Foul Play

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE long-boat was, at this moment, a hundred miles to windward of thecutter.

  The fact is that Wylie, the evening before, had been secretly perplexedas to the best course. He had decided to run for the island; but he wasnot easy under his own decision; and, at night, he got more and morediscontented with it. Finally, at nine o'clock P.M., he suddenly gave theorder to luff, and tack; and by daybreak he was very near the place wherethe _Proserpine_ went down, whereas the cutter, having run before thewind all night, was, at least, a hundred miles to leeward of him.

  Not to deceive the reader, or let him, for a moment, think we do businessin monsters, we will weigh this act of Wylie's justly.

  It was just a piece of iron egotism. He preferred, for himself, thechance of being picked up by a vessel. He thought it was about a hair'sbreadth better than running for an island, as to whose bearing he was notvery clear, after all.

  But he was not sure he was taking the best or safest course. The cuttermight be saved, after all, and the long-boat lost.

  Meantime he was not sorry of an excuse to shake off the cutter. Shecontained one man at least who knew he had scuttled the _Proserpine;_ andtherefore it was all-important to him to get to London before her andreceive the three thousand pounds which was to be his reward for thatabominable act.

  But the way to get to London before Mr. Hazel, or else to the bottom ofthe Pacific before him, was to get back into the searoad at all hazards.

  He was not aware that the cutter's water and biscuit were on board hisboat; nor did he discover this till noon next day. And, on making thisfearful discovery, he showed himself human. He cried out, with an oath,"What have I done? I have damned myself to all eternity!"

  He then ordered the boat to be put before the wind again; but the menscowled, and not one stirred a finger; and he saw the futility of this,and did not persist, but groaned aloud, and then sat staring wildly.Finally, like a true sailor, he got to the rum, and stupefied hisagitated conscience for a time.

  While he lay drunk at the bottom of the boat his sailors carried out hislast instructions, beating southward right in the wind's eye.

  Five days they beat to windward, and never saw a sail. Then it fell deadcalm; and so remained for three days more.

  The men began to suffer greatly from cramps, owing to their number andconfined position. During the calm they rowed all day, and with this anda light westerly breeze that sprung up, they got into the sea-road again.But, having now sailed three hundred and fifty miles to the southward,they found a great change in the temperature. The nights were so coldthat they were fain to huddle together, to keep a little warmth in theirbodies.

  On the fifteenth day of their voyage it began to rain and blow, and thenthey were never a whole minute out of peril. Hand forever on the sheet,eye on the waves, to ease her at the right moment; and with all this carethe spray eternally flying half way over her mast, and often a body ofwater making a clean breach over her, and the men bailing night and daywith their very hats, or she could not have lived an hour.

  At last, when they were almost dead with wet, cold, fatigue and danger, avessel came in sight and crept slowly up, about two miles to windward ofthe distressed boat. With the heave of the waters they could see littlemore than her sails; but they ran up a bright bandanna handkerchief totheir masthead; and the ship made them out. She hoisted Dutch colors,and--continued her course.

  Then the poor abandoned creatures wept and raved, and cursed in theirfrenzy, glaring after that cruel, shameless man who could do such an act,yet hoist a color, and show of what nation he was the native--and thedisgrace.

  But one of them said not a word. This was Wylie. He sat shivering, andremembered how he had abandoned the cutter, and all on board. Loud sighsbroke from his laboring breast; but not a word. Yet one word was everpresent to his mind; and seemed written in fire on the night of clouds,and howled in his ears by the wind--Retribution!

  And now came a dirty night--to men on ships; a fearful night to men inboats. The sky black, the sea on fire with crested billows, that brokeover them every minute; their light was washed out; their provisionsdrenched and spoiled; bail as they would, the boat was always filling. Upto their knees in water; cold as ice, blinded with spray, deafened withroaring billows, they tossed and tumbled in a fiery foaming hell ofwaters, and still, though despairing, clung to their lives, and bailedwith their hats unceasingly.

  Day broke, and the first sight it revealed to them was a brig to windwardstaggering along, and pitching under close-reefed topsails.

  They started up, and waved their hats, and cried aloud. But the windcarried their voices to leeward, and the brig staggered on.

  They ran up their little signal of distress; but still the ship staggeredon.

  Then the miserable men shook hands all round, and gave themselves up forlost.

  But, at this moment, the brig hoisted a vivid flag all stripes and stars,and altered her course a point or two.

  She crossed the boat's track a mile ahead, and her people looked over thebulwarks, and waved their hats to encourage those tossed and desperatemen.

  Having thus given them the weather-gage, the brig hove to for them.

  They ran down to her and crept under her lee; down came ropes to them,held by friendly hands, and friendly faces shone down at them. Eagergrasps seized each as he went up the ship's side, and so, in a very shorttime, they sent the woman up, and the rest being all sailors and cleveras cats, they were safe on board the whaling brig _Maria,_ CaptainSlocum, of Nantucket, U. S.

  Their log, compass and instruments were also saved.

  The boat was cast adrift, and was soon after seen bottom upward on thecrest of a wave.

  The good Samaritan in command of the _Maria_ supplied them with dryclothes out of the ship's stores, good food, and medical attendance,which was much needed, their legs and feet being in a deplorablecondition, and their own surgeon crippled. A southeasterly gale inducedthe American skipper to give Cape Horn a wide berth, and the _Maria_ soonfound herself three degrees south of that perilous coast. There sheencountered field-ice. In this labyrinth they dodged and worried foreighteen days, until a sudden chop in the wind gave the captain a chance,of which he promptly availed himself; and in forty hours they sightedTerra del Fuego.

  During this time the rescued crew, having recovered from the effects oftheir hardships, fell into the work of the ship, and took their turnswith the Yankee seamen. The brig was short-handed; but now, trimmed andhandled by a full crew with the _Proserpine's_ men, who were first-classseamen, and worked with a will, because work was no longer a duty, sheexhibited a speed the captain had almost forgotten was in the craft. Nowspeed at sea means economy, for every day added to a voyage is so muchoff the profits. Slocum was part owner of the vessel, and shrewdly aliveto the value of the seamen. When about three hundred miles south ofBuenos Ayres, Wylie proposed that they should be landed there, fromwhence they might be transshipped to a vessel bound for home.

  This was objected to by Slocum, on the ground that, by such a deviationfrom his course, he must lose three days, and the port dues at BuenosAyres were heavy.

  Wylie undertook that the house of Wardlaw & Son should indemnify the brigfor all expenses and losses incurred.

  Still the American hesitated; at last he honestly told Wylie he wished tokeep the men; he liked them, they liked him. He had sounded them, andthey had no objection to join his ship and sign articles for a threeyears' whaling voyage, provided they did not thereby forfeit the wages towhich they would be entitled on reaching Liverpool. Wylie went forwardand asked the men if they would take service with the Yankee captain. Allbut three expressed their desire to do so; these three had families inEngland, and refused. The mate gave the others a release, and an order onWardlaw & Co. for their full wages for the voyage; then they signedarticles with Captain Slocum, and entered the American Mercantile Navy.

  Two days after this they sighted the high lands at the mouth of the Riode la Plata at 10
P.M., and lay to for a pilot. After three hours' delaythey were boarded by a pilot-boat, and then began to creep into the port.The night was very dark, and a thin white fog lay on the water.

  Wylie was sitting on the taffrail and conversing with Slocum, when thelookout forward sung out, "Sail ho!"

  Another voice almost simultaneously yelled out of the fog, "Port yourhelm!"

  Suddenly out of the mist, and close aboard the _Maria,_ appeared the hulland canvas of a large ship. The brig was crossing her course, and hergreat bowsprit barely missed the brig's mainsail. It stood for a momentover Wylie's head. He looked up, and there was the figure-head of theship looming almost within his reach. It was a colossal green woman; onearm extended grasped a golden harp, the other was pressed to her head inthe attitude of holding back her wild and flowing hair. The face seemedto glare down upon the two men. In another moment the monster, glidingon, just missing the brig, was lost in the fog.

  "That was a narrow squeak," said Slocum.

  Wylie made no answer, but looked into the darkness after the vessel.

  He had recognized her figure-head.

  It was the _Shannon!_