The Crew of the Water Wagtail, R. M. Ballantyne [books to improve english .TXT] 📗

The excitement caused by the sight of land was tremendous. Nearly every one ran to the bow or leaped on the bulwarks, and the prisoners were left unguarded.

Seeing this, Grummidge quietly cut their bonds unobserved, and then hurried forward to gaze with the rest. Even the man at the tiller left his post for a moment to get a better view of the land. On returning, he found Master Trench occupying his place, and Paul Burns standing beside him with a handspike in his grasp. Oliver had also armed himself with a marlinespike in default of a better weapon.

“Go for’ard, my man,” said the skipper, in a quiet voice, “an’ tell your mates to get ready the anchor and stand by the cable. Haste ye, if you value life.”

The man slunk away without a word.

“We seem far from land yet, Master Trench; why such haste?” asked Paul.

“Look over the stern,” was the skipper’s curt reply.

Paul and Oliver both did so, and saw that another squall was bearing down on them.

“Is it Newfoundland?” asked Paul.

“Ay, and an ugly coast to make in a squall. Hallo! there—if ye would not be food for fishes lay aloft and take in all sail!”

The skipper, as his wont was, gave the order in a stern tone of command, and resigned the tiller to Grummidge, who came aft at the moment. The men saw with surprise that a heavy squall was bearing down on them from the eastward. Mutiny flew, as it were, out at the hawseholes, while discipline re-entered by the cabin windows. Even Big Swinton was cowed for the moment. It may be that the peculiar way in which Paul Burns eyed him and toyed with the handspike had some effect on him. Possibly he was keenly alive to the danger which threatened them. At all events, he went to work like the rest!

And there was occasion for haste. Before the sails were properly secured, the squall struck them; the foremast was snapped off close to the deck; for a time the ship became unmanageable and drifted rapidly towards the land.

“Is that a small island that I see on the weather bow, Olly?” said the skipper to his son. “Look, your eyes are better than mine.”

“Yes, father. It looks like a small one.”

“Steer for that, Grummidge. We’ll take shelter in its lee.”

The sails were braced, and the direction of the vessel was changed, while the wreck of the foremast was being cleared away; but, just as they were drawing near to the island, the wind chopped round, and the hoped-for shelter they were approaching became suddenly a lee shore.

“Nothing can save us now,” muttered Grummidge, “the Water Wagtail is going to her doom.”

“You’re right, my man. Before another hour goes by, she will have wagged her tail for the last time,” said Master Trench, somewhat bitterly.

They were both right. In less than an hour after that the ship was hurled upon the outlying rocks of a low island. Shaken and strained as she had been during her disastrous voyage, it took but a short time to break her up, but the bow had been thrust high between two rocks and remained fast.

Circumstances do not change character, but they often bring it to the front. Heroes and poltroons may remain unknown until a sudden incident or change of condition reveals them. As the crew of the wrecked ship clustered on the fragment of the bow, and gazed on the tumultuous flood of foaming water that seethed between them and the shore, their hearts failed them for fear. Some sternly compressed their lips, and looked like men who had made up their minds to “die game.” A few even looked defiant, as if daring Fate to do her worst, though the pallor of their countenances gave the lie to the expression of their features; but many of them, in the terror of the moment, cried aloud for mercy, and wildly promised amendment if their lives should be spared. A few were composed and grave. Brave men, though bad. Possibly some of these prayed. If so, they had the sense to do it silently to Him who knows the secrets of all hearts.

“No man can cross that and live,” said the skipper, in a low, sad tone.

“It is my intention to try, Master Trench,” said Paul Burns, grasping the end of a light line and tying it round his waist.

Little Oliver looked quickly and anxiously at his friend. His heart sank, for he saw at a glance that it was not possible to follow him. The deed, if done at all, must be done by his friend alone. Great, therefore, was the rebound of joy in the boy’s heart when Paul said—

“Now, Olly, attend to me. My life, under God, may depend on close attention to my signals and the management of the line. I can trust your father and the men to haul me back to the ship if need be, but I will trust only you to pay out and read my signals. Observe, now, let there be no slack to the line; keep it just taut but without any pull on it, so that you may feel the signals at once. One pull means pay out faster, two pulls mean haul me aboard, three pulls is all right and fix the big hawser to the line so that I may haul it ashore. Now, Olly, I trust to you to read my signals and act promptly.”

Oliver’s heart was too full to speak. He looked at his friend with swimming eyes and nodded his head.

“Men,” said Paul to the crew, “let me beg you to obey the boy’s orders smartly. If God wills it so, we shall all be saved.”

He leaped over the side as he concluded. Another moment and he was seen to rise and buffet the plunging waters manfully. Great as was the muscular strength of the young man, it seemed absolute feebleness to those who looked on; nevertheless he made headway towards the shore, which was strewn with great boulders with a low cliff behind them. It was among these boulders that his chief danger and difficulty lay, for his strong frame would have been as nothing if dashed against them.

Quickly he was lost to view in the hurly-burly of foam and spray.

With the utmost care did Oliver Trench perform his duty. It required both vigour of hand and delicacy of touch to keep the line right, but it was manipulated by hands whose vigour and touch were intensified by love.

“Ease off!” he cried, looking back impatiently at the strong fellows who held the slack of the line.

The men obeyed so readily that the line ran out too fast and the boy had much ado to check it. Just as he got it sufficiently taut, he felt what seemed to him like two pulls—“haul me in!” Could it be? He was not certain. In an agony of anxiety he held on, and was about to give the signal to haul in, when his father, who watched his every movement, instantly said, “Give him another second or two, Olly.”

Just then there was a strong single pull at the line.

“Pay out!—faster!” shouted Oliver, and, at the same moment he eased off his own feelings in a tremendous sigh of relief.

After that the line ran steadily for a few seconds, and no signals came. Then it ceased to run, and poor Oliver’s fears began to rush in upon him again, but he was speedily relieved by feeling three distinct and vigorous pulls.

“Thank God, he’s safe,” cried the boy. “Now then, pass along the hawser—quick!”

This was done, the light line was attached to a three-inch rope, and the party on the wreck waited anxiously.

“Give it a pull, Olly, by way of signal,” suggested Master Trench.

“He did not tell me to do that, father,” returned the boy, hesitating.

“No doubt he forgot it in the hurry—try it, anyhow.”

A hearty pull on the line was accordingly given, and they soon had the satisfaction of seeing the hawser move over the side and run towards the shore. When it ceased to run out they knew that Paul must have got hold of the end of it, so, making their end fast to the heel of the bowsprit, they waited, for as yet the rope lay deep in the heaving waters, and quite useless as a means of escape.

Presently the rope began to jerk, then it tightened, soon the bight of it rose out of the sea and remained there—rigid.

“Well done, Paul,” exclaimed the skipper, when this was accomplished. “Now, Olly, you go first, you’re light.”

But the boy hesitated. “No, father, you first,” he said.

“Obey orders, Olly,” returned the skipper sternly.

Without another word Oliver got upon the rope and proceeded to clamber along it. The operation was by no means easy, but the boy was strong and active, and the water not very cold. It leaped up and drenched him, however, as he passed the lowest point of the bight, and thereafter the weight of his wet garments delayed him, so that on nearing the shore he was pretty well exhausted. There, however, he found Paul up to the waist in the sea waiting for him, and the last few yards of the journey were traversed in his friend’s arms.

By means of this rope was every man of the Water Wagtail’s crew saved from a watery grave.

They found that the island on which they had been cast was sufficiently large to afford them shelter, and a brief survey of it proved that there was both wood and water enough to serve them, but nothing of animal or vegetable life was to be found. This was serious, because all their provisions were lost with the wrecked portion of the ship, so that starvation stared them in the face.

“If only the rum-kegs had been saved,” said one of the men, when they assembled, after searching the island, to discuss their prospects, “we might, at least, have led a merry life while it lasted.”

“Humph! Much good that would do you when you came to think over it in the next world,” said Grummidge contemptuously.

“I don’t believe in