The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands, Robert Michael Ballantyne [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

and cargo were insured for 300 pounds, but were worth more, and that I said I hoped to make a quick voyage over and back. Besides all this, Billy, boy, you'll keep a sharp look-out, and won't be surprised if I should teach you to steer, and get the others on board to go below. If you should observe me do anything while you are steering, or should hear any noises, you'll be so busy with the tiller and the compass that you'll forget all about _that_, and never be able to answer any questions about such things at all. Have I made all that quite plain to you?"

"Yes, captain; hall right."

Billy had taken to styling his new employer captain, and Mr Jones did not object.

"Well, go for'ard and take a nap. I shall want you to-night perhaps; it may be not till to-morrow night."

The small boy went forward, as he was bid, and, leaning over the bulwark of the Nora, watched for a long time the rippling foam that curled from her bows and slid quietly along her black hull, but Billy's thoughts were not, like his eyes, fixed upon the foam. For the first time in his life, perhaps, the foundling outcast began to feel that he was running in a dangerous road, and entertained some misgivings that he was an uncommonly wild, if not wicked, fellow. It is not to be supposed that his perceptions on this subject were very clear, or his meditations unusually profound, but it is certain that, during the short period of his residence in the school of which mention has been made, his conscience had been awakened and partially enlightened, so that his precociously quick intelligence enabled him to arrive at a more just apprehension of his condition than might have been expected,-- considering his years and early training.

We do not say that Billy's heart smote him. That little organ was susceptible only of impressions of jollity and mischief. In other respects--never having been appealed to by love--it was as hard as a small millstone. But the poor boy's anxieties were aroused, and the new sensation appeared to add a dozen years to his life. Up to this time he had been accustomed to estimate his wickednesses by the number of days, weeks, or months of incarceration that they involved--"a wipe," he would say, "was so many weeks," a "silver sneezing-box," or a "gold ticker," in certain circumstances, so many more; while a "crack," i.e. a burglary (to which, by the way, he had only aspired as yet) might cost something like a trip over the sea at the Queen's expense; but it had never entered into the head of the small transgressor of the law to meditate such an awful deed as the sinking of a ship, involving as it did the possibility of murder and suicide, or hanging if he should escape the latter contingency.

Moreover, he now began to realise more clearly the fact that he had cast in his lot with a desperate man, who would stick at nothing, and from whose clutches he felt assured that it would be no easy matter to escape. He resolved, however, to make the attempt the first favourable opportunity that should offer; and while the resolve was forming in his small brain his little brows frowned sternly at the foam on the Nora's cutwater. When the resolve was fairly formed, fixed, and disposed of, Billy's brow cleared, and his heart rose superior to its cares. He turned gaily round. Observing that the seaman, who with himself and Jim Welton composed the crew of the sloop, was sitting on the heel of the bowsprit half asleep, he knocked his cap off, dived down the fore-hatch with a merry laugh, flung himself into his berth, and instantly fell asleep, to dream of the dearest joys that had as yet crossed his earthly path--namely, his wayward wanderings, on long summer days, among the sunny fields and hedgerows of Hampstead, Kensington, Finchley, and other suburbs of London.


CHAPTER NINE.


MR. JONES TAKES STRONG MEASURES TO SECURE HIS ENDS, AND INTRODUCES BILLY AND HIS FRIENDS TO SOME NEW SCENES AND MOMENTS.

Again we are in the neighbourhood of the Goodwin sands. It is evening. The sun has just gone down. The air and sea are perfectly still. The stars are coming out one by one, and the floating lights have already hoisted their never-failing signals.

The Nora lies becalmed not far from the Goodwin buoy, with her sails hanging idly on the yards. Bill Towler stands at the helm with all the aspect and importance of a steersman, but without any other duty to perform than the tiller could have performed for itself. Morley Jones stands beside him with his hands in his coat pockets, and Stanley Hall sits on the cabin skylight gazing with interest at the innumerable lights of the shipping in the roadstead, and the more distant houses on shore. Jim Welton, having been told that he will have to keep watch all night, is down below taking a nap, and Grundy, having been ordered below to attend to some trifling duty in the fore part of the vessel, is also indulging in slumber.

Long and earnestly and anxiously had Morley Jones watched for an opportunity to carry his plans into execution, but as yet without success. Either circumstances were against him, or his heart had failed him at the push. He walked up and down the deck with uncertain steps, sat down and rose up frequently, and growled a good deal--all of which symptoms were put down by Stanley to the fact that there was no wind.

At last Morley stopped in front of his passenger and said to him--

"I really think you'd better go below and have a nap, Mr Hall. It's quite clear that we are not goin' to have a breeze till night, and it may be early morning when we call you to go ashore; so, if you want to be fit for much work to-morrow, you'd better sleep while you may."

"Thank you, I don't require much sleep," replied Stanley; "in fact, I can easily do without rest at any time for a single night, and be quite able for work next day. Besides, I have no particular work to do to-morrow, and I delight to sit at this time of the night and watch the shipping. I'm not in your way, am I?"

"Oh, not at all, not at all," replied the fish-merchant, as he resumed his irregular walk.

This question was prompted by the urgency with which the advice to go below had been given.

Seeing that nothing was to be made of his passenger in this way, Morley Jones cast about in his mind to hit upon another expedient to get rid of him, and reproached himself for having been tempted by a good fare to let him have a passage.

Suddenly his eye was attracted by a dark object floating in the sea a considerable distance to the southward of them.

"That's lucky," muttered Jones, after examining it carefully with the glass, while a gleam of satisfaction shot across his dark countenance; "could not have come in better time. Nothing could be better."

Shutting up the glass with decision, he turned round, and the look of satisfaction gave place to one of impatience as his eye fell on Stanley Hall, who still sat with folded arms on the skylight, looking as composed and serene as if he had taken up his quarters there for the night. After one or two hasty turns on the deck, an idea appeared to hit Mr Jones, for he smiled in a grim fashion, and muttered, "I'll try that, if the breeze would only come."

The breeze appeared to have been waiting for an invitation, for one or two "cat's-paws" ruffled the surface of the sea as he spoke.

"Mind your helm, boy," said Mr Jones suddenly; "let her away a point; so, steady. Keep her as she goes; and, harkee" (he stooped down and whispered), "_when I open the skylight_ do you call down, `breeze freshenin', sir, and has shifted a point to the west'ard.'"

"By the way, Mr Hall," said Jones, turning abruptly to his passenger, "you take so much interest in navigation that I should like to show you a new chart I've got of the channels on this part of the coast. Will you step below?"

"With pleasure," replied Stanley, rising and following Jones, who immediately spread out on the cabin table one of his most intricate charts,--which, as he had expected, the young student began to examine with much interest,--at the same time plying the other with numerous questions.

"Stay," said Jones, "I'll open the skylight--don't you find the cabin close?"

No sooner was the skylight opened than the small voice of Billy Towler was heard shouting--

"Breeze freshenin', sir, and has shifted a pint to the west'ard."

"All right," replied Jones;--"excuse me, sir, I'll take a look at the sheets and braces and see that all's fast--be back in a few minutes."

He went on deck, leaving Stanley busy with the chart.

"You're a smart boy, Billy. Now do as I tell 'ee, and keep your weather eye open. D'ye see that bit o' floating wreck a-head? Well, keep straight for that and _run right against it_. I'll trust to 'ee, boy, that ye don't miss it."

Billy said that he would be careful, but resolved in his heart that he _would_ miss it!

Jones then went aft to a locker near the stern, whence he returned with a mallet and chisel, and went below. Immediately thereafter Billy heard the regular though slight blows of the mallet, and pursed his red lips and screwed up his small visage into a complicated sign of intelligence.

There was very little wind, and the sloop made slow progress towards the piece of wreck although it was very near, and Billy steered as far from it as he could without absolutely altering the course.

Presently Jones returned on deck and replaced the mallet and chisel in the locker. He was very warm and wiped the perspiration frequently from his forehead. Observing that the sloop was not so near the wreck as he had expected, he suddenly seized the small steersman by the neck and shook him as a terrier dog shakes a rat.

"Billy," said he, quickly, in a low but stern voice, "it's of no use. I see what you are up to. Your steerin' clear o' that won't prevent this sloop from bein' at the bottom in quarter of an hour, if not sooner! If you hit it you may save yourself and me a world of trouble. It's so much for your own interest, boy, to hit that bit of wreck, _that I'll trust you again_."

So saying, Jones went down into the cabin, apologised for having kept Stanley waiting so long, said that he could not leave the boy at the helm alone for more than a few minutes at a time, and that he would have to return on deck immediately after he had made an entry on the log slate.

Had any one watched Morley Jones while he was making that entry on the log slate, he would have perceived that the strong man's hand trembled excessively, that perspiration stood in beads upon his brow, and that the entry itself consisted of a number