_SO PASSED THE LONG, BRIGHT HOURS AWAY_
One day Teenie from the foretop--where she spent a great portion of her
time with her monkeys and pussy--hailed the quarter-deck.
“’Tonio! O captain, there is a ship in sight.”
It was not long before both Antonio and Barclay were at the masthead.
Yes, indeed, Teenie was right. There she was, just coming over the
western horizon. A steamer, too, and that a large and powerful one,
though from the fact that her engines were far aft it could be seen that
she was a trader, and not a passenger ship.
Nearer and nearer she came, till, even without the aid of a glass, the
men could be seen on the deck.
Antonio had hoisted the ensign upside down as a flag of distress, and
both he and Barclay waved their jackets from the foretop. Let us be
charitable, and say that as there was no wind to float the flag, those
on board could not distinguish it as a flag of distress.
But they must have seen that something was wrong, and the skipper of
that trader surely had a heart as hard as flint, to pass on as he did
and make no sign. Many and many a ship at sea is thus left to perish, I
am sorry to say.
An English ship too, undoubtedly.
“I would not have believed,” said Antonio, “that such cruelty could
exist in the breast of a British sailor.”
Barclay was dumb.
For once in a way he was ashamed of his country.
* * * * *
But Providence proved far more merciful than man, and in a few days’
time, to the intense joy of all on board, cats’-paws began to ruffle the
heaving billows, and in less than an hour’s time a seven-knot breeze was
blowing from the west-north-west.
It might not last long it is true, but every inch of canvas was set at
once, and the anchor being up, away went the _Zingara_, steering
eastward and south for the Canary Islands.
Once clear away from the great ocean of weeds, and all danger seemingly
left far behind them, there was joy in every heart.
But, alas! the work was hard, for it was now watch and watch, and hardly
even thus was there enough hands to work the ship.
But the fact that the main and mizen sails were fore and aft ones
lessened the labour considerably.
* * * * *
The voyage to Teneriffe was a long and a slow one, and on a beam wind
most of the way. It was one, however, that few on board the _Zingara_
were ever likely to forget.
There was a chastened kind of sorrow in the hearts of all, that found
ascendency sometimes, but for the most part it was joy and hope that
came uppermost.
But what a change! Out here on the bright clear waters, soothed by balmy
winds, cheered by the warm sunshine, to look back now to that black and
dreary weed-pack, the Sea of Sargasso, was like opening a darksome
burial vault and gazing into the gloom and night of death.
Long anxiety had told on our heroes, and even on Teenie and Sister
Leona, and both the latter were thinner in face than they ought to have
been, and had lost something of the bloom that should dwell for ever on
the cheeks of childhood or of youth.
But from the very day the Sea of Sargasso was left behind, things took a
change for the better. Every one began to regain health and spirits, and
each day that dawned took their thoughts farther and farther away from
that nightmare dream of two years, spent in the midst of the dreariest
sea in the wide, wide world.
Though busily engaged all day, our more intimate heroes, Barclay Stuart
and Davie Drake, found time to arrange the hundreds of curios, animal
and vegetable, which they had collected while prisoners in the echoless
ocean.
It was Barclay’s intention to present those to the British Museum, so he
had the fauna labelled, with day and date, and all he knew about them,
where and how caught, and their manners and habits of life. With the
various kind of weeds he was not less particular, nor with the different
kinds of clay and sand that had been dredged up from the bottom.
When all was complete, Barclay was quite proud of his collection.
Although the wind was not all the mariners could have wished, the
_Zingara_ made fair progress.
Teenie, at all events, was in no hurry to get to Teneriffe. She loved
the sea.
The voyage to her was perfectly idyllic.
And so it was to Barclay Stuart also when Teenie--now in her fifteenth
year, be it remembered--was sitting or walking by his side.
Everything that could be done _was_ done in order to make the ship look
smart.
Pandoo and the black man--sole survivor of the four brought from the
Coral Isles--with the assistance of the one seaman left, scoured the
decks fore and aft, and turning the hose on them, washed them down.
Indeed they were washed down every morning, and this was the time for
Davie and Barclay to have a bath.
As early as five the hose was rigged and pump and sea-pipe manned. And
now the boys went on deck, shutting the companion behind them to keep
everybody else down. Then they stripped, and had the hose turned upon
them. Next to a swim in a tropical sea, I know of nothing more
exhilarating than a hose-bath of this description.
By eight o’clock the young fellows were dressed and ready for breakfast.
About two days after leaving the tail of the bank, as it was called,
they had fallen in with an outward bound trading steamer. Antonio
hoisted the flag of distress, and lay-to.
This time the signal was replied to. The steamer stopped ship, and in a
few minutes a boat was seen rapidly approaching the _Zingara_.
The officer who held the ribbons was a jolly-looking old man, with
cheeks like a full moon orient, and the snowiest of snow-white hair.
“What can I do for you?” was his first kindly query, as he shook
Antonio’s hand.
“So sorry,” began Antonio, “to take up your time----”
“Man! don’t mention it,” cried the seafarer. “My time is my own. And
what is more, the ship yonder--the _Loch Katrine_--is my own, for I’m
skipper and owner. I’m sailing from Glasgow to Rio, and farther down.
“I say, though, you’ve been in awful grief,” he added, looking around
him. “Jury main and jury mizen, and evidently the work of amateurs. And
aren’t you undermanned?”
“We have no crew at all save one sailor, that black man, and our good
and brave steward Pandoo. All are dead.”
“All dead?”
“Yes, sir; we have been imprisoned for two long years in the Sea of
Sargasso.”
“Bless my soul and body!” cried Captain M’Lean, “and you live to tell me
so!”
The rosy-faced skipper’s eyes grew bigger, and he stared in silence for
at least ten seconds at Antonio, as if he were looking at some of Madame
Tussaud’s wonderful wax figures.
“Bless my soul and body!” he repeated, “and you actually mean to tell
_me_ that you escaped at last, and that you really _are_ alive?”
“We certainly escaped, and as far as I can tell, we are all alive,
though not over-strong yet.”
The Glasgow skipper took a seat beneath the awning, lit an enormous
cigar, and gave Antonio another.
“Now,” he said, “tell me all about your adventures.”
Teenie came shyly up at this moment and put her arm round Antonio’s
neck.
“What a bonnie lassie!” cried the skipper. “Come here, dear, and shake a
paw. Why, if I were a hundred years younger I’d make love to you myself.
“Your daughter, Captain Antonio?”
“No, Captain M‘Lean. Shall I tell him what you are, dearie?” This last
to Teenie herself.
“Oh yes, ’Tonio.”
But she blushed bonnily all the same.
“She is just a little stowaway we found in the storeroom two days after
sailing, more than four years ago.”
“Well, well, well, and you love the sea, dear?”
“Oh yes, dearly; I am a fisherman’s daughter, you know, and Barclay and
myself--that is Barclay holding on to a backstay--were always--always
together in boats among the rocks, and--so----” She hung her head.
“And so you thought you shouldn’t be parted?”
* * * * *
Captain M‘Lean stopped on board for two whole hours, and all that time
Antonio kept talking, and managed to give this kindly skipper an epitome
of his marvellous adventures.
But Captain M‘Lean’s kindness was not merely of the verbal species.
He despatched a boat to his ship for fresh stores of almost every sort
that would likely be of service, nor would he hear of payment or barter.
“You would do the same by me, I know,” he said, “and God only knows how
soon we ourselves may need assistance.”
But before he went he accepted a pearl from Antonio, which he assured
him he should have placed in a ring for his wife.
And then he gave Antonio his address, bidding him be sure and call
whenever he could find his way down the romantic Clyde as far as
Helensburgh.
Soon after this the ships parted, dipping ensigns as each went on his
own way across the lonesome sea.
* * * * *
So now after their salt-water bath and a spell of walking in the morning
sunshine, Barclay and Davie had a good breakfast to go down to, cooked
and served up in Pandoo’s best style. It is needless to add that they
did justice thereto.
Yes, the voyage was indeed idyllic.
When the moon rose up of an evening and silvered the waters, while the
gentle breeze blew cooler, and the stars shone bright and clear, our
heroes, with Teenie, Sister Leona, and Antonio, sat together on the
deck.
They talked of the future--oh, not the nightmare past--till at least
five bells in the first watch, and every now and again Antonio’s sad
guitar was struck, and he sang songs of romantic Spain that enthralled
and enchanted every one who heard them.
* * * * *
Teneriffe at last, after sighting several other most beautiful islands
that hung like green or brown clouds twixt the blue sea and the horizon,
which melted together, as it were, till you could not have told where
the one ended and the other began.
It was five o’clock when the anchor was dropped, but before that time
our boy heroes were on deck, and had had their bath, and were gazing in
wonder at the rugged beauty of this mountain isle. High above all the
other mountains rose the lofty sugar-cone Peak of Teneriffe, high indeed
above the clouds that rested on his giant breast and that caught the
first pink rays of the morning sun.
But the sun had not yet risen, but had just begun to tinge the lower
mountain peaks with opal and crimson, when Teenie herself came on deck
with Sister Leona.
They were both dumb with delight. So grand a scene had never before been
witnessed by them, nor such beautiful cloud effects, not only among the
mountains themselves, but even far to the west.
Antonio went early on shore that day, taking with him Archie the mate,
Teenie, Sister Leona, and Barclay.
“Now, dearies,” he said to the latter three, “you go and enjoy
yourselves all you can, while Archie and I go to engage fresh hands.
“Mind this though, the boat will leave for the ship at precisely five.
Adios!”
And the weird wee kindly skipper waved his hand.
* * * * *
Just at this end of my ower true tale I have but little space to tell
you of all the young folks did on this delightful day, and on this
delightful island.
I shall tell you, however, one thing they did not do, they did not
attempt the ascent of the giant peak. The fatigue would have been far
too great for Teenie and her companion, albeit horses take you high up
into the mountain ranges.
But they went to Orotava, and marvelled at all the beauties of nature
they saw on every side. The drive was truly charming, the trees, the
flowers, and palms more lovely than anything on earth they had ever seen
before.
There was here such a charming mixture of the tropical and temperate, of
wildness with civilisation combined.
Barclay enjoyed it. And as to Teenie, wandering hand in hand through the
wilds, after leaving the carriage, with the boy who was more than a
brother to her, was all one delightful dream.
* * * * *
At sea again once more.
Less work to do though now, for Antonio has engaged six good seamen and
true.
Britons every one they were, and right glad to be able once more to
secure a passage to the shores of Merrie England.
* * * * *
Standing on the little pier at Fisherton one beautiful morning, with
spy-glass in hand and a trusty companion by his side, Teenie’s father
rubbed his eyes, then rubbed the glass and scanned the horizon.
He could just raise the full-rigged fore-topmast of a stately ship
standing in apparently for the shore.
“Shiver my gaff, Bill,” he said, “if there ain’t the old _Zingara_ or
her ghost. I can’t be mistaken in the cut of her jib.”
“Let _me_ have a squint.
“Ah! that is her for sure. I can raise her hull now, and why--why ’s I
live, if she haint got juries stepped, and fore and aft sails on each.”
“Oh, this _is_ a happy day,” cried Mr. Norton. “Run up and tell t’ould
parson, and send a boy to convey the jiful tidins to Mrs. Stuart and
Miss Phœbe. If I don’t run ’ome and tell my old woman that the
_Zingara’s_ headin’ straight for the bay, I’ll bust up, so off I goes.”
The news spread through the village like wildfire, and in half-an-hour’s
time there wasn’t a boat that was not afloat and speeding off to meet
the long-lost _Zingara_.
But Norton’s boat, in which went Phœbe, outstripped them all, for he
carried a press of canvas that caused her to skim across the water like
a sea-gull.
When near enough to see his own little daughter standing in the bows
beside Barclay, he simply lost all control of himself. He waved his red
fisherman cap in the air, and shouted aloud for very joy, and the shout
was taken up from boat to boat, and re-echoed even from the crowd around
the shore itself.
But can I really be expected to describe or dwell over the joysomeness
of that home-coming? There are some things that authors cannot do. And
were I to tell you how, after hugging Teenie in his arms, and kissing
her hair and brow, the old man just managed to say--
“Bless the Lord for all His mercies,” then burst into tears--I
should--why, I should make a baby of myself also, and--cry too.