Picked up at Sea Part 32

IN EXTREMITY.

"What? a s.h.i.+p really?" said Jonathan, sharing the other's excitement.

"Oh, I'm so glad, so glad!"

"Yes," said David, recovering a bit from his hysterical fit, and speaking in a more collected manner. "But she's crossing our course, and if she does not see us and take in sail, I'm afraid we won't be able to catch her up!"

What was a gale to those in the cutter, with a gunwale hardly a foot above the surface of the water, was only just a fair wind to the full-rigged s.h.i.+p which was sailing on a bowline away from them almost hull-down on the horizon, with all her canvas spread that could draw, to take advantage of the breeze.

The boat's head was pointed right towards the vessel, whose course was nearly at right angles to theirs, and David put the helm up to bring them nearer the wind so that they might intercept her; but the cutter dipped so much in the waves, and s.h.i.+pped such a lot of water, that he had to let fall off again and run free, much to his mortification, as the stranger was steadily ploughing her way ahead; and, proceeding in the direction they did, they would fetch far to leeward of her.

"Oh, it's cruel," said Jonathan, "to sail away like that and leave us!"

"We mustn't accuse them wrongfully," said David, who, of course, was more versed in nautical matters. "s.h.i.+ps when far at sea don't keep much of a look-out, as they would have to do in the channel or near land.

And, besides, old fellow, you must recollect that although we can see her plainly, we to those on board would appear but the tiniest speck in the distance, if we were seen at all, and would be taken for a wandering albatross, or one of those Molly hawks like that we caught this morning.

They don't see us, evidently, or they would take in sail."

Jonathan, however, would not give up hope, but continued to wave his s.h.i.+rt--which he had taken off for the purpose--in the bow of the boat, until she lessened as she drew away, and finally, disappeared below the horizon as night came on with hasty footsteps--as it always does in southern lat.i.tudes--shutting out everything from their gaze.

The two boys were bitterly disappointed.

Up to the time of their sighting the s.h.i.+p they had been almost contented with their lot, for the fear of starvation, which had threatened them, had pa.s.sed away when their hunger had been appeased by the cape pigeon that David had captured, and they subsequently secured another bird, besides the half-dozen fish or so that had been brought within their reach by the waterspout; to add to which the weather had not been hot enough to cause them to make such inroads on their stock of water--which David had judiciously apportioned from the first--as to arouse any dread of thirst, which is far worse than want of food to s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners.

It was the fact of the means of escape from their perilous position having been so unexpectedly brought near them, and as suddenly taken away, that deprived them of their courage and hopefulness for a time, and made them forget the Eye that was watching over them, and the hand that had already so miraculously helped them when they seemed to be at death's door! The weather, however, did not allow them to give way to despondency, much as they might have been inclined, for, as night came on, the darker it grew, the wind and sea increasing so that David had an onerous task to steer the boat in such a manner as to prevent her being swamped; while Jonathan was as continually busy in baling out the heavy seas that, partly, lurched in over the gunwale, first on the port side and then to starboard, as the cutter rocked to and fro in her course, tearing madly up and down the hills and valleys formed by the waves, and sometimes leaping clean out of the water from one mountainous ridge to another.

And thus, the weary hours pa.s.sed till morning, without giving them a moment's rest from their anxious labour, the constant fear of being overset and swallowed up by the tiger-like billows that raced after them banis.h.i.+ng the feeling of fatigue, and making them forget for the while their disappointment.

When the sun rose, for the fourth time since they had been left deserted on the deep, the boys were completely worn out.

David's leg, too, had got worse; whether from the exposure or not they could not tell, but it had swollen up enormously, and he could hardly move; so, Jonathan had to take his place at the steering oar, and act under his directions carefully, as the sea was still very high, and it required critical judgment and a quick eye to prevent the boat being taken broadside on by any of the swelling waves that followed fast in their track, raising their towering crests and foaming with impotent fury as far as the eye could reach, astern, and to their right hand and their left, while in front the waters sometimes uplifted themselves into a solid wall, as if to stop their way. With mid-day, came a change of scene.

The wind gradually died away, and there fell a dead calm, while the sea subsided in unison; although a sullen swell remained, in evidence of old Neptune's past anger, and to show that he had a temper of his own when he liked to use it--a swell that rocked the boat like a baby's cradle, and flapped the loose sail backwards and forwards across their heads, in such a disagreeable manner that David suggested their hauling it down; which they did, the boat not rolling half so much without its perpendicular weight, while it was pleasanter for them.

"I tell you what, Dave," suggested Jonathan after a while to his friend, who was stretched out on the stern-sheets, resting his wounded leg on a seat, "I think if you'd let me bandage your thigh with a strip of my s.h.i.+rt, and keep it soaked with water, the evaporation of the sun would take down the swelling and make it feel better?"

"So it would probably," he a.s.sented; "and at the same time, Jonathan, get those fish and the bird out of the locker. I had almost forgotten them;--I suppose, because I don't feel hungry yet! We will skin them and split them in two: and if we expose them spread out on top of the sail, which you can stretch across the thwarts, our old friend can cook them while he is acting as my physician."

Jonathan, who had been tearing a couple of long strips off his s.h.i.+rt, and binding them round David's leg while he was speaking, now soused the bandages with sea water, taking it up in the one uninjured boot which he had kept for baling purposes, and then propped it up in an easy position, so that it should be directly exposed to the rays of the sun, which was now almost vertical, and hotter than they had yet felt it. He then unstepped the mast, and arranged the sail like an awning over the rest of the boat, serving to shelter themselves--with the exception of David's leg, of course--from the heat, which was decidedly more comfortable, and act as a table for their culinary arrangements.

On counting them, which they had not done before, they found they had thirteen bonetas and skipjacks, beside the molly hawk, which they determined to eat while it was fresh; and then would have sufficient food, as the fish would keep perfectly when dried, for quite that number of days--a lucky number as Jonathan said, as it was "a baker's dozen,"

and certainly not an even one.

"An unlucky one, you mean," said David. "They say that when thirteen people sit down at table together one is sure to die before the year is out."

"That will only apply to the fish," said Jonathan laughing, "and they're dead already, and will be eaten soon. And talking of that, Dave, I think it's about dinner-time; what say you? My clock here," patting his stomach as he spoke, "warns me that it needs winding up."

"All right, I feel peckish myself," answered David, who was skinning and cutting open the fish leisurely with his clasp knife, which he could do easily without removing from his position or s.h.i.+fting his leg, while Jonathan cleaned them and washed them in the sea over the side of the boat preparatory to spreading them out on the top of their awning to dry in the sun. "Just wait till I finish this last beggar, and then I'll tackle Miss Molly Hawk, and we'll begin. Do you know, Jonathan, I don't think birds are half so bad eaten raw? I did enjoy that cape pigeon yesterday."

"So did I," said the other. "It makes me hungrier to think of it. Look alive, old boy, or I'll start on one of these fish just to keep my hand in."

"No, you won't, or your teeth either, you cannibal," said David jocularly. "I'm captain, and purser too, and I'm not so extravagant as to serve out two courses for dinner. Chaffing aside," he added more seriously, "we'll have to be rigidly economical, Jonathan, for we can't tell how long it may be before we fall in with a s.h.i.+p or reach land, and we've already experienced something of what the pangs of starvation are like, though, thank G.o.d, we were not put so severely to the test as some have been! I wish, old fellow, we were as well off for water as we are for grub. I don't think there is a pint more in the breaker, now that we've had that last drink, and I'm sure we've not been very prodigal of it, and I've measured it out carefully every day."

"Perhaps it will rain," said Jonathan cheerfully--the sight of the molly hawk, which David had dexterously plucked and cut in two, the same as he had done the cape pigeon on the previous day, making him feel ravenously hungry, and limiting all his considerations to the present, instead of his being impressed with their future needs, as was the case with his more reflective companion, "Perhaps it will rain, David. 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.' Let us set to work; I'm starving!"

The appet.i.tes of the boys being hearty, they finished every sc.r.a.p of the bird, which, raw as it was, tasted like roast goose to them, although it was not nearly so large as it had appeared with all its feathers on; and then both lay down in the boat and had a hearty sleep, the first they had had without interruption since they left their bunks for the last time on board the _Sea Rover_.

Poor fellows! they had need of rest, for the calm lasted a week, during which time their water ran out, and for more than two days they had not a single drop, although they reduced their allowance to such an infinitesimal quant.i.ty that their final draught did not amount to more than a minim.

They now endured all the agonies of thirst, their diet of dried fish making them feel it worse; and it was as much as David could do to prevent Jonathan from drinking the sea water and losing his senses, as he would have done--like many others who would not control their inclinations, but insisted on having it, and afterwards went mad and died.

Then, in the very height of their sufferings, a storm of rain came on which half filled the boat with water, giving them plenty to drink, but spoiling the remainder of their fish, so that they had to throw them overboard.

After the rain the wind sprang up again, and the sail was once more hoisted, David trying to keep the boat as nearly in the direction of the coast of South Africa as he could guess, during the day steering by the sun; but at night she went as the breeze willed, and so it continued for days, the boys getting weaker and weaker through starvation, although they had saved plenty of water in their cask to a.s.suage the pangs of thirst, during which time they never saw a bird or a fish to which they could get near.

They sighted several s.h.i.+ps, but they were too far off to attract their notice; and when, finally, a sudden squall in the night blew away their mast and sail, and left them tossing helplessly on the ocean, starving and worn out with fatigue, they gave up all hope, and lay down in the bottom of the boat to die--Jonathan being the first to succ.u.mb.

"Good-bye, Dave!" said he, raising himself with a feeble effort.

"Good-bye, Jonathan!" said the other, grasping his companion's hand, as he thought, for the last time.

"I think I am going to die," continued Jonathan: "my head is spinning round, and I feel faint. I will lie down a bit until the end comes.

Good-bye, Dave, once more!"

And he sank down again into a restless sleep, the other following his example a moment or two afterwards; first giving one last haggard glance around the horizon--on which not a single sail appeared in sight--as if bidding it an eternal farewell.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN.

RESCUED.

"Boat ahoy!"

The two boys might have been asleep for hours only, or insensible for days, they never knew for certain which, and n.o.body else could inform them; but that shout ringing in their ears awoke them, with a thrill of agony that it might be merely a dream of their disordered imagination.

One look, however, satisfied them to the contrary, when they painfully raised themselves into a sitting posture in the bottom of the boat-- which they could hardly do by reason of their weakness--holding on to the gunwales on either side as they dragged up their attenuated bodies, and directing their sunken eyes, which rolled with incipient delirium, to the point from whence the hail came.

They could have screamed for joy, but their voices failed them, and their emotion found relief in tears and stifling sobs.

A large s.h.i.+p lay to about a hundred yards off; and a boat, which had evidently just been lowered from its side, was being pulled rapidly towards them.

As soon as the boat came alongside, the men in her, who appeared to be foreigners, looked at the boys with the deepest pity, and spoke to each other rapidly in some guttural language, which Jonathan had a hazy idea was German, as if expressing sympathy with their emaciated condition.

One of them whom they took to be an officer, from the gold band on his cap and the tone of authority in his voice, stepped into their boat, and appeared to have the intention of lifting them out of it into the other; but all at once he seemed to notice the name of the _Eric Strauss_, and stopped short, with an expression of surprised astonishment on his face.

"Wunderbar!" he exclaimed, pointing out the name to his companions, who also looked eagerly at it; and then, while he remained with the boys in the cutter, the painter of the latter was attached to the other boat, which towed it alongside the s.h.i.+p; and, after that David and Jonathan remembered no more, as they both fainted as they were being tenderly hoisted on board.

Jonathan was the first to come to himself.