"If you'll pass the pannikin, I'll take a drink, sir," said Jenks, after
the sun had risen and warmed the chilly air of the southern ocean.
I tossed the old man-o'-war's man the measure, and he proceeded to draw a
cupful from the water breaker, which was full and lay amidships.
"It's an uncommon quare taste the stuff has, sure enough," said he, after
he had laid aside his quid and drank a mouthful, "Try a bit, Tom," he
went on, and passed the pannikin to a sailor next him.
"You're always lookin' fer trouble, old man," said the sailor, draining
off the cupful.
"An' bloomin' well ready to get out of it by any way he can," added
another. "Fill her up agin an' let me have some. This sun is most hot, in
spite of the breeze. Blast me, Jenks, but you're a suspicious one. It's a
wonder you ever go to sleep."
The young sailor, Tom, put down the cup and watched Jenks draw it full
again. Then he grew pale.
"Hold on a bit with that water, you men. There's something wrong with
it," he said. He gulped and placed his hand over his abdomen, while a
spasm of pain passed over his features.
"My God!" he muttered, and doubled up. Then he vomited violently and his
spasms increased.
I saw Chips turn white under his tan, and Johnson look with staring eyes
at the water breaker, as though it were a ghost.
"Knock in the head," I said, "and let's see what's inside of it."
Two men held the poor fellow gasping over the rail while his agony grew
worse. The rest crowded around aft as much as possible to see what
terrible fate was in store for us.
The breaker was upended in a moment. Jenks stove in the head with an oar
handle, and we peered inside.
The water was a clear crystal, like that in the _Sovereign's_ tanks. It
was not discolored in the least.
"Pass the bailer here," I said; "and then turn the barrel so we can get
the sunlight into it."
I bailed out a few quarts, looked at it carefully, tasted it slightly,
and then put it carefully back again. I noticed a strange acrid taste.
The barrel was turned toward the sun, and its light was allowed to shine
straight into its depths. I put my head down close to the surface and
peered hard at the bottom. Then I was aware of a whitish powder which
showed against the dark wood. Reaching down, some of this was brought up;
and then I recognized the same powder Captain Sackett had told me was
bichloride of mercury.
By this time Tom was in convulsions. He strained horribly, and we could
do nothing to relieve his agony. Brandy was given, but it did no good,
and finally he lost consciousness. Miss Sackett nursed him tenderly and
did all she could to make him comfortable, but it was no use.
The horror of the thing fairly took my senses for a moment. There we
were, miles away from land, without water. The villains had meant us to
tell no tales. All adrift in an open boat, with food and water poisoned,
we had a small chance indeed of ever telling the story of the
_Sovereign's_ loss. Vessels were not plentiful at the high latitude we
were in; and, as we were out of the trade, it was doubtful if we could
even get into the track of the regular Cape route inside a week, to say
nothing of being picked up. It seemed as though Andrews' villany would
finish us yet.
Far away on the southern horizon, the single mast stuck up above the blue
water like a black rod. I stood up and gazed at it. Chips appeared to
read my thoughts, for he spoke out:--
"'Tis no use now, sir; the tanks would be a couple o' fathoms deep, an'
we couldn't get at them. She won't float more'n a day or two, anyhow, wid
th' afterdeck an' cargo burnt free. She'll go under as soon as the oil's
washed out wid a sea, and that'll be th' last av a bad ship."
I saw that the carpenter was right. There was no water for either Andrews
or ourselves, and it would be foolish to go back to force the tank.
"Heave the stuff overboard," I said, and Johnson and Jenks raised the
barrel upon the rail. It poured out clear into the blue ocean, and showed
no sign of its deadly character.
"Break out that barrel of ship's bread," said Chips.
It was found to be moistened with water all through, and as even the
little poison I had drunk made me horribly nauseated, there was no
thought of tasting the stuff. Over the side it went, floating high in the
boat's wake. Then came the beef.
"Hold on with that," said Miss Sackett. "It isn't likely they'd poison
everything. I don't remember there being over several pounds of that
mercury in the medicine chest, and you know it won't dissolve readily in
water. They must have had something to dissolve it in first, and it would
have taken too long to fill everything full of the stuff."
"Who cares to taste the beef?" I asked.
"Give me a piece, sir," said Johnson.
He put it in his mouth and chewed slowly upon it at first, as though not
quite certain whether to swallow it or not. Finally he mustered courage
and made away with a portion of it, waiting some minutes to see if it
produced pain. It was apparently all right, and then he swallowed the
rest. We concluded to keep the beef and eat it as a last resort.
The breeze freshened in the southeast, and we ran along steadily. If it
held, we could make about a hundred miles a day, and raise the African
coast within a week. There was a chance, if we could stand the strain.
It was now the sixth day since we had left the _Pirate_, and we figured
that she must have rounded the Cape, and would now be standing along up
the South Atlantic with the steady southeast trade behind her. Other
ships would be in the latitude of Cape Town, and if we could make the
northing, we might raise one and be picked up. I pictured the horrors the
poor girl sitting beside me must endure if we were adrift for days in the
whale-boat. What she had already gone through was enough to shake the
nerves of the strongest woman, but here she sat, quietly looking at the
water, her eyes sometimes filled with tears, while not a word of
complaint escaped her lips.
Her example nerved me. I had passed the order to stop all talking except
when necessary, as it would only add to thirst. We ran along in silence.
We had no compass save the one hanging to my watch-chain, as big as my
thumb-nail, but I managed to make a pretty straight course for all that.
The wind freshened and was quite cool. The sunlight, sparkling over the
ocean, which now turned dark blue with a speck of white here and there to
windward, warmed us enough to keep off actual chill, but the men who had
taken off their coats to make a little more of a spread to the fair wind
soon requested permission to put them on again. Sitting absolutely quiet
as we were, the air was keener than if we were going about the sheltered
decks of a ship.
On we went, the swell rolling under us and giving us a twisting motion.
Sometimes we would be in a long hollow where the breeze would fail. Then,
as we rose sternwrard, the little sail would fill, and away we would go,
racing along the slanting crest of the long sea, the foam rushing from
the boat's sides with a hopeful, hissing sound, until the swell would
gain on us and go under, leaving the boat with her bow pointing up the
receding slope and her headway almost gone, to drop into the following
hollow and repeat the action.
The English sailor who had drank the water was now stone dead. Johnson
gave me a look, and I began a conversation with Miss Sackett, endeavoring
to engage her attention. A splash from forward made her look, and she saw
what had happened. Then she turned and, looking up at me, placed her soft
little hand on mine which lay upon the tiller.
"You are very good to me, Mr. Rolling, but I can stand suffering as well
as a man," she said. "I thank you just the same." Then her eyes filled
and she turned away her face. I found something to fix at the rudder
head, and when I was through she was looking over the blue water where
the lumpy trade clouds showed above the horizon's rim.
As the day wore on, the hunger of the men began to show itself. Jenks
kept his wrinkled, leather face to the northward, looking steadily for a
sail, but the other sailors glanced aft several times, and I noticed the
strange glare of the eye which tells of the hungry animal. Some of these
men had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. One big, heavy-looking young
sailor glanced back several times from the clew of his eye at the girl
sitting aft. But I fixed my gaze upon him so steadily that he shifted his
seat and looked forward.
Late in the afternoon some of the men insisted on eating the beef, and it
was served to them. No ill effects followed, so all hands took their
ration. This satisfied them for the time being, but I knew the thirst
which must surely follow. I had been adrift in an open boat before in the
Pacific. There had been sixteen men at the start, and at the end of four
weeks of horror seven had been picked up to tell a tale which would make
the blood curdle. The memory of this made me sick with fear and anxiety.
Johnson felt so much better from his meal that he stood in the bow with
his little monkey-like figure braced against the mast, his legs on the
gunwales. He said jokingly that he'd raise a sail before eight bells in
the afternoon. Suddenly he cried out:--
"Sail dead ahead, sir!"
"'Tis no jokin' matter," growled Chips, angrily. "Shet yer head, ye
monkey, afore I heave ye over th' side."
Johnson turned fiercely upon him.
"Jokin', you lummax! Slant yer eye forrads, an' don't sit there a-lookin'
at yerself," he snarled.
"Steady, there!" I cried. "Where's the vessel?"
"Right ahead, sir, and standing down this ways, if I see straight."
I stood up on the stern locker and looked ahead. Sure enough, a white
speck showed on the northern horizon, but I couldn't see enough of the
craft's sails to tell which way she headed.
The men all wanted to stand at once, and it took some sharp talk to
get them under control; but the young girl at my side showed no signs
of excitement. I looked at her, and her gentle eyes looked straight
into mine.
"I knew she would come," she said. "I've prayed all the morning."
In twenty minutes, spent anxiously watching her, the ship raised her
topsails slowly above the line of blue, and then we saw she really was
jammed on the wind and reaching along toward us rapidly.
"'Tis the _Pirit_, an' no mistake!" cried the carpenter. "Look at them
r'yals! No one but th' bit av a mate, Trunnell, iver mastheaded a yard
like that."
"The _Pirate_!" yelled Johnson, from forward.
And so, indeed, it really was.
I looked at her and then at the sweet face at my side. All the hard lines
of suffering and fright had left it. The eyes now had the same gentle,
trusting look of innocence I had seen the first morning we had taken off
the _Sovereign's_ crew. The reaction was too much for me. I was little
more than a boy in years, so I reached for the girl's hand and kissed it.
When I looked up I caught the clew of Jenks' eye, but the rest were
looking at the rapidly approaching ship.