The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands Part 19

"Stand clear there, lads."

There was no occasion for that order. It had been antic.i.p.ated.

"Lower," was again given.

The moment the feet of the creature touched the deck he dashed forward with ungovernable fury, broke the slings, overturned the bo's'n, who fortunately rolled into the port scuppers, and took possession of the ship, driving the men into the chains and up the rigging.

"Jump up!" shouted Jim Welton to the bo's'n.

"Here he comes aft!" yelled several of the men.

There was no need to warn the boatswain. He heard the thunder of the monster's feet, and sprang into the main rigging with an amount of agility that could hardly have been excelled by a monkey.

"Why, what are you all afraid of?" asked the captain of the ship, who had come on board with a number of pa.s.sengers just before the occurrence of this incident.

"Come down here, sir, and you'll see," replied the mate, who was in the main-chains.

The captain declined with a smile, and advised the use of a la.s.so.

Immediately every man of the ship's crew became for the nonce a Mexican wild-horse tamer! Running nooses were made, and Jack, albeit unused to taking wild cattle on the prairies of America, was, nevertheless, such an adept at casting a coil of rope that he succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectation. The bo's'n was the first to throw a loop over the creature's front horn--cast a hitch over its foremast as he styled it-- amid a deafening cheer. He was immediately pulled out of the rigging, and a second time lay wallowing in the port scuppers; but he cared nothing for that, being upheld by the glory of having succeeded in fixing the first noose. Soon after that Stanley Hall threw a noose over the creature's head, and Jim Welton fixed one on its second horn--or, as the bo's'n said, round his mizzen. In the course of half-an-hour the rhinoceros was so completely entangled in the twisted ropes that he seemed as though he were involved in a net. He was finally captured, and led to a ponderous stall that had been prepared for him between the fore and main masts.

Soon afterwards the last of the human pa.s.sengers came on board. There were many of them. Officers and their wives and children--some in health, some in sickness. Old warriors returning home to repose on their laurels. Young warriors returning home to recruit their health, or to die. Women who went out as wives returning as widows, and women who went out as widows returning as wives. Some returning with fortunes made, a few returning with fortunes broken; but all, old and young, healthy and sick, rich and poor, hopeful and hopeless, glad at the prospect of leaving the burning skies of India behind, and getting out among the fresh breezes of the open sea. Then the sails were set, and with a light evening breeze the Wellington began her voyage--homeward bound...

Once again the scene changes. Blue skies are gone. Grey clouds preponderate. In the Atlantic, tossed by the angry billows, a large ship scuds before the wind as though she were fleeing from the pursuit of a relentless enemy. She has evidently seen rough and long service.

Her decks have been swept by many a heavy sea; her spars have been broken and spliced. The foremast is sprung, the main-topgallant mast is gone, and the mizzen has been snapped off close by the deck. Her bulwarks are patched here and there, and her general appearance bears evidence of the tremendous power of Ocean.

It would be difficult in that weatherworn hull to recognise the trim full-rigged ship that left the Hoogly many months before.

It was not a recent gale that had caused all this damage. In the South Atlantic, several weeks before, she had encountered one of those terrific but short-lived squalls which so frequently send many of man's stoutest floating palaces to the bottom. Hence her half-wrecked condition.

The pa.s.sengers on board the Wellington did not, however, seem to be much depressed by their altered circ.u.mstances. The fact was, they had become so used to rough weather, and had weathered so many gales, and reached their damaged condition by such slow degrees, that they did not realise it as we do, turning thus abruptly from one page to another. Besides this, although still some weeks' sail from the white cliffs of old England, they already began to consider the voyage as good as over, and not a few of the impatient among them had begun to pack up so as to be ready for going ash.o.r.e. And how carefully were those preparations for landing made! With what interest the sandal-wood fans, and inlaid ivory boxes and elaborately carved chess-men and curious Indian toys, and costly Indian shawls were re-examined and repacked in more secure and carefully-to-be-remembered corners, in order that they might be got at quickly when eager little hands "at home--" Well, well, it is of no use to dwell on what was meant to be, for not one of those love-tokens ever reached its destination. All were swallowed up by the insatiable sea.

But let us not forestall. The elephant and rhinoceros were the only members of the community that had perished on the voyage. At first the elephant had been dreaded by many, but by degrees it won the confidence and affection of all. Houses innumerable had been built for it on deck, but the sagacious animal had a rooted antipathy to restraint. No sort of den, however strongly formed, could hold him long. The first structures were so ridiculously disproportioned to his strength as to be demolished at once. On being put into the first "house that Jack built," he looked at it demurely for at least five minutes, as if he were meditating on the probable intentions of the silly people who put him there, but neither by look nor otherwise did he reveal the conclusions to which he came. His intentions, however, were not long of being made known. He placed his great side against the den; there was a slow but steady rending of timbers, as if the good ship herself were breaking up, a burst of laughter from the men followed, and "Sambo" was free. When the succeeding houses were built so strong that his side availed not, he brought his wonderful patience and his remarkable trunk to bear on them, and picked them to pieces bit by bit. Then ropes were tried, but he snapped weak ropes and untied strong ones.

At last he was permitted to roam the decks at perfect liberty, and it was a point of the greatest interest to observe the neat way in which he picked his steps over the lumbered decks, without treading upon anything--ay, even during nights when these decks in the tropical regions were covered with sleeping men!

Everybody was fond of Sambo. Neptune doted on him, and the children-- who fed him to such an extent with biscuits that the bo's'n said he would be sartin' sure to die of appleplexy--absolutely adored him. Even the gruff, grumpy, unsociable rhinoceros amiably allowed him to stroke its head with his trunk.

Sambo troubled no one except the cook, but that luxurious individual was so constantly surrounded by a halo, so to speak, of delicious and suggestive odours that the elephant could not resist the temptation to pay him frequent visits, especially when dinner was being prepared. One of his favourite proceedings at such times was to put his trunk into the galley, take the lid off the coppers, make a small coil of the end of his proboscis, and therewith at one sweep spoon out a supply of potatoes sufficient for half-a-dozen men! Of course the cook sought to counteract such tendencies, but he had to be very circ.u.mspect, for Sambo resented insults fiercely.

One day the cook caught his enemy in the very act of clearing out the potato copper. Enraged beyond endurance, he stuck his "tormentors" into the animal's trunk. With a shriek of rage Sambo dashed the potatoes in the man's face, and made a rush at him. The cook fled to his sanctum and shut the door. There the elephant watched him for an hour or more.

The united efforts, mental and physical, of the ship's crew failed to remove the indignant creature, so they advised the cook to remain where he was for some time. He hit on the plan, however, of re-winning the elephant's friendship. He opened his door a little and gave him a piece of biscuit. Sambo took it. What his feelings were no one could tell, but he remained at his post. Another piece of biscuit was handed out.

Then the end of the injured proboscis was smoothed and patted by the cook. Another large piece of biscuit was administered, and by degrees the cure was affected. Thus successfully was applied that grand principle which has accomplished so much in this wicked world, even among higher animals than elephants--the overcoming of evil with good!

Eventually Sambo sickened. Either the cold of the north told too severely on a frame which had been delicately nurtured in sunny climes, or Sambo had surrept.i.tiously helped himself during the hours of night to something deleterious out of the paint or pitch pots. At all events he died, to the sincere regret of all on board--cook not excepted--and was launched overboard to glut the sharks with an unwonted meal, and astonish them with a new sensation.

Very dissimilar was the end of the rhinoceros. That b.u.mptious animal retained its unamiable spirit to the last. Fortunately it did not possess the powers or sagacity of the elephant. It could not untie knots or pick its cage to pieces, so that it was effectually restrained during the greater part of the voyage; but there came a tempest at last, which a.s.sisted him in becoming free--free, not only from durance vile, but from the restraints of this life altogether. On the occasion referred to, the rudder was damaged, and for a time rendered useless, so that the good ship Wellington rolled to an extent that almost tore the masts out of her. Everything not firmly secured about the decks was washed overboard. Among other things, the rhinoceros was knocked so heavily against the bars of his crib that they began to give way.

At last the vessel gave a plunge and roll which seemed to many of those on board as though it must certainly be her last. The rhinoceros was sent crashing through the dislocated bars; the ropes that held his legs were snapped like the cords wherewith Samson was bound in days of old, and away he went with the lurch of a tipsy man against the long-boat, which he stove in.

"Hold on!" roared the bo's'n.

Whether this was advice to the luckless animal, or a general adjuration to everybody and everything to be prepared for the worst, we know not; but instead of holding on, every one let go what he or she chanced to be holding on to at the moment, and made for a place of safety with reckless haste. The rhinoceros alone obeyed the order. It held on for a second or two in a most remarkable manner to the mainmast, but another lurch of the vessel cast it loose again; a huge billow rolled under the stern; down went the bow, and the brute slid on its haunches, with its fore legs rigid in front, at an incredible pace towards the galley.

Just as a smash became imminent, the bow rose, the stern dropt, and away he went back again with equal speed, but in a more sidling att.i.tude, towards the quarter-deck.

Before that point was reached, a roll diverted him out of course and he was brought up by the main hatch, from which he rebounded like a billiard ball towards the starboard gangway. At this point he lost his balance, and went rolling to leeward like an empty cask. There was something particularly awful and impressive in the sight of this unwieldy monster being thus knocked about like a pea in a rattle, and sometimes getting into att.i.tudes that would have been worthy of a dancer on the tightrope, but the consummation of the event was not far off. An unusually violent roll of the ship sent him scrambling to starboard; a still more vicious roll checked and reversed the rush and dashed him against the cabin skylight. He carried away part of this, continued his career, went tail-foremost through the port bulwarks like a cannon-shot into the sea. He rose once, but, as if to make sure of her victory, the ship relentlessly fell on him with a weight that must have split his skull, and sent him finally to the bottom.

Strange to say, the dog Neptune was the only one on board that appeared to mourn the loss of this pa.s.senger. He howled a good deal that night in an unusually sad tone, and appeared to court sympathy and caresses more than was his wont from Jim Welton and the young people who were specially attached to him, but he soon became reconciled, alas! to the loss of his crusty friend.

The storms ceased as they neared the sh.o.r.es of England. The carpenter and crew were so energetic in repairing damages that the battered vessel began to wear once more something of her former trim aspect, and the groups of pa.s.sengers a.s.sembled each evening on the p.o.o.p, began to talk with ever-deepening interest of home, while the children played beside them, or asked innumerable questions about brothers, sisters, and cousins, whose names were as familiar as household words, though their voices and forms were still unknown.

The weather was fine, the sky was clear; warm summer breezes filled the sails, and all nature seemed to have sunk into a condition so peaceful as to suggest the idea that storms were past and gone for ever, when the homeward-bound ship neared the land. One evening the captain remarked to the pa.s.sengers, that if the wind would hold as it was a little longer, they should soon pa.s.s through the Downs, and say good-bye to the sea breezes and the roll of the ocean wave.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

BOB QUEEKER COMES OUT VERY STRONG INDEED.

It is both curious and interesting to observe the mult.i.tude of unlikely ways in which the ends of justice are ofttimes temporarily defeated.

Who would have imagined that an old pump would be the cause of extending Morley Jones's term of villainy, of disarranging the deep-laid plans of Mr Larks, of effecting the deliverance of Billy Towler, and of at once agonising the body and ecstatifying the soul of Robert Queeker? Yet so it was. If the old pump had not existed--if its fabricator had never been born--there is every probability that Mr Jones's career would have been cut short at an earlier period. That he would, in his then state of mind, have implicated Billy, who would have been transported along with him and almost certainly ruined; that Mr Queeker would--but hold.

Let us present the matter in order.

Messrs. Merryheart and Dashope were men of the law, and Mr Robert Queeker was a man of their office--in other words, a clerk--not a "confidential" one, but a clerk, nevertheless, in whose simple-minded integrity they had much confidence. Bob, as his fellow-clerks styled him, was sent on a secret mission to Ramsgate. The reader will observe how fortunate it was that his mission was _secret_, because it frees us from the necessity of setting down here an elaborate and tedious explanation as to how, when, and where the various threads of his mission became interwoven with the fabric of our tale. Suffice it to say that the only part of his mission with which we are acquainted is that which had reference to two men--one of whom was named Mr Larks, the other Morley Jones.

Now, it so happened that Queeker's acquaintance, Mr Durant, had an intimate friend who dwelt near a beautiful village in Kent. When Queeker mentioned the circ.u.mstance of the secret mission which called him to Ramsgate, he discovered that the old gentleman was on the point of starting for this village, in company with his daughter and her cousin f.a.n.n.y.

"You'll travel with us, I hope, Queeker; our roads lie in the same direction, at least a part of the way, you know," said the hearty little old gentleman, with good-nature beaming in every wrinkle, from the crown of his bald head to the last fold of his treble chin; "it will be such a comfort to have you to help me take care of the girls. And if you can spare time to turn aside for a day or two, I promise you a hearty welcome from my friend--whose residence, named Jenkinsjoy, is an antique paradise, and his hospitality unbounded. He has splendid horses, too, and will give you a gallop over as fine a country as exists between this and the British Channel. You ride, of course?"

Queeker admitted that he could ride a little.

"At least," he added, after a pause, "I used frequently to get rides on a cart-horse when I was a very little boy."

So it was arranged that Queeker should travel with them. Moreover, he succeeded in obtaining from his employers permission to delay for three days the prosecution of the mission--which, although secret, was not immediately pressing--in order that he might visit Jenkinsjoy. It was fortunate that, when he went to ask this brief holiday, he found Mr Merryheart in the office. Had it been his mischance to fall upon Dashope, he would have received a blunt refusal and prompt dismissal--so thoroughly were the joys of that gentleman identified with the woes of other people.

But, great though Queeker's delight undoubtedly was on this occasion, it was tempered by a soul-hara.s.sing care, which drew forth whole quires of poetical effusions to the moon and other celestial bodies. This secret sorrow was caused by the dreadful and astonishing fact, that, do what he would to the contrary, the weather-c.o.c.k of his affections was veering slowly but steadily away from Katie, and pointing more and more decidedly towards f.a.n.n.y Hennings! It is but simple justice to the poor youth to state that he loathed and abhorred himself in consequence.

"There am I," he soliloquised, on the evening before the journey began, "a monster, a brute, a lower animal almost, who have sought with all my strength to gain--perchance _have_ gained--the innocent, trusting heart of Katie Durant, and yet, without really meaning it, but, somehow, without being able to help it, I am--_not_ falling in love; oh! no, perish the thought! but, but--falling into something strangely, mysteriously, incomprehensibly, similar to--Oh! base ingrate that I am, is there no way; no back-door by which--?"

Starting up, and seizing a pen, at this point of irrepressible inspiration, he wrote, reading aloud as he set down the burning thoughts--

Oh for a postern in the rear, Where wretched man might disappear; And never more should seek her!

Fly, fly to earth's extremest bounds,--

Bounds, mounds, lounds, founds, kounds, downds, rounds, pounds, zounds!--hounds--ha! hounds--I have it--

"Fly, fly to earth's extremest bounds, With huntsmen, horses, horns, and hounds And die!--dejected Queeker.