Henry De Vere Stacpoole / Генри де Вэр Стэкпул
The Blue Lagoon / Голубая лагуна

Адаптация, сокращение и словарь: Л. Ф. Шитова

© Шитова Л. Ф., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2022

© ООО «ИД «Антология», 2022

Book I

Part I

Chapter I
Where the Slush Lamp[1] Burns

Mr Button was seated on a sea-chest with a fiddle under his left ear. He was playing the “Shan van vaught,[2]” and accompanying the tune with blows of his left heel on the deck.

“O the Frinch are in the bay,
Says the Shan van vaught.”

He was dressed in a striped shirt, rough trousers and a jacket—green from the influence of sun and salt. A typical old shell-back, round-shouldered, hook-fingered like a crab.

His face was like a moon, red through tropical mists; and as he played it wore an expression of attention as though the fiddle were telling him marvellous tales.

“Left-handed Pat,” was his nickname; not because he was left-handed, but simply because everything he did he did wrong—or nearly so.

He was a Celt[3], and all the salt seas that had flowed between him and Connaught[4] these forty years and more had not washed the Celtic element from his blood, nor the belief in fairies from his soul. The Celtic nature is a fast dye[5], and Mr Button’s nature was such that though he had got drunk in most ports of the world, though he had sailed with Yankee captains and been man-handled by Yankee mates, he still carried his fairies about with him.

Nearly over the musician’s head swung a hammock from which hung a leg. The swinging kerosene lamp cast its light forward, lighting here a naked foot hanging over the side of a bunk, here a face from which stuck a pipe, here a breast covered with dark hair, here an arm tattooed.

It was in the days when the cockpit of the Northumberland [6] had a full company: a crowd of men who were farm labourers and grazed pigs in Ohio[7] three months back, old seasoned sailors like Paddy Button—a mixture of the best and the worst of the earth, such as you find nowhere else in so small a space as in a ship’s cockpit.

The Northumberland had experienced a terrible rounding of the Horn[8]. Bound from New Orleans to ’Frisco[9] she had spent thirty days battling with headwinds and storms, and just now, at the moment of this story, she was locked in a calm, south of the line.

Mr Button finished his tune and drew his right coat sleeve across his forehead[10]. Then he took out a sooty pipe, filled it with tobacco, and lit it.

“Pawthrick,” drawled a voice from the hammock above, from which hung down the leg, “what vas you singing ter night ’bout a lip?”

“A which lip?” asked Mr Button, cocking his eye up at the bottom of the hammock while he held the match to his pipe.

“It vas about a green thing,” came a sleepy Dutch voice from a bunk.

“Oh, a Leprachaun[11] you mean. Sure, me mother’s sister had one down in Connaught.”

“Vat vas it like?” asked the dreamy Dutch voice.

“Like? Sure, it was like a Leprachaun; and what else would it be like?”

“What like vas that?” persisted the voice.

“It was like a little man no bigger than a big forked raddish, an’ as green as a cabbidge. Me a’nt had one in her house down in Connaught in the ould days. O, the ould days, the ould days! Now, you may b’lave me or b’lave me not, but you could have put him in your pocket, and the grass-green head of him wouldn’t more than’v stuck out. She kept him in a cupboard, and out of the cupboard he’d pop if it was a crack open, an’ into the milk pans he’d be, or under the beds, or pullin’ the stool from under you. He’d chase the pig till it’d be all ribs like an ould umbrilla with the fright; he’d spoil the eggs so the chickens comin’ out wid two heads on them, an’ twinty-seven legs. And you’d start to chase him, an’ then away he’d go, you behint him, till you’d landed in a ditch, an’ he’d be back in the cupboard.”

“He was a Troll,” murmured the Dutch voice.

“I’m tellin’ you he was a Leprachaun, and there’s no knowin’ what he’d be up to[12]. He’d pull the cabbidge, maybe, out of the pot boilin’ on the fire and hit you in the face with it; and thin, maybe, you’d hold out your fist to him, and he’d put a goulden soverin in it.”

“Wisht he was here!” murmured a voice from a bunk near Pat.

“Pawthrick,” drawled the voice from the hammock above, “what’d you do first if you found y’self with twenty pound in your pocket?”

“What’s the use of askin’ me?” replied Mr Button. “What’s the use of twenty pound to a sayman at say[13], where the grog’s all wather an’ the beef’s all horse? Gimme it ashore, an’ you’d see what I’d do wid it!”

“I guess the nearest grog-shop keeper wouldn’t see you comin’ for dust[14],” said a voice from Ohio.

“He would not,” said Mr Button; “nor you afther me. Be damned[15] to the grog and thim that sells it!”

“It’s all darned easy to talk,[16]” said Ohio. “You curse the grog at sea when you can’t get it; set you ashore, and you’re bung full[17].”

“I likes me dhrunk,” said Mr Button, “I’m free to admit; an’ I’m the divil when it’s in me, and it’ll be the end of me yet, or me ould mother was a liar. ‘Pat,’ she says, ‘storms you may escape, an’ wimmen you may escape, but the potheen ’ill have you[18].’ Forty year ago—forty year ago!”

“Well,” said Ohio, “it hasn’t had you yet.”

“No,” replied Mr Button, “but it will.”

Chapter II
Under the Stars

It was a wonderful night up on deck, filled with all the beauty of starlight and a tropic calm.

The Pacific slept; a ripple lifted the Northumberland on its little waves; while overhead, near the arch of the Milky Way[19], hung the Southern Cross[20].

Stars in the sky, stars in the sea, stars by the million and the million; so many burning lamps filled the mind with the idea of a big and populous city—yet from all that living beauty not a sound.

Down in the cabin—or saloon, as it was called—were seated the three passengers of the ship; one reading at the table, two playing on the floor.

The man at the table, Arthur Lestrange, was seated with his large, deep-sunken eyes fixed on a book. He was most evidently in consumption[21], and a long sea voyage was, indeed, his last remedy.

Emmeline Lestrange, his little niece—eight years of age, with thoughts of her own,—sat in a corner nursing something in her arms, and rocking herself to the tune of her own thoughts.

Dick, Lestrange’s little son, eight and a bit, was somewhere under the table. They were Bostonians, bound for San Francisco, or rather for the sun and beauty of Los Angeles, where Lestrange had bought a small estate, hoping there to enjoy the life renewed by the long sea voyage.

As he sat reading, the cabin door opened, and appeared a female form. This was Mrs Stannard, the stewardess, and Mrs Stannard meant bedtime.

“Dicky,” said Mr Lestrange, closing his book, and raising the table-cloth a few inches, “bedtime.”

“Oh, not yet, daddy!” came a sleepy voice from under the table; “I ain’t ready. I dunno want to go to bed!”

Mrs Stannard, who knew her work, had stooped under the table, seized him by the foot, and pulled him out kicking and fighting all at the same time.

As for Emmeline, she, having glanced up and recognised the inevitable, rose to her feet, and, holding the ugly rag-doll she had been nursing, stood waiting till Dicky, after a few last screams, suddenly dried his eyes and held up a tear-wet face for his father to kiss. Then she presented her brow to her uncle, received a kiss and went, led by the hand into a cabin on the port side[22] of the saloon.

Mr Lestrange returned to his book, but he had not read for long when the cabin door was opened, and Emmeline, in her nightdress, reappeared, holding a brown paper parcel in her hand, a parcel of about the same size as the book you are reading.

“My box,” said she; and as she spoke, the little plain face changed to the face of an angel.

She had smiled. When Emmeline Lestrange smiled it was absolutely as if the light of Paradise had suddenly flashed upon her face. Then she vanished with her box, and Mr Lestrange renewed reading his book.

This box of Emmeline’s, I may say, had given more trouble aboard ship than all of the rest of the passengers’ luggage put together.

It had been presented to her on her departure from Boston by a lady friend, and what it contained was a dark secret to all on board, save its owner and her uncle; she was a woman, or, the beginning of a woman, yet she kept this secret to herself—a fact which you will please note.

The trouble of the thing was that it was frequently lost. Seeing herself maybe living in a world filled with robbers, she would carry it about with her for safety, sit down behind a coil of rope[23] and fall into dreams—and then suddenly find she had lost her box.

Then she would absolutely disturb the ship. Wide-eyed and distressed, she would wander hither and thither[24], peeping into the caboose, peeping down the deck, never saying a word, searching like a ghost, but silent.

She seemed ashamed to tell of her loss, ashamed to let any one know of it; but every one knew of it directly when they saw her, and every one hunted for it.

Strangely enough it was Paddy Button who usually found it. He who was always doing the wrong thing in the eyes of men, generally did the right thing in the eyes of children. Children, in fact, when they could get at Mr Button, went for him[25] con amore[26].

Mr Lestrange after a while closed the book he was reading, looked around him and sighed.

The cabin of the Northumberland was a cheerful enough place, decorated with mirrors let into the white pine panelling. Lestrange was staring at the reflection of his own face in one of these mirrors fixed just opposite to where he sat.

His thinness was terrible, and it was just perhaps at this moment that he first recognised the fact that he must not only die, but die soon.

He turned from the mirror and sat for a while with his chin resting upon his hand, and his eyes fixed on an ink spot[27]upon the table-cloth; then he arose, and crossing the cabin climbed up to the deck.

As he leaned against the rail to recover his breath, the beauty of the Southern night struck him to the heart with a pain. He took his seat on a deck chair and gazed up at the Milky Way, that great triumphal arch built of suns that the dawn would sweep away like a dream.

Then he became aware of a figure promenading the deck. It was the “Old Man.”

A sea captain is always the “old man,” be his age what it may[28]. Captain Le Farges’ age might have been forty-five. He was a sailor of French origin, but a naturalised American.

“I don’t know where the wind’s gone,” said the captain as he drew near the man in the deck chair. “I guess it’s blown a hole in the sky, and escaped somewhere to the back of beyond[29].”

“It’s been a long voyage,” said Lestrange; “and I’m thinking, Captain, it will be a very long voyage for me. My port’s not ’Frisco; I feel it.”

“Don’t you be thinking that sort of thing,” said the other, taking his seat in a chair close by. “Now we’re in warm latitoods[30], and you’ll be as right and spry[31] as any one of us, before we fetch the Golden Gates[32].”

“I’m thinking about the children,” said Lestrange, seeming not to hear the captain’s words. “Should anything happen to me before we reach port, I should like you to do something for me. It’s only this: dispose of my body without—without the children knowing. It has been in my mind to ask you this for some days. Captain, those children know nothing of death.”

Le Farge moved uneasily in his chair.

“Little Emmeline’s mother died when she was two. Her father—my brother—died before she was born. Dicky never knew a mother; she died giving him birth. My God, Captain, death has laid a heavy hand on my family; can you wonder that I have hid his very name from those two creatures that I love![33]”

“Ay, ay,” said Le Farge, “it’s sad! it’s sad!”

“When I was quite a child,” went on Lestrange, “a child no older than Dicky, my nurse used to terrify me with tales about dead people. I was told I’d go to hell when I died if I wasn’t a good child. I cannot tell you how much that has ruined my life, for the thoughts we think in childhood, Captain, are the fathers of the thoughts we think when we are grown up. And can a sick father—have healthy children?”

“I guess not.”

“So I just said, when these two tiny creatures came into my care, that I would do all in my power to protect them from the terrors of life—or rather, I should say, from the terror of death. I don’t know whether I have done right, but I have done it for the best. They had a cat, and one day Dicky came in to me and said: ‘Father, pussy’s in the garden asleep, and I can’t wake her.’ So I just took him out for a walk; there was a circus in the town, and I took him to it. It so filled his mind that he quite forgot the cat. Next day he asked for her. I did not tell him she was buried in the garden, I just said she must have run away. In a week he had forgotten all about her—children soon forget.”

“Ay, that’s true,” said the sea captain. “But I think they must learn some time they’ve got to die.”

“Should I die before we reach land, and be thrown into that great, vast sea: just tell them I’ve gone on board another ship. You will take them back to Boston; I have here, in a letter, the name of a lady who will care for them. Dicky will be well off[34], as far as property is concerned, and so will Emmeline. Just tell them I’ve gone on board another ship—children soon forget.”

“I’ll do what you ask,” said the seaman.

The moon was over the horizon now, and the Northumberland lay adrift[35] in a river of silver.

As the two men sat without speaking, thinking their own thoughts, a little white figure appeared from the saloon hatch. It was Emmeline. She was a sleepwalker.

She had dreamed that she had lost her precious box, and now she was hunting for it on the decks of the Northumberland.

Mr Lestrange put his finger to his lips, took off his shoes and silently followed her. She searched behind a coil of rope, she tried to open the caboose door; hither and thither she wandered, wide-eyed and troubled of face, till at last, in the shadow of the hencoop, she found her treasure. Then back she came, holding up her little nightdress with one hand, and vanished down the saloon companion[36]very hurriedly; her uncle close behind, with one hand outstretched so as to catch her in case she stumbled.

Chapter III
The Shadow and the Fire

It was the fourth day of the long calm. An awning had been made on the stern for the passengers, and under it sat Lestrange, trying to read, and the children trying to play.

“Daddy!” suddenly cried Dick, who was looking over the rail.

“What?”

“Fish!”

Lestrange rose to his feet, came up and looked over the rail.

Down in the green water something moved, something pale and long—an ugly form. It vanished; and yet another came, neared the surface, and displayed itself more fully. Lestrange saw its eyes, he saw the dark fin, and the whole huge length of the creature; a shudder ran through him as he clasped Dicky.

“Ain’t he fine?” said the child. “I guess, daddy, I’d pull him aboard if I had a hook. Why haven’t I a hook, daddy?—why haven’t I a hook, daddy?—Ow, you’re squeezin’ me!”

Emmeline also wanted to look. He lifted her up in his arms; but there was nothing to see: the creature had vanished.

“What’s they called, daddy?” persisted Dick, as his father took him down from the rail, and led him back to the chair.

“Sharks,” said Lestrange, whose face was covered with sweat.

He picked up the book he had been reading and sat with it on his knees staring at the white sunlit main-deck.

He glanced at the book upon his knees, and contrasted the beautiful things in it with the terrible things he had just seen, the things that were waiting for their food under the ship.

It was three bells—half-past three in the afternoon—and the ship’s bell had just rung out. The stewardess appeared to take the children below; and as they vanished down the saloon companion-way[37], Captain Le Farge came up to the stern, and stood for a moment looking over the sea on the port side, where fog had suddenly appeared.

“The sun has dimmed a bit,” said he; “I can a’most look at it. There’s a fog coming up—ever seen a Pacific fog?”

“No, never.”

“Well, you won’t want to see another,” replied the mariner, shading his eyes and fixing them upon the sea-line. The sea-line had lost its distinctness.

The captain suddenly turned from his viewing the sea and sky, raised his head and sniffed.

“Something is burning somewhere—smell it? Seems to me like an old mat or somewhat. It’s that steward, maybe; if he isn’t breaking glass, he’s upsetting lamps and burning holes in the carpet. Bless my soul, I’d sooner have a dozen women an’ their dustpans round the place than one tomfool steward like Jenkins.” He went to the saloon hatch. “Below there[38]!”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“What are you burning?”

“I an’t burnin’ northen, sir.”

“Tell you, I smell it!”

“There’s northen burnin’ here, sir.”

“Neither is there, it’s all on deck. Something in the caboose, maybe—rags, most likely.”

“Captain!” said Lestrange.

“Ay, ay.”

“Come here, please.”

Le Farge climbed on to the stern.

“I don’t know whether it’s my weakness that’s affecting my eyes, but there seems to me something strange about the mainmast[39].”

The main-mast seemed in motion—a spiral movement most strange to watch.

This apparent movement was caused by a spiral smoke so vague that one could only see it from the slight tremor of the mast.

“My God!” cried Le Farge, as he sprang from the stern and rushed forward.

Lestrange followed him slowly, stopping every moment to clasp the rail and pant for breath. He heard the shrill bird-like notes of the bosun’s pipe[40]. He saw the hands rushing from the cockpit, like bees out of a hive; he watched them surrounding the main-hatch. He watched the tarpaulin and locking-bars removed. He saw the hatch opened, and a burst of black smoke rise to the sky.

Lestrange was a man of a highly nervous temperament, and it is just this sort of man who keeps his head in an emergency. His first thought was of the children, his second of the boats.

Going around Cape Horn the Northumberland lost several of her boats. There were left the long-boat, a quarter-boat, and the dinghy[41]. He heard Le Farge’s voice ordering the hatch to be closed and the pumps manned, so as to flood the hold[42]; and, knowing that he could do nothing on deck, he made as fast as he could for the saloon companion-way[43].

Mrs Stannard was just coming out of the children’s cabin.

“Are the children lying down, Mrs Stannard?” asked Lestrange, almost breathless from the excitement of the last few minutes.

The woman glanced at him with frightened eyes.

“For if they are, and you have undressed them, then you must put their clothes on again. The ship is on fire, Mrs Stannard.”

“Good God, sir!”

“Listen!” said Lestrange.

From a distance came the noise of the pumps.

Chapter IV
And Like a Dream Dissolved

Before the woman had time to speak a heavy step was heard on the stairs, and Le Farge broke into the saloon. There was blood on his face, and the veins stood on his temples like twisted cords[44].

“Get those children ready!” he shouted, as he rushed into his own cabin. “Get all you need—boats are getting ready. Hell! where are those papers?”

They heard him furiously searching and collecting things in his cabin—the ship’s papers, accounts; and as he searched, and found, and packed, he kept shouting orders for the children to be got on deck. Half mad he seemed, and half mad he was with the knowledge of the terrible thing that was packed among the cargo.

Up on deck the crew, under the direction of the first mate, were working in an orderly manner, utterly unconscious of the terrible thing being on fire there, under their feet. The covers had been stripped from the boats, kegs of water and bags of biscuit placed in them. The dinghy, smallest of the boats, was hanging at the port side; and Paddy Button was in the act of putting a keg of water in her, when Le Farge broke on to the deck, followed by the stewardess carrying Emmeline, and Mr Lestrange leading Dick. The dinghy was rather a larger boat than the ordinary ships’ dinghy, and possessed a small mast and long sail.

“Into the dinghy with you[45],” the captain cried to Paddy Button, “and row these children and the passenger out a mile from the ship—two miles—three miles.”

“Sure, Captain dear, I’ve left me fiddle in the—”

Le Farge dropped the bundle of things he was holding under his left arm, seized the old sailor and pushed him against the side of the ship, as if he meant to fling him into the sea through it.

Next moment Mr Button was in the boat. Emmeline was handed to him, pale of face and wide-eyed, and clasping something wrapped in a little shawl; then Dick, and then Mr Lestrange was helped over.

“No room for more!” cried Le Farge. “Your place will be in the long-boat, Mrs Stannard, if we have to leave the ship. Lower away[46], lower away!”

The boat sank towards the smooth blue sea, kissed it and was afloat.

Now Mr Button, before joining the ship at Boston, had spent a long time hanging around the quay, having no money to enjoy himself in a tavern. He had seen something of the lading of the Northumberland, and heard more from a stevedore. No sooner had he seized the oars[47], than his knowledge awoke in his mind. He gave a shout: “Bullies!”

“Run for your lives—I’ve just rimimbered—there’s two bar’ls of blastin’ powther in the hould[48]!”

Then he bent to his oars, as no man ever bent before.

Lestrange, sitting in the stern clasping Emmeline and Dick, saw nothing for a moment after hearing these words. The children, who knew nothing of blasting powder or its effects, though half frightened by all the bustle and excitement, were still amused and pleased at finding themselves in the little boat so close to the blue pretty sea.

Dick put his finger over the side, so that it made a ripple in the water (the most delightful experience of childhood). Emmeline, with one hand clasped in her uncle’s, watched Mr Button rowing the dinghy.

The long-boat and the quarter-boat were floating by the side of the Northumberland.

From the ship men were jumping overboard like water-rats, swimming in the water like ducks, getting on board the boats anyhow.

From the half-opened main-hatch the black smoke, mixed now with sparks, rose steadily and swiftly, as if through the half-closed teeth of a dragon.

A mile away from the Northumberland stood the fog bank[49]. It looked solid, like a vast country that had suddenly and strangely built itself on the sea—a country where no birds sang and no trees grew.

“I’m spint[50]!” suddenly gasped the oarsman, putting the oar handles under his knees, and bending down. “I’m spint—don’t ax me, I’m spint!”

Mr Lestrange, white as a ghost, gave him time to recover himself and turned to look at the ship. She seemed a great distance off, and the boats, well away from her, were making at a furious pace towards the dinghy. Dick was still playing with the water, but Emmeline’s eyes were entirely occupied with Paddy Button. She had seen him washing the decks, dancing a jig, going round the main deck on all fours[51] with Dick on his back, but she had never seen him going on like this before.

She saw he was in trouble about something, and, putting her hand in the pocket of her dress, she searched for something that she knew was there. She produced a Tangerine orange[52], and leaning forward she touched his head with it.

Mr Button raised his head, stared for a second, saw the orange, and at the sight of it the thought of “the childer” and their innocence, himself and the blasting powder, cleared his tired mind, and he took to the oars again.

“Daddy,” said Dick, “there’s clouds near the ship.”

In a short space of time the solid fog had broken. The faint wind had reached it, and was now making pictures of it, most wonderful and weird to see. The fog advanced, taking the world for its own.

Against this grey background stood the smoking ship.

“Why’s the ship smoking like that?” asked Dick. “And look at those boats coming—when are we going back, daddy?”

“Uncle,” said Emmeline, putting her hand in his, as she gazed towards the ship, “I’m ’fraid.”

“What frightens you, Emmy?” he asked, drawing her to him.

“Shapes,” replied Emmeline, close to his side.

“Oh, God!” gasped the old sailor, suddenly resting on his oars. “Will yiz look at the fog that’s comin’—”

“I think we had better wait here for the boats,” said Mr Lestrange; “we are far enough now to be safe if—anything happens.”

“Ay, ay,” replied the oarsman, “She won’t hit us from here.”

“Daddy,” said Dick, “when are we going back? I want my tea.”

“We aren’t going back, my child,” replied his father. “The ship’s on fire; we are waiting for another ship.”

“Where’s the other ship?” asked the child, looking round at the horizon that was clear.

“We can’t see it yet,” replied the unhappy man, “but it will come.”

The long-boat and the quarter-boat were slowly approaching. They looked like beetles crawling over the water.

Now the wind struck the dinghy. It was like a wind from fairyland, very low, and dimming the sun. As it struck the dinghy, the fog took the distant ship.

It was a most extraordinary sight, for in less than thirty seconds the ship of wood became a ship of haze, and was gone forever from the sight of man.

Chapter V
Voices Heard in the Mist

The sun became dim, and vanished. Though the air round the dinghy seemed quite clear, the on-coming boats were hazy and dim.

The long-boat was leading by a good way[53]. When she was within hearing distance the captain’s voice came.

“Dinghy ahoy[54]!”

“Ahoy!”

“Fetch alongside here[55]!”

The long-boat ceased rowing to wait for the quarter-boat that was slowly moving up. She was a heavy boat to pull, and now she was overloaded.

The wrath of Captain Le Farge with Paddy Button for the way he had panicked the crew was deep, but he had not time to show it.

“Here, get aboard us, Mr Lestrange!” said he, when the dinghy was alongside; “we have room for one. Mrs Stannard is in the quarter-boat, and it’s overcrowded; she’s better aboard the dinghy, for she can look after the kids. Come, hurry up! Ahoy!”—to the quarter-boat—“hurry up, hurry up!”

The quarter-boat had suddenly vanished.

Mr Lestrange climbed into the long-boat. Paddy pushed the dinghy a few yards away with the tip of an oar, and then lay on his oars[56] waiting.

“Ahoy! ahoy!” cried Le Farge.

“Ahoy!” came from the fog bank.

Next moment the long-boat and the dinghy vanished from each other’s sight: the great fog bank had taken them.

Now a couple of strokes of the left oar would have brought Mr Button alongside the long-boat, so close was he; but the quarter-boat was in his mind, so he took three powerful strokes in the direction in which he fancied the quarter-boat to be.

The rest was voices.

“Dinghy ahoy!”

“Ahoy!”

“Ahoy!”

“Don’t be shoutin’ together, or I’ll not know which way to pull. Quarter-boat ahoy! where are yiz?”

“Port your helm[57]!”

“Ay, ay!”—putting his helm, so to speak, to starboard[58]– “I’ll be wid yiz in wan minute—two or three minutes’ hard pulling.”

“Ahoy!”—much more faint.

“What d’ye mane rowin’ away from me?”—a dozen strokes.

“Ahoy!”—fainter still.

Mr Button rested on his oars.

“Divil mend them—I believe that was the long-boat shoutin’.”

He took to his oars again and pulled vigorously.

“Paddy,” came Dick’s small voice, apparently from nowhere, “where are we now?”

“Sure, we’re in a fog; where else would we be? Don’t you be affeared.”

“I ain’t affeared, but Em’s shivering.”

“Give her me coat,” said the oarsman, resting on his oars and taking it of.f “Wrap it round her; and when it’s round her we’ll all let one big halloo together. There’s an ould shawl som’er in the boat, but I can’t be after lookin’ for it now.”

He held out the coat and an almost invisible hand took it; at the same moment a terrible blow shook the sea and sky.

“There she goes,” said Mr Button; “an’ me old fiddle an’ all. Don’t be frightened, childer. Now we’ll all halloo togither—are yiz ready?”

“Ay, ay,” said Dick, who was a picker-up of sea terms[59].

“Halloo!” yelled Pat.

“Halloo! Halloo!” joined Dick and Emmeline.

A faint reply came, but from where, it was difficult to say. The old man rowed a few strokes and then paused on his oars. The surface of the sea was absolutely still, and silence closed round them like a ring.

The sun, could they have seen it, was now leaving the horizon.

They called again. Then they waited, but there was no response.

“There’s no use yellin’ like bulls to chaps that’s deaf as adders[60],” said the old sailor, shipping his oars; then he gave another shout, with the same result.

“Mr Button!” came Emmeline’s voice.

“What is it, honey?”

“I’m—m—’fraid.”

“You wait wan minit till I find the shawl—here it is!—an’ I’ll wrap you up in it.”

He got cautiously to the stern and took Emmeline in his arms.

“Don’t want the shawl,” said Emmeline; “I’m not so much afraid in your coat.” The rough, tobacco-smelling old coat gave her courage somehow.

“Well, then, keep it on. Dicky, are you cowld?”

“I’ve got into daddy’s great-coat; he left it behind him.”

“Well, then, I’ll put the shawl round me own shoulders, for it’s cowld I am. Are y’ hungry, childer?”

“No,” said Dick, “but I’m drefful—yow–”

“Sleepy, is it? Well, down you get in the bottom of the boat, and here’s the shawl for a pillow. I’ll be rowin’ again in a minit to keep meself warm.”

He buttoned the top button of the coat.

“I’m a’right,” murmured Emmeline in a dreamy voice.

“Shut your eyes tight,” replied Mr Button.

“She’s off[61],” murmured Mr Button to himself. Then he laid her gently down beside Dick. He shifted forward, moving like a crab. Then he put his hand to his pocket for his pipe and tobacco box. They were in his coat pocket, but Emmeline was in his coat. To search for them would be to awaken her.

The darkness of night was now adding itself to the blindness of the fog. The oarsman could not see even the thole pins[62]. For a moment he thought of awakening the children to keep him company, but he was ashamed. Then he took to the oars again, and rowed “by the feel of the water.” The creak of the oars was like a companion’s voice, the exercise calmed his fears. Now and again, forgetful of the sleeping children, he gave a halloo, and paused to listen. But no answer came.

Then he continued rowing, long, steady, laborious strokes, each taking him further and further from the boats that he was never to see again.

Chapter VI
Dawn on a Wide, Wide Sea

“Is it aslape I’ve been?” said Mr Button, suddenly awaking with a start.

He must have slept for hours, for now a warm, gentle wind was blowing, the moon was shining, and the fog was gone.

“Is it dhraming I’ve been?” continued the awakened one. “Where am I at all, at all? I dreamt I’d gone aslape on the main-hatch and the ship was blown up with powther, and it’s all come true.”

“Mr Button!” came a small voice from the stern (Emmeline’s).

“What is it, honey?”

“Where are we now?”

“Sure, we’re afloat on the say; where else would we be?”

“Where’s uncle?”

“He’s beyant there in the long-boat—he’ll be afther us in a minit.”

“I want a drink.”

He filled a tin cup, and gave her a drink. Then he took his pipe and tobacco from his coat pocket.

She almost immediately fell asleep again beside Dick, who had not stirred or moved; and the old sailor, standing up and steadying himself, cast his eyes round the horizon. Not a sign of sail or boat was there on all the moonlit sea. It was possible that the boats might be near enough to show up at daybreak.

But nothing is more mysterious than the currents of the sea. The ocean is an ocean of rivers, some fast flowing, some slow, and a league[63] from where you are drifting at the rate of a mile an hour another boat may be drifting two.

A slight warm breeze was frosting the water, blending moonshine and star shimmer; the ocean lay like a lake, yet the nearest mainland was perhaps a thousand miles away.

The thoughts of youth may be long, but not longer than the thoughts of this old sailor man smoking his pipe under the stars. Thoughts as long as the world is round.

I doubt if Paddy Button could have told you the name of the first ship he ever sailed in. If you had asked him, he would probably have replied: “I disremimber; it was to the Baltic, and cruel cowld weather, and I was say-sick—till I near brought me boots up[64].”

So he sat smoking his pipe, and calling to mind wild drunken scenes and palm-shadowed harbours, and the men and the women he had known—such men and such women! Then he fell asleep again, and when he awoke the moon had gone.

Presently, and almost at a stroke, a pencil of fire ruled a line along the eastern horizon, and the eastern sky became more beautiful than a rose leaf in May. The line of fire contracted into one spot—it was the rising sun.

As the light increased the sky above became of a blue impossible to imagine unless seen. The light was music to the soul. It was day.

“Daddy!” suddenly cried Dick, sitting up in the sunlight and rubbing his eyes with his open palms. “Where are we?”

“All right, Dicky, me son!” cried the old sailor, who had been standing up looking around for the boats. “Your daddy’s safe; he’ll be wid us in a minit, an’ bring another ship along with him. So you’re awake, are you, Em’line?”

Emmeline, sitting up in the old pilot coat, nodded in reply without speaking.

Did she guess that things were different from what Mr Button was making them out to be? Who can tell?

She was wearing an old cap of Dick’s, which Mrs Stannard in the hurry and confusion had put on her head. It was pushed to one side, and she made a funny enough little figure as she sat up in the early morning brightness, dressed in the old salt-stained coat beside Dick, whose straw hat[65] was somewhere in the bottom of the boat, and whose auburn locks were blowing in the faint breeze.

“Hurroo!” cried Dick, looking around at the blue and sparkling water. “I’m goin’ to be a sailor, aren’t I, Paddy? You’ll let me sail the boat, won’t you, Paddy, an’ show me how to row?”

“Aisy does it[66],” said Paddy, taking hold of the child. “I haven’t a sponge or towel, but I’ll just wash your face in salt wather and lave you to dry in the sun.”

He filled the tin with sea water.

“I don’t want to wash!” shouted Dick.

“Stick your face into the water in the tin,” commanded Paddy. “You wouldn’t be going about the place with your face like a soot-bag, would you?”

“Stick yours in!” commanded the other.

Mr Button did so, and made a noise in the water; then he lifted a wet and streaming face, and flung the contents of the tin overboard.

“Now you’ve lost your chance,” said Paddy, “all the water’s gone.”

“There’s more in the sea.”

“There’s no more to wash with, not till to-morrowthe fishes don’t allow it.”

“I want to wash,” grumbled Dick. “I want to stick my face in the tin, same’s you did; ’sides, Em hasn’t washed.”

“I don’t mind,” murmured Emmeline.

“Well, thin,” said Mr Button, as if making a sudden resolve, “I’ll ax the sharks.” He leaned over the boat’s side, his face close to the surface of the water. “Halloo there!” he shouted, and then bent his head sideways to listen; the children also looked over the side, deeply interested.

“Halloo there! Are y’aslape—Oh, there y’are! Here’s a spalpeen with a dhirty face, an’s wishful to wash it; may I take a tin of—Oh, thank your ’arner[67], thank your ’arner—good day to you, and my respects.”

“What did the shark say, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline.

“He said: ‘Take a bar’l[68] full, an’ welcome, Mister Button.’ Thin he put his head under his fin and went aslape agin; at least, I heard him snore.”

Emmeline nearly always “Mr Buttoned” her friend; sometimes she called him “Mr Paddy.” As for Dick, it was always “Paddy,” pure and simple. Children have etiquettes of their own.

For landsmen and landswomen, the most terrible experience when cast away at sea in an open boat is the total absence of privacy. But, whoever has gone through the experience will believe me that in great moments of life like this things that would shock us ashore are as nothing out there, face to face with eternity.

If so with grown-up people, how much more so with this old shell-back and his two charges?

And indeed Mr Button was a person who called a spade a spade[69], and looked after his two charges just as a nursemaid might look after her charges.

There was a large bag of biscuits in the boat, and some tinned stuf—f mostly sardines.

Paddy had a jack-knife, however, and in a marvellously short time a box of sardines was opened, and placed in the stern beside some biscuits.

These, with some water and Emmeline’s Tangerine orange, which she produced and added to the common store, formed the feast, and they fell to it.

When they had finished, the remains were put carefully away, and they began to step the tiny mast[70].

The sailor, when the mast was in its place, stood for a moment resting his hand on it, and gazing around him over the vast and voiceless blue.

The Pacific has three blues: the blue of morning, the blue of midday, and the blue of evening. But the blue of morning is the happiest: the happiest thing in colour—sparkling, vague, newborn—the blue of heaven and youth.

“What are you looking for, Paddy?” asked Dick.

“Sea-gulls,” replied the cunning man; then to himself: “Not a sight or a sound of them! Which way will I steer—north, south, aist, or west? It’s all wan, for if I steer to the aist, they may be in the west; and if I steer to the west, they may be in the aist; and I can’t steer to the west, for I’d be steering right in the wind’s eye[71]. I’ll make a soldier’s wind of it, and trust to chance[72].”

He set the sail[73], then shifted the rudder[74], lit a pipe, leaned back and gave the sail to the gentle breeze.

It was part of his profession, part of his nature, that, steering, maybe, straight towards death by starvation and thirst, he stayed calm as if he were taking the children for a summer’s sail. His imagination dealt little with the future, and the children were the same.

Never was there a happier starting, more joy in a little boat. During breakfast the seaman had given his charges to understand that if Dick did not meet his father and Emmeline her uncle in a “while or two,” it was because he had gone on board a ship, and he’d be along presently. The terror of their position was as deeply hidden from them as eternity is hidden from you or me.

Emmeline’s rag-doll[75] was a shocking thing from a hygienic or artistic standpoint. Its face was just inked on, it had no features, no arms; yet not for all the dolls in the world would she have exchanged this dirty and nearly formless thing. It was a fetish. She sat nursing it on one side of Paddy, while Dick, on the other side, hung his nose over the water, on the look-out for fish.

“Why do you smoke, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline, who had been watching her friend for some time in silence.

“To aise me thrubbles[76],” replied Paddy.

He was leaning back with one eye shut and the other fixed on the sail. He was in his element[77]: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. Paddy smoked.

“Whoop!” cried Dick. “Look, Paddy!”

An albicore[78] had taken a flying leap from the flashing sea, turned a complete somersault and vanished.

“It’s an albicore; he’s bein’ chased.”

“What’s chasing him, Paddy?”

“What’s chasin’ him?—why, what else but the gibly-gobly-ums[79]!”

Before Dick could ask about the personal appearance and habits of the latter, a shoal of silver heads passed the boat and sank into the water with a hissing sound.

“What are you sayin’—fish can’t fly! Where’s the eyes in your head?”

“Are the gibblyums chasing them too?” asked Emmeline fearfully.

“Don’t be axin’ me any more questions now, or I’ll be tellin’ you lies in a minit.”

Emmeline, it will be remembered, had brought a small parcel with her wrapped up in a little shawl; it was under the boat seat, and every now and then[80] she would stoop down to see if it were safe.

Chapter VII
“S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H”

Every hour or so Mr Button would shake his lethargy off, and rise and look round for “sea-gulls”. When Dick would fret now and then, the old sailor would always think up some means of amusing him. He made him fishing-tackle out of a bent pin and some small string that happened to be in the boat; and Dick, with the enthusiasm of childhood, fished.

Then he told them things, which he had learned quite a few[81] in his long, shell-back life[82].

They dined somewhere about eleven o’clock, and at noon Paddy unstepped the mast and made a sort of little tent in the bow of the boat to protect the children from the rays of the sun.

Then he took his place in the bottom of the boat, in the stern, put Dick’s straw hat over his face to preserve it from the sun, and fell asleep.

He had slept an hour and more when he was awakened by a thin and prolonged shriek. It was Emmeline in a nightmare, or more properly a day-mare. When she was shaken and comforted, the mast was restepped.

As Mr Button stood looking round him, an object struck his eye some three miles ahead. Objects rather, for they were the masts of a small ship rising from the water.

He stared at this sight for twenty or thirty seconds without speaking, then he gave a wild “Hurroo!”

“What is it, Paddy?” asked Dick.

“Hurroo!” replied Mr Button. “Ship ahoy! ship ahoy! Are they aslape or dhramin’? The wind’ll take us up to her quicker than we’ll row.”

He took the rudder; the breeze took the sail, and the boat moved ahead.

“Is it daddy’s ship?” asked Dick, who was almost as excited as his friend.

“I dinno; we’ll see when we fetch her.”

“Shall we go on her, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline.

“Ay will we, honey.”

Emmeline bent down, and fetching her parcel from under the seat, held it in her lap.

As they drew nearer, the outlines of the ship became more apparent. She was a small brig, with topmasts. It was apparent soon to the old sailor’s eye what was wrong with her.

“She’s abandoned!” he muttered; “abandoned and done for[83]—just me luck!”

“I can’t see any people on the ship,” cried Dick, who had crept forward to the bow. “Daddy’s not there.”

When they were within twenty cable lengths[84] or so he unstepped the mast and took to the oars.

The little brig floated very low on the water, and presented a mournful enough appearance. It was easy enough to see that she was a timber ship, and that she had flooded herself and been abandoned.

Paddy lay on his oars within a few strokes of her. She was floating as quietly as though she were in the harbour of San Francisco. A few strokes brought them under the stern. The name of the ship was there in faded letters, also the port to which she belonged. “Shenandoah[85]. Martha’s Vineyard.”

“There’s letters on her,” said Mr Button. “But I can’t make thim out. I’ve no larnin’.”

“I can read them,” said Dick.

“So c’n I,” murmured Emmeline.

“S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H,” spelt Dick.

“What’s that?” enquired Paddy.

“I don’t know,” replied Dick, rather sadly.

“There you are[86]!” cried the oarsman, pulling the boat round to the starboard side of the brig. “They pretend to teach letters to children in schools, picking their eyes out with book-reading[87], and here’s letters as big as my face and they can’t make head or tail of them[88]—be dashed to book-reading[89]!”

The brig floated so low in the water that they were scarcely a foot above the level of the dinghy.

Mr Button secured the boat[90], then, with Emmeline and her parcel in his arms or rather in one arm, he climbed the board and passed her over the rail on to the deck. Then it was Dick’s turn, and the children stood waiting while the old sailor brought the water, the biscuit, and the tinned stuff on board.

It was a place to delight the heart of a boy, the deck of the Shenandoah. The place had a delightful smell of sea-beach, decaying wood, tar, and mystery. A bell was hung just forward of the foremast. In half a moment Dick was forward hammering at the bell with a pin he had picked from the deck.

Mr Button shouted to him to stop; the sound of the bell got on his nerves.

Dick dropped the pin and ran forward. He took Paddy’s hand, and the three went to the door of the deck-house[91]. The door was open, and they peeped in.

The place had three windows on the starboard side, and through the windows the sun was shining. There was a table in the middle of the place. A seat was pushed away from the table as if some one had risen in a hurry. On the table lay the remains of a meal, a teapot, two teacups, two plates. On one of the plates rested a fork with a bit of bacon. Near the teapot stood an open tin of condensed milk. Some old salt[92] had just been in the act of putting milk in his tea when something had happened. Never did a lot of dead things speak so clearly as these things spoke.

One could imagine it all up. The skipper, most likely, had finished his tea, and the mate was hard at work at his, when the leak had been discovered, or whatever had happened.

One thing was evident, that since the abandonment of the brig she had experienced fine weather, or else the things would not have been left standing on the table.

Mr Button and Dick entered the place, but Emmeline remained at the door. The charm of the old brig appealed to her almost as much as to Dick, but she was afraid to enter the gloomy deck-house, and afraid to remain alone outside; so she sat down on the deck. Then she placed the small bundle beside her, and hurriedly took the rag-doll from her pocket, propped it up against the door, and told it not to be afraid.

There was not much to be found in the deck-house, but there were two small cabins, once inhabited by the skipper and his mate. Here there were great findings in the way of rubbish. Old clothes, old boots, an old top-hat, a telescope without a lens, a nautical almanac, a box of fish hooks. And in one corner – a coil of what seemed to be ten yards or so of black rope.

“My God!” shouted Pat, seizing upon his treasure. It was pigtail[93]. A pipe full of it would make a hippopotamus vomit, yet old sailors chew it and smoke it with pleasure.

“We’ll bring all the lot of the things out on deck, and see what’s worth keepin’ an’ what’s worth leavin’,” said Mr Button.

“Em,” shouted Dick, as he appeared in the doorway, “see what I’ve got!”

He put the top-head on his head. It went right down to his shoulders.

Emmeline gave a shriek.

“It smells funny[94],” said Dick, taking it off and applying his nose to the inside of it—“smells like an old hair brush. Here, you try it on.”

Emmeline ran away as far as she could, till she reached the starboard side, where she sat, breathless and speechless and wide-eyed. She was always dumb when frightened, and this hat suddenly scared her. Besides, it was a black thing, and she hated black things—black cats, black horses; worst of all, black dogs.

Meanwhile Mr Button was putting armful after armful of stuff on deck. When the heap was complete, he sat down beside it, and lit his pipe.

He had searched neither for food or water as yet; happy with the treasure God had given him. And, indeed, if he had searched he would have found only half a sack of potatoes.

They all sat round the pile.

“Thim pair of brogues,” said the old man, holding a pair of old boots up for inspection like an auctioneer, “would cost half a dollar in any sayport in the world. Put them beside you, Dick, and stritch this pair of britches.”

The trousers were stretched out, examined and approved of, and laid beside the boots.

“Here’s a tiliscope wid wan eye shut,” said Mr Button, examining the broken telescope. “Stick it beside the brogues; it may come in handy[95] for somethin’. Here’s a book”—giving the nautical almanac to the boy. “Tell me what it says.”

Dick examined the pages of figures hopelessly.

“I can’t read ’em,” said Dick; “it’s numbers.”

“Toss it overboard,” said Mr Button.

Dick did what he was told joyfully.

Paddy tried on the tall hat, and the children laughed. On her old friend’s head the thing didn’t have terror for Emmeline.

She had two methods of laughing. The angelic smile—a rare thing—and, almost as rare, a laugh in which she showed her little white teeth, whilst she pressed her hands together.

Paddy put the hat on one side, and continued the sorting, searching all the pockets of the clothes and finding nothing. When he had arranged what to keep, they tossed the rest overboard, and the valuables were taken to the captain’s cabin, there to remain till wanted.

Then the idea that food might be useful as well as old clothes in their present condition struck the mind[96] of Mr Button, and he began to search, though couldn’t find anything else.

Still, the provisions and water brought on board from the dinghy would be sufficient to last them some ten days or so, and in the course of ten days a lot of things might happen.

Mr Button leaned over the side. The dinghy was nestling beside the brig like a duckling beside a duck. Having made all secure, he climbed slowly up to the top, and looked round upon the sea.

Chapter VIII
Shadows in the Moonlight

“Daddy’s a long time coming,” said Dick all of a sudden.

They were seated on the deck of the brig. The sun was setting in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to tremble.

“Ay, is he,” said Mr Button; “but it’s better late than never. Now don’t be thinkin’ of him, for that won’t bring him. Look at the sun goin’ into the wather, and don’t be spakin’ a word, now, but listen and you’ll hear it hiss.”

The children gazed and listened, Paddy also. All three were silent.

You could hear the water hiss—if you had imagination enough. Once having touched the water, the sun went down behind it, as swiftly as a man in a hurry going down a ladder. As the sun vanished, a ghostly and golden twilight spread over the sea. Then the sea became a violet shadow, the west darkened, and the stars rushed over the sky.

“Mr Button,” said Emmeline, nodding towards the sun as he vanished, “where’s over there?”

“The west,” replied he, staring at the sunset. “Chainy and Injee[97] and all away beyant.”

“Where’s the sun gone to now, Paddy?” asked Dick.

“He’s gone chasin’ the moon, an’ she’s running off for all she’s worth[98]; she’ll be up in a minit. He’s always afther her, but he’s never caught her yet.”

The moon, silver and splendid, was breaking from the water. She was full, and her light was powerful almost as the light of day. The shadows of the children and the shadow of Mr Button were cast on the wall of the caboose hard and black as silhouettes.

“Look at our shadows!” cried Dick, taking off his straw hat and waving it.

Emmeline held up her doll to see its shadow, and Mr Button held up his pipe.

“Come now,” said he, putting the pipe back in his mouth, and making to rise, “and be off to bed; it’s time you were aslape, the both of you.”

Dick began to wail.

“I don’t want to go to bed; I aint tired, Paddy—les’s stay a little longer.”

“Not a minit,” said the other, with all the decision of a nurse; “not a minit afther me pipe’s out!”

“Fill it again,” said Dick.

Mr Button made no reply.

“Mr Button!” said Emmeline. She was holding her nose in the air and sniffing; her delicate sense of smell felt something lost to the others.

“What is it, acushla[99]?”

“I smell something.”

“What d’ye say you smell?”

“Something nice.”

“What’s it like?” asked Dick, snifnif g hard. “I don’t smell anything.”

Emmeline sniffed again to make sure.

“Flowers,” said she.

The breeze was bearing with it a faint, faint odour: a perfume of vanilla and spice so faint as to be insensible to almost all.

“Flowers!” said the old sailor, tapping the ashes out of his pipe against the heel of his boot. “And where’d you get flowers in middle of the say? It’s dhramin’ you are. Come now—to bed wid yiz!”

“Fill it again,” wailed Dick, referring to the pipe.

“It’s a spankin’ I’ll give you,” replied his guardian, lifting him from the deck, and then assisting Emmeline, “in two ticks[100] if you don’t behave. Come along, Em’line.”

He started off, a small hand in each of his, Dick bellowing.

As they passed the ship’s bell, Dick stretched towards the pin that was still lying on the deck, seized it, and hit the bell a mighty bang. It was the last pleasure to be had before sleep, and he got it.

Paddy had made up beds for himself and his charges in the deck-house; he had cleared the stuff off the table, opened the windows to get the musty smell away, and placed the mattresses from the captain and mate’s cabins on the floor.

When the children were in bed and asleep, he went to the starboard rail, and, leaning on it, looked over the moonlit sea. He was thinking of ships as his eye wandered over the sea, little dreaming of the message that had been received and dimly understood by Emmeline. Then he leaned with his back to the rail and his hands in his pockets. He was not thinking now, he was meditating.

The basis of the Irish character, Paddy Button being an example, is a deep laziness mixed with a deep melancholy. Yet Paddy, in his left-handed way, was as hard a worker as any man on board ship; and as for melancholy, he was the life and soul of the cockpit[101].

Suddenly Mr Button came back from his dreams to find himself on the deck of the Shenandoah; and he instantly became taken by fears. Beyond the white deserted deck, he could see the door of the caboose. Suppose he should suddenly see a head pop out—or, worse, a shadowy form go in?

He turned to the deck-house, where the children were sound asleep[102], and where, in a few minutes, he, too, was sound asleep beside them, while all night long the brig rocked to the gentle ripple of the Pacific, and the breeze blew, bringing with it the perfume of flowers.

Chapter IX
The Tragedy of the Boats

When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the long-boat saw the quarter-boat half a mile to starboard of them.

“Can you see the dinghy?” asked Lestrange of the captain, who was standing up searching the horizon.

“Not a speck,[103]” answered Le Farge. “Damn that Irishman! but for him I’d have got the boats away properly supplied and all[104]; as I don’t know what we’ve got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got there?”

“Two bags of bread and a small barrel of water,” answered the steward.

“A barrel of water, half full!” came another voice.

Then the steward’s voice: “So it is; there’s not more than a couple of gallons[105] in her.”

“My God!” said Le Farge. “Damn that Irishman!”

“There’s not more than’ll give us two half pannikins apiece all round,” said the steward.

“Maybe,” said Le Farge, “the quarter-boat’s better stocked; pull for her[106].”

“She’s pulling for us,” said the stroke oar[107].

“Captain,” asked Lestrange, “are you sure there’s no sight of the dinghy?”

“None,” replied Le Farge.

The unfortunate man’s head sank on his breast. He had little time to think over his troubles, however, for a tragedy was beginning to start around him, the most shocking, perhaps, in the history of the sea.

When the boats were within hearing distance, a man in the bow of the long-boat rose up.

“Quarter-boat ahoy!”

“Ahoy!”

“How much water have you?”

“None!”

The word came floating over the moonlit water. At it the fellows in the long-boat ceased rowing, and you could see the water-drops dripping off their oars like diamonds in the moonlight.

“Quarter-boat ahoy!” shouted the fellow in the bow. “Lay on your oars.”

“Here, you scowbanker[108]!” cried Le Farge, “who are you to be giving directions—”

“Scowbanker yourself!” replied the fellow. “Bullies, put her about[109]!”

The starboard oars backed water, and the boat came round.

By chance the worst lot of the Northumberland’s crew were in the long-boat—real “scowbankers,” scum; and how scum clings to life you will never know, until you have been amongst it in an open boat at sea. Le Farge had no more command over this lot than you have who are reading this book.

“Heave to[110]!” came from the quarter-boat, as she laboured behind.

“Lay on your oars, bullies!” cried the rufaif n at the bow, who was still standing up like an evil genius[111] who had taken momentary command over events. “Lay on your oars, bullies; they’d better have it now.”

The quarter-boat in her turn ceased rowing, and lay a cable’s length away.

“How much water have you?” came the mate’s voice.

“Not enough to go round.”

Le Farge made to rise, and the stroke oar struck at him, catching him in the wind and doubling him up in the bottom of the boat.

“Give us some, for God’s sake!” came the mate’s voice; “we’re parched with rowing, and there’s a woman on board.”

The fellow in the bow of the long-boat broke into blasphemy[112].

“Give us some,” came the mate’s voice, “or, by God, we’ll lay you aboard[113]!”

Before the words were well spoken the men in the quarter-boat carried the threat into action. The conflict was brief: the quarter-boat was too crowded for fighting. The starboard men in the long-boat fought with their oars, while the fellows to port steadied the boat[114].

The fight did not last long, and presently the quarter-boat went away, half of the men in her cut about the head and bleeding—two of them senseless.

It was sundown on the following day. The long-boat lay adrift. The last drop of water had been served out eight hours before.

The quarter-boat had been pursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none.

The men in the long-boat, gloomy and morose, tortured by thirst, and tormented by the voices imploring for water, lay on their oars when the other boat tried to approach.

Now and then, suddenly, and as if moved by a common impulse, they would all shout out together: “We have none.” But the quarter-boat would not believe. It was in vain[115] to hold the open barrel upside down to prove its dryness, the half-delirious creatures had it fixed in their minds that their comrades were hiding from them the water that was not.

Just as the sun touched the sea, Lestrange raised himself and looked over the side. He saw the quarter-boat drifting a cable’s length away, lit by the full light of sunset, and the ghosts in it, seeing him, held out in silent appeal their blackened tongues.

Of the night that followed it is almost impsible to speak. Thirst was nothing to what the scowbankers suffered from the torture of the appeal for water that came to them at intervals during the night.

When at last the Arago, a French whale ship, saw them, the crew of the long-boat were still alive, but three of them were raving madmen[116]. Of the crew of the quarter-boat was saved—not one.

Part II

Chapter X
The Island

“Childer!” shouted Paddy, while the children standing beneath on deck were craning their faces up to him. “There’s an island in front of us.”

“Hurrah!” cried Dick. He was not quite sure what an island might be like, but it was something fresh, and Paddy’s voice was jubilant.

“Land ho! it is,” said he, coming down to the deck. “Come forward to the bows, and I’ll show it you.”

He stood on the timber in the bows and lifted Emmeline up in his arms, so she could see something of an unclear colour on the horizon.

It was not directly ahead, but to the right. When Dick had looked and expressed his disappointment as there was very little to see, Paddy began to make preparations for leaving the ship.

It was only just now, with land in sight, that he recognised the horror of the position from which they were about to escape.

He fed the children hurriedly with some biscuits and tinned meat, and then, with a biscuit in his hand, eating as he went, he went about the decks, collecting things and placing them in the dinghy. All the old clothes, a housewife full of needles and thread, such as seamen sometimes carry, the half-sack of potatoes, a saw which he found in the caboose, the precious coil of tobacco, and a lot of other odds and ends[117] he transhipped, sinking the little dinghy several inches in the process. Also, of course, he took the breaker of water, and the remains of the biscuit and tinned stuff they had brought on board. When this was done, and the dinghy ready, he went forward with the children to the bow, to see how the island was showing.

It had loomed up nearer during the hour or so in which he had been collecting and storing the things—nearer, and more to the right, which meant that the brig was carried by a fast current, and that she would pass it, leaving it two or three miles to starboard. It was well they had the dinghy.

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Примечания

1

масляная лампа

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2

The Shan Van Vocht (The Poor Old Woman) – песня времён Ирландского восстания 1798 г.

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3

кельт, ирландец

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4

Коннаут – провинция на западе Ирландии.

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5

У него была крепкая кельтская закалка

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6

Название корабля и северо-восточное графство Англии.

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7

Огайо – американский штат.

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8

Мыс Горн – южная оконечность Африки.

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Направляясь из Нового Орлеана в Сан-Франциско

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и вытер лоб правым рукавом

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11

Лепрекон – гном, персонаж ирландского фольклора; обычно изображается одетым во всё зелёное.

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12

и никто не знал, что он ещё затеет

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13

seaman at sea – моряку в море

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14

Думаю, владелец ближайшего салуна не упустит случая выпотрошить тебя до последнего гроша

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15

Будь проклят

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16

Легко, чёрт возьми, говорить

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17

ты надираешься как свинья

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18

самогон тебя погубит

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19

Млечный Путь – галактика.

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20

Южный Крест – созвездие южного полушария.

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21

У него явно была чахотка

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22

левый борт судна

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усаживалась за сложенными канатами

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туда-сюда

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когда они добирались до мистера Баттона, их было от него не оторвать

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26

с любовью (итал.)

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27

чернильное пятно

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28

какого бы возраста он ни был

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бог знает куда

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latitudes (искаж.)

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и вы будете в полном порядке

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32

Золотые Ворота – мост в Сан-Франциско.

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неудивительно, что я скрываю само это слово от тех, кого люблю

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34

Дики будет обеспеченным

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35

плыла по течению

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36

кают-компания

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сходной трап

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Эй, там, внизу!

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39

грот-мачта

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Он слышал пронзительный свисток боцмана.

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баркас, шлюпка

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затопить трюм

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он бросился к сходному трапу

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и жилы выступали на висках, как скрученные канаты

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45

Забирайтесь в шлюпку

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46

Спускайте!

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47

Как только он взялся за вёсла

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Спасайся кто может! Я вспомнил: в трюме две бочки пороха!

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49

туман над морем

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Всё, я выдохся!

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на четвереньках

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52

мандарин

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53

Баркас был далеко впереди

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Эй, на шлюпке!

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Швартуйтесь сюда!

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сушил вёсла

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Лево руля!

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правый борт судна

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который подхватывал морские термины

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глухой как пень

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Она уснула

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уключины

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Лье – старинная мера длины, равная трём милям.

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я чуть коньки не отбросил

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65

соломенная шляпа

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easy does it – это проще простого

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67

your honour – ваша честь

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68

barrel

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69

называл вещи своими именами

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ставить крошечную мачту

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71

против ветра

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Я пойду с попутным ветром, и будь что будет.

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73

Он поставил парус

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74

повернул руль

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75

тряпичная кукла

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76

To ease my troubles

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он был в своей стихии

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Альбакор – длиннопёрый тунец.

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тары-бары

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то и дело

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довольно много

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беззаботная жизнь

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брошена на произвол судьбы

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Кабельтов – десятая часть морской мили, примерно 200 метров.

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Шенандоа – национальный парк штата Виргиния.

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Вот те на!

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87

у детей от чтения глаза на лоб лезут

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а они ничего не понимают

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да пропади это чтение пропадом

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пришвартовал лодку

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Рубка – салон на верхней палубе.

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морской волк

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табак, свёрнутый трубочкой

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У него странный запах

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он может пригодиться

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пришла в голову

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China and India

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98

что есть мочи

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99

дорогуша (ирл.)

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в два счёта

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он был душой компании

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крепко спали

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Никакого намёка

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если бы не он, я бы снарядил лодки как надо

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Галлон – мера объёма, около четырёх литров.

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гребите к ней

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гребец

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прохвост (сленг.)

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разверните лодку

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Ложись в дрейф!

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злой гений

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разразился бранью

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подойдём вплотную

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парни на левом борту держали равновесие

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Было бесполезно

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были буйнопомешанными

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117

всякая всячина

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