Meantime, the Ranger stood to the southward. Adair had got almost well; he was on the look-out aloft, when his eye fell on a dark object floating on the water. At first he thought it might be a rock, then a dead whale. At length he felt convinced that it was a vessel, either capsized or with all her canvas lowered. He descended below and reported the circumstance to Captain Lascelles. The ship was steered towards the object, and his last conjecture was found to be the right one. As they got close to the vessel, a small schooner, one person only was seen walking the deck.
“That’s a midshipman, sir,” said Adair to Mr Hemming, “and I can’t make him out quite, but he looks very like Alick Murray.”
The frigate was hove-to, a boat was lowered, in which Adair went; and, sure enough, Alick Murray was the person seen. He looked ill and thin.
“My dear fellow, how do you come to be in this plight?” asked Terence, as he jumped on board the little craft.
“It’s a long story,” said Murray. “We took her to the southward off Benguela, and Captain Grant put me in charge of her to carry her to Sierra Leone. She had the fever on board, I have no doubt, at first. It broke out the other day after we parted company with the Archer, and one after the other my poor fellows died. A black man and boy, whom we took in the prize, are the only survivors, and they are still below sick with the disease. I have been waiting in hopes of their getting well and strong enough to make sail to proceed on my voyage. I’ll give you a fuller history another time.”
“The best thing you can do is to let the little craft go her own way, and come on board us,” observed Adair.
“What, Paddy, would you counsel such a course?” exclaimed Murray. “Captain Grant put me in charge of the vessel to carry her to Sierra Leone, and while I’ve life in me that is what I am bound to do.”
“Then, old fellow, I’ll go with you, if Captain Lascelles will let me,” answered Terence warmly. “That’s settled; I’ll go on board and get leave, and bring Dr McCan to have look at your people, and to leave them some physic for them to take.”
Away went Terence. He had a hard battle to fight with his captain, who, however, expressed his admiration of the spirit evinced by Murray. Needham and Wasser, and another man and boy, were directed to go on board to act as crew. Dr McCan came on board the schooner, and having prescribed for Murray and his two negroes, and pronounced them in a fair way of recovery, took his departure. Murray then made sail, and shaped a course for Sierra Leone, much happier than he had been for a long time.
* * *
* * *
Chapter Eighteen.
Who would not rather command a gunboat, or even a dispatch-vessel or fire-ship, than be a junior lieutenant, mate, or midshipman on board a line-of-battle ship, or the smartest frigate afloat. Such were Murray’s feelings as he and Adair paced the deck of the somewhat unseaworthy little schooner of which he had been placed in charge by Captain Grant. While he stood away towards Sierra Leone, the Ranger continued her course to the southward.
“I can’t say much for your accommodation,” observed Terence, after they had stood watching the fast-receding frigate, and Murray had shown him over his craft.
“I won’t boast of it, and if I had to fit out a yacht, I should choose something better,” answered Murray, laughing. The whole cabin was only eight feet long, and though it was five high in the centre, under a raised skylight, it was scarcely more than three at the sides, while being right aft, its width decreased as the stern narrowed. There was a fore-peak, in which the two poor negroes lay, but there was no room in it for more people, so that the rest of the crew were obliged to live in the after-cabin. Adair certainly did not know the discomforts to which he was subjecting himself when he undertook to accompany Murray. Not a particle of furniture was there in the cabin, the beams and sides were begrimed with dirt and cockroaches, and a considerable variety of other entomological specimens crawled in and out of every crevice in the planks, and found their way among all the provisions, as well as into every mess of food cooked on board.
The schooner was laden with tobacco and monkey-skins, which latter she had taken on board at one of the ports, in exchange for some of her tobacco, the remainder of which she was about to barter for slaves.
“Negro-head for negroes,” as Paddy remarked, when Murray gave him the account.
Several days of the voyage had passed with light winds and smooth sea, and not unpleasantly, though but little progress had been made, when as Adair, who had the first watch at night, was walking the deck, thinking that all was right, he heard a roaring noise on the port quarter. He looked astern. A long white line of curling foam came rolling up at a rapid rate towards them.
“Lower the peak, slack away the main halyards, in with the mainsail, brail up the foresail! Murray, Murray! on deck here; all hands on deck! In with the jib and down with the fore-staysail!”
The sudden quick jerking of the little vessel would soon have awakened all the watch below had his voice not done so. The sails were not lowered a moment too soon. On flew the schooner under bare poles, the seas roaring up on either side, and often breaking over her. Every man had to hold on for his life; away, away she flew; every instant plunging more and more, while the foaming seas seemed still more eager to make her their prey. Murray, attended by Wasser, disappeared below. He soon returned.
“Paddy,” he said, touching Adair on the shoulder, “I’ve bad news. We’ve sprung a leak, and I fear that the vessel is sinking.”
Both Murray and Adair had gone through so many dangers that neither of them were inclined to despair, even when they found themselves on board a little rotten vessel, plunging along through terrific seas, with a leak in her bottom, which was letting in the water at a rate which must speedily send her far down to the depths of old ocean. Away flew the little craft under bare poles, the dark seas with thick crests of white rolling up on either side of them, with loud roars and threatening to come right down upon the deck and swamp them. Tumbling about as the vessel was, it was no easy matter even to get the pump rigged in the dark. That task however, was at length accomplished, and all hands set to with a will in the hopes of clearing the vessel of water. At first it seemed to be rushing in as fast as it gushed out.
“I believe after all it was only the water which got down the hatches when the first sea broke aboard of us,” said Murray, and with this idea both he and Terence were much comforted. Drearily and wearily drew on the dark hours of that tempestuous night. Daylight came at last, and only exhibited the scene of wild commotion around; the leaden sky, the dark grey waves broken into strange shapes, leaping and rolling over each other, and covered with masses of white foam. Off that strange African coast, storms and calms succeed each other with but scant warning. By seven o’clock the wind suddenly dropped, and in another hour the sea went down and the lately wave-tossed bark lay perfectly becalmed.
“Terence,” said Murray, “look over the side of the vessel; doesn’t she strike you as being much lower in the water than she was?” Terence feared so. The well was sounded, and three feet of water was found in the hold.
“Man the pump!” cried Murray. This was done, but before many minutes had passed the pump broke. The damage was considerable; but Needham was a handy fellow, and could manage nearly any work. The two young officers lent him a hand. Night was coming on rapidly. They laboured and laboured away. It was difficult enough to do it with daylight: it was a question whether they could make any progress at all in the dark.
“There, sir!” exclaimed Needham, giving a hearty blow with his hammer, and relieving his pent-up feelings by a loud outletting of his breath between a groan and a sigh; “I hope that will do.” Without stopping a moment, he and Wasser, with White, the other seaman, seized the break, and began labouring away with all their might. To the great joy of all hands a clear full stream came gushing upon deck, and ran out through the scuppers. The blacks, and all not immediately engaged in mending the pump, had been baling away all the time with buckets. They pumped and pumped away, and after half an hour’s toil they found on sounding that they had much lessened the water in the hold.
“Huzza!” shouted Needham; “we’ll do now, never fear, lads!” Nearly three hours, however, passed before the vessel was completely cleared of water. It was Adair’s watch.
“I shall sleep more soundly than I have done for many a day,” said Murray, as he prepared to turn into his horrible little berth. “We have been so mercifully preserved, that I trust the same Almighty hand will protect us to the end of our voyage. Paddy, my dear fellow, do you ever pray? I never see you on your knees.”
“Pray!” answered Adair with some hesitation, “of course I do; that is to say, sometimes—when I recollect it. I dare say I ought more than I do.”
“Why not pray at once?” exclaimed Murray. “All on board here have been equally preserved. The same God made us all; the same God will hear our prayers.”
“Yes, yes, all right—I’ll do what you like,” said Adair.
The young midshipmen called the crew around them, after Needham took the helm. They and Wasser and the other seamen knelt on the deck, and though in no set phrases, offered up their hearty thanks for their preservation from the dangers which had threatened them; and earnestly did they pray that they might be carried in safety through those they might yet have to encounter.
With the return of daylight the weather promised to be fair, and making sail they again shaped their course for Sierra Leone. As may be supposed, even in calm weather they had no very great amount of enjoyment. When the sun shone they were almost roasted by its burning rays, and when it was obscured they were pretty well parboiled. Do all they could, also, they could not keep the cabin clear of cockroaches and numberless other creeping things. A meal was anything but an easy or pleasant operation. The only chance of not having half a dozen live creatures sticking to each mouthful was to keep not only the dishes but the plates covered up. Disagreeable as it was, Murray and Adair could not help laughing at each other as at every mouthful they had to pop in their forks under the covers, which were instantly clapped down again, and what was brought out thoroughly examined before it was committed to the mouth, while, as Adair remarked, the soup was more properly “beetle broth” than anything else. The schooner rejoiced in the name of the Venus, though, as the midshipmen agreed, she was the very ugliest Venus they had ever seen.
They were sitting at dinner one day, for the sun was too hot to keep on deck, and they had no awning.
“I say, Murray, is there not a somewhat disagreeable odour coming out from forward?” observed Adair, sniffing about. “Tobacco-ish, I find it.”
“Rather,” answered Murray, laughing. “I have perceived it for some days. It is enough to cure the most determined smoker of his love for the precious weed. It is from the tobacco we have on board. After being thoroughly wetted it has now taken to heating. However, we may hope for the best, at present it is bearable.”
A bright idea struck them soon after this. They might turn the monkey-skins to advantage. They had needles and a good supply of twine, so they set to work and neatly sewed them together till they had manufactured an awning sufficiently large to cover a good part of the deck. They could now take their meals and sleep occasionally, when the weather was fair, in fresh air, which was a great luxury. At length Wasser, who had the look-out one morning, shouted, “Land! land!—land on the starboard bow!” Everybody in a moment jumped up. After examination, Wasser declared his conviction that it was somewhere off the Gold Coast, not far from Cape Coast Castle. Still Murray and Adair agreed that it would be far better to stand on, because if they could manage to weather Cape Palmas they might have a quick run to Sierra Leone. The schooner was soon afterwards put about. No one complained, though they might have cast a wistful eye at the harbour they were leaving astern.
“We are doing what is right, depend upon it,” observed Murray. “If so, all will turn up right in the end.”
The provisions had, they knew, been running short. They now carefully examined into their stock, when, to their dismay, they found that they had only a supply remaining for three or four days.
“Never mind,” was Murray’s remark. “We will go on half-allowance. In three or four days at most we shall weather the Cape, and then we shall have sufficient provision to keep us alive till we get in.”
No one even thought of complaining of this arrangement, but took with thankfulness their half-allowance of food. Murray was much pleased with the way the men bore their privations. He never thought about himself, and took less than anyone.
Day after day they stood on, thinking that they must sight Cape Palmas before many hours had passed, and then, after making the land, they found that they could not be many miles farther to the west than they were before.
“Still we might do it, if we could but get a stiffish breeze,” observed Murray. “I think the wind is drawing out more from the north-west and east. What say you, Paddy?”
“Let’s keep at it to the last moment. I’m ready for what you are,” answered Adair.
The schooner was once more put about with her head to the westward.
Everybody whistled as they walked the deck—even the blacks did so—though they did not know the reason why.
The breeze did not come a bit the faster on that account. However, at night it blew pretty strong off the land, and their hopes again revived. But as the sun rose, it backed once more into its old quarter, and once more they had to tack. On making the land, there were the identical hillocks and clumps of trees they had before seen. Murray and Adair agreed that there must be all the time a strong current setting them to the eastward, and this, on running in closer, heaving-to, and trying the bottom with the lead, they found to be the case. Provisions for two days, and less than half-allowance, were all they had now got. Murray and Adair consulted together.
“We shall have to make for the nearest port, I fear, after all, or run the chance of starving,” said Adair.
“There is no alternative,” answered Murray with a sigh.
“We have done our best.”
“That we have,” replied Adair quickly. “There is no doubt about that. You have, that is to say:— I should have given up long ago. The sooner we shape a course for Cape Coast Castle the better.”
The schooner was kept away to retrace her steps to the eastward. But now the wind fell altogether, and they began to fear that after all they should get nowhere. The little food they had left was very bad. Gradually it disappeared, and at length they literally had nothing eatable on board.
