CHAPTER X.

THE FOUR CASTAWAYS.

"Lord have mercy on us!" escaped the lips of all.

It would seem that, by the strength and violence of the sea, the entire quarter-deck abaft the mizzen-mast, with a portion of its bulwarks, the taffrail, some parts of the stern windows and quarter galleries, had been torn from the ship, and this crazy fragment was all that intervened between our four friends and eternity.

Being level with the sea it could not be capsized, which, at least, was one good property.

Lashed to such parts of it as were available, the poor victims clung there in desperation and silence, waiting, and praying in their hearts that the storm would abate; and now, as if its errand had been done, its object accomplished in the total destruction of the unfortunate _Princess_, the gusty wind began to lull gradually, though the agitated sea rolled high and black as ever.

As the common saying has it, the waves "ran mountains high;" but it must be borne in mind, that few waves rise more than ten feet above the general level of the water, which, when ten more are given for the trough of the sea, makes the whole height from base to crest twenty feet--sufficiently high to be terrible in aspect and effect.

Over the raft of the _Princess_ (for it was little better) those vast hills of water made a thundering breach every instant, or came surging up through the apertures, from whence the companion and skylight had been torn away.

The taffrail was strong, and it was chiefly to it that Bartelot, Morley, Morrison, and Gawthrop lashed themselves, for gradually all that remained of the bulwarks were torn away, and the stump of the mizzenmast was soon worked or sucked out by the sea.

There was an appalling sense of loneliness, of dread and desolation, and of too probable death being near at hand, though, perhaps, all the more terrible, if it were protracted.

So the fearful night wore on; the black scud was passing away, the stars shone out, and the four castaways began to hope that morning was at hand. Yet, ruthlessly, wave after wave came rolling over them, each with its high and monstrous head, curling white with snowy foam, though its sides were black and inky. Then there would be a roar as of thunder when each burst over the fragment of wreck, engulfing and half choking the poor dripping wretches who clung to it in silence and despair.

But now, as dawn, began to spread rapidly over the east, the sea went down, and the wind also; the waves ceased to roll over the broken deck, which floated steadily, and as it rose upheaved on each successive swell, the occupants cast around them, eager glances from their bloodshot eyes, in the hope of descrying a sail.

Dawn came thoroughly in--a cloudy morning, but no sunshine. Ere long they could see the whole horizon; but there no vestige of a sail was visible, and now they looked blankly in each other's pallid faces.

"My poor crew!" said Bartelot, with a thick sob in his throat, but the exclamation had escaped him many times before; "second-mate, carpenter, sail-maker, steward, cook, boys, and all--all gone but us, Morley. Sad--deplorable, is it not?"

"Do not grieve for what is irreparable," said Morrison.

"If I saw you, Bill Morrison, my friend Ashton, and my old shipmate Noah, all safe, I don't care if I were shark-meat this minute," he resumed, bitterly.

"Don't say so, Bartelot, my old boy," replied Morley, with an affectation of spirit he was far from feeling: "you have behaved bravely, and done all that man could do to save your ship. Take courage; you have buoyed me up many a day, when my heart had sunk to zero. Let me try to cheer you in turn."

"Cheer!" Tom repeated, shaking his head sadly, and still more bitterly, as he surveyed their home upon the waters.

"Oh, Heaven! to think of this being a bit of the old _Princess_ we all loved so well!" groaned Morrison, looking almost affectionately on the frail planks over which the sea rippled at every heave.

"Aye, sir," chimed in Noah; "it are odd, but it was a bit of that same blessed deck, as was holystoned and prayer-booked, swabbed and squilgeed of a morning till it were white as snow--whiter a'most than the deck of her Majesty's yacht. I've poured half the sea over that deck, I have, when the head-pump was rigged for'ard of a morning, and now what is it, but only a bit of drift-wood, and we a clinging to it, like four wet barnacles? Lor' help us!"

"And bless our poor shipmates!" added Bartelot, pointing upwards.

"They are all gone, sir--found sailors' graves, every one of them," said Morrison; "the ship would fill, and go down the moment she parted aft."

"But you've done your duty, sir," said Noah; "and can clear yourself of the ship's loss before any naval court in any part of the world. I only wish we were all afore one this blessed minute, instead o' drifting about here, without compass, biscuit, or 'bacca."

Now came the oppressive reflection that they were without food and without water.

Morley had read very recently the "Paul Huet" of Eugene Sue, and the more true story on which his romance is founded--the awful wreck of the _Medusa_, French frigate, and thus the horrors which her crew endured upon the raft came vividly and painfully before him now.

The saline property of the atmosphere, their long and repeated immersions in the ocean, the quantities of its water they had been compelled to swallow when the drenching waves broke over them, soon excited thirst. This longing was increased by heat, when the sun came forth; but as yet they had no desire for food.

All their energies were bent on watching the horizon around them, but no sail appeared; so the wreck continued to float listlessly about, without making way apparently in any direction.

A boat they might have rowed in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope, and though they might have failed to reach the coast, while minus food and water, they would always have increased their chances of being picked up by a passing ship, homeward or outward bound; but on the wreck they were helpless, as if upon a desert rock fixed amid the sea.

The first day passed slowly, wearily on, and the sun verged westward in his course.

Now night descended on the sea. There was no moon, but the stars shone clearly and sharply.

Worn by emotion, by toil, suffering, and lack of sleep, they trusted to the security of their lashings, and strove to find rest, or oblivion, in slumber; but a half-wakeful doze was all they could achieve. Each body lay, to all appearance, torpid; but the anxious soul slept not, so each had his own keen active thoughts and dreams.

Tom Bartelot conjured up a certain pretty little English face, whose smiling blue eyes were associated with many a summer evening walk among the sylvan scenery of Richmond Park, in the gardens of Kew, and visits to Hampton Court.

Morrison's heart was in his old mother's cottage, where he first saw the light, by the broad waters of the Dee, that roll from the hills of Crathie and Braemar in "the bonnie north country;" for he had intended, at the close of another voyage, to go home to Scotland, with all his earnings and wages, to spend them with her, and for her only; but all that seemed hopeless now, though the hum of the sea in his ears, as it rippled against the wreck, suggested the surf that in boyhood he had seen breaking over the Black Dog of Belhelvie.*

* A rock on the Aberdeenshire coast, so named from its appearance at low water.

Poor old Gawthrop, with his grizzled whiskers, and lips baked in dry salt, dreamt of neither father, mother, nor love--for all who loved old Noah were dead long ago; but he had a vision of a stiff jorum of

"Boatswain's grog--just half and half,"

such as he used to get in the _Haurora_, of fifty guns; while Morley Ashton thought, and dreamed, and murmured to himself of Ethel Basset.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

He had now been long absent from Ethel, and been long mourned by her as one who was lost to her for ever, and numbered with the dead. And now death menaced him again!

He had been saved from destruction by his friend--saved from a death by starvation, or despair, at Acton Chine; but only to perish with him here amid the lonely waters of the South Atlantic; for this time it seemed that he was too surely doomed to die--an idea rendered all the more bitter by a conviction that Ethel would never, and could never, know the dark story of his disappearance, for no mortal lips could tell her save those of Hawkshaw.

Morley felt that he might perish now; that she would never learn the true character of his rival; of his own awful escape from Acton Chine; of his journey to Rio de Janeiro; of his sufferings on the raft, till relieved by death; of how he had been tossed hither and thither by fortune's unrelenting hate, and how deeply and devotedly he loved her.

By this last misfortune, the wreck, more than all the others, he might, by dying, leave her to become the wife of Hawkshaw, the would-be assassin!

So another night passed over, and the raft, or wreck, still floated darkly, silently there; and now those who were thereon had ceased to speak, even in whispers.

Another day dawned--a day of glorious sunshine; but no food, no water, no hope came with it; for not a sail was in sight, and their eyes ached with weariness in searching the faint blue watery line that marked where the sky and ocean met.

They were becoming very feeble now, and the cravings of nature were maddening.

Their hair was encrusted by salt, as white as hoar-frost, their lips were baked, their tongues parched. Already they had become gaunt and white, hollow-cheeked, and old-looking, with eyes bloodshot and wild.

Their feet and legs were sore and sodden by long immersion in the brine, and their whole bodies were rendered stiff and weary by the wet ropes which lashed them to the taffrail--a means of security which they dared not unloose or relinquish for a moment.

Ere long they were in a species of delirium.

Hunger brought its own fantastic and exciting suggestions of well-cooked viands, of hearty homely dishes, steaming and savoury, roasts and stews, puddings and pies; but thirst, agonising thirst, suggested ideas of cool rivers, amid which snows were dissolving; of lonely mountain tarns, where the brown trout sported under the broad-leaved water-docks, and where the wild bird swam; of glassy meres, of crystal rills, that murmured under old oak trees, or shady drooping willows, with dark green sprays, and water-lilies that dipped therein; of iced champagne, that effervesced in crystal goblets; of sparkling hock and seltzer-water; of jolly London stout, all brown, with its creamy froth; of every impossible luxury that they had not, and never more might feel upon their cracked lips and dry, hard, arid tongues!

A dead bird!--it was a huge albatross, with wings outspread--floated slowly past them on the glassy oil-like sea, thus indicating a current that ran eastward.

They were all too weak to attempt to swim for it; so, wolfishly, with haggard eyes and longing appetites they watched the wretched carrion for hours, until it floated out of sight.

Then three nautilus shells, with purple sails outspread, passed near them, and, to Morley's excited vision, they seemed like large Roman galleys, or fairy barges; at a vast distance--such craft as he had read of in legends of the Rhine, in fairy tales, and knightly ballads.

And now came Mother Carey's chickens, hopping and tripping about the wreck, and on the ripples round it--merrily and happily, like brown sparrows in a farmyard at home.

About the setting of the sun, they were roused from their listlessness by the sudden apparition of a large vessel, barque-rigged--that is, with the fore and mainmasts of a ship and a mizzen like a schooner's mainmast, with a long spanker-boom--bearing down towards them.

There was a fine breeze blowing; she had all her canvas set, and ran on a taut bowline.

"A ship! a sail! a sail!" they exclaimed together.

"Now, blessed be Heaven!" said Tom, "we are saved at last! Hurrah--hurrah!"

She was painted a kind of yellowish white; her side chains and hawse-holes, and all her iron work, looked red and rusty, as if she had been long in tropical waters.

With almost inarticulate lips they sought to hail her, and waved their hands in frantic glee as she came on, with the white foam curling under her bluff bows, where the old copper was green, and covered with barnacles. Her side was lined with the faces of her crew, who seemed to be in earnest conference, and some of whom gesticulated violently.

She seemed to be foreign by her build and rig, as well as by the scarlet and blue shirts and fur caps of her men.

Now she was close to them, and the white flag, with the black eagle of Prussia, was hoisted at her gaff peak; now she would certainly be hove in the wind, with a mainsail laid aback, and have a boat lowered to relieve them.

So close was she, that the wheel revolved to keep her away a point or two, lest she might run the frail wreck under with her bluff bows, as she sheered past.

Tom hailed in English "to relieve them from misery--to save them, for the love of mercy and of God!"

He spoke imploringly, for a sudden doubt had chilled his heart.

Hoarsely the hail was responded to in German, and the barque passed on--on, without lifting tack or sheet, without lowering a boat, or tossing a single biscuit, to those four men who were all but dying on the wreck! The Prussian--she was the _Einicheit_, of Dantzic--stood away on her course, and left Bartelot and his three friends in an agony of disappointment and despair that bordered on madness!*

* For the infamous conduct of this Prussian crew to a Scottish ship in distress, see any paper of May 26, 1864.

With such terrible emotions in their hearts, as no pen could portray, they saw her slowly diminish in distance, and vanish into the yellow haze that overspread the evening sea. Then once more night descended on the world of waters, and again they were alone--more alone, they felt, than ever, for even their fellow-beings had abandoned them.

During all that night Morley Ashton was delirious.

Dreams and thoughts of Acton Chase and woods, that rustled their green leaves in the soft west wind; of golden fields, of bearded grain, that waved like yellow billows beneath its breath; of the voices of the larks that soared aloft into the blue sky, and of the cushat dove that cooed to its mate in the leafy dingle; the ring of the village chimes, and of children's merry voices--came strongly to memory, with the comforts of the land he never more might tread--English home he never more might see.

Anon, strange monsters seemed to come out of the starlit bosom of the glassy deep, to bob and dance, to glare and jabber, with faces green, white, lilac, and rose-coloured; and all as if to mock their misery.

These, however, were only seaweed and foambells, or floating blubber, to which the water gave unusual size and phosphorescent light, while the sufferers' giddy brains and weakened eyesight lent them wild and fantastic forms.

Poor Tom Bartelot must have been quite deranged; for more than once Morley heard him singing what seemed to be a scrap of his old drinking song, and his voice sunk into a childish quaver at the couplet:

"Oh, deign, ye kind powers, with this wish to comply, May I always be drinking yet always be dry."

Then he suddenly changed his note to a kind of hoarse wail, as he sang:

"King Death was a rare old fellow, He sat where no sun could shine; He lifted his hand so yellow, And pledged us in coal-black wine."

He soon after became senseless, and hung, as if asleep, drooping, alas! it might be, dead, in the lashings that secured him to the taffrail.

Towards the morning of that terrible night, Morley felt life ebbing within him, and, as it ebbed, he had a last wild dream--wild, indeed; but too delicious to be true.

A long, long time seemed to elapse, but another day had dawned, and a ship--the false, cruel Prussian barque of yesterday--had returned in quest of them. She lay to, a boat came off, he heard the rattle of the fall tackles, and the splash of the water. They were, he thought, rescued; he felt the lashing that bound his swollen limbs cut by a seaman's jack-knife, and now kind faces and kind hands were around him, and gentle voices were murmuring in his ear.

Cool wine and grateful cordials seemed to be poured between his parched lips, and then to be suddenly withheld when he would have imbibed more.

Oh, the madness of this tantalising and most feverish dream, for Ethel Basset seemed to be there!

Ethel, with her sweetly feminine and dear affectionate face, was bending over him; her lips were close to his, her kiss was on his cheek; but he could neither respond nor speak, for Hawkshaw's visage, pale and wrathful, was between them, with knitted brows and glaring eyes, as he had seen it last, when he fell beneath his hand at Acton Chine.

Then he seemed to sleep, to die; for he felt and remembered no more.