A Strange Voyage

Front matter

A STKANGE VOYAGE. BY W. CLARK RUSSELL, AUTHOR OF " A SEA QUEEN," " THE ' LADY MAUD,' " " A SAILOr'-S SWEETHEART," "THE WRECK OF THE ' GROSVENOR,' " ETC. " In sea affairs nothiDg is impossible and nothing improbable." Lord Nelson. IN THREE VOLUMES. vol. in. LONDON: SAMPSON LOAV, MAESTON, SEAELE & EIVINGTON, CEOWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STEEET. 1885. (All rights reserved.) LONDON : POINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. -HAPTEIl PAGE I. We lose the Captain ... ... ... 1 II. I SEARCH THE SHIP ... ... ... 21 III. We change the Ship's Cout.se ... ... 34 IV. The Men enjoy their Breakfast ... 52 V. We are again Becalmed ... ... GO VI. The Gale bursts upon us ... ... 84 VII. I find Nipper an Honest Man ... ... 10G VIII. Some Damage is done us ... ... 129 IX.

On the Threshold ... ... ... 146 X. Hard and Fast ... ... ... 179 XL We abandon the Ship ... ... ... 195 XII. We return to the Ship ... ... 215 XIII. We leave the Eeef ... ... ... 231 XIV. The Voyage ends ... ... ...

Chapter I. We Lose The Captain

Miss Inglefield went below at half-past nine. I handed her to the companion, and then through the skylight I saw her standing for some moments at the cabin table, looking round her as though oppressed yet again by the silence of this interior and its empti ness. Something in this pause of hers affected me greatly. I had felt her loneliness before ; but it had taken the heaviest accentuation it could receive, now that we had encountered the capsized boat to build a hundred fears upon, and now that we had sighted and overhauled the wreck and found her empty and mute as death as to the fate of those who had boarded her yesterday. I went to the rail and looked away up the brilliant wake of moonshine to where, through the silvery haze, the horizon trembled in a fibre like a silken thread, and, pipe in mouth, I leaned smoking and thinking. vol. hi. r. It was the dark water on either side the stream of moonlight, black as ink from the contrast, yet agleam, too, in some mystical fashion, with the tremulous touching of starlight, that set me dreaming about Margaret Edwards, maybe by causing me to think of her dark, beautiful, luminous eyes ; anyhow she and Agnes Inglefield came pairing into my fancies ; but when I asked myself which of the two I would rather have with me now, my humour chose Agnes.

The other would have made a noble and stately companion, she would have borne her troubles without a sigh, and so far as I was concerned, there would have been the magic of her singular beauty to fill out and illumine every hour and to furnish a very pretty consolation to our dilemma. But she would not have drawn to me as Agnes Inglefield had. There would have been no trembling claspings of my arm, no eager, child-like questioning with the eyes, none of the score of half girlish, half-womanly touches of sweet dependence and timid reliance with which a girl can make a man feel proud of being strong and resolute and self-helpful. If I knew anything of Margaret at all, just the opposite would have been the case with her. The heroic qualities would have been too strong in her to make me sensible of any that I myself might possess.

Too courageous to require soothing, too clear-sighted to need the ideas of others, too calm to give me a chance with her emotions, she would, morally speaking, have kept me at arm's length, and if I should have fallen in love with her, in all probability I should have found her as cold and insensible as stone, when on the other hand, with her father and our friends on board, she might at least have con- •descended to smile amiably upon my efforts to reach her heart. And was I in this making the best of what had happened and for which there was no help ? What I ■do know is, that when I got thinking how Margaret Edwards might have been in the capsized boat, I gave a start that shook all soft and sentimental "thoughts of either girl out of my head clean overboard, and it was with feelings such as come to you when jou gaze on some lovely spot made horrible to the imagination by the bloody murder that happened there, that I sent my eye along the surface of brilliant pearl which ran under the moon like a shining road, upon the sea leading to the distant heavens and thought that, for all I knew, there, close under that flashing expanse, might be floating the body of the beautiful girl !

It was a fancy to put a ghastliness into the night, fair and radiant as it was, and imaginary as the sensation must have been, yet I felt a chill come off the waters where they lay glooming with no other light upon them but what dropped from the planets that made me shiver again, and I quitted the rail to give my mind to the ship and block out the ugly fancies which were swarming upon me. I walked to the binnacle and found Eye at the wheel : that is to say, he was sitting on the grating which hid the tiller and wheel-chains ; he did not rise when I approached, a piece of behaviour I thought extremely insulting and offensive, though even had I desired to resent it, I could not have found a good excuse to do so, as I was no officer of his, and had nothing to do with the ship and the work of the ship.

The vessel lay with her head to the west ; there was not the least per ceptible movement of the compass-card : the wheel chains were as still as a coil of rope upon a belaying pin. Taking no notice of the ordinary seaman, I walked a short distance forward and stood looking at the sails glimmering up astern into the gloom, with the tops of the yards as pale in the moonshine as though instead of being black they had been painted a faint green ; the moonlight gushed its rain of brilliance under the foot of the canvas, and every portion of rope it touched was changed into silver wire,. leaving lengths of the rigging dark in shadow ; and you could see the clear crystalline light glittering in quicksilver along the dew upon the rails, and making the decks look as though they were inlaid with ebony carvings of the starboard quarter-boat, the shrouds fore and aft, short heights of the masts, the long-boat forward, and everything that was raised and could cast a shadow within the bulwarks.

Oh, it was beautiful exceedingly, but sad, too bitterly sad some how to my mood. No sound fell from aloft, no moan of air came over the rail, there was no pulsation in the deep to induce a sense of life. The yards were square, and the mainsail hauled up and the spanker brailed in ; otherwise the ship lay under all plain saiL A low humming of voices came from forward, and I could just make out a couple of figures standing near the port cathead where the moon threw down the black shadow of the fore topmost staysail upon them.. I fancied I could distinguish the towering frame of the Einn. If it were he then it was his watch below ; but there would be nothing unreasonable in the man quitting the hot forecastle for a lounge and a smoke in the cool night air, particularly as he might suppose the calm would last all night, and that there would be plenty of time therefore for him to get as much sleep as he wanted before sunrise.

It was past ten o'clock ; about the quarter, I think ; and still I delayed going below to call Pipes, desiring ihat the poor old fellow should go on resting ; when, happening to cast my eyes towards the cloud of smoke, that had not in all that time probably shifted its position by fifty feet from where it had gathered over the sea where the wreck had foundered, I observed that it was in motion, and that it had changed its form, and that it was floating very slowly athwart the stars towards the moon, that is to say, towards the north. Looking into the south, I saw the first of a light breeze coming along, ruling a straight line that was discernible by all behind it being ruffled starlight, whilst before it the reflections hung with an amazing summer tranquility in the breathless water. I hastened below to call Pipes, for here was wind approaching, and the yards would require trimming, and the ship got to a course.

I stepped over to his cabin and knocked/and he instantly answered, " Come in." On opening the door I was not a little surprised to see him seated at a small table, for I had expected to find him in his bunk. A plated swinging lamp screwed to the bulkhead illuminated the berth, and I could not fail to notice that in whatever posture Pipes might have been in when I knocked, he had certainly not been sleeping. The table was bare, and the old man's arms lay upon it as though he had been lean ing his head on his hands, and had dropped them when I opened the door. "What is it, Mr. Aubyn?" he exclaimed, with a startled look at me which impressed me at the time as I well remember. " There's a light breeze blowing, captain." " Is there, though ? " he cried, jumping up and glancing about him for his cap, which lay on the deck under the table, and which I picked up and handed to. him.

" What's the hour ? " I told him. " Eh ? " he muttered ; " well, thinking makes the minutes fly, anyhow ; " and so saying he walked quickly out of his cabin and ran on deck. I followed him. The wind had come up to the vessel, and was blowing very lightly between the masts. Pipes went to the binnacle and ordered the helm to be shifted. He gave no directions to man the braces, and I could not understand his silence ; until presently we had the moon on our port hand and the breeze right astern, on which he told Eye to steady the helm. This was sailing the ship along a northerly course, for England, indeed, as he had informed the men he intended to head her : and the yards being square, the mainsail hauled up and the spanker in the brails, there was nothing for the watch to do. I lingered awhile to enjoy the coolness of the breeze and to mark what progress the ship made before it.

It heartened me up to think that we were going home. The voyage had become a miserable, tragical business, and so far as I was concerned it could not now too speedily end. I leaned over the rail watching the ripples opening from the bows breaking into lines like silver wire as they ran towards the moon, and was thinking with deep sorrow of our friends, and wondering if we were ever likely to hear of them again, and what sort of fate had befallen them, when all on a sudden the ship was plunged in deep shadow, and glancing at the sky I observed that the moon had been as completely obscured by the body of smoke driven by the wind over it as if its light had been intercepted by a thundercloud. The incident was extremely trivial ; yet this darkness falling upon the ship with a suddenness startling in its way — for one never dreamt of anything of that kind happening in a cloudless sky — coupled with the gloom — the extinction of the white sparkling that was turning all that it shone upon into gleaming pearl and ivory — coming at a moment when I was lost in thought over our friends and the voyage that yet lay before us, affected me strangely, and it was with a positive feeling of relief that I watched the low-sailing, fat, and sooty mass of vapour go clear of the beautiful orb and leave our ship dreamlike and radiant again under her beams.

I crossed over to Pipes, who stood stock still looking along the ship with his hand upon the port vang. " I hope, captain," said I, " you'll think proper to call me whenever you have a mind to lie down. You can count upon me rousing you should the weather change or the vessel require attention. And I must be a lubber indeed," said I, "if on such a night as this I am not fit to keep a look-out." " Oh, you're very good, Mr. Aubyn," he answered in the most despondent tone imaginable. " Should I feel to need a hap I'll call you, you may depend upon it." "You'll need it before the night's out," said I, touched by his broken-down manner. " I had hoped to find you turned in when I knocked on your door just now." " I can't sleep, sir," he interrupted. " My mind's too excited. What's happened is too dreadful.

It keeps my brain in a whirl, and there's no rest for me for thinking of it. But I dare say I'll calm down afore long," said he, passing his hand over his eyes. " Why should you infer the worst, though, captain ? It is quite true that we came across one of the boats capsized ; but isn't the other big enough to hold them all ? and if so, why should we deny ourselves the benefit of the hope that on our arrival at home we shall hear that the whole party were picked up ? " He shook his head, and exclaimed in low, broken tones, " They'll never be heard of more — one boat capsized — we know that for certain. If the other's afloat, where is she ? There were sailors enough among the party to know pretty well on what quarter we should heave in sight when ratching about to get the wreck in view, and they'd be sure to keep the boat's head for that quarter as near as they could judge by the sun — if they waited for the dawn to put off from the hull ; and what I say is, I don't doubt the worst has happened, not only from our meeting with the upset boat, but because there's no sign of the other ; " and I noticed him by the clear moonlight cast a sort of mechanical, vacant glance along the sea line on the port side.

I was not a sailor, like this man ; yet, though I was not at all hopeful of the fate of our friends, I felt that Pipes took but a very narrow view of the matter. He gave them no chances whatever. Because one boat was capsized he concluded the other boat was also lost ; whereas, as I have said, that boat might be afloat with the whole party in her ; and if wre could make up our minds to believe them alive, we had a good right to hope that they would be seen by a ship and rescued. "At all events, captain," said I, "we oughtn't to allow our fears that the other boat has capsized or sunk also to prevent us from keeping a bright look-out for her." " That you can leave to me, sir," he exclaimed quickly and warmly, evidently resenting the suggestion. " And do you think if we were to pass a day or two in searching these waters ? — for if the boat's afloat she can't be very far off — one might almost calculate her distance indeed."

" Search ! " he cried. " In which direction would you search ? there's only one place to look for 'em in, and that's down there ! " pointing with his pale fore finger over the side. " They're not afloat ! they're not afloat ! " he said hoarsely, with a look towards the man at the wheel. " Don't offer me any more advice, Mr. Aubyn. I'm too ill to listen to it — too ill, sir ; " and he walked away from me to abreast of the port quarter-boat, and seated himself on a hencoop there, where he pulled off his cap to wipe his brow,. and then restlessly rose again and crossed the deck, and stared away oat to sea and then aloft. The best thing to be done with a person in his state of mind is to leave him alone, yet still I paused before going below, for the breeze seemed to have deepened the loveliness of the night, giving a darker purity to the indigo of the sky, a sharper lustre to the white and greenish fires of the stars, and a keener brilliance to the moonbeams, now tremulous along the whole length of the glorious reflection in the water, as the light there was broken by the mild running of the ripples.

Then the dew, too, would fall from the flapping canvas and softly patter upon the decks in little showers. Our speed was slow, barely three miles an hour, yet still there was movement, and there were eddies and bubbles of fire to watch launching out in sparkles from the deep shadow of the counter ; whilst after the stagnation of the afternoon it was pleasant to behold even the faint fluttering of the dog-vane on the rail, and listen to the chafing of the foot of the sails lifting off the stays and then sliding back as they came into the mast. I took a long look round with my mind full of the boat and of Pipes's dismal notions about the fate of our friends and his unfortunate despondency and eccentricity of temper and behaviour, and by this time feeling somewhat drowsy — it was now eleven o'clock — I went down the companion ladder to my berth.

I had no sooner undressed myself, however, and put my head upon the pillow when the drowsiness passed away. To begin with, it was extremely hot, almost unbearably so. The scuttle was open, but then the wind was right aft, and I could not feel a breath of air come through the aperture. Then again, I got thinking about matters very well calculated to keep a man wakeful — the passage home ; what sort of job we should make of the working of the ship with our small and discontented crew ; Pipes's conduct, and whether he was likely to develop symptoms that would render him unfit to have charge of the ship ; and if so, what we should do, for I knew nothing whatever of navigation, and it was not to be supposed that any man forward could use a sextant. These and twenty other thoughts relating to our situa tion, to Miss Agnes, to our missing friends, came in the wake of the heat to keep me in a fever ; and it must have been past twelve when I finally fell asleep, my last recollected thought being whether Pipes would have the good sense to arouse me in order to get some rest for himself, and stop, by slumber, the simmering of his poor old worried brain.

I was disturbed by my name being called. My berth was in darkness, but there was a light in the cabin, and against that background I saw a figure standing in the doorway. I was but half awake, and asked drowsily who that was. " The steward," was the answer. " What's the matter ? " said I, sitting up. " Does the captain want me to relieve him ? " "I've come to tell you," replied the steward, "that we can't find the captain nowhere. We've searched for him high and low, and the fear is that he's thrown himself overboard." This found me broad awake in a breath. I sprang out of my bunk and clothed myself rapidly, whilst I plied the steward with questions. " What time is it ? " "About a quarter past one, sir." " When was the captain last seen ? " " Why, at about a quarter to one o'clock." "Where, man, where ?

" " On the quarter-deck, certainly. The Finn was at the wheel. He asked the captain's leave to go forward. The captain guv leave and took the helm whilst the Finn went. When the Finn came back the wheel was desarted and the captain gone." "Gone where?" "Why, that's it, sh. I paused a moment. The night was still very quiet ; the ship perfectly steady ; through the dark orifice of the open scuttle no sound came, save the tinkling noise of the little ripples thrown backwards from the gently-pushing stem and washing along the vessel's sides. "Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that if the captain had thrown himself overboard, the splash made by his body would not have been heard ? " " Heard by who ? " " By whoever was awake." " Well, sir, me and the cook was asleep to begin with ; we lay close against the long-boat, for we reckoned that to be all the look-out that was neces sary in weather of this kind.

We heard no splash. Grondhal, he says he went into the forecastle, and was there about five minutes. If the captain chucked himself overboard then, it's not likely the Finn would have heard him." I could not doubt from the man's voice and manner that he honestly believed that Pipes had made away with himself; and when I recalled the old fellow's heavy depression, his singular behaviour, how he had allowed the loss of his passengers and men to prey upon his mind, the misgiving that he might have committed suicide became a conviction, and half wild with agitation — for if Pipes were gone, what was to become of the ship ? how were we to find our way across the sea ? — I pushed past the steward and ran up the companion ladder. There had been no change in the weather since I left the deck. The light breeze was blowing astern, the heavens were clear and brilliant with stars from sea-line to sea-line, here and there upon the waters a little space of phosphorus flashed fitfully ; but the beautiful crystal moonshine had drawn off, and the orb hung red, waning in the west with a pinkish trickling reflection under her that, quiet and fine as the night was, gave the ocean that way a wild look.

Spite of the stars, therefore, the gloom was deep ; the ocean seemed to have blackened, and to have hove its shadow into the atmosphere ; the ship was a dark outline with her sails spreading out wan to the stars ; but whatever stood against the luminaries sparkling white low down over the sea, came out in a sharp configuration ; one saw the quarter-boats, the lower portion of the shrouds with the stars betwixt the squares of the ratlines, and the like all very plain, and nothing to my sight was distincter than the form of the Finn gripping the wheel, with his head and body down to the waist towering a clear outline against the fine dusk beyond the taffrail. There were some figures talking together just before the mainmast ; when I arrived on deck they came aft. Thejr were the two seamen, the cook and the understeward, so that the Finn being at the wheel and the steward by my side, everybody, with the exception of Miss Agnes, had turned out.

I was about to step up to Grondhal when these men came about me ; I exclaimed, " I say, men, the steward tells me your captain's missing. If that's so, no worse job could have happened. Have you searched everywhere for him ? " " Everywhere, sir," said Nipper. " In his cabin ? " "Ay, and in all the empty cabins likewise," ex claimed the steward. " The completest search was made before you was called. We've looked into the quarter-boats, we have overhauled the half-deck, the long-boat, wherever there was a hole for a man to hide himself in, for there's no harm now in saying that when we was all roused up and understood that Captain Pipes was a-missing, we agreed that the loss of his two boats and the people in 'em had disordered his intellects, and so we sarched about as we would for a man who'd act as a hinfant, and conceal him self there's no telling in what queer place."

"There's no denying that his head was touched by the loss of his passengers and crew," said Nipper. " I said all along he'd fallen daft," remarked Eye. " Daft ain't the word," said the cook. " I've watched him from the galley door stan'in' and mutter ing to himself for half an hour at a stretch, and •castin' sidelong looks at the sea, as though he was only waiting for a chance to chuck himself over the side." " Is that what you all think he has done ? " I exclaimed. "Why, yes," answered the cook; "if he wasn't over the side he'd be aboard, and he ain't aboard, I'll swear." "He's committed suicide and drownded hisself," •said Eye. " Yes, he has gone to lie in Abraham's bosom," •said the German under-steward. " He shomped over board, and is det ash pork." I was more disgusted and amazed by the men's indifference than their speech.

They might have expressed themselves bluntly and even coarsely about their captain's disappearance, and yet have shown by something in their manner that they were impressed by it and puzzled, and in a measure troubled by what it might turn out to signify as regarded the safety of the ship, and so forth. But these fellows spoke as if they were talking of a hen or pig that was missing. I turned from them and walked aft to the Finn, but they all followed and stood near the wheel with me. There was not light enough to see the face by. All one saw was the pallid glimmer of it. The sheen off the binnacle-card came no higher than Grondhal's breast, and he looked down at us from the gloom .above it with a gleam where his eyes were, and his countenance thickened up into shadow by his cap and straggling hair and the littleness of his lineaments in the dusky frame of flesh and bone around them.

" The steward has just called me to say that the captain is missing," I exclaimed, addressing him. " What can you tell us about this extraordinary and dreadful thing? " " Ashk me questions," said he not uncivilly and in a quiet voice ; "I am a bod hond at yarning in Anglish." " What was the captain doing before you requested to be relieved at the wheel ? " "He vos shtanding dere," he answered, removing one hand from the wheel to point to a part of the rail abreast of where we were, " looking over inter der vater." " What did you say to him ? " " I say, ' Shkipper, can I be relieved a minute ash I vants to go forward ? ' I say, und he come up at vonce und take hold of der wheel und shay, ' You can go forward.' " " How long were you forward ? " " About five minutes." " Did you go into the forecastle ?

" Yash ; I was dere two or dree minutes." " And you heard nothing ? " " Notting." " Who could hear in the fo'ksle ? " here interrupted the cook. "If me and the steward sleeping on deck wasn't disturbed by the splash, what sort o' sound could it ha' been to reach the fo'ksle ? " "And when you came on deck ? " said I, proceeding with my questions. " Ven I comes on deck I valks aft und finds der vheel mit nobody at it. I says to myshelf, ' De shkipper hov gone below.' But I tinks it strange dot he leave der ship to shteer herself." " Was she in the wind ? had she rounded to ? how was she going ?" " Der helm vos amidships und she vos heading straight, der vind blowing true over dere toffrail." "What first gave you the idea," I asked, "that the captain had committed suicide ? " The steward broke in : "I can answer that, sir. It might have been five or six minutes after Grondhal here had returned to the wheel that I woke up, and feeling a bit peckish, I thought I'd go into the pantry for a biscuit.

Well, seeing nobody but Grondhal aft, I steps up to him and he told me the yarn he's given you in his answers. Thinking it queer that the captain should let the ship drive along with no one to steer her or look after her, I goes below, and noticing that his cabin door was open, I peeped in and saw he wasn't there. Then I looks into the other berths, and there being no signs of him below, I goes back to Grondhal, and after a few words I run forrards and calls the others, and we all turned to and sarched high and low; which being done and nothen resultin', I then thinks proper to wake you up and tell you what our notions is." " It's no notions," said Eye ; " it's the truth, mate. The cap'n's jumped overboard and drowned hisself 'Splain the bloomin' job in any other way if you can." VOL. III.