Robert Michael Ballantyne
The Coxswain's Bride; also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue
Story 1 – Chapter 6
Darkness, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, is probably the greatest evil that man has had to contend with since the fall. At all events, the physical and mental forms of it were the cause of the good ship Lapwing sailing one night straight to destruction.
It happened thus. A pretty stiff breeze, amounting almost to half a gale, was blowing on the night in question, and the emigrant ship was running before it under close-reefed topsails. For some days previously the weather had been “dirty,” and the captain had found it impossible to obtain an observation, so that he was in the dark as to the exact part of the ocean in which he was sailing.
In an open sea this is not of serious moment, but when one is nearing land, or in the neighbourhood of islands, it becomes cause for much anxiety. To make matters worse, the ship had been blown considerably out of her course, and worst of all the night was so intensely dark that it was not possible to see more than a few yards beyond the flying jibboom.
The captain and mate, with several of the men, stood on the forecastle peering anxiously out into the darkness.
“I don’t like the look o’ things at all,” muttered the captain to the chief mate.
“Perhaps it would be well, sir, to lay-to till daylight,” suggested the mate.
Whether the captain agreed with his chief officer or not was never known, for just then a dull sound was heard which sent a thrill to the bravest heart on board.
“Breakers ahead!” cried the look-out, as in duty bound, but he was instantly contradicted by the mate, who shouted that they were on the starboard beam, while another voice roared that they were on the port-bow.
The helm was instantly put hard a-port, and immediately after the order was given “hard a-starboard,” for it was discovered that the sound of breakers came from both sides of the vessel. They were, obviously, either running in a narrow strait between two islands, or into a bay. In the first case the danger was imminent, in the second case, destruction was almost inevitable.
“Clear the anchor, and stand by to let go!” cried the captain, in loud sharp tones, for he felt that there was no room to turn and retreat. The order was also given to take in all sail.
But before either order could be obeyed, a cry of terror burst from many throats, for right in front of them there suddenly loomed out of the darkness an object like a great black cloud, which rose high above and seemed about to fall upon them. There was no mistaking its nature, however, for by that time the roar of the breakers right ahead told but too plainly that they were rushing straight upon a high perpendicular cliff. At this moment the vessel struck a rock. It was only a slight touch at the stern, nevertheless it tore the rudder away, so that the intention of the captain to put about and take his chance of striking on the rocks to starboard was frustrated.
“Let go,” he shouted, in this extremity.
Quick as lightning the anchor went to the bottom but with such way on the ship, the sudden strain snapped the chain, and the Lapwing rushed upon her doom, while cries of terror and despair arose from the passengers, who had by that time crowded on deck.
To the surprise of the captain, and those who were capable of intelligent observation, the ship did not immediately strike again, but sailed straight on as if right against the towering cliffs. Still onward it went, and as it did so there settled around them a darkness so profound that no one could see even an inch before his eyes. Then at last the ill-fated vessel struck, but not with her hull, as might have been expected. High up above them a terrific crash was heard.
“God help us,” exclaimed the captain, “we’ve sailed straight into a cave!”
That he was right soon became evident, for immediately after the crashing of the topmasts against the roof of the cave, a shower of small stones and several large fragments fell on the deck with a rattle like that of musketry. Some of the people were struck and injured, though not seriously so, by the shower.
“Get down below, all of you!” cried the captain, himself taking shelter under the companion hatchway. But the order was needless, for the danger was so obvious that every one sought the shelter of the cabins without delay.
The situation was not only terrible but exceedingly singular, as well as trying, for as long as stones came thundering down on the deck it would have been sheer madness to have attempted to do anything aboveboard, and to sit idle in the cabins with almost certain death staring them in the face was a severe test of endurance.
From the motion of the vessel several facts could be deduced. Although the scraping and crashing of the masts overhead told eloquently of destruction going on in that direction, the heaving of the ship, and her striking occasionally on either side, proved that there was deep water below her. That they were not progressing into an interminable cavern was made evident by the frequent plunging of the shattered bowsprit against the inner end of the cave. This action sent the vessel reeling backwards, as it were, every time she struck, besides shattering the bowsprit. That the cave, also, was open to the full force of the sea was only too severely proved by the rush of the billows into it, and the frequent and severe shocks to which they were in consequence subjected. These shocks had extinguished the lamps, and it was only by the aid of a few candles that they were delivered from sitting in absolute darkness.
In these awful circumstances the young Wesleyan proved that, besides the courage that he had already shown in facing danger on a sudden emergency, he also possessed that far higher courage which can face the slow and apparently sure approach of death with equanimity and self-possession. Moreover, he proved that the Word of God and prayer are the true resources of man in such extremities.
Calling those who were willing around him, he led them in prayer, and then quieted the timid among them, as well as comforted all, not by reading, but by quoting appropriate passages from Scripture, in which he was profoundly versed.
“D’ee know when it’ll be low water, sir?” asked Joe Slag of the captain, when the ship gave one of her upward heaves and rasped her timbers again on the sides of the cave.
“Not for three hours yet, but it’s falling. I expect there will be less sea on in a short time. If the ship holds together we may yet be saved.”
There was a murmured “thank God” at these words. Then Bob Massey expressed some fear that there might be a danger of striking the rocks underneath before low water.
“I wish it was the risin’ tide,” he said, and the words took his mind back, like a flash of lightning, to the time when he used them in a very different sense. Then all was peace, hope, sunshine, and his bride was sitting like a good angel beside him, with a sweet smile on her fair face. Now, something like darkness visible, showed him his poor wife—still beside him, thank God—but clinging to his arm with looks of terror amounting almost to despair. “What a contrast!” he thought, and for the first time a feeling of rebellion arose in his mind.
“There’s no use o’ sittin’ here to be drowned like rats,” he cried, starting up. “I’ll go on deck an’ take a cast o’ the lead, an’ see what chances we have.”
“No, you won’t, Bob,” cried Nellie, throwing her arms firmly round him. “There’s big stones falling all about the deck yet. Don’t you hear them?”
As if to corroborate her words, a piece of rock nearly half a ton in weight fell on the sky-light at that moment, crashed completely through it, through the table below, and even sank into the cabin floor. Fortunately, no one was hurt, though Slag had a narrow escape, but that worthy was not easily intimidated. He rose up, and, saying that, “it was as well to be killed on deck doin’ somethin’ as in the cabin doin’ nothin’,” was about to ascend the ladder when Dr Hayward suddenly entered, all wet and dishevelled, and with blood trickling down his face.
“No use going up just now, Joe,” he said, as he sat down beside his wife, and permitted her to tie a kerchief round his head. “Only a slight wound, Eva, got while taking soundings. I find that there are sixteen fathoms of water under us, and, although I couldn’t see my hand held up before my face, I managed to make out by the flash of a match, which burned for a moment before being blown out, that the sides of the cave are quite perpendicular, not the smallest ledge to stand on. The tide, however, is ebbing fast, and the water in the cave calming, so that if no bad leak has been made by all this thumping we may yet be saved. Our only chance is to stick to the ship.”
While he was speaking the vessel again surged violently against one side of the cave, and another of the huge masses of rock that were brought down by the swaying masts came crashing on the deck.
“There is no bad leak as yet,” said the captain, re-entering the cabin, which he had quitted for the purpose of sounding the well. “If we can keep afloat for an hour or two we may be able to use the boats. Just now it would be useless to attempt launching them.”
Although the captain’s words were not particularly reassuring, his confident tone and manner infused hope, and comforted the people greatly. Some of the male passengers even volunteered to face the shower of stones, if need be, and lend a hand in launching the boats, when the time for doing so arrived.
These boats, three in number, were lying bottom up on deck, and to reach them involved the risk of death to whoever should attempt it. They were therefore compelled to wait.
It is difficult to form even a slight conception of the horrors of that night. For several hours they sat in the after-cabin, and the ship surged and plunged in the wildly-heaving water, striking the sides continually, while rocks fell at intervals on the deck, thus adding to the noise of wind and waves as they raged with echoing, deafening noise in the black cavern. Each moment it seemed as if the ship must have her planks stove in and be sunk, but she was a new vessel and strong. Of course she leaked considerably, but when the tide went down the sea calmed a little, the rocks ceased falling from the roof, and they were enabled to rig the pumps and work them vigorously. The boats, meanwhile, were cast loose and got ready to launch at the first glimmer of daylight! Fortunately, they had received no serious injury from the falling rocks.
Oh, how they longed and prayed for the day! It came at last, a gleam so faint that it showed nothing of their surroundings save the outline of the cavern’s great mouth.
“Shall we launch the boats now, sir?” asked the first mate, who was becoming anxious, because the carpenter had just reported that the water in the hold was increasing dangerously in spite of the pumps.
“Not yet—not yet,” returned the captain, hurriedly. “We must have more light first. The loss of a boat would be fatal. I’m afraid of the rising tide.”
“Afraid of the rising tide!” Again the words struck strangely on Bob Massey’s ears as he stood wiping the perspiration from his brow after a long spell at the pumps—and once more carried him back to the sunlit sands of Old England.
Soon the increase of water in the hold was so great that the getting out of the boats could no longer be delayed. The first launched was a small one. It was lowered over the stern by means of the studding-sail boom, with a block and whip, which kept it from dropping too quickly into the water. Massey and his friend Slag, being recognised as expert boatmen in trying circumstances, were sent in it, with two of the crew, to run out a line and drop an anchor in the sea outside, so that the heavier boats might be hauled out thereby. Two hundred and fifty fathoms of rope were given them—more than sufficient for the purpose. On getting outside, Bob and his friend, according to custom as lifeboat men, kept a sharp look-out on everything around them, and the feeble daylight enabled them to see that the black cliff which had, as it were, swallowed up the Lapwing, was full six hundred feet high and a sheer precipice, in some places overhanging at the top, and without the symptom of a break as far as the eye could reach in either direction.
“A black look-out, Joe,” muttered Massey, as he assisted his comrade to heave the anchor over the side.
“Ay, Bob, an’ the worst of it is that the tide’s risin’. A boat can live here as long as that ridge o’ rocks keeps off the seas, but in an hour or so it’ll be rollin’ in as bad as ever.”
“I knows it, Joe, an’ the more need to look sharp.”
Returning to the ship, our coxswain made his report, and recommended urgent haste. But the captain required no urging, for by that time the ship’s main deck was level with the water, and the seas were making a clean breach over the stern. The passengers and crew crowded towards the port gangway where the large boat was being brought round to receive the women and children first. This was such a familiar scene to the two lifeboat men that they kept cool and self-possessed from the mere force of habit. Seeing this, the captain ordered Mitford to get into the boat first, and help to stow the others, for it would be a tight pack, he said, to stow them all. Dr Hayward was ordered to assist. Ned Jarring volunteered to help to fend the boat off during the operation, and, without waiting for permission, jumped into her.
Mitford had consigned his wife to the care of his friend Massey, who at once undertook the duty by tying a kerchief round Peggy’s head to keep her hair out of her eyes, after which he did the same for Nellie. Both women were perfectly quiet and submissive—the first owing to fear and exhaustion, the last from native courage, which enabled her to rise to the occasion. Massey then stripped off all his own clothes, except shirt and trousers, so as to be ready for swimming, and, catching up a rope, advanced towards his wife, intending to fasten it round her waist.
“Peggy first, Bob; I’ll wait for you,” said his wife.
“Look sharp!” cried the captain.
Bob turned at once to Peggy, and in a few seconds she was lowered into the boat. Mrs Hayward followed. Then Massey insisted on his wife going, and the obedient Nellie submitted, but, owing to a lurch of the ship at the moment, she missed the boat, and dropped into the water. One of the men attempted to pull her in, but could not, and, as all the others were engaged at the moment in trying to fend off the rocks, Massey at once jumped into the sea, and helped to get his wife into the boat.
At that moment there arose a cry that the ship was sinking, and a wild rush was made for the long-boat, which had also been successfully launched. Of course it was instantly overcrowded, for all discipline was now at an end. Before anything else could be done the Lapwing sank in sixteen fathoms of water, carrying the long-boat and all the people in her along with it, but those in the other boat had shoved off at the first wild cry, and hauling on the anchored cable, just escaped being sucked down by the sinking ship.
Bob Massey clung to the boat’s gunwale, and thus escaped. Rowing back instantly, however, to the spot where the ship had gone down, they sought eagerly for swimmers. Only three were discovered and rescued, but the others—seventy souls in all—found a watery grave in the dark cavern of that unknown land.
Story 1 – Chapter 7
So rapidly did the final catastrophe take place that it was difficult for the rescued party at first to credit the evidence of their senses. On the spot where the Lapwing had been beating her sides against the cruel walls of the cavern, and where so many hearts had been throbbing wildly between hope and fear, no living creature remained; nothing but a few feet of the shattered masts appearing now and then above the surging waves was left to tell of the terrible tragedy that had been enacted there.
For upwards of an hour the party in the boat hovered about the place, not so much with the hope of rescuing any of their shipmates as on account of the difficulty of tearing themselves away from the fatal spot. Perhaps the natural tendency of man to hope against hope had something to do with it. Then they passed silently out of the cavern and rowed slowly along the base of the tremendous cliffs.
At length the feeling of self-preservation began to assert itself, and Bob Massey was the first to break silence with the question—
“Does any one know if there’s anything to eat aboard?”
“We’d better see to that,” observed Dr Hayward, who was steering.
Bob Massey pulled in his oar, and, without remark, began to search the boat. It was found that all the food they had brought away consisted of nine tins of preserved meat and three pieces of pork, a supply which would not go far among ten persons.
The ten survivors were Dr Hayward and his wife; Massey and Nellie; Joe Slag; John Mitford and his wife Peggy; Terrence O’Connor, the assistant cook; Tomlin, one of the cabin passengers; and Ned Jarring. All the rest, as we have said, had perished with the ill-fated Lapwing.
Little was said at first, for the hopelessness of their condition seemed so obvious that the men shrank from expressing their gloomy fears to the women who sat huddled together, wet and cold, in the bottom of the boat.
As we have said, as far as the eye could see in any direction, the frowning cliffs rose perpendicularly out of deep water. There was not even a strip of sand or a bay into which they could run in case of the wind increasing.
“There is nothing for it but to push on till we come to an inlet or break of some sort in the cliffs by which we may land,” said Hayward, speaking encouragingly to the women. “God helping us, we are sure to find some such place ere long.”
“Don’t look very like it,” muttered Black Ned, gloomily.
“We can see how it looks about as well as you can,” retorted John Mitford, indignantly. “If ye can’t say somethin’ to cheer the women, there’s no need for to look blue an’ tell us what a mere babby could see for itself.”
This remark, coming as it did from lugubrious Mitford, caused Terrence O’Connor to smile.
“True for ye,” he said, “we can see what’s fornint us, but even Black Ned can’t see round the corner.”
“Besides, there may be a flat shore on the other side o’ the island,” added Bob Massey in a cheerful tone; “I’ve often noticed islands o’ this build, and when they’re so high on one side they usually are low on the opposite side; so we’ll only have to pull round—an’ mayhap there are people on it—who knows?”
“Ay, natives pr’aps,” growled Jarring, “an’ cannibals who are fond of eatin’ white folk—specially women!”
“Shut up your black muzzle, or I’ll heave ye overboard!” said Mitford, fiercely, for like many easy-going, quiet men, he was unusually savage when fairly roused.
Whatever Black Ned may have felt, he gave no expression to his thoughts or feelings by word or look, but continued calmly to pull his oar.
All that day, and all that night, however, the party pulled steadily along the shore without finding an opening in the cliffs or any part which could be scaled by man. During this period their plight was miserable in the extreme, for the weather at the time was bitterly cold; they were drenched through and through with spray, which broke so frequently over the side as to necessitate constant baling, and, to make matters worse, towards evening of the second day snow began to fall and continued to do so the greater part of the night. Fortunately, before dark they came to some small rocky islets, on which they could not land as the waves washed over them, but in the lee of which they cast anchor, and thus were enabled to ride out a furious gale, which sprang up at sunset and did not subside till morning.
It need scarcely be said that the men did all that lay in their power to shelter the poor women, who had exhibited great fortitude and uncomplaining endurance all that weary time; but little could be done for them, for there was not even a bit of sail to put over them as a protection.
“Nellie, dear,” said Massey, when the boat was brought up under the lee of the rocks, “d’ee feel very cold?”
“Not very,” replied his wife, raising her head. “I’m strong, thank God, and can stand it; but Peggy here is shudderin’ awful bad. I believe she’ll die if somethin’ isn’t done for her.”
“I think if she could only ring the water out of her clothes,” whispered Mrs Hayward to her husband, “it might do her some good, but—”
“I know that, Eva: it would do you all good, and we must have it done somehow—”
An exclamation in the bow of the boat at that moment attracted attention. It was John Mitford, who, having taken off his own coat, and wrapped it round his shivering wife, had gone to the bow to rummage in a locker there, and had found a tarpaulin. Massey had overhauled the locker for food before him, but the tarpaulin had been so well folded, and laid so flat in the bottom, that it had escaped his notice.
Retiring aft with this god-send, the lugubrious man speedily, with the assistance of his comrades, covered over the centre of the boat so completely that a small chamber was formed, into which the women could retire. It was not high enough, indeed, to stand in, but it formed a sufficient shelter from wind and spray.
“Now, Peggy, my dear,” said her husband when it was finished, “get in there—off wi’ your things an’ wring ’em out.”
“Th–thank you, J–John,” replied Peggy, whose teeth chattered like castanets, “but ’ow am I t–to d–dry ’em? For wet c–clo’es won’t dry wi–without a fire. At least I n–never ’eard of—”
The remainder of her remarks were lost to male ears as the tarpaulin dropped around her after Eva Hayward and Nellie had led, or half-lifted, her under its sheltering folds. How they managed to manipulate the shivering Peggy it is not our province to tell, but there can be no doubt that the treatment of her two friends in misfortune was the cause of her emerging from under the tarpaulin the following morning alive and comparatively well, though still far from dry.
The aspect of things had changed greatly for the better when the unfortunates resumed their voyage. The wind had abated, the sea, although still heaving, was smooth. The snow had ceased, and the sun arose in a cloudless sky, so that when poor Mrs Mitford raised her dishevelled head and felt the sun’s cheering rays she exclaimed, with a sigh of relief: “La! if the sun ain’t blazin’ ’ot! An’ I’m so ’ungry. Dear, dear, ’ave you bin rowin’ all night, John? ’Ow tired you must be; an’ your ’ands blistered, though you are pretty tough in the ’ands, but you couldn’t ’old a candle to Bob Massey at that— Yes, yes, Nellie, I ’ear you, but la! what does it matter ’ow your ’air an’ things is deranged w’en you’re wrecked at sea and—”
The abrupt disappearance of the dishevelled head at that moment suggested the idea that Mrs Mitford had either fallen backward suddenly or been pulled under cover by her companions.
“She’s all right, anyhow,” said O’Connor, adjusting his oar.
“She’s always all right,” remarked Mitford in a funereal tone, which, however, was meant to be confidential. “Bless your heart, I’ve seen that woman under all circumstances, but although she’s timid by nature, an’ not over strong in body, I’ve never seen her give in or fairly cast down. No doubt she was pretty low last night, poor thing, but that was ’cause she was nigh dead wi’ cold—yet her spirit wasn’t crushed. It’s my solemn conviction that if my Peggy ever dies at all she’ll die game.”
With a profound sigh of satisfaction at having thus borne testimony to the rare and admirable qualities of his wife, the worthy man applied himself to his oar with redoubled vigour.
It is quite a pleasure in this censorious world to see any man absolutely blind to his wife’s faults, and thoroughly awake to her good qualities. The opinion formed of Peggy—by Mrs Massey and Mrs Hayward respectively, did not quite coincide with that of John Mitford.
“How did you get on with poor Peggy last night, Eva?” asked Dr Hayward of his wife, in an undertone, as they breakfasted that forenoon beside the tiller, while the rest of their companions were similarly engaged in the middle of the boat, and at the bow.
“Pretty well, Tom, but she’s troublesome to manage. She is so unusually timid, poor creature, so prone to give way to despair when things look bad, yet so sweetly apt to bound into high spirits when things are looking hopeful,—and withal, so amusingly garrulous!”
Strange to say, at the very moment that this was uttered, Nellie was remarking to her husband in a low tone that, “poor Peggy was quite a puzzle, that she was all but dead at one moment, and quite lively at another, that she professed to be all submission, but was as obstinate as a pig, and that her tongue—soft though it was—went like the clapper of a mill!”
We have referred to breakfast, but the meal spread before the castaways hardly merits that name, for it consisted of only a small slice of pork to each; a few pieces of ship’s biscuit that Slag had discovered in his pockets; and a cup of water drawn from the pond which had accumulated in a hollow of the tarpaulin during the night.
“It is lucky that one of the pieces of pork happened to be cooked,” observed Dr Hayward, as he served out the allowance, “for I would have been sorry to break into the preserved meat tins till forced to do so. We must keep these as a reserve as long as possible.”
“Right you are, sir!” said Slag, with his mouth full, while with a clasp-knife he carefully cut off another morsel to be ready, “right you are! That ’minds me when we was starvin’, me and my shipmates in the Arctic regions, so as our ribs was all but comin’ through our skins, an’ we was beginnin’ to cast an evil eye on the stooard who’d kep’ fatter than the rest of us somehow, an’ was therefore likely to prove a more satisfyin’ kind o’ grub, d’ee see—”
“I say, Joe,” said Hayward, interrupting, for he feared that Slag’s anecdote might not tend to render the pork breakfast more palatable.
“Sir?” said Slag.
“Will you just go to the bow and take a squint ahead? I think there seems to be something like an end o’ the cliffs in view—your eyes are better than mine.”
Slag swallowed the mouthful on which he was engaged, thrust after it the morsel that was ready to follow, wiped the clasp-knife on his thigh, and went forward to “take a squint.”
It turned out that the “end” of the cliffs which the doctor had only supposed possible, was a reality, for, after a long gaze, Slag turned and said—
“Your eyes are better than you think, sir, for the end o’ the cliff is visible, an’ a spit o’ sand beyond is quite plain.”
As this report was corroborated by Bob Massey, and then by all the other men, it sent a thrill of gratitude into the hearts of most of the party—especially the women, who, having lain so long wet and almost motionless, were nearly benumbed in spite of the sunshine. Longer exposure, indeed, would probably have proved fatal to poor Mrs Mitford, possibly also to Mrs Hayward, who was by no means robust. As for our coxswain’s wife, having been reared among the health-giving breezes of the sea-shore, and inured from infancy to exposure and hard work, she suffered much less than her female companions, and busied herself a great part of the time in chafing their cold limbs. In doing this she reaped the natural advantage of being herself both warmed and invigorated. Thus virtue not only “is,” but inevitably brings, its own reward! Similarly, vice produced its natural consequences in the case of Black Ned, for that selfish man, being lazy, shirked work a good deal. It is possible to pull an oar in such a way that, though the rower may be apparently doing his best, he is, in reality, taking the work very lightly and doing next to nothing. Acting in this way, Ned Jarring became cold when the sleet and spray were driving in his face, his blood flowed sluggishly in his veins, and his sufferings were, consequently, much more severe than those of his comrades. Towards the afternoon of that day, they rounded the spit of sand mentioned by Joe Slag, and came upon a low-lying coast. After proceeding a considerable distance along which, they discovered a good harbour. This was fortunate, for grey clouds had again covered the sun and a bitter east wind began to blow.
“Thank God, Eva,” said Hayward, as he steered into the bay, “for if we had not come upon this harbour, your strength and that of poor Peggy, I fear, would have failed, but now you’ll be all right in a short time.”
“Oh, no, sir, I don’t think as my strength would fail,” said Peggy, in a feeble voice, for she had overheard the remark. “Not that I shouldn’t be thankful all the same, I allow—for thankfulness for mercies received is a dooty, an’ most on us do fail in that, though I say it that shouldn’t, but my strength ain’t quite gone yet—”
“Stand by, Slag, to fend off with your oar when we get close in,” said the doctor, interrupting Peggy’s discourse.
“Have any of you got matches in your pockets?” asked Massey, clapping his hands suddenly to the various receptacles about his person, with a look of unwonted anxiety.
“Ye may well ax that, Bob,” said O’Connor, using his own hands in the same way. “Cold, wet weather, and no house! It ’ud be death to the women, sure, av—”
“Here you are!” shouted Tomlin in a burst of triumph, in spite of his naturally reserved disposition.
He held up a box of vestas which, being a smoker, he fortunately had in his pocket.
“I hope they ain’t wet,” remarked Black Ned, suggestively.
“Wrap ’em well up,” said Slag.
Tomlin drew out his handkerchief and proceeded to do so. At the same moment the boat’s keel grated softly on the shingly shore.
