Chapter Twenty Seven.
Colonel Crockett’s Rifle.
Captain Dinks was gradually getting better; but his recovery was so very slow that it would be weeks before he would be able to quit his cot. His wound had been a severe one, and had narrowly missed his heart.
Under these circumstances, therefore, Mr Meldrum still retained the position of chief of the party—not only the first mate and Mr Adams acquiescing in the arrangement, which the poor captain desired; but the general bulk of the men themselves, who were prejudiced in his favour from Ben Boltrope’s frequent yarns of his ability when an officer in the navy, requested his continuing to be their leader by acclamation, when he expressed a wish of surrendering the command as soon as they had landed safely from the wreck and things had been made comfortable for them on the island. This was only a repetition of what they had done when they were in peril of their lives on board the Nancy Bell, at which momentous time, it may be remembered, Mr McCarthy, speaking on behalf of all, had asked him to assume the direction of things and endeavour to extricate them from danger, looking upon him as the most competent person to guide them in the emergency.
Just so, now, on his speaking of relinquishing the leadership, he was requested to retain it for the common benefit, at least until Captain Dinks should be able to get about. This was the more desired from the fact of Mr Meldrum having managed matters so well for them already that they expected him to “see them through” all present difficulties.
As on the previous occasion, Mr Meldrum did not hesitate to retain the post, believing from his training and experience in commanding bodies of men that he really would be the best leader they could have, in default of the captain; but, before consenting to the general wish, he addressed all hands, impressing on them the necessity of implicit obedience to his orders and a rigid attention to whatever duties he might set them—adding that they might be certain he would not tell them to do anything which was not, to the best of his impression, for their own good.
To this the men assented with a cheer of acquiescence, and he then dismissed them with the assurance that he would endeavour to deserve the confidence they had displayed in him. But, prior to separating from Mr McCarthy and Adams, Mr Meldrum drew up a code of rules for their guidance, premising that where a large party of seamen such as they had under them were thus thrown ashore with no regular duties to perform, such as they had on board ship, it was most urgently necessary that employment of some sort should be made for them; not only to keep them out of that mischief which the evil one is proverbially said to find “for idle hands to do,” but also to prevent them from dwelling on the misery of their situation.
“We must keep watches, turn and turn about,” Mr Meldrum explained, “just the same as we did on board the ship; for, although there’ll be no sails to attend to, in the cold nights which we will shortly have the fire will need careful looking after to prevent it from going out and leaving us all perhaps to freeze to death, while, in the daytime, there will be seal-hunting and water fetching to employ the hands, besides seeing to keeping the rooms clean. These and such similar duties must be performed regularly, so that through their aid the long hours will pass the more rapidly, until we are able—as I trust we shall about November, when the snow melts here, I believe, and we can travel—to start towards the other side of the island, where I hope we’ll fetch some harbour where the whalers touch, and get taken on board and landed at the Cape or some other civilised spot. But, mind, in order to do this,” he added in conclusion, “we must all work together in harmony; and, to prevent discord, and all sorts of unpleasantness, we must keep the men constantly employed—not too onerously, but so that they shall always have something to do—in order that the weary time of waiting shall not hang heavy upon them. However, my friends, to encourage them, you must likewise find something to be busy at for yourselves, as I shall find for myself! Excuse this little bit of a sermon, gentlemen,” said Mr Meldrum at the end of his discourse; “but I thought it necessary to say it, as I’ve seen the evil of having a lot of men about me with nothing for them to do on a foreign station before now, and I’ve learnt wisdom by experience!”