Seven Frozen Sailors Part 7

I was horribly cut about, and bleeding fast; but I managed to creep out, and feel through the darkness. I came, just within a few feet, upon a man's body, stretched out, lying on its face. Though it was dark as pitch, I had no need to touch it twice to know that it was a dead body.

Then I got to Adams, and called him by name.

He answered faintly, "Yes!"

I asked him where the crew were, and whether he knew what had happened.

They were all killed, he thought, and the Lascars had got the vessel in their hands.

We were doubtless supposed to be murdered, too. It must have all been done very quickly. Adams had heard no sound from the deck above, and I had heard none.

The crippled condition in which we were, and the darkness, rendered us almost entirely helpless; but I managed somehow--partly on my feet, partly on my hands and knees--to crawl up the ladder. The hatchway was closed above me. We were prisoners.

I could from this place make out that a wild debauch was going on on the after-deck, and I heard one of the scoundrels shrieking out a song, in a wild, discordant voice. They had broken open the stores, and were getting mad drunk with rum.

I crawled back to tell the news, and to think what could be done.

Adams was almost fainting from loss of blood. For myself, I was scarcely good for anything--not for a struggle, that was certain. I might defend myself for a time. I would try, anyhow. I could only die.

All at once we heard the hatchway opening stealthily.

"Whist!" said Jones's voice. "Who's alive down there?"

"Two!" I answered. "Adams and I--Tom Watson. We are both badly wounded."

"Thank heaven you are not dead!" he said. "You can save yourselves, if you've strength enough to lower yourselves into a boat. I've got it down into the water. Will you try?"

We went at once, and gained the deck. Only one of the villains was on the watch forward. We could see the dark figures of the rest sprawling about in the semi-darkness far aft, and we went down on our hands and knees, and crawled in the shadow to the side. But just as we reached it, the moon came out from behind a cloud, and the man fired, and shouted loudly.

Adams went down, and we two only were left.

"Save yourself! Jump!" cried Jones. "I'll keep 'em back! Avast there, you black-hearted swabs, or I'll chop you to pieces!" And as five of them, the soberest of the lot, came rus.h.i.+ng on us in a body, he laid about him right and left with a large cutla.s.s, much heavier than I should have believed he could use, and the beggars rolled over, slashed and mangled beneath his strokes.

I never before or since have seen a man fight like Atlantic Jones did then. Stripped to the waist, his long hair flying in the wind, his hands red with blood, his body bespattered, too, he looked more like a fiend than a human being, much less a very bad play-actor; but all the while he fought he never once ceased yelling out the silly gibberish he thought was sailors' talk.

They fell back at last enough to allow us to reach the boat, and we pushed off. They fired on us then, furiously, and I did all I could to make Jones lie down, to be out of harm's way, but he would not-- continuing to yell defiance and wave his cutla.s.s. Those left alive were too drunk, fortunately for us, to make any decisive effort to stop us; and we drifted away, for the oars had fallen into the water.

This would be a longer tale--and it's long enough now, I'm sure--if I were to tell you what we suffered those four days we drifted in the open sea. Then, more dead than alive, I was taken on board a pa.s.sing s.h.i.+p; and Jones, who had tended me the while with every possible care, though his own sufferings were at times intense, nursed me through a long illness.

I told you I never could tell a tale. My tale ought to have begun where it's left off, pretty nearly.

The last time I saw Jones he was at his play-acting again at the Hull Theatre. He was a sailor once more, and had a deuce of a set-to with some Lascars. But the audience didn't seem to think much of it. They goosed him, and s.h.i.+ed orange-peel.

Very low-spirited he was, poor chap, when I met him at the stage-door afterwards, and he didn't cheer up much when I stood some beer.

Next day I picked up with a skipper, and got off on a whaling voyage.

Rare game it was, ketching the big fish, I can tell you, only one day they put me ash.o.r.e on an iceberg to pick a hole for an ice-anchor, so as to get the s.h.i.+p on the lee when it came on to blow.

I didn't take no notice though, but kept on picking away, till all at once there came on such a fog that I could hardly see my boots.

That there fog lasted three days, and when it was gone, there was no s.h.i.+p nowhere, and the iceberg drifting away doo north as hard as ever it could go.

I wouldn't ha' cared if it hadn't been so cold, for I got plenty of seals and sea-birds, snaring 'em when they was asleep; but the cold was awful, and when we got stuck fast--froze up at last--I was glad to get a good run over the solid ice, which I did till I came to the edge of a big basin, like, where I lay down, tired out, and dropped off to sleep.

You've just come, I suppose?

The doctor nodded.

"Ah! and it's as cold as ever," said the English sailor. "Now, if Atlantic Jones--Heigh--was--he--here--hum! Well, I am sleepy. Got a tot of grog, mates?"

The doctor reached out his hand for the case-bottle; but, as he did so, there seemed to be a mist come on suddenly where the English sailor sat; and, when it cleared away, there was a lot of moisture freezing hard, an empty tobacco-box, and the rusty blade of a knife.

"As-tonis.h.i.+ng!" said the doctor. "Suspended animation!"

"But where's he gone now?" I says.

"Into his original const.i.tuents," said the doctor; and our fellows all shuffled out of the tent, with their fur caps lifted up by their hair, and wouldn't go in again; so we had to move the bit of a camp farther up along the edge of the big basin, and sc.r.a.pe and clear the snow off the transparent ice--where, hang me! if there wasn't another fellow a few inches down.

"Yes," says the doctor; "this place is full of relics of the past, and if we searched we should find hundreds. Get him out!"

"But what's the good?" growled Scudds, "if they on'y melts away again?"

"We must do it for scientific reasons," says the doctor. "Out with him, men!"

There was no help for it, so at it we went; and now our chaps got over some of their scared feelings, all but the doctor's nevvy, who did nothing but s.h.i.+ver, and nearly jumped out of his ice-boots, when, after thawing, the rough figure we had got out of the ice sat up suddenly, and exclaimed--

"An' did somebody say how did I get here?"

"We thought it," said the doctor.

"Bedad! I heard ye," said the figure. "Give's a taste of rum, which is the best makes.h.i.+ft for poteen, and I'll tell ye. But it's very cowld."

He cowered close over the lamp, trying to warm his hands; and I noticed that when they handed him some rum, he put it down by his side, going on talking like to the lamp, as he spun away at his story.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE IRISH SAILOR'S YARN.

"_The Ghost on Board s.h.i.+p_."

I have followed the say, man and boy, any time these thirty years and more; and sure it's but little I have to tell you about that same in the way of short commons, long voyages, mishaps, and s.h.i.+pwrecks that would be interesting to you, seeing that, in all rasonable probability, you have all of you had your fair share of the like.

However, maybe I can spin you a short yarn about what every one of you hasn't seen, and that is a "ghost on boord s.h.i.+p."

"A ghost on board s.h.i.+p!" chorused the sailors, turning eagerly toward the speaker.