Cornish had stowed the mizzen-royal by the time we had reached the
deck, and when he joined us we clewed up the fore top-gallant sail, so
that we might hand that sail when we had done with the royal.
I found this man quite civil and very willing, and in my opinion he
spoke honestly when he declared that he had rather be with us than in
the long-boat.
The lightning was growing more vivid upon the horizon; that is, when
I looked in that direction from the towering height of the fore-royal
yard; and it jagged and scored with blue lines the great volume and
belt of cloud that hung to the sea. The wind had slightly freshened,
but still it remained a very gentle breeze, and urged the ship
noiselessly through the water.
The stars were few and languishing as you may sometimes have seen them
on a summer's night in England when the air is sultry and the night
dull and thunderous. All the horizon round was lost in gloom, save
where the lightning threw out at swift intervals the black water-line
against the gleaming background of cloud.
When we again reached the deck we were rather scant of breath, and I,
being unused of late to this kind of exercise, felt the effects of it
more than the others.
However, if it was going to blow a gale of wind as the glass
threatened, it was very advisable that we should shorten sail now that
it was calm; for assuredly three men, even though working for their
lives as we were, would be utterly useless up aloft when once the
weather got bad.
We went into the cuddy and took all three of us a sup of rum to give us
life, and I then said, "Shall we turn to and snug away aft since we are
here?"
They agreed; so we went on the poop and let go the mizzen top-gallant
and topsail halliards, roused out the reef-tackles, and went aloft,
where we first stowed the top-gallant sail, and then got down upon the
topsail-yard.
It was a hard job tying in all three reefs, passing the earrings and
hauling the reef-bands taut along the yard; but we managed to complete
the job in about half an hour.
Miss Robertson remained at the wheel all this time, and the steward was
useful on deck to let go any ropes which we found fast.
"It pains me," I said to the girl, "to see you standing here. I know
you are worn out, and I feel to be acting a most unmanly part in
allowing you to have your way."
"You cannot do without me. Why do you want to make your crew smaller in
number than it is?" she answered, smiling with the light reflected from
the compass card upon her face. "Look at the lightning over there! I'm
sailor enough to know that our masts would be broken if the wind struck
the ship with all this sail upon her. And what is _my_ work--idly
standing here--compared to yours--you, who have already done so much,
and are still doing the work of many men?"
"You argue too well for my wishes. I want you to agree with me."
"Whom have you to take my place here?"
"Only the steward."
"He cannot steer, Mr. Royle; and I assure you the ship wants watching."
I laughed at this nautical language in her sweet mouth, and said--
"Well, you shall remain here a little while longer."
"One thing," she exclaimed, "I will ask you to do--to look into our
cabin and see if papa wants anything."
I ran below and peeped into the cabin. She had already lighted the lamp
belonging to it, and so I was able to see that the old gentleman was
asleep. I procured some brandy-and-water and biscuit and also a chair,
and returned on deck.
"Your father is asleep," said I, "so you may make your mind easy
about him. Here are some refreshments--and see, if I put this chair
here you can sit and hold the wheel steady with one hand. There is no
occasion to remain on your feet. Keep that star yonder--right over
the yard-arm," pointing it out to her. "That is as good a guide as the
compass for the time being. We need only keep the sails full. I can
shape no course as yet, though we shall haul round the moment we have
stripped more canvas off her."
I now heard the voices of Cornish and the boatswain right away far out
in the darkness ahead, and running forward on to the forecastle, I
found them stowing the flying jib.
To save time I let go the outer and inner jib-halliards, and, with
the assistance of the steward, hauled these sails down. He and I also
clewed up the main top-gallant-sail, took the main tack and sheet to
the winch and got them up, rounded up the leechlines and buntlines as
well as we could, and then belayed and went forward again. I let go the
fore-topsail halliards and took the ends of the reef-tackles to the
capstan, and whilst the two others were tackling the outer jib, the
steward and I hauled down the main-topmast staysail, and snugged it as
best we could in the netting.
These tasks achieved, I got upon the bowsprit, and gave the two men a
hand to stow the jibs.
"Now mates," I cried, "let's get upon the fore-topsail yard and see
what we can do there."
And up we went, and in three quarters of an hour, with the help of
a jigger, we had hauled out the earrings and tied every blessed
reef-point in the sail.
But this was the finishing touch to our strength, and Cornish was so
exhausted that I had to help him over the top down the fore rigging.
We had indeed accomplished wonders: close-reefed two of the three
topsails, stowed the three jibs, the three royals, two top-gallant
sails and staysails. Our work was rendered three times harder than it
need have been by the darkness; we had to fumble and grope, and, by
being scarcely able to see each other, we found it extremely difficult
to work in unison; so that, instead of hauling altogether, we hauled
at odd times, and rendered our individual strength ineffectual, when,
could we have collectively exerted it, we should have achieved our
purpose easily.
"I must sit down for a spell, sir," said Cornish. "I can't do no more
work yet."
"If we could only get that top-gallant sail off her," I exclaimed,
looking longingly up at it. But all the same, I felt that a whole
regiment of bayonets astern of me could not have urged me one inch up
the shrouds.
We dragged our weary limbs aft and squatted ourselves near the wheel, I
for one being scarcely able to stand.
"Mr. Royle," said Miss Robertson, "will you and the others go down into
the cabin and get some sleep? I will keep watch, and promise faithfully
to wake you the moment I think necessary."
"Bo'sun," I exclaimed, "do you hear that? Miss Robertson wants us to
turn in. She will keep watch, she says, and call us if a gale comes!"
"God bless her!" said the boatswain. "I called her a wonder just now,
and I'll call her a wonder again. So she is! and though she hears me
speak, and may think me wantin' in good manners, I'll say this--an'
tired as I am I'd fight the man now as he stood who'd contradict
me--that she's just one o' the best--mind, Jim, I say the best--o' the
werry properest kind o' gals as God Almighty ever made, a regular real
woman to the eye, and a sailor in her heart. And by the livin' Moses,
Jim, if you can tell me now to my face that you would ha' let her sink
in this here wessel, I'll chuck you overboard, you willin! so say it!"
"I don't want to say it," muttered Cornish, penitentially. "I never
thought o' the lady. I forgot she were on board. Mr. Bo'sun, don't
say no more about it, please. I've done my duty I hope, Mr. Royle.
I've worked werry hard considerin' my bad wrist. I'd liefer fight for
the lady than agin her, now that I see wot she's made of. 'Bygones is
bygones,' as the cock as had his eye knocked out in a fight said, when
he looked about and couldn't see nothen of it; and if you call me a
willin, well and good; I'll not arguey, for I dare say you ain't fur
wrong, mate."
"Mr. Royle, you have not answered me. Will you and the others lie down
and sleep whilst I watch?"
"Not yet, Miss Robertson. By-and-by, perhaps. We have more work before
us, and are only resting. Steward!"
He came from behind the companion, where I think he had fallen asleep.
"Yes, Mr. Royle, sir."
"Cut below and mix all hands a jug of brandy-and-water, and bring some
biscuits. Here, bo'sun, is some tobacco. Smoke a pipe. Fire away,
Cornish. It's more soothing than sleep, mates."
"The lightning's growin' rayther powerful," said the boatswain, looking
astern as he loaded his pipe.
"Don't it look as if it wur settin' away to the eastards?" exclaimed
Cornish.
"No," I replied, watching the lurid gleams lighting up the piled-up
clouds. "It's coming after us dead on end, though slowly enough."
I pulled out my watch and held it close to the binnacle.
"Half-past two!" I cried, amazed at the passage of time. "Upon my word,
I didn't think it was twelve o'clock yet. Miss Robertson, I know I
cannot induce you to go below; but you must allow me to relieve you for
a spell at the wheel. I can sit and steer as well as you. You'll find
this grating comfortable."
Saying which I pulled out some flags from the locker, made a kind of
cushion for her back, and I then took her chair, keeping the wheel
steady with my foot.
There was less wind than there had been half an hour before; enough to
give the vessel steerage-way, and that was all.
We were heading S.E., the wind, or what there was of it, upon the
port-quarter. There was every promise of a calm falling again, and
this I should not have minded, nor the lightning either, which might
well have been the play of a passing thunderstorm, had it not been for
the permanent depression of the mercury.
The air was very warm, but less oppressive than it had been; the sea
black and even, and the heavens with a stooping, murky aspect.
It was some comfort to me, however, to look aloft, and see the amount
of canvas we had taken off the ship. If we could only manage to pull
up our strength again, we might still succeed in furling the main
top-gallant sail, and reefing the topsail before change of weather came.
The steward made his appearance with the spirits and biscuit; and Miss
Robertson went below, whispering to me as she passed, that she wished
to look at her father, and that she would return in a few minutes.
"Now that the lady's gone, Mr. Royle," exclaimed the boatswain as soon
as she had left the deck, "let's talk over our situation, and think
what's to be done."
The steward squatted himself on his hams like a coolie, and posed
himself in an attitude of eager attention.
"Quite right, bo'sun," I replied. "I have been thinking during the time
we have been at work, and will tell you what my plans are. At noon
yesterday--that will be fifteen hours ago--the Bermuda Islands bore as
true as a hair west-half-south. We hove to with the ship's head to the
norrard and westward, and made some way at that, and taking the run
we have made to-night, I allow that if we head the ship west by north
we shall make the islands, with anything like a breeze, some time on
Monday morning."
"But, if we're just off the coast of Florida," said Cornish, "why
couldn't we turn to and run for the West Indie Islands?"
"Which is nearest, I wonders," exclaimed the boatswain, "the West
Hindie Islands or the kingdom of Jericho?"
"It's 'ardly a time for jokin'," remonstrated the steward.
"I don't know that I said anything funny," observed Cornish, warmly.
"Well, then, wot do you mean by talking o' the West Hindie Islands?"
cried the boatswain.
"Wot do I mean?" retorted the other; "why, wot I says. Here we are off
the coast of Floridy----"
"Off the coast o' your grandmother! Shut up, mate, and let Mr. Royle
speak. You know nothen about it."
"The Bermudas are nearer to hand than the West Indies," I continued,
not choosing to explain. "What we have to do, then, the moment we can
use our legs, is to haul the ship round. How is the wind now? N.N.W.
Well, she will lie properly. And as soon as ever it comes daybreak, we
must run up a signal of distress, and keep it flying. What more can we
do?"
"I suppose," said the boatswain, doubtfully, sucking so hard at his
pipe that it glowed like a steamer's red light under his nose, "you
wouldn't like to wenture on a run to the English Channel, Mr. Royle?
It would be airning some kind o' fame, and perhaps a trifle o' money
from the owners, if it wur to git about that three hands--well, I'll
ax the steward's pardon, and say four--that four hands brought this
here blessed ship and her walleyable cargo out o' a rigular knock-down
mutiny, all aways up the Atlantic Ocean, into the Henglish Channel, and
landed her safe in the West Hindie Docks. I never see my name in print
in my life----"
"What's your true name, Mr. Bo'sun?" inquired the steward.
"Joshua, or Jo Forward, young feller; sometimes called Forrard,
sometimes Jo, and on Sundays Mister."
"I know a Forward as lives at Blackwall," said the steward.
"Do yer? Well, then, now you knows two. Wot I was sayin', Mr. Royle,
was, I never see my name in print in my life, and I should like to see
it regular wrote down in the newspapers. Lloyd's is always my weekly
pennorth ashore."
He knocked the hot ashes into the palm of his hand, scrutinised it
earnestly to see that there was no tobacco left in it, and tossed it
away.
"A good deal, sir," said the steward, in a thin voice, "is to be said
about the lady we saved. The saving of her alone, would make 'eros of
us in the public mind."
"Wot do you call us--'eros?" exclaimed the boatswain.
"Yes, sir, 'eros!"
"What's the meaning of that word, Mr. Royle?--any relation to earwigs?"
"He means heroes," I replied. "Don't you, steward?"
"I did more than mean it--I said it, sir," exclaimed the steward.
"That's how the Chaneymen talk, and quarrel with you for not followin'
of their sense. Wot do you think of my notion, Jim, of sailin' this
wessel to England?" said the boatswain.
Cornish made no answer. I saw him, in the pale light diffused around
the binnacle, wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, and shift
uneasily on his seat. I could scarcely wonder that the boatswain's idea
should make him feel uncomfortable.
"Your scheme," said I, "would be a capital one providing that every
man of us four had six hands and six legs, and the strength of three
big Johnsons, that we could do without sleep, and split ourselves into
pieces whenever we had occasion to reef topsails. But, as I am only
capable of doing one man's work, and require rest like other weakly
mortals, I must tell you plainly that I for one should be very sorry to
undertake to work this ship to the English Channel, unless you would
guarantee that by dawn this morning we should receive a draft of at
least six men out of a passing vessel."
"Well, well," said the boatswain, "it was only a thought; and I don't
say it is to be done."
"Not to be thought on--much less done," exclaimed Cornish.
"Don't be too sartin, friend," retorted the boatswain, turning smartly
on him. "'Where there's a will there's a way,' wos a sayin' when I was
a lad."
"If it comes on to blow," I put in, "it may take us all we can do to
fetch Bermuda. Don't dream of aiming for a further port."
At this moment Miss Robertson returned. I asked her how she had found
her father, and she replied, in a low voice, that he was sleeping, but
that his breathing was very faint and uncertain, and that he sometimes
talked in his sleep.
She could not disguise her anxiety, and I entreated her to go below and
watch him and rest herself as well; but she answered that she would not
leave the deck until I had finished taking in sail and doing what was
necessary.
"You cannot tell me that I am not of use," she added. "I will steer
whilst you work, and if you wish to sleep I will watch for you. Why
should I not do so? I can benefit papa more by helping you to save
the ship than by leaving you to work alone while I sit with him. I
pray God," she said, in her sweet, low, troubled voice, "that all may
go well with us. But I have been so near to death that it scarcely
frightens me now. Tell me what to do and I will do it--though for your
sake alone, as you would have sacrificed your life for mine. I owe you
what I can never repay--and how kind, how gentle, how good you have
been to my father and me!"
She spoke in so low a voice that it was impossible for any one to hear
her but myself; and so greatly did her words effect me--I, who had now
learnt to love her, who could indeed have died a hundredfold over for
her dear sake, that I dared not trust myself to speak. Had I spoken I
should have said what I was sure she would have disliked to hear from
a rough sailor like me: nay, I even turned away from her that I might
be silent, recoiling from my own heart's language that seemed but an
impertinence, an unfair obtrusion of claims which, even though she
admitted them by speaking of my having saved her life, I should have
been unmanly to assert.
I quickly recovered myself, and said, forcing a laugh--
"You are as bad a mutineer as the others. But as you will not obey me,
I must obey you."
And looking for some moments at the ponderous bank of cloud in the
north-west, of which the gathering brightness and intensity of the
lightning was illustrating its steady approach, I exclaimed--
"Are we strong enough to turn to, mates?"
"We can douse that top-gallant sail, I dare say," answered the
boatswain. "Up on your pins, steward."
And we trooped along to the main-deck.
The spell of rest, and perhaps the grog, not to mention the tobacco,
had done us no harm; the three of us went aloft, carrying the jigger
with us which we left in the main-top, and furled the top-gallant sail,
if not in man-of-war fashion and with a proper harbour bunt, at all
events very securely.
But the main-topsail was another matter. All three of us had to lay out
to windward to haul taut one earring; then skim along to the other end
of the yard to the other earring; and so up and down, and still more
reef-points and still more earrings, until my legs and fingers ached.
This job over, we rested ourselves in the main-top, and then got upon
the main-yard, and made shift to pass the yard-arm gaskets round the
sail and stow it after a fashion, though I had no doubt that the first
gale of wind that struck it would blow it clear of its lashings in a
minute.
Then on deck again with the main-topsail halliards to the capstan; and
the dawn found the ship under three close-reefed topsails, foresail,
and fore-topmast staysail, the whole of the other canvas having been
reefed and stowed by three worn-out men, one of whom had been pretty
nearly knocked up by the fight with the mutineers, the second of whom
was fresh from an imprisonment of three days in a close, stifling, and
rat-swarming coal-hole, whilst the third had received such a crack
on his wrist as would have sent any man but an English sailor to his
hammock and kept him ill and groaning for a month.
END OF VOL. II.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS,
STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
Transcriber's Notes:
Cover and Table of Contents created by Transcriber and placed in the
Public Domain.
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in the three volumes of this novel, or to remedy
simple typographical errors; otherwise they were not changed.
Dialect and other non-standard spellings have not been changed.
Spaces before the contraction "'ll" (for "will") have been retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines have been retained.
Page 82: "Sailors don't no nothing" is printed as "know" in a different
edition of this book.
Page 203: The closing quotation mark after "of them? He didn't
understand." perhaps should be after "of them?"