“Well, old boy,” said I, as I joined Courtenay at the tiller, “the felucca is ours; and that, too, without a single particle of all that trouble which we anticipated. If we had planned the thing ever so elaborately we could not have managed half so well. Up stick, my hearty, fill on her; and hey for Port Royal, which I hope we shall see to-morrow morning.”
“Ay, ay,” said Courtenay with a puzzled air, “that is all very well. But what about those poor beggars adrift there in the boat? What are they to do without food and water?”
“Well,” said I, “to tell you the truth I never thought about that. It is true they are only forty miles from the land, with fine weather and every prospect of its lasting, but I suppose we ought not to leave them without a mouthful of bread or a drop of water. Just jog the felucca gently along, taking care that the boat is not allowed to come alongside again, and I’ll see what I can do. I wonder how they are getting on in the matter of the turtle!”
I jumped on the rail in the wake of the rigging and looked out to windward. Apparently they were too much engrossed with their chase to take any notice of us, for I could see them paddling warily along, evidently purposing to get to windward of their sleeping prey and then drift with the wind noiselessly down upon him. Carera was still standing up in the stern-sheets peering eagerly over the boat’s larboard bow; and the men were all intently looking over their right shoulders. Presently I saw them lay their oars cautiously inboard, and then all hands ranged themselves along the larboard side of the boat, careening her almost gunwale-to as they stretched their arms over her side. Then followed a short pause of evidently breathless suspense, succeeded by a simultaneous grab! and in another instant I saw that they had secured the turtle—and a splendid fellow he was—and were dragging him inboard by main strength.
“All right!” I exclaimed; “they have caught him. Now, I will see what I can do toward providing them with some food and water.”
As I turned away to do this a large wash-deck tub caught my eye; and it immediately struck me that this would be a capital thing to turn adrift with a supply of food, as it was sufficiently capacious to hold as much as would last them, with care, two or three days, instead of the twenty hours or so which it would take them to reach the land. The tub was quite dry inside and perfectly water-tight, as I happened to know, so I dragged it to the lee gangway for convenience in launching, and then hurried away to the cabin in search of provender. Opening the store-room door, I rummaged about until I found a bread-bag half full. I turned the bread out of this until there was only enough left to serve them amply for the time they were likely to be afloat, and in on top of this I popped half a cheese, together with a cooked ox-tongue, which we had only cut into that morning at breakfast, and a piece of boiled salt beef. This cargo I conveyed on deck and deposited in the tub, which I considered was then loaded as fully as was desirable, considering that we intended to set it afloat in a roughish sea for a craft of that build. I then went below again for an empty vinegar keg which I had stumbled over in the store-room; and, taking it on deck, I filled it with water from the scuttle-butt, bunged it securely, and my preparations were complete.
Meanwhile Courtenay had been very cleverly dodging the felucca along almost in the wind’s eye, so that she had made but little progress, and the boat, which had been tearing after us as hard as the oarsmen could pull her through the water, was not more than half a mile astern. I told Courtenay what I had done, and what I proposed to do; and whilst I passed a couple of rope’s ends through the handles of the tub, in readiness to launch it overboard at the proper moment, my companion wore the felucca round and stood back toward the boat.
Seeing us returning directly toward them, the men laid upon their oars, possibly imagining that we were about to pick them up. Straight as a line for them we ran until they were only about a cable’s length distant, when Courtenay sprang his luff, and we darted away considerably to windward of them, upon which they took to their oars once more, and began to force the boat heavily ahead against the sea. Seeing that we had ample time to launch the tub, I now signed Courtenay to shoot the felucca into the wind, when, waiting until she had all but lost her way, we very cleverly launched the tub and the keg over the side without causing the former to ship so much as a drop of water, and then filled away once more. The occupants of the boat, by this time thoroughly mystified, paddled quietly up to the floating tub, and transferred its contents to the boat. Meanwhile we in the felucca, having stood on to a sufficient distance, once more wore round, and again made for the boat, luffing and shaking the wind out of our sail when within hailing distance of her. Then, whilst Courtenay narrowly watched the boat, and held himself ready to fill on the felucca again in good time to avoid being boarded, I sprang into the lee rigging and hailed:
“Boat ahoy! We are sorry to take the felucca from you, but circumstances, which we have now no time to explain, oblige us to do so. We are going to take her to Port Royal. Yonder is the land, not more than forty miles away; the weather is fine and settled, so you will have no difficulty in reaching the shore by this time to-morrow. When you land make at once for Port Royal. We will arrange that, on reaching there, you shall be properly cared for until such time as the Pinta can be restored to you. You will find provisions in the tub and fresh water in the keg, which we have dropped overboard. And now, adieu! we wish you a pleasant passage.”
Carera and his comrades seemed to take in my meaning even before I had finished speaking, for, with a whole torrent of sonorous Spanish maledictions, they once more dashed their oars into the water and made for the felucca. But Courtenay promptly kept her away and filled the sail, and we slid foaming past the boat at a distance of some five-and-twenty feet; and of course, once fairly moving in such a breeze and sea, no boat that was ever built would have had the slightest chance with the Pinta. They pulled desperately after us for fully half an hour, however, and then we lost sight of them.