Afloat at Last Part 22

And then, our previous movement was repeated and the ship brought round once more on the port tack, heading for Pulo Sapata to the northwards-- the name of this place, I may say, is derived from two Malay words, the one pulo meaning "island" and the other sapatu "shoe," and the entire compound word, consequently, "Shoe Island," or the island of the shape of one.

We did not see anything more of the suspicious craft that day; so we all believed that our feint of overhauling them had effectually scared them away, Tom Jerrold and I especially being impressed with this idea, attaching a good deal of importance to the talk we had overheard between Rooney and Adams, Tom being in his bunk close by the boatswain's cabin at the time when I was outside listening to the two old tars as they confabbed together.

Weeks, though, was of a contrary opinion, and Master Sammy could be very dogged if he pleased on any point.

"I'll tell you what, my boys," said he, with some trace of excitement in his mottled face, which generally was as expressionless as a vegetable- marrow, "we haven't seen the last of them yet."

"Much you know of it, little un," sneered Tom Jerrold in all the pride of his longer experience of the sea. "Why this is only the second voyage you've ever taken out here, or indeed been in a ship at all; and on our last trip we never tumbled across anything of this sort."

"That may be," argued Weeks; "but if I am a green hand, as you make out, like Graham here, my father was in a China clipper for years, and he has told me more than you'll ever learn in all your life, Mister Jerrold, I tell you. Why, he was once chased all the way from Hainan to Swatow by pirates."

"Was he?" I cried, excited too at this. "Do tell us, Weeks, all about it."

"There ain't anything to tell," said he nonchalantly, but pleased, I could see, at putting Tom Jerrold into the shade for the moment; "only, that they beat 'em off as they were trying to board father's ship off Swatow, when a vessel of war, that was just then coming down from Formosa, caught the beggars in the very act of piracy, before they could run ash.o.r.e and escape up the hills--as they always do, my dad said, whenever our blue-jackets are after them."

"And then--" I asked, on his pausing at this interesting point, after rousing Jerrold's and my interest in that way, a thing which was quite in keeping with Sam Weeks' character, his disposition being naturally an exasperating one, to other people, that is,--"what happened then?"

"Oh, nothing," he replied coolly; adding after another tantalising pause, "I recollect, though, now, dad said as how the beggars were all taken to Canton and given over to the mandarins for trial."

"Yes," said I, "and--"

"Well, some of 'em were tortured in bamboo cages, he told me, and he said, too, that they made awful faces in their agony," Weeks continued, his face looking as if he enjoyed the reminiscence; "while the others, twenty in number, were all put up in a row kneeling on the ground, with their pigtails tied up over their heads so as to leave their necks bare, and the executioner who had a double-bladed sword like a butcher's cleaver, sliced off their heads as if they were so many carrots. It must have been jolly to see 'em rolling on the ground."

"You cold-blooded brute!" exclaimed Tom Jerrold; but I only shuddered and said nothing. "You seem to revel in it!"

"If you'd heard all my dad told me of what those beggars do to the people they capture, sometimes making them walk the plank and shutting them up in the hold of their own ship and burning them in a lump, you'd be glad of their being punished when caught! I only hope they won't seize our vessel; but, I tell you what, I'm certain we haven't seen the last of those two craft yet. They'll come back after us at nightfall, just you see!"

"By Jove, I hope not!" said Tom, impressed by Weeks' communication all the more from the fact of his not being generally talkative, always "keeping himself to himself" as the saying goes. "I hope you won't prove a true prophet, Sammy, most devoutly."

I could see, also, from Mr Mackay's anxious manner and that of the captain, though neither said anything further about the matter, that their fears were not allayed. There was no doubt that they shared the same impression as that of Sam Weeks; for as we bore away now nor'-nor'- west, with the south-west wind on our quarter, more sail was made on the ship, and a strong current running in the same direction helping us on, we were found to be going over eight knots when the log was hove at six bells, just before dinner-time.

"Old Jock" beamed again at this, walking up and down the p.o.o.p and rubbing his hands and sniffing with his long nose in the air to catch the breeze, as was his wont when the Silver Queen was travelling through the water.

"By Jingo, we'll weather 'em yet!" he said to Mr Mackay, who also seemed more relieved in his mind; "we'll weather 'em yet."

"Yes, I think so, too," said the latter, scanning the horizon with the big telescope away to windward. "There isn't a trace of them anywhere out there now, and there are no islands for them to hide behind where we last sighted them; so, if we can only carry-on like this, perhaps we'll be able to give them the slip--eh?"

"Humph!" grumbled the other, "so I told you, Mackay; and, you know, when I say a thing I always mean a thing!"

The afternoon pa.s.sed without any further appearance of the proa or junk, and then the evening came on, the wind veering round to our beam at sunset, making us brace up more sharply. We looked about us pretty keenly now, as might be imagined, but still nothing was to be seen of our whilom pursuers; and so all on board turned in that night much more comfortably than on the preceding one, when the danger appeared more immediate.

The morning, however, told a different tale.

At the early dawn, when I was with Mr Mackay on the p.o.o.p, the port watch coming on deck just then in their turn of duty, we could see nothing of the suspicious strangers; however as the sun rose higher up, his rays lit a more extended range of sea, and then, far-away off on the horizon to windward, could be seen two tiny white sails in the distance dead astern of us.

"Sail ho!" shouted I from the mizzen cross-trees, where I had gone to look out, Tom Jerrold being sent up aloft forward for the same purpose.

"Sail ho!"

"Where away?" cried Mr Mackay, clutching the gla.s.s and climbing up into the rigging as he spoke, being as spry as a cat. "What do you make out?"

"Two of them, sir," said I; "and I believe it's these pirates, sir, again. They're on our weather quarter, hull down to windward."

"Right you are, my boy!" cried he presently after a careful inspection of the objects I had pointed out from the top, though he did not come up aloft any higher, his telescope under his arm being rather awkward to carry. "They are the same craft, sure enough. It is most vexatious!"

He went down below to tell the captain, and, of course, the news soon spread through the ship, all hands turning out and coming on deck to have a look at these bloodhounds of the deep, that seemed bent on pursuing us to the death.

They did not close on us, though, keeping the same distance off, some ten miles or so, till sundown, when they approached a little nearer and could be seen astern of us, through the middle watch, by the aid of the night-gla.s.s; but they sheered off again at the breaking of this third day, by which time we could see Pulo Sapata right ahead, a most uninviting spot apparently, consisting of nothing but one big bare rock.

Here, hauling round on the starboard tack, we shaped our course east- nor'-east, to pa.s.s over the Macclesfield Bank, in a straight line almost for Formosa Strait, our most direct route to Shanghai, the proa and the junk still keeping after us at a safe distance off.

"By Jingo, I'll tire 'em out yet!" cried "Old Jock" savagely, when, on our getting abreast of the Paracels, although far off to leeward, he saw the beastly things still in our wake as he came on deck in the morning.

"I'll tire 'em out before I've done with 'em."

But, now, all at once, we had something more important to think of than even the supposed pirates.

The wind had freshened during the morning, blowing as usual from the south-west and west, and towards noon it slackened again; but no importance was attached to this circ.u.mstance, at first, by the captain and Mr Mackay, although, when presently the water became thick and a deep irregular swell set in, they both grew rather uneasy.

"It looks uncommon like a typhoon, sir," said the first mate to "Old Jock," after looking out both to windward and leeward. "There is some change coming."

"I think so, too," said the other. "Go down, Mackay, and have a look at the barometer. It was all right when I came up, but it may have fallen since then; if it has, that will make our doubt a certainty."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied the first mate hurrying down the companion. He wasn't long absent, returning the next moment with the information: "It has gone down from 29.80 to 29.60."

"That means a typhoon, then," said Captain Gillespie; "so the sooner we're prepared for it the better. All hands take in sail!"

The men tumbled up with a will, the sheets all flying as the halliards we're let go and all hands on the yard like bees; and, as soon as the topgallants had been clewed up, these sails were furled and lashed, as well as having the sea-gaskets put on, so as to make them all the more secure.

The topsails followed suit, and then the courses; the ship's head being brought round to the nor'-west, from which quarter the storm was expected, as typhoons always blow eight points to the right of the regular wind, which with us, at the time these precautions were taken, was from the south-east.

The Silver Queen now lay-to, motionless in the water, with only her main trysail and a storm staysail forward set.

"What is a typhoon?" I asked Mr Mackay, when I got down on deck again after helping to hand the mizzen-topsail, the last job we had to do on our mast. "What does it mean?"

"It's the Chinese word for a 'big wind,' my boy," said he kindly; but looking very grave. "You'll soon be able to see what it's like for yourself."

The opportunity he spoke of was not long delayed.

By the time the sails had been taken in and all our preparations made for the reception of our expected but unwelcome visitor, everything being lashed down that was likely to get blown away, and life-lines rove along the deck fore and aft, the same as when we were making ready to weather the Cape of Good Hope, it was late in the afternoon.

At four o'clock, the commencement of the first dog-watch, the barometer had fallen further down the scale to 29.46; while, an hour later, it was down to 28.96, the wind increasing in force almost every minute and the sea growing in proportion, until the very height of the cyclone was attained.

The dinghy, which was lashed inboard behind the wheel-house, was blown bodily away to leeward, the ropes holding it parting as if they had been pack-thread, heavy squalls, accompanied with heavy rain all the time beating on us like hail, and bursting over the ship in rapid succession; but the old barquey bravely stood it, bending to the blast when it came, and then buoyantly rising the next moment and breasting it like the good sea-boat she was.

At "six bells" the barometer fell to its lowest point, 28.60, when the violence of the wind was something fearful, although after this there was a slight rise in the gla.s.s. During the next half-hour, however, the mizzen-topsail, which Tom Jerrold and I, with Gregory to help us, had fastened as we thought so firmly to the yard, was blown to ribbons, the spanker getting adrift shortly afterwards and being torn away from its lacing to the luff rope, sc.r.a.p by sc.r.a.p.

The main trysail, also, although only very little of it was shown when set, now blew away too, making a great report no doubt; but the shrieking of the wind was such that we couldn't hear anything else but its howling through the rigging, the captain's voice close alongside of me, as I sheltered under the hood of the companion, sounding actually only like a faint whisper.

The typhoon now shifted from the north-west to the westwards, and the barometer, rising shortly afterwards to 29.20, jumped up thence another twenty points in the next hour.