sea round about the waterlogged barque was whitening rapidly with
many thousand feet of Nova Scotian lumber. For when the captain was
out of sight, Simpkins was encouraging, and talked what he told them
was "horse" sense.
"You wants to get back 'ome to your families, don't you," he asked,
"and to your instruments and your usual ways of livin'? Why, of
course you does. Then buck up, and pitch in, and learn to do your
dooty. I'm not a hard man. I can make allowances. I know you
didn't ship to do this. But it's your luck, and you must. Now then,
that'll do the deck. Just lay into this pump all of you, and I'll
sound 'er again."
And as good luck would have it, there soon appeared some reason for
hoping that the leaks in the _Kamma Funder_ had closed.
"Blimy," said Simpkins, "we'll 'ave 'er sailin' like a witch yet.
Chuck yerselves into it, and I'll call the captain."
But the captain was fast asleep in the bunk of the late skipper.
"What's become of her crew?" asked the new crew, as they sat round
the deck and ate their biscuit.
"Took off by a steamer," said Simpkins; "you see they've left their
boats, and the captain says the ship's papers 'as gone, so they was
took off, for sure."
"I wish we were taken off," said the weary astronomer.
"That'll come, I dessay," replied the consolatory Simpkins, "but if
we sails 'er 'ome, we'll get salvage, and your time won't be wasted.
So cheer up, and let's make sail, while a couple of you keeps the
pumps a-goin'."
The wind by now was a light north-westerly breeze, and though the
barque worked heavily and wallowed in the sea, Simpkins took her as
she went round and put the geologist at the helm.
"Keep the wind in the back o' your neck," said Simpkins to the
nervous helmsman, "and I'll loose the foresail."
He jumped up aloft and loosed the foresail and two fore-topsails.
Coming down, he got the scientific crew to work.
"Here you, ketch hold of this and pull. There, that will do. Belay!
Tie the thing up, I mean, on that thing, you silly ass!"
And the member of the Royal Society, who was thus addressed for the
first time since he had left school, made the starboard fore-sheet
fast to the cleat.
"You ain't such an ass as you wants to make out," said Simpkins, as
he watched him critically; "me and the captain will soon put you
chaps in shape. Now then, all of you! Fore-topsail 'alliards!
Stretch it out and lay back. Which of you can sing?"
They declared that none of them could.
"Then I must," said Simpkins; and he gave them the chanty "Handily,
boys, so handy," until he had the topsail well up. And just as the
crew were looking aloft with a strange new feeling of actual pleasure
in seeing results grow under their hands, a sudden row arose aft.
The captain was interviewing the geologist.
"Steer small," said Captain Prowse; "don't work the bally wheel as if
you was workin' a chaff-cutter."
"I'm doin' my best," said the furious man of science, "and I beg you
will speak to me civilly."
"I'll speak to you how I like," said Prowse; "didn't I tell you a
while back as you wasn't a passenger no more, but one of my crew?"
"Sir," said the geologist, "I beg that you will be so good as to
refrain from speaking to me. I am not accustomed to be talked to in
that tone."
Captain Prowse gasped, and, walking hurriedly to the side,
endeavoured to pull a fixed belaying-pin from the rail. After three
or four trials he came to a loose one. By this time the _Kamma
Funder_ was yawing all abroad, and when Captain Prowse came towards
the wheel again, the geologist let go, and in his turn sought for a
weapon. The captain caught the wheel in time to prevent the vessel
getting right aback, and roared:
"Mutiny, mutiny!"
Simpkins and the scientific association came running aft.
"Simpkins," shrieked Prowse, "ketch hold of that geological chap."
"I dare either of you to touch me," said the geologist; "the first
one that does, I'll brain him!"
He held the iron pin firmly, and looked desperate.
"Come and ketch hold of the wheel," said Prowse, in a choking voice.
"No, don't let him," said the offender, and a violent argument arose.
"This is perfectly scandalous," said the meek astronomer, "and----"
"We won't put up with it," cried the entomologist.
"I must obey orders," said Simpkins.
"Or I'll murder you," screamed the skipper.
"If he lets go she'll be took aback," said Simpkins, "and it'll be a
lot of trouble."
"We don't care," said the men of science, and then the captain let go
and rushed for the geologist. Simpkins broke from the astronomer and
caught the spinning wheel just as the geologist knocked the captain
down.
"Oh," cried the pathologist, "I believe you've killed him."
"I hope so," said the hero of the occasion, with rather a pale face,
"I'm not going to be bullied by any coarse brute of a sailor."
"But he's the captain," said Simpkins.
But mutiny was in their hearts. They all talked at once, and the
pathologist felt the captain's skull to see whether it was still
sound.
"Will he die?"
"No," said the doctor, "he has a skull like a ram's. Take him below."
"And lock him in," said the astronomer. "And we can argue with him
through the door."
It was a happy thought, and even Simpkins, in spite of his ingrained
respect for the lawful authority of the most lawless skipper,
approved the suggestion.
"You ain't all so soft as you look," said Simpkins, "but the sea does
bring the devil out in a man if so be he's got any."
And they carried Captain Joseph Prowse down below. As his cabin door
would not lock, they jammed short pieces of sawed lumber between it
and the other side of the alley way.
"It's mutiny," said Simpkins, "but it's done, and maybe he'll cool
off when he comes to and finds his 'ead aching."
But nevertheless the situation was not pleasant, and no one was quite
certain as to what should be done.
"Hold a committee meeting," said the entomologist.
The others said that was nonsense. Simpkins, who now looked on the
geologist as captain of the mutineers, touched his hat to him, and
begged leave to speak.
"Well," said the geologist, "what is it?"
"Ain't some of you gents good at instruments?" asked Simpkins. "For
if you are, and if you could get hold of a sextant, it would be doin'
things regular if you was to take a sight of the sun."
The ethnologist turned to the astronomer.
"How humanity yearns for a certain regularity!" he said; "it would
really comfort Simpkins if you would squint at the sun through a
gaspipe."
"You find me the sextant," said the astronomer, "and I'll do it."
"What, you?" said Simpkins. "I'd never ha' thought it."
Though he could not be induced to say in public why he would never
have thought it, in private he revealed to the inquisitive
ethnologist that the astronomer looked "the measliest of the whole
gang, sir."
The discussion, which had been held on deck, with Simpkins at the
wheel, was broken up by the captain hammering furiously on his jammed
door.
"Go down and soothe him," said Simpkins nervously, "and mind you tell
him I done nothin' but give in to superior overwhelmin' odds. For so
I did, gentlemen, so I did, as you know, bein' those as done it."
The committee went below, with the geologist leading. He carried his
belaying-pin in his pocket. As they marched, the uproar was
tremendous.
"What a skull he must have!" said the ethnologist. "I wish I had it
in my collection."
"So do I," said the pathologist
And the authority on philology pressed to the front rank, for Captain
Joseph Prowse was doing his best.
"Lemme out," he roared; "oh, when I do get out, I'll show you what I
am."
"Shut up!" said the young geologist, with firmness.
The captain gave an audible gasp.
"Shut up?" he inquired weakly.
"Yes," said the leader, "and give us your sextant, if you have one."
"Well, I'm damned," said Prowse, after a long and striking pause.
"May I inquire if you've took command? For if so, and you require my
services to peel pertaters and sweep the deck, just say so, and let
me out."
"Will you be civil if we let you out?" asked the astronomer kindly.
"Civil?" said Prowse, choking; "what do you think?"
"We don't think you will be," replied the astronomer, "from the tone
of your voice."
"I'm sure he won't be," said the geologist.
"I think we'd better keep him where he is," said the rest anxiously;
"why, the man's nothing but a raging lunatic."
"Oh!" said Prowse from within. "Look here, you mutineers, is
Simpkins in this?"
"No," said the geologist, who showed a little humour occasionally,
"he's out of it. He tried to rescue you, so we hung him. But he
came to again, and is now at the wheel. What about that sextant?"
"I ain't got no sextant," said Prowse sulkily. He recognised it was
no use kicking, and the rum was dying out of his aching head.
"Then let's go on deck," said the men of science. "What's the use of
talking to him."
"Oh, please," said the subdued skipper; but they paid no attention,
and returned to Simpkins.
At various intervals during the day Prowse made more and more pitiful
appeals to be let out. But as the weather was clear and bright,
Simpkins and his "overwhelming odds" were at work on deck, and paid
little or no attention. Simpkins now did not take his line from the
skipper, but, feeling that the command was in commission, adopted the
manner of the sergeant-instructor at a gymnasium.
"Now, if a couple or four of you gentlemen would keep the pumps
going," he urged from his station at the wheel, "we should get along
a deal better. And if you, sir, would come and take the wheel agin
for two shakes of a lamb's tail, I don't see no reason I shouldn't
loose the upper main-topsail."
So the geologist took the wheel while Simpkins went aloft and loosed
the upper main-topsail.
"Supposing you wanted to have less sail presently," said the
astronomer to Simpkins, when the topsail was set, "what would you do?"
"You gents would 'ave to 'elp stow it," said Simpkins.
"What, go aloft?" asked the astronomer.
"And why not?" demanded Simpkins. "It's easy, going aloft--as easy
as fallin' from the side of an 'ouse."
"So I should think," cried the astronomer, shivering. "I hope the
weather will remain fine."
"You know it's really remarkable how useful such an uneducated man
can be," he said presently to some of the others. "Now, what use am
I?"
Simpkins was passing and heard this. He paused and eyed the
astronomer.
"Well, to speak the truth, sir," he said sympathetically, "you ain't
much; but you do what you can at the end of a rope. And I shouldn't
be surprised if you're all right at 'ome."
"All of which is good against vanity," said the astronomer, as the
barque under most of her plain sail steered east-south-east into the
track of the Atlantic liners. "And do you know, absurd as it may
seem, I am beginning to feel very well indeed--better than I have
done for years."
As the night fell, the captain, who had by that time lost all his
alcoholic courage, appealed for mercy. He shouted his petition to
those on deck through the cabin port-hole. But he tried Simpkins
first.
"Simpkins," he yelled.
"Yes, sir," said Simpkins, with his head over the rail.
"Come and let me out."
"I darn't, sir," said Simpkins; "they're all very fierce and savage
agin you, especial about your using bad language, and each of 'em 'as
a belayin'-pin and is a-watchin' of me. It's more than my life's
worth to let you out. And----"
"Yes," said the skipper.
"It's more'n yours is worth too. You must ask 'em civil."
"_And give your word of honour,_" suggested the ferocious geologist
in a whisper.
"And give your word of honour----"
"_To act civilly and quietly to every one._"
"To act civil and quiet, sir," said Simpkins.
"_And not to talk too much about authority, or drink any more rum,_"
prompted the savage astronomer.
"And not to be too rumbumptious, or to get squiffy again," said
Simpkins.
"For," said the brutal geologist, "if you will agree to these terms,
we shall be glad of your advice and assistance, Captain Prowse."
"I'll think of it," returned the skipper sulkily.
"All right," said the rude geologist, "take a day or two to think it
over."
"Oh, Lord," said Prowse hastily. "I've thought of it, and I agree."
And when he came on deck the savage and ferocious scientific captains
remarked in a friendly manner that it was a fine evening.
"Damme," said the one-time skipper, "I'm blowed if _I_ ain't the crew
of the _Kamma Funder_."
THE REHABILITATION OF THE VIGIA.
The mate or the _Palembang_ walked the weather side of the poop, and
felt just then that he was full up to the back teeth of the mighty
sea and all its works. He yearned for Leith Walk or Wapping; to lie
on a hot dry beach would be heaven, for the hot wet south-west
monsoon was blowing the _Palembang_ towards Bombay, and the Maldivhs
were on the starboard beam.
Jack Wilson propped his eyes open and cursed the slow passage of time
towards midnight. As he peered down below at the lighted clock he
was inclined to swear that the second mate had come out and stopped
it. But presently it was five minutes to twelve, and to his disgust
sleepiness passed away as his relief stumbled up the poop ladder and
came aft. "Jerusalem, but it's dark," said the second greaser, as he
looked up aloft and round about him.
"Have the gas lit," growled Wilson, as he was going forward.
"Sulky devil!" replied the second. "When do you have a civil word
for any one?"
This was all in the night's work, and no one was a penny the worse.
Civility at midnight is often too dear to be bought from any one but
an inferior; and Wilson and Green knew each other very well.
The _Palembang_ was running with the wind on the port quarter, and
for a quiet life the old lady was under shortened canvas. She went
at it like an old dame in wind and snow; a reefed foresail
represented picked-up petticoats; the stowed royals and
topgallant-sails suggested that a hat with feathers had been replaced
by a handkerchief. For the monsoon was blowing stiff that July night
seven degrees to the north of the Line, and threatened to blow
stiffer yet.
As it was getting towards two o'clock, or four bells, the captain
came on deck, and nodded at the binnacle when Green said:
"Good-morning, sir." Then he spread his legs out and considered the
dark universe for awhile.
"It has waked up a bit since I went below, Mr. Green," he said
presently; and, wanting no answer, he got none. The song of the wind
in the rigging and the draught under the foot of the foresail were
answer sufficient. There was a pleasing hiss alongside as the
_Palembang_ shoved through the Indian Ocean and left a lighter wake
behind.
"There's a vigia marked on the chart for hereabouts," said Captain
Spiller presently; "it got there through that old fool Banks of the
_Simoom_. He reported it years ago, but it warn't never confirmed.
Rocks, he said, and one like Cleopatra's Needle."
"Then you don't credit it either, sir?" asked Green presently.
"I know Banks," replied Spiller, snorting, "and never was such a man
for imagination and want of judgment. I'd take it as proof positive
as nothing was, if he said it stood to reason it must be. And I'm a
man as likes a clean and decent chart. A chart is the character give
to an ocean by them as has employed it, a bundle of _chits_, as the
Hindoo beggars say, and to go an' lump in a suspicion agin' the
character of an ocean on the word of a man like Banks, why, I've no
patience. I've a notion that the law of libel ought to have a say in
it."
"Aye, sir," said Green. "The Indian Ocean _versus_ Banks."
"And I'd believe it of Banks that he done it just to get his name
mentioned, and to rise a bit of a palaver about him. He's a most
conceited chap is Banks, and not by any means the seaman he'd like to
be thought. And they actually sent a man-o'-war down to look up his
_Simoom_ Rocks and they came back and never seen 'em."
"And nobody else ever did, sir?"
"Of course not," said Spiller; "they might as well set traps to catch
the rats that a man sees when he's got the jimjams. And nothing
makes Banks angrier than to throw out a hint you don't believe in
them rocks. I always gets him on it, by asking for a clean chart and
proved shoals, and what not, and giving it him hot and heavy on
vigias and the like. Bah, I ain't no patience."
And Spiller tramped the deck for a bit. Presently he came back to
where Green stood.
"He'll be in Bombay before us," he said gloomily. "I have to own the
_Simoom's_ faster than the _Palembang_, but if she was sailed by a
better man she'd make quicker passages. Why, an engineer in a
steamer can pass a thorough sailor in a scow."
His heart was bitter, but the thought that Her Majesty's cruiser
_Amphion_ had discredited the _Simoom_ vigia was balm to his inmost
soul, as he turned to go below.
"Keep a bright look-out," he growled, and he left Green to consider
the matter of vigias in general, and the _Simoom_ vigia in particular.
For these vigias, the terror of seamen, are like malicious spirits.
Some man has seen them, or has imagined them, and for ever after they
bear sway in the minds of those who sail upon the great deep.
Perhaps they are but a floating mass of wreck, on which the sea
breaks; in the south, what was seen was, it may be, a drifting berg;
on the shores of West Africa, perchance a river has sent out a
floating island. Any accident of imagination may create them;
alcohol bears them on its tide: they are the rats and ghosts and
terrible creeping things of the delirium of the sea that is born of
rum. A heavy heeled spar as it floats becomes a pinnacle of rock;
the boat that bears dead men in it is for ever after to be avoided.
Here a rip of currents, and there a heavy overfall, become fixed
terrors and are given names.
For this is the sea that is unknown yet, and shall for ever be
unknown. It works upon the mind of man very subtly, and yet again
with tremendous strength. Under the sea are earthquakes, and in it
volcanoes. Of these islands are born, and again they pass away,
while the little creature man skims upon the surface of the ocean
like a water-beetle, and may be seen no more.
When Green was left alone upon the poop of the _Palembang_, save for
the presence of the man at the wheel, something of the wonderful
majesty of the sea came down upon him, and for a moment touched his
nerves. Trust in the captain he had none, for Spiller was of the
usual alcoholic order; so he got out the chart and looked at it.
There stood the vigia marked "Simoom Rock." Perhaps it existed after
all. He remembered the history of the Aurora Islands to the cast of
the Falklands. Even now, some old sailors believe there are such
islands, real land, not ice grounded on deep soundings. And the
Simoom vigia was close at hand, if it existed at all. Allowing for
sufficient uncertainty in its supposed position, it might be anywhere
within a degree. He stared out into the darkness and imagined he saw
it. It was here, it was there, it was nowhere: it was a wraith of
the mind, and dissolved. He put back his night-glasses, and
whistled, till he remembered there was quite enough wind, and that he
had no desire to turn the hands up to shorten sail.
"Jerusalem, it is dark," he said again, and he recalled Wilson's
reply, "Have the gas lit." Aye, that would be pleasant. For a
moment he saw the streets of London town with a diminuendo in lamps,
and then he pulled himself together. It breezed up a bit and was
four bells. He hove the log, and went along the lee side to go below
to enter it on the slate. She made a biggish weather roll, and the
decks being slippery, he steadied himself and put his head outside
the rail to take a look ahead. And at that moment, as he says, he
saw the Simoom vigia. His heart stood still, and then thumped
furiously. In spite of the hiss of the seas, and the windy roar of
the rigging, the sound of his pulse in his ears was like the sound of
a pump. He was paralysed, and yet he knew that the _Palembang_ was
rushing on destruction.
"Hard a starboard!" he said coolly, but in a choking voice.
"Sir?" said the astounded man at the wheel.
"Hard a starboard, damn you," said Green fiercely.
And the helmsman ground the wheel hard down with the air of a
surprised martyr. As the _Palembang_ bowed and came round almost at
right angles to her former course, Green swears he saw broken water,
though he lost the sharp pinnacle of rock he had seen at first.
Old Spiller, who was not asleep, came up on deck in a hurry.
"What's she off her course for?"
Green told him, and Spiller swore.
"You saw nothing, you damn fool."
"I did."
"You didn't, you imaginative ass."
Green wanted to plant his fist between Spiller's eyes, but did not;
for he was a married man and hated to lose a job. He ground his
teeth and turned away. The _Palembang_ was put on her course again,
and after interrogating the man on the look-out and the man at the
wheel, who acknowledged they had seen nothing, the skipper swore
promiscuously at everything, and went below to lay his soul in soak.
"What one man sees another'll look for, and what a fool looks for a
fool will see," he cried, without knowing what a neat addition he had
made to the subject of suggestion. And by the time that Wilson
relieved him at four o'clock Green was curiously uncertain as to
whether he had seen straight or not.
"Now, did you?" asked Wilson.
"Two hours ago I'd have sworn to it," said the second mate,
scratching his head.
"Well, I've a notion you did," cried Wilson. "Between you and me and
the mizzen-mast, I think Banks is a right smart man."
"I believe I can swear I saw it," said young Green, much encouraged.
"Yes, there were at least three rocks, one of them a pinnacle like an
obelisk."
And with Wilson secretly on his side, he was quite sure of it before
they reached Bombay, though Spiller was for ever jeering at him, and
making the ship as uncomfortable as he could.
"Mebbe you can see ghosts, too," he was constantly suggesting.
"I'll quit at Bombay if he'll give me my discharge," said Green.
And sure enough Spiller did, when he met Green on the Apollo Bunda in
a confidential yarn with Banks, who, for a seaman of the old class,
was a very gentlemanly man with neat white whiskers.
"You've been encouraging him about that vigia," roared Spiller, and
when he wrote out Green's discharge, he offered to give him a special
character for seeing ghosts.
"But not rats!" said Green nastily, as he put his discharge into his
pocket; for the last time Spiller overdrank himself he had a very bad
time with rodents.
It was the best of luck for Green that he got out of the _Palembang_,
for Banks's mate fell ill, and the second had no mate's ticket. So
Green, being in great favour, through having seen the poor
discredited Simoom vigia, got the job, for he had passed for mate
just before signing as second in the _Palembang_.
Banks took him round with him, and again tackled the captain of the
_Amphion_ about that vigia, showing his new witness; but Captain
Melville shook his head.
"The old man is crazy about those rocks," was all he said, as he
refused to discuss the matter.
But Banks and Spiller went at it hammer and tongs when they met
ashore.
"He saw nothing," said Spiller.
"Only what I saw."
"I told the fool about it and he imagined the rest, as you did."
Banks fumed.
"Lucky you didn't run the _Palembang_ on my imagination. Slow as she
goes, she'd have slammed herself into matchwood."
Spiller choked with rage.
"Look here, I'll sail all over your blooming rocks, as I have done
afore. You just made this up to get notoriety, and have your ship's
name on the chart, and be put in the Directory. I know you, Banks,
and I don't think much of you, and never did. To get yourself talked
about you'd report that you'd seen the _Flying Dutchman_. Vigias,
indeed! A disfigurement on any chart! You'll have the chart of the
Indian Ocean as big a disgrace as the North Atlantic if you have your
way. Didn't you find nothing new to report this time?"
Banks rose up in a towering rage.
"You're no gentleman, Captain Spiller, and I'll speak no more with
you, not till you own that the Simoom Rocks are real. And may you
never have occasion to rue finding them out as such. I'll let you
know I've as great a respect for the chart as you have, and if you
ever run your old tub on my rocks, you can call 'em Spiller's Reef,
for all I care, so there," and he perspired off to his vessel.