“NEXT INSTANT THE SHIP WAS STRUCK AND STAVED.”
“If this breeze keeps,” said Captain Barnaby Blunt--“if this breeze
keeps up, we should sight Chatham to-morrow.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Tom.
“Yes. We are here now, I reckon,” continued Blunt, sticking a pin in the
chart that was spread out on the cabin table.
Something called the worthy Yank on deck just then, and Tom closed his
book.
“I say, Brandy, little boy.”
“I’se a-listenin’, sah, propah.”
“Do you know where the ship is going to, and what she is going to do?
Funny now, but I’ve never looked at the chart yet. I think I’ve eaten
the lotus leaf.”
“‘Spects you has, sah. I don’t know nuffin neider, sah. I’m jes’ like
yourse’f, sah.”
“Well, I’ve been so happy and so--so--half asleep all the time; but now
I’ll have a peep at the chart. Here we are--Guayaquil Gulf. Why, what a
zig-zag course the tub has taken. Oh! here we are--Galapagos! Whatever
are we going to do here? Ah! well, time will tell, and it’s nothing to
me much.”
The day passed dreamily away, like all the other days; and night fell,
and with it the wind. Before turning in Tom went on deck. Such a night
of inky darkness and mysterious silence he could not remember ever
experiencing. The blackness brooded over the sea--it was almost
palpable, and the silence seemed to enter one’s very soul. Hardly a
sound in board, no sound at all out yonder in the beyond. The men’s
voices forward round the bow when they did speak sounded loud and
strange. Tom even felt relieved when a sail flapped or a bolt creaked to
some almost imperceptible roll of the ship. There was never a star in
the sky to-night, and a mist that was not a mist appeared to completely
envelop the ship.
Pebbles came aft quietly to where he could dimly see Tom’s figure in a
ray of light streaming from the poop cabin.
He took Tom’s hand.
“Come with me,” he said, “and listen.”
He led Tom forward through the darkness to the bows.
“We’ve heard it again,” said one of the men in a half-suppressed
whisper. “Listen! Away out yonder. It is coming this way; but what is
it?”
They leant over the bows, “peering,” “keening” into the mysterious
darkness.
The sound was like some great living monster steering through the water,
breathing heavily with every stroke--sighing I had almost said--ceasing
sometimes, to be heard closer to the ship the next minute.
Pebbles still held Tom’s hand, as if in his anxiety he had forgotten to
let it go; and Tom could feel that hand tremble.
“Look! look! Oh--h!”
The “Oh--h!” was a simultaneous cry of fear from the men. Tom felt like
one in a dream. For there in the sea, higher far than the bulwarks,
blacker even than the blackness of night, was a shape!
Next instant the ship was struck and staved. Every timber of her shook
and shivered from stem to stern, and some loose belaying-pins leapt
clear of their holes and fell rattling on deck.
All was shouting and confusion on board now. The captain rushed out of
his cabin, the mate ran aft; but no one could tell what had happened.
“She has run on a snag rock?” cried the captain.
“We cannot say, sir; but we saw--”
The carpenter, lantern in hand, appeared from below.
“She is making water at a tremendous rate, sir. Shouldn’t think she’d
float an hour.”
Blunt went away with him to see for himself. When he came up again he
entered the cabin, where Tom was standing by the table looking white and
scared; for he was yet little more than an invalid.
“Well,” said the captain, “this is about the suddentest thing, I guess,
I ever came across. It’s a sudden thing, sirr, and it’s a very solemn
thing too. Mister Talisker, it’s a good thing your clothes is on.”
“Has it come to that?” said Tom.
“Well, sirr, it hasn’t come to the hen-coop quite; but it’s come to
boats. Now, I always said the _’Liza Ann_ was the safest ship out; but I
didn’t reckon on snags in deep water. Pebbles!”
“I’m here, sir.”
“Well, tell the hands to lay aft here. I guess we’ll have time for
prayers.”
“She’s going fast, sir.”
“We’ll have time for prayers, I tell you.”
“Very good, sir.”
Tom had never known so cool a sailor as this. With the sound of the
water rushing into the sinking, reeling ship, he nevertheless found
time--nay, but made time, to kneel there and pray long and fervently for
protection to Him who rules on sea as well as on earth, and whose hand
and eye are everywhere, in the blackness of night as well as in the
sunshine.
The men’s response of “Amen” was deep and solemn. Half a minute of dead
silence, then all rose from their knees.
“Now, Pebbles!” roared Captain Blunt, “bustle about. Load up the dinghy
and the jolly-boat. Put in everything we’re likely to want--arms,
ammunition, water, food. Mr. Talisker, you’ll go in the dinghy with
Ginger Brandy and Smith.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“Well, see after your own affairs. Don’t forget lights, for keep
together we must.”
There were no signs of weakness about Tom now. He appeared to have grown
suddenly strong and well.
Smith was a sort of hobble-de-hoy sailor--a lad of seventeen, with
plenty of strength, but not much brains to command action. Ginger
Brandy, the other half of Tom’s crew, was far more useful; so he gave
the nigger charge of the white man. This was reversing the order of
nature some might think, but it worked very well indeed on the present
occasion.
Tom showed good generalship. He first had a run below to see how fast
the water was gaining. It certainly was coming in at a very rapid rate.
But she would last an hour, Tom thought; so he at once set to work to
provision his boat.
The dinghy was not over twelve feet long, but she was broad in beam and
with a good free-board. So Tom had her lowered, and swung a lantern over
the side where she was that its light might shine right into her. Then
under his directions the lads began to load up.
“You’ll have her too deep, I reckon,” said Captain Blunt as he passed.
“Thank you,” replied Tom, “but I do not think so; for you see if it
comes on to blow we can lighten her by pitching the least necessary
things overboard.”
The jolly-boat was ready first, and lay waiting till Tom and his crew
embarked. Both boats had stepped their masts, ready for the least puff
of wind; and both had compasses and a ready-made chart each.
“Good-bye!” cried pious Blunt. “Keep our light in sight; keep yours
hanging on your mast as we have ours. Fire a rifle if ye want
assistance. May the Lord be with you! Now, men, three farewell cheers
for the dear old _’Liza Ann_.”
What sorrowful cheers they were, and how strangely they sounded in the
pitchy darkness!
“Pull round the bows, lads, in close. I just want to put my hand on her
once more. Now give way.”
These are the last words Tom heard the Yankee skipper speak, and
presently the jolly-boat was swallowed up in the blackness. All except
her twinkling light--and by this the dinghy was steered.
Everything went well till morning. Then with the sun, that leapt up like
a ball of fire and changed the waters to a pool of crimson, came a
breeze of wind. Oars were taken in and a little sail set. Tom hoped it
would not increase, for he desired to save all her stores if possible.
About noon that day the jolly-boat was distant nearly a league, about
two points on the weather-bow. She was signalling to the dinghy, and
presently she took in sail. Tom increased his, rightly judging that
Captain Blunt wished him to come closer.
The dinghy leaned over now in a most uncomfortable way. Tom, still
determined if possible to save his precious cargo, made his men sit well
to the weather-side, and thus they managed to keep her lee-gunwale out
of the water as they tried to get closer to the jolly-boat. The latter
was seen to lower sail altogether, and Tom could not make out what the
matter was. He understood soon, however; for down the wind at that
moment he descried rolling along a dark wall of fog. In a few minutes
the jolly-boat was engulphed, and soon after the dinghy.
All that day the fog lasted; but now and then Tom could hear the ring
of a rifle, and steered by that. Towards evening the wind had increased
in force, and he heard no more firing. The jolly-boat would doubtless
lie to, however,--so Tom thought; and by next day, when the fog cleared,
he should see the boat again. The fog did not clear next day, however,
nor for many days; and when the sun shone at last there was no sail in
sight!
There was no help for it; they must make the nearest land, and doubtless
the other boat would do the same.
And now ensued a painful and weary time.
The wind had died down entirely. It seemed as though it would never blow
again. The sea all round was like molten glass, a long rolling swell
coming in from the north-west--a swell that was delusive in the extreme,
causing them to believe they were making progress to the south, although
the current was dead against them. The sun’s rays, beating straight down
from the heavens and reflected from the waters, were doubly fierce, and
there was no awning for protection.
Two days passed like this; then poor Smith sickened and died. Tom had
given him the last drop of water that remained in the boat. So between
them Ginger Brandy and he gently lifted the body up and dropped it
astern, and the scene that followed was horrible to witness. Before
their eyes the corpse was torn in pieces by those tigers of the sea--the
hammer-headed sharks. There must have been at least a dozen at that
dreadful feast, yet next minute several were floating alongside, and
casting sidelong glances up at the rowers with their hungry, eager, and
awful eyes.
On and on and on they rowed, resting often on their oars and gazing
round them in the vain hope of descrying a sail.
A bird alighted in the water on the forenoon of next day. A strange
weird-looking gull, the like of which Tom had never seen before. It was
so tame that Brandy easily knocked it dead with his oar, and they sucked
its blood and devoured the flesh raw and warm. Horrid meal though this
appears to have been, it revived them better than anything else save
water could have done. Of food there was abundance in the boat; it was
water alone they craved for. That same evening it rained a little. They
caught the water in their jackets and eagerly drank it.
Another long dark black starless night; but in the morning the clouds
were dissolved, and the sun shone more fiercely than ever.
No rain, no mist even.
They dipped biscuits in the sea and sucked them, but the thirst grew
more intense.
Tom suffered worst; his agony was fearful. With eyes and brow that felt
bursting with pain, and swollen and parched tongue, he sat at the oar
and rowed feebly and mechanically.
Birds came now in larger numbers, but none came near enough to be
caught.
Surely they were nearing land! But nothing was in sight from where they
sat. Only the burning sky, only the heaving sea!
A bright-eyed butterfly flew on board one day, and the negro boy shouted
for joy. But Tom heeded it not; he was past heeding anything. Pain was
gone though. He felt nothing. His very mind seemed to have fled. He
remembered looking down at his own hands holding the oars, and wondering
to whom they belonged. The birds screaming around the boat became
spirits with human voices and kept saying things to him, and
awful-looking black lizards swam in the water near.
Then through the mist and haze that had gathered before his eyes he
could dimly see the negro lad approach nearer. The boy took someone’s
oars gently out of his hand, and laid someone down in the bottom of the
boat. But who was the someone, Tom wondered. It could not be himself,
for he felt nothing.
Then all was a blank.
When he opened his eyes again he was no longer in the boat. The boy was
pouring something down his throat. It revived him, and he sat up.
He pointed to some immense lizards--the same he had seen in the sea.
They were lying together on some igneous rocks in the sunlight, as large
as young alligators but ten times more ugly--broad in head with
spreading legs, squalid, hideous, fearsome.
Tom tried to speak as he pointed to them, but could only utter a series
of unintelligible vowel-sounds with the back of his throat.
But poor little Brandy understood him.
“Yes, sah, dey are dere all right. You not dream at all, sah. I see
dem.”
Then the boy took a stick and forced them off the rock; though some of
them turned round as if to bite, and others caught the stick in their
hands in a way that curdles one’s blood to think of.
Tom lay back now and slept again.
It must have been near morning when he awoke, feeling almost well.
He was quite covered with a piece of sail, and lay on a bed of soft dry
sea-weed.
For a few moments he could remember nothing, and sadly wondered where he
was. But memory soon returned. The stars were shining brightly above. By
its light he could see the foam of the wavelets that sang dolefully on
the beach. He could see, too, the rocks and boulders near the water. As
he gazed on these, to his horror and surprise some of them moved away
inland slowly with a harsh and rattling noise.
“Surely I am on an island of enchantment,” thought poor Tom, “or I
cannot be awake!”
“Ginger Brandy!” he cried as well as he could.
“I’se heah, sah. Tank de Lawd, marster, you hab got your voice once mo’,
sah!”
“Brandy, I saw the rocks move slowly away. Was I dreaming?”
“No, sah. Nevah feah, sah. Dem not rocks; dey are to’toises, as big as
elerphants. I ride on one to-day all ’long de beach. Dey are puffikly
ha’mless, sah. Don’t you be ’larmed. I’se fit ’nuff to look arter you.
Sleep, sah, sleep; de sun rise soon.”
As the boy spoke a gush of bird-melody came from a neighbouring bush, so
entrancingly sweet but so wondrously strange, that Tom at once placed
his head again on his pillow of sea-weed to listen.
Sleep the most refreshing ever he had enjoyed in his life succeeded; but
all through his slumbers rang the bird-song, mingling with his dreams
like chimes from elfin-land.