Ralph's Sufferings.
Low down in the northwestern horizon was a faint speck of white.
Everywhere else the blue of the sky and ocean was unrelieved. The
"mares' tails" of clouds had disappeared and the sea was a gently
heaving plain of glass.
"A sail!" exclaimed the boy. "It must be a sail."
He hurriedly set up his mast again and hastened back to the tiller.
But there was no wind; the canvas hung limp, while the sun was broiling
the paint on the little forward deck.
"I don't suppose they can see me," thought he dejectedly. "It must be
only their topsails that I see, and so small a boat as this would be
invisible. Perhaps if they had a glass at the mast head, they might
find me. Oh, if I only had a wind!"
Reflection, however, convinced him that a breeze would be as apt to
carry the strange vessel off as to bring it nearer, so he was fain to
sit still and idly watch the tiny dot of white, which meant so much,
yet might do so little.
The isolation of his position pressed upon him harder than ever. He
felt, for a time, that if that elusive bit of white should disappear he
would certainly break down. The heat and glare in the air added to his
misery, and he took another drink from the keg, despite his previous
abstemious resolve.
"I just can't help drinking," he said to himself in justification of
his act. "I reckon it's the wound makes me burn so."
For a long while matters remained much the same, except that his hunger
increased and his general state of discomfort grew to a point that
rendered his exposure to the sun's rays unbearable. He would have
taken his sail and made some sort of awning but for the faint hope that
it might be seen.
He crawled under the bow, where the deck sheltered the upper half of
his person, and found some relief. From time to time he crept out and,
standing on the thwarts, watched the unchanging speck of white, with
longings which at times were almost akin to despair.
Towards the middle of the afternoon, after a longer stay beneath the
deck than usual, he heard a slight thump against the side of the boat.
Scrambling up, he saw that a light breeze had arisen, sending little
ripples over the sea.
The wind was fair towards the distant sail, and Ralph again stepped his
mast and trimmed his sheet, while his heart beat fast. If he could
only get near enough to the stranger to be recognized!
But his progress was slow and many times the distant spot would
disappear momentarily, sending painful thrills through his veins.
Then, when it was visible once more, the sense of relief was almost as
hard to bear, so greatly were his nerves wrought up.
After a time it seemed to him that the sail was growing larger. At
first he doubted, then became assured of that fact.
He rose and shouted in sheer exultation. For a time the white spot
increased in size until he felt that he would certainly be seen a
moment or two later. But that longed-for moment did not come.
At last he perceived that the stranger was sailing at right angles to
his own course, which would naturally expose to his view a larger
expanse of sail. Would he be able to forge far enough ahead to be
recognized?
The period of suspense was almost an agony; nor was the after
conviction that the ship was slowly but surely leaving him, as she
passed on her course, much more painful by comparison. But as long as
she was in sight Ralph sailed on.
He could not voluntarily give up even the last glimpse of what appeared
to be the only link connecting him with his fellow creatures. But as
the dot of white was finally lost to view, he sank to the boat's bottom
in despair, letting the sail flap listlessly and the tiller swing
unguided.
"It is no use," he faltered, as his eyes momentarily filled under a
sinking feeling of utter loneliness. "I might as well give up."
But pain is at times a great reviver. As hope dwindled, the irritation
of his wound and the gnawing of his stomach forced their discomfort
upon his attention. He drank again, and later on, again, with a
persistent disregard of future consequences which only the overwhelming
disconsolation of his situation could have inspired.
The wind stiffened and at last he was obliged to take down his sail,
out of sheer lack of energy to continue his battle with fate. He lay
down under the bow for a long time.
The pitching of the yawl increased. Finally a larger sea than usual
sent nearly a barrel of water over the deck, that streamed down upon
his legs. Fear roused him to action once more.
He began bailing frantically with his hat, and soon had the boat dry
again. As he remained aft, no more seas were shipped, though the wind
was increasing, and by certain signs he felt that rougher weather might
be imminent. Clouds were rising, and though he did not like their
appearance, it was some relief when they shaded him from the now
declining heat of the sun.
As night approached, the wild waste of waters looked terribly stern and
forbidding. Occasionally a distant breaking of some white capped wave
would send his heart into his mouth, only to sink again despairingly.
Just at sunset the great luminary peered gloriously forth. Torturing
as was its power at midday, now it seemed to Ralph as if a friend were
bidding him farewell. When the last of its golden surface had
vanished, he felt as if that friend had departed, never to return, at
least to him.
For hours he sat after that, while a gloom as of death settled over the
ocean, broken only by the plash of waves and the constant creaking of
the yawl as it rolled and pitched in the trough of the sea.
Once a shower of rain, accompanied by a slight flurry of wind, set him
to trembling, as he remembered the fury of the squalls in those
latitudes. He felt that his frail shallop would never live through one.
Though in the tropics, he became chilly as the night advanced, while
the pain of hunger was but partially eased by the drafts of water of
which he still partook from time to time. He finally lay down in the
stern and wrapped himself in the sail.
The pitching and rolling soon sent him to sleep, in a merciful relief
to the gnawing sense of misery that now never left his mind while awake.
A ship's yawl, being both broad and deep, is one of the safest of small
boats in a seaway. Therefore Ralph passed the hours in temporary
security while unconscious. Unless a gale should rise, there was
little danger of his craft's swamping, nor, except from hunger, was his
physical situation any worse than during the day.
The most appalling thing connected with such a position was the
feelings which it must necessarily arouse, and until day Ralph was
exempted from these.
When he rubbed his eyes at dawn he lay there dreading to rise. The
loneliness of the sea renewed its terrors at once, and he feared to
look upon a scene of which he was the sole living element.
"I'm getting to be a regular baby," he said aloud. "I wonder what
grandfather would say could he see me now. I am at least away from
that old feud, if I never was before."
This allusion led him into a reverie upon the strangeness of the fate
that had led him half across the world in order to free himself from a
senseless quarrel, and to be pursued by it to an extent that had left
him free from its influence only when he was facing death in his
present forlorn condition.
He had been sent to Shard, whom he should have avoided as a relative of
the Vaughn faction. Shard had sent him to Gary, while Gary, five
thousand miles away, was wreaking upon the boy all the hatred inspired
by the haters of his family far back in the Southern mountains.
At last he raised his head and peered out upon the watery waste. As
his gaze swept from one side to the other an exclamation of amazement
dropped from his lips and he sprang to his feet.
Scarcely a quarter of a mile away was the Wanderer, with her sails all
spread and flapping idly from side to side as she rolled gently upon
the dead swell of the sea. The wind had died away and the slaver lay
between the yawl and the eastern dawn, a dim yet recognizable bulk.
Her dark, graceful proportions were not to be mistaken.
"This beats the nation!" was Ralph's next ejaculation. "This is what
one might call pure luck. Now if I only had a pair of oars."
Not having any, he tried his sail, but found the attempt useless, and
he was compelled to sit there thrilling with impatience to be aboard
once more. Finally, as he was about to rise and shout, he noticed
something white being waved from one of the stern windows.
While he was puzzling his brain over the meaning of this, a line of
black heads appeared above the bulwarks, and sundry black, naked forms
ran up the rigging. At the same time a chorus of barbaric yells rang
out, that chilled the boy's blood, even at that distance.
"I wonder if the blacks have got possession of the ship at last," and
with the thought his heart sank as he realized the certain death to all
in case such a thing had taken place. "If this be so, they have
undoubtedly killed every white aboard."
Ralph's situation now became doubly trying. To venture to board the
schooner might prove his destruction. To remain in the yawl was to
court a lingering and terrible death.
Already the pangs of hunger were almost unendurable. He drank from the
keg, then measured the contents with a splinter. It was half empty.
Twenty-four more hours of this and then----
"Come what will," he resolved, "I shall try to board the vessel. One
may as well die one way as another."
After some reflection he took apart his mast and used the six foot
strips as oars, finding that he made a little progress, though the task
was fatiguing and the movement exasperatingly slow.
Meanwhile the noise on the Wanderer grew hideous. The idle, untrimmed
manner in which the sails swung, was a fearful indication that the
untrained negroes were masters. When within two hundred yards he took
a careful survey. The whole deck and the lower rigging were alive with
blacks shouting, gesticulating, acting more like lunatics than sane
beings.
Something at the stern window again attracted his notice. It was a
handkerchief being waved. He answered the signal by waving his hat.
Then to Ralph's surprise and delight a white face was cautiously
protruded.
"I'll help that man off or die for it," was his next thought as he bent
once more to the task of rowing.
Had not the ocean been calm he would have made no headway. As it was,
when he drew up some thirty yards from the schooner's stern, he was for
the moment completely exhausted.
Turning round, he recognized with joy the pale blood-stained face at
the window.
"In heaven's name!" cried the boy. "What has happened? Are any more
of you alive?"