Courage, True Hearts Part 13

"I determined to take the bo's'n's advice next time the drunken mate hit me.

"Well, I hadn't long to wait. You see I had come to really love the dogs under my charge. So one day the mate kicked one of them rather roughly out of his way.

"'Don't you dare kick that dog,' I cried; 'they are both in my charge.'

"How well do I remember that forenoon. We were on the return voyage, running before a light breeze, with every sc.r.a.p of canvas set, low and aloft, and the sun shining bonnie and warm.

"But the mate grew purple with rage when I checked him. He could hardly speak. He could only stutter.

"'You, you beggar's brat,' he shouted, 'I'll give you a lesson.'

"He rushed to pull out a belaying-pin.

"I tossed off my jacket and threw it on the top of the capstan.

"I twisted the belaying-pin out of his hands before you could have said 'knife'.

"'Fight fair, you drunken scamp!' I cried.

"Pistols and rifles lay ready loaded in boxes at the top of the cabin companion, and he made a stride or two as if to take one out.

"'Mutiny!' he muttered, 'rank mutiny!'

"I sprang between him and the box, and dealt him a square left-hander that made him reel. I followed this up with a rib-starter, then with one on the nose.

"Down he went, and he actually prayed for mercy.

"That bulbous nose of his was well tapped, and there was no fear of him taking apoplexy for a while anyhow.

"But when I let him up he seemed to lose control of his senses, for the demon drink was now in the ascendant. He faced me no longer, however, but rushed for poor, faithful Collie, and before I could prevent it, had seized and pitched him overboard.

"The men, untold, rushed to haul the foreyard aback and to lower a boat.

"But he checked them.

"'What! lower a boat for a dog?' he cried.

"'Lower a boat for a man then,' I shouted, 'and just as I was I leapt upon the bulwark and dived off it. Next minute I was alongside Collie.

Ay, lads, and alongside something else. A huge shark sailed past us, and pa.s.sed us so near I could almost have touched him. He must have been fully fifteen feet long.[1] I knew that nothing but splashing and shouting could keep him at bay, and I did both as well as I knew how to.'"

[1] The _Scymnus borealis_, or Greenland shark, is often eighteen to twenty feet in length.

"But the boat came quickly to our rescue, and we were soon safe on board. The skipper liked me, and did not log my mutinous conduct. In fact he became my friend, and I was apprenticed to his very ship. So I had many and many a voyage to the Sea of Ice after this.

"There is a glamour about this weird and wonderful frozen ocean, boys, that none can resist who have ever been under its bewitching spell. It is on me now, and this it is which has determined me to seek soon for adventures in the Antarctic, which very few have ever sought to explore.

"Now, Duncan and Conal, I'll tell you what I shall do with you. There is a big Australian ship to sail from Southampton in about a month. The captain is a personal friend of mine, and will do anything for you. I shall give you a letter.

"Mind this, he is strict service, and if you do your duty, as I'm sure you will, you'll soon have a friend on the quarter-deck."

Captain Talbot--or Master-mariner Talbot as he liked best to be called--had been as good as his word, and now our young heroes were far away at sea.

The _Ocean's Pride_ was a full-rigged Aberdeen clipper-built vessel, and could show a pair of clean heels to almost any other ship in the trade.

The skipper and his two mates were all thorough sailors, and gentlemen at heart. The skipper, whose name was Wilson, soon began to take an interest in Duncan and Conal, and knowing that they were studying in their idle moments, invited them to come daily to his own cabin, and there for a whole hour he used to teach them all he could.

Duncan could soon be trusted to take sights, and even "lunars", and gave every evidence of possessing the steadiness and grit that goes so far to make a thorough British sailor.

They touched at the Cape in due time, and Conal acted as clerk or "tally-boy" while cargo was being landed and fresh stock taken on board.

The boys found time to have a look at the town. They went with one of the mates who had been often here before.

Well, the hills all around, clad in their summer coats of dazzling heaths and geraniums, were quite a sight to see. But the town itself they voted dismally slow, and so I myself have found it, there being so many heavy-headed Dutchmen therein.

They were not a bit sorry, therefore, when they found themselves once more on the heaving billows.

And the billows around the Cape of Good Hope do heave too with a vengeance.

Such mountain waves Duncan could not have believed existed anywhere.

Tall and raking though she was, the _Ocean's Pride_ was all but buried when down in the trough of the waves.

There was but a six-knot breeze when they started to stretch away and away across that seemingly illimitable ocean betwixt the Cape and Australia. Oh such a lonesome sea it is, reader! Six thousand miles of water, water, water, and often never a sign of life in the sky above or in the sea below.

There was, as I have said, but a light wind to begin with, and it was dead astern, so that stunsails were set, and the great ship looked like some wonderful bird of the main, as she sailed, with her wings out-spread, eastward and eastward ho!

But before noon the sky in the west began to darken, and great rock-shaped or castellated clouds rolled up from the horizon.

Snow-white were they on top, where the sun's rays struck them, but dark and black below.

"Snug ship!" was the order now.

In came the stunsails, the men working right merrily, and singing as they worked. In came royals and top-gallant sails, and close-reefed were the topsails. The captain was no coward, but right well he knew that the storm coming quickly up astern would be no child's play.

Nor was it.

A vivid flash of lightning and great-gun thunder first indicated the approach of the gale.

Then away in the west a long line of foam was seen approaching. In an inconceivably short s.p.a.ce of time it struck the ship with fearful violence, and though she sprung forward like a frightened deer and dipped her prow into a huge wave, she seemed engulfed in raging seas.

The skipper had battened down, but so much water had been taken on board that the good clipper could not for a time shake herself clear. Perhaps the shivered bulwarks helped to save the ship.

In a few minutes she was rushing before the wind at a good twelve knots an hour.

"What a blessing it is," said Captain Wilson, "that we got snug in time!"

"Yes, sir," said the mate, "and it's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good.

Why, this gale is all in our favour, and will help us along."

Our heroes had far from a pleasant time, however, for the next few days.