THREE SAILOR BOYS
OR
_Adrift in the Pacific_
BY
VERNEY LOVETT CAMERON, C.B., D.C.L.
COMMANDER ROYAL NAVY
_Author of “Jack Hooper,” “Among the Turks,”_
_“In Savage Africa,”_
_&c., &c._
[Illustration]
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS
_London, Edinburgh, and New York_
1902
Contents
I. THE RUNAWAYS, 9
II. IN HIDING, 18
III. ADRIFT, 26
IV. ON A CORAL ISLAND, 36
V. FISH-CURING, 46
VI. A VOYAGE OF EXPLORATION, 54
VII. BILL MAKES A DISCOVERY, 64
VIII. A NARROW ESCAPE, 75
IX. PURSUED BY CANNIBALS, 87
X. A DESPERATE STRUGGLE, 98
XI. BRISTOL BOB, 109
XII. A SAD EVENT, 120
XIII. IN CAPTIVITY, 131
XIV. A DIVE FOR LIBERTY, 142
[Illustration: “_We bent to our oars with all our strength._” Page
10.]
ADRIFT IN THE PACIFIC.
CHAPTER I.
THE RUNAWAYS.
“Look out, boys, or we shall never fetch the ship again!”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Matter enough; we’re ever so far from her, and there’s a storm brewing.
Just look to the westward and see what a bank the sun is setting in.”
Sure enough, a lurid, red sun was setting in a bank of heavy, black
clouds, which had already obscured his lower half, and the surface of
which was flecked with little, white, fleecy dots, moving rapidly, which
looked as if the port-holes of some giant craft had been opened and her
guns fired.
In an open boat were I, Sam Hawse, and the two speakers, my companions,
Tom Arbor and Bill Seaman, and a mile and a half or two miles away lay a
ship with her upper sails furled, courses hauled up, and topsails
lowered on the cap, while the surface of the sea was like glass, though
a long, heavy swell was rolling up from the westward, heralding the
approach of the storm of which the clouds pointed out by Tom Arbor were
the visible harbingers.
The ship was the _Golden Fleece_, a clipper barque; and we were three
boys belonging to her, and had on this the third day of continuous and
stark calms been sent away to try our hands at turning a turtle, of
which some had been seen floating on the surface, and had already been
successful in securing two; and going on in search of others, we had got
farther from the _Golden Fleece_ than either we wished or intended.
“See there,” continued Tom; “it’s all hands aboard the barky. The
skipper he sees what’s coming, and ain’t a-goin’ to be caught napping.
Come, we must give way and get aboard as soon as we may; he’ll be in no
pleasant temper, and the mate or bos’n will give us a rope’s-ending for
supper.”
Besides the fear of the reception which awaited us, we saw the truth of
what Tom said, and bent to our oars with all our strength.
Before, however, we had covered half the distance which lay between us
and the _Golden Fleece_, the clouds had risen and obscured the heavens,
and we could feel faint, chill puffs of air fanning our cheeks.
“Give way, lads,” cried Tom, who was pulling stroke, “or we shall never
reach her; and in a cockle-shell like this we can never live out a storm
such as is coming on.”
Bill and I needed no urging, and if possible pulled harder than before;
but suddenly Tom’s oar broke in half, and he fell on his back in the
bottom of the boat.
Bill, astonished at this, let go his oar, and it fell overboard and
drifted astern.
As soon as Tom regained his seat, we looked round for the ship, and saw
that she was paying off before the wind with a fore-staysail set, and
that, even if we had our oars, there would be small hope of our reaching
her, while to windward we could see the rain coming down on us like a
wall.
“Well, lads, we’re in a fix now,” said Tom; “give me your oar, Sam, and
I’ll see if I can scull back to pick up Bill’s oar.”
“Not much use in that; the rain will be on us in five minutes, and we
shall be able to see nothing,” I said; and almost as I spoke, a flash of
lightning seemed to strike the water in our immediate vicinity, and was
instantly followed by a crash of thunder, which sounded as if heaven and
earth were coming to an end.
“Out with your knives, quick, and cut the sails loose, and get the lug
over the bows fast to the painter; we may ride to it, while I keep her
bows on with the oar,” (our only remaining one), cried Tom.
Indeed, this was our only chance, for the rain was upon us and the
lightning was flashing all around us; and in less time than it takes to
tell of it, Tom and I had the sail over the bows, and bent on to the
painter with the tack, and weighted by the leads of some fishing-lines,
which were fortunately in the boat.
By the time this was finished, the ship was hidden from our sight by the
storm; and soon the freshness of the rain turned to salt from the spray
driven by the wind, and the full force and fury of the storm fell on us.
Fortunately the sea did not get up rapidly, being kept down by the
strength of the wind, and Tom managed to keep us bows on, and our
hastily-extemporized sea-anchor prevented it from breaking over us; but
Bill and I had all our work cut out to bail out the water, which we did
with a bailer and bucket that were by good-luck in the boat.
After about two hours, as it must have been, though to us it seemed much
longer, the storm abated, leaving a nasty, confused sea; but we were
able to keep the boat afloat and fairly dry, though the long, dark night
was most dreary.
At last the day began to dawn, and when the sun rose the clouds
dispersed and the sea got calmer by degrees. Our first anxiety was to
look for the _Golden Fleece_, and we eagerly scanned the horizon for
some signs of her; but not a sail was to be seen, and we three lads were
alone in an open boat on the wide ocean.
Before going any farther I may as well describe the three occupants of
the boat, and say who we were. Tom Arbor, as the eldest, should stand
first. He was about seventeen years of age, and was strong built and
active. Like Seaman and myself, he was an orphan and the son of a sailor
drowned at sea. His mother had brought him up to the best of her
ability, and would have kept him with her, and opposed his following in
his father’s footsteps and going to sea with her utmost power; but she
could no more prevail with him than a hen who has sat upon ducks’ eggs
can stop her brood from taking to the nearest water by clucking.
Accordingly, when but twelve years of age, he had stowed himself away on
board a ship bound round the Horn to California; and, not being found
till long after the pilot had left, had made the voyage, and, the
skipper being a kindly man, had been well treated. When he came home he
had found his mother married again to a small shopkeeper, and she no
longer said a word against his being a sailor; and he had made a voyage
to China and back before shipping on board the _Golden Fleece_, about
six months before. He was a cheerful, good-natured lad, with dark-brown
hair and eyes, and was certainly for his years a good sailor, and could
hand, reef, and steer, splice a rope, and pull an oar as well as many
who were longer at sea and older in years.
Bill Seaman had been picked up on the sea-shore when about two years
old, and was supposed to be the only survivor from the wreck of a large
ship, in which it was thought his father had been lost; but no means had
come to hand to establish who his father was, and he had, by the
interest of some of the gentry living near where he was found, been
brought up in an establishment for the orphans of sailors till it was
closed, and he was sent to a workhouse. He was a clever, bright boy, but
small for his age.
My mother had died when I was born, and when the ship in which my father
was an A.B. came home, the news was given to an aunt of my mother’s who
had taken charge of me that he had fallen off the fore-topsail yard off
Cape Horn in a winter gale and been drowned; so my old relative, the
only one I ever knew, had obtained admission for me into the same asylum
as Seaman; and as she died soon after, I was as destitute of friends or
relations as he was. In this asylum we continued till about the age of
seven, when from one cause or another it was closed, and Seaman and
myself were sent to a workhouse.
Here our life was by no means a happy one, and two or three times we ran
away and tried to get taken as boys on board ships sailing from the
sea-port near which the workhouse was; but no one would take us, as we
were too small and young, and we were always caught and taken back to
the workhouse, where we were flogged and severely punished for our
attempts to escape.
As may be imagined, our repeated attempts to escape did not cause our
treatment to be any better; so, after the last time we were brought
back, when we had undergone our punishment, Bill and I consulted
together and agreed—we were only twelve at the time—that we should
wait until we were two years older, when we hoped to be big and strong
enough to be accepted by some captain, and then to make another try for
freedom.
During these two years we did all in our power to be considered good
boys, and with some success, and applied ourselves to learning the
trades which were taught us, Bill being taught shoemaking, while I was
instructed in carpentering; and at the end of these two years we had
both made some progress.
Our intention of going to sea, however, never left us, though our good
conduct caused us to be treated more kindly than had hitherto been the
case; but I must say that our instructors punished us for any mistakes
or carelessness most severely, though of this we did not take much
notice, for we saw equal measure served out to all our companions, and
never for a moment doubted that it was part and parcel of the necessary
teaching.
When we were about fourteen we were both called before the guardians,
who spoke to us kindly, and said that it was their intention to
apprentice us to our respective trades, for which we had shown great
aptitude, and that in about a week or so we should be bound over to the
masters who had been chosen for us.
When we left the board-room I said to Seaman that the time had come for
us to try to run away to sea again, for if we were bound apprentice,
which, I know not why, among us and our comrades was looked upon as a
dreadful thing, we should never be able to get away, and in any case we
should be separated.
He quite agreed with me, and we made up our minds to get away the next
night. Our dormitory was on the first floor, and had a long range of
windows, guarded by iron bars, which overlooked a narrow lane leading
down into a part of the town composed of sailors’ lodging-houses, and
along which scarcely any one passed after dark.
The bars of the windows had only lately been put in order by the boys in
the carpenter’s shop, and with a screw-driver one could be easily
removed, so that we could get through and cut away the lead of the
windows.
Bill promised me that he would manage to get a shoemaker’s knife to cut
the lead, while I had to procure a screw-driver, which I did without
being noticed.
Next night, when the occupants of the dormitory were all sound asleep,
we set about our work, and while Bill got the cord which stretched the
sacking of our beds to lower ourselves into the lane, I unscrewed the
bars and cut the lead framing away.
Some of the other boys were disturbed by the noise; but we were amongst
the biggest and strongest, and by threats and persuasion managed to
prevent them giving the alarm until the last moment, when, leaving
behind us the knife and screw-driver and all our clothes but our shirts
and trousers, for we did not wish to be considered thieves as well as
runaways, we slid down the rope, and on reaching the bottom scudded away
as fast as we could towards the nearest seamen’s haunt.