Bob Strong's Holidays

by John C. Hutcheson

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

  "SHIP, AHOY!"

  "It is the last straw," says the proverb, "that breaks the camel'sback!"

  Bob's courage had been on the wane long before the white, woolly fogenvironed them; although, up to now he had endeavoured to brave it outin the presence of Dick, the very consciousness that he was the maincause of their being in such a perilous predicament preventing him frombetraying the fears he felt.

  But, when this octopus of the air clutched them in its corpse-like grip,breathing its wet vapoury breath into their faces, soddening theirclothes with heavy moisture and slackening their energies as it hadalready damped their hopes of a steam-vessel coming to the rescue, Bob,whose nerves were strained to their utmost tension, at last broke down.

  "Oh, Dick!" he cried, bursting into a passion of tears, all the morevehement now from his ever having been a manly boy and in the habit ofstifling all such displays of emotion, even when severely hurt, as hadhappened on more than one occasion in a football scrimmage at school,whence he got the name of Stoic amongst his mates. "Oh, Dick, poorDick! I'm sorry I made you come with me to your death! I wonder whatmy mother and dad will say, and Nell too, when they come to learn thatwe are lost?"

  "Don't 'ee now, Master Bob, give way like that!" said

  Dick, the brave lad, forgetting his own sad plight on seeing his unhappycomrade's alarm and grief. "Cheer up, Master Bob, like a good sort! Webean't lost yet, ye knows!"

  "I'm afraid we are, Dick! I'm afraid we are!" sobbed Bob, as the pairof unfortunates got gradually wetter and more miserable, if that werepossible; the density of the atmosphere around them increasing so thatit seemed as if they were enveloped in a drenching cloud, this mist ofthe sea being the offspring of the waters, and consequently taking afterits humid parent. "Why, we're miles and miles away from land, anddrifting further and further off every moment! Oh, Dick, we're lost--we're lost!"

  "Now, don't 'ee, Master Bob, don't 'ee!" cried Dick, folding one of hisarms, like a mother, round the other's neck and drawing him towards himto comfort him. "We ain't a bit lost yet, I tell 'ee, sure-ly. Why, weain't at sea as you says at all. We be ounly in the h'offin'hereabouts."

  This woke up Bob to argument.

  "Only the offing, you say, Dick?" he replied, with some of his olddogmatism as they drifted on and on, the ebb-tide that was bearing themaway on its bosom lapping against the sides of the boat with amelancholy sound, though almost deadened by the oppressiveness of thedamp sea-fog. "Do you know how wide the Channel is `hereabouts,' as yousay?"

  "No, Master Bob," said the other lad humbly. "I doesn't. I ain't noscholard, as you knows."

  "Then, I'll tell you," rejoined Bob triumphantly. "It must be nearly ahundred miles wide here between the French and English coasts!"

  Dick, however, was not abashed by this broad statement.

  "That mebbe, Master Bob," he replied modestly, scratching the back ofhis neck where one of his damp locks of hair tickled him at the moment."But, I heard the Cap'en say ounly t'other day as how there was so manyships a-passing up and down as a boat adrift wer' bound to be sighted!"

  "But, suppose a hundred ships passed us," said Bob, who would not becomforted, in spite of all Dick's efforts. "Why, old chap, theycouldn't see us! The fog would prevent them!"

  "Lor', so her would!" assented Dick, unable to gainsay this argument."I forgets that, I did, sure-ly!"

  After a time, Bob's sobs ceased and he began to think of something else;something that affected him, for the moment, even more strongly than hisfears.

  "I'm awfully hungry, Dick," he said. "Have you got any more bread-and-cheese left?"

  "No, not a scrap," was the melancholy answer. "I giv' yer half, shareand share alike; and I've ate every crumb o' mine!"

  "Isn't there anything in the locker?"

  "Nothing, but the Cap'en's hatchet! Don't you bear in mind as how Iscrubbed her out afore we started?"

  "Yes, so you did, I recollect," replied Bob moodily, his appetite beingwell-nigh unbearable from its insatiable gnawing. "How do you feel,Dick?"

  "I feels as if I could eat the h'elephant we seed in the circus."

  This made Bob laugh hysterically.

  "I think I could, too," he said, between his paroxysms of laughter andsobs. "I never felt so hungry in my life before!"

  Another interval of silence followed this confession.

  "I'll tell 'ee what, Master Bob," observed Dick, on their comparingnotes again presently, when both acknowledged to being cold and wet andmiserable. "Let us crawl into the cabin and lie down, hey? It'll bewarmer than here, sure-ly!"

  "So it will," cried Bob, getting up and stretching his limbs, which werestiff with cramp from sitting so long in the damp air; the fog aroundthem appearing to get all the thicker as the time passed. "I wonderneither of us thought of that before?"

  The two then crept in under the half-deck; and, covering themselves upwith the cutter's gaff-topsail, which had been placed within the cabinalong with some spare canvas, dropped off into a sound slumber,forgetting their sad plight and their hunger alike, in sleep, the yachtmeanwhile still floating along, down Channel, in a west-by-northdirection with the ebb.

  Their rest did not last long.

  Bob was suddenly awakened from a dream of a wonderful banquet, which hewas enjoying, by a sort of rushing gurgling sound; while the boat rockedto and fro at the same time uneasily.

  Rubbing his eyes, he started up and listened for a moment.

  Then, he shook Dick to arouse him.

  "Hullo! Wake up!" he cried. "The wind has sprung up again; and, Ithink, we're moving through the water!"

  "I'll soon find out," said Dick, going outside and putting his hand overthe gunwale, calling out the instant afterwards, "You're right, MasterBob! We be moving, right enough. Aye, so we be, sure-ly!"

  "I wonder where Portsmouth is?" remarked Bob, as the two cogitated whatwas best to be done, their hopes rising with the welcome breeze;although this was only very feeble as yet, not being sufficient, indeed,to blow away the fog that still hung over the sea.

  "If we only knew whereabouts we was we'd know where to steer; but we'veturned about sich a lot, that I'd be puzzled to tell."

  "So would I," agreed Bob. "But, I tell you what I think. Let us runbefore the wind. It'll be sure to bring us somewhere, at all events, inthe end!"

  "Aye, that it would, sure-ly, Master Bob," cried Dick, surprised at theother's cleverness. "I declare I never as much as thought o' that!"

  Thereupon, they wore the little cutter round, she having been previouslygoing like a crab sideways, which fully accounted for the lively motionthat had aroused them; and, Bob having stationed himself at the helm,which he had put hard over, Dick mounted up on the fo'c's'le to act aslook-out, in case they should run against anything in the semi-darknessaround them, or, more happily still, come in sight of land.

  They had not long occupied their respective positions, when Bob'sattention was attracted by a cry of alarm from his companion in thebows.

  "Lawks a mussy!" yelled out Dick in accents of unfeigned terror. "Isees a white ghostess a-flying down on us, with big wings like ah'angel!"

  "Nonsense, Dick!" cried Bob from aft, trying to peer ahead under thebelly of the sail as he was sitting to leeward. "There are no suchthings as ghosts; and, besides, I don't see anything at all but the fogand the water!"

  "Oh, lawks, Master Bob!" screamed the frightened Dick in answer to this."Look t'other side and then you'll p'r'aps believe me. Look t'otherside! Look t'other side! I bees afeered! I bees afeered!"

  Bob shifted his seat to windward, so as to get a better view forwardsand see what had alarmed Dick.

  "Why, Dick, it's a ship!" he exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight the nextinstant. "What you thought are angel's wings are the vessel's sails,though they are angel's wings to us!"

  "Be her a real ship, Master Bob?" asked Dick, having another peep at thesuspicious object and still not quite convince
d as yet. "Sure-ly?"

  "Of course she is, I tell you," cried Bob. "Look out now and let go thejib-sheet as I luff up. I'm going to lay-to, for the ship is coming upwith us rapidly and will run us down if we don't take care!"

  She was diminishing the distance between them quickly enough.

  A big ship she looked, too, appearing all the larger from theintervening veil of mist, which magnified her proportions wonderfully,in similar fashion to the "Fata Morgana" seen sometimes in Italianwaters.

  Like as in the same spectral phenomenon, too, this vessel seemed to begliding towards them without sound or apparent motion.

  She was a veritable phantom of the deep!

  There were no lights visible on her, nor did it look as if any one wason the watch.

  So far as the boys could judge from the ocular evidence before them,there might really not have been a single soul on board.

  But, whether that was the case or no, on she came steadily towards thembow on, emerging bigger and bigger from the ghostly mist, each movementsensibly affecting her and increasing her size; so that, presently, shebecame a monster ship.

  She came too near to be pleasant, however, without sheering either toright or aft.

  It looked as if she were going to run them down!

  Bob and Dick's hopes of a rescue paled before the imminent dread of acollision that now stared them in the face--nay, was close at hand.

  "Shout, Dick! Shout out with me as loud as you can so as to wake themup on board and make them see us!" cried Bob, letting go the tiller andstanding up on top of the stern locker. "Now, all together, Dick!Ship, ahoy! Ship, ahoy!"