"Well, Mr Poole, sir, we seem to have got ourselves into a pretty jolly
sort of mess. I feel quite damp. You are skipper, sir; what's to be
done?"
"Shout again," cried Poole; "all together,"--and another lusty yell was
given.
"There, 'tarn't no use, sir," said the boatswain, "if so be as I may
speak."
"Speak? Of course! I am only too glad of your advice. What were you
going to say?"
"Only this 'ere, sir--that it aren't no use to shout. I am wet and
cold, and hollering like this is giving me a sore throat, and the rest
of the lads too. There's Dick Boulter is as husky as my old uncle Tom's
Cochin fowl. Here, I want to know why the skipper don't show a blue
light."
"He dare not," said Poole hastily. "It would be showing the gunboat
where the schooner is."
There was a sharp slap heard in the darkness, caused by the boatswain
bringing his hand smartly down upon his sturdy thigh.
"Right you are, my lad. I never thought of that. I oughter, but it
didn't come. 'Cause I was so wet, I suppose. Well, sir, what do you
think?"
"Try, every one of you," said Poole, "whether you can make out a light.
The _Teal_ oughtn't to be very far away."
"Nay, sir, she oughtn't to be, but she is. Off shore here in these seas
you get currents running you don't know where. We don't know, but I
expect we are in one of them, and it's carrying us along nobody knows
how fast; and like as not another current's carrying on the same game
with the _Teal_."
"Well, we must row, and row hard," said Poole.
"But that may be making worse of it," put in Fitz, who had been
listening and longing to speak.
"Well done," said the boatswain. "Spoke like a young man-o'-war
officer! He's right, Mr Poole, sir. I am longing to take an oar so as
to get warm and dry; but it's no use to try and make what's as bad as
ever it can be, ever so much worse."
"That would puzzle you, Mr Butters," said Fitz, laughing.
"Oh, I don't know, sir," said the boatswain seriously, and perfectly
unconscious of the bull he had made. "We might, you know. What's to be
done, Mr Poole?"
"I can only see one thing to be done," said the skipper's son, "and that
seems so horrible and wanting in spirit."
"What's that?" said Fitz sharply.
"Wait for daylight."
"Oh!" cried Fitz impatiently. "Impossible! We can't do that."
"Well, I don't know, Mr Burnett, sir," growled the boatswain, gazing
round. "Seems to me as if we must. Look here, you Bob Jackson," he
almost roared now, as he turned sharply on the shivering foremast-man
who had just been brought back to life, "what have you got to say for
yourself for getting us all into such a mess as this? I always thought
you were a bit of a swab, and now I knows it."
"Don't bully the poor fellow," cried Poole hotly. "It was an accident."
"Of course it was, sir," cried the boatswain, in an ill-used tone, as he
drew off his jacket and began to wring it as tightly as he could; "and
accidents, as I have heared say, will happen in the best-manned vessels.
One expects them, and has to put up with them when they comes; but
people ought to have accidents at proper times and places, not just when
we've escaped running ourselves down, and the Spanish gunboat's arter
us. Now then, Bob, don't sit there hutched up like a wet monkey. Speak
out like a man."
"I haven't got nothing to say, Mr Butters, sir, only as I am very
sorry, and much obliged to you for saving my life."
"Much obliged! Sorry! Wuss and wuss! Yah! Look at that now! Wuss
and wuss. It never rains but it pours."
"What's the matter?" cried Fitz, for the boatswain had made a sudden
dash with one hand as if striving to catch something that had eluded his
grasp.
"Matter, sir? Why, I squeeged my brass 'bacca-box out of my
jacket-pocket. It was chock-full, and it would go down like lead.
Here, I give up now. Give your orders, Mr Poole, and I'll row or do
anything else, for I'm quite out of heart."
"Never mind your tobacco-box," said Fitz. "I'll give you a good new one
the first time I get the chance."
"Thankye kindly, sir," replied the man, "but what's the good of that?
It aren't the box I mind. It's the 'bacca. Can you give me a mossel
now?"
"I am sorry to say I can't," said Fitz.
"I've got plenty of that, Mr Butters, sir," said his wet companion,
dragging out a box with some difficulty, for his wet hand would hardly
go into his tight breeches-pocket, and when he had forced it in,
declined to come out.
"You've got plenty, Bob, my lad?" cried the boatswain. "Then you are a
better man than I thought. There, I'll forgive you for going overboard.
It were an accident, I suppose.--Hah! That's better," he continued,
opening his knife and helping himself to a quid, which completely
altered the tone of his voice. "There you are, my lad; put that there
box back, and take care on it, for who knows but what that may be all
our water and biscuit and other stores as will have to last us till we
get picked up again? Now, Mr Poole, sir, what's it to be? I am at
your sarvice if you will give the word."
"I think we had better keep pulling gently, Butters, and go by the stars
westward towards the land. It will be far better, and the feeling that
we are doing something will keep us all from losing heart."
"Right, my lad. Your father the skipper couldn't have spoken wiser
words than them. Here, you Bob Jackson, get out of that jacket and
shirt, and two of you lads hold the things over the side and one twist
one way and t'other t'other, like the old women does with the sheets on
washing-day. I am going to do just the same with mine. And then we two
will do what bit of rowing's wanted till we gets quite dry. Say, Mr
Fitz, sir, you couldn't get better advice than that, if you had been
half-drowned, if you went to the best physic doctor in Liverpool."
Shortly after, steering by the stars, the boat was headed pretty well
due west, and a couple of oars were kept dipping with a monotonous
splash, raising up the golden water, which dripped in lambent globules
from the blades. All above was one grand dome of light, but below and
around it was as if a thick stratum of intense blackness floated on the
surface of the sea.
So strangely dark this seemed that it impressed the boat's crew with a
sense of dread that they could not master. It was a condensation of
dread and despair, that knowledge of being alone in a frail craft at the
mercy of the sea, without water or supplies of any kind, and off a coast
which the currents might never let them reach, while at any hour a
tempestuous wind might spring up and lash the sea into waves, in which
it would be impossible for the boat to live.
"Don't sit silent like that, Burnett," whispered Poole. "Say something,
there's a good fellow."
"Say? What can I say?" was whispered back. "Anything. Sing a song, or
tell a story. I want to keep the lads in good heart. If we show the
white feather they'll show it too."
"That's right enough," said Fitz gloomily; "but I don't feel as if I
could do anything but think. I couldn't sing a song or tell a story to
save my life."
"But you must. It _is_ to save your life."
"I tell you I can't," cried Fitz angrily.
"Then whistle."
The middy could not even whistle, but the suggestion and the manner in
which it was said did have a good effect, for it made him laugh.
"Ah! That's better," cried Poole. "I say, Butters, do you think if we
had a fishing-line overboard we should catch anything?"
"Like enough, lad, if we had a good bait on. Fish is generally on the
feed in the night, and there's no end of no-one-knows-whats off these
'Merican coasts. Might get hold of something big as would tow us right
ashore."
"Yes, or right out to sea," said Fitz.
"Ay, my lad; but we should have to chance that."
"But there's not likely to be a line in the locker," said Poole.
"And if there was," said Fitz, "you have no bait."
"'Cept 'bacca," said the boatswain, "and they wouldn't take that. And
even if they would, we couldn't afford to waste it on fish as most
likely wouldn't be good to eat. You catches fishes off these coasts as
is painted up like parrots--red, and green, and yaller, and blue; but
they are about as bad as pison.--Getting warmer, Bob?"
"Bit," said the man addressed.
"So'm I.--Tell the lads to keep their ears open, Mr Poole, for
breakers. There may be shoal water anywhere, and we don't want to run
into them."
"You think it's likely, then," said Fitz, "that we may reach the shore?"
"Oh yes, sir; we might, you know; and if we did I dare say you young
gents would find it an uninhabited island where you could play at
Robinson Crusoe till a ship come and took us off. What do you say to
that?"
"Nothing," said Fitz. "I want the daylight to come, and a sight of the
_Silver Teal_."
"Same here, sir. My word, I'm beginning to feel like wishing we had got
the Camel here, though he would be no good without the galley and his
tools. Not a bad chap to have, though, Mr Poole, if we was to land in
a sort of Robinson Crusoe island. There's worse messmates at a time
like that than a chap as can knock up decent wittles out of nothing;
make a good pot of soup out of a flannel-shirt and an old shoe, and
roast meat out of them knobs and things like cork-blocks as you find
growing on trees. Some of them cookie chaps too, like the Camel, are
precious keen about the nose, long-headed and knowing. Old Andy is an
out-and-out clever chap at picking out things as is good to eat. I had
a ramble with him once up country in Trinidad. He was a regular wunner
at finding out different kinds of plants. `Look 'ere,' he says, `if you
pull this up it's got a root something like a parsnep whose grandfather
had been a beet.' And then he showed me some more things creeping up
the trees like them flowers at home in the gardens, wonvuluses, as they
call them, only he called them yams, and he poked one out with his
stick, and yam it was--a great, big, black, thick, rooty thing, like a
big tater as had been stretched. Andy said as no fellow as had brains
in his head ought to starve out in a foreign land; and that's useful to
know, Mr Poole and Mr Burnett, sir. Come in handy if we have to do
the Robinson Crusoe for a spell.--Keep it up, young gents," he
whispered; "the lads like to hear us talk.--`That's all very fine,
Andy,' I says," he continued, aloud, "`but what about water? Whether
you are aboard your ship or whether you are in a strange land, you must
have plenty of water in your casks!' `Find a river,' he says. `But
suppose you can't,' says I. `Open your snickersee,' says he, `and dig a
hole right down till you come to it. And if there aren't none, then use
your eyes.' `Why, you can't drink your eyes,' I says, `and I'd rather
have sea-water any day than tears.' `Use them,' he says; `I didn't say
drink 'em. Look about. Why, in these 'ere foreign countries there's
prickly plants with long spikes to them to keep the wild beasts from
meddling with them, so as they shall be ready for human beings; and then
all you have got to do is to rub or singe the spikes off and they're
chock-full of water--juice, if you like to call it so--only it's got no
taste. Then there's plahnts with a spunful of water in their jyntes
where the leaves come out, and orkard plahnts like young pitchers or
sorter shucks with lids to keep the birds off, and a lot of water in the
bottom of them, besides fruits and pumpkin things. Oh, a fellow can rub
along right enough if he likes to try. I could manage; I know that.'
And I believe he could, gentlemen, and that's what makes me say as the
Camel would be just the right sort of fellow to have with us now, him
and old Chips, so long as old Chips had got his basket of traps; not as
he would stand still if he hadn't, for he's just the fellow, if he has
no tools, as would set to and make some."
And the night gradually wore on, with the men taking their turns at
rowing. The boatswain and Bob Jackson both declared themselves to be as
dry as a bone, and what with talking and setting despair at defiance,
they went on and on through the great silence and darkness that hovered
together over the mighty deep, till all at once the boatswain startled
Fitz by turning quite suddenly and saying to him--
"There aren't no farmyard and a stable handy, sir, to give us what we
want. Could you make shift to do it?"
"To do what?" said Fitz wonderingly. "Crow like a cock, sir. It's just
the right time now."
"You don't mean to say it's morning, Butters?"
"No, sir; it's Natur' as is a-doing that. You've got your back to it.
Turn round and look behind you. That's the east."
Both lads wrenched themselves round upon the thwart where they sat, to
gaze back over the sea and catch the first glimpse of the faint dawn
with its promises of hope and life, and the end of the terrible night
through which they had passed.
And after the manner of the tropics, the broad daylight was not long in
coming, followed by the first glint of the sun, which, as it sent a long
line of ruddy gold over the surface of the sea, lit up one little speck
of light miles upon miles to the north of where they lay.
Fitz Burnett was the first to make it out, but before he could speak the
boatswain had seen it too, and broke out with--
"Three cheers, my lads. Put all you know into it, hearty. There lies
the _Teal_. Can you see the skipper, Mr Poole, sir?"
"See my father?" cried the lad. "No! What do you mean?"
"Ah, you want practice, sir. You ought to see him with your young eyes.
He's there on deck somewhere with that double-barrelled spyglass of
his, on the look-out for this 'ere boat."
"Perhaps so," said Poole quietly, "and I suppose that's one of the
_Teal's_ sails; but it's only half as big as a pocket-handkerchief
folded into twenty-four."
Two hours later they were on board, for it had not been long before the
double-barrelled spyglass had picked them out.