The Edward S. Ellis Megapack

by Edward S. Ellis

Under the united propulsion of three men and a large Newfoundland dog, the small raft moved shoreward with no insignificant speed. It was found amply sufficient to preserve them all from drowning had none known how to swim, provided they managed the matter prudently. There is so little difference in the quantity of water and the human body, that a slight effort, if properly made, will keep it afloat. The trouble with new beginners is that when they first go beyond their depth their blind struggles tend to carry them downward more than upward.

  “This is rather pleasant,” remarked Mr. Yard. “There is little doubt, I think, of reaching land. There is only one thing that makes the shivers run over me.”

  “What is that?”

  “The thought of sharks!”

  “Ugh! Why did you spake of them?” asked Tim, with a strong expression of disgust. “I’ve been thinking of ’em ever since I’ve been in the water, but I didn’t want to skeer the boys.”

  “They never once entered my head,” said Howard.

  “Nor mine either,” added Elwood. “Are they in this part of the ocean?”

  “You will find them in almost every part of the sea, I was going to say. They abound off the coast of California.”

  “But it is night, and they will not be apt to see!”

  “This fire and the numbers of drowning people will draw hundreds of the finny inhabitants toward us. You know a fire at night is sure to attract fish.”

  “You seem determined to frighten us,” said Howard, “but I shall continue to think that God who has so mercifully saved us intends to save us to the end.”

  “Perhaps so, too, but it does no harm to understand all the dangers to which we are subject.”

  “I believe with Howard,” said Elwood. “I ain’t afraid of sharks, but for all that, they are ugly creatures. They swim under you and the first thing you know clip goes one of your legs off, just the same as a pair of snuffers would clip off a piece of wick.”

  “They are the hyenas of the sea,” said Howard, “although I believe some kinds are stupid and harmless. I think I have heard them called that by somebody, I don’t remember who. They will snap up anything that is thrown to them.”

  “Wouldn’t it make their eyes water to come this way then? Jis’ to think of their saaing four pair of legs dancing over their hids, not to spake of the dog that could come in by way of dessart.”

  “O Tim! keep still, it is too dreadful!”

  “Worrah! it wasn’t meself that introduced the subject, but as yez have got started, I’ve no objection to continue the same.”

  “Let us try and talk about something more pleasant—”

  “A shark! a shark!” suddenly screamed Elwood, springing half his length out of the water in his excitement.

  “Where?” demanded Mr. Yard, while the others were speechless with terror.

  “He has hold of my leg! O, save me, for he is pulling me under!”

  There was danger for a moment that all would go to the bottom, but Mr. Yard displayed a remarkable coolness that saved them all.

  “It is not a shark,” said he, “or he would have had your leg off before this.”

  “What is it then? What can it be?”

  “It is a drowning man that has caught your foot as he was going down. You must kick him off or he will drown you. Has he one foot or both?”

  “My left ankle is grasped by something.”

  “That is good; if he had hold of both feet it would be bad for you. Use your free foot and force his grasp loose.”

  Elwood did so with such vigor that he soon had the inexpressible relief of announcing that the drag weight was loosed and his limbs were free again.

  “That is terrible,” said he, as they resumed their progress. “Just to think of being seized in that way by some poor fellow who, I don’t suppose, really knew what he was doing.”

  “How came he there?” asked Howard.

  “You see, we ain’t far from where the steamer sunk, and there may be more near us. This man has gone down just as we were passing by him, and in his blind struggles has caught your ankle.”

  “If a drowning man will catch at a straw, wouldn’t he be after catching at a leg?” inquired Tim.

  “It seems natural that he should do so; but we are in the most dangerous place we could be. Let’s keep a sharp lookout.”

  Our friends peered in every direction, as they rose and sunk on the long, heaving swell of the sea. They saw pieces of charred wood and fragments of the wreck, but caught sight of no human being until Mr. Yard pointed, to a dark mass some distance away.

  “That is a raft covered with people,” said he.

  “They seem to be standing still.”

  “Yes, they merely want to keep afloat until morning, when no doubt they will be picked up and cared for. Keep quiet, for if we talk too loud some one may start for us.”

  “And work hard,” whispered Tim, struggling harder than ever. “Aich of yees shove like a locomotive.”

  “Good advice,” added Mr. Yard, in the same cautions undertone. “Let’s get away as fast as possible.”

  Hour after hour the men toiled, following the moon, that appeared to recede from them as they advanced. They had passed safely the debris of the wrecked steamer, and were again talking loudly and rather cheerfully, when Tim O’Rooney interrupted them:

  “Yonder is something flowting in the darkness.”

  “It is a boat full of people,” said Mr. Yard. “I have noticed it for the last few minutes.”

  All turned their eyes toward the spot indicated, and agreed that Mr. Yard was correct in his supposition.

  “I will hail it,” he quietly added, and then called out: “Boat ahoy!”

  “What do you want?” came back in a gruff voice.

  “Can you take four drowning passengers on board?”

  “Not much,” was the unfeeling answer, “Paddle away and you’ll reach California one of these days.”

  “How far are we from it?”

  “Double the distance, divide by two, and you’ll have it.”

  Nothing further was extracted from the men, but they could be heard laughing and talking boisterously with each other, and the odor of their pipes was plainly detected, so close were the parties.

  “Thank heaven, we are not dependent upon them!” said Mr. Yard. “If we were, we should fare cruelly indeed.”

  “Who are they?”

  “A part of the crew of the steamer, who seized the boat at the first appearance of danger, and left the helpless to perish.”

  An hour later, long after the boat had disappeared, and when our friends were toiling bravely forward, a low, dark object directly in front attracted their notice.

  “What is it?” whispered Elwood.

  “It is land!” was the joyful reply. “I am walking upon the sand this minute, and you can do the same!”

  CHAPTER VI

  The California Coast

  They were safe at last! The four dropped their feet and found them resting upon smooth packed sand, and wading a few rods they all stood upon dry earth. Terror, as he shook his shaggy coat and rubbed his nose against his young masters seemed not the least joyful of the party.

  “Isn’t this grand!” exclaimed Elwood. “When did the ground feel better to your feet? Saved from fire and water!”

  “Our first duty is to thank God!” said Mr. Yard reverently. “He has chosen us out of the hundreds that have perished as special objects of his mercy. Let us kneel upon the shore and testify our gratitude to Him.”

  All sunk devoutly upon their knees and joined the merchant, as in a low, impressive tone he returned thanks to his Creator for the signal mercy he had displayed in bringing them safely through such imminent perils.

  “Now, what is to be done next?” inquired Mr. Yard, as they arose to their feet and looked around them. “The first thing I should like to do is to procure a suit of clothes, and I hope I shall be able to do it without stripping any of the dead bodies that will soon wash ashore.”

/>   “What is the naad?” asked Tim O’Rooney. “Baing that it’s a warrum summer night, and there saams to be few in the neighborhood that is likely to take exsaptions to your costume.”

  “But day is breaking!” replied the merchant, pointing across the low, rocky country to a range of mountains in the distance, whose high, jagged tops were blackly defined against the sky that was growing light and rosy behind them.

  “Yes, it will soon be light,” said Howard. “See! there are persons along the shore that have come down to the wreck?”

  “They are some of the passengers that have managed to reach land. I will go among them and see whether any of them have any clothing to sell,” laughed Mr. Yard as he moved away.

  As the sun came up over the mountains it lit up a dreary and desolate scene. Away in the distance, until sky and earth mingled into one, stretched the blue Pacific, not ridged into foam and spray like the boisterous Atlantic, but swelling and heaving as if the great deep was a breathing monster. A few fragments of blackened splinters floating here and there were all that remained to show where a few hours before the magnificent steamer, surcharged with its living freight, so proudly cut the waters on her swift course toward the Golden Gate.

  Several ghastly, blue-lipped survivors in their clinging garments were wandering aimlessly along the shore, the veriest pictures of utter misery, as they mumbled a few words to each other, or stared absently around. They seemed to be partially bereft of their senses, and were probably somewhat dazed from the fearful scenes through which they had so recently passed.

  Several sails were visible, but they were so far away that it was vain to hope to attract their attention. Three large boats could be seen away to the northwest, skirting along shore and making their way toward San Francisco as rapidly as muscle and oars could carry them. What recked they whether the passengers were buried with the steamer, sunk in the ocean, or left to perish on the desolate coast?

  The Coast Range, which descends into California from Oregon, in some places comes within twenty-five or thirty miles of the sea, while at other times it recedes to over a hundred. The particular point where our friends were suffered to land was rough, barren and rocky, and behind them, with many peaks reaching the line of perpetual snow, rose the noble Coast Range, between which and them stretched a smaller range of mountains.

  Around them the country appeared desolate and uninhabited. Howard and Elwood were well acquainted with geography, and had a general idea of California, although they could not be expected to know much of the minor facts of the State. They were aware that at no great distance—but whether north or south it was impossible to say—lay the missionary town of San Luis Obispo, and between them and the Coast Range ran the Salinas River, formerly known as the San Buenaventura, and a smaller chain of mountains or highlands.

  They knew, too, that after crossing the Coast Range, you descended into the broad and beautiful Sacramento Valley, where abounded wild animals, Indians, gold, silver, and the most exuberant vegetation. This was about all they knew; and this, after all, was considerable. When persons expect to make a journey to some distant country they are very apt to learn all that they possibly can about it; and this was the way they came to understand so much regarding the young State of California.

  They had stood some little time conversing together when they saw Mr. Yard approaching, clad in quite a respectable suit of black, albeit, as a matter of course, it was thoroughly soaked with salt water.

  “You are fortunate,” remarked Howard.

  “Yes,” he laughed; “what strange beings we are! Do you see that elderly gentleman yonder, with his hands in his pockets walking back and forth as though he expected some arrival from the sea?”

  The personage alluded to could be easily distinguished from the others.

  “Well, his berth was next to mine. When the alarm of fire was first heard he sprung from his bed, dressed himself and caught up his valise, which contained an extra suit of clothing, and rushed on deck with the other passengers.”

  “How was he saved?”

  “It is hard to tell. He and several others hung fast to some such sort of a raft as we had, and managed to get ashore. And all the time he grasped that valise, even when besought by his companions to let it go, find when it endangered his chances of life fully ten-fold.”

  “He must be very poor.”

  “Poor! He is worth half a million in gold this minute. That valise contained all his property that he had entrusted to the steamer, and it was his fear that he might lose the few dollars that it is worth that made him cling so tenaciously to it.”

  “How was it that he gave them to you?”

  “No fear that he gave them. I stated in the presence of two witnesses that, I would give him a hundred dollars for the suit as soon as we reached San Francisco. He racked his brains to see whether there was not some means of my giving him my note for the amount; but as that couldn’t be done under the circumstances, he did the next best thing and established my obligation in the mouth of several witnesses.”

  “Strange man! But, Mr. Yard, what is to be done?”

  “I intend to wait here during the day, as I know of nothing better that we can do. I think some friends will find us before nightfall.”

  “We have decided to go inland a short distance, dry our clothes and give our bodies a good rubbing, to prevent our taking cold.”

  “A wise precaution, but useless in my case as I have already caught a very severe one.”

  “Should we become separated, you will tell our parents that we reached the land in safety and are in good spirits.”

  “Of course; but don’t wander too far away, as you may lose your chance of being taken off. You know this isn’t the most hospitable country in the world. There are treacherous and thieving Indians in these parts, and they would have swooped down on us long ago if they had only known we were here. As it is, I fear their approach before a friendly sail comes to us.”

  “Never fear; we will take good care not to wander too far away.”

  And the parties separated for a much longer time than any of them imagined.

  CHAPTER VII

  The Rescue

  Our three friends—although it seems equally proper to speak of four, as Terror was a most important member of the party—walked away from the sea-shore and began making their way back into the country. As we have hinted in another place, they found this section wild and desolate. Little else than huge rocks, bowlders and stunted trees met the eye, while there was no appearance of vegetation, nor was the slightest vestige of a human habitation visible, let them look in whatever direction they chose.

  The air was clear, the sky decked by a few fleecy clouds over the Pacific, and there was little doubt that the day would be a fine, warm one. The climate of California is mild, except when the winds from the Pacific bring chilling fogs along the coast. The view in the east was particularly grand, the peaks of the gigantic Coast mountains and of the smaller range rising and swelling in vast peaks, appearing as if the Pacific when tossed and driven by some hurricane had suddenly congealed with the foam upon the tops of its mountainous billows. Looking northward, the last object that met the eye was these mountains gradually blending with the brilliant sky, while to the southward the prospect was repeated.

  They wandered along, springing up the sides of rocks, jumping quite a distance to the ground, again passing around those that were too high to climb, Terror all the time frolicking at their sides, certainly as happy as any of them, while they chatted and laughed, their hearts buoyant in the beautiful summer and the pleasing retrospect of a thrilling adventure already safely passed through and the prospect of a few others close at hand.

  In this wandering manner they at last found themselves fully a mile from shore, and in a wild, rocky place where they felt secure from observation. Here all removed their clothes, subjected their bodies to a vigorous rubbing that made the surface glow with warmth and reaction, and then spread their garments out to
dry. Their extended walk before reaching this place had partially done the latter for them, so that in the course of an hour or so they found them free from all moisture, and as they donned them they once more felt like themselves.

  “Now,” said Elwood, “I am very tired and sleepy; is not this a good place to lie down and rest?”

  “I was going to suggest the same thing,” added Howard. “I do not see in what better manner we can spend a few hours.”

  “And it’s the same idaa that has been strhiking me ever since we sot foot in this qua’r looking place. It’s meself that is so sleapy that at ivery wink I makes I has to lift the eyelids up with my fingers, and me eyes feels as though the wind has been blowing sand in ’em all day.”

  The proposal thus being satisfactory to all, they proceeded to carry it out at once. The day was so mild that the only precaution necessary was to secure themselves against the rays of the sun. This was easily done, and stretching out beneath the shelter of a projecting ledge of rocks they had scarcely laid down when all were sound asleep.

  And leaving them here for the time being, we give our attention for a few moments to the survivors of the steamer.

  Some thirty odd of the passengers succeeded in reaching the shore, while about a dozen were saved with the crew, who, as is generally the case at such times, acted upon the idea that it was their duty to take charge of the boats and prevent the passengers from risking themselves in such frail structures. After all, no doubt their lives were as valuable as were those of the hundreds they carried, and their conduct, when viewed in an unprejudiced manner, perhaps was not so criminal.

  The destruction of so large a steamer along the California coast, in the regular track of the vessels going to and coming from Panama, could not occur without the knowledge of many upon the ocean. Indeed, the glare upon the heavens was seen far up the coast, and in San Luis Obispo, to the south, was pronounced by all to be caused by the burning of some large vessel at sea.

  It so came about that there were but two vessels near enough to go to the relief of the unfortunate steamer; but these were controlled by rival captains, each of whom hoped to enter the Golden Gate an hour or so in advance of the other; and therefore they had not time to slacken sail and lay to, but pressed forward with an expression of regret that the necessities of the case compelled them thus to refuse all succor to the needy ones.