The Third Evening.
East by S-½-South, under fore and main courses and upper and lower top-sails, sped the Corona with the wind on her quarter. Aft, rose great water-hills, darkly green, with white crests, seeming, as each followed each, to hang momentarily suspended over the stern and threaten to overwhelm everything; then, as the good ship rose just in the nick of time, breaking with a long surge in sheets of milky foam away for’ard.
The sun was setting sullenly behind a dense cloud-bank
. An albatross or two flew screaming from one wave-crest to another right in the wake. It was a typical evening in the Southern Ocean, the long wash of whose seas reach from the foot of Cape Leuwin to the rugged cliffs of Fuego.
[251]
]‘Well,’ continued the Captain, without any preface, as he took his seat facing the waiting and expectant little party.
‘Well, stare as I might aloft, I could not discover to where this Jacob’s ladder led. You see, at its best, it was only a column of dusky twilight, and the further end, from where I stood, was lost to view. As I gazed, it appeared to be gradually fading away. I rubbed my eyes; and when I again looked, all around was blacker than the blackest midnight, except where my fire still burned. For a while, I was puzzled to account for the disappearance of the light. Then the thought struck me that it might be caused by the fall of night in the upper world. Was I, I wondered, as I turned sadly to my fire, ever again to look upon the bright day, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the wonders of that fair earth now grown so dear to me? Truly was I one of those unhappy men who, as the Psalmist says, “sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron.”
‘Close to the pillar of light, just on its outside edge, I had noticed a long, slender, almost perpendicular pinnacle of lava towering upwards like the spire of a church.
‘At the base of this I securely moored my boat. Then, thinking that a cup of tea would cheer me up a little, I brewed one, and made a good meal. After this, lying down, I pondered many things, gazing always aloft.
[252]
]‘Once I imagined I saw a star; but it disappeared before I could make sure.
‘The one question uppermost in my mind was whether or not the glimmer would reappear when the morning broke above, or had it been an illusion? One thing encouraged me to hope for the best. It was perceptibly cooler, a grateful change from the warm mugginess I had encountered everywhere else. I had, by this, contracted a habit of talking aloud, and I presently caught myself saying that I would climb the lava pinnacle in the morning and try to get a better look-out.
‘“In the morning.”
‘The utter vanity of the so familiar phrase as it fell on my ears struck me with all the force of some terrible shock, whilst the cold deadening thought seized upon me that, for me, in this world, there was to be no more morning. Through darkness was I to make the last journey towards that dread bourne whence no traveller returns? The slow death in the darkness, drifting about on the bitter waters of that secret sea—that was the thought that my soul revolted from. And strange thoughts, horrible thoughts, a man thinks placed as I was. At times his reason leaves him, his whole soul rises in impious revolt, and the devil rages freely therein, as if already his victim’s bed were made in hell.
‘But, thanks be to God!’ exclaimed the Captain, fervently, ‘that the recollections of that hideous time—of the fits of doubt and despair and terror and [253] ]madness, of which I have said but little to you—grow dimmer and weaker with the years, leaving only in enduring relief the memory of a great mercy!
‘It pleased me, though, unproved as it was, that notion of being able to distinguish between night and daylight. The very fact, pure conjecture though it might be, of having the power to say, “Night has come,” seemed to bring peace to my wearied eyes; so that I presently lay down and slept dreamlessly, and on awakening found again, to my intense joy, that mild, soft haze falling upon me.
‘Scarcely giving myself time to snatch a mouthful of biscuit and a draught of cold tea, I jumped ashore and commenced the ascent of the tapering mass of rock. It was, as I have said, nearly perpendicular, and there was no lack of foot and hand-holds—projections sharp as razors, formed by the drippings of the once molten lava. Thanks to my trained vision and the help afforded by the close proximity of the light, I could see dimly. Higher up, the projecting spurs and knobs grew scarcer, and the surface more smooth and slippery. It was terrible work. At home I had had some practice as a cragsman, and this stood to me well now. As I climbed, sometimes vertically, at others spirally, wherever I could feel the firmest hold, the atmosphere grew palpably clearer, and this infused new strength into my aching limbs as I crawled upwards, now hanging by one bleeding hand over the abyss beneath me, now with both hands breathlessly embracing some sharp spur that cut into [254] ]my flesh, whilst my feet groped convulsively for precarious support.
‘When just about spent, I unexpectedly came to the top. I found only room enough there to sit down and pant. A wild hope had filled my breast that this rocky ladder would lead me to liberty—a hope growing stronger with every upward step. As I looked around, these hopes fell, and the old leaden weight of despair seemed to settle once more upon my soul. Slanting away from me on every side, stretched the rugged acclivities of a vast amphitheatre, converging again towards its summit, where the blue sky was distinctly visible. Picture to yourselves an hour-glass with a long tunnel-like waist. Place a straw, the end of which rests on the bottom of the lower section of the glass and reaches up through the tunnel until just on a level with the sloping-upward portion of the top section, but touching it nowhere. Now place a minute insect on the very tip of the straw, and you have my situation as nearly as I can explain it to you. And there I crouched on my lava straw, stretching out unavailing hands to those scarred cliffs of liberty, betwixt me and which spread that dark abyss, with the mournful waters of the bitter sea at its foot. The distance between where I sat on the top of the pinnacle and the sloping walls of the crater all round must have been about twenty five feet. I think it was afterwards measured as that. A hundred plans darted swiftly into my mind for crossing this little space, which meant so much to me, only to be as quickly dismissed as impracticable.
[255]
]‘Although still very far from day, it was yet light enough to let me see that the sides of the crater, nearly equi-distant around my perch, were cut and ploughed into deep furrows, and that, once there, I should have comparatively little trouble in reaching upper air.
‘Would it be possible, I wondered, to splice what remained of the oars together, and thus make some kind of a bridge along which to creep? But the idea of again facing such a climb with such an unwieldy burden made me shudder. Also, I doubted much if there was length enough to reach across, supposing I ever got them to where I was. This one amongst many other plans. All at once, as I sat gazing alternately at the far, far away patch of blue overhead, and the dark rocks opposite, there flashed across my thoughts the recollection of the boat’s grapnel. I had seen nothing of it. But it might still be hanging under her bows. Attached to the stern-post by a short length of chain shackled to a ring-bolt, it would have taken a heavy shock to shift it. If I could but get a line across and, by help of the grapnel, firmly secured to the opposite side, I felt I was saved. Tearing up the light dungaree jumper I was wearing, and which, with the remainder of my clothing, was little else but a rag, I bound pieces around my stiff and wounded hands and feet, and commenced the descent. It was an awful journey, worse than the coming up. Then, my skin was whole, at the start, anyhow; now, the cuts and tears re-opened and bled and stung more than ever. At one [256] ]time, indeed, I felt that I must give up and let go. But the thought of the grapnel appeared to endue me with fresh strength, whilst, in my mind’s eye, I kept steadfastly the memory of that dear glimpse of blue sky. At length, looking down and pausing for a moment, I saw a flicker of light. It was from the dying embers of my fire, and, in a few minutes, I was in the boat. Although nearly utterly exhausted, crawling for’ard, I felt for the chain. It was there; and pulling it rapidly in, what was my delight to find the little grapnel still at its end. Replenishing my fire, I made some tea, preparatory to having something to eat, for I knew I should want all my strength presently. In hauling at the chain my hands had got wet, and, to my surprise, the bleeding had ceased, and the pain almost departed. I immediately bathed my feet, and felt wonderfully relieved thereby. Now, I had my tea, and then considered whether it might not be wiser to pass the night where I was, and take a full day for my attempt. God knows how eager I was for the moment of trial to arrive! Still, I chose the prudent side, and sat and watched the hazy column turn first to a dull green, then to ashen grey, then go out suddenly, and so I knew, certainly now, that the day was over on the earth.
‘As the darkness, thick and impenetrable, closed me in, I lay down thinking to sleep a little, but my rest was disturbed and broken. Always, as I dozed off, I was clambering painfully up that terrible rock, with bleeding hands and feet, staggering under huge burdens of rope and iron. Once I dreamt that my shipmate’s [257] ]body had floated off the islet, and was, even now, with white clammy fingers, striving to lift itself into the boat, whilst the ghastly face peered at me over the side. This effectually awoke me; but so strong was the impression, that I seized a fire-stick, and, making it blaze up, searched sharply around. I had my trouble for my pains. But further attempt at sleep for me was out of the question.
‘My dawn, such as it was, came at last. I had already detached
the grapnel from its chain, and unrove the halliards from the mast. These last I wound round and round my body, fully thirty feet of line, small “Europe” rope, but tough and strong. The disposal of my precious grapnel, which, luckily, was one of the smallest of its kind, only used, as we had used it, for a temporary holdfast, bothered me a good deal.
‘Finally, I placed my head between two of the flukes, one of which then rested on each shoulder, whilst the stock hung down my back, swinging loosely. To make sure of the flukes not slipping, I passed a piece of line from one to the other, and knotted it securely.
‘It was a most uncomfortable fixture altogether, a tight fit for my neck into the bargain, but I could think of no other way.
‘I’m not going to inflict upon you a detailed description of how I reached the top—I believe it must have been fully five hundred feet—carrying that half-hundred weight of iron, to say nothing of the rope. [258] ]Indeed, I hardly know myself. However, get there I did; but, as you may guess, in a very evil plight.
‘I recollect, when still some thirty feet from the top, unable to bear any longer the horrible chafing of the flukes, which had broken through the skin, and were grinding against the bone, that I rested, or, rather, balanced myself on a sharp ledge, whilst casting the grapnel adrift from my shoulders, and unwinding the rope from my body. Then, making one end of the line fast to the ring in the stock, I fastened the other round my waist, the grapnel all this time resting loosely on the rock.
‘Leaving it there, and paying out the line cautiously into the void below me, away I went again, bracing myself at every step to withstand the awful jerk should the grapnel slip off, and tighten the rope with the momentum of its fall. If such a thing had happened, and the chances were many, my fate was certain—a few scrambling clutches and annihilation. But where it went I had made up my mind to go also.
‘It was my only and last hope, that bit of crooked four-clawed iron! Death was in every step I took, and I believe that it was in those last few feet that my hair turned its colour, so terrible was the suspense and expectation.
‘But God was very good to me, and I reached the summit with a couple of feet of line to spare. Dragging the grapnel up, I crouched down on the little flat, table-like top, and fairly sobbed with pain and exhaustion.
[259]
]‘To my alarm, I felt myself growing weaker instead of stronger from my rest. The fact was that, with the awful cutting about I had received, I had lost a good deal of blood. Many of the deeper cuts on my hands and arms were bleeding still. Evidently there was no time to lose. Standing up, feeling sick and dizzy, I coiled down my line for a fair throw, and, grasping it some three feet or so above the grapnel, swung it to and fro until I thought impetus enough was attained, then hove with all my remaining strength.
‘I shut my eyes, expecting to hear every second the sound of iron clanging far beneath against the sides of the pinnacle. When I opened them again, the line was hanging in a slack bight across the chasm. The little anchor had fallen directly into one of the deep furrows, but perilously close to the edge. With trembling fingers I hauled the line in. Tighter, tighter, tighter still, then with all the force I could command. Would it support the weight of my body, or would it come?
‘Without staying to argue the question, I made it fast afresh to a round nob, the only one on the place. Then, saying a short prayer, and taking a last glance at the blue sky, I let myself slip gently off the rock, hanging with my hands on the thin, hempen line.
‘It sagged terribly. I could plainly hear my heart knocking and thumping against my ribs. It sagged and “gave” still more. Imagining that I heard the noise of the grapnel scraping and dragging, I looked [260] ]upon myself as lost. But I still continued to drag myself across. It was a long, terrible agony, and, more than once, I thought I should have to let go. My hands almost refused to close upon the rope. But I still, almost as in a dream, worked myself along. Once I caught myself wondering if I should fall into or near the boat, and whether the dead man would be there to receive me. Then a horrible fancy seized me that I was making no progress, but that my hands were glued to the rope with blood—ever in the same spot. Then suddenly, in my now mechanical motions, my head hit with great violence against rock. This effectually aroused me. I was at the threshold of liberty—the edge of the crater, where it sloped quickly away below.
‘I hung there whilst one might count twenty, looking up. I was three feet beneath the rim. The rope had given that much.
‘I don’t remember in the least pulling myself up and over that overhanging ledge. When my senses returned, I was lying in the furrow alongside the grapnel, and a rush of cold water was sweeping under me. How long I had been there I have no notion. Certainly a great many hours. The rain was pouring down in tropical torrents; thunder pealed above me, and the lightning flashed and darted in vain endeavour to pierce the lower abyss.
‘After many fruitless attempts, I staggered to my feet. I felt so dreadfully weak and faint that I thought I was about to die. But a glance aloft gave me fresh [261] ]heart. The dark clouds of the thunderstorm were passing over, and full upon my nearly naked body fell the warm rays of the glorious sun. I almost at that moment, Parsee-like, worshipped him.
‘Painfully, stumbling at every step, I crawled upwards, with many a rest and draught of the rain water, caught in rocky hollows, until, after a weary time, and feeling as one risen from the tomb, I emerged into the full light of day once more.
‘Naked, bleeding, bruised, but free, I stood on the topmost peak of that fateful island. At first everything swam before my vision. Trees, the ocean, the far horizon, reeled and shook, advanced and receded to my dazzled eyes. The sun was low in the heavens. As things gradually assumed their natural appearance, I became conscious of a great ship lying at anchor, of a cluster of white tents not a hundred yards away from me.
‘But of these things, for a space, I took no heed. Sun, air, water and sky held my regards in ecstasy. I drank the beauty and the newness of them in till my soul was saturated with the tender loveliness of that nature to which I had been for so long a stranger. Then, and not till then, I tottered towards the clump of tents lying just below me.
‘Men were there, carpenters apparently, hammering at a tall wooden structure. Other men—men-o’-war seamen by their rig—were arriving and departing with burdens.
‘I was close upon them before they saw me. Some [262] ]shrank back. One, I recollect, picked up a rifle and brought it to his shoulder. A man with a gold epaulette on his coat struck it up and spoke to the sailor in English.
‘Presently I was taken into a tent, a doctor appeared from somewhere, and, whilst he dressed my wounds, they gave me a cordial, and I told my story with what seemed to me like the voice of a stranger. I don’t remember much afterwards until I awoke, swinging in a hammock under a shady tree close to the tents.
‘I was a mass of bandages, but sensible, though terribly weak.
‘“You’ve had a narrow escape of brain fever, my lad,” said the doctor. “But we’ve pulled you through all right. Lucky we happened to be here, though, wasn’t it? A nice time you must have had down there. We found your rope; but our men didn’t care about venturing any further, as steam was beginning to come up.”
‘“Four days,” replied the doctor, in answer to my question, “it is since you appeared on the scene and scared the camp.
‘“The Bucephalus? Yes, curiously enough, we met her just entering Singapore Harbour. That’s ten days ago. She spoke us, and asked us to keep a look-out for her boat with two seamen. We have one of them, at all events. I suppose the other poor beggar will be thrown up presently.”
‘I looked at him. “Yes,” he continued, “the old [263] ]volcano is showing every indication of renewed activity. We came here to observe the transit of Venus, but shall have probably to pack up and form another station if those symptoms don’t subside. See there!”
‘Looking in the direction of his outstretched finger, I saw several tall puffs of what seemed like white smoke issuing from the depths of the crater.
‘
The observers were loth to shift their quarters; but, when some red-hot cinders from below set one of the tents on fire, they accepted the hint.
‘Still in my hammock, I was presently carried down the mountain and on board H.M.S. Hygeia, where, with careful and skilled attention, I soon recovered.’
The Captain ceased speaking. For a time nothing was heard except the steady blast of the ‘Roaring Forties’ overhead.
Asked a passenger presently,—
‘And did the volcano really explode after all?’
‘It did, indeed,’ replied Captain Marion; ‘but not for a month afterwards, and then so fiercely as to scatter death and destruction throughout those narrow seas, grinding the island of Krakatoa itself into cosmic dust—visible, according to scientists, nearly all over the world.’
. . . . . . . . . .
Here ends the story proper as compiled from the notes taken by one of the passengers and jotted down in his cabin of a night as the Captain finished each section of his narrative.
Lower down on the last pages of these notes is [264] ]gummed, however, a printed paragraph, cut from a Sydney daily newspaper, which runs as follows:—
Marion—Hillier.—On the 29th ultimo, at St James’s Church of England, Sydney, by the Rev. R. Garnsey, George Wreford Marion, master in the British Mercantile Marine, to Amy Margaret, daughter of the late John Hillier, Esq., of Pevensey, Miller’s Point, Sydney, and Eurella and Whydah stations, Riverina, N.S.W.
[265]
]‘DOT’S CLAIM.’
It was evening in the German Arms at Schwartzdorf. Great fires blazed in all the rooms of that old-fashioned hostelry, welcome enough on entering from the chill, wild weather ruling over the mountainland outside.
Tired with a heavy day’s work at inspecting the mining claims, which were beginning to attract notice to this secluded spot, it was with a feeling of satisfaction that, after tea, I drew a chair up to the fire, lit my pipe, and made myself comfortable.
Presently there was a knock at the door and, in response to my ‘Come in,’ there entered the man who told me this story.
In his hand he carried a canvas bag, whose contents he emptied on the table with the remark, ‘I thought perhaps you might like to see these.’
Very beautiful they were, without doubt—quartz, ironstone and gold, mingled in the most fantastic manner; grotesque attempts by Nature’s untrained fingers at crosses, hearts, stars, and other shapes defying name.
‘We got these the last shot knocking off to-night,’ said [266] ]the owner of the pretty things as I asked him to sit down. ‘You might remember me tellin’ you as I didn’t think we was very far from the main reef. I believe we got it now in good earnest. Same lead as is in “Dot’s Claim.” Same sort o’ country. Reef runnin’ with the same dip. An’ you knows yourself, sir, as they took forty-five pound weight o’ specimens richer than them out o’ “Dot’s” this mornin’.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said after a hasty glance at my note-book, ‘but I don’t remember any such name. I thought, too, that I had seen all the most important claims.’
‘Why, of course,’ he replied, ‘I forgot! It’s only a few of us old hands as knows the story as calls it Dot’s now. When the big company took it from Fairleigh they names it the “El Dorado.” I reckon t’other was too short—didn’t sound high enough for ’em. But if it hasn’t the best right to the old name I’d like to know the reason why.’
‘El Dorado,’ I remarked; ‘why that’s the original prospector’s claim.’
My visitor nodded, saying, ‘An’ I’m No. 2 South.’
‘Ward and party?’ I inquired, referring again to my memos.
‘That’s it. I’m Ward.’
‘Well, then, Mr Ward, I want to hear that story you hinted at just now. Kindly touch that bell at your elbow. Thanks.’
It may have been only fancy, but I thought that between blooming Gretchen journeying to and fro with [267] ]hot water, tumblers, sugar, etc., etc., and my lucky reefer glances passed betokening a more than casual acquaintance.
‘Yes, Gretchen, you may as well leave the kettle.’
I am trying to air my German, but fail lamentably, judging from the expression on the girl’s full, fresh-coloured features as she struggles to avoid laughing. Even my visitor smiles. Everything is German here—bar, luckily, the beds. Outside the wind howled and beat against the curtained windows, and the rain fell dully on the shingled roof, and the roar of the Broken River came to our ears between the storm gusts.
Inside, the fire flickered and fell, sending deep shadows over the pine-panelled walls and the grave handsome face of my companion, the first fruits of whose labour shone sullenly under the shaded lamplight. From a distant room rose and died away faintly the chorus of some song of the Fatherland.
‘Now,’ said I, as Gretchen finally closed the door, ‘now for the story.’
‘Well,’ commenced Ward, after getting his pipe into good going order, ‘it’s over eight years ago since I came here from the West Coast—Hokitika. I’d been diggin’ there. But my luck was clean out, so I chucked it up, an’, after a lot of knockin’ about, settles down here—would you believe it?—farmin’!
‘Now I know’d as much about farmin’ as a cow does o’ reefin’. Cert’nly my mate—for there was a pair of us—had been scarin’ crows for a farmer in the Old Country when he was a boy. That wasn’t much. [268] ]Still, on the strength o’ that experience, he used to give himself airs.
‘I think it was two years afore we got a crop o’ anythin’. Then it was potaters. When we tried to sell ’em we couldn’t get an offer. Everybody had potaters. So we just turned to an’ lived on ’em. They’re fillin’, doubtless. But potaters and fish, an’ fish an’ potaters for a change, all the year round, gets tiresome in the long run.
‘I often wonder now what could have possessed me an’ Bill to go in for such a thing as farmin’. But there, when a chap’s luck’s out diggin’, he’s glad to tackle anythin’ for a change!
‘Presently one or two more, men with fam’lies, settles close to us and tries to make a livin’. It didn’t amount to much. Then up comes a string o’ Germans, trampin’ along from the coast, carryin’ furniture an’ tools, beds—ay, even their old women—on their backs. An’ they settles, an’ starts the same game—clearin’, an’ ploughin’, an’ sowin’. But I couldn’t see as any of ’em was makin’ a pile. They worked like bullocks, women an’ all, late an’ early. The harder they worked, the poorer they seemed to get. Bill an’ me had a pound or two saved up for a rainy day. But they had nothin’; an’ how they lived was a mystery. So, you see, takin’ things all round, it was high time somethin’ turned up. An’ somethin’ did. The next farm to us belonged to a married couple. He was a runaway sailor. She’d been a passenger [269] ]on board. They had one child, just turned four year old, an’ they was both fair wrapped up in that kid.
‘If Dot’s—Dot was his pet name—finger only ached, the work might go to Jericho.
‘An’ indeed he were a most loveable little chap. With regards to him, we was all of us ’most as bad as the father an’ mother, the way we played with him an’ petted him. There was no denyin’ Dot of anythin’ once he looked at you out o’ those big blue eyes o’ his. And the knowledgeableness of him! No wonder Jim Fairleigh an’ his missis thought the sun rose every mornin’ out o’ the back o’ their boy’s neck.’
Here Ward paused and queried,—
‘Married man, sir?’
‘No,’ I replied.
‘No more ’m I,’ he continued, ‘or I don’t s’pose I’d be here yarning a night like this.’
‘It’s a wonder,’ I said, ‘that none of these jolly-looking Fräuleins about here have been able to take your fancy.’
‘Well, to tell the truth,’ he replied, with, however, a rather conscious expression on his face, ‘I think what those poor Fairleighs went through rather scared me of marryin’.
‘But, as I was sayin’, farmin’ didn’t seem to agree with my mate, Bill—that’s him you seen at the claim to-day—spite o’ his past experience, any more’n it did with me. He done the business, by-the-bye, quite [270] ]lately with a bouncin’ gal—Lieschen Hertzog—an’ now stays at home o’ nights.
‘We had a note or two left. We had also a crop o’ potaters an’ some punkins. But no one wanted ’em—wouldn’t buy ’em at any price. In fact, you couldn’t give ’em away in those times.
‘The Fairleighs an’, I think, all of us, were pretty much in the same box. As I said before, it was time somethin’ turned up.
‘It was a wild night. Bill an’ me was lyin’ in our stretchers readin’. About ten o’clock, open flies the door, an’ in bolts Fairleigh drippin’ wet, no hat on, an’ pale as a ghost, an’ stands there like a statue, starin’ at us, without a word.
‘“In God’s name what’s the matter?” I says at last. With that he flaps his hands about, so-fashion, an’ sings out, “Dot’s lost in the ranges!”
‘You may bet that shook us up a bit! You’ve seen the Broken Ranges for yourself, an’ can judge what chance a delicate little kiddy like Dot’d have among them rocks an’ scrub on a worse night than this is.
‘That fool of a sailor-man, if you’ll believe me, an’ his wife had been out sence dark searchin’ for the child, ’stead o’ rousin’ the settlement. Presently, to make matters worse, it appears that he’d lost the woman too—got separated in the scrub, an’ couldn’t find her again. Just by a fluke, while on the Black Hill yonder, he’d caught the glimper o’ sparks from our chimney. He was covered with cuts and bruises an’ goin’ cranky fast when he got to the hut.
[271]
]‘Bill had gone to tell the news; an’ in a very few minutes a whole crowd o’ Fritzes, an’ Hanses, an’ Hermans, an Gottliebs was turned out an’ ready for a start.
‘They didn’t want no coaxing. All they says was ‘Ach Gott!’ an’ they was fit for anythin’. By no manner o’ means a bad lot,’ here commented Ward, ‘when you comes to get in with ’em an’ know ’em like. Honest as the light, an’ as hard-workin’ as a bullock. Slow, maybe, but very sure. Full o’ pluck as a soger-ant. Clannish as the Scotties, an’ as savin’. I’ve got some real good friends among ’em now. An’ their women-folks, too, is amazin’ handy—make you up a square feed out o’ a head o’ cabbage an’ a bit o’ greenhide, I do believe, if they was put to it.
‘Cert’nly their lingo ’s the dead finish at first, till you gets used to it. I can Deutsch gesprechen, myself, now, more’n a little.
‘However, that’s neither here nor there.
‘Bill, my mate, as I told you, as much as me, havin’ got full o’ farmin’, we used to take a prospectin’ trip now and then among the ranges. But we never rose the colour. Never found a thing, ’cept scrub turkeys’ eggs. Anyhow, we knew the country better’n the Germans, an’ took the lead.
‘Pitch dark it were, with heavy squalls, an’ the river roarin’ along half a banker.
‘Fairleigh, after a stiff nip o’ rum, began to find his senses again sufficient to give us the right course.
‘Such scramblin’, an’ coo-eein’, an’ slippin’, an’ tearin’ about the Bush in the dark never, I should think, [272] ]happened before. But we managed to keep in some sort o’ line an’ cover a goodish track o’ country.
‘We must ha’ gone fully five miles into the ranges, an’ Bill an’ me was gettin’ to the end of our tether in that direction, when we found Mrs Fairleigh. Karl Itzig nearly falls over her, lyin’ stretched out on a big flat rock.
‘We thought she was dead; but, after a while, she comes to, light-headed, though, and not able to tell us anythin’. So we sends her home with a couple o’ the chaps carryin’ her.
‘Well, we searched till daylight—rainin’ cats an’ dogs all the time. And we searched all the next day without any luck. That evenin’ it cleared-up bright at sundown. Then Fairleigh gives in complete, an’ has to be carried home to his wife.
‘After a camp an’ a snack the moon rose, an’ we at it afresh. But we ’bouted ship now; for I was sure we’d overrun ourselves. There was full fifty of us, an’ we circled, takin’ in all the country we could. You see, we was hopin’ for fresh tracks, an’ we went with our noses on the groun’ like a lot of dogs on the scent of an old man kangaroo, only a sight slower.
‘’Bout midnight I sees somethin’ shinin’. It was the steel buckle on the front o’ poor Dot’s shoe. Only one of ’em, an’ all soaked through with rain. No tracks; so we reckoned he’d been here last night in the heaviest of it.
‘That little bit o’ leather put us in better heart. But it wasn’t to be. The sun was just risin’, when, pretty [273] ]near done up, me an’ Bill an’ Wilhelm Reinhardt comes out o’ the scrub on to a small bald knob, an’ there, on a bare patch, lies Dot, stone dead, with his blue eyes wide open, starin’ at the sky, an’ the long curly hair, as his mother used to be so proud of, all matted with sand and rain.
‘Four crows was sittin’ overright him on the limb of a tree. I don’t believe the poor little fellow ’d been dead very long—in the chill o’ the early hours o’ that mornin’ likely. In one hand he had a bit o’ stick. With the other he held his pinny, gathered up tight, same as you’ve seen kiddies do when they’re carryin’ somethin’.
‘A real pitiful sight it were. It was as much as Bill an’ me could stand. As for Wilhelm, he just sits down aside the body an’ fair blubbers out.
‘Well, with our coo-ees, the rest comes up in twos an’ threes. Most of the Germans started to keep Wilhelm company. Foreigners, I think, must be either softer-hearted than us, or ain’t ashamed o’ showin’ what they feel. Anyhow, there wasn’t a dry eye among them Germans when they gathered round little Dot.
‘Presently we starts to rig a sort o’ stretcher with coats and a couple o’ saplin’s.
‘Then Bill lifts the body up, an’ as he does out from the pinny drops four o’ the beautifullest specimens you’d ever wish to see—them on the table ain’t a patch on ’em.
‘I twigs them at once. So did three or four more old digger chaps.
[274]
]‘Then we takes a squint around, an’ there, right against our noses, as one might say, ran the reef, with bits o’ gold stickin’ out o’ the surface-stone an’ glimperin’ in the sun.
‘I don’t believe the Germans tumbled for a while. You see they was all new chums. Most likely none of ’em hadn’t ever seen a natural bit o’ gold afore.
‘But the others did, quick. An’, presently, a rather hot sort o’ argument begins to rise.
‘For a short time me an’ Bill stands and listens to the wranglin’. Then I looks at Bill, and he nods his head, and I shoves my spoke in.
‘“Look here, chaps!” I says, “this may be only a surface leader, as some of you appears to think, or it may be a pile. I don’t care a damn which it is! It’s Fairleigh’s first say. His kid, as lies there dead, found it! An’, by the Lord, his father’s goin’ to be first served! I’m goin’ now to peg out what I considers a fair prospectin’ claim for him. That’ll be seen to after. When that’s done you can strike in as you likes. If you objects to that you ain’t men. Bill, here, ’ll back me up, an’, if you don’t like it, we’ll do it in spite o’ you. We’re all poor enough, God knows! But none of us ain’t just lost an only child, an’ self an’ wife gone half mad with the sorrow of it.”
‘Well, sir, the Germans, who was beginning to drop to how the thing lay, set up a big shout o’ “Hoch! Hoch!” meanin’ in their lingo, “Hooray.” An’ the rest, what was right enough at bottom, an’ only wanted showin’ like what was the fair an’ square thing to do, [275] ]quick agreed. All ’cept, that is, one flash sort of a joker from the Barossa. But, while I steps the groun’, Bill put such a head on him in half-a-dozen rounds that his own mother wouldn’t know him again.
‘It were only a couple o’ miles in a straight line from the settlement, through the ranges, to that bit of a bald hill.
‘Exactly, almost, where you stood to-day, lookin’ at the windin’ plant o’ the El Dorado, was where we found Dot.
‘When the field was proclaimed the Warden didn’t have much alteration to make in the p.c. I’d marked off for Fairleigh.
‘You see it was only one man’s groun’ then. An’ it turned out rich from the jump. An’ it’s gettin’ better every foot. None o’ the others, as the Company’s bought an’ ’malgamated with it, although joinin’, can touch “Dot’s.”
‘But Fairleigh’s never to say held up his head sence that night.
‘A week after we buried the child we carried the mother to rest beside him.
‘Fairleigh must be a rich man now. Everythin’ he touches, as the sayin’ is, seems to turn to gold. He can’t go wrong. But he seldom comes a-nigh the place. One of the first things he done when “Dot’s” turned up such trumps, was to put five thousand pounds to mine and Bill’s credit in the A—— bank. But we never touched it. Ever sence that night our luck’s been right in. First we sells out No. 1 North to the Company [276] ]at a pretty stiff figure. Then we buys out No. 2 South an’ seemingly we’ve struck it again, an’ rich.’
‘And, now,’ I remark as my friend, his yarn finished, sits gazing meditatively at the glowing logs,—‘and, now, all you want is a wife. Follow your mate’s example, and make a home where you’re making your money.’
Ward shook his head, smiling doubtfully, and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, rose to go.
Just then Gretchen, buxom, and smiling also, appeared bearing a huge back-log in her arms. And when I saw the way my companion sprang up and rushed to meet and relieve her of the burden, and heard the guttural whispering that took place before the lump of timber reached its destination, I thought that, ere very long, all doubts would be dissipated, and that, even then, I sat within measurable distance of the future Mrs Ward.
[277]
]A CAPE HORN CHRISTMAS.
All hands in Yamba hut had turned in, except a couple at the end of the long rough table.
These late birds were playing euchre by the flickering light of an evil-smelling slush lamp. The cook had banked up the fire for the night, but the myall ashes still glowed redly and cast heat around. On the stone hearth stewed a bucket of tea. But for the snores of the men in the double tier of bunks ranged ship-fashion along both sides of the big hut, the frizzling of the grease in the lamp, and the muttered exclamations of the players, everything was very quiet.
‘Pass me!’
‘Make it!’
‘Hearts!’
And both men dropped their hands and sprang up in affright as a wild scream rang out from the bunk just above them.
As they gazed, a white face, wet with the sweat of fear, poked out and stared down upon them with eyes in which the late terror still lived.
[278]
]‘What the dickens is up?’ asked one, recovering from his surprise, whilst the grumbles of awakened sleepers travelled around the hut.
‘My God! what a dream! what a dream!’ exclaimed the man addressed, sticking out a pair of naked legs, and softly alighting on the earthen floor, and standing there trembling.
‘Shoo!’ said the station wit, as he turned for a fresh start; ‘it’s only Jack the Sailor had the night-horse.’
But the man, crouching close to the players, and wiping his pallid face with his loose shirt sleeve, still exclaimed,—
‘What a dream! My God! What a dream!’
‘Tell us what it were all about, Jack,’ asked one of the others, handing him a pannikin of tea. ‘It oughter been bad, judgin’ by the dashed skreek as you give.’
‘It was,’ said the other—a grizzled, tanned, elderly man—as he warmed his legs, and looked rather ashamed of himself. ‘But hardly enough to make such a row over as you chaps reckons I did. I was dreamin’,’ he continued, speaking slowly, ‘as I was at sea again. It was on Christmas Day, an’ the ship was close to Cape Horn. How I knowed that, I can’t tell. But the land was in sight quite plain. Me an’ another feller—I can see his ugly face yet, and sha’n’t never forget it—was makin’ fast one of the jibs. Presen’ly we seemed to ’ave some words out there, hot an’ sharp. Then I done a thing, [279] ]the like o’ which ud never come into my mind when awake—not if I lived to the age of Methyuseler—I puts my sheath-knife into him right up to the handle.
‘The weather were heavy, an’ the ship a-pitchin’ bowsprit under into a head sea. Well, I was just watchin’ his face turn sorter slate colour, an’ him clingin’ on to a gasket an’ starin’ hard, when she gives a dive fathoms deep.
‘When I comes up again I was in the water, an’ there was the ship half-a-mile away.
‘Swimmin’ an’ lookin’ round, I spies the other feller alongside me on top of a big comber, with the white spume all red about him.
‘Nex’ minute, down he comes, an’ I feels his two hands a-grippin’ me tight by the throat. I expect’s it was then I sung out an’ woke myself,’ and the man shivered as he gazed intently into the heart of the glowing myall ashes.
‘Well, Jack Ashby,’ said one of his hearers, gathering up the scattered cards, ‘it wasn’t a nice dream. If I was you I should take it as a warnin’ never to go a-sailorin’ no more. Never was at the game myself, and don’t want to be. There can’t be much in it, though, when just the very thoughts o’ what’s never ’appened, an’ what’s never a-goin’ to ’appen, is able to give a chap such a start as you got.’
‘Ugh!’ exclaimed the sailor, getting up and shaking himself as he climbed into his bunk. ‘No, I’ll never go back to sea again!’
[280]
]But, in course of time, Jack Ashby became tired of station life—became tired of the everlasting drudgery of the rouseabout, the burr-cutting, lamb-catching, and all the rest of it.
He had no more dreams of the kind. But when o’ nights the wind whistled around and shook the crazy old hut, he would turn restlessly in his bunk and listen for the hollow thud of the rope-coils on the deck above, the call of ‘All hands,’ the wild racket of the gale, and the hiss of stormy waters.
So his thoughts irresistibly wandered back again to the tall ships and the old shipmates, and all the magic and mystery of the great deep on whose bosom he had passed his life. He knew that he was infinitely better off where he was—better paid, better fed, better off in every respect than he could ever possibly hope to be at sea.
Battling with his longing, he contrasted the weevilly biscuits and salt junk of the fo’k’stle with the wholesome damper and fresh mutton and beef of the hut.
He thought of the ‘all night in’ of undisturbed rest, contrasting it with the ‘Watch ahoy! Now then, you sleepers, turn out!’ of each successive four hours.
He thought, too, of tyrannous masters and mates; of drenched decks and leaking fo’k’stles, of frozen rigging, of dark wild nights of storm, and of swaying foot-ropes and thundrous
canvas slatting like iron plates about his ears; of hunger, wet, and misery.
Long and carefully he thought of all these things, and weighed the balance for and against. Then, one [281] ]morning, rolling up his swag hurriedly, he went straight back to them.
Even the thought of his dream had no power to stay him.
But he made a reservation to himself. Said he,—
‘No more deep water! I’ll try the coast. I’ve heard it’s good.
No more deep water; and, above all, no Cape Horn!’
He shipped on board a coaster, and went trips to Circular Head for potatoes; got bar-bound for weeks in eastern rivers looking for maize and fruit; sailed coal-laden, with pumps going clanketty-clank all down the land, and finally, after some months of this sort of work, found himself in Port Adelaide, penniless, and fresh from a gorgeous spree. Here he fell in with an old deep-water shipmate belonging to one of the vessels in harbour.
‘Come home with us, Jack,’ said his friend. ‘She ain’t so bad for a limejuicer—patent reefs, watch an’ watch, an’ no stun’s’ls for’ard. The mate’s a Horse. But the ole man’s right enough; an’ he wants a couple o’ A.B.’s.’
‘No,’ said Jack Ashby, firmly, ‘I’ll never go deep water again. The coast’s the ticket for this child. I’ve got reasons, Bill.’
And then he told his friend of the dream.
The latter did not appear at all surprised. Nor did he laugh. Sailors attach more importance to such things than do landsmen. All he said was,—
‘The Dido’s a fine big ship. She’s a-goin’ home by [282] ]Good Hope. Was it a ship or a barque, now, as you was on in that dream?’
‘Can’t say for certain,’ replied Ashby, reflectively; ‘but, by the size o’ her spars, I should reckon she’d be full-rigged. Howsomever, if ever I clap eyes on his ugly mug again—which the Lord forbid—you may bet your bottom dollar, Bill Baker, as I’ll swear to that, with its big red beard, an’ the tip o’ the nose sliced clean off.’
‘A-a-a-h!’ said the other, staring for a minute, and then hastily finishing his pint of ‘sheoak.’ And he pressed Ashby no more to go to England in the Dido.
But the latter found it just then anything but easy to get another berth in a coaster. Also he was in debt to his boarding-house; and, altogether, it seemed as if presently he would have to take the very first thing that offered, or be ‘chucked out.’
‘Two A.B.’s wanted for the Dido,’ roared the shipping master into a knot of seamen at his office door one day shortly after Jack and his old shipmate had foregathered at the ‘Lass o’ Gowrie.’ And the former, feeling very uncomfortable, and as a man between the Devil and the Deep Sea, signed articles.
His one solitary consolation was that the Dido was not bound round Cape Horn. He cared for none other of the world’s promontories. Also, as he cheered up a little, it came into his mind that it would be rather pleasant than otherwise once more to have a run down Ratcliffe Highway, a lark with the girls in Tiger Bay, and a look-in at the old penny gaff in Whitechapel. [283] ]But the main point was that there was no Cape Horn. Had not Bill Baker told him so? ‘Falmouth and the United Kingdom,’ said the Articles. Certainly there was no particular route mentioned. But who should know if Bill Baker did not?
But all too surely had the thing that men call Fate laid fast hold on the Dreamer. And the boarding-house-keeper
cashed his advance note—returning nothing—and carted him to the Dido, and left him stretched out on the fo’k’stle floor, not knowing or caring where he was, or who he was, or where he was going, and oblivious of all things under the sun.
Nor did he show on deck again until, in the grey of next morning, a man with a great red beard and a flat nose looked into his bunk and called him obscene names, and bade him jump aloft and loose the fore-topsail, or he would let him know what shirking meant on board of the Dido.
‘This is a bad beginning,’ thought Jack Ashby, as, with trembling body and splitting head, he unsteadily climbed the rigging, listening as one but yet half awake to the clank of the windlass pawls and the roaring chorus of the men at the brakes. ‘That’s the feller, sure enough!’ he gasped, as, winded, he dragged himself into the fore-top. ‘I’d swear to him anywhere. Thank the Lord we ain’t goin’ round the Horn! I wonder if he knowed me? He’s the mate. An’ Bill was right; he is a Horse. Damn deep water!’
‘Now then, fore-top, there, shift your pins or I’ll haze you,’ came up in a bellow from the deck, making poor [284] ]Jack jump again as he stared ruefully down at the fierce upturned face, its red beard forking out like a new swab.
‘Thank the Lord, we ain’t goin’ round the Horn!’ said Jack Ashby, as, with tremulous fingers, he loosened the gaskets and let the stiff folds of canvas fall, and sang out to sheet home.
Down the Gulf with a fair wind rattled the Dido, through Investigator Straits and out into the Southern Ocean, whilst Jack cast a regretful look at the lessening line of distant blue, and exclaimed once more,—
‘Damn deep water!’
That evening the officers spin a coin, and proceed to pick their respective watches.
To his disgust, Jack is the very first man chosen by the fierce chief mate, who has won the toss, and who at once says,—
‘Go below the port watch!’—his own.
It is blowing a fresh breeze when he comes on deck again at eight bells. It is his wheel. He finds his friend Bill Baker there.
‘East by sowthe,’ says Bill emphatically, giving him a pitying look, and walking for’ard.
‘East by sowthe it is,’ replies Jack, mechanically.
Then, as he somewhat nervously, after the long absence, eyes the white bobbing disc in the binnacle, and squints aloft at the dark piles of canvas, it suddenly bursts upon him. Whilst he has been asleep the wind has shifted into the west. It blows now as if it meant to stay there. They are bound round Cape Horn after all.
‘
Mind your hellum, you booby,’ roars the mate, just [285] ]come on deck. ‘Where are you going to with the ship—back to Adelaide? I’ll keep an eye on you, my lad,’ lurching aft, and glancing first at Jack’s face and then at the compass.
Truth to tell, the latter had been so flustered that he had let the Dido come up two or three points off her course. But he soon got her nose straight again, with, for the first time, a feeling of hot satisfaction at his heart that, upon a day not far distant, he and the man with the red beard, and tip off his nose might, if there was any truth in dreams, be quits. Be sure that, by this Jack’s story was well known for’ard of the foremast. Bill Baker’s tongue had not been idle, and, although a few scoffed, more believed, and waited expectantly.
‘There’s more in dreams than most people thinks for,’ remarked an old sailor in the starboard watch, shaking his head sagely. ‘The first part o’ Jack’s has comed true. If I was Mister Horse I’d go a bit easy, an’ not haze the chap about the way he’s a-doing of.’
But the chief officer seemed to have taken an unaccountable dislike to Ashby from the moment he had first seen him. And this dislike he showed in every conceivable way until he nearly drove the poor chap frantic.
At sea an evil-minded man in authority can do things of this sort with impunity. The process is called ‘hazing.’ The sufferer gets all the dirtiest and most disagreeable of the many such jobs to be found on shipboard. He is singled out from his fellows of the watch and sent aloft with tarry wads to hang on to a stay by his [286] ]eyelashes. Or he is set to scraping masts, or greasing down, or slung outboard on a stage scrubbing paintwork, where every roll submerges him neck high, whilst his more fortunate companions are loafing about the decks.
If the hazed one openly rebels, and gives his persecutor a good thrashing, he is promptly ‘logged,’ perhaps ironed, and at the end of the passage loses his pay, holding himself lucky not to have got six months in gaol for ‘mutiny on the high seas.’ There is another thing that may and does happen; and every day the crew of the Dido watched placidly for the heavy iron-clad block, or marlingspike
, sharp-pointed and massive, that by pure accident should descend from some lofty nook and brain or transfix their first officer—the Horse, as unmindful of the qualities of that noble animal, they had named him. But Jack Ashby never thought of such a thing. Nor did he take any notice of friendly hints from his mates—also sufferers, but in a less degree—that the best of spike lanyards would wear out by constant use, and that the best-fitted block-strops would at times fail to hold.
Jack’s mind was far too much occupied by the approaching test to which his dream was to be subjected to bother about compassing a lesser revenge that might only end in maiming.
He, by this, fully believed things were going to turn out exactly as he had seen them that night in Yamba men’s hut in the far-away Australian Bush. Therefore he looked upon himself and his tyrant as lost men.
At times, even, he caught himself regarding the first [287] ]officer with an emotion of curious pity, as one whose doom was so near and yet so unexpected. And, by degrees, the men, recognising this attitude of his, and sympathising heartily with it in different fashions, and different degrees of credulity, forbore further advice, and waited with what patience they might.
It was getting well on towards Christmas.
. . . . . . . . . .
I no more wished to go to London viâ Cape Horn than did John Ashby. But my reasons were altogether different.
When I had engaged a saloon passage on the Dido it was an understood thing that she would take the other Cape for it. But a short four hours’ fight against a westerly wind so sickened the captain that he put his helm up, and squared his yards, and shaped a course that would bring him closer to Staten Island than to Simon’s Bay.
It was some time before I had any conception of how things stood for’ard, with respect at least to the subject of this story.
I saw, of course, that the chief officer was a bully, and that he was heartily disliked by the men. But of Jack Ashby and his dream I knew nothing. Nor, until my attention was especially drawn to it, did I perceive that he was undergoing the hazing process.
As the only passenger, and one who had paid his footing liberally, I was often on the fo’k’stle and in other parts of the ship supposed to belong peculiarly to the men.
[288]
]Thus, one night, happening to be having a smoke on the top-gallant fo’k’stle, underneath which lay the quarters of the crew, I sat down on the anchor stock, and watched the cold-looking seas rolling up from the Antarctic Circle, and exchanging at intervals a word with the look-out man as he stumped across from rail to rail.
Close beside me was a small scuttle, with the sliding-lid of it pushed back.
I had scarcely lit my pipe when up through this, making me nearly drop it from my mouth, came a long, sharp scream as one in dire agony.
‘What’s the matter down there?’ shouted my companion, falling on his knees and craning his head over the coamings of the hatch.
Without waiting for an answer, we both bolted on to the main deck and into the fo’k’stle, where could be heard broken murmurs and growlings from the sleepy watch who filled the double tier of open bunks running with the sheer of the ship right into the eyes of her.
And on one of these, as I struck a match and lit the swinging slush lamp, and glanced around me, I saw a man sitting, his bare legs dangling over the side. Down his pale face ran great drops of sweat, and his eyes were staring, glassy, and fixed. One or two of his mates tumbled out; others poked their heads over the bunk-boards and swore that it couldn’t be eight bells already. But the man still gazed over and beyond us with that horrible stare in his dilated eyes, and when I laid my hand on him [289] ]he was rigid. Then one who, in place of drinking his ‘tot’ of rum that night, had treasured it up for another time, produced it; and, laying the man back, and forcing open the clenched teeth, we got some of it down his throat; and presently he came to himself and sat up.
His first words were,—
‘I’ve had it again! Just the same—the mate an’
me!’ Then, with a look around, ‘I’m sorry to have roused ye up, mates. I’m all right now.’ Then, to myself, ‘How long afore we’re off the Horn, sir?’
‘About a week if the wind holds. Why?’
‘Because,’ replied he, lying back and rolling over in his blankets, ‘I’ve got a week longer to live.’
‘That was Jack Ashby, an’ he’s had his dream again,’ said the lookout man in an awed voice as we hurried on deck, fearful of wandering bergs.
Then (his name was Baker) he told me the whole story, and, in spite of my utter incredulity, I became interested, and, having little to do, watched closely the progress of the expected drama.
Also, after that night, I had many a talk with Ashby.
I found him a man rather above the average run of his class, and one open to reason and argument; nor, on the whole, very superstitious. But on the subject of his vision he was immovable.
‘You saw the land in your dreams, did you not?’ I once asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied he. ‘Big cliffs, not more ’n a mile [290] ]away,’ and he described its appearance, and the position of the vessel.
‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘it may interest you to know that the skipper intends to keep well to the south’ard, and that we’re more likely to sight the Shetlands than the Horn.’
But he only shook his head and smiled faintly as he replied,—
‘He was goin’ home by Good Hope, sir. But he didn’t. What the skipper means to do, an’ what the Lord wills is two very different things. My time’s gettin’ short; but we’ll both go together—him an’ me. I don’t reckon as there ’ll be any hazin’ to speak of in the next world. P’r’aps it’s best as it is. If I wasn’t sure an’ certain o’ what’s comin’, I’d have killed him long ago. But,’ he concluded, ‘I’m ready. I’ve been showed how it’s ordained to happen; an’, so long as I’ve the company I want, I don’t care.’
During these days, impressed, somehow, by the feeling of intense expectation that pervaded all hands for’ard, I took more notice of Mr Harris, the mate, than I had hitherto done.
‘He was no favourite of mine, and, beyond passing the time of day, we had found very little to say to each other.
And now, although scouting the idea of anything being about to happen to the man, I watched him and listened to him with curiosity.
Certainly he was an ill-favoured customer. Besides being plentifully pitted with smallpox over what of his [291] ]face was visible through the red tangle of hair and beard, the fleshy tip of his nose had been sliced clean off, leaving a nasty-looking, flat, red scar.
This, he said, was the work of a Malay kreese, whilst ashore at Samarang on a drunken spree. But the captain once told me confidentially that common report around Limehouse and the Docks attributed the mishap to Mrs Harris and a carving-knife.
Be this as it may, he was a bad-tempered, overbearing brute, although, I believe, a good seaman.
At meal times he rarely spoke, but, gulping his food down, left the table as quickly as possible.
The captain, who occupied the whole of his time in making models of a new style of condenser, for which he had taken out a patent, but by no means could get to work properly, never interfered with his first officer, but left the ship entirely in his charge.
No thought of approaching evil appeared to trouble Mr Harris, and he became, if possible, more tyrannical in his behaviour towards the crew, Ashby in particular. Truly wonderful is it how much hazing Mercantile Jack will stand before having recourse to the limited amount of comparatively safe reprisal that a heavy object and a high altitude endows him with!
But the Jacks of the Dido were waiting, with more or less of faith, the fulfilment of their shipmate’s dream.
It was on the 23d of December—which, by the way, was also the extra day we gained—that the strong westerlies, after serving us so well, began to haul to the south’ard.
[292]
]‘You’ll see the Horn after all,’ remarked the captain to me that morning. ‘Two years ago I was becalmed close to it. But I scarcely think that such a thing will happen this time,’ and off he went to his condenser.
It was bitterly cold, and the sharp wind from the ice-fields cut like a knife. The water was like green glass for the colour and clearness of it, the sky speckless, and as bitter looking as the water. Gradually freshening, and hauling still to the south, the wind at length made it necessary to shorten some of the plain sail the Dido had carried right across. On the 24th land was sighted, and the captain, coming on deck with his pockets full of tools and little tin things, told us that it was Cape Horn.
The fo’k’stle-head was crowded with men, one minute all gazing at the land, the next staring aft.
‘What the deuce are those fellows garping at?’ growled the mate, walking for’ard.
Whereupon the watchers scattered.
Looking behind me, I saw that Jack Ashby was at the wheel.
He smiled as his eye caught mine, and pointed one mittened hand at the chief officer’s back. I looked at the land, and began for the first time, to feel doubtful.
Coming on deck that Christmas morning, I rubbed my eyes before being able to take in the desolation of the scene, and make sure that I was indeed on board the Dido.
[293]
]The ship looked as if she had been storm-driven across the whole Southern Ocean, and then mopped all over with a heavy rain-squall.
The wet decks, the naked spars, the two top-sails tucked up to a treble reef, and seeming mere strips of canvas, grey with damp, the raffle of gear lying about, with here and there a man over his knees in water slowly coiling it up, hanging on meanwhile by one hand, combined, with the lowering sky and leaden sea, to make up a gloomy picture indeed. The ship was nearly close-hauled, and a big lump of a head-sea on, with which she was doing her level, or rather, most unlevel, best to fill her decks fore and aft.
Broad on the port bow loomed the land—great cliffs, stern and ragged—at whose base, through the thin mist that was softly drizzling, could be seen a broad white belt of broken water.
‘Cape Horn weather!’ quoth the captain at my elbow.
He was swathed in oilskins, and squinting rather anxiously at the sky.
‘The glass is falling,’ he continued; ‘but there’s more southing in the wind. Might give us a slant presently through the Straits of Le Maire.’
And with that, pulling out a bit of the condenser, and looking lovingly at it, he went below. The mate was standing near, staring hard at the land. It might have been the shadow of the sou’-wester on his face, but I thought he appeared even more surly and forbidding than ever.
[294]
]Of course it was a holiday. During the last four hours both watches had been on deck shortening sail. After clearing up the washing raffle of ropes, and leaving a man at the wheel and another on the lookout, they were free to go into the fo’k’stle, and smoke or sleep, as they pleased.
Dinner—a curious acrobatic feat that Christmas day in the Dido’s cabin—over, I donned waterproofs and sea-boots, and, putting four bottles of rum in a handbag, which I slung over my shoulder, I stepped across the washboards and made for the fo’k’stle.
Creeping from hold to hold along the weather bulwarks, at times up to my waist in water, I wondered how any ship could pitch as the Dido was doing and yet live.
One moment, looking aft, you would imagine that the man at the wheel was about to fall on your head; the next that the jibbooms were a fourth mast; whilst incessantly poured such foaming torrents over her fo’k’stle that, as I slowly approached, I seriously doubted of getting in safely with my precious freight. Luckily, the men were watching me, and a couple, running out, caught hold of my hands, roaring in my ear,—
‘Run, sir, when she lifts again!’
And, making a dash for it, we got through the doorless entrance just in time to escape another avalanche.
I found the fo’k’stle awash, chests and bags lashed into lower bunks, and the greater part of both watches sitting on the upper ones, smoking, and eyeing the [295] ]cold sparking water as it rushed to and fro their habitation.
My arrival, or rather, perhaps, my cargo, was hailed with acclamation.
The captain certainly had sent them a couple of dozen of porter. But, as one explained,—
‘What’s the good of sich rubbishin’ swankey as that when a feller wants somethin’ as ’ll warm ’is innards this weather?’
‘Where’s Ashby?’ I asked, hoisting on to a bunk amongst the crowd.
‘Here I am, sir,’ replied a voice close to in the dimness.
‘Well,’ I said, cheerily, ‘what did I tell you? Here’s Christmas Day well on for through, everything snug—if damp—and nothing happening. Give him a stiff nip, one of you, and let us drink to better times, and no more nonsense. Once we’re round the corner, yonder, this trip will soon be over.’
‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ replied Ashby, as he emptied the pannikin, which was being so carefully passed around by the one appointed, who, holding on like grim death, after every poured-out portion, held the bottle up to the light to see how the contents were faring. ‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ said he. ‘But Christmas Day isn’t done yet.’
Even as he spoke, a form clad in glistening oilskins came through the water-curtain that was roaring over the break of the fo’k’stle, and, leaning upon the windlass, sang out,—
[296]
]‘You there, Ashby?’
‘Ay, ay, sir,’ replied the seaman.
‘Lie out, then,’ continued the mate, for he it was, ‘and put another gasket around that inner jib! It’s coming adrift! Bear a hand, now!’
The ship for a minute seemed to stand quite still, as if waiting to hear the answer, and each man turned to look at his neighbour.
Then Ashby, jumping down, with a curious set expression on his face, walked up to the mate and said very loud,—
‘Don’t send a man where you’d be frightened to go yourself.’
‘You infernal soger!’ shouted the other, enraged beyond measure at this first sign of rebellion in his victim. ‘Come out here and I’ll show you all about that! Come out and crawl after me, and I’ll learn you how to do your work!’
He disappeared, and Ashby followed him like a flash. In a trice every soul was outside—some clinging to the running gear around the foremast, others on the galley, others in the fore rigging.
I could see no sign of any of the head sails being adrift. All, except the set fore-topmast stay-sail, lay on their booms, masses of sodden canvas, off which poured green cataracts as the Dido lifted her nose from a mighty plunge.
For a minute or two, so dense was the smother for’ard of the windlass bits, that nothing was visible but foam. But, presently, as the Dido paused, weaving her head [297] ]backwards and forwards as if choosing a good spot for her next dive, we saw, clear of everything, and high in air fronting us, the two men.
One was on the boom, the other on the foot-rope. The topmost man seemed to be hitting rapidly at the one below him, who strove with uplifted arm to shield himself.
Perhaps for half a minute this lasted. Then the ship gave her headlong plunge, the crest of a great wave met the descending bows, and when the bitter spray cleared out of our eyes again the lower figure was missing.
From the other, overhanging us, a black streak against the sullen sky, came what sounded like a faint cheer. There was a rapid throwing motion of the arm released from the supporting stay, followed by a clink of steel on the roof of the galley. Then came once more the roaring plunge, and slow upheaval as of a creature mortally wounded.
But, this time, the booms were vacant, and a man beside me was curiously examining a sheath-knife, bloody from point of blade to tip of wooden handle.
Louder shrieked the gale through the strained rigging, and more heavily beat the thundrous seas against the Dido’s sides, as, breathless, drenched and horrified, I staggered into the captain’s state-room.
‘I think I’ve got it now,’ said he, smiling, and holding up a thing like a tin saucepan.
THE END.