Our voyage had, thus far, proved to be an unusually eventful one; yet it
was to be made the more notable ere its close by the addition of still
one more incident, and that, too, of a sufficiently ghastly character,
to the catalogue of those already recorded. It occurred on the tenth
day after our brush with the Malays in the Straits of Sunda, and when we
were about midway across the China Sea.
Since that wild night on which we had so nearly laid the bones of the
_Esmeralda_--and possibly our own as well--to rest on the shores of
Sumatra, we had met with uninterrupted bright sunshine and light,
favourable breezes. The day on which the incident occurred was no
exception to the rule. The weather was gloriously fine, with a rich,
softly mottled sky of blue and white overhead, out of the midst of which
the afternoon sun blazed fiercely down upon a smooth, sparkling sea,
gently ruffling under the faint, warm breeze to a surface of pale,
glowing sapphire, along which the barque, wooing the soft zephyr with
studding-sails spread on both sides, from the royals down, swam with a
sleepy, rhythmical swaying of her taunt spars, at a speed of some five
knots in the hour.
It was close upon eight bells of the afternoon watch, and the saloon
party were all on deck, grouped under the shadow of the awning; the
elders lounging in easy, unconventional attitudes in capacious
basket-chairs, the women, attired in snowy white, beguiling the time by
making a pretence at working at some embroidery, or fancy sewing of some
kind, as they fitfully conversed upon such topics as occurred to them;
while Sir Edgar, clothed in flannels, with a Panama hat tilted well
forward over his eyes, smoked and read with an air of placid enjoyment;
the youngsters, apparently less affected than the rest of us by the
languorous heat of the weather, meanwhile indulging in a game at
hide-and-seek about the decks with the ship's cat.
Of the hands forward, some of the watch were aloft, working at odd jobs
about the rigging, while the drowsy clinking of a spunyarn winch
somewhere on the forecastle, in the shadow of the head sails, accounted
for the remainder. Most of the watch below were invisible; but two or
three industrious ones had grouped themselves on the foredeck, in
situations which secured at once a sufficiency of shadow and a maximum
of breeze, and were smoking and chatting as they washed or repaired
their clothing.
As for me, I was indulging in a brief spell of perfect bodily idleness,
and had established myself in my own particular wicker chair, near the
break of the poop, and, with hands crossed behind my head and cigar in
mouth, was lazily watching a man on the main-royal yard who was reeving
a new set of signal halliards, while my mind was busy upon the
apparently insoluble problem of finding the key to the cipher relating
to Richard Saint Leger's buried treasure.
The signal halliards had just been successfully rove when eight bells
were struck, and the man who had been reeving them--now off duty--was
preparing leisurely to descend to the deck, when, as nine out of every
ten sailors will, he paused to take a last, long, comprehensive look
round the horizon. There was not a sail of any sort in sight from the
deck, not even so much as the glancing of a bird's wing against the
warm, tender, grey tones of the horizon to arrest one's wandering
glances; but this was apparently not the case from the superior altitude
of the main-royal yard, for presently I observed a change in the
attitude of the man up there from that of listless indifference to
awakened curiosity and interest. His gaze grew earnest and attentive;
then he shaded his eyes with his hand, and his body assumed an attitude
and expression of alertness. Long and steadily he maintained his gaze
in one fixed direction; then he glanced down on deck, and, catching
sight of me with my face upturned toward him, he hailed--
"On deck, there! There's something away out here on the starboard bow,
sir, as has the look of a boat adrift."
"How does it bear, and how far off is it?" I inquired.
"About two points on the starboard bow, and a matter of eight or ten
mile off, I should say, sir," was the reply.
"Mr Forbes," said I to the mate, who, the watch having just been
called, at this moment came on deck from his cabin, "take the glass
aloft, and see what you can make of this new wonder, if you please."
Forbes went to the companion, took the telescope out of the beckets,
slung it over his shoulders, and leisurely ascended the fore-rigging
until he reached the topmast cross-trees, in which he comfortably
settled himself preparatory to a careful inspection of the object.
Meanwhile, the other man maintained his position on the main-royal yard.
"Now then, Joe, where do you say this precious `something' of yours is?"
inquired the mate as he unslung the telescope and proceeded to adjust it
for use.
"There it is, sir," answered the man, pointing; "about a couple of
points on the starboard bow. I don't know as you'll be able to see it
from down there, Mr Forbes, but it's plain enough--"
"All right; I see it," interrupted Forbes; and he forthwith raised the
telescope to his eye, taking a prolonged and exhaustive look through it.
At length, lowering the instrument, he turned in his seat, and, looking
down upon me where I now stood, just forward of the mainmast, hailed--
"Joe is quite right, sir. There certainly _is_ something out there, but
it is fully twelve miles away, and it looks uncommonly like a boat with
a mast stepped and a sail hoisted, or a signal flying.--I can't quite
make out which--and I even fancy I can catch an occasional glimpse of
people moving about in her; but she wavers so much in the glass that I
can't be at all sure about it."
"Very well; just keep your eye on her for a moment," I answered back,
"and let me know when she bears straight ahead. It will not take us
much out of our way to give her an overhaul, and it is as well to make
quite sure in such cases as this. Man your braces, fore and aft, the
starboard watch; larboard watch, go to work and get in the larboard
stu'n'sails. Port your helm a trifle,"--to the man at the wheel.
"Round-in a foot or two upon the larboard braces!"
As these manoeuvres were executed, the barque's bows slowly inclined to
the eastward, and presently Forbes hailed from his lofty perch--
"S-o, stead-y! Whatever she may be, she is now dead on end to a hair's
breadth."
"How is her head?" I shouted to the man at the wheel.