The Pirate Island Part 7

"Everything had to be done in a great hurry, and my uncle had barely time to pack his wife's boxes and see her safely _en route_ for Montreal before he set out with his detachment for the post to which he had been ordered.

"My aunt arrived safely at Montreal, but failing to find there a ship ready to sail for England, went on to Quebec, which she reached just in time to embark for London. She had written to my uncle from Montreal, and she wrote again from Quebec, the letter reaching her husband's hands as he was on the point of marching out of the fort on a night expedition against a band of hostile Indians who had been discovered in the neighbourhood.

"An engagement took place, in which my uncle was desperately wounded and narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the Indians. His men succeeded, however, in saving him and making good their own retreat into the fort, where poor uncle d.i.c.k lay hovering for weeks between life and death. After a long and weary struggle his splendid const.i.tution triumphed; and with the return of consciousness came anxious thoughts respecting his wife and child. He remembered the letter which had been handed to him as he marched out upon that ill-starred expedition, the letter which he had never had an opportunity to read, and he made eager inquiries respecting it. It was found in an inner breast-pocket of his uniform coat, but it had been so thoroughly saturated with his own blood, poor fellow, that it was practically undecipherable; by careful soaking and washing he at last succeeded in ascertaining that my aunt and her baby had actually sailed from Quebec, but on what date or in what ship it was quite impossible to learn. And that was the last news he ever heard of them."

"How very dreadful!" murmured Lance. "Of course he made every possible inquiry respecting their fate?"

"Not immediately," answered Blanche. "He waited patiently for news of my aunt's arrival in England; but as mail after mail came without bringing him any intelligence he grew uneasy, and finally wrote to his mother-in-law asking an explanation of the unaccountable silence. This letter remained unanswered; but just when his uneasiness had increased to such a pitch that he had determined to apply for leave of absence in order to proceed to England, it was returned to him through the dead- letter office. This decided him at once. He applied for leave and it was refused. He then threw up his commission, and at once proceeded to England; the fearful conviction growing upon him that something dreadful had happened. He stopped at Quebec for a fortnight on his way home, making inquiry at all the ship-owners' and brokers' offices in the place, endeavouring to learn the name of the ship in which his wife had been a pa.s.senger; but, strange to say, he could gain no trace of them.

Whether it was that the people of whom he inquired were careless and indifferent, or whether it was that pa.s.senger-lists were not at that time regularly kept as they now are, it is of course impossible to say, but it is a fact that he was compelled to leave America without the smallest sc.r.a.p of information respecting his dear ones beyond that contained in the blood-stained letter.

"On his arrival in England he proceeded direct to his mother-in-law's former residence, to find it, as he feared, in the possession of strangers. He then, with considerable difficulty, hunted up the lawyer who had managed Mrs Percival's (his mother-in-law's) money matters, and learned from him that the old lady had died some seven months before.

And in reply to his further inquiries he was informed that his wife and child had never reached Mrs Percival's home. The old lady had certainly expected them, the lawyer said, but she had never received more than one letter which my uncle had hurriedly written mentioning the fact of their departure for England.

"Poor uncle d.i.c.k now found himself completely at a loss; so, as the best plan he could think of, he put the affair into his lawyer's hands, handing him also the blood-stained letter. This letter was soon afterwards intrusted to a chemist, who, in attempting to cleanse it, destroyed it altogether, and thus pa.s.sed away the only clue which my uncle possessed. It is now rather more than sixteen years since my aunt sailed from Quebec, and poor uncle d.i.c.k has never succeeded in gaining a trace of her fate to this day."

"Poor fellow!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lance, in an absent sort of way. "I'm sure I sincerely pity and sympathise with him. What! going below already?

Then allow me to conduct you as far as the companion."

Blanche bade Lance good-night at the head of the saloon staircase; he raised his smoking-cap, and then returning sauntered up and down the p.o.o.p for over an hour, with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the deck, apparently in a brown study.

A few days after the narration of Blanche's story, Lance Evelin, noticing Bob at the wheel, strolled up to him and asked him for his history.

"Miss Lascelles gave me the outlines of it a night or two ago, and it struck me as so peculiar and interesting that I should like to hear full particulars," he explained, puffing lazily at his cigar meanwhile.

"Where would you like me to begin, Mr Evelin?" asked Bob.

"At the beginning of course, my dear fellow," laughingly answered Lance.

"I want to know _everything_. Do you remember being found on board the wreck?"

"Sometimes I think I do; and at other times I think it must be only the recollection of a dream which has produced a more than usually strong impression upon me," answered Bob. "Now and then--perhaps not more than half a dozen times altogether--when I have been lying half asleep and half awake, a confused and indistinct idea presents itself of a ship's cabin seen through a half-opened state-room door, with a lamp swinging violently to and fro; of a woman's face, beautiful as--oh! I cannot describe it; something like Miss Dudley's, only still more beautiful, if you can imagine such a thing. Then the dream, or whatever it is, gets still more confused; I seem to be in cold and wet and darkness, and I fancy I hear a sound like men shouting, mingled with the roar of the wind and the rush of the sea; then--then--I seem to have been kissed-- yes--and the beautiful face seems to be bending over me again, but I am in the light and the warmth once more; and--then it all pa.s.ses away; and if I try to carry my thoughts back to the first circ.u.mstance which I can distinctly remember, I see myself again with other boys, paddling about barefoot on the sh.o.r.e at Brightlingsea."

"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lance, contemplatively. "I have no doubt but that--if the truth could be arrived at, which of course it never can be in this world--this dream, or whatever you like to call it, is the faint recollection which still remains impressed on your memory of some of the incidents connected with the wreck of your ship--what was her name, by the by? The _Lightning_, of London! Um; that's not a very difficult name to remember, at all events. And the beautiful face of which you spoke--is your impression of it clear enough to enable you to describe it? Or, supposing it possible for you to see a picture of the original, do you think you would recognise it?--Do you mind my asking these questions? No; that's all right; but if it is in the least painful to you, I will not put them. You see, Legerton, I have very little doubt that face was the face of your mother; and I confess I feel a trifle curious to know how far back a man can carry his remembrance of his mother. I cannot remember anything about mine previous to my fourth birthday."

"Well," answered Bob, "I can scarcely remember the face clearly enough to describe it. All I can say about it is that it was very beautiful, with tender loving eyes and dark hair, which I am almost sure must have been worn in curls; but I think that if ever I saw a really good picture of it I should recognise it directly."

"You would, eh?" said Lance. "Very well, now go ahead--if you are not tired of talking--and tell me about the old fellow who found you, and the sort of life you led as a fisherman, and so on; it is all very interesting, I a.s.sure you; quite as much so as any of the novels in the saloon book-case."

Bob accordingly went ahead, his companion occasionally interrupting him with a question; and when the story was finished Lance rose and stretched himself, saying as he turned to walk away--

"Thank you very much. Your story is so interesting that I think I shall make a few notes of it for the benefit of a literary friend of mine; so if you meet with it in print some day you must not be very much surprised."

And as Bob saw him shortly afterwards, note-book in hand; and as this story actually _is_ in print, it is to be presumed that Mr Lance Evelin really carried out his expressed intention.

On the day following this conversation the wind, which had been blowing steadily from the westward for some time, suddenly dropped; and by four bells in the afternoon watch it had fallen to a dead calm; the ship rolling like a log on the heavy swell. Not the faintest trace of cloud could be discerned in the stupendous vault which sprang in delicate carnation and primrose tints from the encircling horizon, pa.s.sing through a mult.i.tude of subtle gradations of colour until it became at the zenith a broad expanse of clearest purest deepest blue. The atmosphere was transparent to an almost extraordinary degree, the slow- moving ma.s.ses of swell rising sharply outlined to the very verge of the horizon, while the mast-heads of a far-distant ship stood out clear and well-defined, like two minute and delicately drawn thin lines on the pale primrose background of the sky.

Suddenly, however, a curious phenomenon occurred. A subtle but distinct and instantaneous change of colour took place, which made it seem as though the spectators were regarding the scene through tinted gla.s.s.

All the brilliance and purity and beauty of the various hues had died out. The dazzling ultramarine of the zenith became indigo; the clear transparent hues of the horizon thickened and deepened to a leaden-grey; the sun gleamed aloft pallid and rayless, like a ghost of its former self; and the ocean, black and turbid, heaved restlessly, writhing as if in torture. An intense and unnatural silence, too, seemed suddenly to have fallen upon nature, enwrapping the scene as with a mantle, a silence in which the flap of the canvas, the pattering of the reef- points, the _cheep_ of blocks, and the occasional clank of the rudder- chains, fell upon the ear with a sharpness which was positively painful.

The occupants of the _Galatea's_ deck glanced from one to another, dismayed; Violet Dudley's startled whisper to Rex Fortescue of "What dreadful thing is about to happen?" being but the utterance of the thought which flashed through every brain.

Captain Staunton, turning to Mr Bowles, who was standing beside him, in low tones requested that trusty officer to keep a look-out for a minute or two; and then hurried down to the saloon to consult his barometer.

He returned to the deck in less than a minute, his face wearing a look of anxiety and concern which was very rarely to be seen there.

"_The gla.s.s has fallen a full inch within the last half-hour_" he muttered, as he rejoined the mate.

Then in a louder tone of voice he added, "Call all hands, Mr Bowles, if you please, and shorten sail at once. Stow everything except the lower fore and main topsails and the fore-topmast stay-sail; I think we are going to have a change of weather."

The seamen were as much startled as the occupants of the p.o.o.p, by the preternatural change in the aspect of the sky; and they sprang to their posts with all the alacrity of men who antic.i.p.ate a deadly struggle, and believe they may have none too much time for preparation. The work of shortening sail proceeded rapidly but methodically and in an orderly manner--Captain Staunton had never before in all his experience witnessed anything quite like what was now pa.s.sing around him, and was oppressed by an undefined foreboding of some terrible catastrophe; but he was too brave a man and too thorough a seaman to allow aught of this to appear in either countenance, voice, or manner; nor would he allow the work to be hurried through with inconsiderate haste; he saw that the men were startled; and it rested with him to steady them, restore their confidence, and so prepare them for the coming struggle, whatever its nature might be.

Meanwhile, the atmospheric phenomena were momentarily a.s.suming a more and more portentous aspect. The sky deepened in tint from indigo to a purple black; the sun lost its pallid sickly gleam and hung in the sable heavens a lurid blood-red ball until it became obscured by heavy ma.s.ses of dusky vapour which had gathered imperceptibly in the firmament, and now seemed to be settling slowly down upon the ship's mast-heads, rolling and writhing like huge tortured serpents, meanwhile. The silence--broken though it was by the sounds of preparation on board-- grew even more oppressively intense and death-like than before; and darkness now came to add new terrors to the scene; not the wholesome solemn darkness of nightfall, but a weird unearthly gloom which was neither night nor day, a gloom which descended and encompa.s.sed them stealthily and menacingly, contracting the horizon until nothing could be seen further than half a mile from the ship, and which still seemed to be saturated with a pale spectral shimmering light, in the which men looked in each other's eyes like reanimated corpses. The ocean presented an aspect no less appalling; at one moment black as the waters of the Styx, and indistinguishable beyond the distance of a cable's length, and anon gleaming into view to the very verge of the horizon, a palpitating sheet of greenish ghastly phosph.o.r.escent light.

The canvas was stowed, down to the lower fore and main topsail and the fore-topmast stay-sail, and the men were about to hurry down from aloft when Captain Staunton stopped them.

"Clew up and stow the lower topsails as well," he shouted; adding in an undertone to Mr Bowles, "I don't know _what_ to expect; but it threatens to be something terrible; and the less canvas we show to it the better. The stay-sail will be quite as much as we shall want, I expect."

The topsails were stowed, and the men came down on deck again, evidently glad to find themselves there once more, and huddling together on the forecastle like frightened sheep.

The pa.s.sengers were cl.u.s.tered together on the p.o.o.p, standing in a group somewhat apart from the skipper and the mate, awaiting pale and silent the _denouement_. Bob, who had been aloft helping to stow the mizen canvas, stepped up to them as he swung himself out of the rigging, and, addressing himself more particularly to Violet and Blanche, recommended them to go below at once.

"These warnings," said he, "are not for nothing. The precautions which Captain Staunton has taken show clearly enough that he expects something quite out of the common; and the change is likely enough to come upon us suddenly, bringing perhaps some of our top-hamper about our ears; so, if you ladies will be advised, I would recommend you to go below where you will certainly be in much less danger."

Blanche and Violet looked at each other inquiringly. "_I_ shall remain here," said Violet, unconsciously tightening her hold upon Rex Fortescue's arm as she spoke. "Whatever happens, I would very much rather be here, where I can see the full extent of the danger, than pent up in a cabin picturing to myself I know not what horrors."

Blanche expressed the same determination; but Mr Dale hurried at once to the companion, loudly lamenting that he had ever intrusted his precious self to the 'beastly treacherous sea!'

His remarks attracted Captain Staunton's attention to the party; and he at once stepped hurriedly toward them exclaiming, "Good heavens, ladies and gentlemen! let me beg you to go below at once; I had no idea you were here. The saloon is the safest place for you all at a time like this; you will be out of harm's way there, while here--"

"Look out!" shouted Mr Bowles. "Here it comes with a vengeance. Take care of yourselves, everybody."

The gloom had visibly deepened, until it became difficult for those grouped together on the p.o.o.p to distinguish each other's features, and a low deep humming sound was now audible, which increased in volume with startling rapidity.

"Go below all of you, I beg," repeated Captain Staunton in anxious tones, "and be as quick as you can about it, please. What is the matter, Mr Dale?" as that individual stood a few steps down the staircase, grasping the handrail on each side, neither descending himself nor allowing anyone else to do so.

"My book," exclaimed Dale; "I left a book on one of the hen-coops, and--"

His further remarks were drowned in the deafening din of the tempest, which at this moment swooped down upon the ship with indescribable fury, striking her full upon her starboard broadside, and hurling her over in an instant on her beam-ends. The group gathered about the companion-way made an instinctive effort to save themselves, Rex Fortescue flinging his arm about Violet Dudley's waist and dragging her with him to the mizen-mast, where he hung on desperately to a belaying-pin. Brook nimbly scrambled upon the upturned weather side of the companion.

Evelin, exasperated by Mr Dale's ill-timed anxiety about his book, had stepped inside the companion-way and down a stair or two to summarily remove the obstructor, and the two were flung together to the bottom of the staircase. Blanche, left thus without a protector, clung convulsively for a moment to one of the open doors of the companion; but her strength failing her, she let go and fell backwards with a shriek into the water which foamed hungrily up over the lee rail.

Bob, who had made a spring for the weather mizen rigging, was just pa.s.sing a turn or two of a rope round his body when, happening to turn his head, he saw Blanche fall. To cast himself adrift and spring headlong after her was the work of an instant, and he succeeded in grasping her dress just in the nick of time, for in another instant the ship would have driven over her, and Blanche's fate would have been sealed. As it was, they both had a very narrow escape, for Bob in his haste had omitted to take a rope's-end with him, and had consequently no means of returning inboard, or rather, for the lee side of the deck was buried in the water, of regaining a place of safety. In this emergency Brook, who was a witness of the scene, acted in a very prompt and creditable manner. The rope, by which Bob had been in the act of securing himself, streamed out in the wind in such a way as to come within Brook's reach, and by its aid he at once drew himself up to windward, and, climbing out on to the weather side of the ship, dexterously dropped from thence a coiled-up rope's-end, which he had taken off a belaying-pin, directly down upon Bob's head. Bob at once grasped the rope with his disengaged hand, and with a rapid twist threw two or three turns round his arm, whereupon Brook, exerting all his strength, drew his prizes steadily up the steeply inclined deck until they were able to scramble into the place he had vacated upon the companion.

CHAPTER SIX.

DISMASTED.

As the hurricane swooped down upon the ship, Captain Staunton and Mr Bowles sprang with one accord aft to the helm. It was well that they did so; for when the vessel was thrown upon her beam-ends the wheel flew suddenly and violently round, taking unawares the unfortunate man who was stationed at it and hurling him far over the lee quarter into the sea, where he immediately sank, being probably disabled by a blow from the rapidly revolving spokes. The two officers saw in a moment that the poor fellow was irretrievably lost, so without wasting time in useless efforts to save him they devoted themselves forthwith to the task of preserving the ship. The wheel was put hard up, with the object of getting the craft before the wind; and then the two men stood anxiously watching and awaiting the result. Two or three minutes pa.s.sed, and there still lay the ship p.r.o.ne on her side, with her lee topsail and lower yard-arms dipping in the water, she would _not_ pay off.

"Bowles," said Captain Staunton, lashing the wheel as he spoke, "make your way forward; muster the carpenter and one or two of the most reliable men you have, and bring them aft with axes to cut away the mizen-mast; we _must_ get her before it somehow; should it come any stronger she will 'turn the turtle' with us. Station your men; but do not cut until I hold up my hand."