms of good strong line. Neither hook nor line, however, was ever used.

The breeze again freshened during the night, driving the raft along about two knots in the hour; and again uprose the sun in a cloudless sky.

We divided another of the dead fowls between us, but on this morning there was none of the cheerful chat which had accompanied the previous meal. The repulsive food was devoured in silence, due probably in part to the absence of any hopeful topic of conversation, and also, doubtless, to a great extent in consequence of the dry, sore, swollen sensation in the men’s throats. For my own part my throat was in such a state that it was with the utmost difficulty I succeeded in swallowing my own allowance.

Hawsepipe, the doctor, and I struck up as lively a conversation as we could, touching the probability of our soon being picked up, and I embraced the opportunity of mentioning casually that in consequence of the great amount of easting in the wind I feared we should not reach land quite as soon as I had at first anticipated. I was almost sorry immediately afterwards that I had mentioned it, when I saw the despairing look which came into the faces of my fellow-sufferers, and the yearning glances upward at the pitiless sky, which showed not the faintest fleece of cloud—not the remotest promise of a single drop of pure, fresh water wherewith to moisten our parched and baked tongues and throats. The thirst-agony now began to paint its effects upon us more and more palpably every hour; our lips being dry, black, and gashed with deep cracks; while our tongues were dry and swollen until they seemed too large for our mouths. The skin upon the faces of my companions was burnt, parched, and shrivelled by the sun, seamed in every direction by cracks, and peeling off in many places; while their eyes glowed and sparkled like coals of fire with the fierce fever which consumed them. The sharks which had stuck to us with such frightful and ominous pertinacity had their number augmented this day by the arrival of three new-comers.

“Six of ’em,” muttered the seaman who was steering the raft when the three new arrivals appeared; “that means as six out of us seven is doomed.”

Another endless day of indescribable agony—another long night of torment; and again up rose the sun in a pitiless, cloudless sky.

Oh! how fervently I longed and prayed for an overcast sky and a pelting rain, even though it were accompanied by the wildest hurricane which ever blew; the worst that could happen to us in such a case would be drowning, the prospect of which seemed to be bliss itself compared with this slow fiery torment of thirst.

On this day Tom Miles and Ned Rodgers, two of the four seamen, suddenly sprang to their feet, and with a despairing yell plunged over the side of the raft into the sea before we were aware of or could arrest their terrible intention. There was a frightful splashing in the water astern, as the sea-monsters fought over their prey; then all was quiet again.Two of the sharks had disappeared.

My companions regarded this terrible tragedy almost with indifference, and the doctor, in a weak and cracked voice which was scarcely audible, muttered something to the effect that “thosetwowere happily out of their suffering.” Before sunset the poor fellow had followed them, andanother shark had disappeared.

Some time during the night I was awakened by Hawsepipe, whose trick at the helm it was. He aroused me by giving me a feeble shake on the shoulder, and, being by this time unable to speak, raised his hand and pointed skyward. I looked up and saw that the firmament was obscured by heavy masses of cloud, which held out the promise of a speedy fall of thrice-blessed rain. I scrambled to my feet and hastened to arouse the two seamen, in order that we might take immediate measures to secure as much as possible of the priceless liquid. One of the poor fellows was in such a weak and exhausted condition that he was unable to rise; the other contrived to do so with the utmost difficulty, and we lowered down the sail, mast and all, so as to form with the canvas a receptacle for the expected blessing.

At length it came in a sudden squall of wind, with a few flashes of lightning, and for two or three minutes it poured down almost as heavily as it did on that night—oh! how many ages ago it seemed now—when the “Juanita” was destroyed. We gathered round the sail and drank greedily, recklessly, of the heaven-sent nectar; filled our hats and boots—our only receptacles—with it, and then drank and drank again as long as a drop remained in the sail. And oh! how we grudged the precious drops which poured in a stream through the thin canvas!

To describe the reviving effect which this delicious draught had upon our exhausted frames is impossible; our strength and our voices returned to us like magic, our spirits revived, and we felt like new creatures. We re-hoisted the mast and sail into its place with comparative ease, and then, with one accord, knelt down and offered our sincere and heart-felt thanks for the mercy which had been shown us in our extremity; while the raft swept cheerily away before the rising blast at almost double her usual speed.

On the following day we were again favoured with an example of the ease with which the Almighty can supply the wants of His creatures, even in such a situation as ours; for during the forenoon a shoal of flying-fish rose out of the water alongside, and passed directly over the raft, nearly a score being intercepted in their flight by our sail, and caught before they were able to flop off into the water again. I thought that any attempt to preserve them would be sure to end in failure by their quickly becoming unfit for human food, and therefore proposed that they should be at once eaten, which proposition, I need scarcely say, met with the cordial approval of my companions, and was immediately carried out. We took with them the remainder of the water which we had caught and preserved in our hats and boots, but found, to our consternation, that a great deal of it had leaked away, and the little that remained had become strongly brackish from the quantity of spray which had flown over us and mingled with it since the freshening of the breeze.

The wind remained fresh all that day and rose still higher during the following night, so that our speed gradually increased from a knot and a half to nearly four knots. The sea rose also in proportion, and this caused the raft to work to such an extent that I began to entertain serious fears as to whether it would hold together much longer. Most of the lashings had worked quite loose; but there were now only three of us, and our united strength was wholly inadequate to the tightening of them until the sea should go down.

Another night passed, another day, and no more rain had fallen; and then our sufferings returned—as it seemed to us—with tenfold intensity. Our strength went from us like water from a sieve; and when night once more closed down upon our tortured frames we abandoned ourselves, with one accord, to despair; the helm was left to itself, and the raft was allowed to steer herself as best she might. We sank down upon the hatches which formed our deck, and sought to evade in our slumbers some small portion of our horrible torments. As far as I was concerned, however, the effort was in vain; for the moment that sleep stole upon my exhausted frame visions of lakes and springs, murmuring brooks and sparkling fountains of cool, delicious, fresh water arose before me, and I suffered all the agonies of the mythical Tantalus.

At length I could endure the torment of dreaming no more, and started to my feet, went to the helm, and got the raft once more before the wind. I had scarcely done so and turned my glances astern for a moment, when, “A sail! A sail!!” I screamed.

My two companions started to their feet and hurried to my side, eagerly questioning me as to her whereabouts. I pointed her out to them. There she was, about three miles directly astern, clearly visible in the light of the young moon, which gleamed faintly upon her canvas; but—oh, misery—she was close-hauled upon the starboard tack, dead to windward,and sailing away from us. We shouted until not another sound would our parched throats utter, but it was all of course of no avail; and we were far too low in the water to attract the attention of even the sharpest lookout in that feeble light; the ship swept steadily on and at length passed out of sight below the horizon.

Then, as we sank down again in utter abandonment, how bitterly we reproached ourselves and each other for not maintaining a lookout! Had we done so, we should assuredly have made her out while still to windward of her, and could have lowered our sail until she had approached near enough to enable us to run down upon her. However, it was too late now to remind each other of that; the mischief was done; and the only thing that remained was to take care that there should be no recurrence of it.

But I will dwell no longer upon the details of those endless days and interminable nights of indescribable torture. Suffice it to say that I endured two more days and nights of suffering, during which I was only dimly cognisant of my surroundings; all my faculties were engaged in the task of wrestling with and assisting my tortured frame to bear up against the terrible anguish which consumed me; at the end of that time exhausted nature could bear no more, and relief at length came with unconsciousness.

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