The Lifeboat
- -
- 100%
- +
“Come, lay hold,” he cried savagely.
But no one would obey, so, uttering a curse upon his comrades, he passed the rope round a stanchion, and with his right hand partially hoisted the sail, while with his left he hauled in the slack of the rope.
The vessel, already staggering under much too great a press of canvas, now rushed through the water with terrific speed; burying her bows in foam at one moment, and hurling off clouds of spray at the next as she held on her wild course. Job stood on the bowsprit, drenched with spray, holding with one hand to the forestay, and waving the other high above his head, cheering and yelling furiously as if he were daring the angry sea to come on, and do its worst.
Jim, now unable to speak or act from terror, clung to the starboard bulwarks, while Bunks stood manfully at the helm. Tommy held on to the mainmast shrouds, and gazed earnestly and anxiously out ahead.
Thus they flew, they knew not whither, for several hours that night.
Towards morning, a little before daybreak, the gale began to moderate. Job’s mood had changed. His wild yelling fit had passed away, and he now ranged about the decks in moody silence, like a chained tiger; going down every now and then to drink, but never resting for a moment, and always showing by his looks that he had his eye on Tommy Bogey.
The poor boy knew this well, and watched him intently the whole of that terrible night.
Bunks, who had never once quitted his post, began to yawn, and suggested to Jim that he might take a spell at the helm now, when the progress of the schooner was suddenly arrested with a shock so violent that those on board were hurled prostrate on the deck, the fore-topmast snapped and went over the side, carrying the main-topmast and the jib-boom along with it, and the sea made a clean breach over the stern, completely sweeping the deck.
Job, who chanced to have gone down below, was hurled against the cabin bulkhead, and the glass bottle he held to his lips was shivered to atoms. With his face cut and bleeding he sprang up the companion-ladder.
“On the rocks!” he shouted.
“On the sand, anyhow,” answered Bunks.
“The boat! the boat! she won’t last ten minutes,” cried Jim.
One of the two boats belonging to the “Butterfly” had been washed away by the last wave, the other remained in its place. To this the three men rushed, and launched it quickly into the water. Job was first to get into it.
“Jump in, jump in,” he cried to the others, who were prompt enough to obey.
Tommy Bogey stood motionless and silent close to the main-mast. His face was very pale; but a stern pursing of the lips and compression of the eyebrows showed that it was not cowardly fear that blanched his cheek.
“The boy! the boy!” cried Bunks, as Job let go his hold of the schooner.
A wild stern laugh from Job showed that he had made up his mind to leave Tommy to perish.
“Shame!” cried Jim, seizing one of the oars; “pull, Bunks, pull to wind’ard a bit; we’ll drop down and save him yet. Pull, you murderer!” shouted Jim, with a burst of anger so sudden and fierce that Job was cowed. He sat down and obeyed.
The boat was very small, and might have been easily pulled by so strong a crew in ordinary circumstances; but the strength of wind and sea together was so great, that they were in great danger of being swamped, and it required their utmost efforts to pull a few yards to windward of the schooner.
“Now then, look out!” cried Jim, endeavouring to turn the boat.
As he said this a wave caught its side and upset it. The men uttered a loud cry; a moment later, and they were swept against the bow of the “Butterfly.” Tommy had sprung to the side, caught up a rope, and cast it over. Bunks did not see it; he made a wild grasp at the smooth wet side of the vessel, but his hands found nothing to lay hold of, and he was carried quickly away to leeward. Jim caught the rope, but was brought up so suddenly by it that it was torn from his grasp. He also went to leeward and perished.
Job had caught hold of the cutwater, and, digging his fingers into the wood, held on by main strength for a few minutes.
“Here, lay hold o’ the rope,” cried Tommy, whose only desire now was to save the life of the wretched man; “there, don’t you feel it?”
He had rubbed the rope against Job’s face in order to let him know it was there, but the man seemed to have lost all power to move. He simply maintained his death-grip until his strength gave way. Tommy understood his case, and looked quickly round for one of those ring-shaped lifebuoys which we are accustomed to see in our passenger steamers tied up so securely that they would in most cases of sudden emergency be utterly useless. But the owners of the “Butterfly” were economists. They did not think life-preserving worth the expenditure of a few shillings, so there was no lifebuoy to be found. There was a round cork fender, however, which the boy seized and flung into the sea, just as Job’s grasp loosened. He uttered a wild shriek, and tossed up his arms imploringly, as he was carried away. The buoy fell close beside him, and he caught it. But it was scarce sufficient to sustain his weight, and merely prolonged the agonising struggle. Tommy soon lost sight of him in the darkness. Soon after there arose a wild fierce cry, so loud and strong that it seemed to have been uttered at the boy’s elbow. Tommy shuddered, for it suggested the idea of a despairing soul.
He listened intently, and twice again that thrilling cry broke on his ear, but each time more faintly. Still he continued to listen for it with a feeling of horror, and once or twice fancied that he heard it rising above the turmoil of wind and waves. Long before he ceased to listen in expectancy, the murderer’s dead body lay tossing in that great watery grave in which so many of the human race—innocent and guilty alike—lie buried.
Ere long Tommy was called to renewed exertion and trial.
The tide happened to be rising when the schooner struck. While the incidents above related were taking place, the “Butterfly” was being dashed on the sand so violently, that her breaking up in the course of a short time was a matter of certainty. Tommy knew this well, but he did not give way to despair. He resolved not to part with his young life without a struggle, and therefore cast about in his mind what was best to be done.
His first idea was to construct a raft. He had just begun this laborious work when the rising tide lifted the schooner over the sand-bank, and sent her off into deep water. This raised Tommy’s hopes and spirits to an unnaturally high pitch; he trimmed the foresail—the only one left—as well as he could, and then, seizing the tiller, kept the vessel running straight before the wind.
Standing thus at the helm he began to reflect on his position, and the reflection did not tend to comfort him. He was out in a gale on the stormy sea, without companions, without compass to guide him, and steering he knew not whither—possibly on rocks or shoals. This latter idea induced him to attempt to lie-to till day-break, but the crippled condition of the schooner rendered this impossible. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to run before the gale.
In a short time his attention was attracted to a peculiar sound in the hold. On examination he found that the vessel had sprung a leak, and that the water was rising slowly but steadily. The poor boy’s heart sank, and for the first time his courage began to give way; but quickly recovering himself he lashed the helm in position, and manfully set to work at the pump. He was somewhat relieved to find that the leak was small. In an hour he had pumped out nearly all the water. Then he returned to the helm and rested there for an hour, at the end of which the water in the hold had increased so much that he had to ply the pump again.
The day broke while he was thus engaged, but the morning was so thick that he could see no land. On returning to the helm the second time, Tommy felt that this state of things could not go on much longer. The excitement, the watching, the horrors of the past night were beginning to tell on him. His muscles were exhausted, and he felt an irresistible desire to sleep. He struggled against this till about noon, by which time the wind had moderated to a steady breeze, and the sun shone through the mist as if to cheer him up a little.
He had eaten nothing for many hours, as he did not dare to quit his post to go below for food, lest the schooner should come suddenly on some other vessel and be run down. Hunger and exhaustion, however, soon rendered him desperate; he ran below, seized a handful of biscuit, filled a can with water, and returned hastily on deck to break his fast. It was one of the sweetest meals he ever ate, and refreshed him so much that he was able to go on alternately steering and pumping till late in the afternoon. Then he suddenly broke down. Exhausted nature could bear up no longer. He lashed the helm, pumped out the water in the hold for the last time, and went below to rest.
He was half asleep as he descended the companion-ladder. A strange and sad yet dreamy feeling that everything he did was “for the last time,” weighed heavily on his spirit, but this was somehow relieved by the knowledge that he was now at last about to rest! There was delight in that simple thought, though there mingled with it a feeling that the rest would terminate in death; he lay down to sleep with a feeling that he lay down to die, and a half-formed prayer escaped his lips as his wearied head fell upon the pillow.
Instantly he was buried in deep repose.
The sun sank in the ocean, the stars came out and spangled all the sky, and the moon rose and sank again, but Tommy lay, regardless of everything, in profound slumber. Again the sun arose on a sea so calm that it seemed like oil, ascended into the zenith, and sank towards its setting. Still the boy continued to sleep, his young head resting quietly on the pillow of the dead skipper; his breath coming gently and regularly through the half-opened lips that smiled as if he were resting in peace on his mother’s bosom.
Being dashed on the rocks, or run into by steamers, or whelmed in the waves, were ideas that troubled him not, or, if they did, they were connected only with the land of dreams. Thus the poor boy rested calmly in the midst of danger—yet in safety, for the arm of God was around him.
Chapter Eighteen.
The Antipodes
A new scene breaks upon us now, patient reader. We are among the antipodes in that vast and wonderful region where the kangaroo reigns in the wilderness, and gold is sown broadcast in the land. The men we see are, to a large extent, the same men we saw before leaving the shores of Old England, but they are wonderfully changed! Red flannel shirts, long boots, leathern belts, felt hats, and unshorn chins meet us at every turn; so do barrows and pick-axes and shovels. It seems as if we had got into a region inhabited solely by navvies. Many of them, however, appear to be very gentlemanly navvies!
There are no ladies here; scarcely any females at all, for we have left the thriving settlements of Australia far behind us, and are now wandering over the Daisy Hill gold-diggings. The particular section of that busy spot to which our attention is directed at this moment, is named the “Kangaroo Flats.”
None but strong men can get on here. Let us go forward, and see how they obtain this yellow metal that turns the world upside down!
Here is a man issuing from a hole in the earth close at our feet, like a huge ground-squirrel. He is tall; stout, and fair, with broad shoulders and a fine manly countenance, which is ornamented by a thick beard and moustache of glossy yellow hair. The silken curly hair of this man, contrasted with his great size and manliness, is very striking. He seats himself on a mass of clay, wipes the perspiration from his forehead, and shouts to some one down in the earth.
“Hallo! Jack, let’s hoist out the stuff now.”
“Ay, ay, Harry,” replies a strong voice, with a sailor-like ring in it, from below, “I’ll be on deck in a jiffy.”
Let us descend and look at this miner. The hole is narrow and deep; at the bottom of it is a dark tunnel two feet broad, between two and three feet high, and twenty-five feet long. At the farther extremity of it crouches a man with a pickaxe in his hands, and a candle beside him. It is a very awkward position in which to work, and the result is that this man pants and blows and sighs, and sometimes laughs quietly to himself at the comicality of his attitudes, while the perspiration pours over his face in large beads continuously. It seems very hard work, and so, indeed, it is, but the man is an unusually big and strong fellow, larger even than his fair companion above ground. His hair is short, black, and curly, as are his beard and whiskers, but at this moment his whole head and face are so besmeared with clay that his aspect is piebald and not more becoming than his attitude. Still, there is a massive grandeur in the outline of his features which cannot be destroyed by incrustations of clay, although his complexion is obscured by it.
Like his comrade above, his costume consists of flannel shirt, dark trousers, and big boots. His shirt sleeves being rolled up to the shoulders, display a pair of arms that a sculptor might gaze on with admiration.
This strong man pants and gasps more than ever with the heat as he drives the pick and tears up the earth for gold. Presently the candle burns dim; the air is getting foul.
“Hallo, the candle’s going out!” cries the dark miner, scrambling towards the bottom of the shaft on his hands and knees.
“Ha! time to take a mouthful o’ fresh air, Jack,” remarks the fair miner, looking into the hole.
In another moment a wild dishevelled clay-bespattered figure comes to the surface, rises like a giant out of the earth, and the countenance and proportions of our friend John Bax are revealed, in spite of the strange costume and black moustache and beard and incrustations of clay which more than half disguise him.
“Whew! how hot it is,” said Bax, as he stepped out of the hole.
“You may say that,” observed his friend, rising; “but come along, Jack, let’s get up the stuff and wash out as much as we can before dinner. Mind, you’ve got to write home this afternoon, and won’t be able to help me much in the evening.”
“Come along then,” said Bax, going to work again with redoubled energy.
There was a windlass over the hole by which the clay was raised to the surface. Bax wrought at this, and his mate went below to fill the buckets. Then they washed it out, and flooded away cartloads of worthless soil, until a small residue of clear shining particles remained behind. This they gathered carefully together, added it to the bag that held their fortune, remarked that there were “no nuggets this time,” and that it was “hard work and little pay;” after which they flung down their tools, washed their hands and faces, and went into their tent to dine.
Thus did Bax and his mate (an old acquaintance unexpectedly met with after arrival in Australia) dig, and sweat, and toil for gold.
But Bax and his friend worked thus hard, only because it was their nature so to work at whatever their hands found to do. They had not set their hearts upon the gold.
After dinner Harry went out to drive his pick and shovel. Bax remained in the tent to drive the quill.
That night the two friends lay chatting and smoking in their tent after supper, with a solitary candle between them, and the result of the day’s work—a small pile of shining dust—before them.
“We’ll not make our fortunes at this rate,” observed Harry, with a sigh.
“There’s no saying what good fortune may be in store for us,” observed Bax; “but put away the gold, it will do us no good to gaze at it.”
Harry rolled the little heap in a piece of paper, and tossed it into the leathern bag which contained their earnings.
“Come now,” said he, replenishing his pipe, “let’s hear the letter, Bax, who d’ye say’s the friend you’ve written to?”
“He’s a boy,” said Bax, “Tommy Bogey by name, of which name, by the way, he has no reason to be proud—but he’s a first-rate fellow, and I fear will have set me down as a faithless friend, for I left him without saying good-bye, and the letter I wrote to him on my arrival here went to the bottom with the unfortunate ship that carried it. However, here is the epistle. I’m open to correction, Harry, if you think any part of it not ship-shape.”
“All right,” said Harry, “go ahead.”
Bax read as follows:—
“Kangaroo Flats, Daisy Hill Diggings,
“Australia, 10th January, 18—.
“My Dear Tommy,—The mail is just about to leave us, so I write to let you know where I am and what doing—also to tell you that I have just heard of the wreck of the ship that conveyed my first letter to you, which will account for my apparent neglect.
“Gold digging is anything but a paying affair, I find, and it’s the hardest work I’ve ever had to do. I have only been able to pay my way up to this time. Everything is fearfully dear. After deducting the expenses of the last week for cartage, sharpening picks, etcetera, I and my mate have just realised 15 shillings each; and this is the first week we have made anything at all beyond what was required for our living. However, we live and work on in the hope of turning up a nugget, or finding a rich claim, singing—though we can’t exactly believe—‘There’s a good time coming.’” Here Bax paused. “I won’t read the next paragraph,” said he, with a smile, “because it’s about yourself, Harry, so I’ll skip.”
Nevertheless, reader, as we wish you to hear that passage, we will make Bax read on.
“My mate, Harry Benton, is an old schoolfellow, whom I met with accidentally in Melbourne. We joined at once, and have been together ever since. I hope that nothing may occur to part us. You would like him, Tommy. You’ve no idea what a fine, gentle, lion-like fellow he is, with a face like a true, bold man in expression, and like a beautiful woman in form. I’m not up to pen-and-ink description, Tommy, but I think you’ll understand me when I say he’s got a splendid figure-head, a strong frame, and a warm heart.
“Poor fellow, he has had much sorrow since he came out here. He is a widower, and brought out his little daughter with him, an only child, whose sweet face was once like sunshine in our tent. Not long ago this pretty flower of the desert sickened, drooped, and died, with her fair head on her father’s bosom. For a long time afterwards Harry was inconsolable; but he took to reading the Bible, and the effect of that has been wonderful. We read it regularly every night together, and no one can tell what comfort we have in it, for I too have had sorrow of a kind which you could not well understand, unless I were to go into an elaborate explanation. I believe that both of us can say, in the words of King David, ‘It was good for me that I was afflicted.’
“I should like very much that you and he might meet. Perhaps you may one of these days! But, to go on with my account of our life and doings here.”
(It was at this point that Bax continued to read the letter aloud.)
“The weather is tremendously warm. It is now (10th January) the height of summer, and the sun is unbearable; quite as hot as in India, I am told; especially when the hot winds blow. Among other evils, we are tormented with thousands of fleas. Harry stands them worse than I do,” (“untrue!” interrupted Harry), “but their cousins the flies are, if possible, even more exasperating. They resemble our own house flies in appearance—would that they were equally harmless! Myriads of millions don’t express their numbers more than ten expresses the number of the stars. They are the most persevering brutes you ever saw. They creep into your eyes, run up your nose, and plunge into your mouth. Nothing will shake them off, and the mean despicable creatures take special advantage of us when our hands are occupied in carrying buckets of gold-dust, or what, alas! ought to be gold-dust, but isn’t! On such occasions we shake our heads, wink our eyes, and snort and blow at them, but all to no purpose—there they stick and creep, till we get our hands free to attack them.
“A change must be coming over the weather soon, for while I write, the wind is blowing like a gale out of a hot oven, and is shaking the tent, so that I fear it will come down about my ears. It is a curious fact that these hot winds always blow from the north, which inclines me to think there must be large sandy deserts in the interior of this vast continent. We don’t feel the heat through the day, except when we are at the windlass drawing up the pipeclay, or while washing our ‘stuff,’ for we are generally below ground ‘driving.’ But, although not so hot as above, it is desperately warm there too, and the air is bad.
“Our drives are two and a half feet high by about two feet broad at the floor, from which they widen a little towards the top. As I am six feet three in my stockings, and Harry is six feet one, besides being, both of us, broader across the shoulders than most men, you may fancy that we get into all sorts of shapes while working. All the ‘stuff’ that we drive out we throw away, except about six inches on the top where the gold lies, so that the quantity of mullock, as we call it, or useless material hoisted out is very great. There are immense heaps of it lying at the mouth of our hole. If we chose to liken ourselves to gigantic moles, we have reason to be proud of our mole-hills! All this ‘stuff’ has to be got along the drives, some of which are twenty-five feet in length. One of us stands at the top, and hoists the stuff up the shaft in buckets. The other sits and fills them at the bottom.
“This week we have taken out three cart-loads of washing stuff, which we fear will produce very little gold. Of course it is quite dark in the drives, so we use composition candles. Harry drives in one direction, I in another, and we hammer away from morning till night. The air is often bad, but not explosive. When the candles burn low and go out, it is time for us to go out too and get fresh air, for it makes us blow terribly, and gives us sore eyes. Three-fourths of the people here are suffering from sore eyes; the disease is worse this season than it has been in the memory of the oldest diggers.
“We have killed six or seven snakes lately. They are very numerous, and the only things in the country we are absolutely afraid of! You have no idea of the sort of dread one feels on coming slap upon one unexpectedly. Harry put his foot on one yesterday, but got no hurt. They are not easily seen, and their bite is always fatal.
“From all this you will see that a gold-digger’s life is a hard one, and worse than that, it does not pay well. However, I like it in the meantime, and having taken it up, I shall certainly give it a fair trial.
“I wish you were here, Tommy; yet I am glad you are not. To have you and Guy in the tent would make our party perfect, but it would try your constitutions I fear, and do you no good mentally, for the society by which we are surrounded is anything but select.
“But enough of the gold-fields. I have a lot of questions to ask and messages to send to my old friends and mates at Deal.”
At this point the reading of the letter was interrupted by an uproar near the tent. High above the noise the voice of a boy was heard in great indignation.
For a few minutes Bax and his friend did not move; they were too much accustomed to scenes of violence among the miners to think of interfering, unless things became very serious.
“Come, Bill, let him alone,” cried a stern voice, “the lad’s no thief, as you may see if you look in his face.”
“I don’t give a straw for looks and faces,” retorted Bill, who seemed to have caused the uproar, “the young rascal came peeping into my tent, and that’s enough for me.”
“What!” cried the boy, in an indignant shout, “may I not search through the tents to find a friend without being abused by every scoundrel who loves his gold so much that he thinks every one who looks at him wants to steal it? Let me go, I say!”
At the first words of this sentence Bax started up with a look of intense surprise. Before it was finished he had seized a thick stick, and rushed from the tent, followed by his mate.
In two seconds they reached the centre of a ring of disputants, in the midst of which a big, coarse-looking miner held by the collar the indignant lad, who proved to be an old and truly unexpected acquaintance.