lungs; but it was of no avail--George and the cook were both at that
moment in the innermost recesses of the ship busily engaged on their
respective avocations, and in all likelihood profoundly ignorant of the
state of affairs. At all events there was no response, and the ship
went drifting slowly past. She was floating almost level with the
little party clinging there desperately to the face of the naked rock,
the boss of her propeller being at just about the same height as the
colonel's head. As she drove almost imperceptibly along it seemed to
Mildmay that she was also being drawn inward toward the face of the
rock; and he began to ask himself whether an active man might not, after
all, be able to overleap the intervening space and grasp one of the
propeller-blades. The craft was so tantalisingly close that it seemed
to him almost a cowardly thing to let this chance pass; yet, when he
glanced downward at the darkening abyss over which he hung, he
shudderingly confessed to himself that the leap was an impossibility,
and that they must retreat upward with all speed to gain some
comparatively secure spot upon which to pass the night now gathering
about them. He was about to put this thought into words, and to propose
an immediate upward movement, when he turned to take (as he believed) a
last parting glance at the _Flying Fish_, now immediately behind him.
In doing so his fingers slipped and lost their grip upon the rock, and
before he could recover his hold he found himself going over backwards.
He felt that he was lost; but, with the instinct of self-preservation,
turned quickly on his feet, and as they too were slipping off the minute
projections on which he had been supporting himself, he made a vigorous
desperate spring outward from the face of the rock, reaching forward
into space toward the curved end of the propeller-blade which he saw in
front of him. Despair must have leant him extra strength when making
that last awful leap, for, though the distance was fully twenty feet, he
actually reached and succeeded in grasping the end of the blade. To
swing himself up astride upon it was the work of a moment; and then he
paused to rest and recover from this last shock to his nervous system.
Not for long, however; he knew that his companions must be nearly
exhausted, and that their lives now probably depended solely on his
activity and the celerity with which he might be able to go to their
rescue; so he pulled himself together, shouted to them the encouraging
news of his success, and then devoted himself in earnest to the
difficult and perilous task of reaching the deck of the ship. He had
hardly begun this task before he realised that it was one which would
tax his strength, energy, and ingenuity to their utmost extent. The
propeller-blade upon which he was perched happened to be at the very
lowest point of its revolution; and his first task must be to reach the
boss, which was about seventeen feet above his head. The peculiar shape
of the blades rendered it impossible for him to achieve this by climbing
up the edge of any one of them; his only chance consisted in working his
way from one to the other. The blade to his right seemed to him the
most easily accessible, and he forthwith set about the work of reaching
it. To do this he had to climb about ten feet up the fore _edge_ of the
blade upon which he was perched, and to anyone but a sailor this would
have been an impossibility. Even to Mildmay it proved a most difficult
as well as hazardous feat; but after a couple of failures success
crowned his efforts, and he found himself high enough to reach the point
of the next blade. This was so far away, however, that he could only
touch it with his finger-tips, and in order to grasp it--even with _one_
hand--he found that he would be obliged to overbalance himself so much
that, if he missed, a fall must inevitably result. The risk had to be
taken, however; and he took it, fortunately with success. This left him
swinging by _one_ hand from the point of the propeller-blade; but in
another second he had grasped it with his other hand, and, after a
struggle or two, managed to get fairly astride the edge. His next task
was to work himself in along the edge until he was abreast the after
edge of the blade he had just left, when he had to reach over to the
utmost stretch of his arms, grasp the blade, and in that awkward
position scramble to his feet. This he also managed, when a further
comparatively easy climb enabled him to reach the boss. He now found
himself standing on the boss and leaning against the smooth elliptical
stern of the vessel. His next task was to climb up over this smooth
rounded surface and so make his way along the upper surface of the hull
to the superstructure, when he would soon find means to reach the deck.
This also, though a task of immense difficulty, he actually
accomplished; finally reaching the deck in so prostrate a condition that
he fell insensible before he could gain the pilot-house.
His fit of insensibility, however, did not last long--the latent
consciousness of responsibility effectually prevented that; and he was
soon able to rise and stagger to the pilot-house. Once there, he
forthwith made his way below and availed himself of the stimulus
afforded by a glass of neat brandy, after which he felt equal to the
task which yet lay before him. Having swallowed the brandy, he at once
returned to the deck and shifted the rope-ladder over to the larboard
gangway. He then looked about him to ascertain the whereabouts of the
ship, which he found to be about half a mile distant from the spot where
he had left his friends, and gradually drifting further away under the
influence of a gentle night-breeze which had just sprung up--thus
proving indubitably that, had he not reached the craft when he did, she
would probably have been lost to them all for ever. Having attached the
ladder securely, Mildmay next entered the pilot-house, and--night having
by this time completely fallen--turned on the electric lights; after
which he set the engines in motion and returned to the side of the
mountain in search of the two companions he had left clinging in so
dangerous a situation. These were found just as he had left them, and
were speedily taken on board--they too being completely overcome by the
revulsion of feeling following upon their rescue.
A glass of brandy each quickly revived them, however, and then they
devoted their united energies to a search for the baronet. With some
little difficulty the scene of the accident was discovered; and a minute
or two later Sir Reginald was observed, not dead, as they had feared to
find him, but sitting up on the snow-bank upon which he had fallen, a
prisoner to the spot, from the fact that there was no possible way of
retreat from it either upward or downward; but in other respects very
little the worse for his terrible fall, the snow, happily, proving so
deep that it served as a cushion or buffer, allowing the baronet to
escape with only a few somewhat severe bruises. The adventure being
thus happily terminated, the ship was quickly navigated to the berth she
had occupied on the preceding night; and the party then sat down to
dinner, over which meal they came to the conclusion that they had had
enough mountain-climbing that day to suffice them for the remainder of
their lives.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
THE FOUNDERING OF THE "MERCURY."
The nerves of the adventurers were so shaken by the vicissitudes of
their day's adventure that they found it impossible to obtain sound and
refreshing sleep that night, notwithstanding their terrible fatigue;
their slumbers were broken by horrible dreams, and further disturbed by
the cries of wild beasts of various descriptions which kept the forest
in a perfect uproar the whole night long. So great, indeed, was the
disturbance from the latter cause, that, on comparing notes over the
breakfast table next morning, the party came to the conclusion that they
must be in a district literally swarming with big game, and that it
might be worth their while to spend a few days there hunting. This they
did; with such success that their stay was prolonged for nearly a month,
by which time they had collected such a quantity of skins, horns, tusks,
skulls, and other trophies of the chase that even they, inveterate
sportsmen as they were, acknowledged themselves satisfied. The
professor, meanwhile, had devoted himself enthusiastically to the
forming of a collection of rare birds, beetles, and butterflies, in
which pursuit he had been fully as successful as his companions in
theirs; so that when the time came for them to leave this delightful
spot they did so in the highest possible state of health and spirits;
the remembrance of their ugly adventure on Everest disturbing them no
more than would the memory of a troublesome dream.
Their next destination was the island of Borneo; and they arranged their
departure so as to pass over Calcutta and enter the Bay of Bengal during
the hours of darkness, their intention being to make the latter part of
the trip by water rather than by air.
They descended to the surface of the sea at daylight, the land being at
that time invisible from the elevation of ten thousand feet at which
they had been travelling during the night. Not a sail of any
description was in sight; the sparkling sea was only moderately ruffled
by the north-east monsoon; and appearances seemed to warrant a belief
that the passage would be a thoroughly pleasant one. The travellers
were in no hurry whatever, and they were, moreover, longing for a sniff
of the good wholesome sea-breeze; the _Flying Fish_ therefore proceeded
very leisurely on her course, her engines revolving dead slow, which
gave her a speed of about sixteen knots through the water.
They proceeded thus during the whole of that day and the succeeding
night, finding themselves at daybreak next morning within sight of one
of the lesser islands of the Andaman group. And at this point of their
journey a gradual fall of the mercury in their barometers warned them
that they were about to experience a change of weather. The atmospheric
indications remained unchanged, however, until about two o'clock in the
afternoon, when the wind lulled, the mercury experienced a sudden
further fall, and a great mass of murky cloud began to bank up in the
south-western quarter. This rapidly overspread the sky, until the whole
of the visible heavens became obscured by a thick curtain of flying
scud. The sea, inky black, suddenly became agitated, and formed itself
into a confusion of irregular waves without any "run," but which reared
themselves tremblingly aloft, and then subsided again, only to be
instantly succeeded by others. The wind fell away to a dead calm, which
continued for about a quarter of an hour, during which an alarmingly
rapid fall of the mercury, combined with a low weird moaning in the
atmosphere, seemed to forebode the approach of some dire disaster. This
was followed by a sudden blast of wind from the eastward--which came and
was gone again in an instant--and which preceded a brief but terrific
downpour of rain. This lasted for perhaps three minutes, when it ceased
as suddenly as it had commenced.
"Now, look out for the wind," exclaimed Mildmay. "Ah! here it comes--a
regular hurricane! Thank Heaven, there is no sail to shorten on board
the _Flying Fish_!"
He might well say so; for sore indeed would be the plight of the unwary
seaman who should find himself under similar circumstances, unprepared.
A long line of white foam suddenly appeared on their starboard bow,
racing down toward them and spreading out right and left with frightful
rapidity, until the whole horizon, from some four points on the larboard
bow right round to broad on their starboard beam, was marked by a
continuous line of flying foam and spindrift. They watched with eager
curiosity this remarkable phenomenon, noticed the astounding rapidity
with which it travelled, and saw that the sea on their starboard hand,
ay, and even well on their starboard quarter, was lashed into a perfect
frenzy by the hurricane before it reached the ship. Then, with a wild
rush and a deafening roar, the gale struck them, and the _Flying Fish_--
stout ship as she was--fairly shuddered under the force of the blow. In
an instant the air became so thick with the driving scud-water that
every window in the pilot-house had to be closed to prevent the inmates
being drenched to the skin. In less than five minutes the deck was wet
fore and aft with the flying spray; and before a quarter of an hour had
elapsed the _Flying Fish_ was pitching her fore-deck clean under water.
At its commencement the gale blew from about south-east, or dead in
their teeth; and the revolutions of the engines were increased to a rate
which, under ordinary circumstances, would have given the ship a speed
of some twenty-five knots, but which now drove her ahead at the rate of
only some fifteen knots against the gale. As the afternoon wore on, the
wind gradually "backed," until, at four p.m., it was blowing from due
south. This confirmed Mildmay in his suspicion that they had fallen in
with one of those most terrible of storms--_a cyclone_!
At half-past four o'clock--at which time the gale was raging with
hurricane force--a sail was made out, bearing about one point on the
_Flying Fish's_ port bow, and about four miles distant. As well as
could be made out, she appeared to be barque-rigged; and, on approaching
her more closely, this proved to be the case. She was a vessel of some
four hundred tons register, pretty deep in the water; and--though she
was hove-to under close-reefed fore and main topsails--was making
frightfully bad weather of it, the seas sweeping clear and clean over
her, fore and aft, every time she met them.
The moment that the stranger was first sighted, Mildmay opened one of
the windows--at the risk of getting drenched to the skin--and brought a
telescope to bear upon her. He had scarcely brought her within the
field of vision when he exclaimed agitatedly:
"Good Heavens! what is the man about? He has hove-to his ship _on the
port tack_; does he not know he is in a cyclone?"
"What does it matter which tack the vessel is hove-to upon?" asked Sir
Reginald with a smile at Mildmay's excitement.
"All the difference in the world, my dear sir," was the reply. "We are
in the Northern Hemisphere; in which--as you have already had an
opportunity of observing--cyclones _invariably_ revolve _against_ the
apparent course of the sun. A knowledge of this fact teaches the wary
seaman to heave-to on the _starboard_ tack; by doing which his ship
dodges _away from_ the fatal centre or `eye' of the storm. This fellow,
however, by heaving-to on the port tack, is steadily nearing the centre,
which must eventually pass over him, when his ship will be suddenly
becalmed, only to be struck aback a few moments later, when she will--
almost to a dead certainty--founder with all hands. For Heaven's sake
let us bear down upon him and warn him ere it be too late. And we have
no time to lose about it either; for, if I may judge from the fury of
the gale, the centre of the storm is not far off."
The speed of the _Flying Fish_ was promptly increased, her course being
at the same time so far altered as to admit of her intercepting the
barque, and a few minutes later she passed under the stranger's stern
and hauled close up on her weather quarter, the travellers thus having
an opportunity of ascertaining the name of the vessel, which proved to
be the _Mercury_ of Bristol. They were now also able to realise more
fully than they had yet the tremendous strength of the gale and power of
the sea; the unfortunate barque careening gunwale-to under the pressure
of the wind upon her scanty canvas, whilst the sea deluged her decks
fore and aft; the whole of her lee and a considerable portion of her
weather bulwarks having already been carried away, together with her
spare spars; whilst every sea which broke on board her swept something
or other off the deck and into the sea to leeward. The long-boat and
pinnace, stowed over the main hatchway, were stove and rendered
unserviceable; and, even as the _Flying Fish_ ranged up alongside, their
destruction was completed and their shattered planks and timbers torn
out of the "gripes." The crew of the ship had, for safety's sake,
assembled aft on the full poop; and among them could be seen a female
figure crouching down under the meagre shelter of the cabin skylight
evidently in a state of extreme terror.
"You go out and hail them, Mildmay; you know what to say," remarked Sir
Reginald, as he steered the _Flying Fish_ into a favourable position for
communicating.
The lieutenant needed no second bidding; he felt that the crisis was
imminent; and, stepping out on deck, where he had to cling tightly to
the lee guard-rail to escape being washed overboard, he hailed:
"Barque ahoy! do you know that you are in a cyclone, and hove-to on the
wrong tack? I would very strongly advise you to wear round at once and
get the ship on the starboard tack. If the eye of the storm catches you
you will surely founder."
To his intense astonishment an answer came back--from a great black-
bearded savage-looking fellow--couched in the words, as nearly as he
could make them out for the howling of the wind and the rush of the sea:
"You mind your own business! Nobody on board this ship wants your
advice."
"But I am giving it you for your own safety's sake, and that of the
ship," persisted Mildmay.
The answer was unintelligible, but, as it was accompanied by an
impatient wave of the hand and a turning of the speaker's back upon him,
Mildmay rightly concluded that the individual was one of those
obstinate, pig-headed people, who, having once made a mistake, will
persist in it at all hazards rather than take advice, and so admit the
possibility of their having done wrong; he accordingly turned away
somewhat disgusted, and made his way back to the shelter of the pilot-
house.
The lieutenant was in the act of describing to his companions the
unsatisfactory nature of the foregoing brief colloquy, when
suddenly--_instantaneously_--there occurred an awful pause in the fury
of the hurricane; the wind lulled at once to a dead calm; the air
cleared; the sea, no longer thrashed down by the gale, reared itself
aloft as though it would scale the very heavens; and the canvas of the
barque flapped with a single loud thunderous report as she rolled
heavily to windward.
"Now, look out!" gasped Mildmay. And, even as the words escaped his
lips, down came the hurricane again in a sudden mad burst of relentless
fury; but _now_ the wind blew from the _northward_, the point of the
compass exactly opposite that from which it had been blowing a minute
before.
The _Flying Fish_, having neither sails nor spars exposed to the blast,
received this second stroke of the gale with impunity; but with the
devoted barque it was, alas, very different. She was struck flat aback
and borne irresistibly over on her beam-ends, gathering stern-way at the
same time. The crew, at last fully alive to the extreme peril of their
situation, scrambled along the deck and made their way to the braces in
a futile attempt to haul round the yards, the helmsman at the same time
jamming the wheel hard down that the ship might have a chance to pay
off. The yards, however, were jammed fast against the weather rigging,
and could not be moved; neither would the ship's head pay off;
meanwhile, her stern-way was rapidly increasing, the sea already foaming
up level with her taffrail; and presently it curled in over her lee
quarter, sweeping in a steadily increasing volume along her deck. The
catastrophe which followed took place with startling rapidity. The
stern of the barque, now buried beneath the surge, seemed at once to
lose all its buoyancy, and, powerfully depressed by the leverage of the
topsails on the masts, plunged at once deeply below the surface of the
hungrily leaping sea, the rest of the hull following so quickly that,
before the horrified spectators in the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house fully
realised what was happening, the entire hull had disappeared, the masts,
yards, and top-hamper generally only remaining in sight a moment longer,
as though to impress upon them unmistakably the fact that a ship was
foundering before their eyes.
"Come back and close the door!" thundered Sir Reginald to Mildmay,
laying his hand upon certain valve-handles as the lieutenant sprang out
on deck, urged by some indefinite purpose of rendering help where help
was obviously no longer possible.
Mildmay stood for a moment, as one in a dream, watching the submergence
of the ill-fated _Mercury's_ jib-boom end and fore-topgallant mast-head
(the last of her spars to disappear) beneath the swirl where her hull
had just vanished, and then, dazedly, he obeyed the baronet's sharply
reiterated command.
No sooner did the door clang to than Sir Reginald rapidly threw open all
the valves of the water chambers, and the _Flying Fish_ at once began to
follow the barque to the bottom. In less than five seconds the
travellers found themselves clear of all the wild commotion raging on
the surface, and descending silently, rapidly, yet steadily deeper and
deeper into the recesses of the cool twilight which prevailed around
them, deepest blue below and an ever-darkening green above. They
quickly overtook the _Mercury_ and continued the descent almost side by
side with her, watching, with awe-struck curiosity yet overwhelming pity
and horror, the death-struggles of those who were being helplessly
dragged down with her. They observed, with a feeling of intense relief,
that the struggle for life ceased, in almost every case, in less than a
minute, the expression of horror on the dying men's faces passing away
still earlier and giving place to one of profound peace and contentment;
thus confirming, to a great extent the current belief that death by
drowning is a painless mode of dissolution.
The crew had, without exception, at the moment of the barque's
foundering, grasped some rope or other portion of the vessel's
equipment, the death-clutch upon which was in no single instance
relaxed; hence they were, one and all, dragged hopelessly to the bottom
with the wreck. With the female, however, it was different. She had
been crouching in a kneeling attitude upon the deck, under the imperfect
shelter of the cabin skylight, and when the poop deck became submerged
she was swept forward, still in the same attitude, with her hands
clasped as in prayer, until her body was washed clear of the poop rail,
when the suction of the sinking ship dragged her below the surface. As
the hull of the barque settled down it gradually recovered its balance
and assumed an almost level position, due, to some extent, no doubt, to
the pressure of the water upon the sails; and, with every fathom of
descent, the downward motion grew increasingly slower. The wreck had
sunk to a depth of perhaps twenty or five-and-twenty fathoms, when the
absorbed spectators in the _Flying Fish's_ pilot-house were startled by
observing a sudden convulsive motion in the body of the female. Her
hands were unclasped, her arms were flung wildly out above her head, and
her body was slowly straightened out. At the same moment the space
between her and the sinking wreck widened; the vessel was sinking more
rapidly than the body. The descent of the _Flying Fish_ was instantly
checked, and in another moment it became apparent that the body _was
rising to the surface_.
In eager, breathless anxiety the watchers noted the steady downward
progress of the _Mercury's_ spars and cordage past the now struggling
form of the woman, victims of alternate dismay and hope as they saw the
body now fouled by some portion of the complicated net-work of standing
and running gear between the main and mizzen masts, and anon drifting
clear of it again. A few seconds, which to the quartette in the pilot-
house seemed spun out to the duration of ages, and the last of these
perils was evaded, upon which the body, still feebly struggling, resumed
its upward journey.
With a great sigh of intense relief, echoed by each of his companions,
Sir Reginald swiftly backed the _Flying Fish_ astern, causing her at the
same time, by a movement of the tiller, to swerve with her bow directly
toward the body, now some five or six feet above the level of the deck.
Then, quick as thought, the ship was sent ahead until her deck was
immediately beneath the body, when, the valves of the air and water
chambers being simultaneously thrown open, she rushed upward to the
surface, overtaking the drowning woman and carrying her upward also.
In another instant, a vacuum having been created in the air-chambers,
the _Flying Fish_ broke water with a tremendous rush and swirl, and,
without a moment's pause, rose into the air, the senseless body on deck
being prevented from washing off again only by the guard-rail which
stood in place of bulwarks.