Master Rockafellar's Voyage

by William Clark Russell

“Be pleashed to get in and go away!” he exclaimed.

“Go away!” I echoed, too much thunderstruck by the villain’s order to feel or witness the horror of the fate designed for me. “What have I done that you should——?”

He interrupted me with a roar. “Go quick!” he cried, lifting his weapon as though to strike, “or I kill you!”

The hands of the others groped at the hilts of their cutlasses; all three eyed me now, and there was murder in every man’s look. Without a word I stepped to the side, and sprang into the boat. One of them threw the line off the pin into the sea. “Hoise your sail and steer that way, or we shoot!” bellowed the yellow ruffian, waving his cutlass towards the sea astern. God knows there were small arms enough in the cabin to enable them to fulfil that threat. I grasped the halliards, mast-headed the little lug, and throwing an oar over the stern, sculled the boat’s head round, and in a minute was slipping away from the hull, at the stern of which the three men stood watching me, the blade in the boatswain’s hand shining to the sun like a wand of fire as he continued to point with it into the south-east.

Here now was I adrift in the mighty heart of the Indian Ocean in a small boat like a canoe, so shaped that she was little likely to lie close to the wind; hundreds of leagues from the nearest point of land, and in a part of the deep navigated in those days at long intervals only—I mean by the Dutch and English traders to the east; for the smaller vessels kept a much more westerly longitude than where I was, after rounding the Cape; often striking through the Mozambique or so climbing as to keep Mauritius aboard. Never was human being in a more wildly-desperate situation. I did not for an instant doubt that this was the beginning of the end, that if I was not capsized and drowned out of hand by some growing sea, I was to perish (unless I took my own life) of hunger and thirst. Yet the rage and terror which were upon me when I looked over my shoulder at the receding wreck passed away, with the help of God to be sure, ere the figures of the miscreants who had served me thus had been blended by distance out of their shapes into the body and hues of the hull. I thought to myself it is an escape, at all events. I may perish here; yet is there hope; but had I stayed yonder I was doomed: the sight of the gold had made them thirsty for my life. In my sleep, ay, or even waking, they would have hacked me to pieces and flung me overboard to the sharks here.

In this consideration, I say, I seemed to find a source of comfort. If I died as I now was, it would be God’s act, whereas had I remained in the wreck I must have been brutally butchered by the wretches whom the devil had despatched to me in the darkness of the morning that was gone. Nevertheless I was at a loss to comprehend their motive in thus using me. First of all by sending me away in their boat, they had robbed themselves of their only chance of escape should the wreck founder. Then again, I was a man, with a serviceable pair of hands belonging to me, and how necessary willing help was to persons circumstanced as they were, they could easily have gathered from the labours of the day. Besides, they would be able to judge of my condition by my attire, and how could they be sure that I should demand the treasure or put in my claim for a share of it? But I need not weary you with my speculations.

The sun sank when there was a space of about a league betwixt my boat and the wreck, and the darkness came in a stride out of the east. The wind was weak and hot, and there was a crackling noise of ripples round about the boat as she lay with scarce any way upon her, lightly but briskly bobbing upon the tropic ocean dimples. When the darkness came I let fall my sail, intending later on, when the wreck should have got well away towards the horizon, to head north; for methought the further I drew towards the equator out of these seas the better would be my chance of being rescued. The stars were very plentiful, rich, and brilliant that night. I gave God thanks for their company, and for the stillness and peace upon the ocean, and I prayed to Him to watch over and to succour me. When the moon rose I stood up and looked around, but saw nothing of the wreck; on which I hoisted my sail afresh and headed the boat north, as I conjectured by the position of the moon. There was a deal of fire in the sea, and I would again and again direct my eyes at the fitful flashing over the side with a dread in me of witnessing the outline of a shark.

The moon had risen about two hours, when I spied the gleam of water in the bottom of the boat. I was greatly startled, believing that she was leaking. Certainly there had been no water when I first entered her, nor down to this minute had I noticed the light or heard the noise of it in her. There was a little pewter mug in the stern sheets, a relic of the ship from which the Portuguese had come. I fell to bailing with it, and presently emptied the boat. No more water entered, for which at first I was deeply thankful; but after a little I got musing upon how it could have penetrated, seeing that no more came; and then a dreadful suspicion entering my mind, I looked for the jar which the Portuguese had handed into the boat, and saw it lying on its bilge in the bows. I picked it up and shook it; it was empty! It had been corked by a piece of canvas which still remained in the bung, but on the jar capsizing through the jerking of the boat, the water had easily drained out, and it was this precious fluid which I had been feverishly baling and casting overboard!

Maddened as I was by this discovery, I had yet sense enough remaining to sop my handkerchief in the little puddle that still damped the bottom of the boat, and to wring the moisture into the pewter measure. But at the outside half a pint was the utmost I recovered, which done I sat me down, my face buried in my hands, with my eyes scorched as though they were seared by the burning tears that rose to them from my full and breaking heart.