第 5 页

“Let us try her once more, lads,” I said. “Now, then—one—two—three—ship ahoy!”

It was no good. The mystery ship simply would not respond, do what we would!

“Give way, men,” I ordered. “Pull a dozen strokes, and then lay in your oars and listen. We must lie close aboard her; and if she will not answer our hails we will hang about where we are until we hear or see something of her. Then we will pull alongside and insist on being taken aboard. Whatever else she may be, she is a sailing ship and cannot move until a breeze comes, so we are pretty sure of her, sooner or later. We must keep a sharp look-out all round, then if another flash of lightning comes some of us will be certain to see her. That will do, men. Way enough. Lay in your oars. We will remain where we are until daylight, at all events.”

The men laid in their oars—and sat upon them to prevent them from rattling with the slight rocking of the boat. Then we all sat rigid, silent, scarcely daring to draw our breath, so intently were we listening for some errant sound which should furnish us with a clue to the whereabouts of the ship we were seeking, while we stared hard in different directions into the blackness around, waiting and watching for a glint of light, or a flash of lightning which should reveal what we all so eagerly desired to see. But the minutes of watching lengthened into hours, with no faintest sound, no gleam of light, no further flash of lightning to help us; and when at length the pallor of a new dawn lightened along the eastern horizon and I was once more able to see my surroundings—for we had extinguished our light, with the two-fold object of economising oil and seeing better in the darkness—I found the rest of the men sitting with arms folded, fast asleep; while as for the strange ship, there was not a trace of her to be seen in any direction!

Was I greatly surprised? Honestly speaking I do not think I was. Perplexed—yes, profoundly so, for I firmly believed that I had caught a fleeting—a very fleeting—glimpse of a ship of some sort during that small fraction of a second when that last flash of lightning had illuminated our surroundings, and I felt even more convinced that I had really heard the sounds I have mentioned. Yet, on the other hand, it may all have been a mere trick of imagination suddenly aroused by Wilkinson’s cry of “Sail ho!”

But, it may be asked, why should Wilkinson have raised that cry if no ship was there? I think the circumstances might easily account for that. There we were, a party of castaways in an open boat with our thoughts naturally dwelling continually upon the idea of rescue. If, as I suspected, Wilkinson had fallen asleep as he sat there in the bottom of the boat, what more natural than that he should dream he saw a ship? And again, if he dreamed such a dream, what more natural than that he should shout “Sail ho!” and so awake himself, leaving him firmly convinced that his dream had been real? As for the rest of us, the positive assertion of the seaman that he had sighted a ship, coupled with his circumstantial description of her appearance, would stimulate our imaginations, even to the extent of preparing us to believe, presently, when the next flash of lightning came, that we had seen her too. That was the explanation of the mystery which Doctor Shirley-Winthrop offered when we fell to discussing it, and it may have been the correct one.

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Chapter Four: Land Ho!

As soon as the day had fairly come, we took the meal which we dignified with the name of breakfast; and then, since it was useless to remain where we were, Wilkinson and I manned the oars and got the boat moving, while the stewardess took a trick at the tiller, heading the boat south-west by compass.

The weather was still very unsettled. The calm continued as unbroken as ever, but now there was a long low swell creeping up from the southward that seemed to me to portend a blow from that quarter. The sky was overcast, dark and lowering, and distant objects showed up with startling distinctness, as was exemplified by the clearness and sharpness of definition of the fin of a shark sculling lazily along, which appeared at a distance of fully two miles from us away out on our starboard beam. The thunder and lightning had ceased hours ago, but from the aspect of the sky I anticipated a deluge of rain at any moment. We had discussed the problem of the mysterious ship, and the Doctor had propounded his own theory concerning it, after which the entire party had subsided into a gloomy silence, in accord with the weather.

Following upon a long spell during which not one of the party had uttered a word, Oldroyd, who occupied the seat next the stewardess, and who had been staring moodily and abstractedly ahead, suddenly broke the silence.

“Say, Massey,” he exclaimed, “what in the nation does that portend?” As he spoke, he pointed skyward and straight ahead.

Suspending operations for a moment, I turned on the thwart and gazed in the direction toward which he was pointing. I saw instantly what had attracted his attention.

Directly ahead, and about half-way between the zenith and the horizon, a big patch of cloud had assumed a particularly sombre hue, and was now writhing and working as though violently agitated by some internal commotion. At its darkest part it had developed a conical shape ending in a sharp point, directed downward toward the surface of the water. This sharp point, which was almost inky black, was behaving in the most extraordinary manner, extending and retracting rapidly, with a curious darting movement. At one moment, it would shrink until it was almost lost in the body of the cloud, the next it would dart forth again, its extremity agitated with a strange quivering movement. And every time that it darted forward it seemed to project nearer to the surface of the water, which, I now observed, manifested a tendency to heap itself up into a mound, as though to meet it.

“I cannot say for certain,” I replied, “for I have never before seen anything of the sort; but it answers pretty closely to a description I once read of the manner in which a waterspout is formed. See there. Watch that black tongue of vapour. Notice how it seems to be reaching down toward the ocean, nearer and still nearer every time. And see, too, how the surface of the water seems to heap itself up to meet it. Do you see that? There is now a distinct and growing mound of water piled up under it, and it is increasing in height every moment, while the tongue of vapour seems to be reaching down to touch it. Yes, that is a waterspout in the making, sure enough, and—ah! now the two have come together, and there is your fully-formed waterspout. Now, it will pay to watch that fellow and see where he is going, for we don’t want him any nearer than half a mile, and waterspouts are occasionally a bit erratic in their movements in weather like this. Ah! thank goodness, he is heading to the nor’ard and won’t come near us—”

“There is another, behind us!” suddenly remarked the doctor’s daughter, in quite an ordinary, conversational tone, her interest in what was happening seeming to have caused her to forget for the moment her vast superiority to the rest of us. And it was surprising to note how sweet and seductive the tones of her voice could be, when she chose.

Yes, it was as Miss Shirley-Winthrop had said. While we had all been absorbedly watching the formation of a waterspout some seven or eight miles ahead, another had formed, about four miles astern, and upon glancing round we spotted two others close together, some six miles away. They all appeared to be moving in the same direction, namely northward; and since the pair last sighted were on our port beam, and were coming our way, we took to our oars again, to give them a wide berth.

“There’ll be a breeze after this, Mr Massey, you’ll see,” hazarded Wilkinson. And he was right; for when, after about twenty minutes’ heavy downpour, the rain ceased, a fiery little breeze came piping up from the southward which compelled us to close reef our one sail and carefully tend the sheet to save the boat from burying herself gunwale-under, with all hands sitting up to windward.

For the first half-hour or so we buzzed along merrily enough, reeling off a good honest six knots per hour; but by the end of that time the wind had kicked up a nasty short, vicious little sea that caught the boat on her bluff port bow and flew over her in such drenching clouds of spray that it became necessary not only to keep one hand constantly baling, but also to run the boat a point or two farther off the wind, so as to take the sea more nearly broadside-on. But as the afternoon progressed the wind steadily increased in strength and the sea gathered weight, became steeper, and broke more heavily; so that by about four o’clock it had become dangerous to sail the boat, and I was drenched with perspiration due to my efforts to keep her above water. At length—

“I am going to heave-to, Wilkinson,” I said, “while there is daylight to see what we are doing. Another half-hour of this would swamp the boat. Lead the end of the painter aft and lash it firmly round all four of the oars, about their middle. Then dowse the sail and heave the oars overboard. We will use them as a floating anchor to ride by and keep the boat head-on to the sea. Get that done at once; and I will then tell you what I further want done.”

It was the work of a few minutes; and when it was accomplished we found, to our satisfaction, that while the drag of the oars was just sufficient to keep the boat riding with her head to the sea, it permitted her to drive astern almost as rapidly as though she were entirely free; thus the sea no longer broke heavily over her and she rode practically dry, the canvas shelter rigged up for’ard serving to keep a lot of water out. Our next move was to strike the mast, secure the heel of it to the fore thwart, and rest the head of it in a crutch formed of a pair of stretchers lashed together and set up on the stern-sheets. The mast thus formed a sort of ridge pole for a roof which we began to extemporise out of the remaining portion of the boat cover, reinforced by the sail, and when at last we had got the whole strained taut and secured outside the gunwale of the boat to our satisfaction, the little boat was completely housed over with canvas, with the exception of some six feet of her stern-sheets. Thus, by crowding together a bit we were able to enjoy practically complete shelter from the weather, while—more important still—the seas that broke over the boat, later on—for it blew a whole gale that night—were kept out of her interior, such water as leaked through being baled.

By the time that our preparations were completed, the night was upon us, it was blowing heavily, a mountainous sea was running, and I give you my word it was trying to the nerves to stand up in the stern-sheets of that boat and look out over the canvas cover at the great on-coming hills of black water, towering high and threatening above us, their crests crowned with seething, phosphorescent foam, and to see that foaming crest leap at the boat and smother her for half her length in a swirling welter of sea-fire as it swept past her! But for our good canvas roof, the boat could not have lived half an hour after we hove her to; but the canvas saved us; for although the water came streaming through it every time a sea swept the boat, it was only for a few seconds at a time; and brisk baling kept the boat free and buoyant, if not exactly dry.

It was a wretched night for us, for we were all huddled together in the middle of the boat under our canvas protection, through which the water streamed down upon one or another of us every time a sea broke over the boat, and it was suffocatingly hot, while the place reeked with the odour of paraffin oil smoke—since we were compelled to keep the lamp burning in case its light should be needed in an emergency. It must have been a night of terror, too, for the passengers, and especially the women, for the wild leaps and soarings and the giddy downward plunges of the boat bore testimony to the height of the sea that we were riding, while the incessant thuds of heavy masses of water falling upon the canvas overhead and streaming through, were eloquent of the fate that only that thin sheet of canvas saved us from. As for me, I never closed my eyes for a moment all through that night, but sat there in the stern-sheets with Wilkinson and Dartnell coiled up at my feet, all three of us holding ourselves ready to act at a moment’s notice, as circumstances might require.

It was while we were huddling together under the shelter of the canvas, breaking our fast as best we could, that we became conscious of a sudden gleam of sunshine striking through our sodden canvas roof; and, hastily scrambling from under cover, I looked abroad, to behold the cheering spectacle of a wide rift in the sooty wrack away down on the eastern horizon, with a portion of the disc of the sun showing through it. As I gazed enraptured at the welcome sight the rift continued to widen, revealing a patch of primrose sky behind it merging into delicate blue above, the entire body of the sun appeared, darting his cheering beams athwart the indigo-hued, foam-crested procession of towering mountain waves, and at the same moment I became conscious of a moderating of the strength of the gale. Within the next five minutes the sky had practically cleared, great patches of deep, clean blue showing in every direction, while the tattered remnants of storm clouds were sweeping rapidly out of sight to the nor’ard. Every moment the seas were breaking less dangerously, and presently a little fleet of Portuguese men-o’-war, with their diaphanous sails spread, went driving past us. I dipped my head beneath the canvas cover and shouted joyously—

“Hurrah, good people! the gale is breaking, and before many hours are over our heads we shall be under way again, if all goes well.”

I sat watching the boat for another half-hour or so, noting all the time that the strength of the wind was steadily decreasing, and the seas breaking less dangerously, then, satisfied that the crisis was past, and the peril over, I turned the charge of the boat over to Wilkinson, who had slept through most of the night, and, stretching myself out on the bottom-boards of the stern-sheets, instantly sank into a state of blissful oblivion.

When they aroused me it was past noon, and everybody was clamouring for the mid-day meal, the task of serving out which, as well as all other meals, I had undertaken, from the first. The moment that a hand was laid upon my shoulder, sleep fled, but even as I opened my eyes I could tell, by the feel of the boat, that her motions were much less violent than they had been when I fell asleep. I scrambled to my feet and flung a hasty glance round the horizon. The sky was clear and clean, save for a big patch of light, dappled cloud in the north-eastern quarter; the sun was darting his beams fiercely down upon us; the sea, though still heavy, was no longer breaking dangerously, and the colour of the water had changed from indigo to a rich sapphire tint. The fine weather was returning.