Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn Part 25

Next day the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and all day it shone upon them fiercely, and the wind moderated enough to render baling unnecessary, but still they did not dare to haul in their floating bulwark.

Extreme thirst now a.s.sailed them, and Graddy began in an excited state to drink copiously of salt water.

"Don't go for to do that, cap'n," remonstrated Gaff.

A derisive laugh was the only reply.

Presently Graddy arose, and going into the head of the boat, took up the baling-dish and again drank deeply of the sea-water. "Ha! ha!" he laughed, tossing his arms wildly in the air, and gazing at Gaff with the glaring eyes of a maniac, "that's the nectar for me. Come, boys, I'll sing you a ditty."

With that he burst into a roaring baccha.n.a.lian song, and continued to shout, and yell, and drink the brine until he was hoa.r.s.e. But he did not seem to get exhausted; on the contrary, his eyes glared more and more brightly, and his face became scarlet as the fires that were raging within him increased in intensity.

Billy clung to his father, and looked at the captain in speechless horror. Even Gaff himself felt an overpowering sense of dread creep over him, for he now knew that he had to deal with a raving maniac. Not knowing what to do, he sat still and silent in the stern of the boat with the tiller in his hand, and his eyes fixed immovably on those of the madman, who seemed to feel that it was a trial as to which should stare the other down, for he soon gave up singing and drinking, and devoted all his energies of body and soul to glaring at his enemy.

Thus they continued until the sun began to set. Then Gaff's heart sank within him, for he felt sure that, whenever it was too dark for each to see the other, the madman would summon up courage to make a sudden attack.

The attack, however, was precipitated by Gaff inadvertently glancing over his shoulder to observe how far the sun had yet to descend.

Instantly, with the leap of a panther, Graddy was upon him with both hands grasping tightly at his throat. Down, down, he pressed him, until Gaff lay on his back with his head over the gunwale. His strength now availed him nothing, for unnatural energy nerved the madman's arm.

Billy sprang up and tried to disengage him from his grasp. As well might the rabbit try to unlock the boa's deadly coil. Wrenching the tiller from his father's grasp he hit the madman on the head with all his might; but the poor boy's might was small. The blow seemed to have no effect at all. Again and again he brought it down in an agony of haste lest his father should be strangled before the other was felled.

At last he hit him with all his force behind the ear, and Graddy's grasp relaxed as he fell p.r.o.ne on the body of his insensible victim.

To pull him off and haul his father into a more convenient position was the work of a few seconds.

"O daddy, daddy, speak to me," he cried, loosening his father's neckcloth and unb.u.t.toning his s.h.i.+rt. "Oh, quick! get better before _he_ does," cried Billy wildly, as he shook his father and laved water on his face; "oh! he'll get well first and kill you."

In order to do all that lay in his power to prevent this, Billy suddenly sprang up, and, seizing the tiller, dealt the prostrate Graddy several powerful blows on the head. It is not improbable that the frightened boy would have settled the question of his recovery then and there had not his father revived, and told him to stop.

For some minutes Gaff sat swaying about in a confused manner, but he was roused to renewed action by seeing Graddy move.

"We must hold him now, Billy. Is there a bit of rope about?"

"Not a inch, you tied it all round the oars."

"It's awkward. However, here's my necktie. It an't strong, but it's better than nothin'."

Gaff was about to take it off when Graddy recovered suddenly and attempted to rise. The others sprang on him and held him down; but they did so with difficulty, for he was still very strong.

All that night did they sit and hold him, while he raved and sang or struggled as the humour seized him. They did not dare to relax their hold for a moment; because, although he lay sometimes quite still for a lengthened period, he would burst forth again without warning and with increased fury.

And still, while they sat thus holding down the maniac, the wind blew fiercely over the raging sea, and the waves curled over and burst upon their tiny breakwater, sending clouds of spray over their head, insomuch that, ere morning, the boat was nearly half full of water.

When morning at last broke, father and son were so much exhausted that they could scarcely sit up, and their cramped fingers clung, more by necessity than by voluntary effort, to the garments of the now dying man.

Graddy was still active and watchful, however. His face was awful to look upon, and the fire of his restless eyes was unabated. When the sun rose above the horizon both Gaff and Billy turned their weary eyes to look at it. The madman noted the action, and seized the opportunity.

He sprang with an unearthly yell, overturned them both, and plunged head foremost into the sea.

Twice he rose and gave vent to a loud gurgling cry, while Gaff and his son seized the rope attached to the oars, intending to pull them in and row to his a.s.sistance, for he had leaped so far out that he was beyond their reach. But before they had pulled in half of the cable the wretched man had disappeared from their view for ever.

Slacking off the rope they let the boat drift astern again to its full extent. Then, without a word, without even a look, father and son lay down together in the stern-sheets, and were instantly buried in a profound deathlike slumber.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE VOYAGE OF THE BOTTLE.

The little fragile craft which Stephen Gaff sent adrift upon the world of waters freighted with its precious doc.u.ment, began its long voyage with no uncertainty as to its course, although to the eye of man it might have appeared to be the sport of uncertain waves and breezes.

When the bottle fell upon the broad bosom of the South Pacific, it sank as if its career were to end at the beginning; but immediately it re-appeared with a leap, as if the imprisoned spirit of the atmosphere were anxious to get out. Then it settled down in its watery bed until nothing but the neck and an inch of the shoulder was visible above the surface. Thus it remained; thus it floated in the deep, in storm and calm, in heat and cold; thus it voyaged more safely, though not more swiftly, than all the proud s.h.i.+ps that spread their lofty canvas to the breeze, night and day, for weeks and months, ay, and years together--not irregularly, not at haphazard, but steadily, perseveringly, in strict obedience to the undeviating laws which regulate the currents in the ocean and the air as truly and unchangeably as they do the circulation of the blood in the human frame.

The bottle started from that part of the South Pacific which is known to mariners as the Desolate Region--so called from the circ.u.mstance of that part of the sea being almost entirely dest.i.tute of animal life. Here it floated slowly, calmly, but surely, to the eastward with the great oceanic current, which, flowing from the regions of the antarctic sea, in that part sweeps round the southern continent of America, and makes for the equator by way of the southern Atlantic Ocean.

Now, reader, allow me to screw up a little philosophy here, and try to show you the why and the wherefore of the particular direction of our bottle's voyage.

Man has been defined by some lexicographer as a "cooking animal." I think it would be more appropriate to call him a _learning animal_, for man does not always cook, but he never ceases to learn--also to unlearn.

One of the great errors which we have been called on, of recent years, to unlearn, is the supposed irregularity and uncertainty of the winds and waves. Nothing is more regular, nothing more certain--not even the rising and setting of the sun himself--than the circulation of the waters and the winds of earth. The apparent irregularity and uncertainty lies in our limited power and range of perception. The laws by which G.o.d regulates the winds and waves are as fixed as is the law of gravitation, and every atom of air, every drop of water, moves in its appointed course in strict obedience to those laws, just as surely as the apple, when severed from the bough, obeys the law of gravitation, and falls to the ground.

One grand and important fact has been ascertained, namely, that all the waters of the sea flow from the equator to the poles and back again.

Disturbed equilibrium is the great cause of oceanic currents. Heat and cold are the chief agents in creating this disturbance.

It is obvious that when a portion of water in any vessel sinks, another portion must of necessity flow into the s.p.a.ce which it has left, and if the cause which induced the sinking continue, so the flow to fill up will continue, and thus a current will be established.

Heat at the equator warms the sea-water, and makes it light; cold at the poles chills it, and makes it heavy. Hot water, being light, rises; cold water, being heavy, sinks.

Here, then, is a sufficient cause to produce the effect of currents in the sea.

But there are other causes at work. Excessive evaporation at the equator carries off the water of the sea, but leaves the salt behind, thus rendering it denser and heavier; while excessive influx of fresh water at the poles, (from rain and snow and melting ice), renders the sea light;--in addition to which corallines and sh.e.l.l-fish everywhere abstract the lime that is in the sea, by secreting it on their bodies in the form of sh.e.l.ls, and thus increase the lightness of those particles of water from which the lime has been abstracted. The other particles of water being generous in their nature, hasten to impart of their lime and salt to those that have little or none.

Here, then, we have perpetual motion rendered absolutely certain, both as to continuance and direction.

But the latter causes which I have named are modifying causes which tend to counteract, or rather to deflect and direct currents in their flow.

Besides which, the rotation of the earth, the action of the winds, and the conformation of continents and islands, have a powerful influence on currents, so that some flow at the bottom of ocean, some on the surface, some from east to west or west to east, or aslant in various directions, while, where currents meet there is deflection, modification, or stagnation, but there is no confusion; all goes on with a regularity and harmony which inconceivably excels that of the most complex and beautiful mechanism of man's constructing, although man cannot perceive this order and harmony by reason of his limited powers.

Now, these are facts, not theories founded on speculation. They have been arrived at by the slow but sure method of induction. Hundreds of thousands of practical men have for many years been observing and recording phenomena of every kind in connexion with the sea. These observations have been gathered together, collated, examined, and deeply studied by philosophers, who have drawn their conclusions therefrom.

Ignorance of these facts rendered the navigation of the sea in days of old a matter of uncertainty and great danger. The knowledge of them and of other cognate facts enables man in these days to map out the so-called trackless ocean into districts, and follow its well-known highways with precision and comparative safety.

Our bottle moved along with the slow but majestic flow of one of those mighty currents which are begotten among the hot isles of the Pacific, where the corallines love to build their tiny dwellings and rear their reefs and groves.

In process of time it left the warm regions of the sun, and entered those stormy seas which hold perpetual war around Cape Horn. It pa.s.sed the straits where Magellan spread his adventurous sails in days of old, and doubled the cape which Byron, Bougainville, and Cook had doubled long before it.

Ah! well would it be for man if the bottle had never doubled anything but that cape! And alas for man when his sight is doubled, and his crimes and woes are doubled, and his life is halved instead of doubled, by--"the bottle!"

Off Cape Horn our adventurous little craft met with the rough usage from winds and waves that marked the pa.s.sage of its predecessors. Stormy petrels hovered over it and pecked its neck and cork. Albatrosses stooped inquiringly and flapped their gigantic wings above it. South Sea seals came up from Ocean's caves, and rubbed their furred sides against it. Sea-lions poked it with their grizzly snouts; and penguins sat bolt upright in rows on the sterile islands near the cape, and gazed at it in wonder.

Onward it moved with the north-western drift, and sighted on its left, (on its port bow, to speak nautically), the land of Patagonia, where the early discoverers reported the men to be from six to ten feet high, and the ladies six feet; the latter being addicted to staining their eyelids black, and the former to painting a red circle round their left eyes.