Calamity and danger are among the many circumstances which help to
break down the distinctions of life into reasonable and helpful
differences, and serve to bring out the cementing power of sympathy,
which is the surest bond of social union. A common trouble does much
to awaken a common interest; and so it proved with the saved remnant
who pulled for their lives from the Sarah Ann. The captain, the
cook, the mate, and the cabin-boy forgot for the time those ruling
ideas of superior and inferior, which so frequently make great men
tyrants and poor men obsequious, and as companions in tribulation
endeavoured without distinction to manage the boat and effect a
landing. But the task was no easy one, and had they been strangers
to the island, in all probability they would have perished on the
rocky shore; for Lundy tolerates but one small beach, defying
intrusion elsewhere by its rough, inaccessible cliffs, towering
hundreds of feet above the sea. For that beach the seamen longed and
strove, and their efforts were so far successful that they ran in
amongst the breakers, where, despite their utmost efforts, the boat
was capsized, and they had to struggle as best they could for a
footing on the gritty strand.
'Just!' exclaimed the 'prentice in a moody tone, as they stood on the
shore wringing out their drenched clothes,--'just!'
'Just what?' said Stauncy, in a kinder tone than Jim was accustomed
to.
'Just saved,' he replied; 'but I s'pose you reckoned on that when the
brig was once off here.'
'Why, to be sure,' rejoined the mate; 'if there was any chance for
us, it was the lee of Lundy, where nobody is more at home than
ourselves.'
'Certainly,' responded the captain; 'I made sure of a chance if we
only rounded Lametry; and here we are.'
'We've only got what we stand up in,' the 'prentice answered in a
querulous and somewhat independent tone; 'I wonder who'll pay me for
all I've lost.'
'You'll get as good a share as the rest,' said Pickard; 'and I
wonder, Mister Jim, what makes you so forward.'
'I've got as much right to speak as you,' he replied. 'I don't think
we ought to be turned adrift this way, and lose everything; we ain't
ought.'
'Never mind him,' said the captain, apparently anxious to put an end
to the dialogue; 'he's a saucy chap. A few hours' more pickling
would have preserved him better. We'll get up to the top and rouse
'em up in the old Keep;' and he turned towards the narrow path which
wound up the mountain side.
The cotters resident on the bleak island received them kindly, and,
having dried their clothes and satisfied their hunger, proposed a
turn in for a few hours' rest.
'I don't want any rest,' said Jim; 'I had a good sleep in one of the
empty crates.'
'You had, eh?' replied Pickard; 'that's where you were hiding so
long, was it? How did you get a berth there, I wonder?'
'Well, I was knocked up, and when the mate went down the fore-hatch I
slipped after him.'
'I wish I'd pitched you overboard,' said Stauncy hastily; 'and very
much inclined I feel to slip you down the Devil's Lime Kiln,[1] to
spout your impudence to the gannets, or to the porpoises when they
come in with the tide.'
[1] A singular hole so called, at the south-west point, about eighty
yards square at the top, and 250 feet in depth, communicating by an
outlet with the sea.
In fact, the 'prentice's disclosure of his sleeping quarters during
the storm considerably discomposed the captain's serenity, calling up
feelings whose first expression was anger; but, having lain down with
the mate and cook, and spent an hour in reflection, he determined to
proceed cautiously.
The morning broke with hopeful promise. A fresh, cold breeze, into
which the gale had moderated, blew directly for the opposite quarter,
as though the blustering tornado, having vented its passion, had
turned repentant, and was now retracing its track with sober pace.
There was still a tumbling sea on; but soon the bright blue sky and
the sharp bracing air dispelled all omens suggested by the past, and
a fleet of trawlers from Clovelly was to be seen dotting the heaving
bosom of the ocean in all directions.
A signal was hoisted which drew one of the smacks towards the island,
and Stauncy and his companions were consigned to the safe keeping of
the master of a boat. The mate and Pickard settled down in the
stern-sheets, and engaged in a close and earnest conversation with
the steersman, whilst the captain went over the story of the storm to
the skipper, and then slipped forward to the bow, where Jim Ortop was
seated on a coil of rope, gazing intently into the sky.
'You needn't mind about the things you've lost, Jim,' said the
captain; 'I'll rig you out again, and, if you behave yourself to my
satisfaction, you shall have a guinea to boot, to sport with while
ashore.'
The golden idea roused Jim from his contemplations, and was far too
large to be taken in at once; it upset him completely. Whatever his
thoughts and emotions may have been as he sat staring into vacuity,
they were routed and sent to the gulls by this new gilded intruder.
A guinea! He had scarcely ever seen one. Extravagant and romantic
ideas had always been conjured up when people talked in his hearing
of that precious coin. He pictured it to his mind. He fancied that
he felt it in his hand. It seemed as though the universe itself
would be purchasable; and, looking up into the captain's face with an
animated eye, he said, 'Shall I fetch it, sir?'
'Yes, Jim; come to my house when we get to Northam, and you shall
have a guinea sure enough--that is, if you mind and behave yourself.'
The 'prentice did not reply. The prospect of possessing a guinea had
gathered all his thoughts into one sentiment, all his sensations into
one passion; and his deep-set eyes again settled into an earnest gaze
on the swelling sea, as though he had been spellbound.
The captain saw that he had hit the nail on the head, as he expressed
it to himself, and, leaving Jim to his dreams, went aft with lighter
heart than he expected.
'I wonder, Mogford,' he said, 'where the other poor fellows are;' and
then, addressing himself to the fishermen, asked whether anything had
been seen of a boat with six men in it. But no one had heard or seen
thereof; and, indeed, whilst Stauncy was speaking, a wanderer on
Brunton Sands picked up a portion of a boat's stern with Sarah Ann on
it: so that the story is soon told. The jolly-boat had been swamped,
or stove on the rocks, and the men who were borne away in her from
the foundering brig soon followed the fated vessel to a watery grave.
No human eye beheld that ocean funeral; no human voice bewailed them
as they went to rest. The booming billows rang out their passing
bell. The foam-draped waves joined hands to consign them to the
deep. The moaning wind sang mournfully their requiem, and said
farewell, as though the angry sea knew no remorse, and would never
surrender its prey again.