The Mate of the "Lily"; Or, Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book

by William Henry Giles Kingston

It is on such occasions that a sailor has an opportunity of proving what he is made of. The wind continued fair and the weather fine, or our difficulties would have been greatly increased. The less I say of the second mate the better. Uncle Jack did not trust him, and while it was his watch on deck constantly sent me up, or made an excuse for running up himself to see how matters were going on. He insisted also on taking his share in attending on our poor captain, who remained in his berth unable to move, and, as we feared, in a very precarious state. Blyth and I assisted in nursing him, but the second mate, through whose carelessness the brig had been dismasted and the captain injured, refused to take the slightest trouble to help us—indeed, he kept out of the cabin altogether. The young man we had rescued from the Malay prahu gradually regained his recollection of English, but from the first he showed an unwillingness to talk about himself, and I observed that he kept aloof as much as possible from the crew. When I asked his name he said it was Ned Light, that he had been wrecked somewhere to the eastward, and, narrowly escaping with his life, had been taken prisoner by the pirates, who had kept him ever since in bondage. He appeared to be more ready to talk to little Jem than to any one else, and the two were constantly together. When I tried to find out from the boy what account Ned gave of himself, Jem was remarkably reticent. At length, however, one day he said, “He seems to be afraid of some of the men, sir. He thinks that they intend to do him harm, but I cannot find out why he has got that idea into his head. I told him that he might trust you and the first mate, but he only answers, ‘Better not talk.’”

All had gone well in consequence of the constant watchfulness and untiring efforts of the first mate, when, as we were within about four days’ sail of our destination, while rigging out a boom on which to set a square sail, one of our best hands, Dick Mason, fell overboard. The brig was running about four knots through the water, and as Mason could swim well, no one felt much apprehension about his safety. The sails were instantly clewed up, and the only boat which had escaped injury was at once lowered. Ned and I, with Crowfoot, the boatswain, and two other hands jumped into her and pulled away towards our shipmate, who was striking out boldly to meet us. Before the boat was lowered, however, the brig had run some distance, and we had a considerable way to go. Just as I was going down the side I saw a black fin rising above the surface, passing close under the stern. The boatswain I knew had seen it too, for he urged us to use our utmost exertions to reach Mason, and sang out to him to keep splashing about with all his might. We did our best, making the oars bend again. We were within half a cable’s length of the poor fellow, when a fearful shriek reached our ears. I instinctively turned round just in time to see his head disappear beneath the bright surface. There was a ripple where he went down, and as we got up to the spot and looked into the depths of the ocean we could see a struggling human form surrounded by a ruddy tinge, and the glittering white of the shark’s lower jaws. Ned, who was in the bows, plunged down his boat-hook, but Mason’s hands were already far below the point he could reach. The next instant the shark had disappeared with its prey.

All hope of recovering even the body of our poor shipmate was gone, and we returned with sad hearts on board.

“He is a great loss to us,” remarked the boatswain. “He was one of the men I could always trust, and that’s more than I can say of some of the rest.”

“But Tim Howlett and Trinder are smart hands, surely?” I observed.

“They may be, but I don’t like their goings on. If others trust them, it’s more than I do.”

“I am sorry to hear you say that of the men,” I remarked. “I fancied that they were about the best men we have on board.”

“You haven’t seen as much of them as I have, or you wouldn’t say that of them,” replied the boatswain.

“I’ll give a hint to the first mate of what you think,” I said.

“No use in doing that. He generally has his weather eye open, but he’s too generous to believe evil of a man unless he has strong proof. You must leave him to find the matter out for himself.”