us," insisted Williams; "and I want to know by what right he or anybody
else is to be allowed to give themselves airs over the likes of us. Can
he do anything that any of us can't do? Answer me that if you can," he
demanded defiantly.
"Ay, that can he, my lad," spoke up Parsons, promptly. "Why, he's one
of them people that builds railroads and bridges and harbours, and the
likes of that. Civil engineers is among a sailor's best friends,
shipmates. Look at the scores of snug harbours they've built where
there was nothing but open roadsteads before. There's Colombo, for
instance. Look what a snug spot they've made of that. Why, mates, I
was lying at Colombo once before that harbour was built, and we had to
keep watch and watch all the time we was there, just the same as if we
was at sea, just to take care that the ship didn't strike adrift and go
ashore. And now, look at the place! Why, you're moored head and starn;
and some ships don't keep even so much as an anchor watch all the time
they're there. Don't tell me! A civil engineer's a man of eddication,
boys; and that's where he goes to wind'ard of chaps like us. Look at
the skipper, again. Any one of us could take him up and toss him over
the rail, so far as hard work's concerned. But you give him his charts,
and chronometers, and sextants, and things; put him aboard of a ship,
and tell him to take her clear round the world and bring her back again
to the same place, _and he can do it_. Why? Eddication again. It's
_eddication_, mates, that makes swells of men, that enables 'em to earn
big pay, and makes 'em of consequence in the world. There'll be no such
thing as equality in this world, Josh, as long as one man lets another
get ahead of him in the matter of eddication. Them's my sentiments."
And Parsons was right, lads. Simple, homely, and unpolished as was his
language, he had succeeded in giving utterance to a grand truth; one
which all boys will do well to lay to heart and profit by to the utmost
extent of their opportunities.
It occupied the men fully until eight bells to get the canvas trimmed to
Captain Blyth's satisfaction; after which the watch below retired to the
forecastle and to their hammocks.
During the night the wind freshened somewhat, hauled a trifle, and came
a point or two free, in consequence of which, when the passengers made
their appearance on deck next morning to get a breath or two of the
fresh sea air before breakfast, they found the ship bowling along at a
regular racing pace, with weather braces checked, sheets eased off, and
every possible studding-sail set on the weather side. The strange sail
was in sight, and still ahead--a shade on the _Flying Cloud's_ lee-bow,
if anything--but the distance between the two ships had been reduced to
something like nine miles. Like the _Flying Cloud_, the stranger was
covered with canvas from her trucks down; and it was evident, from the
circumstance of her still being ahead, that she was a remarkably fast
vessel. Captain Blyth had been on deck from shortly after sunrise, and,
notwithstanding a somewhat windy look in the sky, had himself ordered
the setting of much of the additional canvas which his ship now carried.
After getting matters in this direction to his mind, he had gone up
into the fore-top with his telescope and spent fully half an hour there
inspecting the stranger; and when he descended and met his passengers on
the poop, he announced that though still too far distant to permit of
actual identification, he was convinced that his first supposition was
correct, and that the stranger ahead was none other than the _Southern
Cross_.
"And he knows us, too," he added with a chuckle; "recognised us at
daybreak, and at once turned-to and set his stunsails. But let him,
ladies and gentlemen; we have the heels of him in this weather, and
we'll be abreast of him in time to exchange numbers before sunset to-
night."
In this assertion, however, Captain Blyth proved to be reckoning without
his host; for as the morning wore on the breeze freshened considerably,
obliging him to clew up and furl his skysails one after the other, and
then his royals, which seemed to give the leading ship an advantage.
For, whilst by noon the distance between the two vessels had been
reduced to about seven miles, after that hour the stranger was, by the
aid of Captain Blyth's sextant, conclusively proved to be holding her
own. It was an exciting occasion for all hands; the passengers entering
fully into the spirit of the time and exciting Captain Blyth's warmest
admiration by the sympathetic interest with which they listened over and
over again to his story of the long-standing rivalry existing between
himself and the skipper of the _Southern Cross_, with its culmination in
the bet of a new hat upon the result of the passage then in progress.
Mr Gaunt even went so far as to unpack his own sextant--an
exceptionally fine instrument--and to spend most of the time between
luncheon and dinner on the topgallant forecastle, in company with the
skipper, measuring the angle between the stranger's mast-heads and the
horizon. Sometimes this angle grew a few seconds wider, showing the
_Flying Cloud_ to be gaining a trifle, then it lessened again; but when
dinner was announced the two enthusiasts were reluctantly compelled to
admit that, if gain there was on their side, it did not amount to more
than a quarter of a mile.
Captain Blyth, however, though somewhat crestfallen at the non-
fulfilment of his boast, was still confident in the powers of the ship;
but the weather, he explained, had been rather against them that day,
the wind had been just a trifle too strong for the _Cloud_ to put out
her best paces, whilst it had been all in favour of the other and more
powerful ship. But the wind had continued to haul during the day,
working more round upon the weather quarter with every hour that passed,
and he was of opinion that they had caught the trades; the sky looked
like a "trades'" sky, and, if his opinion proved correct, he anticipated
that as the wind hauled further aft, so would the _Flying Cloud_
decrease the distance between herself and her antagonist.
CHAPTER FOUR.
A MEETING IN MID-OCEAN.
Mr Bryce, the chief-mate of the _Flying Cloud_, was one of those
unfortunate men who are always more or less in an ill humour. He was,
like poor Mrs Gummidge, "contrairy," and so disputatious that it was
almost impossible for anyone to make a statement that he would not
either deny outright or strive to prove fallacious. He had a permanent
quarrel with Fate, which he considered had not treated him in accordance
with his high deserts; but as Fate was rather too intangible for him to
satisfactorily vent his spleen upon it, he made his fellow creatures
Fate's substitute, and never missed an opportunity to vent his spleen
upon them instead. And, as he was a vulgar, surly, ill-bred fellow, he
was able to make himself excessively disagreeable when he seriously set
about the attempt, as he did when he discovered Captain Blyth's anxiety
to overhaul the ship ahead. He did not--he _dared_ not--set himself in
opposition to the skipper, because that would have made matters
unpleasant for himself; but he promptly saw that, by affecting to share
the captain's anxiety, he could at one and the same time inflict great
annoyance upon him and a large amount of unnecessary labour upon the
crew, or at least upon that portion of it which constituted the larboard
watch. Luckily for this watch it happened that they had to do deck duty
only from midnight until four o'clock a.m. on this particular night, so
Mr Bryce had only four hours in which to worry them. But during that
four hours he did it most thoroughly. His first act on taking charge of
the deck at midnight was to glance aloft, then he looked into the
binnacle, after which he walked forward and had a look for the _Southern
Cross_. That ship, or at least the ship which Captain Blyth averred to
be the _Southern Cross_, was just discernible, a faint dark blot upon
the star-lit sky; but in that imperfect light it was quite impossible to
say whether she was gaining or being gained upon. The chief-mate,
however, affected to believe the former, and exclaiming, loud enough for
the men to hear him:
"Tut, tut, this will never do! the stranger is walking away from us, and
the skipper will make a pretty fuss in the morning," he there and then
began forward with the flying-jib, and made the watch sweat up every
halliard throughout the ship, and the same with the sheets of the square
canvas. Then, the wind having hauled still further aft, a pull was
taken upon all the weather braces; the jib, staysail, and trysail sheets
were next eased up a trifle; and, finally, all three skysails were set,
only to be clewed up and furled again just before the expiration of the
watch. This kept the men pretty busy for the greater part of their four
hours on deck, highly exasperating them--which was what the mate
intended to do--and producing a general fit of grumbling among them, for
which he cared not one iota.
Whether Mr Bryce's excessive zeal was productive of good results or not
it is scarcely possible to say--the alterations he effected in the set
of the canvas were so trifling that, with the ship running off the wind,
it is probable they were not--but, be this as it may, the fact remains
that at daylight next morning the stranger, still ahead, had been neared
to within about four miles.
Captain Blyth, as might be expected, was on deck early that morning--
before, in fact, the watch had begun to wash down the decks--and,
observing that the stranger was carrying skysails, he immediately
ordered his own to be set, the sails, small as they were, being capable
of doing good service now that the wind was so far aft. He was in the
most amiable of humours; for not only was he getting a trifle the best
in the race, but the look of the sky was such as to convince him that he
had undoubtedly caught the north-east trades, and that he was therefore
certain of a good run at least as far as the line. His enthusiasm at
the breakfast-table became almost wearisome, though his passengers
listened to him with the most indulgent good-nature; but it was a
distinct relief to them when he rose from the table to superintend on
deck the setting of the larboard studding-sails, which had now become
possible through the wind drawing dead aft.
This change of wind was slightly disadvantageous to both ships, much of
the fore-and-aft canvas becoming useless, whilst even the square canvas
on the foremast was partially becalmed by that on the main; but it soon
became evident that, relatively, the _Flying Cloud_ was a gainer by it,
the distance between the two ships now lessening perceptibly. By noon
they were separated by a space of barely half a mile, by which time the
identity of the stranger had been established beyond all doubt. Captain
Blyth hastened, therefore, to get and work up his meridian altitude,
hoisted his ensign at the peak, and, as both ships appeared to be
steering admirably, proceeded to edge down within hailing distance of
the _Southern Cross_.
By half an hour after noon the two ships were abreast of each other, and
divided by a space of little more than a hundred feet of water. The
passengers--of whom the _Southern Cross_ carried twenty in her saloon--
were mustered, in their fine-weather toggery, on the poops of the two
ships, eyeing each other curiously at intervals, but chiefly intent upon
the impending ceremony of "speaking," the two captains having
established themselves in their respective mizen-rigging. At length,
when the two craft were as close to each other as it was prudent to take
them, Captain Blyth took off his cap, bowed, and said:
"Good-morning, Captain Spence! This is a pleasant surprise for us; we
scarcely hoped to see you before reaching Melbourne. What has happened
to detain you on the way?"
"Good-morning, Captain Blyth! I am very glad we have fallen in with
each other so early in the voyage," answered Captain Spence. "I have
been looking out for you during the last three or four days, for, with
such very fine weather as we have had lately, I expected you would
completely outsail us. How has the wind been with you? We have had it
light and shy, so far, during the entire voyage, except for the little
slant we got down channel on our first day out."
"Ah, yes!" remarked Captain Blyth; "you had the advantage of us there.
We had to beat the whole way from the Foreland to the Start."
"An advantage which is more than counterbalanced by your beautiful model
and your brand-new canvas," observed Spence. "Our sails are so worn and
thin that we can almost see through them; the wind goes through them
like water through a sieve. But I am just about to shift them for a new
suit, when I hope we shall be able to keep company with you at least as
far as the line, where, if, as is most probable, we fall in with calms,
I hope you and your passengers will do me the favour to come on board
and dine with us."
"That we will, with the greatest pleasure; and you and your passengers
will, I hope, favour us with a return visit--_if, when you have bent
your new canvas, you do not run away from us altogether_," retorted
Blyth. "Meanwhile," he continued, raising his voice as the _Flying
Cloud_ drew gradually ahead of the _Southern Cross_, "I am afraid we
must say good-bye for the present, as we seem to be slipping past you."
With this parting shot Captain Blyth again raised his cap politely, and
stepped down out of the rigging on to a hen-coop, and from thence to the
poop; and so the little verbal sparring match between the rival skippers
ended, each flattering himself that he had had the best of it, and that
he had come out well in the eyes of the little audience before which he
had been performing.
One thing, however, was certain, the _Southern Cross_ had sailed twenty-
four hours before her rival, and had by that rival been overtaken and
passed--fairly outsailed; and whether Captain Spence's somewhat laboured
explanation of this circumstance satisfied his passengers or not, it
assuredly did not satisfy himself. He was fain to confess--to himself--
that the hitherto invincible _Southern Cross_ had at length been
subjected to the ignominy of defeat. The thought was unendurable; there
could be no more happiness for him until the stain had been wiped from
his tarnished laurels. And to do this with the least possible loss of
time he at once went about the task of shifting his canvas, for which,
as the ship was now running dead before the wind, he could not have a
better opportunity. It was a heavy task, and all hands were set to work
upon it, the steerage passengers--ay, and some of the gentlemen in the
saloon also--so far identifying their own interests with that of the
ship as to volunteer their services in the pulling and hauling part of
the work, which enabled the skipper to send two strong gangs aloft. But
it was all of no use--just then, at least. The fact was that the older
suit of canvas was not nearly so unserviceable as Captain Spence chose
to consider it, and the substitution of the new suit was therefore
without appreciable effect--the result being that when night closed down
upon the little comedy the people on board the _Southern Cross_ had the
mortification of seeing the rival ship hovering on the very verge of the
horizon ahead of them.
On board the _Flying Cloud_, on the other hand, apart from her commander
there was no very great amount of enthusiasm. The passengers were
merely placidly satisfied at having outsailed a notoriously fast vessel;
whilst the mates and crew were, or affected to be, supremely indifferent
to the circumstance. Captain Blyth, however, made ample amends in his
own person for the indifference of everybody else. He was simply
exultant. Whatever might happen in the future, nothing could rob him of
the right to boast that he had beaten the _Southern Cross_ in a fair
trial of sailing, with the two ships side by side. And with regard to
the future, also, he was tolerably sanguine. It had been conclusively
demonstrated that the _Flying Cloud_ was the faster ship of the two
before the wind and in ordinary trades weather, which weather he could
now depend upon until he reached the region of the calms about the line;
and it was also possible that, walking away from the _Southern Cross_ at
his present rate, he might get a slant across the calm belt which the
other ship would miss, and a consequent start from thence into the
south-east trades of nobody could say how many days. And if the worst
came to the worst and he were overtaken in the calm belt, the two ships
would at least make a fair start of it again from the line, when he was
not without hopes that the extraordinary weatherliness of his own ship
would enable him to keep the advantage already won. So that, looking at
the matter in all its bearings, he was not only fully satisfied with the
past and present, but hopeful for the future. At the same time, knowing
by his recent experience how hard a ship to beat was the _Southern
Cross_, he fully realised that he must neglect no means within his power
to secure to himself the victory. Nor did he. Had his life and fortune
both been staked on the result of the race, he could scarcely have
manifested more eagerness. Indeed, he rather overdid it, imperilling
his spars by carrying a heavy press of canvas up to the last moment
possible; which, as the north-east trades happened to be blowing rather
fresh, involved a great deal of clewing up, hauling down, furling, and
subsequently re-setting of his lighter sails, and a consequent amount of
extra work for the crew which was anything but to their taste.
A week passed thus; but on the seventh day following that on which the
_Southern Cross_ had been spoken, and within an hour or two of the time
when the skipper, having worked up his meridian altitude of the sun, had
expressed to his passengers a confident hope that they would have
crossed the line by the time that they retired that night, the wind
began to fail them, and by eight bells in the afternoon watch the ship
was lying motionless on a sea the surface of which was smooth as
polished glass, save for the undulations of the ground-swell which came
creeping up to them from the northward and eastward. The sky was hazy
but without a cloud, and the temperature of the motionless atmosphere
was almost unbearably oppressive, the pitch melting out of the deck-
seams and adhering to the shoe-soles even beneath the shelter of the
awning which was spread over the poop.
"Well, ladies and gentlemen," said Captain Blyth as he joined his
passengers at the dinner-table that evening, "here we are in the
Doldrums, fast enough, and no mistake. The nor'-east trades brought us
so close up to the line that I was in hopes they'd be accommodating
enough to carry us over it. However, we mustn't grumble. We're within
sixty miles of the Equator, whilst on my last outward voyage I was left
becalmed close upon two hundred miles to the nor'ard of it. And we're
not alone in our misery; I counted no less than fifteen sail in sight
from the deck just before dark, but I couldn't make out the _Cross_
among 'em. I am in hopes of getting a start across and into the south-
easters before she comes up."
"How far astern do you think she is just now, captain?" asked Mrs
Henderson.
"Not an inch less than one hundred and fifty miles, ma'am," answered the
skipper. "And if she brings the trades as far down with her as we've
done--which is doubtful--she can't reach the spot sooner than nine
o'clock to-morrow evening. So we've twenty-six hours the start of her
now, and I'm going to do my best to keep it."
The saloon was far too hot for the passengers to hold their usual
concert there that evening; they therefore adjourned to the deck, and
lounged there to the latest possible moment. It was a glorious night--
brilliant star-light with a young moon--the combined light enabling them
to just dimly make out here and there the hull and sails of one or
another of their companions in misfortune, the side-lights, green or red
according to the position of the vessel, gleaming brightly and throwing
long, wavering, tremulous lines of colour along the polished surface of
the water. On board one of these vessels, about a mile distant, someone
was playing a concertina--very creditably, too--and singing a favourite
forecastle ditty to its accompaniment; and it was surprising how softly
yet clearly the sounds were conveyed across the intervening space of
water. Singing and playing was also going on among the more distant
ships; but the sounds were too far removed to create the discord which
would have resulted had they been near enough to mingle.
On board the _Flying Cloud_ all was silent save for the persistent
"whistling for a breeze" in which Captain Blyth indulged, mingled with
the rustle and flap of the canvas overhead, and the patter of the reef-
points occasioned by the pendulum-like roll of the ship. The water was
highly phosphorescent; and the two children, carefully looked after by
Mr Gaunt, were delightedly watching from the taffrail the streams of
brilliant stars and haloes produced by the gentle swaying movement of
the ship's stern-post and rudder, when far down in the liquid crystal a
dim moon-like radiance was seen, which increased in intensity and
gradually took form as it rose upwards until it floated just beneath the
surface, its nature fully confessed by the luminosity which enveloped it
from snout to tail--an enormous shark! It remained under the ship's
counter, lazily swimming to and fro athwart the ship's stern, just long
enough to allow the rest of the passengers to get a good sight of it,
when it suddenly whisked round and darted off at a tremendous pace
toward one of the other ships, leaving a long trailing wake of silver
light behind it. A moment later, the sound of a heavy splash at some
distance was heard; and whilst the little group of horrified spectators
on board the _Flying Cloud_ were still speaking of the terrible aspect
presented by the monster a shout and a shrill piercing scream came
floating across the water, followed by more shouting and sounds as of
the hasty lowering of a boat.
"Hark! What can that mean?" ejaculated Mrs Gaunt.
"Sounds as though there was something wrong aboard the barque yonder,
sir," reported one of the men to the chief-mate. (Captain Blyth
happened to be below at the moment.)
"Well, it's no business of ours if there is," answered Mr Bryce, not
attempting to move from his seat.
"Did you ever know such a brute as that man is?" whispered Mrs Gaunt to
Miss Stanhope.
"Never," was the reply. "That I am free from any further association
with him will be my most pleasant reflection when I leave the ship."
The flash of oars in the phosphorescent water showed that a boat had
been lowered from the barque, and she could be faintly seen pulling
about for some time afterwards; but at length she returned to the ship.
The cheep of the tackle-blocks could be heard as she was hoisted up, and
that ended the incident for the night.
On running into the calm the _Flying Cloud_ had, of course, been
stripped of her studding-sails in order that she might be ready to meet
the light variable airs which were all she would have to depend upon to
help her across the calm belt; and about nine o'clock that evening one
of these little puffs, accompanied by a smart shower of rain, came out
from the westward, lasting nearly an hour, and enabling the little fleet
to make some four miles of progress on their several ways, some of the
vessels being bound north, whilst the others were making their way in
the opposite direction.