Charley Laurel: A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I mention this conversation, because it so exactly describes my own feelings, and the state of the greater number of people I have since met.

“How earnestly I pray that my dear father may have accepted the truth,” continued Miss Kitty. “I had almost despaired of again seeing him, when a sailor, who had been wrecked in the Pacific, made his way to our island. While conversing with the poor man, who was dying, he told me that he had been on board an outward-bound ship which had picked up an English officer, who had made his escape from a French prison; and I was certain, from the name and from the description he gave me, that the officer must have been my father. The ship touched nowhere till she was wrecked on some rocks in the Southern Ocean, between the Mauritius and Australia. My father was among those who escaped. They were rescued by a South Sea whaler, which my informant quitted to join another ship, leaving him on board. Where my father was going to he could not tell, but concluded that he intended returning home. Even should he have done so, he would have been unable to hear of me, and this makes me anxious in the extreme to return home, to try and find him out.”

I sympathised with Miss Kitty when she gave me this account, and told her how glad I should be to assist her in the search.

Some days after this, one of those furious gales which occasionally blow over the usually calm waters of the Pacific came on, and we unexpectedly made an island not marked in the charts, to avoid which our course was being altered, when a squall laid the ship almost on her beam-ends. Throwing off my jacket, that my arms might be perfectly unfettered, I sprang aloft with others yet further to shorten sail, when the main-topmast and the yard on which I hung were carried away. The next moment I found myself struggling amid the foaming waters. The ship flew on. To heave-to or lower a boat I knew was impossible. I gave myself up for lost: still I struck out with the instinct of self-preservation. The seas dancing wildly around circumscribed my view, and I could only just see the masts of the ship as she receded from me. Several other poor fellows I knew had been hove into the sea off the yard with me. Though dressed only in a light shirt and trousers, I was nearly exhausted. Had I retained my jacket, I believe that I should have been unable to keep myself afloat. Just then a shout reached my ears, and I saw Bill seated astride a piece of timber, not far from me. With my remaining strength I made towards it, and he, seizing me by the shirt, hauled me up, and made me fast with some rope attached to the spar.

“Glad to find you, Charley,” he said. “I saw the timber, when I thought there was no hope, and got on to it. Now we must trust that the ship will come back to pick us up, or that the wind will drive us to the shore, otherwise we shall be badly off.”

I thought so too; but having escaped immediate death so wonderfully, I could not help hoping that further means would be sent us for preserving our lives.

“We must trust in God,” I answered. “It is a happy thing for you and me, Bill, that we are ready to go into His presence, knowing that He will receive us as loved children.”

“Ah, yes, Master Charley, that’s what I have been thinking,” said Bill. “I knew you were on the yard, and the moment I was in the water I prayed that He would save you as well as me, and you see He has done so.”

We, however, could talk but little; indeed, what we said was uttered in disjointed sentences; for the foaming sea kept tossing the log on which we sat up and down, so that we could with difficulty hold on to it. The sea-birds kept wildly screaming over our heads, while nothing could be seen around us but the foaming, troubled waters. In vain we looked out for the ship. Evening was coming on, and the gloom increased. Had it not been for the rope, we could not have maintained our hold of the log. Each time after a sea had swept over us I looked up, hoping to discover the ship, but she was nowhere visible, and even had she been near, the increased darkness would have shut her out from our sight.

Hour after hour passed by, and, faint and exhausted, I felt that I could not hold on much longer. Poor Bill seemed in even a worse condition. I could hear his voice every now and then, amid the roaring of the waters, uttering a prayer, and I joined him in my heart. At last I fell into a state of almost insensibility, and I knew not how the hours went by. Again I aroused myself, and it seemed to me that the night must have well-nigh passed by. At length the roaring sound of the waters increased: it was that of a heavy surf breaking on the shore. Daylight appeared. As the log rose to the summit of the sea, I caught sight of a rocky coast close at hand. In a few minutes more the log might be cast on it, but the danger we ran was greater than ever, for if turned over and over by the surf, we might be crushed beneath it. I cast off the lashings which bound me, holding on instead tightly to the ropes, and urging Bill to do the same. He did not appear to comprehend me. I stretched out my hand to assist him, and had just succeeded in casting loose the rope which held him, when a foaming sea took me, and I was carried forward in its embrace towards the shore. What happened to my companion I could not see, for I lost all consciousness. Confused by the roaring and hissing of the waters in my ears, it appeared to me that I was lifted up and down, and swept backwards and forwards; then I felt my hands and feet touching the shore. I struggled on. Another sea came hissing up; I dug my hands into the sand ere it passed away. Exhausted, I could exert myself no further. Had another sea overtaken me, it would have carried me helplessly off.