The Voyage of the Aurora Part 11

Having at last grasped this idea, he rose from the seat upon which he had flung himself, and upon which he seemed to himself to have been sitting as long as ever he could remember, and proceeded to carry it out. Sauntering leisurely off the p.o.o.p, he descended to the waist of the ship, repeating eagerly over and over again the words "spars--raft,"

lest he should forget them. There were several spare spars of various sizes, ranging from topmasts down to studding-sail booms, lashed to the deck on each side of the main-hatchway, and these he deliberately set to work to cast adrift. With considerable difficulty he at length succeeded in accomplishing this task, the result being that the spars were set rolling athwart the deck with the roll of the ship. Nothing daunted by this, however, he dashed recklessly in among them, and escaping, heaven knows how, from the incessant danger of fractured limbs, managed to drag out, one after the other, and launch overboard several of the lighter spars. Having commenced the work, he now toiled persistently on, allowing himself neither pause nor rest until he had disposed of every spar which his unaided strength would allow him to move. Then, panting, breathless, and reeking with perspiration, he walked to the side and peered over. The spars were nowhere to be seen; in his madness it had never occurred to him to secure them with ropes, and they had consequently drifted astern, and were of course tossing, some of them miles away, in the wake of the ship.

Somehow the loss of the spars caused him no distress; indeed, as a matter of fact, he had again forgotten all about the raft, and had continued to labour on, merely because it had not occurred to him to stop. Now that he had stopped, however, he began to be conscious not only of fatigue, but also of hunger, for he had tasted no food for nearly twenty-four hours, and had been working hard all through the night; so he made his way by instinct into the saloon and thence to the steward's pantry, where he found an abundance of food, which he attacked ravenously. He then, after satisfying his hunger, bent his steps in the direction of his own state-room, and, entering, flung himself upon the bed, and soon sank into an uneasy and restless sleep.

Meanwhile the wind had been steadily dropping, the sea going down at the same time, and when, just before sunset, the glorious...o...b..burst through and dispersed the curtain of storm-tattered clouds which had for so long a time overspread the sky, his golden rays fell upon the _Princess Royal_, now no longer rolling gunwale-under, but swinging with a slow stately motion over the long swell, and still drifting lazily to the eastward; her bows heading now this way, now that; her fore-mast burned through and towing over the side; and the flames in complete possession of her as far aft as the main-mast.

Walford's sleep, if such it could be called, lasted all through the night and until just before the dawn. Then the overpowering heat and smoke, the loud crackling roar of the flames, and the fierce ruddy light streaming into the saloon and through the open state-room door aroused him. Sitting up in his berth, he looked around him in a bewildered way, pa.s.sing his hand impatiently over his brow repeatedly, as if striving to recall distinctly the remembrance of something vaguely haunting his memory, but ever eluding his mental grasp. Glancing vacantly around him, the red glare of the flames fascinated his gaze, and he turned to watch the leaping, flickering flashes of light as they came and went with the sway and roll of the ship.

"Red," he began to mutter, "red as blood. Blood? Who said that I had been the cause of bloodshed? Who dares to say that it is my hand which has splashed those walls--that floor--with such hideous stains? Ha! see how they leap and dance, rise and fall; the place is full of them.

Horrible! horrible! Are they there to taunt me, to reproach me, to accuse me? I say I did _not_ do it; I am not to blame. How could I know that--that--what was it? Let me think. 'His blood is upon your hands.' Whose hands? Not mine, I swear; I could not do it; I have not the nerve, the courage for it. 'His blood is upon your hands.' Who said that? It was not said to _me_. But stay--_was_ I to blame--_was_ it my fault? Ugh! what a terrible thing it was to see him standing there with the rope round his neck, to know that they were going to take away his life for a fault which perhaps he would never have committed but for _me_, and to feel that I had not the courage to intercede in his behalf; to stand there quaking with fear whilst _he_ was driven to his death. No, no; _I_ did not drive him to it; it was they; and I had no control over them--but--but--ah! I never tried to save him. Yes, yes, I am coming. Is that you, Thomson? Are you calling _me_?"

He sprang out of his berth, and, making his way through the captain's cabin, pa.s.sed out on deck. The first faint rays of the approaching dawn were lighting up the eastern horizon; but he saw them not; they were effectually hidden from his sight by the dazzling brightness of the flames and the dense clouds of smoke which went rolling heavily to leeward before the now scanty wind. The fire had made steady progress during the night, the hull forward being burned down nearly to the waters' edge; while aft, the flames had extended to the after hatchway, and the main-mast, burnt through at its heel, had gone by the board and fallen forward into the fiercest of the fire, where it was rapidly consuming. Luckily for the wretched Walford, the ship was once more dead before the wind, and the flames were fanned forward; had her head been in the opposite direction, his retreat would have been effectually cut off. As it was, the heat was so intense that he instinctively avoided it by springing up the p.o.o.p-ladder and making his way as far aft as possible.

Arrived at the extreme end of the p.o.o.p, he stood gazing intently down into the black water, and presently he began muttering again.

"Yes," he said, pointing down into the hollow of the swell as it came creeping up after the ship, "that is the spot where he went down; I saw him; I was standing near the bulwarks, and when he sprang my eyes followed him; I heard his dying cry; and I saw his last agonised upward look of despair as he went down with a plunge into the hollow between the waves, and the waters closed over his head for ever. For ever?

Yes, surely--and yet--what is that white gleaming object there now, glaring up at me from beneath the water? It is--it _is_ the face of the dead man. Ha! see he is beckoning to me. Then it _was_ his voice I heard calling to me. Listen--what was that? Did you call, Thomson? He will not answer; he is tired of calling; but the white ghastly face is still there, and--see--there too is the beckoning hand. It is my summons, and I must obey."

At that moment the weird plaintive scream of a sea-bird came floating down out of the grey shadows of the dawn, and Walford, starting violently, stood for a moment in an att.i.tude of rapt attention. The cry was repeated; he glared wildly round him for an instant, and then, screaming hoa.r.s.ely "I come--I come!" sprang over the guard-rails and into the sea.

CHAPTER TEN.

A STRANGE RENCONTRE.

We left the _Aurora_, as the reader will remember, at the moment when, by the merest hair's breadth, she was enabled to avoid what must have been a terribly disastrous collision with the ill-fated _Princess Royal_ on the day when the hurricane burst with such destructive effect upon the outward-bound fleet.

Deprived of her fore-topsail, the little barque was soon left astern by her two unwelcome neighbours, and--the fleet rapidly dispersing, now that it was no longer possible to regulate the speed of the several craft which composed it--by nightfall her crew found themselves, comparatively speaking, alone, there being only some twenty sail in sight from the deck.

That night was a most anxious one for Captain Leicester, the gale being heavier and the sea considerably higher than he had ever before witnessed; the _Aurora_, however, proved to be a capital little sea-boat, riding over the great liquid hills light and dry as a gull; and when at length the morning broke, revealing only two sail in sight, George felt so easy in his mind that he did not hesitate to go below and seek in his comfortable berth an hour or two of that rest which he so greatly needed.

The first stroke of the hurricane had been, as is generally the case, the worst; for about half an hour it had blown with frightful and disastrous fury, as has already been described, after which it lulled somewhat, and then had again steadily increased. Accordingly, when Captain Leicester went on deck at noon, he found the gale still gathering strength, the sea higher than ever, and the sky looking more threatening than he remembered to have ever before seen it.

The ship was scudding under bare poles, and behaving capitally, too; but George saw that if the sea rose much higher there would be great danger of being "p.o.o.ped;" so he--like the people on board the unfortunate _Princess Royal_--roused out a new foresail and, with very great difficulty, got it bent and set, reefed. This sail dragged the little barque along at a tremendous pace; and from that time there was no further danger of her being "p.o.o.ped" or overrun by the sea.

On the third day the gale broke; and by sundown the weather had so far moderated as to permit of the _Aurora_ being brought to the wind and hove-to, a manoeuvre which George was most anxious to accomplish, since the ship had, for over seventy-two hours, been running to the eastward, or directly away from her port, at the rate of some ten knots an hour, giving her over seven hundred miles of extra distance to make up. The _Aurora_ remained hove-to during the whole of that night; but at eight bells next morning she made sail under single-reefed topsails and courses; stretching away to the northward and westward on the port tack.

She continued on this tack all day; and went about at the end of the second dog-watch, George's object being to work his way back to the spot, as nearly as possible, where the fleet had separated, and there wait two or three days if need be, in the hope of falling in with the bulk of them again.

Captain Leicester had of course taken full advantage of the return of fine weather to repair damages; the crew had been busy during the whole day getting two new topgallant-masts aloft and rigging them, bending new sails in place of those split or blown away, and so on; the _Aurora_ was consequently, when night fell, all ataunto once more; and a stranger looking at her, would, except for the _new_ look of some of the spars and canvas, never have suspected that she had had her wings clipped.

At nightfall she was standing to the southward and westward on the port tack, under every st.i.tch of canvas that would draw; the wind was failing fast; the sea had long since ceased to break; there was now only an occasional white fleecy comb to be seen on the crests of the waves; and the ship was gliding gently along, with a slow, steady, rhythmical rising-and-falling motion over the long heavy swell, at the rate of some five knots in the hour. The skipper was in excellent spirits at having escaped so well and so cheaply from the fury of the hurricane; and he remained on deck until midnight, chatting with Mr Bowen, the chief mate.

The relief-watch had just been called, and George was waiting to accompany the mate below when his attention was suddenly attracted by a curious appearance in the sky to windward. It was still cloudy; and, low down on the horizon and about two points on the weather bow, he noticed that the clouds were lighter and brighter in tint than anywhere else.

"Look, Bowen," he exclaimed, "do you see that peculiar-looking cloud away there on the horizon, just over our cat-head? What is the meaning of it?"

The mate looked in the direction indicated; and his more mature experience at once suggested an explanation.

"Looks to me," he said, "as if there was something afire over there.

Here, you Tom," to a lad belonging to the relief-watch, who had just come on deck, "slip up as far as the fore-topmast cross-trees, and see if you can see anything out of the common away there on the weather bow."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the lad; and in another moment he was dancing nimbly up the fore-rigging; his form just dimly discernible in the dark shadow of the sails.

Presently he hailed from the cross-trees, "I can't _see_ nothing, sir; but the sky away over there looks uncommon bright, and it seems to _flicker_ now and then, as if there was a big fire burning under it."

"That'll do; you can come down again," answered the chief mate. Then, turning to George, he said--

"Depend upon it, sir, there's a ship afire away over there. Well, we're steering a course as'll take us pretty close to her, if so be as there _is_ one; and I suppose, sir, you'll feel like giving of her a overhaul, won't you?"

"Most certainly," answered George earnestly. "We will at least ascertain whether there are any human beings on board her. Mr Ritson,"--to the carpenter, who since Cross's impressment had acted in the capacity of second mate--"steer your present course, please, as long as the wind will allow you; crack on all you can; and, as soon as the burning ship--or whatever it is--is fairly in sight, give me a call."

He then descended to his cabin, and in another five minutes had fallen into a state of blissful oblivion.

At eight bells (or four o'clock a.m.) Ritson knocked at George's state-room door, after calling the chief mate, and said--

"We can see the flames and smoke from the deck, sir, though the ship herself is still hull-down. I've been up in the fore-top, howsoever, with the gla.s.s, and make her out to be a large ship--close upon a thousand tons, I should say--but I can't see any people on board of her, nor I can't make out no sign of boats. She's all ablaze from for'ard right aft as far as the main-mast, which toppled over and fell for'ard while I was lookin' at her. I fancy the people must ha' left her, sir."

"All right, Ritson," answered George, "I'll be on deck in a minute or two."

Within the stipulated time Captain Leicester made his appearance on deck, and proceeded at once to the fore-top, where, with the aid of his gla.s.s, he made a careful inspection of the burning ship.

"Well, Mr Bowen," he said, when he had completed his examination, and was once more down on deck, "it is as Ritson says: there is no sign of any human being on board her; I have looked long and carefully at her, and am quite sure I should have seen the people moving about, had there been any. We will stand on as we are going, however, and cross her stern; we shall then perhaps get a chance to make out her name.

Somehow, she has a familiar look with her, as though I had seen her before; I wonder if she was in the fleet?"

"Like enough, sir," answered Bowen; "we're right in the track of 'em; and maybe this is one of the slow-coaches as we run away from."

"Possibly," answered George abstractedly; and then the two fell to pacing slowly fore and aft, from the main-mast to the taffrail, in that persevering way which is so characteristic of seamen.

The _Aurora_ was now sliding gently along at a speed of about four knots, with every sail set that would draw; and gradually she crept up closer and closer to the burning ship, which, meanwhile, was slowly drifting to leeward.

The watch on deck were cl.u.s.tered together in a body, forward, watching the unusual sight; the ship being now about a point on the lee bow and about half a mile distant. Suddenly there was a loud shout from them, followed by the cry--

"There's somebody still aboard the burning ship sir!"

George and the mate, who at the moment were walking towards the taffrail, with their backs towards the burning ship, turned quickly at the cry, and the former, hastily seizing the telescope which lay ready to hand on the skylight, swiftly brought it to bear. There, sure enough, standing right aft on the raised p.o.o.p, could be distinctly seen a solitary figure, apparently that of a man. He seemed to be gazing intently into the water astern, pointing and gesticulating, and was evidently wholly unaware of the approach of the _Aurora_.

"Yes," said George, "truly enough there _is_ a man on board; and he does not seem to have seen us yet; perhaps the glare of the flames has dazzled his eyes. Just step down into the cabin, Mr Bowen, if you please, and bring up a couple of muskets; we will fire them, one after the other, and the reports will call his attention to the fact of our presence."

The mate turned away to do George's bidding, and he had hardly disappeared down the companion-ladder when the skipper, who had the telescope once more at his eye, saw the figure start--look behind him, as though he had heard some alarming sound--and then spring, in apparent terror, into the sea.

"He's jumped overboard, sir!" reported the men forward, who were now eagerly watching the actions of the stranger.

"Ay, ay," answered Leicester, "I see he has. One of you call the watch below; the rest of you lay aft here and clear away the starboard gig, cast off her lashings, and get her ready for rousing off the gallows and into the water."

The gig which had been hanging at the davits ever since the _Aurora_ cleared out of the docks at London, had been destroyed when the ship was thrown on her beam-ends in the hurricane; and the men had been so busy on apparently more important duties that they had had no opportunity of getting another boat ready for service; hence there was now a considerable amount of delay in the launching of the boat which George intended to despatch in search of the swimmer.

Mr Bowen soon returned to the deck with the muskets, and handing one to George and retaining the other himself, they fired them one after the other in rapid succession, hoping by this means to attract the unfortunate man's attention and show him that help was near.