Charley Laurel Part 8

"Oh, but I cannot die!" he murmured. "I have made well-nigh five hundred pounds, and expected to double it in this cruise, and I cannot leave all that wealth. I want to go home, to live at my ease and enjoy it."

"You cannot take your wealth with you," she answered.

Without saving more, she read from the Bible the account of the rich man and Lazarus. She then went on to the visit of the wealthy young lawyer to Jesus, and paused at the reply of the Lord; she repeated the words, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of G.o.d.

For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of G.o.d."

"Now," she continued, "you have been trusting in the wealth which, with so much toil and danger, you have been collecting, to enjoy a life of ease and comfort on sh.o.r.e. Suppose G.o.d said to you, 'Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!' as He does to many; can you face Him?"

"But I don't see that I have been a bad man. I have always borne a good character, and, except when the blood was up, and I have been fighting with the enemy, or when I have been on sh.o.r.e, may be for a spree, I have never done anything for which G.o.d could be angry with me."

"G.o.d looks upon everything that we do, unless in accordance with His will, to be sinful. He does not allow of small sins any more than great sins; they are hateful in His sight; and He shows us that we are by nature sinful and deserving of punishment, and that, as we owe Him everything, if we were to spend all our lives in doing only good, we should be but performing our duty, and still we should have no right in ourselves to claim admittance into the pure, and glorious, and happy heaven He has prepared for those alone who love Him. He has so const.i.tuted our souls that they must live for ever, and must either be with Him in the place of happiness, or be cast into that of punishment.

But, my friend, Jesus loves you and all sinners, and though G.o.d is so just that He cannot let sin go unpunished, yet Jesus undertook to be punished instead of you, and He died on the cross and shed His blood that you might go free of punishment. If you will but trust in Him, and believe that He was so punished, and that, consequently, G.o.d no longer considers you worthy of punishment, but giving you, as it were, the holiness and righteousness which belong to Christ, will receive you into that holy heaven where none but the righteous can enter."

The wounded man groaned and answered slowly, "I am afraid that I am a sinner, though I have been trying to make out that I am not one. But I really have had a very hard life of it, and no good example set me, and shipmates around me cursing and swearing, and doing all that is bad; and so I hope if I do die, as you say I shall, that G.o.d won't keep me out of heaven."

"Jesus Christ says, 'There is only one way by which we can enter; there is but one door.' 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light.' 'He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only-begotten Son of G.o.d.' Jesus also says, 'He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is pa.s.sed from death unto life;' and again, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' Jesus came not to call the righteous, or those who fancy themselves good enough to go to heaven, as you have been doing, but sinners, to repentance--those who know themselves to be sinners. Think how pure and holy G.o.d is, and how different you are to Him, and yet you must be that holy as He is holy to enter heaven. Christ, as I have told you, gives you His holiness if you trust to Him; and G.o.d says, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool;' and, 'As far as the east is from the west, so far will I put your sins from me.' Believe what G.o.d says; that is the first thing you have to do. Suppose Jesus was to come to you now, and, desperately wounded as you are, tell you to get up and walk; would you believe Him, or say that you could not? He said that to many when He was on earth, and they took Him at His word, and found that He had healed them. There was, among others, a man with a withered hand. When He said, 'Stretch forth thine hand,' the man did not say, 'I cannot,'

but stretched it forth immediately. Just in the same way, when G.o.d says, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,' do believe on Him, and trust to Him to fulfil His promise. G.o.d never deceives any one; all His words are fulfilled."

Day by day the young girl spoke to the dying seaman, and, though witnessing scenes abhorrent to her feelings, influenced by G.o.d's grace, she overcame her repugnance, and faithfully continued to attend him.

She had the satisfaction of hearing him cry, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!" and confess that he had a full hope of forgiveness, through the merits of Jesus alone.

Two of the other men, though apparently not so severely injured as Webb, owing to the ignorance of the surgeon, sank from their wounds. They died as they had lived, hardening their hearts against the Saviour's love.

Had Miss Kitty not been very firm, Mrs Podgers would have prevented her from attending the mate or the other wounded men.

Mr Falconer, though for some time confined to his cabin, was at length able to get on deck.

"Glad to see you about again," said the captain, as he appeared, in his usual gruff but not unkind tone. "When I brought the ladies aboard, I didn't think that they'd prove so useful in looking after the sick; though I doubt if she," and he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at his wife, "has troubled you much with her attentions."

Before the mate could speak, Mrs Podgers waddled up to him. "Well, Mr Falconer, you've found your way out of your cabin at last," she said, in her nasty wheezy tone. "I should have thought that when an officer was only slightly hurt, as you were, he might have managed to return to his duty before this."

The mate said nothing, but the remark made Miss Kitty very angry. I should have said, that as Mrs Podgers would not allow me on the quarterdeck, the appearance of the bows in her bonnet above the companion-hatch was the signal for me to escape among my friends forward; and that it was from d.i.c.k, who was at the helm, I afterwards heard of the unpleasant remarks made by that most unattractive of females.

CHAPTER TEN.

WHALING AND FIGHTING.

The _Dolphin_, after her first ill-success at privateering, stood away from the coast towards a part of the ocean where it was expected that whales would be found. Look-outs were at the mast-head.

I was sitting with d.i.c.k forward, for as Mrs Podgers was sunning herself on deck, I was keeping out of her way. Miss Kitty was reading, and Mr Falconer was pacing up and down, as officer of the watch, taking care not to approach her till Mrs Podgers should dive below. Most of the crew were knitting and splicing, spinning yarns, or performing other work, of which there is always plenty to be done on board ship, while some few of them were lying lazily about, doing nothing.

I have not before mentioned a personage who was dubbed the officer of marines, Lieutenant Pyke. His figure was tall and thin, as the captain's was short and broad, and though their noses were much of the same colour, being as red as strong potations and hot suns could possibly make them, Lieutenant Pyke's was enormously long. He was now engaged in drilling twelve of the most ruffianly and ill-conditioned of the crew, whom he called his jollies. They were of various heights and dimensions, and though they wore red coats and belts, knee-breeches and gaiters, and carried muskets, they were, as d.i.c.k, who held them in supreme contempt, declared, "as unlike sodgers as they could well be."

Lieutenant Pyke, however, was proud of them, and boasted that they would follow him to the cannon's mouth, whenever he led the way.

"Likely enough they will," observed d.i.c.k, "because, you see, there's little chance of the lieutenant ever getting there."

He had for some time been drilling these troops of his, as he also occasionally designated the fellows, making them march up and down, and pointing every now and then to an imaginary enemy, whom he ordered them to charge and annihilate, when there came a shout from aloft, "There she blows!" In a moment all the crew jumped to their feet. Our stout captain tumbled up from below, crying out, "Where away!" and four boats being lowered and manned, off they pulled, led by Mr Falconer in the direction in which the look-out pointed. We could see, about a quarter of a mile from the ship, a huge hump projecting three feet out of the water, while from the fore part of the monster's enormous head arose at the end of every ten seconds a white jet of foam.

"There again! there again!" shouted the crew. Away dashed the boats at full speed.

"His spoutings are nearly out," said d.i.c.k.

"He is going down," cried others.

Again a spout rose, and we could see the small, as it is called, of his back rise preparatory to his descent.

"His tail will be up directly," said d.i.c.k, "and they will lose him, I fear;" but at that moment Mr Falconer's boat dashing on, as he stood up in the boat with his glistening harpoon raised above his head, away it flew with unerring force, and was buried in the side of the huge animal.

A loud cheer rose from the men in the boats and those on deck, and the whale, hitherto so quiet, began to strike the water with his vast tail, aiming with desperate blows at his advancing enemies. Now his enormous bottle-nose-shaped head rose in the air--now we saw his flukes lashing the water, his body writhing with the agony of the wound the sharp iron had inflicted. The water around him was soon beaten into a ma.s.s of foam, while the noise made by his tail was almost deafening.

Kitty stood eagerly watching the scene, and looking somewhat pale, for it seemed as if the boat could scarcely escape some of those desperate blows dealt around.

I had felt very anxious about my friend.

"Never fear," said d.i.c.k; "he knows what he is about. See, it's 'stern all.'"

The boat backed out of the way; the monster's tail rose for an instant and disappeared.

"He has sounded," cried d.i.c.k.

Away ran the line. An oar was held up in the boat.

"That means that the line has run out," said d.i.c.k.

The nearest boat dashed up, and a fresh line was bent on. That soon came to an end, and another, and yet another was joined to it.

"He has eight hundred fathoms out by this time," shouted d.i.c.k, "and if he does not come up soon, he will be lost. But no, it's 'haul in the slack;' he is rising; they are coiling away the line in the tubs."

Directly afterwards the blunt nose of the animal rose from the sea, and a spout was projected high into the air. Mr Falconer's boat was being hauled rapidly towards it. A long lance with which he was armed was quickly buried in the side of the huge creature, going deep down into a vital part. The other boats gathered round it, from each a lance was darted forth, the whale rolling over and over in his agony, and coiling the rope round him, when suddenly, with open jaws, he darted at one of the boats, and then attacked another. Kitty shrieked out with fear, for it was Mr Falconer's boat which was overtaken, and was seen, shattered to fragments, flying into the air, while the other was capsized; and now the whale went so swiftly along the surface, that it seemed he must after all escape. Two of the boats were not yet fastened, and, without stopping to help the men in the water, away they dashed in chase of the whale. Impeded by the shattered boat he was dragging after him, and by several drogues fastened to the lines, he was soon overtaken, when another harpoon and several more lances were darted into his body.

Still unconquered, away the animal again went, and up rose his tail: he was attempting to sound, but this his increasing weakness prevented him from doing. Then he stopped, and his vast frame began to writhe and twist about in every possible way, beating the surrounding sea into foam, and dyeing it with his blood. The boats backed out of his way.

The captain had sent another boat to the a.s.sistance of the men in the water, when it was seen that the one upset was righted, and that the people belonging to the shattered boat had been taken on board her. She soon joined those which were fast to the whale, and when the monster at length lay motionless on the water, a.s.sisted them in towing it up to the ship.

Kitty could scarcely conceal her joy when she saw Mr Falconer steering one of the boats. I shouted with satisfaction.

The whale was soon alongside, and the operation of cutting off the blubber, hoisting it on board, and boiling it down in huge caldrons placed on tripods, commenced.

As night came on, the fires lighted under the pots shed a bright glare across the deck on the rigging and on the men at work. I thought them wild and savage-looking enough before, but they now appeared more like beings of the lower world than men of flesh and blood.

"I have no fancy for this sort of work," observed d.i.c.k, who was a thorough man-of-war's man. "The decks won't be fit to tread on for another week."

However, we had the decks dirtied in the same way many a time for several weeks after that, being very successful in catching whales.

At last the fighting part of the crew, who were not accustomed to whaling, began to grumble, and wished to return to the coast, to carry on the privateering, or, as d.i.c.k called it, the pirating work, which they looked upon as the chief object of the voyage.

Lieutenant Pyke was especially urgent about the matter, and proposed that a descent should be made on some of the towns, which he and his brave troops, he a.s.serted, could capture without difficulty.

On reaching the coast, we brought up in a small bay with a town on its sh.o.r.e.