The Battery and the Boiler, Robert Michael Ballantyne [best book club books .TXT] 📗

so bad as you think me. I had ordered a special conductor with some trifling novelties of construction for the yacht, but it was not ready when we started, so we had to sail without it. However, it is not once in a thousand times that a vessel is struck by lightning."

While Sam was yet speaking, a flash of lightning almost blinded them, and the little schooner received a shock which told of disaster. Next moment the roar of reverberating thunder drowned the crash of timber as the topmast went overboard, carrying the bowsprit and its gear along with it.

Fortunately no one was hurt, but the schooner became unmanageable, owing to the mass of wreckage which hung to her.

Jim Slagg, seizing an axe, sprang to the side to cut this away, ably seconded by all the men on board, but before it could be accomplished the Gleam had drifted dangerously near to the rocks on the coast of Mull. To add to the confusion, the darkness became intense.

Captain Rik, forgetting or ignoring his years, had thrown off his coat and was working like a hero with the rest. The ladies, unable to remain below, were clinging to the stern rails, Madge holding her little boy tightly in her arms, and the spray dashing wildly over all.

Another moment and the Gleam struck on the rocks with tremendous violence. Only by the lightning could they see the wild rocky shore, on which they had drifted.

Instinctively each member of the little crew drew towards those nearest and dearest.

"Get out the boat!" shouted Captain Slagg; but the men could not obey, for a heavy sea had anticipated them, and the little dinghy was already careering shoreward, bottom up.

The next wave lifted the Gleam like a cork, and let her down on the rocks like fifty-six tons of lead. A flash of lightning revealed for a moment a range of frowning cliffs, as if to add horror to a scene that was already sufficiently appalling. Then all was again dark as Erebus.

In a frenzy of resolution Captain Rik seized an axe with the view of extemporising a raft, when the Gleam parted amidships, and we might almost say went out, leaving her crew struggling in the waves.

Sam had seized his wife with his strong left arm--he happened to be left-handed--and buffeted the waves with his right. Madge held on to Sammy with the power of maternal love. Sam was aware of that, and felt comparatively at ease in regard to his first-born.

Robin's arm had been round Letta's waist--unknown to himself or her!-- when the Gleam struck. It did not relax when he felt that they were afloat. Frank Hedley gallantly offered to take charge of Mrs Langley.

Ebenezer Smith, being unable to swim, confessed the fact, with something of a gasp, to Captain Rik, who considerately told him never to mind.

"I can swim for both," he said, tying a piece of rope-yarn tight round his waist, for he had long before cast off coat, vest, and braces; "but you ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man come to your time o' life, an' not able to swim!"

"I never lived near the sea, and had no one to teach me," pleaded Ebenezer in a tremblingly apologetic voice, for the roar of united wind, waves, and thunder was really tremendous even to those who _could_ swim.

"What o' that?" returned Captain Rik, sternly. "Was there no river or pond nigh? Even a horse-trough or a washing-tub would have sufficed to make a man of you. As for teaching--what teaching did you want? Swimmin' ain't Latin or Greek. It ain't even mathematics--only aquatics. All the brute beasts swim--even donkeys swim without teaching. Boh! bah! There, lay hold o' me--so. Now, mind, if you try to take me round the neck with your two arms I'll plant my fist on the bridge of your nose, an' let you go to Davy Jones's locker."

A flash of lightning revealed Captain Rik's face in such a way that Ebenezer Smith resolved to obey him to the letter.

It was at this point of their conversation that the Gleam went down--or out--and they sank with a gurgle, coming up next moment, however, with a gasp.

Strange to say, after the first plunge and overthrow amid the boiling waves, the swimmers found themselves in almost still water.

"You'd better let me take Sammy, ma'am," said Captain Slagg, swimming quietly alongside of Madge, and speaking in the calm tone of a man taking an evening stroll.

"Is that you, Slagg?" asked Sam, who was striking out vigorously.

"Yes, sir, it is," said Slagg. "You've no need to exert yourself, sir, so violently. I know the spot well. We've bin washed clean over the reef by the wave that sank us, into a sort o' nat'ral harbour, an' we ain't far from shore. I can feel bottom now, sir, which, bein' a six-footer, you'll touch easy."

"So I do!" exclaimed Sam, letting down his feet. "Madge, darling, cheer up, we've got soundings. Give Sammy to Slagg. There, we'll do famously now."

Only those who have been for a few moments in deadly peril can understand the feeling of intense relief that came to Sam Shipton's heart when he felt his toes touch ground on that eventful night. The feeling was expressed in his tone of voice as he asked Slagg whether he had seen any of the others.

"No, sir, I ain't seen 'em for want o' light, but I've heerd 'em. Stumps is splutterin' behind us like a grampus. If you'll hold on a bit an' listen you'll hear him. He's a bad swimmer, and it's all he can do to save hisself. If he only knowed he could reach bottom with his long legs, he'd find it easier. Not quite so tight, Sammy, my boy, and keep off the wind-pipe--so; you're quite safe, my lad. As for the rest of 'em, sir, they all swim like ducks except Mr Ebbysneezer Smith, but he's took charge on by Captin Rik, so you may keep your mind easy. There's a bit o' flat beach hereabouts, an' no sea inside the reef, so we'll git ashore easy enough--let's be thankful."

Jim Slagg was right. They got ashore without difficulty, and they _were_ thankful--profoundly so--when they had time to think of the danger they had escaped.

After a few minutes' rest and wringing of salt water from their garments, they proceeded inland to search for shelter, and well was it for the shipwrecked party that the captain of the lost yacht was acquainted with the lie of the land, for it was a rugged shore, with intermingled fields and morasses, and wooded rocky heights, among which it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to thread one's way in the dark without severe damage to the shins. But Jim Slagg led them to a cottage not far from the sea, where they received from the family resident there at the time a warm and hearty Scottish welcome.

It is not uncommon, we suspect, for eccentric natures to undertake the most important matters at the most unsuitable times and in the most ridiculous manners. At all events Robin Wright, while stumbling among the rocks and rugged ground of that midnight march in Mull, dripping wet and with the elements at war around him, conceived the idea of declaring his unalterable, not to say unutterable, attachment to Letta Langley, who leant heavily on the arm of her preserver. But Robin was intensely sensitive. He shrank from the idea, (which he had only got the length of conceiving), as if it had been a suggestion from beneath. It would be unfair, mean, contemptible, he thought, to take advantage of the darkness and the elemental noise to press his suit at such a time. No, he would wait till the morrow.

He did wait for the morrow. Then he waited for the morrow afterwards, and as each morrow passed he felt that more morrows must come and go, for it was quite obvious that Letta regarded him only as a brother.

At last, unable to bear it, our unhappy hero suddenly discovered that one of the morrows was the last of his leave of absence, so he said good-bye in despair, and parted from his companions, who could not resist the genial hospitality of their new friends in the cottage on the west of Mull.

Ten days later Sam got a letter from Robin, telling him that he had received a cable-telegram from India, from their friend Redpath, offering him a good situation there, and that, having reached the lowest depths of despair, he had resolved to accept it, and was sorry he should not have an opportunity of saying good-bye, as he was urged to start without a day's delay.

Sam was staying with his friends at the Oban Hotel at the time, having at last managed to tear himself away from the cottage in Mull.

He instantly ran out and telegraphed--

"Don't accept on any account."

Then he sought Mrs Langley, and opened Robin's case to her. Mrs Langley listened with a smile of intelligence, and soon after went to her daughter's room, the window of which commanded a splendid view of the western sea.

"Letta, dear, are you moralising or meditating?"

"Both, mamma."

"Well, I will try to help you," said Mrs Langley, seating herself by the window. "By the way, did you hear that Mr Wright has been offered a lucrative appointment in the Telegraph Department of India, and is going off at once;--has not time even to say good-bye to his old friend Sam Shipton?"

Letta turned very pale, then extremely red, then covered her face with both hands and burst into tears.

"So, Letta, you love him," said her mother, gently. "Why did you not let me know this sooner?"

"Oh, mamma!" said poor Letta, "why do you put it so--so--suddenly. I don't love him--that is--I don't _know_ that I love him. I've never thought about it seriously. He has never opened his lips to me on the subject--and--and--"

"Letta, dear," said her mother, tenderly, "would you wish to prevent his going away if you could? Open your heart to your mother, darling."

Letta laid her head on her mother's shoulder, but spoke not.

A few minutes later Mrs Langley went to Sam and said--

"Robin must not go to India."

Sam instantly went by the shortest conceivable route to London, where he found Robin in his room feverishly packing his portmanteau, and said--

"Robin, you must not go to India."

From that text he preached an eloquent lay-sermon, which he wound up with the words, "Now, my boy, you must just propose to her at once."

"But I can't, Sam. I haven't got the pluck. I'm such a miserable sort of fellow--how could I expect _such_ a creature to throw herself away on _me_? Besides, it's all very well your saying you have good ground for believing she cares for me; but how can you know? Of course you have not dared to speak to her?"

Robin looked actually fierce at the bare idea of such a thing.

"No, I have not dared," said Sam.

"Well, then. It is merely your good-natured fancy. No, my