Young Tom Bowling Part 20

Luckily for the sour-tempered chap, whom I had time to reckon up since I had been on board the corvette, the commodore did not hear what he said, or he would most probably, officer of the watch though he might be, have given him a 'dressing down' before us all.

The fact of our having sighted the _Ruby_ had already been communicated by one of the midshipmen to our chief, who was down in his cabin having a rest, never having left the deck either day or night, I believe, since the gale overtook us; and, as soon as we got within signalling distance, he ordered the yeoman at the signal halliards to make our number.

Although the weather was becoming finer, as I have said, the wind was still gusty and chopping about between the east and nor'-east quadrants; and, hardly had our pennant been run up to the mizzen truck than the 'fly' of the flag got foul of the halliards.

"Hi, boy!" cried Lieutenant Robinson, wishing to be very smart, now the commodore was on deck. "'Way aloft there and free that flag!"

I thought he spoke to me, and jumped towards the weather shrouds to obey the order, but as I got into the rigging I saw 'Ugly' was before me.

He was in the chains and on his way up to the top before the lieutenant spoke, and naturally he had first addressed him.

'Ugly,' however, was so sluggish in his movements through the corvette rolling a bit and the ratlines being none too steady, that Lieutenant Robinson grew impatient.

"Here, you boy!" he roared at me even louder than Jones had spoken to him shortly before. "See if you can't teach that lubber how to climb aloft and free a flag when he is told, without taking a month of Sundays over the job!"

Almost before he had spoken I had sprung into the rigging after 'Ugly'; and by the time the lieutenant's last word was uttered I was more than half-way up to the top, overhauling 'Ugly' at the crosstrees.

From thence, he and I proceeded upward, he on one side of the mast, I on the other, and neither speaking a word as we shinned up the 'Jacob's ladder.'

So we climbed up to the cap of the topgallant-mast in company; but, as far apart as the poles, though so close together.

Then, each of us set about in his own fashion, without minding the other, to disentangle the fly of the pennant, which had been whipped by the wind round the halliards till it had formed itself into half a dozen granny's knots.

We were holding on to the royal lift and brace, both of us, each with one hand while with the other we tried to unloose the closely knotted bunting, our faces almost touching each other, and still without ever saying a word; when, all at once, through some one having neglected his duty when the topgallant-mast was sent aloft after the gale, the ends of the lift and brace slipped off the jack, to which they had been only loosely secured, leaving 'Ugly' and I suspended in the air partly by the signal halliards and partly by the flag, which latter parted with a ripping sound that I hear now in my ears as I speak of it. Aye, and as I always shall hear it, I believe!

I heard also at the time, confused cries and orders from below, singing out I know not what.

My companion's face was close to mine as we swung from the feeble cord and more fragile stuff that interposed between us and eternity; a fall to the deck beneath or into the sea meaning death in one way or the other, either by drowning or by a more cruel fate.

I could see into his very soul, I think, at that awful moment, and he into mine!

It all occurred in an instant, recollect!

But in that instant 'Ugly' had time to break the silence that had existed between us since our fight on the forecastle of the _Saint Vincent_ and my rescue of him aboard the same ship later on.

He spoke to me, at last, now.

"To-am Bowlin'," whispered he hoa.r.s.ely, "two chaps can't hang on yere fur long. I'll give oop fur 'ee, me lad. Here goes!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

"HIS LAST MUSTER!"

On that, the n.o.ble fellow, who thus unselfishly sacrificed his life for mine, fell with a whiz through the air that seemed to send the wind up into my face, down to the deck below.

Cannoning against the rigging on the port side, he was caught up in the belly of the mizzen-top sail, which slightly stopped the impetus of his descent, but, the concussion broke his spine, and when I, pale, trembling, and almost as lifeless as he, coming down from aloft, I hardly know how, reached his side, the doctor, who was bending over him and applying stimulants, said he had only a few moments longer to live.

The chaplain, too, was there, having been hastily summoned from his duties of instructing the young middies in the wardroom; as also was the commodore, with a graver face on him than I had ever seen before.

I don't know whether he heard my step, or the cry I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed when the doctor spoke of his approaching end.

Whatever it was, something made my dying shipmate open his eyes just then, his glance wandering round the circle of those near.

"What is it, my poor lad?" asked the chaplain kindly, stooping down, so as to hear better any request he might make. "Is there anything you would like done or said for you?"

He was thinking, good man, no doubt, of offering up a prayer.

But the mind of Moses Reeks--to call him by his right name, and drop the somewhat opprobrious sobriquet by which I have hitherto styled the poor fellow, and by which, indeed, he was always known on board--was still bent on things terrestrial; though, possibly, his motive might have been as high and had as divine a source as anything the chaplain might have intended to say!

His eyes lighted on me and their wandering ceased.

"Coom here, lad," he whispered very faintly, so very faintly that his lips seemed to give out no sound at all. "Coom here!"

I heard, though, and went to his side, listening earnestly, for I could not speak.

He did not notice this, however, making up, with his slowly ebbing senses, what he wished himself to say.

"To-am Bowlin'," he faltered out in lisping accents with his failing breath, "ye've done Oi a toorn wanst, lad, an' I wer an oongrateful cur to 'ee, thet Oi wer, ez Oi didn't warnt fur to be a-beholden to yer; but you a' me, To-am, be naow quits, lad!"

As he thus spoke, a smile irradiated his rough-hewn features, making them look positively beautiful; and, with the last word he uttered, his spirit fled, with a sigh that was stifled in its birth.

The commodore uncovered his head in the presence of Death--the superior officer of even one flying the broad pennant and the personal representative of her Majesty wherever the broad red cross of Saint George, borne on that oblong flag, may float.

At that moment the ship's bugler forwards sounded the 'a.s.sembly.'

"Peace to his spirit, poor boy," said our chief solemnly. "He's gone to his last muster!"

It was Two Bells in the first dog-watch before the _Ruby_ closed with us sufficiently to speak with us; when she reported that she had parted with the other ships of the squadron even before she had lost sight of us at the commencement of the gale, not seeing anything of them since.

Her commander also informed the commodore that they had lost two men overboard while reefing topsails in a squall, the sea running so high that it was impossible to lower a boat to save them.

We, in our turn, told of poor 'Ugly's' heroic end: and, as it was approaching sunset, his body was sewn up in his hammock, with a shot fastened to the feet, and committed to the deep.

All hands were present while the chaplain read the funeral service on the quarter-deck: and, as the grating on which the poor fellow's remains rested, covered for the moment with the Union Jack, was canted through the port and its lifeless burden went below with a splash, to its last resting-place until the sea shall give up its dead, the waning sun dipped below the horizon.

We then squared yards and bore away straight for Madeira, with the _Ruby_ keeping company on our lee beam; the wind having sobered down now to a good ten-knot breeze, and the weather all that one could wish, getting warmer with every hour of south lat.i.tude that we made.

Everybody was jolly that evening as we bowled along before the spanking breeze, fresh sail being set every watch, until the corvette was presently clothed in canvas from truck to keelson, the commodore wishing to take every advantage of the fair wind we had; but, though all the rest, sailor-like, were laughing and joking on the mess-deck forwards, I could not so soon forget the poor chap who had gone, his n.o.ble self- sacrifice being ever in my mind.

It was strange that reserved, unforgiving, and yet not unforgetful temperament of his!

I saw now, when too late, that he had not been quite oblivious of my having saved him that time on board the _Saint Vincent_ when he so nearly tumbled from aloft. He had not been ungrateful, as Mick and I thought him, evidently.

On the contrary, the obligation he believed himself to be under to me had so weighed upon him that he was too proud to speak until he had cleared it off, so, he apparently fancied, to be able to treat with me on level terms.

Mick Donovan had not been on deck when the tragic occurrence happened; but he was almost as much impressed as myself when I told him of our shipmate's last words.