Teddy Part 15

The long-boat now received its quota of pa.s.sengers, all descending into it and seating themselves on the thwarts and in the bottom so as not to be in the way of those rowing, Captain Lennard waiting till the last to get into her.

Just as he got in, however, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten a compa.s.s, and hastily climbed back on board to get it.

"Look sharp, Cap'en!" shouted Bill Summers from the bow as the s.h.i.+p gave a quiver all over. "She's just about to founder."

The captain was quick enough, racing back to the companion and down the stairs in two bounds, where, although the cabin was half full of water, he contrived to wrench away the "tell-tale" compa.s.s that swung over the saloon-table; and he was on the p.o.o.p again with it in an instant.

The instrument, however, was heavy, but he had hard work to carry it with both hands; and he managed to get to the side with it, when bending down handed it to Bill Summers, who stood up in the bow of the boat to receive it.

At that instant, the s.h.i.+p gave a violent lurch, and some one sang out to shove off; when, the oars being dropped in the water, the boat was impelled some yards from the side, leaving Captain Lennard still on board.

"What, men, abandon your captain!" Teddy cried, his voice quivering with emotion. "You cowards, row back at once!"

"We can't," sang out the same voice that had before ordered the men to shove off.

Who it was no one noticed in the general flurry, nor knew afterwards; but, while the men were hesitating which course to adopt, Teddy, without saying another word, plunged overboard and swam back to the sinking _Greenock_, having no difficulty in getting up the side now for it was almost flush with the water.

"Come on board, sir!" said he jokingly, touching his forehead with his finger, his cap having been washed off as he dived.

"My poor boy!" cried Captain Lennard, overcome with emotion at the gallant lad's devotion; "you have only sacrificed two lives instead of one! Why did you not stay in the boat?"

"Because," began Teddy; but ere he could complete the sentence there was a violent rush of air upwards from the hold, and a loud explosion, the decks having burst.

At the same time, the s.h.i.+p made a deep bend forwards.

Then, her bows rose high in the air above the waves as the stern sank with a gurgling moan; and, the next moment, Teddy and Captain Lennard were drawn below the surface with the vessel as she foundered!

Teddy was nearly suffocated; but, holding his breath bravely, as Jupp had taught him, and striking downwards with all his force, he presently got his head above water, inhaling the delicious air of heaven, which he thought would never more have entered his nostrils.

When he came to himself, he saw the captain's body floating face downwards amongst a lot of broken planks and other debris of the wreck, by some fragment of which he must have been struck as the _Greenock_ foundered.

To swim forwards and seize poor Captain Lennard, turning him face upwards again and supporting his head above the water, was the work of a moment only with Teddy; and then, holding on to a piece of broken spar, he awaited the coming up of the launch, which, now that all danger was over from the eddy rowed up to the scene, when he and the captain were lifted on board--all hands enthusiastic about the courageous action of the little hero, and none more so than Captain Lennard when he recovered his consciousness.

"You have saved my life!" he said. "Had you not been close by to turn me over when I rose to the surface I should have been drowned before the boat could have come up. I will never forget it!"

Nor did he, as Teddy's subsequent advancement showed; but, there was no time now for congratulation or pa.s.sing compliments.

The peril of those preserved from the wreck was not yet over, for, they were thousands of miles away from land floating on the wide ocean!

Hailing the jolly-boat, Captain Lennard announced what he thought the proper course should be.

"The best place for us to make for now is Valparaiso," he said; "and if we steer to the east-nor'-east we ought to fetch it in three weeks or so under sail; that is, if our provisions hold out so long."

Uncle Jack approving, this course was adopted; and, day after day, the boats, setting their sails, which Bill Summers had not forgotten to place on board, made slow but steady progress towards the wished-for goal.

One morning, all were wakened up by the welcome cry of "Land ho!" from the look-out forwards in the bow of the long-boat, which kept a little ahead of the jolly-boat, although always reducing sail if she forged too much forward so as not to lose her.

A signal was made, therefore, telling the glad news to Uncle Jack and those with him; while the boat pressed onwards towards the spot where the hazy outline of a mountain could be dimly seen in the distance.

"That is not the American continent," said Captain Lennard to the men, in order to allay any future disappointment that might be afterwards felt. "We are nearly a thousand miles off that yet. It must be Easter Island. That is the only land I know of hereabouts in the Pacific; and, although I have never visited the place myself, I have heard that the natives are friendly to strangers. At all events we'll pay them a call; it will be a break in our long journey!"

Bye and bye the boats approached the sh.o.r.e and all landed, when a lot of copper-coloured savages came down to the beach waving branches of trees in sign of welcome.

The islanders had not much to eat; but Captain Lennard, seeing that their provisions were well-nigh expended, determined to stop here, while sending on Uncle Jack with a small party to Valparaiso to charter some vessel to come and fetch them all, the boats being so crowded that misfortune might await them all if they continued the voyage in such small craft.

For months and months all awaited in constant expectation Uncle Jack's return; but, he came not, and they at length believed that he and those with him must have been lost in some hurricane that had sprung up off the Chilian coast, and so had never reached Valparaiso at all!

They had no fear of starvation, however, the islands abounding in poultry in a semi-wild state, which they had to hunt down for themselves; for the natives lent them no a.s.sistance. Indeed they were rather hostile after a time; although the Englishmen were too numerous for them to attack, especially as they were always on their guard against surprise.

In wandering over the island, which is only some thirty miles round, Teddy was surprised, like the others, by the numbers of stone obelisks, rudely carved into the semblance of human faces and statues, which could not possibly have been executed by the present inhabitants.

It is believed by geographers that Easter Island must have formed a portion of a vast Polynesian continent peopled by some kindred race to those that designed the colossal monuments of an extinct civilisation, now almost overgrown with vegetation, that are yet to be found as evidences of a past age amidst the forests of Central America.

One day, more than a year after Uncle Jack had left, and when they had almost given up all hope of ever seeing him again, or of being relieved from their island prison--the long-boat being dashed to pieces in the surf soon after he started--a schooner in full sail was discovered making for the island.

Presently, she came nearer and nearer.

Then she hove to, and a boat was seen to be lowered from her side, and shortly afterwards being pulled in to the sh.o.r.e.

A moment later, and Uncle Jack's well-known face could be seen in the stern-sheets, a glad hurrah being raised by the s.h.i.+pwrecked men at the sight of him.

Soon, Uncle Jack landed, and he had a long tale to tell of the jolly- boat losing her sail, and being tossed about on the ocean till picked up by an American whaler, which first took a cruise down the South Seas, there detaining him many weary months before landing him at Sandy Point, in the Straits of Magellan, from whence he got finally to Valparaiso after awaiting a pa.s.sage for weeks.

Arrived here, however, he at once got in communication with the British consul, and chartered a schooner to go to Easter Island and fetch his comrades.

Uncle Jack, too, mentioned that he had written home to the owners of the _Greenock_, telling of her loss and the safety of all hands on their temporary island home; and he had also sent a letter to Endleigh, he said, narrating all about Master Teddy's adventures, and saying that he was safe and well.

Captain Lennard did not long delay the embarkation of his little band, who were glad enough to leave Easter Island; so, in a couple of weeks'

time all landed safely in Valparaiso, where they luckily caught the outgoing mail steamer as they arrived, and started off to England, rejoicing in their timely rescue and preservation from peril amid all the dangers of the deep.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AT HOME AGAIN.

It was a bright August day at Endleigh.

There was a scent of new-mown hay in the air, and gangs of reapers were out in the fields getting in the harvest, the whirr of the thres.h.i.+ng- machine, which the squire had lately brought down from London, making a hideous din in the meadows by the pond, where it had been set up; puffing and panting away as if its very existence were a trial, and scandalising the old-fas.h.i.+oned village folk--who did not believe in such new-fangled notions, and thought a judgment would come on those having to do with the machine, depriving, as it did, honest men who could wield the flail of a job!

In the garden of the vicarage, the warm sun seemed to incubate a dreamy stillness, the b.u.t.terflies hardly taking the trouble to fly, and the very flowers hanging down their lazy heads; while the trees drooping their leaves, as if faint and exhausted with the heat.

Everything out of doors looked asleep, taking a mid-day siesta.

Everything, that is, but the bees, which carried on their honey- gathering business as briskly as ever, utterly impervious to the warmth.

Indeed, perhaps they got on all the better for it, probing the petals of the white lilies yet in bloom, and investigating the cavities of the foxglove and wonderful spider-trap of the Australian balsam, or else sweeping the golden dust off the discs of the gorgeous sunflowers, a regular mine of mellifluent wealth; a host of gnats and wasps and other idle insects buzzing round them all the time and pretending to be busy too, but really doing nothing at all!

The heat-laden atmosphere was so still that it had that oily sort of haze that distinguishes the mirage in the East, when the air appears composed of little waving lines wavering to and fro that dazzle your eyes with their almost-imperceptible motion as you look at them; and the silence was unbroken save by the chuck-chuck-chuck of some meddlesome blackbird in the shrubbery annoying the sparrows in their nap, and the answering click-clink-tweedle-deedle-dum-tum-tweedle-um of the yellow- hammer, telling as plainly as the little songster could tell that he at all events was wide awake, while, in the far distance, there could be heard the coo of ring-doves and the melancholy lament of the cuckoo investigating the hedgerows in quest of other birds' nests wherein to lay its solitary egg, and finding itself forestalled at every turn!

But if everything was so quiet without, such was not the case indoors at the vicarage.