Billy Topsail & Company Part 12

There was nothing for it but to drive with the wind in the hope of striking. There were many islands; she might strike one. But would it really be an island, whereon a man might crawl out of reach of the sea? or would it be a rock swept by the breakers? Chance would determine that. Skipper Bill was powerless.

But would she make the Chunks before she was ablaze from stem to stern? Again, the skipper was powerless; he could do no more than give her all the wind that blew.

So he ordered the reefs shaken out--and waited.

"Tom," said the skipper, presently, to the first hand, "was it you stowed the cargo?"

"Yes, sir."

There was a pause. Archie Armstrong and Jimmie Grimm, aft near the wheel, wondered why the skipper had put the question.

"An' where," the skipper asked, quietly, "did you put the powder?"

"For'ard, sir."

"How far for'ard?"

"Fair up against the forecastle bulkhead!"

The appalling significance of this was plain to the crew. The bulkhead was a thin part.i.tion dividing the forecastle from the hold.

"Archie," Skipper Bill drawled, "you better loose the stays'l sheet.

She ought t' do better than this." He paused. "Fair against the forecastle bulkhead?" he continued. "Tom, you better get the hatch off, an' see what you're able t' do about gettin' them six kegs o'

powder out. No--bide here!" he added. "Take the wheel again, Billy.

Get that hatch off, some o' you."

It was the skipper himself who dropped into the hold. The cargo was packed tight. Heavy barrels of flour, puncheons of mola.s.ses, casks of pork and beef, lay between the skipper and the powder. He crawled forward, wriggling in the narrow s.p.a.ce between the freight and the deck. No fire had as yet entered the hold; but the place was full of stifling smoke. It was apparent that the removal of the powder would be the labour of hours; and there were no hours left for labour. The skipper could stand the smoke no longer. He retreated towards the hatch. How long it would be before the fire communicated itself to the cargo--how long it would be before the explosion of six kegs of powder would scatter the wreck of the _First Venture_ upon the surface of the sea--no man could tell. But the end was inevitable.

Anxious questions greeted the skipper when again he stood upon the wind-swept deck.

"Close the hatch," said he.

"No chance, sir?" Archie asked.

"No, b'y."

The forecastle was already closed. There was no gleam of fire anywhere to be seen. The bitter wind savoured of smoke; nothing else betrayed the schooner's peril.

"Now, get you all back aft!" was the skipper's command. "Keep her head as it points."

When the crew had crept away to the place remotest from the danger point, Bill o' Burnt Bay went forward to keep a lookout for the rocks and breakers. The burning forecastle was beneath his feet; he could hear the crackling of the fire; and the smoke, rising now more voluminously, troubled his nostrils and throat. It was pitch dark ahead. There was no blacker shadow of land, no white flash of water, to give him hope. It seemed as though an unbroken expanse of sea lay before the labouring _First Venture_. But the skipper knew to the contrary; somewhere in the night into which he stared--somewhere near, and, momentarily, drawing nearer--lay the Chunks. He wondered if the _First Venture_ would strike before the explosion occurred. It must be soon, he knew. The possibility of being off the course did not trouble him.

Soon the seams of the deck began to open. Smoke poured out in thickening clouds. Points of light, fast changing to lines of flame, warned the skipper that he must retreat. It was not, however, until heat and smoke and the certain prospect of collapse compelled him, that he joined the crew. He was not a spectacular hero; when common sense dictated return, he obeyed without delay, and without maudlin complaint. Without a word he took the wheel from Billy Topsail's hands, and without a word he kept the schooner on her course. There was no need of command or advice; men and boys knew their situation and their duty.

"It can't be long," said the cook.

There was now a glow of red light above the forecastle. The fire was about to break through. It was not hard to surmise that the collapse of the bulkhead was imminent.

"No, sir!" the fidgety cook repeated. "It can't be long, now."

It seemed long. Minute after minute pa.s.sed, each of incredible length, while the _First Venture_ staggered forward, wildly pitching through the seas. At last, the flames broke out of the forecastle and illuminated the deck.

"Not long, now!" the cook whimpered. "It _can't_ be!"

Nor was it. The _First Venture_ struck. She was upon the rocks before the skipper was well aware that breakers lay ahead. Her bow fell, struck, was lifted, fell again, and fastened itself. The next wave flung the schooner broadside. The third completed the turn. She lay with her head pointing into the wind. Her stern, where the crew stood waiting for the end, rose and fell on the verge of a great breaker.

Beyond was a broken cliff, rising to unwashed heights, which the snow had begun to whiten. The bow was lifted clear of the waves; the stern was awash. A s.p.a.ce of white water lay between the schooner and the sh.o.r.e.

Bill o' Burnt Bay let go his grip on the wheel. There was but one thing to do. Many a skipper had done it before; but never before had there been such desperate need of haste. The fire still burned l.u.s.tily; and the forecastle was high out of the water.

"If I can't do it," the skipper shouted, "it's the first hand's turn next."

He had fastened the end of a coil of rope about his waist. Now he stood swaying on the taffrail. By the light of the fire--uncertain and dull--he must act. He leaped a moment after the next wave had slipped under the stern--when, in the current, he should reach the rocks just after the wave had broken. The crew waited a long time. Many a glance was cast forward; it seemed to them all, such headway had the fire made, that the six kegs of powder must explode the very next instant.

No sign came from the skipper; and no sight of him could be caught.

They paid out the rope--and waited. The rope was for a long time loose in their hands.

"He's landed!" cried Jimmie Grimm.

The rope was hauled taut. Upon the rocks, out of reach of the sea, the figure of the skipper could be seen.

"One at a time!" Skipper Bill shouted.

And one at a time they went--decently and in order, like true Newfoundland sailors, Tom Rook, the first hand, the last of all. When they were all ash.o.r.e, they scrambled like mad up the cliff; and they were no more than out of danger when the _First Venture_ was blown to atoms. There was a flash, a deafening roar--and darkness; broken only by the spluttering splinters of the little craft.

That night, from Heart's Harbour, the folk observed a ship afire, running in towards the Chunks. To the report they sent immediately to St. John's--there happens fortunately to be a government telegraph station at Heart's Harbour--they added, later, that she had blown up.

But from St. John's the salvage-tug _Hurricane_ was dispatched into the stormy sea in search of the survivors; and on the second day following she picked up Skipper Bill o' Burnt Bay and his crew.

Next day they were in St. John's.

"Wisht I'd took your advice about the insurance, sir," broken-hearted Bill o' Burnt Bay said to Sir Archibald.

Sir Archibald laughed. "I took it for you," said he.

"What?" Skipper Bill exploded.

"I insured the _First Venture_ on my own responsibility," Sir Archibald replied. "You shall build the _Second Venture_ at Ruddy Cove next winter."

Archie Armstrong and Bill o' Burnt Bay, with the lads and men of the lost _First Venture_, went back to Ruddy Cove by rail and the mail-boat.

CHAPTER XII

_In Which Old David Grey, Once of the Hudson Bay Company, Begins the Tale of How Donald McLeod, the Factor at Fort Refuge, Scorned a Compromise With His Honour, Though His Arms Were Pinioned Behind Him and a Dozen Tomahawks Were Flourished About His Head._

Archie Armstrong was presently established in a white little room in the beaming Aunt "Bill's" little white cottage at Ruddy Cove. His two trunks--two new trunks, now--were there established with him, of course; and they contained a new outfit of caps, shoes, boots, sweaters, coats, gloves, and what not, suited to every circ.u.mstance and all sorts of weather. Then began for Archie, Jimmie and Billy--with Bagg, of the London gutters, sometimes included--hearty times ash.o.r.e and afloat. It was Bagg, indeed, who proposed the cruise to Birds' Nest Islands.