Chapter Fifteen.
A Gleam of Hope.
“You one big fool!” Cuffee, the cook, screamed out at hearing Jake’s startling announcement, which made us all laugh in spite of our anxiety. “How can duppy come in de daylight, hey? You only see yer own black face in water, an’ tink um debbil.”
“Duppy,” I may explain, is the negro’s common name for what they call a ghost, or anything uncanny.
However, paying no attention to his brother darkey’s reasoning as to the impossibility of such a nocturnal visitor appearing under the searching rays of the sun, Jake stoutly maintained his own opinion.
“Dere was sumfin’ white dere, I swar,” he said, as soon as he had secured his footing on the bulwarks again, well out of the water. “I see sumfin’ white an’ cold, an’ he grab me by um leg.”
“That must have been poor Briggs’s body floating about in the fo’c’s’le,” observed Captain Miles. “I forgot to tell him of it before he dived down. Hi, Jake,” he added speaking out louder, “you needn’t be afraid. I know what it was you saw.”
“D’ye, massa?” said Jake somewhat distrustfully, as if only half believing this. “Golly, it um berry mysteferious. I’se tink—; but, Jerrybosalum, look dar, Mass’ Cap’en, look dar!” he suddenly exclaimed, his voice again changing to a tone of intense horror, while he looked the picture of abject terror, his eyeballs rolling and his teeth chattering as before. “Duppy come catchee me, for suah! Dere he am comin’ up wid him long claw—dere he am—dere he am!”
We all rose up on the side of the bulwarks, as if with one accord, looking in the direction to which Jake’s trembling hand pointed, where, between the meshes of the rigging away forward in front of the mainmast we could dimly discern a long sinuous greenish-white body gradually rising to the surface of the water that covered the lower part of the deck.
The mysterious thing seemed to make after the negro, although no apparent movement was perceptible, while its colour became more luminous as it got nearer.
Jackson was closer than any of us to Jake; and, as he stood up in the main-chains to help the negro up, he perceived what the object was that had frightened him, for he could see down into the water clear of the rigging, which somewhat hampered our view.
“Why, it’s a shark!” he called out. “It is a big fellow too—larger than the brute that nearly tackled me the other day.”
“A shark, Massa Jackson, for true, hey?” said Jake, turning round to assure himself of the fact; and, then, seeing his pursuer to be of no supernatural origin, as he had supposed, but only one of the ordinary, if ugly, denizens of the deep, his alarm disappeared instanter and he burst into a fit of laughing—his African nature being as susceptible as that of a child, his moods varying in a moment.
“Yah, yah,” he roared, “me no ’fraid ob shark; I’se tink him ider one duppy or de debbil, for suah, when um touch me on de shin-bone!”
“I’se tole you so, Jake,” said Cuffee with great contempt. “You’se nebber see duppy in de daylight. You’se only big fool to tink so.”
“Berry well,” rejoined the other, “you hab your ’pinion an’ I hab mine! If you was down dar in water jus’ now, an’ see dat long ting snouzle by um leg, lookin’ so white an’ drefful, I guess you’se frit too!”
If Jake, however, was now pleased at seeing his fancied ghost turn out to be a shark, this was more than we were. Captain Miles could hardly conceal his chagrin.
“Confound the hideous brute!” he exclaimed. “He’s the very last visitor I cared to see. He will prevent any further attempt being made to get that axe out of the fo’c’s’le—if it is there, as Adze says.”
“It’s theer sure enough, cap’en,” put in the carpenter hearing this remark. “I wish I could only swim and I’d precious soon fetch it myself!”
“All right, Adze, I don’t doubt your word,” said the captain apologetically; “but the shark has put an embargo on it now at any rate.”
“I’m afraid it just has,” observed Mr Marline, to whom Captain Miles had really been speaking when the old carpenter overheard him. “You can’t expect any sensible man to dive into the water when such a nasty sort of neighbour is close at hand. I wouldn’t like to venture, for one, I confess; and I don’t think I’m a very great coward.”
“No, Marline, no; I’ll answer for that,” replied the captain warmly. “Your worst enemy wouldn’t accuse you of any want of pluck, and really I should not’ care about undertaking the job either, for that matter.”
Jake, though, wanted to make another effort to recover the axe, his courage rising with the emergency, especially as he could notice how disappointed we all were.
“Me nebber mind shark,” he cried, drawing out a long clasp-knife which he carried in his belt, and opening the blade, which he now brandished about in a most ferocious way, showing how he would make mincemeat of the sea-pirate if it attacked him. “I’se not ’fraid ob him one lilly bit. I tell you wat, I’se gib him goss if um kick up any bobbery wid me!”
So saying, he was preparing to plunge again into the water, when Captain Miles ordered him to refrain, having to repeat his command twice before the brave fellow would stop from making the venture.
“No, Jake,” said the captain, “I can’t allow you to risk your life in such a foolhardy way for what may be only a wild-goose chase. Wait awhile and see if the brute is going to remain here. Perhaps, too, there may be some more of his comrades about; they generally hunt in couples in stormy weather.”
“All right, massa, me wait an’ see,” responded Jake submissively, sitting down on the bulwarks again; and then, we all watched the shark to see what he would do, and whether, as the captain had suggested, there were any more of his species about, coming up to help him in keeping us prisoners.
Unfortunately, Captain Miles’s fears proved but too well founded. Very shortly afterwards, no less than three other sharks appeared, hovering about the stern of the ship and swimming immediately under the counter, where we were clustered together, as if keeping guard over us. The one that had pursued Jake took up his station within the interior part of the submerged vessel, patrolling backwards and forwards in the water that covered the deck of the poop up to the mizzen-mast. This fellow, the first in the field, seemed to say to us grimly, “You sha’n’t escape me here, at all events!”
“Oh, Captain Miles!” I cried. “The sharks are going to wait until we drop off into the sea one by one, and then they will eat us all!”
“Not a bit of it, my boy,” said he hopefully, to cheer me up. “They’ll soon be tired out and will then swim away and leave us to see about righting the ship. Don’t think of them, Tom; they can’t touch any of us where we are.”
“But how long can we stop like this?” I asked despairingly.
“Long enough to bother the sharks,” he replied. “They haven’t pluck enough to wait when they see they’ve got no chance; for, they’re born cowards at heart, as all sneaking things are!”
Jake also sidled up to me at the same time and somewhat restored my equanimity, saying in his light-hearted way, “Golly, Mass’ Tom, we kill um all first wid um knife ’fore dey touch you!”
The afternoon waned on; so, as the sharks exhibited no signs of yet leaving us, and the evening was closing in, Captain Miles ordered the men to lash themselves again to the rigging for fear of their tumbling off in the night and so falling a prey to the brutes—otherwise, there was no great need of the precaution, for the sea was almost now calm, the waves having quite ceased to break. Only a heavy swell lifted the ship up at intervals, letting her roll down again, and swaying gently to and fro with a gentle rocking motion which would have sent us all to sleep but for the hunger which now kept us awake with a nasty, gnawing pain at the pit of our stomachs.
Our thirst was appeased, Jackson having swung himself down to the water-cask and served out another drink all round shortly after the sharks had made their appearance, as they could not approach near enough to the waist of the ship to interfere with his movements, the deck there being clear of water. But, oh, we did feel hungry!
“I believe I could a’most eat anything now,” said Moggridge plaintively, chewing away at a piece of leather which he had torn off one of his boots.
“Only hold out and we’ll get something soon,” replied the captain, who tried nobly to keep up the spirits of the men. “We’ve got water, and that is more than many a poor fellow has had when in as bad a plight as ours. Let us be thankful for what we have got and for having our lives spared so far! To-morrow, if the sea be calm, as there is every reason to hope it will be, we’ll probably be able to fetch something out of the cabin; while, if the worst comes to the worst, I’ve no doubt we’ll be able to pick up some crabs and shell-fish from the Gulf-weed floating around.”
“Right you are, sir,” said Moggridge, ashamed of having spoken. “I see lots of the stuff about us now.”
“Is that the Gulf-weed you told me about, captain?” I asked, pointing to some long strings of what looked like the broken-off branches of trees, with berries on them, that were washing past the hull of the Josephine on the top of the rolling swell.
“Yes, Tom, we’re now in the Sargasso Sea, its own especial home. Indeed, this region is especially so called on account of the ‘Sargassum,’ or weed, in the Portuguese tongue. You ask Mr Marline and he’ll tell you all about it, being learned in such matters.”
The first mate, however, did not wait for me to question him.
Taking the captain’s observation as a hint to say something to occupy the attention of the men and myself, and so keep us from thinking of the sharks and our painful position, he proceeded to narrate all he knew about this curious marine fungus. He had a good deal to say, too, for Mr Marline was a well-read man and took a great interest in all matters of science.
It was certainly a very novel situation in which to give a lecture, but the sailors were glad enough to listen to anything to make the time pass. They were very attentive auditors, even Jake appearing interested, although he could not have understood much of what he heard.
“The Sargasso, or weedy, Sea,” said Mr Marline, “so called from the berries, like grapes, ‘sarga’ in Portuguese, extends from about the eleventh parallel of latitude to 45 degrees north, and from 30 degrees west longitude to the Bermudas, and even further west, so that we are about in the middle of it now. Almost the entire portion of this space of the ocean is covered by a peculiar species of sea-weed, termed by botanists the ‘fucus natans,’ which is found nowhere else in any great abundance except in the Gulf Stream, which, skirting along the edge of the Sargasso Sea, bears away portions of the floating substance in its progress from the Gulf of Florida eastwards. The western current to the south of this region also sometimes detaches masses of the weed; but its main habitat is the Sargasso Sea, where, there being no eddies or streams either way and little or no wind generally, the sargassum accumulates in great masses, presenting frequently the aspect of an immense marine meadow.”
“I think, sir,” I interposed at this point, “I read once in the Life of Columbus, that, when on his first voyage beyond seas from Spain, his sailors almost mutinied and wanted him to put back on account of their fancying they could never pass through the weed?”
“They did,” replied Mr Marline. “The men thought Columbus had sold his soul to the spirits of evil, and that they were in an enchanted sea, but the brave old Genoese navigator surmounted their fears in the end! I can better, perhaps, explain, Tom, the reason for the weed accumulating so hereabouts, by likening, as Maury did, the Atlantic Ocean to a basin. Now, if you put a few small pieces of cork or any other light substance into a basin, and move your hand round it so as to give the water it contains a circular motion, the bits of cork will be found to float to the centre and remain there. Well, here, the Gulf Stream is the circular motion of our great basin, while the Sargasso Sea is the centre, and it is in consequence of the continual current circling round it that the weed stops there in such quantities—as you will see most likely in a day or two, when the ocean gets rested after the great storm we have had, which has somewhat put things out of their proper trim.”
“And does the weed grow to the bottom?” I asked.
“Bottom? Why, there are no soundings here under four miles, and it would take a pretty long root to stretch to such a depth! No, the sargasso weed floats and lives on the surface. When examined closely, it is found to have an oblong narrow serrated leaf of a pale yellow colour, resembling somewhat in form a cauliflower stripped of its leaves, the nodules being composed of a vast number of small branches, about half an inch long, which shoot out from each other at a sharp angle, and hence multiply continually towards the outer circumference of the plant, each extreme point producing a round seed-vessel like a berry. A great number of little crabs, barnacles, and small shell-fish are generally found attached to the weed, as Captain Miles mentioned just now when he said we might find something to eat amidst the branches of it in an emergency. It is wonderful sometimes to see with what regularity the weed is arranged across the ocean when the wind blows. It looks then exactly like a meadow does after it has been fresh mown and the grass is left upon it in long swathes by the scythe at equal distances apart.”
“There, Master Tom,” put in Captain Miles here, “I think you know now all that Mr Marline can tell you about the Sargasso Sea and the weed to be found there. It’s about time we all turned in now for the night, for the sun has set and it will soon be dark. Have all you men,” he called out aloud, “lashed yourselves securely?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” they answered one by one, Moggridge coming last.
“Then good night, and good cheer, my lads!” he cried. “Keep your peckers up, and to-morrow morning. I daresay, we’ll see our way out of this predicament. I don’t think it is going to blow any more, so you may compose yourselves to rest as cosily, my lads, as if you were in your bunks here, without fear of anything much troubling you, for the sharks can’t harm you!”
The sun had set by this time and the evening grew gradually dark, for there was no moon, as the heavens were overcast; but still, the wind did not get up again, and the motion of the ship being easy enough we lay along the side of the ship very comfortably, most of the men soon falling asleep, and I soon following their example.
It must have been towards morning, for a dim sort of light was beginning to be perceptible in the east, we were wakened up by a terrible yell.
A moment afterwards a heavy splash sounded in the water alongside.
“Good heavens! what is that?” cried Captain Miles, starting up and trying to peer through the darkness, so as to see who was missing. “Anyone gone overboard?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Jackson’s voice presently, as if he had waited to reconnoitre, “it is one of the German sailors, poor Hermann. He has probably slipped his lashings and slid down the side. I’m afraid the sharks have taken him, for he has never called out once!”
“Poor fellow!” exclaimed the captain, raising a hail.
“Hi, hullo!”
But, there came no response; and so, Jackson’s surmise must have been correct. The man had evidently fallen in his sleep, through the slipping of the rope which had secured him to the rigging; and he must either have been drowned at once or fallen a victim to the maw of one of the sharks, whose movements we could hear in the water still below us.
The accident, however, wakened us all up thoroughly, and we waited anxiously for daylight.
When this came, however, a terrible scene was enacted before our eyes.
No sooner had the rising sun lit up the ocean and enabled us all to see each other distinctly, than I noticed Davis, who was close to Jackson, staring at him in a most peculiar manner.
I never saw in anyone before such a fixed steady glare!
The man seemed out of his senses or bewildered by something, for his eyes moved about strangely, although with a savage gleam in them, while his hair appeared to bristle up.
“Well, what is the matter?” said Jackson at length, after enduring his gaze for a moment or two, waiting for the other to speak. “Do you want water? Shall I get you some?”
This apparently broke the spell which was upon the wretched man, whose constitution had been much enfeebled by his drinking habits—making him thus less able to contend against the exposure and privations | we had been subjected to than the rest of us.
The minute Jackson spoke, he uttered a queer sort of half-groan, half-shriek; and having previously, I suppose, untied the rope with which he had been lashed to the rigging, he made a dash at the second mate with both his hands, trying to grip his throat and strangle him.
“You devil!” he cried, foaming at the mouth with passion, “you’ve taken my place and brought me to this.”
Jackson easily repulsed his struggles to do him any injury; but, before he and the other sailors could secure the madman, he sprang to his feet and, shouting out something which we could not distinguish, jumped right down among the group of sharks that were still swimming about under the stern.
There was a heavy plunge, followed by a wild scurrying to and fro in the water of the moving fins; and, a moment after, when the sea had got still again, a circle of blood on the surface alone told of the unhappy man’s fate.
The incident saddened us all very much, taking away our hopeful thoughts and courage alike; so we waited on listlessly for what we now believed must shortly be our own doom, not a soul speaking a word or even looking at his neighbour for some time afterwards.
Jackson was the first to recover himself.
The sight of the cruel sharks under the ship’s counter and the memory of our two shipmates, whom they had already devoured, appeared to prey on his mind and make him furious.
“I can’t stand this any longer,” he cried. “I must try and kill one of these brutes, captain, or die in the attempt!”
Captain Miles thought he had gone out of his senses too and spoke soothingly to him; but Jackson soon showed that if he had become insane there was a method in his madness.
Rising on his feet, he walked on the top of the bulwarks to the main-shrouds, and clambering out on his hands and knees along these, made his way to where a long wooden handspike, that had been used for heaving round the windlass, was floating under the rigging.
Picking up this and cutting off a good length of the topsail halliards, he came back to where we all were, and proceeded to make a running noose at the end of the rope.
“What are you going to do?” asked Captain Miles, not quite certain yet of Jackson’s sanity.
“I’m going to try to get one of the sharks to come close enough to give him a taste of this handspike,” said the stalwart young fellow, drawing himself up to his full height, and looking round with a determined expression on his face that I had never seen there before. “If I can only get them all to come to the inside of the ship, I shall do for one or two, I know.”
“Golly, Massa Jackson, me help you wid um knife,” exclaimed Jake, entering with much animation in the other’s project. “S’pose we fiss for um wid sumfin’, so as make um swim roun’ t’oder side ob ship, hey?”
“That’s a good idea,” said Captain Miles, and he offered Jake his hat to use as a bait, but the darkey shook his head at this.
“No, tankee, Mass’ Cap’en, I’se got sumfin’ better nor dat,” he exclaimed, pulling off the guernsey with which he had sheltered me the first night we were exposed on the wreck. “Dis do ebber so much betterer. Shark smell um, an’ tink he hab dis niggah, yah, yah!”
As he laughed, he tied one end of a bit of the signal halliards, which he had used to lash himself to the rigging, to the guernsey, lowering it down to a short distance above the surface of the water, where he kept it dangling.
One of the sharks rose towards it, another coming up soon after in its train; and then Jake kept continually shifting the rope round that portion of the taffrail of the poop which was above the sea, the sharks following in chase of the deceptive bait until he had lured them round to the inside part of the ship to join the one who was still on sentry there.
This was just what Jackson wanted; so he now proceeded to climb out along the mizzen rigging until he reached the point where the sea lapped it, when he arranged his running noose underneath, tying the loose end of the rope to the shrouds in a double hitch.
Jake then manoeuvred the baited line nearer to where the second mate had stationed himself, climbing out into the mizzen rigging too; when, as the leading shark turned over on its back and bit at the guernsey, Jackson slipped the running knot over its tail, pulling the noose in so that it held tightly. Then, seizing the handspike, he began belabouring the monster in a way that must pretty well have astonished its weak nerves, Jake the while stabbing it in the tail-end of the body with his long-bladed knife.
There was a terrific scuffle in which the water was tossed high in the air; but, after a minute or two, the shark broke the rope and managed to get away, although it was so seriously injured that it still remained on its back, and a quantity of blood poured out from the wounds it had received.
This made the crippled animal’s comrades set upon it, tearing it to pieces between them; and, while they were gorging themselves with the dissevered carcass, Jake dived into the sea under the fierce creatures, stabbing them wherever he could with such effect that his onslaught frightened the whole lot away—not a shark being visible in the vicinity within a few minutes after the commencement of the fray!
“Jerryboosalum!” exclaimed Jake, when, presently, he emerged all dripping and triumphant from the blood-stained waters. “We pay out dem debbels for ebberybody now. You nebber see dem come back hyar agin, I’se bet.”
Nor did we.
There was no doubt of the rapacious brutes having been finally scared away.
“You’re a couple of brave fellows,” cried Captain Miles when the two avengers climbed back in again on to the poop bulwarks, after thus carrying the war into Egypt, routing the foes that had kept us so long prisoners, and prevented us from doing anything towards righting the ship. “Now, I think, we can make another attempt to find that axe of the carpenter’s in the fo’c’s’le, if you are not too tired, Jake, to go in after it again?”
“Bress you, no, Mass’ Captain, me no tire’ at all! Me get axe in brace ob shakes, if um dar,” answered the willing fellow, laughing and showing his shining ivory teeth as he opened his mouth from ear to ear; and, almost as soon as he had uttered the words, he ran along the bulwarks towards the fore part of the ship, scrambled out into the main rigging, and dived into the sea immediately over the opening into the forecastle, at the same spot where he had previously gone down.
Once, twice, he came up to the surface again to take breath after a lengthened stay under the water; but, each time he rose with empty hands.
A third time he reappeared, still unsuccessful; and then we began to give up hope, although watching him all the while with the most intense anxiety.
None spoke a word, hardly daring to move.
Our interest in his actions was keen to intensity!
Our fate seemed trembling in the balance.
Once more he dived.
This was the fourth time he had ventured beneath the sea in his search for the coveted weapon, which was to free the ship from the cumbersome masts and top-hamper that kept her down on her beam-ends.
Unless we got the axe we would never be able to right her again; and we all regarded this dive of Jake’s as the last chance, although we did not exchange a syllable—our looks expressed our thoughts.
Jake now remained longer below than he had yet done, so we feared some mishap had befallen him; but, just as Jackson was preparing to dive down into the water that covered the forecastle, to see what had become of him, the plucky darkey popped up above the surface, holding something in one hand as he swam with the other towards the main rigging.
Our hearts beat high with expectation.
In another minute, Jake had mounted into the shrouds, when our suspense was quickly relieved; for, no sooner had he clambered near enough to the ship’s side to get a support for his feet, than he raised himself erect.
“Golly, Mass’ Cap’en,” he sang out in feeble accents, being now pretty well exhausted with his repeated efforts, “I’se got him at last! I’se got him at last!”
At the same time, he lifted up whatever it was he held in his hand, and tried to wave it round his head in token of his victory.
It was Adze’s axe.
“Hooray!” shouted Captain Miles at the extreme pitch of his voice, and the responsive cheer we raised in chorus might have been heard more than a mile away.