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diff --git a/44499-0.txt b/44499-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e99386 --- /dev/null +++ b/44499-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4883 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44499 *** + +THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR." + + + + + THE + WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR:" + + AN ACCOUNT OF + _THE MUTINY OF THE CREW AND THE + LOSS OF THE SHIP_ + WHEN TRYING TO MAKE THE BERMUDAS. + + _IN THREE VOLUMES._ + VOL. III. + + LONDON: + SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, + CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. + 1877. + + (_All rights reserved._) + + + + + LONDON: + PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, + STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. + + + + +THE WRECK OF THE "GROSVENOR." + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Our next job was to man the port-braces and bring the ship to a +westerly course. But before we went to this work the boatswain and I +stood for some minutes looking at the appearance of the sky. + +The range of cloud which had been but a low-lying and apparently a +fugitive bank in the north-west at midnight, was now so far advanced +as to project nearly over our heads, and what rendered its aspect +more sinister was the steely colour of the sky, which it ruled with a +line, here and there rugged, but for the most part singularly even, +right from the confines of the north-eastern to the limits of the +south-western horizon. All the central portion of this vast surface +of cloud was of a livid hue, which, by a deception of the eye, made +it appear convex, and at frequent intervals a sharp shower of arrowy +lightning whizzed from that portion of it furthest away from us, but as +yet we could hear no thunder. + +"When the rain before the wind, then your topsail halliards mind," +chaunted the boatswain. "There's rather more nor a quarter o' an inch +o' rain there, and there's something worse nor rain astern of it." + +The gloomiest feature of this approaching tempest, if such it were, was +the slowness, at once mysterious and impressive, of its approach. + +I was not, however, to be deceived by this into supposing that, because +it had taken nearly all night to climb the horizon, there was no wind +behind it. I had had experience of a storm of this kind, and remembered +the observations of one of the officers of the ship, when speaking +of it. "Those kind of storms," he said, "are not driven by wind, but +create it. They keep a hurricane locked up in their insides, and wander +across the sea, on the look-out for ships; when they come across +something worth wrecking they let fly. Don't be deceived by their +slow pace, and imagine them only thunderstorms. They'll burst like an +earthquake in a dead calm over your head, and whenever you see one +coming snug your ship right away down to the last reef in her, and keep +your stern at it." + +"I am debating, bo'sun," said I, "whether to bring the ship round or +keep her before it. What do you think?" + +"There's a gale of wind there. I can smell it," he replied; "but we're +snug enough to lie close, aren't we?" looking up at the masts. + +"That's to be proved," said I. "We'll bring her close if you like; but +I'm pretty sure we shall have to run for it later on." + +"It'll bowl us well away into mid-Atlantic, won't it, Mr. Royle?" + +"Yes; I wish we were more to the norrard of Bermudas. However, we'll +tackle the yards, and have a try for the tight little islands." + +"They're pretty nigh all rocks, aren't they? I never sighted 'em." + +"Nor I. But they've got a dockyard at Bermuda, I believe, where the +Yankees refit sometimes, and that's about all I know of those islands." + +I asked Miss Robertson to put the helm down and keep it there until the +compass pointed west; but the ship had so little way upon her, owing +to the small amount of canvas she carried now and the faintness of the +wind, that it took her as long to come round as if we had been warping +her head to the westwards by a buoy. + +Having braced up the yards and steadied the helm, we could do no more; +and resolving to profit as much as possible from the interval of rest +before us, I directed Cornish to take the wheel, and ordered the +steward to go forward and light the galley fire and boil some coffee +for breakfast. + +"Bo'sun," said I, "you might as well drop below and have a look at +those plugs of yours. Take a hammer with you and this light," handing +him the binnacle lamp, "and drive the plugs in hard, for if the ship +should labour heavily, she might strain them out." + +He started on his errand, and I then told Miss Robertson that there +was nothing now to detain her on deck, and thanked her for the great +services she had rendered us. + +How well I remember her as she stood near the wheel, wearing my straw +hat, her dress hitched up to allow freedom to her movements; her small +hands with the delicate blue veins glowing through the white clear +skin, her yellow hair looped up, though with many a tress straying like +an amber-coloured feather; her marble face, her lips pale with fatigue, +her beautiful blue eyes fired ever with the same brave spirit, though +dim with the weariness of long and painful watching and the oppressive +and numbing sense of ever-present danger. + +On no consideration would I allow her to remain any longer on deck, and +though she begged to stay, I took her hand firmly, and led her into the +cuddy to her cabin door. + +"You will faithfully promise me to lie down and sleep?" I said. + +"I will lie down, and will sleep if I can," she answered, with a wan +smile. + +"We have succeeded in saving you so far," I continued, earnestly, "and +it would be cruel, very cruel, and hard upon me, to see your health +break down for the want of rest and sleep, when both are at your +command, now that life is bright again, and when any hour may see us +safe on the deck of another vessel." + +"You shall not suffer through me," she replied. "I will obey you, +indeed I will do anything you want." + +I kissed her hand respectfully, and said that a single hour of sound +sleep would do her a deal of good; by that time I would take care that +breakfast should be ready for her and her father, and I then held open +the cabin door for her to enter, and returned on deck. + +A most extraordinary and wonderful sight saluted me when I reached the +poop. + +The sun had risen behind the vast embankment of cloud, and its glorious +rays, the orb itself being invisible, projected in a thousand lines of +silver beyond the margin of the bank to the right and overhead, jutting +out in visible threads, each as defined as a sunbeam in a dark room. + +But the effect of this wonderful light was to render the canopy of +cloud more horribly livid; and weird and startling was the contrast +of the mild and far-reaching sunshine, streaming in lines of silver +brightness into the steely sky, with the blue lightning ripping up the +belly of the cloud and suffering the eye to dwell for an instant on the +titanic strata of gloom that stood ponderously behind. + +Nor was the ocean at this moment a less sombre and majestical object +than the heavens; for upon half of it rested a shadow deep as night, +making the water sallow and thick, and most desolate to behold under +the terrible curtain that lay close down to it upon the horizon; whilst +all on the right the green sea sparkled in the sunbeams, heaving slowly +under the calm that had fallen. + +Looking far away on the weather beam, and where the shadow on the sea +was deepest, I fancied that I discerned a black object, which might +well be a ship with her sails darkened by her distance from the sun. + +I pointed it out to Cornish, who saw it too, and I then fetched the +telescope. + +Judge of my surprise and consternation, when the outline of a boat with +her sail low down on the mast, entered the field of the glass! I cried +out, "It's the long-boat!" + +Cornish turned hastily. + +"My God!" he cried, "they're doomed men!" + +I gazed at her intently, but could not be deceived, for I recognised +the cut of the stu'nsail, lowered as it was in anticipation of the +breaking of the storm, and I could also make out the minute dark +figures of the men in her. + +My surprise, however, was but momentary, for, considering the lightness +of the wind that had prevailed all night, and the probability of her +having stood to and fro in expectation of coming across us, or the +quarter-boat which had attacked us, I had no reason to expect that they +should have been far off. + +The boatswain came along the quarterdeck singing out, "It's all right +below! No fear of a leak there!" + +"Come up here!" I cried. "There's the long-boat yonder!" + +On hearing this, he ran aft as hard as he could and stared in the +direction I indicated, but could not make her out until he had the +glass to his eye, on which he exclaimed-- + +"Yes, it's her, sure enough. Why, we may have to make another fight for +it. She's heading this way, and if she brings down any wind, by jingo +she'll overhaul us." + +"No, no," I answered. "They're not for fighting. They don't like the +look of the weather, bo'sun, and would board us to save their lives, +not to take ours." + +"That's it, sir," exclaimed Cornish. "I reckon there's little enough +mutineering among 'em now Stevens is gone. I'd lay my life they'd turn +to and go to work just as I have if you'd lay by for 'em and take 'em +in." + +Neither the boatswain nor I made any reply to this. + +For my own part, though we had been perishing for the want of more +hands, I don't think I should have had trust enough in those rascals +to allow them on board; for I could not doubt that when the storm was +over, and they found themselves afloat in the _Grosvenor_ once more, +they would lay violent hands upon me and the boatswain, and treat us as +they had treated Coxon and Duckling, revenging themselves in this way +upon us for the death of Stevens and the other leaders of the mutiny, +and likewise protecting themselves against their being carried to +England and handed over to the authorities on shore as murderers. + +The lightning was now growing very vivid, and for the first time I +heard the sullen moan of thunder. + +"That means," said the boatswain, "that it's a good bit off yet; and +if that creature forrard 'll only bear a hand we shall be able to get +something to eat and drink afore it comes down." + +However, as he spoke, the steward came aft with a big coffee-pot. He +set it on the skylight, and fetched from the pantry some good preserved +meat, biscuit and butter, and we fell to the repast with great relish +and hunger. + +Being the first to finish, I took the wheel while Cornish breakfasted, +and then ordered the steward to go and make some fresh coffee, and keep +it hot in the galley, and prepare a good breakfast for the Robertsons +ready to serve when the young lady should leave her cabin. + +"Bo'sun," said I, as he came slowly towards me, filling his pipe, "I +don't like the look of that mainsail. It 'll blow out and kick up a +deuce of a shindy. You and Cornish had better lay aloft with some spare +line and serve the sail with it." + +"That's soon done," he answered, cheerfully. And Cornish left his +breakfast, and they both went aloft. + +I yawned repeatedly as I stood at the wheel, and my eyes were sore for +want of sleep. + +But there was something in the aspect of that tremendous, stooping, +quarter-sphere of cloud abeam of us, throwing a darkness most sinister +to behold on half the sea, and vomiting quick lances of blue fire from +its caverns, while now and again the thunder rolled solemnly, which was +formidable enough to keep me wide awake. + +It was growing darker every moment: already the sun's beams were +obscured, though that portion of the great canopy of cloud which lay +nearest to the luminary carried still a flaming edge. + +A dead calm had fallen, and the ship rested motionless on the water. + +The two men remained for a short time on the main-yard, and then came +down, leaving the sail much more secure than they had found it. Cornish +despatched his breakfast, and the boatswain came to me. + +"Do you see the long-boat now, sir?" + +"No," I replied; "she's hidden in the rain yonder. By Heaven! it _is_ +coming down!" + +I did not exaggerate; the horizon was grey with the rain: it looked +like steam rising from a boiling sea. + +"It 'll keep 'em busy bailing," said the boatswain. + +"Hold on here," I cried, "till I get my oilskins." + +I was back again in a few moments, and he went away to drape himself +for the downfall, and to advise Cornish to do the same. + +I left the wheel for a second or two to close one of the skylights, +and as I did so a flash of lightning seemed to set the ship on fire, +and immediately came a deafening crash of thunder. I think there is +something more awful in the roar of thunder heard at sea than on shore, +unless you are among mountains; you get the full intensity of it, the +mighty outburst smiting the smooth surface of the water, which in +itself is a wonderful vehicle of sound, and running onwards for leagues +without meeting with any impediment to check or divert it. + +I hastened to see if the lightning conductor ran clear to the water, +and finding the end of the wire coiled up in the port main-chains, +flung it overboard and resumed my place at the wheel. + +Now that the vast surface of cloud was well forward of overhead, +I observed that its front was an almost perfect semicircle, the +extremities at either point of the horizon projecting like horns. +There still remained, embraced by these horns, a clear expanse of +steel-coloured sky. _There_ the sea was light, but all to starboard it +was black, and the terrible shadow was fast bearing down upon the ship. + +Crack! the lightning whizzed, and turned the deck, spars, and rigging +into a network of blue fire. The peal that followed was a sudden +explosion--a great dead crash, as though some mighty ponderous orb had +fallen from the highest heaven upon the flooring of the sky and riven +it. + +Then I heard the rain. + +I scarcely know which was the more terrifying to see and hear--the +rain, or the thunder and lightning. + +It was a cataract of water falling from a prodigious elevation. It was +a dense, impervious liquid veil, shutting out all sight of sea and +sky. It tore the water into foam in striking it. + +Then, _boom_! down it came upon us. + +I held on by the wheel, and the boatswain jammed himself under the +grating. It was not rain only--it was hail as big as eggs; and the rain +drops were as big as eggs too. + +There was not a breath of air. This terrific fall came down in +perfectly perpendicular lines; and as the lightning rushed through it, +it illuminated with its ghastly effulgence a broad sheet of water. + +It was so dark that I could not see the card in the binnacle. The water +rushed off our decks just as it would had we shipped a sea. And for +the space of twenty minutes I stood stunned, deaf, blind, in the midst +of a horrible and overpowering concert of pealing thunder and rushing +rain, the awful gloom being rendered yet more dreadful by the dazzling +flashes which passed through it. + +It passed as suddenly as it had come, and left us still in a breathless +calm, drenched, terrified, and motionless. + +It grew lighter to windward, and I felt a small air blowing on my +streaming face; lighter still, though to leeward the storm was raging +and roaring, and passing with its darkness like some unearthly night. + +I squeezed the water out of my eyes, and saw the wind come rushing +towards us upon the sea, whilst all overhead the sky was a broad +lead-coloured space. + +"Now, bo'sun," I roared, "stand by!" + +He came out from under the grating, and took a grip of the rail. + +"Here it comes!" he cried; "and by the holy poker," he added, "here +comes the long-boat atop of it!" + +I could only cast one brief glance in the direction indicated, where, +sure enough, I saw the long-boat flying towards us on a surface of +foam. In an instant the gale struck the ship and over she heeled, +laying her port bulwark close down upon the water. But there she +stopped. + +"Had we had whole topsails," I cried, "it would have been Amen!" + +I waited a moment or two before deciding whether to put the helm up and +run. If this was the worst of it, the ship would do as she was. But in +that time the long-boat, urged furiously forward by the sail they still +kept on her, passed close under our stern. Twice, before she reached +us, I saw them try to bring her so as to come alongside, and each time +I held my breath, for I knew that the moment they brought her broadside +to the wind she would capsize. + +May God forbid that ever I should behold such a sight again! + +It was indescribably shocking to see them swept helplessly past within +hail of us. There were seven men in her. Two of them cried out and +raved furiously, entreating with dreadful, mad gesticulations as they +whirled past. But the rest, some clinging to the mast, others seated +with their arms folded, were silent, like dead men already, with fixed +and staring eyes--a ghastly crew. I saw one of the two raving men +spring on to the gunwale, but he was instantly pulled down by another. + +But what was there to see? It was a moment's horror--quick-vanishing as +some monstrous object leaping into sight under a flash of lightning, +then instantaneously swallowed up in the devouring gloom. + +Our ship had got way upon her, and was surging forward with her +lee-channels under water. The long-boat dwindled away on our quarter, +the spray veiling her as she fled, and in a few minutes was not to be +distinguished upon the immeasurable bed of foam and wave, stretching +down to the livid storm that still raged upon the far horizon. + +"My God!" exclaimed Cornish, who stood near the wheel unnoticed by me. +"I might ha' been in her! I might ha' been in her!" + +And he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed and shook with the +horror of the scene, and the agony of the thoughts it had conjured up. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +I hardly knew what to make of the weather, for though it blew very hard +the wind was not so violent as it had been during those three days +which I have written of in another part of this story. + +The ship managed to hold her own well, with her head at west; I mean +that she went scraping through the water, making very little lee-way, +and so far she could fairly well carry the three close-reefed topsails, +though I believe that had another yard of canvas more than was already +exposed been on her, she would have lain down and never righted again, +so violent was the first clap and outfly of the wind. + +Nevertheless, I got the boatswain to take the wheel, and sent Cornish +forward to stand by the fore-topsail sheets, whilst I kept by the +mizzen, for I was not at all sure that the terrific thunder-storm that +had broken over us was not the precursor of a hurricane, to come down +at any moment on the gale that was already blowing, and wreck the ship +out of hand. + +In this way twenty minutes passed, when finding the wind to remain +steady, I sang out to Cornish that he might come aft again. As I never +knew the moment when a vessel might heave in sight I bent on the +small ensign and ran it half-way up at the gaff end, not thinking it +judicious to exhibit a train of flag-signals in so much wind. I then +took the telescope, and, setting it steady in the mizzen rigging, +slowly and carefully swept the weather horizon, and afterwards +transferred the glass to leeward, but no ship was to be seen. + +"We ought to be in the track o' some sort o' wessels, too," exclaimed +the boatswain, who had been awaiting the result of my inspections. "The +steamers from Liverpool to New Orleans, and the West Indie mail-ships +'ud come right across this way, wouldn't they?" + +"Not quite so far north," I answered. "But there ought to be no lack +of sailing ships from all parts--from England to the southern ports of +the United States and North America--from American ports to Rio and +the eastern coast of South America. They cannot keep us long waiting. +Something must heave in sight soon." + +"Suppose we sight a wessel, what do you mean to do, sir?" + +"Ask them to let me have a few men to work the ship to the nearest +port." + +"But suppose they're short-handed?" + +"Then they won't oblige us." + +"I can't see myself, sir," said he, "why, instead o' tryin' to fetch +Bermuda, we shouldn't put the helm up and square away for England. How +might the English Channel lie as we now are?" + +"A trifle to the east'ard of north-east." + +"Well, this here's a fair wind for it." + +"That's true; but will you kindly remember that the ship's company +consists of three men." + +"Of four, countin' the steward, and five, countin' Miss Robertson." + +"Of three men, I say, capable of working the vessel." + +"Well, yes; you're right. Arter all, there's only three to go aloft." + +"I suppose you know," I continued, "that it would take a sailing ship, +properly manned, four or five weeks to make the English Channel." + +"Well, sir." + +"Neither you, nor I, nor Cornish could do without sleep for four or +five weeks." + +"We could keep regular watches, Mr. Royle." + +"I dare say we could; but we should have to let the ship remain under +reefed topsails. But instead of taking four or five weeks, we should +take four or five months to reach England under close-reefed topsails, +unless we could keep a gale of wind astern of us all the way. I'll tell +you what it is, bo'sun, these exploits are very pretty, and appear very +possible in books, and persons who take anything that is told them +about the sea as likely and true, believe they can be accomplished. +And on one or two occasions they have been accomplished. Also I have +heard on one occasion a gentleman made a voyage from Timor to Bathurst +Island on the back of a turtle. But the odds, in my unromantic opinion, +are a thousand to one against our working the ship home as we are, +unless we can ship a crew on the road, and very shortly. And how can +we be sure of this? There is scarce a ship goes to sea now that is not +short-handed. We may sight fifty vessels, and get no help from one of +them. They may all be willing to take us on board if we abandon the +_Grosvenor_; but they'll tell us that they can give us no assistance to +work her. Depend upon it, our wisest course is to make Bermuda. There, +perhaps, we may pick up some hands. But if we head for England in this +trim--a deep ship, with heavy gear to work, and but two seamen to +depend upon, if the third has to take the wheel, trusting to chance to +help us, I repeat that the odds against our bringing the ship home are +one thousand to one. We shall be at the mercy of every gale that rises, +and end in becoming a kind of phantom ship, chased about the ocean just +as the wind happens to blow us." + +"Well, sir," said he, "I dare say you're right, and I'll say no more +about it. Now, about turnin' in. I'll keep here if you like to go below +for a couple of hours. Cornish can stand by to rouse you up." + +I had another look to windward before making up my mind to go below. +A strong sea was rising, and the wind blew hard enough to keep one +leaning against it. There was no break in the sky, and the horizon was +thick, but the look-out was not worse than it had been half an hour +before. + +We were, however, snug enough aloft, if not very neat; the bunt of +the mainsail, indeed, looked rather shaky, but the other sails lay +very secure upon the yards; and this being so, and the gale remaining +steady, I told the boatswain to keep the ship to her present course, +and went below, yawning horribly and dead wearied. + +I had slept three-quarters of an hour, when I was awakened by the +steward rushing into my cabin and hauling upon me like a madman. Being +scarcely conscious, I imagined that the mutineers had got on board +again, and that here was one of them falling upon me; and having sense +enough, I suppose, in my sleepy brain to make me determine to sell my +life at a good price, I let fly at the steward's breast and struck him +so hard that he roared out, which sound brought me to my senses at once. + +"What is it?" I cried. + +"Oh, sir," responded the steward, half dead with terror and the loss +of breath occasioned by my blow, "the ship's sinking, sir! We're all +going down! I've been told to fetch you up. The Lord have mercy upon +us!" + +I rolled on to the deck in my hurry to leave the bunk, and ran with all +my speed up the companion ladder; nor was the ascent difficult, for the +ship was on a level keel, pitching heavily indeed, but rolling slightly. + +Scarcely, however, was my head up through the companion, when I thought +it would have been blown off my shoulders. The fury and force of the +wind was such as I had never before in all my life experienced. + +Both the boatswain and Cornish were at the wheel, and, in order to +reach them, I had to drop upon my hands and knees and crawl along the +deck. When near them I took a grip of the grating and looked around me. + +The first thing I saw was that the mainsail had blown away from most +of the gaskets, and was thundering in a thousand rags upon the yard. +The foresail was split in halves, and the port mizzen-topsail sheet +had carried away, and the sail was pealing like endless discharges of +musketry. + +All the spars were safe still. The lee braces had been let go, the +helm put up, and the ship was racing before a hurricane as furious as +a tornado, heading south-east, with a wilderness of foam boiling under +her bows. + +This, then, was the real gale which the thunder-storm had been nearly +all night bringing up. The first gale was but a summer breeze compared +to it. + +The clouds lay like huge fantastic rolls of sheet lead upon the sky; in +some quarters of the circle drooping to the water-line in patches and +spaces ink-black. No fragment of blue heaven was visible; and yet it +was lighter than it had been when I went below. + +The ensign, half-masted, roared over my head; the sea was momentarily +growing heavier, and, as the ship pitched, she took the water in broad +sheets over her forecastle. + +The terrible beating of the mizzen-topsail was making the mizzen-mast, +from the mastcoat to the royal mast-head, jump like a piece of +whalebone. Although deafened, bewildered, and soaked through with the +screaming of the gale, the thunder of the torn canvas, and the spray +which the wind tore out of the sea and hurtled through the air, I still +preserved my senses; and perceiving that the mizzen-topmast would go if +the sail were not got rid of, I crawled on my hands and knees to the +foot of the mast, and let go the remaining sheet. + +With appalling force, and instantaneously, the massive chain was torn +through the sheave-hole, and in less time than I could have counted +ten, one half the sail had blown into the main-top, and the rest +streamed like the ends of whipcord from the yard. + +I crawled to the fore-end of the poop to look at the mainmast; that +stood steady; but whilst I watched the foremast, the foresail went to +pieces, and the leaping and plunging of the heavy blocks upon it made +the whole mast quiver so violently that the top-gallant and royal-mast +bent to and fro like a bow strung and unstrung quickly. + +I waited some moments, debating whether or not to let go the +fore-topsail sheets; but reflecting that the full force of the wind was +kept away from it by the main-topsail, and that it would certainly blow +to pieces if I touched a rope belonging to it, I dropped on my hands +and knees again and crawled away aft. + +"I saw it coming!" roared the bo'sun in my ear. "I had just time to +sing out to Cornish to slacken the lee-braces, and to put the helm hard +over." + +"We shall never be able to run!" I bellowed back. "She'll be pooped as +sure as a gun when the sea comes! We must heave her to whilst we can. +No use thinking of the fore-topsail--it must go!" + +"Look there!" shouted Cornish, dropping the spokes with one hand to +point. + +There was something indeed to look at; one of the finest steamers I had +ever seen, brig-rigged, hove to under a main-staysail. She seemed, so +rapidly were we reeling through the water, to rise out of the sea. + +She lay with her bowsprit pointing across our path, just on our +starboard bow. Lying as she was, without way on her, we should have +run into her had the weather been thick, as surely as I live to say so. + +We slightly starboarded the helm, clearing her by the time we were +abreast by not more than a quarter of a mile. But we dared not have +hauled the ship round another point; for, with our braces all loose, +the first spilling of the sails would have brought the yards aback, in +which case indeed we might have called upon God to have mercy on our +souls, for the ship would not have lived five minutes. + +There was something fascinating in the spectacle of that beautiful +steamship, rolling securely in the heavy sea, revealing as she went +over to starboard her noble graceful hull, to within a few feet of her +keel. But there was also something unspeakably dreadful to us to see +help so close at hand, and yet of no more use than had it offered a +thousand miles away. + +There was a man on her bridge, and others doubtless watched our vessel +unseen by us; and God knows what sensations must have been excited +in them by the sight of our torn and whirling ship blindly rushing +before the tempest, her sails in rags, the half-hoisted ensign bitterly +illustrating our miserable condition, and appealing, with a power and +pathos no human cry could express, for help which could not be given. + +"Let us try and heave her to now!" I shrieked, maddened by the sight of +this ship whirling fast away on our quarter. "We can lie by her until +the gale has done and then she will help us!" + +But the boatswain could not control the wheel alone: the blows of the +sea against the rudder made it hard for even four pairs of hands to +hold the wheel steady. I rushed to the companion and bawled for the +steward, and when, after a long pause, he emerged, no sooner did the +wind hit him than he rolled down the ladder. + +I sprang below, hauled him up by the collar of his jacket, and drove +him with both hands to his stern up to the wheel. + +"Hold on to these spokes!" I roared. And then Cornish and I ran +staggering along the poop. + +"Get the end of the starboard main-brace to the capstan!" I cried to +him. "Look alive! ship one of the bars ready!" + +And then I scrambled as best I could down on the main-deck, and went +floundering forward through the water that was now washing higher than +my ankle to the fore-topsail halliards, which I let go. + +Crack! whiz! away went the sail, strips of it flying into the sea like +smoke. + +I struggled back again on to the poop, but the violence of the wind was +almost more than I could bear: it beat the breath out of me; it stung +my face just as if it were filled with needles; it roared in my ears; +it resembled a solid wall; it rolled me off my knees and hands, and +obliged me to drag myself against it bit by bit, by whatever came in my +road to hold on to. + +Cornish lay upon the deck with the end of the main-brace in his hands, +having taken the necessary turns with it around the capstan. + +I laid my weight against the bar and went to work, and scrambling and +panting, beaten half dead by the wind, and no more able to look astern +without protecting my eyes with my hands than I could survey any object +in a room full of blinding smoke, I gradually got the mainyard round, +but found I had not the strength to bring it close to the mast. + +I saw the boatswain speak to the steward, who left the wheel to help +me with his weight against the capstan bar. + +I do think at that moment that the boatswain transformed himself into +an immovable figure of iron. Heaven knows from what measureless inner +sources he procured the temporary strength: he clenched his teeth, and +the muscles in his hands rose like bulbs as he hung to the wheel and +pitted his strength against the blows of the seas upon the rudder. + +Brave, honest fellow! a true seaman, a true Englishman! Well would +it be for sailors were there more of his kind among them to set them +examples of honest labour, noble self-sacrifice, and duty ungrudgingly +performed! + +The seas struck the ship heavily as she rounded to. I feared that +she would have too much head-sail to lie close, for the foresail and +fore-topsail were in ribbons--they might show enough roaring canvas +when coupled with the fore-topmast staysail to make her pay off, we +having no after-sail set to counterbalance the effect of them. + +However, she lay steady, that is, as the compass goes, but rolled +fearfully, wallowing deep like a ship half full of water, and shipped +such tremendous seas that I constantly expected to hear the crash of +the galley stove in. + +I now shaded my eyes to look astern; not hoping, indeed, to see the +steamer near, but expecting at least to find her in sight. But the +horizon was a dull blank: not a sign of the vessel to be seen, nothing +but the rugged line of water, and the nearer deep dark under the shadow +of the leaden pouring clouds. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +In bringing the ship close to the wind in this terrible gale, without +springing a spar, we had done what I never should have believed +practicable to four men, taking into consideration the size of the +ship and the prodigious force of the wind; and when I looked aloft and +considered that only a few hours before, so to speak, the ship was +carrying all the sail that could be put upon her, and that three men +had stripped her of it and put her under a close-reefed main-topsail +fit to encounter a raging hurricane, I could not help thinking that we +had a right to feel proud of our endurance and spirit. + +There was no difficulty now in holding the wheel, and, had no worse sea +than was now running been promised us, the helm might have been lashed +and the vessel lain as comfortably as a smack with her foresail over to +windward. + +The torn sails were making a hideous noise on the yards forward, and +as there was no earthly reason why this clamour should be suffered to +last, I called to Cornish to get his knife ready and help me to cut the +canvas away from the jackstays. We hauled the braces taut to steady the +yards, and then went aloft, and in ten minutes severed the fragments of +the foresail and topsail, and they blew up into the air like paper, and +were carried nearly half a mile before they fell into the sea. + +The wind was killing up aloft, and I was heartily glad to get on deck +again, not only to escape the wind, but on account of the fore-topmast +and top-gallant mast, both of which had been heavily tried, and now +rocked heavily as the ship rolled, and threatened to come down with the +weight of the yards upon them. + +But neither Cornish nor I had strength enough in us to stay the masts +more securely; our journey aloft and our sojourn on the yards, and our +fight with the wind to maintain our hold, had pretty well done for +us; and in Cornish I took notice of that air of lassitude and dull +indifference which creeps upon shipwrecked men when worn out with their +struggles, and which resembles in its way the stupor which falls upon +persons who are perishing of cold. + +It was fair, however, since I had had some rest, that I should now take +a spell at the wheel, and I therefore told Cornish to go to the cabin +lately occupied by Stevens, the ship's carpenter, and turn in, and then +crawled aft to the poop and desired the boatswain to go below and rest +himself, and order the steward, who had not done one-tenth of the work +we had performed, to stand by ready to come on deck if I should call to +him. + +I was now alone on deck, in the centre, so it seemed when looking +around the horizon, of a great storm, which was fast lifting the sea +into mountains. + +I took a turn round the spokes of the wheel and secured the tiller +ropes to steady the helm, and held on, crouching to windward, so that +I might get some shelter from the murderous force of the wind by the +slanting deck and rail. + +I could better now realize our position than when at work, and the +criticalness of it struck and awed me like a revelation. + +I cast my eyes upon the main-topsail, and inspected it anxiously, as +on this sail our lives might depend. If it blew away the only sail +remaining would be the fore-topmast staysail. In all probability the +ship's head would at once pay off, let me keep the helm jammed down as +hard as I pleased; the vessel would then drive before the seas, which, +as she had not enough canvas on her to keep her running at any speed, +would very soon topple over her stern, sweep the decks fore and aft, +and render her unmanageable. + +There was likewise the further danger of the fore-topmast going, the +whole weight of the staysail being upon it. If this went it would take +that sail with it, and the ship would round into the wind's eye and +drive away astern. + +Had there been more hands on board I should not have found these +speculations so alarming. My first job would have been to get some of +the cargo out of the hold and pitch it overboard, so as to lighten the +ship, for the dead weight in her made her strain horribly. Then with +men to help it would have been easy to get the storm trysail on if the +topsail blew away, clap preventer backstays on to the foremast and +fore-topmast, and rouse them taut with tackles, and send down the royal +and top-gallant yards, so as to ease the masts of the immense leverage +of these spars. + +But what could four men do--one of the four being almost useless, and +all four exhausted not by the perils and labour of the storm only, but +by the fight they had had to make for their lives against fellow-beings? + +Alone on deck, with the heavy seas splashing and thundering, and +precipitating their volumes of water over the ship's side, with the +gale howling and roaring through the skies, I grew bitterly despondent. +It seemed as if God Himself were against me, that I was the sport of +some remorseless fate, whereby I was led from one peril to another, +from one suffering to another, and no mercy to be shown me until death +gave me rest. + +And yet I was sensible of no revolt and inward rage against what +I deemed my destiny. My being and individuality were absorbed and +swallowed up in the power and immensity of the tempest, like a +rain-drop in the sea. I was overwhelmed by the vastness of the dangers +which surrounded me, by the sense of the littleness and insignificance +of myself and my companions in the midst of this spacious theatre of +warring winds, and raging seas, and far-reaching sky of pouring cloud. +I felt as though all the forces of nature were directed against my +life; and those cries which my heart would have sent up in the presence +of dangers less tumultuous and immense were silenced by a kind of dull +amazement, of heavy passive bewilderment, which numbed my mind and +forced upon me an indifference to the issue without depriving me of the +will and energy to avert it. + +I held my post at the wheel, being anxious that the boatswain and +Cornish should recruit their strength by sleep, for if one or the other +of them broke down, then, indeed, our case would be deplorable. + +The force of the wind was stupendous, and yet the brave main-topsail +stood it; but not an hour had passed since the two men went below when +a monster wave took the ship on the starboard bow and threw her up, +rolling at the same time an immense body of water on to the decks; her +stern, where I was crouching, sank in the hollow level with the sea, +then as the leviathan wave rolled under her counter, the ship's bows +fell into a prodigious trough with a sickening, whirling swoop. Ere she +could recover, another great sea rolled right upon her, burying her +forecastle, and rushing with the fury of a cataract along the main-deck. + +Another wave of that kind, and our fate was sealed. + +But happily these were exceptional seas; smaller waves succeeded, and +the struggling, straining ship showed herself alive still. + +Alive, but maimed. That tremendous swoop had carried away the jibboom, +and the fore top-gallant mast--the one close against the bowsprit head, +the other a few inches above the top-gallant yard. The mast, with the +royal yard upon it, hung all in a heap against the fore-topmast, but +fortunately kept steady, owing to the yard-arm having jammed itself +into the fore-topmast rigging. The jibboom was clean gone adrift and +was washing away to leeward. + +This was no formidable accident, though it gave the ship a wrecked +and broken look. I should have been well-pleased to see all three +top-gallant masts go over the side, for the weight of the yards, +swaying to and fro at great angles, was too much for the lower-masts, +and not only strained the decks, but the planking to which the +chain-plates were bolted. + +My great anxiety now was for the fore-topmast, which was sustaining +the weight of the broken mast and yard, in addition to the top-gallant +yard, still standing, and the heavy pulling of the fore-topmast +staysail. + +Dreading the consequences that might follow the loss of this sail, I +called to the steward at the top of my voice, and on his thrusting his +head up the companion, I bade him rouse up Cornish and the boatswain, +and send them on deck. + +In a very short time they both arrived, and the boatswain, on looking +forward, immediately comprehended our position and anticipated my order. + +"The topmast 'll go!" he roared in my ear. "Better let go the +staysail-halliards, and make a short job o' it." + +"Turn to and do it at once," I replied. Away they skurried. I lost +sight of them when they were once off the poop, and it seemed an +eternity before they showed themselves again on the forecastle. + +No wonder! They had to wade and struggle through a rough sea on the +main-deck, which obliged them to hold on, for minutes at a time, to +whatever they could put their hands to. + +I wanted them to bear a hand in getting rid of the staysail, for, with +the wheel hard down, the ship showed a tendency to fall off. But it was +impossible for me to make my voice heard; I could only wave my hand; +the boatswain understood the gesture, and I saw him motion to Cornish +to clear off the forecastle. He then ran over to leeward and let go the +fore-topmast staysail sheet and halliards, and, this done, he could do +no more but take to his heels. + +The hullabaloo was frightful--the thundering of the sails, the snapping +and cracking of the sheets. + +Boom! I knew it must follow. It was a choice of two evils--to poop the +ship or lose a mast. + +Down came the topmast, splintering and crashing with a sound that rose +above the roar of the gale, and in a minute was swinging against the +shrouds--an awful wreck to behold in such a scene of raging sea and +buried decks. + +I knew well now what ought to be done, and done without delay; for the +staysail was in the water, ballooning out to every wave, and dragging +the ship's head round more effectually than had the sail been set. + +But I had a wonderful ally in the boatswain--keen, unerring, and +intrepid, a consummate sailor. I should never have had the heart to +give him the order; and yet there he was, and Cornish by his side, at +work, knife in hand, cutting and hacking away for dear life. + +A long and perilous job indeed!--now up aloft, now down, soaked by the +incessant seas that thundered over the ship's bows, tripping over the +raffle that encumbered the deck, actually swarming out on the bowsprit +with their knives between their teeth, at moments plunged deep in the +sea, yet busy again as they were lifted high in the air. + +I draw my breath as I write. I have the scene before me: I see the +ropes parting under the knives of the men. I close my eyes as I behold +once more the boiling wave that buries them, and dare not look, lest +I should find them gone. I hear the hooting of the hurricane, the +groaning of the over-loaded vessel, and over all the faint hurrah those +brave spirits utter as the last rope is severed and the unwieldly wreck +of spars and cordage falls overboard and glides away upon a running +sea, and the ship comes to again under my hand, and braves, with her +bows almost at them, the merciless onslaught of the huge green waves. + +Only the day before, one of these men was a mutineer, blood-stained +already, and prepared for new murders! + +Strange translation! from base villainy to actions heroical! But those +who know sailors best will least doubt their capacity of gauging +extremes. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +By the loss of the fore-topmast the ship was greatly eased. In almost +every sea that we had encountered since leaving England, I had observed +the immense leverage exerted over the deep-lying hull by the weight +of her lofty spars; and by the effect which the carrying away of the +fore-topmast had produced, I had no doubt that our position would be +rendered far less critical, while the vessel would rise to the waves +with much greater ease, if we could rid her of a portion of her immense +top-weight. + +I waited until the boatswain came aft, and then surrendered the wheel +to Cornish; after which I crouched with the boatswain under the lee of +the companion, where, at least, we could hear each other's voices. + +"She pitches easier since that fore-topmast went, bo'sun. There is +still too much top-hamper. The main-royal stay is gone, and the mast +can't stand long, I think, unless we stay it forrard again. But we +mustn't lose the topmast." + +"No, we can't do without him. Yet there's a risk of him goin' too, if +you cut away the top-gall'nt backstays. What's to prevent him?" said +he, looking up at the mast. + +"Oh, I know how to prevent it," I replied. "I'll go aloft with a +hand-saw and wound the mast. What do you think? Shall we let it carry +away?" + +"Yes," he replied promptly. "She'll be another ship with them masts +out of her. If it comes on fine we'll make shift to bend on the new +foresail, and get a jib on her by a stay from the lower mast-head to +the bowsprit end. Then," he continued, calculating on his fingers, +"we shall have the main-topmast stays'l, mizzen-topmast stays'l, +main-topsail, mains'l, mizzen, mizzen-tops'l,--six and two makes +height--height sails on her--a bloomin' show o' canvas!" + +He ran his eye aloft, and said emphatically-- + +"I'm for lettin' of 'em go, most sartinly." + +I got up, but he caught hold of my arm. + +"I'll go aloft," said he. + +"No, no," I replied, "it's my turn. You stand by to cut away the +lanyards to leeward, and then get to windward and wait for me. We must +watch for a heavy lurch, for we don't want the spars to fall amidships +and drive a hole through the deck." + +Saying which I got off the poop and made for the cabin lately shared +between the carpenter and the boatswain, where I should find a saw in +the tool chest. + +I crept along the main-deck to leeward, but was washed off my feet in +spite of every precaution, and thrown with my head against the bulwark, +but the blow was more bewildering than hurtful. Fortunately, everything +was secure, so there were no pounding casks and huge spars driving +about like battering rams, to dodge. + +I found a saw, and also laid hold of the sounding-rod, so that I might +try the well, being always very distrustful of the boatswain's plugs +in the fore hold; but on drawing up the rod out of the sounding-pipe, +I found there were not above five to six inches of water in her, and, +as the pumps sucked at four inches, I had not only the satisfaction of +knowing that the ship was tight in her hull, but that she was draining +in very little water from her decks. + +This discovery of the ship's soundness filled me with joy, and, +thrusting the saw down my waistcoat, I sprang into the main-rigging +with a new feeling of life in me. + +I could not help thinking as I went ploughing and clinging my way up +the ratlines, that the hurricane was less furious than it had been an +hour ago; but this, I dare say, was more my hope than my conviction, +for, exposed as I now was to the full force of the wind, its power and +outcry were frightful. There were moments when it jammed me so hard +against the shrouds that I could not have stirred an inch--no, not to +save my life. + +I remember once reading an account of the wreck of a vessel called the +_Wager_, where it was told that so terrible was the appearance of the +sea that many of the sailors went raving mad with fear at the sight of +it, some throwing themselves overboard in their delirium, and others +falling flat on the deck and rolling to and fro with the motion of the +ship, without making the smallest effort to help themselves. + +I believe that much such a sea as drove those poor creatures wild was +spread below me now, and I can only thank Almighty God for giving me +the courage to witness the terrible spectacle without losing my reason. + +No words that I am master of could submit the true picture of this +whirling, mountainous, boiling scene to you. The waves, fore-shortened +to my sight by my elevation above them, drew nevertheless a deeper +shadow into their caverns, so that, so lively was this deception of +colouring, each time the vessel's head fell into one of these hollows, +it seemed as though she were plunging into a measureless abysm, as +roaring and awful as a maelström, from which it would be impossible +for her to rise in time to lift to the next great wave that was rushing +upon her. + +When, after incredible toil, I succeeded in gaining the cross-trees, I +paused for some moments to recover breath, during which I looked, with +my fingers shading my eyes, carefully all round the horizon, but saw no +ship in sight. + +The topmast was pretty steady, but the top-gallant mast rocked +heavily, owing to the main-royal stay being carried away; moreover, +the boatswain had already let go the royal and top-gallant braces, so +that they might run out when the mast fell, and leave it free to go +overboard; and the yards swinging in the wind and to the plunging of +the ship, threatened every moment to bring down the whole structure of +masts, including all or a part of the topmast, so that I was in the +greatest peril. + +In order, therefore, to lose no time, I put my knife in my teeth, and +shinned up the top-gallant rigging, where, holding on with one hand, I +cut the top-gallant stay adrift, though the strands were so hard that +I thought I should never accomplish the job. This support being gone, +the mast jumped wildly, insomuch that I commended my soul to God, every +instant believing that I should be shaken off the mast or that it would +go overboard with me. + +However, I succeeded in sliding down again into the cross-trees, and +having cut away the top-gallant rigging to leeward, I pulled out my saw +and went to work at the mast with it, sawing the mast just under the +yard, so that it might go clean off at that place. + +When I had sawed deep enough, I cut away the weather rigging and got +down into the maintop as fast as ever I could, and sung out to the +boatswain to cut away to leeward. + +By the time I reached the deck, all was adrift to leeward, and the mast +was now held in its place by the weather backstays. I dropped into the +chains and there helped the boatswain with my knife, and, watching an +opportunity when the ship rolled heavily to leeward, we cut through the +lanyards of the top-gallant backstay, and the whole structure of spar, +yards, and rigging went flying overboard. + +Encouraged by the success of these operations, and well knowing that +a large measure of our safety depended upon our easing the ship of +her top-hamper, I sung out that we would now cut away the mizzen +top-gallant mast, and once more went aloft, though the boatswain begged +hard to take my place this time. + +This spar, being much lighter and smaller, did not threaten me so +dangerously as the other had done, and in a tolerably short space +of time we had sent it flying overboard after the main top-gallant +mast; and all this we did without further injury to ourselves than a +temporary deprivation of strength and breath. + +The ship had now the appearance of a wreck; and yet in her mutilated +condition was safer than she had been at any moment since the gale +first sprang up. The easing her of all this top-weight seemed to make +her as buoyant as though we had got a hundred tons of cargo out of her. +Indeed, I was now satisfied, providing everything stood, and the wind +did not increase in violence, that she would be able to ride out the +gale. + +Cornish (as well as the boatswain and myself) was soaked through and +through; we therefore arranged that the boatswain and I should go +below and shift our clothes, and that the boatswain should then relieve +Cornish. + +So down we went, I, for one, terribly exhausted, but cheered all the +same by an honest hope that we should save our lives and the ship after +all. + +I stepped into the pantry to swallow a dram so as to get my nerves +together, for I was trembling all over with the weariness in me, and +cold as ice on the skin from the repeated dousings I had received; and +then changed my clothes; and never was anything more comforting and +grateful than the feel of the dry flannel and the warm stockings and +sea-boots which I exchanged for shoes that sopped like brown paper and +came to pieces in my hand when I pulled them off. + +The morning was far advanced, a little past eleven. I was anxious to +ask Miss Robertson how she did, and reassure her as to our position +before going on deck to take observations, and therefore went to her +cabin door and listened, meaning to knock and ask her leave to see her +if I heard her voice in conversation with her father. + +I strained my ear, but the creaking and groaning of the ship inside, +and the bellowing of the wind outside, were so violent, that had the +girl been singing at the top of her voice I do not believe that I +should have heard her. + +I longed to see her, and shook the handle of the door, judging that she +would distinguish this sound amid the other noises which prevailed, +and, sure enough, the door opened, and her sweet face looked out. + +She showed herself fully when she saw me, and came into the cuddy, +and was going to address me, but a look of agonized sorrow came into +her face; she dropped on her knees before the bench at the table +and buried her head, and never was there an attitude of grief more +expressive of piteous misery than this. + +My belief was that the frightful rolling of the ship had crazed her +brain, and that she fancied I had come to tell her we were sinking. + +Not to allow this false impression to affect her an instant longer than +could be helped, I dropped on one knee by her side, and at once told +her that the ship had been eased, and was riding well, and that the +gale, as I believed, was breaking. + +She shook her head, still keeping her face buried, as though she would +say that it was not the danger we were in that had given her that +misery. + +"Tell me what has happened?" I exclaimed. "Your troubles and trials +have been very, very great--too great for you to bear, brave and +true-hearted as you are. It unmans me and breaks me down to see you in +this attitude. For your own sake, keep up your courage a little longer. +The first ship that passes when this gale abates will take us on board; +and there are three of us still with you who will never yield an inch +to any danger that may come whilst their life holds out and yours +remains to be saved." + +She upturned her pale face, streaming with tears, and said the simple +words, but in a tone I shall never forget--"Papa is dead!" + +Was it so, indeed? + +And was I so purblind as to wrong her beautiful and heroic character by +supposing her capable of being crazed with fears for her own life. + +I rose from her side, and stood looking at her in silence. I had +nothing to say. + +However dangerous our situation might have been, I should still have +known how to comfort and encourage her. + +But--her father was dead! + +This was a blow I could not avert--a sorrow no labour could remit. It +struck home hard to me. + +I took her hand and raised her, and entered the cabin hand in hand +with her. The moisture of the deck dulled the transparency of the +bull's-eye, but sufficient light was admitted through the port-hole to +enable me to see him. He was as white as a sheet, and his hair frosted +his head, and made him resemble a piece of marble carving. His under +jaw had dropped, and that was the great and prominent signal of the +thing that had come to him. + +Poor old man! lying dead under the coarse blanket, with his thin hands +folded, as though he had died in prayer, and a most peaceful holy calm +in his face! + +Was it worth while bringing him from the wreck for this? + +"God was with him when he died," I said, and I closed his poor eyes as +tenderly as my rough hands would let me. + +She looked at him, speechless with grief, and then burst into an +uncontrollable fit of crying. + +My love and tenderness, my deep pity of her lonely helplessness, were +all so great an impulse in me that I took her in my arms and held her +whilst she sobbed upon my shoulder. I am sure that she knew my sorrow +was deep and real, and that I held her to my heart that she might not +feel her loneliness. + +When her great outburst of grief was passed, I made her sit; and +then she told me that when she had left the deck, she had looked at +her father before lying down, and thought him sleeping very calmly. +He was not dead then. Oh, no! she had noticed by the motion of the +covering on him that he was breathing peacefully. Being very tired she +had fallen asleep quickly, and slept soundly. She awoke, not half an +hour before she heard me trying the handle of the door. The rolling +and straining of the ship frightened her, and she heard one of the +masts go overboard. She got out of bed, meaning to call her father, so +that he might be ready to follow her, if the ship were sinking (as she +believed it was), on to the deck, but could not wake him. She took him +by the arm, and this bringing her close to his face, she saw that he +was dead. She would have called me, but dreaded to leave the cabin lest +she should be separated from her father. Meanwhile she heard the fall +of another mast alongside, and the ship at the moment rolling heavily, +she believed the vessel actually sinking, and flung herself upon +her father's body, praying to God that her death might be mercifully +speedy, and that the waves might not separate them in death. + +At this point she broke down and cried again bitterly. + +When I came to think over what she had gone through during that half +hour--the dead body of her father before her, of him whose life a few +hours before she had no serious fear of, and the bitterness of death +which she had tasted in the dreadful persuasion that the vessel was +sinking, I was too much affected to speak. I could only hold her hands +and caress them, wondering in my heart that God who loves and blesses +all things that are good and pure, should single out this beautiful, +helpless, heroic girl for suffering so complicated and miserable. + +After a while I explained that it was necessary I should leave her, as +I was desirous of observing the position of the sun, and promised, if +no new trouble detained me on deck, to return to her as soon as I had +completed my observations. + +So without further words I came away and got my sextant, and went on +deck. + +I found Cornish still at the wheel, and the boatswain leaning over +the weather side of the ship about half-way down the poop, watching +the hull of the vessel as she rolled and plunged. I might have saved +myself the trouble of bringing the sextant with me, for there was not +only no sign of the sun now, but no promise of its showing itself +even for a minute. Three impenetrable strata of cloud obscured the +heavens: the first, a universal mist or thickness, tolerably bright as +it lay nearest the sun; beneath this, ranges of heavier clouds, which +had the appearance of being stationary, owing to the speed at which +the ponderous smoke-coloured clouds composing the lowest stratum were +swept past them. Under this whirling gloomy sky the sea was tossing +in mountains, and between sea and cloud the storm was sweeping with a +stupendous voice, and with a power so great that no man on shore who +could have experienced its fury there, would believe that anything +afloat could encounter it and live. + +I remained until noon anxiously watching the sky, hoping that the +outline of the sun might swim out, if for a few moments only, and give +me a chance to fix it. + +I was particularly wishful to get sights, because, if the wind abated, +we might be able to wear the ship and stand for the Bermudas, which was +the land the nearest to us that I knew of. But I could not be certain +as to the course to be steered unless I knew my latitude and longitude. +The _Grosvenor_, now hove to in this furious gale, was drifting dead +to leeward at from three to four knots an hour. Consequently, if the +weather remained thick and this monstrous sea lasted, I should be out +of my reckoning altogether next day. This was the more to be deplored, +as every mile was of serious consequence to persons in our position, +as it would represent so many hours more of hard work and bitter +expectation. + +The boatswain had by this time taken the wheel, to let Cornish go below +to change his clothes, and, as no conversation could be carried on in +that unsheltered part of the deck, I reserved what I had to say to him +for another opportunity, and returned to the cuddy. + +I could not bear to think of the poor girl being alone with her dead +father in the darksome cabin, where the grief of death would be +augmented by the dismaying sounds of the groaning timbers and the +furious wash of the water against the ship's side. + +I went to her and begged her to come to me to my own cabin, which, +being to windward and having two bull's-eyes in the deck, was lighter +and more cheerful than hers. + +"Your staying here," I said, "cannot recall your poor father to life, +and I know, if he were alive, he would wish me to take you away. He +will rest quietly here, Miss Robertson, and we will close the cabin +door and leave him for a while." + +I drew her gently from the cabin, and when I had got her into the +cuddy, I closed the door upon the dead old man, and led her by the hand +to my own cabin. + +"I intend," I said, "that you shall occupy this berth, and I will +remove into the cabin next to this." + +She answered in broken tones that she could not bear the thought of +being separated from her father. + +"But you will not be separated from him," I answered, "even though you +should never see him more with your eyes. There is only one separation, +and that is when the heart turns and the memory forgets. He will always +be with you in your thoughts, a dear friend, a dear companion, and +father, as in life; not absent because he is dead, since I think that +death makes those whom we love doubly our own, for they become spirits +to watch over us, to dwell near us, let us journey where we please, and +their affection is not to be chilled by any worldly selfishness. Try +to think thus of the dead. It is not a parting that should pain us. +Your father has set out on his journey before you; death is but a short +leave-taking, and only a man who is doomed to live for ever could look +upon death as an eternal separation." + +She wept quietly, and once or twice looked at me as though she would +smile through her tears, to let me know that she was grateful for my +poor attempts to console her; but she could not smile. Rough and idle +as my words were, yet, in the fulness of my sympathy, and my knowledge +of her trials, and my sense of the dangers which, even as I spoke, were +raging round us, my voice faltered, and I turned to hide my face. + +It happened then that my eye lighted upon the little Bible I had +carried with me in all my voyages ever since I had gone to sea, and I +felt that now, with the old man lying dead, and his poor child's grief, +and our own hard and miserable position, was the fitting time to invoke +God's mercy, and to pray to Him to watch over us. + +I spoke to that effect to Miss Robertson, and said that if she +consented I would call in Cornish and the steward and ask them to join +us; that the boatswain was at the wheel and could not leave his post, +but we might believe that the Almighty would accept the brave man's +faithful discharge of his duty as a prayer, and would not overlook him, +if our prayers were accepted, because he could not kneel in company +with us. + +"Let him know that we are praying," she exclaimed, eagerly, "and he +will pray too." + +I saw that my suggestion had aroused her, and at once left the cabin +and went on deck, and going close to the boatswain I said-- + +"Poor Mr. Robertson is dead, and his daughter is in great grief." + +"Ah, poor lady!" he replied. "I hope God 'll spare her. She's a brave +young woman, and seen a sight more trouble within the last fortnight +than so pretty a gell desarves." + +"Bo'sun, I am going to call in Cornish and the steward, and read +prayers and ask God for His protection. I should have liked you, brave +old messmate, to join; but, as you can't leave the deck, pray with us +in your heart, will you?" + +"Ay, ay, that I will, heartily; an' I hope for the lady's sake that God +Almighty 'll hear us, for I'd sooner die myself than she should, poor +gell, for I'm older, and it's my turn afore hers by rights." + +I clapped him on the back and went below, where I called to the steward +and Cornish, both of whom came aft on hearing my voice. + +During my absence, Miss Robertson had taken the Bible and laid it open +on the table; and when the two men came in I said-- + +"My lads, we are in the hands of God, who is our Father; and I will +ask you to join this lady and me in thanking Him for the mercy and +protection He has already vouchsafed us, and to pray to Him to lead us +out of present peril and bring us safely to the home we love." + +The steward said "Yes, sir," and looked about him for a place to sit or +kneel, but Cornish hung his head and glanced at the door shamefacedly. + +"You need not stop unless you wish, Cornish," said I. "But why should +you not join us? The way you have worked, the honest manner in which +you have behaved, amply atone for the past. From no man can more than +hearty repentance be expected, and we all stand in need of each other's +prayers. Join us, mate." + +"Won't it be makin' a kind of game o' religion for the likes o' me to +pray?" he answered. "I was for murderin' you an' the lady and all hands +as are left on board this wessel--what 'ud be the use o' _my_ prayers?" + +Miss Robertson went over to him and took his hand. + +"God," said she, "has told us that there is more joy in heaven over one +sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need +no repentance. But who is good among us, Cornish? Be sure that as you +repent so are you forgiven. My poor father lies dead in his cabin, and +I wish you to pray with me for him, and to pray with us for our own +poor lives. Mr. Royle," she said, "Cornish will stay." + +And with an expression on her face of infinite sweetness and pathos, +she drew him to one of the cushioned lockers and seated herself by his +side. + +I saw that her charming wonderful grace, her cordial tender voice, and +her condescension, which a man of his condition would feel, had deeply +moved him. + +The steward seated himself on the other side of her, and I began to +read from the open book before me, beginning the chapter which she had +chosen for us during my absence on deck. This chapter was the eleventh +of St. John, wherein is related the story of that sickness "which was +not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be +glorified thereby." + +I read only to the thirty-sixth verse, for what followed that did not +closely apply to our position; but there were passages preceding it +which stirred me to the centre of my heart, knowing how they went home +to the mourner, more especially those pregnant lines--"Martha saith +unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the +last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he +that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live," which +made me feel that the words I had formerly addressed to her were not +wholly idle. + +I then turned to St. Matthew, and read from the eighth chapter those +few verses wherein it is told that Christ entered a ship with His +disciples, and that there arose a great storm. Only men in a tempest at +sea, their lives in jeopardy, and worn out with anxiety and the fear of +death, know how great is the comfort to be got out of this brief story +of our Lord's power over the elements, and His love of those whom He +died to save; and, taking this as a kind of text, I knelt down, the +others imitating me, and prayed that He who rebuked the sea and the +wind before His doubting disciples, would be with us who believed in +Him in our present danger. + +Many things I said (feeling that He whom I addressed was our Father, +and that He alone could save us) which have gone from my mind, and +tears stood in my eyes as I prayed; but I was not ashamed to let the +others see them, even if they had not been as greatly affected as +I, which was not the case. Nor would I conclude my prayer without +entreating God to comfort the heart of the mourner, and to receive in +heaven the soul of him for whom she was weeping. + +I then shook Cornish and the steward heartily by the hand, and I am +sure, by the expression in Cornish's face, that he was glad he had +stayed, and that his kneeling in prayer had done him good. + +"Now," said I, "you had best get your dinner, and relieve the +boatswain; and you, steward, obtain what food you can, and bring it to +us here, and then you and the bo'sun can dine together." + +The two men left the cabin, and I went and seated myself beside Miss +Robertson, and said all that I could to comfort her. + +She was very grateful to me for my prayers for herself and her father, +and already, as though she had drawn support from our little service, +spoke with some degree of calmness of his death. It would have made her +happy, she said, could she have kissed him before he died, and have +been awake to attend to any last want. + +I told her that I believed he had died in his sleep, without a +struggle; for, so recent as his death was, less placidity would have +appeared in his face had he died awake or conscious. I added that +secretly I had never believed he would live to reach Valparaiso, had +the ship continued her voyage. He was too old a man to suffer and +survive the physical and mental trials he had passed through; and sad +though his death was under the circumstances which surrounded it, yet +she must think that it had only been hastened a little; for he was +already an old man, and his end might have been near, even had all +prospered and he had reached England in his own ship. + +By degrees I drew her mind away from the subject by leading her +thoughts to our own critical position. At another time I should have +softened my account of our danger: but I thought it best to speak +plainly, as the sense of the insecurity of our lives would in some +measure distract her thoughts from her father's death. + +She asked me if the storm was not abating. + +"It is not increasing in violence," I answered, "which is a good sign. +But there is one danger to be feared which must very shortly take me +on deck. The wind may suddenly lull and blow again hard from another +quarter. This would be the worst thing that could happen to us, for we +should then have what is called a cross sea, and the ship is so deeply +loaded that we might have great difficulty in keeping her afloat." + +"May I go on deck with you?" + +"You would not be able to stand. Feel this!" I exclaimed, as the ship's +stern rose to a sickening height and then came down, down, down, with +the water roaring about her as high as our ears. + +"Let me go with you!" she pleaded. + +"Very well," I replied, meaning to keep her under the companion, +half-way up the ladder. + +I took a big top-coat belonging to the captain and buttoned her up in +it, and also tied his fur cap over her head, so that she would be well +protected from the wind, whilst the coat would keep her dress close +against her. + +I then slipped on my oilskins, and taking a strong grip of her hand to +steady her, led her up the companion ladder. + +"Do not come any farther," said I. + +"Wherever you go I will go," she answered, grasping my arm. + +Admiring her courage and stirred by her words, which were as dear to me +as a kiss from her lips would have been, I led her right on to the deck +over to windward, and made her sit on a small coil of rope just under +the rail. + +The sea was no heavier than it had been since the early morning, and +yet my short absence below had transformed it into a sublime and +stupendous novelty. + +You will remember that not only was the _Grosvenor_ a small ship, but +that she lay deep, with a free board lower by a foot and a half than +she ought to have shown. + +The height from the poop rail to the water was not above twelve feet; +and it is therefore no exaggeration to say that the sea, running from +fifteen to twenty feet high, stood like walls on either side of her. + +To appreciate the effect of such a sea upon a ship like the +_Grosvenor_, you must have crossed the Atlantic in a hurricane, not in +an immense and powerful ocean steamer, but in a yacht. + +But even this experience would not enable you to realise our danger; +for the yacht would not be overloaded with cargo, she would probably be +strong, supple, and light; whereas the _Grosvenor_ was choked to the +height of the hold with seven hundred and fifty tons of dead weight, +and was a Nova Scotia soft wood ship, which means that she might start +a butt at any moment and go to pieces in one of her frightful swoops +downwards. + +Having lodged Miss Robertson in a secure and sheltered place, I crawled +along the poop on to the main-deck and sounded the well again. I found +a trifle over six inches of water in her, which satisfied me that she +was still perfectly tight, and that the extra leakage was owing to the +drainings from the decks. + +I regained the poop and communicated the good news to the boatswain, +who nodded; but I noticed that there was more anxiety in his face than +I liked to see, and that he watched the ship very closely each time she +pitched with extra heaviness. + +Miss Robertson was looking up at the masts with alarmed eyes; but +I pointed to them and smiled, and shook my head to let her know +that their wrecked appearance need not frighten her. I then took +the telescope, and, making it fast over my back, clambered into the +mizzen-top, she watching my ascent with her hands tightly clasped. + +The ensign still roared some half-dozen feet below the gaff-end; it was +a brave bit of bunting to hold on as it did. I planted myself firmly +against the rigging, and carefully swept the weather horizon, and +finding nothing there, pointed the glass to leeward; but all that part +of the sea was likewise a waste of foaming waves, with never a sign of +a ship in all the raging seas. + +I was greatly disappointed, for though no ship could have helped us in +such a sea, yet the sight of one hove to near us--and no ship afloat, +sailer or steamer, but must have hove to in that gale--would have +comforted us greatly, as a promise of help at hand, and rescue to come +when the wind should have gone down. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +All that day the wind continued to blow with frightful force, and the +sky to wear its menacing aspect. On looking, however, at the barometer +at four o'clock in the afternoon, I observed a distinct rise in the +mercury; but I did not dare to feel elated by this promise of an +improvement; for, as I have before said, the only thing the mercury +foretells is a change of weather, but what kind of change you shall +never be sure of until it comes. + +What I most dreaded was the veering of the gale to an opposite quarter, +whereby, a new sea being set running right athwart, or in the eye of +the already raging sea, our decks would be helplessly swept and the +ship grow unmanageable. + +A little after eight the wind sensibly decreased, and, to my great +delight, the sky cleared in the direction whence the gale was blowing, +so that there was a prospect of the sea subsiding before the wind +shifted, that is, if it shifted at all. + +When Cornish, who had been below resting after a long spell, came on +deck and saw the stars shining, and that the gale was moderating, he +stared upwards like one spell-bound, and then, running up to me, seized +my hand and wrung it in silence. + +I heartily returned this mute congratulation, and we both went over +and shook hands with the boatswain; and those who can appreciate the +dangers of the frightful storm that had been roaring about us all day, +and feel with us in the sentiments of despair and helplessness which +the peril we stood in awoke in us, will understand the significance of +our passionate silence as we held each other's hand and looked upon the +bright stars, which shone like the blessing of God upon our forlorn +state. + +I was eager to show Mary Robertson those glorious harbingers, and ran +below to bring her on deck. + +I found her again in the cabin in which her father lay, bending over +his body in prayer. I waited until she turned her head, and then +exclaimed that the wind was falling, and that all the sky in the +north-west was bright with stars, and begged her to follow me and see +them. + +She came immediately, and, after looking around her, cried out in a +rapturous voice-- + +"Oh, Mr. Royle! God has heard our prayers!" and, in the wildness of her +emotions, burst into a flood of tears. + +I held her hand as I answered-- + +"It was your grief that moved me to pray to Him, and I consider you +our guardian angel on board this ship, and that God who loves you will +spare our lives for your sake." + +"No, no; do not say so; I am not worthier than you--not worthier than +the brave boatswain and Cornish, whose repentance would do honour to +the noblest heart. Oh, if my poor father had but been spared to me!" + +She turned her pale face and soft and swimming eyes up to the stars and +gazed at them intently, as though she witnessed a vision there. + +But though the wind had abated, it still blew a gale, and the sea +boiled and tumbled about us and over our decks in a manner that would +have been terrifying had we not seen it in a greater state of fury. + +I sent the steward forward to see if he could get the galley fire to +burn, so as to boil us some water for coffee, for though the ship was +in a warm latitude, yet the wind, owing to its strength, was at times +piercingly cold, and we all longed for a hot drink--a cup of hot coffee +or cocoa being infinitely more invigorating, grateful, and warming than +any kind of spirits drunk cold. + +All that the steward did, however, was to get wet through; and this he +managed so effectually that he came crawling aft, looking precisely as +if he had been fished out of the water with grappling-hooks. + +I lighted a bull's-eye lamp and went to the pumps and sounded the well. + +On hauling up the rod I found to my consternation that there were nine +inches of water in the ship. + +I was so much startled by this discovery that I stood for some moments +motionless; then, bethinking me that one of the plugged auger holes +might be leaking, I slipped forward without saying a word to the +others, and, getting a large mallet from the tool-chest, I entered the +forecastle, so as to get into the fore peak. + +I had not been in the forecastle since the men had left the ship, and +I cannot describe the effect produced upon me by this dark deserted +abode, with its row of idly swinging hammocks glimmering in the light +shed by the bull's-eye lamp; the black chests of the seamen which they +had left behind them; here and there a suit of dark oilskins suspended +by a nail and looking like a hanged man; the hollow space resonant with +the booming thunder of the seas and the mighty wash of water swirling +over the top-gallant deck. + +The whole scene took a peculiarly ghastly significance from the +knowledge that of all the men who had occupied those hammocks and +bunks, one only survived; for four of them we ourselves had killed, and +I could not suppose that the long-boat had lived ten minutes after the +gale had broken upon her. + +I made my way over the cable-ranges, stooping my head to clear the +hammocks, and striking my shins against the sea-chests, and swung +myself into the hold. + +Here I found myself against the water casks, close against the cargo, +and just beyond was the bulk-head behind which the boatswain had hidden +while Stevens bored the holes. + +Carefully throwing the light over the walls, I presently perceived the +plugs or ends of the broom-stick protruding; and going close to them I +found they were perfectly tight, that no sign of moisture was visible +around them. + +It may seem strange that this discovery vexed and alarmed me. + +And yet this was the case. + +It would have made me perfectly easy in my mind to have seen the water +gushing in through one of these holes, because not only would a few +blows of the mallet have set it to rights, but it would have acquainted +me with the cause of the small increase of water in the hold. + +Now that cause must be sought elsewhere. + +Was it possible that the apprehensions I had felt each time the ship +had taken one of her tremendous headers were to be realised?--that she +had strained a butt or started a bolt in some ungetatable place? + +Here where I stood, deep in the ship, below the water-line, it was +frightful to hear her straining, it was frightful to feel her motion. + +The whole place resounded with groans and cries, as if the hold had +been filled with wounded men. + +What bolts, though forged by a Cyclops, could resist that horrible +grinding?--could hold together the immense weight which the sea threw +up as a child a ball, leaving parts of it poised in air, out of water, +unsustained save by the structure that contained it, then letting the +whole hull fall with a hollow, horrible crash into a chasm between the +waves, beating it first here, then there, with blows the force of which +was to be calculated in hundreds of tons? + +I scrambled up through the fore scuttle, and perceiving Cornish smoking +a pipe under the break of the poop, I desired he would go and relieve +the boatswain at the wheel for a short while and send him to me, as I +had something particular to say to him. + +I waited until the boatswain came, as here was the best place I could +choose to conduct a conversation. + +Beyond all question the wind was falling, and though the ship still +rolled terribly, she was not taking in nearly so much water over her +sides. + +I re-trimmed the lamp in my hand, and in a few minutes the boatswain +joined me. + +I said to him at once-- + +"I have just made nine inches of water in the hold." + +"When was that?" he inquired. + +"Ten minutes ago." + +"When you sounded the well before what did you find?" + +"Between five and six inches." + +"I'll tell you what it is, sir," said he. "You'll hexcuse me sayin' of +it, but it's no easy job to get at the true depth of water in a ship's +bottom when she's tumblin' about like this here." + +"I think I got correct soundings." + +"Suppose," he continued, "you drop the rod when she's on her beam ends. +Where's the water? Why, the water lies all on one side, and the rod 'll +come up pretty near dry." + +"I waited until the ship was level." + +"Ah, _you_ did, because you knows your work. But it's astonishin' what +few persons there are as really _does_ know how to sound the pumps. +You'll hexcuse me, sir, but I should like to drop the rod myself." + +"Certainly," I replied, "and I hope you'll make it less than I." + +In order to render my description clear to readers not acquainted with +such details, I may state that in most large ships there is a pipe that +leads from the upper deck, alongside the pumps, down to the bottom or +within a few inches of the bottom of the vessel. The water in the hold +necessarily rises to the height of its own level in this pipe; and in +order to gauge the depth of water, a dry rod of iron, usually graduated +in feet and inches, is attached to the end of a line and dropped down +the tube, and when drawn up the depth of water is ascertained by the +height of the water on the rod. + +It is not too much to say that no method for determining this essential +point in a ship's safety could well be more susceptible of inaccuracy +than this. + +The immersed rod, on being withdrawn from the tube, wets the sides of +the tube; hence, though the rod be dry when it is dropped a second +time, it is wetted in its passage down the tube; and as the accuracy +of its indication is dependent on its exhibiting the mark of the level +of water, it is manifest that if it becomes wetted before reaching the +water, the result it shows on being withdrawn must be erroneous. + +Secondly, as the boatswain remarked to me, if the well be sounded at +any moment when the vessel is inclined at any angle on one side or the +other, the water must necessarily roll to the side to which the vessel +inclines, by which the height of the water in the well is depressed, so +that the rod will not report the true depth. + +Hence, to use the sounding-rod properly, one must not only possess good +sense, but exercise very great judgment. + +I held the lamp close to the sounding-pipe, and the boatswain carefully +dried the rod on his coat preparatory to dropping it. + +He then let it fall some distance down the tube, keeping it, however, +well above the bottom, until the ship, midway in a roll, stood for a +moment on a level keel. + +He instantly dropped the rod, and hauling it up quickly, remarked that +we had got the true soundings this time. + +He held the rod to the light, and I found it a fraction over nine +inches. + +"That's what it is, anyways," said he, putting down the rod. + +"An increase of three inches since the afternoon." + +"Well, there's nothen to alarm us in that, is there, Mr. Royle?" he +exclaimed. "Perhaps its one o' my plugs as wants hammerin'." + +"No, they're as tight as a new kettle," I answered. "I have just come +from examining them." + +"Well, all we've got to do is to pump the ship out; and, if we can, +make the pumps suck all right. That 'll show us if anything's wrong." + +This was just the proposition I was about to make; so I went into the +cuddy and sang out for the steward, but he was so long answering that I +lost my temper and ran into the pantry, where I found him shamming to +be asleep. + +I started him on to his legs and had him on the main-deck in less time +than he could have asked what the matter was. + +"Look here!" I cried, "if you don't turn to and help us all to save our +lives, I'll just send you adrift in that quarter-boat with the planks +out of her bottom! What do you mean by pretending to be asleep when I +sing out to you?" + +And after abusing him for some time to let him know that I would have +no skulking, and that if his life were worth having he must save it +himself, for we were not going to do his work and our own as well, I +bid him lay hold of one of the pump-handles, and we all three of us set +to work to pump the ship. + +If this were not the heaviest job we had yet performed, it was the most +tiring; but we plied our arms steadily and perseveringly, taking every +now and then a spell of rest, and shifting our posts so as to vary our +postures; and after pumping I scarcely know how long, the pumps sucked, +whereat the boatswain and I cheered heartily. + +"Now, sir," said the boatswain, as we entered the cuddy to refresh +ourselves with a drain of brandy and water after our heavy exertions, +"we know that the ship's dry, leastways, starting from the ship's +bottom; if the well's sounded agin at half-past ten--its now half-past +nine--that 'll be time enough to find out if anything's gone wrong." + +"How about the watches? We're all adrift again. Here's Cornish at the +wheel, and its your watch on deck." + +As I said this, Miss Robertson came out of the cabin where her father +lay--do what I might I could not induce her to keep away from the old +man's body--and approaching us slowly asked why we had been pumping. + +"Why, ma'm," replied the boatswain, "it's always usual to pump the +water out o' wessels. On dry ships it's done sometimes in the mornin' +watch, and t'others they pumps in the first dog watch. All accordin'. +Some wessels as they calls colliers require pumpin' all day long; and +the _Heagle_, which was the fust wessel as I went to sea in, warn't the +only Geordie as required pumpin' not only all day long but all night +long as well. Every wessel has her own custom, but it's a werry dry +ship indeed as don't want pumpin' wunce a day." + +"I was afraid," she said, "when I heard the clanking of the pumps that +water was coming into the ship." + +She looked at me earnestly, as though she believed that this was the +case and that I would not frighten her by telling her so. I had learnt +to interpret the language of her eyes by this time, and answered her +doubts as though she had expressed them. + +"I should tell you at once if there was any danger threatened in that +way," I said. "There was more water in the ship than I cared to find in +her, and so the three of us have been pumping her out." + +"About them watches, Mr. Royle?" exclaimed the boatswain. + +"Well, begin afresh, if you like," I replied. "I'll take the wheel for +two hours, and then you can relieve me." + +"Why will you not let me take my turn at the wheel?" said Miss +Robertson. + +The boatswain laughed. + +"I have proved to you that I know how to steer." + +"Well, that's right enough," said the boatswain. + +"All three of you can lie down, then." + +I smiled and shook my head. + +Said the boatswain: "If your arms wur as strong as your sperrit Miss, +there'd be no reason why you shouldn't go turn and turn about with us." + +"But I can hold the wheel." + +"It 'ud fling you overboard. Listen to its kickin'. You might as well +try to prewent one o' Barclay Perkins' dray hosses from bustin' into +a gallop by catchin' hold o' it's tail. It 'ud be a poor look-out +for us to lose you, I can tell yer. What," continued the boatswain, +energetically, "we want to know is that you're sleepin', and forgettin' +all this here excitement in pleasing dreams. To see a lady like you +knocked about by a gale o' wind is just one o' them things I have no +fancy for. Mr. Royle, if I had a young and beautiful darter, and a +Dook or a Barryonet worth a thousand a year, if that ain't sayin' +too much, wos to propose marriage to her, an' ax her to come and be +married to him in some fur-off place, wich 'ud oblige her to cross the +water, blowed if I'd consent. No flesh an' blood o' mine as I had any +kind o' feeling for should set foot on board ship without fust having +a row with me. Make no mistake. I'm talkin' o' females, Miss. I say +the sea ain't a fit place for women and gells. It does middlin' well +for the likes of me and Mr. Royle here, as aren't afraid o' carryin' +full-rigged ships and other agreeable dewices in gunpowder and Hindian +ink on our harms, and is seasoned, as the sayin' is, to the wexations +o' the mariner's life. But when it comes to young ladies crossin' the +ocean, an' I don't care wot they goes as--as passengers or skippers' +wives, or stewardishes, or female hemigrants--then I say it ain't +proper, and if I'd ha' been a lawyer I'd ha' made it agin the law, +and contrived such a Act of Paleyment as 'ud make the gent as took +his wife, darter, haunt, cousin, grandmother, female nephey, or any +relations in petticoats to sea along with him, wish hisself hanged +afore he paid her passage money." + +I was so much impressed by this vehement piece of rhetoric, delivered +with many convulsions of the face, and a great deal of hand-sawing, +that I could not forbear mixing him some more brandy and water, which +he drank at a draught, having first wished Miss Robertson and myself +long life and plenty of happiness. + +His declamation had quite silenced her, though I saw by her eyes that +she would renew her entreaties the moment she had me alone. + +"Then you'll go on deck, sir, and relieve Cornish, and I'll turn in?" +observed the boatswain. + +"Yes." + +"Right," said he, and was going. + +I added: + +"We must sound the well again at half-past ten." + +"Aye! aye!" + +"I shan't be able to leave the wheel, and I would rather you should +sound than Cornish. I'll send the steward to rouse you." + +"Very well," said he. And after waiting to hear if I had anything more +to say, he entered his cabin, and in all probability was sound asleep +two minutes after. + +Miss Robertson stood near the table, with her hands folded and her eyes +bent down. + +I was about to ask her to withdraw to her cabin and get some sleep. + +"Mr. Royle, you are dreadfully tired and worn out, and yet you are +going on deck to remain at the wheel for two hours." + +"That is nothing." + +"Why will you not let me take your place?" + +"Because----" + +"Let the steward keep near that ladder there, so that I can call to him +if I want you." + +"Do you think I could rest with the knowledge you were alone on deck?" + +"You refuse because you believe I am not to be trusted," she said +gently, looking down again. + +"If your life were not dependent on the ship's safety, I should not +think of her safety, but of yours. I refuse for your own sake, not for +mine--no, I will not say that. For _both_ our sakes I refuse. I have +one dear hope--well, I will call it a great ambition, which I need not +be ashamed to own: it is, that I may be the means of placing you on +shore in England. This hope has given me half the courage with which +I have fought on through danger after danger since I first brought you +from the wreck. If anything should happen to you now, I feel that all +the courage and strength of heart which have sustained me would go. +Is that saying too much? I do not wish to exaggerate," I exclaimed, +feeling the blood in my cheeks, and lamenting, without being able to +control, the impulse that had forced this speech from me, and scarcely +knowing whether to applaud or detest myself for my candour. + +She looked up at me with her frank, beautiful eyes, but on a sudden +averted them from my face to the door of the cabin where her dead +father lay. A look of indescribable anguish came over her, and she drew +a deep, long, sobbing breath. + +Without another word, I took her hand and led her to the cabin, and I +knew the reason why she did not turn and speak to me was that I might +not see she was weeping. + +But it was a time for action, and I dared not let the deep love that +had come to me for her divert my thoughts from my present extremity. + +I summoned the steward, who tumbled out of his cabin smartly enough, +and ordered him to bring his mattress and lay it alongside the +companion ladder so as to be within hail. + +This done, I gained the poop and sent Cornish below. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +As I stood at the wheel I considered how I should act when the storm +had passed. And I was justified in so speculating, because now the sky +was clear right away round, and the stars large and bright, though a +strong gale was still blowing and keeping the sea very heavy. + +Indeed, the clearness of the sky made me think that the wind would go +to the eastward, but as yet there was no sign of it veering from the +old quarter. + +We had been heading west ever since we hove to, and travelling +broadside on dead south south-east. Now, if wind and sea dropped, our +business would be to make sail if possible, and, with the wind holding +north north-west, make an eight hours' board north-easterly, and then +round and stand for Bermuda. + +This, of course, would depend upon the weather. + +It was, however, more than possible that we should be picked up very +soon by some passing ship. It was not as though we were down away in +the South Pacific, or knocking about in the poisonous Gulf of Guinea, +or up in the North Atlantic at 60°. We were on a great ocean highway, +crossed and re-crossed by English, American, Dutch, and French ships, +to and from all parts of the world; and bad indeed would our fortune +be, and baleful the star under which we sailed, if we were not +overhauled in a short time and assistance rendered us. + +A great though unexpressed ambition of mine was to save the ship and +navigate her myself, not necessarily to England, but to some port +whence I could communicate with her owners and ask for instructions. + +As I have elsewhere admitted, I was entirely dependent on my +profession, my father having been a retired army surgeon, who had died +extremely poor, leaving me at the age of twelve an orphan, with no +other friend in the world than the vicar of the parish we dwelt in, +who generously sent me to school for two years at his own expense, and +then, after sounding my inclinations, apprenticed me to the sea. + +Under such circumstances, therefore, it would be highly advantageous +to my interests to save the ship, since my doing so would prefer some +definite claims upon the attention of the owners, or perhaps excite +the notice of another firm more generous in their dealings with their +servants, and of a higher commercial standing. + +Whilst I stood dreaming in this manner at the wheel, allowing my +thoughts to run on until I pictured myself the commander of a fine +ship, and ending in allowing my mind to become engrossed with thoughts +of Mary Robertson, whom I believed I should never see again after we +had bidden each other farewell on shore, and who would soon forget the +young second mate, whom destiny had thrown her with for a little time +of trouble and suffering and death, I beheld a figure advance along the +poop, and on its approach I perceived the boatswain. + +"I've been sounding the well, Mr. Royle," said he. "I roused up on a +sudden and went and did it, as I woke up anxious; and there's bad news, +sir, twelve inches o' water." + +"Twelve inches!" I cried. + +"It's true enough. I found the bull's-eye on the cuddy table, and the +rod don't tell no lies when it's properly used." + +"The pumps suck at four inches, don't they?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then that's a rise of eight inches since half-past nine o'clock. What +time is it now?" + +"Twenty minutes arter ten." + +"We must man the pumps at once. Call Cornish. You'll find the steward +on a mattress against the companion ladder." + +He paused a moment to look round him at the weather, and then went away. + +I could not doubt now that the ship was leaky, and after what we +had endured, and my fond expectation of saving the vessel--and the +miserable death, after all our hopes, that might be in store for us--I +felt that it was very very hard on us, and I yielded to a fit of +despair. + +What struck most home to me was that my passionate dream to save Mary +Robertson might be defeated. The miseries which had been accumulated on +her wrung my heart to think of. First her shipwreck, and then the peril +of the mutiny, and then the dreadful storm that had held us face to +face with death throughout the fearful day, and then the death of her +father, and now this new horror of the ship whereon we stood filling +with water beneath our feet. + +Yet hope--and God be praised for this mercy to all men--springs +eternal, and after a few minutes my despair was mastered by reflection. +If the ship made no more water than eight inches in three-quarters +of an hour, it would be possible to keep her afloat for some days by +regular spells at the pump, and there were four hands to work them if +Miss Robertson steered whilst we pumped. In that time it would be a +thousand to one if our signal of distress was not seen and answered. + +Presently I heard the men pumping on the main-deck, and the boatswain's +voice singing to encourage the others. What courage that man had! I, +who tell this story, am ashamed to think of the prominence I give to +my own small actions when all the heroism belongs to him. I know not +what great writer it was who, visiting the field of the battle of +Waterloo, asked how it was that the officers who fell in that fight had +graves and monuments erected to them, when the soldiers--the privates +by whom all the hard work was done, who showed all the courage and won +the battle--lay nameless in hidden pits? And so when we send ships to +discover the North Pole we have little to say about poor Jack, who +loses his life by scurvy, or his toes and nose by frost-bites, who +labours manfully, and who makes all the success of the expedition +so far as it goes. Our shouts are for Jack's officer; we title him, +we lionize him--_his_ was all the work, all the suffering, all the +anxiety, we think. I, who have been to sea, say that Jack deserves as +much praise as his skipper, and perhaps a little more; and if honour +is to be bestowed, let Jack have his share; and if a monument is to be +raised, let poor Jack's name be written on the stone as well as the +other's; for be sure that Jack could have done without the other, but +also be sure that the other couldn't have done without Jack. + +Chained to my post, which I dared not vacate for a moment, for the ship +pitched heavily, and required close watching as she came to and fell +off upon the swinging seas, I grew miserably anxious to learn how the +pumping progressed, and felt that, after the boatswain, my own hands +would do four times the work of the other two. + +It was our peculiar misfortune that of the four men on board the ship +three only should be capable; and that as one of the three men was +constantly required at the wheel, there were but two available men +to do the work. Had the steward been a sailor our difficulties would +have been considerably diminished, and I bitterly deplored my want +of judgment in allowing Fish and the Dutchman to be destroyed; for +though I would not have trusted Johnson and Stevens, yet the other two +might have been brought over to work for us, and I had no doubt that +the spectacle of the perishing wretches in the long-boat, as she was +whirled past us, would have produced as salutary an effect upon them as +it had upon Cornish; and with two extra hands of this kind we could not +only have kept the pumps going, but have made shift to sail the ship +at the same time. + +The hollow thrashing sounds of the pump either found Miss Robertson +awake or aroused her, for soon after the pumping had commenced she came +on deck, swathed in the big warm overcoat and fur cap. + +Such a costume for a girl must make you laugh in the description; and +yet, believe me, she lost in nothing by it. The coat dwarfed her figure +somewhat, but the fur cap looked luxurious against her fair hair, +and nothing could detract from the exquisite femininity of her face, +manner, and carriage. I speak of the impression she had made on me in +the daytime; the starlight only revealed her white face now to me. + +"Is the water still coming into the ship?" she asked. + +"The bo'sun has reported to me that eight inches deep have come into +her since half-past nine." + +"Is that much?" + +"More than we want." + +"I don't like to trouble you with my questions, Mr. Royle; but I am +very, very anxious." + +"Of course you are; and do not suppose that you can trouble. Ask me +what you will. I promise to tell you the truth." + +"If you find that you cannot pump the water out as fast as it comes in, +what will you do?" + +"Leave the ship." + +"How?" she exclaimed, looking around her. + +"By that quarter-boat there." + +"But it would fill with water and sink in such waves as these." + +"These waves are not going to last, and it is quite likely that by +this time to-morrow the sea will be calm." + +"Will the ship keep afloat until to-morrow?" + +"If the water does not come in more rapidly than it does at present, +the ship will keep afloat so long as we can manage to pump her out +every hour. And so," said I, laughing to encourage her, "we are not +going to die all at once, you see." + +She drew quite close to me and said-- + +"I shall never fear death while you remain on board, Mr. Royle. You +have saved me from death once, and, though I may be wicked in daring to +prophesy, yet I feel _certain_--_certain_," she repeated, with singular +emphasis, "that you will save my life again." + +"I shall try very hard, be sure of that," I answered. + +"I believe--no, it is not so much a belief as a strong conviction, +with which my mind seems to have nothing to do, that, whatever dangers +may be before us, you and I will not perish." + +She paused, and I saw that she was looking at me earnestly. + +"You will not think me superstitious if I tell you that the reason of +my conviction is a dream? My poor father came and stood beside me: he +was so _real_! I stretched out my arms to him, and he took my hand and +said, '_Darling, do not fear! He who has saved your life once will +save it again. God will have mercy upon you and him for the prayers +you offered to Him._' He stooped and kissed me and faded away, and I +started up and heard the men pumping. I went to look at him, for I +thought ... I thought he had really come to my side.... Oh, Mr. Royle, +his spirit is with us!" + +Though my mind was of too prosaic a turn to catch at any significance +in a dream, yet there was a strange, deep, solemn tenderness in her +voice and manner as she related this vision, that impressed me. It made +my heart leap to hear her own sweet lips pronounce her faith in me, +and my natural hopes and longings for life gathered a new light and +enthusiasm from her own belief in our future salvation. + +"Shipwrecked persons have been saved by a dream before now," I replied, +gravely. "Many years ago a vessel called the _Mary_ went ashore on some +rocks to the southward of one of the Channel Islands. A few of the +crew managed to gain the rocks, where they existed ten or twelve days +without water or any kind of food save limpets, which only increased +their thirst without relieving their hunger. A vessel bound out of +Guernsey passed the rocks at a distance too far away to observe the +signals of distress made by the perishing men. But the son of the +captain had twice dreamed that there were persons dying on those rocks, +and so importuned his father to stand close to them that the man with +great reluctance consented. In this way, and by a dream, those sailors +were saved. Though I do not, as a rule, believe in dreams, I believe +this story to be true, and I believe in your dream." + +She remained silent, but the ship presently giving a sudden lurch, she +put her hand on my arm to steady herself, and kept it there. Had I +dared I should have bent my head and kissed the little hand. She could +not know how much she made me love her by such actions as this. + +"The boatswain has told me," she said, after a short silence, "that you +want to save the ship. I asked him why? Are you angry with me for being +curious?" + +"Not in the least. What did he answer?" + +"He said that you thought the owners would recompense you for your +fidelity, and promote you in their service." + +"Now how could he know this? I have never spoken such thoughts to him." + +"It would not be difficult to guess such a wish." + +"Well, I don't know that I have any right to expect promotion or +recompense of any kind from owners who send their ship to sea so badly +provisioned that the men mutiny." + +"But if the water gains upon the ship you will not be able to save her?" + +"No, she must sink." + +"What will you do then?" + +"Put you on shore or on board another ship," I replied, laughing at my +own evasion, for I knew what she meant. + +"Oh, of course, if we do not reach the shore we shall none of us be +able to do anything," she said, dropping her head, for she stood close +enough to the binnacle light to enable me to see her movements and +almost catch the expression on her face. "I mean what will you do when +we get ashore?" + +"I must try to get another ship." + +"To command?" + +"Oh dear no! as second mate, if they'll have me." + +"If command of a ship were given you would you accept it?" + +"If I could, but I can't." + +She asked quickly, "Why not?" + +"Because I have not passed an examination as master." + +She was silent again, and I caught myself listening eagerly to the +sound of the pumping going on on the main-deck and wondering at my own +levity in the face of our danger. But I could not help forgetting a +very great deal when she was at my side. + +All at once it flashed upon me that her father owned several ships, and +that her questions were preliminary to her offering me the command of +one of them. + +I give you my honour that all recollection of who and what she was, +of her station on shore, of her wealth as the old man's heiress, had +as absolutely gone out of my mind as if the knowledge had never been +imparted. What she was to me--what love and the wonderful association +of danger and death had endeared her to me as--was what she was as she +stood by my side, a sweet and gentle woman whom my heart was drawing +closer and closer to every hour, whose life I would have died to +preserve, whose danger made my own life a larger necessity to me than I +should have felt it. + +A momentary emotion of disappointment, a resentment whereof I knew not +the meaning, through lacking the leisure or the skill to analyse it, +made me turn and say-- + +"Would you like me to command one of your ships, Miss Robertson?" + +"Yes," she answered, promptly. + +"As a recompense for my humane efforts to preserve you from drowning?" + +She withdrew her hand from my arm and inclined her head to look me full +in the face. + +"Mr. Royle, I never thought you would speak to me like that." + +"I want no recompense for what I have done, Miss Robertson." + +"I have not offered you any recompense." + +"Let me feel," I said, "that you understand it is possible for an +English sailor to do his duty without asking or expecting any manner of +reward. The Humane Society's medals are not for him." + +"Why are you angry with me?" she exclaimed, sinking her head, and +speaking with a little sob in her voice. + +I was stirred to the heart by her broken tones, and answered-- + +"I am not angry. I could not be angry with you. I wish you to feel that +what I have done, that whatever I may do is ... is...." + +I faltered and stopped--an ignominious break down! though I think it +concealed the true secret of my resentment. + +I covered my confusion by taking her hand, and resting it on my arm +again. + +"Do you mean," she said, "that all you have done has been for my sake +only--out of humanity--that you would do as much for anybody else?" + +"No," said I, boldly. + +Again she withdrew her hand and remained silent, and I made up my mind +not to interrupt her thoughts. + +After a few moments she went to the ship's side, and stood there; +sometimes looking at the stars, and sometimes at the water that +stretched away into the gloom in heavy breaking seas. + +The wind was singing shrilly up aloft, but the sounds of the pumping +ceased on a sudden. + +I awaited the approach of the boatswain with inexpressible anxiety. +After an interval I saw his figure come up the poop ladder. + +"Pumps suck!" he roared out. + +"Hurrah!" I shouted. "Down with you for grog all round," for the other +two were following the boatswain. But they all came aft first and stood +near the wheel, blowing like whales, and Miss Robertson joined the +group. + +"If it's no worse than this, bo'sun," I exclaimed, "she'll do." + +"Aye, she'll do, sir; but it's hard work. My arms feel as though they +wos tied up in knots." + +"So do mine," said the steward. + +"Shall I take the wheel?" asked Cornish. + +"No; go and get some grog and turn in, all of you. I am as fresh as a +lark, and will stay here till twelve o'clock," I replied. + +The steward at once shuffled below. + +"Boatswain, ask Mr. Royle to let me take the wheel," said Miss +Robertson. "He has been talking to me for the last half-hour and +sometimes held the wheel with one hand. I am sure I can hold it." + +"As you won't go below, Miss Robertson, you shall steer; but I will +stop by you," I said. + +"That will be of no use!" she exclaimed. + +Cornish smothered a laugh and walked away. + +"Now, bo'sun, down with you," I cried. "I'll have you up again shortly +to sound the well. But half an hour's sleep is something. If you get +knocked up, I lose half the ship's company--two-thirds of it." + +"All right, sir," he replied, with a prodigious yawn. "You an' the lady +'ll know how to settle this here business of steering." + +And off he went. + +"You see how obedient these men are, Miss Robertson. Why will you not +obey orders, and get some sleep?" + +"I have offended you, Mr. Royle, and I am very, very sorry." + +"Let us make peace then," I said, holding out my hand. + +She took it; but when I had got her hand, I would not let it go for +some moments. + +She was leaving the deck in silence when she came back and said-- + +"If we should have to leave this ship suddenly, I should not like--it +would make me unhappy for ever to think of poor papa left in her." + +She spoke, poor girl, with a great effort. + +I answered immediately-- + +"Any wish you may express shall be carried out." + +"He would go down in this ship without a prayer said for him," she +exclaimed, sobbing. + +"Will you leave this with me? I promise you that no tenderness, no +reverence, no sincere sorrow shall be wanting." + +"Mr. Royle, you are a dear good friend to me. God knows how lonely I +should have been without you--and yet--I made you angry." + +"Do not say that. What I do I do for your safety--for your ultimate +happiness--so that when we say farewell to each other on shore, I +may feel that the trust which God gave me in you was honourably and +faithfully discharged. I desire, if our lives are spared, that this +memory may follow me when all this scene is changed, and we behold it +again only in our dreams. I should have told you my meaning just now, +but one cannot always express one's thoughts." + +"You have told me your meaning, and I shall not forget it. God bless +you!" she exclaimed, in her calm, earnest voice, and went slowly down +into the cuddy. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The wind still continued a brisk gale and the sea very heavy. Yet +overhead it was a glorious night, and as the glass had risen steadily, +I was surprised to find the wild weather holding on so long. + +I busied my head with all kinds of schemes to save the ship, and +believed it would be no hard matter to do so if the water did not come +into her more quickly than she was now making it. + +Unfortunately, there were only two parts of the ship's hold which we +could get into: namely, right forward in the fore peak, and right aft +down in the lazarette. If she had strained a butt, or started any part +of her planking or outer skin, amidships or anywhere in her bottom +between these two points, there would be no chance of getting at the +leak unless the cargo were slung out of her. + +But the leak could not be considered very serious that did not run a +greater depth of water into the ship than under a foot an hour; and +with the Bermudas close at hand and the weather promising fair, I could +still dare to think it possible, despite the hopes and fears which +alternately depressed and elevated me, to bring the vessel to port, all +crippled and under-manned as she was. + +These speculations kept me busily thinking until half-past eleven, on +which I bawled to the steward, who got up and called the boatswain and +Cornish, though I only wanted the boatswain. Cornish thought it was +midnight and his turn to take the wheel, so he came aft. I resigned +my post, being anxious to get on the main-deck, where I found the +bo'sun in the act of sounding the well, he having lost some time in +re-lighting the lamp, which had burnt out. + +He dropped the rod carefully and found the water thirteen inches +deep,--that was, nine inches high in the pumps. + +"Just what I thought," said he; "she's takin' of it at a foot an hour, +no better and no worse." + +"Well, we must turn to," I exclaimed. "We mustn't let it rise above a +foot, as every inch will make our work longer and harder." + +"If it stops at that, good and well," said the boatswain. "But there's +always a hif in these here sinkin' cases. However, there's time enough +to croak when the worst happens." + +He called to the steward, and we all three went to work and pumped +vigorously, and kept the handles grinding and clanking, with now and +again a spell of a couple of minutes' rest between, until the pumps +gave out the throaty sound which told us that the water was exhausted. + +Though this proved beyond a doubt that, providing the leak remained as +it was, we should be able to keep the water under, the prospect before +us of having to work the pumps every hour was extremely disheartening; +all four of us required sleep to put us right, and already our bones +were aching with weariness. Yet it was certain that we should be able +to obtain at the very best but brief snatches of rest; and I for one +did not even promise myself so much, for I had strong misgivings as to +the condition of the ship's bottom, and was prepared, at any moment, to +find the water gaining more rapidly upon us than we could pump it out, +though I kept my fears to myself. + +I had been on deck now for four hours at one stretch; so, leaving +Cornish at the wheel, I lay down on the steward's mattress in the +cuddy, whilst he seated himself on the bench with his head upon the +cuddy table, and snored in that posture. + +But we were all aroused again within the hour by Cornish, who called +to us down the companion, and away we floundered, with our eyes gummed +up with sleep, to the pumps, and wearily worked them like miserable +automatons. + +The dawn found me again at the wheel, having been there half an hour. + +I scanned the broken desolate horizon in the pale light creeping over +it, but no ship was in sight. The sea, though not nearly so dangerous +as it had been, was terribly sloppy, short, and quick, and tumbled +very often over the ship's sides, making the decks, with the raffle +that encumbered them, look wretched. + +I had not had my clothes off me for some days, and the sense of +personal discomfort in no small degree aggravated the profound feeling +of weariness which ached like rheumatism in my body and absolutely +stung in my legs. The skin of my face was hard and dry with long +exposure to the terrible wind and the salt water it had blown and dried +upon it; and though my underclothing was dry, yet it produced all the +sensation of dampness upon my skin, and never in all my life had I +felt so uncomfortable, weary, and spiritless as I did standing at the +wheel when the dawn broke and I looked abroad upon the rugged fields +of water, and found no vessel in sight to inspire me with a moment's +emotion of hope. + +I was replaced at the wheel by the boatswain, and took another turn +at the pumps. When this harassing job was ended, I went into the +forecastle, making my way thither with much difficulty. + +I had a sacred duty to perform, and now that the daylight was come it +was proper I should go to work. + +On entering the forecastle I looked around me on the empty hammocks +swinging from the deck, and finding one that looked new and clean, took +it down and threw the mattress and blankets out of it and folded it up +as a piece of canvas. + +I then searched the carpenter's berth for a sail needle, twine, and +palm, which things, together with the hammock, I took aft. + +On reaching the cuddy I called Cornish, whose services in this matter I +preferred to the steward's, and bid him follow me into the cabin where +the old man's body lay. + +When there, I closed the door and informed him that we should bury +the poor old gentleman when the morning was more advanced, and that I +wished him to help me to sew up the body in the hammock. + +God knows I had rather that any man should have undertaken this job +than I; but it was a duty I was bound to perform, and I desired, +for Miss Robertson's sake, that it should be carried out with all +the reverence and tenderness that so rude and simple a burial was +susceptible of, and nothing done to cause the least violence to her +feelings. + +We spread the hammock open on the deck, and lifted the body and placed +it on the hammock, and rolled a blanket over it. A very great change +had come over the face of the corpse since death, and I do not think +I should have known it as the kindly, dignified countenance, reverent +with its white hair and beard, that had smiled at me from the bunk and +thanked me for what I had done. + +For what I had done!--alas! how mocking was this memory now!--with what +painful cynicism did that lonely face illustrate the power of man over +the great issues of life and death! + +I brought the sides of the hammock to meet over the corpse and held +them while Cornish passed the stitches. I then sent him to find me a +big holystone or any pieces of iron, so as to sink the body, and he +brought some pieces of the stone, which I secured in the clues at the +foot of the hammock. + +We left the face exposed and raised the body on to the bunk and covered +it over; after which I despatched Cornish for a carpenter's short-stage +I had noticed forward, and which was in use for slinging the men over +the ship's side for scraping or painting her. A grating would have +answered our purpose better, but the hatches were battened down, the +tarpaulins over them, and there was no grating to be got at without +leaving the hatchway exposed. + +I dressed this short-stage in the big ensign, and placed it on the +upper bunk ready to be used, and then told Cornish to stand by with the +steward, and went aft and knocked at Miss Robertson's door. + +My heart was in my throat, for this mission was even more ungrateful +to me than the sewing up of the body had been, and I was afraid that +I should not be able to address her tenderly enough, and show her how +truly I mourned for and with her. + +As I got no answer, I was leaving, wishing her to obtain all the sleep +she could, but when I had gone a few paces she came out and followed +me. + +"Did you knock just now, Mr. Royle?" she asked. + +I told her yes, but could not immediately summon up courage enough to +tell her why I had knocked. + +She looked at me inquiringly, and I began to reproach myself for my +weakness, and still I could not address her; but seeing me glance +towards her father's cabin she understood all on a sudden, and covered +her face with her hands. + +"I have left his face uncovered for you to kiss," I said, gently laying +my hand on her arm. + +She went at once into his cabin, and I closed the door upon her and +waited outside. + +She did not keep me long waiting. I think, brave girl that she was, +even amid all her desolating sorrow, that she knew I would wish the +burial over so that we might address ourselves again to the ship. + +"I leave him to you now," she said. + +I thought she meant that she would not witness the funeral, and was +glad that she had so resolved, and I accordingly took her hand to lead +her away to her cabin. + +"Let me be with you!" she exclaimed. "Indeed, indeed, I am strong +enough to bear it. I should not be happy if I did not know the moment +when he left me, that I might pray to God for him then." + +"Be it so," I answered. "I will call you when we are ready." + +She left me; and Cornish and the steward and I went into the cabin to +complete the mournful preparations. + +I cased the body completely in the hammock, and we then raised it +up and laid it upon the stage, which we had made to answer for a +stretcher, and over it I threw a sheet, so that only the sheet and the +ensign were visible. + +This done, I consulted with Cornish as to what part of the deck we +should choose in order to tilt the body overboard. It is generally the +custom to rest the body near the gangway, but the ship was rolling too +heavily to enable us to do this now, and the main-deck was afloat, so +we decided on carrying the body right aft, and thither we transported +it, lodging the foot of the stretcher on the rail abaft the port +quarter-boat. + +The boatswain removed his hat when he saw the body, and the others +imitated him. + +I went below and told Miss Robertson that all was ready, and took from +among the books belonging to the captain an old thin volume containing +the Office for the Burial of Dead at Sea, printed in very large +type. It was fortunate that I had noticed this slip of a book when +overhauling Captain Coxon's effects, for my own Prayer-Book did not +contain the office, and there was no Church Service among the captain's +books. + +I entreated Miss Robertson to reflect before resolving to witness the +burial. I told her that her presence could do no good, and faithfully +assured her that prayers would be read, and the sad little service +conducted as reverently and tenderly as my deep sympathy and the +respect which the others felt for her could dictate. + +She only answered that it would comfort her to pray for him and herself +at the moment he was leaving her, and put her hand into mine, and +gently and with tearless eyes, though with a world of sorrow in her +beautiful pale face, asked me to take her on deck. + +Such grief was not to be argued with--indeed, I felt it would be cruel +to oppose any fancy, however strange it seemed to me, which might +really solace her. + +She started and stopped when she saw the stretcher and the white sheet +and the outline beneath it, and her hand clasped mine tightly; but she +recovered herself and we advanced, and then resolving that she should +not see the body leave the stretcher, I procured a flag and placed it +near the after skylight and said she could kneel there; which she did +with her back turned upon us. + +I then whispered Cornish to watch me and take note of the sign I should +give him to tilt the stretcher and to do it quickly; after which I +placed myself near the body and began to read the service. + +It was altogether a strange, impressive scene, one that in a picture +would, I am sure, hold the eye for a long time; but in the reality +create an ineffaceable memory. + +The insecurity--the peril, I should prefer to say--of our situation, +heightened my own feelings, and made me behold in the corpse we were +about to commit to the deep a sad type and melancholy forerunner of +our own end. The ship, with her broken masts, her streaming decks, +her jib-boom gone, her one sail swollen by the hoarse gale, plunging +and rolling amid the tumultuous seas that foamed around and over her; +the strong man at the wheel, bareheaded, his hair blown about by the +wind, looking downwards with a face full of blunt and honest sorrow, +and his lips moving as they repeated the words I read; the motionless, +kneeling girl; the three of us standing near the corpse; the still, +dead burden on the stretcher, waiting to be launched; the blue sky, +and sun kindling into glory as it soared above the eastern horizon: all +these were details which formed a picture the wildness and strangeness +of which no pen could describe. They are all, as a vision, before me as +I write; but they make me know how poor are words, and eloquence how +weak, when great realities and things which have befallen many men are +to be described. + +When I came to that part of the office wherein it is directed that the +body shall be let fall into the sea, my heart beat anxiously, for I +feared that the girl would look around and see what was done. + +I gave the sign, and instantly Cornish obeyed, and I thank God that +the sullen splash of the corpse was lost in the roar of a sea bursting +under the ship's counter. + +Now that it was gone, the worst was over; and in a short time I brought +the service to an end, omitting many portions which assuredly I had +not skipped had not time been precious to us. + +I motioned to Cornish and the steward to carry the stretcher away, and +waited for Miss Robertson to rise; but she remained for some minutes on +her knees, and when she rose, the deck was clear. + +She gave me her hand, and smiled softly, though with a heart-broken +expression in her eyes, at the boatswain by way of thanking him for his +sympathy, and I then conducted her below and left her at the door of +the cabin, saying-- + +"I have no words to tell you how I feel for you. Pray God that those +who are still living may be spared, and be sure that in His own good +time He will comfort you." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +All that morning the gale continued fresh and the sea dangerous. We +found that the ship was regularly making nine to ten inches of water an +hour; and after the funeral we turned to and pumped her out again. + +But this heavy work, coupled with our extreme anxiety and the perils +and labour we had gone through, was beginning to tell heavily upon us. +The steward showed signs of what strength he had coming to an end, +and Cornish's face had a worn and wasted look as of a man who has +fasted long. The boatswain supported this fatigue best, and always +went cheerfully to work, and had encouraging words for us all. As +for me, what I suffered most from was, strange to say, the eternal +rolling of the ship. At times it completely nauseated me. Also it gave +me a racking headache, and occasionally the motion so bewildered me +that I was obliged to sit down and hold my head in my hands until the +dizziness had passed. + +I believe this feeling was the result of over-work, long wakefulness, +and preying anxiety, which was hourly sapping my constitution. Yet +I was generally relieved by even a quarter of an hour's sleep, but +presently was troubled again, and I grew to dread the time when I +should take the wheel, for right aft the motion of the ship was +intensely felt by me, so much so that on that morning, the vessel's +stern falling heavily into a hollow, I nearly fainted, and only saved +myself from rolling on the deck by clinging convulsively to the wheel. + +At a quarter-past eleven I had just gone into the cuddy, after having +had an hour's spell at the pumps with the boatswain and the steward, +when I heard Cornish's voice shouting down the companion, "A sail! a +sail!" + +But a minute before I had felt so utterly prostrated, that I should not +have believed myself capable of taking half-a-dozen steps without a +long rest between each. Yet these magical words sent me rushing up the +companion ladder with as much speed and energy as I should have been +capable of after a long night's refreshing slumber. + +The moment Cornish saw me he pointed like a mad man to the horizon on +the weather beam, and the ship's stern rising at that moment, I clearly +beheld the sails of a vessel, though in what direction she was going I +could not tell by the naked eye. + +Both the boatswain and the other had come running aft on hearing +Cornish's exclamation, and the steward, in the madness of his +eagerness, had swung himself on to the mizzen rigging, and stood there +bawling, "Yonder's the ship! yonder's the ship! Come up here, and +you'll see her plain enough!" + +I got the telescope and pointed it at the vessel, and found that she +was heading directly for us, steering due south, with the gale upon her +starboard quarter. + +On this I cried out: "She's coming slap at us, boys! Hurrah! Cornish, +you were the first to see her; thank you! thank you!" + +And I grasped his hand and shook it wildly. I then seized the +telescope, and inspected the vessel again, and exclaimed, while I held +the glass to my eye-- + +"She's a big ship, bo'sun. She's carrying a main top-gallant sail, and +there's a single reef in her fore-topsail. She can't miss us! She's +coming right at us, hand over fist, boys! Steward, go and tell Miss +Robertson to come on deck. Down with you and belay that squalling. Do +you think we're blind?" + +The small ensign was still alive, roaring away just as we had +hoisted and left it; but in my excitement I did not think the signal +importunate enough, though surely it was so; and rushing to the +flag-locker, I got out the book of signals, and sang out to the +boatswain to help me to bend on the flags which I threw out, and which +would represent that we were sinking. + +We hauled the ensign down, and ran up the string of flags, and glorious +they looked in our eyes, as they streamed out in a semicircle, showing +their brilliant colours against the clear blue sky. + +Again I took the telescope, and set it on the rail, and knelt to steady +myself. + +The hull of the ship was now half risen, and as she came rolling and +plunging over the seas I could discern the vast space of froth she was +throwing up at her bows. Dead on as she was, we could not tell whether +she had hoisted any flag at the peak, and I hoped in mercy to us that +she would send up an answering pennant to the royal mast-head, so that +we might see it and know that our signal was perceived. + +But this was a foolish hope, only such a one as bitter eager anxiety +could coin. She was coming right at us; she _could_ not fail to see +us; what need to answer us yet when a little patience, only a little +patience, and she would be within a biscuit's throw of us? + +Miss Robertson came on deck without any covering on her head, and the +wind blew her hair away from its fastenings and floated it out like a +cloud of gold. She held on to the rail and stared at the coming ship +with wild eyes and a frowning forehead, while the steward, who had +fallen crazy with the sight of the ship, clambered once more into the +mizzen rigging, and shouted and beckoned to the vessel as a little +child would. + +It did not take me long, however, to recover my own reason, the more +especially as I felt that we might require all the sense we had when +the ship rounded and hove to. I could not, indeed, hope that they would +send a boat through such a sea; they would lie by us and send a boat +when the sea moderated, which, to judge by the barometer and the high +and beaming sky, we might expect to find that night or next morning; +and then we should require our senses, not only to keep the pumps +going, but to enter the boat calmly and in an orderly way, and help our +rescuers to save our lives. + +The boatswain leaned against the companion hatchway with his arms +folded, contemplating the approaching ship with a wooden face. +Variously and powerfully as the spectacle of the vessel had affected +Cornish and Miss Robertson, and myself and the steward, on the +boatswain it had scarcely produced any impression. + +I know not what kind of misgiving came into my mind as I looked from +the coming ship to his stolid face. + +I had infinite confidence in this man's judgment and bravery, and +his lifelessness on this occasion weighed down upon me like a heavy +presentiment, insomuch that the cheery gratulatory words I was about +to address to Miss Robertson died away on my lips. + +I should say that we had sighted this vessel's upper sails when she +was about seventeen miles distant, and, therefore, coming down upon us +before a strong wind, and helped onwards by the long running seas, in +less than half an hour her whole figure was plain to us upon the water. + +I examined her carefully through the glass, striving to make out her +nationality by the cut of her aloft. I thought she had the look of a +Scotch ship, her hull being after the pattern of the Aberdeen clippers, +such as I remembered them in the Australian trade, painted green, and +she was also rigged with skysail-poles and a great breadth of canvas. + +I handed the glass to the boatswain, and asked him what country he took +her to be of. After inspecting her, he said he did not think she was +English; the colour of her canvas looked foreign, but it was hard to +tell; we should see her colours presently. + +As she approached, Miss Robertson's excitement grew very great; not +demonstrative--I mean she did not cry out nor gesticulate like the +steward in the rigging; it was visible, like a kind of madness, in her +eyes, in her swelling bosom, in a strange, wonderful, brilliant smile +upon her face, such as a great actress might wear in a play, but which +we who observe it know to be forced and unreal. + +I ran below for the fur cap and coat, and made her put them on, and +then drew her away from the ship's side and kept close to her, even +holding her by the hand for some time, for I could not tell what effect +the sight of the ship might produce upon her mind, already strung and +weakened by privation and cruel sorrow and peril. + +The vessel came rolling and plunging down towards us before the wind, +carrying a sea on either quarter as high as her main-brace bumpkins, +and spreading a great surface of foam before and around her. + +When she was about a couple of miles off they let go the main +top-gallant halliards and clewed up the sail; and then the helm was +starboarded, which brought her bows astern of us and gave her a sheer, +by which we saw that she was a fine barque, of at least eight hundred +tons burden. + +At the same moment she hoisted Russian colours. + +I was bitterly disappointed when I saw that flag. I should have been +equally disappointed by the sight of any other foreign flag, unless it +were the Stripes and Stars, which floats over brave hearts and is a +signal to Englishmen as full of welcome and promise almost as their +own loved bit of bunting. + +I had hoped, God knows how earnestly, that we should behold the English +ensign at the gaff end. Our chances of rescue by a British ship were +fifty to one as against our chances of rescue by a foreigner. Cases, +indeed, have been known of ships commanded by Englishmen sighting +vessels in distress and leaving them to their fate; but, to the honour +and glory of our calling, I say that these cases make so brief a list +that no impartial-minded man will allow them to weigh with him a moment +when he considers the vast number of instances of pluck, humanity, and +heroism which illustrate and adorn the story of British naval life. + +It is otherwise with foreigners. I write not with any foolish insular +prejudice against wooden shoes and continental connexions: we cannot +dispute good evidence. Though I believe that the Russians make fair +sailors, and fight bravely on sea, why was it that my heart sank when +I saw that flag? I say that the British flag is an assurance to all +distressed persons that what can be done for them will be done for +them, and foreigners know this well, and would sooner sight it when +they are in peril than their own colours, be those colours Dutch, or +French, or Spanish, or Danish, or Italian, or Russian. But he must be a +confident man indeed who hopes anything from a vessel sailing under a +foreign flag when life is to be saved at the risk of the lives of the +rescuers. + +"He's goin' to round to!" exclaimed the boatswain, who watched the +movements of ship with an unconcern absolutely phenomenal to me even +to recall now, when I consider that the lives of us all might have +depended upon the issue of the stranger's actions. + +She went gracefully swooping and swashing along the water, and I saw +the hands upon the deck aft standing by at the main-braces to back the +yards. + +"Bo'sun!" I cried, "she means to heave to--she won't leave us!" + +He made no answer, but continued watching her with an immovable face. + +She passed under our stern not more than a quarter of a mile distant, +perhaps not so far. There was a crowd of persons near the wheel, some +looking at us through binocular glasses, others through telescopes. +There were a few women and children among them. + +Yet I could detect no hurry, no eagerness, no excitement in their +movements; they appeared as imperturbable as Turks or Hollanders, +contemplating us as though we were rather an object of curiosity than +in miserable, perishing distress. + +I jumped upon the grating abaft the wheel and waved my hat to them +and pointed to our signals. A man standing near their starboard +quarter-boat, whom, by the way he looked aloft, I judged to be the +captain, flourished his hand in reply. + +I then, at the top of my voice and through my hands, shouted, "We're +sinking! for God's sake stand by us!" On which the same person held up +his hand again, though I do not believe he understood or even heard +what I said. + +Meanwhile they had braced up the foreyards, and as the vessel came +round parallel with us, at a distance of about two-thirds of a mile, +they backed the mainyards, and in a few moments she lay steady, riding +finely upon the water and keeping her decks dry, though the seas were +still splashing over us freely. + +Seeing now, as I believed, that she meant to stand by us, all my +excitement broke out afresh. I cried out that we were saved, and fell +upon my knees and thanked God for His mercy. Miss Robertson sobbed +aloud, and the steward came down out of the rigging, and danced about +the deck, exclaiming wildly and extending his arms towards the ship. +Cornish retained his grasp of the wheel, but could not remove his eyes +from the ship; the boatswain alone remained perfectly tranquil, and +even angered me by his hard, unconcerned face. + +"Good God!" I cried; "do you not value your life? Have you nothing to +say? See, she is lying there, and will wait till the sea moderates, and +then fetch us on board!" + +"Perhaps she may," he answered, "and it'll be time enough for me to go +mad when I _am_ saved." + +And he then folded his arms afresh, and leaned against the rail, +contemplating the ship with the same extraordinary indifference. + +They now hauled down the flag, and I waited anxiously to see if they +would hoist the answering pennant to let us know they understood our +signal; but they made no further sign that way, nor could I be sure, +therefore, that they understood the flags we had hoisted; for though +in those days Marryatt's Code was in use among ships of all nations, +yet it often happened (as it does now), that vessels, both British and +foreign, would, through the meanness of their owners, be sent to sea +with merely the flags indicating their own number on board, so that +speaking one of these vessels was like addressing a dumb person. + +The movements of the people on the Russian barque were quite +discernible by the naked eye; and we all now, saving the boatswain, +watched her with rapt eagerness, the steward stopping his mad antics to +grasp the poop rail, and gaze with devouring eyes. + +We did not know what they would do, and, indeed, we scarcely knew what +we had to expect; for it was plain to us all that a boat would stand +but a poor chance in that violent sea, and that we should run a greater +risk of losing our lives by quitting the ship than by staying in her. + +But would they not give us some sign, some assurance that they meant to +stand by us? + +The agony of my doubts of their intentions was exquisite. + +For some time she held her ground right abreast of us; but our topsail +being full, while the Russian was actually hove to, we slowly began to +reach ahead of her. + +Seeing this, I cried out to Cornish to put the helm hard down, and keep +the sail flat at the leech; but he had already anticipated this order, +though it was a useless one; for the ship came to and fell off with +every sea, though the helm was hard down, and before we could have got +her to behave as we wished, we should have been obliged to clap some +after sail upon her, which I did not dare do, as we had only choice of +the mizzen and crossjack, and either of these sails (both being large), +would probably have slewed her round head into the sea, and thrown her +dead and useless on our hands. + +Seeing that we were slowly bringing the Russian on to our lee quarter, +I called out in the hope of encouraging the others-- + +"No matter! she will let us draw ahead, and then shorten sail and stand +after us." + +"Are they goin' to lower that boat?" exclaimed the boatswain, suddenly +starting out of his apathetic manner. + +There was a crowd of men round the starboard davits where the +quarter-boat hung, but it was not until I brought the telescope to bear +upon them that I could see they were holding an animated discussion. + +The man who had motioned to us, and whom I took to be master of +the ship, stood aft, in company with two others and a woman, and +gesticulated very vehemently, sometimes pointing at us and sometimes at +the sea. + +His meaning was intelligible enough to me, but I was not disheartened; +for though it was plain that he was representing the waves as too +rough to permit them to lower a boat, which was a conclusive sign, at +least, that those whom he addressed were urging him to save us; yet +his refusal was no proof that he did not mean to keep by us until it +should be safe to send a boat to our ship. + +"What will they do, Mr. Royle?" exclaimed Miss Robertson, speaking in a +voice sharpened by the terrible excitement under which she laboured. + +"They will not leave us," I answered. "They are men--and it is enough +that they should have seen you among us to make them stay. Oh!" I +cried, "it is hard that those waves do not subside! but patience. The +wind is lulling--we have a long spell of daylight before us. Would to +God she were an English ship!--I should have no fear then." + +I again pointed the glass at the vessel. + +The captain was still declaiming and gesticulating; but the men +had withdrawn from the quarter-boat, and were watching us over the +bulwarks. + +Since the boat was not to be lowered, why did he continue arguing? + +I watched him intently, watched him until my eyes grew bleared and the +metal rim of the telescope seemed to burn into the flesh around my eye. + +I put the glass down and turned to glance at the flags streaming over +my head. + +"There she goes! I knew it. They never shows no pity!" exclaimed the +boatswain, in a deep voice. + +I looked and saw the figures of the men hauling on the lee main-braces. + +The yards swung round; the vessel's head paid off; they squared away +forward, and in a few minutes her stern was at us, and she went away +solemnly, rolling and plunging; the main top-gallant sail being sheeted +home and the yard hoisted as she surged forward on her course. + +We remained staring after her--no one speaking--no one believing in +the reality of what he beheld. + +Of all the trials that had befallen us, this was the worst. + +Of all the terrible, cruel disappointments that can afflict suffering +people, none, _none_ in all the hideous catalogue, is more deadly, more +unendurable, more frightful to endure than that which it was our doom +then to feel. To witness our salvation at hand and then to miss it; to +have been buoyed up with hope unspeakable; to taste in the promise of +rescue the joy of renovated life; to believe that our suffering was +at an end, and that in a short time we should be among sympathetic +rescuers, looking back with shudders upon the perils from which we had +been snatched--to have felt all this, and then to be deceived! + +I thought my heart would burst. I tried to speak, but my tongue clove +to the roof of my mouth. + +When the steward saw that we were abandoned, he uttered a loud scream +and rushed headlong down into the cuddy. + +I took no notice of him. + +Cornish ran from the wheel, and springing on to the rail, shook his +fist at the departing vessel, raving, and cursing her with horrible, +blasphemous words, black in the face with his mad and useless rage. + +The boatswain took his place and grasped the wheel, never speaking a +word. + +I was aroused from the stupor that had come over me, the effect of +excessive emotion, by Miss Robertson putting her hand in mine. + +"Be brave!" she whispered, with her mouth close to my ear. "God is with +us still. My dead father would not deceive me. We shall be saved yet. +Have courage, and be your own true self again!" + +I looked into her shining eyes, out of which all the excitement that +had fired them while the Russian remained hove to, had departed. There +was a beautiful tranquillity, there was a courage heaven-inspired, +there was a soft and hopeful smile upon her pale face, which fell upon +the tempest in my breast and stilled it. + +God had given her this influence over me, and I yielded to it as though +He Himself had commanded me. + +All her own troubles came before me, all her own bitter trials, her +miserable bereavement; and as I heard her sweet voice bidding me have +courage, and beheld her smiling upon me out of her deep faith in her +simple, sacred dream, I caught up both her hands and bent my head over +them and wept. + +"Cornish!" I cried, recovering myself, and seizing the man by the arm +as he stood shouting at the fast-lessening ship, "what is the use +of those oaths? let them go their ways--the pitiless cowards. We are +Englishmen, and our lives are still our own. Come, brave companion! we +have all undergone too much to permit this trial to break us. See this +lady! she swears that we shall be saved yet. Be of her heart and mine +and the bo'sun's there, and help us to make another fight for it. Come!" + +He suffered me to pull him off his perilous perch, and then sat himself +down upon a coil of rope trembling all over, and hid his face in his +hands. + +But a new trouble awaited me. + +At this moment the steward came staggering up the companion ladder, his +face purple, his eyes protruding, and talking loudly and incoherently. +He clasped the sea-chest belonging to himself, which certainly was of +greater weight than he in his enfeebled state would have been able to +bear had he not been mad. The chest was corded, and he had no doubt +packed it. + +He rushed to the ship's side and pitched the chest overboard, and was +in the act of springing on to the rail, meaning to fling himself into +the sea, when I caught hold of him, and using more force than I was +conscious of, dragged him backward so violently that his head struck +the deck like a cannon shot, and he lay motionless and insensible. + +"That's the best thing that could have happened to him," exclaimed the +boatswain. "Let him lie a bit. He'll come to, and maybe leave his craze +behind him. It wouldn't be the fust time I've seen a daft man knocked +sensible." + +And then, coolly biting a chew out of a stick of tobacco, which he very +carefully replaced in his breeches pocket, he added-- + +"Jim, come and lay hold of this here wheel, will yer, while me and Mr. +Royle pumps the ship out!" + +Cornish got up and took the boatswain's place. + +"I can help you to pump, Mr. Royle!" said Miss Robertson. + +The boatswain laughed. + +"Lor' bless your dear 'art, miss, what next?" he cried. "No, no; you +stand by here ready to knock this steward down agin if he shows hisself +anxious to swim arter the Roosian. We'll see what water the ship's +a-makin', and if she shows herself obstinate, as I rayther think she +will, why, we'll all turn to and leave her. For you've got to deal with +a bad ship as you would with a bad wife: use every genteel persuasion +fust, and if that won't alter her, there's nothen for it but to grease +your boots, oil your hair, and po-litely walk out." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +There being but two of us now to work the pumps, it was more than we +could do to keep them going. We plied them, with a brief spell between, +and then my arms fell to my side, and I told the boatswain I could pump +no more. + +He sounded the well and made six inches. + +"There's only two inches left that we can get out of her," said he; +"and they'll do no harm." + +On which we quitted the main-deck and came into the cuddy. + +"Mr. Royle," he said, seating himself on the edge of the table, "we +shall have to leave this ship if we aren't taken off her. I reckon +it'll require twelve feet o' water to sink her, allowin' for there +being a deal o' wood in the cargo; and maybe she won't go down at that. +However, we'll say twelve feet, and supposin' we lets her be, she'll +give us, if you like, eight or nine hours afore settlin'. I'm not +saying as we ought to leave her; but I'm lookin' at you, sir, and see +that you're werry nigh knocked up; Cornish is about a quarter o' the +man he was; an' as to the bloomin' steward, he's as good as drownded, +no better and no worse. We shall take one spell too many at them pumps +and fall down under it an' never get up agin. Wot we had best do is to +keep a look all around for wessels, get that there quarter-boat ready +for lowerin', and stand by to leave the ship when the sea calms. You +know how Bermuda bears, don't you, sir?" + +"I can find out to-night. It is too late to get sights now." + +"I think," he returned, "that our lives 'll be as safe in the boat as +they are on board this ship, an' a trifle safer. I've been watching +this wessel a good deal, and my belief is that wos another gale to +strike her, she'd make one o' her long plunges and go all to pieces +like a pack o' cards when she got to the bottom o' the walley o' +water. Of course, if this sea don't calm, we must make shift to keep +her afloat until it do. You'll excuse me for talkin' as though I wos +dictatin'. I'm just givin' you the thoughts that come into my head +whilst we wos pumpin'." + +"I quite agree with you," I replied; "I am only thinking of the size of +the quarter-boat; whether she isn't too small for five persons?" + +"Not she! I'll get a bit of a mast rigged up in her and it'll go hard +if we don't get four mile an hour out of her somehows. How fur might +the Bermuda Islands be off?" + +I answered, after reflecting some moments, that they would probably be +distant from the ship between 250 and 300 miles. + +"We should get pretty near 'em in three days," said he, "if the wind +blew that way. Will you go an' tell the young lady what we're thinkin' +o' doing while I overhauls the boat an' see what's wantin' in her? One +good job is, we shan't have to put off through the ship sinkin' all of +a heap. There's a long warning given us, and I can't help thinkin' that +the stormy weather's blown hisself out, for the sky looks to me to have +a regular set fair blue in it." + +He went on to the main-deck. I inspected the glass, which I found had +risen since I last looked at it. This, coupled with the brilliant +sky and glorious sunshine and the diminishing motion of the ship, +cheered me somewhat, though I looked forward with misgiving to leaving +the ship, having upon me the memory of the sufferings endured by +shipwrecked men in this lonely condition, and remembering that Mary +Robertson would be one of us, and have to share in any privations that +might befall us. + +At the same time, it was quite clear to me that the boatswain, Cornish, +and myself would never, with our failing strength, be able to keep the +ship afloat; and for Miss Robertson's sake, therefore, it was my duty +to put a cheerful face upon the melancholy alternative. + +When I reached the poop the first thing I beheld was the Russian +barque, now a square of gleaming white upon the southern horizon. + +I quickly averted my eyes from the shameful object, and saw that the +steward had recovered from his swoon and was squatting against the +companion counting his fingers and smiling at them. + +Miss Robertson was steering the ship, while Cornish lay extended along +the deck, his head pillowed on a flag. + +The wind (as by the appearance of the weather I might have anticipated, +had my mind been free to speculate on such things) had dropped +suddenly, and was now a gentle breeze, and the sea was subsiding +rapidly. Indeed, a most golden, glorious afternoon had set in, with a +promise of a hot and breathless night. + +I approached Miss Robertson, and asked her what was the matter with +Cornish. + +"I noticed him reeling at the wheel," she answered, "with his face +quite white. I put a flag for his head, and told him to lie down. I +called to you, but you did not hear me; and I have been waiting to see +you that you might get him some brandy." + +I found that the boatswain had not yet come aft, and at once went below +to procure a dram for Cornish. I returned and knelt by his side, and +was startled to perceive that his eyeballs were turned up, and his +hands and teeth clenched, as though he were convulsed. Sharp tremors +ran through his body, and he made no reply nor appeared to hear me, +though I called his name several times. + +Believing that he was dying, I shouted to the boatswain, who came +immediately. + +The moment he looked at Cornish he uttered an exclamation. + +"God knows what ails the poor creature!" I cried. "Lift his head, that +I may get some brandy into his mouth." + +The boatswain raised him by the shoulders, but his head hung back like +a dead man's. I drew out my knife and inserted the blade between his +teeth, and by this means contrived to introduce some brandy into his +mouth, but it bubbled back again, which was a terrible sign, I thought; +and still the tremors shook his poor body, and the eyes remained +upturned, making the face most ghastly to see. + +"It's his heart broke," exclaimed the boatswain, in a tremulous voice. +"Jim, what's the matter with 'ee, mate? You're not goin' to let the +sight o' that Roosian murderer kill you? Come, come! God Almighty knows +we've all had a hard fight for it, but we're not beat yet, lad. 'Tis +but another spell o' waitin', and it'll come right presently. Don't let +a gale o' wind knock the breath out o' you. What man as goes to sea but +meets with reverses like this here? Swaller the brandy, Jim!... My +God! Mr. Royle, he's dyin'!" + +As he said this Cornish threw up his arms and stiffened out his body. +So strong was his dying action that he knocked the glass of brandy +out of my hand and threw me backwards some paces. The pupils of his +eyes rolled down, and a film came over them; he uttered something in a +hoarse whisper, and lay dead on the boatswain's knee. + +I glanced at Miss Robertson. Her lips were tightly compressed, +otherwise the heroic girl showed no emotion. + +The boatswain drew a deep breath and let the dead man's head fall +gently on the flag. + +"For Miss Robertson's sake," I whispered, "let us carry him forward." + +He acquiesced in silence, and we bore the body off the poop and laid it +on the fore-hatch. + +"There will be no need to bury him," said I. + +"No need and no time, sir. I trust God'll be merciful to the poor +sailor when he's called up. He was made bad by them others, sir. His +heart wasn't wrong," replied the boatswain. + +I procured a blanket from the forecastle and covered the body with it, +and we then walked back to the poop slowly and without speaking. + +I felt the death of this man keenly. He had worked well, confronted +danger cheerfully; he had atoned, in his untutored fashion, for the +wrongs he had taken a part in--besides, the fellowship of peril was a +tie upon us all, not to be sundered without a pang, which our hearts +never would have felt had fate dealt otherwise with us. + +I stopped a moment with the boatswain to look at the steward before +joining Miss Robertson. To many, I believe this spectacle of idiocy +would have been more affecting than Cornish's death. He was tracing +figures, such as circles and crosses, with his fore finger on the deck, +smiling vacantly meanwhile, and now and then looking around him with +rolling, unmeaning eyes. + +"How is it with you, my man?" I said. + +He gazed at me very earnestly, rose to his feet, and, taking my arm, +drew me a short distance away from the boatswain. + +"A ship passed us just now, sir," he exclaimed in a whisper, and with a +profoundly confidential air. "Did you see her?" + +"Yes, steward, I saw her." + +"A word in your ear, sir--_mum!_ that's the straight tip. Do you see? I +was tired of this ship, sir--tired of being afraid of drowning. I put +myself on board that vessel, _and there I am now, sir_. But hush! do +you know I cannot talk to them--they're furriners! Roosians, sir, by +the living cock! that's my oath, and it crows every morning in my back +garden." + +He struck me softly on the waistcoat, and fell back a step, with his +finger on his lip. + +"Ah," said I, "I understand. Sit down again and go on drawing on the +deck, and then they'll think you're lost in study and not trouble you." + +"Right, my lord--your lordship's 'umble servant," answered the poor +creature, making me a low bow; and with a lofty and dignified air he +resumed his place on the deck near the companion. + +"Wot was he sayin'?" inquired the boatswain. + +"He is quite imbecile. He thinks he is on board the Russian," I +replied. + +"Well, that's a comfort," said the boatswain. "He'll not be tryin' to +swim arter her agin." + +"Miss Robertson," I exclaimed, "you need not remain at the wheel. There +is so little wind now that the ship may be left to herself." + +Saving which I made the wheel fast and led her to one of the skylights. + +"Bo'sun," said I, "will you fetch us something to eat and drink out of +the pantry? Open a tin of meat, and get some biscuit and wine. This +may prove our last meal on board the _Grosvenor_," I added to Miss +Robertson, as the boatswain left us. + +She looked at me inquiringly, but did not speak. + +"Before we knew," I continued, "that poor Cornish was dying, the +boatswain and I resolved that we should all of us leave the ship. We +have no longer the strength to man the pumps. The water is coming in +at the rate of a foot an hour, and we have found latterly that even +three of us cannot pump more at a time out of her than six or seven +inches, and every spell at the pumps leaves us more exhausted. But even +though we had hesitated to leave her, yet now that Cornish is gone and +the steward has fallen imbecile, we have no alternative." + +"I understand," she said, glancing at the boat and compressing her lip. + +"You are not afraid--you who have shown more heart and courage than all +of us put together?" + +"No--I am not much afraid. I believe that God is looking down upon us, +and that He will preserve us. But," she cried, taking a short breath, +and clasping her hands convulsively, "it will be very, very lonely on +the great sea in that little boat." + +"Why more lonely in that little boat than on this broken and sinking +ship? I believe with you that God is looking down upon us, and that +He has given us that pure and beautiful sky as an encouragement and a +promise. Contrast the sea now with what it was this morning. In a few +hours hence it will be calm; and believe me when I say that we shall +be a thousandfold safer in that boat than we are in this strained and +leaking ship. Even while we talk now the water is creeping into the +hold, and every hour will make her sink deeper and deeper until she +disappears beneath the surface. On the other hand, we may have many +days together of this fine weather. I will steer the boat for the +Bermuda Islands, which we cannot miss by heading the boat west, even +if I should lack the means of ascertaining our exact whereabouts, +which you may trust me will not be the case. Moreover, the chance of +our being rescued by a passing ship will be much greater when we are +in the boat than it is while we remain here; for no ship, though she +were commanded by a savage, would refuse to pick a boat up and take +its occupants on board; whereas vessels, as we have already discovered +to our cost, will sight distressed ships and leave them to shift for +themselves." + +"I do not doubt you are right," she replied, with a plaintive smile. +"I should not say or do anything to oppose you. And believe me," she +exclaimed earnestly, "that I do not think more of my own life than of +that of my companions. Death is not so terrible but that we may meet +it, if God wills, calmly. And I would rather die at once, Mr. Royle, +than win a few short years of life on hard and bitter terms." + +She looked at the steward as she spoke, and an expression of beautiful +pity came into her face. + +"Miss Robertson," I said, "in my heart I am pledged to save your life. +If you die, we both die!--of that be sure." + +"I know what I owe you," she answered, in a low and broken voice. "I +know that my life is yours, won by you from the very jaws of death, +soothed and supported by you afterwards. What my gratitude is only God +knows. I have no words to tell you." + +"Do you give me the life I have saved?" I asked, wondering at my own +breathless voice as I questioned her. + +"I do," she replied firmly, lifting up her eyes and looking at me. + +"Do you give it to me because your sweet and generous gratitude makes +you think it my due?--not knowing I am poor, not remembering that my +station in life is humble, without a question as to my past?" + +"I give it to you because I love you!" she answered, extending her hand. + +I drew her towards me and kissed her forehead. + +"God bless you, Mary darling, for your faith in me! God bless you for +your priceless gift of your love to me! Living or dead, dearest, we are +one!" + +And she, as though to seal these words which our danger invested with +an entrancing mysteriousness, raised my hand to her spotless lips, and +then held it for some moments to her heart. + +The boatswain, coming up the poop ladder, saw her holding my hand. He +approached us slowly, and in silence; and putting down the tray, which +he had heaped with sailor-like profusion with food enough for a dozen +persons, stood looking on us thoughtfully. + +"Mr. Royle," he said, in a deliberate voice, "you'll excuse me for +sayin' of it, but, sir, you've found her out?" + +"I have, bo'sun." + +"You've found her out, sir, as the truest-hearted gell as ever did duty +as a darter?" + +"I have." + +"I've watched her, and know her to be British--true oak-seasoned, by +God Almighty, as does this sort o' work better nor Time! You've found +her out, sir?" + +"It is true, bo'sun." + +"And you, miss," he exclaimed, in the same deliberate voice, "have +found _him_ out?" + +She looked downwards with a little blush. + +"Mr. Royle, and you, miss," he continued, "I'm not goin' to say nothen +agin this being the right time to find each other out in. It's +Almighty Providence as brings these here matters to pass, and it's in +times o' danger as love speaks out strongest, turnin' the heart into a +speakin' trumpet and hailin' with a loud and tremendious woice. Wot I +wur goin' to say is this: that in Mr. Royle I've seen the love for a +long while past burnin' and strugglin', and sometimes hidin' of itself, +and then burstin' up afresh, like a flare aboard o' a sinkin' ketch on +a windy night; and in you, miss, I've likewise seen tokens as 'ud ha' +made me up and speak my joy days an' days ago, had it been _my_ consarn +to attend to 'em. I say, that now as we're sinkin' without at all +meanin' to drown, with no wun but God Almighty to see us, this is the +properest time for you to have found each other out in. Mr. Royle, your +hand, sir; miss, yours. I say, God bless you! Whilst we have breath +we'll keep the boat afloat; and if it's not to be, still I'll say, God +bless you!" + +He shook us heartily by the hand, looked hard at the poor steward, as +though he would shake hands with him too; then walked aft, hauled down +the signals, stepped into the cuddy, returned with the large ensign, +bent it on to the halliards, and ran it up to the gaff-end. + +"That," said he, returning and looking up proudly at the flag, "is to +let them as it may consarn know that we're not dead yet. Now, sir, +shall I pipe to dinner?" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +I think the boatswain was right. + +It was no season for love-making; but it was surely a fitting moment +"for finding each other out in." + +I can say this--and God knows never was there less bombast in such a +thought than there was in mine: that when I looked round upon the sea +and then upon my beloved companion, I felt that I would rather have +chosen death with her love to bless me in the end, than life without +knowledge of her. + +I put food before the steward and induced him to eat; but it was +pitiful to see his silly, instinctive ways, no reason in them, nothing +but a mechanical guiding, with foolish fleeting smiles upon his pale +face. + +I thought of that wife of his whose letter he had wept over, and his +child, and scarcely knew whether it had not been better for him and +them that he should have died than return to them a broken-down, puling +imbecile. + +I said as much to Mary, but the tender heart would not agree with me. + +"Whilst there is life there is hope," she answered softly. "Should +God permit us to reach home, I will see that the poor fellow is well +cared for. It may be that when all these horrors have passed his mind +will recover its strength. Our trials are _very_ hard. When I saw that +Russian ship I thought my own brain would go." + +She pressed her hand to her forehead, and an expression of suffering, +provoked by memory, came into her face. + +We despatched our meal, and I went on to the main-deck to sound the +well. I found two feet of water in the hold, and I came back and gave +the boatswain the soundings, who recommended that we should at once +turn to and get the boat ready. + +I said to him, as he clambered into the boat for the purpose of +overhauling her, that I fully believed that a special Providence was +watching over us, and that we might confidently hope God would not +abandon us now. + +"If the men had not chased us in this boat," I continued, "what chance +should we have to save our lives? The other boat is useless, and we +should never have been able to repair her in time to get away from the +ship. Then look at the weather! I have predicted a dead calm to-night, +and already the wind is gone." + +"Yes, everything's happened for the best," he replied. "I only wish +poor Jim's life had been saved. It's a'most like leavin' of him to +drown to go away without buryin' him; and yet I know there'd be no use +in puttin' him overboard. There's been a deal o' precious human life +wasted since we left the Channel; and who are the murderers? Wy, the +owners. It's all come through their sendin' the ship to sea with rotten +stores. A few dirty pounds 'ud ha' saved all this." + +We had never yet had the leisure to inspect the stores with which +the mutineers had furnished the quarter-boat, and we now found, in +spite of their having shifted a lot of the provisions out of her into +the long-boat before starting in pursuit of us, that there was still +an abundance left: four kegs of water, several tins of cuddy bread, +preserved meat and fruits, sugar, flour, and other things, not to +mention such items as boxes of lucifer-matches, fishing tackle, a +burning-glass, a quantity of tools and nails; in a word, everything +which men in the condition they had hoped to find themselves in might +stand in need of to support life. Indeed, the foresight illustrated by +the provisioning of this boat was truly remarkable, the only things +they had omitted being a mast and sail, it having been their intention +to keep this boat in tow of the other. I even found that they had +furnished the boat with the oars belonging to the disabled quarter-boat +in addition to those of her own. + +However, the boat was not yet stocked to my satisfaction. I therefore +repaired to my cabin and procured the boat's compass, some charts, a +sextant, and other necessary articles, such as the "Nautical Almanack," +and pencils and paper wherewith to work out my observations, which +articles I placed very carefully in the locker in the stern-sheets of +the boat. + +I allowed Mary to help me, that the occupation might divert her mind +from the overwhelming thoughts which the gradual settling of the ship +on which we stood must have excited in the strongest and bravest mind; +and, indeed, I worked busily and eagerly to guard myself against any +terror that might come upon me. She it was who suggested that we should +provide ourselves with lamps and oil; and I shipped a lantern to hoist +at our mast-head when the darkness came, and the bull's-eye lamp to +enable me to work out observations of the stars, which I intended +to make when the night fell. To all these things, which, sounding +numerous, in reality occupied but little space, I added a can of oil, +meshes for the lamps, top-coats, oilskins, and rugs to protect us at +night, so that the afternoon was well advanced before we had ended +our preparations. Meanwhile, the boatswain had stepped a top-gallant +stun'sail boom to serve us for a mast, well stayed, with a block and +halliards at the mast-head to serve for hoisting a flag or lantern, and +a spare top-gallant stun'sail to act as a sail. + +By this time the wind had completely died away; a peaceful deep blue +sky stretched from horizon to horizon; and the agitation of the sea +had subsided into a long and silent swell, which washed up against the +ship's sides, scarcely causing her to roll, so deep had she sunk in the +water. + +I now thought it high time to lower the boat and bring her alongside, +as our calculations of the length of time to be occupied by the ship +in sinking might be falsified to our destruction by her suddenly going +stern down with us on board. + +We therefore lowered the boat, and got the gangway ladder over the side. + +The boatswain got into the boat first to help Mary into her. I then +took the steward by the arms and brought him along smartly, as there +was danger in keeping the boat washing against the ship's side. He +resisted at first, and only smiled vacantly when I threatened to leave +him; but on the boatswain crying out that his wife was waiting for +him, the poor idiot got himself together with a scramble, and went so +hastily over the gangway that he very narrowly escaped a ducking. + +I paused a moment at the gangway and looked around, striving to +remember if there was anything we had forgotten which would be of some +use to us. Mary watched me anxiously, and called to me by my Christian +name, at the same time extending her arms. I would not keep her in +suspense a moment, and at once dropped into the boat. She grasped and +fondled my hand, and drew me close beside her. + +"I should have gone on board again had you delayed coming," she +whispered. + +The boatswain shoved the boat's head off, and we each shipped an oar +and pulled the boat about a quarter of a mile away from the ship; and +then, from a strange and wild curiosity to behold the ship sink, and +still in our hearts clinging to her, not only as the home wherein we +had found shelter for many days past, but as the only visible object +in all the stupendous reach of waters, we threw in the oars and sat +watching her. + +She had now sunk as deep as her main-chains, and was but a little +higher out of water than the hull from which we had rescued Mary and +her father. It was strange to behold her even from a short distance +and note her littleness in comparison with the immensity of the deep +on which she rested, and recall the terrible seas she had braved and +triumphed over. + +Few sailors can behold the ship in which they have sailed sinking +before their eyes without the same emotion of distress and pity almost +which the spectacle of a drowning man excites in them. She has grown +a familiar name, a familiar object; thus far she has borne them in +safety; she has been rudely beaten, and yet has done her duty; but the +tempest has broken her down at last; all the beauty is shorn from her; +she is weary with the long and dreadful struggle with the vast forces +that Nature arrayed against her; she sinks, a desolate abandoned thing +in mid-ocean, carrying with her a thousand memories, which surge up in +the heart with the pain of a strong man's tears. + +I looked from the ship to realize our own position. Perhaps not yet +could it be keenly felt, for the ship was still a visible object for +us to hold on by; and yet, turning my eyes away to the far reaches of +the horizon, at one moment borne high on the summit of the ocean swell, +which appeared mountainous when felt in and viewed from the boat, then +sinking deep in the hollow, so that the near ship was hidden from +us--the supreme loneliness of our situation, our helplessness, and +the fragility and diminutiveness of the structure on which our lives +depended, came home to me with the pain and wonder of a shock. + +Our boat, however, was new this voyage, with a good beam, and showing a +tolerably bold side, considering her dimensions and freight. Of the two +quarter-boats with which the _Grosvenor_ had been furnished, this was +the larger and the stronger built, and for this reason had been chosen +by Stevens. I could not hope, indeed, that she would live a moment in +anything of a sea; but she was certainly stout enough to carry us to +the Bermudas, providing the weather remained moderate. + +It was now six o'clock. I said to the boatswain-- + +"Every hour of this weather is valuable to us. There is no reason why +we should stay here." + +"I should like to see her sink, Mr. Royle; I should like to know that +poor Jim found a regular coffin in her," he answered. "We can't make +no headway with the sail, and I don't recommend rowin' for the two or +three mile we can fetch with the oars. It 'ud be wurse nor pumpin'!" + +He was right. When I reflected I was quite sure I should not, in my +exhausted state, be able to handle one of the big oars for even five +minutes at a stretch; and admitting that I _had_ been strong enough to +row for a couple of hours, yet the result to have been obtained could +not have been important enough to justify the serious labour. + +The steward all this time sat perfectly quiet in the bottom of the +boat, with his back against the mast. He paid no attention to us when +we spoke, nor looked around him, though sometimes he would fix his +eyes vacantly on the sky as if his shattered mind found relief in +contemplating the void. I was heartily glad to find him quiet, though +I took care to watch him, for it was difficult to tell whether his +imbecility was not counterfeited by his madness, to throw us off our +guard, and furnish him with an opportunity to play us and himself some +deadly trick. + +As some hours had elapsed since we had tasted food, I opened a tin of +meat and prepared a meal. The boatswain ate heartily, and so did the +steward; but I could not prevail upon Mary to take more than a biscuit +and some sherry and water. + +Indeed, as the evening approached, our position affected her more +deeply, and very often, after she had cast her eyes towards the +horizon, I would see her lips whispering a prayer, and feel her hand +tightening on mine. + +The ship still floated, but she was so low in the water that I every +minute expected to see her vanish. The water was above her main-chains, +and I could only attribute her obstinacy in not sinking to the great +quantity of wood--both in cases and goods--which composed her cargo. + +The sun was now quite close to the horizon, branding the ocean with +a purple glare, but itself descending into a cloudless sky. I cannot +express how majestic and wonderful the great orb looked to us who +were almost level with the water. Its disc seemed vaster than I had +ever before seen it, and there was something sublimely solemn in the +loneliness of its descent. All the sky about it, and far to the south +and north, was changed into the colour of gold by its lustre; and over +our heads the heavens were an exquisite tender green, which melted in +the east into a dark blue. + +I was telling Mary that ere the sun sank again we might be on board a +ship, and whispering any words of encouragement and hope to her, when I +was startled by the boatswain crying, "Now she's gone! Look at her!" + +I turned my eyes towards the ship, and could scarcely credit my senses +when I found that her hull had vanished, and that nothing was to be +seen of her but her spars, which were all aslant sternwards. + +I held my breath as I saw the masts sink lower and lower. First the +crossjack-yard was submerged, then the gaff with the ensign hanging +dead at the peak, then the mainyard; presently only the main-topmast +cross-trees were visible, a dark cross upon the water: they vanished; +at the same moment the sun disappeared behind the horizon; and now +we were alone on the great, breathing deep, with all the eastern sky +growing dark as we watched. + +"It's all over!" said the boatswain, breaking the silence, and speaking +in a hollow tone. "No livin' man'll ever see the _Grosvenor_ agin!" + +Mary shivered and leaned against me. I took up a rug and folded it +round her, and kissed her forehead. + +The boatswain had turned his back upon us, and sat with his hands +folded, I believe in prayer. I am sure he was thinking of Jim Cornish, +and I would not have interrupted that honest heart's communion with its +Maker for the value of the ship that had sunk. + +Darkness came down very quickly, and that we might lose no chance of +being seen by any distant vessel, I lighted the ship's lantern and +hoisted it at the mast-head. I also lighted the bull's-eye lamp and set +it in the stern-sheets. + +"Mary," I whispered, "I will make you up a bed in the bottom of the +boat. Whilst this weather lasts, dearest, we have no cause to be +alarmed by our position. It will make me happy to see you sleeping, and +be sure that whilst you sleep there will be watchful eyes near you." + +"I will sleep as I am, here, by your side. I shall rest better so," she +answered. "I could not sleep lying down." + +It was too sweet a privilege to forego: I passed my arm around her and +held her close to me; and she closed her eyes like a child to please me. + +Worn out as I was, enfeebled both intellectually and physically by the +heavy strain that had been put upon me ever since that day when I had +been ironed by Captain Coxon's orders, I say--and I solemnly believe +in the truth of what I am about to write--that had it not been for +the living reality of this girl, encircled by my arm, with her head +supported by my shoulder--had it not been for the deep love I felt for +her, which localized my thoughts, and, so to say, humanized them down +to the level of our situation, forbidding them to trespass beyond the +prosaic limits of our danger, of the precautions to be taken by us, of +our chances of rescue, of the course to be steered when the wind should +fill our sail: I should have gone mad when the night came down upon +the sea and enveloped our boat--a lonely speck on the gigantic world of +water--in the mystery and fear of darkness. I know this by recalling +the fancy that for a few moments possessed me in looking along the +water, when I clearly beheld the outline of a coast, with innumerable +lights twinkling upon it; by the whirling, dizzy sensation in my head +which followed the extinction of the vision; by the emotion of wild +horror and unutterable disappointment which overcame me when I detected +the cheat. I pressed my darling to me, and looked upon her sweet face, +revealed by the light shed by the lantern at the mast-head, and all my +misery left me; and the delight which the knowledge that she was my own +love and that I held her in my arms, gave me, fell like an exorcism +upon the demons of my stricken imagination. + +She smiled when I pressed her to my side and when she saw my face close +to hers, looking at her; but she did not know then that she had saved +me from a fate more dreadful than death, and that I--so strong as I +seemed, so earnest as I had shown myself in my conflicts with fate, +so resolutely as I had striven to comfort her--had been rescued from +madness by her whom I had a thousand times pitied for her helplessness. + +She fell asleep at last, and I sat for nearly two hours motionless, +that I should not awaken her. The steward slept with his head in his +arms, kneeling, a strange, mad posture. The boatswain sat forward, with +his face turned aft and his arms folded. I addressed him once, but he +did not answer. Probably I spoke too low for him to hear, being fearful +of waking Mary; but there was little we had to say. Doubtless he found +his thoughts too engrossing to suffer him to talk. + +Being anxious to "take a star," as we say at sea, and not knowing how +the time went, I gently drew out my watch and found the hour a quarter +to eleven. In replacing the watch I aroused Mary, who raised her head +and looked round her with eyes that flashed in the lantern light. + +"Where are we?" she exclaimed, and bent her head to gaze at me, on +which she recollected herself. "Poor boy!" she said, taking my hand, "I +have kept you supporting my weight. You were more tired than I. But it +is your turn now. Rest your head on my shoulder." + +"No, it is still your turn," I answered, "and you shall sleep again +presently. But since you are awake, I will try to find out where we +are. You shall hold the lamp for me while I make my calculations and +examine the chart." + +Saying which, I drew out my sextant and got across the thwarts to the +mast, which I stood up alongside of to lean on, for the swell, though +moderate enough to pass without notice on a big vessel, lifted and sunk +the boat in such a way as to make it difficult to stand steady. + +I was in the act of raising the sextant to my eye, when the boatswain +suddenly cried, "Mr. Royle, listen!" + +"What do you hear?" I exclaimed. + +"Hush! listen now!" he answered, in a breathless voice. + +I strained my ear, but nothing was audible to me but the wash of the +water against the boat's side. + +"Don't you hear it, Mr. Royle?" he cried, in a kind of agony, holding +up his finger. "Miss Robertson, don't you hear something?" + +There was another interval of silence, and Mary answered, "I hear a +kind of throbbing!" + +"It is so!" I exclaimed. "I hear it now! it is the engines of a +steamer!" + +"A steamer! Yes! I heard it! where is she?" shouted the boatswain, and +he jumped on to the thwart on which I stood. + +We strained our ears again. + +That throbbing sound, as Mary had accurately described it, closely +resembling the rythmical running of a locomotive engine heard in the +country on a silent night at a long distance, was now distinctly +audible; but so smooth was the water, so breathless the night, that it +was impossible to tell how far away the vessel might be; for so fine +and delicate a vehicle of sound is the ocean in a calm, that, though +the hull of a steamship might be below the horizon, yet the thumping of +her engines would be heard. + +Once more we inclined our ears, holding our breath as we listened. + +"It grows louder!" cries the boatswain. "Mr. Royle, bend your +bull's-eye lamp to the end o' one o' the oars and swing it about whilst +I dip this mast-head lantern." + +Very different was his manner now from what it had been that morning +when the Russian hove in sight. + +I lashed the lamp by the ring of it to an oar and waved it to and fro. +Meanwhile the boatswain had got hold of the mast-head halliards, and +was running the big ship's lantern up and down the mast. + +"Mary," I exclaimed, "lift up the seat behind you, and in the left-hand +corner you will find a pistol." + +"I have it," she answered, in a few moments. + +"Point it over the stern and fire!" I cried. + +She levelled the little weapon and pulled the trigger, the white flame +leapt, and a smart report followed. + +"Listen now!" I said. + +I held the oar steady, and the boatswain ceased to dance the lantern. +For the first few seconds I heard nothing, then my ear caught the +throbbing sound. + +"I see her!" cried the boatswain; and following his finger (my sight +being keener than my hearing) I saw not only the shadow of a vessel +down in the south-west, but the smoke from her funnel pouring along the +stars. + +"Mary," I cried, "fire again!" + +She drew the trigger. + +"Again!" + +The clear report whizzed like a bullet passed my ears. + +Simultaneously with the second report a ball of blue fire shot up into +the sky. Another followed, and another. + +A moment after a red light shone clear upon the sea. + +"She sees us!" I cried. "God be praised! Mary, darling, she sees us!" + +I waved the lamp furiously. But there was no need to wave it any +longer. The red light drew nearer and nearer; the throbbing of the +engines louder and louder, and the revolutions of the propeller sounded +like a pulse beating through the water. + +The shadow broadened and loomed larger. I could hear the water spouting +out of her side and the blowing off of the safety-valve. + +Soon the vessel grew a defined shape against the stars, and then a +voice, thinned by the distance, shouted, "What light is that?" + +I cried to the boatswain, "Answer, for God's sake! My voice is weak." + +He hollowed his hands and roared back, "We're shipwrecked seamen +adrift in a quarter-boat!" + +Nearer and nearer came the shadow, and now it was a long, black hull, a +funnel pouring forth a dense volume of smoke, spotted with fire-sparks, +and tapering masts and fragile rigging, with the stars running through +them. + +"Ease her!" + +The sound of the throbbing grew more measured. We could hear the water +as it was churned up by the screw. + +"Stop her!" + +The sounds ceased, and the vessel came looming up slowly, more slowly, +until she stopped. + +"What is that?--a boat?" exclaimed a strong bass voice. + +"Yes!" answered the boatswain. "We've been shipwrecked; we're adrift in +a quarter-boat." + +"Can you bring her alongside?" + +"Aye, aye, sir!" + +I threw out an oar, but trembled so violently that it was as much as +I could do to work it. We headed the boat for the steamer, and rowed +towards her. As we approached I perceived that she was very long, +barque-rigged, and raking, manifestly a powerful, iron-built, ocean +steamer. They had hung a red light on the forestay, and a white light +over her port quarter, and lights flitted about her gangway. + +A voice sang out, "How many are there of you?" + +The boatswain answered, "Three men and a lady!" + +On this the same voice called, "If you want help to bring the boat +alongside we'll send to you." + +"We'll be alongside in a few minutes," returned the boatswain. + +But the fact was the vessel had stopped her engines when further off +from us than we had imagined; being deceived by the magnitude of her +looming hull, which seemed to stand not a hundred fathoms away from us +and by the wonderful distinctness of the voice that had spoken us. + +I did not know how feeble I had become until I took the oar, and the +violent emotions excited in me by our rescue now to be effected after +our long and heavy trials, diminished still the little strength that +was left in me, so that the boat moved very slowly through the water, +and it was full twenty minutes, starting from the time when we had +shipped the oars, before we came up with her. + +"We'll fling you a rope's end," said a voice; "look out for it." + +A line fell into the boat; the boatswain caught it and sang out "All +fast!" + +I looked up the high side of the steamer: there was a crowd of men +assembled round the gangway, their faces visible in the light shed +not only by our own mast-head lantern (which was on a level with the +steamer's bulwarks) but by other lanterns which some of them held. In +all this light we, the occupants of the boat, were to be clearly viewed +from the deck; and the voice that had first addressed us said-- + +"Are you strong enough to get up the ladder? if not we'll sling you on +board." + +I answered that if a couple of hands would come down into the boat so +as to help the lady and a man (who had fallen imbecile) over the ship's +side, the other two would manage to get on board without assistance. + +On this a short gangway ladder was lowered, and two men descended and +got into the boat. + +"Take that lady first," I said, pointing to Mary, but holding on as I +spoke to the boat's mast, for I felt horribly sick and faint, and knew +not, indeed, what was going to happen to me; and I had to exert all my +power to steady my voice. + +They took her by the arms, and watching the moment when the wash of the +swell brought the boat against the ship's side, landed her cleverly on +the ladder and helped her on to the deck. + +"Bo'sun," I cried huskily, "she ... she is ... saved ... I am dying, I +think.... God bless her! and ... and ... your hand, mate...." + +I remember uttering these incoherent words and seeing the boatswain +spring forward to catch me. Then my senses left me with a flash. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +I remained, as I was afterwards informed, insensible for four days, +during which time I told and re-told in my delirium the story of the +mutiny and our own sufferings, so that, as the ship's surgeon assured +me, he became very exactly acquainted with all the particulars of the +_Grosvenor's_ voyage, from the time of her leaving the English Channel +to the moment of our rescue from the boat, though I, from whom he +learnt the story, was insensible as I related it. My delirium even +embraced so remote an incident as the running down of the smack. + +When I opened my eyes I found myself in a small, very comfortable +cabin, lying in a bunk; and being alone, I had no knowledge of where I +was, nor would my memory give me the slightest assistance. That every +object my eye rested upon was unfamiliar, and that I was on board a +ship, was all that I knew for certain. What puzzled me most was the +jarring sound caused by the engines. I could not conceive what this +meant nor what produced it; and the vessel being perfectly steady, it +was not in my power to realize that I was being borne over the water. + +I closed my eyes and lay perfectly still, striving to master the past +and inform myself of what had become of me; but so hopelessly muddled +was my brain, that had some unseen person, by way of a joke, told me in +a sepulchral voice that I was dead and apprehending the things about me +only by means of my spirit, which had not yet had time to get out of +my body, I should have believed him; though I don't say that I should +not have been puzzled to reconcile my very keen appetite and thirst +with my non-existent condition. + +In a few minutes the door of the cabin was opened and a jolly, +red-faced man, wearing a Scotch cap, looked in. Seeing me with my eyes +open, he came forward and exclaimed in a cheerful voice-- + +"All alive O! Staring about you full of wonderment! Nothing so good as +curiosity in a sick man. Shows that the blood is flowing." + +He felt my pulse, and asked me if I knew who he was. + +I replied that I had never seen him before. + +"Well, that's not my fault," said he; "for I've been looking at you a +pretty tidy while on and off since we hoisted you out of the brine. + + 'Guid speed an' furder to you, Johnny; + Guid health, hale han's, an' weather bonnie; + May ye ne'er want a stoup o' brany + To clear your head!' + +Hungry?" + +"Very," said I. + +"Thirsty?" + +"Yes." + +"How do you feel in yourself?" + +"I have been trying to find out. I don't know. I forget who I am." + +"Raise your arm and try your muscles." + +"I can raise my arm," I said, doing so. + +"How's your memory?" + +"If you'll give me a hint or two, I'll see." + +He looked at me very earnestly and with much kindness in the expression +of his jovial face, and debated some matter in his own mind. + +"I'll send you in some beef-tea," he said, "by a person who'll be able +to do you more good than I can. But don't excite yourself. Converse +calmly, and don't talk too much." + +So saying he went away. + +I lay quite still and my memory remained as helpless as though I had +just been born. + +After an interval of about ten minutes the door was again opened and +Mary came in. She closed the door and approached me, holding a cup of +beef-tea in her hand, but however she had schooled herself to behave, +her resolution forsook her; she put the cup down, threw her arms round +my neck, and sobbed with her cheek against mine. + +With my recognition of her my memory returned to me. + +"My darling," I cried, in a weak voice, "is it you indeed! Oh, God is +very merciful to have spared us. I remembered nothing just now; but +all has come back to me with your dear face." + +She was too overcome to speak for some moments, but raising herself +presently she said in broken tones-- + +"I thought I should never see you again, never be able to speak to +you more. But I am wicked to give way to my feelings when I have been +told that any excitement must be dangerous to my darling. Drink this, +now--no, I will hold the cup to your lips. Strength has been given me +to bear the sufferings we have gone through, that I may nurse you and +bring you back to health." + +I would not let go her hand; but when I attempted to prop myself up, I +found my elbow would not sustain me; so I lay back and drank from the +cup which she held to my mouth. + +"How long is it," I asked her, "since we were taken on board this +vessel?" + +"Four days. Do you know that you fell down insensible in the boat the +moment after I had been carried on to the deck of this ship? The men +crowded around me and held their lanterns to my face, and I found that +most of them were Scotch by their exclamations. A woman took me by the +hand to lead me away, but I refused to move one step until I saw that +you were on board. She told me that you had fainted in the boatswain's +arms, and others cried out that you were dead. I saw them bring you up +out of the boat, and told the woman that I must go with you and see +where they put you, and asked if there was a doctor on board. She said +yes, and that he was that man in the Scotch cap and greatcoat, who was +helping the others to take you downstairs. I took your poor senseless +hands and cried bitterly over them, and told the doctor I would go on +my knees to him if he would save your life. But he was very kind--very +kind and gentle." + +"And you, Mary? I saw you keep up your wonderful courage to the last." + +"I fainted when the doctor took me away from you," she answered, with +one of her sweet, wistful smiles. "I slept far into the next day, and +I rose quite well yesterday morning, and have been by your side nearly +ever since. It is rather hard upon me that your consciousness should +have returned when I had left the cabin for a few minutes." + +I made her turn her face to the light that I might see her clearly, and +found that though her mental and physical sufferings had left traces on +her calm and beautiful face, yet on the whole she looked fairly well in +health; her eyes bright, her complexion clear, and her lips red, with a +firm expression on them. I also took notice that she was well dressed +in a black silk, though probably I was not good critic enough just then +in such matters to observe that it fitted her ill, and did no manner of +justice to her lovely shape. + +She caught me looking at the dress, and told me with a smile that it +had been lent to her by a lady passenger. + +"Why do you stand?" I said. + +"The doctor only allowed me to see you on condition that I did not stay +above five minutes." + +"That is nonsense. I cannot let you go now you are here. Your dear +face gives me back all the strength I have lost. How came I to fall +down insensible? I am ashamed of myself! I, a sailor, supposed to be +inured to all kinds of privation, to be cut adrift from my senses by a +shipwreck! Mary, you are fitter to be a sailor than I. After this, let +me buy a needle and thread, and advertise for needlework." + +"You are talking too much. I shall leave you." + +"You cannot while I hold your hand." + +"Am I not stronger than you?" + +"In all things stronger, Mary. You have been my guardian angel. You +interceded for my life with God, and He heard you when He would not +have heard me." + +She placed her hand on my mouth. + +"You are talking too much, I say. You reproach yourself for your +weakness, but try to remember what you have gone through: how you had +to baffle the mutineers--to take charge of the ship--to save our lives +from their terrible designs. Remember, too, that for days together you +scarcely closed your eyes in sleep, that you did the work of a whole +crew during the storm--dearest, what you have gone through would have +broken many a man's heart or driven him mad. It has left you your own +true self for me to love and cherish whilst God shall spare us to each +other." + +She kissed me on the mouth, drew her hand from mine, and with a smile +full of tender affection left the cabin. + +I was vexed to lose her even for a short time; and still chose to think +myself a poor creature for falling ill and keeping to my bed, when I +might be with her about the ship and telling the people on board the +story of her misfortunes and beautiful courage. + +It was a mistake of the doctor's to suppose that _her_ conversation +could hurt me. + +I had no idea of the time, and stared hard at the bull's-eye over my +head, hoping to discover by the complexion of the light that it was +early in the day, so that I might again see Mary before the night came. +I was even rash enough to imagine that I had the strength to rise, +and made an effort to get out of the bunk, which gave me just the best +illustration I could wish that I was as weak as a baby. So I tumbled +back with a groan of disappointment, and after staring fixedly at the +bull's-eye, I fell asleep. + +This sleep lasted some hours. I awoke, not as I had first awakened +from insensibility, with tremors and bewilderment, but easily, with a +delicious sense of warmth and rest and renewing vigour in my limbs. + +I opened my eyes upon three persons standing near the bunk; one was +Mary, the other the doctor, and the third a thin, elderly, sunburnt +man, in a white waistcoat with gold buttons and a blue cloth loose coat. + +The doctor felt my pulse, and letting fall my hand, said to Mary-- + +"Now, Miss Robertson, Mr. Royle will do. If you will kindly tell the +steward to give you another basin of broth, you will find our patient +able to make a meal." + +She kissed her hand to me behind the backs of the others, and went out +with a beaming smile. + +"This is Captain Craik, Mr. Royle," continued the doctor, motioning +to the gentleman in the white waistcoat, "commanding this vessel, the +_Peri_." + +I at once thanked him earnestly for his humanity, and the kindness he +was showing me. + +"Indeed," he replied, "I am very pleased with my good fortune in +rescuing so brave a pair of men as yourself and your boatswain, and +happy to have been the instrument of saving the charming girl to whom +you are betrothed from the horror of exposure in an open boat. I have +had the whole of your story from Miss Robertson, and I can only say +that you have acted very heroically and honourably." + +I replied that I was very grateful to him for his kind words; but I +assured him that I only deserved a portion of his praise. The man who +truly merited admiration was the boatswain. + +"You shall divide the honours," he said, smiling. "The bo'sun is +already a hero. My crew seem disposed to worship him. If you have +nothing better for him in your mind, you may hand him over to me. I +know the value of such men now-a-days, when so much is left to the +crimp." + +Saying this, he went to the door and called; and immediately my old +companion, the boatswain, came in. I held out my hand, and it was +clutched by the honest fellow and held with passionate cordiality. + +"Mr. Royle, sir," he exclaimed, in a faltering voice, "this is a happy +moment for me. There wos a time when I never thought I should ha' +seen you alive agin, and it went to my heart, and made me blubber +like any old woman when I thought o' your dyin' arter all the trouble +you've seen, and just when, if I may be so bold as to say it, you might +be hopin' to marry the brave, high-sperrited gell as you saved from +drownin', and who belongs to you by the will o' God Almighty. Captain +Craik, sir--I speak by your favour, and ax pardon for the liberty--this +gen'man and me has seen some queer starts together since we fust +shipped aboard the _Grosvenor_ in the West Hindie Docks, and," he +cried with vehemence, "I'd sooner ha' lost the use o' my right arm an' +leg--yes, an' you may chuck my right eye in along with them--than Mr. +Royle should ha' died just as he was agoin' to live properly and set +down on the bench o' matrimony an' happiness with a bold and handsome +wife!" + +This eloquent harangue he delivered with a moist eye, addressing us all +three in turn. I thanked him heartily for what he had said, but limited +my reply to this: for though I could have complimented him more warmly +than he had praised me, I considered that it would be more becoming to +hold over all mutual admiration and you-and-me glorification until we +should be alone. + +I observed that he wore a velvet waistcoat, and carried a shiny cloth +cap with a brilliant peak, very richly garnished with braid; and as +such articles of raiment could only emanate from the forecastle, I +concluded that they were gifts from the crew, and that Captain Craik +had reason in thinking that the boatswain had become a hero. + +The doctor shortly after this motioned him to go, whereon he gave a +shipshape salute, by tweaking an imaginary curl on his forehead, and +went away. + +I now asked what had become of the steward. Captain Craik answered that +the man was all right so far as his health went; that he wandered about +the decks very harmlessly, smiling in the faces of the men, and seldom +speaking. + +"One peculiarity of the poor creature," said he, "is that he will not +taste any kind of food but what is served out to the crew. I have +myself tried him with dishes from the saloon table, but could not +induce him to touch a mouthful. The first time I tried him in this +way he fell from me as though I had offered to cut his throat; the +perspiration poured from his forehead, and he eyed me with looks of the +utmost horror and aversion. Can you account for this?" + +"Yes, sir," I replied. "The steward was in the habit of serving out the +ship's stores to the crew of the _Grosvenor_. He rather sided with +the captain, and tried to make the best of what was outrageously bad. +When the men mutinied they threatened to hang him if he touched any +portion of the cuddy stores, and I dare say they would have executed +their threat. He was rather a coward before he lost his reason, and the +threat affected him violently. I myself never could induce him to taste +any other food than the ship's rotten stores whilst the men remained in +the vessel, and I dare say the memory of the threat still lives in his +broken mind." + +"Thanks for your explanation," said the doctor, "I shall sleep the +better for it; for, upon my word, the man's unnatural dislike of good +food--of _entrées_, man, and curried fowl and roast goose, for I tried +him myself--has kept me awake bothering my head to understand." + +"May I ask what vessel this is?" I said, addressing Captain Craik. + +"The _Peri_, of Glasgow, homeward-bound from Jamaica," he answered. + +"I know the ship now, sir. She belongs to the ---- Line." + +"Quite right. We shall hope to put you ashore in seven days hence. It +is curious that I should have known Mr. Robertson, your lady's father. +I called upon him a few years since in Liverpool, on business, and had +a long conversation with him. Little could I have dreamt that his end +would be so sad, and that it should be reserved for me to rescue his +daughter from an open boat, in mid-Atlantic!" + +"Ah, sir," I exclaimed, "no one but I can ever know the terrible trials +this poor girl has passed through. She has been twice shipwrecked +within three weeks; she has experienced all the horrors of a mutiny; +she has lost her father under circumstances which would have killed +many girls with grief; she has been held in terror of her life, and yet +never once has her noble courage flagged, her splendid spirit failed +her." + +"Yes," answered Captain Craik, "I have read her character in her story +and in her way of relating it. You are to be congratulated on having +won the love of a woman whose respect alone would do a man honour." + +"He deserves what he has got," said the doctor, laughing. "Findings +keepings." + +"I did find her and I mean to keep her," I exclaimed. + +"Well, you have picked up a fortune," observed Captain Craik. "It is +not every man who finds a shipwreck a good investment." + +"I know nothing about her fortune," I answered. "She did indeed tell me +that her father was a ship-owner; but I have asked no questions, and +only know her as Mary Robertson, a sweet, brave girl, whom I love, and, +please God, mean to marry, though she possessed nothing more in the +world than the clothes I found her in." + +"Come, come," said the doctor. + +"You're not a sailor, doctor," remarked Captain Craik, drily. + +"But, my dear sir, you'll not tell me that a gold pound's not better +than a silver sixpence?" cried the doctor. "Did you never sing this +song?-- + + 'Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms, + The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms; + Oh, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms, + Oh, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms. + Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher; then hey for a lass wi' a tocher; + Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher; the nice yellow guineas for me.' + +Is not an heiress better than a poor wench?" + +"I don't see how your simile of the pound and the sixpence applies," +answered Captain Craik. "A good woman is a good woman all the world +over, and a gift that every honest man will thank God for. + + 'Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion + Round the wealthy titled bride; + But when compared with real passion, + Poor is all that princely pride.' + +That's one of Robbie's too, doctor, and I commend your attention to the +whole song as a wholesome purge." + +As the conversation was rather too personal to be much to my liking, I +was very glad when it was put an end to by Mary coming in with a basin +of soup for me. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Thanks to my darling's devotion, to her unwearied attentions, to her +foresight and care of me, I was strong enough to leave my cabin on the +third day following my restoration to consciousness. + +During that time many inquiries were made after my health by the +passengers, and Mary told me that the greatest curiosity prevailed fore +and aft to see me. So misfortune had made a little ephemeral hero of +me, and this, perhaps, was one stroke of compensation which I should +have been very willing to dispense with. + +The second officer of the ship, a man of about my height and build, +had very kindly placed his wardrobe at my disposal, but all that I +had chosen to borrow from him was some linen, which, indeed, I stood +greatly in need of; but my clothes, though rather the worse for salt +water, were, in my opinion, quite good enough for me to wear until I +should be able to buy a new outfit ashore. + +At twelve o'clock, then, on the third day I rose and leisurely dressed +myself, and then sat waiting for Mary, whose arm to lean on I preferred +to any one's else. + +She came to the cabin presently, and when she had entered I folded her +in my arms with so deep a feeling of happiness and love and gratitude +in me, that I had no words to speak to her. + +It was when I released her that she said--"Since God has heard our +prayers, dearest, and mercifully preserved us from death, shall we +thank Him now that we are together, and say one prayer for my dear +father, who, I firmly believe, looks down upon us and has still the +power to bless us?" + +I took her hand and we knelt together, and first thanking her for +reminding me of my bounden duty, I lifted up my heart to Almighty God, +Father of all men, who had guarded us amid our perils, who had brought +us to the knowledge and love of Him and of each other, by the lesson of +hard trials and sorrowful privation. + +And I would ask you to believe that I do not relate such circumstances +as these from any ostentatious wish to parade my piety, of which God +knows I have not so large a store that I need be vain of showing it; +but that I may in some poor fashion justify many good men in my own +profession who, because they are scandalised by persons among us that +are bad, are confounded with these by people ashore who imagine the +typical sailor to be a loose, debauched fellow, with his mouth full +of bad language and his head full of drink. I say earnestly that this +is not so; that a large and generous soul animates many sailors; that +they love God, pray to Him, and in many ways too rough, maybe, to +commend them to fastidious piety, but not surely the less honest for +the roughness, strive to act up to a just standard of goodness; and +that even among the bad--bad, I mean, through the looseness of their +morals and the insanity of their language--there is often found a +hidden instinctive religion and veneration and fear of God not to be +discovered in the classes ashore to which you may parallel them. Nor, +indeed, do I understand how this can fail to be; for no familiarity +with the mighty deep can lessen its ever-appealing grandeur to them as +a symbol of heavenly power and majesty; and the frequent fear of their +lives in which sailors go--the fury of tempests, the darkness of stormy +nights, the fragility of the ship in comparison with the mountainous +waves which menace her, the horror of near and iron coasts--I say that +such things, which are daily presented to them, must inevitably excite +and sustain contemplations which very few events that happen on shore +are calculated to arouse in the minds of the ignorant classes with whom +such sailors as I am speaking of are on a level. + +When I quitted the cabin, supported by Mary, I found myself in a very +spacious saloon, most handsomely furnished and decorated, and striking +me the more by the contrast it offered to the plain and small interior +of the _Grosvenor's_ cabin. + +The table was being prepared for lunch: smartly dressed stewards +and under-stewards trotted to and fro; there were flowers on the +table, vases of gold fish swinging from the deck, a rich thick carpet +underfoot, comfortable and handsome sofas; a pianoforte stood against +the mizzen-mast, which was covered with a mahogany skin and gilded; +two rows of lamps went the length of the saloon; and what with the +paintings on the cabin doors, the curtains, the rich brasswork about +the spacious skylights, the bright sunshine streaming in upon the whole +scene and kindling a brilliance in the polished woodwork, the crystal +on the table, the looking-glasses at the fore end of the saloon--I +fairly paused with amazement, scarcely conceiving it possible that this +airy, sunshiny, sumptuous drawing-room was actually the interior of a +ship, and that we were on the sea, steaming at the rate of so many +miles an hour towards England. + +There were a couple of well-dressed women sewing or doing some kind of +needlework and conversing on one of the sofas, and on another sofa a +gentleman sat reading. These, with the stewards, were all the people in +the saloon. + +The gentleman and the ladies looked at us when we approached, and all +three of them rose. + +The ladies came and shook hands with Mary, who introduced me to them; +but I forget their names. + +They began to praise me; the gentleman struck in, and asked permission +to shake me by the hand. They had heard my story: it was a beautiful +romance; in short, they overpowered me with civilities, and made me so +nervous that I had scarcely the heart to go on deck. + +Of course it was all very kindly meant; but then what were my exploits? +Nothing to make money out of, nothing to justify my appearance on the +boards of a London theatre, nothing to furnish a column of wild writing +to a newspaper, nothing to merit even the honour of a flattering +request from a photographic company. I very exactly knew what I _had_ +done, and was keenly alive to the absurdity of any heroizing process. + +However, I had sense enough to guess that what blushing honours were +thrust upon me would be very short-lived. Who does not thank God at +some time or other in his life that there _is_ such a thing as oblivion? + +So we went on deck; I overhearing one of the ladies talk some nonsense +about her never having read or heard of anything more deliciously +romantic and exciting than the young sailor rescuing a pretty girl +from a wreck and falling in love with her. + +"Did you hear that, Mary?" I whispered. + +"Yes," she answered. + +"Was it romantic?" + +"I think so." + +"And exciting?" + +"Dreadfully." + +"And did they live happily ever afterwards?" + +"We shall see." + +"Darling, it _is_ romantic, and it _is_ exciting, to us, and to no +one else. Yes, very romantic now that I come to think of it; but all +has come about so gradually that I have never thought of the romance +that runs through our story. What time did we have to think? Mutineers +out of Wapping are no polite garnishers to a love story; and romance +must be pretty stoutly bolt-roped not to be blown to smithereens by a +hurricane." + +There were a number of passengers on deck, men, women, and children, +and when I ran my eye along the ship (the _Grosvenor_ would have made +a neat long-boat for her) and observed her dimensions, I thought that +a city might have gone to sea in her without any inconvenience arising +from overcrowding. In a word, she was a magnificent Clyde-built iron +boat of some four thousand tons burden, and propelled by eight hundred +horse-power engines; her decks white as a yacht's, a shining awning +forward and aft; a short yellow funnel, towering masts and broad yards, +and embodying every conceivable "latest improvement" in compasses, +capstans, boat-lowering gear, blocks, gauges, logs, windlass, and the +rest of it. She was steaming over a smooth sea and under a glorious +blue sky at the rate of thirteen knots, or nearly fifteen miles an +hour. Cool draughts of air circled under the awning and fanned my +hollow cheeks, and invigorated and refreshed me like cordials. + +The captain was on deck when we arrived, and the moment he saw me he +came forward and shook my hand, offering me many kindly congratulations +on my recovery; and with his own hands placed chairs for me and Mary +near the mizzen-mast. Then the chief officer approached, and most, +indeed I think all, of the passengers; and I believe that had I been as +cynical as old Diogenes I should have been melted into a hearty faith +in human nature by the sympathy shown me by these kind people. + +They illustrated their goodness best, perhaps, by withdrawing, after +a generous salutation, and resuming their various employments or +discussions, so as to put me at my ease. The doctor and the chief +officer stayed a little while talking to us; and then presently the +tiffin-bell rang, and all the passengers went below, the captain having +previously suggested that I should remain on deck, so as to get the +benefit of the air, and that he would send a steward to wait upon me. +Mary would not leave my side; and the officer in charge taking his +station on the bridge before the funnel, we, to my great satisfaction, +had the deck almost to ourselves. + +"You predicted, Mary," I said, "that our lives would be spared. Your +dream has come true." + +"Yes; I knew my father would not deceive me. Would to God he had been +spared!" + +"Yet God has been very good to us, Mary. What a change is this, from +the deck of the _Grosvenor_--the seas beating over us, the ship +labouring as though at any moment she must go to pieces--ourselves +fagged to death, and each of us in our hearts for hours and hours +beholding death face to face. I feel as though I had no right to be +alive after so much hard work. It is a violation of natural laws and an +impertinent triumphing of vitality over the whole forces of Nature." + +"But you are alive, dear, and that is all I care about." + +I pressed her hand, and after looking around me asked her if she knew +whether this vessel went direct to Glasgow. + +"Yes." + +"Have you any friends there?" + +"None. But I have friends here. The captain has asked me to stay with +his wife until I hear from home." + +"To whom shall you write?" + +"To my aunt in Leamington. She will come to Glasgow and take me home. +And you?" + +"I?" + +I looked at her and smiled. + +"I! Why, your question puts a matter into my head that I must think +over." + +"You are not strong enough to think. If you begin to think I shall grow +angry." + +"But I must think, Mary." + +"Why?" + +"I must think how I am to get to London, and what I am to do when I get +there." + +"When we were on the _Grosvenor_," she said, "you did all the thinking +for me, didn't you? And now that we are on the _Peri_ I mean to do +all the thinking for you. But I need not say that. I have thought my +thoughts out. I have done with them." + +"Look here, Mary, I am going to be candid----" + +"Here comes one of the stewards to interrupt you." + +A very civil fellow came with a tray, which he placed on the skylight, +and stood by to wait on us. I told him he need not stay, and, +addressing Mary, I exclaimed-- + +"This recalls our farewell feast on the _Grosvenor_." + +"Yes; and there is the boatswain watching us, as if he would like to +come to us again and congratulate us on having found each other out. Do +catch his eye, dear, and wave your hand. He dare not come here." + +I waved my hand to him and he flourished his cap in return, and so did +three or four men who were around him. + +"I am going----" I began. + +"You will eat your lunch first," she interrupted. + +"But why will you not listen?" + +"Because I have made my arrangements." + +"But I wish to speak of myself, dear." + +"I am speaking of you--my arrangements concern you--and me." + +I looked at her uneasily, for somehow the sense of my own poverty came +home to me very sharply, and I had a strong disinclination to hear what +my foolish pride might smart under as a mortification. + +She read my thoughts in my eyes; and blushing, yet letting me see her +sweet face, she said in a low voice, "I thought we were to be married?" + +"I hope so. It is my dearest wish, Mary. I have told you I love you. It +would break up my life to lose you now." + +"You shall not lose me--but neither will I lose you. I shall never +release you more." + +"Mary, _do_ let me speak my thoughts out. I am very poor. The little +that I had has gone down in the _Grosvenor_. I could not marry you +as I am. I could not offer you the hand of a pauper. Let me tell you +my plans. I shall write, on reaching Glasgow, to the owners of the +_Grosvenor_, relate the loss of the ship, and ask for payment of the +wages that are due to me. With this money I will travel to London and +go to work at once to obtain a berth on another ship. Perhaps, when +the owners of the _Grosvenor_ hear my story, they will give me a post +on board one of their other vessels. At all events I must hope for the +best. I will work very hard----" + +"No, no, I cannot listen!" she exclaimed, impetuously. "You are going +to tell me that you will work very hard to become captain and save a +little money; and you will then say that several years must pass before +your pride will suffer you to think yourself in a proper position to +make me your wife." + +"Yes, I was going to say that." + +"Oh, where is your clever head which enabled you to triumph over the +mutineers? Has the shipwreck served you as it has the poor steward?" + +"My darling----" + +"Were you to work twenty years, what money could you save out of this +poor profession of the sea that would justify your pride--your cruel +pride?" + +I was about to speak. + +"What money could you save that would be of service when you know that +I am rich, when you know that what is mine is yours?" + +"Not much," said I. + +"Would you have loved me the less had you known me to be poor? Would +you not have risked your life to save mine though I had been a beggar? +You loved me because--because I am Mary Robertson; and I love you +because you are Edward Royle--dear to me for your own dear sake, for my +poor dead father's sake, because of my love for you. Would you go away +and leave me because you are too proud to make us both happy? I will +give you all I have--I will be a beggar and you shall be rich that you +need not leave me. Oh, do not speak of being poor! Who is poor that +acts as you have done? Who is poor that can enrich a girl's heart as +you have enriched mine?" + +She had raised her voice unconsciously, and overhearing herself, as it +were, she stopped on a sudden, and bowed her head with a sob. + +"Mary," I whispered, "I will put my pride away. Let no man judge me +wrongly. I talk idly--God knows how idly--when I speak of leaving you. +Yes, I could leave you--but at what cost? at what cost to us both? +What you have said--that I loved you as Mary Robertson--is true. I know +in my own heart that my love cannot dishonour us--that it cannot gain +nor lose by what the future may hold in store for me with you, dear +one, as my wife." + +"Now you are my own true sailor boy!" was all she said. + + * * * * * + +I began this story on the sea, and I desire to end it on the sea; and +though another yarn, which should embrace my arrival at Glasgow, my +introduction to Mary's aunt, my visit to Leamington, my marriage, and +divers other circumstances of an equally personal nature, could easily +be spun to follow this--yet the title of this story must limit the +compass of it, and with the "Wreck of the _Grosvenor_" my tale should +have had an end. + +And yet I should be doing but poor justice to the faithful and +beautiful nature of my dear wife, if I did not tell you that the plans +which she had unfolded to me, and which I have made to appear as +though they only concerned myself, included the boatswain and the poor +steward. For both a provision was contemplated which I knew her too +well to doubt that she had the power to make, or that she would forget: +a provision that, on the one hand, would bring the boatswain alongside +of us even in our own home, and make him independent of his calling, +which, to say the least, considering the many years he had been to +sea, had served him but ill, and still offered him but a very scurvy +outlook; whilst, on the other hand, it would enable the steward to +support himself and his wife and child, without in the smallest degree +taxing those unfortunate brains which we could only hope the shipwreck +had not irreparably damaged. + +Thus much, and this bit of a yarn is spun. + +And now I ask myself, is it worth the telling? Well, however it goes +as a piece of work, it may teach a lesson: that good sailors may be +made bad, and bad sailors may be made outrageous, and harmless men may +be converted into criminals by the meanness of shipowners. Every man +knows, thanks to one earnest, eloquent, and indefatigable voice that +has been raised among us, what this country thinks of the rascals who +send rotten ships to sea. And it is worth while to acquaint people +with another kind of rottenness that is likewise sent to sea, which in +its way is as bad as rotten timbers--a rottenness which is even less +excusable, inasmuch as it costs but a trifling sum of money to remedy, +than rotten hulls: + +I mean rotten food. + +Sailors have not many champions, because I think their troubles and +wrongs are not understood. You must live and suffer their lives to +know their lives. Go aloft with them, man the pumps with them, eat +their biscuit and their pork, and drink their water with them; lodge +with crimps along with them; be of their nature, and experience their +shore-going temptations, the harpies in trousers and petticoats who +prey upon them, who drug them and strip them. + +And however deficient a man may be in those qualifications of mind +which go to the making of popular novels, I hope no person will charge +such a writer with impertinence for drawing a quill on behalf of a +race of men to whom Britain owes the greatest part of her wealth and +prosperity, who brave death, who combat the elements, who lead in +numerous instances the lives of mongrel dogs, who submit, with few +murmurs that ever reach the shore-going ear, to privations which blanch +the cheek to read, that our tables and our homes may be abundantly +furnished, our banking balances large, and our national importance +supreme. + + +THE END. + + + LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET + AND CHARING CROSS. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + + +Cover and Table of Contents created by Transcriber and placed in the +Public Domain. + +Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant +preference was found in the three volumes of this novel, or to remedy +simple typographical errors; otherwise they were not changed. + +Dialect and other non-standard spellings have not been changed. + +Spaces before the contraction "'ll" (for "will") have been retained. +Such spacing was inconsistent in this volume + +Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines have been retained. + +Page 107: "gauge" was misprinted as "guage". + +Page 180: "so that speaking one of these vessels" was printed that way. + +Page 213: "never was there less bombast" was misprinted as "their"; +changed here. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Volume 3 +of 3, by William Clark Russell + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44499 *** |