The Ghost Ship Part 27

"But this did not daunt me at first, for I thought I should be able to row alongside again and get taken aboard through one of the stern ports; but, will you believe it, when I came to search the boat for the oars, which Ba.s.seterre had expressly told those clumsy sailors in my hearing to be sure to put into the boat the very first thing of all, can you credit it? lo and behold, not a scull nor oar was in her; not a stick of any sort or kind whatever!"

"The lubbers!" said Captain Applegarth, indignant again as he paced backwards and forwards impatiently, casting an occasional hurried glance at the "tell-tale" suspended from the deck above the saloon table, the shifting dial of which showed we were now changing course to the westward. "The d.a.m.ned lubbers; the d.a.m.n--"

The colonel here broke in with-- "This discovery, I think, broke my heart," cried he, heaving a heavy sigh. "It took the last flickering gleam of hope away from me, and I sank back again to the bottom of the boat, appalled and terrified in my mind by the reflections and thoughts, of what might happen to my darling child and those others whom I had left on board the _Saint Pierre_, deprived at one fell blow of both Captain Alphonse and myself.

"When daylight dawned after a night that seemed a century long, so full of pain and awful thought it was to me, I saw the _Saint Pierre_ low down on the horizon, to the westward of where I and my poor friend, Captain Alphonse, were drifting on the desert sea. The sight of the ship again, even in the distance, and the warmth of the sun's bright beams, which made the stagnant blood circulate in my veins once more, gave me hope and renewed courage, for I recollected and thought that after all, there were eight white men still left on board the ill-fated vessel to keep possession of her and defend my little one--eight good men and true, not counting that dastardly coward Boisson, who was skulking below!

"But, sir, the wind and tide wafted the _Saint Pierre_ away beyond my vision; and--and--sirs, the--the end of it all you all know better than I can tell you!"

"Aye," put in the skipper, "we saw your boat adrift--at least, old Masters did--I'll give him the credit for that. Then we picked you up, and here you are!"

Hardly had the skipper uttered these words, completing the colonel's story, when Mr Fosset suddenly poked his head through the skylight over the after end of the saloon, the hatch of which opened out on the deck of the p.o.o.p above.

Nor was the first mate merely satisfied with the abrupt intrusion of his figurehead into our midst, for he rattled the gla.s.s of the skylight in no very gentle fashion at the same time, the better, I suppose, to attract our attention, though we were all staring open-mouthed at him already, all startled by his unexpected appearance on the scene.

But he rattled the gla.s.s all the same as he looked down upon us, none the less; aye, all the more, rattled it with a will, frightening us all!

"Hi! Cap'en, Cap'en Applegarth!" he sang out at the very top of his voice, as excited as you please. "That ship's in sight! the ship's in sight, at last, sir. She's hull down to leeward about seven miles off!

But we're overhauling her fast now, sir, hand over hand!"

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

WITHIN HAIL.

"By George! is that so?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the skipper, starting off with a mad clutch at his cap, which he had thrown off on to a locker close by in the heat of his excitement during the colonel's yarn. "I'll be on the bridge in a jiffey! Thank G.o.d for that news!"

"Hooray!" shouted Garry O'Neil, as we all immediately jumped from our seats on hearing this joyful intelligence, long though it had been in coming, even the poor colonel, sliding his bandaged leg off its supporting chair and standing on his feet, prepared to follow the skipper on deck without a moment's delay. "Be the powers! I knew we'd overhaul them divvles before sundown! Faith, an' I tould ye so, colonel; I tould ye so, you know I did!"

But just then an unexpected interruption arrested us as we all moved towards the companion-way to regain the deck above.

"Look here, colonel," cried a voice from the skipper's state room aft, where the commander of the _Saint Pierre_ was supposed to be reposing in an almost insensible condition. "Get out of here! you are not worth being angry with."

"Begorrah, it's your poor fri'nd in there!" said Garry O'Neil to the colonel. "What's the poor crayture parleyvooing about, instid of slaypin' loike a Christian whin he's got the chance? Sure, I'll have to stop his jaundering there, or he'll niver git betther!"

"Stay a moment; he's beginning again, poor fellow," remarked the colonel, holding up his hand.

"Listen!"

"You villains! take that!" called out the Frenchman in a louder key and in a tone of anger, as if battling with the blacks on board the _Saint Pierre_ over again; and then, after a pause we heard a piteous cry. "My G.o.d! they are going to shoot me! Look! Look! To the rescue, colonel, quickly, quickly, to the rescue."

"Bedad, he's in a bad way entoirely!" said Garry, as he and the colonel, with myself at their heels, entered the after cabin, where we saw Captain Alphonse sitting up in the skipper's cot, and gesticulating frantically. "What can he be after sayin' now, sor?"

"He is going over the boat scene on the p.o.o.p of our unfortunate vessel, when the Haytian blacks, as I told you, made at him and the other sailor before I rushed up from below, too late to save him, poor fellow!"

explained the colonel. "He's calling out for help, as I suppose he did then, though I didn't hear him!"

"It sounds moighty queer, anyhow," continued the Irishman. "Whisht!

There, he's at it again! What does that extraordinary lingo mean now?

I can't make h'id nor tale of it, sor!"

"Hoist the flag immediately! Close furl the main topsail!" exclaimed the poor wounded man in short jerky sentences, as he sat up there in the swinging cot, with his hands tearing at the bandage that was bound round his head, looking as if he had just risen from the dead, and reminding me of a picture I once saw depicting the raising of Lazarus. His eyes were rolling, too, in wild delirium, and after gazing at us fixedly for a second or two without a sign of recognition on his pallid face, he fell back prostrate again on the mattress, crying out in a pitiful wail, "Alas, for the ship! Too late, too late, too late."

"Heavens!" said the colonel, turning to Garry. "Can't you do anything for him?"

"I'll put somethin' coolin' on the dressin', an' that'll make the poor chap's h'id aisier," replied the other, suiting the action to the word.

"Ice, sure, 'ud be betther; but, faith, there isn't a morsel aboard!"

Whatever he did apply, however, had a quieting influence, and presently, after tossing from side to side convulsively, Captain Alphonse closed his great staring eyes and began to snore stertorously.

"Heaven be praised!" cried Colonel Vereker. "He's sleeping again, now!"

"Faith, an' a good job, too, for him, poor crayture," said Garry. "He's in a bad way, I till you, sor! an' he'd betther die aisy whin he's about it, sure, than kickin' up a row that won't help him."

"What!" returned the colonel. "Do you think he's going to die?"

"Begorrah, all the docthers in the worrld wouldn't save him!"

"My poor friend, my poor friend!" cried the colonel. "I will stay with him then, to the end, so as to soothe his last moments!"

There was evidently a struggle going on in Colonel Vereker's mind between his desire to do his duty, as he thought, to the dying man, and his natural anxiety to be on deck partic.i.p.ating in all the excitement of the chase after the runaway ship and the coming fight with the Haytians, when the black rascals would be called to a final account for all the misery and bloodshed they had caused.

Garry O'Neil saw this, and pooh-poohed the idea of the colonel remaining below.

"Faith, there ain't the laste bit of good, sor, in yer stoppin' down here at all, at all," said he in his brisk, energetic way. "The poor chap won't be afther stirrin' ag'in for the next two hours or more; an'

if he does, bedad, he won't ricognise ye, or any one ilse for that matther!"

"But, sir doctor--"

"Houly Moses! I till you, colonel, there ain't no use in your stoppin'

another minnit!" impatiently cried the good-natured Irishman, interrupting his half-hearted expostulator. "Jist you clear out of this at once, an' go on deck an' say the foightin' with those murtherin'

bleyguards. I'll moind my paychant now till that old thaife Weston's finished all the schraps lift in the plates an' bottles from lunch; an'

thin, faith, he shall take charge of him an' I'll come up too, to say the foon. Now, be off wid ye, colonel, dear; you'll say the poor chap ag'in afther the rumpus is over. d.i.c.k Haldane, me darlint, hind the colonel the loan of yer arrum, alannah. There, now off ye both go.

Away wid ye!"

So saying, he fairly pushed us out of the cabin; and, the colonel limping by my side and using my shoulder as a crutch, as he had previously done, we both went up the companion-ladder, and gained the p.o.o.p.

The scene here presented a striking contrast to that we had just left, the fresh air, bright sun, and sparkling sea all speaking of life and movement, in exchange for the stuffy atmosphere of the darkened saloon and its a.s.sociation of illness and approaching death.

A stiff breeze was blowing now from the southward, and running, as we were, to the northward, right before it, the skipper had ordered all our square sails forward to be set so as to take every advantage of the wind, in addition to our steam-power, the old barquey prancing away full speed ahead, with her topsails and fore canvas bellied out to their utmost extent, their leech lifting occasionally with a flicker as she outran the breeze and the clew-gallant blocks rattling as the sheets slackened and grew taut again, while the wind hummed through the canvas aloft like a thousand bees buzzing about the rigging.

The black smoke, too, was rushing up the funnel and whirling in the air overhead, uncertain which direction to take, from the speed of the vessel inclining it to trail away aft, while the stiff southerly breeze blew it forwards; so we carried it all along with us, hung up above our dog vane like an awning as we careered onwards, raising a deep furrow of swelling water on either side as we cut through the dancing sunlit waves, and leaving a long white wake astern that shone through the blue, far away behind in the distance, to where sea and sky melted into one, far away on the horizon line.

Old Masters, the boatswain, was on the p.o.o.p when the colonel and I came up from below, in the very act of hauling in the patent log to ascertain our speed.

"Well," said I, as he looked at the index of the ungainly thing, which is something of a cross between a shark hook and a miniature screw propeller. "What's she doing, bo'sun?"

"Doing? Wot she's a-doing on, sir?" he replied, repeating my own words and mouthing them over with much gusto. "Why, sir, she's going sixteen knots still, and the bloomin' old grampus has been keeping it up since four bells. She carries the wind with her, too; for jist as we bore up north awhile ago, astern the chase, I'm blessed if the breeze didn't shift round likewise to the south'ard, keepin' astern of us as before!"