Nearly a Catastrophe!
SLept till long after daybreak, did they?
Why, it was getting on for noon when Mr McCarthy roused the crew from their unusually long caulk amongst the blankets in the corner of the tent reserved for them with his cheery call of “All hands ahoy! Tumble up there! tumble up!” coupled with the information that the sun was “scorching their eyes out”—which latter observation, it may be casually remarked, was a slight stretch of his imagination, considering the feeble power of the solar orb at that time of the year on the snow-covered wastes of Kerguelen Land!
Still, late or early as they might be in rising, the first point to which everybody turned their gaze on getting out into the open, was the little spot on the horizon to seaward where they had left the ship, where she had been last seen on the previous afternoon just as the evening was beginning to close in. Since they had quitted her, however, the wind had been blowing pretty stiffly all night, although it had calmed down again towards the morning; while the last thing they had heard, ere they had sunk into the sound dreamless sleep all had enjoyed through the complete exhaustion of their frames, had been the roaring noise of the breakers thundering against the base of the cliffs beyond their sheltering fiord. So, it was with but very faint hopes of perceiving the remains of the poor old Nancy Bell’s hull still fixed on the treacherous reef of her destruction, that they looked wistfully out into the offing!
But, lo and behold! in spite of all their forebodings, there in the distance they could yet dimly descry the stern section of the ill-fated vessel still intact, as far as they could judge with the naked eye, amidst the rocks; and about it the waves played and circled and the surf showered its spray. Above the wreck, too, there still fluttered feebly the flag which Mr Meldrum had attached to the stump of the mizzen-mast, as if defying the powers of the wind and the waters to destroy the gallant old ship and her belongings, strive how they might in all their majesty!
Every heart felt glad at the sight.
“It does me ra-al good, mister, it dew!” said Mr Lathrope to the first mate, who was intently watching the object of general interest, as if he could not take his eyes off it. “When I riz just neow, I felt kinder lonesome, a thinking we’d parted company with the old crittur fur ever and wouldn’t never see her no more; but thar she is still as perky as ever, in spite of last night’s gale, which I thought would ha’ blown all her timbers to Jericho!”
“Ah, sorr!” replied Mr McCarthy with a heavy sigh and a troubled look in his usually merry twinkling grey eyes, “you’ll never say another ship the likes of her again! If you’ll belave me, Mister Lathrope, sorr, she’d sail ten knots on a bowline; and I’d like to know where you’d bate that now?”
“I’ll not deny she had her good pints,” said the American sympathisingly; “but I guess the poor thing’ll soon be bruk up.”
“Yes, son, more’s the pity,” responded the other; “sure an’ I wish we had her safe ashore here and we’d save ivory plank of her.”