Where were the boys?
Where were the boys whom he had left in the water-logged ship? He
himself had anchored that ship in these waters, hard and fast; but now,
as he looked about far over the seas, he saw no sign of any ship, or
of any floating thing save that distant fishing schooner. What did this
mean?
Again and again he asked this question, and again and again he shrank
back from the answer that suggested itself.
He tried to console himself by thinking of the buoyancy of wood in
general, and of timber ships in particular. Alas! these efforts were all
in vain. For he remembered how rough the sea had been; and he saw all
around him even now the swelling waves. That ship had already been torn
and shattered by storms. That ship had been forsaken by captain and
crew. They had believed that she was about to founder. Was this belief,
then, so far wrong as he had supposed? She was like a raft, torn and
dislocated, which any fresh movement of the water might shatter to
pieces. Perhaps in the storm that had fallen upon her in his absence
the waves had wrought their will upon her. Perhaps they had torn her
to pieces in their wrath, and scattered all her timbers afar over the
surface of the deep. Perhaps the only vestige of the Petrel which his
eyes might ever see, might be some floating timbers drifting past, and
bearing to him the only message which could ever come to the land of the
living from the lost boys.
Where were the boys?
Where, O, where were the boys whom he had led into danger, and then
madly deserted?--doubly deserted, in fact; first, when he sailed away,
leaving them on board the wrecked ship, and secondly, in that worse
desertion, when he had gone away so thoughtlessly, so wickedly, and so
madly, from the Magdalen Islands to the Miramichi River? How could he
have ever thought of it? What could have so infatuated him as to lead
him so far away from those helpless boys in their desperate position?
Where were the boys?
O, where were the boys? And what had they thought of him? What misery
had they not suffered! What despair! How often must they have watched
for his return! And day had succeeded to day, and night to night, but
he had never come! While they were watching for his appearance, he was
calmly sailing away, or was loitering in distant ports, leaving them to
their terrific fate!
Where were the boys?
What was their fate?
What had become of that ship?
She had been anchored fast. She was gone now. Gone! Gone were those
boys, for whom he would have laid down his life; but whom, nevertheless,
he had deserted and betrayed. And he--what could he do? Where could he
go? Where could he search for them? Over what seas could he sail? With
what hope? Was there any hope? Hope! Alas! what hope could he form when
he looked out over these foaming waves, and felt the Antelope quiver
beneath the force of their assault?
These, or something very much like these, were the thoughts that
filled the soul of the unhappy, the despairing Corbet, as he rolled his
venerable eyes over the wide waste of waters, and saw that the Petrel
was gone. It was a moment full of deeper misery and keener anguish than
any which the good captain had ever known in the whole course of his
life, though that life had by no means been without its sufferings. Yet
among all the sufferings and sorrows of a life full of vicissitudes, it
had never fallen to his lot to experience such a misfortune as this,--to
reproach himself so keenly, so severely, and yet so justly. Whatever the
fate of the boys might have been, he knew perfectly well that he, and
he alone, was the cause; nor could he plead, even to his own conscience,
the excuse that his motives were right. For his motives were not right,
and he knew it. His motives had been nothing better than wild desires
for sudden wealth. True, he had only wished that wealth for his
“babby;” but that did not in the least mitigate his offence. At the very
least, he had been guilty of carelessness so gross that it was hardly
inferior to downright, deliberate crime.
So the poor captain’s anguish of soul was extreme, and utter, as well it
might be. So keen, indeed, was his suffering, that his hair might have
turned white from its severity,--a circumstance not unusual,--but in the
captain’s case it was not possible, since, as is well known, his hair
was already as gray as it well could be, and therefore the good Captain
Corbet could only suffer in secret, and occasionally wipe away the tears
that dropped from his eyes with the sleeve of his venerable coat.
At length the thought occurred to him that perhaps he had not come to
the right place.
To his mind, the thought was well nigh inconceivable; yet, after all, it
was barely possible, and in his despair he caught at this straw. After
all, navigation by dead reckoning is not the most accurate way in the
world of working one’s way along; and Captain Corbet felt this in an
obscure and shadowy sort of way; so it need not be wondered at if he
sought relief in the thought that he had possibly gone astray.
So he called upon Wade to take the helm, while he went below to make
some elaborate calculations.
He did it in this way.
He first got a mug of water.
Then he seated himself by the cabin table.
Then he dipped the fore finger of his right hand in the water.
Then, with this finger, he traced certain mysterious marks upon the
table.
Now, these mysterious marks were designed by this ancient mariner to
represent nothing less than the coasts surrounding the Gulf of St.
Lawrence. To an unprejudiced observer, this idea would never have
suggested itself; but to the mind of the venerable Corbet, these
marks were as plain and as intelligible as the finest outlines of the
Admiralty charts engraved in steel, and bristling with names of places.
In his mind’s eye he could see everything. He could see Prince Edward’s
Island, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Gaspé, the Bay de Chaleur, Miramichi,
and the Magdalen Islands. There, too, full and fair, in the centre of
the scene, a big wet spot, made most emphatically with his thumb, showed
him the spot where he had left the Petrel.
And this was Captain Corbet’s chart, and this was his mode of
navigating, and this was the scientific method which he adopted in
order to work his way out of a difficulty. Quadrant, sextant, and other
instruments of that character he did not need; he trusted to his own
head, and to his finger.
It must be confessed that, on this occasion, these resources rather
failed him. The puzzle seemed insoluble. In vain he obliterated the wet
spot where he first stationed the Petrel. In vain he made another dab
with his thumb in a second place. He could not arrive at any conclusion
which was entirely satisfactory. He placed the mug of water on the
table, leaned his aged head in both hands, and sat watching his chart
in profound thought. A sudden sea struck the Antelope. The good vessel
leaped, as was natural, at such rough treatment. As was natural, also,
the mug of water leaped. Moreover, it upset. The contents poured forth,
and inundated the fable. The chart was all obliterated.
At this casualty Captain Corbet rose. He betrayed no excitement, no
passion. He did not swear, as some wrecked sea captains have done. He
did not even utter an exclamation. He simply took his aged coat tail and
wiped the water off the table very carefully, and then with his other
aged coat tail he dried it, and even polished it most elaborately. The
table had not been so clean for ever so long. It seemed to be astonished
at itself. Captain Corbet, meanwhile, remained mild and patient. Sir
Isaac Newton himself, after the burning of his Principia by his immortal
little dog Diamond, was not more placid. Without a word, our captain
went to the bucket, replenished the mug, returned to the table, resumed
his seat, and, holding the mug in his left hand, under the table, to
prevent a recurrence of this mishap, he dipped the fore finger of his
right hand into the water, and proceeded to retrace upon the table the
outline of his chart. In a little while there appeared before his eyes,
as plain as before, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with all the surrounding
coasts--Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Gaspé, Newfoundland,
the Magdalen Islands, and plain in the middle the dab of his venerable
thumb representing the spot where he had left the Petrel.
But the problem remained insoluble. He was certain that he had come back
to the right spot. Again and again he traced, in a thin line, made by
his wet finger-nail, the course which he had taken; first, from the
Petrel to the Magdalen Islands, and, secondly, from the Magdalen Islands
to Miramichi, and, thirdly, from Miramichi to the place where he now
was. In each case his course had, fortunately, been quite straight. Had
there been head winds, it might have been different; but, as it was, the
straight course which he had kept made the outlines on the table all
the more simple, but at the same time they made the problem all the more
complex. The ship was missing. He had left her at anchor. She could not
sink. What, then, had become of her?
The first answer was the terrible one that she had gone to pieces in the
storm. But this was the very one from which he was seeking to escape,
and against which he sought refuge in such facts as her strength and the
stiffness of a timber cargo.
But what other conclusion was there?
That he had mistaken his way?
Impossible!
On the table before him the marks that he had made confirmed him in the
opinion that he was, if not on the identical spot where he had left the
Petrel, at least sufficiently near to be able to see her if she still
was here.
Yet here she evidently was not.
What, then, had become of her?
To this only one answer remained, and in this he sought to find comfort.
She might have dragged her anchor, and might have thereby drifted, under
the pressure of the storm, far enough away to be out of sight.
But in what direction had she drifted?
The wind had been south by east. He knew that well enough. This one
fact, then, showed him what course she would have taken when adrift. .
He wet his finger now for the last time. He planted it down upon the
place which he had marked as the position of the Petrel, and then drew a
line in the direction which he supposed might indicate the course of
her drift. Then he stopped to calculate the possible distance which
she might have traversed while dragging her anchor, and made a mark to
represent what, under this theory, might be her present position.
Then he drew a long breath.
He then rose to his feet, and surveyed his chart for a few moments with
a thoughtful face.
And now the time had come for action. He had at last a theory. His mind
was made up. He hurried upon deck, and, seizing the tiller, headed
the Antelope north by west, in the direction which he conjectured the
drifting ship to have taken.
He had allowed between twenty and thirty miles for her drift. He had
calculated that a mile an hour would be a fair allowance for a vessel
that was dragging her anchor, and he did not think that the wind had
been strong enough to make her drag her anchor for more than twenty
hours, and certainly, as he thought, not more than thirty, at the
farthest. Upon this principle he acted, and when he headed the Antelope
north by west, he hoped to catch sight of the lost ship before noon.
For the Antelope, with a fair wind, could make as much as four or five
miles an hour; and, after making every allowance for currents, or for
leeway, she ought to do twenty miles between six o’clock in the morning
and midday. And so, full of confidence in the ability of the Antelope to
do her duty, Captain Corbet took his station at the helm.
Now that a gleam of hope had appeared, he was a different man. The
gleam became brighter and brighter, until at last it grew to be positive
sunshine. He forgot his recent despair. The more he thought of his
theory of the Petrel dragging her anchor, the more convinced he was that
it was correct, and the more certain he was that he would ultimately
catch sight of her.
And so he kept on his course, with his eyes fixed on the horizon before
him, anxiously awaiting the time when he would descry the masts of the
lost vessel becoming gradually defined against the sky.
Hour after hour passed.
The Antelope sailed on.
Midday came.
The Antelope had traversed the distance which her commander had allotted
for the utmost possible drift of the Petrel.
Yet not the slightest sign of the Petrel had appeared.
The hopes upon which Captain Corbet had been relying gradually sank
under him. When midday came, and the masts of the Petrel did not
appear, hope sank away, and despondency came, and despondency deepened
into despair.
All that he had felt at early dawn, when he first looked abroad upon the
seas and found her not, now came back to him,--all the self-reproach,
all the remorse, all the anguish of soul.
He stood at the helm, and let the Antelope pass onward, but there was
no longer any hope in his mind. He was overwhelmed, and now even the
possibility of finding her seemed to be taken away.
All this time the wind had gone on increasing in violence, and the sea
had risen more and more. For himself and for the Antelope Captain Corbet
did not care; but the lowery sky and the stormy sea seemed terrible to
him, for they spoke to him of the lost boys, and told a tale of horror.