My Danish Sweetheart: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

by William Clark Russell

'Then, Helga,' said I, even in such a moment as this feeling my heart warm to the brave, good, gentle little creature as I pronounced the word, 'we must provision the raft without delay. Our essential needs will be fresh water and biscuit. What more have you in your provision-room below?'

'Come with me!' said she, and we ran into the deck-house and descended the hatch, leaving the raft securely floating alongside, not only in the grip of the yardarm tackle, which the swaying of the vessel had fully overhauled, but in the hold of the line with which we had slacked the structure over the rail.

It was still dark enough below; but when we opened the door of the berth in which, as I have told you, the cabin provisions were stowed, we found the sunshine upon the scuttle or porthole, and the apartment lay clear in the light. In about twenty minutes, and after some three or four journeys, we had conveyed on deck as much provisions as might serve to keep three persons for about a month: cans of meat, some hams, several tins of biscuit, cheese, and other matters, which I need not catalogue. But we had started the fresh water in the scuttle-butts that they might be emptied to serve as floats for the raft, and now we had to find a cask or receptacle for drinking-water, and to fill it, too, from the stock in the hold. Here I should have been at a loss but for Helga, who knew where the barque's fresh water was stowed. Again we entered the cabin or provision-room, and returned with some jars whose contents we emptied—vinegar, I believe it was, but the hurry my mind was then in rendered it weak in its reception of small impressions; these we filled with fresh water from a tank conveniently stowed in the main hatchway, and as I filled them Helga carried them on deck.

While we were below at this work I bade her listen.

'Yes, I hear it!' she cried: 'it is the water in the hold.'

With every sickly lean of the barque you could hear the water inside of her seething among the cargo as it cascaded now to port and now to starboard.

'Helga, she cannot live long,' said I. 'I believe, but for the hissing of the water, we should hear it bubbling into her.'

I handed her up the last of the jars, and grasped the coaming of the hatch to clamber on to the deck, for the cargo came high. As I did this, something seemed to touch and claw me upon the back, and a huge black rat of the size of a kitten leapt from my shoulder on to the deck and vanished in a breath. Helga screamed, and indeed, for the moment, my own nerves were not a little shaken, for I distinctly felt the wire-like whisker of the horrible creature brush my cheek as it sprang from my shoulder.

'If there be truth in the proverb,' said I, 'we need no surer hint of what is coming than the behaviour of that rat.'

The girl shuddered, and gazed, with eyes bright with alarm, into the hold, recoiling as she did so. I believe the prospect of drifting about on a raft was less terrible to her than the idea of a second rat leaping upon one or the other of us.