Two hours or more passed before Benny had concluded the sad story, and then Keeper Downey was in possession of such facts as were necessary for the proper making up of his official report.
According to Benny’s tale the Amazonia had sailed from Calcutta, India, on the 15th of February, and, because of previous disasters, the voyage had consumed almost ten months, during which time the ship had covered a distance equal to one half the circuit of the globe.
She was loaded with ten thousand bales of jute; while crossing the Indian Ocean she had run into a cyclone and been dismasted. Under jury-rig the ship was worked to Port Louis, Mauritius, where, after being unloaded, she was thoroughly overhauled and repaired. Not until the middle of September was the voyage resumed, and nothing of note occurred until the vicinity of the Bermudas was reached, when frequent squalls set in, following the vessel until she made the coast of the United States.
Captain Clark had not been able to take an observation for several days, and, therefore, was forced to rely upon what mariners term “dead reckoning.” Two days prior to the wreck he spoke a New York pilot-boat, from which he learned his whereabouts, but after passing George’s Shoal, about one hundred miles to the eastward of Cape Cod, he determined to shape his course straight to the westward until sighting the land.
Notwithstanding the lack of observations to determine his situation, the captain might easily have discovered his danger by sounding, but instead of doing so he held his course steadily without recourse to the lead, until the dark, gloomy outline of the land loomed up, ominous and forbidding.
It was evident from Benny’s story that Captain Clark realized at once the impossibility of working the ship off from that lee shore, because to the best of the lad’s belief it must have been half an hour before the ill-fated craft struck the rocks when he was lashed to the spar, while at the same time preparations were being made to care for the captain’s wife in similar fashion.
“It is only in case anything should happen that this is being done,” Mrs. Clark said to the boy, with the evident purpose of strengthening his courage. “It may be that all will go well with us, and then you and your Fluff will only have had a little disagreeable experience.”
Twice before the final crash came did one of the crew speak words of cheer to the lad, who was unable to see what might be going on around him, and from the nature of such remarks he believed all hands felt certain the Amazonia must strike the coast.
That, in substance, was all the information Benny could give regarding such matters as must be embodied in the keeper’s report; but the men, curious to know how he chanced to be aboard the ship, plied him with questions, and when they had been answered the story of Benny Foster’s life was told.
When quite young, he and his mother had sailed in the ship West Wind, of which his father was the captain, on what the lad believed was to be a long voyage; but he failed to remember the port to which the ship was bound. However, so far as concerned him, that was of no particular importance.