Picked up at Sea Part 18

But the boy would not stop weeping; and Seth, thinking that some harm might result to his newly-awakened reason if he went on like that, strode to the door and summoned help, with a stentorian hail that rang through the valley as loudly as the cheer of the miners had done one instant before.

"Ahoy there, all hands on deck!" he shouted, hardly knowing what he was saying, adding a moment afterwards, "Wilton, you're wanted! Look sharp."

"Here I am," cried Wilton, hurrying up, with Mr Rawlings after him.

"What is the matter now, Seth?"

"I can't make him do nothing" said that worthy hopelessly. "He takes me to be some c.o.o.n or other called Sam, an' then when I speaks he turns on the water-power and goes on dreadful, that I'm afeard he'll do himself harm. Can't you quiet him, Wilton; he kinder knowed you jest now?"

"I'll try," said Ernest; and kneeling by the boy's side, he drew his hands away from his face and gently spoke to him.

"Frank! look at me: don't you know me?"

"Ye-e-es," sobbed he, "you--_you_ are Ernest. But how did you come here? you weren't on board the s.h.i.+p. Oh, father! where are you, and all the rest?"

And the boy burst out crying again, in an agony of grief which was quite painful to witness.

Presently, however, he grew more composed; and, in a broken way, Ernest managed to get his story from him--a terrible tale of mutiny, and robbery, and murder on the high seas.

This was his story, as far as could be gathered from his disconnected details.

Frank Lester, much against his mother's wishes, had persuaded his father to take him with him in the early part of the previous year to the diamond fields in South Africa, whither Mr Lester was going for the purpose of purchasing some of the best stones he could get for a large firm who intrusted him with the commission. The object of the journey had been safely accomplished, and Mr Lester and Frank reached Cape Town, where they took their return pa.s.sage to England in a vessel called the _Dragon King_.

Seth nudged Mr Rawlings at this point.

"Didn't I say that was the name of the desarted s.h.i.+p?" he asked in a whisper.

And Mr Rawlings nodded his a.s.sent.

The _Dragon King_--to continue Frank's, or Sailor Bill's story--was commanded by a rough sort of captain, who was continually swearing at the men and ill-treating them; and, in the middle of the voyage a mutiny broke out on board, started originally by some of the hands who wished merely to deprive the captain of his authority, and put the first mate, who was much liked by the men, in his place; but the outbreak was taken advantage of by a parcel of desperadoes and ne'er-do-weels, who were returning home empty handed from the diamond diggings, and were glad of the opportunity of plundering the s.h.i.+p and pa.s.sengers--whence the mutiny, from being first of an almost peaceful character, degenerated into a scene of bloodshed and violence which it made Frank shudder to speak about.

His father, fearing what was about to happen, and that, as he was known as having been up the country and in the possession of jewels of great value, the desperadoes would attempt to rob him first, placed round Frank's neck, in the original parchment-covered parcel in which he had received them from the bank at the diamond fields, the precious stones he had bought, with all his own available capital as well as his employers' money, thinking that that would be the last place where the thieves would search for them.

"And now they are lost," added the boy with another stifled sob, "and poor mother will be penniless."

"Nary a bit," said Seth; and pulling out the little packet by the silken string attached round his neck--which the poor boy had not thought of feeling for even, he was so confident of his loss--he disclosed it to his gaze. "Is that the consarn, my b'y?" he asked.

"Oh!" exclaimed Frank in delighted surprise. "It is, with the bank seal still unbroken, I declare!"

And opening the parchment cover he showed Ernest and the rest some diamonds of the first water, that must have been worth several thousand pounds.

After his father had given the parcel into his care, Frank went on to say, events transpired exactly as he had antic.i.p.ated. Most of the pa.s.sengers were robbed, and those that objected to being despoiled tranquilly, murdered. Amongst these were his father, whom the ruffians killed more out of spite from not finding the valuables they expected on him. He, Frank, escaped through the kindness of one of the sailors, who took a fancy to him, and hid him up aloft in the s.h.i.+p's foretop when the men who had possession of the s.h.i.+p would have killed him.

"This sailor," said Frank, "was just like that gentleman there,"

pointing to Seth.

"Waal neow, that's curious," said Seth. "Was his name Sam?"

"It was," said the boy.

"This is curious," said Seth, looking round at the rest; "it is really.

I wouldn't be at all surprised as how that's my brother Sam I haven't heerd on for this many a year, or seed, although he's a seafarin' man like myself, an' I oughter to 'ave run across his jib afore now. Depend on it, Rawlings, that the reason the boy stuck to me so when he hadn't got his wits, and came for to rescue me aboard the _Susan Jane_, and arterwards, was on account of my likeness to Sam."

And as n.o.body could say him nay, it may be mentioned here that that was Seth's fervent belief ever after.

The last recollection that Frank had of the s.h.i.+p and the mutineers was of an orgie on board the _Dragon King_ in the height of a storm, and of one of the murderous villains finding out his retreat in the foretop, where the sailor who protected him lashed him to the rigging, so that he could not tumble on deck if he should fall asleep. He remembered a man with gleaming eyes and great white teeth swearing at him, and making a cut at him with a drawn sword. After that, all was a complete blank to him till he had just now opened his eyes and recognised Ernest.

"An' yer don't recollect being picked up at sea an' taken aboard the _Susan Jane_, and brought here, nor nuthin'?" inquired Seth.

"Nothing whatever," said Frank, who showed himself to be a remarkably intelligent boy now that he had recovered his senses. "I don't remember anything that happened in the interval."

"Waal, that is curious," observed Seth.

That was all the story that Frank Lester could tell of the mutiny on board the _Dragon King_, and his wonderful preservation.

All the mutineers, and some of their victims too most probably, met their final doom shortly afterwards in the storm that had dismasted the s.h.i.+p, leaving it to float derelict over the surface of the ocean; all but the three whose corpses the visiting party from the _Susan Jane_ had noticed on the submerged deck. These must have survived the tempest only to perish finally from each other's murderous pa.s.sions, after having lingered on in a state of semi-starvation possibly--although Frank said that the desperadoes from the diamond fields, who were the ringleaders on board, were originally the most attenuated, starved-looking mortals he had ever seen in his life.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

HOMEWARD-BOUND.

The work at the mine went on steadily. The "pocket" was cleared of the quartz it contained, and the whole, amounting to two hundred and fifty tons, pa.s.sed through the stamp.

The soldiers, on their return from their victory over the Sioux, had spread the news of the wonderful find of gold at Minturne Creek, and miners had flocked up in hundreds. When the pocket was emptied, a debate arose whether a heading should be driven along the course of the lode to the spot where Mr Rawlings' cousin had struck gold, and where it was probable that another pocket existed. It was, however, decided to accept the offer of a body of wealthy speculators, who offered 100,000 pounds for the set. This was indeed far less than they would have gleaned from it had the second pocket turned out as rich as the first, for the gold, when all the quartz was crushed, amounted in value to 350,000 pounds. Half of the total amount was divided by Mr Rawlings, according to his promise, among the miners. Seth receiving three shares, Noah Webster two, and the men one each. To Ernest Wilton he gave one-fourth of his own share of the proceeds.

Then, starting from the spot where they had toiled so hard, the little band set out for the haunts of civilisation once more, leaving behind, where they had found a solitary valley, a place dotted with huts and alive with busy men.

At Bismark the men separated, some to proceed back to their beloved California, to star it among their fellows with their newly acquired wealth, others to dissipate it in riotous living in the nearest frontier towns, while others again, struck with the greed of gold, thought that they had not yet got enough, and proceeded rapidly to gamble away what they had.

Mr Rawlings went eastwards towards Boston, intending to take steamer thence to England, which he resolved never to leave again in the pursuit of adventure now that fortune had so generously befriended him; and with him came Ernest Wilton, taking charge of his recovered cousin; and Seth, who could not bear to lose sight of his former protege.

Josh and Jasper had been left behind, the two darkeys sinking their mutual jealousy, and determining to start a coloured hotel on the Missouri, for the benefit of travelling gentlemen of their own persuasion; so too had Noah Webster, who said he liked hunting better than civilisation, and intended to pa.s.s the remainder of his days out west in the company of Moose, who was as eager after game as he was himself and as fearless of the Indians, should they again trouble them, after their Minturne Creek experiences.

Wolf, however, was one of the homeward-bound party. He certainly could not be abandoned after all his faithful services, and the wonderful instinct he had displayed, more than his master had done, in recognising Frank, whom he had not seen since puppyhood, when Ernest Wilton's aunt, Frank's mother, gave him to the young engineer.

As luck would have it, on the arrival of Mr Rawlings and his party at Boston whom should they meet accidentally at the railway depot but Captain Blowser, of the _Susan Jane_, as hearty and jolly as of yore, and delighted to see them! His s.h.i.+p he "guessed" was just going to Europe, and he would be only too glad of their taking pa.s.sage in her.

Need it be mentioned that the captain's offer was accepted; and that, long before Frank Lester--the "Sailor Bill" whom Seth loved, and the crew of the _Susan Jane_ and the gold-miners of Minturne Creek had regarded with such affection--had arrived in England to gladden his mother's heart by his restoration, as if from the dead, when he had long been given up for lost, together with his father's property which he carried with him, he had learnt every detail, as if he had been in his right senses at the time, of how he had been "Picked up at Sea?"

STORY TWO, CHAPTER ONE.

GREEK PIRATES AND TURKISH BRIGANDS. A TALE OF ADVENTURE BY SEA AND LAND.

IN BEYROUT HARBOUR.

"It's a thundering shame our sticking here so long; and I'm sick of the beastly old place," said Tom Aldridge in a grumbling tone, as he leant over the bulwarks listlessly, crumbling bits of biscuit into the sea to attract the fish, which would not be attracted, and gazing in an idle way at the roof of the pacha's palace, that glittered under the rays of the bright Syrian sun. "I'm sick of the place, Charley!" he repeated, more venomously than before.