Chapter Nine.
We sight a strange sail.
Having secured possession of the brig, and succeeded in coercing me to become their navigator to some island in the Pacific, the locality of which they had as yet kept secret, upon an errand the nature of which they had not seen fit to divulge to me, the crew at once went industriously to work, under O’Gorman, to put the vessel all ataunto once more, by routing out and sending aloft spare topgallant-masts and yards, bending new sails, overhauling and making good the rigging, and, in short, repairing all damage of every description; and with such goodwill did they work that in ten days from the date of their seizure of the brig everything had been done that it was possible to do, and, so far as the outward appearance of the craft was concerned, there was nothing to show that anything had ever been wrong with her.
Meanwhile, during the progress of this renovating process, the steward had made it his business to give the lazarette a thorough stock-taking overhaul, of the result of which I was kept ignorant. But I gathered that the examination was not altogether satisfactory; for when it was over, and the steward had made his report to O’Gorman, the latter came to me and anxiously demanded to know what our distance then was from the Horn. This was on the afternoon of the third day after the seizure of the brig, and upon carefully measuring off the distance from our position at noon on that day, I found that it amounted to three thousand seven hundred and some odd miles. The distance seemed to be a staggerer to the fellow, and when, in reply to a further question, I informed him that he might reckon upon the brig taking nearly or quite a month to cover it, he made no attempt to conceal his dismay. That something was radically wrong at once became apparent, for there were long conclaves in the forecastle, the object of which, presumably, was to determine how to meet the emergency. I shrewdly suspected that this emergency arose out of the unexpected discovery that the brig’s stock of provisions, or water, or both, was insufficient to carry us to our destination; and I fervently hoped that my conjecture might prove correct, as in that case we should be compelled to touch somewhere to renew our stock; and I felt that if in such a case I failed to secure the arrest of the whole party for piracy I should richly deserve to remain their tool, exposed to the countless vacillating and dangerous humours of a gang of ruffians who had deliberately thrown off every restraint of law and order.
But, in speculating thus, I was reckoning without my hosts; I was crediting O’Gorman and his satellites with scruples that they did not possess. I had not yet fully gauged the villainy of which they were capable.
Thus far, ever since we had borne up for the Horn, we had been favoured with a fair wind, and plenty of it; but on the second day after the occurrence of the above events the wind began to fail us, and by sunset that night it had dwindled away until the brig had barely steerage-way, while the surface of the ocean presented that streaky, oily appearance that is usually the precursor of a flat calm. Meanwhile, during the afternoon, a sail had hove in sight in the north-western board, steering south-east; and when the sun went down in a clear haze of ruddy gold, the sails of the stranger, reddened by the last beams of the luminary, glowed against the clear opal tints of the north-western sky at a distance of some eight miles, broad on our starboard bow.
The stranger was a barque-rigged vessel of some three hundred and fifty tons or so: quite an ordinary, everyday-looking craft, with nothing whatever of an alarming character in her aspect; yet she had not long been in sight when it became quite apparent that O’Gorman and his crew were greatly exercised at her appearance; and I was at first disposed to imagine that their emotion arose from the circumstance of their being fully aware that, in seizing the brig, as they had done, they had committed an act of piracy, and that they now feared detection and its attendant unpleasant consequences. But by sunset I had found occasion to alter my opinion, for it had by then become evident that O’Gorman was manoeuvring, not to avoid but to close with the stranger in such a manner as to avoid arousing any suspicion as to his design!
No sooner did this intention of O’Gorman’s become apparent than I began to ask myself what could be his motive for such a course; and the only satisfactory reply that I could find to such a question was that he wished to ascertain whether her skipper had any provisions to spare, and, if so, to endeavour to treat with him for their purchase—I had by this time seen enough of O’Gorman to recognise that he was quite acute enough to discern the advantage and safety which such a transaction would afford him over the alternative of being compelled to touch at some port, and I had little doubt that my surmise as to his intentions would prove correct. At all events, his determination to speak the barque was evident, and I began to cast about for some means whereby the encounter might be utilised to the advantage of Miss Onslow and myself.
There were two or three ways in which we might possibly be benefited by the incident, if only I could contrive to establish private communication with the skipper of the stranger. In the first place, if the barque happened to be British—of which, however, I had my doubts—I might make her skipper acquainted with all the circumstances relating to the brig’s seizure, and appeal to him to compel the Irishman and his gang—by force, if necessary—to surrender Miss Onslow and myself. Or, if that should prove impossible, I might perhaps be able to secure Miss Onslow’s transfer to the stranger, when—her safety having been assured—it would matter comparatively little what happened to myself. Or—in the event of both these schemes failing—I might possibly succeed in privately arranging with the skipper to acquaint the authorities with our predicament and request them to take the necessary steps to effect our rescue.
One or another of these plans I might perhaps succeed in putting into effect, provided that the Irishman should prove careless and neglectful enough to permit of my communicating with the skipper of the barque. But would he be so? I very much doubted it. Yet I could but try; and if, as I anticipated, I should find it impossible to obtain private speech with the skipper of the barque, I might still be able to surreptitiously convey to him a letter which would serve my purpose quite as well.
Meditating thus, I made my way below to the brig’s snug little cabin, with the intention of forthwith inditing my epistle, and there I found Miss Onslow, seated upon one of the lockers, ostensibly engaged in reading, but with her beautiful eyes fixed upon the gently-swaying lamp that hung in the skylight, with a dreamy, absent look in them that showed her thoughts to be far away.
“Do you happen to know whether the steward is in his pantry, Miss. Onslow?” I asked, with a glance in the direction of the apartment named, as I entered the cabin.
“No; he is not there; he went on deck nearly an hour ago,” she replied. “Do you want anything, Mr Conyers?”
“Nothing more at present than a few minutes’ privacy and freedom from espionage,” I answered. “Listen, Miss Onslow,” I continued, “I have been engaged for the last two hours in quietly observing the manoeuvres of O’Gorman, and I have come to the conclusion that he intends to close with and speak the barque that has been in sight all the afternoon. Now, such a proceeding may, or may not, be to our advantage. If I can succeed in effecting communication with her skipper, it may be possible for us to accomplish one of three things: First, we may, with the assistance of the barque’s crew, be enabled to effect our escape from these people altogether. Or, if that should prove impracticable, we may possibly be enabled to secure your transfer to the barque. Or, if that attempt also should fail, we surely ought to be able, with the help of the barque’s people, to communicate with the authorities ashore, and claim from them rescue from our present precarious and exceedingly unpleasant situation.”
“Y–e–es,” my companion assented meditatively. Then, after a slight pause, she asked:
“Have you ever thought of what the end of this adventure is likely to be, so far as we two are concerned, supposing that we should fail to effect our escape from O’Gorman and his companions?”
“Certainly, the matter is never absent from my thoughts,” I answered. “We are bound—upon what I cannot help thinking a fool’s errand—to some island in the Pacific, upon which O’Gorman and his party expect to find a certain treasure. This treasure they either will or will not find; but in either case I anticipate that, so far as we are concerned, the adventure will end in our being landed somewhere at a sufficient distance from a town to permit of O’Gorman getting clear away with the brig before we should have time to give the alarm and secure his capture.”
“That, of course, is assuming that you carry out these men’s wishes, without giving them any trouble,” commented Miss Onslow. “But,” she continued, “what, do you imagine, is likely to be the result—the effect upon us both—if you cause them trouble and anxiety by endeavouring to escape? They have made it perfectly evident to you that they cannot dispense with your services. Do you really think it worth our while to irritate and provoke them by attempting to escape? True, they are exceedingly unpleasant people to be brought into such close and constant contact with, but there seems to be no great harm in them, provided that they are allowed to have their own way.”
“Ah!” I exclaimed, “you evidently do not know of what a ship’s crew may become capable when once they have committed so serious a crime as piracy—for that is what they have done in taking this brig from me. It is not what these men are, now, but what they may become in the future, of which I am thinking, especially so far as you are concerned. I recognise possibilities in the future that may make this brig the scene of hourly peril to you of a nature that I shudder to think of, and it is your safety that I am concerned about; that assured, I could face the rest with equanimity.”
“Thank you. It is exceedingly good and kind of you to think so much for me, and so little for yourself,” answered my companion. She spoke with her face turned away from me, so that I was unable to read its expression, and her voice had an intonation that I would have given much to have been able to translate. Was it merely my imagination—I asked myself—or was there really a recurrent shade of her former hauteur of manner, mingled with just the faintest suggestion of irony and impatience? The fact is that I was at that moment as far from being able to comprehend this lovely but inscrutable woman as when I met her for the first time in the saloon of the City of Cawnpore: her moods were as changeable as the weather: there were occasions when her manner toward me was almost as warm and genial and sympathetic as even a lover could require; while there were others when she appeared animated by a set purpose to impress upon me the conviction that our remarkable adventure together invested me with no claim whatever upon her beyond that of the merest ordinary gratitude. As for me, if I have not already allowed the fact to leak out, I may as well here make a clean breast of it and confess that I loved her with all the ardent passion of which a man’s heart is capable, and I was resolutely determined to win her love in return; but up to the moment of which I am now speaking I seemed to have made so little headway that I often doubted whether I had made any at all. I had, however, come at length to recognise that the rebuffs I occasionally met with followed some speech or action of mine of which the young lady did not wholly approve; and so I soon found it to be in the present instance. She remained silent for perhaps half a minute after speaking the words the recounting of which has extorted from me the above explanation, and then continued, with much greater cordiality:
“Believe me, Mr Conyers, I am sincerely grateful to you for your perfectly evident anxiety on my account; but I am obliged to confess that I do not regard our situation as nearly so desperate as you seem to do; I do not think that either of us will have anything to fear from O’Gorman and his companions if you will but reconcile yourself to the performance of the task that they have imposed upon you. What I do really fear is what may happen if you wilfully exasperate them by making any attempt to thwart their plans by depriving them of your assistance—without which, I would remind you again, they can do nothing. Help them to carry through their undertaking—never mind whether or not it be a fool’s errand—and I have every confidence that they will treat us with the utmost consideration, after their own rough fashion; but seriously provoke them, and, I ask you, what are likely to be the consequences to us both? Of course if you can so contrive it that we can both be rescued by the ship in sight, I shall be more delighted than I can say; but as to your attempting to get me transferred to her alone—you will think it strange, unaccountable, perhaps, but I feel so very much more safe here, with you to protect me, than I should on board the strange ship, alone, that if you are to remain here I would very much rather remain with you.”
Words calculated to send the blood of an ardent lover throbbing through his veins like quicksilver, are they not? Yet they excited not one atom of jubilation in me, for they were uttered in a tone of such coldness and indifference that I felt as certain as I could be of anything that it was wholly of herself, and not at all of me, that the speaker was thinking.
“Very well,” I answered, steeling myself to the adoption of an equally cold manner of speech; “I think I understand your wishes in this matter, and will endeavour to carry them out; if the strangers yonder can be induced to take us both out of the hands of these ruffians, well and good; if not, I am to take no other steps?”
She bowed acquiescence, and turned to her book once more, with a manner indicating that the discussion was at an end; and I, accepting the hint, retired at once to my cabin to prepare a letter addressed to the skipper of the stranger, to be conveyed to him if opportunity should permit.
But although I had yielded a seeming acquiescence to Miss Onslow’s misguided wish to share my captivity—should it be continued—aboard the brig, it must not be supposed that I had any intention of lending myself to so terribly dangerous and mistaken a proceeding. It was perfectly clear to me that the high-spirited girl had, in some unaccountable way, completely missed the point of my remarks, and utterly failed to comprehend the frightfully precarious and perilous character of her position aboard the brig; moreover, her mere presence there served O’Gorman as a lever and a menace powerful enough to constrain me irresistibly to the most abject submission to his will; so long as she remained where she was, in the power of these ruffians, I could do absolutely nothing, for fear of what they might inflict upon her by way of revenge; but with her removed from their power, and placed in safety, I might possibly be able to bring every one of the wretches into the grip of the law that they had so audaciously defied. And so, when I began to pen my letter to the unknown skipper, I was careful—after briefly describing our peculiar situation—to appeal to him, as powerfully as I could, to effect the rescue of the girl by any means at his command, regardless of what might become of me.
Having at length finished my letter, I folded it up into a suitably small and compact form, placed it by itself in one of my pockets, in readiness to transfer it at the first favourable opportunity to the individual for whom it was intended, and then, filling my pipe, made my way leisurely up on deck to take a look round and see in what direction matters were trending.
It was a magnificently fine and brilliant moon-lit night, with only a few small, scattered shreds of light fleecy cloud floating overhead, and a soft, warm air breathing out from the north-east so gently that it scarcely stirred the oil-smooth surface of the ocean, which indeed it only touched here and there in faint, evanescent cat’s-paws that barely sufficed to give the brig steerage-way with squared yards and every possible inch of canvas spread. As for the barque, she was now about a point on the starboard bow, not more than a mile distant, and was evidently not under command, as she had swung round head to wind, and lay there in the bright moonlight swaying with an almost imperceptible swing over the long, low hummocks of glassy swell, with her canvas—gleaming softly and spectrally under the showering moonbeams. All hands—O’Gorman included—except the man at the wheel, were on the forecastle-head, intently watching her, and talking eagerly together, so I had a good opportunity to take a leisurely survey of her, and draw my conclusions as to her nationality. I went to the companion, secured the night-glass, and took a good look at her; with the result that I concluded her to be of French or Italian nationality—rather an awkward and unexpected development for me, I having foolishly taken it for granted that she would prove to be British and written my letter in English accordingly. And yet, perhaps, if my surmise should prove to be correct, I might be afforded a better opportunity to make an effective appeal for assistance than if the craft were British, for I gravely doubted whether O’Gorman or any of his people spoke French or Italian, and if that were the case they would probably require me to act as interpreter for them, and thus afford me just such an opportunity as I desired. On the other hand, I could not but feel that an appeal for help, made to a French or an Italian crew, was much less likely to meet with a favourable response than if made to a crew of Britons.
These reflections passed through my mind as I stood peering through the tube at the becalmed barque; it did not need a very prolonged scrutiny to enable me to learn all that was possible of her at that distance, and presently I replaced the glass in its beckets, and proceeded to saunter fore and aft the deck, from the wake of the main rigging to the wheel grating, smoking meditatively the while.
By the time that I had smoked my pipe out we had neared the barque to within less than half, a mile; and I was momentarily expecting to hear O’Gorman give the order to round-to and lower away the boat—wondering, meanwhile, how on earth I could possibly contrive to get my letter conveyed to the skipper—when the Irishman came shambling aft and, placing himself at my side, inquired:
“Well, misther, have you finished your shmoke?”
“Yes,” I answered curtly. “Why do you ask the question, pray?”
“Because,” he replied, “I’ll have to ask ye to just step down below and stay there for the rest of the night!”
“To step down below—and stay there?” I repeated indignantly. “What do you mean, man? Surely I am not to be sent to my bunk like a child, whether I wish to go or not?”
“Bedad, but ye are thin; so make no more bones about it!” he retorted, with quickly-rising anger.
“But, my good fellow, this is preposterous,”—I began, thoroughly exasperated at such treatment, and keenly anxious not to lose even the most slender chance of communicating with the strangers. But the fellow would permit no argument, his quick temper caught fire instantly at the merest suggestion of remonstrance on my part, and he cut me short by exclaiming furiously:
“Howly Sailor! Phwhat’s the use av’ talkin’ about it? Ye’ve got to go below, and that’s all there is about it. Will ye go p’aceably, or will I have to call some of the hands aft to make ye go?”
Again did I feel that terrible, overpowering sensation of murderous anger grip at my heart, as it had already done once before in an altercation with this brutal ruffian, the blood again mounted to my head like fire, and, reckless of all consequences, I was in the very act of pulling myself together for a spring at his throat, when I felt a small hand—the touch of which thrilled me, even at that moment—laid upon my arm, and Miss Onslow’s voice—pitched in its most seductive tones—said:
“Will you please come with me at once—at once—Mr Conyers? I have something of the utmost importance to say to you!”
With an effort that caused me to turn sick and giddy, I mastered the impulse that urged me to strike my enemy dead, there and then, and, mute with the intensity of my feelings, permitted my companion to lead me away. We descended the companion ladder in silence; and upon reaching the cabin Miss Onslow—as upon a former occasion—led me to one of the sofa-lockers, upon which she seated herself, gently drawing me down beside her. Then, looking anxiously into my face, she said:
“Mr Conyers, I could almost find it in my heart to be angry with you. Why—oh, why will you persist in laying yourself open to such insults from that great, coarse brute, by condescending to argue with him? What is the use of doing so? Surely you must realise, by this time, that you are quite powerless in the hands of these men, and that you cannot control or influence them in any way. Then, why attempt to do it? The only result is that you are insulted, and at once become positively mad with anger, under the influence of which you will some day—unless you are very careful—do something that you will be exceedingly sorry for. For instance, what would have happened, had I not fortunately chanced to have gone on deck the moment that I heard you and that Irish ruffian in conversation?”
“You are right—perfectly right,” I answered; “and you make me feel very heartily ashamed of myself for my lamentable want of self-control—of which I will take especial care that henceforward there shall be no repetition. Of course I can see clearly enough, now, how positively suicidal it would have been for me to have yielded to the impulse that animated me at the moment when you so fortunately came upon the scene—suicidal for myself, and ruinously disastrous for you—which circumstance will, I assure you, amply suffice as an effectual check upon me for the future. We are but two against sixteen, and common sense tells me that, with such odds against us, violence is out of the question; we must depend upon craft and diplomacy to secure our ends.”
“Oh! I am so glad to find you taking a reasonable view of our most unfortunate situation,” exclaimed my companion, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. “Of course,” she continued, “I can easily understand how terribly exasperating it must be to you—a naval officer, who has always hitherto been accustomed to the most implicit obedience on the part of your crew—to find yourself defied and insulted by these wretches, and I am not at all surprised that, under such circumstances, you find the provocation all but unendurable; but I am sure you are right in believing, as you say, that we must fight by diplomatic means rather than by a resort to brute force. I feel sure that the latter would be a terrible mistake on our part, and I will not attempt to deny that on the two occasions when you seemed about to resort to such means, I have been most horribly frightened.”
“Yes,” I exclaimed, with profound contrition, “I can quite understand that you would be so; and I very humbly beg your pardon for having so terrified you. I have been contemptibly weak at the very moment when I most needed to be strong; but have no further fear; you have effectually cured me of my weakness. And, now, you may as well tell me what was the important matter upon which you so urgently desired to speak to me.”
For a moment my companion gazed at me with a most bewitching expression of perplexity in her glorious eyes; then her face lighted up with a smile of amusement, and she broke into a musical laugh.
“What!” she exclaimed. “Do you not yet understand? I only wanted to say to you what I have just said—or, rather I wanted to get you away from that Irishman before your impetuous temper had time to precipitate a disaster.”
“I see,” said I, “Well—”
I was interrupted by a sound of hailing that seemed to proceed, not from our own forecastle but from some spot a little way ahead of us; and I at once concluded that its source must be the strange barque, the existence of which I had entirely forgotten in the interest of the discussion between myself and Miss Onslow. I listened for a reply from O’Gorman, but there was none; and presently the hailing was repeated—this time from a much nearer point—and immediately followed by an excited shouting and jabbering, in which I believed I could distinguish a word or two of French. I sprang to my feet, and was about to rush up on deck, when Miss Onslow checked the movement by laying her hand upon my arm, and saying:
“Please oblige me by staying here. If you were to go on deck, that wretch would only insult you again; so why lay yourself open to such treatment, since you can do absolutely nothing? You must school yourself to allow those men to have their own way, since neither persuasion nor force are of any avail with them.”
“True,” answered I. “But it is instinctive for a sailor—and especially an officer—to rush on deck when he hears such an outcry as that,”—as the shouting and jabbering became momentarily nearer and more excited.
At that instant O’Gorman’s voice shouted an order to “Stand by!” immediately followed by a command to the helmsman to “Hard a-starboard!” and presently there occurred a gentle shock—showing that the brig had collided with something apparently on the rounding of her starboard bow—accompanied by a most outrageous clamour, in which “S–a–c–r–és” and other French expletives plentifully abounded.
“Now, take a turn anywhere you can, and as often as you can,” shouted O’Gorman, “and then follow me. And if they offer any resistance, knock ’em down, or heave ’em overboard.”
“Why, good Heavens! they have run the barque aboard, and are taking her!” I exclaimed, astonished and shocked beyond expression, as it dawned upon me that the wretches were committing a further act of piracy. And I made as though to spring to my feet. In an instant Miss Onslow had seized my hand in hers, gripping me so firmly that I could not break away from her without exercising a certain measure of violence.
“And if they are?” said she, “can you do anything to prevent it?”
“No,” answered I. “But I will tell you what I can do. If you will suffer me to go on deck I can see whether all hands have boarded the barque. And, if they have, and there appears to be the slightest possibility of our being able to effect our escape, I will cut the brig adrift, and make off with her!”
“Do you really think such a feat possible?” demanded my companion, with sparkling eyes.
“I scarcely know,” answered I. “If the breeze has freshened at all within the last few minutes, it might be done; not otherwise; because in the latter event they could lower the barque’s boats and overhaul us in a very few minutes.”
“At all events it is quite worth while to ascertain whether there is any chance of success. Let us go on deck and see!” exclaimed Miss Onslow, her features at once all aglow with excitement as she sprang to her feet.
“Agreed!” cried I, overjoyed to find the young lady so unexpectedly yielding approval to my rather desperate plan. “I will go on deck first, and ascertain the precise state of affairs; and if I find that there is a sufficiently fair prospect of success to justify us in the attempt I will call to you through the skylight as soon as I need your help.”
My companion regarded me somewhat doubtfully for a moment, and then reseated herself, saying:
“Very well. I think I can trust you now. But please be very careful; and do not attempt anything unless you feel certain of success.”
Meanwhile, the uproar that had prevailed for a few minutes prior to and following upon the contact between the two craft had suddenly ceased; and as I emerged from the companion-way I saw that, even supposing there had ever been a prospect of my plan proving successful—which there had not, the wind having died away to the merest breathing—I was now too late. For the two vessels—their hulls prevented from grinding together by several cork fenders hung between them—were so securely lashed together that it would have cost me several minutes’ hard work to cut them adrift. Moreover, O’Gorman, followed by half a dozen of his gang, were just in the act of scrambling inboard again from the stranger. The Irishman saw me upon the instant of my emerging from the companion, and immediately shouted:
“Here, Misther Conyers, ye’re just the man we want! Do you spake Frinch?”
“Yes,” answered I, believing that I saw my opportunity. “Why?”
“Becase,” he replied, “the chaps aboard the barque don’t seem to be able to undershtand a worrud we say to thim; and bedad we’re in the same fix with regar–rd to thim. So we want an interpreter; and maybe you’ll be able to act that same for us.”
“Very well,” said I; “what do you want me to do?”
“Whoy, we’ll take it kindly of ye if you’ll just be so obligin’ as to shtep aboard the barque, and say what we want ye to say,” answered the fellow. “But, mind,” he added warningly, “don’t ye attimpt to say annything else, or by the Piper it’ll be the worse for ye—and for the young woman down below. I can undershtand Frinch like a native—so I shall know everything that you say—but begorra the Oirish brogue of me makes it difficult for thim froggies to undershtand me when I shpake to thim.”
“All right,” I answered, perfectly easy in my mind, “you can stand alongside me, and hear everything that passes.”
So saying, without further ado I leapt upon the brig’s bulwarks, from thence to those of the barque, and so down upon her deck, closely followed by O’Gorman.