The White Squall Part 13

"Well, not quite so bad as that, youngster," he replied with one of his cheery laughs; "but, quite as impetuous sometimes, eh, Master Tom?"

I made no answer to this thrust, knowing there was some truth in it, my mother having frequently to call me over the coals for doing things on the spur of the moment, which, as she was aware, I always regretted afterwards.

This thoughtless impulse is a great fault, as I know to my cost; for, it has led me into many a sc.r.a.pe--sometimes to the danger of my life!

While we were talking the shark was still struggling in the water; but when he grew tolerably composed, only an occasional splash of his tail showing that he yet lived, the men began to make preparations for hauling him on board.

The bight of a rope was made into a running knot and hove round the body of the animal; when, the men hauling away with a will at the other end of the line, which was pa.s.sed through a s.n.a.t.c.h-block hung in the rigging, the captive was soon bowsed up to the mizzen chains.

No sooner, however, was he got out of the water than the hampered monster appeared to be imbued with fresh vitality, lashing his tail about and splintering the wood-work of the bulwarks as if it had been brown paper; but when the slip-knot was drawn tighter this controlled his frantic movements a bit, and Jackson, who was allowed precedence of the rest of the sailors from his previous acquaintance with the savage brute, then advanced with a sharp butcher's knife, which he had borrowed from the cook, in order to give his old enemy his quietus.

Taking care not to get within reach of either the jaws or ponderous tail of the shark, he leaned over the side of the ship and stabbed it in the neck; after which, with two long slashing cuts he severed the head, which quickly splashed down into the sea under the counter, sinking to the bottom at once from the mere weight of the bone it contained.

Jackson then proceeded, by the captain's orders, to rip open the animal's stomach; but it was found to contain nothing digestible but the piece of pork which had led to the brute's capture, the shark evidently having been lately on short allowance.

When, however, Jackson extracted the hook from the bait, he started back suddenly as if he had received a blow, clutching hold of the shrouds to steady himself.

I thought he was going to faint.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Captain Miles; "what's the matter?"

"See here!" replied the young sailor, holding up in his hand something dark and soft looking, with a bit of ribbon fluttering from one end.

"Well, what is it?" repeated the captain.

"My cap," said Jackson solemnly; "and, but for the mercy of G.o.d I also might have been in the same place!"

It gave us all a thrill, I can tell you, the sight of this old cap, which must have floated off Jackson's head when he dived to escape the rush of the shark. The brute had swallowed it, no doubt, greedily, thinking it had got the owner.

As for Jackson himself, when he clambered up over the side again and came inboard, his face was as white as a table-cloth. I did not hear him, either, joking about the deck all day afterwards in his usual way; although the young sailor, besides being the smartest of the hands at his work, had hitherto been the life of the crew, always laughing and chaffing the others, as well as being the first to lead a song on the fo'c's'le of an evening. The startling discovery of his cap in the shark's stomach, coupled with the reflection that, had not Providence intervened in his behalf, he might have also been swallowed up, seemed to have completely sobered him for the time.

The other hands, however, were not much affected by the incident; and, presently, when the bight of the rope round the shark was unloosed and the body allowed to drop overboard, Moggridge sang out in a triumphant voice: "Now we've got rid of Jonah, we'll have a shift of wind at last!"

"Why does the boatswain say that?" I asked Captain Miles. "What had the shark to do with the weather?"

"Well, you see, my boy," he answered, "sailors are generally superst.i.tious, and they always think that killing a shark brings good luck of some sort. Now, the best sort of luck we can have would be a good stiff south-wester, or something of that sort, to drive us on our way across the Atlantic, as we have experienced nothing but light breezes since we left the islands, barely making five hundred miles'

distance from Sombrero. We'll never get to England at this rate in a month of Sundays."

Unlike most prophecies referring to the weather, which, as a rule, must generally be made after the event to be correct, that of the old boatswain, curiously enough, turned out a true one, for, although we had been only favoured with light winds from the time of Jackson's escape from the shark and all the while the ill-fated brute followed in our wake like a phantom of evil, not many hours elapsed after we had captured the animal before a strong southerly breeze sprang up. This, shifting round later on more to the westwards, came right astern of the vessel--thus enabling her to spread studding-sails and sky-sails, exposing every rag of canvas she could carry from truck to deck.

The wind, too, fortunately, was not a cat's-paw either, like the shifting airs we had previously had, for it lasted us ten days at one stretch, carrying us well to the south-east of Bermuda and almost more than half-way to the Azores.

During all this time, no very remarkable incident occurred on board, save that, whether owing to change of air or through some deficiency of their native diet, three out of the half a dozen turtle, which Captain Miles was hoping to carry home for the lord mayor's banquet, died one by one. They were hove over the side in the same fashion; and, as I watched their sh.e.l.ly backs floating astern, I could see flocks of sea- birds settle down on them, evidently rejoicing in having such an unexpected feast. A pig, too, was killed one day, supplying us in the cabin with savoury roast pork, which was an agreeable change from the salt beef and boiled fowls that were our ordinary fare--although, as the hen-coops were becoming rapidly untenanted, I should not have much longer to complain of any monotony of the latter item of our diet, I thought.

But, if there was nothing to chronicle of any stirring character I enjoyed the voyage immensely, being as happy as the day was long.

It seemed like paradise to me, sailing on and on before the genial western wind over the wide blue sea, with an azure sky above unflecked by a cloud in the daytime and studded with a glorious galaxy of stars at night that made the heavens look like a casket of jewels.

Before long, I became quite a sailor too, being able to make my way aloft to the cross-trees without help, and I was learning by familiarity every rope whose name Moggridge had before taught me; for, when the captain saw that I was careful through his repeated cautions, and also had Jackson to look after me, he withdrew the embargo he had placed on my mounting the rigging. Indeed, he was kind enough to let me do duty as an "extra hand," as I loved to consider myself, in Mr Marline's watch, or when he himself was on deck.

Another great delight I had consisted in going out on the bowsprit and fishing for bonitoes and dolphins with a bit of red or white cloth tied to a hook, in the same way as one goes "reeling" for mackerel in the Channel; and many a savoury supper, cooked surrept.i.tiously by Jake in his friend the cook's caboose, had I on the sly at night in the fo'c's'le, when Captain Miles thought I had turned in and was snug asleep in my bunk!

Day after day pa.s.sed alike, with the exception, of course, of Sundays, when the captain read prayers on the p.o.o.p to the hands cl.u.s.tered round, all dressed out in their best sh.o.r.e clothes, and with the decks especially holystoned in honour of the day--the ship the while making some couple of hundred miles every twenty-four hours on her onward way, while scarcely shifting a sail or altering a brace from week's end to week's end.

It was getting on towards the end of August, the wind having continued fair from about the middle of the month and the weather being all that could be desired; when, one morning, that of our fifteenth day out from Grenada, I recollect, I noticed that Captain Miles looked rather anxious after coming on deck, shortly before our breakfast hour, "eight bells,"

according to his usual custom when everything was going on all right.

He first glanced aloft, sailor-like, to see that everything was correct with the rigging and the sails all drawing, and then he cast an eye forward, noting the orderly arrangements there; finally, walking across to the binnacle in order to observe what course the ship was steering, and asking Mr Marline, who had charge of the morning watch, how she was going.

"Eight knots good, sir, last heave of the log," promptly said the mate.

"That's all right," observed the captain; "but, I don't like the look ahead. It seems to me as if there's going to be a change."

"Indeed?" replied Mr Marline; "I haven't noticed anything at all unusual. The wind has kept steady from the westwards ever since I came on the p.o.o.p at four bells, the same as we left it overnight."

"But, the gla.s.s is going down, Marline," rejoined Captain Miles; "and don't you notice the sea is getting a bit cross off our port bow? It strikes me we'll have a shift of wind presently from the eastwards, if nothing more. However, we oughtn't to grumble, for ten days of such fine weather is rather unusual in these lat.i.tudes, you know, at this time of year."

"Yes, certainly," replied the mate; "we've made good use of the time, too."

"Aye, that we have," replied the captain. "I fixed our position last night by a couple of lunars."

"And I suppose it corroborates your observation of yesterday, eh?"

"Pretty nearly," said Captain Miles; "calculating for the distance we've run since, I should think we're somewhere about 30 degrees North and 52 degrees West."

"Well, that's strange!" exclaimed Mr Marline. "We've got to the limit of the north-east trade without having once the benefit of it from the day we started, the winds having been south-east and southerly till they shifted round to the westwards!"

"So they have," said the captain; "still, that has been all the more lively for us. But I don't like this change brewing up. Look at the clouds now!"

"Ha, they're getting up at last!" replied the other. "I see you were right, the change will come from the eastwards."

Up to now it had been a beautifully bright morning, the sky without a sc.r.a.p of vapour to obscure its lucent expanse, and the sea lit up with golden sunshine that made it appear bluer somehow or other; but, even while Captain Miles and Mr Marline were speaking, a low bank of cloud arose along the eastern horizon, and this, spreading gradually up towards the zenith, soon shut out the half-risen sun and his rays, casting a sombre tinge at the same time on the ocean below.

"All hands shorten sail!" shouted the captain, and the studding-sail halliards being let go by the run, the _Josephine_, which a moment before had looked like a bird with outspread wings, had these latter clipped off in a jiffey, the light sails bagging with the wind like balloons as they were hauled down; and, soon afterwards, the booms projecting from the yard-arms on which they had been rigged out, were sent below and laid with the other spare spars along the bulwarks in the waist.

While the crew were busy at this task, the strong breeze, which but a short time before had filled our canvas, gradually died away until there did not seem to be a puff of air stirring, the larger sails now hanging loose or else flapping idly against the masts.

Captain Miles, however, did not stop merely at taking in the studding- sails, for the royals were next furled as well as the topgallant-sails; and then, under reefed topsails and courses, in addition to her jib and spanker which were still set, he awaited what the weather might have in store for his vessel. An experienced seaman, such as he was, when forewarned, as in the present instance, by a falling barometer, always prepares for eventualities of the worst possible character, never leaving anything to chance or neglecting to take proper precautions. By not doing so many a gallant ship with all hands on board is lost through the carelessness of bad navigators.

The cloud in the east, meanwhile, rose higher in the heavens, showing a bit of clear sky for a moment at its base, when it began to travel towards the ship at great speed, but in a very eccentric fashion, whirling round and looking as if it were dancing on the surface of the water.

"I can't make it out," said Mr Marline in a puzzled sort of way.

"There must be a good deal of wind at the back of it; but, why doesn't it keep a straight course towards us, eh sir?"

"It's a whirlwind, I fancy," replied Captain Miles; "I've seen a good many in the South Atlantic, near the African coast, although never one before in these lat.i.tudes so far from land."

"Are they dangerous at all, captain?" I asked, rather anxiously.

"No, Tom, not unless you got in the vortex of one, when it might twist the spars out of a ship perhaps, though I never saw any mischief done by one myself. Mind your helm," added Captain Miles to the man at the wheel, whose office at present was a sinecure, for the ship was almost becalmed and the rudder swaying to and fro from port to starboard as it listed. "If the wind catches us suddenly we may be taken aback, and I want you to be ready when I give the word."