Sail Ho! A Boy at Sea

by George Manville Fenn

“And I shall have it all to myself to-night,” I thought, “for Walters will have to take his turn in the watch.”

At last, half envying him the task of passing a good deal of the night on deck, I took a look round. The saloon-lights were out, and there was no one there; the sailing-lights were up in their places, and the faint glow rose from about the binnacle, just faintly showing the steersman’s face. Away forward I could hear the low murmur of conversation where the watch were on duty, and now, for the first time, I yawned, and some one spoke from close behind me and made me start.

“Well,” he said, “if you are so drowsy as that, why don’t you go to your bunk?”

“Just going, sir,” I said, for it was the first mate, Mr Brymer; and now I hurried down, threw off my clothes, and in a very few minutes I was sound asleep.

I suppose it was the heat, for I don’t believe that it had anything to do with the coming danger, but at any rate I slept badly that night—an uneasy, troubled kind of sleep, such as I should have expected to have if some one was to come and call me about two bells.

It must have been about that time that I was lying more asleep than awake, but sufficiently conscious to spring up in my berth and say quite aloud—

“Yes; what is it?”

There was no reply, though I could have declared that some one called me. But though there was no reply, I could hear voices. Some one was giving orders in a sharp, angry voice; and directly after, I could hear a scuffling sound, followed by a savage curse uttered in a low voice, and then there was the sound of a fall.

Something was evidently wrong, and for a few moments I was sure that the captain had found out about the conversation which had taken place, and had now taken matters into his hands in no mild fashion. Mr Brymer was the last man I saw on deck, and without doubt that must be he.

I lay there, with the perspiration oozing out of every pore, and listened for the next sounds; but all was still for a few moments. Then there were evidently people running about on deck, and a chill of horror ran through me as I now noticed that something was wrong with the ship. For instead of rising and falling steadily as she glided onward, she was right down in the trough of the sea, and swaying and rolling in a way that was startling. Fully convinced now that we had gone on a rock or a sandbank—being ready to imagine anything in my excitement—I rolled out of my berth and began to hurry on some clothes.