"THE OPEN BOAT"
Morning broke and showed the whaleboat floating a mere speck upon the
heaving blue of the Pacific.
At daylight they hoisted the lugsail, and steered north-east before a
fresh south-westerly breeze, heading for Pitcairn Island.
Jack, with pencil and paper, worked out his dead reckoning, and
calculated the distance to the island; but his great hope was being
picked up by a passing vessel, as he was so uncertain about his
longitude.
Having got his position to the best of his ability, he arranged a scale
and regular allowance of food and water, which he personally served
out, the others trusting themselves entirely to his judgment.
The whaleboat darted swiftly and buoyantly over the long swell, making
good northing, and all hands were in cheerful spirits.
Lobu, who seemed quiet enough again, was allowed to have his hands
free; but one ankle was padlocked to a thwart, whilst all weapons were
removed from within his reach.
He sat silent and meditative in the bottom of the boat, gazing intently
at his little black _tiki_ which Tari, with kindly forethought, had
removed from the ill-fated _Ocmulgee_.
Aft sat Jack, the steering-oar in his hand, a boat's compass between
his feet, whilst Broncho and Jim reclined at their ease against the
stroke thwart, and Tari slumbered peacefully at full length in the bows.
Four days passed thus peacefully, and then the good south-west wind
slackened, wavered, and finally died away, leaving the whaleboat
floating motionless on the long, never-ceasing Pacific swell.
The sun shone fiercely with an eye-wearying glare; a thickness of
steamy mist gathered and obscured the horizon. The atmosphere was heavy
and suffocating, with a moist heat; the sky was a pale sickly blue, and
the deep stillness grew oppressive and aroused a feeling of depression
and apprehension.
The castaways lay silent. Not a breath stirred the air; everything
seemed motionless with the exception of the long, stately swell of the
restless ocean.
Suddenly the universal quiet was broken. Over the water came the quaint
wild cry of a Mother Carey's chicken, and two or three of these small
flitters were perceived hovering around.
"Mebbe there's some island hereabouts with them birds so handy,"
suggested Broncho, aroused out of his lethargy by the queer note.
"I'm afraid not," replied Jack. "I don't like to hear a Mother Carey's
chicken give tongue, though; it generally means a long spell of calm
weather."
"Why, oughtn't we to pick up the south-east trades directly?" inquired
Jim.
"Never can tell nowadays; we may have more than we want of the
doldrums. The current seems to be setting us to the westward, also."
"It certainly is some lackin' in wind," muttered Broncho sleepily, as
he stretched himself in the shade of the sail for a snooze.
The drowsy afternoon passed slowly. Forward the two Islanders slept
peacefully; Jim nodded, curled up against the rover's knees; and the
latter sat idly handling the steering-oar, puffing meditatively at his
pipe. Only the wild cry of the restless harbingers of calm broke the
stillness.
Occasionally a flight of startled flying-fish burst forth from beneath
the shadow of the whaleboat, and, skipping along the surface, presently
plunged out of sight again with tiny splashes.
Once a line of porpoises passed, leaping forth each in turn with steady
regularity, their polished black bodies gleaming as they curved in and
out.
Slowly the sun approached the horizon and the darkness crept over the
east. Still not a breath of air moved.
Two long scorching days passed, and still they lay becalmed. Even the
swell had subsided, and the ocean resembled a vast sheet of quivering
glass. Things began to look serious.
The water was running low. Jack had had to cut down the allowances to
half a pint per diem, and the dread torment of thirst was beginning to
take hold of them.
The close heat was becoming unbearable, and the air stifling with the
damp steaminess of a hothouse.
The castaways lay panting, and though dry and parched within, without
they streamed with moisture.
The three whites in their shirt-sleeves, and with ducks or dungarees
rolled up to their knees, were tanned as dark as the Kanakas, and their
hard-worked muscles strained beneath the shrinking skin, giving their
arms and legs the yellow gloss of burnished copper.
Jim tried to whistle for a breeze, but his tongue was too swollen from
want of water, and the undaunted boy gave it up with a careless laugh.
"My penny whistle wants oiling," he said.
"I reckons we all want lubricatin' some," observed Broncho. "I shudders
when I thinks of all the nosepaint I've put into my system so careless
an' easy, without the remotest idees of what you-alls call economy or
thrift."
"Don't talk about it," grunted Jack, with a queer grin. "I'm thinking
of all the fresh-water baths I've had."
Undismayed, they joked lightly in the face of a terrible death, though
each word was a stab in the throat and their voices grew huskier and
weaker every minute.
"Speakin' o' baths," pursued Broncho, "I callate I'll take a swim right
here. Mebbe the liquid is due to ooze through my hide an' lay the dust
some, even if it ain't deep enough to drown a mosquito."
Jack silently pointed over the quarter to where the long fin of a shark
was visible, almost motionless in the water.
"Third day he's been there," muttered the boy, with an irrepressible
shudder.
"Soaking one's clothes is a small relief. Let's fill one of the empty
breakers," proposed Jack.
"Shower baths! That's a jimdandy idee," said the cowpuncher approvingly.
They were soon scattering salt water over each other, and after this
they found some small comfort by keeping their clothes wet.
The following night Lobu broke loose from his padlock, and springing
to his feet with a blood-curdling yell, dived overboard, and started
swimming up the shining wake of the moonlight.
"Out oars and after him!" cried Jack, springing to the stroke thwart
and shipping the long, pliant ash-stick.
Tari ran the other oar out, and before Broncho had struggled clumsily
to his feet, the two were pulling strongly after the madman.
"Sit down, you two," called Jack calmly. "We'll catch him."
But even as he spoke there rang out a wild shriek, and the next moment
the boat was floating over a swirl of troubled water, which gradually
grew still again; but the white sheen of the moonlight was mingled with
the red of poor Lobu's blood.
"The shark!" gasped Jim in horror, and broke into the wild, sobbing
laughter of hysteria, which shook his poor little frame in sudden
pitiful jerks.
Jack bent down and tenderly lifted the boy on to the thwart alongside
him, and putting his strong arm round him, held the twitching hands in
a grip of iron.
Ha! ha! ha! ran the wild hoarse laughter, echoing through the still
tropical night, and followed abruptly by long, choking sobs, which
burst broken and husky from the dried-up throat.
The big brown eyes grew glassy with a fixed, unconscious stare; the
laughter died down into whispered chuckling horrible to hear; foam
gathered on the lips, which bared clenched teeth, and the whole small
body shook as if with ague.
"Water, quick!" cried the rover.
"Him de las'!" said Tari quietly, as he handed across a pannikin half
full of muddy fluid.
The breaker was empty.
"It may save the boy's life--he's not as strong as us men," pleaded
Jack. "It's only his wonderful pluck that's kept him up as long as
this; if his nerves go, he's done. We're strong; we can pull through,
but the boy can't. May I give it him--it's his last chance?"
"Why, you durned old chipmunk," broke in Broncho half angrily, "d'you
think Tari and I are sech low-down, ornery cattle as to up an' jump
Jim's claim that-away."
"No dam fear! Oh hellee, no," jerked out the heroic Kanaka, vehemently
in his turn.
"Thank you, boys," returned Jack; "I didn't mean to insult you."
"Put it in the diskyard," spoke forth Broncho, with one of his
expressive poker slang expressions.
Tari remained silent, gazing, with his handsome but disfigured features
full of pity and concern, as Jack, forcing open the clenched teeth,
slowly trickled the precious water down the unconscious boy's blackened
throat.
The effect was instantly perceptible. With a deep sigh and a relaxation
of his rigid limbs, Jim rallied, and consciousness crept into his
haggard eyes.
"Where am I?" he stuttered faintly.
"It's all right, old son," declared Broncho cheerily. "You just lie
quiet an' slumber some."
Jim looked wonderingly round at the three faces, and then a wave of
remembrance swept over him.
"Poor Lobu!" he murmured.
"Lucky Lobu!" said Jack to himself, thinking of the slow, suffering
death from thirst which probably awaited them.
"Now, Jim," he continued aloud, "you've got to turn in. It's your watch
below."
"We'll all be on watch below soon, I suppose," said the boy slowly, in
a low tone.
"Me tink rain to-mollah!" suddenly put in Tari. The Kanaka knew well
that the sky never looked more settled and less like rain, but with
kindly nature he tried to instil hope.
Broncho, sitting in the stern, looked at the Marquesan and slowly
lowered his left eyelid.
"You bet Tari's right. I sorter feels somehow as if we're goin' to
have a regular deluge. These here tropical downfalls is that swift an'
powerful, they're liable to swamp the boat a whole lot," he remarked,
with the quiver of a smile.
Jim lay back on the blankets, but his nerves had been too shaken
for sleep; and, as Jack watched the boy's wide-open, feverish eyes,
staring vacantly at the brilliant lamps of heaven, he shook his head
sadly. Then, determined to prevent the boy from pondering on their
gloomy future, he began to relate the story of the heavens in a low,
husky voice; and so successful was he with his old legends, that for
the greater part of the night he had Jim and Broncho listening with
eager attention, wholly oblivious of their desperate position as they
searched the skies for a particular constellation, and then drank in
Jack's half-forgotten classic yarns.
The sun rose, a great red ball, into the unhealthy blue of the heavens,
and found the castaways nearer their end.
All through that baking day Jim rambled in the realms of fancy,
speaking so thickly in his sufferings that the disjointed, wandering
sentences could not be understood.
Tari lay motionless and resigned. Jack and Broncho conversed
occasionally upon their position with slow, difficult words.
Though a certain amount of salt junk and hard-tack still remained, Jack
did not attempt to serve it out, as suffering from thirst as they were,
it would have been impossible to swallow any solid.
Towards sundown, after a long silence during which even the babbled
mutterings of the poor boy had been inaudible, Broncho, lying in the
bottom of the boat, croaked out to Jack, who sat stubborn and erect
in the sternsheets, his emaciated hand still gripping the useless
steering-oar:
"Say, old son, the deal's near finished. Jim's about through, an' I'm
feelin' pretty near the '_Adios!_' myself. I guess our last chip will
be raked in before maunin'. So long, if my senses jump the track an' go
stampedin' off in the night."
"Die hard, Broncho!" was all the other replied, but he shut a pair of
swollen lips with a snap of determination, and his eyes shone with the
bravery of his spirit.
Then, letting go of the steering-oar, he took the sheath-knife from his
belt, and slowly cut a notch in the stock of his revolver, which was
still slung at his hip as he had hurriedly slipped it on when leaving
the barque.
"This makes the eighth day," he muttered.
"Bite on the bullet, Broncho. We're not beaten yet," he said aloud; and
called to the Kanaka, "How you, Tari?"
"Dam fine."
But the weakness of the voice gave the lie to the brave words.
Of the castaways, Jack seemed to be the strongest. Whether it was due
to his indomitable spirit or his wonderful endurance, he certainly bore
up better than the others.
Rising slowly and somewhat unsteadily to his feet, he peered round
the shining horizon; then, dipping a pannikin over the side, he began
pouring the refreshing liquid over the three prone forms--first soaking
Jim and Broncho as they lay together amidships, and then crawling
forward and performing the like service on Tari.
"T'ank you, my _pleni_" whispered the tender-hearted Marquesan,
pressing his cracked lips to the rover's hand.
Jack's eyes grew very bright at the warm proof of affection.
"_Tiakapo_, Tari," he said softly in the Gilbert dialect, gripping the
Kanaka's brown fist.
He did not like to say goodbye, but he felt that this was the last time
his strength would allow him to come forward.
"_Moee-moee ariana!_" ("Go to sleep by-and-by!"), said Tari meaningly
in Tahitian, and then very softly he muttered the Samoan goodbye, "_To
fa!_"
The sun set in a blaze of colour, and darkness rushed upon them. Soon
the lamps of heaven began to sparkle forth in all their brilliancy,
and Jove's great binnacle-light, the silver moon, appeared above the
horizon.
With the exception of poor Jim, who babbled hoarsely with but small
intervals of silence, the occupants of the boat lay motionless, quiet
and still, breathing with difficulty through their blackened, dried-up
throats.
Jack alone still sat erect, grasping the oar.
During the earlier part of the night, Broncho, unable to withstand the
temptation any longer, had surreptitiously been dipping a finger over
the side and then sucking it.
Then for some time he lay still in the bottom of the boat by the side
of the unconscious boy, too weak and exhausted to raise himself.
Suddenly, about midnight, he sprang to his feet, shouting with
delirium, and caused the boat to rock violently.
Jack staggered up and grasped hold of the madman, fearing that he would
fall overboard, and Tari made a gallant attempt to crawl aft from his
position in the bows, but fell back overcome by sheer weakness.
"Steady, old man, steady!" called the rover, in his thick, hoarse voice.
"Lemme go, lemme go!" shrieked the madman, "an' I shorely devastates
this hold-up a whole lot. He's a size too small for game like me"; and
hurling Jack to one side, he drew his revolver and plumped all six
shots at an imaginary foe, whom he seemed to see out on the placid
waters of the great Pacific.
"Ah, I reckon I perforates his innards some that time," he continued,
and broke into a horrible, blood-freezing chuckle.
Then, as suddenly as he had broken out, the cowpuncher became quiet
again, and, seating himself on the midship thwart, idly started to
twiddle his empty six-shooter round his forefinger, whilst Jack watched
him with anxious eyes.
Presently he moved again, and crouched down cautiously in the bottom of
the boat, taking infinite care to keep under the shelter of the boat's
side, as if fearing an attack of some sort from the sea.
Then, clutching Jack by the arm, he pointed out to starboard with his
cocked revolver.
"The Apaches, Jack!" he whispered, "the Apaches!"
"They're only squaws and papooses," said Jack quietly, wishing to
humour him.
"Squaws an' papooses? Air you locoed? Why, they're all bucks an' out
on the war-path! Chucks! thar's nothin' peaceful about them redskins;
they're painted for war an' is shore out for blood."
"Perhaps you're right, Broncho," returned Jack, in his weak voice.
"We'll lie low below these rocks," pointing to the boat's side.
"They'll go right by us if we lie quiet."
"That's the only play, I allow," assented the cowpuncher as he lay
motionless alongside Jim. "Though if they hit our trail," he continued,
indicating the path of the moon, "which our tracks is easy for a
twelve-moon babe to read, they won't give no notice, but just jump in
with war-whoops and bullets toomultuous, which same deal is mighty
likely to relieve us of our scalps complete."
Then he relapsed into silence, concentrating all his attention upon the
imaginary Apaches, as he crouched in supposed concealment beside Jim,
the empty revolver in his hand.
So the night wore on. Jim rambled with husky whispers as he tossed
restlessly, unheeded by the light-headed cowpuncher, who occasionally
communed with himself in a hoarse undertone.
"Thar's that ha'r-brained shorthorn Derringer Jack juttin' his chunky
body over the skyline. Some gents ain't got the savvy of a pra'rie-dog,
but I always allowed Jack had sense enough to come in out o' the wet,
though he's some prone to overplay his hand by prancin' into trouble
too gay an' heedless."
A grim smile crossed the face of the rolling-stone as he listened.
For a few minutes Broncho remained silent, then broke out again
oracularly with the single sentence,
"Let every gent skin his own eel!"
Then all of a sudden he thought he was out on the plains again, vainly
trying to stop a cattle-stampede.
"Turn that muley, Texas; throw a gun in his face! Hey, you point-men,
what in hell'r you doin'? Hold 'em, can't you? Now, Larry, stop actin'
smart like a fool-kid. Jump in an' hustle. This here's the hell of a
run! Ride, boys, an' drift 'em together!"
Broncho was back again, the hard-working foreman of a trail outfit.
"Jimminy! here's a mesquite thicket!" he went on, and bending his head
low between his shoulders, he clasped the thwart with both arms; for a
second he remained thus, and then rambled on:
"This here star-faced sorrel is shore burnin' the earth, he's that
speedy. Whar's that chuck wagon, I wonder? The herd's some scattered.
Dick's down! Poor old Dick! The old passel of 'em right over
him--nothin' left but blood an' mush, same as that Bee County Texan
last fall. That's shore a raw deal for a cowman."
Again he was silent, then shouted wildly,
"Rowel an' quirt, boys, rowel an' quirt!"
Suddenly Tari's hoarse voice broke in from forward:
"Big rain come soon!"
The Kanaka was right. A large black cloud was coming swiftly up astern,
which had not been noticed by Jack, taken up as he was by Broncho's
ravings.
Hastily Jack and Tari with weak, desperate efforts managed to spread a
sail to catch the precious fluid.
Jack gently pushed Broncho to one side, but this roused the madman's
ire.
"If you reckons I allows a pullet like you to come man-handlin' me,
you're shore saddlin' the wrong hoss. No deadbeat ain't goin' to come
pawin' this longhorn 'less he's organised for war instanter----"
"Only me, Broncho! Don't you know Derringer Jack?" broke in that worthy
sadly.
The delirious man stared wildly.
"Jack!" he muttered. "Why, it's Jack!" Then, overcome by the growing
weakness, he sank back in the bottom of the boat, but he never took his
haggard eyes from the rover.
The tropical squall approached rapidly; the stars faded away before it,
as it climbed the heavens; then, with a burst of wind, the rain fell
upon the boat's crew and lashed the calm sea into white as it pounded
all around them.
In a moment all hands were soaked, and Jack and Tari, refreshed and
wonderfully strengthened, were soon busy pouring the life-giving liquid
down the parched throats of the two delirious ones.
When day broke the boat was running northward before a light breeze,
and both the boy and Broncho had recovered their senses again. The
water-breakers had all been filled, and a small quantity of beef and
biscuit served out by Jack. A renewed cheerfulness prevailed, and a
hopeful confidence that they would win through animated all.
Broncho, on being told of his night's behaviour, was very disgusted
with himself.
"The way I conducts myself was shore scandalous," he remarked with keen
self-reproach, "not to say low an' ornery. I'm plumb 'umiliated with
my outrageous goin's on. Whyever didn't you down me, Jack? A man as
weakens that-away an' goes locoed when things merely seems a bit rocky
ain't worthy to live," and he gave a long grunt of contempt.
"Why, this here piccannine, Jim," he went on, "has more sense an puts
me to shame. He ain't that pifflin' an' foolish as to go shootin' up
spectres, not to speak of scarin' the whole outfit with delusions about
Apaches an' cattle stampedes."
And Broncho relapsed into silence. He was indeed sore about his short
spell of delirium, which he considered as a sign of want of grit on his
part, and nothing the others could say seemed to comfort him.
Presently, as Jack notched his revolver for another day, the cowpuncher
observed with keen irony against himself:
"Put away your weepon, Jack, or I'm liable to emit a screech at the
sight tharof, and drop off into a swound, like a female I meets up
with in Dodge one time, when I, aimin' to be polite, pulls out my
six-shooter an' hands it to her, thinkin' mebbe she'd like to overhaul
it like them towerist folks does, an' perhaps try a shot at the
telegraph post in front of the Long Branch Saloon, which same post is
that full o' lead I wonders it remains erect."
As the sun approached the meridian the light breeze died away, burnt up
by the fierce heat of the tropical rays.
The sail was spread and lashed to four upright oars as an awning,
and beneath its grateful shade the four castaways dozed through the
afternoon.
After the scanty evening meal, still very weak and worn, though much
revived and strengthened, Tari, Broncho, and Jim lay down on the
blankets which covered the floorboards, and, protected from the glare
of the moon by the sail, fell into a deep, heavy sleep, whilst Jack sat
in his usual position in the sternsheets. For some time he lost himself
in dismal reverie, and gave himself up to that deep melancholy which
seemed to attack his courage at times, and brought that look of weary
hopelessness to his face, so strangely at variance with the whole tenor
of his nature. Often had his observant friend, the cowboy, noticed
these fits of sadness in his friend, and wondered what was the cause
of them. Some time in his past the rolling-stone had been badly knocked
over, argued Broncho, and the wound was still unhealed; it was the only
explanation he could imagine to account for this awful depression which
weighed upon his friend.
However, whatever it was which weighed so heavily upon the rover's
mind, it was presently overcome by a drowsiness born of lack of sleep.
His gloomy reflections merged into dreams, his head dropped back
against the gunwale, and, in a position in which only a sailor could,
he slept.
But, alas! his face lay outside the protection of the sail, and the
full strength of the moonbeams fell upon his closed eyelids.