THE PASSENGERS SAW THE WHALE-BOAT SWEEP DOWN UNDER THE STERN OF THE SCHOONER.
And now watching with their glasses the passengers saw the whale-boat sweep down under the stern of the schooner, and round up under her lee, while the bowman stood up and hurled a line to one of the schooner's people. By the aid of this the whale-boat was dropped under the lee quarter of the cripple, and at each upward swing of the smaller craft one of the shipwrecked marines contrived to tumble into her. Six men and a boy of some fifteen years they were. Meanwhile the steamer was dropped slowly down until she was within a fair pull of the schooner. The whale-boat came leaping and dancing over the seas, the men laying down their broad backs to the oars, and the white smoke of the spray flying on either bow. It was no small task to get the men out of the boat without crushing her like paper against the iron side of the steamer as it swung downward, yet by patience and seamen's skill it was accomplished. The whale-boat was hoisted to her davits, and the Mohawk resumed her voyage, while the shipwrecked men were taken below to be given warm drinks, food, and dry clothing.
"Will not their schooner drift about in the path of passing ships?" asked the new voyager.
"No, I fancy not," said the veteran; "she will—look!" At that instant the little schooner's stem rose high into the air, where it hung poised for a moment. Then she was swiftly absorbed by the pitiless sea, and her fluttering ensign made a bright spot above a patch of angry green for a moment and was gone.
"I never saw a sadder sight," said the new voyager, gazing with humid eyes upon the blank sea.
"There is none sadder," replied the veteran passenger.
They all returned to their snug seats under the lee of the deck-house, and for a long time were lost in meditation. Then the new voyager looked up and said, "I should like to hear their story."
"That is possible," answered the veteran; "come."
The Captain of the Mohawk was found and the request made. He sent for the skipper of the lost schooner, and said: "Do you feel able now to tell me your story? If so, these gentlemen also would like to hear it."
"Well, Captain," began the wrecked skipper, "it's a common enough story, that's a fact, sir, and I reckon it hasn't anything in it that you never heard before, though perhaps some of your passengers here never got nearer to it than a newspaper at a breakfast table. That was the schooner Mary Anthony, from Gloucester, and I'm her master—that is, I was—Joshua Clark by name, and the boy's my son on his first v'yage. That schooner was about all I had in the world, gentlemen, for I owned her myself, and when she went down a little while ago the hard work of seventeen years went down with her. But I s'pose I mustn't complain, because we take our lives and fortunes in our hands whenever we come out to the Banks to fish, and that's a fact. We got under way from Gloucester on as sweet a morning as ever you saw, gentlemen, with a whole-sail breeze from the southwest. The Mary Anthony was a smart sailer, though I do say it, and she wasn't long in getting the land below the horizon, and that's a fact. When we reached the Banks we found a fairly large fleet on the ground, and we were soon at work among the best of them. It isn't worth while trying to describe the mere matter of fishing to you, gentlemen, because, of course, that isn't what you want to hear about. It's enough for me to say that we'd been on the Banks three days and had very good luck before the accident befell us. I s'pose, Captain, you didn't see anything of a fog last night, did you?"