"But I allers heard them Malay chaps are awful cowards," said Adams,
continuing the conversation. "You never sees 'em singly, their pirate
proas, or junks, allers a sailing with a consort. I ought ter know;
'cause, 'fore I ever jined Cap'en Gillespie, I wer in a Hongkong trader;
and many's the time we've been chased by a whole shoal of 'em when going
to Singapore or along the coast."
"The divil ye have," interposed Tim. "Ye niver tould me that afore,
Sails, how's that?"
"I didn't recomember at the time, bo; but now, as that feller is a
follering us astern, in course, I thinks on it. There're a lot of them
piratical rascals in these waters; but you should go to the back of
Hainan to see 'em in their glory, the little creeks and bays there
fairly swarms with 'em!"
"Adams!" called out Mr Mackay at this juncture; "Adams!"
"Aye, aye, sir," quickly responded the sailmaker, stopping his talk with
Tim Rooney and walking up nearer to Mr Mackay. "Here, sir."
"I want you to go in the chains with the lead," said the other, turning
round and speaking confidentially to old "Sails," as Adams was generally
termed by his intimates amongst the crew. "There's no man in the ship I
can trust to for sounding like you; and it's necessary for us to know
what sort of water we're in till we clear all these islands and get into
the open sea."
"Aye, aye, sir," answered the sailmaker, who, besides his more
distinctive calling, was an experienced seaman, proud of being selected
from the rest for such a duty, disagreeable and monotonous though it
was. "I'm quite ready, sir."
Thereupon, going back to the boatswain's cabin, where he was provided by
Tim with the lead-line and a broad canvas belt, he proceeded to climb
over the bulwarks into the fore-chains, fastening himself to the rigging
by placing the belt round his waist and hooking it on to the lower part
of the shrouds--this arrangement holding him against the side of the
vessel securely and at the same time enabling him to have his arms free
to use for any other purpose.
Adam's next operation was to swing the lead-line with the weight
attached backwards and forwards, like a pendulum, until it had gained
sufficient momentum, when he slung it as far forwards as he could,
letting the coil of the line which he had over his arm run out until the
way of the ship brought it perpendicularly under him; when, hauling it
up quickly, and noticing how many fathoms had run out before the lead
touched the bottom, he called out in a deep sort of sepulchral chant,
"And a half-five!"
"Ha!" exclaimed Mr Mackay, "I thought we were shoaling. Keep it going,
Adams."
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the other, swinging the lead as before when he
had coiled up the slack and preparing for another throw; adding
presently as he had gauged the depth again, "By the mark seven!"
"That's better," cried Mr Mackay; calling out at the same time to the
helmsman as we nearly ran over a small native boat crossing our track,
"starboard--hard a starboard!"
Adams, however, went on sounding mechanically, not minding the movements
of the ship, his sing-song chant varying almost at every throw; and, "By
the deep nine" being succeeded by, "And a quarter ten," until the full
length of the lead-line, twenty fathoms, was let out without finding
bottom.
"That will do now, you can come in," cried Mr Mackay on learning
this--"we're now all right and out of danger. Aft, there, steer east-
nor'-east and keep a steady helm, we're now in open water and all's
plain sailing!"
It took us three days to pilot up to the Natuna Islands, only some three
hundred and fifty miles north of Banca, the south-westerly wind which we
had with us generally falling slack in the middle of the day, and the
land breeze of a night giving us the greater help; but, still, all the
while, the suspicious proa never deserted us, following in our track
like a sleuth-hound--keeping off at a good distance though when the sun
was shining and only creeping up closer at dark, so as not to lose sight
of us, and sheering off in the morning till hull down nearly on the
horizon.
We had got almost accustomed to the craft by this time and used to cut
jokes about it; for, as we were continually passing other vessels bound
through the straits, it was obvious that even had the intentions of the
proa been hostile it would not have dared to attack us at sea with such
a lot of company about.
However, on our getting abreast of Saddle Island, to the north-west of
the Natuna group, behold the proa was joined by a companion, two of them
now being in our wake when morning dawned and we were better able to see
around us. We noticed, too, that this second craft was built more in
junk fashion with large lateen sails, and it seemed to be of about five
hundred piculs burthen, Mr Mackay said, the size of those craft that
are usually employed in the opium trade.
Matters began to look serious, it really appearing as if the beggars
were going to follow us all the way up the China Sea until they had an
opportunity of attacking us when there was no chance of any other vessel
being near!
"Let us stand towards them, Mackay and see what they're made of--eh?"
said Captain Gillespie, after squinting away at the two craft behind us.
"I'm hanged if I like being dodged in this way."
"With all my heart, sir," replied the other. "But, I'm afraid, as
they're well up in the wind's eye they can easily keep out of our reach
if they don't want us to approach too near them."
"We'll try it at any rate," grunted out "Old Jock," sniffing and
snorting, as he always did when vexed or put out. "Stand by to 'bout
ship!"
The watch at once ran to their respective stations, Tom Jerrold and I
with a couple of others attending to the cross-jack yard.
"All ready forrud?"
"Aye, aye, sorr," shouted back Tim Rooney from the forecastle, "all
ready forrud."
"Helms a-lee!"
The head sheets were let go as the captain roared out this order, the
jib flattening as the vessel went into stays.
"Raise tacks and sheets!" cried Captain Gillespie, when the foretack and
main-sheets were cast off just as his next command came--"Main-sail
haul!"
Then the weather main-brace was hauled taut and the heavy yard swung
round, the Silver Queen coming up to the wind with a sort of shiver, as
if she did not like turning back and retracing her course.
However, so "Old Jock" willed it, and she must!
"Brace round your head yards!" he now sung out; and the foretack was
boarded while the main-sheet was hauled aft, we on the poop swinging the
cross-jack yard at the same time, the captain then calling out to the
helmsman sharply, "Luff, you beggar, luff, can't ye!"
And now, hauled up as close as we could be, the ship headed towards the
strangers; steering back in the direction of Banca again as near to
windward as she could forereach.
It was "like trying to catch a weasel asleep and shave his whiskers,"
however, to use Tom Jerrold's words; for the moment the proa and her
consort observed our manoeuvre and saw that we were making for them,
round they went too like tops, and sailing right up in the wind's eye,
all idea of pursuit on our part was put entirely out of question within
the short space of five minutes or so--the Malay craft showing that they
had the power when they chose to exercise it of going two knots to our
one.
"Begorra, I'd loike to have a slap at 'em with a long thirty-two, or
aven a blissid noine-pounder Armstrong," cried Tim Rooney, as vexed as
"Old Jock" was at the result of this testing of the Silver Queen with
her lighter heeled rivals to windward. "I'd soon knock 'em into
shavin's, by the howly poker, I wud!"
"It's no good, as you said," sniffed out the captain, with a sigh to Mr
Mackay, evidently cordially echoing the boatswain's wish, which he must
have heard as well as I did, for he stood just to leeward of him.
"Ready about again, stand by, men!"
And then, our previous movement was repeated and the ship brought round
once more on the port tack, heading for Pulo Sapata to the northwards--
the name of this place, I may say, is derived from two Malay words, the
one pulo meaning "island" and the other sapatu "shoe," and the entire
compound word, consequently, "Shoe Island," or the island of the shape
of one.
We did not see anything more of the suspicious craft that day; so we all
believed that our feint of overhauling them had effectually scared them
away, Tom Jerrold and I especially being impressed with this idea,
attaching a good deal of importance to the talk we had overheard between
Rooney and Adams, Tom being in his bunk close by the boatswain's cabin
at the time when I was outside listening to the two old tars as they
confabbed together.
Weeks, though, was of a contrary opinion, and Master Sammy could be very
dogged if he pleased on any point.
"I'll tell you what, my boys," said he, with some trace of excitement in
his mottled face, which generally was as expressionless as a vegetable-
marrow, "we haven't seen the last of them yet."
"Much you know of it, little un," sneered Tom Jerrold in all the pride
of his longer experience of the sea. "Why this is only the second
voyage you've ever taken out here, or indeed been in a ship at all; and
on our last trip we never tumbled across anything of this sort."
"That may be," argued Weeks; "but if I am a green hand, as you make out,
like Graham here, my father was in a China clipper for years, and he has
told me more than you'll ever learn in all your life, Mister Jerrold, I
tell you. Why, he was once chased all the way from Hainan to Swatow by
pirates."
"Was he?" I cried, excited too at this. "Do tell us, Weeks, all about
it."
"There ain't anything to tell," said he nonchalantly, but pleased, I
could see, at putting Tom Jerrold into the shade for the moment; "only,
that they beat 'em off as they were trying to board father's ship off
Swatow, when a vessel of war, that was just then coming down from
Formosa, caught the beggars in the very act of piracy, before they could
run ashore and escape up the hills--as they always do, my dad said,
whenever our blue-jackets are after them."
"And then--" I asked, on his pausing at this interesting point, after
rousing Jerrold's and my interest in that way, a thing which was quite
in keeping with Sam Weeks' character, his disposition being naturally an
exasperating one, to other people, that is,--"what happened then?"
"Oh, nothing," he replied coolly; adding after another tantalising
pause, "I recollect, though, now, dad said as how the beggars were all
taken to Canton and given over to the mandarins for trial."
"Yes," said I, "and--"
"Well, some of 'em were tortured in bamboo cages, he told me, and he
said, too, that they made awful faces in their agony," Weeks continued,
his face looking as if he enjoyed the reminiscence; "while the others,
twenty in number, were all put up in a row kneeling on the ground, with
their pigtails tied up over their heads so as to leave their necks bare,
and the executioner who had a double-bladed sword like a butcher's
cleaver, sliced off their heads as if they were so many carrots. It
must have been jolly to see 'em rolling on the ground."
"You cold-blooded brute!" exclaimed Tom Jerrold; but I only shuddered
and said nothing. "You seem to revel in it!"
"If you'd heard all my dad told me of what those beggars do to the
people they capture, sometimes making them walk the plank and shutting
them up in the hold of their own ship and burning them in a lump, you'd
be glad of their being punished when caught! I only hope they won't
seize our vessel; but, I tell you what, I'm certain we haven't seen the
last of those two craft yet. They'll come back after us at nightfall,
just you see!"
"By Jove, I hope not!" said Tom, impressed by Weeks' communication all
the more from the fact of his not being generally talkative, always
"keeping himself to himself" as the saying goes. "I hope you won't
prove a true prophet, Sammy, most devoutly."
I could see, also, from Mr Mackay's anxious manner and that of the
captain, though neither said anything further about the matter, that
their fears were not allayed. There was no doubt that they shared the
same impression as that of Sam Weeks; for as we bore away now nor'-nor'-
west, with the south-west wind on our quarter, more sail was made on the
ship, and a strong current running in the same direction helping us on,
we were found to be going over eight knots when the log was hove at six
bells, just before dinner-time.
"Old Jock" beamed again at this, walking up and down the poop and
rubbing his hands and sniffing with his long nose in the air to catch
the breeze, as was his wont when the Silver Queen was travelling through
the water.
"By Jingo, we'll weather 'em yet!" he said to Mr Mackay, who also
seemed more relieved in his mind; "we'll weather 'em yet."
"Yes, I think so, too," said the latter, scanning the horizon with the
big telescope away to windward. "There isn't a trace of them anywhere
out there now, and there are no islands for them to hide behind where we
last sighted them; so, if we can only carry-on like this, perhaps we'll
be able to give them the slip--eh?"
"Humph!" grumbled the other, "so I told you, Mackay; and, you know, when
I say a thing I always mean a thing!"
The afternoon passed without any further appearance of the proa or junk,
and then the evening came on, the wind veering round to our beam at
sunset, making us brace up more sharply. We looked about us pretty
keenly now, as might be imagined, but still nothing was to be seen of
our whilom pursuers; and so all on board turned in that night much more
comfortably than on the preceding one, when the danger appeared more
immediate.
The morning, however, told a different tale.
At the early dawn, when I was with Mr Mackay on the poop, the port
watch coming on deck just then in their turn of duty, we could see
nothing of the suspicious strangers; however as the sun rose higher up,
his rays lit a more extended range of sea, and then, far-away off on the
horizon to windward, could be seen two tiny white sails in the distance
dead astern of us.
"Sail ho!" shouted I from the mizzen cross-trees, where I had gone to
look out, Tom Jerrold being sent up aloft forward for the same purpose.
"Sail ho!"
"Where away?" cried Mr Mackay, clutching the glass and climbing up into
the rigging as he spoke, being as spry as a cat. "What do you make
out?"
"Two of them, sir," said I; "and I believe it's these pirates, sir,
again. They're on our weather quarter, hull down to windward."
"Right you are, my boy!" cried he presently after a careful inspection
of the objects I had pointed out from the top, though he did not come up
aloft any higher, his telescope under his arm being rather awkward to
carry. "They are the same craft, sure enough. It is most vexatious!"
He went down below to tell the captain, and, of course, the news soon
spread through the ship, all hands turning out and coming on deck to
have a look at these bloodhounds of the deep, that seemed bent on
pursuing us to the death.
They did not close on us, though, keeping the same distance off, some
ten miles or so, till sundown, when they approached a little nearer and
could be seen astern of us, through the middle watch, by the aid of the
night-glass; but they sheered off again at the breaking of this third
day, by which time we could see Pulo Sapata right ahead, a most
uninviting spot apparently, consisting of nothing but one big bare rock.
Here, hauling round on the starboard tack, we shaped our course east-
nor'-east, to pass over the Macclesfield Bank, in a straight line almost
for Formosa Strait, our most direct route to Shanghai, the proa and the
junk still keeping after us at a safe distance off.
"By Jingo, I'll tire 'em out yet!" cried "Old Jock" savagely, when, on
our getting abreast of the Paracels, although far off to leeward, he saw
the beastly things still in our wake as he came on deck in the morning.
"I'll tire 'em out before I've done with 'em."
But, now, all at once, we had something more important to think of than
even the supposed pirates.
The wind had freshened during the morning, blowing as usual from the
south-west and west, and towards noon it slackened again; but no
importance was attached to this circumstance, at first, by the captain
and Mr Mackay, although, when presently the water became thick and a
deep irregular swell set in, they both grew rather uneasy.
"It looks uncommon like a typhoon, sir," said the first mate to "Old
Jock," after looking out both to windward and leeward. "There is some
change coming."
"I think so, too," said the other. "Go down, Mackay, and have a look at
the barometer. It was all right when I came up, but it may have fallen
since then; if it has, that will make our doubt a certainty."
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the first mate hurrying down the companion. He
wasn't long absent, returning the next moment with the information: "It
has gone down from 29.80 to 29.60."
"That means a typhoon, then," said Captain Gillespie; "so the sooner
we're prepared for it the better. All hands take in sail!"
The men tumbled up with a will, the sheets all flying as the halliards
we're let go and all hands on the yard like bees; and, as soon as the
topgallants had been clewed up, these sails were furled and lashed, as
well as having the sea-gaskets put on, so as to make them all the more
secure.
The topsails followed suit, and then the courses; the ship's head being
brought round to the nor'-west, from which quarter the storm was
expected, as typhoons always blow eight points to the right of the
regular wind, which with us, at the time these precautions were taken,
was from the south-east.
The Silver Queen now lay-to, motionless in the water, with only her main
trysail and a storm staysail forward set.
"What is a typhoon?" I asked Mr Mackay, when I got down on deck again
after helping to hand the mizzen-topsail, the last job we had to do on
our mast. "What does it mean?"
"It's the Chinese word for a `big wind,' my boy," said he kindly; but
looking very grave. "You'll soon be able to see what it's like for
yourself."
The opportunity he spoke of was not long delayed.
By the time the sails had been taken in and all our preparations made
for the reception of our expected but unwelcome visitor, everything
being lashed down that was likely to get blown away, and life-lines rove
along the deck fore and aft, the same as when we were making ready to
weather the Cape of Good Hope, it was late in the afternoon.
At four o'clock, the commencement of the first dog-watch, the barometer
had fallen further down the scale to 29.46; while, an hour later, it was
down to 28.96, the wind increasing in force almost every minute and the
sea growing in proportion, until the very height of the cyclone was
attained.
The dinghy, which was lashed inboard behind the wheel-house, was blown
bodily away to leeward, the ropes holding it parting as if they had been
pack-thread, heavy squalls, accompanied with heavy rain all the time
beating on us like hail, and bursting over the ship in rapid succession;
but the old barquey bravely stood it, bending to the blast when it came,
and then buoyantly rising the next moment and breasting it like the good
sea-boat she was.
At "six bells" the barometer fell to its lowest point, 28.60, when the
violence of the wind was something fearful, although after this there
was a slight rise in the glass. During the next half-hour, however, the
mizzen-topsail, which Tom Jerrold and I, with Gregory to help us, had
fastened as we thought so firmly to the yard, was blown to ribbons, the
spanker getting adrift shortly afterwards and being torn away from its
lacing to the luff rope, scrap by scrap.
The main trysail, also, although only very little of it was shown when
set, now blew away too, making a great report no doubt; but the
shrieking of the wind was such that we couldn't hear anything else but
its howling through the rigging, the captain's voice close alongside of
me, as I sheltered under the hood of the companion, sounding actually
only like a faint whisper.
The typhoon now shifted from the north-west to the westwards, and the
barometer, rising shortly afterwards to 29.20, jumped up thence another
twenty points in the next hour.
"It's passing off now," said Captain Gillespie, when he could make
himself heard between the squalls, which now came with a longer interval
between them. "Those typhoons always work against the sun, and we've
now experienced the worst of it. There goes our last sail, though, and
we'll have to run for it now."
As he said the words the storm staysail forward was carried away with a
distinct bang, hearing which showed that the wind was not so powerful
quite as just now--when one, really, couldn't have heard a thirty-five
ton gun fired forwards.
On losing this her only scrap of canvas left, the ship half broached to.
Joe Fergusson, however, came to the rescue, no doubt from hearing
something the boatswain had said, for the gale was blowing so furiously
that the captain would not have thought of ordering a man aloft; for,
whether through catching Tim Rooney's remark or from some sailor-like
intuition, the ex-bricklayer in the very nick of time voluntarily
clambered up the rigging forwards and loosened the weather clew of the
foresail.
Mr Mackay who was aft, seeing his purpose, at once told the men at the
wheel to put the helm up; when, the Silver Queen's head paying off, she
lifted out of the trough of the heavy rolling sea and scudded away nor'-
eastwards right before the wind, which had now got back to the normal
point of the "trade" we had been sailing with previous to the storm--
when, as this new south-westerly gale was blowing with more than twenty
times the force of our original monsoon from the same quarter, the ship,
although with only this tiny scrap of her foresail set, was soon driving
through the water at over twelve knots the hour, in the very direction,
too, we wanted her to go, to fetch our port.
"This is what I call turning the tables," yelled the captain, putting
both his hands to his mouth for a sort of speaking trumpet as he roared
out the words to Mr Mackay at the wheel. "By Jingo, it's turning the
tail of a typhoon into a fair wind!"