went. He was chuckling in the merriest way, and poor Lim'us, who was
cold, and very sick of the whole affair, thought that the strain had
been too much for him.
"'E's balmy on the crumpet, that's what's the matter wiv 'im," said
Lim'us as he obeyed orders reluctantly, and pulled into the solid fog
with a mad and grinning skipper, who would probably scupper him as
soon as they were out of earshot of the crew.
"I wish I was in Lim'us," said he. "I'd give all my wyges to see
Commercial Rowd agin."
And still Spink chuckled and paid out the twine, until suddenly the
boat ran into a still deeper darkness.
"Easy, boy," said the skipper, with a strange note of exultation in
his voice. "Easy, we're there now."
As he spoke the boat ground up against the side of the derelict, and
Lim'us turned about on the thwart and touched the iron plates with
his hand.
"If you let a yell out of you," said the captain, "I'll cut your
throat from ear to ear."
But indeed Lim'us was incapable of yelling. All he could do was to
gasp, and he did that as effectively as if he was a bonito with the
grains in him. And the boat drifted towards the vessel's bows, while
Spink looked for the easiest way on board.
"They ran like rats," said Spink. "Oh, I know the way they ran.
They got on board the other boat, and think this one is now
surprisin' the codfish."
They reached the bows at last, and came round on the port side, and
there Spink found what he looked for. The vessel had been cut down
to within six inches of the water's edge about forty feet aft from
the bow.
"Just as I laid it out in my mind," said Spink. "Catch hold you,
while I get on board."
He dropped about ten fathoms of the twine into the water, and with
the rest of the ball in his pocket he scrambled up the horrid gash in
the derelict's side and got on deck. He walked for'ard and got the
twine clear out on the starboard side, pointing for the unconscious
mate. Then he made it fast and took a look at his new command. In
spite of the fog it was not difficult to see that she was a fine new
boat of about two thousand tons, built and fitted, as was pretty
obvious from her derricks, for a fast freight boat. It was equally
obvious that the whole crew had evacuated her in a panic, for Spink
found the skipper's berth with the bed-clothes on the floor, along
with a sad and derelict pair of trousers. The 'old man' had
evidently been in his bunk instead of being on the bridge, and, so
far as Spink could see, he had stayed to grab nothing but the ship's
papers, without which there can be no maritime salvation.
"This will be a very valuable salvage job," said Spink, as he licked
his lips after taking a pull at a bottle of whisky which he found
only too handy to the lips of the former skipper. "There's money in
this, oh, lots of it. And now I'll show Ward where my luck comes in.
And I'll have old Mac and Calder patch up that rent in her before it
comes on to blow again."
He put the bottle in his pocket and went for'ard, feeling a deal more
proud than if he owned a fleet. For the deserted steamer, the name
of which was the _Winchelsea_ of Liverpool, was a direct proof that
his luck was still what it had been. He found the end of the twine,
and hauled in the slack very cautiously.
"I wish I could see his face," said Spink, as he gave the twine a
yank which made Ward sit up suddenly and wonder what had happened to
him.
"Oh, oh, oh!" said Ward. The ice was nearer than it had been, and
what he said was quite audible on board the _Winchelsea_.
"Eh, what?" said Ward. And then Spink gave the line another yank
which almost started Ward on an ice run for the water. But this time
he found out what was the matter, and laid hold of the twine.
"Who the devil's pulling my leg?" he roared in such stentorian tones
that the whole crowd woke up instantly.
"I am," said Spink. "And I'll thank you to pay attention, and not
lie there snoring while I do all the work."
"Where are you?" asked Ward. "I can't see you."
"Where d'ye think I am?" asked Spink. "While you were asleep I went
out and looked for a new job and found it."
As he spoke there were sudden signs of dawn, and once more the
curtain of the mist rolled away, and the late crew of the _Swan_ saw
a big steamer within fifty feet of them, with the late skipper of the
_Swan_ leaning over her side smoking his morning pipe.
"Jerusalem!" said the crew, and they shook their heads with
amazement, while Ward scratched his. Day whistled, old Mac burst
into joyful tears, and Billings used some awful language to show his
gratitude. And Spink said--
"When you have washed and shaved and put on clean collars, I should
be much obliged by your coming on board and doing enough work to melt
the hoar-frost that's on you. Limehouse, scull over to the berg, and
look slippy about it."
In ten minutes they all found themselves on board, and Mac and Calder
set to work before breakfast to patch her up. The engines and
furnaces were still warm, and it took little time to get up steam.
But Ward took some to get up his. As he said, it was a fair
knock-out, and it seemed like some black magic on the part of the
skipper, who walked the bridge after breakfast as if he owned the
whole North Atlantic.
"She was bound for England, and we'll go home," said Spink. "And as
soon as may be we'll find out what's in her. This is my first
salvage, and it's goin' to be a good one."
"You're a wonder," said Ward.
"Didn't I always say so?" replied Spink modestly. "And now I hope
that you and Day will behave yourselves, and not trade on any
weaknesses that I may have, for I won't put up with it if you do."
"How do you propose to stop it?" asked Day. "You can't plug me or
Ward any better now than you could before. Why don't you behave?
Then there would be no trouble. I'm fair sick of hearin' about your
unfortunate disposition."
"So am I," said Ward.
Spink shook his head with disgust.
"And this kind of talk after what I've done," he said. "I wish you
would read old Kelly's little book on the Mate and His Duties, Ward.
It would teach you how to behave."
"I had it in the _Swan_," said Ward, "but though it had a lot in it
about land-saints and sea-devils, there was nothin' in it that fitted
a man like you."
"Perhaps not," said Spink thoughtfully. "I own I'm rare, I'm very
rare."
The fog cleared right off, and the sun shone and the calm sea
sparkled. In such circumstances everyone ought to have been happy,
but Spink said he wasn't.
"I wish I wasn't so rare," said Spink.
THE REMARKABLE CONVERSION OF
THE REV. THOMAS RUDDLE
The passengers on board the s.s. _Nantucket_, bound from New York to
Table Bay, were of a kind to make any old-fashioned seaman shake his
head and talk dismally of Davy Jones. They were nearly all ministers
and missionaries, and it is well known to all who follow the sea that
gentlemen of that kind are unlucky to have on board. For Davy Jones
is the very devil, and if he gets a chance to drown a minister he
does it at once, so that he may do no more good. There can be no
mistake about this, for every sailorman of great experience will
endorse the theory with strange oaths. What all sailors say must be
true, for they know their business.
One of these missionaries was the Reverend Mr. Ruddle, and he was the
chief of all the others, who were going to South Africa to do it
good. There were six of them all told. Thomas Ruddle had his wife
with him, for he could not exist without her; and she, for her part,
thought him a marvellous man and a darling. He had a beautiful
smile, and a big black beard, and a voice like the bellow of an
amiable bull. But Mrs. Ruddle was blue-eyed, with the complexion of
a Californian peach and a voice like a flute. She would have
followed him to Davy Jones' locker itself if he had asked her, and
though he did not think of doing anything so unorthodox, they were
not far from having to go there without the consent of anyone. For
when the _Nantucket_ was within two hundred miles of Capetown it came
on to blow from the south-east as if the very devil was at the
bellows, and after the old packet had proved that she hadn't
sufficient power to make headway against the gale, she promptly
cracked her shaft, and went drifting away to loo'ard like a Dutch
schuyt on a lee tide.
"It is a very sad misfortune, and I do not know now when we shall be
in Africa," said Tom Ruddle. "I regret to say, my dear, that the
captain is on the main-deck using very bad language to the chief
engineer, who is replying to him in a way that I cannot approve.
Indeed, I think he swears worse than Captain Stokes, if it is
possible, which I doubt."
The other gentlemen in black mostly kept to their cabins, but Ruddle
went about in the most astonishing way. If the _Nantucket_ stood on
her head Ruddle never lost his feet, and when she stood on her tail
he was quite at his ease. When she indulged in a wild compound
wallow in those delightful cross pyramidal seas which are the
peculiar attribute of the South Atlantic in the neighbourhood of the
Cape, all that Tom Ruddle said was 'Dear me.' He even said it when
Captain Stokes did a flying scoot on the main-deck, and brought up
against the rail with a crash that almost unshipped his teeth. What
Stokes said was not 'Dear me.' And the old _Nantucket_ went drifting
west-nor'-west on the branch of the current, coming round the Cape,
which runs far to the north of Tristan d'Acunha, as if she had put
Africa out of her mind. Down below the engineers were trying very
hard to fake up something to brace round the shaft, so that they
could at least turn the engines ahead when the weather let up a
little. It seemed a hopeless job, and to none so hopeless as to the
engine-room crowd. And just as perseverance with the impossible
seemed about to be rewarded, the _Nantucket_ gave a wallow in an
awful sea, and quietly dropped her propeller as a scared lizard drops
its tail. Then very naturally the wind took off, and the sea went
down and smoothed itself out, and looked quite pretty to those who
had been watching the grey waste in despair.
"We're done," said the skipper. For the idea of sailing her into
Table Bay was as feasible as sailing her to the moon. The wind,
although it had fallen light, was still in the east, and it
threatened to stay so till it blew another gale, after the fashion of
Cape weather, where fifty per cent. of all winds that blow are gales.
"It is exceedingly unfortunate," said Ruddle.
"What will happen to us?" asked his fellows in deep melancholy.
"Something must," said their brave leader, and sure enough it did. A
sailing ship hove in sight to loo'ard. The skipper, as soon as he
heard of the stranger, made up his mind what to do. He hoisted the
signal 'In distress--want assistance,' and presently the sailing ship
came up under her lee within hailing distance, and backed her
main-topsail.
"Are you bound for Table Bay?" asked Captain Stokes, and the obliging
stranger said he was. In ten minutes it was all arranged, and the
_Nantucket's_ passengers were being transhipped to the _Ocean Wave_
of a thousand tons register, belonging to London. Stokes went on
board with the last boat, and shook hands with the master of the
_Ocean Wave_.
"When you get in send a tug out to find us," said Stokes; "it's goin'
to blow heavy in a while."
"I'll do it," said Captain Gray; "but are you sure that you won't
come along?"
"I'd go under first," said Stokes; "I'll stick by her till I'm as old
as the Flying Dutchman, and my beard is down to my knees."
It was very rash to say such things in the very cruising ground of
Vanderdecken, and some of the crew of the _Wave_ that heard it
shivered. But Stokes was a hard case, and believed in nothing. He
said good-bye to his passengers and went on board the _Nantucket_.
The _Ocean Wave_ boarded her maintack and stood on her course with
her new crowd of passengers, who were very much delighted to be on
board something that did not go to leeward like a butter-cask.
"How strange to be on board a sailing ship," said Ruddle, as he stood
on the poop with the skipper, who was a genial old chap with a white
beard, and a figure as square as a four-hundred gallon tank.
"Why strange, Mr. Ruddle?" asked Captain Gray. "Barring your rig-out
you look a deal more like a seaman than a parson, at least you do to
my eye."
"Your eye is right, captain," said Ruddle with a sigh. "But it is a
very remarkable thing that though I have been a sailor I know nothing
about the sea that I have not picked up on board the unlucky steamer
we have just left."
"That's a very strange thing to say, sir," said the skipper, as he
eyed Ruddle from head to foot. "May I ask how you make that out?
Once a seaman always a seaman, I should say. I can't imagine my
forgetting anything. I never could."
"It's a very strange story," said Ruddle; "and if there wasn't
evidence for it I shouldn't believe it myself. But in my pocket-book
below I have my old discharges as mate, and yet at the present moment
there is no one on board who knows less about the sea than I do,
though I hold a master's certificate."
"Spin us the yarn," said the skipper, and Ruddle told him the strange
tale.
"I am informed," said the minister, "that I was, at the time I am
about to mention, mate in a ship belonging to Dundee. I say I am
told, because I have not the least recollection of it. To put it
shortly, I may tell you that I had an accident, and when I became
sensible again I was in hospital in Liverpool."
"But what was your accident?" asked Captain Gray.
"Something that I am told you call a shearpole came down from aloft
and struck me on the head, and I knew no more," said Ruddle, who was
evidently a very poor hand at a yarn.
"Well, well, go on," said the skipper. "What happened then?"
"How do I know?" asked Ruddle in his turn. "I was knocked silly
while the crew were taking in sail in a very great storm to the south
of Ireland, and they say I was very angry with the poor fellows up
aloft and was using dreadful language to them. I was struck down,
and when I came to myself I was not myself at all but another,--if I
do not sadly confuse you by putting it that way,--and I had forgotten
all that had happened since I went to sea, and I did not want to go
again. I became a minister instead and a missionary."
"Well, I'm jiggered," said Gray, "but that's a corker of a yarn.
Were you married when you were a seaman?"
"No," replied Ruddle; "I met my wife soon after I became my second
and present self, and my remarkable story so interested her that we
got married. It is interesting, isn't it?"
"And do you mean to say that you remember nothing whatever of the
sea? Could you go aloft, for instance?"
Mr. Ruddle looked up aloft and shivered.
"Oh, I couldn't," he said. "The very look of the complicated
apparatus with which I must have been once only too familiar fills me
with peculiar horror."
"Well, I'm damned," said Gray. "What's the opposite point of the
compass to sou'-east-by-sou'-half sou'-southerly?"
"I give it up. Tell me," said the minister simply.
Gray shook his head.
"You surprise me, sir. Can you tell when there is a mighty strong
likelihoods of bad weather comin' along?"
"I'm not at all bad at guessing when it's likely to rain," said the
former mate modestly. "I'm never caught in a shower without my
umbrella."
And Gray shook his head again, and confided to the sea and air that
Ruddle was a red wonder.
"If you don't know more about weather than that, you are going to
have a fine chance to learn, Mr. Ruddle," said the skipper. "I smell
a howling gale or I'm a double-distilled Dutchman. If it don't come
out of nor'-east like a rampin', ragin', snortin' devil, call me no
sailor, but the reddest kind of sojer."
There were many signs of it, and the fall of the glass was only one.
The swell that had been coming in from the south-east now began to
come more from the north, and the whole of the horizon was in a kind
of smoke. The wind, which had fallen so light, now began to puff a
little, and though it was no more than a breeze that any man's
t'gallan's'ls could look at comfortably, there were odd sighs in the
wind, sighs which had a rising tendency to become wails. Before long
they would be wailings and no mistake, for these sounds are the real
voice of a hurricane, and foretell it. The skipper looked up to
windward and spoke to his mate.
"Mr. Dixon, I think we had better snug her down a bit before it gets
dark, so clew up the t'gallan's'ls, and then we'll take the mainsail
off her. And after that you can reef the foresail. While the breeze
holds in the nor'-east we'll make all we can. But I reckon we'll be
hove to by the morning."
There wasn't much doubt of that to those who knew something of Cape
weather. The Cape pigeons as they wheeled and whistled about the
_Ocean Wave_ said 'clew up and clew down.' At anyrate, the crew
for'ard said so as they turned out to shorten sail. Mr. Ruddle went
below to encourage his companions and his wife. By the time it was
as dark as the bottom of a tar-barrel they wanted encouragement, for
the _Wave_ began to pitch in a manner that the _Nantucket_ had not
accustomed them to, and as the wind increased the song of the gale in
the rigging got on their nerves sadly.
"What do you think of it, Brother Ruddle?" asked his friend Chadwick,
a little butter-tub of a man with the courage of a lion among the
heathen or the denizens of a New York slum, but without as much
spirit when the wind blew as would enable a school-girl to face a cow
in a lane. "What does Brother Ruddle think of it?"
Ruddle said that he did not think much of it, for he thought the
skipper was not frightened.
"Although the sea threatens to rage, my friends," said the chief, "he
shows no signs of unseemly terror, but with calm confidence bids his
brave crew haste up aloft and reduce the mighty spread of canvas.
They are even now engaged in the task. Hear with what strange music,
which somehow begins to have a familiar ring in my ears, they
encourage each other in their arduous duties. Oh, my friends, we
little think when we are safe in the heart of Africa, or in the back
parts of the Bowery, how seamen encounter dangers on our behalf."
"Ah, and you were a sailor once, Tom," said his wife.
"I do not praise myself, dear, in praising them, for now I dare not
face those dangers with which at one time I must have been familiar.
It is wonderful, all life is wonderful. If I had not been smitten
upon the head by a shearpole, whatever a shearpole may be, I might
never have known any of you, my dear friends; and I might never have
married you, my dear. Ah, it is a wonderful world, and they are
making a very remarkable noise upstairs."
They certainly were making a noise, and so was the wind, and Mr.
Dixon was saying very unorthodox things, and so was Smith the second
mate. And every now and again the skipper could be heard in
exhortation, so that Susan Ruddle snugged up alongside her husband,
and said that she was glad he was not a seaman, though that she was
sure that if he were one now he would never employ such language.
Ruddle comforted her, and said it would fill him with horror to know
that he had ever used any of that kind of talk. He felt sure in his
mind that the report of his having ever done so must have been a
malicious invention of some enemy. Since he had borne up for the
Church he had been, as all men knew, of a scrupulousness which was
extra Puritanical even for a minister. He never said 'damn' unless
he had to in the course of his duty.
Presently the _Ocean Wave_ began to behave herself a little better
under shortened canvas, and the old skipper came into the cabin with
his face shining with spray, and a good-natured grin on him which
would have encouraged the biggest coward at sea in a cyclone. Little
Mrs. Ruddle cheered up on sight of him, and so did all but the
Reverend Mr. Blithers, who was in a state of terror that was sheer
lunacy.
"Is it a great storm? Are we going down?" asked Blithers. He was so
far encouraged that he could speak.
"Bless my heart," replied the skipper, "what are you thinking of, in
a nice breeze like this, and in a sailin' ship too? If you was in an
old smokestack like the one I took you gents out of you might howl,
but here you are in a fine tight ship, the real genuine article, and
are a deal safer than if you was ashore."
"Oh, do you say so?" asked Blithers. "Oh, is it possible that you
can say so with the wind howling like this?"
And indeed the gale began to pipe as if it meant business.
"Hold your tongue, Blithers," said Ruddle; "be a man and a
missionary, and do not howl."
Blithers said his brother was unkind, and ought to be more gentle
with a weak vessel. And at that the skipper put in his oar, and
suggested that so weak a vessel should not carry sail but retire to
his cabin. At this Ruddle laughed jovially, and Blithers said he was
hard and cruel, and devoid of all real religious feelings.
"Don't be a fool, my dear man," said Ruddle, "but go to bed. It is
perhaps natural to be upset by the strange uproar, and the noise of
the wind, and the trampling of the men on deck, but that is no reason
why you should say I am not religious. If I were not I should be
angry with you and say regrettable things, such as I am informed, on
very good authority, that I said when I was a seaman."
"I don't believe you ever were one," said the sad and angry Blithers.
"And if you were, it is a pity you did not stay one, for you are a
very unkind man, and not good to me in my sad state of mind."
It took five missionaries to get Blithers into bed, but he went at
last, and when he was gone Ruddle beamed on the rest, and said--
"Our poor brother is sadly upset by the weather. It is difficult to
understand how he can be such a coward on the water when he is a real
hero on the dry land, and has an especial gift of management with
backsliding cannibals. But anything can be believed when you
remember that I was once in the position of Mr. Dixon, whose voice I
now hear saying something about the lee-braces, and knew all about
everything on board a ship. And now, my friends, all things here are
mystery to me, and I do not know what the lee-braces are, and cannot
distinguish with accuracy between a binnacle and a bull-whanger, if
indeed there is such a thing as I was told by one of the seamen on
the _Nantucket_. Ah, hold tight, dear, she is rocking to and fro
with ever increasing velocity. I fear that Blithers will never
forget this night."
And they all had supper. The 'old man' sat it out with them, and put
on his oilskins again and went on the poop. There was no mistake
about it now. The _Ocean Wave_ was in for a Cape stinger, and Gray,
who was of the old-fashioned, bull-headed sort, rammed her along on
the very path the cyclonic disturbance was taking. If he had been
thoroughly acquainted with the nature of all cyclones wherever they
are bred, he would have turned tail to the blast, and have run into
fairer weather towards the south; or, as the _Wave_ was in the
southern semi-circle of the storm, he might have hove her to on the
coming up or starboard tack. Instead of that he hung on all through
the night. When the dawn came it was a fair howler and no mistake.
Mr. Blithers and not a few of the others stayed in their bunks. It
was blowing hard enough to make almost anyone ill, and the sea was
very high. But Thomas Ruddle and his wife and Chadwick turned out to
breakfast.
If Ruddle trusted to Providence, Susan Ruddle trusted to him, and
hardly thought it possible that any disaster could happen to her
while he was to the fore. Mr. Chadwick was brave enough to hide his
terror, though he was in a horrid funk. They hung on to the tables
and ate some breakfast as best they could, and after eating, Ruddle
and Mrs. Ruddle and Chadwick ventured on deck, in time to see the
reefed foresail taken off her. Just as they got the weather
clew-garnet chock up, the gale came screaming across the waste of
grey sea to such a tune that the skipper altered his mind there and
then.
"Hold on with the lee gear of the foresail, Mr. Dixon," he bellowed,
and then he signed to the mate to come aft.
"We'll wear her now and heave her to on the starboard tack," said the
'old man.' "This is going to be a fair perisher."
As Dixon had been throwing out hints all night that he ought to do
that or run, he was glad to hear it. They waited for a smooth, and
put the helm up.
"Square the after yards!" roared the skipper; and they squared away,
keeping the sails lifting.
"Isn't it wonderful?" said Ruddle. "I do wish I understood it. I
wonder what they are doing it for?"