Under the Great Bear
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Up Long Island Sound went the "Lavinia," and it was late that night before our lad turned in, so interested was he in watching the many lights that were pointed out by his new acquaintance. The next morning found the ship threading her way amid the shoals of Nantucket Sound, after which came the open sea; and for the first time in his life Cabot lost sight of land. Halifax was reached on the following day, and here the steamer remained twenty-four hours discharging freight.
The capital of Nova Scotia marks the half-way point between New York and St. Johns, Newfoundland, which name Cabot was already learning to pronounce as do its inhabitants—Newfund-land—and after leaving it the ship was again headed for the open across the wide mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Thus far the weather had been fine, the sea smooth, and nothing had occurred to break the pleasant monotony of the voyage. Its chief interests lay in sighting distant sails, the tell-tale smoke pennons of far-away steamers, the plume-like spoutings of sluggishly moving whales, the darting of porpoises about the ship's fore-foot, the wide circling overhead of gulls, or the dainty skimming just above the wave crests of Mother Carey's fluffy chickens.
"Who was Mother Carey," asked Cabot, "and why are they her chickens?"
"I have been told that she was the Mater Cara of devout Portuguese sailors," replied Captain Phinney, "and that these tiny sea-fowl are supposed to be under her especial protection, since the fiercest of gales have no power to harm them."
"How queerly names become changed and twisted out of their original shape," remarked Cabot meditatively. "The idea of Mater Cara becoming Mother Carey!"
"That is an easy change compared with some others I have run across," laughed the captain. "For instance, I once put up at an English seaport tavern called the 'Goat and Compasses,' and found out that its original name, given in Cromwell's time, had been 'God Encompasseth Us.' Almost as curious is the present name of that portion of the Newfoundland coast nearest us at this minute. It is called 'Ferryland,' which is a corruption of 'Verulam,' the name applied by its original owner, Lord Baltimore, in memory of his home estate in England. In fact, this region abounds in queerly twisted names, most of which were originally French. Bai d'espair, for instance, has become Bay Despair. Blanc Sablon and Isle du Bois up on the Labrador coast have been Anglicised as Nancy Belong and Boys' Island. Cape Race, which is almost within sight, was the Capo Razzo of its Portuguese discoverer. Cape Spear was Cappo Sperenza, and Pointe l'Amour is now Lammer's Point."
While taking part in conversations of this kind both Cabot and Mrs. Phinney, who were the only passengers now left on the ship, kept a sharp lookout for icebergs, which, as they had learned, were apt to be met in those waters at that season. Finally, during the afternoon of the last day they expected to spend on shipboard, a distant white speck dead ahead, which was at first taken for a sail, proved to be an iceberg, and from that moment it was watched with the liveliest curiosity. Before their rapid approach it developed lofty pinnacles, and proved of the most dazzling whiteness, save at the water line, where it was banded with vivid blue. It was exquisitely chiselled and carved into dainty forms by the gleaming rivulets that ran down its steep sides and fell into the sea as miniature cascades. So wonderfully beautiful were the icy details as they were successively unfolded, that the bride begged her husband to take his ship just as close as possible, in order that she might obtain a perfect photograph. Anxious to gratify her every wish, Captain Phinney readily consented, and the ship's course was slightly altered, so as to pass within one hundred feet of the glistening monster, which was now sharply outlined against a dark bank of fog rolling heavily in from the eastward.
Both cameras had been kept busy from the time the berg came within range of their finders, but just as the best point of view was reached, and when they were so near that the chill of the ice was distinctly felt, Cabot discovered that he had exhausted his roll of films. Uttering an exclamation of disgust, he ran aft and down to his stateroom, that opened from the lower saloon, to secure another cartridge. As he entered the room, he closed its door to get at his dress-suit case that lay behind it.
Recklessly tossing the contents of the case right and left, he had just laid hands on the desired object and was rising to his feet when, without warning, he was flung violently to the floor by a shock like that of an earthquake. It was accompanied by a dull roar and an awful sound of crashing and rending. At the same time the ship seemed to be lifted bodily. Then she fell back, apparently striking on her side, and for several minutes rolled with sickening lurches, as though in the trough of a heavy sea.
In the meantime Cabot was struggling furiously to open his stateroom door; but it had so jammed in its casing that his utmost efforts failed to move it. The steel deck beams overhead were twisted like willow wands, the iron side of the ship was crumpled as though it were a sheet of paper, and with every downward lurch a torrent of icy water poured in about the air port, which, though still closed, had been wrenched out of position. With a horrid dread the prisoner realised that unless quickly released he must drown where he was, and, unable to open the door, he began to kick at it with the hope of smashing one of its panels.
With his first effort in this direction there came another muffled roar like that of an explosion, and he felt the ship quiver as though it were being rent in twain. At the same moment his door flew open of its own accord, and he was nearly suffocated by an inrush of steam. Springing forward, and blindly groping his way through this, the bewildered lad finally reached the stairs he had so recently descended. In another minute he had gained the deck, where he stood gasping for breath and vainly trying to discover what terrible thing had happened.
Not a human being was to be seen, and the forward part of the ship was concealed beneath a dense cloud of steam and smoke that hung over it like a pall. Cabot fancied he could distinguish shouting in that direction, and attempted to gain the point from which it seemed to come; but found the way barred by a yawning opening in the deck, from which poured smoke and flame as though it were the crater of a volcano. Then he ran back, and at length found himself on top of the after house, cutting with his pocket knife at the lashings of a life raft; for he realised that the ship was sinking so rapidly that she might plunge to the bottom at any moment.
Five minutes later he lay prone on the buoyant raft, clutching the sides of its wooden platform, while it spun like a storm-driven leaf in the vortex marking the spot where the ill-fated. "Lavinia" had sunk.
CHAPTER IV.
ALONE ON THE LIFE RAFT
Anything less buoyant than a modern life raft, consisting of two steel cylinders stoutly braced and connected by a wooden platform, would have been drawn under by the deadly clutch of that swirling vortex. No open boat could have lived in it for a minute; and even the raft, spinning round and round with dizzy velocity, was sucked downward until it was actually below the level of the surrounding water. But, sturdily resisting the down-dragging force, its wonderful buoyancy finally triumphed, and as its rotary motion became less rapid, Cabot sat up and gazed about him with the air of one who has been stunned.
He was dazed by the awfulness of the catastrophe that had so suddenly overwhelmed the "Lavinia," and could form no idea of its nature. Had there been a collision? If so, it must have been with the iceberg, for nothing else had been in sight when he went below. Yet it was incredible that such a thing could have happened in broad daylight. The afternoon had been clear and bright; of that he was certain, though his surroundings were now shrouded by an impenetrable veil of fog. Through this he could see nothing, and from it came no sound save the moan of winds sweeping across a limitless void of waters.
What had become of his recent companions? Had they gone down with the ship, and was he sole survivor of the tragedy? At this thought the lad sprang to his feet, and shouted, calling his friends by name, and begging them not to leave him; but the only answer came in shape of mocking echoes hurled sharply back from close at hand. Looking in that direction, he dimly discerned a vast outline of darker substance than the enveloping mist. From it came also a sound of falling waters, and against it the sea was beating angrily. At the same time he was conscious of a deadly chill in the air, and came to a sudden comprehension that the iceberg, to which he attributed all his present distress, was still close at hand.
Its mere presence brought a new terror; for he knew that unless the attraction of its great bulk could be overcome, his little raft must speedily be drawn to it and dashed helplessly against its icy cliffs. This thought filled him with a momentary despair, for there seemed no possibility of avoiding the impending fate. Then his eyes fell on a pair of oars lashed, together with their metal rowlocks, to the sides of his raft. In another minute he had shipped these and was pulling with all his might away from that ill-omened neighbourhood.
The progress of his clumsy craft was painfully slow; but it did move, and at the end the dreaded ice monster was beyond both sight and hearing. The exercise of rowing had warmed Cabot as well as temporarily diverted his mind from a contemplation of the terrible scenes through which he had so recently passed. Now, however, as he rested on his oars, a full sense of his wretched plight came back to him, and he grew sick at heart as he realised how forlorn was his situation. He wondered if he could survive the night that was rapidly closing in on him, and, if he did, whether the morrow would find him any better off. He had no idea of the direction in which wind and current were drifting him, whether further out to sea or towards the land. He was again shivering with cold, he was hungry and thirsty, and so filled with terror at the black waters leaping towards him from all sides that he finally flung himself face downward on the wet platform to escape from seeing them.
When he next lifted his head he found himself in utter darkness, through which he fancied he could still hear the sound of waters dashing against frigid cliffs, and with an access of terror he once more sprang to his oars. Now he rowed with the wind, keeping it as directly astern as possible; nor did he pause in his efforts until compelled by exhaustion. Then he again lay down, and this time dropped into a fitful doze.
Waking a little later with chattering teeth, he resumed his oars for the sake of warming exercise, and again rowed as long as he was able. So, with alternating periods of weary work and unrefreshing rest, the slow dragging hours of that interminable night were spent. Finally, after he had given up all hope of ever again seeing a gleam of sunshine, a faint gray began to permeate the fog that still held him in its wet embrace, and Cabot knew that he had lived to see the beginnings of another day.
To make sure that the almost imperceptible light really marked the dawn, he shut his eyes and resolutely kept them closed until he had counted five hundred. Then he opened them, and almost screamed with the joy of being able to trace the outlines of his raft. Again and again he did this until at length the black night shadows had been fairly vanquished and only those of the fog remained.
With the assurance that day had fairly come, and that the dreaded iceberg was at least not close at hand, Cabot again sought forgetfulness of his misery in sleep. When he awoke some hours later, aching in every bone, and painfully hungry, he was also filled with a delicious sense of warmth; for the sun, already near its meridian, was shining as brightly as though no such things as fog or darkness had ever existed.
On standing up and looking about him, the young castaway was relieved to note that the iceberg from which he had suffered so much was no longer in sight. At the same time he was grievously disappointed that he could discover no sail nor other token that any human being save himself was abroad on all that lonely sea.
He experienced a momentary exhilaration when, on turning to the west, he discovered a dark far-reaching line that he believed to be land; but his spirits fell as he measured the distance separating him from it, and realised how slight a chance he had of ever gaining the coast. To be sure, the light breeze then blowing was in that direction, but it might change at any moment; and even with it to aid his rowing he doubted if his clumsy craft could make more than a mile an hour. Thus darkness would again overtake him ere he had covered more than half the required distance, though he should row steadily during the remainder of the day. He knew that his growing weakness would demand intervals of rest with ever-increasing frequency until utter exhaustion should put an end to his efforts; and then what would become of him? Still there was nothing else to be done; and, with a dogged determination to die fighting, if die he must, the poor lad sat down and resumed his hopeless task.
A life raft is not intended to be used as a rowboat, and is unprovided with either seats or foot braces. Being thus compelled to sit on the platform, Cabot could get so little purchase that half his effort was wasted, and the progress made was barely noticeable. During his frequent pauses for rest he stood up to gaze longingly at the goal that still appeared as far away as ever, and grew more unattainable as the day wore on. At length the sun was well down the western sky, across which it appeared to race as never before. As Cabot watched it, and vaguely wished for the power once given to Joshua, the bleakness of despair suddenly enfolded him, and his eyes became blurred with tears. He covered them with his hands to shut out the mocking sunlight, and sat down because he was too weak to stand any longer. He had fought his fight very nearly to a finish, and his strength was almost gone. He had perhaps brought his craft five miles nearer to the land than it was when he set out; but after all what had been the gain? Apparently there was none, and he would not further torture his aching body with useless effort.
In the meantime a small schooner, bringing with her a fair wind, was running rapidly down the coast, not many miles from where our poor lad so despairingly awaited the coming of night. That he had not seen her while standing up, was owing to the fact that her sails, instead of being white, were tanned a dull red, that blended perfectly with the colour of the distant shore line. A bright-faced, resolute chap, somewhat younger than Cabot, but of equally sturdy build, held the tiller, and regarded with evident approval the behaviour of his speeding craft.
"We'll make it, Dave," he cried, cheerily. "The old 'Sea Bee's' got the wings of 'em this time."
"Mebbe so," growled the individual addressed, an elderly man who stood in the companionway, with his head just above the hatch, peering forward under the swelling sails. "Mebbe so," he repeated, "and mebbe not. Steam's hard to beat on land or water, an' we be a far cry from Pretty Harbour yet. So fur that ef they're started they'll overhaul us before day, and beat us in by a good twelve hour. It's what I'm looking fur."
"Oh, pshaw!" replied the young skipper. "What a gammy old croaker you are. They won't start to-day, anyhow. But here, take her a minute, while I go aloft for one more look before sundown to make sure."
As the man complied with this request, and waddling aft took the tiller, his more active companion sprang into the main rigging and ran rapidly to the masthead, from which point of vantage he gazed back for a full minute over the course they had come.
"Not a sign," he shouted down at length. "But hello," he added to himself, "what's that?" With a glance seaward his keen eye had detected a distant floating object that was momentarily uplifted on the back of a long swell, and flashed white in the rays of the setting sun.
"Luff her, David! Hard down with your hellum, and trim in all," he shouted to the steersman. "There, steady, so."
"Wot's hup?" inquired the man a few minutes later, as the other rejoined him on deck.
"Don't know for sure; but there's something floating off there that looks like a bit of wreckage."
"An' you, with all your hurry, going to stop fur a closer look, and lose time that'll mebbe prove the most wallyable of your life," growled the man disgustedly. "Wal, I'll be jiggered!"
"So would I, if I didn't," replied the lad. "It was one of dad's rules never to pass any kind of a wreck without at least one good look at it, and so it's one of mine as well. There's what I'm after, now. See, just off the starboard bow. It's a raft, and David, there's a man on it, sure as you live. Look, he's standing up and waving at us. Now, he's down again! Poor fellow! In with the jib, David! Spry now, and stand by with a line. I'm going to round up, right alongside."
CHAPTER V.
WHITE BALDWIN AND HIS "SEA BEE."
The hour that preceded the coming of that heaven-sent schooner was the blackest of Cabot Grant's life, and as he sat with bowed head on the wet platform of his tossing raft he was utterly hopeless. He believed that he should never again hear a human voice nor tread the blessed land—yes, everything was ended for him, or very nearly so, and whatever record he had made in life must now stand without addition or correction. His thoughts went back as far as he could remember anything, and every act of his life was clearly recalled. How mean some of them now appeared; how thoughtless, indifferent, or selfish he had been in others. Latterly how he had been filled with a sense of his own importance, how he had worked and schemed for a little popularity, and now who would regret him, or give his memory more than a passing thought?
Thorpe Walling would say: "Served him right for throwing me over, as he did," and others would agree with him. Even Mr. Hepburn, who had doubtless given him a chance merely because he was his guardian, would easily find a better man to put in his place. Some cousins whom he had never seen nor cared to know would rejoice on coming into possession of his little property; and so, on the whole, his disappearance would cause more of satisfaction than regret. Most bitter of all was the thought that he would never have the opportunity of changing, or at least of trying to change, this state of affairs, since he had doubtless looked at the sun for the last time, and the blackness of an endless night was about to enfold him.
Had he really seen his last ray of sunlight and hope? No; it could not be. There must be a gleam left. The sun could not have set yet. He lifted his head. There was no sun to be seen. With a cry of terror he sprang to his feet, and, from the slight elevation thus gained, once more beheld the mighty orb of day, and life, and promise, crowning with a splendour infinitely beyond anything of this earth, the distant shore-line that he had striven so stoutly to gain.
Dazzled by its radiance, Cabot saw nothing else during the minute that it lingered above the horizon. Then, as it disappeared, he uttered another cry, but this time it was one of incredulous and joyful amazement, for close at hand, coming directly towards him from out the western glory, was a ship bearing a new lease of life and freighted with new opportunities.
The poor lad tried to wave his cap at the new-comers; but after a feeble attempt sank to his knees, overcome by weakness and gratitude. It was in that position they found him as the little schooner was rounded sharply into the wind, and, with fluttering sails, lay close alongside the drifting raft.
David flung a line that Cabot found strength to catch and hold to, while the young skipper of the "Sea Bee" sprang over her low rail and alighted beside the castaway just as the latter staggered to his feet with outstretched hand. The stranger grasped it tightly in both of his, and for a moment the two gazed into each other's eyes without a word. Cabot tried to speak, but something choked him so that he could not; and, noting this, the other said gently:
"It is all over now, and you are as safe as though you stood on dry land; so don't try to say anything till we've made you comfortable, for I know you must have had an almighty hard time."
"Yes," whispered Cabot. "I've been hungry, and thirsty, and wet, and cold, and scared; but now I'm only grateful—more grateful than I can ever tell."
A little later the life raft, its mission accomplished, was left to toss and drift at will, while the "Sea Bee," with everything set and drawing finely, was rapidly regaining her course, guided by the far-reaching flash of Cape Race light. In her dingy little cabin, which seemed to our rescued lad the most delightfully snug, warm, and altogether comfortable place he had ever entered, Cabot lay in the skipper's own bunk, regarding with intense interest the movements of that busy youth.
The latter had lighted a swinging lamp, started a fire in a small and very rusty galley stove, set a tea kettle on to boil, and a pan of cold chowder to re-warm. Having thus got supper well under way, he returned to the cabin, where he proceeded to set the table. The worst of Cabot's distress had already been relieved by a cup of cold tea and a ship's biscuit. Now, finding that he was able to talk, his host could no longer restrain his curiosity, but began to ask questions. He had already learned Cabot's name, and told his own, which was Whiteway Baldwin, "called White for short," he had added. Now he said:
"You needn't talk, if you don't feel like it, but I do wish you could tell how you came to be drifting all alone on that raft."
"A steamer that I was on was wrecked yesterday, and so far as I know I am the only survivor," answered Cabot.
"Goodness! You don't say so! What steamer was she, where was she bound, and what part of the coast was she wrecked on?"
"She was the 'Lavinia' from New York for St. Johns, and she wasn't wrecked on any part of the coast, but was lost at sea."
"Jiminetty! The 'Lavinia'! It don't seem possible. How did it happen? There hasn't been any gale. Did she blow up, or what?"
"I don't know," replied Cabot, "for I was down-stairs when it took place, and my stateroom door was jammed so that I couldn't get out for a long time. I only know that there was the most awful crash I ever heard, and it seemed as though the ship were being torn to pieces. Then there came an explosion, and when I got on deck the ship was sinking so fast that I had only time to cut loose the raft before she went down."
"What became of the others?" asked White excitedly.
"I am afraid they were drowned, for I heard them shouting just before she sank, but there was such a cloud of steam, smoke, and fog that I couldn't see a thing, and after it was all over I seemed to be the only one left."
"Wasn't there a rock or ship or anything she might have run into?" asked the young skipper, whose tanned face had grown pale as he listened to this tale of sudden disaster.
"There was an iceberg," replied Cabot, "but when I went down-stairs it wasn't very close, and the sun was shining, so that it was in plain sight."
"That must be what she struck, though," declared the other. Then he thrust his head up the companionway and shouted: "Hear the news, Dave. The 'Lavinia's' lost with all on board, except the chap we've just picked up."
"What happened her?" asked the man laconically.
"He says she ran into an iceberg in clear day, bust up, and sank with all hands, inside of a minute."
"Rot!" replied the practical sailor. "The 'Laviny' had collision bulkheads, and couldn't have sunk in no sich time, ef she could at all. 'Sides Cap'n Phinney ain't no man to run down a berg in clear day, nor yet in the night, nor no other time. He's been on this coast and the Labrador run too long fur any sich foolishness. No, son, ef the 'Laviny's' lost, which mind, I don't say she ain't, she's lost some other way 'sides that, an' you can tell your friend so with my compliments."