"For now I stand as one upon a rock,
Environed with a wilderness of sea,
Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
Expecting ever when some envious surge
Will in his brinish bowels swallow him."
SHAKESPEARE.
The tide was on the ebb when Newton was left in this desolate situation.
After some minutes passed in bitterness of spirit, his natural courage
returned; and, although the chance of preservation was next to hopeless,
Newton rose up, resolved that he would use his best efforts, and trust
to Providence for their success. His first idea was to examine the
beach, and see if Jackson had left him any portion of the provisions
which he had put into the boat; but there was nothing. He then walked
along the beach, following the receding tide, with the hope of
collecting any shell-fish which might be left upon the sands; but here
again he was disappointed. It was evident, therefore, that to stay on
this islet was to starve; his only chance appeared to remain in his
capability of reaching the islet next to it, which, as we have before
mentioned, was covered with trees. There, at least, he might find some
means of sustenance, and be able with the wood to make a raft, if
nothing better should turn up in his favour.
The tide swept down towards the islet, but it ran so strong that there
was a chance of his being carried past it; he therefore determined to
wait for an hour or two, until the strength of the current was
diminished, and then make the attempt. This interval was passed in
strengthening his mind against the horror of the almost positive death
which stared him in the face.
It was about an hour before low water that Newton walked into the sea,
and, commending himself to Providence, struck out for the islet, keeping
his course well to windward, to allow for the tide sweeping him down. To
use a nautical phrase, he "held his own" extremely well, until he
reached the centre of the channel, where the water ran with great
velocity, and bore him down rapidly with the stream. Newton struggled
hard; for he was aware that the strength of the current once passed, his
labour would be comparatively easy; and so it proved: as he neared the
shore of the islet, he made good way; but he had been carried down so
far when in the centre of the stream that it became a nice point, even
to the calculation of hope, whether he would fetch the extreme point of
the islet. Newton redoubled his exertions, when, within thirty yards of
the shore, an eddy assisted him, and he made sure of success; but when
within ten yards, a counter current again caught him, and swept him
down. He was now abreast of the very extreme point of the islet; a bush
that hung over the water was his only hope; with three or four desperate
strokes he exhausted his remaining strength, at the same time that he
seized hold of a small bough. It was decayed--snapped asunder, and
Newton was whirled away by the current into the broad ocean.
How constantly do we find people running into real danger to avoid
imaginary evil! A mother will not permit her child to go to sea, lest it
should be drowned, and a few days afterwards it is kicked to death by a
horse. Had the child been permitted to go afloat, he might have lived
and run through the usual term of existence. Wherever we are, or
wherever we may go, there is death awaiting us in some shape or another,
sooner or later; and there is as much danger in walking through the
streets of London as in ploughing the foaming ocean. Every tile over our
heads contains a death within it as certain, if it were to fall upon
us, as that occasioned by the angry surge which swallows us up in its
wrath. I believe, after all, that as many sailors, in proportion, run
out their allotted span as the rest of the world that are engaged in
other apparently less dangerous professions; although it must be
acknowledged that occasionally we do become food for fishes. "There is a
tide in the affairs of men," says Shakespeare; but, certainly, of all
the tides that ever interfered in a man's prospects, that which swept
away Newton Forster appeared to be the least likely to "lead to
fortune." Such, however, was the case. Had Newton gained the islet which
he coveted, he would have perished miserably; whereas it will soon
appear that, although his sufferings are not yet ended, his being
carried away was the most fortunate circumstance which could have
occurred, and proved the means of his ultimate preservation.
Newton had resigned himself to his fate. He ceased from further
exertion, except such as was necessary to keep him above water a little
longer. Throwing himself on his back, he appealed to Heaven for pardon,
as he floated away with the stream. That Newton had as few errors and
follies to answer for as most people, is most certain; yet even the most
perfect soon run up a long account. During our lives our sins are
forgotten, as is the time at which they were committed; but when death
is certain, or appears to be so, it is then that the memory becomes most
horribly perfect, and each item of our monstrous bill requires but a few
seconds to be read, and to be acknowledged as too correct. This is the
horror of death; this it is which makes the body struggle to retain the
soul, already pluming herself and rustling her wings, impatient for her
flight. This it is which constitutes the pang of separation, as the
enfeebled body gradually relaxes its hold, and--all is over, at least on
this side of the grave.
Newton's strength was exhausted; his eyes were fixed on the clear blue
sky, as if to bid it farewell; and, resigned to his fate, he was about
to give over the last few painful efforts which he was aware could only
prolong, not save his life, when he received a blow on his shoulders
under the water. Imagining that it proceeded from the tail of a shark,
or of some other of the ravenous monsters of the deep, which abound
among these islands, and that the next moment his body would be severed
in half, he uttered a faint cry at the accumulated horror of his death;
but the next moment his legs were swung round by the current, and he
perceived, to his astonishment, that he was aground upon one of the
sand-banks which abounded on the reef, and over which the tide was
running with the velocity of a sluice. He floundered, then rose, and
found himself in about one foot of water. The ebb-tide was nearly
finished; and this was one of the banks which never showed itself above
water, except during the full and change of the moon. It was now about
nine o'clock in the morning, and the sun shone with great power. Newton,
faint from want of sustenance, hardly knew whether to consider this
temporary respite as an advantage. He knew that the tide would soon flow
again, and he felt that his strength was too much spent to enable him to
swim back to the islet which he had missed when he had attempted to
reach it, and which was more than two miles from the bank upon which he
then stood. What chance had he, then, but to be swept away by the return
of the tide? He almost regretted that it had not been a shark instead of
the sand-bank which had struck him; he would then have been spared a few
hours of protracted misery.
As Newton had foreseen, the ebb-tide was soon over; a short pause of
"slack water" ensued, and there was an evident and rapid increase of the
water around him: the wind, too, freshened, and the surface of the ocean
was in strong ripples. As the water deepened, so did the waves increase
in size: every moment added to his despair. He had now remained about
four hours on the bank! the water had risen to underneath his arms, the
waves nearly lifted him off his feet, and it was with difficulty that he
could retain his position. Hope deserted him, and his senses became
confused. He thought that he saw green fields, and cities, and
inhabitants. His reason was departing; he saw his father coming down to
him with the tide, and called to him for help, when the actual sight of
something recalled him from his temporary aberration. There was a dark
object upon the water, evidently approaching. His respiration was almost
suspended as he watched its coming. At last he distinguished that it
must either be a whale asleep, or a boat bottom up. Fortunately for
Newton, it proved to be the latter. At last it was brought down by the
tide to within a few yards of him, and appeared to be checked. Newton
dashed out towards the boat, and in a minute was safely astride upon it.
As soon as he had recovered a little from his agitation, he perceived
that it was the very boat belonging to the brig, in which Jackson had so
treacherously deserted and left him on the island!
At three o'clock it was high water, and at five the water had again
retreated, so that Newton could quit his station on the bottom of the
boat, and walk round her. He then righted her, and discovered that the
mast had been carried away close to the step, but, with the sail, still
remained fast to the boat by the main-sheet, which had jammed on the
belaying pin, so that it still was serviceable. Everything else had been
lost out of the boat, except the grapnel, which had been bent, and which
hanging down in the water, from the boat being capsized, had brought it
up when it was floated on the sand-bank. Newton, who had neither eaten
nor drunk since the night before, was again in despair, tormented as he
was by insufferable thirst: when he observed that the locker under the
stern-sheets was closed. He hastened to pull it open, and found that the
bottles of wine and cider which he had deposited there were remaining. A
bottle of the latter was soon poured down his throat, and Newton felt as
if restored to his former vigour.
At seven o'clock in the evening the boat was nearly high and dry. Newton
baled her out, and, fixing the grapnel firmly in the sand, lay down to
sleep in the stern-sheets, covered over with the sail. His sleep was so
sound that he did not wake until six o'clock the next morning; when the
boat was again aground. He refreshed himself with some wine, and
meditated upon his prospect. Thanking Heaven for a renewed chance of
escape, and lamenting over the fate of the unprepared Jackson, who had
evidently been upset, from the main-sheet having been jammed, Newton
resolved to make for one of the English isles, which he knew to be about
two hundred miles distant.
The oars had been lost, but the rudder of the boat was fortunately made
fast by a pennant. In the afternoon he drew up his grapnel, and made
sail in the direction, as well as he could judge from the position of
the sun, to the English isles. As the night closed in, he watched the
stars, and steered his course by them.
The next day came, and, although the boat sailed well, and went fast
before a free wind, no land was in sight. Newton had again recourse to
the cider and the wine.
The second night he could hardly keep his eyes open; yet, wearied as he
was, he still continued his course, and never quitted his helm. The day
again dawned, and Newton's strength was gone, from constant watching;
still he bore up against it, until the sun had set.
No land was yet to be seen, and sleep overpowered him. He took a hitch
of the main-sheet round his finger, that, should the breeze freshen, he
might be roused, in case he should go to sleep; and, having taken this
precaution, in a few minutes the boat _was steering herself_.