SLept till long after daybreak, did they?
Why, it was getting on for noon when Mr McCarthy roused the crew from
their unusually long caulk amongst the blankets in the corner of the
tent reserved for them with his cheery call of "All hands ahoy! Tumble
up there! tumble up!" coupled with the information that the sun was
"scorching their eyes out"--which latter observation, it may be casually
remarked, was a slight stretch of his imagination, considering the
feeble power of the solar orb at that time of the year on the snow-
covered wastes of Kerguelen Land!
Still, late or early as they might be in rising, the first point to
which everybody turned their gaze on getting out into the open, was the
little spot on the horizon to seaward where they had left the ship,
where she had been last seen on the previous afternoon just as the
evening was beginning to close in. Since they had quitted her, however,
the wind had been blowing pretty stiffly all night, although it had
calmed down again towards the morning; while the last thing they had
heard, ere they had sunk into the sound dreamless sleep all had enjoyed
through the complete exhaustion of their frames, had been the roaring
noise of the breakers thundering against the base of the cliffs beyond
their sheltering fiord. So, it was with but very faint hopes of
perceiving the remains of the poor old _Nancy Bell's_ hull still fixed
on the treacherous reef of her destruction, that they looked wistfully
out into the offing!
But, lo and behold! in spite of all their forebodings, there in the
distance they could yet dimly descry the stern section of the ill-fated
vessel still intact, as far as they could judge with the naked eye,
amidst the rocks; and about it the waves played and circled and the surf
showered its spray. Above the wreck, too, there still fluttered feebly
the flag which Mr Meldrum had attached to the stump of the mizzen-mast,
as if defying the powers of the wind and the waters to destroy the
gallant old ship and her belongings, strive how they might in all their
majesty!
Every heart felt glad at the sight.
"It does me ra-al good, mister, it dew!" said Mr Lathrope to the first
mate, who was intently watching the object of general interest, as if he
could not take his eyes off it. "When I riz just neow, I felt kinder
lonesome, a thinking we'd parted company with the old crittur fur ever
and wouldn't never see her no more; but thar she is still as perky as
ever, in spite of last night's gale, which I thought would ha' blown all
her timbers to Jericho!"
"Ah, sorr!" replied Mr McCarthy with a heavy sigh and a troubled look
in his usually merry twinkling grey eyes, "you'll never say another ship
the likes of her again! If you'll belave me, Mister Lathrope, sorr,
she'd sail ten knots on a bowline; and I'd like to know where you'd bate
that now?"
"I'll not deny she had her good pints," said the American
sympathisingly; "but I guess the poor thing'll soon be bruk up."
"Yes, son, more's the pity," responded the other; "sure an' I wish we
had her safe ashore here and we'd save ivory plank of her."
"It wouldn't be a bad notion," observed Mr Meldrum, who just then came
up to where the two were talking, "to take another trip out to the ship
in the jolly-boat and see whether we could not land some more things
that might be of use to us?"
"Sure the hould's gutted now enthirely," said the Irish mate sadly, "and
the divil a hap'orth we'd get by going. Look at the say that's running,
too; and considther the long pull out there and back again--not that I
wouldn't be afther going, sorr, if you were to say the word!"
"Oh, no, never mind," replied Mr Meldrum. "There's not the slightest
necessity for it, for I believe we brought away all the provisions that
were left in her, and we'd find little enough now! I only thought we
might secure some more of the timber work, as there doesn't seem to be a
particle of wood on the island."
"We'd better wait till she breaks up, sorr," said Mr McCarthy; "sure
and it'll float in thin to us, widout the throuble of fetching it."
"All right!" answered the other. So the contemplated last trip to the
stranded vessel would have been abandoned, had not Florry at that moment
rushed up to her father.
"Oh, poor puss!" she exclaimed, half-crying and almost breathless with
excitement as she clung to his arm and looked up into his face
entreatingly.
"Puss!" repeated Mr Meldrum in astonishment; "what puss?"
"The--the--poor pussy cat we used to play with in the cabin," sobbed
Florry. "It was shut up by the stewardess, and has been left behind in
the ship!"
"Yes, sir," said Mary Llewellyn, who with Kate had followed Florry. "I
clean forgot the creature in the flurry of coming away. I locked it in
the pantry, as it seemed frightened and was scurrying about the cuddy;
and when we went on deck, I didn't think to take it out, so there it'll
be starved to death, or drownded!"
"It was my fault as well," interposed Kate, looking quite as unhappy as
her sister and the stewardess. "I told Mary to lock it up."
"Be jabers!" ejaculated the first mate, "it'll never do to lave it
there. Sure and we'd be onlucky altogether if a cat came to harm in the
old ship! I didn't know it was aboord at all, at all. Sure an' there's
no knowing but what all our misfortunes have been brought about by the
same baste, bad cess to it?"
"Oh, Mr McCarthy!" exclaimed Kate, "how can you believe that?"
"Sure, and I mane it," answered the Irishman promptly, as if he put the
greatest faith in the superstition.
"Well," said Mr Meldrum, "I'm sorry for the poor animal; but it will
have to stop there now! The sea is very rough, and I would hardly like
to risk men's lives to save a cat!"
"I'll go back for it, sir," volunteered Frank Harness with a look at
Kate, which said as plainly as looks could speak that he was ready to do
a good deal more than that to please her. "You were speaking just now
of sending off the jolly-boat to fetch what we could from the wreck; so
we can bring the poor cat on shore at the same time."
"Yes, I certainly did suggest that just now," said Mr Meldrum; "but, as
Mr McCarthy pointed out, there is a good deal of sea on, and--"
"Sure, but I said, sorr, I'd go if you liked," interrupted the first
mate eagerly, not wishing to be behindhand when Frank had offered; "and,
faix, I'm ready at once."
"Let the durned animile slide," put in Mr Lathrope. "It ain't worth a
cent, much less such a tall price as yar life."
"No, we won't," said Mr McCarthy, all anxiety now to start. "Who'll
volunteer to go back to the wreck and save the cat!" he called out
aloud.
"I will," and "I," and "I," cried out several of the seamen, laughing
and passing all sorts of chaff about the expedition; and soon there were
more than enough offers to man the jolly-boat twice over if all had been
taken who offered.
Ben Boltrope was one of the first to stand out; but Mr Meldrum at once
motioned him back.
"You must not go," said he. "I shall want your carpentering aid very
soon, and can't spare you." It was the same with some others amongst
the hands, Mr Meldrum picking them out as they stepped forwards.
Before long, however, a crew was selected; when, the jolly-boat being
run down into the water by the aid of a dozen other willing hands,
besides her own special crew, she was soon on her way back to the scene
of the wreck of the _Nancy Bell_--McCarthy steering her, and Frank
Harness, who would not relinquish his privilege of going in her after
having been the first to volunteer, pulling the stroke-oar, no idlers
being wanted on board. Kate looked at him and waved her hand in adieu
as the boat topped the heavy rolling waves and got well out into the
offing; and, after that, Frank did not mind what exertion he had to go
through.
It was a long pull and an arduous one, although, in spite of Mr
McCarthy's warning to the contrary, there was nothing dangerous in the
accomplishment of the feat. The first mate had probably felt a little
lazy when he endeavoured to set Mr Meldrum at first against the
expedition, for after a couple of hours' hard work, having the tide to
contend with most of the way, they easily managed to approach the reef
and bring up the boat under the vessel's stern, where the side ropes and
slung chair, which they had omitted to remove on board the raft remained
just as they had left them, swinging about to and fro as the wind
brushed by, causing them to oscillate with its breath.
On climbing up to the deck, they found the poop pretty much the same,
but the forward portion of the ship had all broken to pieces, hardly a
timber being left, save part of the forefoot or cut-water, which had got
jammed in between the rocks along with the anchor-stock, the heavy mass
of iron belonging to which must have fallen down below the surface when
the topgallant forecastle was washed away.
Going down into the cuddy, Frank could hardly at first believe that its
former tenants had quitted it for good and all, for the cabin doors were
thrown wide open, and dresses and other articles of feminine attire
scattered about--one special shawl of Kate's, which he readily
recognised as the one she had on her shoulders the night they had
watched the stars together in the South Atlantic, being placed over the
back of the captain's chair at the head of the table, as if the owner
had just put it down for a minute and was coming back to fetch it. He
at once took charge of this, besides collecting sundry other little
articles which he thought Kate might want; but he was soon interrupted
in his quest of feminine treasure-hunting by a mewing and scratching at
the door of the steward's pantry, which made him recollect all at once
what had been the ostensible object of his mission on board the vessel.
"Gracious goodness!" he exclaimed, speaking to himself, for Mr McCarthy
was busy raking amongst his clothes in his own cabin, also oblivious to
the fate of the poor feline for whom they had come aboard the ship. "I
almost forgot the cat after all. Puss, Pussy, poor Puss!" and he
wrenched open the pantry door, setting the animal free.
If ever mortal cat purred in its life, or endeavoured to express its
pleasure and satisfaction by walking round and rubbing itself against a
person, raising and putting down its fore-feet alternately, with the
toes extended, as if practising the goose step or working on some feline
treadmill, why that cat did then. The poor animal could not speak, of
course, but it really seemed to utter some inarticulate sounds that must
have been in cat language a paean of joy and praise and thanks at its
deliverance; and, finally, in a paroxysm of affection and endearment, it
turned itself head over heels on the cabin floor in front of Frank.
"Poor Puss; poor little thing!" said the young sailor, taking it up in
his arms. "I believe I would have come back for you even if it hadn't
been to oblige Kate--my darling!" and he kissed the fur of the animal as
he held it in his arms, as if he considered it for the time being her
deputy.
Judging by several well-picked bones that could be noticed lying on the
deck of the pantry, Frank assured himself that Puss had not been starved
since she had been locked up; and, indeed, she could not have been in
any serious want, as there was a freshly-cut ham on one of the shelves
and a round of spiced beef, which she had not touched, both of which
Frank took the liberty of appropriating for the benefit of those on
shore.
Then, still in company with Puss, who would not leave his side, he
imitated the example of the first mate, and selected a coat or two and a
change of clothes from out of his own sea-chest. He did not forget the
others either, but gathered together various garments which he saw lying
about in the captain's cabin and that of Mr Meldrum, thinking that both
might perhaps be glad of them bye and bye.
Beyond what Frank had found in the pantry, however, neither he nor Mr
McCarthy could discover any provisions, or other things that might be
useful on shore, save the unbroken half of the cuddy skylight. This
they carefully lowered down into the jolly-boat, for the glass framing
would come in handy for the windows of any house they built--Mr Meldrum
having hinted on the previous evening of some more substantial structure
being necessary than the tent, which had been only put up for temporary
accommodation on their first landing on the island.
The several articles that had been collected being now put on board the
jolly-boat, in addition to the accommodation chair, which was cut from
the slings, at McCarthy's especial request, and lowered down on
board--"jest to plaze the meejor," as he said, alluding to Mrs Negus's
weakness for sitting in high places during the voyage. Frank then
descended with the cat in his arms and took a seat in the stern-sheets,
the first mate very good-naturedly pulling the stroke-oar on the return
journey in his place; and, all these little matters being thus arranged,
Pussy's rescuers started again for the shore. The tide, luckily, was
with them all the way; so they accomplished the distance back to the
beach inside the fiord in very nearly half the time they had taken in
rowing out to the ship--getting everything ashore and the jolly-boat
hauled up safely beyond high-water mark with none of the trouble they
had anticipated on setting out, the wind and sea having both calmed down
in the interim.
Kate's thanks to Frank need not be alluded to:-- they were simply
inexpressible; but, if Puss is described to have been pleased when she
was first released from captivity and an untimely end on board the
shipwrecked vessel, what can be said for her raptures now that she was
landed on _terra firma_--which she probably had never expected to see
again--especially when she recognised the bevy of old friends amongst
whom she found herself alive once more.
"I guess," said Mr Lathrope, as he watched her affectionate antics,
"the stoopid old cuss will purr herself to potato parings, and rub all
her darned fur inter a door-mat with joy!"