Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables
Chapter Thirty One.
Describes a Happy Home and a Happier Meeting
In a small wayside cottage in the outskirts of one of those picturesque villages which surround London, an old woman sat at the head of a small deal table, with a black teapot, a brown sugar-basin, a yellow milk jug, and a cracked tea-cup before her.
At the foot of the same table sat a young man, with a large knife in one hand, a huge loaf of bread in the other, and a mass of yellow butter in a blue plate in front of him.
The young man was James Slagg; the old woman was his mother. Jim had no brothers or sisters, and his father chanced to be absent at market, so he had the “old lady” all to himself.
“Well, well, Jim,” said Mrs Slagg, with a loving look at her son’s flushed face, “you’ve told me a heap o’ wonderful tales about telegrumphs, an’ tigers, an’ electricity an’ what not. If you was as great a liar as you was used to be, Jim, I tell ’ee plain, lad, I wouldn’t believe one word on it. But you’re a better boy than you was, Jim, an’ I do believe you—indeed I do, though I must confess that some on it is hard to swallow.”
“Thank ’ee, mother,” said Jim, with a pleasant nod, as he cut an enormous slice from the loaf, trowelled upon it a mass of the yellow butter, and pushed in his cup for more tea.
“It was good of ye, Jim,” said the old woman, “to leave all yer fine friends and come straight away here to see your mother.”
“Good o’ me!” ejaculated Jim, with his mouth full—too full, we might say—“what goodness is there in a feller goin’ home, eh? Who’s finer, I should like to know, than a feller’s mother?”
“Well, you are a good boy, Jim,” said the old woman, glancing at a superannuated clock, which told of the moments in loud, almost absurd solemnity; “but if you don’t stop talkin’ and go on wi’ your eatin’, you’ll lose the train.”
“True, mother. Time and tide, they say, wait for no man; but trains is wuss than time or tide, they won’t even wait for a woman.”
“But why go at all to-day, Jim; won’t to-morrow do?”
“No, mother, it won’t do. I didn’t mean to tell ’ee till I came back, for fear it should be a mistake; but I can’t keep nothin’ from you, old lady, so I may as well ease my mind before I go. The fact is, I’ve just heard of the whereabouts of John Shanks—Stumps, you know—my old mate, that I’ve told you bolted with all our treasure from Bombay. Ah! mother, if I’d only brought that treasure home wi’ me, it’s a lady you’d have bin to-day. I had all sorts o’ plans for you—a coach an’ six was—”
“Never mind your plans, Jim, but tell me about poor Stumps.”
“Well, mother, a tramp came past here, an’ had a bit of a talk wi’ me yesterday. You know I ginerally have a bit of a chat wi’ tramps now, ever since that city missionary—God bless him—pulled me up at the docks, an’ began talkin’ to me about my soul. Well, that tramp came here early this mornin’, sayin’ he’d bin in a poor woman’s house in the city, where there was a man dyin’ in a corner. While he was talkin’ with some o’ the people there he chanced to mention my name, an’ observed that the dyin’ man got excited when he heard it, and called to the tramp and asked him about me, and then begged him, for love and for money, which he offered him, to come and fetch me to him as fast as he could, sayin’ that his name was Stumps, and he knew me. So, you see, as the next train is the first that—you needn’t look at the clock so often, old lady; it’s full ten minutes yet, and I’ll back my legs to do it in three.”
“Don’t forget to take your Bible wi’ you, dear boy.”
Jim Slagg rose with a pleasant nod, slapped the breast of his coat, on which the oblong form of a small book in the pocket could be traced, said “Good-day, mother,” and left the cottage.
It was not long before he stood in the dark passage which led to the room described to him by the tramp. The old woman who rented it gave him her unasked opinion of her lodger before admitting him.
“You’ve got no notion, sir, what a strange character that young man is.”
“O yes, I have; let me see him,” said Slagg.
“But, sir,” continued the landlady, detaining him, “you must be careful, for he ain’t hisself quite. Not that he’s ever done anythink wiolent to me, poor young man, but he’s strong in his fits, an’ he raves terribly.”
“Has no doctor bin to see him?” asked Slagg.
“No; he won’t let me send for one. He says it’s o’ no use, an’ he couldn’t afford to pay for one. An’ oh! you’ve no notion what a miser that poor young man is. He must have plenty of money, for the box as he takes it out on—an’ it’s at his head he keeps it, day and night, ginerally holdin’ it with one hand—seems full o’ money, for it’s wonderful heavy. I could see that when he brought it here, an’ there’s no clo’es in it, that I can see, when he opens it, to get at the few pence he wants now an’ again. An’ he starves hisself, an’ says he’s not fit to live, an’ calls hisself sitch awful names, an’—”
“Well, well, show me his room,” said Slagg, with as much decision in his tone as compelled immediate obedience.
In the corner of a small room, on a truckle-bed, with scant bedding, lay the emaciated form of John Shanks, alias Stumps, alias James Gibson. He had raised himself on one elbow, and was gazing with great lustrous invalid eyes at the door, when his old comrade entered, for he had been watching, and heard the first sound of footsteps in the passage.
“Oh! Jim Slagg,” he cried, extending a hand which bore strong resemblance to a claw, it was so thin. “Come to me, Jim, How I’ve wished an’ longed, an’—”
He stopped and burst into tears, for he was very weak, poor fellow, and even strong men weep when their strength is brought low.
“Come now, Stumps,” said Slagg, in a serious voice, as he sat down on the bed, put an arm round his old comrade’s thin shoulders, and made him lie down, “if you go to excite yourself like that, I’ll—I’ll—quit the room, an’ I won’t come back for an hour or more.”
“No! O no!” exclaimed the sick man; clutching Slagg’s arm with a trembling grip, “don’t leave me, Jim—don’t, don’t! I shall die if you do! I’m dyin’ anyhow, but it will kill me quicker if you go.”
“Well, I won’t go. There, keep quiet, my poor old Stumps.”
“Yes, that’s it—that’s it—I like to hear the old name,” murmured the sick man, closing his eyes. “Say it again, Jim—say it again.”
“Stumps,” said Slagg, getting down on his knees, the better to arrange and grasp his former comrade, “don’t be a fool now, but listen. I have come to look after you, so make your mind easy.”
“But I’ve been such a beast to you, Jim; it was so awful shabby,” cried Stumps, rousing himself again, “and I’ve been so sorry ever since. You can’t think how sorry. I have repented, Jim, if ever a man did. An’ I’d have come back and confessed long ago, if I’d had the chance, but I can get no rest—no peace. I’ve never spent a rap of it, Jim, except what I couldn’t help—for you know, Jim, body an’ soul wouldn’t stick together without a little o’ suthin’ to eat an’ drink; an’ when I was ill I couldn’t work, you know. See, it’s all here—all here—except what little—”
He stopped abruptly, having raised himself to open the lid of the box at his elbow, but his strength failed, and he sank on the pillow with a groan.
“Stumps,” said Slagg, “come, old boy, you an’ me will have a bit of prayer together.”
The sick man opened his great eyes in astonishment. It was so unlike his old friend’s brusque rollicking character to propose prayer, that he fancied he must be dreaming, and the possibility of the visit turning out unreal, induced an expression of distress on his haggard countenance. On being ordered, however, in the peremptory and familiar tones of former days, to shut his eyes, he felt reassured and became calm, while his friend prayed for him.
It was not a set or formal prayer by any means. It sounded strangely like a man asking a friend, in commonplace terms, but very earnestly, to give him what he stood in great need of; and what Jim asked for was the salvation of his friend’s soul and his restoration to health. The petition, therefore, was remarkably brief, yet full of reverence, for Jim, though naturally blunt and straightforward, felt that he was addressing the great and blessed God and Saviour, who had so recently rescued his own soul.
After saying “Amen!” which the sick man echoed, Slagg pulled out his Bible and read through the fourteenth chapter of John’s gospel, commenting quietly as he went along, while his comrade listened with intense earnestness. At the first verse Jim paused and said, “This wasn’t written to holy and sinless men. ‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ was said to the disciples, one o’ them bein’ Peter, the man who was to deny Jesus three times with oaths and curses, and then forsake Him. The Lord came to save sinners. It would be a poor look-out for you, Stumps, if you thought yourself a good man.”
“But I don’t—oh! I don’t, and you know I don’t!” exclaimed the sick man vehemently.
“Then the Lord says, ‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ and tells you to believe in God and Himself.”
At the second verse Slagg remarked that it would be a sad, sad thing if the mansion prepared, among the many mansions, for his friend were to be left empty.
“But how am I to get to it, Jim; how am I ever to find the way?”
“Just what the disciple named Thomas asked—an’ he was a very doubting follower of Jesus, like too many of us. The Master said to him what He says to you and me, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life; no one cometh unto the Father but by me.’”
At the ninth verse the sailor-missionary said, “Jesus is God, you see, so we’re safe to trust Him,” and, at the thirteenth verse, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I do,” he said. “Now, we have asked Jesus to save you, and He will do it, by His Holy Spirit, as He has saved me—has saved millions in time past, and will save millions more in time to come. Why, you see, in the sixteenth verse He tells you He will pray the Father to send you a Comforter, who will stay with you for ever. Has He not reason then for beginnin’ with ‘let not your heart be troubled’? And that same Comforter, the Holy Spirit, is to ‘teach us all things,’ so, you see, every difficulty is taken out of our way. ‘Arise, let us go hence.’ Now, my old messmate, I have arisen. Will you not arise and go with me, both of us looking unto Jesus?”
“I will—God helping me!” cried the sick man, literally arising from his couch and raising both arms to heaven.
“There, now—thank the Lord; but you must lie down again and keep quiet,” said Jim, gently and kindly forcing his friend backward.
Stumps did not resist. He closed his eyes, and the restful feeling that had suddenly arisen in his heart when he said the momentous words, “I will,” coupled with exhaustion, resulted almost instantaneously in a quiet slumber.
“When did he eat last?” asked Slagg of the old woman, in a low voice, for he had been taught, or had learned intuitively, that few things are more disheartening in a sick-room than a whisper.
“This morning he breakfasted at six, but it was on’y a hap’orth o’ bread and a drink o’ cold water.”
“And how dare you starve your lodger in that way?” demanded Slagg, leading the astonished woman into the passage and closing the door. “Don’t you know that starving a man is equal to murdering him, and that you’ll be liable to be hung if he dies? There, take this half-sov, and be off to the nearest shop, an’ buy—let me see—sassengers and steaks and—oh, you know better than me what a sick man wants. Get along with you, and be back sharp. Stay! where are your matches? Ah! Any coals? Good, now away with you and fetch a doctor too, else I’ll fetch a policeman, you bolster of bones.”
Thus ordered, threatened, and adjured, the landlady, half-amused, and more than half-frightened at the visitor’s gushing energy, hurried from the house, while Slagg returned to the miserable room, and did his best to render it less miserable by kindling a splendid fire.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add, that a breakfast soon filled that room with delicious odour, such as had not been felt in that lowly neighbourhood for many years; that Stumps, after a refreshing sleep, partook of the feast with relish; that Jim Slagg also partook of it—of most of it, indeed—and enjoyed it to the full; that the old landlady was invited to “fall to,” and did fall to with alacrity; that the domestic cat also managed to fall to, surreptitiously, without invitation, and not the less enjoyably on that account; that a miserable semi-featherless but unconquerable canary in a cage in the window took care that it was not forgotten; and that several street boys, smelling the viands from afar, came round the outer door, became clamorous, and were not sent empty away.
It may, however, be advisable to add, that Stumps did not die; that joy of heart, good feeding, and—perhaps—the doctor, brought him round, and that he afterwards went to the country to spend the period of convalescence in the cottage by the roadside, with Slagg’s mother.
Chapter Thirty Two.
In which the Story finds a “Fault,” and the Electrical Current ends
Now, it is not in the nature of things that man, in his present state, should attain to full satisfaction. He may, indeed he should, attain to contentment, but as long as there are higher and better things within his reach, he must of necessity remain in some degree unsatisfied.
Some such idea must have been passing through Robin Wright’s brain one fine morning, as he slowly paced the deck of a small schooner with his friend Sam Shipton, for he suddenly broke a prolonged silence with the following remark:—
“I don’t know how it is, Sam, but although I am surrounded with everything that should make a fellow happy, I’m—I’m not happy. In fact, I’m as miserable as it is possible to be!”
“Come now, Robin, don’t exaggerate,” said Sam in a remonstrative tone. “Hyperbole is very objectionable, especially in young men. You know that if you were tied to a huge gridiron over a slow fire, you would be more miserable than you are at present.”
Robin smiled and admitted the truth of this, but nevertheless reiterated his assertion that he was decidedly unhappy.
This conversation, we may remark, took place on board of Sam Shipton’s yacht, off the west coast of Scotland, several years after the events narrated in the previous chapter.
“Well, now, it is strange,” said Sam, with an earnestly sympathetic air and tone of voice, but with the faintest possible twinkle in the extreme corner of one of his eyes. “Let me see—everything, as you justly remark, ought to make you happy here. The weather, to begin with—people always begin with the weather, you know—is splendid, though there is a thundery look about the horizon to the west’ard. Then our yacht, the Gleam, is a perfect duck, both as to her sea-going and sailing qualities, and Captain James Slagg is a perfect seaman, while Stumps is a superlative steward and cook. Our time is our own, and the world before us where to choose. Then, as to our companionship, what female society could be more agreeable than that of my wife Madge, and her bosom friend Letta, who, since she has grown up, has become one of the most beautiful, fascinating, charming,—but why go on, when, in the language of the poet, ‘adequate words is wantin’!’ And Letta’s mother is second only to herself. Then as to the men, could there be found anywhere finer fellows than uncle Rik and Ebenezer Smith, and Frank Hedley—to say nothing of myself and our splendid little boy Sammy? I can’t understand it, Robin. You’re not ill, are you?”
“Ill? no. Never was better in my life.”
“Well, then, what is it? Be confidential, my boy. The witching hour of sunrise is fitted for confidential communications. You’re not in love, are—”
“Hush, Sam! the skylight is open. Come forward to the bows. Yes, Sam, I am in love.”
“Well, Robin, I can’t pretend ignorance, for I know it—at least I have seen it.”
“Seen it!” echoed Robin, “how is that? I have never by word or look given the slightest indication to any one of the state of my feelings.”
“True, Robin, as regards words, but there are other modes of indication, as must be well-known to a celebrated electrician like yourself. The fact is, my dear boy, that you and Letta have been rubbing your intellects together for so many years, that you have electrified each other—the one positively, the other negatively; and even a Manx cat with an absent mind and no tail could hardly fail to observe the telegraphic communication which you have established by means of that admirable duplex instrument, a pair of eyes.”
“You distress me very much, Sam,” returned Robin, seriously. “I assure you I have never consciously done anything of the sort, and I have never opened my lips to Letta on the subject—I dare not.”
“I believe you as to your consciousness; but, to be serious, Robin, why should being in love make you miserable?”
“Because it makes me doubt whether Letta cares for me.”
“Nonsense, Robin. Take my advice, put an end to your doubts, and make sure of your ground by taking heart and proposing to Letta.”
“I dare not, Sam. It is all very well for a fine manly fellow like you to give such advice, but I am such a poor, miserable sort of—”
“Hallo, fasser!” cried a merry voice at that moment, “how red de sun am!”
The owner of the voice—a mere chip of a child, in perfect miniature middy costume—ran up to its father and was hoisted on his shoulder.
“Yes, the sun is very red, like your own face, Sammy, my boy, to say nothing of cousin Robin’s. Where is mamma?”
The question was answered by mamma herself, our old friend Madge Mayland, coming up the companion-hatch,—tall, dark, beautiful, like the spirit of departed night. She was followed by Letta,—graceful, fair, sunny, like the spirit of the coming morn.
“Sunbeam, ahoy!” came up through the cabin skylight at that moment, like the sonorous voice of Neptune.
“Well, grunkle Rik, w’at is it?” shouted Sammy, in silvery tones, from his father’s shoulder.
“Grunkle” was the outcome of various efforts made to teach Sammy to call the old captain grand-uncle.
“Where have you stowed away my hair-brush, you rascal?” cried the voice of thunder.
“It’s under my bunk, grunkle; I was bracking yous boots with it.”
The thunder subsided in tempestuous mutterings, and Sammy, feeling that he had begun the day well, struggled out of his father’s arms and went careering round the deck into every possible position of danger. He kept them all lively until Stumps caught him and extinguished him, for a time, with breakfast.
“Uncle Rik,” said Sam, while that meal was being discussed in the snuggest little cabin that could be imagined, “did you hear of the extraordinary manner in which a whale was caught by a telegraph cable lately?”
“No, I didn’t, Sam, an’ what’s more, I wouldn’t believe it if I did.”
“It is true, nevertheless,” said Sam, breaking his fifth egg—sea breezes being appetising.
“How did it happen, Sam?” asked Madge.
“In a very curious manner Madge. It will amuse Letta, for I know she takes a deep interest in cables.”
“Indeed it will,” said Letta, who was the soul of earnest simplicity; “I delight in electric cables.”
Robin looked at Letta, and wished that he were an electric cable!
“It happened to the Persian Gulf cable, quite recently,” continued Sam, addressing himself to Letta. “The cable between Kurrachee and Gwadur, a distance of 300 miles, suddenly failed one evening. Now, you must know that electrical science has advanced with such rapid strides of late, that we have the power to discover pretty nearly the exact position of a fault in a cable. Of course I cannot expect a young lady to understand the technical details of the mode in which this is done, but you will understand that by tests taken at either end the damage appeared to be about 118 miles from Kurrachee, and a telegraph steamer was sent with an electrical and engineering staff to repair it. The steamer reached the supposed locality early on the morning of the second day out, and proceeded at once to grapple for the cable, though a thick fog prevailed at the time, and a heavy sea was running.
“The soundings at the place were very irregular, implying a rugged bottom of submarine mountain-tops and valleys. On winding in the cable unusual resistance was experienced, as if it were foul of rocks, and when, after great difficulty, they drew it up they found that this was caused by the body of an immense whale, with two and a half turns of the cable round it immediately above the tail.”
“Pooh! boh!” exclaimed uncle Rik, “I don’t believe it.”
“But I do, uncle,” returned Sam, as he opened his sixth egg, “for I read the account of it in one of the engineering journals, in which dates and names were given. The steamer was the Amber Witch, commanded by Captain Bishop, and the staff of operators were under Mr Harry Mance. The body of the huge creature was found to be rapidly decomposing, the jaws falling away as it reached the surface, and sharks had evidently been devouring it. The tail, which measured twelve feet across, was covered with barnacles at the extremities.”
“But how could it have entangled itself so?” asked Mrs Langley.
“They suppose that at the time the whale had found a part of the cable hanging in a deep loop over a submarine precipice, and, thinking the chance a good one no doubt for scraping off the barnacles and other parasites that annoy whales very much, had probably twisted the cable round him with a flip of his tail. Anyhow, the fact is unquestionable that it held him fast until he was fished up dead by the electricians and engineers.”
“How strange!” murmured Letta.
“It is indeed,” responded Robin, “the most extraordinary case I ever heard of, though cables are subject to many singular accidents. I remember one case of accident to the cable across the river Yar, in the Isle of Wight. A bullock fell from the deck of a vessel, and, in its struggles, caught the cable and broke it.”
“I have read of several very singular cases,” said Sam, “in which cables have been attacked and damaged by inhabitants of the sea. The Cuba and Florida cable was once damaged by the bite of some large fish, and a similar accident happened to the China cable. In the Malta-Alexandria cable, a piece of the core from which the sheathing had been worn was found to have been bitten by a shark, and pieces of the teeth were found sticking in the gutta-percha.”
“I thought it was to the Singapore cable that that happened,” said Robin.
“No, but something similar happened to it. That cable was laid in December. In the following March a stoppage occurred. The fault was spotted at 200 miles from Singapore. When hauled up, the cable was found to have been pierced, and bits of crushed bone were sticking in the hole. The piece was cut out and sent to Mr Frank Buckland, who, after long and careful examination, came to the conclusion that it had been the work of a saw-fish.”
“Dear me, Mr Shipton,” said Mrs Langley, “you speak as if every part of the world were connected by electric cables.”
“And such is the case,” said Sam; “we have now direct communication by submarine cable and land telegraph with every part of Europe; with Canada and the United States; down South America, nearly to Cape Horn; with Africa from Algiers to the Cape of Good Hope; with India from Afghanistan to Ceylon; with China from Pekin to Hong-Kong; and down through the Malacca Archipelago, Australia, and Tasmania.”
“I say, Sam, are you a member of the Royal Geographical Society, or a walking atlas?” asked uncle Rik.
“In short,” continued Sam, not heeding the interruption, “there isn’t a civilised quarter of the globe which is not tied to us by telegraph, and from which we might not hear any morning of the events of the preceding day.”
“Always excepting Central Africa and the two poles,” said the captain.
“I said civilised quarters,” retorted Sam, “and, as far as I know, the poles are inhabited only by bears.”
“True, I forgot, the poles are barely civilised,” said uncle Rik.
“Now, Master Sammy,” growled a deep voice from the adjoining galley, “you keep your hands out o’ that copper.”
“Fasser,” shouted a silvery voice from the same region, “’Tumps is naughty. I wants to wass my hands in de soup, an’ he won’t let me.”
“Quite right. Keep him in order, Stumps,” said the unfeeling Sam, senior.
“Dere—pa says I’s kite right, an’ to keep you in order, ’Tumps,” said the silvery voice. (Then, after a few minutes), “Grunkle Rik, is you finish bekfist?”
“Ay, ay, Sunbeam, quite finished.”
“Den come on deck an’ p’ay vid me.”
Uncle Rik rose with a laugh, and obediently went on deck to play. But the play did not last long, for that day ominous clouds rose in the west, and, overspreading the sky, soon drenched the little yacht with rain. Towards evening the rain ceased, but the wind increased to a gale, and the weather showed signs of becoming what is known among seamen, we believe, as dirty. Ere long the low mutterings of thunder increased to mighty peals, and the occasional gleams of lightning to frequent and vivid flashes, that lit up the scene with the brilliancy of full moonlight.
“I wish we were nearer shore,” said Letta, timidly, to Robin, as they stood looking over the bulwarks; “what is the land we see far away on our left?”
“The Island of Mull,” returned Robin.
“Better if it was further away,” growled Captain Rik, who overheard the remark. “We want plenty of sea-room on a night like this.”
“We’ve got sea-room enough,” observed “Captain” Slagg, with the confidence of a man who knows well what he is about, as he stood by the tiller, balancing himself with his legs well apart.
“You’ve got a lightning conductor on the mast, of course?” observed Captain Rik to Sam.
“No,” replied Sam.
“Sam!” exclaimed the captain in a tone of intense surprise, “you, of all men, without such a safeguard.”
“Well, uncle Rik,” replied Sam with a laugh, “yachts are not always fitted with conductors. But I’m not so bad as you think me. I had ordered a special conductor with some trifling novelties of construction for the yacht, but it was not ready when we started, so we had to sail without it. However, it is not once in a thousand times that a vessel is struck by lightning.”
While Sam was yet speaking, a flash of lightning almost blinded them, and the little schooner received a shock which told of disaster. Next moment the roar of reverberating thunder drowned the crash of timber as the topmast went overboard, carrying the bowsprit and its gear along with it.
Fortunately no one was hurt, but the schooner became unmanageable, owing to the mass of wreckage which hung to her.
Jim Slagg, seizing an axe, sprang to the side to cut this away, ably seconded by all the men on board, but before it could be accomplished the Gleam had drifted dangerously near to the rocks on the coast of Mull. To add to the confusion, the darkness became intense.
Captain Rik, forgetting or ignoring his years, had thrown off his coat and was working like a hero with the rest. The ladies, unable to remain below, were clinging to the stern rails, Madge holding her little boy tightly in her arms, and the spray dashing wildly over all.
Another moment and the Gleam struck on the rocks with tremendous violence. Only by the lightning could they see the wild rocky shore on which they had drifted.
Instinctively each member of the little crew drew towards those nearest and dearest.
“Get out the boat!” shouted Captain Slagg; but the men could not obey, for a heavy sea had anticipated them, and the little dinghy was already careering shoreward, bottom up.
The next wave lifted the Gleam like a cork, and let her down on the rocks like fifty-six tons of lead. A flash of lightning revealed for a moment a range of frowning cliffs, as if to add horror to a scene that was already sufficiently appalling. Then all was again dark as Erebus.
In a frenzy of resolution Captain Rik seized an axe with the view of extemporising a raft, when the Gleam parted amidships, and we might almost say went out, leaving her crew struggling in the waves.
Sam had seized his wife with his strong left arm—he happened to be left-handed—and buffeted the waves with his right. Madge held on to Sammy with the power of maternal love. Sam was aware of that, and felt comparatively at ease in regard to his first-born.
Robin’s arm had been round Letta’s waist—unknown to himself or her!—when the Gleam struck. It did not relax when he felt that they were afloat. Frank Hedley gallantly offered to take charge of Mrs Langley.
Ebenezer Smith, being unable to swim, confessed the fact, with something of a gasp, to Captain Rik, who considerately told him never to mind.
“I can swim for both,” he said, tying a piece of rope-yarn tight round his waist, for he had long before cast off coat, vest, and braces; “but you ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man come to your time o’ life, an’ not able to swim!”
“I never lived near the sea, and had no one to teach me,” pleaded Ebenezer in a tremblingly apologetic voice, for the roar of united wind, waves, and thunder was really tremendous even to those who could swim.
“What o’ that?” returned Captain Rik, sternly. “Was there no river or pond nigh? Even a horse-trough or a washing-tub would have sufficed to make a man of you. As for teaching—what teaching did you want? Swimmin’ ain’t Latin or Greek. It ain’t even mathematics—only aquatics. All the brute beasts swim—even donkeys swim without teaching. Boh! bah! There, lay hold o’ me—so. Now, mind, if you try to take me round the neck with your two arms I’ll plant my fist on the bridge of your nose, an’ let you go to Davy Jones’s locker.”
A flash of lightning revealed Captain Rik’s face in such a way that Ebenezer Smith resolved to obey him to the letter.
It was at this point of their conversation that the Gleam went down—or out—and they sank with a gurgle, coming up next moment, however, with a gasp.
Strange to say, after the first plunge and overthrow amid the boiling waves, the swimmers found themselves in almost still water.
