Many weeks passed away, but the _Maid of the Isle_ still held on her
course over the boundless ocean.
Day after day came and went, the sun rose in the east morning after
morning, ran its appointed course, and sank, night after night, on the
western horizon, but little else occurred to vary the monotony of that
long, long voyage. When the sun rose, its bright rays leapt from the
bosom of the ocean; when it set, the same bosom of the great deep
received its descending beams. No land, no sail appeared to the anxious
gazers in that little boat, which seemed to move across, yet never to
reach the boundaries of that mighty circle of water and sky, in the
midst of which they lay enchained, as if by some wicked enchanter's
spell.
Breezes blew steadily at times and urged them swiftly on towards the
circumference, but it fled as fast as they approached. Then it fell
calm, and the weary men resumed their oars, and with heavy hearts and
weakened arms tugged at the boat which seemed to have turned into a mass
of lead. At such times a dead silence was maintained, for the work,
which once would have been to them but child's play, had now become
severe and heavy labour. Still they did not murmur. Even the
cross-grained Tarquin became subdued in spirit by the influence of the
calm endurance and good-humour of his comrades. But the calms seldom
lasted long. The winds, which happily continued favourable, again
ruffled the surface of the sea, and sometimes blew so briskly as to
oblige them to take in a reef or two in their sails. The oars were
gladly drawn in, and the spirits of the men rose as the little boat bent
over to the blast, lost her leaden qualities, and danced upon the
broad-backed billows, like a cork. There was no rain during all this
time; little or no stormy weather; and, but for their constant exposure
to the hot sun by day and the cold chills by night, the time might have
been said to pass even pleasantly, despite the want of a sufficiency of
food. Thus day after day and night after night flew by, and week after
week came and went, and still the _Maid of the Isle_ held on her course
over the boundless ocean.
During all that time the one and a quarter ounces of salt junk and
biscuit and the eighth of a pint of water were weighed and measured out
to each man, three times a day, with scrupulous care and exactness, lest
a drop or a crumb of the food that was more precious than diamonds
should be lost. The men had all become accustomed to short allowance
now, and experienced no greater inconvenience than a feeling of
lassitude, which feeling increased daily, but by such imperceptible
degrees that they were scarcely conscious of it, and were only
occasionally made aware of the great reduction of their strength when
they attempted to lift any article which, in the days of their full
vigour, they could have tossed into the air, but which they could
scarcely move now. When, however, the fair breeze enabled them to glide
along under sail, and they lay enjoying complete rest, they experienced
no unwonted sensations of weakness; their spirits rose, as the spirits
of sailors always will rise when the waves are rippling at the bow and a
white track forming in the wake; and they spent the time--when not
asleep--in cheerful conversation and in the spinning of long yarns.
They did not sing, however, as might have been expected--they were too
weak for that--they called the feeling "lazy," some said they "couldn't
be bothered" to sing. No one seemed willing to admit that his strength
was in reality abated.
In story-telling the captain, the doctor, and Glynn shone conspicuous.
And when all was going smoothly and well, the anecdotes, histories, and
romances related by these three were listened to with such intense
interest and delight by the whole crew, that one would have thought they
were enjoying a pleasure trip, and had no cause whatever for anxiety.
Gurney, too, and Briant, and Nikel Sling came out frequently in the
story-telling line, and were the means of causing many and many an hour
to pass quickly and pleasantly by, which would otherwise have hung
heavily on the hands of all.
Ailie Dunning was an engrossed and delighted listener at all times. She
drank in every species of story with an avidity that was quite amusing.
It seemed also to have been infectious, for even Jacko used to sit hour
after hour looking steadily at each successive speaker, with a
countenance so full of bright intelligence, and grave surpassing wisdom,
as to lead one to the belief that he not only understood all that was
said, but turned it over in his mind, and drew from it ideas and
conclusions far more bright and philosophical than could have been drawn
therefrom by any human being, however wise or ingenious.
He grinned, too, did Jacko, with an intensity and frequency that induced
the sailors at first to call him a clever dog, in the belief that his
perception of the ludicrous was very strong indeed; but as his grins
were observed to occur quite as frequently at the pathetic and the grave
as at the comical parts of the stories, they changed their minds, and
said he was a "codger"--in which remark they were undoubtedly safe,
seeing that it committed them to nothing very specific.
Captain Dunning's stories were, more properly speaking, histories, and
were very much relished, for he possessed a natural power of relating
what he knew in an interesting manner and with a peculiarly pleasant
tone of voice. Every one who has considered the subject at all must
have observed what a powerful influence there lies in the mere manner
and tone of a speaker. The captain's voice was so rich, so mellow, and
capable of such varied modulation, that the men listened with pleasure
to the words which rolled from his lips, as one would listen to a sweet
song. He became so deeply interested, too, in the subject about which
he happened to be speaking, that his auditors could not help becoming
interested also. He had no powers of eloquence, neither was he gifted
with an unusually bright fancy. But he was fluent in speech, and his
words, though not chosen, were usually appropriate. The captain had no
powers of invention whatever. He used to say, when asked to tell a
story, that he "might as well try to play the fiddle with a handspike."
But this was no misfortune, for he had read much, and his memory was
good, and supplied him with an endless flow of small-talk on almost
every subject that usually falls under the observation of sea-captains,
and on many subjects besides, about which most sea-captains, or
land-captains, or any other captains whatsoever, are almost totally
ignorant.
Captain Dunning could tell of adventures in the whale-fishery, gone
through either by himself or by friends, that would have made your two
eyes stare out of their two sockets until they looked like saucers (to
use a common but not very correct simile). He could tell the exact
latitude and longitude of almost every important and prominent part of
the globe, and give the distance, pretty nearly, of any one place (on a
large scale) from any other place. He could give the heights of all the
chief mountains in the world to within a few feet, and could calculate,
by merely looking at its current and depth, how many cubic feet of water
any river delivered to the sea per minute. Length, breadth, and
thickness, height, depth, and density, were subjects in which he
revelled, and with which he played as a juggler does with golden balls;
and so great were his powers of numerical calculation, that the sailors
often declared they believed he could work out any calculation backwards
without the use of logarithms! He was constantly instituting
comparisons that were by no means what the proverb terms "odious," but
which were often very astonishing, and in all his stories so many
curious and peculiar facts were introduced, that, as we have already
said, they were very much relished indeed.
Not less relished, however, were Glynn Proctor's astounding and purely
imaginative tales. After the men's minds had been chained intently on
one of the captain's semi-philosophical anecdotes, they turned with
infinite zest to one of Glynn's outrageous flights. Glynn had not read
much in his short life, and his memory was nothing to boast of, but his
imagination was quite gigantic. He could invent almost anything; and
the curious part of it was, that he could do it out of nothing, if need
be. He never took time to consider what he should say. When called on
for a story he began at once, and it flowed from him like a flood of
sparkling water from a fountain in fairy realms. Up in the clouds; high
in the blue ether; down in the coral caves; deep in the ocean waves; out
on the mountain heaths; far in the rocky glens, or away in the wild
woods green--it was all one to Glynn; he leaped away in an instant, with
a long train of adventurers at his heels--male and female, little and
big, old and young, pretty and plain, grave and gay. And didn't they go
through adventures that would have made the hair of mortals not only
stand on end, but fly out by the roots altogether? Didn't he make them
talk, as mortals never talked before; and sing as mortals never dreamed
of? And, oh! didn't he just make them stew, and roast, and boil joints
of savoury meat, and bake pies, and tarts, and puddings, such as Soyer
in his wildest culinary dreams never imagined, and such as caused the
mouths of the crew of the _Maid of the Isle_ to water, until they were
constrained, poor fellows, to tell him to "clap a stopper upon that,"
and hold his tongue, for they "couldn't stand it!"
Phil Briant and Gurney dealt in the purely comic line. They remarked--
generally in an undertone--that they left poetry and prose to Glynn and
the captain; and it was as well they did, for their talents certainly
did not lie in either of these directions. They came out strong after
meals, when the weather was fine, and formed a species of light and
agreeable interlude to the more weighty efforts of the captain and the
brilliant sallies of Glynn.
Gurney dealt in _experiences_ chiefly, and usually endeavoured by
asseveration and iteration to impress his hearers with the truth of
facts said to have been experienced by himself, which, if true, would
certainly have consigned him to a premature grave long ago. Briant, on
the other hand, dealt largely in ghost stories, which he did not vouch
for the truth of, but permitted his hearers to judge of for themselves--
a permission which they would doubtless have taken for themselves at any
rate.
But tales and stories occupied, after all, only a small portion of the
men's time during that long voyage. Often, very often, they were too
much exhausted to talk or even to listen, and when not obliged to labour
at the oars they tried to sleep; but "Nature's sweet restorer" did not
always come at the first invitation, as was his wont in other days, and
too frequently they were obliged to resume work unrefreshed. Their
hands became hard and horny in the palms at last, like a man's heel, and
their backs and arms ached from constant work.
Ailie kept in good health, but she, too, began to grow weak from want of
proper nourishment. She slept better than the men, for the comfortable
sleeping-box that Glynn had constructed for her sheltered her from the
heat, wet, and cold, to which the former were constantly exposed. She
amused herself, when not listening to stories or asleep, by playing with
her favourite, and she spent a good deal of time in reading her Bible--
sometimes to herself, at other times, in a low tone, to her father as he
sat at the helm. And many a time did she see a meaning in passages
which, in happier times, had passed meaningless before her eyes, and
often did she find sweet comfort in words that she had read with
comparative indifference in former days.
It is in the time of trial, trouble, and sorrow that the Bible proves to
be a friend indeed. Happy the Christian who, when dark clouds overwhelm
his soul, has a memory well stored with the comforting passages of the
Word of God.
But Ailie had another occupation which filled up much of her leisure,
and proved to be a source of deep and engrossing interest at the time.
This was the keeping of a journal of the voyage. On the last trip made
to the wreck of the _Red Eric_, just before the great storm that
completed the destruction of that ship, the captain had brought away in
his pocket a couple of note-books. One of these he kept to himself to
jot down the chief incidents of the intended voyage; the other he gave
to Ailie, along with a blacklead pencil. Being fond of trying to write,
she amused herself for hours together in jotting down her thoughts about
the various incidents of the voyage, great and small; and being a very
good drawer for her age, she executed many fanciful and elaborate
sketches, among which were innumerable portraits of Jacko and several
caricatures of the men. This journal, as it advanced, became a source
of much interest and amusement to every one in the boat; and when, in an
hour of the utmost peril, it, along with many other things, was lost,
the men, after the danger was past, felt the loss severely.
Thus they spent their time--now pleasantly, now sadly--sometimes
becoming cheerful and hopeful, at other times sinking almost into a
state of despair as their little stock of food and water dwindled down,
while the _Maid of the Isle_ still held on her apparently endless course
over the great wide sea.