Picked up Adrift / Illustrated

by James De Mille

Bailey started, and looked at each of them silently and solemnly; then he looked away, as before.

“Wal,” said he, at last, “this here—doos—beat—my—grandmother! Wal, I’ll tell my story, an then I’ll listen to yourn, an we’ll compare notes, an in that way we’ll grad’ly get the hang of it; for jest now, as things is, I’m dumfounded.

“Wal,” continued Bailey, after a pause, “I’ll start afresh. I shipped then, as I was a sayin, as able seaman, aboard the Petrel. She was loaded down deep with timber, an badly loaded, too, for as she lay in the stream at Quebec, she had a list ever so far over.

“I don’t think I was overly sober when I was took on board, an I don’t think any of the other men was overly sober, neither; at any rate, the first thing I knows, I finds myself thirty mile below Quebec, aboard the Petrel, that had a list to one side that would almost let a man foot it up her masts.

“The first thing we all does, we all begins to kick up a dust. The mate he swears we ain’t goin to sail the ship. Crank? Why, crank ain’t the word! Wal, the captain he tells us we’re gettin up mutiny, and warns us. And we tells him to look at the ship.

“Wal, things goes on somehow, and we gets down the river further, we grumblin all the way and the mate a swearin. One night she drifts nigh to the shore and touches. We gets her off somehow; but she got a bad sprain, and begins to leak.

“Wal, we all growls and grumbles, and won’t touch the pumps; and the captain he threatens, and the mate he rows and swears, and the captain he vows, leak or no leak, he’ll put that there ship across the Atlantic. At last things grows worse, and the mate one day puts a couple of us in the bilboes.

“Wal, that only makes things worse; and by that time we was in the gulf, and rough weather comes on, and none of us would touch a line. So the captain he knocks under, and lets the men go, and promises us a glass of grog all round if we’ll bear a hand at the pumps. But we insists on putting the deck-load overboard first. The captain wouldn’t do it, though, for ever so long; till at last the wind blew a gale, and the cranky vessel plunged under so, and strained and twisted so, that at last he was glad enough to do it of his own accord. So we all goes to work in the midst of that there gale, and puts every stick over. They wasn’t much—only deals, and easy handled. It was timber below, and if it had been timber on deck, we couldn’t have done it nohow.

“Wal, that gale went on, and another followed, and we all pumped away for dear life, but didn’t do much. It had got to be a little too late; and what with the first touch on the rocks, and the straining and twisting afterwards, the leak got to be a little the biggest I ever did see.

“So it went from bad to worse. We all worked at last like the old boy. No need then for the captain to encourage us. We worked for dear life without bein told. But the leak gained steadily, and the storm increased. At last every rag of sail was blown off, and the ship was water-logged, and we all had to take refuge in the riggin. We saw what was comin in time to get the boats up out of harm’s way, for the water was rollin over the deck so that you couldn’t tell which was the ship and which was the sea. We were for puttin off and abandonin of her; but the captain he swore she never could sink, bein timber-laden, and said the storm would soon blow over, and we’d put into Miramichi. So we hung on as long as we could.