The White Squall Part 27

The lighter spars that Jake and Moggridge had detached were now hauled in and made into a sort of raft, upon which Jackson and the whole lot of the crew clambered, proceeding to attack the mizzen-mast, the lower part of which spar was just out of the water.

Slash, bang went the axe with a will, wielded by hands nerved with all the strength of desperation, each man cutting away as long as he could, and then another hand taking his turn. Even I was busy with a knife, sawing away at the thick ropes, and doing what I could to help the others.

The mizzen, being of considerably less diameter than the mainmast, took a much less time to conquer; so, soon it gave way with a splintering crash, the jagged heel floating up in the same way as the other, and working about freely as the rigging was severed so that it could easily pa.s.s overboard.

"Now, men, we may cry a spell," said Captain Miles when the task was accomplished. "Nothing more can be done now. We must wait for a breeze to clear away the wreck, when, I've no doubt, the s.h.i.+p will right again."

"I'm sure I hope so, dear captain!" said I fervently. "Do you think she really will?"

"Not a doubt of it, my boy," he answered. "She would have never come up so far if she had meant to stop on her beam-ends. See, now! Why, I can almost stand up here on the p.o.o.p, the deck has risen so much already.

By the morning, I hope she'll be right end uppermost again."

"But, how about our lodging for the night?" suggested Mr Marline. "If we lie along the bulwarks, in the same way as before, and the s.h.i.+p rights suddenly in the night, we'll be all thrown in the water."

"I have thought of that," said Captain Miles. "We'll brace up this raft of spars here close in under the bulwarks inboard, and then we'll be on the safe side of the hedge if she comes up while we're napping! Let us have another drink of water now, Jackson, my lad, and turn in for the night, for I've no doubt you're all pretty tired. I'm sorry I can't pipe down to supper."

"You are not more sorry than I am," put in Mr Marline drily. "I could eat with the greatest gusto the skeleton of my grandmother's cat now!"

This speech of his had the very effect he wished of making the men laugh at their privation. Judging by my own feelings, they must have felt terribly hungry and empty; for, instead of two days, it seemed two years since I had tasted food.

I was fairly famis.h.i.+ng!

There was no chance yet, however, of our getting anything to eat; so, in accordance with Captain Miles's directions, preparations were now made for our accommodation during the night, as the evening was beginning to close in and darkness to settle down on the face of the deep, veiling the waste of waters from the gaze of us poor s.h.i.+pwrecked fellows.

The loose spars detached from the masts were hauled up lengthwise along the bulwarks on the inner side of the p.o.o.p, where they were lashed securely so as to form a sort of shelf; and, on this, all hands now settled themselves as comfortably as they could--Captain Miles with Mr Marline and myself being on the after part of the structure, while Jackson with the others bunked down nearer the break of the p.o.o.p; but, each man was separately tied, for greater precaution, in case of the sea getting up again and the waves breaking over the vessel.

While we had been moving about exerting ourselves, the sense of hunger had not been so apparent, although all experienced its gnawing pain in a greater or less degree; but now, resting quietly, doing nothing and having to bear all the suspense of waiting for what might turn out possibly to be only an uncertainty on the morrow, the ravenous feeling that a.s.sailed us became almost unbearable, several of the men moaning and groaning in their sleep.

As for myself, I know that when I dozed off in fragmentary s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep I dreamed of all sorts of splendid banquets, with nice dishes such as I had often tasted in the West Indies when dad gave a dinner-party; only to waken up in the still darkness and hear the melancholy wash of the sea surging up against the s.h.i.+p's hull, with the creaking noise the masts made as they surged to and fro on the swell.

Up to midnight, as far as we could tell the time, no breeze came; but, towards morning, a slight wind arose, when the sea became agitated, as we could hear from the sound of it breaking over the hull forwards, the ends of the masts worked to and fro more boisterously, grinding against the starboard bulwarks and tearing the timbers away bit by bit.

"Ah!" I heard Captain Miles say, as if talking to himself, "this is our chance if it only does not get too rough."

The sound of his voice woke up Gottlieb, the remaining German sailor, who was lying near Jake, the latter being next me as usual.

This man had taken the loss of his countryman a good deal to heart. Our hards.h.i.+ps, besides, had affected his health; for, all of us noticed how ill he looked during the day when working at clearing away the masts.

"I vas die!" he now exclaimed.

"Dying? Nonsense, my man, not a bit of it," cried Captain Miles. "Keep up your courage, and you'll be worth a hundred dead men yet."

"Ach nein, I vas die, I knows," replied the other, speaking solemnly in deep low tones.

His German accent and mode of speech seemed to come out more strongly now than I had noticed before; and it flashed across my mind how I had once read somewhere that, when a man is at his last, though he may have lived amongst strangers for years and spoken a foreign tongue, he will then naturally go back to the language and thoughts of his own country.

"Shall I get you some water?" asked Jackson, who was also awake and heard what Gottlieb had said.

"Nein--no. I want not water, not nothing," returned the other.

"Listen, I've got to tell you sometings before I vas die. I did not speak before for fear to make mischief. You remember my poor frients Hermann?"

"Aye," said Captain Miles, now keenly attentive. "Poor fellow, he fell overboard and got caught by the sharks."

"Dat is what I vant explain," painfully whispered the German, his voice failing him. "Hermann vas not fall overboard. He vas throwed over."

"Thrown over! How--by whom?" exclaimed the captain quite startled.

"He vas throw over by Davis--he one bad man."

"Davis?" cried Captain Miles, all of us eagerly listening.

"Ye-es. Davis, he grab holt of poor Hermann and say, 'ah, you rascal, Jackson, I have you now,' and den he pitch him over the side. Poor Hermann, he give one yell, for he vas sleep and not awaken yet, and den dere vas a splash and de sharks swallow him up!"

"Good heavens, man!" cried Captain Miles, "why did you not tell us of this before?"

"I vas afraid, and de man is now dead too; so I did not speak," answered the other slowly.

"Yes, he's dead and gone to his account! I suppose we need not talk about him any more," said the captain, deeply moved, adding a minute after, as if unable to keep his emotion to himself, "But, he was a scoundrel! I say, Jackson, you had a lucky escape from him last night!"

"Thank G.o.d, sir, yes," replied the young seaman. "He took a grudge to me from the first, before ever you promoted me, and that, of course, made him hate me afterwards more than ever. I did not think, though, he would have tried to take my life. I suppose that was the reason he looked so very strangely when he tried to clutch me before he jumped into the sea?"

"Not a doubt of it," said Mr Marline. "He seemed thunderstruck, I know, for I particularly noticed his look. He must have been surprised at seeing you there alive, when he thought he had already settled you for good and all!"

"Well, he has met his own punishment," answered Jackson; "and I do not bear him any ill-will now--or ever did for that matter. Let him rest."

"Aye," said Captain Miles; "but, how's Gottlieb going on--are you better, my man?"

But, there was no answer to the captain's question; and Jackson, bending over the German sailor, found his heart had ceased to beat, his body already becoming cold.

"Golly, Ma.s.s' Cap'en," called out Jake, "him 'peak de trute dat time, suah, him dead as door-nail!"

This news made everyone silent, each man thinking how soon his own time might come; and we anxiously awaited the morning.

During the sad episode that had occurred the wind had risen, beginning to blow pretty strongly from the westwards. The sea, too, had got up, for short choppy waves were das.h.i.+ng against the stern of the s.h.i.+p and throwing their broken wash over us. This made our situation less comfortable than it had been previously, our worn-out bodies and hunger- stricken frames not being able to stand the exposure so well now as at first.

The masts, also, were grinding against the bulwarks and making a horrible din, the crunching of the timber work and splintering noise of the planks almost deadening the noise of the sea and preventing us from hearing each other speak. Not that we felt much inclined for conversation, answering for myself; for, I was chilled to the bone from the cool evening air penetrating my wet clothes, which got more and more saturated as the waves came over the p.o.o.p, while I was faint with hunger and exhausted from want of sleep.

Thus the weary night pa.s.sed, the sky being clouded over so that even the lights of heaven could not s.h.i.+ne down to cheer us up; and, to add to the bitterness of our unhappy plight, our hearts were full of the untimely end of poor Gottlieb, the German sailor who had pa.s.sed away so suddenly from amongst us, and the shocking disclosure he had made just before his tired spirit sought eternal rest, of the treachery of Davis--whose terrible fate, in front of our very eyes, seemed a just judgment for his murder of Hermann and foiled vengeance on Jackson, the latter of whom had evidently only escaped with his life through the wretched man's mistake.

At last, when it seemed as if we could hold out no longer, a faint gleam appeared in the east lighting up the horizon, and morning dawned gloomily upon us; but, a heavy mist hung over the sea and it took the rays of the rising sun a long time to pierce through this, albeit there was light enough for us to survey the scene around.

The ocean now, instead of rising and falling with the sullen swell that had given motion to it the day before, was covered with short broken waves that rolled up from the westwards with the wind, das.h.i.+ng against the partly-submerged vessel and throwing clouds of spray over those portions of the hull above the surface of the water, a large share of which we also came in for.

This motion of the sea, we could perceive, had considerably altered the position of the masts that had been cut away, for they were rolling over and grinding down the starboard bulwarks, the inboard ends working themselves gradually fore and aft the s.h.i.+p, the lee side of which had risen quite a couple of feet higher out of the water during the night.

"Another good wave or two will send all that hamper adrift," said Captain Miles, looking round and calculating our chances.

"Yes," replied Mr Marline, "they are coming from the right direction too, for if they broke over us abeam, then the foremast could not free itself. Now it possibly may, from the leverage it has against the fo'c's'le."