Miles Wallingford Part 34

"There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture; they looked, as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: A notable pa.s.sion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say, if the importance were joy, or sorrow;--but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be."

Winter's Tale.

As soon as the raft got fairly before the wind, and the breeze had freshened, I had an opportunity of ascertaining what it would do. The royal was a large one, and it stood well. I had brought a log-line and the slow-gla.s.s with me, as well as my quadrant, slate, &c., and began to think of keeping a reckoning. I had supposed the s.h.i.+p to be, when it fell calm, about two hundred miles from the land, and I knew her to be in lat.i.tude 48 37''. The log-line told me, the raft moved through the water, all that forenoon, at the rate of about half a knot in the hour; and could I keep on for fifteen or sixteen days, in a straight course, I might yet hope to get ash.o.r.e. I was not so weak, however, as to expect any such miracle to be wrought in my favour, though, had I been in the trades, the thing might have occurred. By cutting adrift the two yards, or by getting them fore and aft, in a line with the water, my rate of sailing might be doubled; and I began seriously to think of effecting this great change. Cut the yards adrift I did not like to do, their support in keeping me out of water being very important. By hauling on the lift, I did get them in a more oblique position, and in a measure thus lessened their resistance to the element. I thought that even this improvement made a difference of half a knot in my movement. Nevertheless, it was tedious work to be a whole hour in going less than a single mile, when two hundred remained to be travelled, and the risks of the ocean were thus constantly impending over one!

What a day was that! It blew pretty fresh at one time, and I began to tremble for my staging, or deck, which got washed several times, though the top-sail-yard made for it a sort of lee, and helped to protect it.

Towards the decline of the day, the wind went down, and at sunset everything was as tranquil as it had been the previous evening. I thought I might have been eight or nine miles from the spot where the Dawn went down, without computing the influence of the currents, which may have set me all that distance back again, or so much further ahead, for anything I knew of the matter. At sunset I took an anxious survey of the horizon, to see if any sail were in sight; but nothing was visible.

Another tranquil night gave me another tranquil night's rest. I call the last tranquil, as it proved to be in one sense, though I was sorely troubled with dreams. Had I been suffering for nourishment, I certainly should have dreamed of food; but, such not being the case, my thoughts took the direction of home and friends. Much of the time, I lay half asleep and half awake; then my mind would revert to my sister, to Lucy, to Mr. Hardinge, and to Clawbonny--which I fancied already in the possession of John Wallingford, who was triumphing in his owners.h.i.+p, and the success of his arts. Then I thought Lucy had purchased the place, and was living there with Andrew Drewett, in a handsome new house, built in the modern taste. By modern taste, I do not mean one of the Grecian-temple school, as I do no think that even all the vagaries of a diseased imagination that was suffering under the calamities of s.h.i.+pwreck, could induce me to imagine Lucy Hardinge silly enough to desire to live in such a structure.

Towards morning, I fell into a doze, the fourth or fifth renewal of my slumbers that night; and I remember that I had that sort of curious sensation which apprises us itself, it was a dream. In the course of the events that pa.s.sed through my mind, I fancied I overheard Marble and Neb conversing. Their voices were low, and solemn, as I thought; and the words so distinct, that I still remember every syllable.

"No, Neb," said Marble, or seemed to say, in a most sorrowful tone, one I had never heard him use even in speaking of his hermitage. "There is little hope for Miles, now. I felt as if the poor boy was lost when I saw him swept away from me, by them b.l.o.o.d.y spars striking adrift, and set him down as one gone from that moment. You've lost an A. No. 1. master, Mister Neb, I can tell you, and you may sarve a hundred before you fall in with his like ag'in."

"I nebber sarve anoder gentleum; Misser Marble," returned the black; "_dat_ as sartain as gospel. I born in 'e Wallingford family, and I lib an' die in 'e same family, or I don't want to lib and die, at all. My real name be Wallingford, dough folk do call me Clawbonny."

"Ay, and a slim family it's got to be!" rejoined the mate. "The nicest, and the handsomest, and the most virtuous young woman in all York State, is gone out of it, first: I knew but little of her; but, how often did poor Miles tell me all about her; and how he loved her, and how she loved him, and the like of all that, as is becoming; and something in the way that I love little Kitty, my niece you know, Neb, only a thousand times more; and hearing so much of a person is all the same, or even better than to know them up and down, if a body wants to feel respect with all his heart. Secondly, as a person would say, now there's Miles, lost too, for the s.h.i.+p is sartainly gone down, Neb: otherwise, she would have been seen floating hereabouts, and we may log him as a man lost overboard."

"P'rhaps not, Misser Marble," said the negro. "Ma.s.ser Mile swim like a fish, and he isn't the gentleum to give up as soon as trouble come.

P'rhaps he swimming about all dis time."

"Miles could do all that man could do, Neb, but he can't swim two hundred miles--a South sea-man might do something like that, I do suppose, but they're onaccountably web-footed. No, no, Neb; I fear we shall have to give him up. Providence swept him away from us, like, and we've lost him.

Ah's me!--well, I loved that boy better, even, than a Yankee loves cuc.u.mbers."

This may be thought an odd comparison to cross a drowsy imagination, but it was one Marble often made; and if eating the fruit, morning, noon and night, will vindicate its justice, the mate stood exonerated from everything like exaggeration.

"Ebbry body lub Ma.s.ser Mile," said the warm-hearted Neb, or I thought he so said. "I nebber see dat we _can_ go home to good old Ma.s.ser Hardinge, and tell him how we lose Ma.s.ser Mile!"

"It will be a hard job, Neb, but I greatly fear it must be done. However, we will now turn in and try to catch a nap, for the wind will be rising one of these times, and then we shall have need of keeping our eyes wide open."

After this I heard no more; but every word of that which I have related, sounded as plainly in my ears as if the speakers were within fifty feet of me. I lay in the same state, some time longer, endeavouring, as I was curious myself, of catching, or fancying, more words from those I loved so well; but no more came. Then I believe I fell into a deeper sleep, for I remember no more, for hours.

At dawn I awoke, the care on my mind answering for a call. This time, I did not wait for the sun to s.h.i.+ne in my eyes, but, of the two, I rather preceded, than awaited the return of the light. On standing erect, I found the sea as tranquil as it had been the previous night, and there was an entire calm. It was still so dusky that a little examination was necessary to be certain nothing was near. The horizon was scarcely clear, though, making my first look towards the east, objects were plainest in that quarter of the ocean. I then turned slowly round, examining the vast expanse of water as I did so; until my back was towards the approaching light, and I faced the west. I thought I saw a boat within ten yards of me! At first, I took it for illusion, and rubbed my eyes to make sure that I was awake. There it was, however, and another look satisfied me it was my own launch, or that in which poor Neb had been carried overboard. What was more, it was floating in the proper manner, appeared buoyant, and had two masts rigged. It is true, that it looked dusky, as objects appear just at dawn, but it was sufficiently distinct. I could not be mistaken; it was my own launch thus thrown within my reach by the mercy of divine Providence!

This boat, then, had survived the gale, and the winds and currents had brought it and the raft together. What had become of Neb? He must have rigged the masts, for none were stepped, of course, when the boat was in the chocks. Masts, and sails, and oars were always kept in the boat, it is true; but the first could not be stepped without hands. A strange, wild feeling came over me, as a man might be supposed to yield to the appearance of supernatural agencies and, almost without intending it, I shouted "boat ahoy!"

"Yo hoy!" answered Marble;--"who hails?"

The form of the mate appeared rising in the boat; at the next instant, Neb stood at his side. The conversation of the previous night had been real, and those whom I had mourned as lost stood within thirty feet of me, hale, hearty, and unharmed. The boat and raft had approached each other in the darkness; and, as I afterwards learned, the launch having fanned along for several hours of the night, stopped for want of wind nearly where I now saw her, and where the dialogue, part of which I overheard while half asleep, had taken place. Had the launch continued on its course only ten yards further, it would have hit the fore-top-mast. That attraction of which I have already spoken, probably kept the boat and raft near each other throughout the night, and quite likely had been slowly drawing them together while we slept.

It would not be easy to say which party was the most astonished at this recognition. There was Marble, whom I had supposed washed off the raft, safe in the launch; and here was I, whom the other two had thought to have gone down in the s.h.i.+p, safe on the raft! We appeared to have changed places, without concert and without expectation of ever again meeting.

Though ignorant of the means through which all this had been brought about, I very well know what we did, as soon as each man was certain that he saw the other standing before him in the flesh. We sat down and wept like three children. Then Neb, too impatient to wait for Marble's movements, threw himself into the sea, and swam to the raft. When he got on the staging, the honest fellow kissed my hands, again and again, blubbering the whole time like a girl of three or four years of age. This scene was interrupted only by the expostulations and proceedings of the mate.

"What's this you're doing, you b.l.o.o.d.y n.i.g.g.e.r!" cried Marble. "Desarting your station, and leaving me here, alone, to manage this heavy launch, by myself. It might be the means of losing all hands of us again, should a hurricane spring up suddenly, and wreck us over again."

The truth was, Marble began to be ashamed of the weakness he had betrayed, and was ready to set upon anything, in order to conceal it. Neb put an end to this sally, however, by plunging again into the water, and swimming back to the boat, as readily as he had come to the raft.

"Ay, here you are, Neb, n.i.g.g.e.r-like, and not knowing whether to stay or to go," growled the mate, busy the whole time in s.h.i.+pping two oars. "You put me in mind of a great singer I once heard in Liverpool; a chap that would keep shaking and quavering at the end of a va.r.s.e, in such a style that he sometimes did not know whether to let go or to hold on. It is...o...b..coming in men to forget themselves, Neb; if we have found him we thought to be lost, it is no reason for desarting our stations, or losing our wits--Miles, my dear boy," springing on the raft, and sending Neb adrift again, all alone, by the backward impetus of the leap--"Miles, my dear boy, G.o.d be praised for this!" squeezing both my hands as in a vice--"I don't know how it is--but ever since I 've fallen in with my mother and little Kitty, I've got to be womanish. I suppose it's what you call domestic affection."

Here, Marble gave in once more, blubbering just as hard as Neb, himself, had done.

A few minutes later, all three began to know what we were about. The launch was hauled up alongside of the stage, and we sat on the latter, relating the manner in which each of us had been saved. First, then, as to Neb: I have already told the mode in which the launch was swept overboard, and I inferred its loss from the violence of the tempest, and the height of the seas that were raging around us. It is true, neither Marble, nor I, saw anything of the launch after it sunk behind the first hill of water to leeward, for we had too much to attend to on board the s.h.i.+p, to have leisure to look about us. But, it seems the black was enabled to maintain the boat, the right side up, and, by bailing, to keep her afloat. He drove to leeward, of course, and the poor fellow described in vivid terms his sensations, as he saw the rate at which he was driving away from the s.h.i.+p, and the manner in which he lost sight of her remaining spars. As soon as the wind would permit, however, he stepped the masts, and set the two luggs close-reefed, making stretches of three or four miles in length, to windward. This timely decision was the probable means of saving all our lives. In the course of a few hours, after he had got the boat under command, he caught a glimpse of the fore-royal-masts sticking out from the cap of a sea, and watching it eagerly, he next perceived the whole of the raft, as it came up on the same swell, with Marble, half-drowned, lashed to the top. It was quite an hour, before Neb could get near enough to the raft, or spars, to make Marble conscious of his presence, and sometime longer ere he could get the sufferer into the boat. This rescue did not occur one minute too soon, for the mate admitted to me he was half drowned, and that he did not think he could have held out much longer, when Neb took him into the boat.

As for food and water, they fared well enough. A breaker of fresh water was kept in each boat, by my standing orders, and it seems that the cook, who was a bit of an epicure in his way, was in the habit of stowing a bag of bread, and certain choice pieces of beef and pork, in the bows of the launch, for his own special benefit. All these Neb had found, somewhat the worse for salt-water, it is true, but still in a condition to be eaten.

There was sufficient in the launch, therefore, when we thus met, to sustain Marble and Neb, in good heart, for a week.

As soon as the mate was got off the raft, he took direction of the launch.

Unluckily, he made a long stretch to the northward, intending to tack and cross what he supposed must have been the position of the s.h.i.+p, and come to my relief. While the launch was thus working its way to windward, I fell in with, and took possession of, the raft, as has been described.

Marble's calculation was a good one, in the main; but it brought him near the Dawn the night she sank, and the raft and boat were both too low to be seen at any distance, the one from the other. It is probable we were not more than ten or twelve miles asunder the most of the day I was on the raft, Marble putting up his helm to cross the supposed position of the s.h.i.+p, about three in the afternoon. This brought him down upon the raft, about midnight, when the conversation I have related took place, within a few yards of me, neither party having the least notion of the proximity of the other.

I was touched by the manner in which Marble and Neb spoke of my supposed fate. Neither seemed to remember that he was washed away from a s.h.i.+p, but appeared to fancy that I was abandoned alone, on the high seas, in a sinking vessel. While I had been regretting their misfortunes, they had both thought of me as the party to be pitied; each fancying his own fortune more happy than mine. In a word, their concern for me was so great, that they altogether forgot to dwell on the hards.h.i.+ps and dangers of their own particular cases. I could not express all I felt on the occasion; but the events of that morning, and the feelings betrayed by my two old s.h.i.+pmates, made an impression on my heart, that time has not, nor ever can, efface. Most men who had been washed overboard, would have fancied themselves the suffering party; but during the remainder of the long intercourse that succeeded, both Marble and Neb always alluded to this occurrence as if I were the person lost and rescued.

We were an hour or more intently occupied in these explanations, before either recollected the future. Then I felt it was time to have some thought for our situation, which was sufficiently precarious, as it was; though Marble and Neb made light of any risks that remained to be run. I was saved, as it might be, by a miracle; and that was all that they could remember, just then. But a breeze sprang up from the eastward, as the sun appeared, and the agitation of the raft soon satisfied me that my berth would have been most precarious, had I not been so providentially relieved. It is true, Marble made light of the present state of things, which, compared to those into which he had been so suddenly launched,--without food, water, or provisions, of any sort,--was a species of paradise. Nevertheless, no time was to be wasted; and we had a long road to travel in the boat, ere we could deem ourselves in the least safe.

My two a.s.sociates had got the launch in as good order as circ.u.mstances would allow. But it wanted ballast to carry sail hard, and they had felt this disadvantage; particularly Neb, when he first got the boat on a wind.

I could understand, by his account of the difficulties and dangers he experienced,--though it came out incidentally, and without the smallest design to magnify his own merits,--that nothing but his undying interest in me, could have prevented him from running off before the wind, in order to save his own life. An opportunity now offered to remedy this evil, and we went to work to transfer all the effects I had placed on the stage, to the launch. They made a little cargo that gave her stability at once. As soon as this was done, we entered the boat, made sail, and hauled close on a wind, under reefed luggs; it beginning to blow smartly in puffs.

I did not part from the raft without melancholy regrets. The materials of which it was composed were all that now remained of the Dawn. Then the few hours of jeopardy and loneliness I had pa.s.sed on it, were not to be forgotten. They still recur vividly to my thoughts with deep, and, I trust, profitable, reflections. The first hour after we cast off, we stood to the southward. The wind continuing to increase in violence, and the sea to get up, until it blew too fresh for the boat to make any headway, or even to hold her own against it, Marble thought he might do better on the other tack,--having some reason to suppose there was a current setting to the southward and eastward,--and we wore round. After standing to the northward for a sufficient length of time, we again fell in with the spars; a proof that we were doing nothing towards working our way to windward. I determined, at once, to make fast to them, and use them as a sort of floating anchor, so long as the foul wind lasted. We had some difficulty in effecting this object; but we finally succeeded in getting near enough, under the lee of the top, to make fast to one of its eye-bolts--using a bit of small hawser, that was in the boat, for that purpose. The boat was then dropped a sufficient distance to leeward of the spars, where it rode head to sea, like a duck. This was a fortunate expedient; as it came on to blow hard, and we had something very like a little gale of wind.

As soon as the launch was thus moored, we found its advantage. It s.h.i.+pped no more water, or very little, and we were not compelled to be on the look-out for squalls, which occurred every ten or fifteen minutes, with a violence that it would not do to trifle with. The weather thickened at these moments; and there were intervals of half an hour at a time, when we could not see a hundred yards from the boat, on account of the drizzling, misty rain that filled the atmosphere. There we sat, conversing sometimes of the past, sometimes of the future, a bubble in the midst of the raging waters of the Atlantic, filled with the confidence of seamen. With the stout boat we possessed, the food and water we had, I do not think either now felt any great concern for his fate; it being possible, in moderate weather, to run the launch far enough to reach an English port in about a week. Favoured by even a tolerably fair wind, the object might be effected in even two or three days.

"I take it for granted, Miles," Marble remarked, as we pursued our discourse, "that your insurance will completely cover your whole loss? You did not forget to include freight in the risks?"

"So far from this, Moses, I believe myself to be nearly or quite a ruined man. The loss of the s.h.i.+p is unquestionably owing to the act of the Speedy, united to our own, in setting those Englishmen adrift on the ocean. No insurers will meet a policy that has thus been voided."

"Ah! the blackguards!--This is worse than I had thought;--but you can always make a harbour at Clawbonny?"

I was on the point of explaining to Marble how I stood in relation to the paternal acres, when a sort of shadow was suddenly cast on the boat, and I fancied the rus.h.i.+ng of the water seemed to be increased at the same instant. We all three sat with our faces to leeward, and all turned them to windward under a common impulse. A shout burst from Marble's throat, and a sight met my eyes, that caused the blood to rush in a torrent through my heart. Literally within a hundred feet of us, was a large s.h.i.+p, ploughing the ocean with a furrow that rose to her hawse-holes, and piling before her, in her track, a mound of foam, as she came down upon us, with top-mast and lower studding-sails set--overshadowing the sea, like some huge cloud. There was scarcely time for more than a glance, ere this s.h.i.+p was nearly upon us. As she rose on a swell, her black sides came up out of the ocean, glittering and dripping, and the tine of frowning guns seemed as if just lacquered. Neb was in the bow of the launch, while I was in the stern. My arm was extended involuntarily, or instinctively would be the better word, to avert the danger, when it seemed to me that the next send of the s.h.i.+p would crush us beneath the bright copper of her bottom.

Without Neb's strength and presence of mind, we had been lost beyond a hope; for swimming up to the spars against the sea that was on, would have been next to hopeless; and even if there, without food, or water, our fate would have been sealed. But Neb seized the hawser by which we were riding, and hauled the launch ahead her length, or more, before the frigate's larboard bower-anchor settled down in a way that menaced crus.h.i.+ng us. As it was, I actually laid a hand on the muzzle of the third gun, while the s.h.i.+p went foaming by. At the next instant she was past; and we were safe.

Then all three of us shouted together. Until that moment, none in the frigate were aware of our vicinity. But the shout gave the alarm, and as the s.h.i.+p cleared us, her taffrail was covered with officers. Among them was one grey-headed man, whom I recognised by his dress for the captain.

He made a gesture, turning an arm upward, and I knew an order was given immediately after, by the instantaneous manner in which the taffrail was cleared.

"By George!" exclaimed Marble, "I had a generalizing time of it, for half a dozen seconds, Miles."

"There was more risk," I answered, "than time to reflect on it. However, the s.h.i.+p is about to round-to, and we shall be picked up, at last. Let us thank G.o.d for this."

It was indeed a beautiful sight for a seaman, to note the manner in which that old captain handled his vessel. Although we found the wind and sea too much for a boat that had to turn to windward, neither was of much moment to a stout frigate, that carried fifty guns, and which was running off, with the wind on her quarter.

She was hardly past us, when I could see preparations making to take in canva.s.s. At the instant she overshadowed us with her huge wings, this vessel had top-gallant-sails set, with two top-mast, and a lower studding-sail, besides carrying the lee-clew of her main-sail down, and the other customary cloth spread. Up went her main-sail, almost as soon as the captain made the signal with his arm; then all three of the top-gallant-sails were flying at the same moment. Presently, the yards were alive with men, and the loose canva.s.s was rolled up, and the gaskets pa.s.sed. While this was doing, down came all the studding-sails together, much as a bird shuts its wings. The booms disappeared immediately after.

"Look at that, Miles!" cried the delighted Marble. "Although a b.l.o.o.d.y Englishman, that chap leaves nothing to be done over again. He puts everything in its place, like an old woman stowing away her needles and thread. I'll warrant you, the old blade is a keen one!"

"The s.h.i.+p is well handled, certainly, and her people work like mariners who are trying to save the lives of mariners."

While this was pa.s.sing between us, the frigate was stripped to her three top-sails, spanker, jib, and fore-course Down came her yards, next; and then they were covered with blue-jackets, like bees cl.u.s.tering around a hive. We had scarcely time to note this, ere the men lay in, and the yards were up again, with the sails reefed. This was no sooner done, than the frigate, which had luffed the instant the steering-sails were in, was trimmed close on a wind, and began to toss the water over her sprit-sail-yard, as she met the waves like one that paid them no heed. No sooner was the old seaman who directed all this, a.s.sured of the strength of the wind he had to meet, than down went his main-sail again, and the tack was hauled aboard.

The stranger was then under the smartest canva.s.s a frigate can carry; reefs in her top-sails, with the courses set. Her sail could be shortened in an instant, yet she was under a press of it; more than an ordinary vessel would presume to carry, perhaps, in so strong a breeze.