winch, begins to mast-head the yard of the solitary sail which propels
the raft. As he does so his eyes are directed towards the moon, now
slowly sinking beneath the horizon. Ha! what is that? The labour at
the winch is suspended, a hasty turn is taken with the halliard, and
Captain Blyth strains forward, his eyes shaded by both hands the better
to observe that black spot which is slowly gliding athwart the moon's
pale face. Little need is there, though, for him to look so intently to
ascertain what that black spot really is; it is more for the purpose of
assuring himself that his eyes are not playing him false, or that he is
not once more the victim of a dream. No; this is not a dream. He is
wide awake enough now, and his mind is busy with a thousand tumultuous
thoughts, for, as he watches, clear and unmistakable glide the upper
sails of a large ship across the face of the sinking planet. She is
steering south, but whether easterly or westerly it is impossible to say
as she stands out black and silhouette-like against her golden
background; but one thing is plain--she is moving very slowly. The
skipper darts to the compass--one of a pair saved from the wreck of the
_Mermaid_--and striking a match, which he carefully shelters from the
wind in the crown of his cap, he manages to take her bearing before she
vanishes from his sight. He next completes the setting of his sail,
hauls aft the sheet, and, jamming the raft close upon a wind, asks
himself what is the best thing to do.
To return to the island will consume an hour of most precious time; and
when there what could he do to attract the stranger's attention?
Nothing more than light a huge bonfire; and the only spot suitable for
this is the western side of the mountain, to reach which will consume at
least another hour. Then there would be wood to collect, occupying say
another half-hour, making a total of at least two hours and a half
before such a signal could be rendered visible. And perhaps, after all,
those on board the ship might not see it, or, seeing it, might not
understand its meaning--might suppose it to be nothing more than a fire
built by the natives, and so pass on their way. No; that would not do--
the risk of failure would be too great. What then? There remained
nothing, in Captain Blyth's opinion, but to pursue the stranger. She
could not, he thought, be going more than five knots, judging by the
strength of the breeze and the momentary glimpse he had obtained of her;
whilst the raft, light as she was and with the wind well over her
quarter, would go nearly or quite seven. The strange sail was about
twelve miles off; therefore, if he could overhaul her at the rate of
about two knots per hour, he ought to be near enough to attract her
attention by sunrise. But he must bear up in chase at once, there was
no time to waste in running ashore to make known his intentions; and as
for help, he wanted none, he was quite capable of managing the raft
single-handed. Moreover, he began to suspect that Henderson would prove
to be right in that suggestion of his respecting a change of weather,
which made it all the more important that the strange sail should be
overhauled before the change should occur.
These reflections passed through the skipper's brain in a single
moment--not perhaps quite so definitely as here set forth, but to the
same purpose--and in the next he jammed his helm hard up, eased off the
sheet, and bore away upon a course which he conjectured would enable him
to intercept the stranger.
For a few minutes after the disappearance of the moon Blyth was able, or
fancied he was able, still to distinguish the canvas of the chase
looming up vaguely like a dark shapeless shadow upon the horizon; but
either the sky grew darker in that quarter or the weather thickened, for
he was soon obliged to admit that he could see it no longer. But that
circumstance gave him not the least concern; he had set his course by a
star, and he knew that so long as he continued to steer for it, so long
would the course of the raft converge toward that of the stranger. He
_was_ concerned, however, to notice later on that not only was the
weather thickening overhead, necessitating a frequent changing of the
star by which he was following his course, but also that the wind was
becoming unsteady; sometimes falling away to such an extent as to cause
the raft's sail to flap heavily as she rolled over the ridges of the
swell, and anon breezing up quite fresh again, but with a change of
perhaps a couple of points in its direction, the change generally being
of such a character as to bring the wind forward more on his starboard
beam. Gradually the haze so thickened overhead that such stars as were
not already obscured grew dim and soon disappeared altogether, leaving
the solitary man dependent only upon the somewhat fickle wind for a
guide by which to steer his course; for though he had a compass on board
the raft, he had no binnacle, and no lamps by which to illuminate the
compass card. It is true the island was still in sight, some four miles
astern, but the night had grown so dark and the atmosphere so thick that
the land merely loomed like a vast undefined blot of darkness against
the black horizon, being so indistinct indeed that only the practised
eye of a seamen could have detected its presence at all; it was
therefore useless as an object to steer by, even to so keen-eyed an old
sea-dog as Captain Blyth.
It had by this time began to dawn upon the skipper that his adventure
was likely to prove of a far more serious character than he had at all
contemplated; and he was earnestly debating within himself the question
whether his wisest course would not, after all, be to abandon the chase
and make the best of his way back to the island, when the breeze once
more freshened up so strongly, and that too dead aft, that it made
everything on board the raft surge again as she gathered way and skimmed
off before it. And Blyth, calculating that even if the chase were
sailing away from instead of toward him it would shorten his distance
from her at least a couple of miles before she caught it, grimly held on
his course, determined to risk everything rather than lose so good a
chance; his chief fear now being that the sheet would part under the
tremendous strain brought to bear upon it by the immense sail. The
raft, as has been elsewhere stated, was of very peculiar construction,
her shape and build being such as to peculiarly favour speed, especially
when running dead before the wind; and, light as she now was, she
skimmed away before the fierce squall at a rate which made Blyth's heart
bound with exultation as he looked first to one side and then the other
and noted the furious speed with which the phosphorescent foam from
under her bows was left behind. There was now no longer any thought of
turning back, for, be it said, Captain Blyth--good honest soul--was a
devout believer in Providence; and he had by this time arrived at a firm
conviction, first, that it was by the special intervention of Providence
that he had been led to undertake his fishing excursion that night, and
next, that the freshening up of a dead fair wind just when it did was a
second special intervention of Providence to prevent his giving up the
chase. And so he held on everything, and the raft rushed away dead
before the wind through the pitchy darkness, the mast creaking ominously
in its step every now and then, and the tautly-strained gear aloft
surging from time to time in an equally ominous manner; whilst the sea
rose rapidly--showing that the solitary voyager was fast drawing out
from under the sheltering lee of the island astern--and the foaming
wavecrests, vividly phosphorescent, momentarily towered higher and more
threateningly, and hissed louder and more angrily in the luminous wake
of the flying craft.
The squall lasted a full hour, when the wind died away even more
suddenly than it had arisen, and the raft was left tumbling about with
little more than steerage-way upon her. The skipper had no means of
ascertaining the time, it being too intensely dark to permit of his
reading the face of his watch even when it was held close to his eyes,
though he made two or three unsuccessful attempts to do so; but, anxious
and impatient as he was for the dawn, he knew that it must be at least
another hour, perhaps nearer two, before he could reasonably expect its
appearance. Two hours more of sickening suspense! One hundred and
twenty minutes! With the weather in such a threatening state what might
not happen in the interval! If he could only have obtained an
occasional glimpse of the compass, or if the night had been less
opaquely dark he would not have cared so much. For in the one case he
would have been enabled not only to keep a mental reckoning of his own
course, but also that of the chase as well, and to follow her
attentively no matter how capricious the breeze; whilst in the other
case he might have stood some chance of catching a momentary glimpse of
her. As his reflections took this turn he stooped and looked ahead
under the foot of the sail; looked more intently; rubbed his eyes, and
looked again. What was it he saw? A light--lights? Yes, surely; it
must be so, or were those faint luminous specks merely illusory and a
result of the over-straining of his visual organs due to the intensity
of his gaze into the gloom? No; those feebly glimmering points of light
were stationary; they maintained the same fixed distance from each
other, and he could count them--one, two, three--half a dozen of them at
least, if not more, he could not be certain, for they were so very
faint. What could it mean? Was there a whole fleet of ships down there
to leeward? That there was _something_ was an absolute certainty; and
as it seemed an impossibility that it could be anything else it was only
reasonable to conclude that it must be a ship or ships. At all events
there could be no question as to the course he ought to follow; it would
be worse than folly to continue in pursuit of an invisible ship with
those lights in comparatively plain view only a couple of points on his
lee-bow. So the skipper bore away until the faint luminous spots opened
out just clear of the heel of the long yard--which, it will be
remembered, was bowsed down close to the deck--and there he resolutely
kept them, the wind having by this time fallen so light that it was
necessary for him to make frequent sweeps with the steering-oar in order
to keep the raft's head pointed in the required direction.
Suddenly, a greenish spectral radiance beamed down upon him from above;
and, quickly casting a startled glance aloft, Blyth shudderingly beheld
a ball of lambent greenish light quivering upon the upper extremity of
the long tapering yard and swaying to and fro with the roll of the raft,
much as the flame of a candle would have done under similar
circumstances. Clinging lightly to the end of the yard, it alternately
elongated and flattened as the spar swayed to and fro, now and then
rolling a few inches down the yard as though about to travel down to the
deck, but as often returning to the extremity of the yard again.
Presently another and similar luminous ball gleamed into shape at the
mast-head, swaying and wavering about the end of the spar like its
companion. They were _corposants_, and whilst they conveyed to the
skipper the only additional warning needed of the impending elemental
strife, they also at once explained the mystery of the lights to leeward
for which he was steering. They also were undoubtedly corposants
glimmering from the spars of the strange sail of which he was in
pursuit, and which, from her present proximity, must have been steering
to the eastward, and consequently toward him, instead of to the westward
and away from him, as he had feared.
Blyth believed she certainly could not be more than a mile distant, his
conviction being that the feeble, sickly lights of the ghostly
corposants could not penetrate further than that distance in so thick an
atmosphere, and it now became of the utmost importance--nay, it might
even be a matter of life or death for him--to reach the stranger before
the hurricane should burst upon them. He looked over the side to
ascertain the speed of the raft through the water, and his heart quailed
as he observed that, save for an occasional tiny phosphorescent spark on
the surface or a faintly luminous halo lower down in the black depths
slowly drifting by, there was nothing to indicate that she had any
motion whatever. Her speed was not more than half a knot per hour; and
the stranger was probably a mile distant--two hours away at the raft's
then rate of progress! Something must be done, and quickly, too; for
out of the darkness round about him there now floated weird, whispering
sighs, faint, dismal moanings, and now and then a sudden momentary rush
as of invisible wings, telling that the storm-fiend was marshalling his
forces and about to make his swoop. What was to be done? There were
only two oars on board the raft--the steering-oars--and they were so
firmly secured that it would be next to impossible to cast them adrift
and use them as means of propulsion, even if one man's strength were
sufficient to handle them both simultaneously. Moreover, if a little
puff of wind should come, as is sometimes the case, before the great
burst of the hurricane, they would, one or both, be wanted where they
were. Perhaps hailing might be of use. At all events, he would try.
And, placing his hollowed hands on each side of his mouth to form a
speaking trumpet the skipper drew a deep inspiration or two, hailed with
the utmost strength of his lungs; "Ship ahoy-oy!"
And then listened.
No response. Nothing save the faint murmurings and railings of the
gathering gale.
"_Ship ahoy-oy_!"
Hark! what was that? Did he, indeed, hear a faint answering halloo from
away yonder in the direction of those weird lights, or was it merely
that the wish was father to the thought?
"Sh-i-ip A--hoy-oy-oy!"
"_Halloo_!"
Quite unmistakable this time; and the skipper, in a perfect frenzy of
excitement, repeats his hail time after time, waiting only long enough
to receive the answer before hailing again. Presently a bright star
suddenly appears under the faintly gleaming corposants. It is a ship's
lantern held up over the rail. A minute later a tiny spark appears
close to the lantern, immediately bursting into a keen bluish glare from
which a cloud of white smoke arises and flakes of blue-white flame drop
now and then as a port-fire is burnt. By its brilliant though ghostly
radiance the skipper can see, less than half a mile distant, a brig
under nothing but close-reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail--
evidently fully prepared for the worst that can come to her in the shape
of weather--with a little group of figures gathered about the port-fire,
and a smaller group, consisting of two men only, abaft the main-rigging,
all peering eagerly in his direction.
He sees one of the figures raise his arms; and presently there comes
floating across the inky water:
"Halloo, there! Who hails?"
The skipper again raises his hands to his mouth, draws a mighty
inspiration, and replies, as the readiest means of bringing succour to
him:
"Shipwrecked m-a-an. Broad--on--your--port--b-ea-eam!"
The figure who had hailed waves his hand to show that he has heard; and
just at that moment the port-fire burns out. Another is quickly
ignited, however; and as the blue-white glare once more illumines the
brig Blyth sees that there is but one man now on the forecastle--the man
who holds aloft the port-fire--and that the rest are gathered aft, busy
about the davit-tackles by which a boat is suspended on the larboard
quarter.
At this moment the whole firmament from zenith to horizon is rent
asunder, and for a single instant the entire universe seems to have been
set on fire by the fierce blaze of the lightning which flashes from the
rent, whilst the accompanying thunder crash is so deafening that even
the skipper, seasoned as he is, quails beneath the shock of it. For a
single instant the sea and everything upon it, from horizon to horizon,
is illumined by a light brighter than that of day; and in that single
instant Blyth sees not only the brig, enveloped in a perfect network of
fire, but also the huge piles of cloud overhead, twisted and distorted
into a hundred fantastic shapes by the forces at work within them, and
the black glistening water, carved into countless hollows and ridges by
the agitation of its surface; the whole apparently motionless as if
modelled in metal. Then comes the blackness of darkness, so thick and
impenetrable that the half-stunned skipper, scarcely conscious of where
he is, dares not move by so much as a single footstep lest he should
step overboard. The next moment down comes the rain, not in drops, not
even in sheets of water, but in a perfectly overwhelming deluge of such
density and volume that Blyth, bowing to his knees beneath it, gasps and
chokes like a drowning man.
But he speedily recovers his senses--he had need to, for he will soon
want them all--and, staggering to his feet, makes toward the mast, which
with the yard and dripping sail is now distinctly outlined against the
milky background of sea, milky by reason of the phosphorescence of its
surface being lashed into luminosity by the pouring rain. He grasps the
halliard of the sail, and with feverish haste proceeds to cast it adrift
from its belaying-pin, murmuring the while:
"Now God be merciful to me, a sinner: for I am too late. The time for
rescue is past!"
With utmost haste, yet with all the coolness and skill of a finished
seaman, he lowers the sail on deck and proceeds to secure it as well as
he can, for he knows only too well what the next act in the drama will
be; he knows, too, that those on board the brig--invisible now--are as
well versed as himself, and are at this moment far too busily engaged in
preparing for the stroke of the hurricane to have a thought to spare for
him.
Now the rain stops as suddenly as it began, and an awful silence ensues,
scarcely broken even by the lap of the water alongside, for the terrific
downpour has completely beaten down the swell, and, save for an
occasional gentle heave, the raft lies motionless.
Now stand by! Summon all your nerve and all your courage to your aid,
skipper, for you never stood half so sorely in need of them as you do
now. And, above all, lift up your heart to God in fervent prayer, be it
ever so brief. Call upon Him whilst you have time; for time, so far as
you are concerned, may soon be merged in eternity!
Listen! What is that low murmur in the air which so rapidly increases
in volume until it becomes a deep, hoarse, bellowing roar? The sound is
broad on your starboard beam, skipper! Aft to your steering-oar for
your life, man; sweep her head round quick, in readiness to run before
it! That is well; round with her; again; another stroke. _Now_ stand
by! here it comes! Seize that rope's-end and hold on for your life!
A long line of milk-white foam appears upon the horizon, spreading and
advancing with awful rapidity; the roar swells in volume until it
becomes absolutely deafening; the air grows thick with vapour; a sudden
whirl of wind rushes past lashing the skipper's face with rain-drops as
it goes--rain-drops? no; they are salt, salt as the brine alongside--and
then, with a wild burst and babel of hideous sound and a shock as though
the raft had collided with something solid, the hurricane strikes her.
The white water surges up over her stern, and the skipper is hurled
forward, face downward and half-stunned, upon her already submerged
deck.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
THE MALAYS!
The occupants of the fort retired to rest that night, as usual, at the
early hour of ten o'clock; and, thoroughly fagged out with the day's
labour, soon sank to sleep. Nobody felt in the least degree anxious
about the skipper, because, when Gaunt and Henderson took a last look at
the weather before turning in, there was nothing particularly alarming
in its aspect; they agreed that there was going to be a change, and that
it would probably occur before morning; but Blyth, they considered, was
not the man to be caught napping; moreover, he had already been absent
long enough to make his return possible at any moment; so, with this
opinion expressed and understood, all hands sought their bunks with
perfectly easy minds.
Manners and Nicholls were the first to awake, which they did
simultaneously when the hurricane burst over the island, their sleeping-
room happening to be on the weather side of the fort, or that upon which
the gale beat with the greatest fury, and they were therefore naturally
the first to be disturbed by the uproar of the storm.
"Whew!" whistled Manners, as he settled himself more comfortably in his
cosy bunk; "it's blowing heavily! I'm glad I have no watch to keep to-
night. Listen to that!" as the wind went howling and careering past the
house, causing it to tremble to its foundations; "if it's like that down
here in this sheltered valley what must it be outside in the open sea?"
"Bad enough, Mr Manners, you may depend on't," answered Nicholls, who,
occupying the adjoining bunk, had overheard this muttered soliloquy,
"bad enough! This is the worst bout we've had since we've been on the
island. Why--listen to that, now!--and did ye feel the house shake,
sir? Why, it must be blowing a regular tornado--or typhoon, as they
calls 'em in these latitudes. The skipper sleeps pretty sound through
it, don't he, sir?"
"He does, indeed," replied Manners; and then, a sudden recollection of
the fishing expedition coming upon him, he added, "I suppose he _is_
asleep--I suppose he is in his berth. Did you hear him come in?"
"Not I, sir," was the answer. "I dozed off to sleep almost before I had
time to make myself comfortable, and I never woke again until a minute
or two since when the roar of the gale disturbed me."
"Are you awake, Captain Blyth?" demanded Manners sharply.
No answer, and both men listen as well as they can through the awful
roar and shriek of the gale, hoping to hear the measured breathing of
the sleeper. But no such sound is heard; and after listening
breathlessly for a few seconds Manners bounds out of his berth, and
fumbling about for the matches, finds them at last and strikes a light.
The skipper's berth is empty and undisturbed; it has evidently not been
slept in that night.
Manners and Nicholls--the latter having also turned out--look blankly at
the bunk and then at each other, the same dreadful suspicion dawning
upon them both at the same instant.
"Good heavens!" gasped Manners. "It cannot be that--and yet it looks
like it--is it possible, Tom, that the skipper has not returned--that he
is at sea on the raft in this awful gale?"
"I'm blest if it don't look uncommon like it, sir," is Nicholls' reply,
uttered in a tone of desperate conviction. "Tell ye what 'tis, sir," he
continued, as he hastily proceeds to don a garment or two, slipping his
bare feet into his shoes as he does so, "I'm off down to the creek to
see if the punt is there. If she ain't, you may depend on't she's
ridin' at the raft's moorin's--if she ain't swamped--and that the raft's
at sea, with the poor skipper aboard of her. The Lord have mercy on him
if it is so, that's all I says."
"Stop a moment; I will go with you," says Manners, also hastily
dressing; "but before we go we had perhaps better inquire of Mr Gaunt
or the doctor whether they know anything about him; they are certain to
be awake."
A minute later the two men are groping their way along the wall of the
court-yard toward the door of Gaunt's room, in which they can perceive a
light. Manners knocks, and instantly receives the response:
"Yes. Who is there?"
"Manners and Nicholls, sir. Do you know anything about the captain, Mr
Gaunt? He is not with us, and his bunk has not been slept in to-night."
"Stay where you are, I will be out in a moment," is the reply. And
almost in the short space of time named Gaunt emerges.
"Now, then," he demands, somewhat sternly, "what is it you say about the
captain? Surely I cannot have heard you aright?"
"Indeed I am afraid, sir, you did," answers Manners, by this time in a
state of deep distress as the conviction forces itself upon him that the
skipper really is missing.
"I said, sir, that the captain is not with us, and that his bunk has not
been slept in to-night."