The Castaways Part 16

And therewith he hurried away forward again, and in a few minutes a man came aft and took over the wheel. I hurried below, and found Miss Onslow engaged upon some needlework. She looked up with a bright smile of welcome as I entered, but immediately sprang to her feet, exclaiming:

"Charlie! what has happened? You are as white as a ghost! Have you received information of any fresh villainy?"

"No, dear, no," I interrupted. "Something very serious has certainly happened, but this time it concerns us only very indirectly. The men have been quarrelling and fighting among themselves in the forecastle, and one or two of them are rather seriously hurt. May I enter your cabin for a moment, sweetheart? There is a medicine-chest there, with, probably, a supply of surgical bandages and so on. I will take the whole affair for'ard, as until I have seen precisely what is the matter it will be impossible for me to know what I shall require."

"Then, Charlie, are you going to dress the injuries of those wretched men?" she asked.

"Yes, dear," I answered; "you need not be uneasy, however; they will not hurt me. They will be quiet enough for some time after this, I expect; and possibly the occurrence may have the effect of causing them to determine on adopting some less inhuman method than murder to get rid of us."

"G.o.d grant it--if it should come to the worst," answered the dear girl.

"But, Charlie, I was not afraid on your behalf, dear; they will scarcely lay hands on you while you are engaged in alleviating their sufferings.

I was about to ask whether you think _I_ could be of any use; whether I should go with you."

"Certainly not!" answered I, in accents of sternness that were, however, levelled at the brutes forward, not at the sweet woman who was so ready to forget all that she had endured at the hands of these ruffians, and to undertake, she knew not what, in her willingness to forgive and help them. "No," I continued, "you will remain here, darling; this is your end of the s.h.i.+p, and you can do no better than stick to it. Whatever may be necessary to be done forward, I can and will do."

I secured the medicine-chest--which luckily happened to be a fairly big one for a vessel of the brig's size--and carried it forward to the fore-scuttle, where one of the seamen relieved me of it and pa.s.sed it below. Half a dozen or so of the gang were now on deck, looking very crestfallen and subdued--to such an extent, indeed, that they actually knuckled their foreheads to me as I appeared among them. I did not waste time, however, by attempting to bring home to them the evil of their ways, but descended at once into the dark, grimy, and evil-smelling hole where, until a few minutes ago, fourteen men had lived in such comfort and harmony as go to make pleasant the existence of forecastle Jack. Heavens! what a filthy place it was! and how woefully changed for the worse since I had last entered it--which was before it had received its present tenants. It was bad enough, even then; but it was infinitely worse now. It was a triangular-shaped apartment, the apex of the triangle being the "eyes" of the vessel. It was barely six feet high from the deck to the under side of the beams, and deck, walls, beams, and roof were all of one uniform tint of greasy black, the result of a coating of dirt so thick that it could actually be sc.r.a.ped off with a knife, or with one's fingernail. It was fitted all round with a double row of bunks, and in addition to them a number of hammocks swung from the beams. The place was unlighted, save by means of the scuttle, and by a kettle-shaped slush-lamp that swung, flaring and emitting a long streamer of fat, black smoke, from the centre beam. The deck was enc.u.mbered with the sea-chests of the original occupants--which had been taken possession of by O'Gorman and his gang--and was littered with tin plates, pannikins, fragments of food, and empty and broken bottles; while its atmosphere was foul with foetid odours, prominent among which were those of bilge-water and c.o.c.kroaches! Three of the bunks in the lower tier were occupied--two of the occupants lying quiet and still, while the third moved restlessly at intervals, emitting low moans the while--and four men, evidently hurt, reclined upon the deck, with their backs propped up against sea-chests.

As for O'Gorman, he stood close by the swaying lamp, holding a dirty, bloodstained rag to his gashed cheek as his eyes rolled gloomily and sullenly about the dark and stifling hole.

I gave my attention first to the figures in the bunks, beginning with the still and silent ones. The one I first approached happened to be the man named Tom. He was lying on his right side, with his white face toward the light, his eyes partly closed and showing nothing but the whites, and a fearful gash about four inches long in the left side of his throat, from which the blood seemed to have been pouring as from a pump, judging from the appearance of his clothes and the bunk; it was merely oozing now. I seized his hand and felt for his pulse; there was none. I tore open his saturated s.h.i.+rt and laid my hand upon his breast; there seemed to be an occasional slight flutter of the heart, but if so, it was so exceedingly faint as to render the matter extremely doubtful; it was clear that the unfortunate man had bled, or was bleeding, to death, and was far beyond such poor and inefficient help as I could afford him. I left him, therefore, and turned to the next bunk, which I now saw was occupied by the body of the carpenter. He lay, stretched out on his back, just as he had been tossed in, and might have been asleep but for the ghastly pallor of his face and the tell-tale purple stain upon the breast of his waistcoat and s.h.i.+rt. He was dead, beyond all doubt; so I turned to the next man, who proved to be a gigantic Dutchman named Dirk Van Zyl, the author of all the trouble. This man, I presently discovered, had received no fewer than nine wounds, four of which, from their extent and situation, I considered desperate. He groaned, and cried, and screamed in the most bloodcurdling fas.h.i.+on when I began to examine him, begging that he might be left alone to die in peace; but I washed his wounds, one by one, and bound or st.i.tched them up as best I could--the job occupying fully three-quarters of an hour-- and when I at length left him, he seemed somewhat easier. The next man claiming my attention was an Irishman named Mike, whose left hand had been struck by the Dutchman's knife such a savage blow exactly on the joint of the wrist that the member was nearly severed. I could do nothing with such an injury as that but bind it up tightly, and place the hand and forearm in splints and a sling, leaving Nature to work out the rest of the cure, if she would. There were three other men who had received rather serious hurts, and for whom I did my best; and finally, I st.i.tched up O'Gorman's face for him, which completed a fairly stiff morning's surgical work. Then, having again examined the man Tom, and found him to be quite dead, I carefully cleansed myself from all traces of my ghastly labour and went aft, reaching the cabin just in time for dinner.

While taking my after-dinner smoke that afternoon, I carefully considered the situation as it had now become altered by the fatal fracas in the forecastle; and--having no desire to be deemed a better man than I really am--I may as well confess at once that, while I was profoundly shocked by what had occurred, it was quite impossible for me to regret it. Indeed, to have done so would have been unnatural, for-- apart altogether from the hards.h.i.+p and anxiety that these men had already so callously inflicted upon me, and the woman who was infinitely dearer than life to me--I could not forget that they had all planned and agreed together in cold blood to deliberately destroy my sweetheart and myself, not one of them, except Harry--so far as my information went-- possessing even the small modic.u.m of humanity that would have prompted him to demur at the decision, and to urge the adoption of a less fatally stringent course. I therefore felt little or no pity for any of the victims; while, so far as the ultimate escape of Miss Onslow and myself was concerned, the prospect of such a result was distinctly improved by the loss, on the part of our enemies, of two killed and six wounded, of whom three of the latter were unfit for duty. This reduced the number of O'Gorman's gang to nine effectives, or, deducting the cook and steward, a working-party of seven, all told, who would have to be divided into two watches. As I reflected carefully upon the matter, looking at it in all its bearings, it seemed that the moment was opportune for me to endeavour to secure something more than the intermittent and shadowy authority that I had thus far been permitted to exercise; and accordingly, when I next visited the forecastle, for the purpose of taking a look at my patients--which was near the end of the second dog-watch, that evening--I bluntly directed O'Gorman's attention to the fact that we were now short-handed, and suggested that I should take command of one of the watches. He considered the question for some few minutes, but was suffering altogether too acutely from the smart of his gashed cheek to be able to reflect very deeply upon any subject, and at length yielded a rather sulky and surly a.s.sent to my proposal, the more readily, perhaps, since he had no one now left whom he could trust to take Price's place. I was careful to select for my command the watch of which the man Harry was a member, since by so doing we should both be on deck at the same time, and I should thus have an excellent opportunity of conversing with him during the darkness of the night watches, without attracting observation or arousing suspicion.

That same night, as soon as it was fairly dark, the bodies of Price and the seaman Tom--unshrouded, and simply prepared for burial by the attachment to their feet of an iron bar apiece, heavy enough to sink them--were unceremoniously launched over the side, without the slightest symptom of emotion; and in another half-hour their shares of the gems were distributed, more or less evenly, among the survivors, the man Dirk excepted.

On the third day after the tragedy that I have just described, a momentary glimpse of the sun during the forenoon enabled me to confirm my dead reckoning, and to satisfactorily establish the fact that we were actually a few miles to the eastward of the dreaded Horn, although with less southing than I could have wished; the southerly wind that had prevailed for some time having gradually gone round to the eastward so far that it at length became questionable whether we should succeed in weathering the land, and so pa.s.sing into the Atlantic. And, to make matters worse, the wind continued not only to work round but also to increase in strength, to such an extent that at length the brig, instead of heading east, had broken off to due north, while it had become necessary to snug her down to close-reefed topsails and fore-topmast staysail. The thick weather, moreover, added another element of anxiety, since I had only succeeded in gaining one solitary sight of the sun for nearly a week--and that not when he was on the meridian, hence I was quite unable to determine my exact lat.i.tude. But the next morning, shortly after daylight, when by my reckoning I had still forty odd miles of sea-room, land was made ahead, some five miles distant; and upon standing in a little closer, I was at length enabled to identify it as the headland of Cape Horn itself. Whereupon, we immediately wore round, and stretched away to the southward on the larboard tack, I for one being intensely thankful that we had made the notorious cape during daylight, but for which happy chance the brig would in all probability have gone ash.o.r.e, and our adventure would have there and then come to a premature end.

But although fortune had so far favoured us that we were enabled for the present to avoid disaster, it was disappointing to discover that our lee drift had been so excessive as to have caused us to lose ground, while the slow but steady downward tendency of the mercury seemed to indicate that, so far from our being justified in expecting any immediate improvement in the weather, there was but too good reason to fear that a change from bad to worse was imminent.

And it needed but a few hours' further experience to prove how well founded were those apprehensions. For, as the day wore on, the aspect of the sky to windward grew increasingly menacing, the hue of the thick canopy of vapour becoming hourly darker and more louring, while the shredded clouds packed ever closer together in larger ma.s.ses and of wilder and more threatening form and colour, and the wind strengthened until it was blowing a full gale, while the already heavy sea gathered weight so fast that by eight bells in the afternoon watch it had, in my opinion, become perilous to continue sailing the brig, and I accordingly proposed to O'Gorman that we should stow the topsails, and heave-to under storm staysails.

Now, the experience of the first day or two after the fight in the forecastle had led me to hope that the tragedy of the occurrence had frightened and sobered the men so thoroughly that there would be no more trouble with them, so far at least as drink was concerned; but therein I gave them credit for a higher standard of feeling than they possessed; such sobering influence as the incident had exercised upon the fellows had quickly evaporated, and on the particular day to which I am now referring the demon of drink had once more brought them under his influence with just enough effect to render them, one and all, reckless, defiant, and utterly unmanageable. Consequently, my proposal to shorten sail and heave-to was met with scornful jeers and a point-blank refusal to do any work whatsoever. And the worst of it was that I had held on with the canvas so long that the whole available strength in the s.h.i.+p was now needed to successfully handle it, any attempt to do anything unaided, or with the a.s.sistance of only one or two men, being worse than useless. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to let the two double-reefed topsails stand as they were, and blow away or not as fate might decide.

There was one comfort--and only one--to be found in the condition of affairs that I have endeavoured to indicate, and that was that the brig, heavily pressed as she was by her canvas, was ratching fast through the water on a course that was not only carrying her off the land but also somewhat to the eastward, so that, with the moderating of the gale, or even a slight s.h.i.+ft of wind, we might hope to pa.s.s clear into the Atlantic.

But, after all, the amount of comfort to be derived from this reflection was but small and fleeting in face of the steadily-increasing strength of the gale and the rapidly-growing height and steepness of the sea; even as it was, the man Harry, who happened to be at the wheel at the moment that I now have in mind, found his strength and skill taxed to the utmost to humour the brig along through that wild sea, the perspiration streaming from every pore of him as he stood there, fully exposed to the keen and nipping fury of the blast; and it was perfectly evident that, unless something were speedily done, disaster must quickly overtake us.

And something _was_ presently done; for although my representations and suggestion had been met and rejected with scorn and derision, an argument of a most convincing character was soon brought to bear upon the contumacious ones, in the shape of a green sea that came right in over the bows, half-filling the forecastle, and frightening the occupants out of their wits, while it carried away some thirty feet of bulwark on the port side. The deluge of water that poured down through the fore-scuttle was sufficient in volume to actually wash several of the men out of their bunks; and the instant that the inpour ceased, all hands with one accord sprang for the opening, fighting together like savage beasts in their anxiety to reach the deck. But although that unlucky sea had inflicted upon the poor little over-driven brig a rather serious amount of damage, it had produced at least one good result: it had completely sobered all hands and brought them to a realising sense of the necessity to take immediate steps for the prevention of further mischief.

As the fellows gained the deck and saw the great gap in the bulwarks, and observed the height, steepness, and generally dangerous character of the sea, something very like a panic seized them, and they came rus.h.i.+ng aft, with loud and excited outcries, demanding to know what had happened. Meanwhile I had sprung to the wheel, to the a.s.sistance of the helmsman, who, it was quite clear, was nearly exhausted by his tremendous and continued efforts to control the movements of the brig.

"Never mind what has happened," answered I. "What is done, is done, and cannot be helped. What you have now to do is to get down the last reef in those topsails, and take in the fore-topmast staysail, when we will heave-to. Let go your fore and main-topsail halliards, man your reef-tackles, and then away aloft, all hands of you, before worse happens!"

The fellows, by this time quite sober, and fully alive to the perils of their situation, needed no second bidding, but sprang about the deck with all the eager, impetuous haste of men fighting for their lives; and in less time than I could have believed possible they had bowsed out the reef-tackles and were in the fore rigging, on their way aloft to complete the operation of reefing the fore-topsail. O'Gorman set a good example by himself taking the weather yardarm and pa.s.sing the earring, and all hands were busily engaged in knotting the points when another mountainous sea came swooping savagely down upon us with upreared, hissing crest. I saw that it must inevitably break aboard us, and uttered a loud yell of warning to the hands aloft, who raised an answering shout of dismay as they gazed in horror at the oncoming liquid hill, the crest of which must have been very nearly as high as themselves. Some of them, abandoning their task, sprang for the rigging, and, by the exercise of superhuman agility, actually contrived to reach the top; but the rest remained upon the yard to gaze, apparently paralysed with terror. The poor little brig seemed to shudder, like a sentient thing, as the great wall of water crashed down upon her, burying her to the foremast; and then I saw the whole mast buckle like a fis.h.i.+ng-rod when a strong, heavy fish begins to fight for his life, there was a crash of timber as the topmast snapped short off at the cap, and the next instant away went the whole of the top-hamper over the side, flinging far into the raging sea the four unfortunates who had remained clinging to the yardarms! As for the sea, it swept right aft, filling the decks to the rail, smas.h.i.+ng to splinters the boat that was stowed on the main hatch, and carrying away the entire bulwarks on both sides as far aft as the main rigging. By the time that the decks were clear of water, and we were free to think of other matters than our own individual safety, the four men who had been flung overboard--and one of whom was O'Gorman--had disappeared for ever, and we had made the discovery that we had lost our bowsprit and main-topgallant mast, as well as the fore-topmast, and that we had more than four feet of water in the hold. All this, mind you, with night close upon us!

The loss of all head sail of course at once rendered the brig unmanageable, and thus--apart from the effect of the further damage sustained--our situation immediately became one of the extremest peril, a circ.u.mstance which, coupled with the tragic disappearance of their leader from their midst, completely cowed and subdued the survivors, to the extent, indeed, of impelling them to come aft and implore me to take full command of the brig. Needless to say I made no difficulty about acceding to this request; for prompt measures were imperative if the vessel was to be saved, and, with her, Florence's and my own life; so without pausing to read the men a moral lesson upon the evils of intemperance, I forthwith issued orders for the goose-winged foresail to be set, by which means we were at length enabled to get the brig before the wind, and thus escape the immediate peril of being swamped. This achieved, the wreck of the fore-topmast and bowsprit was cut away, all canvas was furled, and the brig was once more brought to the wind, and hove-to under bare poles. Then, although the men were inclined to grumble, I insisted upon their going to the pumps and relieving the brig of at least a portion of the water in her hold; for there were times when, the water having acc.u.mulated forward, the poor little craft became pinned down by the head to so dangerous an extent that it would have been absolutely suicidal to have left her in that condition. The fellows toiled on until past two bells in the middle watch--by which time they had reduced the depth of water in the hold to two feet--and then knocked off, utterly exhausted, to go below and turn in; while I undertook to keep the deck and watch the s.h.i.+p for the remainder of the night.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

OUR ESCAPE AND RESCUE.

The brig, as she lay hove-to, rode comparatively easy and dry, requiring no attention; all, therefore, that I had to do was to maintain a sharp lookout, and be ready to show a light betimes in the event of another craft heaving in sight and steering such a course as would be likely to bring her foul of us. But while my self-imposed duty was thus a light one, demanding only alertness on my part, the situation and condition of the brig were such as to cause me profound anxiety, which was in no degree lessened by the loss of the four men who had gone overboard with the wreck of the fore-topmast. Had the s.h.i.+p been sound this last circ.u.mstance would have caused me no regret whatever, for the simple reason that their loss reduced the number of my enemies by four; but their loss, and the casualties due to the fracas in the forecastle, resulted in the reduction of the number of the effective crew to six, of whom the cook and the steward were two who could be relied upon for little or nothing more than mere pulling and hauling, while, of the remaining four, two were still suffering from wounds sufficiently severe to partially disable them; and this reduction, with the brig practically a wreck, was a serious one. Moreover, the gla.s.s remained very low, and there was no indication whatever of the speedy abatement of the gale, or even any ground for hope that we had seen the worst of it; on the contrary, the sky looked wilder than ever, while the gusts of wind that frequently swept down upon us were certainly growing more savage as the minutes dragged their slow length away.

At length, after what seemed like an eternity of watching, the lagging dawn came slowly oozing out of the scowling east, revealing a sky of portentous gloom, of a deep, slatey-purple tint, blotched with shreds of flying dirty-white vapour, and a sea that was positively appalling in its height and steepness, and the fury with which it ran. Yet, heavy as was the sea, and swiftly as the great liquid hills came swooping down upon the battered brig, the little craft rode them fairly well, if a trifle languidly--which latter characteristic I attributed to the quant.i.ty of water still present in her hull; and after studying her behaviour by daylight for a full half-hour, I came to the conclusion that the sooner that water should be pumped out of her, the better. So, watching my opportunity, I rushed for'ard along the unprotected deck-- over which the water washed heavily at times--and called all hands to turn out and pump the s.h.i.+p dry; and after a great deal of grumbling, and much show of disinclination, I at length succeeded in getting them on deck, and persuading them to man the pumps. They pumped steadily until it was time to knock off for breakfast, when we sounded the well, and found a depth of twenty-one inches.

Breakfast, that morning, was rather a comfortless meal, for the cook, terrified lest he and his galley should be washed overboard together, had not furnished a very appetising spread; while the wild movements of the vessel, the harsh and dismal creaking of her timbers, the frequent heavy was.h.i.+ng of water along the decks, and the roar of the gale, all combining together to create a concert of doleful sounds, rendered the cabin a distinctly unpleasant place, of sojourn; I therefore made no long tarrying at the table, merely remaining below long enough to s.n.a.t.c.h a hasty meal, and to say a few words of comfort and encouragement to my sweetheart, and then hurried on deck again, to see how matters were faring there.

The scene that met my gaze as I emerged from the companion, was depressing and discouraging in the extreme. The sky looked darker and more threatening than ever; the wind was freshening rapidly, and sweeping along in savage gusts that smote the seething wave-crests and tore them into blinding, stinging showers of salt spray, that so thickened the atmosphere as to completely veil and hide everything beyond a distance of half a mile. The sea, mountainous as it had been all through the night, had grown in steepness and height, and had acquired a still more formidable and menacing run during the short time that I had been below; while the fact was unquestionable that the brig was labouring more heavily, and the sea was.h.i.+ng in steadily-increasing volume athwart that portion of her deck that lay unprotected through the loss of her bulwarks. It appeared to me that we should do better and ride easier if we showed a small spread of canvas--just sufficient to steady the vessel, to cause her to turn up a good bold weather side to the seas, and to place her under command of her helm; and I accordingly dodged my way to the fore-scuttle, and sang out for all hands to come on deck to make sail. They came at length, four of them, moving with that slow and exasperating deliberation that the merchant seaman a.s.sumes when he considers that he is being put upon; and at length, by dint of sheer persistence, I induced them to overhaul the sail-locker, with the result that we found a main staysail, new, and made of good stout canvas, evidently intended for a storm sail, which, still working with the same deliberation and show of indifference, they finally consented to bend and set. The result was at once apparent: the brig began to move through the water, taking the seas very much easier as she was humoured at them with the helm, while the increased height of weather side that she turned up had the effect of considerably lessening the amount of water was.h.i.+ng over the deck, and rendering the task of getting fore and aft comparatively safe.

But I was still not satisfied; great as was the improvement effected by the setting of the staysail, the brig yet seemed to labour more heavily than was to be reasonably accounted for, even by the fact that she had water in the hold; and then it occurred to me to sound the well afresh and ascertain whether the amount of that water was increasing. I accordingly fetched the rod, carefully dried it, and, watching until the brig was for an instant on an even keel, lowered it down the pump barrel. Upon withdrawing it the startling discovery was made that since the men had last been at the pumps the depth of water in the hold had increased by three inches! The water was draining into the hull, somewhere, and that, too, in sufficient quant.i.ty to keep us busy. I directed the attention of the men to the condition of the pump rod; and with deep, bitter curses levelled at the weather, the brig--at everything, in short, except the indifference of themselves and their s.h.i.+pmates that had brought us all to this pa.s.s--they went to work afresh at the pumps, while I made my way to the forecastle, and, as was my daily wont, attended to the injuries of the two wounded men, Dirk and Mike, who were confined to their bunks. With the brig leaping and plunging so desperately my task was by no means an easy one, and upon this occasion it occupied me so long, that ere I had quite finished, the other men came below, still cursing and grumbling, to get their dinner.

I inquired whether they had succeeded in reducing the quant.i.ty of water in the hold at all, and was informed--with further curses--that they had only reduced it by about two inches, and that they were willing to be eternally condemned if they ever laid a hand upon the pump brake again.

But about six bells in the afternoon watch, while I was at the wheel, the man Harry came aft, sounded the well, and shouting to me "twenty-six inches," went for'ard again; with the result that, a quarter of an hour or so later, they all came aft once more, and continued pumping for nearly two hours; with what effect, however, I could not say, for none of them condescended to inform me. Nor did either of them offer to relieve me at the wheel; but that I was not at all surprised at, as they doubtless considered that what they had done at the pumps was quite as much as could be expected of them. I was not forgotten, however; for Florence, making use of the fire that I had caused to be lighted in the cabin-stove, prepared for me a most substantial and appetising meal, consisting of toasted rashers of ham, cabin bread--carefully cleared of weevils--and tea, which she actually brought on deck to me, standing by me and tending the wheel in the cleverest fas.h.i.+on while I hurriedly devoured the food! Not satisfied with doing this for me, the dear girl, knowing that I had been on deck all the previous night, actually proposed remaining at the wheel, in the midst of all the elemental fury, long enough to enable me to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep! What think you of that, s.h.i.+pmates, for devotion on the part of a sweetheart? But that, of course, was going altogether beyond the utmost that I could possibly consent to, and, thanking her heartily for her generous solicitude, I sent her below, with strict injunctions to turn in early and secure a good night's rest. For--although I was careful not to hint as much to her even in the most distant fas.h.i.+on--I did not at all like the way that matters were going with us; the leak and the men's aversion to the labour of pumping, taken together, made up a bad lookout, and I foresaw that unless a change for the better in one respect or the other soon took place, it would speedily come to our being obliged to take to the boats.

Throughout the whole of that wet, wild, cheerless night I stood at the wheel, tending the s.h.i.+p and helping her through the seas; and it was not until dawn was abroad that anyone came to relieve me; when c.o.c.kney Harry made his appearance, staggering and dodging his way aft along the flooded decks.

"Mornin', sir," he remarked as he took over the wheel from me. "You looks dead wore out, you do. You surely ain't been at this here muckin'

wheel the whole blessed night, have ye, sir?"

"Certainly I have," said I, "seeing that the brig had to be looked after, and neither of you men saw fit to relieve me!"

"Well," admitted the fellow, "that's a howlin' s.h.i.+me, and no mistike.

The fact is that we was all dead tired with sweatin' at them infernal pumps. I _meant_ to ha' come along and took a spell at water-grindin', but in w'itin' for them swines to all go to sleep I went to sleep myself, and never woke up agine until five minutes ago."

"Quite so," said I drily. "But, if you really intended to have relieved me, why have waited until the rest were asleep?"

"Well, ye see, sir, it was this way," answered the man. "When we went below lawst night, after knockin' off pumping all hands of us was on the growl, 'cause of the heavy work we'd had to do; and Sam up and said that the best thing we could do 'd be to tike to the boats, as soon as the gale broke, and let the blessed old hooker go to the bottom, rather than have to keep all on pumpin' of her everlastin'ly until we fetched a port. And the rest of 'em agreed with him. Then Dirk ups and asts what was to be done with you and the lidy; and, n.o.body else seemin' to have a hawnser ready, I says that I supposes you'll both have to come with us.

But Dirk, he says No; it won't never do for you to land along of us; you knows enough to hang some of us, and he for one don't mean to take no risks; and t'others all agreed with him; and at last 'twas settled that if the leak don't take up when the gale breaks, we're to take to the boats, leavin' you and the lidy aboard to go down with the brig. I thought I'd wait and hear if anybody had anything else to say about it afore comin' aft to relieve you; and it was while I was w'itin' that I dropped asleep."

"Thank you, Harry, for affording me this very important item of information," said I. "You are a good sort of fellow, and you may depend upon it that I will not forget the service you have done me. And so that scoundrel Dirk would leave the lady and me to drown, would he, after all that I have done for him? Very well! Now, Harry, neither Miss Onslow nor I will be left aboard here to drown, you may take your oath of that. It is clear to me, now, that it must be war to the death between the forecastle and the cabin, and I shall take my measures accordingly. The question is: Which side--cabin or forecastle--do you intend to be on? If you choose to join me, I will do what I can for you; and if you elect to throw in your lot with those murderers for'ard, I will still bear you in mind, so far as I can, consistently with the lady's and my own safety."

"Thank'ee, sir," answered the fellow. "If I might make so bold, sir, what do you intend to do?"

"That," said I, "I can only tell you in the event of your coming over on my side."

"Very well, sir," returned he, "I'll think it over while you're tikin' a rest, and let you know when you come on deck agine."

And therewith I went below and, flinging myself into my bunk, at once fell into a profound and dreamless sleep that lasted until I was awakened by the discordant clank of the pumps, about four bells in the forenoon watch, when I found Miss Onslow patiently awaiting me in the cabin, with another hot meal all ready for my delectation.

It was apparent to me, immediately upon awaking, that the gale had broken; and when I went on deck I found that the sky had cleared to windward, showing here and there fast--widening patches of blue sky, while the wind had already dropped to the strength of a strong breeze; the sea, however, showed little diminution of height, although it was no longer so steep, nor was it now breaking dangerously; but the brig was rolling as furiously and more sluggishly than ever; and the clear water that gushed from the pumps told a tale that there was no mistaking. I noticed that five men were now working at the pumps--the cook and steward being two of them--and all hands were growling together, and cursing both loud and deep as they toiled at the brakes.

"Well, lads," said I, approaching them, "what is the news from the pumps? Is there any hope of getting them to suck?"

"Suck?" exclaimed one of them, in tones of ineffable disgust. "No, they'll never suck no more in this world. There's up'ards o' three feet o' water in the hooker, now, and she's gainin' on us at the rate o' two inches an hour while we pumps at her. She's bound to the bottom, she is; and I only hopes she'll keep afloat long enough to let us get the boats afloat without smas.h.i.+n' of 'em to smithereens alongside.

Whereabouts is the nearest land, mister; and how fur off is it?"

"Ask me after I have taken my sights at noon--it looks as though I shall be able to get the sun to-day--and I will tell you," said I. Then, finding the men sulky, and quite tired of listening to their curses, I went aft and relieved the wheel, remaining there until about a quarter of an hour to midday, when, the sky having cleared, I sang out for somebody to relieve me while I "shot the sun." It was Harry who came at my call; and as he took over the wheel he remarked, just loud enough for me to hear, and staring away to windward as he spoke:

"I've made up my mind, sir; I'm with you and the lidy. I ain't agoin'