A VERY TRYING EXPERIENCE
"Stop her! Stop the boat, quick! Bonny is overboard" shouted Alaric,
frantically, as he realized the nature of the catastrophe that had just
occurred through his awkwardness. As he shouted he sprang to the
jib-halyard, and, casting it off, allowed the sail to come down by the
run, his sole idea of checking the headway of a sailing craft being to
reduce her canvas.
He was about to let go both throat and peak halyards, and so bring down
the big main-sail also, when, with a bellow of rage and a marvellous
disregard of his lameness, Captain Duff rushed forward and snatched the
ropes from the lad's hands.
"You thundering blockhead!" he roared. "What d'ye mean by lowering a
sail without orders? H'ist it again! H'ist it, d'ye hear?"
"But Bonny is overboard!" cried Alaric.
"And you want to leave him to drown, do ye? Don't ye know that if he's
alive he's drifted astarn by this time? Ef you had any sense you'd be
out in the dinghy looking fur him."
Alaric knew that the dinghy was the small boat towing behind the sloop,
for he had heard the young mate call it by that name, and now he needed
no further hint as to his duty. He had pushed Bonny overboard, and he
must save him if that might still be done. If not, he was careless of
what happened to himself. Nothing could be worse than, or so bad as, to
go through life with the knowledge that he had caused the death of a
fellow-being--one, too, whom he had already come to regard as a dear
friend.
Thus thinking, he ran aft, cast loose the painter of the dinghy, drew
the boat to the sloop's stern, and, dropping into it, drifted away in
the darkness. He had never rowed a boat, nor even handled a pair of
oars, but he had seen others do so, and imagined that it was easy
enough.
It is not often that a first lesson of this kind is taken alone, at
midnight, amid the tossing waters of an open sea, and it could not have
happened now but for our poor lad's pitiful ignorance of all forms of
athletics, including those in which every boy should be instructed.
Without a thought for himself, nor even a comprehension of his own
peril, Alaric fitted the oars that he found in the bottom of the boat to
their row-locks, and began to pull manfully in what he supposed was the
proper direction. He pulled first with one oar and then with the other;
then making a wild stroke with both oars that missed the water entirely,
he tumbled over backwards. Recovering himself, he prepared more
cautiously for a new effort, and this time, instead of beating the air,
thrust his oars almost straight down in the water. Then one entered it,
while the other, missing it by a foot or so, flew back and struck him a
violent blow.
Up to this time the lad had kept up a constant shouting of "Bonny! Oh,
Bonny!" or "Hello, Bonny!" but that blow bereft him of so much breath
that for a minute he had none left with which to shout.
Now, too, for the first time, he gained a vague idea of his own perilous
situation. There was nothing in sight and nothing to be heard save the
ceaseless dashing of waters and a melancholy moaning of wind. The sky
was so overcast that not even a star could extend to him a cheery ray of
light. The boy's heart sank, and he made another attempt at a shout, as
much to raise his own spirits as with any hope of being heard. Only a
husky cry resulted, for his voice was choked, and he again strove to
row, with the thought that any form of action would be better than
idleness amid such surroundings.
If his oars seemed vicious before, they were doubly so now that he was
wearied, and they stubbornly resisted his efforts to make them work as
he knew they could and ought. At length he let go of one of them for an
instant, while he wiped the trickling perspiration from his eyes. The
moment it was released, the provoking bit of wood, as though possessed
of a malicious instinct, slid from its rowlock, dropped into the water,
and floated away. Alaric made a wild but ineffectual clutch after it
that allowed a quantity of water to slop into the boat, and gave him the
idea that it was sinking.
With an access of terror the poor lad sprang to his feet, and, forgetful
of the object that had brought him into his present situation, screamed:
"Bonny! Oh, Bonny! Save me! Don't leave me here to drown!"
Then a spiteful wave so buffeted the boat that he was toppled over and
fell sprawling in the bottom. That was the blackest and most despairing
moment of his life; but even as it came to him he fancied he heard a
whispered answer to his call, and lifted his head to listen. Yes, he
heard it again, so faint and uncertain that it might be only the mocking
scream of some sea-bird winging a swift flight through the blackness.
Still the idea filled him with hope, and he called again with a cry so
shrill and long-drawn that its intensity almost frightened him. Now the
echoing hail was certain, and it came to him with the unmistakable
accents of a human voice.
Again he shouted: "Bonny! Oh, Bonny!" and again came the answer, this
time much nearer:
"Hello, Rick Dale! Hello!"
"Hello, Bonny! Hello!"
How could it be that Bonny had kept himself afloat so long? What
wonderful powers of endurance he must possess! How should he reach him?
There was but a single oar left, and surely no one could propel a boat
with one oar. He tried awkwardly to paddle, but after a few seconds of
fruitless labor gave this up in despair. What could he do? Must he sit
there idle, knowing that his friend was drowning within sound of his
voice, and for want of the aid that he could give if he only knew how?
It was horrible and yet inevitable. He was helpless. Once more was his
own peril forgotten, and his sole distress was for his friend. Again he
shouted, with the energy of despair:
"Bonny! Oh, Bonny! Can't you get to me? I'm in a boat."
Then came something so startling and so astonishing that he was almost
petrified with amazement. Instead of a weak, despairing answer, coming
from a long distance, there sounded a cheery hail from close at hand:
"All right, old man! I'm coming. Cheer up."
What had happened? Was his friend endowed with supernatural powers that
enabled him to traverse the sea at will?
Alaric gazed about him on all sides, almost doubting the evidence of his
senses. Then, with a flutter of canvas and a rush of water from under
her bows, the tall form of the sloop loomed out of the blackness almost
beside him.
"Sing out, Rick. Where are you?"
"Here I am. Oh, Bonny, is it you?"
"Yes, of course. Look out! Catch this line."
The end of a rope came whizzing over the boat, and Alaric, catching it,
held on tightly. He was seated on the middle thwart, and the moment a
strain came on the line the boat turned broadside to it, heeled until
water began to pour in over her gunwale, and Alaric, unable to hold on
an instant longer, let go his hold.
He heard an exclamation of "Thundering lubber!" in Captain Duff's voice,
and then the sloop was again lost to sight.
Again Alaric was in despair, though he could still hear the shouting of
orders and a confused slatting of sails. After a little the sloop was
put about, and a shouting to determine the locality of the drifting boat
was recommenced. Still it seemed to Alaric a tedious while before she
approached him for a second time, and Bonny once more sung out to him to
stand by and catch a line.
"Make it fast in the bow this time," he called, as he flung the coil of
rope.
Again Alaric succeeded in catching it, and, obeying instructions, he
scrambled into the bow of the boat, where he knelt and clung to the line
for dear life, not knowing how to make it fast.
In a moment there came a jerk that very nearly pulled him overboard; and
the boat, with its bow low in the water from his weight, while its stern
was in the air, took a wild sheer to one side. Again water poured in
until she was nearly swamped, and again was the line torn from Alaric's
grasp.
"You blamed idiot!" roared Captain Duff. "You don't desarve to be saved!
I'll give ye just one more try, and ef you don't fetch the sloop that
time we'll leave ye to navigate on your own hook."
As the previous manoeuvres were repeated for a third time, poor
Alaric, sitting helplessly in his waterlogged dinghy, shivered with
apprehension. How could he hold on to that cruel line that seemed only
fitted to drag him to destruction? This time it took longer to find him,
and he was hoarse with shouting before the _Fancy_ again approached.
"He don't know enough to do anything with a line, Cap'n Duff," said
Bonny. "So if you'll throw the sloop into the wind and heave her to,
I'll bring the boat alongside."
With this, and without waiting for an answer, the plucky young sailor,
who had already divested himself of most of his clothing, sprang into
the black waters and swam towards the vaguely discerned boat. In another
minute he had gained her, clambered in, and was asking the amazed
occupant for the other oar.
"It's lost overboard," replied Alaric, gloomily, feeling that the case
was now more desperate than ever. "Oh, Bonny! Why--?"
"Never mind," cried the other, cheerily. "I can scull, and that will
answer just as well as rowing. Perhaps better, for I can see where we
are headed."
Alaric had deemed it impossible to propel a boat with a single oar; but
now, to his amazement, Bonny sculled the dinghy ahead almost as rapidly
as he could have rowed. The sloop was out of sight, but the flapping of
her sails could be plainly heard, and five minutes later the young mate
laid his craft alongside.
Captain Duff was too angry for words, and fortunately too busy in
getting his vessel on her course to pay any attention just then to the
lad whose awkwardness and ignorance had caused all this trouble and
delay.
"Skip for'ard," said Bonny, in a low tone, "and I'll come directly."
As Alaric, with a thankful heart, obeyed this injunction, he marvelled
at the size and steadiness of the sloop, and wondered how he could ever
have thought her small or unstable.
A few minutes later Bonny, only half dressed, joined him, and said, "If
you'll lend me your trousers, old man, you can turn in for the rest of
the night, and I'll stand your watch; mine are too wet to put on just
yet, and I think you'll be safer below than on deck, anyway."
Like a person in a dream, and without asking one of the many questions
suggesting themselves, Alaric obeyed. Earlier in that most eventful day
he had regarded that dark and stuffy forecastle with disgust, and vowed
he would never sleep in it. Now, as he snuggled shivering between the
blankets of the first mate's own bunk, it seemed to him one of the
coziest, warmest, and most comfortable sleeping-apartments he had ever
known.