And now the captain fired a pistol in the air, and the black men did their duty.
In a few minutes all was over. The murderers were lowered.
Two sullen plashes were heard as their bodies were thrown into the sea, where they floated a moment, then slowly sank.
The boat was next ordered to cast off. Not a word more was said on either side, and by ten o’clock the cutter had disappeared beneath the eastern horizon.
The mutiny was at an end.
That same forenoon, the bodies of Petersen and the poor fellow who had sunk to death beside the stove, were sewn in hammocks with shot at their feet, and laid aft on a grating.
Few and short were the prayers that were said; but the bodies were committed to the deep. As Antonio spoke the last words the grating was tilted; two solemn booming plashes, and all was over.
Their souls were commended to the God who gave them.
. . . . . .
There were tears in the captain’s eyes as he turned away, and both Barclay and Davie were greatly affected.
“Heigh-ho!” said Antonio, “I could have trusted Petersen with anything.”
Then he dashed his hand across his eyes, and was himself again once more.
There were still left on board the Zingara enough hands to work the ship. From captain to Kroo-boys, as the darkies were called, there were just seventeen all told, leaving out of count Miss Leona and sweet wee Teenie.
Bitter were the tears the little lass shed when she heard that the evil men had killed poor Petersen.
“There is some good in that man whom children love, sir, I think,” said Archie.
“As true a word as e’er was spoken,” replied Antonio.
“And now, mate, we must see to ourselves. Davie must take the boatswain’s watch.”
“Poor faithful fellow, no doubt he was the first man slain!”
“But, sir, where may we not drift to? We are but a wreck; we haven’t a spare spar to rig a jury main or mizen mast, and the rudder is useless.”
“The rudder we must try to unship,” said Antonio, “hoist on deck, and see to.”
“That will be an all but impossible task, for we have no mizen to reeve block and tackle to.”
And so it proved.
They were, indeed, little more than a helpless floating wreck.
The Zingara was drifting northwards, her latitude about 22° north, and western longitude about 30°.
An attempt was made for several days to steer the vessel by means of boats ahead. This was hard work; yet it might have been successful, and they might have eventually found themselves in the track of ships, had a breeze sprung up.
They appeared, however, to be in a region of calms.
In very truth, they were drifting into that great ocean backwater, the Sargasso Sea, which I speak of in my Preface.
The Sea of Sargasso might be described as a kind of meadow-land of floating weeds, as large at times as half Europe, but often divided into canals that are continually opening and closing.
It lies midway in the Atlantic, but well out of the track of ocean steamers, except when it shifts its position to north or south. Latitude might be from 20° to 30°; longitude from 25° to 50°.
Until the unfortunate Zingara drifted helplessly into this great lone sea of weed, little was really known of it and its strange inhabitants.
Long, long ago the ships of Columbus passed through some outlying streams of this wonderful Gulf weed, and when they did so his superstitious sailors began to murmur, and beseech the intrepid explorer to put back, “for,” they said, “God Himself is showing His displeasure at your foolhardiness.”
But Columbus had but one motto, and that was, “Advance!”
Many and many a good ship has been entombed in this wondrous sea of weeds, and never got free till one by one the crew died, and there came to them that freedom which comes to us all sooner or later.
I had, when beginning this chapter, thought of describing the course of the great Gulf Stream, which, starting from Africa, sweeps across towards Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico; then north, and away to Newfoundland; then on and east to Northern Europe, past our own coasts here, and southward, to Africa, once again. But I need be no more explicit. In a story one cares little for unnecessary lectures on the science of geography or anything else.
Suffice it to say that the region of almost perpetual calms and Sea of Sargasso lies in the centre of the sweeping circle of the second branch of the Gulf Stream.
It is said to be a smooth and almost motionless basin; but, as will be seen, our heroes did not always find it so.
One day a man at the foretop masthead shouted—
“Sea of dark water right ahead, sir.”
Antonio and the first mate both went up to have a look.
“That is the terrible Sea of Sargasso,” said Antonio. “God alone can help us if we get ingulfed in that.”
Boats were had out now, and all the afternoon struggled to keep the ship away.
But thickest darkness fell, and the boats were hoisted.
They would resume their efforts next day. No sooner, however, did the sun appear than, to their horror, they found the thick, dark sea of weeds closing rapidly in all around them.
The explanation is easy; they had drifted far into a huge gulf or bay, and the horns thereof had now closed up behind them.
This they well might have said, for by noon there was no blue water to be seen even from the masthead, nothing but the brown-black sea, close aboard of them the dark trailing weeds, lifting their folds on the water till it seemed a veritable ocean of great sea-snakes.
It was probably the first time since sailing away from Merrie England that our heroes had seen Captain Antonio dull and depressed. He retired to his cabin complaining of not feeling over well, and remained there alone for three long hours.
Then while still dozing a soft little hand was laid in his, and a sweet girlish voice said sympathisingly—
“’Tonio, ’Tonio, you isn’t ill, is you?”
He roused himself at once, and smiled as he patted her hand.
He had given way for a time to a depression that was almost selfish; but now he remembered that he was the centre, as it were, of all the life on board, and had duties to perform, which he determined not to shirk.
“Oh, dearie,” he replied, “I had a little bit of a headache, you know, but it is better now.”
“Wait!” cried Teenie.
She went off at the run, but by-and-by returned, walking rather unsteadily, because she bore in her two hands a large cup of fragrant tea.
“Oh, thank you, Teenie. I’m so pleased.”
He drank the tea, and in another hour walked into the saloon, to all outward appearance his own old self again.
“Glad indeed to see you, sir,” cried Barclay.
“And so we all are,” said Archie the mate. “You feel better?”
“Oh yes. Presently I will sing and play to you as usual.”
“What have you done, mate?”
“Oh, I’ve taken in the jib, and just clewed up, you know. Perhaps, though, our imprisonment in this terrible sea will not be for many weeks.”
Antonio smiled somewhat sadly, but replied, “Mate, we are not going to despair, come what may. Despair never did any good.”
“Besides, I have already discovered,” said Archie, “that we are still drifting, although sometimes our bows are pointing to the nor’ard and sometimes broadside or stern.”
“Have you taken soundings?”
“Yes, and the water is of no great depth. It ranges from seventeen to twenty fathoms.”
“Good! and now let us try to be cheery. To-morrow we will muster by open list, and also survey our stores.”
“Teenie, dearie,” he cried.
Teenie came running at his call.
“You don’t like storms, do you?”
“Oh no, ’Tonio; I don’t like the sea when it wobbles and splashes too much, you know.”
“Well, dearie, here in this dark weedy ocean there will be no wobbling and never a splash, and you shall catch fish all day if you like, and be as happy as a dickie-bird.”
“Oh, that will be jolly. Won’t it, Barclay?
“Perfectly jolly!” laughed our young hero.
There was a good quarter of an hour’s silence after this.
Everybody appeared to be thinking except Teenie, who was making love to Muffie the cat and talking low to her.
“I say, sir,” said Barclay Stuart at last, “we have resolved ourselves into a kind of Quaker’s meeting, but it would be interesting to know what we’ve been all thinking about.”
“Well, you begin,” said Antonio, smiling.
“I’ve been thinking that we’ll have a real good quiet time of it for six months in this strange sea, and that Davie Drake and I will by that time be fit to pass our exams for chief officers as soon as we get back to Merrie England.”
“And I’ve been thinking,” said Davie, “about our dear old home at Fisherton. What a long, long time it seems since we left!”
“Oh,” said Barclay, “I haven’t forgotten my mother and Phœbe, and the letters we got at the Cape telling us how well they were gave me such joy.
“But ah!” he added, “if we are detained long here they may give up hope, and the grief may kill my dear, kind mother.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Archie, “about my log-book, and how little there will be to put in it.”
“My dear mate,” interrupted Antonio, “there will be far more than you imagine. It won’t be merely the temperature of water and air, the wind, the current, and all that, for I’ve been thinking about adventures that will make your hair stand up like bristles.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Teenie, “about fishes to catch for Muffie and me.”
Well, presently Pandoo himself appeared with the supper, and after this every one was of better cheer, and far more hopeful.
But nearly all the talk to-night was about their far-off friends and homes in Merrie England.
There had been letters at the Cape of Good Hope for all the saloon and petty officers, to say nothing of the men.
Even Teenie’s father had got some one to write for him to his little daughter, for the good honest fellow was not ashamed to confess that he was “no scholard.”
But at the Cape also Antonio had insisted on not only Teenie, but Miss Leona as well, having a thorough new rig-out, as he phrased it, “low and aloft,” and so neither would want for clothes for a year to come at least.
Teenie after supper stole on tiptoe to the captain’s cabin, and presently appeared, lugging along the great guitar, which was nearly as big as herself.
“Play and sing,” she said or commanded, as she handed Antonio the instrument.
“Come, lads,” cried the weird little man, dashing his fingers across the strings, “let us cast care to the winds. There is, you know—
Archie laughed.
“He must squat in the foretop then,” he said, “as we’ve got neither main nor mizen for his convenience.”
Song after song did Antonio sing, to the delight of his listeners. His whole soul seemed to well out from the strings of that guitar, so sweet, so sad and low.
But he finished at last.
“Four bells,” he said, looking at the clock.
“Well, boys all, it is time to turn in.”
“But, captain, not before we return thanks to Heaven for our marvellous escape from cruel death. He—our Father—you know, gave us the victory.” This from Sister Leona.
“In that case,” said Antonio, “let us call all hands aft.”
The men gladly gathered in, and no more solemn little service was perhaps ever held at sea.
It was Davie’s watch, and he now retired to walk the deck till midnight, Barclay going with him for company’s sake.
The moon, which was but a waning one, had not yet risen, and the night was very dark, for thick black clouds obscured the sky, and seemed to be banked up on all sides and close aboard of the doomed ship.
There was hardly a breath of wind, and the deep mysterious silence was almost awesome.
Scarcely did our two boy heroes care to speak above a whisper.
Sometimes they paused in their walk and leant over the bulwark listening.
What did they hear in the darkness? Only this, a strange mysterious whispering sound, coming from what direction they could not tell. It was as if that dark and solemn ocean of weeds were trying to tell them its awful story from times long, long forgotten, till the present age.
But presently both started with an almost nervous tremor, for from afar off apparently rose a melancholy wail or shriek. Again and again it was repeated, but finally died away in the distance.
No more weird and mournful wail probably ever broke the silence of the sea.
Antonio himself came gliding to their side and laid a hand on the shoulder of each.
They started and looked quickly round.
“It is Antonio. Don’t be alarmed.”
“But did you not hear those awful wailing screams?”
“Yes, I did, boys, and they are often heard here. They make the bravest men nervous, and sailors say it is the ghosts of men who have entered this strange sea, never, never to leave it more, and whose clay-covered skeletons lie deep in the bottom of the ocean.”
“But you do not believe that, sir?”
“No, Barclay. No, I am not so superstitious. I put them down either to wild birds, or to a curious fish found here, called the piping shark. It is said that it appears but for a few minutes above the water, utters those awful sounds, and sinks again into the sea’s dark depths.”
. . . . . .
Next day Antonio did as he had intended, and held a general survey on the quantity and condition of the stores.
The verdict communicated to our heroes and the first and second mates was this: “With economy, and if the tinned meats keep in good condition, we have food enough to last a year.”
“A year,” said poor Paddy M‘Koy. “Ach, sure it is joking entoirely you are, sorr. It’s never a year we’ll lie in this black sea.”
The captain shook his head sadly.
“I was to have been married, sorr, on my return to Dublin to one of the purtiest girls in Ould Ireland. Och and och, and what will become of her at all, at all?”
“Paddy,” said the captain, “we have all a duty to each other to perform.”
“And what is it thin, sorr?”
“To appear hopeful and cheerful, whether we feel it or not.”
But Paddy only sighed and went below.
For a whole month the weather continued calm, and what under other circumstances might have been called delightful. Yet to these unfortunate mariners, cast away in a sea so lonesome and still, there were indeed but few delights.
For their first month I don’t think that any one did much else save read. Antonio had a handsome little library, and although there were in it many books of science, especially those relating to astronomy and electricity, still there were scores of what might have been called books of amusement, novels, plays, and the works of the greater poets.
I but mention the effects their imprisonment had on all hands as a strange psychological fact.
During this time the monotony of their existence was most keenly felt. The stillness of the air, the currentless quiet of the slowly heaving sea, the snake-like movements of the rising and falling brown weeds—all tended to cast a gloom over the mind that amounted almost to a low or nervous fever.
But in six weeks’ time there seemed to be a change for the better. Even Paddy himself recovered a deal of his old rollicking spirits, and when, down below one night, he volunteered a song to an accompaniment played by Miss Leona, Antonio felt that he was over the worst. It was one of Erin’s sweetest, mayhap saddest, songs, which has about it, nevertheless, a deal of sunshine and true beauty.
“Heigh-ho!” he sighed, after he had finished the last verse, “I’m sure it’s meself would give five years av my life just to have one word wid my Kathleen, and to assure her that I wasn’t dead at all, at all, but only just cast away in a sea av brown vegetables. Bother it all, what am I saying? But never mind, boys, it’s out and clear we’ll get one av them days, and then hurrah! for home and the ould counthrie!”
Even Teenie herself had been less bright during these first dull weeks. She had been quiet, and preferred to play with pussy and the monkeys to speaking even to Barclay.
The least unhappy person in the ship was Sister Leona, as she had come to be called; and I think it was her pure and true religion that kept her up. Indeed, her faith in the wisdom and goodness of the Father was like that of a little child in the parents who love and watch over it.
Sunday on board was now a day of complete rest, and Sister Leona invariably conducted service in the saloon or on the upper deck.
One night moon and sky became obscured, and thick darkness brooded over the brown and lonesome sea. It was stiller and quieter than usual, but the stillness was broken at last by a peal of thunder, following a quick crimson stream of fire, that rushed quivering from aloft like a blood-red river flowing from cloudland into the sea. After this the ocean was constantly lit up all around, till it appeared all one heaving mass of billowy flame, while the crash of the thunder shook the ship from stem to stern.
The monkeys had rushed aft as soon as the storm began, and sought shelter in Teenie’s and Barclay’s arms. It was piteous to witness their trembling and abject fear.
No one thought of turning in until the fury of the storm had spent itself.
But next morning broke bright and clear, and seemed to instil strength, joy, and happiness into every heart.
Davie and Barclay were early astir and walking briskly up and down the deck, talking and laughing, long before the breakfast hour. And when Teenie came pattering gleefully along the deck, followed by the cat and two monkeys, the fun grew fast and furious, and all three young folks went down to breakfast as soon as Pandoo rang his bell, with appetites that an ostrich needn’t have been ashamed of.
Whether it was that the terrible thunderstorm had cleared the air, or that these poor prisoners had become acclimatised in their strange surroundings, I know not, and I do but state facts. But I have known more than one sailor who has been cast away in these dreary latitudes, and they have told me that there is a kind of fever which attacks every one at first, its most notable symptoms being lethargy, drowsiness, and great depression of spirits, but that being once acclimatised, it never comes again.
For the next few weeks there certainly was activity enough prevailing on board the good ship Zingara, all but a wreck though she was—activity displayed not only among the officers, but by all hands, even by the blacks.
Oh, there is nothing like busy-ness for keeping trouble at bay, and sorrow too. Indeed, as soon as a man, young or old, settles down to serious work, sorrow and worry take the huff and leap straight overboard and drown themselves; for Care can’t bear to see any one industrious and happy.
Archie started the men now to tidy the ship, and they went at it with a will.
“She ain’t much to look at now,” said a bluejacket, “athout the main and mizen, but we’ll make her as trig as a new piano. Heave round, lads,” he shouted, “and trim decks.”
“Good!” said Archie; “I think I can leave the men in your hands. I’m going to teach the boys a bit.”
“You come up in two hours, sir,” said Jack Hodder, “and see wot you sees like.”
Archie was a splendid sailor and excellent scholar, and for two hours every forenoon he coached Davie Drake and Barclay Stuart.
The former was almost a man now, quite a man in his own estimation—eighteen, you know, and this made Barclay sixteen.
Well, I like such lads as these. I would not give a fig for a boy who had no pride of self, and no assurance in him. It is boys with nerve and vim that are going to make the world hum one of these days. Your dull, “dour,” bashful “loons” have no more brains than a mangold-wurzel, and can never to any extent benefit themselves nor those around them.
When Archie did come on deck again he found all things sweet and nice, decks scoured and white, ropes coiled, brass and wood work polished, and the men dressed in their white ducks.
He called Jack Hodder and thanked him; then he cast his eyes aloft, and who should he see in the foretop but Teenie herself, with pussy and the monkeys. How the cat had got up was a mystery, but Muffie was no ordinary puss.
“Oh, come up, come up,” she cried excitedly. “Come up, Captain Archie. Some awful, awful beast in the water. Oh, I is feared it will swallow up the ship.”
Archie hurried up the ratlines, and the sight he saw was really a strange one.
Right ahead of the ship, about a quarter of a mile, was a lake of blue water, in the centre of this brown Sargasso Sea.
About the middle of this piece of open water lay a huge whale half on her side. Archie had been to the Arctic Ocean more than once, and he knew at a glance that this was the “right whale,” as Arctic sailors call it.
He sent Teenie down for Antonio.
In a few minutes the little man was standing glass in hand beside his mate.
“A most interesting discovery,” he said, “because it is said that the ‘right whale’ never visits the Sea of Sargasso. Pah! we can give fireside philosophers the lie.”
“Just watch the dear affectionate lump of a mother, and the gambols of the great ungainly calf,” he continued.
“Sent down here by the husband, I could wager my smoking-cap on that. I think I hear the very conversation that took place away up among the Greenland icebergs before she came away.
“‘Now look here, my dear,’ the fond but colossal husband said, nibbling at his wife’s starboard flipper, ‘you’ve been looking rather pale about the snout for a week or two, and Bully (the calf) isn’t so frisky as I’d like to see him, so you run right away south to the Sargasso Sea, where you’ll find warm water, sunshine, perfect quiet, and any amount of little fishes to eat among the weeds.’
“‘But,’ she replied, ‘how about my little hubbie? What will he do all alone?’
“‘Oh, I’ll be all right. Big enough, you know, to take my own part.’
“‘But who is to guide me?’
“‘Oh, something will—a great Something, that even whales don’t understand.’
“So away went the lady whale, the husband waving his tail to her as long as he could see her. And yonder she is.”
“There is money there too,” said Archie reflectively. “If we could——”
“Stop just right there, mate mine. Not for all the gold in Ophir would I destroy the harmony of Nature by harpooning that innocent brute.”
The calf was ploughing round and round his huge and well-pleased mother—round and round, making the water fly in great green seas over her every time he struck it with his tail. But she lay more on her side at last, and those in the foretop could distinctly hear a long, low, cooing sound. Next moment the calf was as busy sucking as any baby ever was. Rough it was though, and the bumps it gave the dam every now and then made her shake and shiver like a ship in a sea-way.
But another strange thing the captain and mate noticed was this: All around the whale and calf flew gulls in hundreds. At so great a distance it was almost impossible to note what they were. Skuas, however, black-headed and white-headed gulls, the pilot-bird, the Greenland “malley,” and the beautiful ivory gull of Arctic regions were there. Their united voices filled the air with melody, and broke the stillness of this dark and silent sea.
Frequently they alighted on the whale, and seemed to be pecking at her, a liberty that the leviathan did not resent in the least.
In about half-an-hour’s time, however, the monster got her back uppermost. She lifted one great flipper, the calf seemed to cuddle under it, the huge tail was set in motion, making the sea all round like a boiling caldron, then she took a header under the water. The sound was like the springing of a submarine mine or the bursting of a torpedo, and raised waves that, rolling away in circles on every side, caused even the Zingara for a time to rise and fall on the water and weeds.
. . . . . .
For six months that whale and her calf were almost daily visitors to the strange open space in the water, and came to be looked upon at last as friends. It used to delight Teenie’s heart to witness the somewhat awkward gambols of the calf, who was growing apace, and her only sorrow was that she could not go and play with and even kiss it.
The Zingara at the end of eight months appeared to be as far from all chances of getting free as ever.
But by this time Antonio was prepared with his diving apparatus, and determined not only to study the surface of the sea and its marvels, but to visit the dark depths thereof and study wonders there.
The ship had drifted nearer to the lake of open water, which was several square miles in extent.
Here the mate found soundings on what appeared to be a sandbank at fifteen fathoms or less. It was determined therefore to let go the anchor, for it was evident that they were getting farther and farther into the sea of weeds, which no doubt stretched for many hundred miles towards the north and the west, so the anchor was dropped.
But what a world of life was everywhere around them!
It may be that some time or other an enterprising naturalist and sailor will find means of exploring this vast sea-solitude and writing a book on its flora and fauna; but the undertaking will be as hazardous and daring as an attempt to find the Pole itself.
Antonio was brave, probably to a fault, but even he dared not risk the lowering of a boat with the view of exploring much farther from the ship than could be seen.
Says a writer in Chambers’s Journal, “It is only natural that ships should carefully avoid the marine rubbish heap where the Atlantic shoots its refuse. It seems doubtful whether a sailing vessel would be able to cut her way into the thick network of weed even with a strong wind behind her. Besides, if the effort were rewarded with a first delusive success, there would be the almost certain danger that in the calm regions of the Sargasso Sea the wind would suddenly fail her, leaving her locked hopelessly amid the weeds and wreckage, without hope of succour or escape.
“As regards a steamer, no prudent skipper is ever likely to make the attempt, for it would certainly not be long before the tangling weed would altogether choke up his screw and render it useless.
“The most energetic explorer of land or sea would find himself baffled as regards the Sargasso Sea. It is neither solid enough to walk upon, nor liquid enough to afford a passage to a boat.
“Of course it is quite conceivable that a very determined party of pioneers might cut a passage for a small boat even to the centre. The work would take an immense time, however, and the channel would certainly close up behind them as they proceeded.”
All these facts had been well studied and considered by Antonio.
No more daring mariner than he ever sailed the seas.
Now let the truth be told: so far into the Sargasso Sea had the ship drifted before the anchor had been lowered, that the weird little captain had not the slightest hopes of ever getting free again. Nothing less than a miracle, it seemed, could aid them, and the only miracles nowadays are the miracles of science.
There was nothing to look forward to but imprisonment here for life. The provisions would not last for ever; they would be compelled to live on the fish they might catch among the weeds, or the little brown crabs that clung to their stems.
But this life could not last long, for fuel would fail them. Already they were dependent for water on the condensed steam from the pumping engine. When the coal was finished, water itself would no longer be attainable. The look-out was sad and terrible in the extreme. One by one, the more weakly first, they would drop off and die, till hardly hands enough would be left to bury the dead. And who would be the last man?
Alone on this sad brown sea, he must inevitably become a raving maniac, and perhaps forestall fate by throwing himself into the ocean of weeds.
You must give Antonio credit therefore for bravery and wisdom, when I tell you that he not only determined to keep all those sad forebodings to himself, but determined also to make an attempt to navigate, by means of a specially constructed boat, as much as possible of the great Sargasso Sea itself.
So well had he studied everything during his life in the romantic old windmill, that there was hardly a useful appliance of a scientific character that was not to be found on board the good ship Zingara.
But at night, while lying awake on his couch in the awful and deathlike stillness of this wondrous sea, poor Antonio used, at times, to lose heart.
Not that he could blame himself for seeking to amass wealth. But now, imprisoned here, although riches crowded his drawers and safe, what good could it ever be to him?
Then visions would rise up before him of his brother lying in a dark and slimy dungeon that reeked with filth and fœtor, his bed a mat on the floor amidst insects, and even reptiles, that but to think of makes one shudder, fed like a wild beast from the end of a pole, perhaps already white-headed and insane. Oh, it was awful, maddening! Then dreams of the past would take the place of these more terrible thoughts.
They were children once again, his brother and he. Living in a beautiful cottage far away among the green woods and broomy braes of Cornwall, whither their mother had emigrated from Spain—been banished, in fact—after the death, by shooting, of their father, who had taken part in an insurrection, and been chief leader.
His brother José—who was now lying in the priests’ dungeon-keep—was three years his junior, but tall, manly, and strong for his ten years, while Antonio himself was but a weakling, a pale-faced, not over-well-shapen little invalid, whom José loved and looked after as if he had been a baby, lifted in and out from his chair, or left on the daisied sward while he, José, wandered away for a time, to return laden with wild flowers.
Oh, thrice happy days, never, never again to return.
And worst of all, that fond mother—now aged and infirm—still lived, and hoped that ere cold death should close her eyes, she would once more see her boys twain.
But this might never be.
Was it any wonder, then, that even Antonio sometimes during the stillness of night broke down, and watered his pillow with tears?
Then he would sleep—and dream.
But next day—his whole heart and soul bound up in the work of making everybody around him happy and hopeful—Antonio seemed to have never a care in the world. And high above the whirr or noise of his workshop, at all hours of the day his strangely musical voice might be heard raised in song.
Teenie would take a little mandoline he had purchased for her at the Cape, and on which she could already play, and go and sit beside him for hours, accompanying him as he sang.
Idyllic this, surely.
True, but the cheery voice and the pleasant smile may hide many a deep-seated grief, as the sunshine glimmer on the waves hides the dark rocks in the black depths of the unfathomable ocean.
The great Greenland whale and her huge gambolling calf had gone—returned to the North, guided by instinct, let us call it, in making her way on and on day after day through the lonesome ocean. And instinct in this case is but a God-given gift.
But many other whales were seen, and not only these, but awful sharks, even the hammer-headed Zygæna would at times raise their heads above the sea, and all draped in weeds, they looked triply terrible. So startling were these apparitions, that Teenie used to cry out with fear when she saw them.
The birds were a constant study. The puzzle was this: Why did these birds, and beasts, and strange creatures of various kinds, come to spend a portion of the year in so dreary an ocean?
“It seems to me,” said Antonio one evening when asked the question, “that the Sea of Sargasso is a kind of health-resort for delicate birds and beasts, such as whales and fur seals, of which we have seen so many.”
“Well, sir,” said Davie, laughing, “if you had seen the monster shark that Barclay and I saw yesterday, you would not have said there was much delicacy of constitution about him. With head and back all decorated with seaweed, and his cruel, sinful-looking eyes glaring through it, he looked a veritable fiend of the ocean wave.”
“Ah! but these sharks, you know, are the regular inhabitants, and if you have noticed, they are all dark brown like the seaweed itself. We shall see more of them, and catch many too, when we lower our diving lift.”
“Catch some?”
“Yes, the more the merrier. You see, boys, their oil will be a substitute for fuel and save the coals.”
“Is there much oil under the skin?”
“Mostly in and around the liver, lads, and there it is found in great abundance. You shall see for yourselves.”
. . . . . .
“What are you so busily engaged at?” said Barclay next day, as he entered the captain’s canvas workshop.
Here not only two sailors were busily engaged, but Sister Leona herself.
“We are making a captive balloon,” was the answer.
About a fortnight after this the balloon was completed. A windlass was erected right aft, and to this the long, long rope was attached.
A code of signals was made out, and early one morning Antonio himself made his first ascent to a great height. He had with him many scientific instruments and one of his best telescopes.
He was more than pleased with the experiment.
Afar off to the southward, probably one hundred and odd miles away, he could see the clear blue ocean itself. Oh, how he longed to be afloat therein once more!
But away to the north and the west nothing was visible but the brown solemn sea, with its dark covering of snakey weeds, that looked like living things as they rose and fell on the gently heaving waves.
“Ah! how many secrets,” he said to himself, “lie buried in this dreary ocean!”
He shuddered a little as he thought how the story of the disappearance of the Zingara might never, never be told.
But see, yonder is a hull or hulk in the water many miles to the north. There are the lower masts still sticking up from her decks—one, two, three, and a shattered bowsprit also.
Is it possible there could be life on board of that weird-like derelict?
His attention is next called to the appearance of more than one fearful-looking apparition, that bobs to and fro with a lifelike motion among the brown weeds.
Antonio is not without superstition. Can these be sea-serpents? For a moment he believes they are. He turns the glass on the largest. It cannot be much under one hundred feet in length.
He can see its very eyes, for the head is raised well above the water, and the neck and back are covered with a black and horrible mane.
But reason comes at last to his aid, and he makes them out to be only floating trees.
Relieved now, and not a little hungry as well as tired—for high up here the air is both cool and bracing—he makes the signal for descent, and soon after is safe once more on his own quarter-deck. Every one is anxious to hear his strange story, especially our impatient little Teenie.
But he keeps it till after dinner, for the few hours ’twixt that meal and bedtime are the happiest of all the day.
Antonio, much to Teenie’s delight—the child sat on his knee drinking eagerly in every word that fell from his lips—made quite a story of his aerial expedition. He called his yarn
“MY JOURNEY SKYWARDS,”
and certainly, as he related it, it lacked not interest. He interlarded it too with impromptus on the guitar, some of which were weird and wild in the extreme, but all intended to depict the state of his feelings at various stages of his adventure; as, for example, when his eyes fell upon the far-off blue and sunny sea, or when he first found out the derelict, and anon the awful sea-serpents, that finally, to Teenie’s disappointment, turned out to be floating trees, their eyes but notches, their awful manes only the trailing seaweed.
However, this determined little fisher-lassie made a resolution, which as she slid off the captain’s knee she embodied in the following sentence—
“Mind you this, Captain ’Tonio, you is not going up again next time without me.”
. . . . . .
Considering the balloon perfectly safe, Antonio agreed to let Teenie come with him on his next ascent. And brave indeed she must have been to make it. That she was a little afraid at first was indisputable. But soon she brightened up, and clapped her tiny hands with joy when she beheld the great sea-serpents through the telescope.
“But,” she said, “O ’Tonio, I ’spects they is alive after all. Just say they is to please me.”
It will be observed that Teenie’s English was not so grammatical as it might have been. But she had really two dialects, that of the fireside, and that which was only taken out and aired in her school-room, then stowed away again to be used, as she phrased it, when she went on shore to some grand party.
Would that ever be?
Who could tell?
A month after this, Antonio’s special boat was ready to launch.
It was an ordinary whaler, but fortified in front with a straight up and down plough-like cutwater high up out of the sea, which divided the weeds and permitted them to fall off astern. The boat was propelled by oars in the ordinary way, but the progress was exceedingly slow, and at no time was a greater rate of speed obtained than two miles an hour.
The boat had three men a side, with Antonio and Barclay astern, and these took turn and turn steering the whaler with an oar, with a species of sculling motion well known to visitors to the far-off Arctic Ocean.
The boat was well provisioned, and carried plenty of good water.
But although they started soon after daybreak, the sun was gilding the brown ocean before they had accomplished two-thirds of the journey towards the derelict.
There was nothing for it, therefore, but to sup and to sleep till morning.
Though there was no moon, the night was charming and the stars never so bright, and apparently so close that a ship’s masts might have touched them.
The constellations were especially beautiful and bright.
The silence for the most part was like that of death. Yet it was broken now and then by plaintive and uncanny screams, dying away at last in mournful cadence that touched the heart. These, as I have said before, were put down to the credit of night-birds, or to a fish called by Antonio “the piping shark.”
Towards morning something, or rather some creature, struck the bottom of the boat with such violence that she was all but capsized.
She yielded to the blow, else she would doubtless have been stove. No one could even surmise what they had come into collision with, though no doubt it was some species of monster shark. Next day the voyage was resumed. During their slow progress, Barclay had much time to study the weeds that floated close aboard of them, and the myriads of small but active creatures that lived on the surface of this strange mysterious sea.
Towards noon a flock of sea-birds of every description, some entirely unknown even to Antonio, came shrieking and screaming round the boat.
A few minutes after this they were close alongside one of the most dismal-looking derelicts it has ever been the lot of human eyes to look upon.
A veritable coffin afloat she turned out to be, a ship of the dead.
That ship of the dead was a sad and fearful sight.
So high too was her hull, that it was feared at first that to board her would be impossible. But one of the sailors, making a knot on the end of a strong piece of rope, threw it up over the bulwarks, and after many unsuccessful attempts, succeeded in making it stick to something. Then he shinned up and made the end perfectly secure to an iron, but rusty, belaying pin. Antonio and Barclay both swarmed up hand over hand, till they caught the seaman’s hand and alighted safely on the deck.
As our heroes were drawing near to the derelict in the boat, and as she gently swung to and fro to the scud of the seas, they were surprised to see the whole of the hull, nearly as high up as the bulwarks, covered with grey gulf weed and bivalve shells. The seaweed had been originally brown, but was now incrusted with a species of marine lichen, and the deck itself was slimy and green, so that it was difficult indeed to walk upon it, and both Antonio and Barclay looked about them in a kind of bewildered way. But they soon recovered, and commenced to explore. They first cast their eyes aloft. The lower masts were still standing, and solid strong timber they looked; the lower rigging also, but yard-arms there were none; the jibboom and even a portion of the bowsprit were gone, and the bulwarks forward were sadly rent and torn.
Just behind the windlass were two bundles of what appeared at first to be seaweed covered with lichen. A boathook was procured, and the bundles were stirred up.
They dropped in pieces, rattling down on the deck in separate bones, for skeletons indeed they were.
This was a sickening and horrible discovery. Near them lay what seemed the skeleton of a dog.
But more horrors were to come, for diving cautiously now down the fore-hold, they found three more skeletons near the galley and cooking-range. They too were green and slimy, and the odour that pervaded these ’tween decks was so fœtid and horrible, that our heroes were glad to find themselves on deck once more.
So slippery was the ladder, that it was difficult indeed to ascend it.
Slowly now, and with hearts that were inexpressibly sad, they made their way aft and down below to the cabin or saloon. They had first taken the precaution to burst open the skylight and wait for a time. It was well they did so, for the emanating odour was sickening in the extreme.
The sight that met their eyes when at last they entered the saloon was one that would have appalled hearts less stout and brave.
On the deck lay the skeleton of a man, with a rusty revolver not far off. There was a hole in the skull right behind, so that it was evident he had not died by his own hand.
On a half-rotten and slimy sofa lay another skeleton, and, horrible to relate, the shaft of a dagger or knife still protruded from the ribs on the left side. But the bony hand and arm that had held that knife lay by the side of mortal remains.
“A certain case of suicide,” said Antonio, and his voice sounded hollow and uncanny in this awful saloon.
Determined to elucidate the mystery if possible, Antonio, followed by Barclay, made his way to what seemed the chief state-room—no doubt the skipper’s.
As he walked across the deck towards it, small loathsome-looking brown crabs went scuttling across and hid in the darkest corners. Some were unwittingly crushed under foot, and the crunching noise added to the horror of the situation.
With the boathook Antonio dashed open the saloon door; then all three men retreated till the foul air escaped.
In doing so Barclay kicked a hassock or footstool. It fell in pieces, and all started back with a feeling of fear and dread, for out from the débris wriggled two snakes, or water-serpents, of a kind not uncommon on sandbanks in the Indian Ocean. The creatures made a dash for the companion-ladder, up which they threw themselves in a remarkable manner. The men in the boat alongside were startled to see the snakes leap from the scupper-holes of the derelict and dive into the sea.
Everything was rotten, slimy, and ghastly in this stateroom. There were curtains on the bed which gave way at a touch; the mattress and bedclothes fell to pieces when stirred with the boathook, clothes hung on the wall, but fell to the deck when Antonio entered.
But here in the corner was a safe. The door was shut but not locked, and as Barclay swung it open he found therein gold, watches, and a chronometer. These they took possession of. There was also a ship’s log, but all the first portions of it and its top cover were decayed and rotten.
It was only the last few pages that were decipherable, and much to Antonio’s disappointment, when he took the book carefully out and placed it on the table, he found that it gave no clue to the name of the ship, her port of departure, nor her destination.
But it told briefly and irregularly of the last terrible sufferings of the crew.
The hand that wrote these lines must have been weak and quivering, the head of the writer congested, if not delirious.
The lines, too, and sentences were strangely disconnected and rambling. I give but a portion of them.
“The last writings of Ben Meredith of Lark Cove, Mass., U.S.A.
“If found—to my wife or beloved father, both of that territory—twenty days out, fearful weather, decks swept, topmasts carried away—middle of night awful collision, carried away figure-head and jibboom, and shattered bowsprit and bulwarks—drifting for weeks a hopeless—half the crew stole boats and went away we know not whither. Took the great Sea of Gulf-Weed. Misery untold, and no hopes of ever getting clear. Water lasted, but food ran out—living on seaweed and rats—few fish caught—men down with fever—I and mate last of—terrible sufferings. Think am mad—killed boy and ate him—this ends all, and to-night we die. Mate will shoot me, then kill himself—I shall not know the hour I am to be shot—this has been agreed upon, and ’tis better thus—Heaven forgive us, but we are mad—mad—mad!”
There was more of this rambling, but it was not decipherable. But those two skeletons revealed this secret of the sea.
Long, long years ago the men had gone to their account, and He who knew their terrible sufferings and temptations would judge them mercifully and righteously.
. . . . . .
There was little good to be wrought by staying longer on board this awful slimy derelict ship, so full of loathsome things that crept or crawled, so full of death and mystery.
After two days and a night of struggling with the weeds, glad enough were our mariners to get back to their own ship.
She was not yet overgrown with weeds, for men were lowered over the side almost every week to keep her clean.
. . . . . .
Almost every day now the whaler with its “weed-plough,” as the sailors called it, was lowered, and Barclay and Davie with a sturdy crew would penetrate as far through the Sargasso Sea as it was safe to go with the certainty of returning before nightfall.
As often as not Teenie went with them. They had a double object in view in making these little cruises—the study of natural history, with the collection of curios, and the catching of fish to help to fill the larder.
Some of these fish, mostly small, lived and dwelt in or near the surface among the long, dark, floating weed. At times they could be found in shining silvery shoals, so dense that they could be taken on board with a landing-net. These were a species of large anchovy or sardine, and evidently did not belong to the Sargasso Sea itself, for, strange to say, the crabs that ran about and over the weeds, the shell-fish that clung to them, all the crustacea, molluscs, hydroids, polyzoa, and annelides were dark-brown like the weeds themselves, and sometimes almost black. Black though they were, the crabs proved to be most delightful eating; so too did many of the fishes caught, but others were so frightfully ugly as to look like sea-demons, and were thrown overboard; so too were some most beautiful flat fish, striped with deep crimson, yellow, and green.
These were called “tartan fish” by the men, and declared to be far too pretty to eat, and probably poisonous.
Occasionally the exploring boat came across a portion of seaweed that seemed alive with wriggling serpents. Most of these horrid reptiles, none of which were over three feet long, had short rudimentary legs near the head and far aft towards the tail. One or two found their way on board in the landing-net, and so diabolical was their appearance as they wriggled and hissed, that Teenie was frightened almost into fits.
Then Barclay would drop the landing-net overboard, and taking the child on his knee, soothe and pet her till she fell asleep.
Some of the worm-like annelides grew to immense size here in this wondrous sea, so much so, that they might have been mistaken for snakes. Specimens of each sort were collected by the boys.
But there was a kind of annelide that the boys did not dare to catch on the days when Teenie was a passenger. It was called the sea-centiped, and its bite was supposed to be fatal. It was not unlike the centiped that often appears on board ship in cases when green wood has been taken on board, only infinitely bigger, and quicker in movement.
One day a sea-centiped ran up Barclay’s sleeve; it was longer than a penholder. The lad was in his shirt sleeves luckily, and probably the dreadful creature was as frightened as the boy was; indeed, he was deadly pale. Davie Drake and Pandoo came to his rescue. Commanding him not to move an inch, they pulled his shirt over head and shoulders, and gradually and cautiously down his arm till the terrible centiped was revealed. All its awful legs were pinching poor Barclay’s skin, and the creature, which had hooks beneath its head, was moving its mandibles horizontally in the most threatening manner, while fire appeared to flash from its eyes. Pandoo placed a handkerchief round the boy’s arm above the elbow-joint, retaining both ends in his hand.
Then all had to wait what appeared an interminable time.
But slowly at last the creature advanced, though pausing oft, and finally crawled on to the handkerchief. Then with a quick jerk Pandoo threw it off into the sea.
Barclay had behaved all the time with great fortitude, but, strangely enough, now that the danger was over he fainted dead away.
A more beautiful, but not dangerous, annelide was found among the seaweed, plentiful enough in some places only. In plain English—for I am sure you do not wish to be bothered with its classical title—it is called the sea-mouse. The creatures were nine inches long and nearly four in breadth, and were the only living things found among the seaweed that were not brown or black.
The strange annelide finds its food among the weeds, and is covered with a kind of down. Above this are many rows of bristles in bunches, that shine and glitter with all the colours of a lovely rainbow.
Many of these were caught and preserved, but to Barclay’s disgust the beautiful colours all faded away. It is thus with many of the lovely creatures one finds in the seas of far-off foreign lands, as I have known often to my sorrow. Hand-painted by Nature they seem to be, and the colours are durable until death, but then they fade away.
The people of the unfortunate ship Zingara had now lain for more than a year and a half Crusoes in this dreary dark ocean, and food itself began to grow scarce. All that it was possible to do was done in order to eke out the store, by eating such fish and crustacea as they could find among the weeds.
I have not yet described the weeds, nor need I court classical preciseness in doing so. But there are five or six different species. The principal of these, and the largest, is of immense length, toothed and serrated. It seems to grow from a short stalk, with roots that may or may not have been torn off from the rocks of continents or islands. Be this as it may, it here lives and floats, with the aid of small bladders called berries, and it affords refuge, food, and sustenance to myriads of strange creatures. Not only is this so, but other weeds grow on it, and some of these our heroes found edible and palatable, whether eaten cooked or raw. But other species were independent of their gigantic brothers, and lived a wholly independent life, having bunches of bladders to support them, like clusters of grapes.
. . . . . .
Not only were stores now getting short on board ship, but coals as well, so that the outlook was becoming black and dreary in the extreme.
Antonio often broke down in spirits, and gave way to fits of melancholy in his own cabin by night, but he was always the same pleased and pleasant though weird wee man by day, especially at table.
And in the evening, with his darling guitar on his breast, he excelled himself if possible. No one to see him then could have believed that he saw only starvation and death ahead, and that he entertained scarcely the slightest hope of delivery from this living grave.
He made a balloon ascent about once a week, however, hoping against hope, as it were, that the great sea of weeds might open up, as does an icepack in the Arctic Ocean, and thus afford them a free passage.
But he saw no chance, and no change. They were still a hundred miles at least from the sea, whose blue waves, sparkling in the sunshine, looked so tantalising through the telescope.
The sea-gulls and birds of every sort used to come round the ship now daily, to pick up refuse and crumbs that had been thrown on board. They became indeed marvellously tame. Now, strange to say, many of these were birds of Britain, and like all Britons, birds of passage as well. They would return to their homes on the rocks around England and Bonnie Scotland.
I was going to say happy homes, but drew rein in time, for, alas! they are not always happy, owing to the perpetual murder that goes on around our shores, by which, at the hands of shop-boys and cads with guns, the beautiful birds are killed and maimed without mercy.
“I think,” said Barclay Stuart one morning, “that Davie and I have devised a means of communicating with the outer world which may result in our salvation.”
“Well, dearie, I’m rejoiced to hear it. What is the scheme?”
“You know, sir, that many of the black or white-headed gulls, and the skuas and kittiwakes as well, are British birds, and that they will soon perhaps take their departure.”
“Yes, they don’t build here, and spring—the English spring—will soon be smiling in our own dear country.”
“Well then, Davie and I propose catching those birds by the score and tying to their legs little messages in quills. If only one of all we send off—and we purpose sending hundreds—if only one is shot by those murdering ’longshore chaps, it may result in relief coming to us in a few months’ time.”
Antonio smiled, somewhat sadly it must be allowed.
“Don’t you like the plan?”
“I like anything that will give us even the off-chance of getting clear away, out of this black and dreary sea.”
“Hurrah!” cried Barclay; “then I’ll go and tell Davie Drake.”
And away he went.
He found Davie with Sister Leona and Teenie;—the latter, by the way, was now in her fourteenth year, but still the innocent baby, the fascinating child she had always been.
“Well, and what says the captain?”
“Oh, he gives us full permission, and we had better start at once.”
“There will be no fishing to-day, Teenie.”
“But what’s you going to do?”
“Why, to catch lovely gulls and make postmen of them.”
“Make postmen of them?”
“Yes, dear; you shall see. We are going to send them with letters to England.”
“And will they bring letters back?”
“I fear not, but they may send out ships to our relief. Do you understand?”
“Now, Sister Leona, you must assist. You can write even smaller and clearer than we can.”
“Perhaps.”
“All we need to say is, ‘British ship Zingara cast away. Sea of Sargasso. Lat. ——. Long. ——. (I must get this exact from the captain.) Stores done. Must soon die if no relief.’
“We have hundreds of quills. A little string must be rove through these first, to tie to the birdie’s thigh, then the message put in, and the quill sealed at both ends with red wax.”
“Why red wax, Barclay?” asked Teenie.
“Why, dear, because it will be more easily seen.”
Even Leona saw a ray of hope in the plan, and entered into it with great spirit. All that day and all the next the two young men, with Leona, and sometimes Antonio, sat writing the tiny messages, and sealing them up ready for the little voyageurs.
The worst of it was that these would choose their own time of departure, but it was considered that as spring was not far off, instinct would cause them to hie away home to the shores of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
By evening tide on the third day they had nearly three hundred quills loaded and sealed and ready for their bearers.
How to catch the birds would have been a puzzle to many; but our young heroes had been instructed by Antonio long ago, and the plan adopted was as simple as it was effective.
A piece of board with a long loose string attached to it was thrown about thirty yards astern of the ship, the bird catcher abaft the binnacle holding the end of the line in his hand. Then morsels of food were thrown down between the floating board and the ship.
The gulls have eyes like eagles, and they soon came swooping around tack and half-tack. Suddenly the line would be slackened, and almost to a certainty a bird would get entangled by the wings. He was drawn gently on board. If a foreign bird, he was immediately thrown into the air; if a British, he was allowed to run about the deck, for curiously enough they were unable to raise themselves on their wings, owing to the motion perhaps, which invariably made them sea-sick.
When about a dozen were captured, then one by one they were taken in hand and had a quill attached to them, then thrown up into the air.
Teenie never failed to kiss each bird on the poll, and sent all sorts of kind messages to her daddy and mammy, and they were to be sure to fly straight to Fisherton and deliver their letters.
But I feel certain that the prayers of every one on board went with those bonnie birds.
It is strange but true, that the gulls that had once been caught never returned to the Zingara again.