Upon entering the saloon and searching for his place, Harry found that,
much to his satisfaction, he had been stationed at the second table,
presided over by the chief officer of the ship--a very genial individual
named O'Toole, hailing from the Emerald Isle--and between that important
personage and his recently-made Peruvian acquaintance, whose name he now
discovered to be John Firmin; while Mr Butler, it appeared, had
contrived to get himself placed at the captain's table, which was
understood to be occupied by the elite of the passengers. With the
serving of the soup Escombe was given a small printed form, which he
examined rather curiously, not quite understanding for the moment what
it meant.
Mr Firmin volunteered enlightenment. "That," he explained, "is an
order form, upon which you write the particular kind of liquid
refreshment--apart from pure water--with which you wish to be served.
You fill it in and hand it to your own particular table steward, who
brings you what you have ordered, and at the end of each week he
presents you with the orders which you have issued, and you are expected
to settle up in spot cash. Very simple, isn't it?"
"Perfectly," agreed Harry. "But supposing that one does not wish to
order anything, what then?"
"You leave the order blank, that is all," answered Firmin. Then
noticing that the lad pushed the form away, he asked: "Are you a
teetotaler?"
"By no means," answered Harry; "I sometimes take a glass of wine or
beer, and very occasionally, when I happen to get wet through or am very
cold, I take a little spirits; but plain or aerated water usually
suffices for me."
"I see," remarked Firmin. He remained silent for a few seconds, then
turning again to Harry, he said: "I wonder if you would consider me very
impertinent if, upon the strength of our extremely brief acquaintance, I
were to offer you a piece of advice?"
"Certainly not," answered Harry. "You are much older and more
experienced than I, Mr Firmin, and have seen a great deal more of the
world than I have; any advice, therefore, that you may be pleased to
give me I shall be most grateful for, and will endeavour to profit by."
"Very well, then," said Firmin, "I will risk it, for I have taken rather
a fancy to you, and would willingly do you a good turn. The advice that
I wish to give you is this. Make a point of eschewing everything in the
nature of alcohol. Have absolutely nothing to do with it. You are
young, strong, and evidently in the best of health; your system has
therefore no need of anything having the character of a stimulant. Nay,
I will go farther than that, and say that you will be very much better,
morally and physically, without it; and even upon the occasions which
you mention of getting wet or cold, a cup of scalding hot coffee,
swallowed as hot as you can take it, will do you far more good than
spirits. I am moved to say this to you, my young friend, because I have
seen so many lads like you insensibly led into the habit of taking
alcohol, and when once that habit is contracted it is more difficult
than you would believe to break it off. I have known many promising
young fellows who have made shipwreck of their lives simply because they
have not possessed the courage and strength of mind to say `no' when
they have been invited to take wine or spirits."
"By the powers, Misther Firmin, ye niver spoke a thruer word in your
life than that same," cut in the chief officer, who had been listening
to what was said. "Whin I was a youngster of about Misther Escombe's
age I nearly lost my life through the dhrink. I was an apprentice at
the time aboard a fine, full-rigged iron clipper ship called the _Joan
of Arc_. We were outward bound, from London to Sydney, full up with
general cargo, and carried twenty-six passengers in the cuddy, and
nearly forty emigrants in the 'tween decks. We had just picked up the
north-east trades, blowing fresh, and the `old man', who was a rare hand
at carrying on, and was eager to break the record, was driving her along
to the south'ard under every rag that we could show to it, including
such fancy fakements as skysails, ringtails, water-sails, and all the
rest of it. It was a fine, clear, starlit night, with just the trade-
clouds driving along overhead, but there was no moon, and consequently,
when an exceptionally big patch of cloud came sweeping up, it fell a bit
dark. Still, there was no danger--or ought to have been none--for we
were well out of the regular track of the homeward-bounders, and in any
case, with a proper look-out, it would have been possible to see another
craft plenty early enough to give her a good wide berth. But after Jack
has got as far south as we then were he is apt to get a bit careless in
the matter of keeping a look-out--trusts rather too much to the officer
of the watch aft, you know, and is not above snatching a cat-nap in the
most comfortable corner he can find, instead of posting himself on the
heel of the bowsprit, with his eyes skinned and searching the sea ahead
of him.
"Now, it happened--although none of us knew it until it was too late--
that our chief mate had rather too strong a liking for rum; not that he
was exactly what you might call a drunkard, you know, but he kept a
bottle in his cabin, and was in the habit of taking a nip just whenever
he felt like it, especially at night time; and on this particular night
that I'm talking about he must have taken a nip too many, for when he
came on deck at midnight to keep the middle watch he hadn't been up
above an hour before he coiled himself down in one of the passenger's
deck-chairs and--went to sleep. Of course, under such circumstances as
those of which I am speaking--the weather being fine and the wind
steady, with no necessity to touch tack or sheet--the watch on deck
don't make any pretence of keeping awake; they're on deck and at hand
all ready for a call if they're needed, and that's as much as is
expected of 'em at night time, since there's no work to be done; and the
consequence was that all hands of us were sound asleep long before the
mate; and there is no doubt that the look-out--who lost his life, poor
chap! through his carelessness--fell asleep too. As to the man at the
wheel, well he is not expected to steer the ship and keep a look-out at
the same time, and, if he was, he couldn't do it, for his eyes soon grow
so dazzled by the light of the binnacle lamps that he can see little or
nothing except the illuminated compass card.
"That, gentlemen, was the state of affairs aboard the _Joan of Arc_ on
the night about which I'm telling ye; the skipper, the passengers, the
second mate, and the watch below all in their bunks; and the rest of us,
those who were on deck and ought to have been broad awake, almost if not
quite as sound asleep as those who were below. I was down on the main
deck, sitting on the planks, with my back propping up the front of the
poop, my arms crossed, and my chin on my chest, dhreaming that I was
back at school in dear old Dublin, when I was startled broad awake by a
shock that sent me sprawling as far for'ard as the coaming of the after-
hatch, to the accompaniment of the most awful crunching, ripping, and
crashing sounds, as the _Joan_ sawed her way steadily into the vitals of
the craft that we had struck. Then, amid the yelling of the awakened
watch, accompanied by muffled shrieks and shouts from below, there arose
a loud twang-twanging as the backstays and shrouds parted under the
terrific strain suddenly thrown upon them, then an ear-splitting crash
as the three masts went over the bows, and I found myself struggling and
fighting to free myself from the raffle of the wrecked mizenmast. I
felt very dazed and queer, and a bit sick, for I was dimly conscious of
the fact that I had been struck on the head by something when the masts
fell, and upon putting up my hand I found that my hair was wet with
something warm that was soaking it and trickling down into my eyes and
ears. Then I heard the voice of the `old man' yelling for the mate and
the carpenter; and as I fought myself clear of the raffle I became aware
of many voices frantically demanding to know what had happened, husbands
calling for their wives, mothers screaming for their children, the sound
of axes being desperately used to clear away the wreck, a sudden awful
wail from somewhere ahead, and a rushing and hissing of water as the
craft that we had struck foundered under our forefoot, and the skipper's
voice again, cracked and hoarse, ordering the boats to be cleared away."
O'Toole paused for a moment and gasped as if for breath; his soup lay
neglected before him, his elbows were on the table, and his two hands
locked together in a grip so tense that the knuckles shone white in the
light that came streaming in through the scuttles in the ship's side,
his eyes were glassy and staring into vacancy with an intensity of gaze
which plainly showed that the whole dreadful scene was again unfolding
itself before his mental vision, and the perspiration was streaming down
his forehead and cheeks. Then the table steward came up, and, removing
his soup, asked him whether he would take cold beef, ham-and-tongue, or
roast chicken. The sound of the man's voice seemed to bring the dazed
chief officer to himself again; he sighed heavily, and as though
relieved to find himself where he was, considered for a moment, and,
deciding in favour of cold beef, resumed his narrative.
"The next thing that I can remember, gentlemen," he continued, "was that
I was on the poop with the skipper, second and third mates, the
carpenter, and a few others, lighting for our lives as we strove to keep
back the frantic passengers and prevent them from interfering with the
hands who were cutting the gripes and working furiously to sling the
boats outboard. We carried four boats at the davits, two on each
quarter, and those were all that were available, for the others were
buried under the raffle and wreckage of the fallen masts, and it would
have taken hours to clear them, with the probability that, when got at,
they would have been found smashed to smithereens, while a blind man
could have told by the feel of the ship that she was settling fast, and
might sink under us at any moment. At last one of the boats was cleared
and ready for lowering, and as many of the women and children as she
would carry were bundled into her, the third mate, two able seamen, and
myself being sent along with them by the skipper to take care of them.
I would willingly have stayed behind, for there were other women and
children--to say nothing of men passengers--to be saved, but I knew that
a certain number of us Jacks must of necessity go in each boat to handle
and navigate her, and there was no time to waste in arguing the matter;
so in I tumbled, just as I was, and the next moment we were rising and
falling in the water alongside, the tackle blocks were cleverly
unhooked, and we out oars and shoved off, pulling to a safe distance and
then lying on our oars to wait for the rest.
"I shall never, to my dying day, forget the look of that ship as we
pulled away from her. The _Joan_ had been as handsome a craft as ever
left the stocks when we hauled out of dock at London some three weeks
earlier; but now--her bows were crumpled in until she was as flat
for'ard as the end of a sea-chest; her decks were lumbered high with the
wreckage of her masts and spars; the standing and running rigging was
hanging down over her sides in bights; and she had settled so low in the
water that her channels were already buried; while her poop was crowded
with madly struggling figures, from which arose a confused babel of
sound--shouting, screaming, and cursing--than which I have never heard
anything more awful in all my life.
"When we had pulled off about fifty fathoms the third mate, who was in
charge of the boat, ordered us to lie upon our oars; and presently we
saw that the second quarter-boat was being lowered. She reached the
water all right, and then we heard the voice of the second mate yelling
to the hands on deck to let run the after tackle. The next moment, as
the sinking ship rolled heavily to starboard, we saw the stern of the
lowered boat lifted high out of the water, the bow dipped under, and in
a second, as it seemed, she had swamped, and the whole load of people,
some twenty in number, were struggling and drowning alongside as they
strove ineffectually to scramble back into the swamped boat, which had
now by some chance become released from the tackle that had held her.
"For a moment we, in the boat that had got safely away, sat staring,
dumb and paralysed with horror at the dreadful scene that was enacting
before our eyes. But the next moment those of us who were at the oars
started madly backing and pulling to swing the boat round and pull in to
the help of the poor wretches who were perishing only a few fathoms away
from us. We had hardly got the boat round, however, when Mr Gibson,
the third mate, gave the order for us to hold water.
"`We mustn't do it,' he said. `The boat is already loaded as deep as
she will swim, and the weight of even one more person would suffice to
swamp her! As it is, it will take us all our time, and tax our
seamanship to the utmost, to keep her afloat; you can see for yourselves
that it would be impossible for us to squeeze more than one additional
person in among us, and, even if we had the room, we could not get that
one in over the gunnel without swamping the craft. To attempt such a
thing would therefore only be to throw away uselessly the lives of all
of us; we must therefore stay where we are, and endure the awful sight
as best we can--ah, there you have a hint of what will happen if we are
not careful!'--as the boat, lying broadside-on to the sea, rolled
heavily and shipped three or four bucketfuls of water--`pull, starboard,
and get her round stem-on to the sea; and you, O'Toole, get hold of the
baler and dish that water out of her.'
"It was true, every word of it, as a child might have had sense to see.
We could do absolutely nothing to help the poor wretches who were
drowning there before our very eyes; and in a few minutes all was over,
so far as they were concerned. Two or three men, I believe, managed to
get back aboard the sinking ship by climbing up the davit tackles; but
the rest quickly drowned--as likely as not because they clung to each
other and pulled each other down.
"But the plight of those aboard the _Joan_ was rapidly becoming
desperate; and we could see that they knew it by observing the frantic
efforts which they were making to get the other two boats into the
water. We could distinctly hear the voice of the skipper rising from
time to time above the clamour, urging the people to greater efforts,
encouraging one, cautioning another, entreating the maddened passengers
to keep back and give the crew room to work. Then, in the very midst of
it all there came a dull boom as the decks blew up. We heard the loud
hissing of the compressed air as it rushed out between the gaping deck
planks; there arose just one awful wail--the sound of which will haunt
me to my dying day--and with a long, sliding plunge the _Joan_ lurched
forward and dived, bows first, to the bottom.
"As for us, we could do nothing but just keep our boat head-on to the
sea and let her drift, humouring and coaxing her as best we could when
an extra heavy sea appeared bearing down upon us, and baling for dear
life continuously to keep her free of the water that, in spite of us,
persisted in slapping into her over the bows. The Canaries were the
nearest bits of dry land to us, but Mr Jellicoe, the third mate,
reckoned that they were a good hundred and fifty miles away, and dead to
wind'ard; so it was useless for us to think of reaching them in a boat
with her gunnels awash, and not a scrap of food or a drop of fresh water
in her. The only thing that we could do was to exert our utmost
endeavours to keep the craft afloat, and trust that Providence would
send something along soon to pick us up. But--would you believe it?--
although we were right in the track of the outward-bound ships, and
although we sighted nine sailing craft and three steamers, nothing came
near enough to see us, lying low in the water as we were, until the
ninth day, when we were picked up by a barque bound for Cape Town. But
by that time, gentlemen, Mr Jellicoe, one seaman, and I were all that
remained alive of the boatload that shoved off from the stricken _Joan
of Arc_ on that fatal night. Don't ask me by what means we contrived to
keep the life in us for so long a time, for I won't tell you. Thus you
see that, of the complete complement of ninety-two persons who left
London in the _Joan of Arc_, eighty-nine were drowned--to say nothing of
those aboard the craft that we had run down--because the mate couldn't--
or wouldn't--control his love of drink. Since that day, gentlemen,
coffee is the strongest beverage that has ever passed my lips."
"I am delighted to hear it," remarked Firmin, "for observation has led
me to the conviction that at least half the tragedies of human life have
originated in the craving for intoxicants; and therefore,"--turning to
Escombe--"I say again, my young friend, have absolutely nothing to do
with them. I have no doubt that, ere you have been long in Peru, you
will have made the discovery that it is a thirsty country; but, apart of
course from pure water, there is nothing better for quenching one's
thirst than fresh, sound, perfectly ripe fruit, failing which, tea, hot
or cold--the latter for preference--without milk, and with but a small
quantity of sugar, will be found hard to beat. Now, if you are anxious
for hints, there is one of absolutely priceless value for you; but I
present it you free, gratis, and for nothing."
"Thanks very much!" returned Harry. "I will bear it in mind and act
upon it. No more intoxicants for me, thank you. Mr O'Toole, accept my
thanks for telling us that terrible story of your shipwreck. It has
brought home to me, as nothing else has ever done, the awful danger of
tampering with so insidious an enemy as alcohol, which I now solemnly
abjure for ever."
Meanwhile, at the captain's table, Mr Butler was expressing his opinion
upon various subjects in loud, strident tones, and with a
disputatiousness of manner that caused most of those about him mentally
to dub him a blatant cad, and to resolve that they would have as little
as possible to do with him.
One afternoon, when the _Rimac_ had reached the other side of the
Atlantic, Butler called Harry into the cabin of the former and said: "I
understand that we shall be at Montevideo the day after to-morrow. Now
I want you to understand that I shall expect you not to go on shore
either at Montevideo or either of the other places that the _Rimac_ will
be stopping at. She will only remain at anchor at any of these places
for a few hours; and if you were to go on shore it would be the easiest
thing in the world for you to get lost and to miss your passage;
therefore in order to obviate any such possibility I have decided not to
allow you to leave the ship. Do you understand?"
"Yes," answered Escombe, "I understand perfectly, Mr Butler, what you
mean. But I certainly do not understand by what authority you attempt
to interfere with my personal liberty to the extent of forbidding me to
go on shore for a few hours when the opportunity presents itself. I
agreed with Sir Philip Swinburne to accompany you to Peru as your
assistant upon the survey which he has engaged you to make; and from the
moment when that survey commences I will render you all the obedience
and deference due to you as my superior, and will serve you to the best
of my ability. But it was no part of my contract that I should
surrender my liberty to you during the outward and homeward voyage; and
when it comes to your forbidding me to leave the ship until our arrival
at Callao, you must permit me to say that I feel under no obligation to
defer to your wishes. And, quite apart from that, I may as well tell
you that I have already accepted an invitation to accompany Mr and Mrs
Westwood and a party ashore at Montevideo, and I see no reason why I
should withdraw my acceptance."
"W-h-a-t!" screamed Butler; "do I understand that you are daring to
disobey and defy me?"
"Certainly not, sir," answered Harry, "because, as I understand it,
disobedience and defiance are impossible where no authority exists; and
I beg to remind you that your authority over me begins only upon our
arrival at Callao. Yet, purely as a matter of courtesy, I am of course
not only prepared but perfectly willing to show all due deference to
such reasonable wishes as you may choose to express. But I reserve to
myself the right of determining where the line shall be drawn."
"Very well, sir," stuttered Butler, "I am glad to learn thus early what
sort of behaviour I may expect from you. I shall write home at once to
Sir Philip, reporting to him what has passed between us, and requesting
him to send me out someone to take your place--someone who can be
depended upon to render me implicit obedience at all times." And
therewith he whirled about and marched off to his own cabin, where, with
the heat of his anger still upon him, he sat down and penned to Sir
Philip Swinburne a very strong letter of complaint of what he was
pleased to term young Escombe's "insolently insubordinate language and
behaviour". As for Harry, Butler's threat to report him to Sir Philip
furnished him with a very valuable hint as to the wisest thing to do
under the circumstances, and he too lost no time in addressing an
epistle to Sir Philip, giving his own version of the affair.
Thenceforward Butler pointedly ignored young Escombe's existence for the
remainder of the voyage; but by doing so he only made matters still more
unpleasant for himself, for his altercation with Harry had been
overheard by certain of the passengers, and by them repeated to the
rest, with the final result that Butler was promptly consigned to
Coventry, and left there by the whole of the saloon passengers.
Harry duly went ashore with his friends at Montevideo and--having first
posted his letter to Sir Philip and another to his mother and sister--
went out with them by train to Bellavista, where they all enjoyed vastly
the little change from the monotony of life at sea, returning in the
nick of time to witness a violent altercation between Butler and the
boatman who brought him off from the shore. Also Harry went ashore for
an hour or two at Punta Arenas, in the Straits of Magellan; and again at
Valparaiso and Arica; finally arriving at Callao something over a month
from the day upon which he sailed from London.