A Sea Queen

Front matter

a BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Small post Svo, cloth, bevelled boards, 6s. each. THE WRECK OF THE " GROSVENOR." JOHN HOLDSWORTH (CHIEF MATE). A SAILOR'S SWEETHEART. THE "LADY MAUD." In cloth, 250 pp., 2s. Gd MY WATCH BELOW. By a Seafarer. Three vols., crown Svo. 31s. 6d. JACK'S COURTSHIP. Shortly London : Sajips^sJjOav 188, Fleet Street. E.C ET W. CLAEK KUSSELL, AUTHOR OF "THE WRECK OF THE ' GROSVENOE,'" "A SAILOR'S SWEETHEART," " THF. 'I.ADT MATJD,'" ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. HI. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1883. (All rights reserved.. LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. CONTENTS OE VOL. III. CHAPTER PAGE I. Night in an Open Boat ... ... ... l II. A Feveb-stbicken Brig ... ... ... 21 III.

Oub New Sea-home ... ... ... ... 46 IV. A Cruel Blow ... ... ... ... 63 V. I help to work the Brig ... ... ... 80 VI. We sight a Sail ... ... ... ... 103 VII. A Strange Meeting ... ... ... ... 123 VIII. A Fresh Start ... ... ... ... 157 IX. The Caepentee enables Richabd to take Sights 183 X. I send a Letter to Father ... ... 208 XI. In Soundings ... ... ... ... ... 233 XII. Home ... ... ... ... ...

Chapter I. Night In An Open Boat

The afternoon was fast waning, as we might know by the sun. The hreeze had freshened somewhat ; each little surge, as it coiled over, ran with a sparkling feathering of spray, and the foam broke bravely from the stem of the boat as she swept along fast under the steady pulling of the lug sail. We had no compass, and my husband could only steer by the sun; yet he spoke of the direction he was taking with confidence, and said that, when the sun was gone, there would be the stars to steer by. All day long he had held the yoke-lines, suffering VOL. III. B me to take them only when he went to the bread bag: or the little water-cask. He declared he was not tired ; nor do I beheve he was, thanks to the length he had contrived to give to the yoke lines, which enabled him to get up and move about, and even go right forward, and yet control the boat too.

I Avas looking over the sea at our weather bow, when I suddenly caught sight of a dark object not above a mile distant. I stood up to get a better vieAv, and then asked Richard if he could see it. He peered about, and, after a Httle, said, " Yes." " What is it, do you think ? " said I, for, though it Avas but a mere Avaif, as I might tell, yet its breaking the eternal monotony of the blue surface caused me to view it with a degree of interest that made my question eager. " Why," said he, having taken another good look, " it seems to be a bit of sjtar, or else a dead grampus. We'll luff the boat a bit and see." He moved the helm, and brought the stem of the boat on a line Avith the object. A few minutes went by, when suddenly he exclaimed — *' Has the Avind shifted ? or are Ave in a current ? or is that object out there aliA*e ?

This minute the Avind was abeam, but now, do you notice, it's drawing ahead, and yet we are going direct for that dark thing." " I'm sure it can't be aliA*e," said I ; " it's a piece of spar, Richard." " Let it be Avhat it will," he exclaimed, growinf: excited, " it's moA*ing. Look at the sun ! it's right abeam, and here's the Avind almost ahead ! " I was now as much amazed as he, for certainly the varying posture of the sun was conclusive proof that we were shifting our course, and yet we always kept the object right ahead. " Why, what can it be ? " said I. " There must be a current there ! " "It must be a A*ery fast current," he replied, " and a mighty narrow one, too. We are not in it, or Ave should be setting to the eastwards, too." By this time he had brought the boat close to the wind, and the sail lay almost fore and aft.

In a few minutes we had a full sight of the object. It Avas, indeed, a piece of stout spar, blackened Avith paint or tar ; it looked like a piece of the pile of a small wooden pier, of about twelve to fourteen feet in length. To it was securely hitched a length of stout line that formed a loop, or bight ; to this bight, that Avas in the water at Avhat I may call the foremost end of the spar, Avas another line ; and attached to this line, but in some manner it was impossible for us to make out, Avas a long, im mensely powerful shark. It Avas a sight scarcely credible to our reason, though there it was, plain enough in our eyes. Richard was dumbfounded. Had some monstrous apparition risen out of the Avater, it could not haA*e put an expression fuller of sheer, doAvnright amaze ment into his face.

The shark, scared perhaps by our boat, suddenly shifted his helm, and headed about north-east, which enabled us to stick to the skirts of the piece of timber he Avas towing. He Avas just beneath the surface of the Avater, the hempen trace of his unwieldy chariot not suffering him to sink out of sight ; but as the bit of Avreckage Avobbled upon the brisk ripple, it Avould heave the after-part of him up, from the spine, just in the rear of the dorsal fin, to the hindmost spike of his hideous, piratical, barbed tail. I tried hard to see Iioav the line was affixed to his body ; but his head and shoulders were always under water, and the SAvift beAvildering run of the ruffled surface rendered nothing distinguishable but his dark, massive and savage outline. HoAvever, there could be no doubt that he had been harnessed by means of a rope collar secured on either side his immense flappers, so that he could neither forge ahead out of it, nor back himself clear of it.

He showed no signs of exhaustion, though if he had been launched overboard from a ship the clear horizon was proof sufficient that he must have been in the water some hours, if not some days. Heavy as the spar was, he would tow it along for a space as fast as we sailed, then slacken down, and oblige Richard to let go the sheet of the lug sail, that Ave might not run away from him. Probably, such a sight Avas never seen before, and for the time being it actually sent all thoughts of our perilous and miserable situation out of my head. Yet I should have defied the most tender hearted person to feel compassion for the monster. There is something in the veiy look of a shark that chills the blood, and awakes a kind of passion to destroy it. This beast, like the one that had lurked under the counter of the barque, was of immense size and length, but apparently not of the same species, the run of the jaws being round — as far, at least, as I could make out — instead of shovel shape, and the colour of the back a very sickly, evil-looking blue, though this hue might have been the effect of the refraction of the light in the water.

Whether, harnessed as he Avas, he could have rolled on to his back to gorge his prey, I do not know ; but, 'even were this privilege denied him, I should have been very sorry to have trusted myself near his malignant, oval, blueish head, in spite of the burden that he toAved behind him. Every time his tail descended, after the jump of . the timber had hove it up, he Avould make a savage and furious sweep that sent the water foaming along the sides of the wood, as though a screAv-propeller were revolving there. He allowed us to keep him company for about five minutes, then, Avith a sudden revolving dash of his long and frightful body, that brought the piece of timber after him like a keel in tow of a tug, he struck off to the soutlnvards ; and on Richard bringing the boat back to her former position, as nearly as he could reckon by the sun, Ave lost sight of him.

" Did any man ever see the like of that be fore ? " exclaimed my husband, looking at me with much of the downright consternation that the spectacle had at first excited in him lingering in his face. " Where could he have come from ? " I asked. " Who can tell ? As likely from the shore as from a ship. I can't imagine that any vessel would carry such a piece of timber as he was towing. But it is a sailor's job. If he comes from a ship, the crew settled upon this way of showing their love for him and his species. After hooking and hauling him aboard, instead of cutting him up, they made him fast to that piece of timber, and sent them adrift together — though it would need some cleA*er manœu\*ring to get the beast OA*erboard again. " But it's a wonder that he lived after being out of Avater," said I. " Live !

" he exclaimed. " Why, a shark's alive and kicking after he's cut up. He'll go on towing that piece of wood until the rope's chafed through, ay, though it should take six months to disconnect him, and then he'll be as hearty as when the sailors hooked him, though hungrier. But what an object to come across in the middle of an ocean ! What an entry it would make in a log book." " If he came from a ship," said I, " she ought not to be A*ery far off." "I thought of that," he replied, throwing an eager glance round the sea. " But who can say hoAV long he has been in the water ? " and he stood up and again most carefully and intently searched the sea ; but the clear, dark-blue line was as speckless as the vaulted azure overhead. The excitement raised by the singular object we had encountered soon passed, and our minds turned again with fresh bitterness and sadness to our dreary, helpless and perilous situation.

At noon tide, when the meridian sun was pouring his fierce fires upon our unsheltered bodies, I would haA*e given five years of my life for him to set, and for the cool and shadow of the evening to descend upon the water. But, now that the night was at hand, I dreaded its approach. The breeze had fallen light again, ahvays bloAving steadily from the east, — with the sun setting on our port bow we could not mistake the quarters of the compass ; — yet it preserved Aveight enough to keep our sail full, and the boat Avent very softly alon° over a surface as meltingly blue as the sky that it reflected. When the sun was near the sea he went quickly. For a few minutes there lingered a most glorious Avestern sky of crimson, and we both took advantage of this pause of daylight to search the sea-line.

" A little more patience, Jess," said Richard, as our eyes met. " At all eA-ents, in such weather as this we are as safe here as though we were ashore. The night ruay bring us something, and if not, then it will be marvellous indeed if we sight no A'essel to-morrow." The darkness came out of the east like a cloud, and as the folds of it vanquished the hectic tinge in the west, the stars shone out thickly ; indeed, the coming on of that night was as though a black velvet carpet crested with silver points had been unrolled 0A*er the azure, Avrapping the sea in a deep shadow. This sudden envelopment of gloom— for sudden it Avas, after the bright glory of the sunset — made me shiver and draAV closer to Richard, and to comfort me he held me in one arm against him, and in that position we sat. I had thought the ocean more lonesome-looking and affrighting by dayhght than in the night when the dawn broke in the morning, and showed us the boundlessness of the deep, and nothing remaining of our vanished barque but a few blackened fragments of wood.

But now that the darkness was come, I longed for the daylight again, and Avas amazed to think that the heat of the sun should have made me eager to exchange his radiance for the mystery and the fear, and the soul-subduing shadow of the night. The sea was as black as ink, though the Avhite fires of the larger stars touched it in places. The horizon dreAv up around us, and made a wonder of the sky, for you could see the stars shining far beyond the motionless thickness Avhich stood for the water-line. Oh, if there be one kind of solitude more terrible than all others, it is that Avhich is felt 1 y the shipAvrecked occupants of a little boat, many leagues away out upon the surface of the great sea, and shrouded in the darkness of a quiet night, through Avhich the w*ind floats moaning as though there went with it a long, invisible procession of complaining spirits.

It was impossible to look at the liquid, 2">itch-like surface alongside without a recoil, for there was something in the blackness, here and there bearing upon it the gleam of a star flake which Avidened on the brow of the light SAvell, that forced rather than courted the imagination into its depths ; and, as they say that the fancy is sometimes never more alive than in the brains of a dying man, so I, Avho, though not dying, yet may truly be said to have been hanging on the very brink of an ocean grave, found my fancies cruelly active too ; my imagination pierced to the very bottom of the ebony profound, and I well remember figuring the aspect of my husband and myself lying upon the rocks of a valley, the black shadows of mountains rising on either hand, and over all, like the blue atmosphere itself, the green ocean silent as the tomb.

I knoAV little of the arguments Avhich have been employed to prove to men what all but those who haA'e not their minds must feel to be the truth, namely, that they have immortal souls ; but of all testimonies to that immortality, I can conceive nothing stronger than the power that the imperish able soul has of standing apart when it Avails, and figuring the body that holds it as dead, and survey ing it, and musing over it, as though it were dead indeed. This I did that night until my over mastering fancies so wrought upon me, that had I not had my husband to turn to and accost, I am as sure as that it is I Avho am telling this story, that the rising sun would have found me mad. Well, how that night passed I can no more relate than I could the passage of a dream full of Avild inconsequential departures.

What I best recollect of it is, my husband begging me to lie down in the bottom of the boat, and my refusing, partly because I dreaded to quit his side, and partly because I could not surrender myself to sleep, and leaA'e him alone and Avearied almost to very death to steer and watch. I remember that we talked of the Aurora 's crew, and Avondered in Avhich direction they had steered the long boat; and then at about eleven o'clock — for my husband had his watch — I fell asleep, Avith my head on his shoulder, dropping off like a little baby. My dearest one let me sleep as long as I would, and for three hours I rested in that Avay — he never so much as moA*ing for fear he should disturb me ; and when I awoke there was he supporting me, motionless as a figure of wood, the wind still softly blowing over our starboard quarter, and the boat sailing true by the stars.

That sleep refreshed me, and I begged him to take some rest too, and to use my shoulder as a pillow as I had used his; he refused, but I kept on pleading, telling him that I could steer a boat as well as he, and promisinoto awaken him should there come the least change of Aveather, or should there befall any circumstance to render my calling him necessary. Well, after a Avhile, he yielded ; and, pointing to a bright star, he told me to keep it over the mast, rather to the right than to the left of it, as we were steering north-west as nearly as we could guess, and the star would bring us west if Ave followed it too obediently; he then put his cheek upon my shoulder, and Avas presently in a deep sleep, breathing heavily, but very regularly. I found no difficulty in keeping the boat steady ; the gentle, long-drawn swell sometimes threw her off her course, but she needed very little steering, for the breeze blew regularly, and leaving out a fall-off or a come-to of the boat at long intervals, I managed to hold the bright star to the mast, almost as much so as if it had been a lantern slung betAveen the mast-head and the end of the little yard.

I know not if any woman had ever kept such a vigil as this before. It comes back to me like a nightmare, and though, God knows, nothing was ever more real, there are times when I cannot per suade myself that it truly happened. And yet I have but to close my eyes and there comes before me the black sea, and upon it the awful silence of the night, and the dull shine of phosphorus in the run of the swell, and the crisping of expiring foam gleaming past the boat's sides, and the mournful plaining of the night-breeze in the hollow lug sail. For two hours my husband slept. When he awoke he refused to take anj* more rest. " No, no," said he, putting his watch to his face to read the dial by the starlight, " two hours of sleep Avill do. It has made a new man of me. It is half past four; we shall be having the dawn soon."

And rubbing his eyes, for I still held the yoke-lines, he stood up to stretch himself, and putting his hand against his forehead to shelter his sight from the small silver beams that fell from the sk}*, he gazed intently into the darkness over the weather quarter, followed the sea to the weather bow, then began on the lee quarter. But when he got as far as about a point and a half before the lee beam, his head remained stock still. I was first attracted by his motionless posture ; and exclaimed — "What do you see in the darkness there, Richard ? " " Look as I point," said he, in a breathless way, levelling his arm, which showed very plainly against the stars over the horizon ; " is that a shadow there ? " I stared Avith all my might, and sometimes I thought I could catch sight of a sort of blotch upon the gloom, though it went Avhen I looked full at it.

" I cannot say," I answered ; " at moments I imagine I see something." " But I see it ! " he cried. " I cannot be mis taken. Put the helm to starboard, Jess — there, that'll do ! Yes, I can see it plainly now. It must be a vessel." His telling me to starboard the helm had brought the object he believed he saAv right ahead, and the wind dead astern of us. He eased away the sheet of the sail, and with an oar " boomed " out the canvas, so that every inch of it might hold wind ; and, leaving me with the yoke lines in my hand, he went into the bows and crouched down, gazing fixedly in advance of him. His head and shoulders were right in a line with the object, and therefore blotted it out to me ; but though I could see nothing, and was not even sure that what he beheld Avas real, yet the mere idea of there being a ship in sight so agitated me that I heard my heart beat furiously in my ears, and my hands and feet became as cold as the Avater over the side.

A whole quarter of an hour must have gone by, yet my husband made no sign, never addressed me, not so much as once shifted his posture ; but now on a sudden he called out in a loud, ringing, excited voice — " That's a ship, Jessie ! and Ave are gaining on her ! " and then, coming aft, he cried, " And see I yonder's the dawn breaking. We shall be plain in their sight against the sunrise ! Oh, my love, thanks be to Almighty God for this, for your sake, my precious one ! " and he broke down on a sudden, not weeping, but breathing with a heavy sobbing sound as a man does to whom tears are denied. I drew his hand to me and kissed it, and Avhilst I held it, and he struggled with his emotion, the dawn brightened astern, and looking up at the sky over the mast-head, I saw the greenish daylight spread ing like a mist borne onwards by the Avind into the Avest.

The water remained black even when the western sky was glimmering with the light that brightened in the east ; and bending my head so as to clear the foot of the sail, I perceived under the pallid heaven, against which the coal black sea-line stood with startling sharpness, the outline of a little %'essel about three or four miles distant, still Avrapped in the shadow that blackened the deep, but showing out with exquisite distinctness against the dim grey of the sky like a carving in jet, mounted upon a faint green ground. " Do you see her now, Jess ! " cried my husband. I answered in a whisper, "Yes," being scarcely able to articulate in the wild hurry of passions and feelings which the vision of that vessel bore in upon me. Now rose the sun — right behind us — following, Avith a speed that would haA*e seemed magical to any one used to the gradual birth of the day, the light that heralded his approach, and flashed his magnificent beam across the still cloudless heaven, devouring the last of the languishing stars in the depths of the rich azure Avhich his radiance evoked, and brightening the sea into a world of creeping Avaters, and giving colour and brilliance to the little vessel ahead, whereby we perceived that she was a small brig, tolerably deep in the water, with a broad white streak along her sides, broken by painted ports. vol. in. c " Surely, she sees us, Richard !

Is she not hove to, waiting for us?" I exclaimed, my quickly beating heart causing me to speak as though I was out of breath. He did not answer, but kept his head over the side, and watched her with scarcely a wink of the eyes. " Something is wrong with her," said he, in the manner of a man thinking aloud. "Look at her yards ! forward they are square, whilst her main topsail is aback. If she's moving at all she's drifting astern. Note the flying-jib hanging from the boom into the water. What can ail her people ? Her trim looks older than day-break. She's in some plight, and has been so for hours." She grew rapidly as we went along, heading dead for her before the gentle breeze which almost ever since we had been adrift in the boat had blown steadily from the east; and the brilliant light of the cloudless day being all abroad, we by this time could master almost every detail of her.

There was nothing wrong with her aloft ; every spar was standing, all her yards crossed ; but the strange uncouth manner in which those same yards were braced gave her something of a truly woebegone and even wrecked aspect. Her royals and foretop-gallant-sail AA'ere loose, but the halliards had been let go, and the canvas hung before the sails under them. Most of the braces were slack and lay in bights ; the peak halliards were gone, and the gaff drooped upon the folds of the trysail ; and the flying-jib trailed from the end of the boom. You might have thought that she was manned by a number of landsmen, who, having attempted all sorts of experiments, had, in sheer despair of making proper use of the gear, given up working the vessel. Fixedly and narrowly as we Avatched her we could not discern the least sign of any living thing on board.

" Can she be abandoned ! " exclaimed Richard. " And, if so, why ? Her hull appears sound ; it's nothing but the trim of her yards that makes her look in trouble, and there's no distress signal flying." As we drew near it became still more eA'ident that, so far as the vessel herself Avas concerned, there was little amiss ; she floated with good buoyancy, and there Avas nothing whatever in her appearance to suggest any cause for her abandonment. Presently my husband took in the oar Avith which he had boomed out the sail, and when we had almost closed the brig, he lowered the sail and stood in the bows, calling to me to steer the boat so as to run her broadside on to the main channels of the \*essel. This I did, and haA*ing made fast the painter to one of the plates, he got into the chains, helped me out of the boat, and we both got on board.

Chapter II

A FEVER-STRICKEN BRIG. The decks Avere flush and fairly white, but coA-ered with the ends of the running gear, the first sight of which impressed us both with the idea that there had been a struggle. There was a fair-sized deck house abaft the foremast, and a similar but longer deck-house or cabin aft, which where we stood pre vented us from seeing the Avheel. A gangAvay went on either side this house, but each one, like other parts of the deck, was strown with coils of running rigging jerked off the pins, and left to lie. Ail her boats were in their places ; the long boat was amid ships securely lashed, and there were good-looking boats, sharp at both ends like a whaler's, at the davits. The galley stood this side of the foremost deck-house, but no smoke came from the little chimney. We stood listening, but no sound of foot steps, nor of human voices, was to be heard — nothing but the soft sweeping sound of the breeze aloft, the stir of the canvas as the vessel leaned Avith the delicate swell, the pattering of reef-points, or the chafing of a block.

" Strange ! " muttered my husband, almost in a Avhisper, for the silence of the apparently abandoned vessel subdued and hushed his voice. " Why is she deserted ? " And as he said this he stepped over to the front of the after deck-house, and peered in through the little Avindows. I folloAved him, Avalking, as he did, with extreme difficulty, for our long confinement in the boat, and the sitting posture we had been forced to maintain in it for the greater part of the time, had left our limbs numbed to that degree that they were in a manner paralyzed. The front of this deck-house, Avhich I Avill call the cabin, contained four small Avindows, t\vo on either side the door. My husband, I say, Avent to one of these windows, and I to another, and Ave peered in. The interior lay very plain ; Ave saw a small table Avith lockers on one side, and a feAV Avooden chairs on the other, standing on our left, whilst on the right ran a bulkhead, partitioning off three or four httle sleeping-berths, every berth having a door of about the height of a man.

There was nothing living to be seen ; no signs visible of the place having occupants. My husband put his hand upon the door as if to enter ; but changed his mind and came away, followed by me, who was losing sight of the perils -we had escaped, and of our deliA*erance from the danger of a little boat, in the wonder and kind of awe that filled my mind as I looked around upon this lonely, silent scene. " This is a great puzzle, a great mystery," said he, always speaking in a whisper. " Hush ! do you hear nothing ? " I listened and answered, " Nothing, but the flapping of the sails." " I'll try forward," said he, " stop where you are, Jess." " No, no," I exclaimed, " let me go with you. I don't hke to be left alone," and I looked at the cabin, more frightened than I can remember feeling at any time in the boat.