Grief and Pain.
It was even worse than I feared. Reckoning neither on a longer voyage than five or six days nor on being so far from the coast that, in case of emergency, we could not obtain fresh supplies, we had used both provisions and water rather recklessly, and now I found that of the latter we had no more than, at our recent rate of consumption, would last eighteen hours, while of food we had as much as might suffice us for twenty-four. It was necessary to reduce our allowance forthwith, and I put it to Yawl whether we could not make for some nearer port than Callao. Better risk the loss of my diamonds than die of hunger and thirst. Yawl’s answer was unfavorable. The nearest port of the coast as to distance was the farthest as to time. To reach it, the wind being north by west, we should have to make long fetches and frequent tacks, whereas Callao, or the coast thereabout, could be reached by sailing due north. So there seemed nothing for it but to economize our resources to the utmost and make all the speed we could. Yet, do as we might, it was evident that, unless we could obtain a supply of food and water from some passing ship we should have to put ourselves on a starvation allowance. I was, however, much less concerned for myself and the others, than for Angela. Accustomed as she had been to a gentle, uneventful, happy life, the catastrophe of Quipai, the anxieties we had lately endured, and the confinement of the sloop, were telling visibly on her health. Moreover, Kidd’s death, richly as he deserved his fate, had been a great shock to her. She strove to be cheerful, and displayed splendid courage, yet the increasing pallor of her cheeks and the sadness in her eyes, showed how much she suffered. We men stinted ourselves of water that she might have enough, but seeing this she declined to take more than her share, often refusing to drink when she was tormented with thirst.
And then there befell an accident which well-nigh proved fatal to us all. A gust of wind blew the mainsail (made of grass-cloth) into ribbons, the consequence being that our rate of sailing was reduced to two knots an hour, and our hope of reaching Callao to zero.
Meanwhile, Angela grew weaker and weaker, she fell into a low fever, was at times even delirious, and I began to fear that, unless help speedily came, a calamity was imminent, which for me personally would be worse than the quenching of Quipai. And when we were at the last extremity, mad with thirst and feeble with fasting, help did come. One morning at daylight Yawl sighted a sail—a large vessel a few miles astern of us, but a point or two more to the west, and on the same tack as ourselves. We altered the sloop’s course at once so as to bring her across the stranger’s bows, for having neither ensign to reverse, nor gun wherewith to fire a signal of distress, it was a matter of life and death for us to get within hailing-distance.
“What is she! Can you make her out?” I asked Yawl, as trembling with excitement, we looked longingly at the noble ship in which centered our hopes.
“Three masts! A merchantman? No, I’m blest if I don’t think she’s a man-of-war. So she is, a frigate and a firm ’un—forty or fifty guns, I should say.”
“Under what flag?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute—Union Jack! No, stars and stripes. She belongs to Uncle Sam, she do, sir, and he’s no call to be ashamed of her; she’s a perfect beauty and well handled. By—I do believe they see us. They are shortening sail. We shall be alongside in a few minutes.”
“Who are you and what do you want?” asked a voice from the frigate, so soon as we were within hail.
“We are English and starving. For God’s sake, throw us a rope!” I answered.
The rope being thrown and the sloop made fast, I asked the officer of the watch to take us on board the frigate, as seeing the condition of our boat and ourselves, I did not think we could possibly reach our destination, that my wife was very sick, and unless she could have better attention than we were able to give her, might not recover.
“Of course we will take you on board—and the poor lady. Pass the word for the doctor, you there! But what on earth are you doing with a lady in a craft like that, so far out at sea, too?”
Without waiting for an answer to his question, the officer ordered a hammock to be lowered, in which we carefully placed Angela, who was thereupon hoisted on the frigate’s deck. We men followed, and were received by a fine old gentleman with a florid face and white hair, whom I rightly conjectured to be the captain.
“Well,” he said, quietly, “what can I do for you?”
“Water,” I gasped, for the exertion of coming on board had been almost too much for me.
“Poor fellow! Certainly. Why did I not think of it before? You shall have both food and drink. Somebody bring water with a dash of rum in it—not too much, they are weak. And Mr. Charles, tell the wardroom steward to get a square meal ready for this gentleman. Might I ask your name, sir?”
“Nigel Fortescue.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fortescue. Mine is Bigelow, and I have the honor to command the United States ship Constellation. Here’s the water! I hope you have not forgotten the dash of rum, Tomkins.—There! Take a long drink. You will feel better now, and when you have had a square meal, you shall tell me all about it. And the others? You are an old salt, anybody can see that.”
“Yes, sir. Bill Yawl at your service, an old man-o’-war’s man, able-bodied seaman, bo’s’n, and ship’s carpenter, anything you like sir. Ax your pardon, sir, but a glass of half-water grog—”
“Not until you have eaten. Then you may have two glasses. Tomkins, take these men to the purser and tell him to give them a square meal. The doctor is attending to your wife, Mr. Fortescue. She is in my state-room and shall have every comfort we can give her.”
“I thank you with all my heart, Captain Bigelow. You are really too good, I can never—”
“Tut, tut, tut, my dear sir. Pray don’t say a word. I have only given her my spare state-room. Mr. Charles will take you to the ward-room, we can talk afterward. Meanwhile, I shall have your belongings got on board, and then, I suppose, we had better sink that craft of yours. If we leave her to knock about the ocean she may be knocking against some ship in the night and doing her a mischief.”
After I had eaten the “square meal” set for me in the ward-room, and spent a few minutes with Angela, I joined the captain and first lieutenant in the former’s state-room, and over a glass of grog, told them briefly, but frankly, something of my life and adventures.
“Well, it is the queerest yarn I ever heard; but I dare say none the less true on that account,” said Captain Bigelow, when I had finished. “With that sweet lady for your wife and your belt full of diamonds, you may esteem yourself one of the most fortunate of men. And you did quite right to get away from that place. But what was your point? where did you expect to get to with that sloop of yours?”
“Callao.”
“Callao! Why the course you were on would never have taken you to Callao. Callao lies nor’ by east, not nor’ by west. If you had not fallen in with us, I am afraid you would never have got anywhere.”
“I am sure we should not. Three days more and we should have died of thirst.”
“Where shall we put you ashore?”
“That is for you to say. Where would it be convenient?”
“How would Panama suit you?”
“It is just the place. We could cross the isthmus to Chagres; but before going to England, I should like to call at La Guayra, and find out whether my friend Carmen still lives.”
“You can do that easily; but if I were you, and had all those diamonds in my possession, I would get home as quickly as possible, and put them in a place of safety. There are men who would commit a thousand murders for one of them.”
“Well, I shall see. Perhaps I had better consign them to London through some merchant, and have them insured.”
“Perhaps you had, especially if you can get somebody to insure the insurer. And take my advice, don’t tell a soul on board what you have told us. My crew are passably honest, but if they knew how many diamonds you carried about you, I should be very sorry to go bail for them.”
As I went on deck after our talk, I was met by the surgeon.
“A word with you, Mr. Fortescue,” he said, gravely, taking me aside, “your wife—”
“Yes, sir, what about my wife?” I asked, with a sudden sinking of the heart, for the man’s manner was even more portentous than his words.
“She is very ill.”
“She was very ill, and if we had remained longer on the sloop—but now—with nourishing food and your care, doctor, she will quickly regain her strength. Indeed, she is better already.”
“For the moment. But she is very much reduced and the symptoms are grave. A recurrence of the fever—”
“But such a fever is so easily cured. I know what you are hinting at, doctor. Yet I cannot think—You will not let her die. After surmounting so many dangers, and being so miraculously rescued, and with prospects so fair, it would be too cruel.”
“I will do my best, sir, you may be sure. But I thought it my duty to prepare you for the worst. The issue is with God.”
This is a part of my story on which I care not to dwell. Even yet I cannot think of it without grief and pain. My dear wife was taken from me. She died in my arms, her hand in mine, as sweetly and serenely as she had lived. But for Captain Bigelow and his officers I should have buried myself with Angela in the fathomless sea. I owed him my life a second time—such as it was—more, for he taught me the duty and grace of resignation, showed me that, though to cherish the memory of a great sorrow ennobles a man, he who abandons himself to unmeasured grief is as pusillanimous as he who shirks his duty on the field of battle.
Captain Bigelow had a great heart and a chivalrous nature. After Angela’s death he treated me more as a cherished son than as a casual guest. Before we reached Panama we were fast friends. He provided me with clothing and gave me money for my immediate wants, as to have attempted to dispose of any of my diamonds there, or at Chagres, might have exposed me to suspicion, possibly to danger. In acknowledgement of his kindness and as a souvenir of our friendship, I persuaded him to accept one of the finest stones in my collection, and we parted with mutual assurances of goodwill and not without hope of meeting again.
Ramon of course, went with me. Bill Yawl, equally of of course, I left behind. He had slung his hammock in the Constellation’s fo’castle, and became captain of the foretop.