Sunk at Sea, R. M. Ballantyne [top 10 novels .TXT] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «Sunk at Sea, R. M. Ballantyne [top 10 novels .TXT] 📗». Author R. M. Ballantyne
Will felt that, although the captain’s tones were reassuring, his words were startling. He was ill at ease, and clutched the seat when the billow rolled under them, raising the stern of the boat so high that it seemed as if about to be thrown completely over, but the wave passed on, and they fell back into the trough of the sea.
“Musha! but that was a wathery mountain no less,” exclaimed Larry.
“You’ve heard of Captain Bligh, Larry, I suppose?” said the captain, in a loud voice, with the intention of letting the men hear his remarks.
“May be I have,” replied Larry with caution, “but if so I misremimber.”
“He was the captain of the Bounty, whose crew mutinied and turned him adrift in an open boat in the middle of the Pacific. What I was goin’ to tell ye was, that his circumstances were a trifle worse than ours, for he was full four thousand miles from the nearest land, and with short allowance of provisions on board.”
“An’ did he make out the voyage, sur?” asked Larry.
“He did, and did it nobly too, in the face of great trouble and danger, but it’s too long a yarn to spin just now; some day when the weather’s fine I’ll spin it to ’ee. He weathered some heavy gales, too, and what one man has done another man may do; so we’ve no reason to get down-hearted, for we’re nearer land than he was, and better off in every way. I wish I could say as much for the other boats.”
The captain’s voice dropped a little in spite of himself as he concluded, for, despite the strength and buoyancy of his spirit, he could not help feeling deep anxiety as to the fate of his companions in misfortune.
Thus, talking at intervals in hopeful tones, and relapsing into long periods of silence, they spent that stormy night without refreshment and without rest. The minutes seemed to float on leaden wings, and the weary watchers experienced in its highest degree that dreary feeling—so common in the sick room—that “morning would never come.”
But morning came at length—a faint glimmer on the eastern horizon. It was hailed by Larry with a deep sigh, and the earnest exclamation—
“Ah, then, there’s the blessed sun at last, good luck to it!”
Gradually the glimmer increased into grey dawn, then a warm tint brightened up the sky, and golden clouds appeared. At last the glorious sun arose in all its splendour, sending rays of warmth to the exhausted frames of the seamen and hope to their hearts. They much needed both, for want of sleep, anxiety, and cold, had already stamped a haggard look of suffering on their faces. As the morning advanced, however, this passed away, and by degrees they began to cheer up and bestir themselves,—spreading out their clothes to dry, and scanning the horizon at intervals in search of the other boats.
About eight o’clock, as nearly as he could guess, the captain said—
“Now, lads, let’s have breakfast; get out the bread-can. Come, Larry, look alive! You’ve no cooking to do this morning, but I doubt not that your teeth are as sharp and your twist as strong as ever.”
“Stronger than iver, sur, av ye plaze.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, for you’ll have to go on short allowance, I fear.”
“Ochone!” groaned the cook.
“Never mind, Larry,” said Will Osten, assisting to spread the sea-biscuit and salt junk on one of the thwarts; “there’s a good time coming.”
“Sure, so’s Christmas, doctor, but it’s a long way off,” said Larry.
“Fetch me the scales; now then, doctor, hold ’em,” said the captain, carefully weighing out a portion of biscuit and meat which he handed to one of the men. This process was continued until all had been supplied, after which a small quantity of water and lime-juice was also measured out to each.
The breakfast was meagre, but it was much needed, and as the sea had gone down during the night and the morning was beautiful, it was eaten not only in comfort, but with some degree of cheerfulness. While they were thus engaged, Goff looked up and exclaimed suddenly, “Hallo! look here, boys!”
Every one started up and gazed in the direction indicated, where they saw something black floating on the water. The captain, who had taken the precaution before leaving the ship to sling his telescope over his shoulder, applied it to his eye, and in a few seconds exclaimed, “It’s the jolly-boat capsized! Out with the oars, boys—be smart! There’s some of ’em clinging to the keel.”
It need scarcely be said that the men seized the oars and plied them with all their might. Under the influence of these and the sail together they soon drew near, and then it was distinctly seen that three men were clinging to the boat—it followed, of course, that all the rest must have been drowned. Silently and swiftly they pulled alongside, and in a few minutes had rescued Mr Cupples and the steward and one of the sailors, all of whom were so much exhausted that they could not speak for some time after being taken on board. When they could tell what had happened, their tale was brief and sad. They had kept in sight of the long-boat while light enabled them to do so. After that they had run before the gale, until a heavy sea capsized them, from which time they could remember nothing, except that they had managed to get on the bottom of the upturned boat, to which they had clung for many hours in a state of partial insensibility.
The gale moderated to a fresh breeze, and all that day the long-boat of the ill-fated Foam flew over the sea towards the west.
“You see,” said Captain Dall, in answer to a question put to him by Will Osten, “I don’t know exactly whereabouts we are, because there was a longish spell of dirty weather afore the Foam went down, and I hadn’t got a sight o’ the sun for more than a week; but it’s my belief that we are nearer to some of the coral islands than to the coast of South America, though how near I cannot tell. Five hundred miles, more or less, perhaps.”
“A mere trifle, sure!” said Larry, filling his pipe carefully—for his was the only pipe that had been rescued from the sinking ship, and the supply of tobacco was very small. Small as it was, however, the captain had taken the precaution to collect it all together, causing every man to empty his pockets of every inch that he possessed, and doled it out in small equal quantities. The pipe, however, could not be treated thus, so it had to be passed round—each man possessing it in turn for a stated number of minutes, when, if he had not consumed his portion, he was obliged to empty the pipe and give it up.
“It’s my turn, Larry,” cried Muggins, holding out his hand for the coveted implement of fumigation.
“No, ye spalpeen, it’s not,” said Larry, continuing to press down the precious weed, “owld Bob had it last, an’ ivery wan knows that I come after him.”
“It’s the first time I ever heard ye admit that you comed after anybody,” answered Muggins with a grin; “ye ginerally go before us all—at least ye want to.”
“Not at all,” retorted the cook; “whin there’s dirty work to be done, I most usually kape modestly in the background, an’ lets you go first, bekase it’s your nat’ral callin’. Arrah! the sun’s goin’ to set, boys,” he added with a sigh, as he commenced to smoke.
This was true, and the knowledge that another long night of darkness was about to set in depressed the spirits which had begun to revive a little. Silence gradually ensued as they sat watching the waves or gazing wistfully towards the gorgeous mass of clouds in which the sun was setting. For a considerable time they sat thus, when suddenly Will Osten started up, and, pointing towards the horizon a little to the left of the sun, exclaimed—
“Look there, captain; what’s that?”
“Land ho!” shouted Larry O’Hale at that moment, springing up on the thwart and holding on to the foremast.
All the rest leaped up in great excitement.
“It’s only a cloud,” said one.
“It’s a fog-bank,” cried another.
“I never seed a fog-bank with an edge like that,” observed old Bob, “an’ I’ve sailed the salt sea long enough to know.”
“Land it is, thank God,” said the captain earnestly, shutting up his telescope. “Get out the oars again, lads! We can’t make it before dark, but the sooner we get there the better, for landing on these coral islands isn’t always an easy job.”
The oars were got out at once, and the men pulled with a will, but it was late at night before they drew near to the land and heard the roar of the surf on the coral reef that stood as a sentinel to guard the island.
“Captain,” said Will Osten, “the wind has almost died away, yet it seems to me that the surf roars as violently as if a storm were raging.”
“That surf never goes down in those seas, doctor. Even in calm weather the swell of the big ocean gathers into a huge billow and bursts in foam upon the coral islands.”
“Surely, then,” said Will, “it must make landing both difficult and dangerous.”
“It is, sometimes, but not always,” replied the captain; “for a channel of safety has been provided, as you shall see, before long. Take the boat-hook, Goff, and look out in the bows.”
The man rose and stood up with the boat-hook ready to “fend off” if necessary.
A word or two here about the coral islands—those wonderful productions of the coral insect—may perhaps render the position of the boat and her subsequent proceedings more intelligible.
They are of all sizes and shapes. Some are small and low, like emeralds just rising out of the ocean, with a few cocoa-nut palms waving their tufted heads above the sandy soil. Others are many miles in extent, covered with large forest trees and rich vegetation. Some are inhabited, others are the abode only of sea-fowl. In many of them the natives are naked savages of the most depraved character. In a few, where the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ has been planted, the natives are to be seen, “clothed and in their right minds.” Wherever the gospel has taken root, commerce has naturally sprung up, and the evils that invariably follow in her train have in too many cases been attributed to Christianity. Poor indeed must be that man’s knowledge of the influence of Christianity, who would judge of its quality or value by the fruit of its professors. “By their fruits ye shall know them,” truly—them, but not Christianity. The world is an hospital, and life the period of convalescence. Christianity is the one grand and all-sufficient medicine. Shall we, the afflicted and jaundiced patients, still suffering from the virulence and effect of sin, condemn the medicine because it does not turn us out cured in a single
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