The Red Eric, Robert Michael Ballantyne [free ebook novel txt] 📗

all here?"

"I think we may say, what has brought _you_ here?" replied the captain, as he grasped them each by the hand and shook them with as much energy as if he had not met them for ten years past.

"It's aisy to tell that," said Briant, as he crouched down in the midst of the group; "Tim and me wos blow'd right across the bank, an' we should no doubt ha' bin blow'd right into the sea, but Tim went full split agin one o' the casks o' salt junk, and I went slap agin _him_, and we lay for a moment all but dead. Then we crep' in the lee o' the cask, an' lay there till a lull came, when we clapped on all sail, an' made for the shelter o' the rocks, an' shure we got there niver a taste too soon, for it came on to blow the next minit, fit to blow the eyelids off yer face, it did."

"It's a fact," added Rokens. "Moreover, we tried to git round to the hut, but as we wos twice nearly blowed away w'en we tried for to double the point, we 'greed to stay where we wos till the back o' the gale should be broke. But, now, let's hear wot's happened."

"The hut's gone," said Gurney, in reply. "Blowed clean over our heads to--I dun know where."

"Blowed away?" cried Rokens and Briant, in consternation.

"Not a stick left," replied the captain.

"An' the boat?" inquired Briant.

"It's gone too, I fancy; but we can't be sure."

"Then it's all up, boys," observed Briant; "for nearly every morsel o' the prog that wos on the top o' the bank is washed away."

This piece of news fell like a thunderbolt on the men, and no one spoke for some minutes. At last the captain said--

"Well, lads, we must do the best we can. Thank God, we are still alive; so let us see whether we can't make our present quarters more comfortable."

Setting his men the example, Captain Dunning began to collect the few boards, and bits of canvas that chanced to have been left on that side of the rocky ledge when the hut was removed to the other side, and with these materials a very partial and insufficient shelter was put up. But the space thus inclosed was so small that they were all obliged to huddle together in a mass. Those farthest from the rock were not altogether protected from the spray that flew over their heads, while those nearest to it were crushed and incommoded by their companions.

Thus they passed that eventful night and all the following day, during which the storm raged with such fury that no one dared venture out to ascertain how much, if any, of their provisions and stores were left to them.

During the second night, a perceptible decrease in the violence of the gale took place, and before morning it ceased altogether. The sun rose in unclouded splendour, sending its bright and warm beams up into the clear blue sky and down upon the ocean, which glittered vividly as it still swelled and trembled with agitation. All was serene and calm in the sky, while below the only sound that broke upon the ear was the deep and regular dash of the great breakers that fell upon the shores of the islet, and encircled it with a fringe of purest white.

On issuing from their confined uneasy nest in the cleft of the rock, part of the shipwrecked crew hastened anxiously to the top of the bank to see how much of their valuable store of food was left, while others ran to the spot in Fairyland where the keel of the new boat had been laid. The latter party found to their joy that all was safe, everything having been well secured; but a terrible sight met the eyes of the other men. Not a vestige of all their store remained! The summit of the sandbank was as smooth as on the day they landed there. Casks, boxes, barrels--all were gone; everything had been swept away into the sea!

Almost instinctively the men turned their eyes towards the reef on which the _Red Eric_ had grounded, each man feeling that in the wrecked vessel all his hope now remained. It, too, was gone! The spot on which it had lain was now washed by the waves, and a few broken planks and spars on the beach were all that remained to remind them of their ocean home!

The men looked at each other with deep despondency expressed in their countenances. They were haggard and worn from exposure, anxiety, and want of rest; and as they stood there in their wet, torn garments, they looked the very picture of despair.

"There's one chance for us yet, lads," exclaimed Tim Rokens, looking carefully round the spot on which they stood.

"What's that?" exclaimed several of the men eagerly, catching at their comrade's words as drowning men are said to catch at straws.

"Briant an' me buried some o' the things, by good luck, when we were sent to make all snug here, an' I'm of opinion they'll be here yet, if we could only find the place. Let me see."

Rokens glanced round at the rocks beside which their hut had found shelter, and at the reef where the ship had been wrecked, in order to find the "bearin's o' the spot," as he expressed it. Then walking a few yards to one side, he struck his foot on the sand and said, "It should be hereabouts."

The blow of his heel returned a peculiar hollow sound, very unlike that produced by stamping on the mere sand.

"Shure ye've hit the very spot, ye have," cried Briant, falling on his knees beside the place; and scraping up the sand with both hands. "It sounds uncommon like a bread-cask. Here it is. Hurrah! boys, lind a hand, will ye. There now, heave away; but trate it tinderly! Shure it's the only friend we've got in the wide world."

"You're all wrong, Phil," cried Gurney, who almost at the same moment began to scrape another hole close by. "It's not our only one; here's another friend o' the same family. Bear a hand, lads!"

"And here's another!" cried Ailie, with a little scream of delight, as she observed the rim of a small keg just peeping out above the sand.

"Well done, Ailie," cried Glynn, as he ran to the spot and quickly dug up the keg in question, which, however, proved to be full of nails, to Ailie's great disappointment, for she expected it to have turned out a keg of biscuits.

"How many casks did you bury?" inquired the captain.

"It's meself can't tell," replied Briant; "d'ye know, Tim?"

"Three, I think; but we was in sich a hurry that I ain't sartin exactly."

"Well, then, boys, look here!" continued the captain, drawing a pretty large circle on the sand, "set to work like a band of moles an' dig up every inch o' that till you come to the water."

"That's your sort," cried Rokens, plunging elbow-deep into the sand at once.

"Arrah! then, here's at ye; a fair field an' no favour at any price," shouted Briant, baring his arms, straddling his legs, and sending a shower of sand behind him that almost overwhelmed Gurney, before that stout little individual could get out of the way.

The spirits of the men were farther rejoiced by the coming up of the other party, bearing the good news that the keel of the boat was safe, as well as all her planking and the carpenter's tools, which fortunately happened to have been secured in a sheltered spot. From the depths of despair they were all suddenly raised to renewed and sanguine hope, so that they wrought with the energy of gold-diggers, and soon their toil was rewarded by the discovery of that which, in their circumstances, they would not have exchanged for all the golden nuggets that ever were or will be dug up from the prolific mines of Australia, California, or British Columbia, namely, three casks of biscuit, a small keg of wine, a cask of fresh water, a roll of tobacco, and a barrel of salt junk.


CHAPTER TWENTY.


PREPARATIONS FOR A LONG VOYAGE--BRIANT PROVES THAT GHOSTS CAN DRINK-- JACKO ASTONISHES HIS FRIENDS, AND SADDENS HIS ADOPTED MOTHER.

"Wot _I_ say is one thing; wot _you_ say is another--so it is. I dun know w'ich is right, or w'ich is wrong--no more do you. P'raps you is, p'raps I is; anywise we can't both on us be right or both on us be wrong--that's a comfort, if it's nothin' else. Wot _you_ say is--that it's morally imposs'ble for a crew sich as us to travel over two thousand miles of ocean on three casks o' biscuit and a barrel o' salt junk. Wot _I_ say is--that we can, an', moreover, that morals has nothin' to do with it wotsomediver. Now, wot then?"

Tim Rokens paused and looked at Gurney, to whom his remarks were addressed, as if he expected an answer. That rotund little seaman did not, however, appear to be thoroughly prepared to reply to "wot then," for he remained silent, but looked at his comrade as though to say, "I'll be happy to learn wisdom from your sagacious lips."

"Wot then?" repeated Tim Rokens, assaulting his knee with his clenched fist in a peculiarly emphatic manner; "I'll tell ye wot then, as you may be right and I may be right, an' nother on us can be both right or wrong, I say as how that we don't know nothin' about it."

Gurney looked as if he did not quite approve of so summary a method of solving such a knotty question, but observing from the expression of Rokens' countenance that, though he had paused, that philosopher had not yet concluded, he remained silent.

"An', furthermore," continued Tim, "it's my opinion--seein' that we're both on us in such a state o' cumblebofubulation, an' don't know nothin'--we'd better go an' ax the cap'en, who does."

"_You_ may save yourselves the trouble," observed Glynn Proctor, who at that moment came up and sat down on the rocks beside them, with a piece of the salt junk that formed an element in the question at issue, in his hand--

"I've just heard the captain give his opinion on that subject, and he says that the boat can be got ready in a week or less, and that, with strict economy, the provisions we have will last us long enough to enable us to make the Cape, supposing we have good weather and fair winds. That's _his_ opinion."

"I told ye so," said Tim Rokens.

"You did nothin' o' the sort," retorted Gurney.

"Well, if ye come fur to be oncommon strick in the use o' your lingo, I did _not_ 'xactly tell ye so, but I _thought_ so, w'ich is all the same."

"It ain't all the same," replied Gurney, whose temper seemed to have been a little soured by the prospects before him, "and you don't need to go for to be talkin' there like a great Solon as you are."

"Wot's a Solon?" inquired Tim.

"Solon was a man as thought his-self a great feelosopher, but he worn't, he wor an ass."

"If