A Middy of the King Part 13

The work went slowly forward--it could not be otherwise with men so utterly exhausted as were the little moiety of the _Wasp's_ crew who survived that desperate fight, many of them smarting with the wounds that they had received--and meanwhile the weather grew ever more threatening, stimulating us all to exertions of which I am confident we should have been utterly incapable under more placable circ.u.mstances.

Not that there was very much to find fault with at the moment, for it was not exactly blowing hard; but the gusts, which for the last hour or more had been sweeping over us, now from this quarter and anon from that, were steadily growing more frequent and stronger, while the sky had become black as night. But before night actually fell we had made s.h.i.+ft to pump the schooner dry, the hatches were battened down, the skylight and companion openings had been protected, after a fas.h.i.+on, and we had cleared away the wreck of the mainmast, saving the spar and all attached; and, having done this, the men declared that they must have a meal and some rest before they could again turn-to. And I felt that their claim was just; for indeed they had done wonders, taking all things into consideration. I had not the heart to spur them to further effort just then, for I had worked with them and, therefore, knew from personal experience how utterly exhausted they must feel, and how impossible it would be to get further useful work out of them until they had rested for an hour or two. Indeed, there did not appear to be any good and sufficient reason why I should call upon them for more hard work just then. It is true that much that I intended to do still remained undone, the most important task of all being the getting up of something in the nature of a jury rig; but, short-handed as we now were, that would prove a very formidable task--much too formidable and too protracted to justify the hope that it could be accomplished before the expected gale came; and as I considered the question, and talked it over with Henderson and the boatswain, it seemed that if it could not be completed beforehand, it would really be better on the whole to defer it until after the gale had blown over; I, therefore, gave the order to knock off work and get supper and a rest. Two minutes later the decks were deserted, save by myself, and I was bracing myself up to keep a lookout as best I might.

I felt bound to acknowledge to myself that our situation was very much the reverse of satisfactory; for there we were, totally dismasted, strained and leaking badly, our crew exhausted, and only nine of us unwounded, the land barely twenty-five miles to leeward of us, and, to crown all, a heavy gale springing up. Fortunately, we had been able to make all the provision that was possible to meet the impending struggle--for the wreck of our mainmast was now inboard, while the lanyards of the fore-rigging had been cut away on both sides; and the wreckage of the foremast was now under the schooner's bows, attached to the hull by the stays only, so that it served as a floating anchor, to which the little vessel was already riding head to wind.

I allowed the men two hours in which to rest and refresh themselves, and then once more summoned them on deck; for upon sounding the well I found that, although the schooner had been pumped dry before we had cried "Spell-ho!" there was now eighteen inches of water in her; and I was determined that this leak should be kept down by frequent spells of pumping. It would never do to have the little hooker waterlogged while battling for life in a gale, as there was little doubt that she would be in the course of the next few hours.

In fact, while the men were still toiling at the pumps we got our first real taste of it. For up to that moment the wind had been coming in a steadily-increasing succession of scuffling gusts, each more fierce than its predecessor, first from this quarter of the compa.s.s, and then from that, with quite moderate breezes in between, mostly from a northerly direction, that sometimes moderated almost to a calm. But now, after a somewhat longer spell than usual of the moderate breeze, the wind quite suddenly increased in force to that of a full gale, swooping down upon us in a mad scuffle that twirled the little craft about like a teetotum for a minute or two as it howled and raved around us, las.h.i.+ng the whole surface of the sea into one unbroken sheet of foam and spray, and then it settled down and began to blow great guns from the northward, whipping up a nasty short, choppy sea into which, within ten minutes, the little schooner was plunging to the height of her hawse-holes.

This however, as it turned out, was only the beginning of it; for when once the gale had fairly broken loose it steadily grew more furious, with the result that in about half-an-hour we were plunging bows under, while, to add to our difficulties, the violent motion strained the little vessel and opened her seams to such an extent that, so far from getting the pumps to suck, it needed the utmost exertions of all hands, working in quick relays, to keep the leak from gaining upon us.

Clearly, it would never do to permit such a state of things as that to continue, for the only partially rested men would soon become exhausted by the laborious toil of the pumps; and then what would become of us?

I, therefore, summoned a council of war, consisting of the gunner, the carpenter, and the boatswain, to whom I explained my view of the situation, and asked their advice. It was my opinion--founded upon our experiences during the recent fight--that if the pirate schooner was to be tackled successfully, it would have to be by a bigger craft than the _Wasp_, or, at all events, that if the _Wasp_ was to be again employed against the pirates, she would certainly have to be equipped with a very much heavier armament; her insignificant little array of six 9-pounders could never be expected to cope successfully with the other craft's fourteen 12-pounders and her long 32. Therefore, I argued, since our present armament could never be of further use to us, so far as the pirates were concerned, while at the present moment they were doing much to make the schooner strain herself to pieces, and were indeed actually imperilling her safety and that of all on board her, why not throw them overboard, and so relieve the little vessel of their weight and give her the best possible chance to weather the gale? Henderson and the boatswain were rather opposed to this plan, the gunner suggesting, as an alternative, that we should cut adrift from the wreckage that was holding us head to wind, and endeavour to get before the wind and scud; and to this view they still adhered, even after I had pointed out to them that the island of Hayti const.i.tuted a lee-sh.o.r.e only some twenty-five miles distant, upon which we must inevitably be dashed before morning if we adopted their plan. The carpenter, however, took my view that we must lose the guns in any case if the schooner went ash.o.r.e, and probably the s.h.i.+p and our lives as well; while by making a timely sacrifice of the guns there was at least a possibility of saving the s.h.i.+p. We were thus two to two; and as I was absolutely convinced that the plan advocated by the gunner and the boatswain involved the destruction of the s.h.i.+p and the drowning of at least as many of the poor fellows below as were too seriously injured to be capable of taking care of themselves, I unhesitatingly decided in favour of my own alternative, and at once gave the order to throw the guns overboard without further ado.

Watching our opportunity, therefore, and taking advantage of the roll of the s.h.i.+p, we launched our 9-pounders overboard, one after the other, until all six of them had vanished in the ocean depths; and the increased liveliness of the little vessel at once demonstrated her relief at the loss of so much weight from her deck.

The carpenter had just sounded the well, and had announced the joyous news that at last the pumps were gaining upon the leak--which announcement was greeted with a feeble cheer from the now utterly exhausted men, who had for so long been toiling at the almost hopeless task of clearing the s.h.i.+p of the inflowing water--when a sudden and dreadful change occurred in the weather. The wind, which had been blowing a whole gale a moment before, fell dead in an instant, an appalling darkness overspread the firmament, and the atmosphere suddenly became so rarefied that it seemed impossible for one to draw a full breath; the sea, which a moment earlier had been breaking furiously, ceased to do so, and instead began to leap high into the air, falling back with a splash that, in the sudden stillness, seemed positively terrifying, and the schooner, swinging broadside-on, rolled so furiously that she momentarily threatened to turn bottom-up, while those of us who were on deck had to seize hurriedly the first fixed portion of the vessel's framework that we could lay hands on, to save ourselves from being pitched overboard like a shot out of a catapult. To continue pumping under such circ.u.mstances was impossible, for it needed both hands and all one's strength to merely hold on.

"Now what's goin' to happen, I wonder!" growled the gunner, who was clinging with me to a belaying-pin in a part of the rail that still remained intact in the wake of the main rigging. "I can understand a gale o' wind, Mr Delamere, but this here sudden calm don't seem natural to me."

"It is not natural," said I; "the mere look of the sky is sufficient to a.s.sure us of that. There is something behind it, you may be certain, though what it is I am sure I cannot say; possibly it may be a fresh outfly from some other point of the compa.s.s, or it may end up with a violent thunderstorm, though I do not think it will; that sky--"

"No, no," interrupted Henderson, "there's no thunder there, sir, ye may take my word for it. Listen, Mr Delamere! D'ye hear that?"

I thought for an instant that he was directing my attention to the pitiful cries and moans that were being extorted from the unhappy wounded down below as they were flung hither and thither by the furious lurches of the schooner, and I was about to make some sort of reply when a low moaning smote upon my ear, increasing with appalling rapidity to a fierce medley of sounds, in which the savage roars of maddened beasts and the shrieks and wailings of mortally terrified human beings seemed to be about equally mingled; a long line of phosph.o.r.escent white appeared upon the northern horizon, showing up with ghastly distinctness against the background of black scowling sky; a fierce scuffle of hot wet wind swept over us and was gone again, leaving a taste of salt upon our lips, and with a deafening howl, as of concentrated fury, the tempest leapt upon us, filling the air with drenching spindrift and scudwater, while, taking the schooner fair abeam, it heeled her over until the water was up nearly level with the coamings of her hatchways.

For nearly a minute she lay thus, and despite the fact that she was dismasted I believed that she was about to turn turtle with us, when gradually, as the drag of the wreckage ahead brought her round head to wind again, she righted to an even keel once more and rode almost as still as though she were in harbour, while the spindrift and scudwater raked her decks fore and aft like a continuous tempest of small shot, which stung our faces and hands so severely that it was literally impossible to face it, and turning our backs to it and dropping upon our hands and knees, we were driven to creep for shelter wherever we could find it.

The sea had gone down as though by magic, for such was the power of the wind that the slightest irregularity of surface, the slightest lift of a wave, was at once torn off and swept away to leeward in the form of spray so dense that it was impossible to see farther than a few yards in any direction. And perhaps the worst and most terrifying feature of the whole experience was that there was nothing to be done--nothing that we could possibly do to abate the peril of our situation; we were as absolutely helpless as though we had been bound hand and foot, and could merely crouch impotently waiting for the end, whatever it might be.

But it was not possible for matters to continue very long as they were; the hurricane endured only for about twenty minutes, and then moderated to the strength of a heavy gale, whereupon the sea began to rise again with frightful rapidity; and half-an-hour after the first stroke of the hurricane the schooner was pitching bows under, and s.h.i.+pping increasing quant.i.ties of water at every plunge. And now, as we once more bestirred ourselves, we were confronted with a fresh calamity. For our makes.h.i.+ft protection of the damaged companion and skylight, as well as the fore-scuttle, had been swept away, probably at the first stroke of the hurricane, although not one of us had observed it, and already vast quant.i.ties of water were pouring into the little vessel's interior, princ.i.p.ally through the fore-scuttle. We had scarcely made this alarming discovery when Saunders, the surgeon, who had remained below through all the hubbub, busily engaged in attending to the wounded, came up on deck and confirmed our worst fears by informing us that the schooner was rapidly filling, the water having already risen to the level of the cabin floor!

It was now obvious that the little s.h.i.+p was doomed; the hurricane, coming so close upon the heels of the fight, and smiting us before we had had time to repair our damages, was proving too much for her; she was strained and battered all to pieces, and nothing that we could do out there, short-handed, and buffeted by that pitiless wind and sea, could avail to save her. She was doomed, and now the utmost that lay in our power to do was to make some sort of provision for our own safety and that of our wounded s.h.i.+pmates.

Yet, when one came to consider the question, what could we do? Our boats, badly damaged by the shot of the pirates in the first place, had been utterly destroyed and swept away by the first furious stroke of the hurricane; while by the same agency our decks had been swept clear and clean of everything not actually bolted down, except the wreckage of the mainmast, which we had lashed firmly to ring bolts in the deck before the gale arose. There was that wreckage, it is true, and also the wreckage of the foremast under the bows; if it could possibly be got alongside, a raft of sorts might perhaps be constructed out of that, and there our resources would end. But there was no time for pondering and consideration, whatever was done would have to be done at once; I therefore called the gunner, the carpenter, and the boatswain to me, hastily explained to them my ideas as to the construction of a raft, and bade them muster all available hands and get to work forthwith, while Millar (the purser) and the cabin steward were instructed to get together as large a quant.i.ty of provisions and water as possible, wherewith to stock the structure when finished.

Now that the wind had moderated from hurricane force to that of a heavy gale, the sea rose with really startling rapidity, and was already running so high that when we came to set about the task of cutting adrift the wreckage of the foremast, with the idea of hauling it alongside and utilising it in the construction of a raft, it at once became evident that the time for undertaking such a piece of work was already past; for even alongside the schooner, and partially under her lee, the wreckage would be swept so violently by the breaking seas that it would be impossible for men to go over the side and work upon it without being washed off and drowned; we were, therefore, compelled to abandon that part of our plan and turn our attention to the construction of a raft on deck which would float clear when the battered hull sank from under our feet. But alas I even that was not to be; for we had scarcely got the wreckage of the mainmast cut adrift from its las.h.i.+ngs, and were busily engaged in arranging it, with the topmast and the mainboom, in the form of a triangle as a base upon which to construct a platform, when it happened that the schooner, having just surmounted a sea, got pinned down by the head, in consequence of all the water in her rus.h.i.+ng forward as she settled down, stem-on, into the succeeding trough. At this critical moment a yell of dismay from the carpenter caused us all to look up from our work, and we beheld him, with his eyes almost starting from their sockets, glaring and pointing ahead. A single glance in that direction sufficed to account for his terror. For there, sweeping down upon us with deadly implacability, towered a perfect mountain of a sea, its front almost as steep as the side of a house, and its foaming, hissing crest reared threateningly aloft as high as our lower-mastheads--had they been standing. It was at once apparent to us all that, pinned down as the schooner was at that moment, by the bulk of the water in her interior having concentrated itself in the fore part of her, she could not possibly lift in time to rise over the summit of that on-sweeping sea, it must inevitably break on board her, sweep her from stem to stern, and send her to the bottom! For a second we all stood, petrified with consternation; then, with a yell of "Hold on everybody for your lives!" I dashed to the companion opening and shouted to those below, "On deck, all hands of you; up you come, men, this instant; you have not a second to lose!"

A dreadful, wailing cry of despair floated upward from below in response to my warning, and was echoed by the people on deck as that awful liquid mountain hovered above us, seeming to pause for an instant, as though in sentient enjoyment of our helplessness and terror. The next moment its crest curled over and the whole ma.s.s of water seemed to hurl itself headlong upon the hapless schooner, foaming in over her bows and burying them fathoms deep in its heart. I felt the poor shattered hull quiver and tremble beneath me like a frightened thing as the giant wave smote her, and then I was seized by the on-rus.h.i.+ng water, swept off my feet, overwhelmed, whirled helplessly hither and thither in the midst of a medley of whirling wreckage, flying ropes'-ends, and struggling men.

Opening my eyes I beheld the hull of the schooner, a short distance away, standing almost perpendicular, and slowly gliding downwards, bows first. Even as I looked she vanished into the dark profundity beneath, and then I directed my glances above me. It seemed that I was fathoms deep, for the phosph.o.r.escent foam that boiled overhead looked almost as far aloft as a frigate's lower yard; and by the same ghastly phosph.o.r.escent light I could distinguish vaguely a number of swirling objects, some of which appeared to be merely inanimate wreckage, while others looked like struggling human beings. Then, suddenly conscious of the fact that I was within the influence of the downward draught of the sinking schooner, and was being dragged down after her, I instinctively struck upward desperately with hands and feet, fighting to return to the surface. I must have been dragged down to a very considerable depth, for I presently lost sight of the phosph.o.r.escent light on the surface caused by the breaking of the seas, and found myself involved in pitchy darkness, struggling madly, and with my lungs almost bursting. How long this awful struggle lasted I have no means of determining; probably it was much less than a minute, but the time seemed to drag itself out first to minutes, then to hours, and finally I lost all idea of time, all sense of my terrible situation, all recollection of the dreadful catastrophe that had just happened, and found myself, as in a vivid dream, re-enacting many a long-forgotten episode of earlier days. Then, in a moment, all these scenes vanished, and I was suddenly--I knew not how--on the surface, gasping for breath, half smothered with the seas that were breaking over my head, and convulsively clutching a rope that had somehow found its way into my grasp. Gradually it dawned upon me that this rope must be fast to something--for it alternately tautened and slackened with the sweep and swirl of the sea--thereupon I proceeded to haul cautiously upon it, with the result that I presently found myself alongside the floating wreckage of the mainmast. With some difficulty I at length managed to drag myself up and get astride this substantial spar; and then, finding that it did not roll over and throw me off, as I more than half feared it would, I gradually worked my way along it until I found myself close up against the crosstrees. And then I thought I perceived the reason why the spar maintained its stability so well. The mainsail had been set when the mast was shot away, and the gaff, with the sail attached, still retained its position on the mast, the main halliards having somehow jammed in the block, and this it evidently was that prevented the spar from capsizing. The rope by which I had hauled myself alongside the spar proved to be the end of the peak-halliards, and I thought that if I made this fast, and so prevented the peak from sagging, I should secure still further the stability of the wreckage; I accordingly did so, knotting the bight round one arm of the crosstrees, and then firmly las.h.i.+ng myself to the same arm with the loose end of the halliard.

I was now much better off than when I first found myself overboard, for I had a stout spar to support me, and might remain afloat until I fell off from exhaustion; moreover, even when my end of the spar was submerged--as of course it very frequently was--I was never buried deeper than my armpits, while there were moments when I was hove up clear out of the water altogether. Besides, the water was quite warm.

I was therefore by no means uncomfortable, notwithstanding my situation.

Having made myself secure, I next began to look about me with the view of ascertaining how many of my companions in misfortune had survived the catastrophe; for I had not a doubt that a few at least would be as lucky as myself. But to my horror I found that I was the sole occupant of this particular ma.s.s of wreckage; and although I shouted at the full power of my lungs until I was hoa.r.s.e, in the hope that if there were any more survivors they would hear me and thus be guided to the same refuge that I had gained, the sole response was the howling of the gale and the hissing wash of the breaking seas. True, there was a moment when I fancied that I heard a faint shout in reply to my cries, but I concluded that it was only imaginary, for I did not hear--or fancy that I heard-- it again. Then, as opportunity offered, I looked about me in quest of other wreckage, thinking that possibly there might be a few fragments to some of which one or more of my s.h.i.+pmates might be clinging, but the darkness was so intense that I could not see farther than some two or three fathoms in either direction; and indeed it was only the faint phosph.o.r.escent light given off by the breaking seas that enabled me to see anything at all, even at that short distance. The thought occurred to me that, as whatever floating wreckage there might be would all drive in the same direction, possibly I might be more fortunate in the morning; and with this reflection I composed myself as well as I could to rest, for I was by this time literally half-dead with fatigue.

So utterly exhausted was I that, despite my desperate plight, I believe I actually did lose consciousness in sleep at brief intervals during that terrible night, for the dawn came very much more speedily than I had dared to hope, and with its appearance the gale broke, the wind perceptibly moderating with the rising of the sun. As soon as it was light enough to permit objects to be distinguished I aroused myself from the lethargy that seemed to have gripped me, and proceeded to search the heaving surface of the ocean as well as my aching eyes would allow.

As a matter of fact, there actually were a few small scattered fragments of wreckage floating at no great distance from me, but there was no sign of a human being, far or near. Then I scanned very carefully the horizon in every direction, but particularly to the northward, in the hope of discovering a sail of some sort heading toward me; but the horizon was bare, save to the southward, where the high land of Hayti loomed up with startling and quite deceptive distinctness. Although I had hoped that I might perchance be so fortunate as to sight a sail, the hope was a very feeble one, and my disappointment by no means acute, for I was perfectly well aware that I was many miles too far to the eastward to render the appearance of a sail of any sort in the least degree probable.

With the pangs of hunger beginning to a.s.sail me, and not the smallest fragment of any kind of food wherewith to relieve them, I began for the first time to realise fully the exceeding awkwardness of my situation, and to realise, too, that if deliverance was to come to me I must bestir myself and do what might be possible to meet it, for to remain pa.s.sively lashed to that inert piece of drifting wreckage might very well mean a slow and agonising death by starvation. Yet, after all, what could I do? The land was my nearest refuge, and that, I considered, must be at least twenty miles distant, altogether too far to dream of swimming to it, although I rather prided myself upon my prowess as a long-distance swimmer. But twenty miles! The idea was ridiculous, especially in that heavy sea, in my exhausted condition, without food, and with no means of getting any. I looked rather longingly at the smaller fragments of wreckage floating in my neighbourhood; if I could but secure one of them of sufficient size to support me partially, yet not large enough materially to hamper my progress through the water, I might perhaps with its aid be able to accomplish the distance, great though it was, before my strength entirely gave out. But the run of the sea and their greater buoyancy were already widening the distance between them and the comparatively ma.s.sive piece to which I had lashed myself, and I regretted that it had not occurred to me earlier to abandon the mainmast in favour of one of them the moment that the light of dawn revealed them to me.

I struggled into a standing position on the spar that supported me, steadying myself upon my somewhat precarious perch by grasping the arms of the crosstrees, and carefully examined such fragments as came within my ken with the heave of the sea. The detached pieces, which seemed to consist mostly of pieces of planking, with what looked very like a hatch, were all floating together, pretty much in a bunch, with only a few fathoms of water separating any two pieces; I thought that if I could but get in among them surely I ought to be able to find a piece that would serve my purpose. The point that worried me was whether, in my exhausted state, and in so heavy a sea, I dared make the attempt to swim unaided the comparatively short distance that separated me from those coveted fragments; but I reflected that, if I had not the strength to achieve so simple a feat as that, I should certainly never be able to accomplish the longer swim, even with the advantage of a support; the choice seemed therefore to lie between the risk of drowning on the one hand, and that of starvation upon the other; and it took me but a moment to decide in favour of the former. Yes, I told myself, better in every way to drown than to starve, and the sooner the matter was decided, the better.

To give myself the best possible chance I flung off my jacket and kicked off my shoes, retaining only my s.h.i.+rt and trousers. Then, casting off the las.h.i.+ngs by which I had secured myself to the shattered mainmast, I stood up, and carefully took the bearings of the _flotsam_ relative to the sun, to guide me when swimming. This done, I poised myself upon the spar preparatory to diving off the mast, and had raised my hands above my head, when not half-a-dozen fathoms away, and immediately between me and the spot for which I was bound, I saw the dorsal fins of two enormous sharks sculling quietly to and fro, as though to blockade me and cut me off from my only hope of escape.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

MY VOYAGE ON THE HATCH.

I pulled myself up just in the nick of time, for in another second I should have made the plunge, and that would have meant death, a horrible death; for the splash which I should have made upon entering the water must have inevitably attracted the attention of the monsters and brought them upon me with a rush. It almost appeared as though some malicious influence was at work to prevent my escape, as though fate was against me! Yet, after all, it was not fate that was to blame, but my own dullness in not perceiving my chance and availing myself of it the moment that it presented itself. If instead of vacillating, as I had done, I had promptly taken the plunge, I should have accomplished my short swim before the sharks had made their appearance and cut off my retreat. When I first sighted the detached fragments of wreckage the distance which separated them from me was trifling; now it was at least double as far, and was increasing rapidly; soon it would pa.s.s out of sight altogether and my last hope would be gone.

I stood watching those two sharks as they swam lazily to and fro between me and the fast receding wreckage. It really looked as though they were aware of my presence, had divined my purpose, and were determined to frustrate it. For what seemed at least half-an-hour, but was probably not more than ten minutes, the voracious fish tacked this way and that, approaching me a little nearer every tack, until at length they were so close that I could have leapt upon the back of the nearer one, so close that I could distinctly see their entire bulk; and the sight turned my blood cold, for they were veritable monsters, one of them being fully twenty feet long from snout to the tip of the unevenly fluked tail, while the other was perhaps three feet shorter. And there was now no room to doubt that they were fully aware of my existence, for every time that they pa.s.sed me their great goggle eyes glared at me hungrily with an expression which seemed to say--"All right, my boy; you may hold on there as long as you like: but we will wait for you, and get you at last."

I began to cast about in my mind for some means by which I might drive the creatures away. I had a knife with a long, strong, sharp blade, attached to my neck by a lanyard, and I looked about me to see if there was anything available which I could convert into a spear by las.h.i.+ng the knife to it; but there was nothing; and I was still puzzling my brain when suddenly the two fish paused in their patrol, swung quickly round, and the next instant made sail dead to windward, as though they had just caught the scent of some especially tempting morsel.

Now, if ever, was my time, I told myself; the brutes had undoubtedly left me, there were no other sharks in sight, and every second was precious; therefore, without allowing myself an instant for pause and hesitation, I quietly slid off the mainmast into the water and struck out smoothly and steadily for a certain knoll ash.o.r.e, in line with which I had last seen the floating fragments that I desired to reach.

It was still blowing quite fresh, and there was a very heavy sea running; but it no longer broke badly, and it was in my favour, every sea that overtook me flinging me forward at least a couple of fathoms, so that I made excellent progress, as I ascertained when I turned for a moment to glance back at the ma.s.s of wreckage that I had just abandoned.

I saw also that, whatever happened, I must keep on, there must be no thought of turning back, for while the run of the sea was helping me grandly in my progress to leeward, it was powerful enough to render return to my late refuge an impossibility; I, therefore, set my teeth and, with my eyes fixed upon the distant knoll which was to serve me as a guide, struck out with a long, quiet, steady stroke that I knew from experience I could maintain for hours on end, if need were. Of course, I kept a very sharp lookout for the wreckage that I was aiming for, but saw nothing of it for a long time, and more than once a qualm of something very nearly approaching terror seized me, as the idea suggested itself that possibly I had missed my goal, and was every moment leaving it farther behind me. I was fast approaching a state of panic that might very easily have resulted in fatal consequences, when it suddenly occurred to me that, of course, it would be quite impossible for me to see those insignificant fragments of flotsam, unless they and I each happened to be hove up on the crest of a wave at precisely the same moment, and the reflection so far steadied my nerves that I was able successfully to combat the almost irresistible impulse to put forth my whole strength in a frantic struggle to increase my speed through the water and quickly settle the question one way or the other. My reward came to me some ten minutes later when, as I went soaring up on the breast of an unusually high wave, I caught a momentary glimpse of what was undoubtedly a small piece of plank of some sort floating in the midst of a lacework of foam on the crest of a wave immediately in line with the knoll by which I was directing my course, and which, like everything else at a greater distance than some fifty or sixty fathoms, I could only see when on the summit of a wave. But the fragment of plank still seemed to be a terribly long way off, my strength was beginning to flag, and despair was again gripping at my heart when, as I rose upon the next sea, I was cheered by the quite unexpected sight of a considerable quant.i.ty of wreckage not more than a hundred fathoms distant. The sight renewed my courage, my composure returned; I was once more calm enough to be able to husband my remaining strength and employ it to the best advantage; I found myself steadily gaining upon the objects of my pursuit; and finally, after a long and dreadfully exhausting struggle, I arrived in the midst of the wreckage.

The first thing I came to happened to be a seaman's chest, which had undoubtedly floated up through the hatchway when the schooner foundered.

It floated deep, for in addition to being full of water it evidently contained several articles of the usual kind which a sailor takes to sea with him; but it had a sufficient reserve of buoyancy to afford me an appreciable measure of support, and I clung to it while recovering my breath and resting my wearied limbs after my long swim; it also enabled me to look round at my leisure and make up my mind as to which of the objects in sight would best serve my purpose. There was one of the halves of the wheel grating floating at no great distance from me, but it was a small, thin affair, made of oak, possessing no very great amount of buoyancy, and, although it would undoubtedly be better than nothing at all, I quickly came to the conclusion that there were other pieces that would serve my purpose better. There was, for instance, a hatch--probably one of the main hatches; and after some consideration I decided that I could not do better than secure possession of it. But I wanted something else as well; I could not resign myself to the idea of merely supporting myself upon it and pa.s.sively allowing the wind and sea to take me whithersoever they would; there was land in sight, and it was my purpose to reach it, if possible, therefore I required something in the nature of a paddle wherewith to propel my hatch and guide it in the right direction; and presently I saw a piece of splintered plank, about four-feet long and six inches wide, which looked more suited to my purpose than anything else in sight. I had by this time quite recovered my breath, and was also somewhat rested; I, therefore, abandoned the chest without more ado, and, swimming first to the piece of plank, secured possession of it, and then, pus.h.i.+ng it before me, headed for the hatch, which I soon reached.

To climb up on the hatch was a very much more difficult feat than I had imagined it would be, for my first efforts merely resulted in causing it to turn over; but at length, having considered the matter a little, I managed partly to guide it under me, and partly to climb up on it, until I had it fairly under me, when, to my great delight, I found that it was just buoyant enough to support my weight, and that by carefully seating myself cross-legged, tailor fas.h.i.+on, in the exact centre of it, I could keep it right side up. I next experimented with my makes.h.i.+ft paddle, and although the hatch proved so terribly crank that I was several times in imminent danger of capsizing by the mere sway of my body from side to side, I presently acquired the trick of keeping my balance, and found, to my great delight, that I could actually progress, although only slowly and at the cost of great exertion.

Strangely enough, I had not thus far suffered very greatly from thirst, although something like eighteen hours had elapsed since the last draught had pa.s.sed my lips; but my sense of hunger was by this time painfully acute. I had no means, however, of satisfying my gnawing craving for food, and I, therefore, addressed myself to the task of paddling my tiny raft sh.o.r.eward, fully convinced that the only hope of saving my life lay in reaching the land before the scanty remains of my strength became exhausted.

I estimated, from the height of the sun above the horizon, that it was about nine o'clock in the morning when I fairly started upon my sh.o.r.eward voyage, and the exasperating slowness with which I drew away from the rest of the wreckage caused me to put my speed through the water at not more than a mile an hour at the utmost, while the grey misty appearance of the land for which I was making convinced me that it must be at least twenty miles distant; I had, therefore, something like another twenty-four hours of continuous laborious paddling before me before I might once more hope to feel the solid earth beneath my feet, and find something--were it no more than a little wild fruit--wherewith to stay my hunger. But this was not all: the skin of my hands had become so exceedingly soft and tender through long immersion in the water that the sharp edges of the board which I was using as a paddle quickly caused them to blister, and although I paused long enough in my labours to enable me to trim those sharp edges away with my knife, and to work the board into somewhat more convenient shape, the blistering process continued until within about an hour my palms were quite raw, and smarting most atrociously from the salt in the water. Moreover, I had lost my hat, and the sun struck down so fiercely upon my unprotected head that I was soon nearly delirious with headache and the throbbing of my old wound, received in the attack upon the pirate brigantine on the Costa Firme. Still, headache or no headache, blisters or no blisters, there was the land, yet a long distance off, and it had to be reached before my strength gave out, or my life would pay the forfeit; so I set my teeth and paddled doggedly on, hour after hour, my hunger ever growing keener, while now I began to experience in addition the torments of thirst, my whole body became racked with aches and pains as though I had been unmercifully bruised and beaten, my head throbbed until it seemed as if it would burst open, and, as for my hands, they at length felt as though the rough paddle were white-hot iron; I had certainly never in all my life before experienced such a complication of agonising pains. And, despite it all, the land seemed to draw never an inch nearer.

I think I must at length have become light-headed, for gradually a feeling stole over me that everything--my surroundings, my situation, and my suffering--was unreal; that I was the victim of a peculiarly ghastly and horrible nightmare; and that I should by and by be wakened fortunately to find that I was in my own bunk, and that the events of the past twenty-four hours had been nothing more than an exceptionally vivid and realistic dream. From this state I was partially aroused by seeing a number of glittering objects start out of the sea all round me, while at the same instant I was conscious of receiving a sharp blow on the chest, when, on looking down into my lap, I saw a fine flying-fish wriggling and flapping there, making a gallant but ineffectual effort to hoist himself out of the hollow formed by my crossed legs, and return to the water. For a second or two I stared stupidly down at the struggling creature, and then it seemed to dawn upon my dazed faculties that here at last was food, something that would at least mitigate for a time the fierce pangs of my gnawing hunger, and in a very frenzy of eagerness I clutched the unfortunate fish and bit savagely into its writhing body!

Yes, I know that the idea is inexpressibly repugnant, even revolting, yet I solemnly declare that never in my life before had I tasted anything so exquisitely delicious as that raw fish, never had I so keenly enjoyed a meal. I am glad to believe that there will be very few who can sympathise with or appreciate my enjoyment; for, reader, you must have experienced the first agonies of starvation--which are the worst--before you can do so. But, revolting or not, I am profoundly convinced that I owe my life to that meal, for my senses returned to me at once upon its completion; and although with them there also returned a full appreciation of the acuteness of my physical discomfort, I felt distinctly revived and reinvigorated. Moreover, with the full return of my senses I became aware that, after all, my painful efforts had not been nearly so ineffectual as I had imagined them to be, the land being now appreciably nearer than it had been at daylight that morning, a few of its bolder details being now visible.

And now once more I was sufficiently rational to take cognisance of the flight of time. I was not at all certain of my bearings, but I felt that the sun must certainly have crossed the meridian--that the eternity of suffering through which I had pa.s.sed could never have been compressed into a short half-hour or so--and if I was correct in this surmise the hour must be somewhere about three o'clock in the afternoon.

Three o'clock in the afternoon! And the land still so far away that many further hours of toil and agony must be endured ere I might hope to reach it! My brain reeled again at the mere prospect of it, and in a perfect frenzy of despair I resumed my paddle, crying aloud mad, incoherent prayers to G.o.d that He would either send me help in my extremity, or mercifully put an immediate end to my sufferings. Then another thought came to torment me: in something like three hours the sun would set, darkness would encompa.s.s me about, and if the sky should become obscured with clouds and the stars be hidden, how should I continue to find my way? At that idea I looked about me--my mind had been too confused, and too busily occupied with other matters to take intelligent note of the weather during the last few hours--and I was somewhat relieved to observe that the sky was now clear, save for a few scattered, solemnly drifting clouds, that the weather had a tolerably settled appearance, that the wind had moderated to quite a gentle breeze, and that the sea had gone down very considerably and was no longer breaking. This certainly was a point in my favour, since I was not any longer in momentary peril of being capsized or washed off my frail ark; but the advantage was to a certain extent counterbalanced by the fact that the run of the sea was not materially helping me.

Wearily yet desperately I continued to ply my clumsy paddle, first on this side and then on the other, and with alarming rapidity my sufferings seemed to grow in acuteness until I found myself moaning and uttering short, sharp cries of distress with every movement of my body, ay, and with every breath I drew; for now, to add to my discomfort, I suddenly became aware that my lungs were in some way affected, and that the mere act of breathing seemed to tear them asunder. Yet, though my situation appeared to be so utterly hopeless, I doggedly persevered in my efforts, telling myself over and over again, out loud, that if I would but hold out long enough I must, in the natural order of things, eventually reach the sh.o.r.e and succour. I think it was about this time that I finally lost control of myself, for thenceforward I was conscious that I was continually talking to myself--in a hoa.r.s.e, guttural croak, that even now I shudder to call to mind--now arguing, now encouraging, now reproaching myself, until at length my ideas wandered away to all sorts of incongruous subjects; and by turns I detected myself laughing, singing, praying, apostrophising the sun, the clouds, the distant land, and even the spirits of my drowned companions, whom I imagined to be crowding round me and trying to drag me off the floating hatch. I was aware, in a vague, impersonal fas.h.i.+on, of the gradual decline of the sun toward the west, of his disappearance beneath the horizon, and of the fact that just as the outlines of the land ahead were fading into the gathering darkness a small spark of light sprang into view somewhere in the direction that I was steering for, and then suddenly all grew black about me, there was a singing in my ears--and oblivion.

When consciousness returned, and I opened my eyes, I found myself stretched upon a bed in a large and lofty room, very barely furnished, there being nothing in the apartment save the bed upon which I lay, a large old-fas.h.i.+oned wardrobe, a dressing-table, a small round table by my bedside, and two ma.s.sive carved chairs upholstered in stamped leather which showed signs of having seen many years of service. It was night, apparently, for the only illumination came from a large handsome lamp that had the appearance of being wrought out of silver. One of the two chairs in the room stood by the side of my bed, and was occupied by a very respectable-looking negress of some forty years of age, or thereabout, sound asleep. Two jugs, one of porcelain and one of cut gla.s.s, stood on the table, in company with a large tumbler and a cup with a spoon in it. The gla.s.s jug was three-parts full of lemonade, if my eyes did not deceive me, and the sight of it suddenly caused me to become acutely conscious of the fact that I was athirst. Had the negress been awake I would have asked her to give me a drink, but seeing that she was sleeping the sleep of the just I decided to help myself, and with that intent essayed to raise myself in bed. But I might as well have attempted to lift the house itself, for when I came to move I discerned, to my consternation, that I was so weak I could scarcely stir hand or foot, much less raise my entire body. In my alarm and distress I unwittingly gave vent to a feeble groan, which, faint as it was, proved sufficient to arouse my attendant, who stirred in her chair, adjusted her turban, and then, rising to her feet, leaned over the bed and peered down into my face. For some seconds she stood thus, when-- her eyes having adjusted themselves to the rather dim light of the lamp--she perceived that I was awake.

"Ah!" she murmured, in a half whisper, in Spanish, "the Senor is at length himself again, thanks be to all the blessed saints! And how are you feeling, Senor?"

"Very thirsty," I replied, in the same language, which I spoke fairly well, and to my amazement, though I had intended to speak out loud, my voice was no more than a scarcely audible whisper, which the negress had to bend her head to catch.

"_Bueno_!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with every evidence of keen satisfaction; "the Senor is thirsty--and he has the Spanish. He shall drink, and then,"--she laid her hand upon my forehead, and I now discovered, to my further astonishment, that my head was swathed in bandages--"yes, then the medicine, and more sleep."