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

of unmeaning and wavering strokes.

Meanwhile Billy Towler, left in sole possession of the sloop, felt himself in a most unenviable state of mind. He knew that the crisis had arrived, and the decisive tone of his tyrant's last remark convinced him that it would be expedient for himself to obey orders. On the other hand, he remembered that he had deliberately resolved to throw off his allegiance, and as he drew near the piece of wreck, he reflected that he was at that moment assisting in an act which might cost the lives of all on board.

Driven to and fro between doubts and fears, the poor boy kept changing the course of the sloop in a way that would have soon rendered the hitting of the wreck an impossibility, when a sudden and rather sharp puff of wind caused the Nora to bend over, and the foam to curl on her bow as she slipped swiftly through the water. Billy decided at that moment to _miss_ the wreck when he was close upon it, and for that purpose deliberately and smartly put the helm hard a-starboard.

Poor fellow, his seamanship was not equal to his courage! So badly did he steer, that the very act which was meant to carry him past the wreck, thrust him right upon it!

The shock, although a comparatively slight one, was sufficiently severe to arouse the sleepers, to whom the unwonted sensation and sound carried the idea of sudden disaster. Jim and Grundy rushed on deck, where they found Morley Jones already on the bulwarks with a boat-hook, shouting for aid, while Stanley Hall assisted him with an oar to push the sloop off what appeared to be the topmast and cross-trees of a vessel, with which she was entangled.

Jim and Grundy each seized an oar, and, exerting their strength, they were soon clear of the wreck.

"Well," observed Jim, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his coat, "it's lucky it was but a light topmast and a light breeze, it can't have done us any damage worth speaking of."

"I don't know that," said Jones. "There are often iron bolts and sharp points about such wreckage that don't require much force to drive 'em through a ship's bottom. Take a look into the hold, Jim, and see that all's right."

Jim descended into the hold, but immediately returned, exclaiming wildly--

"Why, the sloop's sinkin'! Lend a hand here if you don't want to go down with her," he cried, leaping towards the boat.

Stanley Hall and Grundy at once lent a hand to get out the boat, while the fish-merchant, uttering a wild oath, jumped into the hold as if to convince himself of the truth of Jim's statement. He returned quickly, exclaiming--

"She must have started a plank. It's rushing in like a sluice. Look alive, lads; out with her!"

The boat was shoved outside the bulwarks, and let go by the run; the oars were flung hastily in, and all jumped into her as quickly as possible, for the deck of the Nora was already nearly on a level with the water. They were not a minute too soon. They had not pulled fifty yards from their late home when she gave a sudden lurch to port and went down stern foremost.

To say that the party looked aghast at this sudden catastrophe, would be to give but a feeble idea of the state of their minds. For some minutes they could do nothing but stare in silence at the few feet of the Nora's topmast which alone remained above water as a sort of tombstone to mark her ocean grave.

When they did at length break silence, it was in short interjectional remarks, as they resumed the oars.

Mr Jones, without making a remark of any kind, shipped the rudder; the other four pulled.

"Shall we make for land?" asked Jim Welton, after a time.

"Not wi' the tide running like this," answered Jones; "we'll make the Gull, and get 'em to take us aboard till morning. At slack tide we can go ashore."

In perfect silence they rowed towards the floating light, which was not more than a mile distant from the scene of the disaster. As the ebb tide was running strong, Jim hailed before they were close alongside--"Gull, ahoy! heave us a rope, will you?"

There was instant bustle on board the floating light, and as the boat came sweeping past a growl of surprise was heard to issue from the mate's throat as he shouted, "Look out!"

A rope came whirling down on their heads, which was caught and held on to by Jim.

"All right, father," he said, looking up.

"All wrong, I think," replied the sire, looking down. "Why. Jim, you always turn up like a bad shilling, and in bad company too. Where ever have you come from this time?"

"From the sea, father. Don't keep jawin' there, but help us aboard, and you'll hear all about it."

By this time Jones had gained the deck, followed by Stanley Hall and Billy. These quickly gave a brief outline of the disaster, and were hospitably received on board, while Jim and Grundy made fast the tackles to their boat, and had it hoisted inboard.

"You won't require to pull ashore to-morrow," said the elder Mr Welton, as he shook his son's hand. "The tender will come off to us in the morning, and no doubt the captain will take you all ashore."

"So much the better," observed Stanley, "because it seems to me that our boat is worthy of the rotten sloop to which she belonged, and might fail to reach the shore after all!"

"Her owner is rather fond of ships and boats that have got the rot," said Mr Welton, senior, looking with a somewhat stern expression at Morley Jones, who was in the act of stooping to wring the water out of the legs of his trousers.

"If he is," said Jones, with an equally stern glance at the mate, "he is the only loser--at all events the chief one--by his fondness."

"You're right," retorted Mr Welton sharply; "the loss of a kit may be replaced, but there are _some things_ which cannot be replaced when lost. However, you know your own affairs best. Come below, friends, and have something to eat and drink."

After the wrecked party had been hospitably entertained in the cabin with biscuit and tea, they returned to the deck, and, breaking up into small parties, walked about or leaned over the bulwarks in earnest conversation. Jack Shales and Jerry MacGowl took possession of Jim Welton, and, hurrying him forward to the windlass, made him there undergo a severe examination and cross-questioning as to how the sloop Nora had met with her disaster. These were soon joined by Billy Towler, to whom the gay manner of Shales and the rich brogue of MacGowl were irresistibly attractive.

Jim, however, proved to be much more reticent than his friends deemed either necessary or agreeable. After a prolonged process of pumping, to which he submitted with much good humour and an apparent readiness to be pumped quite dry, Jerry MacGowl exclaimed--

"Och, it ain't of no use trying to git no daiper. Sure we've sounded 'im to the bottom, an' found nothin' at all but mud."

"Ay, he's about as incomprehensible as that famous poet you're for ever givin' us screeds of. What's 'is name--somebody's _son_?"

"Tenny's son, av coorse," replied Jerry; "but he ain't incomprehensible, Jack; he's only too daip for a man of or'nary intellick. His thoughts is so awful profound sometimes that the longest deep-sea lead line as ever was spun can't reach the bottom of 'em. It's only such oncommon philosophers as Dick Moy there, or a boardin'-school miss (for extremes meet, you know, Jack), that can rightly make him out."

"Wot's that you're sayin' about Dick Moy?" inquired that worthy, who had just joined the group at the windlass.

"He said you was a philosopher," answered Shales. "You're another," growled Dick, bluntly, to MacGowl.

"Faix, that's true," replied Jerry; "there's two philosophers aboord of this here light, an' the luminous power of our united intellicks is so strong that I've had it in my mind more than wance to suggest that if they wos to hoist you and me to the masthead together, the Gull would git on first-rate without any lantern at all."

"Not a bad notion that," said Jack Shales. "I'll mention it to the superintendent to-morrow, when the tender comes alongside. P'raps he'll report you to the Trinity House as being willin' to serve in that way without pay, for the sake of economy."

"No, not for economy, mate," objected Dick Moy. "We can't afford to do dooty as lights without increased pay. Just think of the intellektooal force required for to keep the lights agoin' night after night."

"Ay, and the amount of the doctor's bill," broke in MacGowl, "for curin' the extra cowlds caught at the mast-head in thick weather."

"But we wouldn't go up in thick weather, stoopid," said Moy,--"wot ud be the use? Ain't the gong enough at sich times?"

"Och, to be sure. Didn't I misremember that? What a thing it is to be ready-witted, now! And since we are makin' sich radical changes in the floating-light system, what would ye say, boys, to advise the Boord to use the head of Jack Shales instead of a gong? It would sound splendiferous, for there ain't no more in it than an empty cask. The last gong they sint us down was cracked, you know, so I fancy that's considered the right sort; and if so, Jack's head is cracked enough in all conscience."

"I suppose, Jerry," said Shales, "if my head was appointed gong, you'd like that your fist should git the situation of drumstick."

"Stop your chaffin', boys, and let's catch some birds for to-morrow's dinner," said one of the men who had been listening to the conversation. "There's an uncommon lot of 'em about to-night, an' it seems to me if the fog increases we shall have more of 'em."

"Ho-o-o!


"`Sich a gittin' up stairs, and
A playin' on the fiddle,'"


Sang Jack Shales, as he sprang up the wire-rope ladder that led to the lantern, round which innumerable small birds were flitting, as if desirous of launching themselves bodily into the bright light.

"What is that fellow about?" inquired Stanley Hall of the mate, as the two stood conversing near the binnacle.

"He's catching small birds, sir. We often get a number in that way here. But they ain't so numerous about the Gull as I've seen them in some of the other lightships. You may find it difficult to believe, but I do assure you, sir, that I have caught as many as five hundred birds with my own hand in the course of two hours."

"Indeed! what sort of birds?"

"Larks and starlings chiefly, but there were other kinds amongst 'em. Why, sir, they flew about my head and round the lantern like clouds of snowflakes. I was sittin' on the lantern just as Shales is sittin' now, and the birds came so thick that I had to pull my sou'-wester down over my eyes, and hold up my hands sometimes before my face to