The event of the night shed a gloom, a horror, over all in the cabin next day; nor was the alarm in the breasts of Captain Phillips and his mates in the least soothed, when it was remarked that the cook's grindstone was kept at work all the forenoon, and a most ominous sharpening of sheath and clasp-knives went on, while sundry jokes were uttered audibly about "Mister Manfreddy having gone on a visit to Mr. David Jones and Old Mother Carey, without his umbrella, too;" "and the rain a fallin' like Niagary," as Badger, the Yankee, added, with a diabolical grin.
The morning sky was gray and cloudy; a heavy sea was still on, and not a sail was in sight, so Captain Phillips swept the horizon with his telescope in vain.
At breakfast Ethel and her sister were informed that Mr. Manfredi had fallen overboard in the night, and been drowned. No hint of foul play was given them, at their father's special request; but they wept and mourned for the poor young fellow, of whom they now recalled to memory so many pleasing traits and anecdotes; among others, the sad story of his little brother, Attilio, who had been so savagely shot by the Austrians at Pistoja.
His seat at table, his place in the cabin were empty; his face and form were no longer seen, and his step and voice were no longer heard.
The suddenness of the catastrophe seemed most difficult of realisation; and the words of Dana, in a passage of one of his works, which Dr. Heriot pointed out to Rose, came painfully and truthfully home to all their hearts.
"Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and the mourners go about the streets; but, when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event which gives it an air of awful mystery. Then at sea you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark upon the wide wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own; but one is suddenly taken from among them, and they miss him at every turn. There are no new forms or faces to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one more wanting when the small night-watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form and the sound of his voice—for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss."
"So we shall never see him again—never!" said Ethel, with her eyes full of tears; "so kind, good, and gentle."
"And so handsome, too!" added Rose.
"A better seaman never trod a deck," sighed Mr. Quail.
"Damnation!" was the singular addendum of Captain Phillips, through his clenched teeth, when thinking of the secret he had not revealed, and the crime which, as yet, he dared not attempt to punish.
So Ethel put past "I Promessi Sposi," which had Manfredi's name written on the fly-leaf of the first volume, as the relic of a friend with whom she had spent many happy hours, whom she never more could see, and on whose vast tomb, the boundless ocean, she almost shuddered to look—for was not Morley Ashton sleeping there too?
So the gloomy day passed slowly on, and night came on.
Retired to their little cabin, Ethel and Rose were disrobing for rest—Nance Folgate had long since gone to sleep—and now, relinquishing the sad subject of Manfredi, Rose, with a blush on her charming face, was detailing to Ethel, for the second time, her interview with Leslie Heriot, whose ring—containing a large Scottish pearl, set with diamonds—glittered on the engaged finger of her left hand.
"And you are sure that you love him, Rose?" said Ethel, as she took her sister's face caressingly and affectionately between her soft hands.
"Dearly, devotedly," was the energetic reply. "How could I do otherwise, when he is such a kind, darling fellow—and so handsome too?"
"Have you weighed well the probabilities of the future?"
"What do you mean, Ethel dear?"
"What papa may think."
"Oh, Leslie will speak to papa to-morrow, or on the next day, at the latest."
Ethel smiled sadly at her sister's confidence.
"Our voyage will soon be over, dear Rose," said she, shaking her head seriously. "Once round the Cape of Good Hope, we shall be speedily at the Isle of France, and then your dream of joy will have an end—a rough awaking; not so sad or rough as mine, but a gloomy reality, and a doubtful future, nevertheless."
Poor Rose's usually merry eyes now filled with large tears, and she permitted the braids of her fine dark hair, which her slender fingers were wreathing up for the night, to roll down in unheeded masses over her bare bosom and back, which shone white as the new-fallen snowdrift, in the light of the cabin lamp that swung above her.
"And Jack Page—poor Jack Page!" said Ethel, smiling, to arouse Rose's spirit; "is he quite forgotten—eh?"
"Oh bother Jack Page!" replied Rose, crimsoning, and with the faintest tinge of irritation in her tone, as she proceeded vigorously to knot up the masses of black hair. "He was a pleasant enough fellow to flirt with, or play croquet with at Laurel Lodge (dear old Laurel Lodge! ah, heavens! Ethel, shall we ever see it again?) He was a good fellow for fishing or sailing on the mere——"
"And to botanise with, and to gather wild flowers on Cherrywood Hill," added Ethel, a little maliciously.
"Yes; but he gave himself such insufferable airs after he became a rifle volunteer; and as for loving him, I should almost as soon think of loving your adorer, the gallant Captain Hawkshaw. By-the-by, how taciturn he has become of late."
"Perhaps he finds his task a hopeless one," said Ethel, with a haughty smile.
"He seems quite changed somehow," said Rose, slipping into bed, "does he not, Ethel dear? Why don't you speak to me?" added Rose, with sudden alarm, and springing from her berth, on perceiving her sister standing pale and motionless, her lips parted, her dark eyes dilated with terror, and their gaze fixed on the little circular window of their cabin, which was simply a pane of thick glass, about nine inches in diameter, framed in an iron ring, and secured by a powerful bolt.
Rose gazed in the same direction, and beheld, to her intense dismay, the whole aperture filled by a human face—a man's apparently—pale, livid, green, and distorted, as viewed through the coarse crystal, with large keen eyes, that glared in upon them.
Whoever the person was that dared thus to violate their privacy, he occupied a position of extreme peril, for the little window in question was below the plank sheer of the ship, and considerably abaft the mizzen chains, so that the eavesdropper must have been swinging alongside, almost with his heels in the foam that boiled under the ship's counter.
Could the sea give up its dead?
Was it a spectre—Manfredi, or Morley Ashton?
Such were Rose's first ideas, as she clung in terror to her rigid but more resolute sister, who sprang forward and vainly attempted with her delicate hands to wrench round the bolt, and open the little window; but at that moment a fierce and sardonic smile seemed to spread over that livid and distorted visage, which instantly vanished, and then nothing was seen through the aperture but the vast sea that rolled in the starlight far away.
"Papa—Nurse Folgate!" screamed Rose; but the old woman slept like one of the seven sleepers.
"Hush!" said Ethel, "'twas only some insolent seaman; but we must prevent a recurrence of this," she added, as she rapidly hung a species of curtain over the window. "Good heavens, Rose! to think how often this may have happened before, and we in total ignorance of it; but the captain shall be told in the morning."
"Oh, Ethel!" exclaimed Rose, "how terrified I am."
"Why?"
"At first I thought it was his ghost."
"Whose?"
"Poor Mr. Manfredi's."
"Nonsense, child!"
"A ghost on board of a ship, how dreadful that would be! Almost as bad as a fire, for there would be no escaping from it."
Inspired by natural emotions of doubt, Ethel opened the door and peeped out into the great cabin. All was still and quiet there, at least nothing was heard but the jarring of the rudder in its case, and of the brass swings of the lamp and tell-tale compass, with the heavy creaking of the ship's timbers, the backwash under the counter, and one other sound, to which she had become pretty familiar about this time—to wit, the profound snoring of Mr. Quail, as he lay at full length on the cabin locker, with his peacoat spread over him, and his sou'-wester at hand, ready to relieve the deck when the middle-watch was called.
She secured the door, perhaps more carefully than usual. She knelt down by Rose's side to say her prayers, after which they retired together, but lay long awake, conversing of that future, the events of which, happily, they could so little foresee, until they dropped asleep, Rose with her charming face half pillowed on Ethel's snowy shoulder.
All remained still in the ship; but while the two sisters slept with arms entwined, each "hushed like the callow cygnet in its nest," anxious hearts were watching over them elsewhere; and they formed the subject of a somewhat unusual, but animated, discussion among the seamen—a discussion of which, as yet, they were happily ignorant.
The love he bore Rose, the love that she permitted him to bear, and which she so fully reciprocated, together with the regard and esteem he had for the grave, gentle Ethel, and good, easy Mr. Basset, increased the anxiety with which the young Scotch surgeon beheld the growing discontent of the crew.
On deck, he more than once had heard them conferring in most unpleasant terms about the disappearance of the third mate, and, in reply to some remark of Sharkey's, Zuares Barradas said, with a cunning twinkle in his eyes:
"Bueno! paso a paso va lejos."
"Wot the devil does that mean, shipmate? Avast with your Spanish. Carn't you speak the queen's English?"
"Well, it means that 'step by step goes far'. Manfredi is gone; a little spell and we shall have it all our own way," replied the Spanish American, as he hitched up his trousers and slunk forward.
"These rascals are decidedly up to something—or whence all this skulking about, this whispering in gangs, and knife-sharpening," said Heriot to the captain.
"The grindstone has never been idle all day," observed Mr. Quail, who was looking, as the captain remarked, "rather white about the gills, in consequence."
After a long conference in the cabin, Dr. Heriot offered, there being no moon about the middle of the first night-watch, to creep forward to the forecastle bunk, where, in defiance of orders, the crew now kept a light burning after sundown, and endeavour to overhear their conversation. The duty of acting eavesdropper was not a pleasant, but, in this instance, a most necessary one.
The first night Heriot attempted this, he failed to get forward unseen; but on the second, as the atmosphere, though very cloudy, was fine, and the ship under easy sail was going large, that is, with the wind abaft the beam, which careened her slightly to port, Heriot, armed with a sharp bowie-knife, concealed in his breast, so as to be ready for any emergency (for if discovered by the watch he might be sent overboard after poor Manfredi) crept forward on the leeside, keeping his head close under the bulwarks, and in the shadow.
The men of the watch were all grouped to windward, smoking with their backs against the long-boat, and the steersman could see little else than the lights that glared in the binnacles, and the ship's canvas, that towered aloft between him and the sky.
Through the two yolks of dense, thick glass that admitted light to the forecastle bunks, in which the seamen had their chests and berths, he could see nothing, save that they had, as usual with them, in defiance of the captain's order, a lamp or lantern, the light of which glared as from two bull's-eyes upon the forehatchway, the foot of the foremast, the gallows-bitts abaft it, the scuttle-butt, and so forth.
These two lines of light had the effect of rendering the rest of the deck dark, thus favouring the purpose of Heriot, who reached unseen the forecastle, and crept along it, until he found himself close to the coaming of the scuttle, or small square hatchway, which gave access thereto, and from whence there ascended into the pure saline atmosphere of the midnight sea a combination of odours that were neither of Araby nor of Ind; for more than a dozen of dirty, tarry, unwashed, and uncombed specimens of those seamen usually denominated "coloured," the most ruffianly of their class, such, as may be seen lounging and loafing about the quays and grog-shops of Liverpool and Birkenhead, were all seated closely round a chest, which was lashed by ringbolts to the deck, and formed the table, whereon they had recently supped on scalding-hot "scouse" from a greasy wooden kid; and the fumes of this savoury mess yet mingled with the tar with which their clothes were saturated, and the coarse tobacco in which they were all indulging freely, by means of pipes, quids, and cigarettes.
A ship's lantern, in which a candle sputtered, shed a wavering light through the perforated tin upon the black hair, massive frontal bones, and square jaw of Pedro Barradas, and on his coarse, leather-like ears, in which a pair of silver rings were glittering; on the dark olive face of his brother, Zuares, a villain of a more pleasing type, only because he was younger and handsomer; on the cruel, sardonic visage, the keen eyes, hooked nose, and enormous chin, and tangled elf-locks of Bill Badger, the long-legged and ungainly Yankee; on the huge head and giant hands of the odious Sharkey, who sat with his cheeks wedged between his hands, his elbows planted on the chest, and his eyes that, from under the bloody bandage encircling his temples, glared at each speaker alternately; and on all the rest of the ill-selected crew—fell the lantern's dim uncertain ray, bringing some forward into light, and leaving others almost in shadow.
Though quite sober, for as yet they had no means for procuring alcohol, they generally all spoke at once, and were engaged in an angry dispute, which, however, they were still cautious enough to conduct with suppressed voices.
Pedro Barradas grasped in his left hand an old dice-box, which was served round with spunyarn, and two suspicious-looking dice were rattled in it from time to time.
At the moment that Heriot peeped in, it would seem as if our Spanish acquaintance suddenly lost his temper. His black eyes filled with fire, his swarthy cheek grew livid and pale, he showed all his sharp white teeth like a dog about to bite, and striking his drawn knife into the lid of the chest, round which they were all grouped, and with a force of action that made them all shrink back, he uttered a tremendous oath, and said, in a low, hoarse voice:
"It is agreed, then, that we take the ship, and make all the people aft walk the plank. Am I to understand this?"
"Yes, yes," from all hands was the reply; "and all must walk the plank to leeward."
"Except the women," suggested the Canadian seaman, named Bolter.
"In course we shall keep them!" said Badger, laying a long and dirty finger on one side of his hawk nose, and closing an eye wickedly; "and take very partik'lar care o' the darlings, too."
"We take the ship," resumed Pedro Barradas, speaking good English, and with an air of authority; "and then we shall run her on her own account."
"How?" asked one.
"In the slaving or piccarooning line, or anything else that comes to hand."
"But where to?" asked the Canadian, who seemed a man of doubts.
"Anywheres, darn your nutmeg of a head!" growled the Yankee; "anywheres, arter we has had a jolly spree ashore."
"On what shore, mate?"
"On the coast ov Africy, in course; but not afore, mate—not afore, I calc'late."
"Come, now, I likes this," observed Sharkey, putting in his voice; "if water and wittles runs short, we may overhaul an Ingeeman, homeward-bound, or an Australian liner——"
"With sojers aboard, mayhap," said Bolter; "so what will you dew then?"
"Hail or signal for a boat, to be sure, and sink it to leeward with a cold shot through its ribs. Shout that it has been swamped under the counter, and to send another, and another, and so knock 'em all on the head. Then run her aboard, take all out of her—the women, too, if any—then scuttle or burn her."
"A game you won't play long athout being overhauled by some cussed man-o'-war," said the Canadian. "I tell you, mates, the good old piratical times have been put out o' fashion long since. Even the slaving business is knocked up by them blazing smoke-jacks and gun-boats of the African squadron. The sea ain't wot it was, mates, when old Kidd sailed the Vulture down the Channel with a skull and marrow-bones flying at his foremasthead."
"Hooray! I'll ship with you, Barradas," cried another. "Grog for the drinking, a grab at these gals, and the pick o' the good things in the passengers' trunks and cabin-lockers."
"And till that time comes," added Sharkey, "we'll work Tom Cox's traverse with old Phillips—that we shall. Precious little work he'll get out of me."
"But I don't like usin' the knife or plank if they could be done athout, mates," said the Canadian ponderingly.
"The Reverend Mr. Ben Bolter, a Methody parson, 'll offer up a blessin' over the empty mess-kids," sneered the Yankee.
"Par todos santos," growled Pedro Barradas, giving the Canadian a glance of profound scorn, while Zuares uttered a shrill and ferocious laugh.
"I say, cooky," said Sharkey, in a way which he supposed to be very jocular, "as Ben Bolter don't like the stickin' business, couldn't you put summut tasty into the mess-kid o' the cabbin passingers, and pison the whole bilin' o' them? I have known o' such things being done afore now, mates, and many other things, too, that never appeared in the ship's log. Have you any Calabar beans aboard?"
"Yaas," replied the cook, with a regular negro grin, for he was a black Virginian, named Quaco; "dere's a bagful in de hold. Why?"
"I have known of a handful, put in a copper of peasoup, doing for a whole ship's crew afore now."
"When?"
"In the Gulf of Florida once, and again among the Coral Islands, in the Pacific. Aye, aye, mates, I have seen some rum sprees in my time."
"And you are likely to see more," added the Yankee, "ere this cussed old craft gets her anchors over the bows, and her ground-tackle rove. Ha, ha! But as for the pison, you darned fool, wot of old Basset's gals? We wants 'em partik'lar, you know. So avast with your Calabar beans. I guess, mate, you're up a tree, rayther."
Sharkey was abashed into silence.
"And that Scotch doctor," said a gaunt, unhealthy-looking seaman, named Cribbit, who had not yet spoken, and who so frequently required Heriot's medical aid that he had imbibed half the contents of his medicine-chest, "must he, too, walk the plank?"
"In course he must," drawled Bill Badger, stuffing an enormous quid in the inmost recesses of his capacious mouth.
"No, no, demonio, no!" said the elder Barradas; "we must keep him alive so long as we want him. We can't physic ourselves, companeros, especially if fever comes aboard, which it is likely to do if we hug the land."
"But in physicking us he might poison the whole blessed gang," suggested the Canadian.
"No fear of that. We'll have him chained to the mainmast, and if a man dies in his hands, then el senor doctor de medicena shall be tipped overboard after the others."
"Thank you, my Spanish patrone," thought Heriot, who had listened to all this with blood that alternately boiled and curdled; "a pleasant little medical practice you are likely to find me here!"
"Mayhap that fellow, Hawkshaw, would join us?" suggested the Canadian again.
"He, the white-livered Perro!" exclaimed Pedro, "I long to have my Albacete knife between his ribs. I'll teach him to play off quarter-deck airs with me, the God-abandoned Piccaro! Well, is it agreed that, instead of letting old Phillips haul up for Table Bay, we keep the ship off the land whether he will or will not take her before we are abreast of La Tierra de Natal; hug the coast of Africa after; have a run through the Mozambique Channel, and then stand right across the Indian Sea for whatever we may overhaul?"
A unanimous clapping of very hard and very dirty hands responded heartily to this programme.
"Now, Pedro, the dados (dice)," said Zuares, impatiently.
"Yes, mates, the dice!" added the Yankee, setting his chin, which was like a shoemaker's knife, upon his knees, and clasping his hands over his ankles, so that he squatted on his hams like a huge baboon. "Hooray! the old Herminey has been trimmed by the starn since she saw Dungeness Light; but we'll trim her by the head arter we doubles the Cape—eh, mates? So now to draw lots for them two pretty creeturs, as I calculate is just agoin' to bed about this blessed time. Think o' that, mates! I'm a thorough-bred Yankee—half bull, half shark, with an uncommon cross of the snake; so I'm blowed if I can wait almost till we leave Table Bay astarn and bear up towards Natal. But rattle away, Pedro, my boy!—Captain Pedro that is to be, I reckon."
The blood of the young Scotchman grew cold as he listened, longing for a brace of loaded revolvers, that he might shoot down the whole band; but the talkative Yankee began his nasal drawling again.
"How I'd like to have one of 'em under a big palm-tree in some snug diggin' on the Africy coast, or in a wigwam on the Mozambique, thatched with leaves, no topsails to reef o' nights, and nothin' to do all day, but keep on admiring her, and swigging the grog old Phillips has aboard, or blowing a whiff of 'baccy—eh, mates? Jeerusalem! that's summut like life, I calculate!"
"Morte de Dios!" swore Pedro Barradas, with a very dark look; "haul in your slack, and be hanged to you! There are other things than the two girls worth casting lots for!"
"Is there really, now?" drawled Badger. I was looking into the senoras' cabin the other night, and saw them going to bed. I saw lovely necks and shoulders, and all that; but I saw more, I can tell you, companeros."
"Smite my timbers!" "Shiver my tawpsails!" "Darn my eyes!" "Oh, Jeerusalem!" And "What did you see?" asked several all at once.
"A splendid jewel-case," replied the Spaniard, while an avaricious gleam sparkled in his dark eyes; "a box with diamond rings for the ears and fingers; carbuncles, turquoises, and topazes, in bracelets and necklets, all glittering on the trays of blue and crimson velvet. So he who loses the girls should have a chance——"
"Of grabbing the jewels," interrupted Badger; "in course he should—in course!"
"Jewels or not," said Zuares Barradas, laughing, while he rolled up a fresh cigarito, "I'll teach one senora, at least, that it is no longer here mira y no totas, as they say in Minorca."
"Which means, in your cussed lingo?" asked Bolter.
"Look at me, but touch me not!" replied the young Spaniard, with a grin.
"I'm rayther pertik'lar," observed Mr. Badger, "and I might do neither one nor t'other, if I wor in Minorky."
"Ay, mate; but if you saw the Minorca girls in their robazillas of white lace or silk, pinned under their pretty dimpled chins, and falling over their shoulders, to be lifted at times by the wind, only as if to show the low bodice and rounded bosom beneath—hombre."
"Here is a sentimental young villain, with an eye for the picturesque!" thought Heriot.
"Now, then, the dados," said Pedro, rattling the dice-box. "I throw myself first."
"Maladetto, Pedro!" interrupted Zuares. "Content yourself with rum and plunder; you are too old and crank for either of these girls to be pleased with you."
"Vaya usted al Satanos!" responded his affectionate elder brother. "The girls, at all events, are not too young for me to be pleased with them. I am not more than forty, you son of a burnt castano."
"Take the old nurse, Pedro—you'll have her a free gift, gratis, all for nothin', and Badger's blessing into the bargain. If one o' these gals falls to me," continued the talkative Yankee, "I reckon I must get shaved by the doctor, and be fixed anew; have my 'air swabbed down with some o' the cook's slush, and a hextra pull up o' my shirt collar—eh, mates?"
Amid the ferocious laughter which these and similar remarks drew forth, and while the dice-box rattled on the sea-chest lid Dr. Heriot withdrew, and crept aft, just as he had done forward, by keeping close under the lee bulwarks.
Reaching the companion-way unseen, he slipped downstairs, with a burning brain and aching heart—a heart sick and sore with apprehension for others rather than for himself; and now, with his ear tingling with countless coarse oaths, obscenities, and foul jokes, which, of course, have been omitted in our relation of the remarkable discussion he had overheard, he sought at once the cabin of Captain
Though Ethel and Rose had retired to rest, the hour was not late, and Captain Phillips, Mr. Basset, and Hawkshaw were still lingering over a glass of wine in the cabin, when Dr. Heriot entered it.
The pallor of his face, and the excited expression of his eyes, made them start with exclamations of surprise and inquiry; and their alarm increased when he filled up a glass with port and drained it, the crystal rattling against his teeth while he did so.
"Hallo, doctor, what the deuce is the matter?" asked bluff Captain Phillips, changing colour, or rather losing it partially. "You have been forward—eh?"
"Yes, sir; and have there heard more than enough to confirm our worst fears."
Phillips arose, and closed the cabin door. He then summoned from his berth Mr. Quail (as Mr. Foster, the second mate, had charge of the deck), and they, together with Mr. Basset and Hawkshaw, heard with undisguised consternation the result of the doctor's eavesdropping.
As for Hawkshaw, he had long endured the horrible conviction of guilt, with the still more gnawing sense or dread of perpetual suspicion in others. He loved Ethel, yet, as we have said elsewhere, at times he almost hated her for her coldness to him; but now his soul was full of terror—terror for her and for himself, as he knew he would meet with little mercy from the Barradas and their friends. Retribution for the crime he had committed at Acton Chine was about to come at last, and he had fallen into a trap of his own devising!
Neither Captain Phillips nor Mr. Quail were much astonished, though grieved and alarmed, by Dr. Heriot's tidings; but poor Mr. Basset's first thought was for his daughters—his young, delicate, and tenderly-nurtured girls; and already, in his excited imagination, he beheld them, after his own butchery, in the rude grasp of those lawless wretches, and subjected to the grossest indignities, far from help or human aid, upon the lonely sea, and in a floating hell—indignities the mere idea of which wrung the poor man's heart with agony.
To-morrow, to-night, even now, they might be advancing towards the cabin, intent on assassination and robbery!
The dread was maddening to the unhappy parent, who made a step towards his daughters' sleeping place, as if in anticipation, by thought and deed, to save them from the coming peril. He had no voice or coherence of thought for a time, and listened like one in a dream to the discussion or consultation now held by the officers of the ship.
After relinquishing his practice as a barrister in London, Scriven Basset had spent many years of ease and affluence at Laurel Lodge, and all unused to alarms or excitements, he felt himself totally destitute of the stamina or courage requisite for facing so sudden and perilous an emergency. Personal danger he might have confronted, for he had all the spirit of a gentleman; but at the thought of his daughters—the graceful and ladylike Ethel, the sweet and playful Rose—his soul seemed to die within him.
Cramply Hawkshaw's visage was paler than usual. He remembered the threats used towards himself, when Pedro Barradas so summarily appropriated his gold watch, and while trembling for Ethel, he began to think of means for quitting the ship, for the safety of his own person, of which—being all the property he possessed—he was rather disposed to be economical.
"The accursed—the bloody-minded villains!" exclaimed Captain Phillips, after a pause, while pacing to and fro. "This comes of having a coloured crew; and this is why they have been so sullen and insolent of late."
"And so lazy at work, too," groaned Mr. Quail.
"Lazy! they have done little else but take three turns a day round the long-boat, and then a pull at the scuttle-butt."
"For weeks there has been no work done," resumed Mr. Quail; "all our spunyarn and chafing-gear are worn out, and you might as well expect them to polish the chain-cable, or brighten up the best bower, as prepare for an emergency, or get the fellows even to wash or mend their own clothes."
"If a man-of-war hove in sight, I'd put an end to their sogering!" said Captain Phillips, still pacing about. "I'd make them toe the mark, and work the old iron out of them. I'd have them all seized up, and made spread-eagles of at the gangway, the coloured vermin."
"A worse lot were never shipped, unless on board a Spanish pirate," said Mr. Quail, with another groan, as he thought of plump, jolly Mrs. Quail, and their five little Quails, at that moment, doubtless all a-bed in their pretty little rose-covered cottage near the Windmill-hill at Gravesend.
"Is there not one on whom we could depend?" asked Mr. Basset, in faltering accents.
"Not one, sir," replied Captain Phillips; "not one, except Boy Joe, the steward, and he is not worth much."
"We are in a desperate situation, certainly," said Heriot. "But I am most concerned for you and—and your daughters, Mr. Basset."
Tears started to the lawyer's eyes, and he wrung the young doctor's readily-proffered hand.
"And I, too, Mr. Basset, feel for you and your two dear girls—though perhaps this business may be all talk and sogering; yet I confess it don't look like it," said the captain. "Thank Heaven I am a bachelor, and have no one depending upon me but the son of my poor brother Bill, that was drowned in the Straits of Sunda, and my life is insured on his account, so that is all right; but these young ladies——"
Phillips paused, for Mr. Basset, who was reclining on the cabin locker, covered his face with his hands, and groaned aloud.
"We have no time to lose in preparing to meet these rascals," said Dr. Heriot, with growing confidence. "We must see what arms we can muster, and endeavour to use them too. D—n it, Captain Phillips, we must show fight in some fashion, and not all walk the plank without making some of them walk it also. I have a pair of good rifled pistols."
"And I have two six-barrelled revolvers and a fowling-piece," added the captain.
"Sixteen shots," said Hawkshaw, brightening a little. "We can barricade the cabin, and defend it with these against them."
"We are seven, including myself," said Phillips.
"Seven?" said Mr. Basset, looking up.
"Yes, sir; there are the two mates, the doctor, yourself, and I, Captain Hawkshaw, and Joe the steward."
"But they are eighteen in number, and armed too."
"Only with sheath-knives, so far as we know; but then there are hatchets, cleavers, handspikes, and capstan-bars, with anything else that will form a weapon."
"Oh that we were nearer the coast of Africa, that we might all get into a boat, and quietly leave the ship on a dark night!" said Mr. Basset, wringing his hands, while Dr. Heriot unlocked a case of pistols—the parting gift of his class-fellows on his leaving the old College of King James VI.—and proceeded at once to load and cap them, after which he put all the ammunition in his pockets.
"Fear for your girls bewilders you, sir," said Captain Phillips, in a low voice, to Mr. Basset. "That, perhaps, is natural; but to be landed on the coast of Africa might not mend matters much with you and them, if you fell in with some houseless Dutch bushmen or wild Cape Caffres; and as for me, I shall never quit my ship while a plank of her holds together."
"Captain Phillips," said young Heriot, with his teeth clenched, and his eyes flashing, as he thought of sweet Rose Basset, whose last kiss seemed yet to linger on his lip, "if they keep quiet until morning, I have a mind to call forward Pedro Barradas in front of the crew, tell him what I have overheard, and then, as an example, shoot him dead before the rest!"
The captain vehemently opposed this idea as rash, and added:
"You are very risky for a Scotsman; you would only perish under the knives and handspikes of the rest, and thus bring destruction the sooner on us all."
"Oh, if a man-o'-war would but come in sight!" groaned Mr. Basset.
"They are seldom so far off the Cape; and we are a good way to the southward of it already."
"Could we not sound the crew? All may not be so bad as the Barradas," said Hawkshaw.
"They are all alike, confound 'em!" rejoined Captain Phillips, as he brought from his cabin the two revolvers and the fowling-piece, all of which he proceeded quietly, but quickly, to load and cap.
The arms and ammunition were distributed among them, and Hawkshaw really handled the "six-shooter" like a man who was used to it, and, doubtless, when in Mexico, his life and his food had frequently depended on the goodness of his aim.
"If we only take care and fire steadily, we may dispose of them all in case of an attack," said Dr. Heriot, who, with the captain, was the most resolute of the little band. "Our chief aim must be to prevent a surprise."
After a council of war, it was arranged that the ladies should be warned against leaving the cabin or venturing much on deck, and that they should be kept in ignorance of the why and wherefore.
That the seven men in the cabin should stand staunchly by each other, and never undress when lying in their berths, so as to be ready for instant service.
That one at a time should hold a strict watch on the companion-way and cabin door, and that all should keep their arms loaded and their ammunition constantly about them.
That as little canvas as possible should be kept no the ship, so that aloft she might be ready for any sudden emergency, squall, or catastrophe.
A large trunk, full of Mr. Basset's law-books (which next morning was to have been shot into the hold as lumber), was placed near the outer cabin door, and lashed by one of its handles to a brass ring-bolt, and so arranged that, sluing round the other end, it effectually barricaded the sliding-door that opened to the steerage and companion-ladder.
To defend this avenue in case of an attack, and so sell their lives as dearly as possible, or, it might be, to shoot all their assailants down in succession, were the simple but stern resolutions come to.
These preliminaries adjusted, the captain, armed with his revolver, took the first two hours' spell. The rest retired to their various berths, and lay down with their clothes on, and their weapons beside them.
The two hours passed away in silence.
The captain went on deck, and sent the second mate, Foster, below, in a not very enviable frame of mind, after hearing what was on the tapis, for, like Mr. Quail—
"He, poor fellow! had a wife and children—
Two things for dying people quite bewildering."
So, with a beating and anxious heart, he lay down on a locker, with a sharp hatchet under him—the only weapon that came to hand.
The ship was still going large, with the breeze abaft the beam, and the fore and main studding-sails set. Joe, the steward, was at the wheel; the light in the forecastle bunks was extinguished now, and the watch on deck were all grouped, in silence apparently, to leeward of the long-boat.
All seemed still for that night, or rather the remainder of the morning, when the captain warned the miserable Mr. Basset to take the next "spell," or watch, as sentinel at the cabin door.
Pale and sleepless, with bloodshot eyes, the poor man received the loaded revolver, with all the timidity and awkwardness of one who had never handled such a weapon before, and dreading lest it might explode of its own accord, like a loaded fire-wheel, and thus shoot himself and everybody else; but anon the thought of his daughters nerved his heart and steadied his hand.
Slowly, as if Time stood still, the minutes passed; and when, as usual, the ship's bell clanged at each half-hour on deck, it sounded in his ears and in his soul like the knell of doom!
So the poor father continued to watch in breathless anxiety; now pacing the carpeted cabin in miserable restlessness, then seating himself upon the stern locker, with the revolver on his knee, and his hands over his face, breathing an unuttered prayer for his darling daughters; now listening, keenly as a hunted hare, at the door of their little cabin, to hear their soft, low breathing. Anon, seeking the companion-way, as if the confined air of the ship stifled him, and looking up at the mizzen-rigging towering into the starry sky, where the mizzen-topsail, topgallantsail, and the driver, with the boom and gaff, spread between him and heaven like a broad gray cloud of canvas.
Then the thought of his dead wife, and their once dear happy home in England far away.
By a freak of memory, past hours of happiness, of joviality and frivolity—hours spent amid the flowery and leafy seclusion of Laurel Lodge, came crowding on him, with faces of friends, their voices, smiles, and little episodes; the green sunny lawn, the stately chase of Acton-Rennel, the Norman cross on Cherrytree Hill, and the great yew that shaded his wife's grave in that quiet old English churchyard, where he might never lie: all these came before him now, and he marvelled in his aching breast if the horrors that overhung him now were not a nightmare, and all a dreadful dream!
Ethel and Rose, so pure, so fair, so lovely, and so highly bred, to be in such peril; at the mercy of such men as those who formed the crew of the Hermione, and far from all human succour on the wide, wide, open sea.
Under the interlaced crosses of Great Britain—our brave old union-jack—a very different crew manned that good little ship the Princess, of London, which we last left when dropping the giant cone of Tristan d'Acunha astern, and bearing on her voyage towards Tasmania.
Under Tom Bartelot's command, all went well and prosperously, and his ship had fine weather and spanking topsail breezes, after leaving the romantic Isle of Tristan.
Anxious to be useful and to kill time, Morley Ashton had applied himself to seamanship, and, in seeking to master all the mysteries thereof, became the peculiar pupil of old Noah Gawthrop, who confidently undertook "to make a man and a sailor of him, before they saw Wan Demon's Land."
He could soon dip his hands in a bucket of tar without wincing; slush the mast, from the royal-masthead down, without becoming squeamish; he could box the compass, take his trick at the helm, and achieve many clever things, from holding the log-reel upwards to sending down a royal-yard without mistake or blunder, which Noah told him "was one of the prime feats of seamanship, which even the queen on the throne couldn't do."
The first time he accomplished this, was when a squall was coming on. Ben Plank had the fore-royal, Noah the main-royal, and Morley the mizzen.
His spar was certainly the lightest, with a smaller sail, but he had it struck and sent down before the others, greatly to the delight of old Noah, who, with all his ugliness, which was undeniable, was a genuine salt of the old school—a regular British tar, with his slouching shoulders and light gait, swinging arms, and half-closed hands, that were always ready to "tally on" to anything; a comical twinkle in his eye, and who believed in whistling for wind as truly as the Turkish skipper who pours oil upon the sea, in the hope that it may float to Mecca, for the same useful purpose.
Noah bore on his breast, engraved in gunpowder, a little romance of his younger days—a sailor and a girl standing on the sea-shore. In the background (or offing, to speak more correctly) lay a ship, with her topsails loose, hove-apeak to her anchor, while the smoke from a gun—the signal for sea—curled over her quarter. Under the male figure were the initials "N.G.," and under the girl's were—what we won't say, for in them, lay the pet secret of old Noah's honest heart. The ship, however, he often pointed to with pride, saying it was a "lovely pictur' of her Majesty's ship the Haurora, of fifty guns, as was—an ugly smoke-jack now, with a screw-propeller in her starn."
The weather was cool, almost cold, at times, and frequently icebergs were in sight, with their white glistening pinnacles standing sharply defined against the sky, and shaded off with pale green or purple tints, that blended with the deep blue of the sea.
Tom Bartelot's cheerful temperament, his songs and his bonhomie, and Morrison's queer legends of Scotland and the sea, together with grave and earnest advice, and confidence in a Providence who ordered all things for the best, had a good effect upon Morley Ashton's spirits, which might have sunk, circumstanced as he was, amid the monotony of a sea voyage, with foreshadowed fears of evil tidings on reaching the Isle of France, after making a tour so circuitous as Tasmania.
Ignorant of the unlooked-for detention of the Hermione at the Canaries, and of the series of foul winds she had encountered, Morley never doubted that now the Bassets must have reached their destination, and been installed in their new home; that Mr. Basset must have entered on his official duties, and if they were accompanied by one so enterprising as Cramply Hawkshaw, it was difficult to foretell how Cupid and Fortune—blind deities both—might reward his perseverance, and thus cast a fatal blight upon the hopes of our hero who, like a poor "pilgrim of the heart," or a knight-errant of old, was traversing the sea from shore to shore in search of a lost love.
One day, as Morley trod the deck to and fro listlessly, he was startled by the unusual, or, at least, unexpected cry of—
"Land, ho!"
Telescope in hand, he sprang up the weather-rigging.
"Land it is, indeed," said Tom Bartelot, shading his eyes with his hand, and peering over the weather-quarter.
"What land, Tom?"
"Diego Alvarez, or Gough's Island. I have been looking out for it all forenoon. Keep her full and by—full and by, lad," he added to the steersman; "keep her closer to the wind—see how that foretopsail shivers."
This was about six bells (i.e., 3 P.M.) on a fine, clear afternoon. The hill of Gough's Island arose dim and blue upon their weather-bow.
Discovered long, long ago, by an adventurous Portuguese mariner, who bestowed upon it its name, it is a lonely and desolate place, covered with moss and sea-grass, the abode only of sea-elephants and the fur-seal. It was named anew by Captain Gough, of the Richmond, when on his voyage to China in 1731.
After leaving it astern, good fortune seemed to abandon the Princess and her crew.
A series of foul winds that veered round every point of the compass, with heavy gusts and squally weather, beset her, and so cloudy was the sky, that for several days Bartelot and his mate were quite unable to make an observation—i.e., to take the sun's altitude at noon.
In one squall the mizzen-topniast was carried away, being broken right off at the cap, the heel with the fid alone remaining in the top.
"So, friend Morley," said Tom, "if this kind of work and these foul winds continue, we may see the Table Mountain, and have to run into the bay for fresh water."
"At the Cape of Good Hope?"
"Yes. Then if you wish to have a day's run in Lubberland, you may come ashore with me; and who can say," he added, kindly, on perceiving how Ashton's countenance fell at the prospect of fresh delays, "but we may there find a craft bound for the island of Paul and Virginia, and get your hammock swung aboard of her at once?"
One day the weather cleared a little, and the sun broke forth a few minutes before noon.
Bartelot and Morrison betook them to quadrant, sextant, and chart, and found they were within some 300 miles of the Cape of Storms.
After this the sky resumed its sombre and inky hue; the sea was gray, save where the sun shot his beams like a flood of yellow light through a rent in the clouds, and lit the waves below with a golden sheen, long and steadily, about fifteen miles distant on their weather-bow.
"Sail, ho!" shouted Ben Plank, who, with some others, was up aloft taking advantage of this bright blink, to get the spare mizzen-topmast shipped, with all its hamper and gearing.
"Where away, Ben?" asked Morley, snatching Tom's telescope from its brass hooks under the companion-hatch.
"There, sir, in that streak of light to windward."
Looming large as coming out of the haze, Morley saw a large, square-rigged vessel, with all her fore-and-aft canvas set, running close-hauled on a different current of wind, which did not as yet affect the Princess, and which would probably carry her ahead.
Her canvas was white as snow, and shone like the outspread wings of a swan in the bright gleam of sunshine, and in strong relief against the gray and dusky sky beyond.
She was visible but for a few minutes—so briefly, indeed, that Morrison had not time to run the ensign up to the gaff-peak, when she seemed to dart into the gray obscurity ahead, and to vanish like a phantom that melted into the sky; but though invisible, it was evident that the Princess, a faster sailer, would soon leave her far astern.
In that large square-rigged ship, that spanked along on a taut bowline, with the white foam curling under her black bows, and flying over her gilded catheads, how little Morley Ashton imagined that Ethel Basset—the Ethel of his hopes by day and dreams by night, the centre around which all his aspirations and his life itself revolved—was seated side by side with Hawkshaw on one of the quarter-deck seats, watching, through a fifteen-mile lorgnette, or racing-glass, the outline of the Princess, whose canvas being all in shadow came blackly out, for a few minutes, from the sombre atmosphere to leeward, and then melted from their view for ever.
Varied by occasional torrents of rain, black, cloudy, and squally skies, the regular "Cape weather" continued after this, and the Princess was soon running under close-reefed topsails. So frequently were the reefs taken in and shaken out, that Bill Morrison said they reminded him of an old Scottish seaman's rhyme:
"Gif the rain pouirs ere the wind swurl,
Your topsails lowse and gar them furl;
But gif the wind blaws ere pouirs the rain,
Your topsails lowse, and hoist again."
Even the gay spirit of Tom Bartelot became depressed by the gloomy and threatening state of the weather, and he spent nearly his whole time on deck, or in observing the compasses, the barometer, and state of the pumps.
Two days after the strange sail had been seen no the weather-bow, the glass was still falling, while the sea and wind were rising.
At seven bells, after taking a hurried breakfast Tom found the wind increasing to a gale, so he took in the maintopgallantsail, the second reef of his topsails, and set the mainstaysail.
By midday he had to summon all hands on deck.
"Close-reef the topsails, furl mainsail and fore and mizzen-topsail."
These orders followed each other rapidly.
Soon after, the Princess was flying through the gloomy sea under a close-reefed maintopsail and reefed foresail, shipping a great deal of water the while, and labouring hard, as her pumps worked ill.
After this, the wind began to die away, the sea went somewhat down, and then more canvas was spread on the ship; but there were many indications in the sky and atmosphere which filled Tom and Morrison, and Gawthrop, too, for he had his nameless nautical instincts, with anxieties which the younger men of the crew could not fail to perceive.
"How's the barometer, Morrison?" was the frequent question.
"Still falling slowly, sir."
"What do you think the night will be?" asked Morley.
"There's a gloom, and a closeness too, indicating thunder."
"Aye," said Noah Gawthrop, who had the wheel, "the wind and the sea will make a fine bobbery together in these parts afore the morning watch, is called."
"Steward—Ben Plank, get the dead lights shipped," cried Bartelot, "here comes the squall again! In with all the light sails, Morrison; hurry forward—'way aloft lads, and lay out on the yards!"
Thus, by six o'clock, she was again running under close-reefed topsails and foresail.
The clouds were banking up in strange, wild, and fantastic forms to windward; black and sombre, they were altering every moment, revealing weird-like patches of white and livid sky beyond. At some parts of the horizon the blended sea and sky had the darkness of night, while in the zenith there was at times the brightness almost of noon.
"I don't like the aspect of all this, Morley," said Bartelot, in a low voice to his friend; "we are in for a rough, wild night, and I wish it were well past."
The wind veered rapidly round half of the compass; sometimes it seemed to blow from all quarters at once. It came in strong and hot gusts, while, through the bosom of the black clouds at the horizon, the red lightning seemed to plunge its seething bolts in the sea, and to add to the sublime terror of such a scene; the atmosphere was so sulphurous that, at times, luminous lights like fireballs or meteors were seen on every masthead, yardarm, and beam-end.
"Furl the topsails, lower the yards upon the cap, leave nothing set but the close-reefed foresail," were now Bartelot's orders.
Morley had never before seen so wild a tempest; but he was now seaman enough to scramble aloft with the rest, and soon found himself on the foot-rope, and "laying out" on the arm of the main-yard, and, as he was first up at the weather-earring, there holding on with all his strength, for so weird was the scene below, the napping of the canvas, the snapping of ropes, that cracked like coach-whips in the bellowing wind, the swaying of the rigging, and the pitching of the ship, that a terrible nausea came over him, together with a giddiness, and had not a seaman, named Erwin, who was by his side, caught him, he might have toppled into the sea, that roared and seethed below.
Ben Plank, being a strong fellow, had his post in the slings of the mainyard, to pack the sail, and make up the bunt, or stow the heavy middle portion. Soon all was snug aloft; but again the wind changed so rapidly, that it flew round from the south-east to the north-west, and then with a mighty sound of rending and tearing, the foresail was split to ribbons, that flapped and cracked like rifle shots in the tempest, while the ship, which seemed almost enveloped in lightning for an instant, was almost thrown on her beam-ends.
"Stand from under, men—there go the masts!" shouted Bartelot through his trumpet, and a stunning peal of thunder bellowed over the ocean at the same moment.
Then followed a mighty crash, as if the heavens were falling on the deck, and all shrunk instinctively aside, or stooped downward, as the three topmasts and jib-boom broke off at the caps, and the Princess was a wreck in a moment.
"Hatchets—cut away the hamper to ease the ship!" was now the order, and, in a short time, the tangled wilderness of yards, masts, cross-trees and blocks, stays and rigging, on being cut adrift, whirled out of sight to leeward, carrying with it the unfortunate seaman Erwin, who had been caught by the body in the bight of a rope.
By the fall of the mizzen-topniast the starboard quarter-boat was dashed to pieces, and the other, which was a life-boat, was torn from its davits and vanished in the darkness like a child's toy, as a tremendous sea pooped the ship.
"Tom," gasped Morley, as he clung, half-drowned, or stunned, to a belaying-pin, "are we indeed lost—do you think all is over?"
"Nearly so—if this continues long," was the composed reply. "Hold on, lads, here comes another sea!"
Now the black waves continued to burst over the vessel with a series of thundering explosions, as if determined to overwhelm it, till all around was foam, as white as snow; but though labouring at times with her gunwale almost under water, her whole deck strewed with fragments and splinters of timber, bulwarks, buckets, pieces of rope, blocks, sails, and spars, that were washed to and fro, and while the crew, knee-deep in this debris, clung to shrouds and belaying-pins, she rose up buoyantly ever and anon, on the crest of a wave, with all the water streaming from her, and all the while the wild wind blew in gusts, and bellowed like an unchained fiend. Amid the terrible scene another seaman was swept overboard and drowned; the long-boal was uprooted from its lashings and chocks over the main-hatch, and carried over the side, by a sea that came right amidships, and tore away half the starboard-bulwarks, so, fearing that the ship would founder, Bartelot, with a heavy heart, gave orders to cut away the lower masts.
The men were soon at work with sharp axes, and, while keeping afoot with difficulty under the drenching seas, shipped every moment by the labouring hull, after cutting through the shrouds and stays, a few blows at the foot of each mast, readily sent them, in succession, crashing to leeward, where they vanished amid foam and obscurity.
Noah Gawthrop had just relinquislied the now useless wheel, when a wave broke over the quarter, tearing the rudder from its bands, and dashing the wheel to pieces.
"All's over with the poor Princess, Morley," said Tom, with a groan; "she won't outlive the night, I fear."
Morrison now came aft to report that the chain-pump had given way, the other had become choked, and that water was rising fast in the well.
"She's sprung a leak, sir, somewhere about her fore-foot, so it is a bad look-out for us all," said Plank, the carpenter.
By this time the bulwarks were all torn away from the stanchions and timber-heads amidships by the sea, which now made clean breaches over the entire hull.
Nothing could be done now by the crew, but to leave the ship to her fate, and to hold on by whatever offered itself, and wait the event of the storm abating, or, what seemed much more likely, of the ship foundering, by settling bodily down into the trough of the sea, and rising never more. Her cargo, too, sugar and tobacco, were the reverse of buoyant under the circumstances; so now, Morley, Bartelot, Morrison, the chief mate, Plank, the carpenter, and old Noah, were all grouped about the quarter-deck, some holding on by the timber-heads, others by the stump of the mizzenmast, while the rest of the crew were grouped forward, where they lashed themselves to the stump of the foremast, the barrel of the windlass, and gallows-bitts; but so dark was the night, so terrible the sea, and so loud the wind, that neither party could see or hear anything of the other.
Suddenly there was a rending crash!
An invocation of heaven rose to the lips of all, and a wild, despairing cry from those in the forecastle reached the ears of our friends on the quarter-deck. Morley felt the whole ship tremble beneath his feet, as the entire quarter was burst up, or torn away from the rest of the hull, and with his companions he found himself floating on it, as on a species of raft, and up to his neck in water every moment, while whirled away from the ship, of which they saw no more, and which, no doubt, went speedily down with all on board.
Just as this happened, Plank, the carpenter, was swept away, clutching with despair a fragment of wreck.
On this frail remnant of the shattered ship, the other four unfortunates found themselves adrift on that wild, dark midnight sea, which whirled it to and fro like a cork on the black, tempestuous waves.
"Lord have mercy on us!" escaped the lips of all.
It would seem that, by the strength and violence of the sea, the entire quarter-deck abaft the mizzen-mast, with a portion of its bulwarks, the taffrail, some parts of the stern windows and quarter galleries, had been torn from the ship, and this crazy fragment was all that intervened between our four friends and eternity.
Being level with the sea it could not be capsized, which, at least, was one good property.
Lashed to such parts of it as were available, the poor victims clung there in desperation and silence, waiting, and praying in their hearts that the storm would abate; and now, as if its errand had been done, its object accomplished in the total destruction of the unfortunate Princess, the gusty wind began to lull gradually, though the agitated sea rolled high and black as ever.
As the common saying has it, the waves "ran mountains high;" but it must be borne in mind, that few waves rise more than ten feet above the general level of the water, which, when ten more are given for the trough of the sea, makes the whole height from base to crest twenty feet—sufficiently high to be terrible in aspect and effect.
Over the raft of the Princess (for it was little better) those vast hills of water made a thundering breach every instant, or came surging up through the apertures, from whence the companion and skylight had been torn away.
The taffrail was strong, and it was chiefly to it that Bartelot, Morley, Morrison, and Gawthrop lashed themselves, for gradually all that remained of the bulwarks were torn away, and the stump of the mizzenmast was soon worked or sucked out by the sea.
There was an appalling sense of loneliness, of dread and desolation, and of too probable death being near at hand, though, perhaps, all the more terrible, if it were protracted.
So the fearful night wore on; the black scud was passing away, the stars shone out, and the four castaways began to hope that morning was at hand. Yet, ruthlessly, wave after wave came rolling over them, each with its high and monstrous head, curling white with snowy foam, though its sides were black and inky. Then there would be a roar as of thunder when each burst over the fragment of wreck, engulfing and half choking the poor dripping wretches who clung to it in silence and despair.
But now, as dawn, began to spread rapidly over the east, the sea went down, and the wind also; the waves ceased to roll over the broken deck, which floated steadily, and as it rose upheaved on each successive swell, the occupants cast around them, eager glances from their bloodshot eyes, in the hope of descrying a sail.
Dawn came thoroughly in—a cloudy morning, but no sunshine. Ere long they could see the whole horizon; but there no vestige of a sail was visible, and now they looked blankly in each other's pallid faces.
"My poor crew!" said Bartelot, with a thick sob in his throat, but the exclamation had escaped him many times before; "second-mate, carpenter, sail-maker, steward, cook, boys, and all—all gone but us, Morley. Sad—deplorable, is it not?"
"Do not grieve for what is irreparable," said Morrison.
"If I saw you, Bill Morrison, my friend Ashton, and my old shipmate Noah, all safe, I don't care if I were shark-meat this minute," he resumed, bitterly.
"Don't say so, Bartelot, my old boy," replied Morley, with an affectation of spirit he was far from feeling: "you have behaved bravely, and done all that man could do to save your ship. Take courage; you have buoyed me up many a day, when my heart had sunk to zero. Let me try to cheer you in turn."
"Cheer!" Tom repeated, shaking his head sadly, and still more bitterly, as he surveyed their home upon the waters.
"Oh, Heaven! to think of this being a bit of the old Princess we all loved so well!" groaned Morrison, looking almost affectionately on the frail planks over which the sea rippled at every heave.
"Aye, sir," chimed in Noah; "it are odd, but it was a bit of that same blessed deck, as was holystoned and prayer-booked, swabbed and squilgeed of a morning till it were white as snow—whiter a'most than the deck of her Majesty's yacht. I've poured half the sea over that deck, I have, when the head-pump was rigged for'ard of a morning, and now what is it, but only a bit of drift-wood, and we a clinging to it, like four wet barnacles? Lor' help us!"
"And bless our poor shipmates!" added Bartelot, pointing upwards.
"They are all gone, sir—found sailors' graves, every one of them," said Morrison; "the ship would fill, and go down the moment she parted aft."
"But you've done your duty, sir," said Noah; "and can clear yourself of the ship's loss before any naval court in any part of the world. I only wish we were all afore one this blessed minute, instead o' drifting about here, without compass, biscuit, or 'bacca."
Now came the oppressive reflection that they were without food and without water.
Morley had read very recently the "Paul Huet" of Eugene Sue, and the more true story on which his romance is founded—the awful wreck of the Medusa, French frigate, and thus the horrors which her crew endured upon the raft came vividly and painfully before him now.
The saline property of the atmosphere, their long and repeated immersions in the ocean, the quantities of its water they had been compelled to swallow when the drenching waves broke over them, soon excited thirst. This longing was increased by heat, when the sun came forth; but as yet they had no desire for food.
All their energies were bent on watching the horizon around them, but no sail appeared; so the wreck continued to float listlessly about, without making way apparently in any direction.
A boat they might have rowed in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope, and though they might have failed to reach the coast, while minus food and water, they would always have increased their chances of being picked up by a passing ship, homeward or outward bound; but on the wreck they were helpless, as if upon a desert rock fixed amid the sea.
The first day passed slowly, wearily on, and the sun verged westward in his course.
Now night descended on the sea. There was no moon, but the stars shone clearly and sharply.
Worn by emotion, by toil, suffering, and lack of sleep, they trusted to the security of their lashings, and strove to find rest, or oblivion, in slumber; but a half-wakeful doze was all they could achieve. Each body lay, to all appearance, torpid; but the anxious soul slept not, so each had his own keen active thoughts and dreams.
Tom Bartelot conjured up a certain pretty little English face, whose smiling blue eyes were associated with many a summer evening walk among the sylvan scenery of Richmond Park, in the gardens of Kew, and visits to Hampton Court.
Morrison's heart was in his old mother's cottage, where he first saw the light, by the broad waters of the Dee, that roll from the hills of Crathie and Braemar in "the bonnie north country;" for he had intended, at the close of another voyage, to go home to Scotland, with all his earnings and wages, to spend them with her, and for her only; but all that seemed hopeless now, though the hum of the sea in his ears, as it rippled against the wreck, suggested the surf that in boyhood he had seen breaking over the Black Dog of Belhelvie.*
* A rock on the Aberdeenshire coast, so named from its appearance at low water.
Poor old Gawthrop, with his grizzled whiskers, and lips baked in dry salt, dreamt of neither father, mother, nor love—for all who loved old Noah were dead long ago; but he had a vision of a stiff jorum of
"Boatswain's grog—just half and half,"
such as he used to get in the Haurora, of fifty guns; while Morley Ashton thought, and dreamed, and murmured to himself of Ethel Basset.
"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
He had now been long absent from Ethel, and been long mourned by her as one who was lost to her for ever, and numbered with the dead. And now death menaced him again!
He had been saved from destruction by his friend—saved from a death by starvation, or despair, at Acton Chine; but only to perish with him here amid the lonely waters of the South Atlantic; for this time it seemed that he was too surely doomed to die—an idea rendered all the more bitter by a conviction that Ethel would never, and could never, know the dark story of his disappearance, for no mortal lips could tell her save those of Hawkshaw.
Morley felt that he might perish now; that she would never learn the true character of his rival; of his own awful escape from Acton Chine; of his journey to Rio de Janeiro; of his sufferings on the raft, till relieved by death; of how he had been tossed hither and thither by fortune's unrelenting hate, and how deeply and devotedly he loved her.
By this last misfortune, the wreck, more than all the others, he might, by dying, leave her to become the wife of Hawkshaw, the would-be assassin!
So another night passed over, and the raft, or wreck, still floated darkly, silently there; and now those who were thereon had ceased to speak, even in whispers.
Another day dawned—a day of glorious sunshine; but no food, no water, no hope came with it; for not a sail was in sight, and their eyes ached with weariness in searching the faint blue watery line that marked where the sky and ocean met.
They were becoming very feeble now, and the cravings of nature were maddening.
Their hair was encrusted by salt, as white as hoar-frost, their lips were baked, their tongues parched. Already they had become gaunt and white, hollow-cheeked, and old-looking, with eyes bloodshot and wild.
Their feet and legs were sore and sodden by long immersion in the brine, and their whole bodies were rendered stiff and weary by the wet ropes which lashed them to the taffrail—a means of security which they dared not unloose or relinquish for a moment.
Ere long they were in a species of delirium.
Hunger brought its own fantastic and exciting suggestions of well-cooked viands, of hearty homely dishes, steaming and savoury, roasts and stews, puddings and pies; but thirst, agonising thirst, suggested ideas of cool rivers, amid which snows were dissolving; of lonely mountain tarns, where the brown trout sported under the broad-leaved water-docks, and where the wild bird swam; of glassy meres, of crystal rills, that murmured under old oak trees, or shady drooping willows, with dark green sprays, and water-lilies that dipped therein; of iced champagne, that effervesced in crystal goblets; of sparkling hock and seltzer-water; of jolly London stout, all brown, with its creamy froth; of every impossible luxury that they had not, and never more might feel upon their cracked lips and dry, hard, arid tongues!