CHAPTER I
"ADRIFT"
All three castaways were close together, and floated easily enough in the life-buoys with head and shoulders above water.
"Thrown your life away, Jim," jerked out the rover, as he skilfully avoided a big breaker. "The old man won't round to—no boats."
"Ain't there no chance o' gettin' aboard the whaler?" asked the boy. "She's dead to windward, an' seems to be driftin' down our way."
"I allows as thar's p'ints in Jim's remyarks," observed the cowpuncher, floating with his back to wind and sea. "But say we-alls gets alongside: if this here sea butts us up agin her, we're shore liable to emerge tharfrom a heap busted an' unstrung."
"Look out!" broke in Jack hurriedly, as he faced to windward, and the next moment the broken top of a sea rolled them over and over.
Jack and Broncho both came out of the clutches of the roller without any damage, but poor Jim's life-buoy brought him to the surface upside down, and the rolling-stone only just rescued him in time.
"Lord, I thought I was a gorner!" gasped the boy, as all three in the midst of a smother of bubbling froth floated down into the calm hollow behind the breaker.
"That wave does mighty near call the turn on you that time, Jim. This here is drawin' the cinch some tight, an' I ain't hankerin' after any more hurdygurdies o' that party's sturdy physique," remarked Broncho, conversing in his usual quaint, off-hand way, his gentle southern drawl in no way affected by the terrible circumstances in which he was placed, for the chances of being picked up by the Nantucket barque were very slim.
As they rose to the top of the next wave, all three anxiously turned their eyes on the whaler.
"Shall we reach her?" asked Jim, with trembling voice.
"Drift right on to us in an hour or two. Keep your pecker up and feet down," declared Jack cheerily.
"I will if I can, you bet your life," replied the plucky boy, regaining his courage at Jack's reassuring words. "Why, look! The old Higgins is nearly out of sight. I expect there's hell to play on her now," he went on.
"An' I ain't none sorry to quit her," drawled Broncho serenely, "that's presumin' we-alls escapes boggin' down in this here quicksand."
"My God! Look out for yourself, Jack!" suddenly cried the boy in accents of horror.
A huge albatross was swooping down upon the rover.
These birds are the terror of a man overboard in the Southern Ocean. With their great curved beaks they attack the eyes of the castaway, who, from his position in the water, is but poorly placed for defending himself, and nearly always succumbs, his strength failing him in the unequal combat.
"Your knives, boys!" sang out Jack heartily, as if this new danger were nothing much to bother about.
Then with a lightning stroke he almost severed the great bird's head from its body.
With a splash it struck the water, and, after one wild flurry, lay motionless, floating on the wave with its head under.
"That's fine bowie-work as ever I sees," remarked Broncho. "That bird gets all he wants; he ain't askin' for more. He shore makes a sperited play, but he notes now as how he can't bluff Jack none."
"Bold, vicious bird, that!" commented Jack.
"One down, but there are hundreds more," groaned Jim.
"Three's too many for 'em. I don't think any more will attack us, except perhaps an odd old one," declared the rover.
"I corrals your remyarks with gladness, Jack," declared the cowboy; "for I was shore some dubious about the play. If they rounds up together an' charges in a mob, it's on the kyards one or other of we-alls emerges from the battle shy an eye."
Presently another albatross made a descent upon them, and after a fierce fight retired from the contest, bleeding and disgusted; but he had left his mark on Broncho's hand, which was nastily torn.
"This here abandoned conduct of these debauchees of birds has me plumb weary," remarked the cowpuncher, as he wiped his blood-stained knife on his sleeve. "I feels like a spring lamb on the pra'rie up agin an eagle. That ere profligate bird was shore hungerin' for blood, an' I feels kind o' comforted when I dirties his shirt-front, an' he, carolling forth a squawk, jumps out an' pulls his freight. No, Jack, thar's nothin' timid about these here albatrosses; they're bold a whole lot, not to say f'rocious an' gore-thirsty."
"Our combination's too strong," grunted the latter optimistically.
But though Broncho discussed the danger in his off-hand way, and Jack seemed cool and undismayed, Jim hung in the life-buoy, his little, thin face white and drawn.
The desperate fight with the fierce birds had almost been too much for his young nerves, toughened though they were, and he felt sick and faint.
But the cold was now beginning to make itself felt, and this was really the chief danger to the castaways; for the wind had been falling steadily all the morning, and had become very faint, whilst the sea ran in long oily ridges, only one of which here and there broke with any strength. The boy's lips were blue, and his teeth chattered, though he tried hard to keep them clenched.
"Bit cold, Jim, ain't it? How're you feeling?" asked Jack, observing the pinched features and chattering teeth with inward concern.
"I'm all r-r-r-right! Go-go-goin' strong."
"More'n that riotin' albatross is," remarked Broncho, pointing to the dead bird, which still floated close to the rover. "He ain't stuck his head out of water since Jack downed him."
"He's d-d-d-dead, isn't he?"
"I ain't right certain he ain't foxin'," returned the cowpuncher. "Give him a poke with your bowie, Jack, an' see if you can't rouse him some."
"Not I," objected Jack. "Let sleeping dogs lie."
And so time passed as, slowly, very slowly, the whaler drifted nearer.
The sea was bitterly cold, and occasionally a breaker knocked the breath out of them, but no one of the three showed any signs of weakening.
Hovering round them were several albatrosses, besides black-hens and molly-mawks, all squawking loudly, and evidently trying to summon up sufficient courage to attack the dauntless trio.
"Them birds is shore organisin' for war," observed Broncho, as he watched them. "They're beginnin' to whoop an' beat their tomtoms a whole lot. I've a theery that six-shooters would be good argyments with them feathered sports. I regrets most sincere our havin' to leave our weepons on the Higgins that-away, Jack; I just loathes hittin' a new trail without packin' a gun along."
"No time to pack our trunks," grunted Jack disgustedly. "Left my baccy, and want a smoke bad."
"Wall, you shorely goes the limit a whole corralful for sheer, blisterin', hell-freezin' coolness. You'd light a seegyar whilst you were prospectin' the bottomless pit, Jack."
But Jack was watching the gathering birds.
"Union is strength," he said musingly. "Closed ranks defence against an open order attack. Let's tie the life-buoys together."
"Sech observations is plenty sagacious," commented Broncho approvingly, "an' I votes we acts tharon instanter. You bushwhack in here, Jim, between us two. This here hand has got to be played with care, if we-alls is goin' to avoid gettin' cold feet."
Jack and Broncho still had their bundles of rope-yarns and rovings thrust through their belts, and with these they soon lashed the life-buoys securely together in the form of a triangle.
"Now, let 'em all come!" cried Jim defiantly.
"They're shore makin' war medicine," observed Broncho; "but I ain't in no frenzied hurry to begin the battle. Let 'em sachey around an' take their time."
"Here comes a scout, boys," cried Jack, as a great, white-headed bird swooped gracefully towards them.
"Take your seats, gents, the performance is about to commence," remarked Broncho coolly.
But the albatross only circled slowly round, evidently rather diffident about beginning the attack.
"He's cuttin' kyards with himself as to whether he'll jump in an' skeer us up some, or lope back an' make a report on our poseetion," was the cowboy's interpretation of the bird's actions.
"He's going," exclaimed Jim, with a long breath of relief.
"He's wise! It's just the tenderness of hell saves him from our bowies that time," drawled Broncho, with a grim smile.
For nearly an hour they floated with knives drawn, but the fierce birds never came within range of the flashing steel again, though they kept wheeling round the castaways in a manner which was very trying to the nerves.
About 2 p.m. the old whaler was only about a hundred yards off, and drifting right down upon them.
"Let's give 'em a shout," proposed Jack. "A whaler would think nothing of launching a boat in this sea."
"Whoopee!" yelled Broncho; but there was no sign of any one moving on the barque.
"Co-oo-ee!" sang Jack; but still no result.
"I'll soon wake 'em if they ain't all dead," declared Jim, and putting a finger in his mouth, he emitted an ear-piercing whistle, which swelled and sank like a siren.
"That shore takes the pot for the shrillest, most searchin' whistle I ever hears," exclaimed Broncho. "It plumb near deafens me, an' I bet the limit it scurries up those sharps aboard there a whole lot."
And Broncho was right, for now two heads appeared above the rail of the barque, and an arm was flourished.
"Hurrah! we're seen," cried Jim.
"Whatever species of men are they?" exclaimed the cowpuncher excitedly, as he scanned the distant heads with his keen, prairie-trained eyes.
"Do you-alls notice anything strange about them whalers?" he asked of Jack.
"Seem to have very blotchy faces."
"Blotchy faces? Wall, I should gamble," drawled Broncho. "Why, their physio'nomies is cut up in black an' yellow squares like a checker-board, an' may I be locoed if the one without a sombrero ain't scalped."
"Stickin'-plaster, p'r'aps," suggested Jim, "some whale they've been scrappin' with done it."
"Something's queer aboard," mused Jack. "Those are the two scattermouches we saw this morning. Query, where's the rest of the crowd? South Sea whalers carry a big crew."
"Stand your hands thar, boys; thar's somethin' wrong on that packet or I'm a jack-rabbit. Seems to me we're prancin' down too rapid an' heedless on that ere outfit. We're liable to overplay our hands if we don't go some slower," said Broncho solemnly, as with knit eyebrows he watched the nearing whaleship.
"Maybe it's the phantom ship or the haunted whaler, quien sabe?" remarked Jack. "Anyhow, it's better than cruising off the Horn in a life-buoy. Que quieres hombre, Broncho—cross the road and let 'em go by, or politely inquire if they've got measles aboard?"
"That's all right, that'll go for humour this time," retorted Broncho, with keen irony.
"S'pose they have got somethin'," put in Jim. "Berri-berri, or scurvy, or Java fever——"
"Go it, Jim," laughed the rover. "What else? Plague, eh? And leprosy? Or I have it—Yellow Jack, of course; that would account for the yellow, blotchy faces."
"I ain't s'picious o' no malady," asserted Broncho. "No, it's ambushes or some sech cawpse-makin' plays I'm some doobersome of; an' I'm allowin' we-alls had better have our bowies out when we meets up with them speckled parties. They shore looks to me like redskins painted for war."
"Why, they're Kanakas!" declared Jack, as they got nearer.
"What breed o' dawg are Kanakas?" asked Broncho.
"South Sea Islanders."
"Cannibals!" gasped Jim. "I see our finish."
"Long pig, eh, Jim?" laughed the rover.
"Them cannibals is some like redskins, ain't they?" inquired Broncho, taking no notice of Jack's levity. "Cold an' p'isonous as rattlesnakes, an' the way they've daubed themselves shows they're plumb ready for the thunderbolt of war."
"Tattooing," explained Jack; and as soon as they were close enough he sang out, "Ship ahoy!"
One of the Kanakas waved his arm, but the other jumped up and down, evidently very excited, and gave vent to the most weird cries.
"He's throwin' off some mighty high-flung whoops. What's that ghost-dance he's evolvin' thar? Do you savvy, Jack, if that's his wardance?" inquired the cowboy.
"Oh, Lord!" groaned poor Jim dismally. "Here we are right into a horde of man-eatin' savages."
"Stick your spurs in, sonny, an' we'll stampede right over 'em on the top of the next wave, so as they won't know if it's a landslide or a cloud-burst that devastates 'em," said Broncho heartily.
"Stand by to heave us a rope," hailed Jack again.
The silent one waved, then disappeared, and presently bobbed up above the rail with a coil of harpoon-line in his hand.
"Heave away!" yelled Jack.
The rope's-end came snaking out over the water, and Jack, leaving his life-buoy, made a dive after it.
"Who'll go first?" he asked quickly, on getting hold of the line.
"Can't we-alls go in a bunch," inquired Broncho. "It would be a safer play that-away. I ain't hankerin' on playin' a lone hand agin them two tiger-lilies. Where's the rest of the band? The deal seems some queer to me."
"We must go one at a time. Which is it, quick?" asked Jack shortly.
"Pass me," returned Broncho distrustfully. "You take the first deal, Jack; you've been acquainted with them tattooed gents before, an' mebbe will make a better play of it, breakin' the ice, than either Jim or me."
"Yes, go ahead, Jack—if you think it's all right," added the boy uneasily.
"Well, here goes then," and watching his chance as the barque rolled, he shouted, "Haul away!" and at the same time kicked out lustily towards the ship.
The sea swung him right up to the rail, and catching hold quickly, with the aid of the Kanaka he managed to scramble aboard, and a few seconds later Broncho and Jim were likewise hauled over the bulwark into safety. And as they lay on the deck rubbing their cramped and chilled limbs to restore the circulation, they gazed around anxiously; but except for the two Kanakas, who stood regarding them silently, the decks seemed to be deserted.