“_NO HELP! NO HOPE! AND DAY AFTER DAY FLEW BY_”
Early next morning Antonio commenced putting his plan into execution.
The work would be long and tedious, probably it would be an entire
failure. Yet somehow or other he had hope.
He called all hands together and addressed them briefly.
“It seems to me,” he said, “boys, that the sandbank on which we lie
extends almost directly south far beyond this Sea of Sargasso, in which
we have been Crusoes so long. The soundings that I and my young officer
here, Mr. Stuart, have taken, appear to confirm me in that idea. Well,
deep water would frustrate my plans, so we must trust we shall keep on
the bank.
“Luckily,” he continued, “we have a tremendous length of hawser or
hawsers on board. Some of these will need splicing. This must be done at
once. So away with you, lads, and do this work, and reeve a small anchor
to one end of it, attaching the other to the windlass, and then we shall
see what we shall see.”
The men worked with such a will, that before noon all was ready.
Then the anchor end of the hawser was loaded into the weed-plough boat,
which being well manned, began at once to forge its way through the
weeds directly south.
Meanwhile the main anchor was got up.
The hawser was paid out almost to the end. Then Antonio hailed the boat
through his speaking-trumpet.
“Let go the hawser anchor.”
For just a moment hope trembled in the balance.
But, oh joy! as the men on board bent on to the winch and turned it
round, it was found that the anchor end held fast, and the ship herself
began to move slowly seawards.
Round and round went the winch, and in came the hawser.
Men were stationed over the bows at each side, armed with long poles, to
help to thrust aside the weeds. And this aided the ship’s progress
considerably.
Unfortunately there was not a breath of wind, else the work would have
gone on more quickly.
As it was, there was little to complain of, and as soon as the hawser
anchor was got up, it was once more shipped on board the weed-plough and
carried off again.
And so the work went on slowly but surely till darkening.
Then the main anchor was once more let go, and the boat hauled up for
the night. They had advanced two whole miles that afternoon, so no
wonder their spirits rose.
* * * * *
For the first time since the sad death of poor Johnnie Smart, Antonio
brought out his guitar to-night to play and sing.
We cannot blame him. We never can forget the dear dead ones, although
soundly do they sleep, their joys and sorrows past.
Then have we not the hope of a glorious resurrection? We can harbour no
doubt on this score; for to Him who made and rules the mist of stars,
and suns, and planets we see even by the naked eye every starry night
around and above us, surely nothing is impossible. But more marvellous
still, perhaps. Our Father governs the infinitely small as well as the
infinitely great, and that by laws immutable and unchangeable. Not a
midge that, though but one of millions who dance gaily as the setting
sun glints over moor or marsh He does not know all about; even the
microbes revealed to us by microscopic aid are His creatures, and fulfil
His will, making life, or destroying the old to rebuild the new. Yes, it
is a mysterious world! But what would it be without hope?
Grief, however, is not healthful, and we may indulge in it even to a
sinful extent.
But the songs sung to-night by Antonio were, though not exactly sad,
plaintive, sweet, and tender, and found their way straight to the hearts
of his listeners. And when he had finished, Sister Leona, though she had
tears in her eyes, thanked him most fervidly.
After he had laid down his instrument, Teenie crept up close to his knee
and demanded a story.
And it had to be a fairy one, too.
Antonio told her one with a mermaid in it, a most beautiful mermaid, who
dwelt far away in a coralline cave, deep down in the sea’s dark bottom.
She had little baby mermaids too, and though the sea itself was dark,
her cave was lighted up with diamonds and rubies, and studded with
pearls, quite a fairy-queen’s palace.
“And now, dearie,” he said at last, “off you go to your hammock, say
your prayers, and dream about all the pretty things I have tried to
describe to you.”
* * * * *
The men were at work next day soon after sunrise. Indeed, all hands were
piped to breakfast at a little past five o’clock.
It was a long and toilsome day’s work, and at the end of it they found
they had only done four miles.
But at this rate they would succeed at last, and probably in ten days’
time be afloat on the blue sea once more.
Day after day they toiled and toiled. Never before, perhaps, had such
hard and tedious work been performed by men who were far from well.
The labour of cutting a ship clear from the main pack of ice in the
Arctic seas is great indeed, but there the weather is cold. Here, on the
contrary, the sun’s heat almost broiled the poor fellows, and the water
served out to them was all but hot.
No wonder that before five days were over three had succumbed to
sunstroke, two of whom were dead.
Their deaths caused fear in the hearts of the survivors, for no one knew
whose turn might come next.
Antonio and the officers worked as hard, if not harder, than the crew
did.
But now came Sabbath, and rest. They were working for dear life itself,
it is true, yet Antonio believed that ill-luck would follow, if they did
not refrain from work on Sunday.
But Monday morning saw them hard at it again.
And lo! on the evening of that day, with a delight that was
inexpressible, they beheld the blue open water not ten miles away.
In three days more, being still above the sandbank, they found
themselves at anchor beyond and clear away from Sargasso, that
mysterious and echoless sea.
And now a most difficult task lay before them.
They must unship and repair the rudder. Without this they would but
drift like a log once more, and probably be once more engulfed among the
terrible weeds.
The rudder, when at last they did manage to unship and hoist it, was
found to be more severely damaged than any one had been aware of.
They had to cut timber from the lower deck itself to splice and repair
it. But at long, long last they were successful.
But heavy seas, though smooth, were once more rolling in from the south
and west, and it was days before they could get the anchor re-shipped.
Was danger all over now?
No, indeed, it was not.
For the backwash of the Atlantic had a tendency to thrust them north
again into the Sea of Sargasso, and there was not a breath of wind to
aid them in keeping away.
But luckily the sandbank ran far south, and along this they crept by
means of hawser and windlass, until they had made good quite a wide
offing.
The sandbank ended now, and just at its edge they cast anchor, and
determined to wait for the wind, or for assistance from some passing
steamer.
No help! no hope! and day after day flew by. They appeared as far from
succour as ever.
Hope began once more to fail them, and illness took its place.
Of the whole crew now only nine remained, and of these five were down
with scurvy.
O reader, if ever you go to sea, I trust you will never have any
experience of that dreariest of all diseases, scurvy. It is but little
likely that you will, for never a ship sails now that is not well
provided with its prophylactic antidote, lime juice.
I would not harrow any one’s feelings with describing the sufferings of
these stricken men, their swollen limbs, their dusky, deathlike
countenances, and their sadly sunken eyes.
One of the worst features of these cases was the terrible despondency of
the poor fellows.
Sister Leona and Teenie, with Antonio himself, laboured hard among them,
but so virulent were the attacks, that one by one all five dropped off.
They were simply sewn in their hammocks and cast overboard.
But dreadful to say, the other four hands of the working crew took ill
next, and of these three died.
Then one of the blacks succumbed.
The plague, however, seemed now stayed, but there were hardly officers
enough left to work the ship.
The reason, I believe, why none of these had died, is simply to be found
in the fact that they kept hard at work all day long. The pores of the
skin were therefore well open, and the poison eliminated as fast as it
accumulated.
But the wind never came, and for three whole weeks no sail heaved in
sight.
Had the anchor been let go, they would have drifted off into deep water,
and so have been swirled back towards the echoless sea--never again in
life to leave it.