Won from the Waves

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“What is it about, Jacob?” asked Harry.

“Why, sir, he was telling me how he was serving on board a man-of-war, how the boat he belonged to was cut off by the savages and every soul on board killed except himself; and how after he had been for several years made to work like a slave he escaped and got on board a Dutch merchantman. He was working his passage home in her when she was cast away on this island, and only he and two other Englishmen were saved. But that’s not what I was coming to. When I happened to be talking of Captain Headland he seemed wonderfully interested. ‘Why Jacob,’ he said, ‘that’s my name.’ I then told him that he and you, sir, were old shipmates, and that you knew much more about him than I did, sir. Jack asked me if I would come and speak to you, for he is just like a man out of his mind, he is so eager to know who the captain is.”

“Tell him I shall be glad to speak to him at once,” said Harry, much interested in what he had heard, and Jacob hurried off to call Jack.

Jack soon reached the hut, showing his man-of-war’s-man manners by doffing his hat and pulling one of his long locks. His countenance, though burned and bronzed almost to blackness, and somewhat frizzled by age and exposure, wore the same honest, kind expression which Headland had described.

“Sit down, my friend,” said Harry, giving him one of a couple of stools he had manufactured. “Halliburt has been telling me that you wish to hear about Captain Headland.”

“Ay, that I do, sir, and if you knew how my heart is set on him, for I am sure it must be him, you would not wonder that I make bold to axe you. I never had a son, but if I had, I could not love him better than I did that lad, whom I watched over ever since he was a small child just able to toddle about the decks by himself. I took charge of him when there was no one else to see that he did not come to harm, and I may say, though there is nothing to boast of in it, I saved his life more than once when he would have been drowned or burned to death, or carried away by the savages. It was a proud day when I saw him placed on the quarter-deck with a fair chance of becoming an admiral, as I am very sure he will be, and there was nothing so much went to my heart when I was made a prisoner by the rascally Malays as the thought that I could no longer have an eye on him, and maybe help him a bit with my cutlass in boarding an enemy or in such like work. And then, when I at last got away from the Malays and was coming home to hear about him again, as I hoped, it was just the bitterest thing that could have happened to me to find myself wrecked on this desolate island without the chance that I could see of getting off again. And then, after all, to have some of his ship’s company and his greatest friend, as Jacob tells me you are, sir, cast ashore here to tell me about him, almost surpasses my belief and makes my heart jump into my mouth for joy.”

“I will not ask if you are Jack Headland of whom my friend has spoken, and for whose faithful care he has expressed the warmest gratitude, for I am very sure you must be,” exclaimed Harry. “He has told me all the circumstances you have described and nothing will give him greater satisfaction than to find that you are alive and well. He is more than ever anxious to discover his parents, and you are the only person alive that he knows of who is able to help him to do so.”

Harry then gave a brief account of Captain Headland’s career from the time since his faithful friend had been parted from him.

“Thank you, sir, for telling me all this,” exclaimed Jack. “I have often and often puzzled my head to call to mind the name of the craft aboard which I first saw him, and the place she sailed from; do you see, sir, I had no learning and was a thoughtless lad at the time, and I never asked questions about the place we had come to, and all I remember is that the name of the craft seemed pretty nigh to break the jaws of all who attempted to speak it. Still, where there’s a will there’s a way, maybe somehow or other it will come back to me.”

“At all events I am sure you will do your best if we can manage to get away from this place; and Captain Headland will certainly not leave these seas without looking for us,” answered Harry.