ST. ELMO'S FIRE.
"I was saying," he went on, "when Mr. Robertson came in, that knowing
the chief engineer's weakness, they chaffed him unmercifully.
"'Dalison,'[1] one would say, 'allow me to send you some liver?'
[1] Not the chief's real name.
"'No, thank 'ee,' gruffly from the chief, as he leant back in his
chair and frowned.
"'May I help you to some tripe, Dalison?' This from another
tormentor.
"'No, thank 'ee.'
"'A morsel of kidney or heart, Dalison?'
"'No, thank 'ee.'
"Then he would bang his fist on the table, shouting, 'None of your
hoffals (offals) for me! Stooard, bring in a lump o' bread and the
blue cheese!'"
After the rippling laughter ceased, the captain, cracking a walnut,
continued:
"Chaff was much more common in the service in those days than it is
now, and if a brother officer had any peculiarity, he was sure to
catch it hot.
"Dr. R---- was a grumpy old surgeon that I was shipmate with. He was
not only grumpy, but surly and uncongenial towards his fellows. He
was generally a little late for breakfast, and on his entering the
ward-room detested being talked to.
"Here was food for game, and as soon as he came in, every officer all
round the table had a kind word and inquiry for him.
"'Oh, good-morning, doctor.'
"'How have you slept, doctor?'
"'How do you feel on the whole, this morning?'
"'I trust I see you well?'
"At first he merely growled and grunted, but at last getting fully
exasperated he would suddenly turn round and roar out:
"'Oh, good-morning! Good-morning! Good-morning! Hang the whole lot
of you!'"
"Capital!" cried Grant. "Give us just one more doctor's yarn,
Captain Leeward."
"Well, then, this next one hinges upon an admiral as well as a
doctor. This gallant officer was always fancying himself ill, though
there was never anything of the slightest importance the matter with
him, and was never happy unless his fleet-surgeon, a dear little
Irishman, paid him a daily visit and ordered medicine.
"A certain pill used to be prescribed, and was found to be most
efficacious.
"But one day the admiral, or 'Ral', as he was called for short, gave
a great dinner-party, and many mighty magnates, gentlemen and ladies
as well, came off shore. Among the guests was, of course, the Irish
fleet-surgeon.
"During the dinner the admiral somewhat inopportunely called out:
"Oh, doctor, those pills you gave me last are by far the best ever
I've had. You must let me have the prescription when we pay off.
What are they composed of?'
"Now, the good doctor did not half-relish the notion of 'shop' being
brought on the tapis at so fashionable a dinner-party, so he answered
with emphasis:
"'What are they made of? Why, bread! Bread, sir; nothing else!'
"There was a momentary silence around the table, and everyone looked
aghast to see how the reply would be taken. But the admiral was a
gentleman in the truest sense of the word, and always most
considerate for the feelings of others. He saw that he had touched
on a very unpleasant theme, so he smiled kindly, and passed it off by
saying in his quiet way:
"'Well, well, well, such is Faith!'
"But the pills were really rhubarb after all."
* * * * * * * * * * *
So with pleasant chat a whole hour passed away, and then once more
the midshipmite Bobbie knocked at the door.
"It is a boat, sir. Five poor men in it. Two lying apparently dead
under the thwarts. The first lieutenant has hauled the fore-yard
aback and is sending some men over the side."
The _Osprey_, I may say here, had already visited the lovely fairy
isles called The Azores, and was now well out into the Atlantic,
steering about west-sou'-west.
The captain's room was soon emptied now, all going on deck. The
night was very clear and starry, with a bright scimitar of a moon
slowly sinking in the west.
Yes, Bobbie was right. Two men were dead, and the other three could
scarcely speak, owing to sheer exhaustion.
"We'll hear their story to-morrow. Dr. Grant, I'll leave them in
your charge."
"I shall see to them, sir," said Grant.
Then he shouted "Sentry!"
"Ay ay, sir."
"Pass the word for the sick-bay man."
In another quarter of an hour the poor fellows, English merchantmen,
were snug and warm in hammocks. Grant ordered some beef-tea, with a
modicum of brandy, and they soon fell sound asleep.
But so weak were they next day that the doctor forbade their talking,
and it was three whole days before they were strong enough to tell
their story.
A TERRIBLE TALE OF THE SEA.
There was no false pride about Captain Leeward of H.M. paddle-frigate
_Osprey_. Some commanding officers that I have known would have had
one of these unfortunate castaways to tell his story in the sick-bay.
But instead of this the captain told the doctor to bring him in to
his quarters.
He was a brown-faced, hardy, bearded sailor, but his cheeks were
hollow now from his want of food and terrible suffering.
One hand was tied up in a sling.
He bowed and scraped as he came in, and if ever a sailor looked shy
he did.
He gave just one glance around him, and then looked at Leeward's
pleasant smiling face. The glance reassured him.
"Why, jigger me," he said, hitching up his trousers with one hand,
"jigger me, sir, if ever I cast anchor in such a pretty saloon as
this afore. Easy chairs, sofa, piano, fiddle and all, to say nothing
about flowers and fairy-lights. Cap'n Leeward, sir, I ain't in a
dream, am I? Mebbe the doctor here will 'blige by sticking a pin in
me, up to the blessed head, if I am."
"Never a dream, Mr. Goodwin. Well, if you will bring yourself to an
anchor, we'd like to hear your story. Have a little wine, sir?"
"Purser's wine is the only sort as suits me, sir."
"Steward, the rum!"
A tumbler and wine-glass were placed before the good sailor. The
latter he pushed aside. Then, while the castaway held the tumbler
with all the four fingers turned towards the captain, the steward
filled it fully four inches. This is what is called "a bo's'n's nip".
"A little water, my lad?"
"No, sir, no; not for me. This rum is too good to be drowned."
He quaffed it, sighed, and put down the empty tumbler.
"Ah, sir!" he said, "now that very word 'drowned' makes me shiver.
I've been, on and off, boy and man, at sea for well-nigh twenty
years. Just entered as a boy, a tow-headed lad of Liverpool.
Nothing to do till I growed a bit 'cepting to empty cook's ashes and
pail, look after the dogs and ship's cat, feed the monkeys, and get
kicked about all over the deck by anybody who wanted to stretch his
legs a bit.
"But I grew into an able seaman at last. After'n which I gets to be
second mate o' a Newcastle collier. Then fust mate. Then I up and
studies for my certificate. You wouldn't think it, mebbe, of a rough
chap like me, but I passed with flying colours, and steered
homewards, wi' stunsails 'low and aloft, jolly happy now.
"I meets some maties, and two more overhauled me. So what could I do
but go with 'em to wet my certificate.
"Sakes alive, cap'n! but I'd blush like a wirgin even now, if I
weren't so brown and weather-beaten that ye wouldn't notice it.
"For, sir, I awoke next morning with a two-horse headache, and a
tongue like kippered salmon. Clothes all on too, boots and all. I'd
turned in all standing, but couldn't remember who'd brought me into
port.
"Never mind, sir. 'Twere a lesson to me I ain't going to forget.
Thankee, sir, I will have just another nip.
"But I s'pect, cap'n, I'm a kind o' hinderin' you I always do take
longer time to tune my fiddle than to play my tune.
"Well, sir, it ain't more'n six weeks since I sailed from Glasgow, in
what I might call the sailing steamer-barque _Ossian_. Our orders
were to visit Azores, Madeira, St. Helena, Ascension, on our way to
the Cape and Madagascar, and our supercargo, a business Scot, was to
deal everywhere, for cash or goods, for we were laden up with
'notions' as the Yank calls 'em.
"Well, cap'n, our ship was as nice a craft as ever I stepped on board
of, and the crew, too, was on the whole fairish; only too many
blessed foreigners among them to please me. Most o' these'll work,
ay, and sing too, in fair weather and fair wind, but they ain't no
hand, sir, at reefin' topsails in a dirty night, wi' green seas
a-tumbling in, and mebbe the yard-arms 'most a-touching the water
every time the ship leans over.
"And we had dirty weather all along; sometimes 'twould be blowin' so
hard we wouldn't be doin' more'n two knots against wind and sea, full
steam up.
"We dawdled about the islands a bit, and the fine weather sort o'
come at last, cause we was told to sail all we could and save the
coals.
"We weighed at last, and had made a good offing into the Atlantic,
'cause it had occurred to Brown, the supercargo, that he could do a
bit of honest biz at Bermuda, and the man was all in the interest of
his owners.
"Some two or three hundred miles to the west here, we got into a
circular storm and suffered severely. Our foremast was torn out of
her, and two men slipped overboard in clearing away the wreck.
"Thankee, cap'n; but mind ye, this makes my third nip. Howsomedever,
it's as mild as cocoa-nut milk.
"When we got clear away from that baby tornado, we was pretty nearly
all wreck, gentleman. Bulwarks anyhow, mainyard even fallen (a rare
accident), and our very winch half-throwed up on its end.
"But worse were to come, cap'n.
"First and foremost the weather got finer, but there was a strange
kind o' a haze in the sky that I didn't like. That shortened the
sunbeams considerable, and brought night and darkness aboard of us
before they was due; and the moon couldn't well be 'xpected to shine
through clouds that the sun hadn't been able to tackle. We managed
to step jury-mast and bend new sails. But the wind was nothin' to
signify now, and I made bold to tell the skipper that he ought to
clue and get up steam.
"'There's no hurry, Jim," he answered; 'even if we be becalmed a bit,
it's cheaper than burning tons o' coal."
"Well, gentlemen, becalmed we was just after tea-time.
"I went on deck arter this, and such a night I'd never seen afore.
Never a puff o' wind, sails hangin' idle, and the waves, as much as
we could see of them, just like glycerine. I expected to see dead
fish floating about on their sides.
"The bo's'n was walkin' with me in the ship's waist; but none of us
had very cheery yarns to spin, we just stuck to our pipes and spoke
but little.
"I could feel the bo's'n's arm tremble a little, though, as more than
once a long quavering cry came over the surface of that hazy, oily
ocean, dyin' away in a kind o' wail, like some poor creature in
faintin' agony.
"Yes, I believe 'twere on'y a bird, sir; and there do be a shark that
cries thus on windless nights near to the echoless ocean--the Sea of
Weeds, or Sargasso. And 'twere there we were at this time. Every
now and then we could observe long dark strips of the slimy stuff
layin' along the rippleless waves' sides, dark and fearful, and
looking for all the world like dead serpents.
"I'se a kind o' partial to pottery (poetry), cap'n, and lines from
Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_ would keep risin' up in my mind, and
didn't seem out o' place either on a night like that. 'Cause you see
that, here and there, there was phosphorescence in the sea, and a
shark had once or twice appeared on the surface, his sly eyes
flashing, his fins dropping fire, and we could see him as he dived
below getting smaller and smaller, till like a little wriggling worm
of flame. Even little strips of weed that floated here and there
looked like water-serpents.
"'The moving moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
. . . . . . . .
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burned alway,
A still and awful red.
"'Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water snakes;
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared--the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.'
"But, cap'n, when ye looked horizon-way--and the horizon weren't far
off,--at one moment only the moon haze was there, next moment the
summer lightning played along fitful but incessant. Then you could
see great banks of ugly rock-and-castle clouds in front, a sight that
made us think another baby tornado was a-brewin'.
"I was drawin' away at my pipe, and not saying a deal, when all of a
sudden the bo's'n seized me by the arm.
"He was all of a shake now, and his eyes was eyes of terror, as he
pointed aloft with outstretched arm.
"'Look! oh, look!'
"Yes, sure enough, cap'n, on the mizen topgallant mast-head, burned a
strange tapering light as tall as a man's arm.
"We both stood mute with fear. It burned brightly for a minute, then
flickered and went out. Only to reappear, however, in a few seconds,
this time more blue than white. Then, flickering once more, it fled,
and we saw it not again.
"Neither spoke for long seconds. We looked into each others' faces
inquiringly-like.
"'That,' said the bo's'n, 'is St. Helmo's (St. Elmo's) fire, and this
bloomin' ship is doomed.'
"I said nothing. I merely walked below, and passin' thro' the saloon
entered the skipper's cabin and touched him gentle-like on the
shoulder. Two candles was burnin' in jimbles, and a book he had been
reading lay on the white coverlet. Sound asleep as a baby he were,
but sailor-like he opened his eyes the moment I touched him.
"'Well, Goodwin, anything up?'
"'Nothin' much, sir. Only St. Helmo's fire been a burnin' on the
mizen truck.'
"'That's nothing, lad. How's the ship's head?'
"'Why,' says I, 'you might as well ask how her stern is. Both are
anyhow. Not a capful o' wind. She is (again I was quoting pottery)--
"'As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean'.
"'And,' I adds, 'we may as well get the fires up, for we're precious
near the Sea of Sargasso. If we gets swallowed up there with mebbe a
broken screw it may be a two years' job, if ever we sees blue water
again in this world.'
"'Well, well, lad. If the winds doesn't blow get steam up.
Meanwhile, go and whistle for the wind. I'm tired!'
"I left the cabin slowly, only just stopping to have a tot o' rum,
for there was a kind o' hincubus a-weighing me down. But little did
I know of the horror to come."