RAFTS
When the day did break at last it brought no great degree of comfort
with it. We were surrounded by a yellow, yeasty sea, and the air was so
thick that the islands on which our lives depended seemed but shapeless
shadows in the distance. Still the wind had abated somewhat, but the
swell was very strong, and we were without any means of attempting to
leave the vessel.
When it was quite morning, and the sky cleared a little, we saw the
skiff, with the Captain on board, beating about on the water and trying
to make for us. But in this he was not able to succeed, for the waves
were running so high that it would have been quite impossible either to
bring the skiff alongside or to get on board our vessel if he had done
so. We could see the Captain standing up in the bows of the boat and
signalling to us, and it made our hearts sick to be able to see him and
to be unable to know what he wanted or what we ought to do.
At this moment one of the men--he was the ship's carpenter, and a
decent, honest sort of fellow--said that he was a very good swimmer,
and that he thought he could reach the skiff in that way. He was so very
confident of his own powers that though we were somewhat unwilling to
let him risk his life, he did in the end prevail upon Lancelot to let
him make the attempt.
The man stripped and was into the sea in a moment, fighting bravely with
the billows that buffeted him. It was a good sight to see him slowly
forging his way through that yellow, clapping water; it is always a good
sight to see a strong man or a brave man doing a daring thing for the
sake of other people. We watched his body as he swam; he was but a
common man, but his skin seemed as white as a woman's in that foul
spume, and his black hair, which he wore long, streamed in a rail upon
the water as a woman's might. But I do not think the woman ever lived
who could swim as that man swam.
We watched him grow smaller and smaller, and most of us prayed for him
silently as he fought his way through the waters. At last we saw that he
had reached the skiff, and we could see that he was being pulled over
the side. Then there came a long interval--oh, how long it seemed to us,
as we watched the leaping waves and the distant skiff that leaped upon
them, and wondered if the man's strength would carry him back again to
us! By-and-by--it was not really such a very long time, but it seemed
like centuries--Lancelot, who was looking through his spy-glass, said
that the man was going over the skiff's side again. Then we all held our
breaths and waited.
So it was; the fellow was swimming steadily back to us. It was plain
enough to see that he was sorely fatigued, and that he was husbanding
his strength, but every stroke that he gave was a steady stroke and a
true stroke, and every stroke brought him a bit nearer to where we lay.
And at last his black head was looking up at us beneath our hull, and in
another second he had caught a rope and was on the deck again, dripping
like a dog, and hard pushed for lack of breath.
Lancelot gave him a measure of rum with his own hands, and by-and-by his
wind came back to him, and he found his voice to speak as he struggled
into his clothes.
What he had to tell was not very cheering. He had given Captain Amber a
faithful picture of our perils and our privations, and Captain Amber had
made answer that he was sorry for us with all his heart, and only wished
that he was in the danger with us. Which we knew very well to be true,
though, indeed, the good gentleman was in scarcely less danger himself.
His orders to us were that we should with all speed construct rafts by
tying together the planks of which we had abundance, and that we should
embark upon these rafts and so try to make the shallop and the skiff,
which would bear us in safety to the islands.
It was not tempting to make rafts and trust them and ourselves upon them
to the sea that was churning and creaming beneath us, but it seemed to
be well-nigh the only thing to do, and it was the Captain's orders, and
we prepared to set to work and execute his commands. But we had scarce
begun to tie a couple of planks together before it was plain that our
labour would be in vain. For even while the man had been telling his
tale the weather had grown much rougher, and we could see that the skiff
was unable to remain longer near to us, but had to turn back for her own
safety to the islands. I felt very sure that Captain Amber must be in
anguish, having thus to leave us, his dear Lancelot and some seventy of
his sailors and followers, on board a vessel that might cease to be a
vessel at any moment.
Now we were in very desperate straits indeed, and some of us seemed
tempted to give ourselves over to despair. If it had not been for the
steadiness of those that were under Lancelot, I feel sure that the most
part of the sailors would have paid no further heed to Jensen's
counsels, but would have incontinently drunk themselves into stupor or
madness, and so perished miserably.
But our men, if they were resigned to their fate, were resolved to meet
it like Christians and stout fellows, and as we were the well-armed
party the others had, sullenly enough, to fall in with our wishes. And
Lancelot's wishes were that all hands should employ themselves still in
the making of those rafts, so that if the weather did mend we should be
able to take advantage of the improvement ere it shifted again. Though
the water was beating up in great waves all about us, we were so tightly
fixed upon our bank that we were well-nigh immovable, and it was
possible for us to work pretty patiently and persistently through all
the dirty weather. But though we worked hard and well, it took up the
fag-end of that day and the whole of the next to get our two rafts ready
for the sea, which was by that time more ready for them, as the storm
had again abated.