I think the boatswain was right.
It was no season for love-making; but it was surely a fitting moment
"for finding each other out in."
I can say this--and God knows never was there less bombast in such a
thought than there was in mine: that when I looked round upon the sea
and then upon my beloved companion, I felt that I would rather have
chosen death with her love to bless me in the end, than life without
knowledge of her.
I put food before the steward and induced him to eat; but it was
pitiful to see his silly, instinctive ways, no reason in them, nothing
but a mechanical guiding, with foolish fleeting smiles upon his pale
face.
I thought of that wife of his whose letter he had wept over, and his
child, and scarcely knew whether it had not been better for him and
them that he should have died than return to them a broken-down, puling
imbecile.
I said as much to Mary, but the tender heart would not agree with me.
"Whilst there is life there is hope," she answered softly. "Should
God permit us to reach home, I will see that the poor fellow is well
cared for. It may be that when all these horrors have passed his mind
will recover its strength. Our trials are _very_ hard. When I saw that
Russian ship I thought my own brain would go."
She pressed her hand to her forehead, and an expression of suffering,
provoked by memory, came into her face.
We despatched our meal, and I went on to the main-deck to sound the
well. I found two feet of water in the hold, and I came back and gave
the boatswain the soundings, who recommended that we should at once
turn to and get the boat ready.
I said to him, as he clambered into the boat for the purpose of
overhauling her, that I fully believed that a special Providence was
watching over us, and that we might confidently hope God would not
abandon us now.
"If the men had not chased us in this boat," I continued, "what chance
should we have to save our lives? The other boat is useless, and we
should never have been able to repair her in time to get away from the
ship. Then look at the weather! I have predicted a dead calm to-night,
and already the wind is gone."
"Yes, everything's happened for the best," he replied. "I only wish
poor Jim's life had been saved. It's a'most like leavin' of him to
drown to go away without buryin' him; and yet I know there'd be no use
in puttin' him overboard. There's been a deal o' precious human life
wasted since we left the Channel; and who are the murderers? Wy, the
owners. It's all come through their sendin' the ship to sea with rotten
stores. A few dirty pounds 'ud ha' saved all this."
We had never yet had the leisure to inspect the stores with which
the mutineers had furnished the quarter-boat, and we now found, in
spite of their having shifted a lot of the provisions out of her into
the long-boat before starting in pursuit of us, that there was still
an abundance left: four kegs of water, several tins of cuddy bread,
preserved meat and fruits, sugar, flour, and other things, not to
mention such items as boxes of lucifer-matches, fishing tackle, a
burning-glass, a quantity of tools and nails; in a word, everything
which men in the condition they had hoped to find themselves in might
stand in need of to support life. Indeed, the foresight illustrated by
the provisioning of this boat was truly remarkable, the only things
they had omitted being a mast and sail, it having been their intention
to keep this boat in tow of the other. I even found that they had
furnished the boat with the oars belonging to the disabled quarter-boat
in addition to those of her own.
However, the boat was not yet stocked to my satisfaction. I therefore
repaired to my cabin and procured the boat's compass, some charts, a
sextant, and other necessary articles, such as the "Nautical Almanack,"
and pencils and paper wherewith to work out my observations, which
articles I placed very carefully in the locker in the stern-sheets of
the boat.
I allowed Mary to help me, that the occupation might divert her mind
from the overwhelming thoughts which the gradual settling of the ship
on which we stood must have excited in the strongest and bravest mind;
and, indeed, I worked busily and eagerly to guard myself against any
terror that might come upon me. She it was who suggested that we should
provide ourselves with lamps and oil; and I shipped a lantern to hoist
at our mast-head when the darkness came, and the bull's-eye lamp to
enable me to work out observations of the stars, which I intended
to make when the night fell. To all these things, which, sounding
numerous, in reality occupied but little space, I added a can of oil,
meshes for the lamps, top-coats, oilskins, and rugs to protect us at
night, so that the afternoon was well advanced before we had ended
our preparations. Meanwhile, the boatswain had stepped a top-gallant
stun'sail boom to serve us for a mast, well stayed, with a block and
halliards at the mast-head to serve for hoisting a flag or lantern, and
a spare top-gallant stun'sail to act as a sail.
By this time the wind had completely died away; a peaceful deep blue
sky stretched from horizon to horizon; and the agitation of the sea
had subsided into a long and silent swell, which washed up against the
ship's sides, scarcely causing her to roll, so deep had she sunk in the
water.
I now thought it high time to lower the boat and bring her alongside,
as our calculations of the length of time to be occupied by the ship
in sinking might be falsified to our destruction by her suddenly going
stern down with us on board.
We therefore lowered the boat, and got the gangway ladder over the side.
The boatswain got into the boat first to help Mary into her. I then
took the steward by the arms and brought him along smartly, as there
was danger in keeping the boat washing against the ship's side. He
resisted at first, and only smiled vacantly when I threatened to leave
him; but on the boatswain crying out that his wife was waiting for
him, the poor idiot got himself together with a scramble, and went so
hastily over the gangway that he very narrowly escaped a ducking.
I paused a moment at the gangway and looked around, striving to
remember if there was anything we had forgotten which would be of some
use to us. Mary watched me anxiously, and called to me by my Christian
name, at the same time extending her arms. I would not keep her in
suspense a moment, and at once dropped into the boat. She grasped and
fondled my hand, and drew me close beside her.
"I should have gone on board again had you delayed coming," she
whispered.
The boatswain shoved the boat's head off, and we each shipped an oar
and pulled the boat about a quarter of a mile away from the ship; and
then, from a strange and wild curiosity to behold the ship sink, and
still in our hearts clinging to her, not only as the home wherein we
had found shelter for many days past, but as the only visible object
in all the stupendous reach of waters, we threw in the oars and sat
watching her.
She had now sunk as deep as her main-chains, and was but a little
higher out of water than the hull from which we had rescued Mary and
her father. It was strange to behold her even from a short distance
and note her littleness in comparison with the immensity of the deep
on which she rested, and recall the terrible seas she had braved and
triumphed over.
Few sailors can behold the ship in which they have sailed sinking
before their eyes without the same emotion of distress and pity almost
which the spectacle of a drowning man excites in them. She has grown
a familiar name, a familiar object; thus far she has borne them in
safety; she has been rudely beaten, and yet has done her duty; but the
tempest has broken her down at last; all the beauty is shorn from her;
she is weary with the long and dreadful struggle with the vast forces
that Nature arrayed against her; she sinks, a desolate abandoned thing
in mid-ocean, carrying with her a thousand memories, which surge up in
the heart with the pain of a strong man's tears.
I looked from the ship to realize our own position. Perhaps not yet
could it be keenly felt, for the ship was still a visible object for
us to hold on by; and yet, turning my eyes away to the far reaches of
the horizon, at one moment borne high on the summit of the ocean swell,
which appeared mountainous when felt in and viewed from the boat, then
sinking deep in the hollow, so that the near ship was hidden from
us--the supreme loneliness of our situation, our helplessness, and
the fragility and diminutiveness of the structure on which our lives
depended, came home to me with the pain and wonder of a shock.
Our boat, however, was new this voyage, with a good beam, and showing a
tolerably bold side, considering her dimensions and freight. Of the two
quarter-boats with which the _Grosvenor_ had been furnished, this was
the larger and the stronger built, and for this reason had been chosen
by Stevens. I could not hope, indeed, that she would live a moment in
anything of a sea; but she was certainly stout enough to carry us to
the Bermudas, providing the weather remained moderate.
It was now six o'clock. I said to the boatswain--
"Every hour of this weather is valuable to us. There is no reason why
we should stay here."
"I should like to see her sink, Mr. Royle; I should like to know that
poor Jim found a regular coffin in her," he answered. "We can't make
no headway with the sail, and I don't recommend rowin' for the two or
three mile we can fetch with the oars. It 'ud be wurse nor pumpin'!"
He was right. When I reflected I was quite sure I should not, in my
exhausted state, be able to handle one of the big oars for even five
minutes at a stretch; and admitting that I _had_ been strong enough to
row for a couple of hours, yet the result to have been obtained could
not have been important enough to justify the serious labour.
The steward all this time sat perfectly quiet in the bottom of the
boat, with his back against the mast. He paid no attention to us when
we spoke, nor looked around him, though sometimes he would fix his
eyes vacantly on the sky as if his shattered mind found relief in
contemplating the void. I was heartily glad to find him quiet, though
I took care to watch him, for it was difficult to tell whether his
imbecility was not counterfeited by his madness, to throw us off our
guard, and furnish him with an opportunity to play us and himself some
deadly trick.
As some hours had elapsed since we had tasted food, I opened a tin of
meat and prepared a meal. The boatswain ate heartily, and so did the
steward; but I could not prevail upon Mary to take more than a biscuit
and some sherry and water.
Indeed, as the evening approached, our position affected her more
deeply, and very often, after she had cast her eyes towards the
horizon, I would see her lips whispering a prayer, and feel her hand
tightening on mine.
The ship still floated, but she was so low in the water that I every
minute expected to see her vanish. The water was above her main-chains,
and I could only attribute her obstinacy in not sinking to the great
quantity of wood--both in cases and goods--which composed her cargo.
The sun was now quite close to the horizon, branding the ocean with
a purple glare, but itself descending into a cloudless sky. I cannot
express how majestic and wonderful the great orb looked to us who
were almost level with the water. Its disc seemed vaster than I had
ever before seen it, and there was something sublimely solemn in the
loneliness of its descent. All the sky about it, and far to the south
and north, was changed into the colour of gold by its lustre; and over
our heads the heavens were an exquisite tender green, which melted in
the east into a dark blue.
I was telling Mary that ere the sun sank again we might be on board a
ship, and whispering any words of encouragement and hope to her, when I
was startled by the boatswain crying, "Now she's gone! Look at her!"
I turned my eyes towards the ship, and could scarcely credit my senses
when I found that her hull had vanished, and that nothing was to be
seen of her but her spars, which were all aslant sternwards.
I held my breath as I saw the masts sink lower and lower. First the
crossjack-yard was submerged, then the gaff with the ensign hanging
dead at the peak, then the mainyard; presently only the main-topmast
cross-trees were visible, a dark cross upon the water: they vanished;
at the same moment the sun disappeared behind the horizon; and now
we were alone on the great, breathing deep, with all the eastern sky
growing dark as we watched.
"It's all over!" said the boatswain, breaking the silence, and speaking
in a hollow tone. "No livin' man'll ever see the _Grosvenor_ agin!"
Mary shivered and leaned against me. I took up a rug and folded it
round her, and kissed her forehead.
The boatswain had turned his back upon us, and sat with his hands
folded, I believe in prayer. I am sure he was thinking of Jim Cornish,
and I would not have interrupted that honest heart's communion with its
Maker for the value of the ship that had sunk.
Darkness came down very quickly, and that we might lose no chance of
being seen by any distant vessel, I lighted the ship's lantern and
hoisted it at the mast-head. I also lighted the bull's-eye lamp and set
it in the stern-sheets.
"Mary," I whispered, "I will make you up a bed in the bottom of the
boat. Whilst this weather lasts, dearest, we have no cause to be
alarmed by our position. It will make me happy to see you sleeping, and
be sure that whilst you sleep there will be watchful eyes near you."
"I will sleep as I am, here, by your side. I shall rest better so," she
answered. "I could not sleep lying down."
It was too sweet a privilege to forego: I passed my arm around her and
held her close to me; and she closed her eyes like a child to please me.
Worn out as I was, enfeebled both intellectually and physically by the
heavy strain that had been put upon me ever since that day when I had
been ironed by Captain Coxon's orders, I say--and I solemnly believe
in the truth of what I am about to write--that had it not been for
the living reality of this girl, encircled by my arm, with her head
supported by my shoulder--had it not been for the deep love I felt for
her, which localized my thoughts, and, so to say, humanized them down
to the level of our situation, forbidding them to trespass beyond the
prosaic limits of our danger, of the precautions to be taken by us, of
our chances of rescue, of the course to be steered when the wind should
fill our sail: I should have gone mad when the night came down upon
the sea and enveloped our boat--a lonely speck on the gigantic world of
water--in the mystery and fear of darkness. I know this by recalling
the fancy that for a few moments possessed me in looking along the
water, when I clearly beheld the outline of a coast, with innumerable
lights twinkling upon it; by the whirling, dizzy sensation in my head
which followed the extinction of the vision; by the emotion of wild
horror and unutterable disappointment which overcame me when I detected
the cheat. I pressed my darling to me, and looked upon her sweet face,
revealed by the light shed by the lantern at the mast-head, and all my
misery left me; and the delight which the knowledge that she was my own
love and that I held her in my arms, gave me, fell like an exorcism
upon the demons of my stricken imagination.
She smiled when I pressed her to my side and when she saw my face close
to hers, looking at her; but she did not know then that she had saved
me from a fate more dreadful than death, and that I--so strong as I
seemed, so earnest as I had shown myself in my conflicts with fate,
so resolutely as I had striven to comfort her--had been rescued from
madness by her whom I had a thousand times pitied for her helplessness.
She fell asleep at last, and I sat for nearly two hours motionless,
that I should not awaken her. The steward slept with his head in his
arms, kneeling, a strange, mad posture. The boatswain sat forward, with
his face turned aft and his arms folded. I addressed him once, but he
did not answer. Probably I spoke too low for him to hear, being fearful
of waking Mary; but there was little we had to say. Doubtless he found
his thoughts too engrossing to suffer him to talk.
Being anxious to "take a star," as we say at sea, and not knowing how
the time went, I gently drew out my watch and found the hour a quarter
to eleven. In replacing the watch I aroused Mary, who raised her head
and looked round her with eyes that flashed in the lantern light.
"Where are we?" she exclaimed, and bent her head to gaze at me, on
which she recollected herself. "Poor boy!" she said, taking my hand, "I
have kept you supporting my weight. You were more tired than I. But it
is your turn now. Rest your head on my shoulder."
"No, it is still your turn," I answered, "and you shall sleep again
presently. But since you are awake, I will try to find out where we
are. You shall hold the lamp for me while I make my calculations and
examine the chart."
Saying which, I drew out my sextant and got across the thwarts to the
mast, which I stood up alongside of to lean on, for the swell, though
moderate enough to pass without notice on a big vessel, lifted and sunk
the boat in such a way as to make it difficult to stand steady.
I was in the act of raising the sextant to my eye, when the boatswain
suddenly cried, "Mr. Royle, listen!"
"What do you hear?" I exclaimed.
"Hush! listen now!" he answered, in a breathless voice.
I strained my ear, but nothing was audible to me but the wash of the
water against the boat's side.
"Don't you hear it, Mr. Royle?" he cried, in a kind of agony, holding
up his finger. "Miss Robertson, don't you hear something?"
There was another interval of silence, and Mary answered, "I hear a
kind of throbbing!"
"It is so!" I exclaimed. "I hear it now! it is the engines of a
steamer!"
"A steamer! Yes! I heard it! where is she?" shouted the boatswain, and
he jumped on to the thwart on which I stood.
We strained our ears again.
That throbbing sound, as Mary had accurately described it, closely
resembling the rythmical running of a locomotive engine heard in the
country on a silent night at a long distance, was now distinctly
audible; but so smooth was the water, so breathless the night, that it
was impossible to tell how far away the vessel might be; for so fine
and delicate a vehicle of sound is the ocean in a calm, that, though
the hull of a steamship might be below the horizon, yet the thumping of
her engines would be heard.
Once more we inclined our ears, holding our breath as we listened.
"It grows louder!" cries the boatswain. "Mr. Royle, bend your
bull's-eye lamp to the end o' one o' the oars and swing it about whilst
I dip this mast-head lantern."
Very different was his manner now from what it had been that morning
when the Russian hove in sight.
I lashed the lamp by the ring of it to an oar and waved it to and fro.
Meanwhile the boatswain had got hold of the mast-head halliards, and
was running the big ship's lantern up and down the mast.
"Mary," I exclaimed, "lift up the seat behind you, and in the left-hand
corner you will find a pistol."
"I have it," she answered, in a few moments.
"Point it over the stern and fire!" I cried.
She levelled the little weapon and pulled the trigger, the white flame
leapt, and a smart report followed.
"Listen now!" I said.
I held the oar steady, and the boatswain ceased to dance the lantern.
For the first few seconds I heard nothing, then my ear caught the
throbbing sound.
"I see her!" cried the boatswain; and following his finger (my sight
being keener than my hearing) I saw not only the shadow of a vessel
down in the south-west, but the smoke from her funnel pouring along the
stars.
"Mary," I cried, "fire again!"
She drew the trigger.
"Again!"
The clear report whizzed like a bullet passed my ears.
Simultaneously with the second report a ball of blue fire shot up into
the sky. Another followed, and another.
A moment after a red light shone clear upon the sea.
"She sees us!" I cried. "God be praised! Mary, darling, she sees us!"
I waved the lamp furiously. But there was no need to wave it any
longer. The red light drew nearer and nearer; the throbbing of the
engines louder and louder, and the revolutions of the propeller sounded
like a pulse beating through the water.
The shadow broadened and loomed larger. I could hear the water spouting
out of her side and the blowing off of the safety-valve.
Soon the vessel grew a defined shape against the stars, and then a
voice, thinned by the distance, shouted, "What light is that?"
I cried to the boatswain, "Answer, for God's sake! My voice is weak."
He hollowed his hands and roared back, "We're shipwrecked seamen
adrift in a quarter-boat!"
Nearer and nearer came the shadow, and now it was a long, black hull, a
funnel pouring forth a dense volume of smoke, spotted with fire-sparks,
and tapering masts and fragile rigging, with the stars running through
them.
"Ease her!"
The sound of the throbbing grew more measured. We could hear the water
as it was churned up by the screw.
"Stop her!"
The sounds ceased, and the vessel came looming up slowly, more slowly,
until she stopped.
"What is that?--a boat?" exclaimed a strong bass voice.
"Yes!" answered the boatswain. "We've been shipwrecked; we're adrift in
a quarter-boat."
"Can you bring her alongside?"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
I threw out an oar, but trembled so violently that it was as much as
I could do to work it. We headed the boat for the steamer, and rowed
towards her. As we approached I perceived that she was very long,
barque-rigged, and raking, manifestly a powerful, iron-built, ocean
steamer. They had hung a red light on the forestay, and a white light
over her port quarter, and lights flitted about her gangway.
A voice sang out, "How many are there of you?"
The boatswain answered, "Three men and a lady!"
On this the same voice called, "If you want help to bring the boat
alongside we'll send to you."
"We'll be alongside in a few minutes," returned the boatswain.
But the fact was the vessel had stopped her engines when further off
from us than we had imagined; being deceived by the magnitude of her
looming hull, which seemed to stand not a hundred fathoms away from us
and by the wonderful distinctness of the voice that had spoken us.
I did not know how feeble I had become until I took the oar, and the
violent emotions excited in me by our rescue now to be effected after
our long and heavy trials, diminished still the little strength that
was left in me, so that the boat moved very slowly through the water,
and it was full twenty minutes, starting from the time when we had
shipped the oars, before we came up with her.
"We'll fling you a rope's end," said a voice; "look out for it."
A line fell into the boat; the boatswain caught it and sang out "All
fast!"
I looked up the high side of the steamer: there was a crowd of men
assembled round the gangway, their faces visible in the light shed
not only by our own mast-head lantern (which was on a level with the
steamer's bulwarks) but by other lanterns which some of them held. In
all this light we, the occupants of the boat, were to be clearly viewed
from the deck; and the voice that had first addressed us said--
"Are you strong enough to get up the ladder? if not we'll sling you on
board."
I answered that if a couple of hands would come down into the boat so
as to help the lady and a man (who had fallen imbecile) over the ship's
side, the other two would manage to get on board without assistance.
On this a short gangway ladder was lowered, and two men descended and
got into the boat.
"Take that lady first," I said, pointing to Mary, but holding on as I
spoke to the boat's mast, for I felt horribly sick and faint, and knew
not, indeed, what was going to happen to me; and I had to exert all my
power to steady my voice.
They took her by the arms, and watching the moment when the wash of the
swell brought the boat against the ship's side, landed her cleverly on
the ladder and helped her on to the deck.
"Bo'sun," I cried huskily, "she ... she is ... saved ... I am dying, I
think.... God bless her! and ... and ... your hand, mate...."
I remember uttering these incoherent words and seeing the boatswain
spring forward to catch me. Then my senses left me with a flash.