Of course such superstitious fears were more than childish, and he struggled manfully but unsuccessfully to put them far from him.
That which had just occurred, however, was but a foretaste of what might be expected when there was a full cargo of animals on board; and in the forecastle the sailors discussed the possible fate of all hands during the homeward voyage.
“I’ve been in ships what was becalmed week in an’ week out for two months, with never a cat to throw overboard,” old Tom Bixbee said, as the watch below were reviewing the events of the past few hours, “but I never struck on anything like this craft. Talk of havin’ a drownded man as shipmate! Why, that’s nothin’ compared to what’s goin’ to happen on this’ ere barkey when she turns her nose toward home. If there’s ever a chance of showin’ my heels to the Swallow in this ’ere benighted place we’re bound for after more jest like sich as we had last night, you’ll see precious little of me!”
And Tom’s opinion was very much the same as that entertained by every member of the crew.
As the bark continued on with favoring winds through the Indian Ocean, never a day passed but that some one of the sailors had a particularly harrowing tale to tell of ghost-infested ships, and the conclusion to each would invariably be:
“But they couldn’t hold a candle to a craft like this what’s goin’ to take on board sich a crowd as we left Cape Town with.”
Sailors on a long voyage have plenty of opportunity for strengthening their strong belief in the supernatural, and in this case the reasons for misgivings were so real that it is little wonder all hands, from the boatswain to the cook, were in a state very nearly bordering on insubordination when the Swallow entered the Straits of Sunda, bearing to the westward on a course to the Celebes.
Perhaps it was because of this mutinous condition of the men that the bark was not kept true to the needle, or, again, it may have been that the captain was at fault in his navigation. At all events, on the morning of the fourth day after leaving the straits, while sailing over a mirror-like sea and under cloudless skies, the Swallow brought up with a terrific crash against a sunken reef.
In an instant all was confusion. Orders were not obeyed as promptly as should have been the case, because the sailors had settled in their minds that this was an incident to be expected during such a cruise, and for several moments the bark pounded and thumped upon the rock until, without the aid of her crew, she slipped off into deep water again.
As a matter of course, the first thing after this hidden danger had apparently been passed in safety was to sound the well, and to the dismay of Philip, if not of the insubordinate crew, it was learned that the bark was leaking.