The Voyage of the Aurora

by Harry Collingwood

But, after so long and persevering a hunt, these men are not disposed to sit still tamely and witness the escape of those whom they have sworn to take back with them, dead or alive, to the plantation; so, after a few minutes of hurried consultation, three of them dismount, and, hauling one of the canoes to the bank, enter her and start in chase.

The way in which they handle the paddles and send the light craft surging down the river in the wake of the boat proves that they are no novices in the boatman’s art, but neither are the two of whom they are in chase. George and Tom have already nearly forgotten their terrible fatigue; they are fast recovering their wind; their legs—the members in which they suffered most severely—are now comparatively at rest, an entirely new set of muscles is brought into action, and, as they are perfect masters of the art of handling an oar, they are getting a surprising rate of speed out of the old boat without very much effort. In a couple of minutes they are clear of the river’s mouth, through the rollers which are breaking on the miniature bar, and heading fairly out to sea.

But human endurance has its limits, and after they had been tugging away for half an hour at the clumsy, ill-made oars, their exertions began to tell upon them. Their strength began to flag, and the canoe, which they had hitherto contrived to keep at a distance, began slowly to gain on them, though how much they could not well tell, as it was by this time quite dark, and they could only distinguish her as a small, dark, shapeless blot on the surface of the water, with a tiny luminous ripple under her bow. They were just beginning to discuss their probabilities of success, should it come to a hand-to-hand fight with those three armed and unfatigued men, when a faint puff of warm air fanned their faces.

“Thank God!” exclaimed George fervently, “thank God! there is the first puff of the land-breeze.”

With that he began to fumble with one hand at the lashings of the sail which lay stretched fore and aft along the thwart beside him, working his oar with the other hand meanwhile, and after a little difficulty the knot which secured them was cast loose, and the turns partially thrown off.

“Now, Tom, you must finish the job,” exclaimed George; “you can reach and throw off the rest of the turns where you sit; the sail is a lug by the feel of it—at all events, here is a yard of some sort lying alongside the mast—and when you have cast off the lashings and are ready to step the mast, say the word, and lay in your oar; then I’ll scull the boat, whilst you step the mast and hoist the sail. Hurrah! here comes the breeze, hot and strong; get the canvas on her, and at last we shall be able to enjoy a rest. If those fellows are wise now, they’ll ’bout ship at once, and make for the shore, five minutes hence it will be blowing fresh, and, if they don’t look out, they’ll be blown off the land altogether. Are you ready? Then in oars, step the mast, and sway away upon the halliards.”

So said, so done; Tom tossed in his oar, seized the mast, and stepped it. The halliards were already bent to the yard—laziness again, the fishermen evidently having been too indolent to cast them adrift, knowing that they would only have to bend them on again when next they wanted to use the sail—and in another minute Tom had the sail mastheaded, the tack lashed down, and the sheet aft in George’s hand; whilst the latter, sinking down in the sternsheets with a sigh of ineffable relief, and too tired yet to ship the rudder, steered the boat with the oar which he had used for sculling, whilst Tom was busied in the operation of making sail.

The canoe, meanwhile, had crept up to within her own length of the chase, and oaths and exclamations of mutual encouragement were freely mingled with peremptory orders to the fugitives to surrender, and threats of the punishment awaiting them when caught; but no sooner was the sail set than the boat drew rapidly away, and in ten minutes more the canoe, with its occupants still paddling furiously out to sea, was invisible. George confidently expected to be saluted with a parting shower of bullets, but he was agreeably disappointed, owing possibly to the circumstance that in the hurry of pursuit the crew of the canoe had omitted to bring their ammunition with them.

For the first four hours of their flight the voyagers were sailing continuously among the group of low islets which George had seen from the top of the hill; but about midnight, as nearly as they could guess, the last rock was passed, and they found themselves in open water.

And now the want of a chart made itself disagreeably manifest. George was quite seaman enough to be able to steer a tolerably straight course, using the stars as a guide by night and the sun by day; but unfortunately, having nothing but his memory to go by, he had only a very vague notion of the proper course to steer, and of the distance which they would have to travel. His plans, moreover, were by no means fixed. One of his ideas was, to stand boldly out to sea in a south-easterly direction, in the hope of hitting Jamaica, where they would at once find themselves among friends able and willing to help them. But against this plan there were several grave objections, the chief of which was his uncertainty as to the exact position of the island and the consequent probability that, from its small size, they would miss it altogether. Then, again, they were absolutely without food or water. It is true, there were a few scraps of putrid fish in the boat, and Tom had found a fishing-line under the bottom-boards forward, so that, having a line and the wherewithal to bait it, they might possibly succeed in catching a few fish. But then it would obviously not do to rely on such a mere chance as that. Another idea was to get into the open water southward of the Isle of Pines, and look out for either an English frigate—one of which would be pretty certain to be cruising in that direction—or an eastward-bound merchantman from Honduras.