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Pirate Island: A Story of the South Pacific

<h3>Chapter Nine.</h3> <h4>The “Albatross.”</h4> All that day the launch continued to scud before the gale; getting pooped so often that it was the work of two men to keep her free of water. Toward evening Mr Bowles came aft, reporting himself “all ataunto” once more, and ready to resume duty. He still looked pale and haggard, but was as keen and determined as ever; and he demurred so vehemently to Captain Staunton’s suggestion that he would be all the better for a whole night between the blankets that the skipper was at last compelled to give in, which he did with—it must be confessed—a feeling of the greatest relief that he now had so trusty a coadjutor to share the watches with him; for since the springing up of the gale the poor fellow had scarcely closed his eyes. The night shut down “as dark as a wolf’s mouth,”—to use the skipper’s own metaphor; and the chief mate took the first watch, with Bob on the look-out. It must have been somewhere about six bells, or 11 p.m., when the latter was startled by seeing the crest of the sea ahead of him breaking in a cloud of phosphoric foam over some object directly in line with the launch’s bow. “Keep her away, sir!” he yelled. “Starboard, for your life, starboard hard!” Up went the boat’s helm in an instant; and as she dragged heavily on the steep incline of the wave which had just swept under her, Bob saw floating close past a large mass of tangled wreckage, consisting of a ship’s lower-mast with the heel of the topmast still in its place, and yards, stays, shrouds, braces, etcetera, attached. Dark as was the night there was no difficulty whatever in identifying the character of the wreckage, for it floated in a regular swirl of lambent greenish phosphorescent light. “Stand by with the boat-hook, there forward,” shouted Mr Bowles, “and see if you can get hold of a rope’s-end. If you can, we will anchor to the wreck; and we shall ride to leeward of it as snug as if we were in the London Dock—almost.” As he spoke, he skilfully luffed the boat up under the lee of the mass; and Bob, with a vigorous sweep or two of the boat-hook, managed to fish up the standing part of the main brace with the block still attached. Through this block he rove the end of the launch’s painter, and belayed it on board, thus causing her to ride to the wreckage by a sort of slip-line. The other apprentices meanwhile lost no time in taking in and stowing the canvas; and in a few minutes the launch was riding at her floating anchor in perfect safety and in comparative comfort; still tossing wildly, it is true, but no longer shipping a drop of water excepting the spray which blew over her from the seas as they broke on the wreckage. Toward noon on the following day the gale broke; and by sunset it had moderated to a strong breeze. On that evening they were blessed with a glimpse of the sun once more, for just before the moment of his setting the canopy of cloud which had hung overhead for so long broke up, leaving great gaps through which the blue sky could be seen, and revealing the glorious luminary upon the verge of the western horizon, surrounded by a magnificent framework of jagged and tattered clouds, the larger masses of which were of a dull purplish hue, with blotches of crimson here and there, and with edges of the purest gold; while the smaller fragments streamed athwart the sky, lavishly painted with the richest tints of the rainbow. They hung on to the wreckage all that night, the wind being still against them; and the next morning Lance, suspecting that there might be a few fish congregated about the mass of broken spars, as is frequently the case, roused out the lines and managed to hook over a dozen gaudily marked and curiously shaped fish of decent size, the whole of which were devoured with the greatest gusto that day at dinner, notwithstanding the rather repulsive aspect which some of them presented. That night the wind, which had dwindled away to a gentle breeze, changed, and blew once more from the westward; and the sea having also gone down to a great extent, our adventurers cast off from the wreckage which had so opportunely provided them with a shelter from the fury of the gale, and with whole canvas and flowing sheets stood away once more on a north-easterly course. In addition to the delay which the gale had occasioned them, Captain Staunton estimated that they had been driven fully five hundred miles directly out of their course; after a very careful inspection therefore of their stock of provisions the skipper was reluctantly compelled to order a further reduction in the daily allowance of food and water served out. And now the sufferings of those on board the launch commenced in grim earnest. The women, especially, as might be expected, soon began to feel their privations acutely. Buffeted as they had been by the gale, they were completely exhausted, and needed rest and an abundance of nourishing food rather than to be placed on short commons. They bore their privations, however, with a quiet fortitude which ought to have silenced in shame the querulous complaints and murmurings of Mr Dale; though it did not. The most distressing part of it all was to hear poor little May Staunton piteously crying for water, “’cause I’m so veddy thirsty mama,” as the dear child explained. She was not old enough to understand the possibility of a state of things wherein food and drink were scarcities; and her reproachful looks at her father when he was obliged to refuse her request almost broke his heart. Not, it must be understood, that she was limited to the same quantity of water as the others. The men—always excepting Mr Dale—preferred to suffer in a heightened degree the fiery torture of thirst themselves, rather than to see the child suffer; and they quietly arranged among themselves to contribute each as much as he felt he could possibly spare of the now precious liquid, as it was daily served out to them, and to store it up in a bottle which was to be May’s exclusive property. And the same in the matter of food. It was wholly in vain that the child’s father protested against this sacrifice; they were one and all firm as adamant upon this point; and he, poor man, notwithstanding his anxiety that all should be treated with equal fairness, could not contest their determination with any great strength of will. Was she not his own and only child, for whom he would cheerfully have laid down his life; and how could he urge with any strength a point which would have resulted in a dreadful deprivation and a terrible increase of suffering to the winning and helpless little creature? Therefore he at last contented himself with pouring the whole of his daily allowance of water into May’s bottle, and cheerfully submitted for her innocent sake to endure the tortures of the damned. Reader, have you ever experienced the torment of thirst while exposed in an open boat to the blazing rays of the pitiless sun? You have not? Then thank God for it, and earnestly pray that you never may; for none can realise or even faintly imagine the intensity of the suffering but those who have borne it. The women, from whom it was of course impossible to conceal the circumstance that May was receiving more than her own share of food and water, were anxious to follow the example of their male companions by also setting apart a portion of their own allowance for the use of the child, but this was at once decidedly vetoed; yet they were not so easily to be deterred from their generous disposition, and many a sip and many a morsel which could ill be spared did the poor little child receive from their sympathetic and loving hands. “After the storm comes the calm,” says the proverb, and its truth was fully borne out in the present instance. On the fourth day after casting off from the wreckage the wind began to drop, and by sunset it had fallen so light that the launch had barely steerage-way. This was still another misfortune, for if the calm continued it would seriously delay their progress and thereby protract their sufferings. Next to a gale of wind, indeed, a calm and its consequent delay was what they had most to dread, for they were in a part of the ocean little frequented by craft of any description, except a stray whaler now and then, and their only reasonable hope of salvation rested upon the possibility of their being able to reach land before starvation and thirst overcame them. Mr Bowles had the first watch, and Bob was posted at the now all but useless helm. The wind had subsided until it was faint as the breath of a sleeping infant, and the boat’s sails flapped gently against the masts as she rode with a scarcely perceptible swinging motion over the long stately slow-moving swell which followed her. The vast blue-black dome of the heavens above was devoid of the faintest trace of cloud, and the countless stars which spangled the immeasurable vault beamed down upon the tiny waif with a soft and mellow splendour which was repeated in the dark bosom of the scarcely ruffled ocean, where the reflected starbeams mingled, far down in its mysterious depths, with occasional faint gleams and flashes of pale greenish phosphorescent light. The thin golden crescent of the young moon hung low down in the velvety darkness of the western sky, and a long thin thread of amber radiance streamed from the horizon beneath her toward the boat, becoming more and more wavering and broken up as it neared her, until within some twenty fathoms of the launch it dwindled away to a mere occasional fluttering gleam. A great and solemn silence prevailed, upon which such slight sounds as the flap of the sails, the pattering of the reef-points, the creak of the rudder, or the stir of some uneasy sleeper broke with almost painful distinctness. Mr Bowles drew out his watch, and holding it close to his face, discovered that it was a few minutes past midnight. For the previous half-hour he had been sitting on the deck near Bob, with his legs dangling into the little cockpit abaft the stern-sheets, and staring in an abstracted fashion astern. As he replaced the watch in his pocket he glanced once more in that direction, but now his look suddenly grew intense and eager. For a full minute he remained thus, then he withdrew from its beckets beneath the seat a long and powerful telescope, which he adjusted and levelled. For another full minute he gazed anxiously through the tube, and then, handing it to Bob to hold, he crept silently forward, so as not to disturb the sleeping women, and quietly called the relief watch. “Well, Mr Bowles,” said the captain, as he rose to his feet, “what weather have you had? Is there any wind at all?” “Very little, sir,” answered the chief mate, replying to the last question first; “just a cat’s-paw from the west’ard bow and then, but nothing worth speaking about; and it’s been the same all through the watch. I want you to take a squint through the glass before I turn-in, sir, and to tell me whether I’ve been dreaming with my eyes open or no.” “Why, what is it, Bowles? Do you think you’ve seen anything?” “Well, yes, I do, sir,” answered the mate, “but it’s so very indistinct in this starlight that I don’t care to trust to my own eyes alone.” Without another word the pair moved aft, and when they were fairly settled in the cockpit Mr Bowles took the glass from Bob and put it into the skipper’s hand. He then looked intently astern for perhaps half a minute, when he laid his hand on the skipper’s arm and said— “D’ye see them two stars, sir, about a couple of hand’s breadths to the south’ard of the moon? They’re about six degrees above the horizon, and the lower one is the southernmost of the two; it has a reddish gleam almost like a ship’s port light.” “Yes,” replied the skipper, “I see them. You mean those, do you not?” pointing to them. “Ay, ay, sir; them’s the two. Now look at the horizon, just half-way between ’em, and tell me if you can see anything.” The skipper looked long and steadfastly in the desired direction, and at length raised the telescope to his eye. “By Jove, Bowles, I believe you are right,” he at length exclaimed eagerly. “There certainly is a something away there on the horizon, but it is so small and indistinct that I cannot clearly make it out. Do you think it is either of the other boats?” “No, sir, I don’t,” answered Bowles. “If it’s anything it’s a ship’s royals. If ’twas one of the boats, she’d be within some five miles of us for us to be able to see her at all, and at that distance her sail would show out sharp and distinct through the glass. This shows, as you say, so indistinctly that it must be much more than that distance away, and therefore I say that if it’s anything it’s a ship’s royals.” The skipper took another long steady look through the telescope, and then closing it sharply, said— “There is undoubtedly something astern of us, Bowles, and under the circumstances I think we shall be fully justified in hauling our wind for an hour or two in order to satisfy ourselves as to what it really is.” Mr Bowles fully concurred in this opinion, and the boat was accordingly at once brought to the wind, what little there was of it, on the starboard tack, which brought the object about two points on her weather bow. “If it is indeed a ship, Bowles,” observed Captain Staunton when the boat’s course had been changed and the mate was preparing to “go below,” as he phrased it, “we have dropped in for a rare piece of luck, for, to tell you the plain truth, I had no hope whatever of falling in with a craft of any description about here. She will be a whaler, of course, but she is a long way north of the usual fishing-grounds, isn’t she?” “Well,” returned Bowles meditatively, “you can never tell where you may fall in with one of them chaps. They follows the fish, you see; sometimes here, sometimes there; just where they think they’ll have the best chance. Then, I have heard say that sometimes, if they happen to hit upon a particularly likely spot, such as a small uninhabited island, where there’s a chance of good sport, they’ll put a boat’s crew ashore there with boat, harpoons, lines, a stock of provisions, and two or three hundred empty barrels, just to try their luck, like, for a month or so, and go away on a cruise, coming back for ’em in due time, and often finding ’em with every barrel full. Perhaps yon craft is up to something of that sort.” “It may be so,” returned Captain Staunton. “Indeed in all probability it is so if our eyes have not deceived us. At all events, whatever she is, we are pretty sure of a hearty welcome, and even a not over clean whaler will be a welcome change for all hands, and especially for the ladies, from this boat, particularly now that the provisions are getting low. And I have no doubt I shall be able to make arrangements with the captain to carry us to Valparaiso with as little delay as possible.” “Ay, ay,” returned Bowles, “I don’t expect there’ll be much trouble about that. I only hope we shall be able to get alongside her. I wouldn’t stand on too long on this tack if I was you, sir. My opinion is that she’s coming this way, and if so we ought to tack in good time so as not to let her slip past us to windward or across our bows. Good-night, sir!” The night being so fine, and with so little wind, Captain Staunton took the tiller himself, and ordered the rest of the watch to lie down again; there was nothing to do, he said, and if he required their assistance he would call them. Accordingly, in a very short time, he was the only waking individual in the launch, the others were only too glad of the opportunity to forget, as far as possible, their miseries in sleep. It is, of course, scarcely necessary to say that the skipper, as he sat there keeping his lonely watch, fixed his gaze, with scarcely a moment’s intermission, on that part of the horizon where the mysterious object had been seen. He allowed a full hour to pass, and then drawing out the glass, applied it to his eye, sweeping the horizon carefully from dead ahead round to windward. He had not to seek far, for when the tube of the telescope pointed to within about three points of the starboard bow a small dark blot swept into the field of view. Yes, there it was, quite unmistakably this time, and a single moment’s observation of it satisfied the anxious watcher that he saw before him the royals and topgallant-sails of a vessel apparently of no very great size. The fact that the stranger’s topgallant-sails had risen above the horizon within the hour since he had last looked at her was conclusive proof to his mind that the craft was standing toward them; that, in fact, they were approaching each other, though at a very low rate of speed, in consequence of the exceedingly light air of wind that was blowing. Fully satisfied upon this point he at once put the boat’s helm down, and she came slowly and heavily about, the captain easily working the sheets himself. By four bells Captain Staunton was able to discern with the naked eye the shadowy patch of darkness which the stranger’s canvas made on the dusky line of the horizon, and when he called Mr Bowles at eight bells, or four o’clock in the morning, the patch had become darker, larger, and more clearly defined, and it lay about one point before the weather beam of the launch. The telescope was once more called into requisition, and it now showed not only the royals and topgallant-sails, but also the topsails of the stranger fairly above the horizon. “Thank God for that welcome sight!” exclaimed the chief mate, laying down the telescope and reverently lifting his hat from his head. He remained silent a minute or two, and then raising his eyes, allowed his glance to travel all round the horizon and overhead until he had swept the entire expanse of the star-spangled heavens. Then, with a sigh of intense relief, he said— “We’re all right, I do verily believe, sir. There’s the craft, plain as mud in a wine-glass, bearing right down upon us, or very nearly so. We’ve only to stand on as we’re going and we shall cross her track. There’s very little wind, it’s true, but the trifle that there is is drawing us together; we’re nearing each other every minute, and there’s no sign of any change of weather, unless it may happen to be that the present light air will die away altogether with sunrise. I fancy I know what you’re thinking of sir; you’re half inclined to say, ‘Out oars, and let’s get alongside her as soon as possible.’ And that’s just what I should say if there was any sign of a breeze springing up, but there ain’t; she can’t run away from us, and therefore what I say is this: the launch is a heavy boat, and we’re all hands of us as weak as cats; she’s about six miles off now, and it would knock us all up to pull even that short distance, whereas if we go on as we are we shall drop alongside without any trouble by eight bells, or maybe a trifle earlier; and if the wind should die away altogether, it’ll be time enough then to see what we can do with the oars.” “That’s exactly the way I have been arguing with myself ever since you called me, Bowles,” returned the skipper. “It is true that we are all suffering horribly from thirst, and in that way every moment is of value to us; but on the other hand, everybody except our two selves is now asleep and oblivious, for the time being, of their sufferings: let them sleep on, say I; the toil of tugging at heavy oars, and the excitement of knowing that a sail is at hand would only increase tenfold their sufferings, without helping us forward a very great deal; so I think, with you, that we had better let things remain as they are for another hour or two; we can rouse all hands at any moment, should it seem desirable to do so. Now, if you will take the tiller, I will just stretch myself out on the planks here, close at hand; I could not sleep now if the whole world were offered me to do so.” Saying which, the skipper suited the action to the word; he and the mate continuing their chat, but carefully pitching their voices in so low a tone that the ladies, close at hand, should not be disturbed in their slumbers. By and by the sky began to pale in the eastern quarter; the stars quietly twinkled out, one by one; a bright rosy flush appeared, and then up rolled the glorious sun above the horizon. The wind, light all night, had been imperceptibly dying away; and when the sun rose his bright beams flashed upon a sea whose surface was smooth as oil. The launch lost way altogether, and refused any longer to answer her helm. As for the stranger, there she was, just hull-down; her snowy canvas gleaming in the brilliant morning sunshine, and so clearly defined that every rippling fold in the sails was distinctly visible as they flapped against the mast to the lazy roll of the vessel over the long sleepy swell. “Now,” said Captain Staunton, “we’ll rouse the steward, make him prepare and serve out a first-rate breakfast to all hands; and then ‘Hey! for a pull to the ship.’” This was accordingly done. The breakfast was prepared, no great matter of a meal was it after all, though the last scrap of provisions and the last drop of water went in its composition; and when it was ready the cramped and hungry voyagers were roused with the good news that a sail was in sight, and the meal placed before them. Frugal as it was, it was a sumptuous banquet compared with their late fare; and the poor famished creatures devoured it ravenously, feeling, when it was finished, that they could have disposed of thrice as much. Perhaps it was just as well that there was no more; in their condition a moderately full meal even would have proved injurious to them if administered without great caution; but while there was not sufficient to provoke hurtful results there was just enough to put new life into them, and to temporarily endow them with vigour and strength enough for an hour or two’s toil at the oars. The meal over, the oars were eagerly manned; and the men dividing themselves into two gangs, and working in short spells of a quarter of an hour each, the launch was headed straight for the stranger, which having now lost steerage-way had swung broadside-on, and showed herself to be a small brig. “I tell you what it is, Bowles,” said the captain as he sat at the tiller steering during one of his spells of rest from the oars, “we are a great deal further to the westward than I imagined we were. We must be not very far from the outlying islands of that vast archipelago which spreads itself over so many hundreds of leagues of the South Pacific. That fellow is no whaler; look at his canvas, no smoke stains from the try-works there: he is a sandal-wood trader, or is after bêche-de-mer. I am very glad it is so; it will be much more pleasant for the ladies; and if she is a Yankee, as a good many of these little traders are, the skipper will probably be glad enough to earn a few dollars by running us all across to the mainland.” “To my mind,” remarked Bowles, “the craft looks rather too trim and neat aloft for a trader. And look at the hoist of her topsails; don’t you think there is a man-o’-war-ish appearance about the cut and set of them sails, sir?” “She certainly does look rather taunt in her spars for a merchantman,” returned Captain Staunton. “We shall soon see what she really is, however; for she will be hull-up in another five minutes; and in another half-hour we shall be on board her. Ah! they have made us out; there go her colours. Take the glass, and see what you can make of them, Bowles.” The chief mate took the telescope and levelled it at the brig, taking a long and steady look at her. “A ten-gun brig, by the look of her,” he presently remarked, with the telescope still at his eye. “Anyhow, her bulwarks are pierced; and I can see the muzzles of five bull-dogs grinning through her starboard port-holes. That’s the stars and stripes hanging at her peak, as far as I can make out; but it’s drooping so dead that I can see nothing but a mingling of red and white, with a small patch of blue next the halliard-block. She’s a pretty-looking little thing enough, and her skipper’s a thorough seaman, whoever he is. Ay, she’s a man-o’-war sure enough—Up go the courses and down comes the jib, all at once, man-o’-war fashion. And there’s clue up royals and t’gallan’s’ls—to prevent ’em from beating themselves to pieces against the spars and rigging, that is, for all the canvas she could set wouldn’t give her steerage-way, much less cause her to run away from us. She hasn’t a pennant aloft, though—wonder how that is? And the hands on board seem to be a rum-looking lot of chaps as ever I set eyes on; no more like man-o’-war’s men than we are—not a single jersey or man-o’-war collar among ’em; nor nothing like a uniform aft there. I s’pose they’re economical, and want to save their regular rig for harbour service.” “Well, thank God for His mercy in directing us to her,” exclaimed the skipper fervently, as he lifted his cap from his head. “Our troubles are all over now, ladies,” he continued, turning to the women, who were now eagerly watching the brig. “The craft is small; but she is plenty big enough to carry us all to Valparaiso; and, once there, I think we shall have very little difficulty in getting a passage home.” Half an hour more of toilsome tugging at the oars, and the heavy launch ranged up alongside the brig. “Look out for a rope,” shouted one of the crew, as he sprang upon the rail with a coil of line in his hand. “Heave,” shouted Bob. The rope was dexterously thrown and caught; the heavy oars were laid in; and as the boat touched the brig’s side a man dressed in a suit of white nankeen, his head sheltered by a broad-brimmed Panama hat, and his rather handsome sun-browned face half hidden by a thick black beard and moustache, sauntered to the gangway from the position he had occupied abaft the main-rigging, and leaning over the bulwarks remarked— “Morning, straangers. I guess you found it hot work pullin’ down to us in that heavy boat. Looks to me as though you had had rayther bad times lately.” “Yes,” answered the skipper. “We were burned out of our ship—the Galatea of London. We have been in the boat a fortnight to-day; and for the last five days—until this morning, when we consumed the last of our provisions—some of us have never tasted water.” “Waal, stranger, that’s bad news to tell. But I calculate we can soon put you all right. Here,” he continued, addressing himself to the men who were peering curiously over the bulwarks at the occupants of the boat, “jump down, some of you, and help ’em up over the side.” There was a hearty laugh at this order, to the intense surprise of our adventurers; but the skipper of the brig was evidently a man who was not to be trifled with; with two strides he was among the jeering crowd of men with a revolver in each hand. “Now, git,” he exclaimed, levelling the pistols; and the men waited for no second bidding. In an instant some half a dozen of them sprang into the boat; the brig’s gangway was opened, and the boat’s crew were somewhat sullenly assisted up the side of the brig and on to her deck. The black-bearded man met them as they came up the side, and held out his hand to Captain Staunton. “Morning, straanger,” he repeated. “I’m powerful glad to see you all.” “Thank you,” returned the skipper. “I can assure you we are all at least equally glad to see you, and to find ourselves once more with a deck beneath our feet. What ship is this, may I ask, and by what name shall we call the gentleman who has given us so kind a reception?” “The brig’s called the Albatross; and my name is Johnson—at your service.” “You are an American cruiser, I presume?” continued Captain Staunton, looking first at the beautifully kept decks, and then more doubtfully at the gang of desperadoes who crowded round. “Sorter,” briefly replied the man who had called himself Johnson; and the reply seemed for some reason to mightily tickle his crew, most of whom burst into a hearty guffaw. Captain Staunton glanced round upon them with such stern surprise that the fellows fell back a pace or two; and the skipper of the brig, first darting a furious glance upon his followers, led the way aft to the cabin, saying— “I sorter waited breakfast when I made out through the glass that you were a shipwrecked crew, calculatin’ that prob’ly you’d be glad to find yourselves in front of a good square meal. Your crew will have to make themselves at home in the fo’ks’le; and if my lads don’t treat ’em properly, why they must just knock ’em down. My people are a trifle orkard to deal with at first, but I guess they’ll all pull together first-rate arter a while.” <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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