The Land of Fire Part 2

Arriving at the spot, he sees, what he has already dimly suspected, that the mud-larks' victims are the three odd individuals who lately stopped in front of him. But it is not they who are most angry; instead, they are giving the "rats" change in kind, returning their "chaff," and even getting the better of them, so much so that some of their would-be tormentors have quite lost their tempers. One is already furious--a big hulking fellow, their leader and instigator, and the same who had cried, "country yokel." As it chances, he is afflicted with an impediment of speech, in fact, stutters badly, making all sorts of twitching grimaces in the endeavour to speak correctly. Taking advantage of this, the boy Orundelico--"blackamoor," as he is being called--has so turned the tables on him by successful mimicry of his speech as to elicit loud laughter from a party of sailors loitering near. This brings on a climax, the incensed bully, finally losing all restraint of himself, making a dash at his diminutive mocker, and felling him to the pavement with a vindictive blow.

"t.i.t-it-it-take that, ye ugly mim-m-monkey!" is its accompaniment in speech as spiteful as defective.

The girl sends up a shriek, crying out:

"Oh, Eleparu! Orundelico killed! He dead!"

"No, not dead," answers the boy, instantly on his feet again like a rebounding ball, and apparently but little injured. "He take me foul.

Let him try once more. Come on, big brute!"

And the pigmy places himself in a defiant att.i.tude, fronting an adversary nearly twice his own size.

"Stan' side!" shouts Eleparu, interposing. "Let me go at him!"

"Neither of you!" puts in a new and resolute voice, that of Henry Chester, who, pushing both aside, stands face to face with the aggressor, fists hard shut, and eyes flashing anger. "Now, you ruffian," he adds, "I'm your man."

"Wh-wh-who are yi-yi-you? an' wh-wh-what's it your bi-bib-business?"

"No matter who I am; but it's my business to make you repent that cowardly blow. Come on and get your punishment!"

And he advances towards the stammerer, who has shrunk back.

This unlooked-for interference puts an end to the fun-making of the mud-larks, all of whom are now highly incensed, for in their new adversary they recognise a lad of country raising--not a town boy--which of itself challenges their antagonistic instincts.

On these they are about to act, one crying out, "Let's pitch into the yokel and gie him a good trouncin'!" a second adding, "Hang his imperence!" while a third counsels teaching him "Portsmouth manners."

Such a lesson he seems likely to receive, and it would probably have fared hardly with our young hero but for the sudden appearance on the scene of another figure--a young fellow in shirt-sleeves and wearing a Panama hat--he of the _Calypso_.

"Thunder and lightning!" he exclaimed, coming on with a rush. "What's the rumpus about? Ha! a fisticuff fight, with odds--five to one! Well, Ned Gancy ain't going to stand by an' look on at that; he pitches in with the minority."

And so saying, the young American placed himself in a pugilistic att.i.tude by the side of Henry Chester.

This accession of strength to the a.s.sailed party put a different face on the matter, the a.s.sailants evidently being cowed, despite their superiority of numbers. They know their newest adversary to be an American, and at sight of the two intrepid-looking youths standing side by side, with the angry faces of Eleparu and Orundelico in the background, they become sullenly silent, most of them evidently inclined to steal away from the ground.

The affair seemed likely thus to end, when, to the surprise of all, Eleparu, hitherto held back by the girl, suddenly released himself and bounded forward, with hands and arms wide open. In another instant he had grasped the big bully in a tiger-like embrace, lifted him off his feet, and dashed him down upon the flags with a violence that threatened the breaking of every bone in his body.

Nor did his implacable little adversary, who seemed possessed of a giant's strength, appear satisfied with this, for he afterwards sprang on top of him, with a paving-stone in his uplifted hands.

The affair might have terminated tragically had not the uplifted hand been caught by Henry Chester. While he was still holding it, a man came up, who brought the conflict to an abrupt close by seizing Eleparu's collar, and dragging him off his prostrate foe.

"Ho! what's this?" demands the newcomer, in a loud authoritative voice.

"Why, York! Jemmy! Fuegia! what are you all doing here? You should have stayed on board the steamship, as I told you to do. Go back to her at once."

By this time the mud-larks have scuttled off, the big one, who had recovered his feet, making after them, and all speedily disappearing.

The three gipsy-looking creatures go too, leaving their protectors, Henry Chester and Ned Gancy, to explain things to him who has caused the stampede. He is an officer in uniform, wearing insignia which proclaim him a captain in the Royal Navy; and as he already more than half comprehends the situation, a few words suffice to make it all clear to him, when, thanking the two youths for their generous and courageous interference in behalf of his _proteges_, as he styles the odd trio whose part they had taken, he bows a courteous farewell, and continues his interrupted walk along the Hard.

"Guess you didn't get much sleep," observes the young American, with a knowing smile, to Henry Chester.

"Who told you I was asleep?" replies the latter in some surprise.

"Who? n.o.body."

"How came you to know it, then?"

"How? Wasn't I up in the maintop, and didn't I see everything you did?

And you behaved particularly well, I must say. But come! Let's aboard.

The captain has come back. He's my father, and maybe we can find a berth for you on the _Calypso_. Come along!"

That night Henry Chester eats supper at the _Calypso's_ cabin table, by invitation of the captain's son, sleeps on board, and, better still, has his name entered on her books as an apprentice.

And he finds her just the sort of craft he was desirous to go to sea in--a general trader, bound for the Oriental Archipelago and the isles of the Pacific Ocean. To crown all, she has completed her cargo and is ready to put to sea.

Sail she does, early the next day, barely leaving him time to keep that promise, made by the Devil's Punch Bowl, of writing to his mother.

CHAPTER FOUR.

OFF THE "FURIES."

A ship tempest-tossed, labouring amid the surges of an angry sea; her crew on the alert, doing their utmost to keep her off a lee-sh.o.r.e. And such a sh.o.r.e! None more dangerous on all ocean's edge; for it is the west coast of Tierra del Fuego, abreast the Fury Isles and that long belt of seething breakers known to mariners as the "Milky Way," the same of which the great naturalist, Darwin, has said: "One sight of such a coast is enough to make a landsman dream for a week about shipwreck, peril, and death."

There is no landsman in the ship now exposed to its dangers. All on board are familiar with the sea--have spent years upon it. Yet is there fear in their hearts and pallor on their cheeks, as their eyes turn to that belt of white frothy water between them and the land, trending north and south beyond the range of vision.

Technically speaking, the endangered vessel is not a ship, but a barque, as betokened by the fore-and-aft rig of her mizenmast. Nor is she of large dimensions; only some six or seven hundred tons. But the reader knows this already, or will, after learning her name. As her stern swings up on the billow, there can be read upon it the _Calypso_; and she is that _Calypso_ in which Henry Chester sailed out of Portsmouth Harbour to make his first acquaintance with a sea life.

Though nearly four years have elapsed since then, he is still on board of her. There stands he by the binnacle. No more a boy, but a young man, and in a garb that bespeaks him of the quarter-deck--not before the mast, for he is now the _Calypso's_ third officer. And her second is not far-off; he is the generous youth who was the means of getting him the berth. Also grown to manhood, he, too, is aft, lending a hand at the helm, the strength of one man being insufficient to keep it steady in that heavily rolling sea. On the p.o.o.p-deck is Captain Gancy himself, consulting a small chart, and filled with anxiety as at intervals looking towards the companion-ladder he there sees his wife and daughter, for he knows his vessel to be in danger and his dear ones as well.

A glance at the barque reveals that she has been on a long voyage. Her paint is faded, her sails patched, and there is rust along the chains and around the hawse-holes. She might be mistaken for a whaler coming off a four years' cruise. And nearly that length of time has she been cruising, but not after whales. Her cargo, a full one, consists of sandal-wood, spices, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, mother-of-pearl, and real pearls also--in short, a miscellaneous a.s.sortment of the commodities obtained by traffic in the islands and around the coasts of the great South Sea.

Her last call has been at Honolulu Harbour in the Sandwich Isles, and she is now homeward-bound for New York around the Horn. A succession of westerly winds, or rather continuation of them, has forced her too far on to the Fuegian coast, too near the Furies; and now tossed about on a billowy sea, with the breakers of the Milky Way in sight to leeward, no wonder that her crew are apprehensive for their safety.

Still, perilous as their situation, they might not so much regard it were the _Calypso_ sound and in sailing trim. Unfortunately she is far from this, having a damaged rudder, and with both courses torn to shreds. She is lying-to under storm fore-staysail and close-reefed try-sails, wearing at intervals, whenever it can be done with advantage, to keep her away from those "white horses" a-lee. But even under the diminished spread of canvas the barque is distressed beyond what she can bear, and Captain Gancy is about to order a further reduction of canvas, when, looking westward--in which direction he has been all along anxiously on the watch--he sees what sends a shiver through his frame: three huge rollers, whose height and steepness tell him the _Calypso_ is about to be tried to the very utmost of her strength. Good sea-boat though he knows her to be, he knows also that a crisis is near. There is but time for him to utter a warning shout ere the first roller comes surging upon them. By a lucky chance the barque, having good steerage-way, meets and rises over it unharmed. But her way being now checked, the second roller deadens it completely, and she is thrown off the wind. The third then taking her right abeam, she careens over so far that the whole of her lee-bulwark, from cat-head to stern-davit, is ducked under water.

It is a moment of doubt, with fear appalling--almost despair. Struck by another sea, she would surely go under; but, luckily, the third is the last of the series, and she rights herself, rolling back again like an empty cask. Then, as a steed shaking his mane after a shower, she throws the briny water off, through hawse-holes and scuppers, till her decks are clear again.

A cry of relief ascends from the crew, instinctive and simultaneous.

Nor does the loss of her lee-quarter boat, dipped under and torn from the davits, hinder them from adding a triumphant hurrah, the skipper himself waving his wet tarpaulin and crying aloud:

"Well done, old _Calypso_! Boys, we may thank our stars for being on board such a seaworthy craft!"

Alas! both the feeling of triumph and security are short-lived, ending almost on the instant. Scarce has the joyous hurrah ceased reverberating along her decks, when a voice is heard calling out, in a tone very different:

"The ship's sprung a leak!--and a big one too! The water's coming into her like a sluice!"

There is a rush for the fore hatchway, whence the words of alarm proceed, the main one being battened down and covered with tarpaulin.

Then a hurried descent to the "'tween-decks" and an anxious peering into the hold below. True--too true! It is already half full of water, which seems mounting higher and by inches to the minute! So fancy the more frightened ones!