"Wa-al, Cap," said Mr Lathrope after dinner that day, when he was
sipping his coffee on top of the skylight, which he had selected for his
favourite seat when on the poop, the "location," as he expressed it,
having the advantage of possessing plenty of "stowage room" for his long
legs--"I guess we've had a long spell o' calms, and a tarnation
slitheration of a del-uge, 'sides being now a'most chawed up by a fire;
so I kalkerlate its 'bout time we hed sunthen' of a breeze. Thunder,
mister, it's kinder gettin' played out, I reckon, knocking about in
these air latitoods, without nary going ahead even once in a blue moon!"
"Oh, the wind isn't far off now," replied Captain Dinks, "you see those
porpoises there, passing us now and playing astern? Well, they are a
certain sign of a breeze soon coming from the quarter towards which
they're swimming."
"Wa-al, I dew hope so," drawled the American, with a sigh and a yawn of
weariness, "guess I shall snooze till it comes;" and he proceeded to
carry his thought into execution.
Captain Dinks turned out a true prophet.
A little later on in the day a breeze sprang up, that subsequently
developed into the long-wished-for south-east trade-wind, thus enabling
the good ship to bid adieu to the Doldrums and cross the equator, which
feat she accomplished two days after the fire.
From the line--which Master Negus was able to see distinctly with the
aid of one of Mr McCarthy's fine red hairs neatly adjusted across the
object-glass of his telescope--the ship had a splendid run over to the
South American coast, following the usual western course adopted by
vessels going round the Cape of Good Hope, in order to have the
advantage afterwards of the westerly winds and get well to the south;
and, when she had reached the thirty-fourth parallel of longitude and
latitude 18 degrees 22 minutes south--that is, about midway between
Bahia and Rio Janeiro, her head was turned to the south-east with light
winds from the northward and eastward, and she began to make way towards
the "Cape of Storms," after getting to the southward of which she would
have a straight run due east to New Zealand.
The _Nancy Bell's_ bows, however, were not long pointed in the direction
of the rising sun, when another incident occurred to vary the monotony
of the voyage--although, fortunately, this time not a second fire, nor
any peril from the sea to those on board.
It was the second day of her south-easterly course; and from the wind
blowing fresh from the north-east, right on her port quarter, with fine
bright weather, the ship was running pretty free, all sail being set, at
the rate of over twelve knots an hour, leaving a wake behind her like a
mill-race.
"Arrah, sure, and I call, that goin'!" exclaimed the first mate
exultantly, as he walked up and down the poop quickly--just as if his
doing so helped the vessel along, in the same way as one sees the
coxswain of a boat bending backwards and forwards to keep time with the
rowers!
"Yes, like one o'clock!" chimed in Captain Dinks, showing an equal
enthusiasm. "The old girl is walking away with us at a fine rate,
McCarthy. I wouldn't be surprised if we logged three hundred by noon."
"And fifty more tacked on it, sorr," said the mate. "Why, we've done
twelve knots ivry hour of my watch; and Adams tould me she wor running
the same at eight bells. By the piper that played before Moses, it's a
beauty she is--she'd bate aisy the fastest tay clipper from Shanghai!"
"Aye, that she would!" chorused the captain. "What do you think of the
ship now, Miss Kate?" he added to that young lady, who was leaning
against the bulwarks to leeward, looking out over the sea. She was all
alone with her thoughts, Frank Harness being away forwards attending to
the cutting out of a new main-topgallant sail to replace the one they
had lost in the storm, the one they were now using being old and unable
to stand any further rough usage.--"You are not ashamed of the old
_Nancy_, now, eh?"
"Oh no, Captain Dinks," answered Kate, "I never was, even in her worst
moments when we were becalmed; and I'm sure I couldn't be now, when she
is sailing along so beautifully; but, what is that speck out there,
captain, away to the right--is it a bird, or what?"
"Eh, my dear?" said the skipper, looking in the direction the girl had
pointed--"a bird? no, by Jove, it looks like a sail of a boat well down
on the horizon. Here, McCarthy, hand me your glass."
Captain Dinks seemed even more excited than he had been a moment before
when he spoke of the vessel's progress; for, taking the telescope that
the mate handed him, he scrutinised eagerly the object Kate had noticed.
"Good heavens, it is a boat!" he exclaimed presently, "and I think I can
see a man in the stern-sheets, though I'm not quite sure: at all events,
I'll run down and overhaul it, for it would never do to abandon a poor
fellow in distress; no English sailor would think of such a thing! This
is all your doing, Miss Kate, you and your pretty eyes, which have the
best sight of any on board. We'll have to put the ship about,
McCarthy," he added to the mate; "we can't fetch that boat on this
tack."
"Hands 'bout ship!" roared the mate, in response to the captain's
implied wish; and, immediately, there was much running to and fro on the
decks, and a yelling out of orders and hoarse "aye ayes" in reply--a
striking difference to the quiet that had reigned a moment or two
before, when the ship was slipping along through the water with the wind
on her quarter, never a sail having to be shifted or a rope pulled, and
only the man at the wheel for the time being having anything to do out
of the thirty odd hands on board.
"Helm's a lee!" cried the captain, and the head-sheets were let go;
"raise tacks and sheets!" and the fore-tacks and main sheets were cast
off; while the weather crossjack braces and the lee main braces were
belayed, ready to be let go at a moment's notice, and the opposite
braces hauled taut. "Mainsail haul!" then sang out the captain when
these preparations were completed; when the braces being let go, the
yards swung round like a top. The after yards were subsequently braced
up and belayed, the main sheet hauled aft, the spanker eased over to
leeward, and the watch stood by the head braces.
"Let go and haul!" was the next word of command; upon which the weather
fore-braces were let go and those to leeward hauled in by the men
forward under the personal supervision of Mr McCarthy, after which the
men boarded the fore-tack and hauled down the jib-sheet, clapping a
tackle on it as it blew fresh; and the _Nancy Bell_, braced round on the
starboard tack and with the wind a little more aft than when she was
running eastwards just now, stood towards the boat that Kate had been
the first to perceive, drifting a bout upon the wild ocean so far away
from land.
At this juncture, Frank Harness sprang up into the fore cross-trees to
con the ship, by Captain Dink's directions; and presently his orders to
the steersman could be heard ringing out clear and distinct above the
creaking of the cordage and the wash of the sea alongside--those on the
poop, listening to all they could hear with intense eagerness, and
waiting for the moment when they could see for themselves the object of
the ship's quest.
"Keep her up a bit--steady!"
"Aye, aye, sir; steady it is!"
"Port!"
"Port it is!"
"Steady!"
"Steady it is!"
"Luff!"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"Keep her so!"
"There is a man in her, sir!" Frank now called out in a different tone
of voice; "I can see him distinctly! He is trying to wave a
handkerchief or something. He looks almost dead, poor fellow!"
The excitement on board at hearing this piece of news became all the
more intensified.
"Are we nearing him?" shouted out Captain Dinks.
"Oh yes, sir; the boat bears now broad on the weather beam. Keep her
steady as she is, and we can round-to close alongside. Look out, we're
getting pretty close now!"
"Look out forward there!" cried the captain: but several hands were
there already with the first mate at their head, a coil of rope in his
hand, on the watch to heave it over the boat as soon as she was
approached near enough.
"Time to come about, sir," hailed Frank from the cross-trees; and,
"Hands 'bout ship!" roared out Captain Dinks, almost in the same breath.
During the bustle that ensued, those on the poop could not see what was
going on forward; but when the _Nancy Bell_ paid off again from the wind
on the port tack--thus resuming again what had been her previous course
before the boat had been sighted--it was found that the object for which
they had gone out of their way was safely alongside.
It was a shocking sight!
Four dead bodies were stretched, in every conceivable attitude of agony,
across the thwarts and in the bottom of the boat, which from its shape
had evidently belonged to some whaling vessel; while, sitting up in the
stern-sheets, close to the helm, which his feeble hands were powerless
to grasp, was the living skeleton of another sailor, whose eyes seemed
starting out from their deep sockets and whose lips appeared feebly
endeavouring to shape the syllables of "wa-ter!"
In a second, Mr McCarthy had leaped down into the floating coffin as it
towed alongside; and, lifting the body of the solitary survivor from
amidst the corpses of his dead comrades, handed the light load--for the
poor, starved creature did not weigh more than a child of ten, although
a man of over six feet in height--up to hands that as carefully received
him; and then, leaping back again on board himself, the whale-boat was
scuttled by a plank being knocked out of her bottom and cut adrift, to
sink with her mortal freight into the common grave of those who die on
the deep, the stench from the remains being horrible and permeating the
whole ship while the boat was in contact with her.
The rescued sailor was placed in a cot and given at first a small
quantity of thin soup which Snowball was busily concocting for the cabin
dinner, and after that, nourishment at intervals. By these restorative
measures, in a day or two, he recovered sufficiently to be able to tell
who he was and how he came to be in such a sad plight.
He was a Norwegian sailor, he said, and belonged to an American whaler
which had been on her voyage home after a three years' whaling cruise in
the South Pacific. On rounding Cape Horn, they had encountered a
fearful storm which had nearly dismasted the ship and washed the master
and five hands overboard. He and four others had launched the only boat
they had left over the side, trying to pick up their shipmates; but, the
sea was too heavy for them, and when they endeavoured to return, they
found they could not fetch their vessel again, which perhaps was just as
well, for soon afterwards they saw her go down stern foremost. After
that, they ran before the wind for several days and nights--how long he
could not tell--until his four comrades had died from exhaustion, and he
himself, he believed, was just on the point of giving up his life when
providence sent the _Nancy Bell_ to succour him.
"Ach der goot Gott!" said the man in his half German, half English way,
speaking brokenly and with tears in his eyes. "Der lieber Gott! I
shall nevare vergersen sie nevare!"
They had had, he said, a breaker of water in the boat when they quitted
the whaler, but this was soon drunk out, and although they had
occasionally something to eat, catching several fish, they suffered
terribly from thirst. It was that which had killed his comrades mainly.
As for him, he bore it better than them, but it must have been eight
days since a drop of liquid had passed his lips.
"Golly, dat am bad," said Snowball in the galley that evening, when some
of the hands gathered round the caboose to have a comfortable pipe and
talk over the events of the day. "Dat orful bad, eight day widout grub
or liquor! dis niggah not able 'tomach dat for sure!"
"Lor', Snowball, that's nothing when you are used to it," said Ben
Boltrope, the man-o'-war's-man, who was pretty well king of the
forecastle by reason of his service in the navy and general smartness as
a seaman. "What is eight days in a boat without grub, when you've got
to go ten, as I've done, besides wandering about on a sandy shore after
swimming for a day and night to save my life? Why, that's nothing!"
"Goramighty, Massa Boltrope, you no swim ten day widout habin' notin' to
eat, nor no water, hey?" said Snowball in astonishment.
"No, you blessed donkey, I didn't say that," replied the worthy Jack
tar. "I said as how I had gone without grub or water for ten days after
swimming for more than twelve hours."
"Dat berry rum for sure," said the darkey--"don't know how to belieb
dat, no how!"