CHAPTER II.
THE WRECK AND THE RESCUE.
IT was the middle of October, about ten o’clock in the forenoon; therewas no rain falling, but it was blowing—O, how it was blowing!—atearing gale from the south-west, which roared through, the treetops, and there was a tremendous sea in the bay. But under the lee ofPleasant Point, entirely sheltered from the wind by the high land andthe woods, a shooting match had just been abruptly broken off by SolChase (a boy of sixteen, who put up the turkeys) declaring that it wasno kind of use to set up, if such marksmen as Joe Griffin and UncleIsaac were going to shoot.
“Well, Sol, we won’t fire any more,” said Joe; “you boys may do yourown shooting.”
“Let us do something we can all do,” said Charlie. “Uncle Isaac, let usplay knives. I’ll blaze this pine tree for a mark.”
“Blaze a pine tree! Half of you won’t be able to hit the tree. Take thebarn door.”
“We haven’t got knives,” said Ricker.
“I’ve got my hunting knife,” said Uncle Isaac; “one knife will do forthe whole of us.”
“I’ve got an Indian tomahawk in the house,” said Charlie; “one that yougave me, Uncle Isaac, long ago.”
A bull’s eye was marked out on the barn door; the knife was held by thepoint of the blade, and flung. Uncle Isaac, when, after the first twotrials, he had ascertained his distance, hit the centre of the targetevery time; Joe Griffin nearly as often; Charlie, Fred, and John, whohad at other times practised a good deal with Uncle Isaac and eachother, twice out of three times.
“It takes Walter Griffin to throw a knife. He’d hit that mark everytime.”
“I wish he was here,” said Fred. “I feel, since he went to sea, asthough about half of me was gone.”
As to the rest, some hit within six inches; others didn’t hit the door;and others flung the knife so that it struck flatways, or on the end ofthe handle.
“Now let’s throw the tomahawk,” said Charlie.
In this game none of them could approach Uncle Isaac, who flung it witha force and precision that would soon have made a breach in Charlie’sbarn door; but as the rest could not fling it with any accuracy, theysoon tired of it.
“I’ll put up a mark for you, Uncle Isaac,” said Joe Bradish.
He had a soft hat, bran new; put it on for the first time that day.
“What will you give me for a shot at my hat, at six hundred yards?”
“Three shillings.”
“Done.”
Bradish rolled his hat carefully up, and thrust it into a mortise inthe post of a rail fence.
“I thought I was to have the whole bigness of the hat to fire at;that’s a small mark for such a long distance.”
“That’s just like him,” said Charlie; “always doing some mean,underhand trick.”
“You was to fire at the hat. There’s the hat. Now measure off the sixhundred yards,” said Bradish.
“Don’t measure it that way,” said Uncle Isaac to the boys, who wereabout to measure in the direction that the hat was shoved into the hole.
“What difference does it make?” asked Bradish.
“’Cause it does. I’ve a right to fire in any direction I like, at sixhundred yards.”
Uncle Isaac fired, and the ball, just grazing the edge of the post,went through every fold of the hat crossways, the rifle ball whirlingas it went, cutting it all to pieces.
“You’ve spoilt my new hat,” said Bradish, with a rueful face, holdingit up, all full of holes, like a colander.
“That’s what you get by trying to cheat: good enough for you,” was thecry.
Scarcely had the laugh subsided, when Will Griffin was seen coming onhorseback at full speed, and as he drew near, he bawled out, “UncleIsaac, Joe, Master Bell, Captain Rhines wants you to come just as quickas you can; there’s a vessel cast away—folks going to be drowned onthe Brant rocks.”
When they reached the cove, they found Captain Rhines, in thePerseverance, her sails close reefed and set, hatches fastened down,and the vessel hauled in against a perpendicular ledge, while he washolding her by a rope fast to a tree.
“Jump aboard!” he cried. “There’s people on a raft, coming right inbefore the wind and sea, and they will go right into the breakers onthe Brant rocks, except we can get them off. I happened to be lookingwith the glass, and saw them.”
“We’ll do what men can do,” said Uncle Isaac. “Hadn’t we better call atthe island, and get Ben? It’s right on our road.”
“That’s a good thought. Wonder I didn’t think of it.”
Ben had not noticed the raft, but he saw the schooner coming, and knewthat it must be a matter of life and death that would bring men to theisland in such a gale. Both he and Sally met them at the shore.
“I want you, my little boy,” cried Captain Rhines, as the schoonerluffed up beside the wharf, in the still water of Elm Island harbor.“There’s a raft coming before the wind and sea, with people on it, anda signal of distress flying. It’s breaking thirty feet high on theBrant rocks, and they will soon be in that surf, unless we take themoff.”
No more was said. Ben jumped aboard, and the schooner, close hauled,stood boldly out into that tremendous sea. The men all commenced tolash themselves. Charlie was forward. He had made the end of a ropefast to the foremast, and put it around his waist; but, before he couldsecure the other end, she shipped a sea over the bows, that filled herall full, and bore Charlie before it like a feather. In another instantit would have taken him overboard, when nothing could have saved him;but Joe caught him as he was going over the rail.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” said Captain Rhines. “She shakes off thewater like a Newfoundland dog. Ben, take the axe, and knock off thewaist boards, and then the sea can have a fair chance to get out asfast as it comes in.”
They were now nearing the raft, as it came rapidly down before the sea,while the crew of the schooner were endeavoring to cut athwart itspath. Catching glimpses of it in moments when the raft and the schoonerboth chanced to be on the top of a sea at the same instant, theyperceived that it was constructed of the yards and smaller spars of avessel, with an elevation amid-ships, where an upright spar was securedby shrouds, on which an English flag was flying. On this elevationwere dark objects, that Captain Rhines (at home) had made out, with hisglass, to be human beings.
“If they are people, father,” said Ben, who, confident to hold himselfagainst the sea, had gone into the bows, “they are dead; for there’snothing moves, only as the sea moves it.”
“Perhaps not, Ben. They are lashed, chilled, and most dead, but I’veseen men brought to that apparently had but a few more breaths to draw.”
In a few moments Ben shouted, “There’s folks there, four or six, Ican’t tell which. I see one move his arm a little.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Captain Rhines. “I thought there wouldbe some one able to take a line and make it fast, and then we mighttow them clear of the breakers and into some lee, where we could getthem off; but if there’s nobody to take a line, we’ve got to carry oneourselves.”
“Let the raft go by us,” said Ben, “and follow it up astern with theschooner. I’ll take a line in the canoe.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Joe; but Charlie insisted upon sharing theperil with his father. They took in all but the foresail, reefed to thesmallest possible dimensions, leaving only a little of the peak, as itwas difficult to make the schooner go slow enough to keep from runningon to the raft and knocking her to pieces; but by luffing into the windthey managed to keep her clear till Ben and Charlie got into the canoe,and with a small line reached the raft, to which was made fast a largerone, which they hauled to them and secured.
There was no such thing as returning against that sea; they must taketheir chance with those they came to save. If the rope parted, or thelittle vessel failed to tow her charge clear of the surf, they werelost. During the interval occupied in fastening to the raft, it hadmade fearful progress towards
the rocks, that could now be plainly seenahead, the sea breaking on them in sheets of foam. Never was the clearjudgment and resolute nature of Captain Rhines put to a severer testthan now. He must carry sail enough to drive the Perseverance throughthe water with sufficient speed to clear the rocks. On the other hand,there was danger, if he carried too much sail, of either parting therope, in which case Ben and Charlie, with those they went to save,would perish, or of taking the masts out of the schooner; and alsodanger of the seas boarding her over the stern.
It was most fortunate for the crew of the schooner, that when theygrappled to the raft they were a long distance off, and well over tothe edge of the breakers, consequently had to work the raft but verylittle to windward. Every time the little vessel rose on one of thosetremendous seas, when the raft was perhaps in the hollow of another,she quivered and trembled, and it seemed as if she must be crushedbodily down beneath the sea.
“Isaac,” said the captain, who had one hand on the rope, “I think thiswill bear more strain. Unless we go ahead a little faster, we shallhardly clear that ragged point making out to the leeward.”
“I’m afraid, Benjamin, it will take the mast out of her.”
“So am I, but we must risk it. There’s no other way. It’s sartain deathto go into that surf.”
There was one other way. A stroke of the axe upon the “taut” rope, andthe schooner, freed from her encumbrance, would have gone off like abird from the ragged reef and boiling surf, leaving their comrades toperish; but no such thought could find lodgment in the bosoms of themen on board the Perseverance.
“Give her the sail, Isaac,” said the captain; “it’s the only way.”
Beneath the increased canvas, the schooner plunged and quivered, asthough every timber would part company.
They were near the breakers; the roar of the surf was terrible; everytime the great wave rolled back, the black, ragged points of the rockcould be seen for a moment. It was now but a couple of gunshots fromthem, and they were in the outer edge of the breaker. Not a word wasspoken. Captain Rhines coolly eyed the surf, while he managed the helmwith consummate skill. Slowly the noble little vessel drew along by thereef, but the raft was the length of the hawser farther in.
“If that sea breaks on them, they are gone,” cried Captain Rhines, asa huge wall of water, thirty feet in height, came sweeping along, itsoverhanging edge white with foam.
Ben and Charlie each seized one edge of the canoe, evidently hoping,that though full of water, its buoyancy might support and aid them inswimming; but the wave broke just before it reached them, lifting theraft almost on end, flooding it with spray, buried them to their necksin water, and almost tore them from the raft, to which they clung bythe shrouds of the upright spar, while the canoe was swept away. Sonear were they to the reef, that one end of the wave broke upon therock, and the raft was covered with kelp torn from it by the force ofthe sea. While they were yet in the very edge of the broken water, theforemast breaking off four or five feet above deck, went over the bows.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Captain Rhines; “had it gone three minutessooner, we had all been lost.”
Drifting along before the wind and sea, they gradually came intosmoother water, when Ben, flinging himself overboard, swam to theschooner. With his aid they raised the broken spar, lashed it to thestump, and contrived to spread a portion of the sail.
“Ben,” asked his father, “what have you got on the raft? Are they deador alive?”
“There’s four of them, father; one a black man, the cook or steward,for his hands are soft, a sailor, a boy fifteen or sixteen, and a youngman, I should judge about twenty, who, I think, was mate of the vessel,by his dress. They have got just the breath of life in them; starvedwith cold and hunger, and nothing but skin and bones. I thought thatsea would have killed them, but they are alive yet.”
“God help them, but we can’t get to the island, or my cove, with thisbroken spar. We must run for Charlie’s.”
“Let us run under the lee of Smutty Nose,” said Ben, “get rid of thisraft, and take the bodies on board, then we can go faster, else theywill be dead before we get there.”
They luffed up under the island in smooth water, took Charlie on board,the dead and the living, and permitting the raft to go adrift, made allthe sail they could spread for Pleasant Cove. They carried the nearlylifeless bodies into the cuddy, put them in berths, and covered themwith clothes. There were flint, steel, and tinder aboard, but no wood.They took the bottom boards out of a berth and split them up to kindle,and Ben cut up the handspikes, which were white oak, and split up thewindlass.
“Father,” said Charlie, “I’ll make a new and better one.”
With this supply they soon had the little place warm enough. When theyreached the cove they found John Rhines there. He had been away, andarriving home just after the party set out, had kept watch of theirmovements. It was twelve o’clock at night when they landed. The galewas over, the clouds had disappeared, and a clear moonlight made itnearly as light as day. The wet clothing was instantly stripped fromthe chilled limbs of the seamen; they were put into warm blankets,and hot applications made. So affecting was the sight of these livingskeletons that Mary burst into tears.
“Poor creatures! What they must have suffered!” she exclaimed. “Theywill die; they are as good as dead now.”
“No, they ain’t,” replied the captain, who had been putting cold waterdown their throats with a spoon, and found that they swallowed. “Kill achicken, Charlie; we’ll give them some broth by and by; too much wouldkill them as dead as a stone. Now, Mary, a little supper or breakfast,whichever you call it, wouldn’t hurt the rest of us, after all we’vebeen through this day and night.”
The rising sun was pouring its light into the windows, as with gratefulhearts they sat down to eat, the captain rising every few minutes toadminister a spoonful of the warm broth to his patients. The clergymanand neighbors were sent for, and funeral services performed. Then theAmerican flag was put over the coffins, and they were borne to thegrave.
“I wish we could have saved them,” said the captain; “but we will doall we can—give them Christian burial.”
Charlie and Uncle Isaac made the coffins for the two who died, andCaptain Rhines and John dug their graves. On the eastern side of thecove a perpendicular cliff rose abruptly from the soil, with a littlestrip of green turf between it and the beach. Here they were buried.The white man had the name of “J. Watts” tattooed on his right arm;the name of the black was afterwards ascertained to be John Davis, andCharlie cut the names into the cliff—a most enduring memorial.
Arthur Brown, The Young Captain Page 3