THE long-boat was, at this moment, a hundred miles to windward of the
cutter.
The fact is that Wylie, the evening before, had been secretly perplexed
as to the best course. He had decided to run for the island; but he was
not easy under his own decision; and, at night, he got more and more
discontented with it. Finally, at nine o'clock P.M., he suddenly gave the
order to luff, and tack; and by daybreak he was very near the place where
the _Proserpine_ went down, whereas the cutter, having run before the
wind all night, was, at least, a hundred miles to leeward of him.
Not to deceive the reader, or let him, for a moment, think we do business
in monsters, we will weigh this act of Wylie's justly.
It was just a piece of iron egotism. He preferred, for himself, the
chance of being picked up by a vessel. He thought it was about a hair's
breadth better than running for an island, as to whose bearing he was not
very clear, after all.
But he was not sure he was taking the best or safest course. The cutter
might be saved, after all, and the long-boat lost.
Meantime he was not sorry of an excuse to shake off the cutter. She
contained one man at least who knew he had scuttled the _Proserpine;_ and
therefore it was all-important to him to get to London before her and
receive the three thousand pounds which was to be his reward for that
abominable act.
But the way to get to London before Mr. Hazel, or else to the bottom of
the Pacific before him, was to get back into the searoad at all hazards.
He was not aware that the cutter's water and biscuit were on board his
boat; nor did he discover this till noon next day. And, on making this
fearful discovery, he showed himself human. He cried out, with an oath,
"What have I done? I have damned myself to all eternity!"
He then ordered the boat to be put before the wind again; but the men
scowled, and not one stirred a finger; and he saw the futility of this,
and did not persist, but groaned aloud, and then sat staring wildly.
Finally, like a true sailor, he got to the rum, and stupefied his
agitated conscience for a time.
While he lay drunk at the bottom of the boat his sailors carried out his
last instructions, beating southward right in the wind's eye.
Five days they beat to windward, and never saw a sail. Then it fell dead
calm; and so remained for three days more.
The men began to suffer greatly from cramps, owing to their number and
confined position. During the calm they rowed all day, and with this and
a light westerly breeze that sprung up, they got into the sea-road again.
But, having now sailed three hundred and fifty miles to the southward,
they found a great change in the temperature. The nights were so cold
that they were fain to huddle together, to keep a little warmth in their
bodies.
On the fifteenth day of their voyage it began to rain and blow, and then
they were never a whole minute out of peril. Hand forever on the sheet,
eye on the waves, to ease her at the right moment; and with all this care
the spray eternally flying half way over her mast, and often a body of
water making a clean breach over her, and the men bailing night and day
with their very hats, or she could not have lived an hour.
At last, when they were almost dead with wet, cold, fatigue and danger, a
vessel came in sight and crept slowly up, about two miles to windward of
the distressed boat. With the heave of the waters they could see little
more than her sails; but they ran up a bright bandanna handkerchief to
their masthead; and the ship made them out. She hoisted Dutch colors,
and--continued her course.
Then the poor abandoned creatures wept and raved, and cursed in their
frenzy, glaring after that cruel, shameless man who could do such an act,
yet hoist a color, and show of what nation he was the native--and the
disgrace.
But one of them said not a word. This was Wylie. He sat shivering, and
remembered how he had abandoned the cutter, and all on board. Loud sighs
broke from his laboring breast; but not a word. Yet one word was ever
present to his mind; and seemed written in fire on the night of clouds,
and howled in his ears by the wind--Retribution!
And now came a dirty night--to men on ships; a fearful night to men in
boats. The sky black, the sea on fire with crested billows, that broke
over them every minute; their light was washed out; their provisions
drenched and spoiled; bail as they would, the boat was always filling. Up
to their knees in water; cold as ice, blinded with spray, deafened with
roaring billows, they tossed and tumbled in a fiery foaming hell of
waters, and still, though despairing, clung to their lives, and bailed
with their hats unceasingly.
Day broke, and the first sight it revealed to them was a brig to windward
staggering along, and pitching under close-reefed topsails.
They started up, and waved their hats, and cried aloud. But the wind
carried their voices to leeward, and the brig staggered on.
They ran up their little signal of distress; but still the ship staggered
on.
Then the miserable men shook hands all round, and gave themselves up for
lost.
But, at this moment, the brig hoisted a vivid flag all stripes and stars,
and altered her course a point or two.
She crossed the boat's track a mile ahead, and her people looked over the
bulwarks, and waved their hats to encourage those tossed and desperate
men.
Having thus given them the weather-gage, the brig hove to for them.
They ran down to her and crept under her lee; down came ropes to them,
held by friendly hands, and friendly faces shone down at them. Eager
grasps seized each as he went up the ship's side, and so, in a very short
time, they sent the woman up, and the rest being all sailors and clever
as cats, they were safe on board the whaling brig _Maria,_ Captain
Slocum, of Nantucket, U. S.
Their log, compass and instruments were also saved.
The boat was cast adrift, and was soon after seen bottom upward on the
crest of a wave.
The good Samaritan in command of the _Maria_ supplied them with dry
clothes out of the ship's stores, good food, and medical attendance,
which was much needed, their legs and feet being in a deplorable
condition, and their own surgeon crippled. A southeasterly gale induced
the American skipper to give Cape Horn a wide berth, and the _Maria_ soon
found herself three degrees south of that perilous coast. There she
encountered field-ice. In this labyrinth they dodged and worried for
eighteen days, until a sudden chop in the wind gave the captain a chance,
of which he promptly availed himself; and in forty hours they sighted
Terra del Fuego.
During this time the rescued crew, having recovered from the effects of
their hardships, fell into the work of the ship, and took their turns
with the Yankee seamen. The brig was short-handed; but now, trimmed and
handled by a full crew with the _Proserpine's_ men, who were first-class
seamen, and worked with a will, because work was no longer a duty, she
exhibited a speed the captain had almost forgotten was in the craft. Now
speed at sea means economy, for every day added to a voyage is so much
off the profits. Slocum was part owner of the vessel, and shrewdly alive
to the value of the seamen. When about three hundred miles south of
Buenos Ayres, Wylie proposed that they should be landed there, from
whence they might be transshipped to a vessel bound for home.
This was objected to by Slocum, on the ground that, by such a deviation
from his course, he must lose three days, and the port dues at Buenos
Ayres were heavy.
Wylie undertook that the house of Wardlaw & Son should indemnify the brig
for all expenses and losses incurred.
Still the American hesitated; at last he honestly told Wylie he wished to
keep the men; he liked them, they liked him. He had sounded them, and
they had no objection to join his ship and sign articles for a three
years' whaling voyage, provided they did not thereby forfeit the wages to
which they would be entitled on reaching Liverpool. Wylie went forward
and asked the men if they would take service with the Yankee captain. All
but three expressed their desire to do so; these three had families in
England, and refused. The mate gave the others a release, and an order on
Wardlaw & Co. for their full wages for the voyage; then they signed
articles with Captain Slocum, and entered the American Mercantile Navy.
Two days after this they sighted the high lands at the mouth of the Rio
de la Plata at 10 P.M., and lay to for a pilot. After three hours' delay
they were boarded by a pilot-boat, and then began to creep into the port.
The night was very dark, and a thin white fog lay on the water.
Wylie was sitting on the taffrail and conversing with Slocum, when the
lookout forward sung out, "Sail ho!"
Another voice almost simultaneously yelled out of the fog, "Port your
helm!"
Suddenly out of the mist, and close aboard the _Maria,_ appeared the hull
and canvas of a large ship. The brig was crossing her course, and her
great bowsprit barely missed the brig's mainsail. It stood for a moment
over Wylie's head. He looked up, and there was the figure-head of the
ship looming almost within his reach. It was a colossal green woman; one
arm extended grasped a golden harp, the other was pressed to her head in
the attitude of holding back her wild and flowing hair. The face seemed
to glare down upon the two men. In another moment the monster, gliding
on, just missing the brig, was lost in the fog.
"That was a narrow squeak," said Slocum.
Wylie made no answer, but looked into the darkness after the vessel.
He had recognized her figure-head.
It was the _Shannon!_