Dick Leslie's Luck: A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO.

  PICKED UP.

  The object that had attracted Leslie's notice proved to be one of thehencoops belonging to the _Golden Fleece_, that had broken adrift whenthe ship went down, and returned to the surface. There was anotherfloating at no great distance, so, having towed Miss Trevor, in herlife-buoy, to the first, and directed her to hold on to it for a fewminutes, he swam on to the second, which, with some difficulty, he gotalongside the first. The lashings of both were fortunately intact, thecleats to which the coops were secured having torn away from the deck;Leslie therefore temporarily secured the two coops to each other,intending, as soon as daylight appeared, to lash them properly togetherin such a manner as, he hoped, would form a fairly useful raft. Duringthe progress of this small business, the conversation between the twopeople thus strangely thrown together had necessarily been interrupted;and as Miss Trevor did not appear to be very eager to renew it, Lesliethought it best to maintain silence, in the hope that his companionmight be able to secure a little sleep.

  Meanwhile, the fog had gradually been growing less dense, and withinabout half an hour of the incident of the hencoops a few stars becamevisible overhead. An hour later the fog had completely disappeared,revealing a star-studded sky that spread dome-like and unbroken fromzenith to horizon.

  To Leslie the night seemed interminable; but at length his anxious eyeswere gladdened by the appearance of a faint paling of the sky low downon the horizon in the eastern quarter. Gradually and imperceptibly thepallor spread right, left, and upward toward the zenith, until a broadarch of it lay stretched along the horizon, within the limits of whichthe stars one after another dwindled in brightness and presentlydisappeared. Against this patch of pallor the heads of the runningsurges rose and fell restlessly, black as ink; and once, as Leslie andhis companion were lifted on the top of the swell, the former thought hecaught sight, for a moment, of a small toy-like object in the fardistance. When next he was hove up he looked for it again, but for somefew minutes in vain. Then came another unusually lofty undulation thatfor a moment lifted him high enough to render the horizon almost level,with only an isolated ridge here and there to break its continuity; andduring that brief moment he once more caught sight of the object, andknew that it was no figment of his imagination; on the contrary, it wasa clear and sharply defined image of the upper canvas--from the royalsdown to the foot of the topsails--of a barque, steering south. She was,of course, much too distant to be of any use to them, but her appearancejust then was encouraging, inasmuch as it confirmed his conviction thatthey were fairly in the track of ships. He pointed the craft out to hiscompanion, and said what he could to raise her hopes; but by this timethe poor girl was beginning to feel so exhausted from her long exposure,and the intense emotions that had preceded it, that he found his taskdifficult almost to the point of impossibility.

  During the brief period occupied by Leslie in watching the distantbarque and endeavouring to deduce from her appearance substantialgrounds for encouragement on the part of his companion, the sky hadbrightened to such an extent that the stars had all vanished, andpresently, with a flash of golden radiance, up rose the sun; hischeering beams at once transforming the scene from one of chilldreariness to a blaze of genial warmth and beauty.

  Leslie felt that, with the reappearance of the sun, it would be well toget his companion out of the water and up on the top of the hencoops assoon as possible, since dryness and warmth were what she now mosturgently required; he accordingly at once went to work with a will toget his proposed raft into shape.

  But, first of all, he made it his business to investigate the interiorsof the coops, with an eye to the provision of a certain want in the notfar distant future. He felt sure that in one, if not both, of the coopswould be found a number of drowned fowls; and although the hunger ofhimself and his companion had not yet nearly reached the point ofdemanding satisfaction on a diet of raw, drowned poultry, he foresaw thespeedy approach of a moment when even such unappetising fare as thiswould be welcome. He accordingly turned the coops over so that he couldget at their contents; and found, as he had expected, that eachcontained a fair supply of food. Indeed there was more than they wouldbe able to consume before it became unusable, one coop yielding fourteenfowls, and the other eight. These he abstracted and secured; then heturned the two coops over in the water so that they floated right sideupward, and face to face--in order that their tops should affordsomething in the nature of a smooth platform upon which the pair couldrecline with the minimum of discomfort--and in that position he firmlylashed the two together with the lashings still attached to them. Thenhe helped Miss Trevor to get out of her life-buoy and clamber up on thetop of the fragile structure; finding, to his satisfaction, when he haddone so, that the raft possessed just enough buoyancy to support hercomfortably, when reclining at full length upon it, although,unfortunately, not enough to keep her dry, since even in such quietweather as then prevailed, the sea continuously washed over it.

  It occurred to Leslie that, since the hencoops had broken adrift fromthe sinking ship, other wreckage might have done the same; and heaccordingly proceeded to search the surface of the ocean with his gaze,in quest of floating objects. For a few minutes his quest was vain; butpresently, just to the southward of the sun's dazzle on the water, hiseye was caught by a momentary appearance of blinking light, as of thesun's rays reflected from a cluster of floating wet objects. The nextinstant he lost it again behind a heaving mound of swell; then he caughtit again and, this time, for long enough to enable him to decide that itwas about half a mile distant. For a moment he was doubtful whether,being so far away, what he saw could possibly be wreckage from the_Golden Fleece_; but a little reflection suggested to him that, if thiswreckage should happen to be floating deep, it would be quite possiblefor him and his companion, with the hencoops--floating on the verysurface as they all were--to have been driven quite this distance toleeward by the mere wash of the sea. Whether or no, however, it wascertain that away there, some half a mile to windward, there was enoughwreckage, apparently, to afford them a raft upon which they could besupported high and dry.

  There was but one way of reaching this wreckage, and that was to swim toit, propelling the raft and its fair burden before him. This was adecidedly formidable task to undertake; for the raft, being rectangularin shape, and drawing about two feet of water, offered a veryconsiderable amount of resistance to propulsion, especially under theunfavourable conditions which were the only ones possible; still therewas no other task upon which Leslie could employ himself--and he feltthat it was imperative to do _something_, if only to while the time awayand interest his companion, thus diverting her thoughts and preventingher from dwelling too much upon the horrors of their present situation.He therefore set manfully to work and, shaping a course by the run ofthe sea, proceeded to propel the raft to windward, resting his hand uponits after end and striking out with his legs, in long, steady strokesthat could be maintained for a considerable period without entailingundue fatigue.

  Their progress was painfully slow, almost imperceptible, indeed; forwhen at the end of an hour's vigorous swimming Leslie paused to takebreath and a look round, the utmost that he could say was that they werecertainly not any further away from the wreckage for which he was aimingthan they had been to start with. And, reasoning upon this, theconclusion forced upon him was that, after all, he had merely succeededin retarding their own drift to leeward; while to actually force hisunwieldy raft to windward and thus reach the desired _flotsam_, wasquite beyond his unaided powers.

  He had just rather ruefully arrived at this unwelcome conclusion when,clambering up on the raft to take a good look round, as the structurerose heavily upon the back of a swell he suddenly sighted, away in thenorthern board, a tiny speck of creamy white, gleaming softly outagainst the warm delicate grey tones of the sky low down in thatquarter. It was but a momentary glimpse, for he had no sooner caught itthan the raft settled down into the trough, while a low hill ofturquoise blue water swelled up in front of him, hiding the horizon andthe object upon which his eager gaze had been so intently fixed. Thenthe raft was once more hove up, and Leslie again caught sight of theobject, which this time remained in view for a space of perhaps sixseconds; and brief though this period may seem, it was sufficient toenable his practised seaman's eye to determine the fact that what he sawwas the head of the royal of a ship steering to the southward.

  So anxiously did Leslie await the next reappearance of the tiny object,and so tense was his attitude of expectation, that it attracted thenotice of his companion, who was fast sinking into a state of torporfrom exhaustion. She raised herself painfully into a sitting attitudeand, in weak and somewhat fretful tones, inquired:--

  "What is it, Mr Leslie; do you see anything?"

  "Yes," answered Leslie, still anxiously watching; "there is a vessel ofsome sort away out there; and she is steering this way. What I amanxious to determine, if I can, is whether she is likely to pass closeenough to us to enable us to attract her attention."

  "Oh, I pray Heaven that it may be so!" ejaculated Miss Trevor,brightening up perceptibly at the prospect of possible rescue. "Isthere nothing that we can do to insure that she shall see us? You saythat you are a sailor, and I have been told that sailors are amazinglyingenious creatures, surely you can think of something, some act thatwould better our position!" She spoke querulously, with an undertone ofthe old disdain that formerly marked her manner running through herspeech.

  "A man can do but little with only his two hands and no tools to helphim," answered Leslie, gently; "yet you may rely upon my doing all thatis possible under such disadvantageous conditions. From the position ofthat craft, and the course that I judge her to be steering, I fear thatshe will pass too far to windward of us to permit of our attracting herattention. The fact that we shall be to leeward of her when she passeswill be against us; for a sailor looks half a dozen times to windwardfor once that he glances over the lee rail. And my efforts during thelast hour have convinced me of the impossibility of driving thisungainly structure to windward by merely swimming. If I only had anoar, or a paddle of some sort, I might be able to do something; butthen, you see, I haven't, so it is of no use to think further of that.The wind is dropping, which is a point in our favour, inasmuch as itwill lessen the speed of yonder craft in coming down toward us, and sogive us more time in which to act. I believe that, for instance, itwould be possible for me, alone and unencumbered, to swim out towindward far enough to intercept her; but I certainly do not like theidea of leaving you here, alone, even on such an important errand as theone that I have in my mind; for if the wind should happen to shift, or Ishould by any other means fail to reach her, I might meet with somedifficulty--it might perhaps even prove impossible--to find you again."

  "Oh, pray do not allow consideration for me to interfere with yourfreedom of action," retorted the girl, bitterly. "If you can saveyourself by leaving me here to die alone, I beg that you will nothesitate."

  "Stop, if you please," answered Leslie, with some sharpness of tone."You have no right to think or to suggest that I should do any suchthing. Perhaps, however, you may have misunderstood me," he continued,more gently. "What I had in my mind was this. It occurred to me thatit might not be difficult for me to swim out and intercept that ship,attract the attention of those on board her, and get picked up. Then Icould explain to the skipper that you were down here to leeward, afloatupon a raft; upon learning which he would of course at once bear up andrun down to look for you. And, as in all probability you would only besome two miles away at the moment when I should be picked up, therewould be absolutely no possibility of missing you. Still," hecontinued, thoughtfully, "there remains the chance of my failure--as Isaid just now; and I scarcely like to risk it. If it were not for thefact that you are in so weak and exhausted a condition, I would suggestthat you once more get into the life-buoy; when, abandoning this raft,and trusting to chance to find either it again, or the other wreckagethat we have been trying to reach, I would endeavour to tow you farenough to windward to enable us to intercept that vessel and get her topick us up."

  "Do you really think that such a proceeding would be likely to provesuccessful?" demanded the girl, with a considerable access of animationin her voice.

  "It might, or it might not," answered Leslie. "It is impossible to saywith certainty; so much depends upon chance. Still I think theexperiment is quite worth trying; we may have to do something very likeit eventually, and it would be better to try it now, while we have alittle strength left us. Only if we are to attempt it, we had betterstart forthwith, so that we may make as sure as we can of achievingsuccess. By the way, I suppose you are fairly hungry by this time. Areyou hungry enough to tackle a raw slice off the breast of a drownedchicken?"

  The girl made a gesture of disgust. "If the most dainty meal imaginablewere placed before me at this moment, I do not believe I could touch amorsel of it," she said, "But I beg that you will not allow mysqueamishness to deter you from eating, if you feel the need of food."

  "Thanks," replied Leslie, cheerfully. "I must confess that I am quiteready for breakfast. And although the fare can scarcely be described asappetising, I think I will attempt a morsel; it may prove useful to me,in view of the task before us."

  And therewith, extracting his knife from his pocket, and selecting afairly plump fowl, he hacked off a goodsized slice of the breast, fromwhich he stripped skin and feathers together. Then, cramming the lumpof flesh into his mouth, he masticated it well, extracting all the juicefrom it; after which he pronounced himself ready for the new adventure.

  Hauling the life-buoy up on the raft, he showed Miss Trevor how to placeherself in it in such a manner as to secure the maximum amount ofsupport from it; and as soon as she had arranged herself according tohis instructions he bade her plunge boldly in; which she did. He thenat once followed her and, passing his left arm through one of thebeckets, forthwith struck out, swimming with a long, steady stroke, inthe direction which he had decided would be the most advantageous forhim to take.

  It was perfectly true that, as Leslie had remarked, the wind was fallinglight; it had dropped quite perceptibly since sunrise, and the state ofthe ocean was reflecting this change; the sea was going down; it nolonger broke anywhere, and the conditions for swimming were improvingevery moment. The pair of strange voyagers were making excellentprogress, as was evidenced by the rapidity with which they drew awayfrom the raft; within half an hour, indeed, they had left it so farastern that it was with the utmost difficulty Leslie was able to locateit again when he paused for a moment to rest. And when a furtherquarter of an hour had elapsed it had vanished altogether; thusvindicating Leslie's previous doubts as to the wisdom of swimming outalone to intercept the ship, leaving Miss Trevor upon the raft, to besought for and picked up later on.

  As to the craft for which they were aiming, it was clear that she wasbut a slow tub, for she came drifting down toward them at a verydeliberate pace. The wind had softened away to about a four-knotbreeze; but Leslie was of opinion that, although she showed all plainsail, up to her royals, she was scarcely doing three knots. This wasall in their favour, for while the smoothening of the sea's surfaceenabled Leslie to attain a much more satisfactory rate of speed with thesame moderate amount of exertion, the low rate of sailing of theon-coming vessel rendered it certain that, apart from accident, theywould now assuredly be able to reach her. And by the time that this hadbecome an undoubted fact, Leslie had made out that the stranger was asmall brig, of some two hundred and thirty tons, or thereabout. Hewould greatly have preferred that she had been a bigger craft, becausethe probability would then have been greater of her proving a passengership, and a passenger ship was what Leslie was now particularly anxiousto fall in with, for Miss Trevor's sake--a change of clothing being analmost indispensable requirement on the part of the young lady, so soonas she should once more find herself on a ship's deck. That there wereno passengers--or, at least, no women passengers--aboard the brig,however, was practically certain--she was much too small for that--andunless the skipper happened to be a married man, with his wife aboard,Miss Trevor would have to fall back upon her own resources and ingenuityfor a change of clothing. He discussed this matter with his companionas he swam onward; but the young woman just then regarded the questionwith a considerable amount of indifference; her one consuming anxiety,for the moment, was to again find herself on the deck of a craft of somesort; all other considerations she was clearly quite willing to relegateto a more or less distant future.

  Meanwhile, the brig was slowly drawing down toward them, and as slowlylifting her canvas above the horizon. And by the time that she hadraised herself to the foot of her courses, Leslie had succeeded inbringing her two masts into line, so that the pair were now dead aheadof her. Having accomplished this much, the swimmer concluded that hemight safely take a rest, for the brig, being close-hauled, would becertain to be making more or less leeway; and it was quite possible thatshe would drive to leeward at least as fast as they did, if not faster,he therefore threw himself over on his back, requesting his companion tokeep an eye on the approaching brig, and report to him her progress fromtime to time.

  The breeze, having begun to drop, continued to fall still lighter, untilLeslie, raising himself for a moment to take a look at the brig, sawwith some dismay that her lower canvas was wrinkling and collapsingoccasionally for lack of wind. She was by this time, however, hull-up,and not more than half a mile distant; moreover the rest in which he hadbeen indulging had refreshed him so considerably that he felt quitecapable of further exertion. He therefore determined to shorten theperiod of suspense as much as possible by swimming directly for thecraft--a resolution that was immensely strengthened by the suddenrecollection that they were afloat in a part of the ocean where a sharkor sharks might put in an unwelcome appearance at any moment.Accordingly, without mentioning this last unpleasant reflection of histo his companion, he recommenced swimming, this time shaping a coursedirectly for the brig.

  Although his own individual progress, and that of the brig, was slow,their combined progress toward each other rapidly shortened the distancebetween them, and within about a quarter of an hour of the time thatLeslie had recommenced swimming he had arrived near enough, in hisjudgment, to commence hailing, with a view to attracting the attentionof the brig's crew. Ceasing his exertions, therefore, he took a goodlong breath and shouted, at the top of his voice--

  "Brig ahoy! _Brig ahoy_! Brig Ahoy!"

  The hail, thrice repeated, exhausted the capacity of his lungs, and hepaused, anxiously listening for a reply. He thought--and Miss Trevorthought, too--that in response to his last shout a faint "Hillo?" hadcome floating down to them; but the wash of the water was in his ears,and he could not be certain, he therefore again took breath, andrepeated his hail.

  This time there could be no doubt about it; the answering hail camedistinctly enough, and immediately afterwards--so close was the brig tothem--he saw first one head, then another, and another, appear in theeyes of the vessel, peering over the bows. Quick as light, and treadingwater meanwhile, he whipped the white pocket-handkerchief out of thebreast-pocket of his coat and waved it eagerly over his head. Thepeople in the bows of the brig stared incredulously for a moment; thenwith a sudden simultaneous flinging aloft of their arms they abruptlyvanished.

  "All right," ejaculated Leslie, in tones of profound relief, "they haveseen us, and your deliverance, Miss Trevor, is now a matter of but a fewbrief minutes!"

  "Oh, thank God; thank God!" cried the girl, brokenly; and then, all in amoment, the tension of her nerves suddenly giving way, she broke downutterly, and burst into a perfect passion of tears. Leslie had senseenough to recognise that this hysterical outburst would probably relievehis companion's sorely overwrought feelings, and do her good; hetherefore allowed her to have her cry out in peace, without making anyattempt to check her.

  She was still sobbing convulsively when Leslie, who never took his eyesoff the slowly approaching brig, saw five people suddenly appear in thevessel's bows, three of them pointing eagerly, while the other twopeered out ahead under the sharp of their hands.

  "Brig ahoy!" hailed Leslie; "back your main-yard, will you, and stand byto heave us a couple of rope's ends when we come alongside?"

  "Ay, ay," promptly came the answer from the brig. The men in the bowsagain vanished; and, as they did so, the same voice that had justanswered pealed out, "Let go the port main braces; main tack and sheet;back the main-yard! And then some of you stand by to drop a line ortwo, with a standing bowline in their ends, to those people in thewater."

  The main-yard swung slowly aback, the canvas on the mainmast pressedagainst the mast, still further retarding the vessel's sluggishmovement; and as she drifted almost imperceptibly up to them, a fewstrokes of Leslie's arms took the pair alongside, where some half adozen rope's ends, with loops in them, already dangled in the water.With a deft movement, Leslie seized and dropped one of them over hishead and under his armpits; then, taking Miss Trevor about the waist, hegave the word "Hoist away, handsomely," and four men, standing on thebrig's rail, dragged them up the vessel's low side, and assisted them togain the deck.

  The vessel, on board which they now found themselves, was a small craftcompared with the _Golden Fleece_, measuring, as Leslie had alreadyguessed, about two hundred and thirty tons register. That she wasBritish the language of her crew had already told him; and he wasthankful that it was so, for he might now reasonably hope for courteoustreatment of himself and his companion--which is not always to bereckoned upon with certainty, under such circumstances, if the crafthappens to be manned by foreigners. The vessel, moreover, appeared tobe tolerably clean; while the crew seemed to be a fairly decent lot ofmen.

  As he gained the deck, a tall, dark, rather handsome man--but with anexpression of countenance that Leslie hardly liked--stepped forward. Hewas clad entirely in white, and was clearly the master of the brig.

  "Good morning," he said, without offering his hand, or uttering any wordof welcome. "Where the devil do you come from?"

  "We are," answered Leslie, "survivors--the only two, I am afraid--of thepassenger ship _Golden Fleece_, bound to Melbourne, which was run intoand sunk by an unknown steamer last night about eleven o'clock, during adense fog. My name is Leslie; I was one of the cuddy passengers; andthis lady--who was likewise a cuddy passenger--is Miss Trevor."

  The man's rather saturnine features relaxed as he gazed with undisguisedadmiration at the lovely girl, wet and bedraggled though she was; and,stepping up to her, he held out his hand, saying--

  "Your most obedient, miss. Glad to see you aboard my ship. My name'sPotter--James Potter; and this brig's the _Mermaid_, of London, boundout to Valparaiso with a general cargo. And this," he added, directingthe girl's attention toward a slight, active-looking man who stoodbeside him, "is my only mate, Mr Purchas."

  Miss Trevor bowed slightly, first to one and then to the other of thetwo men, as these introductions were made; then, turning once more toPotter, she thanked him earnestly and heartily for having picked upherself and her companion, and stood waiting irresolutely for what wasnext to happen.

  "Oh, that's all right, miss; you're very welcome, I'm sure. Glad tohave the chance of doing a service to such a beauty as you are." Then,turning abruptly about, he shouted, "Swing the main-yard, and fill uponher. Board the main tack, and aft with the sheet. Lively now, youskowbanks; and don't stand staring there like stuck pigs!"

  The men hurried away to execute these elegantly embellished orders. AndLeslie, who had stood impatiently by, with a slowly gathering frowncorrugating his brow, stepped forward and said--

  "I hope, Mr Potter, that our presence on board your brig is not goingto subject you to inconvenience. And I hope, further, that we shall notneed to tax your hospitality for very long. Sooner or later we arepretty certain to fall in with a homeward-bound ship, in which case Iwill ask you to have the goodness to transfer Miss Trevor and myself toher, as Valparaiso is quite out of our way, and we have no wish to visitthe place. Meanwhile, we have been in the water for somewhere abouttwelve hours, and Miss Trevor is in a dreadfully exhausted condition, asyou may see for yourself. If you could kindly arrange for her to turnin for a few hours, you could do her no greater service for the present.And to be quite candid, I should not be sorry if you could spare me acorner in which to stretch myself while my clothes are drying."

  The skipper turned upon Leslie rather sharply and scowlingly.

  "Look here, mister," he said, "don't you worry about the young lady,I'll look after her myself. She shall have the use of my cabin. Thebunk's made up, and everything is quite ready for her at a minute'snotice. You come with me, miss," he continued; "I'll take you below andshow you your quarters. You can turn in at once, and when you've restedenough I'll have a good meal cooked and ready for you. This way,please."

  And therewith, offering his arm to the girl, he led her aft toward thecompanion, without vouchsafing another word to Leslie. As for the girl,she was by this time so nearly in a state of collapse that she could donothing but passively accept the assistance offered her, and submit tobe led away below.

  "Queer chap, rather, the skipper; ain't he?" remarked the mate, comingto Leslie's side as Potter and Miss Trevor vanished down thecompanion-way, "This is my first voyage with him, and, between you andme and the lamp-post, it'll be the last, if things don't greatly improvebetween now and our getting back to London. I reckon you'll be all thebetter for a snooze, too, so come below with me. You can use my cabinfor the present, until the `old man' makes other arrangements."

  "Very many thanks," answered Leslie; "I shall be more than glad to availmyself of your kind offer. Before I do so, however, I wish to say thatsomewhere over there," pointing out over the lee bow, "about three milesaway, there is some floating wreckage from the _Golden Fleece_, and,although I think it rather doubtful, there _may_ be a few peopleclinging to it. I hope you will represent this to Mr Potter, andinduce him to run down and examine the spot. It will not take him muchoff his course; and if the fellow has any humanity at all in him he willsurely not neglect the opportunity to save possibly a few more lives."

  "All right," said Purchas, "I'll tell him when he comes on deck again.Now you come away below and turn in."

  Therewith the mate conducted Leslie down into a small, dark, and ratherfrowsy stateroom at the foot of the companion ladder, and outside thebrig's main cabin; and having said a few awkward but hearty words ofhospitality in reply to the other's expressions of thanks, closed thedoor upon him and left him to himself.

  Five minutes later, Leslie was stretched warm and comfortable in thebunk, wrapped in sound and dreamless sleep.