Bob Strong's Holidays Part 42

"Why, by baling her out," he answered. "If we lessen the water in her, then we'll know she's all right."

"But if the water don't go down?"

"Then, _we_ will!" replied Bob rather curtly. "Have you got anything to bale her out with?"

"Well, Master Bob," observed d.i.c.k, grinning, "fur a young gen'leman as is so sharp, you've got a orful bad mem'ry! Don't 'ee recollect the booket as ye helped me fur to wash down the decks wi' this very marnin'?"

"Dear me, d.i.c.k, I declare I quite forgot that!" said Bob, with a laugh, seeing d.i.c.k's grin; for, it was not so dark now in their immediate vicinity, the breeze having lifted the fog slightly from the surface of the water. "Where is the bucket stored?"

"In the locker, joost by 'ee," was d.i.c.k's response, as he waded through the water and came up to his companion. "Stop, I'll get 'im for 'ee!

I'll have to make a dive fur he, though!"

"Have you got it?" inquired Bob, after d.i.c.k had groped about for some time, popping his head under water and coming up at intervals for breath. "Have you got it?"

"'Ees," said he at length, lugging out the bucket, "I've got 'im!"

Then, they set to work, each using it alternately.

The exertion did them both good, too, standing up as they were to their middles in water; for, it prevented them shivering with cold as they had before done.

Bucketful after bucketful they emptied over the side; and, still they did not appear to decrease the quant.i.ty the cutter contained to any appreciable extent, bale they, as they baled, their hardest!

Gradually, however, the after-thwart became clear.

"Hooray!" exclaimed Bob. "We're gaining on it."

This inspired them with renewed strength; and, after nearly an hour's hard work, they had so lessened the water that only a small portion now remained washing about under the bottom boards of the boat, which, recovering all her old buoyancy, floated again with a high freeboard, light as a cork, above the surface of the sea, instead of being level with it as before.

"That's a good job done!" said d.i.c.k. "I wish that theer murderin' shep hadn't a-bruk our mast; fur, we'd soon been all right!"

"While you're about it, d.i.c.k," said Bob, "you might, just as well, wish she hadn't carried the mast and boom away with her. I don't believe they've left us anything!"

No, the colliding ship had made a "clean sweep" of all their spars and rigging and everything; hardly a rope's-end remaining attached to the cutter, beyond a part of the mainsheet and a bit of the forestay, which latter was hanging down from the bowsprit, the only spar the yacht had left.

Not a single thing of all her deck-fittings, either, had the little vessel to the good; even her tiller had been wrenched off and the rudder smashed.

Nor were there any oars left in the little craft; though, even if there had been, the yacht was too heavy for boys like Bob and d.i.c.k to have made her move at the most infinitesimal rate of speed.

It is true, there was the old gaff-topsail still in the fore-peak, as well as a spare jib; but they had nothing to spread them out to the wind with, or affix them to.

They were, in fact, oar-less, sail-less, helpless!

"I don't see what we can do," said Bob, when they had looked over all the boat, in case something perchance might have escaped their notice.

"We can only hope and pray!"

"Aye, do 'ee pray, Master Bob," replied d.i.c.k eagerly. "P'r'aps G.o.d'll hear us and send us help!"

So, then and there the two boys knelt down together side by side in the battered boat, that drifted about at the mercy of the wind and sea, imploring the aid of Him who heeds those who call upon Him for succour, in no wise refusing them or turning a deaf ear to their prayers!

By and by, as if in answer to their earnest supplications, the day dawned; when, the mist, which yet lingered over the water, hanging about here and there in little patches, like so many floating islands, was either swallowed up by the sea or absorbed into the air, as if by magic.

Bob and d.i.c.k now got some idea as to the points of the compa.s.s, even if they were not able to tell precisely where they were; for, as the day advanced, a rosy tinge crept upwards over a far-off quarter of the horizon which they knew instinctively to be the east, the birthplace of all light!

This tint, almost like a blush, spread quickly over the sky, reaching away to the north and again south, coming full in both their faces and making them glow.

The bright hue then gradually melted into a ruddier tone, which first darkened into purple and red and then rapidly changed to a greenish sort of neutral tone that, after an interval, finally became merged into the pure ultramarine of the zenith; for, the heavens were now as clear as a bell, no mist or fog or cloud obscuring the expanse of the empyrean.

A sort of golden vapour then, all of a sudden, flooded the east, which in another second gave place to the red rays of the crimson sun; though the latter did not seem so much to rise, but rather appeared to Bob, who was watching intently the various changes that occurred, to jump in an instant above the sea, glorifying it far and near with its presence and warming it into life,

This warmth soon cheered the boys, as the light banished the despondent feelings inseparable, as a rule, from darkness and, beyond that, the death-like stillness around, which had previously added to their fears, was banished by the new stir and movement observable in everything.

Previously, the sea had risen and fallen tumidly, as if Father Neptune had been asleep and its monotonous pulsation was caused by his deep, long-drawn breathing; but, now, it crisped and sparkled in the sunshine, whilst its surface was broken by innumerable little wavelets, like curls, that grew into swell-crested billows anon, and, later on still, into great rolling waves as the wind got up--this blowing steadily from the eastwards first and then veering round south, following the course of the orb whose heat gave it being.

Nor was inanimate nature only stirring.

Grey and silver sea-gulls hovered over the little cutter, all sweeping down curiously every now and then to see what the boys were doing there in that mastless and oar-less boat out on the wide waters; and, presently, a shoal of mackerel rose round about them, so thickly that d.i.c.k thought he could scoop up some in the buckets, only the fish were too wary and dived down below the surface the moment he stretched his arm out over the side beyond his reach.

A couple of porpoises, too, swam by, playing leap-frog again; and, after these, a much larger monster, which might possibly have been a grampus, though Bob could tell nothing about it, not knowing what it was. The movements of all these, with the constantly-changing appearance of the sea, now blue, now green, now brown, as some cloud shadow pa.s.sed over it, made up a varied panorama such as neither of the two lads ever saw or thought of before!

Ships, also, hove in sight and disappeared on the horizon, their white sails gleaming out in the far-off distance; one moment high in the air as if bound skywards, the next sinking into the curving depths of the sea.

Now and again, too, the smoke-wreath of some pa.s.sing steamer, coasting along more speedily than the sailing craft, would sacrilegiously blot the blue of the heavens!

But, all the while, though the distant ships might sail along to their haven, and the steamers shape shorter courses to their port independent of wind and tide alike, the poor dismasted, dismantled little yacht was the sport of all alike; first setting down Channel with the ebb, as if going out on a cruise into the wide Atlantic, and then again up Channel with the flood towards Dover.

The boat was ever drifting and tossed about ever, like a battered shuttlec.o.c.k, by the battledore currents, some four of which contend for the mastery throughout the livelong day in that wonderful waterway, the English Channel; two always setting east, relieving each other in turn, and two west, with a cross-tide coming atop of them, twice in every twenty-four hours, trying fruitlessly to soothe the differences of the quarrelsome quartette!

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

DESPAIR!

"How hot it be, Master Bob!" said d.i.c.k, when the sun had climbed so high that he seemed right overhead, sending down his rays vertically and making it so warm that the boys began to perspire, while they were tormented with thirst. "I be parched wi' drout and could swaller a gallon o' spring wutter if I hed the chance!"

"I say, let us have a swim," suggested Bob. "I've heard it will relieve a person suffering from thirst; and, besides, I believe it will do us both good and freshen us up."

"All right, Master Bob," said d.i.c.k somewhat hesitatingly, in reply to this proposition. "But, ain't it deep here?"

"Deep! What does that matter?" replied Bob lightly. "Why, d.i.c.k, you silly fellow, you forget we always used to swim out every morning into deep water. Ah, I forget, I forget! Oh,--mother, my mother!"

The poor boy broke down utterly again at this point, it having suddenly flashed across his memory that his former swims from the beach were things of the past; and that he might never see his mother or any of the home folk again.

No, never, ah, never again!

d.i.c.k, however, once more comforted him, ceasing to dwell on his own pangs of thirst; although the lad's tongue had swollen to such a size that it seemed too big for his mouth, and his lips were all parched and cracked.

A little later, when Bob had become more composed again, his idea of a battle was carried out, the boys making use of their solitary rope, the end of the broken forestay that was hanging from the bowsprit, to climb back into the boat after they had had a dip alongside.