Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
Picked up at Sea; or, The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek, by John Conroy
Hutcheson.
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This is good book, well written, and interesting throughout. It starts
off at sea, aboard the Susan Jane, when a piece of floating wreckage is
seen. A body is found on it, that of a boy of fifteen or so, badly
injured, and struck dumb, and apparently unaware of what is going on.
Yet when Seth, one of the men on board, is in danger, the boy springs to
his aid. When they get to America it is time for the vessel to have a
full refit, so some of the crew and the only passenger, Mr Rawlings,
together with the boy, now known as Sailor Bill, go off to work a mine
that Rawlings has bought.
Eventually, after all sorts of adventures and misadventures, the boy
recovers his senses, and recognises a man and a dog in the camp as old
family friends. The dog, of course, had previously mystified the camp
by apparently recognising the boy, but this had been put down to a doggy
sympathy with those not so well mentally endowed.
The mine is successful, and all go home as wealthy as they could wish.
Here we are working from the first edition, while some later editions
had only the above story. There are actually three further stories, all
with a nautical flavour, but totalling only half the length of the first
story. They are also interesting, and it is sad that they got left out
from those later editions. You will enjoy them, either to read or
in the spoken form.
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PICKED UP AT SEA; OR, THE MINERS OF MINTURNE CREEK, BY JOHN CONROY
HUTCHESON.
STORY ONE, CHAPTER ONE.
THE GOLD-MINERS OF MINTURNE CREEK.
THE "SUSAN JANE."
"Sail-ho on the weather-bow!"
"What do you make it?"
"Looks like a ship's mast, with the yard attached, and a man a-holding
on to it and hailing us for help--leastways, that's what it seems to
me!"
"Jerusalem! On the weather-bow, you say? Can we forereach him on this
tack?"
"I reckon we can jist about do it, boss, if you put the helm up a bit
kinder nearer the wind," drawled out the lookout from his post of
observation in the main-top, where he had stopped a moment on catching
sight of the object floating in the water ahead of the vessel, as he
was coming down from aloft after restowing the bunt of the
main-topgallantsail that had blown loose from its lashings.
The _Susan Jane_ of and for Boston, Massachusetts, with a cargo from
London, had been caught at the outset of her passage across the Atlantic
by what her American skipper termed "a pretty considerable gale of
wind;" and she now lay tossing about amid the broken waves of the
boisterous Bay of Biscay, on the morning after the tempest, the full
force of which she had fortunately escaped, trying to make some headway
under her jib, close-reefed topsails, and storm staysails, with a bit of
her mainsail set to steady her, half brailed up--although the task was
difficult, with a nasty chopping cross-sea and an adverse wind.
The vessel had recently passed a lot of wreckage, that betokened they
were not far from the spot where some ship, less lucky than themselves,
had been overwhelmed by the treacherous waters of the ill-fated bay; and
the news that a waif was now in sight, supporting a stray survivor,
affected all hearts on board, and roused their sympathies at once.
The captain of the New England barque had already adjusted the
telescope, that he carried in true sailor fashion tucked under his left
arm, to his "weather-eye," and was looking eagerly in the direction
pointed out by the seaman, before he received the answer from aloft to
his second hail. But he could not as yet see what the lookout had
discovered, from the fact of the waves being still high and his place of
outlook from the deck lower than the other's.
"Are you certain, Tom, you see some one?" he called out again, after a
moment's pause, during which he narrowly scanned the uneven surface of
the sea.
"Yes, sure," was the confident reply. "As sartain as there's snakes in
Virginny!"
"Still in the same direction?"
"Ay, ay; a point or two to windward."
"Ha! I see him at last!" exclaimed the skipper, clambering up from the
deck, and supporting himself by holding on to the mizzen-rigging as he
stood on the taffrail and peered forward along the ship's side, to where
he could now notice the floating object ahead, almost in the wind's-eye.
"Luff, you beggar, luff!" he added, to the steersman, who, with both
hands on the wheel, was exerting all his strength to keep the vessel's
head up.
"She can't do it, sir," replied the sailor, hoarsely. "It's all I can
manage to prevent her falling off now."
"She must do it!" was the captain's answer. "Watch, ahoy! Brace round
those topsail-yards a bit more! Cheerily, men, with a will!"
"Yo-ho-heave-oh-e! Yo-ho-heave!" rang out the chorussed cry of the crew
pulling together at the braces, until the topsails lay like boards
almost fore and aft the ship. And yet her head could not be induced to
veer a fraction towards the desired point, but rather fell off if
anything.
"Guess we shall have to put more sail on her," said Seth Allport, mate
of the _Susan Jane_, singing out from amidship, where he was on duty.
"Guess so, Cap'en, if you want to fetch him."
"It's risky work, Seth," rejoined the skipper, "for she's now got as
much on her as she can carry. But I s'pose it must be done if we're to
pick up that poor fellow. Here, boys," he cried out suddenly to the
crew, "we must shake a reef out of the mainsail. Look smart, will ye!"
The effect of this sail was soon apparent. No sooner had the folds of
canvas expanded to the wind than the _Susan Jane_ heeled over with a
lurch as if she were going to capsize, bringing her bow so much round
that her jib shivered, causing several ominous creaks and cracks aloft
from the quivering topmasts.
"She'll do it now, sir," said the mate, who had come aft, and with
another of the crew lent a hand to assist the steersman, who found the
wheel too much for him now unaided, with the additional sail there was
on the ship.
"Steady! How's the poor chap bearing now?" asked the skipper, hailing
the lookout once more, as he lost sight of the wreckage by the vessel's
change of position and the lifting of the bow so much out of the water
forward as she rose on the sea.
"Right ahead. Just a trifle to leeward, boss."
"How far off?"
"A couple of cables' lengths, I guess, Cap'en. Better send a hand
forrud in the chains to sling him a rope, or we'll pass him by in a
minnit."
"Right you are," was the reply of the good-hearted skipper, as he rushed
along to the forecastle himself with a coil over his arm, that he might
fling it to the man in the water as soon as he floated within reach.
It was a task that had to be deftly performed, for the ship was forging
through the sea, and plunging her bowsprit under water as she rose and
fell in her progress, one minute describing a half-circle through the
air with her forefoot as she yawed to the heavy rolling waves, the next
diving deep down into the billows and tossing up tons of water over her
forecastle, where the skipper stood, watching his opportunity, as the
broken spars, on which he could now plainly see that the figure of a man
was lashed, swept nearer and nearer on the crest of a wave that bore
them triumphantly on high above the storm-wrack and foam.
While the wreckage was yet out of reach he could notice, too, that the
figure was perfectly motionless and still.
What the topman had taken to be an outstretched hand, waving a
handkerchief or some fluttering object, was only the ragged end of a
piece of the sail that was still attached to the yard and a part of the
topmast of some vessel, which had been torn away by the violence of the
gale and cast adrift, with the unfortunate seaman who was clinging to
it.
"Poor chap!" thought the American captain aloud, "I'm afraid there's not
much life left in him now; but if there is any, I reckon we'll save
him." And, as he uttered the words, he dexterously threw one end of the
coil of rope, which he had already formed into a running bowline knot,
over the spars as they were swept past the side of the _Susan Jane_,
while he fastened the other end fast in-board, slackening out the line
gradually, so as not to bring it up too tight all at once and so jerk
the man off the frail raft.
"Easy there,"--he called out to the men aft. "Let her head off a bit
now, and brail up that mainsail again. Easy! Belay!"
"Thank God, we've got him!" ejaculated. Mr Rawlings, the solitary
passenger on board the _Susan Jane_.
By this time, the waif from the wreck was towing safely alongside the
_Susan Jane_, in the comparatively smooth water of the ship's lee; and
in a few seconds the rough seamen who went to their captain's assistance
had detached the seemingly lifeless form of the survivor from the spars
to which he had been securely lashed, and lifted him, with the
gentleness and tender care almost of women, on board the vessel that had
come so opportunely in his way.
"Slacken off those lee braces a bit, and haul in these to the
weather-side!" said the captain, as soon as he had got back to his
proper place on the poop again. "I think the wind is coming round more
aft, and we can lay her on her course. Keep her steady. So!"--he
added, to the man at the wheel. "But easy her off now and then, if she
labours."
And then he went below to the cabin, down to which the rescued sailor
had been carried, and where the mate, Mr Rawlings, and the negro
steward, were trying to bring him back to life by rolling him in
blankets before the stove.
STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWO.
RESCUED.
"Waal, how's the man getting on now?" asked the skipper as he entered
the cuddy.
"Man?" said Mr Rawlings, looking up on the captain's entrance. "It
isn't a man at all. Only a lad of sixteen summers at best."
"Poor chap!" said the other sympathisingly. "Man or boy, I guess he's
had a pretty rough time of it out thaar!"
"Just so," answered the passenger. "And it's a wonder he's still
alive."
"Is he? I was afraid he was gone!" said the captain.
"No, sah. Um berry much alibe, sah, yes sah," said the steward, who,
having seen many half-drowned persons before, had known how to treat the
present patient properly. "See, sah, him chest rise and fall now, sah.
When jus' lilly time back um couldn't hear him heart beat!"
It was as the man said, and a tinge of colour appeared also to steal
into the thin, blanched face of the lad, or boy, who seemed even younger
than the mate had said, and who looked very delicate and ill--more so,
indeed, than his long exposure to the violence of the waves and the
terrible peril in which he had been, quite warranted.
"He'll come round now, I think," said the skipper, expressing more his
hopes than his actual belief; for the boy had not yet opened his eyes,
and his breath only came in convulsive sighs, that shook his extended
frame "fore and aft," as a seaman would say.
"Yes, sir, he'll do. But it was a narrow squeak for such a slim
youngster."
"So it must have been, Seth," replied the skipper to the mate, who had
last spoken. "But his time hadn't come yet, as it had for many a brave
fellow bigger and stronger than him! Look, Seth!--he's opening his eyes
now! I'm blest if they aren't like a girl's!"
The boy, whose lids had been previously closed, the long lashes resting
on his cheek, had raised them; and the large blue orbs, fixed in a sort
of wondering stare on the face of the American captain, bore out his
remark in some sense, as they appeared feminine in character, although
wanting in expression and intelligence more strangely.
"Seems dazed to me, Cap'en Blowser," observed the mate.
"So he does. But no wonder, Seth," replied the skipper. "Get him a
drop of brandy, steward. That may bring him to himself more than he is
at present."
The steward fetched the brandy quickly in a glass, and putting it to the
boy's lips, as he raised his head from the locker on which he had been
laid, made him drink a few drops, causing the faint colour to return
more strongly to his face. But that was all, however, for he still
gazed alternately at the captain and mate, and the steward who had just
ministered to him, with the same fixed, expressionless gaze.
"He has seen death, Cap'en Blowser," said the mate, solemnly. "I've
noticed that same look on a chap's face before, when he was dug out of a
mine, where he had been banked up with others through its falling in,
and never expected to see God's daylight again! He'd jest that same
identical expression in his eyes, though they warn't as big nor as
handsome as this poor lad's--jest as if he was a lookin' through you at
somethin' beyant!"
"It kinder skearts me," said the captain, turning away from the boy with
a slight shiver. "Let's come on deck, Seth. I guess he'll do now, with
a bit of grub, and a good sleep before the stove. Mind you look after
him well, steward; and you can turn him into my cot, if you like, and
give him a clean rig out."
"Yes, sah, I hear," replied the steward, who had been trying to get some
more of the spirit down the boy's throat.
But he started up before the others left the cabin.
"Him wounded, Cap'en Blowser," said the man in an alarmed voice.
"Crikey! I nebber see such a cut!"
"Where?" exclaimed the skipper and mate almost simultaneously, turning
round from the door of the cuddy and coming back to the side of the
locker, on which the boy still lay stretched.
"Here," said the steward, lifting, as he spoke, the long clustering
curls of hair from the forehead of the rescued lad, and laying bare a
great gash that extended right across the frontal bone, and which they
must have seen before but for the encrustation of salt, from the waves
washing over him, which had matted the bright brown locks together over
the cut and likewise stopped the bleeding.
"Jerusalem! It is a sheer, and no mistake!" ejaculated the skipper.
"You bet," chimed in the mate; "but for the wash of the water a stopping
it, he would have bled to death! Have you got a needle and thread
handy, Jasper?"
"Sartain, Massa Allport," answered the steward.
"Then bring it here sharp, and a piece of sponge, or rag, and some hot
water, if you can get it."
"Sure I can, Massa Allport. De cook must hab him coppers full, sah.
Not got Cap'en's breakfass, you know, sah, yet."
"I forgot all about breakfast!" laughed the skipper, "I was so taken up
with running across this young shaver here. But what are you going to
do, Seth, eh? I didn't know as you had graduated in medicine, I
reckon."
"Why, Cap'en Blowser, I served all through the war after Gettysburgh as
sich."
"Waal, one never knows even one's best friends, really!" said the
captain musingly. "And to think of your being a doctor all this time,
and me not to be aware of it, when I've often blamed myself for going to
sea without a surgeon aboard."
"That's just what made me so comfortable under the loss of one!"
chuckled the mate.
"Ah! you were 'cute, you were," replied the skipper. "Kept it all to
yourself, like the monkeys who won't speak for fear they might be made
to work! But here's the steward with your medical fixin's; so, look to
the poor boy's cut, Seth, and see if you can't mend it, while I go up
and see what they are doing with the ship, which we've left to herself
all this while."
Washing away, with gentle dabs of the saturated rag that the steward had
brought in the bowl of warm water, the salt and clotted blood that
covered over the wound, the mate soon laid it bare, and then proceeded
with skilful fingers to sew it up, in a fashion which showed he was no
novice in the art.
"Golly, Massa Allport! I didn't know you was so clebbah!" said the
steward admiringly.
"You don't know everything, you see, Jasper," said the other
good-humouredly. "There, I think that will do now, with a strip or two
of plaster which I have here," producing some diachylon from a
pocket-book. "How do you feel now?" he added, addressing himself to the
boy, who had kept his eyes fixed on his face in the same meaningless
stare as when he had first opened them. "Better?"
But he got no reply.
The boy did not even move his lips, much less utter a sound, although he
was now well warmed, and there was life in his rigid limbs and colour in
his face, while his faint breathing was regular, and his pulse even.
"He looks very strange," Mr Rawlings said. "Concussion of the brain, I
should say."
The sailor-surgeon was puzzled.
"I guess he's dumb, and deaf too," he said to the passenger who had been
acting as his medical assistant, and watching the mate's operations with
much interest. "But no," he added presently; "a boy with such eyes and
such a face could never be so afflicted! I've seen scores of
deaf-mutes, and you could never mistake their countenances. I know what
it is, he has received such a shock to the system that it has paralysed
his nerves--that's it!"
"It's either that or concussion," the passenger argued.
And the steward, who did not know what to say, and would indeed now have
endorsed any opinion that the mate had propounded after what he had seen
of his practical skill, gave a confirmatory nod, expressive of his
entire approval of the other's dictum.
"Yes, Jasper," replied the other, "it's only a temporary shock to the
system, and rest and attention will work it off in a short time."
It was a peculiarity with Mr Seth Allport, the first mate of the _Susan
Jane_, that when he spoke on medical topics and subjects, which formed
the only real education he had received, his mode of speech was refined
and almost polished; whereas, his usual language when engaged in
seafaring matters--his present vocation--was vernacular in the extreme,
smacking more of Vermont than it did of Harvard and college training.
"I'm certain my diagnosis is correct," he said again to Mr Rawlings--
after seeing the lad clothed in a flannel shirt and thick pair of
trousers of the skipper's, into whose cot he was then carefully placed,
and wrapped up, the little fellow closing his eyes at once and sinking
into a sound sleep--"and when he wakes up he'll be all right, and be
able to tell us all about himself."
"I hope you may be right," Mr Rawlings said, doubtfully. "Sleep may do
much for him; at any rate, I will remain in the cabin to watch him for a
while."
So saying, he took his seat by the boy, while the mate proceeded to go
on deck and rejoin the skipper, and the steward went to work to prepare
breakfast.
The wind had now got well abeam of the _Susan Jane_ and lessened
considerably, although still blowing steady from the southwards and
eastwards; and the sea being also somewhat calmer, the good ship was
able to spread more sail, shaking the reefs out of her topsails and
mainsail, while her courses were dropped, and the flying-jib and
foresail set to drive her on her way across the Atlantic.
"I guess picking up that boy brought us luck, Seth!" said the skipper,
rubbing his hands gleefully as the mate came to his side and joined in
the quick quarter-deck he was taking, varied by an occasional look aloft
to see that everything was drawing fair. "I think we might set the
topgallants now, eh?"
"You're not a slow one at piling on the canvas, I reckon!" answered the
other with a laugh. "No sooner out of one gale than you want to get
into another. Look at those clouds there ahead, Cap'en," pointing to a
dark streak that crossed the horizon low down right in front of the
vessel. "I guess we aren't out of it yet!"
"Waal, if we've got to have another blow," replied the skipper, "we'd
better make some use of the wind we have, specially as it looks like
chopping round. What is she going now?" he asked of the quartermaster
or boatswain, one individual performing both functions in the Yankee
craft.
"Close on nine knots, Cap'en," answered the man, who had just hove the
log over the stern, and now stood, minute-glass in hand, calculating the
result.
"Nine knots with this breeze? That will never do. Away aloft there,
and shake out the topgallant sails! Now, men, stir yourselves in proper
man-o'-war's fashion; and let us see it done in ship-shape style!
That's your sort, men. Johnson shall shell out some grog presently to
splice the main brace."--He continued aloud, as the hands came down the
ratlins again without losing time, after lowering the sails,--"Now,
hoist away at the halliards. Cheerily, men! cheerily ho! The Boston
girls have got hold of our tow-rope; up with the sticks with a will!"
The _Susan Jane_ plunged through the waves with redoubled speed, leaning
over until the water foamed over her gunwale and was knee-deep in her
scuppers, an occasional billow topping over her foc's'le, and pouring
down into the waist in a cataract of gleaming green sea and sparkling
spray, all glittering with prismatic colours, like a jumble of broken
rainbows.
"What does she make now, Johnson?" asked the skipper again of the
quartermaster.
"Eleven knots, I reckon, sir, good."
"Ah, that's more like it! The poor dear thing! she was crippled without
her wings, that she was! She'll do twelve-knots yet, eh, Seth?"
"I don't doubt that, sir," replied the mate, who was much more cautious
than his captain; "but it ain't quite safe with those gentlemen there
gathering together ahead, like a mass meeting in Faneuil Hall."
"Oh, never mind the clouds," rejoined the delighted skipper, whose
thoughts were filled with the fond belief that the _Susan Jane_ would
make the most rapid run across the herring-pond ever known for a
sailing-ship. "Guess we'll beat the _Scotia_, if we go on like this."
"Yes, if we don't carry away anything!" interposed the mate cautiously.
"Oh, nonsense, Seth! We've got a smart crew, and can take in sail when
it's wanted! How's your patient getting on?" continued the skipper,
turning to Mr Rawlings, who had come up, the boy being in a profound
sleep.
"Well, I hope," he answered; "he is resting very tranquilly."
"That means, I suppose, that he's all right, and having a good caulk in
my cot."
"Exactly so, Cap'en; and when he wakes by and by, I hope he'll be
himself again."
"That's good news! Did he tell you who he was before he dropped to
sleep?"
"No," answered Mr Rawlings, "he did not speak."
"Not speak!" said the captain. "Why didn't he?"
"He couldn't," replied the other. "Whether from the cut on his
forehead, or what, I can't tell; but he has had such a shock that his
nerves seem paralysed. You noticed his eyes, didn't you?"
"Yes," said the captain, "but I thought that was from fright or a sort
of startled awe, which would soon go off. I'm sorry I didn't have a
look at those spars before we cast them off; we might have learned the
name of the ship to which he belonged. Don't you think, Seth, though,
that he will recover his speech and be able to tell us something?"
"Certainly, Cap'en, as Mr Rawlings says, I believe he'll wake up all
right."
"Well, then, we'd better go below for breakfast now--here's the steward
coming to call us. Davitt can take charge of the deck,"--hailing the
second mate as he spoke, and telling him to "keep his weather-eye open,
and call him immediately should any change occur, but not to reduce sail
on any account."
"I wouldn't have given him that order, if I were you, Cap'en," said the
mate, as they went down the companion together.
"Oh, Davitt isn't a fool," replied the skipper lightly; and the two
entered the cuddy together, where they were welcomed by a hospitably
spread table that spoke well for the cook's culinary skill.
"Josh is a splendid chap for fixing up things," said the skipper
heartily, as he popped a portion of a capital stew into his capacious
mouth with much gusto. "I'd back him against one of those French
what-do-you-call-'ems any day!" alluding, possibly, to the chef of the
hotel in Bordeaux at which he had been staying on the _Susan Jane's_
previous voyage.
"So would I," echoed the mate, who was performing equally well with his
knife and fork; but, what he would have further observed must remain
unrecorded, for at that moment a tremendous crash was heard on deck, and
a heavy sea pooped the ship, flooding the cabin, and washing the two,
with the debris of the breakfast table, away to leeward, where they
struggled in vain to recover their footing, until the ship righted
again--the steward coming to their assistance and being likewise thrown
down on the floor, to add to the confusion. Then Seth Allport darted up
the companion.
The contretemps was so sudden that the skipper was quite startled; but
what startled him more was the sight of the boy who had been saved, and
who was supposed to be sound asleep, standing at the open door of his
cabin, with his light brown hair almost erect, and his blue eyes
starting out of his head with a look of unspeakable terror, and the
blood streaming down his face, and dropping with a sort of hissing sound
into the water that surged about the cuddy floor and over his feet, from
the terrible cut across his forehead.
"Mercy upon us, Rawlings, look there!" exclaimed Captain Blowser, trying
to regain his feet, and almost forgetting what might be going on on deck
at the sight before him. "Is he gone mad, or what?"
STORY ONE, CHAPTER THREE.
TAKEN ABACK.
"What is the matter?" exclaimed the passenger, clutching hold of the
steward's leg under the idea that it was the cuddy table, and contriving
to get into a sitting position on the cabin floor, as the _Susan Jane_
lurched to and fro, swishing the water backwards and forwards, along
with the plates and dishes and broken crockery, amongst them, mixed up
with bits of meat and vegetables and bread in the most inharmonious sort
of medley,--"What's the matter, Cap'en?"
"Struck by a squall," said the skipper, getting on his feet at last, and
holding on tightly to a brass rail outside the door of one of the
berths, that he might not get floored again. "But, look at your
patient, the boy! Is he mad, or what?"
"Golly!" ejaculated the steward, also finding his legs again, Mr
Rawlings having released them as soon as he sat up. "Me tink him goin'
hab fit!"
The captain's professional instincts roused him even more rapidly than
did a loaf of soppy bread which at that moment was dashed in his face by
the counter swish of the water against the side of the cabin, and he
sprang up ready for action as cool and collected as possible,
considering the circumstances.
Before Mr Rawlings or the skipper--who both rushed forward at once to
where the boy was standing--could reach him, however, or the negro
steward, who was directly in his way, but was too dumfoundered to
prevent him, he made one leap over the table and rushed out of the
cabin, with the same set look of terror, or some unearthly expression
which they could not absolutely define, on his face, the blood streaming
down from under the bandage across his forehead, making his appearance
ghastly and uncanny, as the Scotch say, in the extreme. He resembled,
more a galvanised corpse than anything else!
The skipper and passenger followed him instanter, Jasper, who had
recovered from his first astonishment at the apparition, being not far
from their heels; but when the two gained the deck, the confusion that
was reigning there, and the perilous position of the ship, made them
forget for the while the object that had called them forth.
Captain Blowser's passion for "carrying on," in the face of the
treacherous weather the _Susan Jane_ had already experienced in the Bay
of Biscay, with the prospect of more to come, as the mate had pointed
out from the warning look of clouds along the horizon in front, had
brought its own punishment; for the ship had been taken aback through
the wind's shifting round, before the second mate Davitt, who had obeyed
the skipper's injunctions to the letter, had time to take in sail, even
if he had endeavoured to do so without calling him first, as he had been
enjoined on his leaving the deck.
The results of this recklessness were most unfortunate for the _Susan
Jane_, as the fore-topmast had soon snapped off sharp at the cap like a
carrot, bringing with it, of course, the fore-topgallant mast as well,
and the main-topgallant mast, with their respective yards and other
spars, and the jib-boom as well. The ship was consequently broached to,
and tons of water were poured on to her from the mountainous waves that
seemed to assail her on all sides at once, which, but for the fact of
the hatches being closely battened down, would have soon filled her hold
and caused her to founder.
Fortunately, there were no men aloft at the time the wind chopped so
suddenly, or they must have been swept overboard with the wreck of the
top-hamper, that was now grinding against the vessel's side to leeward
right under her quarter, and bumping with such force against her timbers
as to threaten to stove them in. Altogether, with the whistling of the
storm, that had risen up again as if imbued with fresh life, and the
roaring of the sea, and the horrible creaking and crashing of the broken
spars alongside, combined with the shouts of the men, who seemed lost
for the moment how to act, and running here and there, purposelessly,
without a guiding voice or hand to direct their efforts,--the scene was
a regular pandemonium of disorder!
If he had been reckless, however, Captain Blowser was a thorough seaman,
and knew how to command, and enforce his directions when the necessity
arose, as certainly was the case here.
Snatching a speaking-trumpet from the lanyard by which it was attached
to the mizzen mast, he issued an order which called at once the
scattered wits of the crew together, and set them about repairing the
damages that had arisen, and preventing the further perils that stared
them in the face; while the second mate at the same moment sprang to the
wheel, which was revolving as it liked, now to starboard now to port as
the waves met the rudder below, the poor helmsman who had previously
controlled its action lying senseless on the deck, whither he had been
thrown by the sudden concussion when the ship was taken aback.
"Down with the helm hard!" shouted the skipper, through the
speaking-trumpet, his voice penetrating every part of the ship, fore and
aft, above the roar of the elements and the noise on deck. "Clew up the
courses," was the next command; followed by an order to brace round the
yards. And the _Susan Jane_ eased a bit, running before the wind with
the aid of her main-topmast and topgallant sail, mizzen-staysail and
foresail, besides the remnants of her mainsail, that was split into
fluttering rags. All the rest of her canvas so recently set being
carried away, and floating alongside in a tangled wreck of spars and
sails and ropes and rigging, matted together in an inextricable mass,
Captain Blowser now gave orders to have cut away, without further delay,
as the men could be spared for the duty.
The first mate, one of the most active of men, had, the instant he
reached the deck, set to work to relieve the ship, but as he was casting
loose the lee braces from the cleats the lurch of the sail caught him,
and at the same moment the main-topgallant mast with all its belongings
coming down with a run, he was stunned for a second by some portion of
the falling gear, and before he could recover his balance or take hold
of anything to save himself by, was carried overboard with the wreck.
At nearly the same precise instant the boy darted out of the cabin aft,
just ahead of the skipper and Mr Rawlings, as if impelled by some
unfathomable instinct, and bounding right to the spot where Seth was
being swept away to destruction, clutched hold of the seaman's collar
with one hand, and one end of the topsail-halliards with the other as
they hung over the side, and there he remained, swaying to and fro,
partly in the water and partly out, holding on with the strength of his
single arm in a manner that no one would have thought a man, much less a
boy, could do--and neither man nor boy, except one bred to the sea!
Seth saw it all, though no one else noticed the action, even amidst the
conflicting emotions which passed rapidly through his mind at the moment
of his infinite peril, just as a man falling from a cliff and expecting
death every instant has the exact appearance of each foot of his rapid
descent photographed on his brain. He saw the distended startled blue
eyes of the boy, the light brown hair standing almost erect, the white
bandage round his forehead, the blood on his face; but he could not tell
nor think where he came from, and supposed, as he said afterwards, that
he was an angel come to save him--and he would regard him as such all
his life long!
"I'm darned if he warn't," he repeated, when the captain laughed when
Seth mentioned his sensations at the time and detailed his thoughts,
"fur he came just in the nick of time to grip holt o' me; and if he
hadn't ben thaar I guess it 'ud a ben all sockdolagar with Seth, I does!
He must have got what ye call a call, that he must! Guess you'd a
thought him a angel, if you'd been in this child's shoes!"
And so the crew all agreed when they heard from the steward Jasper his
account of how the boy had started out of the captain's cot, where he
had him in a sound sleep, and came out of the cabin straight to help
Seth--the negro's version of the story losing nothing, it need hardly be
mentioned, through his telling it with much pantomimic action, and his
frequent affirmation, "Golly, massa, I tell you for true!"
Mr Rawlings considered that the boy had been awakened by the crash of
the water pooping the ship and the bleeding bursting out again from his
wound, both of which recalled some fleeting thoughts, probably, of the
shipwreck in which he had temporarily lost his reason. But the men
would not hear of this at all, ascribing Seth's rescue to some
supernatural foresight on the part of poor "Sailor Bill," as the boy was
unanimously dubbed, and looked on thenceforth with the same respectful,
pitying care with which the Indians regard any imbecile person, by
everybody on board, from the cook Josh--another negro like Jasper, of
whom he was intensely jealous, calling him, on the principle of "the pot
and the kettle," a "nigerant puss-proud black fellow"--up to the
captain, who, to tell the truth, shared some of the superstitious regard
of the men for their protege!
For the poor boy had, without doubt, lost his senses. He neither spoke,
nor laughed, nor cried, nor was any perceptible emotion of pleasure or
pain displayed by him under any circumstances.
He did not once arouse from the lethargy that seemed to press down upon
his brain again after he had so fortunately and so wonderfully come to
the assistance of Seth Allport.
One thing, however, was noticeable in him afterwards, and that was, that
from that moment he appeared to attach himself to the seaman, just as a
dog attaches himself to some master whom he elects for himself, and was
never easy out of Seth's sight, following him everywhere about the ship,
except at night, when he slept in the cabin.
Seth Allport, talking it over with the skipper and Mr Rawlings, gave a
scientific explanation from his medical lore. He said that Sailor
Bill's mental affliction was due to some psychological effect, which
would wear away in time, and probably completely disappear if the boy
had to undergo a shock precisely similar to that which had caused it.
But, as neither he nor any one else knew what that shock was, of course
they could not expedite Sailor Bill's cure, nor do anything, save make
him the dumb pet of the ship.
In the meantime the damages of the _Susan Jane_ were made good, and in a
day or two there were few signs of the mishap which had befallen her.
STORY ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.
DERELICT.
The weather was now fair, and the wind favourable, and they were in high
spirits, for they hoped soon to recover the time lost by the accident.
The captain walked up and down the deck with the first mate, rubbing his
hands as he watched the full sails, and the water gleaming past her
sides.
"We shall do, Seth, we shall do," he said, "and make a quick voyage of
it after all."
"Mustn't carry on too much, though, Cap'en!" said the mate with a
knowing twinkle of his eye, which the skipper could read plainly enough.
"Stow that, Seth," said he chuckling. "I s'pose you'll never let me
hear the last of that buster I went t'other day. Don't you be skeart,
old man; you won't catch this coon napping twice. The breeze is
splendid, though, Seth, ain't it? Guess we'll make a good run of it
after all!"
"So think I, Cap'en," replied the mate with corresponding heartiness.
"It will last, too," he added, after another glance round the horizon;
"and I reckon we'll not get any more nasty weather; the gale has about
blowed itself out!"
"Right you are," said Captain Blowser, slapping him on the back in his
jovial way when he felt especially good-tempered; "an' we'll have an
extra glass of old Bourbon come dinner-time on the strength of it, old
boss! How the beauty does walk, to be sure! I wouldn't swap a timber
of her for the best Philadelphia-built clipper out of the Delaware!"
"Nor I," acquiesced the mate, whose opinion the skipper valued so highly
that this encomium of his as to the transcendent merits of the _Susan
Jane_, which was really a splendid craft in her way, and a capital sea
boat, completed the sum of his happiness; and he had just called out to
Jasper, the steward, to bring up an Angostura cocktail to cement their
feelings of friendship and get up an appetite for dinner, which would
not be ready for another hour, when the voice of Tom Cannon was heard
hailing the deck from the foretop.
"Darn that chap, he's allers hailing!" exclaimed the skipper. "What the
dickens does he want now?"
"He don't call out for nothin'," said the mate. "He's too cute a seaman
for that! When Tom Cannon hails, you may depend on it, Cap'en, it's
time to look out for squalls!"
"Blow your squalls!" said the captain good-humouredly. "You don't want
me to take in sail surely with this wind, you old Mother Carey's
chicken? But let's listen to what Tom says. He's a smart man, I
reckon, sure enough--the smartest sailor we've got in the ship; and I
was only jokin' when I said that about his hailing!"
Tom Cannon's favourite place of resort when the ship was at sea, and
there was nothing for him to do, especially when he was in the watch off
duty, was the foretop, whither he would climb up, blow high or blow low,
and ensconce himself, sometimes for hours, until his services were
required on deck, or else the rattling of pannikins and mess-kits warned
him that something was "going on in the grub line below," when he would
descend the rattlins, swiftly or leisurely as the case might be, and
take his turn at either grub or duty "like a man!"
On this day the captain had not long taken the sun, and "made it eight
bells"--twelve o'clock--so the men had all had their dinner, and Tom
gone up to his accustomed post of observation or reflection, for he
couldn't read, and never slept when he was in the top, although he could
have done so comfortably enough if he had wanted to.
He was standing erect, looking out ahead, for he was a careful seaman,
as both the captain and mate could vouch for, and possessed the keenest
eyesight of any man in the ship--a natural gift for which he was very
thankful in his way, and of which it must be said he was also very
proud.
"Sail-ho!" he shouted, catching sight of something not long after he had
taken up his position in the foretop and began to look out mechanically
in front of the ship's course, as was his natural wont.
"Not another ocean waif, like the boy, eh?" asked the skipper in a
chaffing sort of way, while he waited for the seaman to give some
further information, as to what he had seen, as he thought would be the
case presently without his putting the question to him.
"Nary a one," was Tom's answer, as he looked down on the face of Sailor
Bill, which was upturned to his without a vestige of animation in it,
although the boy's attention had been attracted by the sound of his
voice; "couldn't find another like you, I guess."
"What sort o' sail?" hailed the captain again, as he did not hear the
response to his question, the seaman having spoken in a low tone as to
himself.
"A water-logged hull of some vessel or other, I reckon, boss!"
This time Tom's answer was heard plainly enough below.
"Where away?" rejoined the skipper aloud, adding under his voice to the
mate, "Guess I woke him!"
"Right ahead--about three miles off, more or less."
"See anybody on board?"
"Nary a soul! The hull's low down in the water and the decks awash."
"Well, we'll soon come up to her at our rate of going," shouted out the
captain in the same pitch of voice, which might have been heard a mile
away at the least; for, although there was a strong breeze the wind did
not make much noise, and the Atlantic waves were only frisking about in
play without any great commotion. "Mind you pilot us right: it would
spoil the _Susan Jane's_ figure-head, I reckon, to run aboard a
water-logged hull!"
"Ay, ay," responded the seaman from aloft, "I'll steer you safe enough,
sir. Keep her steady as she is, full and bye!"
"Steady!" repeated the skipper to the helmsman; whose "Steady it is!"
showed his prompt attention to the command.
"Luff a bit!" said Tom after a few minutes, when the _Susan Jane_ had
almost traversed the distance which he had previously said lay between
her and the submerged vessel, and was close on to her--at least, must
have been so.
"Luff!" repeated the skipper; and--"Luff it is!" echoed the man at the
wheel mechanically as he put the helm up; and a moment afterwards the
ship glided by the derelict hull, her speed lessening as she came up to
the wind and her canvas quivering, like a bird suspending its flight in
the air with wings outstretched!
There is no more melancholy sight to be met with on the ocean than a
deserted ship. Everybody knows how dismal an empty house with closed-up
shutters looks on land, especially when the shutters are inside ones, as
is usually the case with town dwellings, and the panes have been riddled
with stones, while the walls are bedaubed with mud from the missiles of
mischievous persons, mostly, it is to be feared, of the class juvenis,
and the garden in front overgrown with grass and weeds, luxuriating in
the rankest of vegetation, and completing the picture of desolation and
decay.
Well, a derelict vessel, such as is to be frequently met with at sea,
presents a ten times more miserable appearance, if that be possible,
than an empty and deserted house. Instead of being a picture of
desolation, it is desolation itself!
The battered hull, scarred with the wounds caused by the pitiless waves,
its timbers gaping open here and there, and the rent copper-sheathing
showing, as it rolls sluggishly on the waste of waters--where it has
been left to linger out the last days of a decrepit existence, with
masts and sails and bulwarks and everything washed away, presenting such
a contrast to what it was in its pride, when it swam the waters "like a
thing of life"--is painful in the extreme to contemplate.
This was what those on board the _Susan Jane_ noticed now, as she passed
by the floating remnants of what had once been a gallant ship, as they
could tell from her size and length. But Captain Blowser saw something
more with his glass--for the _Susan Jane_ could not approach very near
to the water-logged hull that was almost level with the surface of the
sea, for fear of colliding through the "scud" of the waves--something
that made him take in the clipper's lighter sails, despite his anxiety
to take advantage of every breath of the wind and make a rapid passage
to Boston, and lay the ship to; while he had a boat lowered, and went to
inspect the derelict hulk more closely.
Mr Rawlings, the passenger, accompanied the skipper, so did also Seth
Allport; and naturally, as Seth went, Sailor Bill followed his
protector, or adopted master, dog-fashion as usual, taking his seat in
the boat as a matter of course!
On boarding the abandoned vessel a horrible sight presented itself.
Three corpses were stretched on the afterpart of the deck near the
wheelhouse--which had been wrenched away, along with the binnacle and
bulwarks, and the cabin skylight, while the hull was full of water and
kept afloat only by the buoyant nature of the cargo, although they could
not discover what that was, as it was completely submerged. But those
three corpses told a tale of some deadly struggle, as there was a knife
still tightly clutched in the dead hand of the one, an empty revolver in
that of another, while the third had a rope tied round his throat as if
he had been strangled by the other two.
The bodies of all, which exhibited signs of emaciation through
starvation, being almost skeletons, showed also numerous wounds, while
their clothing was rent into tatters from cuts and slashes apart from
the wash of the water, which had, of course, swept away most of the
blood that had probably flowed from the wounds, although there was a
large dark blotch on the deck close to the after hatch, testifying that
some gory pool had been there.
"I guess there's been some of the devil's work here!" said the skipper
gravely.
"You bet," chimed in Seth Allport, whose keen eye was looking out for
some evidence of the nationality of the ship. "She ain't a foreigner,
and Britishers don't murder one another like this. S'pose there was a
muss on board, or something like a mutiny, eh, Cap?" he added presently.
"Yes," answered Captain Blowser, who was also looking keenly about with
the same motive as Seth; and he was quicker too than the shrewd seaman
in this instance, for he noticed forward, under the legs of one of the
corpses, a loose piece of wood, on which he pounced.
Pulling it out as quick as thought, he turned it over, and the secret of
the derelict hull was disclosed; for there, printed in letters of gold,
showing that the piece of wood was probably part of the stern of one of
the vessel's boats, as its shape also suggested, was the name
"_Dragon_--." Something was apparently wanting, for the wood was broken
off just at the end where the name was painted.
"_Dragon_?" said Seth. "I remember a ship called the _Dragon King_,
that used to sail regularly to the East Indies. I saw her last time I
was in Liverpool!"
"Waal," said the skipper, "we can only report what we've seen when we
get home; for we can't get down below to examine her papers or anything,
and must leave the old hulk to float till she sinks. I wish I had a
pound of dynamite on board, and I'd blow her up, I guess; as, tossing
about at sea like that, some vessel might run agin her in the night and
git stove in. Let's leave her, Hiram; we can do no good stopping any
longer."
"Let us first give those chaps there the benefit of a sailor's grave,"
said the mate, pointing to the corpses; and although the men, from some
superstitious feeling common enough among seamen, did not like to touch
them, the skipper and mate had no such scruples, and heaved the remains
of those who might have been murderers or the victims of some atrocious
crime overboard, with as much solemnity as they could. After which they
all returned to the _Susan Jane_, which pursued her way to her home
port.
STORY ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.
A MINING PROJECT.
After passing the derelict ship, the _Susan Jane_ met with nothing more
of an eventful character in her voyage; and after making a very fair run
across the Atlantic, thereby gladdening the heart of Captain Blowser,
sighted Nantucket lights, rounding Cape Cod the next day, and dropped
her anchor, finally, in Boston harbour, opposite the mouth of the River
Charles; about which Longfellow has written some pretty lines,
beginning--
"River! That in silence windest
Through the meadows bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!"
Before the American coast was reached, however, an arrangement was come
to.
When taking his grog one evening with Seth Allport and Mr Rawlings, the
second mate having the watch, the Captain was expressing his regret at
the approaching loss of several of those who had sailed with him for
many voyages, for he knew that they would ship in other vessels when
they found that the _Susan Jane_ was to be laid up for a thorough
overhaul.
"Well, Cap," Seth Allport said, "I shall not be sorry myself for a spell
on shore. Since I had them three years over among the mines in
Californy I get restless at sea after a spell, and long for a turn among
the mountains."
"Were you at work on the surface all the time, or did you work in any of
the deep mines?" asked Mr Rawlings.