with their lot, for the fear of starvation, which had threatened them,
had passed away when their hunger had been appeased by the cape pigeon
that David had captured, and they subsequently secured another bird,
besides the half-dozen fish or so that had been brought within their
reach by the waterspout; to add to which the weather had not been hot
enough to cause them to make such inroads on their stock of water--which
David had judiciously apportioned from the first--as to arouse any dread
of thirst, which is far worse than want of food to shipwrecked mariners.
It was the fact of the means of escape from their perilous position
having been so unexpectedly brought near them, and as suddenly taken
away, that deprived them of their courage and hopefulness for a time,
and made them forget the Eye that was watching over them, and the hand
that had already so miraculously helped them when they seemed to be at
death's door! The weather, however, did not allow them to give way to
despondency, much as they might have been inclined, for, as night came
on, the darker it grew, the wind and sea increasing so that David had an
onerous task to steer the boat in such a manner as to prevent her being
swamped; while Jonathan was as continually busy in baling out the heavy
seas that, partly, lurched in over the gunwale, first on the port side
and then to starboard, as the cutter rocked to and fro in her course,
tearing madly up and down the hills and valleys formed by the waves, and
sometimes leaping clean out of the water from one mountainous ridge to
another.
And thus, the weary hours passed till morning, without giving them a
moment's rest from their anxious labour, the constant fear of being
overset and swallowed up by the tiger-like billows that raced after them
banishing the feeling of fatigue, and making them forget for the while
their disappointment.
When the sun rose, for the fourth time since they had been left deserted
on the deep, the boys were completely worn out.
David's leg, too, had got worse; whether from the exposure or not they
could not tell, but it had swollen up enormously, and he could hardly
move; so, Jonathan had to take his place at the steering oar, and act
under his directions carefully, as the sea was still very high, and it
required critical judgment and a quick eye to prevent the boat being
taken broadside on by any of the swelling waves that followed fast in
their track, raising their towering crests and foaming with impotent
fury as far as the eye could reach, astern, and to their right hand and
their left, while in front the waters sometimes uplifted themselves into
a solid wall, as if to stop their way. With mid-day, came a change of
scene.
The wind gradually died away, and there fell a dead calm, while the sea
subsided in unison; although a sullen swell remained, in evidence of old
Neptune's past anger, and to show that he had a temper of his own when
he liked to use it--a swell that rocked the boat like a baby's cradle,
and flapped the loose sail backwards and forwards across their heads, in
such a disagreeable manner that David suggested their hauling it down;
which they did, the boat not rolling half so much without its
perpendicular weight, while it was pleasanter for them.
"I tell you what, Dave," suggested Jonathan after a while to his friend,
who was stretched out on the stern-sheets, resting his wounded leg on a
seat, "I think if you'd let me bandage your thigh with a strip of my
shirt, and keep it soaked with water, the evaporation of the sun would
take down the swelling and make it feel better?"
"So it would probably," he assented; "and at the same time, Jonathan,
get those fish and the bird out of the locker. I had almost forgotten
them;--I suppose, because I don't feel hungry yet! We will skin them
and split them in two: and if we expose them spread out on top of the
sail, which you can stretch across the thwarts, our old friend can cook
them while he is acting as my physician."
Jonathan, who had been tearing a couple of long strips off his shirt,
and binding them round David's leg while he was speaking, now soused the
bandages with sea water, taking it up in the one uninjured boot which he
had kept for baling purposes, and then propped it up in an easy
position, so that it should be directly exposed to the rays of the sun,
which was now almost vertical, and hotter than they had yet felt it. He
then unstepped the mast, and arranged the sail like an awning over the
rest of the boat, serving to shelter themselves--with the exception of
David's leg, of course--from the heat, which was decidedly more
comfortable, and act as a table for their culinary arrangements.
On counting them, which they had not done before, they found they had
thirteen bonetas and skipjacks, beside the molly hawk, which they
determined to eat while it was fresh; and then would have sufficient
food, as the fish would keep perfectly when dried, for quite that number
of days--a lucky number as Jonathan said, as it was "a baker's dozen,"
and certainly not an even one.
"An unlucky one, you mean," said David. "They say that when thirteen
people sit down at table together one is sure to die before the year is
out."
"That will only apply to the fish," said Jonathan laughing, "and they're
dead already, and will be eaten soon. And talking of that, Dave, I
think it's about dinner-time; what say you? My clock here," patting his
stomach as he spoke, "warns me that it needs winding up."
"All right, I feel peckish myself," answered David, who was skinning and
cutting open the fish leisurely with his clasp knife, which he could do
easily without removing from his position or shifting his leg, while
Jonathan cleaned them and washed them in the sea over the side of the
boat preparatory to spreading them out on the top of their awning to dry
in the sun. "Just wait till I finish this last beggar, and then I'll
tackle Miss Molly Hawk, and we'll begin. Do you know, Jonathan, I don't
think birds are half so bad eaten raw? I did enjoy that cape pigeon
yesterday."
"So did I," said the other. "It makes me hungrier to think of it. Look
alive, old boy, or I'll start on one of these fish just to keep my hand
in."
"No, you won't, or your teeth either, you cannibal," said David
jocularly. "I'm captain, and purser too, and I'm not so extravagant as
to serve out two courses for dinner. Chaffing aside," he added more
seriously, "we'll have to be rigidly economical, Jonathan, for we can't
tell how long it may be before we fall in with a ship or reach land, and
we've already experienced something of what the pangs of starvation are
like, though, thank God, we were not put so severely to the test as some
have been! I wish, old fellow, we were as well off for water as we are
for grub. I don't think there is a pint more in the breaker, now that
we've had that last drink, and I'm sure we've not been very prodigal of
it, and I've measured it out carefully every day."
"Perhaps it will rain," said Jonathan cheerfully--the sight of the molly
hawk, which David had dexterously plucked and cut in two, the same as he
had done the cape pigeon on the previous day, making him feel ravenously
hungry, and limiting all his considerations to the present, instead of
his being impressed with their future needs, as was the case with his
more reflective companion, "Perhaps it will rain, David. `Sufficient
for the day is the evil thereof.' Let us set to work; I'm starving!"
The appetites of the boys being hearty, they finished every scrap of the
bird, which, raw as it was, tasted like roast goose to them, although it
was not nearly so large as it had appeared with all its feathers on; and
then both lay down in the boat and had a hearty sleep, the first they
had had without interruption since they left their bunks for the last
time on board the _Sea Rover_.
Poor fellows! they had need of rest, for the calm lasted a week, during
which time their water ran out, and for more than two days they had not
a single drop, although they reduced their allowance to such an
infinitesimal quantity that their final draught did not amount to more
than a minim.
They now endured all the agonies of thirst, their diet of dried fish
making them feel it worse; and it was as much as David could do to
prevent Jonathan from drinking the sea water and losing his senses, as
he would have done--like many others who would not control their
inclinations, but insisted on having it, and afterwards went mad and
died.
Then, in the very height of their sufferings, a storm of rain came on
which half filled the boat with water, giving them plenty to drink, but
spoiling the remainder of their fish, so that they had to throw them
overboard.
After the rain the wind sprang up again, and the sail was once more
hoisted, David trying to keep the boat as nearly in the direction of the
coast of South Africa as he could guess, during the day steering by the
sun; but at night she went as the breeze willed, and so it continued for
days, the boys getting weaker and weaker through starvation, although
they had saved plenty of water in their cask to assuage the pangs of
thirst, during which time they never saw a bird or a fish to which they
could get near.
They sighted several ships, but they were too far off to attract their
notice; and when, finally, a sudden squall in the night blew away their
mast and sail, and left them tossing helplessly on the ocean, starving
and worn out with fatigue, they gave up all hope, and lay down in the
bottom of the boat to die--Jonathan being the first to succumb.
"Good-bye, Dave!" said he, raising himself with a feeble effort.
"Good-bye, Jonathan!" said the other, grasping his companion's hand, as
he thought, for the last time.
"I think I am going to die," continued Jonathan: "my head is spinning
round, and I feel faint. I will lie down a bit until the end comes.
Good-bye, Dave, once more!"
And he sank down again into a restless sleep, the other following his
example a moment or two afterwards; first giving one last haggard glance
around the horizon--on which not a single sail appeared in sight--as if
bidding it an eternal farewell.
STORY THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN.
RESCUED.
"Boat ahoy!"
The two boys might have been asleep for hours only, or insensible for
days, they never knew for certain which, and nobody else could inform
them; but that shout ringing in their ears awoke them, with a thrill of
agony that it might be merely a dream of their disordered imagination.
One look, however, satisfied them to the contrary, when they painfully
raised themselves into a sitting posture in the bottom of the boat--
which they could hardly do by reason of their weakness--holding on to
the gunwales on either side as they dragged up their attenuated bodies,
and directing their sunken eyes, which rolled with incipient delirium,
to the point from whence the hail came.
They could have screamed for joy, but their voices failed them, and
their emotion found relief in tears and stifling sobs.
A large ship lay to about a hundred yards off; and a boat, which had
evidently just been lowered from its side, was being pulled rapidly
towards them.
As soon as the boat came alongside, the men in her, who appeared to be
foreigners, looked at the boys with the deepest pity, and spoke to each
other rapidly in some guttural language, which Jonathan had a hazy idea
was German, as if expressing sympathy with their emaciated condition.
One of them whom they took to be an officer, from the gold band on his
cap and the tone of authority in his voice, stepped into their boat, and
appeared to have the intention of lifting them out of it into the other;
but all at once he seemed to notice the name of the _Eric Strauss_, and
stopped short, with an expression of surprised astonishment on his face.
"Wunderbar!" he exclaimed, pointing out the name to his companions, who
also looked eagerly at it; and then, while he remained with the boys in
the cutter, the painter of the latter was attached to the other boat,
which towed it alongside the ship; and, after that David and Jonathan
remembered no more, as they both fainted as they were being tenderly
hoisted on board.
Jonathan was the first to come to himself.
He was in a hammock in the 'tween decks of a ship, which he could feel
was in motion. At the slight movement he made in raising his head and
peering over the side of the hammock, a man with a grave face came to
him, saying something he could not understand.
"Where's David?" inquired Jonathan, a little bit still puzzled in his
head.
The man evidently knew that he was asking after his friend, as he
pointed to another hammock, suspended a short distance from his own, in
which David was calmly sleeping; after which he gave him some soup to
drink, and Jonathan dropped off to sleep too.
When he awoke again he felt much better, and motioning to the attendant
that he would like to get out of the hammock, the man assisted him on to
his feet. He was a little shaky at first, feeling sore all over; but
after walking up and down a few steps with the assistance of the
attendant's arm, he regained his strength, and proceeded to the side of
David's hammock to pay him a visit.
At the sound of Jonathan's voice, the other--who appeared to have been
wide awake although he had made no movement--at once jumped up, and
without any assistance got out and stood on the deck by Jonathan's side.
"Well, old fellow!" said he.
"Well, Dave!" ejaculated the other; and they clasped each other's hands
with a tight grip, as they had never expected to do again on earth.
They fully appreciated their rescue, and thanked God for it.
"And how do you feel, Dave?" inquired Jonathan, after they had had a
long look at each other.
"First-rate," said he. "And you?"
"Oh, I'm all right. But your leg, Dave, is it better?"
"To tell you the truth," answered he with a hearty laugh, "I forgot all
about it. It's quite well now--look! and that black and blue appearance
it had has disappeared. I don't feel the slightest pain, so it must be
all right."
The attendant, seeing both the lads better and able to move about, here
brought them each a mess of something nice to eat, which they polished
off in so hearty a manner as to make him smile, and exclaim, "Sehr gut!"
with much satisfaction to himself; and he then handed the boys their
clothes, which had been carefully dried and smoothed, and assisted them
to dress.
"I wish," said David, as he completed his toilet by pulling on a pair of
Hessian boots, that the man brought him in place of the solitary one
which he remembered having on in the boat, "I wish we had been picked up
by an English ship, although these chaps have been very kind, of course,
and beggars mustn't be choosers. They are Germans, I suppose, eh? Do
you know the lingo, Jonathan?"
"Yes, it's a German ship, _Die Ahnfrau_," replied his friend, likewise
donning another pair of "loaned" boots, and accepting a cap, which the
attendant produced with a bow. "How polite this chap is, Dave! I'm
sorry I only know one or two words of the language, or I would thank
him, and get out all the information I could about the vessel, and how
they picked us up."
"Oh we'll find that out somehow," said David carelessly, "all in good
time, old fellow." And the man at that moment tapping him on the arm,
and making a motion that he should follow him, he and Jonathan went
after him up the companion-stairs, from the cabin in which they were, on
to the upper deck.
They were in a large barque, as they could see, under full sail, with
royals, staysails, stunsails, and everything that could draw, set; but
they had not much time given them for observation.
"Wie heissen Sie?" said a short, stout man in spectacles, speaking in a
sharp imperative voice. He had a very broad gold band on his cap, and
the boys took him for the captain of the vessel, as indeed he was. He
specially seemed to address Jonathan, as the attendant who had escorted
them on deck took them up to him, where he was standing by the binnacle
with two or three others.
"John Liston," answered that worthy, speaking almost involuntarily, as
the phrase the captain used, asking his name, was one of the few German
ones with which he was acquainted.
"Ah, ah!" exclaimed the captain, in a very meaning tone, addressing an
officer that stood by his side, and whom David fixed as the first mate.
"Sie sprechen Deutsch! Ah, ha!"
"Nein,--no," said Jonathan, "I do not. I cannot speak German, I assure
you."
"Very vell," said the little captain, in pretty good English, although
with a strong foreign accent. "We will suppose you cannot! Tell me,
how did you come in that boat in which we picked you up?"
Thereupon Jonathan told him of their being lost from the _Sea Rover_,
David adding, as Jonathan left out that part of the story, how his
friend had bravely plunged overboard to his rescue. The German captain,
however, much to David's disgust, did not believe him. He wasn't
accustomed to heroism in his sphere evidently!
"Oh, it's all very well," he said sneeringly, "but will you tell me how
it was that you two boys, belonging to the _Sea Rover_, as you say, came
to be in a boat belonging to the _Eric Strauss_, which boat was taken
away from that vessel by some of the crew--amongst whom, we were
informed at the Cape by the authorities there, were two lads like
yourselves--after a mutiny in which they nearly murdered the master?"
Of course they explained; but the captain only turned a deaf ear to all
they said. He insisted that they were the survivors of the mutineers of
the _Eric Strauss_, and told them he intended putting them in irons, and
taking them home for trial at Bremerhaven--where _Die Ahnfrau_ was bound
from Batavia, having only stopped at the Cape of Good Hope for fresh
provisions and water, and having there heard of the mutiny on board the
_Eric Strauss_, in which vessel the captain of the former was deeply
interested, being the brother of the master, whom the crew had set upon,
as well as partner of the ship.
All remonstrances on the boys' part were useless; and, after being so
miraculously preserved from the perils of the deep, they wound up the
history of their adventures when "lost at sea," as David pathetically
remarked, by being "carried off prisoners to Germany by a lot of
cabbage-soup-eating, sourkrout Teutons, who were almost bigger fools
than they looked!" It was all Jonathan's little knowledge of the German
language that did it, however.
Naturally, the mistake of _Die Ahnfrau's_ commander was soon discovered
on the arrival of the ship at Bremerhaven, when the boys were able to
communicate with their friends and the owners of the _Sea Rover_ in
London, and they were released immediately. But the insult rankled in
their bosoms for some time after, and did not completely disappear, from
David's mind especially, until the _Sea Rover_--which, they heard from
the owners at the same time that they produced proof of the boys'
identity, had already left Melbourne on her return voyage--had got back
safely to the port of London, and Johnny Liston's father and Captain
Markham had greeted their young heroes as if they had been restored from
the dead.
Jonathan received the medal of the Royal Humane Society for his bravery
in plunging overboard to David's assistance; and the two boys are still
the closest and dearest friends in the world, David being third mate,
and Jonathan, who took to the sea for the other's sake, fourth officer
of the _Sea Rover_, at the present moment, "which, when found," as
Captain Cuttle says, "why, make a note on!"
STORY FOUR, CHAPTER ONE.
"BLACK HARRY."
"The cap'en p'r'aps was in fault in the first instance; but then, you
know, it's no place for a man to argue for the right or wrong of a thing
aboard ship. When he signs articles, he's bound to obey orders; and as
everybody must be aware, especially those in the seafaring line, the
captain is king on board his ship when once at sea--king, prime
minister, parliament, judge and jury, and all the rest of it."
"But," said I, "he's under orders and under the law, too, as well as any
other man, isn't he?"
"Yes, when he's ashore," said the mate with the shade over his eye.
"_Then_ he's got to answer for anything he might have done wrong on the
voyage, if the crew likes to haul him up afore the magistrates; but at
sea his word is law, and he can do as he pleases with no hindrance, save
what providence and the elements may interpose."
"And providence _does_ interpose sometimes?" said I.
"Yes, in the most wonderful and mysterious ways," said the mate with the
shade over his eye, speaking in a solemn and awe-struck manner. "Look
at what happened in our case! But stop, as I don't suppose you've heard
the rights of it, I'll tell you all about it."
"Do," said I.
He was the mate of a vessel which had been picked up at sea, disabled
and almost derelict under most peculiar circumstances, with only one
other survivor besides himself on board, and brought into Falmouth by
the passing steamer which had rescued her. He was a most extraordinary
man to look at. Short, with a dreamy face and lanky, whitish-brown
hair, and a patch or shade over one eye, which gave him a very peculiar
appearance, as the other eye squinted or turned askew, looking, as
sailors say, all the week for Sunday.
"Do," said I. "There's nothing that I should like better!"
Clearing his throat with a faint sort of apologetic cough, and staring
apparently round the corner with his sound, or rather unshaded eye, he
began without any further hesitation.
"The cap'en p'raps was in the wrong at first, as I said afore, sir. You
see, some men are born to authority, and some isn't, and Captain Jarvis
was one of those that aren't. I don't wish to speak ill of a man, when
he's dead and gone to his account, and not here to answer for himself;
but I must say, if I speak the truth, that it was all through Cap'en
Jarvis' fault the _Gulnare_ came to grief and all on board murdered each
other; and what weren't murdered were swept off the ship and drowned in
the storm that came on afterwards, when everybody was seeking each
other's blood, and so met their doom in that way--all, that is, barrin'
little Peter and me, who only lived through the scrimmage and the gale
to tell the story of the others' fate. The cap'en had a bad temper and
didn't know how to keep it under; that was at the bottom of it all; and
yet, a nicer man, when the devil hadn't got the upper hand of him, and a
handsomer chap--he was better looking than me, sir," said the mate in an
earnest way, as if his statement was so incredible that he hardly
expected it to be believed--"yes, a nicer and a handsomer chap you never
clapped eyes on in a day's run than Cap'en Jarvis! He stood a trifle
taller than me, and had a jolly bearded face with merry blue eyes; but
with all that and his good-humoured manner when everything was up to the
nines and all plain sailing, he had old Nick's temper and could show it
when he liked! We left Mobile short-handed; and when you leave port to
cross the Atlantic short-handed at this time of the year, I guess,
mister, you've got your work cut out for you, you have! There was only
the cap'en; myself, first mate; the second officer, boatswain, and ten
hands all told, includin' idlers, to navigate a ship of over eight
hundred tons from Mobile to Liverpool in the very worst time of the
year! A bad lookout when you come to consider it fairly as I have; and
when you have a cap'en as is continually working the men to death and
a-swearin' and a-drivin' at them, and they undermanned too, why it
stands to reason that harm will come: you're bound to have a muss, you
bet, before the voyage is through!