Chapter Fourteen.
Attacked by the Pirates.
It was “the tail of a typhoon” with a vengeance; for as we raced onwards through the boiling sea, now lit up by a very watery moon, lots of broken spars and timbers could be seen, as well as several junks floating bottom upwards, thus showing what the fury of the storm had been and the damage done by its ravages.
Mr Mackay noticed these bits of wrecks and wreckage as the captain spoke; and, mingled with a feeling of pity for those who had perished in the tornado, came a satisfactory thought to his mind.
“Yes, sir,” said he in reply to Captain Gillespie’s observation, “we’re making a fair wind out of a foul one; but, besides that, sir, we’ve got something else to thank the typhoon for, under Providence. It has probably settled the hash of those piratical rascals that were chasing us!”
“Humph! I forgot all about ’em,” snorted out “Old Jock,” equally pleased at this idea. “No doubt they’ve gone to the bottom, and good luck to ’em too. One can’t feel sorry for such vermin as those that are prowling after honest craft, and who’d cut one’s throat for a dollar.”
“We mustn’t be too sure, though, sir,” continued the first mate, as if he had been turning the matter over in his mind. “We’ve managed to weather the gale so far, and so might they. Those fellows are accustomed to these seas and can smell a typhoon coming; so, if they ran to windward in time, instead of lying-to and waiting for it, as we did, they might have got out of it altogether by keeping ahead of it.”
“Pooh!” ejaculated “Old Jock” contemptuously—“I’ve no fear of being troubled by them again. They’re all down in Davy Jones’ locker by this; and may joy go with them, as I said before!”
“Well, sir,” said Mr Mackay, not pursuing his theory any further, and desirous of turning the conversation, if conversation it can be called when both were holding on still to the life-lines and shouting at each other more than speaking, “what are we to do now?”
“Carry-on, of course,” replied “Old Jock,” with a squint up at the watery moon and the flying clouds that ever and anon obscured its pale gleams, making everything look black around the moment it was hidden, “There’s nothing else to be done but to let her scud before it until the gale has spent its force. I wish we could get up some more sail, though.”
“Would it be safe, sir?”
“Safe!” snorted “Old Jock,” sniffing with his nose up directly. “Why, what the dickens have you got to be afraid of, man? We’re now in the open sea, with nothing in the shape of land near us for a hundred miles or more anywhere you chose to cast the lead.”
“But, you forget, sir,” suggested the other good-humouredly, so as not to anger the “old man,” who was especially touchy about his navigation; “you forget the rate the ship’s going—over twelve knots?”
“No, I don’t forget, Mister Mackay; and, if we were going twenty it wouldn’t make the slightest difference,” retorted the captain, who was thoroughly roused now, as the first mate could tell by his addressing him as “Mister,” which he never did unless pretty well worked up and in a general state of temper. “I’d have you to know I’m captain of my own ship; and when I say a thing I mean a thing! Call up the hands to try and get some more sail on her; for I’m going to make the best of this typhoon now, as it has made the best it could of me—one good turn deserves another.”
Of course there was no arguing with him after this; so all Mr Mackay could do was to pass the word forward for Tim Rooney, and tell him what Captain Gillespie’s orders were—there was no good attempting to hail the boatswain, for not a word shouted could be heard beyond the poop.
“Begorra, it’s a risky game, puttin’ sail on her, sorr,” said Tim meeting Mr Mackay half-way on the main-deck; “but we moight thry lettin’ out a schrap more av the fores’le, if the houl lot don’t fetch away.”
“We must try it,” returned Mr Mackay. “He will have it so.”
“All right, sorr, I’m agreeayble, as the man aid whin he wor agoin’ to be hung,” said Tim Rooney grinning, never taking anything serious for very long; “faix I’ll go up mesilf if I can’t get none av the hands to volunteer. I couldn’t order ’em yet, sorr, for it’s more’n a man’s loife is worth to get on a yard with this wind.”
“Very good, Rooney, do your best,” replied Mr Mackay. “Only don’t run into any danger. We can’t afford to loose you, bo’sun.”
“Troth I’ll take care av that same, sorr,” returned Tim with a laugh. “I wants another jollification ashore afore I’d be after losin’ the noomber av me mess.”
I had come down from off the poop with Mr Mackay, and now, standing by his side, watched with anxiety Tim’s movements.
He had no lack of volunteers, however, for the ticklish work of laying out on the yard, Joe Fergusson’s previous example having inspired whatever pluck was previously wanting; and, almost as soon as he got forward we saw several of the hands mounting the fore rigging on the starboard side—this being the least dangerous, as there was no chance of their being blown into the sea against the wind.
But Tim Rooney would not suffer them to go aloft alone, his stalwart figure being the first to be seen leading the way up the shrouds, with Joe Fergusson close behind, not satisfied apparently with his previous attempt; and both, I noticed in the moonlight, which just then streamed out full for a few minutes, had their jack-knives between their teeth, ready for any emergency, as well as to cut away the double lashings of the foresail, “sea-gaskets” having been laced over the regular ones so as to bind the sail tighter to the yard.
As they went up, the crew were flattened like pancakes against the ratlines; and Mr Mackay and I held our breath when they got on the foot-rope from the shrouds, holding on to the yard and jack-stay, with the wind swaying them to and fro in the most perilous manner. Tim Rooney especially seemed in the most dangerous position, as he made for the lee earing, whence he might be swept off in an instant into the foaming waves that spurted up from the chains as if clutching at him, while Joe Fergusson worked his way out to the end of the weather yard-arm, fighting the fierce gusts at every sliding step he took.
Then, when all were at their posts, Tim gave some sort of signal to the four others whom he allowed to go up with him, and at the same instant the gaskets were severed, parties of men below slacking off the clewlines and pulling on the sheets by degrees. By this means the foresail, having been double-reefed fortunately before being furled, was set satisfactorily, without a split as all of us below expected, the hands getting down from the yards while we were yet hauling the tack aboard.
The effect of this additional sail power on the ship was magical, lifting her bows out of the water and making her plunge madly through the billowy ocean, now all covered with foam and spume, like a maddened horse taking the bit between his teeth and bolting.
“She wants some after sail to steady her,” roared the captain bending over the poop rail, although he held on tightly enough to it the while, and calling out to Mr Mackay, who remained with me just below him on the main-deck. “We must try and get some sort of rag up.”
Mr Mackay made a motion up at the fragments of the main trysail, which, it may be remembered, had been carried away by the first blast of the typhoon.
“Aye,” roared back “Old Jock,” understanding him, and knowing that if the first mate had spoken he couldn’t have heard a word he said, from the fact of the wind blowing forward. “I know it’s gone, but try a staysail.”
“Bedad, he bates Bannagher!” said Tim Rooney, who had returned aft and joined Mr Mackay and I under the break of the poop, where we were sheltered more from the force of the gale. “I niver did say sich a chap for carryin’ on, fair weather an’ foul, loike ‘Ould Jock Sayins an’ Mayins.’ Sure, he wants to be there afore himsilf!”
“We must rig up a storm staysail, I suppose,” replied Mr Mackay, smiling at the other’s remark. “Try one on the mizzen staysail—the smallest you’ve got. Ask Adams, he’ll soon find one; and, mind you, send it up ‘wift’ fashion, so as to lessen the risk of its getting blown away, bosun.”
“Aye, aye, sorr,” said Tim, opening his eyes at this expedient of hoisting a sail like a pilot’s signal, and starting to work his way forward again along the weather side of the deck. “Begorra, you’re the boy, sure, Misther Mackay, for sayin’ through a stone hidge as well as most folk!”
But the dodge succeeded all the same, and likewise had the advantage of steadying the vessel, which did not roll nearly so much when the after sail was hoisted, with the sheet hauled in to leeward; although, the Silver Queen bent over when she felt it, as if running on a bowline, notwithstanding that the wind was almost dead aft and she spurring on before it.
As the night came on it darkened more, the moon disappearing altogether and the sky becoming completely covered with black angry clouds; while heavy showers of cold rain pelted down on us at intervals from midnight till “four bells” in the middle watch.
Then the rain ceased and the heavens cleared a bit, a few stars peeping out; and the phosphorescent light from the sea enabled us to have a good view of the boiling waves around us, still heaving and tossing as far as the eye could reach, although the wind was perceptibly lessening.
An hour later its force had fallen to that of a strong breeze, and the captain had the topsails and mizzen-topgallant set, carrying on still full pitch to the north-east, notwithstanding that just before dawn it became pitch dark again and we couldn’t see a cable’s length ahead.
The starboard watch had been relieved shortly before this, but Mr Saunders remained up, as indeed had most of us since the previous afternoon; while Captain Gillespie, indeed, never left the deck once since the first suspicion of the typhoon.
He now yawned, however, the long strain and fatigue beginning to tell on him.
“I think I’ll go below,” he said; and, turning to Mr Mackay, all amiable again, especially at having carried his point of “carrying on” successfully in spite of the first mate’s caution, he remarked with a sniff, “You see, Mackay, we’ve gone on all right and met no dangers, and it’ll puzzle those blessed pirates, if they’re yet in the land of the living, to find us at daybreak!”
Just as he uttered these words, however, there was a tremendous shock forwards that threw us all off our feet, succeeded by a peculiar grating feeling under the ship’s keel, after which, her heaving and rolling ceased as if she had suddenly sailed from amidst the waves into the calm water of some sheltered harbour. A second shock followed soon, but not so violent as the first; and then, all motion ceased.
“By Jingo, she’s aground!” snorted out “Old Jock,” scrambling to his feet by the assistance of Mr Saunders’ outstretched hand. “Where on earth can we’ve got to? there’s no land here.”
Mr Mackay said nothing, although he had his suspicions, which indeed had led in the original instance to his remonstrance against the captain’s allowing the ship to rush on madly in the dark; but, presently, as the light of morning illumined the eastern sky and we were able to see the ship’s position, a sudden cry of alarm and recognition burst from both—
“The Pratas shoal!”
This was their joint exclamation; and, on the sun rising a little later on, when the whole scene and all our surroundings could be better observed, the wonder was that the Silver Queen was not in pieces and every soul on board her drowned!
To explain our miraculous escape, I may mention that this shoal, which Captain Gillespie and Mr Mackay so quickly named beyond question, was a circular coral reef almost in the centre of the China Sea, and about a hundred and thirty miles distant from Hongkong, absolutely in the very highway of vessels trading east and west.
Breakers encircled it, showing their white crests on every side, the sharp points of the coral composing the reef almost coming to the surface of the water, while at some spots it was raised above it. In these latter places it was covered with rank grass, exhibiting incipient signs of vegetation; and, within the reef, inclosed by a lagoon some three miles wide that went completely round it, lay a small island, on which were several shrubs and a prominent tree on a slight elevation, which will in process of time become a hill, whereon stood also the remains of a pagoda, or Chinese temple, while pieces of wreck and bleached bones were scattered over the shores. Of course we did not notice all these things at first, but such was the result of our subsequent observations and investigations.
As wild, desolate, and dreary a spot it was as ever anchorite imagined or poet pictured; such, at all events, we all thought on looking at it and realising the providential way in which our safety had been effected.
It happened in this wise.
There were one or two breaks in the reef surrounding this desert isle, as we could see from a link missing here and there in the chain of breakers. This was especially noticeable towards the south-western portion of the rampart the indefatigable coral insect had thrown up, where an opening about double the width of the Silver Queen’s beam was plainly discernible. Through this fissure in the reef, piloted by that power which had watched over us throughout all the perils of our voyage, the ship had been driven; and she had beached herself gradually on the shore of the little island, as her way was eased by the placid lagoon into which she entered from the troubled sea without the natural breakwater. Here she was now fixed hard and fast forward, with her forefoot high and dry, although there was deep water under her stern aft.
“Thank God for his mercy!” exclaimed Mr Mackay fervently; and I’m sure I echoed this recognition of the loving care that had so wonderfully preserved us. “We couldn’t have got in here without striking on the reef, if we had seen the entrance before our eyes and tried our very best; not, at all events, with that gale shoving us on and in such a sea as is running—only look at it now!”
“Oh, aye,” agreed Captain Gillespie, gazing out as we all did at the creamy line of foaming breakers all round, that sent showers of surfy spray over the coral ledge into the placid lagoon, which was calm and still in comparison, like a mountain tarn, albeit filled with brackish sea-water all the same. “Oh, aye, it’s wonderful enough our getting here; but how are we going to get out—eh?”
“No doubt we’ll find a way,” said the other, who had bared his head when giving thanksgiving where it was due; and whose noble, intelligent face, I thought, as I looked at him admiringly, seemed capable of anything, he spoke so cheerfully, his courage not daunted but increased, it seemed, all the more by what had happened—“No doubt we’ll find a way, sir.”
But “Old Jock” wouldn’t be comforted.
Obstinately insisting before, against Mr Mackays advice, that we were going on all right, he was even more dogmatically certain now that we were all wrong; saying that, as far as he could see, the ship and her cargo and every one of the thirty-one souls she had on board were doomed!
“I can’t see how it’s going to be managed, Mackay,” he replied despondingly to the other’s cheery words, even his nose drooping with dismay at the prospect, superstition coming to aid his despairing conviction. “I knew there was something uncanny when those pigs jumped overboard that evening, and I told you so, if you recollect, Saunders; and you know, when I say a thing, I mean a thing.”
“Aye, aye,” said the second mate, thus appealed to; and who being a shallow-pated man with little feeling for anything save the indulgence of his appetite, thought there was some connection, now the captain put it so, between the loss of the porkers and the ship’s being castaway, he not having been let into the secret of the reason for the strange behaviour of the pigs on the occasion referred to. “Aye, aye, cap’en, I remember your saying so quite well.”
Mr Mackay couldn’t stand this, and he walked down the poop ladder to conceal his amusement; and I followed him when I found him bent on consulting Tim Rooney as to what was to be done, the captain being hopeless at present.
“Be jabers, we’re in a pritty kittle av fish an’ no mistake!” said Tim when asked his opinion about the situation. “We might be able to kedge her off, sorr, an’ thin ag’in we moightn’t; but the foorst thing to say, sorr, is whither she’s all roight below.”
“A good suggestion,” answered Mr Mackay. “Tell the carpenter to sound the well at once.”
“That’d be no good at all, sorr,” interposed the other, “for the poor craythur’s got her bows hoigh an’ dhry, while she’s down by the starn. The bist thing as I’d advise, sorr, excusin’ the liberty, is to get down alongside an’ say if she’s started anythin’. That big scrape she got as she came over the rafe, I’m afeard, took off a bit av her kale, sorr.”
“Right you are, Rooney, sensible as ever,” said Mr Mackay. “We’ll have a boat over the side at once and see to it.”
This, however, was a work of time, for the jolly-boat, which was the only one of moderate size we had left, since the dinghy had been carried away in the typhoon, was stowed inside the long-boat; and so purchases had to be rigged to the fore and main yards before it could be raised from its berth and hoisted over the ship’s bulwarks.
But, all hands helping, the job was done at last; when Mr Mackay descended the side-ladder into the boat along with the boatswain and a couple of men to pull round the ship, so as to ascertain what, if any, damage she might have received. I could not help noticing, though, that the captain did not exhibit the slightest interest when the first mate submitted what he was about to do and asked his permission—only telling him that he might go if he liked, but he thought it of little use!
I should have liked to have gone with them too, and I mentioned this to Tom Jerrold, as he and I leant over the bows and watched the jolly-boat and those in her below us; for although Tim Rooney had spoken of the ship being “high and dry” she was still in shallow water forward, the shelly bottom being to be seen at the depth of two or three feet or so, the beach shelving abruptly.
While the two of us were looking at the boat, though, and the island in front spread out before us, with its solitary tree, ruined Chinese pagoda and all, which Ching Wang was also inspecting with much interest from the forecastle, we were suddenly startled by a shout aft from Captain Gillespie, who still remained on the poop.
“Hi, Mackay,” he cried, “come back. Here is that blessed proa and junk, and a whole fleet of pirates after us!”
This made both Tom and I turn pale, although Ching Wang betrayed no expression of alarm when we explained the captain’s hail to him, only his little beady eyes twinkling.
“You fightee number one chop, tyfong makee scarcee chop chop, Sabby? No goodee when sailor-mannee fightee!”
When we got aft, where we were soon joined by Mr Mackay, who had instantly obeyed the captain’s order of recall, and said, by the way, that they could not discover much injury to the ship forward save that a portion of her false keel had been torn off, “Old Jock” pointed out some specks on the horizon to windward. These, on being scrutinised through the glass by the first mate, were declared to be the now familiar proa and her consort, a fact which I corroborated with my naked eye from the mizzen cross-trees whither I at once ascended.
The sea, I noticed too, had calmed down considerably outside the reef, which the pirate junks gained later on in the afternoon, coming through the opening we had observed to the south and west one by one, in single file, and then advancing towards the Silver Queen in line.
Presently, when about half a mile off, they stopped on a flag being hoisted by the leading proa, which appeared to command the expedition; and then, amidst the hideous din of a lot of tin-kettly drums and gongs, the pirates, for such they now showed themselves to be without doubt, opened fire on the ship with cannon and jingals—the balls from the former soon singing in the air as they passed over our masts, their aim, however, being rather high and eccentric, although the first that whistled past made me duck my head in fright, thinking it was coming towards me.
“Oh!” I cried; but I may say without any exaggeration or desire to brag, that I did not flinch again, nor did I utter another “Oh!”