The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries Part 5

For a moment Colin had a wild idea of leaping into the sea and swimming to the sinking craft, and blamed himself bitterly for not having looked after the port and starboard lights at sundown, as he often did when the watch on deck was too busy to see to them. He would have given anything to have done it, rather than to have to sit beside the captain with his eyes fixed on the desolate unlighted ship! Boy though he was, he nearly broke down.

"Good-by, _Gull_, good-by," he heard the captain whisper under his breath.

Then, as if the ache in the boy's heart had been a flame to cross the sea, it seemed that a tiny spark kindled upon the sinking ship, and the captain, speechless for the moment, pointed at it.

"Is that a light, boy?" he said hoa.r.s.ely, "or am I going mad?"

Like a flash, Colin remembered.

"It's the binnacle, sir," he cried; "I lighted it for the man at the wheel myself."

Solemnly the captain took off his hat.

"It's where the light should be," he said at last, "to shine upon her course to the very end."

CHAPTER II

THE FIGHT OF THE OLD BULL SEALS

The quick, uneasy pitching of the boat and a sudden dash of ice-cold spray roused the captain from the fit of abstraction into which the sinking of his ship had plunged him.

"Step the mast, men," he said; "we've got to make for the nearest land.

It's going to be a dirty night, too."

"Did you want us to put a reef in, sir?" asked the old whaler.

"When I want a sail reefed," the captain answered shortly, "I'll tell you."

As the mast fell into place and the sail was hoisted, the whale-boat heeled sharply over and began to cut her way through the water at a good speed, leaving the two prams far in the rear. The captain, who was steering mechanically, paid no heed to them, staring moodily ahead into the darkness. Hank looked around uneasily from time to time, then in a few moments he spoke.

"The mate's signaling, I think, sir," he said.

Colin looked round but could only just see the outline of the larger of the two boats, and knew it was too dark to distinguish any motions on board her. He looked inquiringly at Hank, but the old gunner was watching the captain.

"What does he want?" questioned the captain angrily.

"Orders, sir, I suppose," the whaler answered.

The captain felt the implied rebuke and looked at him sharply, but although he was a strict disciplinarian, he knew Hank's worth as a seaman of experience and kept back the sharp reply which was upon his lips. Then turning in his seat he realized how rapidly they had sped away from the boats they were escorting, and said:

"I'll bring her up."

He put the tiller over and brought the whale-boat up into the wind, and in a few minutes the mate's boat and the smaller pram came alongside.

"Don't you want us to keep together, sir?" cried the mate as soon as he was within hearing.

"Of course," the captain answered. "You can't keep up, eh?"

"Not in a breeze like this, sir," the mate declared.

"All right, then," was the response; "we'll reef." He nodded to the gunner and the reef points were quickly tied, thus enabling the three boats to keep together.

As the night wore on the wind increased until quite a gale was blowing, and the whale-boat began to plunge into the seas, throwing spray every time her nose went into it. The oilskins shone yellow and dripping in the feeble light of a lantern and although it was nearly the end of June a cold wind whipped the icy spume-drift from the breaking whitecaps.

"Doesn't feel much like summer, Hank!" said Colin, shivering from cold and fatigue, also partly from reaction following his exciting adventure with the gray whale.

"Behring Sea hasn't got much summer to boast of," the old whaler replied; "leastwise not often. You may get one or two hot days, but when the sun goes down the Polar current gets in its work an' it's cold."

"Where do you suppose we're going, Hank?" the boy asked, with a firm belief that the old whaler knew everything. "I don't like to bother Captain Murchison."

"Nor I," the gunner answered, looking toward the stern of the boat; "let him fight his troubles out alone. As for where we're goin', I don't know. I can't even see the stars, so I don't know which way we're headin'."

"Do you suppose we'll strike Alaska?" Colin queried. "Or perhaps the north of j.a.pan? Say, it would be great if we fetched up at Kamchatka or somewhere that n.o.body had ever been before!"

The lad's delight in the thought of landing at some inhospitable northern island off the coast of Asia was so boyish that in spite of the discomfort of their present position, the old whaler almost laughed outright.

"j.a.pan's a long ways south of here," he said. "We'd strike the Aleutian or the Kuril Islands before we got near there. I reckon we ought to try for some place on the Alaska coast, but as I remember, the wind was dead east when we left the _Gull_ an' I don't think it's changed much."

Colin gave a long yawn and then shivered.

"I wouldn't mind being in my berth on the _Gull_!" he said longingly; "I'm nearly dead with sleep."

"Why don't you drop off?" Hank advised. "There's nothin' you can do to help. Here, change places with me an' you won't get so much spray."

"But you'll get it then!" the boy protested.

"If I had a dollar for every time I've got wet in a boat," the old whaler answered, "I wouldn't have to go to sea any more."

He got up and made Colin change places.

"Are you warmer now?" he asked a minute or two later.

"Lots," the boy murmured drowsily, and in a few seconds he was fast asleep. The old whaler gently drew the boy towards him, so that he would be sheltered from the wind and spray, and held him safe against the rolling and pitching of the little boat. The long hours pa.s.sed slowly, and Colin stirred and muttered in his dreams, but still he slept on through all the wild tumult of the night, his head pillowed against Hank and the old whaler's arm around him.

He wakened suddenly, with a whistling, roaring sound ringing in his ears. Dawn had broken, though the sun was not yet up, and Colin shivered with the wakening and the cold, his teeth chattering like castanets. A damp, penetrating fog enwrapped them. Four of the sailors were rowing slowly, and the sail had been lowered and furled while he was asleep.

Every few minutes a shout could be heard in the distance, which was answered by one of the sailors in the whale-boat.

"Where's the mate's boat, Hank?" asked the boy, realizing he had heard only one shout.

"She got out of hailin' distance, a little while before breakfast," the other answered, "but that doesn't matter so much, because she can't very well get lost now."

"But why is the sail down?"

The old whaler held up his hand.