The story hunter

While travelling along the Norfolk coast, and enjoying its golden sands and bracing breezes, I fell in with a jolly old fellow who was mending one of the huge oaken breakwaters, with which some parts of this wind-swept coast are protected, to prevent the encroachment of the sea, which, year by year and slice by slice, devours the soft clay cliffs, as regularly and insatiably as a ploughboy consumes his thumbpiece after the first two hours of morning work.

The jolly one had charge of a gang of half-a-dozen semi-amphibious agricultural labourers, who were driving down the great iron-shod piles deep into the sand, by means of an erection very similar in construction to a guillotine, except that instead of the lunette a huge block of iron weighing several hundredweight fell upon the pile to be driven when a lever is pulled.

The men, with whom I conversed while they ate their noonday meal, were of the usual type of tawny-bearded, brown-faced, straight-nosed men one sees on the east coast, who, when not employed in farm work, gain their scanty living on the sea. But the ganger was a man of a different stamp; he was short and thick like a Shetland pony, and very nearly as rugged and unkempt as one of those sturdy animals, for his iron-grey beard and hair blew about in the wind like the tattered rags on a mawkin.

He was a most jocular little-big man, full of fun and funny sayings, and the loudest to laugh at his own jokes was—himself. His laugh was hearty at any time, but on special occasions he would give a peculiar roar that would quite startle any person not used to Billy Flowerdue’s wild guffaw.

I invited Billy to spend an evening in my caravan, an invitation which he readily accepted, as he was some miles from his home, and only at present lodging in the inn of a neighbouring village.

Billy opened his eyes at many of the curiosities I had picked up during my travels, and widest of all at a curious piece of work which had been made by a man in the same line of business as himself—that of a carpenter and wheelwright. It was a wooden leg, which had been made for a cow, and which the animal had worn for several years, until she met her death by lightning.

It was a curious contrivance made of two pieces of wood, jointed at the knee with a pair of ordinary iron hinges, and made to fly out straight when the animal arose from a recumbent position, by means of thick india-rubber springs attached from the upper to the lower timbers.

If the powerfully-built little carpenter opened his eyes wide at what he was pleased to call “that thayer cur’us contraption,” he did so even more fully when I asked him to allow me to send him to sleep by a peculiar power I possessed, and I quite believe he thought I was either insane, bent on robbing him, or else thirsting for his blood.

I had, therefore, to fully explain the meaning of hypnotism to Billy, who, although a masterful hand with the adze or chisel, had apparently no brain for other subjects. His head was full of chips and timber, and nothing more. By dint of persevering persuasion, he was at length prevailed upon to permit me to place him in a state of trance, but not until I had first placed my faithful collie “Skybo” in a mesmeric sleep; at the sight of which Billy laughed loudly enough to make the plates and crockery in my house on wheels rattle again.

I had no need to ask Billy to give up his mind, and allow himself to think of just nothing at all, for it appeared a chronic state with him, to which he relapsed after every laugh. When he did enter the trance state he related the following very curious adventure of his early days.

A STRANGE RESURRECTION.

I am not what you may term an old man, being a few months short of sixty-five years, but though my years are totalling up considerably, my spirits are light as a feather, and although fifty years have passed away since the story I am about to tell you took place, the incidents are as vivid in my memory as they were a month after their occurrence.

I was a youngster of fourteen or fifteen at the time I am about to speak, and like most boys of that age had a liking for the sea, especially as I dwelt in a great seaport where every one was in some way or other connected with fish or ships, and where even the schoolboys’ common expressions were flavoured with nautical terms.

My birthplace was Great Yarmouth, and at the time I left school in 1835, no one seemed to ask the question, which we so frequently hear now, of “What are you going to do with your son?” because it seemed predestined that the entrance of a boy into the world should be by way of the high seas. Each boy at the age of fourteen or fifteen appeared to look forward intuitively to the time when he should make his first voyage, or join one of the great herring fleets which annually leave Yarmouth in August; and he knew also that his maiden experience was merely a test, to ascertain for what particular division of toilsome nautical life he was most fitted.

Some liked the sea and its thrilling dangers, and stuck to it through fair weather and foul, working their way upward, till in a very few years they became mate, skipper, and presently part owner of the smack or lugger they commanded. Others preferred shore life; the sea was too coy a mistress for them to woo; and they were accordingly apprenticed to sail or mast-makers, shipwrights, smiths, netmakers, or something of the kind connected with shipping. Others again would volunteer for service in Her Majesty’s Navy, being taken with the trim appearance of the young fellows who had preceded them in that branch of the nautical life, and came home on leave, to show off their little horde of gold saved from their first cruise money.

Yet another set there were who, disdaining the toil of a fisher’s life, the subordination of the navy, or of being always ashore at some trade, chose the freer life which was led by those who were apprenticed to the coasting or mercantile trade.

On leaving school I determined to see about me a little, and accordingly cast in my lot with the latter group, and was in due course enrolled as an apprentice on the books of The Ladybird, a smart little trading brig, belonging to Yarmouth.

My father at the time kept an inn called the “Jolly Waggoner,” just out of the town, on the Caister Road, and as it was early spring, the various caravans were moving from their winter quarters, and their owners painting and gilding up their properties ready for the round of the fairs, which in Norfolk commence in the spring and run right through the months, till Christmas and heavy snows put a stop to them for the year.

At the side of the “Jolly Waggoner” was a large piece of spare ground, upon which might frequently be seen four or five caravans being repaired and painted; my father uniting in his own person the businesses of painter, publican, carpenter, and smith; so that with one thing and another he made a very fair living in a quiet way.

Well, a couple of days before The Ladybird was to sail with a general cargo to the Faroe Isles, the skipper, towards evening, came down to my father’s house to settle about my premium money, and to give me an opportunity of signing my indentures.

Captain Cooper, that was his name, was a jolly, genial man, full of fun and merriment, and had the name for being a most able seaman; and as he was part owner of the vessel, my father had no doubt that I should be in good and safe hands. They were old schoolmates and life-long friends, so, as Captain Cooper remarked, it would only be leaving one father on shore to serve under another at sea—a kind of nautical foster-father.

I was delighted when the indenture was pushed across the table to receive my signature, and though I made a big blot to start with, I afterwards signed my name very well, which was more than I could say for either of my two fathers, for their hands were so stiff, and the pen so scratchy, that they made very laborious work of it. The captain wrote his name as much with his jaws as with his pen, for sticking his tongue into his cheek, he elongated and rolled his lower jaw in a most curious manner, apparently forming each letter with the tip of his tongue on the inside of his cheek, and then simultaneously scrawling in the same slow manner with the quill pen on the parchment before him.

My father signed with a big cross, so his task was soon over, but still not before he had made the pen give a big splutter, just as a sea-rocket does when it touches the water, and the ink flew in spray from bottom to top of the important document.

By the time the witnesses had signed their names, and spattered their share of ink over the indenture, the whole thing was highly decorated, and looked for all the world like a map of some large city, showing by black dots the positions of the various places of interest.

After such a Herculean task, much refreshment was required, supplied, and in due course consumed.

I can fancy myself now sitting in the cosy bar-parlour—though it is fifty years ago—listening to the wonderful yarns spun by Captain Cooper; yarns which appeared to me to become more astounding as he warmed up with the many and various liquids he imbibed.

Then I recollect a startling occurrence which happened in the midst of the story-telling; it was the entrance of a travelling showman, who wished to know if he could put up at our house for the night, as he wanted some repairs done to his caravan next day. He was of medium height, stoutish and florid, just the type of person one would expect to be connected with the show business. He was a perfect stranger to my father, but as there was work to be done for him in the morning, my father bade him take his caravan upon the green, and after he and the ostler had fixed up all for the night, come and have a comfortable pipe and chat with us.

Jim, our ostler, accompanied the showman, and having stabled the horse for the night, and put the van into a good berth, the showman rejoined us. He proved to be a capital story-teller, as are most of his profession. His tales, if anything, were more wonderful than Captain Cooper’s; anyway, I never heard such stories as they told one against the other, and I do not doubt that if I had glanced at myself in the looking-glass, my eyes would have resembled small china tea-saucers. My father did not call them stories, he used a harsher but shorter word; but I, in my verdancy, imagining they might be true, gave them the benefit of the doubt, and swallowed them like so many sugar-plums.

Now the thing that fixes this scene so vividly on my memory was, that while these men were so busy racking their brains for the toughest yarns, the half-door leading into the bar was suddenly opened, and the space filled with the huge form of a man, who inquired, in no amiable strain, if the showman were going to sit there all night, and leave him without so much as a quart to moisten his lips with.

The ceiling of the bar-parlour was certainly not lofty, being barely seven feet from the floor, but to my surprise, and I might also add horror, when the man pushed open the half-door and entered the room he could not stand upright, so gigantic was his stature. His entrance created quite a commotion among those present, but the showman soon smoothed matters by ordering a gallon of ale, and telling us that our visitor was a giant with whom he was travelling round the country for exhibition purposes.

I had never seen a giant before, and he quite frightened me when he planted himself right beside me on the settle. I rose to find fresh quarters, not quite so close to such an uncanny monster, but he pulled me back and sat me on his knee, just as if I had been a four-year-old child, instead of a good-sized lad of fifteen.

His hands and feet were enormous, and when I shook hands with him at his request, my decent-sized fist looked like a baby’s in his huge paw. He was not only tall, but he was large-framed, and well built in every way; a man of enormous strength, and, as I soon found, of prodigious appetite. He had, so the showman informed us, just been captured from the plough in Yorkshire, and the showman was taking him round, and paying him double as much as he could earn by his work as an agricultural labourer. The giant liked the nomadic life, and the princely sum of eighteen shillings a week made him something of a Crœsus compared with other working men.

Somehow I could not take to the man, although he seemed to show a great partiality for me; he was rough, coarse of speech, and of a pugnacious temperament; but, except for one or two little bickerings, a very pleasant evening was spent, and the showman, who was in his cups, insisted upon seeing Captain Cooper back to the ship, as the Captain could not steer straight; in fact, he could scarce make headway at all, as his legs would cross and keep tripping him up. The end of it was that the showman’s horse was brought out, the Captain strapped on his back, and the showman hoisted up behind, to navigate the steed to the quay. Jim the ostler followed quietly behind on foot, and returned an hour later with the horse, informing my father that he had left both skipper and showman fast asleep on the cabin floor.

Then we went to bed, and saw no more of the tipsy showman till ten o’clock next morning, when he turned up at the “Jolly Waggoner” looking very seedy.

Well, now having introduced my dramatis personæ, I must say a few words concerning the ship, the lively little Ladybird. She was a trim little oak-built brig of some 200 tons, well found in gear and stores, and carried beside the skipper, a mate, three hands, and a cook, to which please add your humble servant as articled apprentice. Our cargo was a very miscellaneous one, and consisted principally of barreled beef and pork, cloth, linen, beer, spirits, hardware and cutlery, for we were bound on a trading expedition to the Faroe Islands, where we were to take in a cargo of salt-fish, bird-skins, fur, guano, seal-skins, oil, etc., in exchange for the goods we were taking out, as very little ready money is in circulation in those out-of-the-way isles.

The skipper did not expect to be gone more than two months, as the distance from Yarmouth to the Faroes is not more than a thousand miles, inclusive of touching at the Orkneys and Shetland en route; so when I bade my father farewell on the quay, I anticipated being back for my birthday on the 10th of June, but my case was only one more exemplification of the adage, “Man proposes, but God disposes,” as will be seen.

I was in a great flutter of excitement when the hour of departure really did arrive, which was not till near noon instead of eight sharp, as the skipper had announced. I was like a monkey just escaped from its cage, here, there, and everywhere; and when we dropped down the river to the harbour’s mouth, on the very last of the ebb, I can recollect how I scrambled aloft when the order was given to loosen and hoist sail. I did not know what to do certainly, but I watched the others, and worked away till my fingers, arms, aye and every limb ached again—but I was supremely happy until mal-de-mer overtook me, and then I went below and turned into my berth.

A couple of days found me all alive again, and on deck as merry as a cricket. We were now off Aberdeen, quietly drawing along under all sail, and everything going as merry as a marriage bell.

As night began to close in around us we had Peterhead (the chief whaling port) right on our port beam, and that gave Captain Cooper an opportunity to tell some of his yarns about the whaling cruises he had participated in when a young man in the Greenland seas.

After dark, being past Kinnard’s Head, near Frazerburgh, we had the great gulf between Aberdeenshire and Caithness on our port beam, and were quite out of sight of land. The wind, which had been lazy all the day, now began to freshen and back a little to the south of west, which was very favourable for our sailing. Seeing this the captain made up his mind not to call in at Kirkwall, the chief town in the Orkneys, but to leave it for the homeward voyage, and take advantage of the favouring breeze to push on to Lerwick in the Shetland Isles. His orders before turning in were consequently given to the mate to be carried out, unless a change of wind should occur, in which case the skipper was to be called.

Having got over my sea-sickness and found my sea-legs, the day appeared too short for me, so I agreed with the cabin-boy, Joey Nicholls, that we would not turn in till the end of the first watch (midnight), but stay on deck and enjoy the beautiful evening, for it was a lovely mild moonlight night. My own watch was the second dog-watch, which is over at eight p.m., so Joey and I had laid ourselves out for a further four hours’ fun before turning in.

For a long time we chatted with old Bunks, whose turn at the wheel it was, and then getting tired of him, we took off our shoes and skylarked about in the beautiful moonlight. We set each other various tricks to perform, at which we found we were about equal; but presently Joey, whose turn it was to set the next task, ascended to the mizzen cross-trees, and sat there for two or three minutes, when he came down and dared me to do the same feat. It was a simple task enough, but it must be remembered I had only had two or three days on the sea, and had hardly overcome my nervousness in going aloft even in the daytime, and to ascend at night when the moon throws such black shadows from the sails, was quite trial enough for me.

However, I essayed it, and arrived safely at the cross-trees, upon which I perched myself in a very gingerly manner, for fear (in my ignorance) that my weight might cause them to break. I sat and looked upon the heaving waters around, and was endeavouring to summon courage to look on deck from my dizzy height, when I heard a thud and a cry of pain below me, and involuntarily glancing down, I saw the mate strike Bunks, who was hanging to the spokes of the wheel. As I looked another blow descended, and then breaking the unfortunate man’s hold from the spokes, I saw the mate deliberately pitch him over the taffrail into the white wake of the Ladybird, where he seemed to float a minute and then disappear.

Almost simultaneously I saw a strange man seize poor Joey, struggle with him to the bulwarks and throw him overboard. Joey could swim, and I could hear his shrieks for several minutes, as he vainly struck out after the brig, which was making three feet to his one.

I could not recognize the assailant of my poor chum; but when I looked under the foot of one of the sails, I beheld, to my horror, the herculean form of the giant I had left a few days before at my father’s inn, the “Jolly Waggoner.” I could scarcely believe my eyes, but a form like the one beneath me on the deck was such as one sees scarcely in a lifetime, and when once seen cannot readily be forgotten.

My heart beat quickly, and I trembled so violently that I could with difficulty retain my hold of the ropes to prevent myself from falling to the deck. I could not keep my eyes off the figures beneath me, and in the bright moonlight could detect their every movement. I saw the showman go to the wheel and pull his coat-collar up and his cap-peak down, and the giant hide himself behind the cook’s galley, which stood amidships.

Then the mate went to the fo’castle scuttle and bawled out, “All hands tumble up, man overboard; shorten sail—be alive there—don’t stop to shave,” and the usual patter for suddenly turning up a crew, and in a twinkling up came the three men from their berths, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes with their knuckles.

“Here, lads,” said the mate, pointing to the boat which was hanging from the davits, “jump in and lower away. Old Bunks is in the water astern. Look alive now!”

They stepped up to the boat and began to right side her, when out from his lurking-place behind the galley sprang the giant, and in a trice, with a heavy cudgel, he knocked the three poor fellows down like ninepins, and before they could recover, picked them up one by one like bags of chaff, and tossed them over the bulwarks into the silent sea.

At this sight my senses nearly forsook me; but clasping the mizzen top-mast convulsively I hung on, cogitating what to do, and deciding that if either of the three fiends below should attempt to ascend the shrouds to take me, I would save them the commission of another murder by precipitating myself on the hard deck below, thus hoping to kill myself instantaneously.

They descended into the fo’castle, looked into the cook’s galley and under the boat to try and discover me, and I heard them mention my name several times, coupled with most awful threats and voluble profanity. They did not appear to think of looking aloft for me; but as I pressed my body to the mast I was afraid, so great was my agitation, and knowing wood to be such a splendid conductor of sound, that they might hear the violent throbbing of my heart as they passed the foot of the mast. It was a foolish idea, but at the time I quite believed it beat with noise enough to betray me.

After another search the mate, with an oath, exclaimed, “Leave the —— till the morning; we can scrag him then just as well as now. Come below, lads, and have a drink, for I think we’ve finished our job in a very neat fashion!”

They all went down into the little cabin, which contained two berths, one for the captain and the other for the dastardly mate. The skylight being a little open I could hear them talking, but could not distinguish what they said; and I could also hear the clinking of glasses and the drawing of corks.

But what of Captain Cooper? So far I had neither heard nor seen him. Was he dead, or what had become of him?

I had no means of ascertaining.

How long I sat on the cross-trees I could not say, but presently the voices in the cabin grew less noisy, and at length ceased altogether. Whereupon I imagined that the ruffians had drunk so much that they had fallen asleep. I listened for some time longer, and at length, as all was quiet, and I was getting numb with sitting so long in one position, I quietly quitted my eyrie, and with trembling steps descended to the deck, and peeped through the small aperture left for ventilation at the edge of the cabin skylight. Although I could hear voices I could perceive no one in the cabin; however, I noticed one thing which surprised me—that a small trap-door in the cabin floor stood slightly raised, and from the space beneath came rays of light, showing that the conspirators were doing something in the hold. Now I thought, if I could only steal down the companion, I could not only look round the cabin for some signs of the captain, but I might also get a glimpse beneath the trap-door and see what was going on below. I doubted my courage, but not for long, as it occurred to me that the captain, after all, might not be dead; and in the fact of his being still alive laid my only chance of escape.

I felt my way cautiously down the dark stairway, and peered down the partly-open trap-door. I could see the three villains on their knees sorting over papers, which might have been one-pound bank-notes by their size, and the care with which they were being counted out. In front of the giant stood a large leathern bag, with its mouth wide open, displaying bright golden guineas in great numbers; evidently the gang were dividing the spoil. The place in which they were now gloating over their crime-bought wealth appeared to be only about six feet square, and to contain nothing but some large iron-bound chests, the contents of which I could not even guess at, but I should say that the place had been used as a kind of strong-room, and the only mode of ingress and egress was evidently the trap-door through which I was now looking.

But what of the captain?

Carefully, in the total darkness, I felt my way to his bunk, and put my hand in. Yes, he was there, for I touched him. It was his leg I touched. I slid my hand up towards his head, and my fingers rested upon his cheek. It was warm, but, alas! there was a feeling about the flesh that told me he was dead!

At the awful discovery I could scarcely repress a wild, hysterical shriek—a shriek which would have cost me my life, for the assassins below would instantly have sprung up and murdered me with as little compunction as they would kill a fowl or a rabbit.

I clutched the side of the bunk for support; I could scarcely breathe! I staggered; and stumbling, kicked against something which fell and sounded like a knife. It made a noise on the cabin floor, and I heard a voice say with an oath, “What’s that?” Then I saw the light move and the shadows of the men sway about.

They were coming up into the cabin! I was lost!!

Stay; was there not time to reach the companion and fly on deck?

No.

My faintness vanished instantly, being put to flight by the new and greater horror which presented itself. The discovery of the captain’s death had unhinged me, but the approach of my own death braced my nerves and spurred my limbs into immediate action; for without an instant’s hesitation I sprang into the dead man’s berth and hid behind the corpse, placing myself between the dead skipper and the side of the vessel. The head and shoulders of the giant came upward through the trap, but it was too dark for him to discern anything. Oh, for a pistol! I could then have defied the villains, who would have been caught like rats in a trap of their own setting.

The head suddenly disappeared, but presently made its reappearance, and the lantern was handed from below and stood on the cabin floor, while I in my hiding-place quaked with fear, imagining that I should now for a certainty be discovered and slaughtered.

Here was a contrast to the cosy bar-parlour of the “Jolly Waggoner”; but I could give but little thought even to my dear old dad, knowing that my life hung on a mere thread. My eyes were riveted on the gigantic head and shoulders emerging from the floor. The lantern came first through the trap, and was swung aloft by the brawny arm of the giant, who looked around beneath it. He gazed steadfastly at the face of the dead man by my side to see if any movement was apparent. The dead man hid and saved me, for the giant quietly pronounced one word, “Rats!” and then he and the lantern vanished below again.

Here was a dilemma for me to be in! What should I do?

To lie where I was simply meant being discovered in a very short time. What could I do?

If I attempted to get in the boat and lower myself down from the davits I should be heard. Could I feel for the knife on the floor and stab the rascals one by one as they ascended the ladder into the cabin?

Bah! my very heart recoiled at the notion. I could not have killed them even to save my own life. I thought of the sensation of feeling the knife drive through the flesh and jar upon the bones, and the spurt of warm life-blood over my hand, and I shuddered at the idea. No, I was no coward, but as a lad of fifteen I could not take a human life, even for the sake of saving my own. With a pistol it might have been different, a touch of the trigger and all would have been over; but to stab and stab again—no, I could not do it.

But stay, a bright idea struck me. Surely the trap-door had a bolt or bolts!

Out of the berth I immediately crept, over the silent form of the man who in death had saved my life, and stole on tiptoe to the trap-door. The villains below were jangling over the doling, and their noisy altercation served to hide any little noise I made searching my way across the cabin, which was in utter darkness.

Joy! there were two bolts!

I carefully felt the bolts to ascertain if they worked easily, and with my fingers examined the staples to see if they were clear and strong.

Yes, both were clear and in order. Then noiselessly and tremblingly I lowered the lid and shot the bolts, and so expeditiously and quietly was it done that had there been even less noise below, it is probable that the men would scarcely have known the moment of their trapping, though they would soon perceive the fact from the air becoming hot and vitiated.

Groping about I soon found the knife on the cabin floor, and sprang on deck, noticing that the night had grown much darker, and sombre clouds hid the moon; still there was plenty of light for me to see to lower the boat. But now another fact arrested my attention, a startling fact: there was smoke quietly curling up from the fo’castle. I rushed to the hatch, but, looking down, could see nothing for the dense smoke; on listening intently, however, I heard a faint crackling sound as of burning wood.

The ship was on fire!

Should I release the prisoners?

No, that would never do, my life would be forfeited to my humanity without a doubt. Probably they would break out of the strong-room long before the fire reached so far aft, and although I had the only boat, they would probably have sufficient time to rig up some kind of raft, upon which they could remain safely till they were picked up and taken into port by a passing trading vessel.

I could imagine them being hanged at Newgate on my evidence!

Keeping my eyes on the companion way, I popped into the galley, and fished a huge junk of salt beef out of the boiler in which I had seen the cook place it the night before, for the purpose of soaking it to remove some of the super-abundant salt with which it was saturated. A bucket of doubtfully clean water stood in a corner; I tasted it, and found it was fresh, poured it into a large stone bottle, spilling half of it in my hurry, rammed a dirty cloth into the neck by way of cork, and put bottle and beef into the boat.

I hastened to lower the jolly-boat from the davits, but before she touched the water one of the falls jammed, the forward one luckily, and, as I lowered away on the aft one, the stern rested in the water, while the bows remained a couple of feet above it, in a dangerous position. This is not at all an uncommon occurrence, but my nerves were so shaken by the terrible ordeal I had passed through, that I fancied I heard the noise of feet on deck, so seizing my knife I cut away like a madman, making a dozen random cuts where one well-directed one would have sufficed. The boat swung round before I could unhook the other fall, and I was within an ace of meeting a watery grave when she righted, and bumped against the brig’s black side.

From the taffrail, as I swept past, depended a thin line, which I mechanically clutched and held, but as the ship was going some three knots an hour the boat rapidly dropped astern. I still held on as fathom after fathom paid out over the taffrail, till quite twenty fathoms hung in the water; then came a jerk, which threw me on my face, but I still hung on, and made the end fast round the forward thwart, as the other end was evidently fast on the Ladybird.

I sat in the bows for what seemed like hours, knife in hand, ready to cut myself adrift on the first signs of a human being appearing on deck. I saw the moon set and the night grow inky dark, and the volume of smoke from the fo’castle increase, and then I saw the glow of the extending fire reflected on the sails, but no human form was visible. Then I heard a crash and a subdued roar, and saw tongues of flame shoot up above the deck, catching the foresail and setting it in a blaze; then up and up it mounted till the whole suite of sails on the foremast were ablaze, and as I sat there I remember thinking to myself how pretty it looked. I felt secure, and my nerves were soothed by the sight before me, and I looked on calmly from my seat in the bows at the gallant ship, which from being my home had nearly become my tomb. Could I but have looked at the men in the strong-room, then, come what might, I am afraid I must have released them, for evidently they were still prisoners, and my sympathetic heart would have been my body’s ruin. I tried to find some mode for their release and my own safety, but although I racked my brain, I could devise no practical plan; beside, by this time they were probably suffocated.

While thus cogitating, the flames took hold upon the sails of the mizzen-mast, and they too were soon destroyed, leaving the yards and masts blazing. The air grew hotter and hotter; the deck was in a blaze, and great pieces of burning wood and tarry rope began to fall in and around the boat, and although I wished to hang on to witness the last of the Ladybird, I was at last compelled to cut the rope and drop quietly astern, as the heat, smoke, and fiery drift had become quite unbearable.

The good ship was now alight from stem to stern, and without her sails made very little progress through the water, but drifted gradually before the faint breeze, so slowly, in fact, that with the paddles I could manage to keep up with her. She presented a splendid appearance as, clothed in fire, she rose and fell on the roll of the sea; her reflection, mirrored in the waves, made the water glow with an incandescent lustre that riveted my boyish attention as intently as the finest pyrotechnic display could possibly have done.

Day at last began to dawn, and when light fairly broke, I was alone on the ocean; for the poor old hull with its stumpy black masts swerved from side to side, and, with a sidelong movement, sank like a tea-saucer, sending up, with a sudden puff, a great cloud of vapour, and leaving many charred fragments floating in the swirling waters where she disappeared. I pulled in all directions, to see if perchance the bodies of any of the villainous trio might float to the surface, but nothing met my eyes but broken and burnt wood, and the usual flotsam from a scuttled vessel.

And that was the last I ever saw of the good ship Ladybird.

Now that should really be the end of my yarn, for I am not going to tell you how I drifted about for three days, wet to the skin, and unable to protect myself from the pouring rain; and I need not tell you how I cut my raw salt beef in strips and washed it down with the dirty water I had in the bottle. Suffice it to say that on the evening of the third day I was picked up, more dead than alive, by a brig bound to Rekiavick, in Iceland; and from thence was given a passage to Hull, from which port I walked home to Yarmouth.

When I quietly entered the bar of the “Jolly Waggoner,” I nearly frightened my father out of his senses at my unexpected appearance.

But to tell of that would make my yarn too long.

What I want to wind up with is the proof of its truth; and this is how I vouch for its accuracy, by quoting the following extract, taken from the columns of the Daily Telegraph (London).

Look up that newspaper for Monday, January 15th, 1894, and on page 3, near the bottom of the 6th column, you will find this paragraph:—

“A Strange Discovery.—A Plymouth correspondent telegraphs that advices have been received of the arrival in Galveston of the Norwegian barque Elsa Anderson, having in tow the hull of an English-built brig, which had apparently been burned at sea more than fifty years ago, and which appeared on the surface of the ocean after a submarine disturbance off the Faroe Islands. The hull of the strange derelict was covered with sea-shells, but the hold and under decks contained very little water. In the captain’s cabin were found several iron-bound chests, the contents of which had been reduced to pulp except a leather bag, which required an axe to open it. In it were guineas bearing date 1809, and worth over £1000. There were also several watches and a stomacher of pearls blackened and rendered valueless by the action of the water. Three skeletons were also found, one of a man about seven feet high.”

There, that is my yarn, and I may just add that my first experience of the sea was my last, for my maiden voyage contained enough excitement during its very brief duration to last for the term of my natural life.

“What do you ask? How came the pearl stomacher and the watches in the hands of the miscreants?”

Well, that I must leave, for I did not see them in their possession, but doubtless they were the proceeds of robberies ashore.