"HOLD your tongue," said Welch, with an oath.
Mr. Hazel looked at Miss Rolleston, and she at him. It was a momentary
glance, and her eyes sank directly, and filled with patient tears.
For the first few minutes after the _Proserpine_ went down the survivors
sat benumbed, as if awaiting their turn to be ingulfed.
They seemed so little, and the _Proserpine_ so big; yet she was swallowed
before their eyes, like a crumb. They lost, for a few moments, all idea
of escaping.
But, true it is, that, "while there's life there's hope"; and, as soon as
their hearts began to beat again, their eyes roved round the horizon and
their elastic minds recoiled against despair.
This was rendered easier by the wonderful beauty of the weather. There
were men there who had got down from a sinking ship into boats heaving
and tossing against her side in a gale of wind, and yet been saved; and
here all was calm and delightful. To be sure, in those other shipwrecks
land had been near, and their greatest peril was over when once the boats
got clear of the distressed ship without capsizing. Here was no immediate
peril; but certain death menaced them, at an uncertain distance.
Their situation was briefly this. Should it come on to blow a gale, these
open boats, small and loaded, could not hope to live. Therefore they had
two chances for life, and no more. They must either make land--or be
picked up at sea--before the weather changed.
But how? The nearest known land was the group of islands called Juan
Fernandez, and they lay somewhere to leeward, but distant at least nine
hundred miles; and, should they prefer the other chance, then they must
beat three hundred miles and more to windward; for Hudson, underrating
the leak, as is supposed, had run the _Proserpine_ fully that distance
out of the track of trade.
Now the ocean is a highway--in law; but, in fact, it contains a few
highways and millions of byways; and, once a cockleshell gets into those
byways, small indeed is its chance of being seen and picked up by any
sea-going vessel.
Wylie, who was leading, lowered his sail, and hesitated between the two
courses we have indicated. However, on the cutter coming up with him, he
ordered Cooper to keep her head northeast, and so run all night. He then
made all the sail he could, in the same direction, and soon outsailed the
cutter. When the sun went down, he was about a mile ahead of her.
Just before sunset Mr. Hazel made a discovery that annoyed him very much.
He found that Welch had put only one bag of biscuit, a ham, a keg of
spirit and a small barrel of water on board the cutter.
He remonstrated with him sharply. Welch replied that it was all right;
the cutter being small, he had put the rest of her provisions on board
the long-boat.
"On board the long-boat!" said Hazel, with a look of wonder. "You have
actually made our lives depend upon that scoundrel Wylie again. You
deserve to be flung into the sea. You have no forethought yourself, yet
you will not be guided by those that have it."
Welch hung his head a little at these reproaches. However, he replied,
rather sullenly, that it was only for one night; they could signal the
long-boat in the morning and get the other bags and the cask out of her.
But Mr. Hazel was not to be appeased. "The morning! Why, she sails three
feet to our two. How do you know he won't run away from us? I never
expect to get within ten miles of him again. We know him; and he knows we
know him."
Cooper got up and patted Mr. Hazel on the shoulder soothingly. "Boat-hook
aft," said he to Welch.
He then, by an ingenious use of the boat-hook and some of the spare
canvas, contrived to set out a studding-sail on the other side of the
mast.
Hazel thanked him warmly. "But, oh, Cooper! Cooper!" said he, "I'd give
all I have in the world if that bread and water were on board the cutter
instead of the long-boat."
The cutter had now two wings instead of one; the water bubbling loud
under her bows marked her increased speed, and all fear of being greatly
outsailed by her consort began to subside.
A slight sea-fret came on and obscured the sea in part; but they had a
good lantern and compass, and steered the course exactly all night,
according to Wylie's orders, changing the helmsman every four hours.
Mr. Hazel, without a word, put a rug round Miss Rolleston's shoulders,
and another round her feet.
"Oh, not both, sir, please," said she.
"Am I to be disobeyed by everybody?" said he.
Then she submitted in silence, and in a certain obsequious way that was
quite new and well calculated to disarm anger.
Sooner or later all slept, except the helmsman.
At daybreak Mr. Hazel was wakened by a loud hail from a man in the bows.
All the sleepers started up.
"Long-boat not in sight!"
It was too true. The ocean was blank. Not a sail, large or small, in
sight.
Many voices spoke at once.
"He has carried on till he has capsized her."
"He has given us the slip."
Unwilling to believe so great a calamity, every eye peered and stared all
over the sea. In vain. Not a streak that could be a boat's hull, not a
speck that could be a sail.
The little cutter was alone upon the ocean. Alone, with scarcely two
days' provisions, nine hundred miles from land, and four hundred miles to
leeward of the nearest sea-road.
Hazel, seeing his worst forebodings realized, sat down in moody, bitter,
and boding silence.
Of the other men some raged and cursed. Some wept aloud.
The lady, more patient, put her hands together and prayed to Him who made
the sea and all that therein is. Yet her case was the cruelest. For she
was by nature more timid than the men, yet she must share their desperate
peril. And then to be alone with all these men, and one of them had told
her he loved her, and hated the man she was betrothed to! Shame tortured
this delicate creature, as well as fear. Happy for her that of late, and
only of late, she had learned to pray in earnest. _"Qui precari novit,
premi potest, non potest opprimi."_
It was now a race between starvation and drowning, and either way death
stared them in the face.