Saved by the Lifeboat, Robert Michael Ballantyne [great books to read txt] 📗

to say that these two fell in love, seeing that one was only seven and the other fifteen; but there can be no doubt they entertained some sort of regard for each other, of a very powerful nature. The young sailor was wildly enthusiastic, well educated, manly, and good-looking--little wonder that Annie liked him. The child was winning in her ways, simple, yet laughter-loving, and very earnest--less wonderful that Harry liked _her_!

Another year fled, and again the Websters visited Covelly, and again Harry spent a few days with his mother; and although Mr Webster did not get the length of liking the youth, he at last came to the condition of not disliking him.

Year followed year, and still, each summer, Annie pressed her father to return to the old place, and he agreed, chiefly because it mattered little to him where he went. He regarded the summer trip in the light of a penance to be paid for the sin of being a member of society and the head of a household, and placed every minute so wasted to the debit of the profit and loss account in the mental ledger of his life's affairs, for it must not be supposed that Mr Webster's character was changed by the events which followed the rescue of his child from the sea. True, he had been surprised out of his habitual hardness for a short time, but he soon relapsed, if not quite back to the old position, at least so near to it that the difference was not appreciable.

As time ran on, men begun to look for the return of the _Warrior_, but that vessel did not make her appearance. Then they began to shake their heads and to grow prophetic, while those who were most deeply interested in the human beings who manned her became uneasy.

"Don't fret over it," said Harry one day to his mother, in a kind, earnest tone; "you may depend upon it father will turn up yet and surprise us. He never lost a ship in his life, and he has sailed in worse ones than the _Warrior_ by a long way."

"It may be so," replied Mrs Boyns, sadly; "but it is a long, long time since he went away. God's will be done. Whether He gives or takes away, I shall try to bless His name."

At last Harry gave over attempting to comfort his mother, for he began to fear that his father's ship was destined to be placed on the dark, dreary list of those of which it is sometimes said, with terrible brevity, in the newspapers, "She sailed from port on such and such a day, and has not since been heard of."

In course of time Harry made one or two trips to the East Indies as first mate of one of Mr Webster's vessels, and ultimately obtained the command of one.

At last a day came when there appeared in a Welsh newspaper a paragraph, which ran thus:--"A Message from the Sea--A bottle, corked and sealed, was found by a woman on the beach, above Conway, North Wales. Inside was a letter containing the following:--

"`Latitude 44, longitude 15, off Tierra del Fuego. If this should
ever reach the shores of England, it will announce to friends at home
the sad fate of the ship _Warrior_, which sailed from Liverpool on
13th February 18 hundred and something, bound for China. We have been
boarded by pirates: we have been all locked into the cabin, with the
assurance that we shall be made to walk the plank in half an hour.
Our last act is to put this in a bottle and drop it overboard.
Farewell, for this world, my beloved wife and son.'

"`DANIEL BOYNS, Captain.'"

This letter was forwarded to the owner, and by him was sent to poor Mrs Boyns.

Alas! how many sailors' wives, in our sea-girt isle, have received similar "messages from the sea," and lived under the dark cloud of never-ending suspense--hoping against hope that the dear lost ones might yet return!


CHAPTER THREE.


SHOWS WHAT SOME MEN WILL DO AND DARE FOR MONEY, AND WHAT SOMETIMES COMES OF IT.

We must now beg the reader's permission to allow a few more years to elapse. Eight have come and gone since the dark day when poor Mrs Boyns received that message from the sea, which cast a permanent cloud over her life. Annie Webster has become a beautiful woman, and Harry Boyns a bronzed stalwart man.

But things have changed with time. These two seldom meet now, in consequence of the frequent absence of the latter on long voyages, and when they do meet, there is not the free, frank intercourse that there used to be. In fact, Mr Webster had long ago begun to suspect that his daughter's regard for the handsome young sailor was of a nature that bade fair to interfere with his purposed mercantile transactions in reference to her, so he wisely sent him off on voyages of considerable length, hoping that he might chance to meet with the same fate as his father, and wound up by placing him in command of one of his largest and most unseaworthy East Indiamen, in the full expectation that both captain and vessel would go to the bottom together, and thus enable him, at one stroke, to make a good round sum out of the insurance offices, and get rid of a troublesome servant!

Gloating over these and kindred subjects, Mr Webster sat one morning in his office mending a pen, and smiling in a sardonic fashion to the portrait of his deceased wife's father, when a tap came to the door, and Harry Boyns entered.

"I have come, sir," he said, "to tell you that the repairs done to the _Swordfish_ are not by any means sufficient. There are at least--"

"Please do not waste time, Captain Boyns, by entering upon details," said Mr Webster, interrupting him with a bland smile: "I am really quite ignorant of the technicalities of shipbuilding. If you will state the matter to Mr Cooper, whom I employ expressly for--"

"But, sir," interrupted Harry, with some warmth, "I _have_ spoken to Mr Cooper, and he says the repairs are quite sufficient."

"Well, then, I suppose they are so."

"I assure you, sir," rejoined Harry, "they are not; and as the lives of passengers as well as men depend upon the vessel being in a seaworthy condition, I do trust that you will have her examined by some one more competent to judge than Mr Cooper."

"I have no doubt of Mr Cooper's competence," returned Mr Webster; "but I will order a further examination, as you seem so anxious about it. Meanwhile I hope that the ship is being got ready for sea as quickly as possible."

"There shall be no delay on my part, sir," said Harry, rising; "the ship has been removed from the Birkenhead Docks, in which you are aware she has lain for the last eight months, and is now lying in the Brunswick Dock, taking in cargo. But I think it a very serious matter, which demands looking into, the fact that she had no sooner grounded in the dock, than she sprang a leak which instantly let twenty-eight inches of water into her, and twice, subsequently, as much as forty inches have been sounded. Yet no repairs worthy of the name have been made. All that has been done is the pumping of her out daily by the stevedore's men when their stowing work is finished."

"Has the agent for the underwriters visited her?" inquired Mr Webster.

"He has, sir, but he seems to be of opinion that his responsibility is at an end because a surveyor from the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board had previously visited her, and directed that she should not be loaded deeper than twenty-one feet--chalking on the side amidships the six feet six inches clear beneath which she is not to be allowed to sink."

"Well, well," said Mr Webster, somewhat impatiently, "I will have the matter looked into. Good morning, Captain Boyns."

The captain bowed and left the office, and Mr Webster leant back in his chair, clasped his hands, twirled his thumbs, and smiled grimly at the old gentleman over the fireplace.

True to his word, however, he had an inspection made of the _Swordfish_. The inspector was of a kindred spirit with Mr Webster, so that his report was naturally similar to that of Mr Cooper. Nothing, therefore, was done to the vessel--"nothing being needed"--and the loading went on in spite of the remonstrances of Captain Harry Boyns, who, with all the energy and persistency of his character, continued to annoy, worry, and torment every one who possessed the faintest right or power to interfere in the matter--but all to no purpose; for there are times when neither facts nor fancies, fair words nor foul, fire, fury, folly, nor philosophy, will avail to move some "powers that be!"

In a towering fit of indignation Harry Boyns resolved to throw up his situation; but it occurred to him that this would perhaps be deemed cowardice, so he thought better of it. Then he madly thought of going direct to the President of the Board of Trade and making a solemn protest, backed by a heart-stirring appeal; but gave up that idea on recalling to memory a certain occasion on which a deputation of grave, learned, white-haired gentlemen had gone to London expressly to visit that august functionary of the State, and beseech him, with all the earnestness that the occasion demanded, that he would introduce into Parliament a bill for the better regulation and supervision of ships, and for preventing the possibility of seamen and passengers being seduced on board unseaworthy vessels, carried off to sea, and there murderously drowned in cold blood, as well as in cold water; which deputation received for answer, that "it was not the intention of Government, as at present advised, to introduce a measure for providing more stringent enactments as to the equipments, cargoes, and crews of passenger vessels!"--a reply which was tantamount to saying that if the existing arrangements were inadequate to the ends desired, Government saw no way out of the difficulty, and people must just be left unprotected, and go to sea to be drowned or spared according as chance or the cupidity of shipowners might direct!

This was pretty resolute on the part of Government, considering that above a thousand lives were then, and above two thousand still are, lost annually on the shores of the United Kingdom; a very large number of which--if we may believe the argument of facts and the pretty unanimous voice of the press--are sacrificed because Government refuses to interfere effectively with the murderous tendencies of a certain class of the community!

When Harry Boyns thought of all this he sighed deeply, and made up his mind to remain by the _Swordfish_, and sink or swim with her. Had he been more of a man of business, perhaps he might have been more successful in finding out how to have prevented the evil he foresaw; but it was the interest of the owner to keep him in the dark as much as possible, for which end Mr Webster kept him out of the ship's way as much as he could, and when that was impossible, he kept him so busily employed that he remained ignorant of