A Pirate of the Caribbees Part 4

During the whole of that day we continued to make short tacks to windward as before, with half the watch aloft on the look out; but nothing was sighted, and at nightfall we again hove-to, maintaining our position as nearly as possible in the same spot until the next morning.

With the first sign of daylight I sent aloft the keenest-sighted man we had on board, that he might take a good look round ere we filled upon the schooner to resume our disheartening search. So eager was I, that when the man reached the royal yard, the stars were still blinking overhead and down in the western sky, and it was too dark to see to any great distance. But the dawn was paling the sky to windward, and as the cold, weird, mysterious pallor of the coming day spread upward, and warmed into pinkish grey, and from that into orange, and from orange to clearest primrose, dyeing the weltering undulations of the low-running sea with all the delicate, shifting tints of the opal, I saw the fellow aloft suddenly rise to his feet and stand upon the yard, with one arm round the masthead to steady himself against the quick, jerky plunges of the schooner, while he shielded his eyes with the other hand, as he steadfastly gazed into the distance to windward.

"Royal yard, there, do you see anything?" I hailed eagerly; and the sudden ecstasy of renewed hope which sprang up within my breast now fully revealed to me how nearly I had been driven to the confines of despair by the long-protracted non-success of the search upon which I had so confidently entered.

"I ain't quite sure, sir," was the unsatisfactory reply that came down to me; "it's still a trifle dusky away out there, but I thought just now that--ay, there it is again! There's _something_ out there, sir, about six or seven mile away, but I can't yet tell for certain whether it's a boat or no; it's somewheres about the size of a boat, sir."

"Keep your eye on it," I answered. "I will get the gla.s.s and have a look for myself."

So saying, I went hastily to the companion, removed the ship's telescope from the beckets in which it hung there, and quickly made my way aloft.

"Now," said I, as I settled myself upon the yard, "where is the object?"

"D'ye see that long streak of light shootin' up into the sky from behind that bank of cloud, sir?" responded the man. "Well, it's about half a p'int, or maybe nearer a p'int, to the south'ard of that."

"Ah, I see it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed I, as I caught sight for a moment of a small, scarcely distinguishable speck that appeared for an instant and then vanished again, apparently in the hollow between two waves. A few seconds later I caught it again, and presently I had it dancing unsteadily athwart the field of the instrument. But even then I was unable to definitely settle whether it was or was not a boat; as the man at my side had remarked, it looked like a boat, it was about the size of a boat, as seen nearly end-on, but there was no indication of life or movement about it; it seemed to be floating idly to the run of the seas.

Just at this moment the sun's upper limb flashed into view over the edge of the cloud-bank, darting a long gleam of golden radiance athwart the heaving welter to the schooner, and I looked again, half expecting to catch the answering flash of wet oar-blades; but there was nothing of the kind to be seen. Undoubtedly, however, there was _something_ out there,--something that might prove to be a boat,--and I determined to give it an overhaul without loss of time. So, carefully noting its bearing and distance, and cautioning the lookout not to lose sight of it for an instant, I descended to the deck and straightway gave the necessary orders for making sail and beating up to it.

The object being nearly dead to windward, it was a full hour before we reached it, but little more than half that time sufficed to satisfy us that it really was a boat, and a further quarter of an hour established the fact that it was none other than the _Althea's_ launch; but my heart was full of foreboding as I observed that, although we fired gun after gun to attract attention, there was no answering sign of life to be discovered on board her, although from the moment when she became visible from the deck, either Lindsay or I kept the telescope constantly bearing upon her. Yet the depth at which she floated in the water showed that she was not empty. Lindsay suggested that her crew might have been taken out of her by some craft that had fallen in with her, and that the reason why she floated so deep was that she was half-full of water. But I could not agree with this view; there was a buoyancy of movement about her as she rose and fell upon the surges, which was convincing proof to my mind that she was loaded down with something much more stable than water.

At length, when we had drawn up to within a cable's length of her, the man on the royal yard sang out that there were people in her, but that they were all lying down in the bottom of the boat, and appeared to be dead.

"We shall have to pick her up ourselves," said I to Lindsay. "Let one hand stand by to drop into her from the fore chains with a rope's-end as we bring her alongside. Lay your topsail aback, Mr Lindsay, and let your jib-sheet flow, if you please."

And as I sprang up on the rail to con the schooner alongside, Lindsay gave the necessary orders.

With the topsail aback, and the mainsheet eased well off, the schooner went drifting slowly down toward the launch, that, as we now approached her, looked old, battered, and weather-stained almost out of recognition. We steered so as to shave past her close to windward, and as she came drifting in under our fore chains, the man who was waiting there with a rope's-end dropped neatly into her, and, springing lightly along the thwarts into the eyes of her, deftly made fast the rope to the iron ring bolt in her stem. Then he turned himself, and looked at the ghastly cargo that the boat carried, and as he gazed he whitened to the lips, and a look of unspeakable horror crept into his eyes as he involuntarily thrust out his hands as though to ward off the sight of some dreadful object. And well he might, for as I gazed down into that floating charnel-house I turned deadly sick and faint, as much at what met my sight as at the horrible odour that rose up out of her and filled my nostrils. The boat seemed to be full of dead, lying piled upon one another, as though they had been flung there; yet the first glance a.s.sured me that some of those who were on board her, on the night when I parted company in the gig, were now missing. The captain and the doctor were lying side by side in the stern-sheets; the rest of the ill-fated party were lying heaped one upon the other, or doubled up over the thwarts in the other part of the boat. The two masts were standing, but the sails were lowered and lay, unfurled, along the thwarts, on top of the oars and boathook. There was no trace of food of any kind to be seen, and the water-breakers were without bungs, and to all appearance empty.

So ghastly and repulsive was the sight which the boat presented, that our people hung in the wind for a moment or two when I ordered them to jump down into her and pa.s.s the bodies up over the side; but they rallied at once and followed me when I led the way. The skipper and the doctor were both lying upon their faces, and as I raised the former and turned him over, it is difficult to say which shocked me most, whether the startling ease with which I lifted his wasted body, or the sight of his withered, drawn, and shrunken features--which were so dreadfully altered that for a moment I was doubtful whether it really was or was not the body of Captain Harrison that I held in my arms. I pa.s.sed him up out of the boat without difficulty, and then did the same with the doctor. It struck me that the latter was not quite dead, and I sang out to Lindsay to get some _very_ weak brandy and water and moisten the lips of each man as he was pa.s.sed up on deck; for if life still lingered in any of them, it might be possible to save them even now by judicious and careful treatment. Ten of our inanimate shipmates we singled out as possibly alive, but with the rest the indications of dissolution were so unmistakable that I deemed it best not to interfere with them, but to cover the bodies with a sail, weight it well down with ballast pigs, and then pull the plug out of the boat and cast her adrift, after reading the burial service over the poor relics of humanity that she contained.

That, however, was a duty that might be deferred until _we_ had attended to those who had been pa.s.sed up out of her as possibly alive; we therefore dropped her under the stern, and allowed her to tow at the full scope of a complete coil of line, while we devoted ourselves to the task of attempting to resuscitate the other ten. As I had suspected, the doctor proved to be alive, for after diligently painting his blue and shrivelled lips for about a quarter of an hour with a feather dipped in weak brandy and water, his eyelids quivered, a fluttering sigh pa.s.sed his lips, followed by a feeble groan, and his eyes opened, fixing themselves upon Lindsay and myself in a gla.s.sy, unrecognising stare.

"Water! water, for the love of G.o.d!" he murmured in a thick, dry, husky whisper.

I raised his head gently and rested it against my shoulder, while Lindsay held the pannikin of weak grog to his lips. For a few seconds he seemed to be incapable of swallowing, then, like a corpse galvanised into the semblance of life, he suddenly seized the edge of the pannikin between his clenched teeth as in a vice, and held it until he had drained it to the dregs. Luckily, there were but two or three spoonfuls left in it, or--as he afterwards a.s.sured me--that draught would probably have been his last.

"Ah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with a sigh of unspeakable relief, "nectar! nectar!

Give me more." Adding quickly, "No, no; not yet, not yet! A single teaspoonful every five minutes! Oh, my G.o.d, what anguish! Why did I not die? Is that Courtenay, or am I dreaming? Where is the captain?"

I whipped off my jacket and placed it under his head, as I allowed him to sink gently back on the deck, for at this moment Lindsay whispered to me that the captain was coming round, and I turned to render what a.s.sistance I could. Captain Harrison's eyes were now open, but it was perfectly plain to us both that his wandering glances were as yet devoid of recognition; and it was not until some ten minutes later that he began to evince some understanding of who we were and what had happened.

His first inquiry was after the well-being of those who had been with him in the boat, and to this I felt constrained to give an evasive but encouraging reply, as he was so terribly weak that I feared the effect upon him of a straightforward answer giving the actual state of the matter. We got him and the doctor down below and put them to bed as quickly as possible, and by the time that this was done the other eight poor souls had also been successfully brought round, when they too were conveyed below and made as comfortable as circ.u.mstances would permit.

This done, we disposed of the dead with all due reverence, and then resumed our search to windward with renewed hope arising out of the happy discovery of the launch.

It was drawing well on toward eight bells in the afternoon watch that day when the man whom. I had stationed in the cabin to keep an eye upon the captain and the doctor came up on deck with the news that both were now awake, and that the captain wished to see me. I at once obeyed the summons, and was greatly rejoiced to find that both of my patients were much stronger, and wonderfully the better in every way for their long sleep. They lost no time in explaining that they were ravenously hungry; whereupon I sent word forward to the galley, and in less than five minutes both were busily engaged in disposing of a bowl of strong broth, prepared from two of the small remaining stock of chickens that we had found on board the schooner when we took her.

The moment that the soup had disappeared the captain began to ask me questions, in reply to which I gave him a succinct account of our adventures from the moment when we parted company from the rest of the boats; and when I had finished he paid me a high compliment upon what he was pleased to term the skill and judgment that I had displayed throughout. He then recounted what had befallen the launch, from which I learned that the entire flotilla of boats had remained together--the faster boats accommodating their pace to the slower craft--until caught in the tail-end of the hurricane,--which with them only reached the strength of a moderate gale,--when they were perforce compelled to separate, from which time the launch had seen none of the others again.

It appeared that the launch, deeply loaded as she was, suffered very nearly as much as we in the gig did; the few in her who were capable of doing any work having their hands full in keeping her above water. The sea had broken over them heavily, all but swamping them upon several occasions, and destroying the greater part of their provisions, so that within three days after the cessation of the gale they found themselves without food and face to face with starvation. Then followed a terrible story of protracted suffering, ending in many cases in madness and death, of fruitless effort to work the heavy boat, and finally of utter helplessness, despair, and--oblivion. The captain informed me that he had little hope that any of the other boats had outlived the gale, but believed that if they were still afloat they would be found some forty miles or so to the northward and eastward of where we had fallen in with the launch.

In that direction therefore we continued our search, scouring the whole ocean thereabout over an area of fully one hundred miles square, but we found none of the other boats; and at length, when we had been cruising for a full week, the captain, who by this time was rapidly regaining strength, reluctantly gave the order for us to desist and bear up for Jamaica. And I may as well here mention that none of the other boats were ever again heard of, there being little doubt that they all foundered during the gale.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A DARING ACT OF PIRACY.

The captain, having thus sorrowfully and reluctantly abandoned all hope of finding the missing boats, at once became keenly anxious to reach Port Royal with all possible expedition, in order that the painful business of our trial by court-martial for the loss of the frigate might be got over without delay. We therefore carried on night and day; and so smartly did the little schooner step out, that on the seventh day after bearing up we found ourselves at daybreak within sight of Turk's Island, running in for the Windward Pa.s.sage before the rather languid trade wind. Most of the people were by this time getting about once more, so that, with our own men and the _Wyvern_ party, our decks looked rather crowded; and as we went below to breakfast the captain remarked upon it, expressing his satisfaction that the time was so near at hand when we could exchange our cramped quarters aboard the schooner for the more roomy ones to be found in the Kingston hotels or the houses of the hospitable Jamaica planters.

We were still dawdling over breakfast in the close, stuffy little cabin of the schooner, when Lindsay, who was looking out for me, poked his head through the open skylight to report that there were two sail ahead--a ship and a brigantine--hove-to in somewhat suspicious proximity; and that Captain Tucker--who had been aloft to get a better view of the strangers--declared his belief that the brigantine was none other than the piratical craft the crew of which had pillaged and destroyed the _Wyvern_.

"How do they bear, Mr Lindsay?" demanded the captain.

"Straight ahead, sir," answered Lindsay.

"And how far distant?" was the next question.

"About ten miles, sir," replied Lindsay.

"And what are we going at the present moment?" asked the captain.

Lindsay withdrew his head from the skylight to glance over the rail, and then replaced it again to answer, "A bare five, sir, I should say; the wind seems to be growing more scant. Shall I heave the log, sir?"

"No, thank you," answered the captain; "I have no doubt your judgment is nearly enough correct for all practical purposes, Mr Lindsay. Let a hand be sent aloft to keep an eye on the strangers, and tell him to report anything unusual that he may see. I shall be on deck myself in a few minutes."

Excusing myself, I slipped up on deck to have a look at the two craft, the upper canvas of which was visible above the horizon directly ahead of us. As Lindsay had said, the one was a full-rigged ship, while the other was a fine big brigantine; both were hove-to, and in such close proximity that the merest tyro might shrewdly guess at what was going on there just beyond the horizon. But, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, I took the ship's gla.s.s, and went up on the topgallant yard, from whence I was able to obtain a full view of them. It was as I had expected; boats were pa.s.sing rapidly to and fro between the two craft, those which left the ship being heavily laden, while those which left the brigantine were light.

I was still aloft, working away with the telescope, when the captain emerged from the companion-way, and at once catching sight of me, hailed--

"Well, Mr Courtenay, what do you make of them?"

"It is undoubtedly a case of piracy, sir," I replied. "The brigantine is rifling the ship, and the latter has all the appearance of a British West Indiaman."

"Whew!" I heard the skipper whistle, as he walked to the rail and looked thoughtfully down at the foam bubbles that were gliding past our bends. "If she is an Indiaman she will have pa.s.sengers aboard her," he remarked to the doctor, who at that moment joined him.

The doctor seemed to acquiesce, although he spoke in so low a tone that I could not catch his words. The two stood talking together for a few minutes, and then the captain hailed me again.

"What do you judge our distance from those two craft to be, Mr Courtenay?" he asked.

"A good eight miles, sir, I should say," answered I.

"Thank you, Mr Courtenay; you may come down, sir," returned the skipper, which I took to be a hint that he wanted me. I accordingly slung the gla.s.s over my shoulder, swung myself off the yard on to the backstay, and so descended to the deck.

"Did you notice whether they seemed to have more wind than we have?"

inquired the captain, as I joined him.

"Pretty much the same, sir, I should think," answered I. "It looks as though it would fall calm before long."

"I am afraid not; no such luck," remarked the skipper, c.o.c.king his weather eye skyward and carefully studying the aspect of the heavens.