Picked up at Sea Part 28

There was a lookout on the fore-topmast crosstrees; but almost every one was looking out in the direction where some trace of David and Jonathan might be discovered. And the minutes seemed lengthened into hours as they anxiously peered into the ma.s.s of slatey-brown water in front and around topped with yeasty foam. But the sky was overcast with storm-clouds and the darkening of approaching night, and their horizon was now limited so that they could not see very far in advance of the _Sea Rover's_ bows--not more than a mile at most.

Every voice was hushed on board the s.h.i.+p now, and only the humming of the wind and the swish of the water could be heard as she dived every now and then over her catheads into the waves, that fell in a cataract of spray on her forecastle and washed into her waist, while she dashed onward, gathering speed with every yard of progress that she made.

"Lookout, ahoy, there!" shouted out the captain to the man on the fore crosstrees. "Do you see anything of them yet?"

"Not a speck in sight," was the answer; and still the _Sea Rover_ clove through the water on what they guessed to have been their former course, and the sky and the sea grew darker and darker and seemed to mingle together, gradually diminis.h.i.+ng their area of vision.

"We must have pa.s.sed the spot by this time," said the captain presently to the chief officer, when the s.h.i.+p had gone some two miles after coming about. "Send another lookout into the main-top; and you, Dawkins,"

addressing one of the hands standing near, "sky up here in the mizzen-rigging and see if you can see anything. Look well round to leeward as well as ahead, for we may have overrun them."

"Ay, ay," said the man as he scrambled up the shrouds, and quickly made his way, not merely into mizzen-top, but on the topgallant-yard, where he sat astride and scanned the horizon to his right and left, to windward and leeward of the vessel's wake.

"On deck there!" he hailed in a little time. He had the keenest sight of any man on board.

"Ay, ay!" answered the captain. "Speak out!"

"There is something to windward, two points on the weather-bow."

"How far?"

"About half a mile or more, sir; but it may be less."

"We must get her a couple of points nearer the wind," said the captain to the chief officer. "Clew up the courses, set the flying-jib, and let us get the mainsail on her, and see what she can do. Come, look smart and brace the yards round. Keep her helm up!" he added to the men at the wheel, lending them a hand as he spoke. "Hard!"

The _Sea Rover_ leaned over, gunwales under, and made deep bows to the sea, pitching the water over her fore-yard, as, her head being brought round a couple of points more, she sailed almost in the wind's-eye, taking all that two men could do to steer her, besides the captain.

"Aloft there!" shouted the captain once more to the lookout men. "How's her head now? Does she bear towards the object, or is it still to windward?"

"Steady!" was the answer. "She's right for it now. Luff a bit, steady, it's right ahead."

"What is it? Can you see them?" cried the captain, eagerly peering into the distance himself.

"Looks like floating timber, sir. I can't see anybody as yet; it seems all awash."

A moment further of breathless suspense, and then those on deck could see for themselves what had attracted the lookout man's notice--a black object, bobbing up and down amidst the waves, one minute raised aloft on a billowy crest, the next hidden from view in a watery valley that descended, as it were, into the depths of the ocean.

It was now clear to windward on the weather-bow; and, every now and then, distinctly visible.

"Put the helm down, slack off the sheet!" cried the captain; and, as the _Sea Rover_ rounded-to, with the floating object under her lee, it could be seen that it was the boat which David and Jonathan had perceived pa.s.sing them, bottom upwards, just before they were struck by the squall. The vessel, therefore, must have gone much further back on their track than they had imagined, for the boat must have been three or four miles astern of the point at which the boys were washed overboard.

She would of course have drifted farther than the floating wreckage, being higher out of water, but could not have made up more than a mile of the intervening distance.

It was a grievous disappointment to all on board, crew and pa.s.sengers alike. They had made certain that it was the two boys clinging to the wreckage of the bulwarks and wheelhouse that had been carried away along with Davy; and the disappointment was all the greater because their hopes had been so cruelly raised.

"My boy, my boy!" sobbed Mr Liston, who stood with several of the other cabin pa.s.sengers grouped around the captain on the quarter-deck watching in breathless suspense. "My boy, my boy! He is lost, he's lost! I shall never see him again!" and he wrung his hands in agony.

Poor, bereaved father! He had only that moment been made aware that his son was overboard, having been below when the accident happened to Davy, and only attracted on deck by the commotion. Johnny was his only child, his mother having died in giving him birth, and he was the apple of his eye. He would have jumped into the sea, too, when, he learnt what had happened, if he had not been prevented; and his grief was frantic.

"Cheer up, my dear sir!" said Captain Markham, as he gave orders for the s.h.i.+p to back across her course at right angles, and warned the lookout men aloft to renewed watchfulness. "We may pick them up yet. You know Davy Armstrong was holding on to something when he was carried away, and your gallant son took a life-buoy with him when he went to his rescue, so they can keep afloat till we overhaul them. Why, I was picked up myself once after I had been in the water for hours and the s.h.i.+p searching for me all the time, when I had been washed overboard like Davy."

The captain's sanguine antic.i.p.ations, however, even if he really believed in them, were baseless.

The _Sea Rover_ backed, and wore, and tacked again, sailing, within a radius of a few miles, in every possible direction the wind would let her, without finding any traces of the lost ones, or even coming across the pieces of wreckage, which the sombre tint of the sea and sky prevented their seeing; and then night came on, and they had to abandon their quest, although they burnt blue lights and cruised about the same spot for hours afterwards, in vain!

"Alas, dear captain, it is hopeless now!" exclaimed Mr Liston mournfully, with the resignation of despair, drawing away his gaze from the sea, and his head dropping on his breast in despondency.

He was standing almost alone on the deck, the majority of the pa.s.sengers having gone below--for the wind was cold and boisterous, and the crew having retired forward to the forecastle excepting those on duty aft--a tall, thin, pale man, whom the calamity seemed to have aged ten years in that brief s.p.a.ce of time, and bowed with care.

"Only a miracle could have saved them!" he said, as if speaking to himself; and then, turning to the captain, he added, "I suppose you must give them up now, and proceed with your voyage?"

"Yes, it is useless waiting any longer," said Captain Markham, sinking his voice in sympathy with the other. "Poor fellows, I'm afraid they've told the number of their mess long since! But if they are drowned, poor Davy was lost while doing his duty as a gallant sailor; and your son, my dear sir, lies in a hero's grave beneath the wave, for he sacrificed his life in trying to save that of his friend. It is some slight consolation, Mr Liston, to recollect that; and I don't think the recording angel above will have forgotten to log it down, either!"

And, as the hardy sailor pointed upwards with a reverent air to where one tiny twinkling star was peeping out from amidst the ma.s.s of fleeting shadowy clouds that still obscured the heavens and shrouded the horizon from view, he wiped away a tear from his eye with the back of his hairy hand, bidding the quartermaster a moment or two afterwards, in a strangely gruff tone quite unlike his usual mode of speech, to set the s.h.i.+p's course once more due east for Australia.

And the _Sea Rover_ went on her way.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER THREE.

A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

Half-drowned by the avalanche of water which had swept him overboard, and just catching one faint glimpse of the hull of the s.h.i.+p through eyes that were blinded with the spray, as it swept away from him and left him struggling with the waves, although holding on still to the top of the wheelhouse which he had clutched in desperation as he was carried away, Davy thought he was dreaming when he heard the voice of his friend shouting out, as if in the distance, miles and miles away, "Hold on, Dave, I'm coming!"

"Nonsense," he reasoned with himself, amidst the pitiless lash of the billows, and the keenness of the wind that seemed to take the skin off his face and pierce through his wet clothing as he was one minute soused down into the water and then raised aloft again on his temporary raft exposed to the full force of the blast. "Nonsense! I'm drowning, I suppose, and this is one of those pleasant dreams which people say come to one at the last."

It was no dream, however.

After a little while, although it seemed ages to David, the voice sounded nearer.

"Hold on, Dave, old boy. I'm quite close to you now, and will reach you in a minute!"

"I can't be dreaming," thought David again, getting a bit over the feeling of suffocation which had at first oppressed him. "Jonathan's voice sounds too real for that, and I can see that I am adrift on the ocean, and resting on something. Oh, how my leg hurts me! I'll give a hail, and see whether it is Jonathan's voice or not that I hear. It must be him!"

"Ahoy, help, ahoy!" he sang out as loudly as he could; but he was already weak, his voice came only in a faint whisper to Jonathan, who imagined he must be sinking and he would be too late.

"Keep up, Dave, for goodness' sake," screamed out the latter in agony, making desperate exertions to reach him. "Don't give way! Hold on a second longer and you'll be safe!"

Although he was such a slight, delicate-looking little fellow, hardly doing justice in his appearance to his sixteen years, if there was one accomplishment in which Johnny Liston was a proficient, it was swimming.

Living in the neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens, he had made a habit of going into the Serpentine every morning during the summer months, and sticking at it as long as the weather permitted, although he did not go to the lengths of some intrepid bathers, and have the ice broken for him in winter; and by constant practice, and imitating the best swimmers amongst whom he bathed, he had learned so much that he could compete even with professionals for speed and endurance, and made the best amateur time on record for so young a lad.

His practice now stood him in good stead; and he had, besides, an additional advantage, for having learned to swim in fresh water, and indeed never having essayed his powers in the sea, the unaccustomed buoyancy of the waves, which he now experienced for the first time, gave him a confidence and an ease which seemed surprising to him; he felt that he did not require the slightest exertion to keep afloat, even without the life-buoy, as he tested by letting go of it for a short time, and with it he was certain he could almost rival Captain Webb and swim for hours.

Of course it was rough work for a novice, paddling in such broken water; but after a few strokes he got used to it, and, by dint of diving under the swelling bosom of some of the more threatening crests, and floating over the tops of the others whose ridges were yet perfect, he made his way pretty rapidly towards the spot where he had espied David floating off.

The wind and the set of the sea were both against him, but the answering hail of the middy a.s.sured him he was proceeding in the right direction, and would be soon by his lost friend's side.

Another stroke or two, and as Johnny Liston rose on the crest of a huge mountain of water, which took him up almost to the sky, he saw below him the broken timbers of the bulwarks rolling about in the trough of the sea, and he thought they formed part of the wreckage on which David had been supporting himself, and that he had seen him on them.

His heart sank within him like lead, for no one was floating on the broken bulwarks now. Poor Dave must have gone.