A Runaway Brig Or An Accidental Cruise Part 3

When Jim, who was the first to awaken, opened his eyes, he rose suddenly to a sitting posture with a misty idea that his slumbers had been disturbed by the sound of a human voice.

It was several seconds before he fully realized where he was; but the deserted deck of the brig and the Sally upturned on the main hatch soon brought back to his mind all the strange occurrences of the previous day, after which he began to speculate whether it was in a dream that he heard a low, feeble hail of "Brig ahoy!"

Harry and Walter were both asleep, consequently neither of them had spoken. Rising to his feet he gazed eagerly over the placid ocean, but without seeing the ardently-longed-for sail.

"I reckon I was dreaming," he said to himself, and then the thought of their lonely position drove everything else from his mind. "We must be out of the track of vessels or one would be in sight by this time; and when the next storm comes up it'll be good-by all hands, for we can't manage a craft like this in a gale. I ain't sure, but----"

"Brig ahoy! ahoy!"

This time there was no mistake. It was a hail hardly more than a whisper, but yet so distinct as to prevent any possibility that it was a trick of the imagination. One would have said it came from the sea directly beneath the brig's stern, and Jim's face grew pale with fear as he looked quickly around without seeing so much as a floating timber.

"There's something wrong about this craft," he muttered, "Sailors don't run away from a sound vessel without a pretty good reason, an' I reckon she's haunted!"

"Brig ahoy! Help a dying man! Ahoy on board!"

The words were spoken more feebly than before, and Jim, thoroughly convinced he had heard something supernatural, awakened his companions by shaking them nervously.

"Get up quick!" he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "This brig has been hailed three times, an' there isn't even a fly in sight!"

Harry and Walter were on their feet in an instant gazing around in bewilderment; but seeing nothing, and after Jim had told his story, he asked in a voice trembling with fear:

"What shall we do? I'd rather take my chances on the Sally, even if we are out of sight of land, than stay here another minute. This brig has got ghosts aboard!"

"I don't hear anything," Harry said, the bright sun and sparkling water investing the vessel with a sense of life and animation directly at variance with any supposed supernatural visitations. "You're mistaken, Jim, that's all."

"Wait a little while," Jim replied, shaking his head gravely as if the subject was too serious to admit of any discussion.

The boys were destined to be skeptical but a few seconds longer. Before another moment had pa.s.sed a low groan was heard as if coming from beneath their feet, and all three instinctively ran across the deck to the starboard rail, to put the greatest possible distance between themselves and the unearthly sound.

This short flight was the one thing needed to reveal the seeming mystery; for as Jim leaped into the main rigging with the intention of going aloft, if the ghostly voice was heard again, he involuntarily glanced downward.

"Look! Look there!" he cried excitedly, pointing toward the water; and, following with their eyes the direction indicated by his trembling hand, the boys saw a Whitehall-built boat about twenty feet long made fast to the main-chains. An oar lashed to one of the thwarts served as a mast, and fastened to this was a small piece of canvas.

All these details were not at first remarked, for in the bottom, lying face downward as if dead, was a man. His outstretched hands looked like claws, so tightly was the skin drawn over the bones, and even though covered with clothing it could be seen that his body was wasted almost to a skeleton.

Unaccustomed though Harry and Walter were to such sights, it was not necessary for Jim to explain that the occupant of the boat was a shipwrecked sailor in the last stages of starvation. The night had been calm, and he probably propelled his craft with oars after the wind died away, making her fast to the main-chains as he uttered the cry which awakened Jim, and ceasing his appeal for help only when consciousness deserted him.

It was several moments that the boys stood gazing at these mute evidences of agony without making any effort to relieve the sufferer, and then Harry asked:

"Can't we do something to help him? Perhaps instead of being dead he has only fainted."

"I ought to be kicked for standin' here like a fool!" Jim exclaimed as he clambered over the side, and an instant later he was lifting the man to a sitting posture, crying, meanwhile: "Bring some water quick!"

Walter ran into the cabin, all fear of the place having been banished by the desire to aid the sufferer, and in a few seconds pa.s.sed a pitcher of water into the boat.

Jim was an awkward nurse; but his patient had more vitality than was apparent at the first glance, and before the boy could bathe his face thoroughly he had revived sufficiently to grasp the pitcher with both hands, drinking most greedily.

"Don't let him have all he wants!" Harry cried. "I've heard that people who have been almost starved shouldn't have too much at a time."

Jim tried to wrest the pitcher from the man's desperate clutch, but he swallowed the liquid more eagerly, and the boy was forced to exert all his strength in order to accomplish his purpose.

"Wait a bit," he said as he held the vessel behind him. "You can drink till you bu'st, after a spell, but I reckon Harry's right about takin'

too much just now."

The man looked fiercely at Jim for an instant as if about to spring upon him and thus obtain that which would quench his burning thirst, and then, controlling himself with an effort, he asked in a whisper:

"Where are the crew?"

"There ain't any on board. Us three boys are alone. Have you got strength enough to climb over the rail?"

Instead of answering the question the man attempted to rise to his feet, but his limbs refused to obey the will, and he sank back on the thwart as if about to relapse into unconsciousness again.

"Here, drink some more water," Jim cried quickly; and when the sufferer had swallowed half a dozen mouthfuls eagerly, he shouted to the others: "Lean over the rail and try to get hold of him!"

At the same moment he lifted the emaciated form--he had often raised heavier burdens--until those above could seize him under the arms, after which the remainder of the task was easy of accomplishment.

Harry and Walter carried the sailor to the mattress on the port side, lying him upon it tenderly; and while they were thus occupied, Jim climbed on deck once more, running directly to the pantry.

A case of canned soup was among the stores, and without waiting to select any particular kind he seized one of the tins and carried it to the galley.

To build so much of a fire as would be sufficient to heat the soup was but the work of a few moments, and then he carried a bowl full of the nourishing food aft, saying, as he handed it to the starving man:

"I don't reckon it'll do you any harm to eat this. I'll get a spoon, an'

one of us fellers will feed you."

There was no necessity for any such preparation. The sailor still had strength enough to raise the bowl to his lips, and in the shortest possible s.p.a.ce of time it had been drained of its contents.

"I s'pose you could pump two or three gallons into him before he'd know there was anything inside," Jim said in a low tone to Harry as the sufferer laid back on the pillows with closed eyes. "What'll we do? Give him some more?"

"Hold on a few minutes and see if he asks for it. I think he's going to sleep."

Jim went forward again, where he could be alone while thinking over this addition to their number, and instead of finding relief in the coming of the stranger it seemed to him as if the matter had grown more complicated.

"It was tough enough for us before," he said as he went into the galley; "but what we're goin' to do with a sick man on our hands beats me."

He was not in so much despair as to forget that as yet they had not breakfasted, however, and he at once set about preparing a reasonably elaborate meal.

The wind was not sufficient to lift the narrow thread of blue which hung from the mast-head. The brig rose and fell on the lazy swell, swinging her bow from one point of the compa.s.s to another under the influence of ocean currents or eddies, and there was nothing to claim Jim's attention save the culinary duties he had thus voluntarily a.s.sumed.

Before breakfast was ready Harry came into the galley for more soup, explaining that the stranger had awakened and asked for food; and by the time the invalid was fed again Jim called his companions to partake of the result of his labors.

The boys talked of little else, while they were eating, save regarding the man who slumbered on the mattress aft. His coming had temporarily driven from their minds the sorrow caused by the enforced absence from home, and in this respect, at least, it was productive of good.

"There's one thing about it," Jim said, when the conversation was ended with the meal, and they had failed to realize that the shipwrecked man might be of great a.s.sistance in the future, "his boat is a long ways ahead of the Sally, an' I wouldn't be afraid to sail anywhere in her.

She ought to be hoisted inboard, an' if he's asleep now we'd better try to hook her on the davit-falls."

The man was asleep, and before washing the breakfast dishes Jim made preparations for securing the boat, which he rightly believed would be so valuable when the time came to abandon the Bonita.

This work was by no means easy of accomplishment, even though there was neither sea nor wind to interfere with the laborers; but it was finally finished successfully, and the young captain had no slight satisfaction in the thought that he and his crew were now well prepared for the worst.