The Castaways

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

  A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.

  The rumpus continued for nearly ten minutes, and then quite suddenlyceased; and as it did so the cook flung his legs over the coamings ofthe fore-scuttle, and disappeared down the hatchway. Some five minutesor so later, O'Gorman appeared on deck, ghastly white, and with hischeek laid open in a gash that extended very nearly from his left ear tothe corresponding corner of his mouth. The blood was trickling downupon the collar of his jacket and staining the whole of the left breastof the garment, and his hands and cuffs were smeared with blood. It wasat once evident to me that there had been a serious scrimmage in theforecastle; a conjecture that was at once confirmed by the fellowhimself--who, I may mention, was completely sobered by the occurrence,if indeed he had been the worse for drink at its outbreak.

  "Hillo, Misther!" he exclaimed, as he arrived within speaking distanceof me, "are ye left all alone to look afther the hooker? Be jabers,that's too bad! Where's the shpalpeen that ought to be doin' his thrickof grindin' wather?"

  "I sent him for'ard about three-quarters of an hour ago," said I, "totell you that I wished to speak to you; and the loafing blackguard neverreturned. But what has been the matter in the forecastle, and how cameyou with that wound in your cheek?"

  "Oh, begorra, but it's a bad job, intoirely!" he answered. "We was allhavin' a little game of cards together, and to make the game lively wewas stakin' our gims. Dirk got claned out at last--lost every stone ofhis share--and then he jumped up and swore that Price had been chatin'him. Price knocked him down for sayin' it; but he jumped up again--widhis mouth all bleedin' from Jack's blow--and, in a wink, before anny ofus knew what he was afther, he'd whipped out his knife and drove itclean through poor Chips heart! That was the beginnin' of the row.When we saw what had been done, two or three of us attimpted to seizeDirk and disarm him; but the murthering villain fought like all thefuries, layin' my cheek open, stabbin' poor Tom in the throat so thathe's bleedin' like a stuck pig, and pretty near cuttin' Mike's hand off.And that's not the worst of it aither. Some of the other chaps tookDirk's side, swearin' that they'd seen Chips chatin', and in two two's,sir, all hands had their knives out, and we was cuttin' and slashin' ateach other loike--loike--sodgers on a field of battle!"

  "Are there any hurt beside Tom, Mike, and yourself?" I asked, toocompletely dazed with the sudden horror of the thing to look at morethan one side of it for the moment.

  "Ay, begorra," answered the Irishman; "Dirk's done for, I expect; andthere's others of us that'll want plenty of watchin' if we're ever tosee the other side of the Line again."

  "Is that so?" ejaculated I. "Then for Heaven's sake send somebody torelieve me, that I may go for'ard and see what is to be done in the wayof stitching and bandaging."

  "Ay!" exclaimed O'Gorman, "bad cess to me for forgittin' it; that waswhat I came aft to ye for."

  And therewith he hurried away forward again, and in a few minutes a mancame aft and took over the wheel. I hurried below, and found MissOnslow engaged upon some needlework. She looked up with a bright smileof welcome as I entered, but immediately sprang to her feet, exclaiming:

  "Charlie! what has happened? You are as white as a ghost! Have youreceived information of any fresh villainy?"

  "No, dear, no," I interrupted. "Something very serious has certainlyhappened, but this time it concerns us only very indirectly. The menhave been quarrelling and fighting among themselves in the forecastle,and one or two of them are rather seriously hurt. May I enter yourcabin for a moment, sweetheart? There is a medicine-chest there, with,probably, a supply of surgical bandages and so on. I will take thewhole affair for'ard, as until I have seen precisely what is the matterit will be impossible for me to know what I shall require."

  "Then, Charlie, are you going to dress the injuries of those wretchedmen?" she asked.

  "Yes, dear," I answered; "you need not be uneasy, however; they will nothurt me. They will be quiet enough for some time after this, I expect;and possibly the occurrence may have the effect of causing them todetermine on adopting some less inhuman method than murder to get rid ofus."

  "God grant it--if it should come to the worst," answered the dear girl."But, Charlie, I was not afraid on your behalf, dear; they will scarcelylay hands on you while you are engaged in alleviating their sufferings.I was about to ask whether you think _I_ could be of any use; whether Ishould go with you."

  "Certainly not!" answered I, in accents of sternness that were, however,levelled at the brutes forward, not at the sweet woman who was so readyto forget all that she had endured at the hands of these ruffians, andto undertake, she knew not what, in her willingness to forgive and helpthem. "No," I continued, "you will remain here, darling; this is yourend of the ship, and you can do no better than stick to it. Whatevermay be necessary to be done forward, I can and will do."

  I secured the medicine-chest--which luckily happened to be a fairly bigone for a vessel of the brig's size--and carried it forward to thefore-scuttle, where one of the seamen relieved me of it and passed itbelow. Half a dozen or so of the gang were now on deck, looking verycrestfallen and subdued--to such an extent, indeed, that they actuallyknuckled their foreheads to me as I appeared among them. I did notwaste time, however, by attempting to bring home to them the evil oftheir ways, but descended at once into the dark, grimy, andevil-smelling hole where, until a few minutes ago, fourteen men hadlived in such comfort and harmony as go to make pleasant the existenceof forecastle Jack. Heavens! what a filthy place it was! and howwoefully changed for the worse since I had last entered it--which wasbefore it had received its present tenants. It was bad enough, eventhen; but it was infinitely worse now. It was a triangular-shapedapartment, the apex of the triangle being the "eyes" of the vessel. Itwas barely six feet high from the deck to the under side of the beams,and deck, walls, beams, and roof were all of one uniform tint of greasyblack, the result of a coating of dirt so thick that it could actuallybe scraped off with a knife, or with one's fingernail. It was fittedall round with a double row of bunks, and in addition to them a numberof hammocks swung from the beams. The place was unlighted, save bymeans of the scuttle, and by a kettle-shaped slush-lamp that swung,flaring and emitting a long streamer of fat, black smoke, from thecentre beam. The deck was encumbered with the sea-chests of theoriginal occupants--which had been taken possession of by O'Gorman andhis gang--and was littered with tin plates, pannikins, fragments offood, and empty and broken bottles; while its atmosphere was foul withfoetid odours, prominent among which were those of bilge-water andcockroaches! Three of the bunks in the lower tier were occupied--two ofthe occupants lying quiet and still, while the third moved restlessly atintervals, emitting low moans the while--and four men, evidently hurt,reclined upon the deck, with their backs propped up against sea-chests.As for O'Gorman, he stood close by the swaying lamp, holding a dirty,bloodstained rag to his gashed cheek as his eyes rolled gloomily andsullenly about the dark and stifling hole.

  I gave my attention first to the figures in the bunks, beginning withthe still and silent ones. The one I first approached happened to bethe man named Tom. He was lying on his right side, with his white facetoward the light, his eyes partly closed and showing nothing but thewhites, and a fearful gash about four inches long in the left side ofhis throat, from which the blood seemed to have been pouring as from apump, judging from the appearance of his clothes and the bunk; it wasmerely oozing now. I seized his hand and felt for his pulse; there wasnone. I tore open his saturated shirt and laid my hand upon his breast;there seemed to be an occasional slight flutter of the heart, but if so,it was so exceedingly faint as to render the matter extremely doubtful;it was clear that the unfortunate man had bled, or was bleeding, todeath, and was far beyond such poor and inefficient help as I couldafford him. I left him, therefore, and turned to the next bunk, which Inow saw was occupied by the body of the carpenter. He lay, stretchedout on his back, just as he had been tossed in, and might have beenasleep but fo
r the ghastly pallor of his face and the tell-tale purplestain upon the breast of his waistcoat and shirt. He was dead, beyondall doubt; so I turned to the next man, who proved to be a giganticDutchman named Dirk Van Zyl, the author of all the trouble. This man, Ipresently discovered, had received no fewer than nine wounds, four ofwhich, from their extent and situation, I considered desperate. Hegroaned, and cried, and screamed in the most bloodcurdling fashion whenI began to examine him, begging that he might be left alone to die inpeace; but I washed his wounds, one by one, and bound or stitched themup as best I could--the job occupying fully three-quarters of an hour--and when I at length left him, he seemed somewhat easier. The next manclaiming my attention was an Irishman named Mike, whose left hand hadbeen struck by the Dutchman's knife such a savage blow exactly on thejoint of the wrist that the member was nearly severed. I could donothing with such an injury as that but bind it up tightly, and placethe hand and forearm in splints and a sling, leaving Nature to work outthe rest of the cure, if she would. There were three other men who hadreceived rather serious hurts, and for whom I did my best; and finally,I stitched up O'Gorman's face for him, which completed a fairly stiffmorning's surgical work. Then, having again examined the man Tom, andfound him to be quite dead, I carefully cleansed myself from all tracesof my ghastly labour and went aft, reaching the cabin just in time fordinner.

  While taking my after-dinner smoke that afternoon, I carefullyconsidered the situation as it had now become altered by the fatalfracas in the forecastle; and--having no desire to be deemed a betterman than I really am--I may as well confess at once that, while I wasprofoundly shocked by what had occurred, it was quite impossible for meto regret it. Indeed, to have done so would have been unnatural, for--apart altogether from the hardship and anxiety that these men hadalready so callously inflicted upon me, and the woman who was infinitelydearer than life to me--I could not forget that they had all planned andagreed together in cold blood to deliberately destroy my sweetheart andmyself, not one of them, except Harry--so far as my information went--possessing even the small modicum of humanity that would have promptedhim to demur at the decision, and to urge the adoption of a less fatallystringent course. I therefore felt little or no pity for any of thevictims; while, so far as the ultimate escape of Miss Onslow and myselfwas concerned, the prospect of such a result was distinctly improved bythe loss, on the part of our enemies, of two killed and six wounded, ofwhom three of the latter were unfit for duty. This reduced the numberof O'Gorman's gang to nine effectives, or, deducting the cook andsteward, a working-party of seven, all told, who would have to bedivided into two watches. As I reflected carefully upon the matter,looking at it in all its bearings, it seemed that the moment wasopportune for me to endeavour to secure something more than theintermittent and shadowy authority that I had thus far been permitted toexercise; and accordingly, when I next visited the forecastle, for thepurpose of taking a look at my patients--which was near the end of thesecond dog-watch, that evening--I bluntly directed O'Gorman's attentionto the fact that we were now short-handed, and suggested that I shouldtake command of one of the watches. He considered the question for somefew minutes, but was suffering altogether too acutely from the smart ofhis gashed cheek to be able to reflect very deeply upon any subject, andat length yielded a rather sulky and surly assent to my proposal, themore readily, perhaps, since he had no one now left whom he could trustto take Price's place. I was careful to select for my command the watchof which the man Harry was a member, since by so doing we should both beon deck at the same time, and I should thus have an excellentopportunity of conversing with him during the darkness of the nightwatches, without attracting observation or arousing suspicion.

  That same night, as soon as it was fairly dark, the bodies of Price andthe seaman Tom--unshrouded, and simply prepared for burial by theattachment to their feet of an iron bar apiece, heavy enough to sinkthem--were unceremoniously launched over the side, without the slightestsymptom of emotion; and in another half-hour their shares of the gemswere distributed, more or less evenly, among the survivors, the man Dirkexcepted.

  On the third day after the tragedy that I have just described, amomentary glimpse of the sun during the forenoon enabled me to confirmmy dead reckoning, and to satisfactorily establish the fact that we wereactually a few miles to the eastward of the dreaded Horn, although withless southing than I could have wished; the southerly wind that hadprevailed for some time having gradually gone round to the eastward sofar that it at length became questionable whether we should succeed inweathering the land, and so passing into the Atlantic. And, to makematters worse, the wind continued not only to work round but also toincrease in strength, to such an extent that at length the brig, insteadof heading east, had broken off to due north, while it had becomenecessary to snug her down to close-reefed topsails and fore-topmaststaysail. The thick weather, moreover, added another element ofanxiety, since I had only succeeded in gaining one solitary sight of thesun for nearly a week--and that not when he was on the meridian, hence Iwas quite unable to determine my exact latitude. But the next morning,shortly after daylight, when by my reckoning I had still forty odd milesof sea-room, land was made ahead, some five miles distant; and uponstanding in a little closer, I was at length enabled to identify it asthe headland of Cape Horn itself. Whereupon, we immediately wore round,and stretched away to the southward on the larboard tack, I for onebeing intensely thankful that we had made the notorious cape duringdaylight, but for which happy chance the brig would in all probabilityhave gone ashore, and our adventure would have there and then come to apremature end.

  But although fortune had so far favoured us that we were enabled for thepresent to avoid disaster, it was disappointing to discover that our leedrift had been so excessive as to have caused us to lose ground, whilethe slow but steady downward tendency of the mercury seemed to indicatethat, so far from our being justified in expecting any immediateimprovement in the weather, there was but too good reason to fear that achange from bad to worse was imminent.

  And it needed but a few hours' further experience to prove how wellfounded were those apprehensions. For, as the day wore on, the aspectof the sky to windward grew increasingly menacing, the hue of the thickcanopy of vapour becoming hourly darker and more louring, while theshredded clouds packed ever closer together in larger masses and ofwilder and more threatening form and colour, and the wind strengtheneduntil it was blowing a full gale, while the already heavy sea gatheredweight so fast that by eight bells in the afternoon watch it had, in myopinion, become perilous to continue sailing the brig, and I accordinglyproposed to O'Gorman that we should stow the topsails, and heave-tounder storm staysails.

  Now, the experience of the first day or two after the fight in theforecastle had led me to hope that the tragedy of the occurrence hadfrightened and sobered the men so thoroughly that there would be no moretrouble with them, so far at least as drink was concerned; but therein Igave them credit for a higher standard of feeling than they possessed;such sobering influence as the incident had exercised upon the fellowshad quickly evaporated, and on the particular day to which I am nowreferring the demon of drink had once more brought them under hisinfluence with just enough effect to render them, one and all, reckless,defiant, and utterly unmanageable. Consequently, my proposal to shortensail and heave-to was met with scornful jeers and a point-blank refusalto do any work whatsoever. And the worst of it was that I had held onwith the canvas so long that the whole available strength in the shipwas now needed to successfully handle it, any attempt to do anythingunaided, or with the assistance of only one or two men, being worse thanuseless. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to let the twodouble-reefed topsails stand as they were, and blow away or not as fatemight decide.

  There was one comfort--and only one--to be found in the condition ofaffairs that I have endeavoured to indicate, and that was that the brig,heavily pressed as she was by her canvas, was ratching fast through thewater on a course that was not only ca
rrying her off the land but alsosomewhat to the eastward, so that, with the moderating of the gale, oreven a slight shift of wind, we might hope to pass clear into theAtlantic.

  But, after all, the amount of comfort to be derived from this reflectionwas but small and fleeting in face of the steadily-increasing strengthof the gale and the rapidly-growing height and steepness of the sea;even as it was, the man Harry, who happened to be at the wheel at themoment that I now have in mind, found his strength and skill taxed tothe utmost to humour the brig along through that wild sea, theperspiration streaming from every pore of him as he stood there, fullyexposed to the keen and nipping fury of the blast; and it was perfectlyevident that, unless something were speedily done, disaster must quicklyovertake us.

  And something _was_ presently done; for although my representations andsuggestion had been met and rejected with scorn and derision, anargument of a most convincing character was soon brought to bear uponthe contumacious ones, in the shape of a green sea that came right inover the bows, half-filling the forecastle, and frightening theoccupants out of their wits, while it carried away some thirty feet ofbulwark on the port side. The deluge of water that poured down throughthe fore-scuttle was sufficient in volume to actually wash several ofthe men out of their bunks; and the instant that the inpour ceased, allhands with one accord sprang for the opening, fighting together likesavage beasts in their anxiety to reach the deck. But although thatunlucky sea had inflicted upon the poor little over-driven brig a ratherserious amount of damage, it had produced at least one good result: ithad completely sobered all hands and brought them to a realising senseof the necessity to take immediate steps for the prevention of furthermischief.

  As the fellows gained the deck and saw the great gap in the bulwarks,and observed the height, steepness, and generally dangerous character ofthe sea, something very like a panic seized them, and they came rushingaft, with loud and excited outcries, demanding to know what hadhappened. Meanwhile I had sprung to the wheel, to the assistance of thehelmsman, who, it was quite clear, was nearly exhausted by histremendous and continued efforts to control the movements of the brig.

  "Never mind what has happened," answered I. "What is done, is done, andcannot be helped. What you have now to do is to get down the last reefin those topsails, and take in the fore-topmast staysail, when we willheave-to. Let go your fore and main-topsail halliards, man yourreef-tackles, and then away aloft, all hands of you, before worsehappens!"

  The fellows, by this time quite sober, and fully alive to the perils oftheir situation, needed no second bidding, but sprang about the deckwith all the eager, impetuous haste of men fighting for their lives; andin less time than I could have believed possible they had bowsed out thereef-tackles and were in the fore rigging, on their way aloft tocomplete the operation of reefing the fore-topsail. O'Gorman set a goodexample by himself taking the weather yardarm and passing the earring,and all hands were busily engaged in knotting the points when anothermountainous sea came swooping savagely down upon us with upreared,hissing crest. I saw that it must inevitably break aboard us, anduttered a loud yell of warning to the hands aloft, who raised ananswering shout of dismay as they gazed in horror at the oncoming liquidhill, the crest of which must have been very nearly as high asthemselves. Some of them, abandoning their task, sprang for therigging, and, by the exercise of superhuman agility, actually contrivedto reach the top; but the rest remained upon the yard to gaze,apparently paralysed with terror. The poor little brig seemed toshudder, like a sentient thing, as the great wall of water crashed downupon her, burying her to the foremast; and then I saw the whole mastbuckle like a fishing-rod when a strong, heavy fish begins to fight forhis life, there was a crash of timber as the topmast snapped short offat the cap, and the next instant away went the whole of the top-hamperover the side, flinging far into the raging sea the four unfortunateswho had remained clinging to the yardarms! As for the sea, it sweptright aft, filling the decks to the rail, smashing to splinters the boatthat was stowed on the main hatch, and carrying away the entire bulwarkson both sides as far aft as the main rigging. By the time that thedecks were clear of water, and we were free to think of other mattersthan our own individual safety, the four men who had been flungoverboard--and one of whom was O'Gorman--had disappeared for ever, andwe had made the discovery that we had lost our bowsprit andmain-topgallant mast, as well as the fore-topmast, and that we had morethan four feet of water in the hold. All this, mind you, with nightclose upon us!

  The loss of all head sail of course at once rendered the brigunmanageable, and thus--apart from the effect of the further damagesustained--our situation immediately became one of the extremest peril,a circumstance which, coupled with the tragic disappearance of theirleader from their midst, completely cowed and subdued the survivors, tothe extent, indeed, of impelling them to come aft and implore me to takefull command of the brig. Needless to say I made no difficulty aboutacceding to this request; for prompt measures were imperative if thevessel was to be saved, and, with her, Florence's and my own life; sowithout pausing to read the men a moral lesson upon the evils ofintemperance, I forthwith issued orders for the goose-winged foresail tobe set, by which means we were at length enabled to get the brig beforethe wind, and thus escape the immediate peril of being swamped. Thisachieved, the wreck of the fore-topmast and bowsprit was cut away, allcanvas was furled, and the brig was once more brought to the wind, andhove-to under bare poles. Then, although the men were inclined togrumble, I insisted upon their going to the pumps and relieving the brigof at least a portion of the water in her hold; for there were timeswhen, the water having accumulated forward, the poor little craft becamepinned down by the head to so dangerous an extent that it would havebeen absolutely suicidal to have left her in that condition. Thefellows toiled on until past two bells in the middle watch--by whichtime they had reduced the depth of water in the hold to two feet--andthen knocked off, utterly exhausted, to go below and turn in; while Iundertook to keep the deck and watch the ship for the remainder of thenight.