There is one thing more to tell.
It all arises from the unpardonable stupidity of that donkey of a
steward, Llewellyn, who forgot the memorandum concerning the
circumstance and left it down below in the cabin--and that, too, in
spite of Ben Boltrope's telling him to be certain to bear it mind,
besides his wife, Mary, having continually jogged his memory on the
subject! Had it not been for this, the omission would never have
occurred, as the matter would have been mentioned in its proper place
some time ago.
Shortly after the _Matilda Ann_ set sail from the little whaling station
at Betsy Cove with the rescued castaways of Kerguelen Land on board, and
just as she was weathering the Cloudy Islands, as they are called--a
group of rocks that lie to the north-east of the mainland--the look-out
man in the fore cross-trees, who was keeping a keen watch for breakers,
the navigation at this point being rather ticklish on account of the
treacherous reefs and stray currents that wander about there, suddenly
shouted down to the man at the wheel to put the helm down, which of
course he immediately did.
"What is it?" called out the steersman, who happened to be the master of
the schooner himself. He noticed no sign of breakers anywhere near and
wondered at this sudden alteration of the vessel's course--"Where's the
reef?"
"'Tain't no reef, sir," sang out the man aloft in answer, "but I see
something like a man in the water."
"Man be hanged!" exclaimed the schooner's skipper in a rage. "And was
it for such an absurd idea that you've nearly made me shiver the masts
out of her? If it be a body, it can only be a corpse; for no man could
swim out here from Kerguelen, and I'm blessed if he could live on those
rocks of islands beyond!"
"There!" shouted the look-out man again, taking no notice of the other's
upbraiding, and seeming to be very anxious about whatever he had seen in
the water. "It is quite close now on the lee bow."
"Well, just to oblige you," said the skipper, speaking loud enough for
all on board to hear, "and to let you see for yourself what a confounded
fool you are, I'll fetch her up to it!"
"Bully for you, cap'en!" exclaimed Mr Lathrope, who with the others of
the rescued party was on deck, not liking the rather fusty odour of the
schooner's cabin--which, to do justice to Mrs Major Negus, did smell
most abominably of seal-oil, and even worse scents!
The floating object was soon approached on the schooner's bearing away
towards it; and a man in the bows, who had a boat-hook ready in his
hand, quickly grappled it and pulled it alongside.
It was no man, however, as the look-out had thought; but only a piece of
square timber which had evidently once formed some portion of a vessel's
belongings, and it was carved out roughly on the uppermost side to
represent a female head and bust.
"I wasn't far out in thinking it were a man in the water," said the
look-out man, gazing down on the object from his perch above, as the
schooner's skipper, giving the helm in charge of some one else, came
forward to have a look over the side at the innocent cause of all this
unnecessary fuss, as he thought.
"You'd better say no more," replied the skipper, scornfully shouting
back up to the man. "I always thought you were a fool, and now I know
you are one! A drowning man, indeed! why, it's only the broken
figurehead of some old vessel or other!"
"Look, Mr McCarthy!" cried Mr Meldrum to the Irishman, who just then
came up to see what all the commotion was about. "Don't you see what it
is?"
"Be jabers, I do!" responded the ex-mate, quite as much excited as the
other. "Sure, an' it's the last of the ould ship! I wondther
howsomedever it iver floated all the way here?"
It was the figurehead of the ill-fated _Nancy Bell_.