I was at this time just turned twenty-one, and had received my education
at the Royal Naval School at Greenwich, with the understanding that I
was to join my father on its completion, when he would continue and
finish what is there so well begun, thus making me "every inch a
sailor."
On leaving school I joined my father (who was master and part owner of a
fine dashing clipper), in the capacity of midshipman, and went some six
or seven voyages with him: on the last of which, or rather, a few days
after its termination, I was seized with a violent attack of rheumatic
fever, from which I had not recovered sufficiently to rejoin the ship by
the time that she was once more ready for sea. I was consequently left
at home under Ada's care (my dear mother had been dead some years), to
recover at leisure, and amuse myself as well as I could until another
voyage should be accomplished, and an opportunity once more offered for
me to repossess myself of my quarters in the old familiar berth. That
opportunity never arrived, for at the time my story opens, my father had
been two years "missing." He sailed from Canton with the first cargo of
the new season's teas, and from the moment that the good ship
disappeared seaward she had never been heard of; not the faintest trace
of a clue to the mystery of her fate having, so far, been discovered.
Bob Trunnion was a middle-aged man, of medium stature, great personal
strength, and no very marked pretensions to beauty; but he was as
thorough an old sea-dog as ever looked upon salt water. His visage was
burnt to a deep brick-red by years of exposure to all sorts of weather;
and his hair and beard, which had once been brown, were now changed to
the hue of old oakum by the same process, except where, here and there,
a slight sprinkling of grey discovered itself. He had been a sailor
almost all his life, having "crept in through the hawse-pipe" when he
was only twelve years old; since when, by close application and
perseverance, he had gradually worked his way aft to the quarter-deck.
He joined my father's ship as second mate, on the same voyage as I did,
and on the following voyage took the chief-mate's berth, in place of a
man whom my father was compelled to discharge for confirmed drunkenness.
The last time that my poor father passed down Channel, outward-bound,
Bob had the misfortune (as we thought it then), to fall off the poop and
break his arm. It was what the surgeons call a compound fracture, and
certainly looked to be a very ugly one; so, as the ship happened at the
time to be off Saint Alban's Head, my father ran into Weymouth roads,
and sent Bob ashore to our house to be cured, and to bear me company;
shipping in his stead the second mate, and picking up a new second mate
somewhere about the town.
Thus it happened that Bob and I, old shipmates as we were, happened to
be both away from our ship when her mysterious fate overtook her. As
soon as we were both recovered, we sought and obtained berths, always in
the same ship, for short voyages; returning home about once in every six
weeks or two months, with the hope of hearing either that my father had
returned, or that some news had arrived of him. For the last twelve
months we had abandoned the former hope, but the latter would probably
be many years before it finally took its flight.
Ada Collingwood, my only sister, was just seventeen.
This introduction and explanation are necessary to the understanding of
what is to follow; and now, having fairly weathered them both, we may
take up the thread of the story, and follow it out to the end without
further interruption.
I have already said that I took an early opportunity to give Bob a
detailed account of the Spaniard's revelation to me. This was on the
evening of the day on which we laid the poor fellow in his grave; and I
told my story while we and my sister were seated comfortably round the
fire after tea, with the curtains drawn close, and everything made snug
for the night.
Bob listened with the utmost attention to my story (as did also my
sister), occasionally requesting me to "say that ag'in," as some point
in the narrative was reached which he wished to bear particularly in
mind; and when I had finished he sat for some time staring meditatively
between the bars of the grate.
At length, "Well, Harry, my lad, what do you intend to do?" said he.
"That," replied I, "is just the point upon which I want your advice. If
this story be true--"
"No fear about that," said Bob. "It's true enough. The thing's as
plain and circumstantial as the ship's course when it's pricked off upon
the chart. There ain't a kink in the yarn from end to end; it's all
coiled down as neat and snug as a new hawser in the ropemaker's yard;
and besides, dyin' men don't spin yarns with no truth in 'em, just for
divarsion's sake, like."
"Well," said I, "I have not the means of purchasing a ship of my own;
and if I had, do you think it would be safe to trust so much treasure
with a crew, picked up though ever so carefully?"
"Ah! now you 'pawls me," replied Bob, rubbing the back of his head
reflectively. "I've sailed with crews as you might ha' trusted with
untold gold, at least, I've thowt so at the time I was with 'em; but
mayhap, if temptation was throwed in their way, they mightn't be able to
stand out agin it; there's no gettin' to the bottom o' the heart o' man.
As to the ship, that's easy enough. If you ain't got the cash to
_buy_, you can always _charter_."
"True," said I, "and if I could _make sure_ of finding a sufficient
number of thorough good men, that is the course I should be inclined to
pursue. Do you think, Bob, that by diligent search we could find some
six or eight really reliable men? The craft need not be a large one,
you know--"
"There you've hit the solution of the enigmy, as the schoolmaster said,"
replied Bob, bringing his clenched fist down upon my knee with an
emphasis which impressed me for the remainder of the evening: "How much
of that gold now do you reckon would make your fortune, lad? you're
pretty good at figures; just cipher it up and let's hear?"
"How much!" exclaimed I; "oh, a very small portion of the whole cargo
would satisfy me if I had it here at this moment."
"How much?" persisted Bob. "Would a _ton_ of it be enough for you,
boy?"
"Yes, indeed," laughed I; "a ton of pure gold--why, what do you suppose
that would be worth, Bob?"
"Hain't much of a 'idee," replied he.
"A ton of pure gold," said I, "is worth over one hundred thousand
pounds, Bob; I believe one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds is
nearer its value; though I cannot say for certain."
"Then," said Bob, "if we can manage to get, say, a couple of tons of it
home, you will be satisfied--eh?"
"Perfectly," I replied; "but how do you propose to accomplish this?" for
I saw he had a scheme to bring forward.
"Nothing easier," replied Bob. "Build a little craft big enough to
accommodate the two of us; with room to stow away our grub and water,
and the two tons of gold; and up anchor and away."
"But," said I, "you forget that this island is somewhere in the Pacific.
Such a craft as you speak of would be totally unfit for the voyage we
contemplate."
"Why?" inquired Bob.
"Why?" repeated I, astonished at the question. "Simply because we
should never get across the Bay of Biscay in her, to say nothing of the
remainder of the voyage."
"Why not?" demanded Bob, rather pugnaciously.
"Do you mean to say," I retorted, "that you can sit there and propose in
cold blood such a hair-brained scheme as that we two should undertake a
voyage to the Pacific in a mere _boat_?"
"I do," replied Bob emphatically. "That's a simple way out of all your
difficulties. The craft will be your own; there will be no risk of the
crew rising upon us for the sake of our cargo; and nobody to say `What
are we doing here?' or `What do you want there?' Why, it will be a mere
pleasure trip from end to end, all play and no work, leastways none to
speak on!"
"But, my dear fellow, _do_ be serious," protested I. "You know, as well
as I do, that we should be swamped the first time we fell in with a
capful of wind."
"Maybe we should, if we went to work like a couple of know-nothing land-
lubbers," retorted Bob; "but if we went to work like seamen, as we are,
I should like to know what's to purvent our sailing round the world if
we like! Answer me that."
"Come, Bob, old man, let us hear the full extent of your proposition,"
said I. "I know that, whatever it may be, it will be the proposal of a
thorough seaman, for if any one could carry out the wild scheme you have
suggested, you are the man."
"'Tain't such a very wild scheme neither," replied Bob. "Answer me
this. How many people was saved from the _London_ when she foundered in
the Bay of Biscay?"
"Nineteen, if I remember rightly," replied I.
"Very well; now if a small boat of about twenty-five feet long or
thereabouts, _open_, mind you, from stem to starn, could live twenty
hours with nineteen people in her, as the _London's_ pinnace did, in
weather that the old ship herself couldn't stand up agin, how long will
a full-decked boat of, say, thirty to thirty-five feet long, carefully
constructed, and in good trim, live with only two men in her? And
warn't I," continued he, "nineteen days _alone_ in an open boat in the
South Atlantic; and didn't I make a v'y'ge of a thousand miles in her
afore I struck soundings at Saint Helena?"
This last question referred to an adventure which had befallen Bob in
his younger days, on an occasion when he had been cruelly deserted in a
sinking ship by the rest of the crew, and had made his escape, as
described by himself, after enduring unheard-of suffering.
"Then," questioned I, "you seriously entertain the belief that the
scheme you have suggested is practicable?"
"With ease and comfort," replied Bob. "Now look here, Harry. You can
afford to build a craft such as I have described, and fit her out for
the v'y'ge, and still leave money enough at home to keep sauce-box
here," (indicating Ada, who was to him as the apple of his eye)
"comfortable and happy like till we come back. You've a rare eye for a
sea-boat, and mine ain't bad, for that matter; let's draught her out
ourselves, since it's our own lives as we are going to trust in her; and
if we don't turn out, between us, as pretty a sea-boat as ever floated,
why, turn to and lay me up in ordinary for the rest of my days for a
useless old hulk, that's all. A boat thirty feet long, decked all over,
and carefully designed, _can't_ sink, boy, because we can easily arrange
matters so as to keep her dry inside; she'll ride as light as a gull and
as dry as a bone when big ships is making bad weather of it, and as for
the matter of capsizing, bein' run down, or cast away, why they're
dangers as we are liable to in any ship, and must be guarded against in
every craft, large or small; and our little barkie would carry
comfortable all we should want for the v'y'ge, for we could touch here
and there out and home to make good deficiencies, and we two are men
enough to handle her in all weathers. Rig her as a cutter, boy. I was
once't aboard a cutter yacht in a trip up the Mediterranean, and you've
no idea what a handy rig it is, once you're used to it. And the way
them cutters 'll hug the wind--why 't would make a difference of nigh on
a couple of thousand miles, out and home, in the length of the passage."
I began to be infected with Bob's enthusiasm. The scheme, which had at
first appeared to me as the very acme of fool-hardiness, now, under the
influence of Bob's eloquence, gradually assumed an appearance of
reasonableness, and a promising prospect of success, which was very
fascinating. Nevertheless, I could not but remember that the proposed
voyage would take us into latitudes subject to the most frightful and
sudden tempests, and I could not help thinking (as I pointed out to Bob)
that our cockle-shell would stand but a poor chance in a cyclone or a
black squall.
"Look here, Harry, my boy," remarked Bob gravely, "as I propose to ship
on this here v'y'ge as chief-mate, I ain't likely to forget that there's
such dangers as them you've just mentioned; But suppose you was to cork
up a bottle, or clap the lid on an empty biscuit-tin, and heave 'em
overboard, do you think they'd live through one or t'other? In course
they would, because salt water can't get inside of 'em, and as long as
they keep dry holds they'll float, let the weather be what it will, and
so 'll our craft, for the same reason. And when the weather's too bad
to sail the barkie, we can heave her to, and when it's too bad for that
we can _anchor_ her, my boy, go below, slide on the top of the
companion, and turn in until the weather clears."
"But," said I, "we cannot anchor in the middle of the Atlantic. Suppose
we should be caught in a cyclone there, for instance?"
"We _can_ anchor _there_, lad, with a _floating_ anchor, which will keep
her head to wind; and with everything snug aloft and on deck, and a
floating-anchor ahead with about sixty fathoms of cable veered out, she
would ride out _in safety_ any gale that ever blew out of the heavens."
This last remark closed the case, and secured a verdict for the
defendant. I _knew_ that every word Bob spoke was literally true, and
the audacity of the enterprise so fascinated me that I resolved on the
spot to undertake it, if it should be found, on going into details, that
a craft, capable of being handled by our two selves, could stow away,
without being overloaded, such provisions; etcetera, as we should need
for the voyage.
The following morning, immediately after breakfast, I got out my drawing
board, strained a sheet of paper upon it, and, with Bob at my side to
give me the benefit of his opinion upon every line I traced upon the
paper, set to in earnest to design the little craft in which we proposed
to embark on our adventurous voyage.
Before putting a line upon paper, however, we settled the plan of her
internal arrangements. It was our intention to make her lines as fine
as her respective dimensions would permit; she was to be, in fact, a
small _yacht_. We knew that every vessel with sharp lines must
necessarily be wet, unless the weights she would have to carry were all
concentrated about her midship section, or broadest part, so we decided
that as far as was practicable such should be the arrangement with us;
and we knew that, if we could succeed in this, our barkie might be as
sharp as we could make her, and still be dry and comfortable. We
accordingly prepared a list of our requirements, as far as we could
think of them, calculated the space they and the ballast would occupy,
and then roughly sketched out the proposed lines. These were altered,
rearranged, and improved upon time after time, until at length we felt
we had got them as near perfection as the dimensions of the boat and our
own knowledge would carry us. And I may as well say at once that
throughout the entire voyage we never had the slightest reason to think
our little vessel could be in any way improved upon by alteration.
It is not probable that so long a voyage as ours will be often
undertaken again in such a very small craft as we accomplished it in;
but there are many men, I have no doubt, who would gladly receive a hint
as to the most advantageous form for a small boat in which they might
safely adventure, alone, or with a friend, a cruise, say round the
British Isles, or across the Channel and along the French coast; and
therefore, as this story is written for the amusement only of such
people as love boats, I think I may venture to trespass so far on my
readers' patience as to give such a hint in the shape of a brief
description of the _Water Lily_, as Ada christened her.
She was, then, thirty-six feet long, and twelve feet beam on the water-
line; but, in designing her midship section, we caused her sides to
swell out boldly _above_ water, so that her greatest beam was fourteen
feet, at a point one foot six inches above the water-line. At this
point her side _tumbled home_ two inches as it was carried upwards to
her deck, and from the same point the side curved quickly inwards and
downwards until it met the water-line, when it swept under water with an
almost imperceptible curve for some distance, and then took a moderately
quick bend downwards to meet her keel. This gave us a vessel in shape
very much like the centre-board model of boat, but with a deep keel, and
consequently great lateral resistance, and space low down in the hull
for the stowage of ballast. We thus secured a _very_ small
displacement, a light buoyant hull, extraordinary stability, and a fair
amount of _power_.
The hull was divided into three compartments by bulkheads with wide
doors which, if necessary, we could close _water-tight_. In the _fore_
compartment we decided to place _nothing_ except the smallest and
lightest cooking-stove we could find. In the midship compartment it was
intended to stow our ballast, water-tank, provisions, the chain-cables,
and in fact everything which we could possibly place there, leaving only
a narrow passage amidships to pass to and fro. The after compartment we
intended to make our cabin, and there we arranged also to sling our
hammocks. It will easily be understood that there was not an inch of
spare room anywhere; but as our lives would be spent almost entirely on
deck, we did not mind that very much.
Having designed our craft, the next question was, who should build her?
Bob was strongly in favour of having her built in the town, so that we
might oversee the laying of every plank, and the driving of every nail;
but I knew there were firms who could safely be trusted to honestly put
the best of work and material into the little vessel without being
watched; and I determined to put her into the hands of a very celebrated
firm of London boat builders.
Accordingly, Bob and I ran up to town, taking my sister with us for a
holiday, and on the morning after our arrival, having seen Ada safely
disposed of for the day with some friends of ours, we two men set out
for the building-yard.
I placed our design in the hands of the principal, telling him at the
same time that we wanted a boat of those dimensions, and, if possible,
built on those lines, and that she was intended to keep at sea in _all_
weathers.
He looked rather surprised at the last stipulation; but after carefully
examining the drawing, and asking us our reasons for certain little
peculiarities of shape, he confessed that, as far as his experience
went, he could frankly say he had never seen a model better adapted for
the purpose.
"And yet, gentlemen," said he, "she will be wonderfully fast, for, in
the first place, her _hull_ is of such a shape that it will offer but a
trifling resistance to forward motion; and, in the next place, these
overhanging top-sides will, give her such extraordinary stability, as
soon as she begins to heel over, that you will be able to carry enormous
sails."
We were very glad to hear our own judgment thus confirmed by a man, part
of whose business it was to form a correct opinion with respect to the
points upon which he had touched, and we said as much.
He took a great deal of interest in what must, after all, have been a
very trifling matter to him; and both Bob and I had reason often
afterwards to congratulate ourselves that we had confided the building
of our boat to such good hands.
He proposed that she should be _composite_ built; that is, that for the
sake of lightness and strength combined, her frame should be of steel,
with an inner skin of thin steel plate, and an outer planking of two
thicknesses of mahogany. The ribs were to be arranged _diagonally_
crossing the keel at an angle of forty-five degrees, and intersecting
each other at right angles, thus converting her entire frame into a sort
of lattice-work girder.
It was arranged that all the fastenings of the inner thickness of
planking should be of iron, whilst the outside planks should be secured
with copper fastenings. The utmost care was exercised (and, as
experience proved, with complete success) to prevent the slightest
approach to galvanic action, and one of the precautions taken was, I
remember well, the painting of the inner planking with melted india-
rubber, which was laid on coat after coat until there was about one-
sixteenth of an inch of the rubber between the outer and inner planks.
As we did not intend to sail until the following summer, the builder had
about eight months in which to put our little ship together, a
circumstance at which he expressed great satisfaction, as he said it
would enable him to pick and choose his materials, and put careful work
into her.
We arranged, at the same time, for the construction of a boat to take
with us, as we felt that in the event of any untoward accident
happening, we ought to have something to take to for the saving of our
lives, and we knew also that there would be many occasions when we
should require something to answer the purposes which a boat answers
with regard to a ship.
The designing of this boat was beset by difficulties, all originating in
one, viz., want of space in which to stow her. To think of carrying her
on deck was out of the question, as the deck was not spacious enough, in
the first place, to receive such a boat as we wanted; and even had it
been, there was no chance of its remaining there; it would have been
carried away by the first sea which swept over us. We required
something large enough to carry us both, and a stock of provisions in
addition, so that should it be necessary to abandon the _Water Lily_, we
might hope to reach land, or fall in with a ship. We also wanted
something that should be essentially a _life-boat_, whilst she should
also be very fast. How to obtain all these desiderata, and at the same
time overcome the difficulty in respect to room, we knew not. But,
resolved not to be baffled, we set our wits to work, and at length
schemed out a design of an exceedingly novel character, which proved in
all respects a most brilliant success.
Two hollow steel cylinders, of very thin metal, twenty-six feet long and
one foot diameter in the centre, tapering gradually away to nothing at
each end, were constructed in thirteen lengths of two feet each. These
lengths, being of different diameters, stowed one within the other, thus
taking up very little room indeed. In either end of each length was
inserted a narrow band of metal thick enough to allow of a worm and
screw, so that all the lengths of each cylinder could be screwed
together perfectly water-tight. A light steel framework of simple
arrangement connected the two cylinders together, at a distance of six
feet apart, with their centre lines parallel, and supported, at a height
of two feet above the top of the cylinders, a light stage ten feet long
and six feet wide. On the top of the stage, and connected with the
framework, was a step for a mast, and a gammon-iron for a bowsprit, and
underneath the stage was a centre-board which we could lower or raise at
pleasure. A broad rudder, fixed to the after-part of the stage,
completed the design.
We spent a fortnight in London, and, having witnessed the laying of the
_Water Lily's_ keel, and inspected some of the timber which the builder
proposed to use in her construction, I saw Ada safe home again, leaving
Bob in London to look out for a ship, which, when I rejoined him a
couple of days afterwards, he had found.
We shipped in her for a voyage to Constantinople and Trebizond, which
occupied us for eight months, and when we returned to London, on the
termination of this voyage, we found the _Water Lily_ completed, with
the exception of a few finishing touches, which the workmen were then
giving her.