Bob Strong's Holidays

by John C. Hutcheson

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

  DRIFTING.

  "Help, ahoy, look out!" sang out Bob and Dick in chorus, well-nighparalysed with fright. "Ahoy there, look out ahead!"

  But, in spite of their cries, the phantom ship, whose proportions becameall the more magnified the nearer she approached, rose upon themsteadily out of the mist, growing into a gruesome reality each second,her hull towering over the little cutter as she bore down upon her, likea giant above a pigmy!

  "Help, ahoy, look out there!" they once more shouted frantically."Help--ahoy!"

  It was all in vain, though, their shouts and cries being unnoticed.

  The next moment the on-coming vessel struck them, fortunately not end-onor amidships, but in a slanting fashion, her cutwater sliding by thegunwale of the cutter, from bow to stern, with a harsh, grating soundand a rasping movement that shook their very vitals--the little yachtheeling over the while until she was almost on her beam-ends.

  Had the vessel caught her midships, she would have at once crushed herlike an eggshell; as it was, the fluke of one of her anchors, which washanging from her bows ready for letting go in case of emergency, thebarque being not yet clear of soundings, got foul of the cutter'srigging, sweeping her mast and boom away, the stays snapping under thestrain as if they were packthread.

  Poor little cutter! She was left a complete wreck and nearly full ofwater; still rocking to and fro from the violence of the collision, evenafter the craft that had done all the mischief had again, seemingly, re-transformed herself into a phantom ship and faded away in the mist thathung over the sea, like the creation of a dream!

  It was a very bad dream, though; and Bob and Dick gave themselves up forlost altogether.

  Their fate, drifting helplessly about, an hour or so before, hungry andmiserable, had seemed desperate enough; but their slight sleep, with thesubsequent awakening to the knowledge that the wind had sprung up againand was bearing them once more in some certain direction, had restoredtheir courage and revived their hopes.

  This courage, too, had became more courageous, this hope more hopeful onthe approach of the barque; for, they believed she would take them onboard and restore them by and by to their friends, advancing sogallantly as she did towards them, like an angel, so Dick thought.

  But, now!

  What were the calamities which they so recently bewailed in comparisonwith the present?

  Then, the yacht might have been at the mercy of the mist and tide; butshe was still staunch and sound, capable when a breeze blew once more ofwafting them home--whereas, now, the little cutter was dismasted andwater-logged, nay, even sinking for all they knew!

  Thus, their present position was a thousandfold more terrible than theone before.

  But, still, only boys though they were, hope did not yet quite desertthem.

  The indomitable courage of youth triumphed over disaster.

  For a few seconds neither could speak.

  However, when the ship had disappeared, going away as silently as shehad approached them, they bestirred themselves to see what damage thecutter had sustained.

  Bob was the first to recall his scattered wits.

  "Well, they haven't sunk us, as I was afraid they would, Dick!" said he."I wonder if any of the planks are really started?"

  "How can we see, Master Bob?" asked Dick anxiously. "So as to know ifshe be all right?"

  "Why, by baling her out," he answered. "If we lessen the water in her,then we'll know she's all right."

  "But if the water don't go down?"

  "Then, _we_ will!" replied Bob rather curtly. "Have you got anything tobale her out with?"

  "Well, Master Bob," observed Dick, grinning, "fur a young gen'leman asis so sharp, you've got a orful bad mem'ry! Don't 'ee recollect thebooket as ye helped me fur to wash down the decks wi' this verymarnin'?"

  "Dear me, Dick, I declare I quite forgot that!" said Bob, with a laugh,seeing Dick's grin; for, it was not so dark now in their immediatevicinity, the breeze having lifted the fog slightly from the surface ofthe water. "Where is the bucket stored?"

  "In the locker, joost by 'ee," was Dick's response, as he waded throughthe water and came up to his companion. "Stop, I'll get 'im for 'ee!I'll have to make a dive fur he, though!"

  "Have you got it?" inquired Bob, after Dick had groped about for sometime, popping his head under water and coming up at intervals forbreath. "Have you got it?"

  "'Ees," said he at length, lugging out the bucket, "I've got 'im!"

  Then, they set to work, each using it alternately.

  The exertion did them both good, too, standing up as they were to theirmiddles in water; for, it prevented them shivering with cold as they hadbefore done.

  Bucketful after bucketful they emptied over the side; and, still theydid not appear to decrease the quantity the cutter contained to anyappreciable extent, bale they, as they baled, their hardest!

  Gradually, however, the after-thwart became clear.

  "Hooray!" exclaimed Bob. "We're gaining on it."

  This inspired them with renewed strength; and, after nearly an hour'shard work, they had so lessened the water that only a small portion nowremained washing about under the bottom boards of the boat, which,recovering all her old buoyancy, floated again with a high freeboard,light as a cork, above the surface of the sea, instead of being levelwith it as before.

  "That's a good job done!" said Dick. "I wish that theer murderin' shephadn't a-bruk our mast; fur, we'd soon been all right!"

  "While you're about it, Dick," said Bob, "you might, just as well, wishshe hadn't carried the mast and boom away with her. I don't believethey've left us anything!"

  No, the colliding ship had made a "clean sweep" of all their spars andrigging and everything; hardly a rope's-end remaining attached to thecutter, beyond a part of the mainsheet and a bit of the forestay, whichlatter was hanging down from the bowsprit, the only spar the yacht hadleft.

  Not a single thing of all her deck-fittings, either, had the littlevessel to the good; even her tiller had been wrenched off and the ruddersmashed.

  Nor were there any oars left in the little craft; though, even if therehad been, the yacht was too heavy for boys like Bob and Dick to havemade her move at the most infinitesimal rate of speed.

  It is true, there was the old gaff-topsail still in the fore-peak, aswell as a spare jib; but they had nothing to spread them out to the windwith, or affix them to.

  They were, in fact, oar-less, sail-less, helpless!

  "I don't see what we can do," said Bob, when they had looked over allthe boat, in case something perchance might have escaped their notice."We can only hope and pray!"

  "Aye, do 'ee pray, Master Bob," replied Dick eagerly. "P'r'aps God'llhear us and send us help!"

  So, then and there the two boys knelt down together side by side in thebattered boat, that drifted about at the mercy of the wind and sea,imploring the aid of Him who heeds those who call upon Him for succour,in no wise refusing them or turning a deaf ear to their prayers!

  By and by, as if in answer to their earnest supplications, the daydawned; when, the mist, which yet lingered over the water, hanging abouthere and there in little patches, like so many floating islands, waseither swallowed up by the sea or absorbed into the air, as if by magic.

  Bob and Dick now got some idea as to the points of the compass, even ifthey were not able to tell precisely where they were; for, as the dayadvanced, a rosy tinge crept upwards over a far-off quarter of thehorizon which they knew instinctively to be the east, the birthplace ofall light!

  This tint, almost like a blush, spread quickly over the sky, reachingaway to the north and again south, coming full in both their faces andmaking them glow.

  The bright hue then gradually melted into a ruddier tone, which firstdarkened into purple and red and then rapidly changed to a greenish sortof neutral tone that, after an interval, finally became merged into thepure ultramarine of the zenith; for, the heavens were now as clear as abell, no
mist or fog or cloud obscuring the expanse of the empyrean.

  A sort of golden vapour then, all of a sudden, flooded the east, whichin another second gave place to the red rays of the crimson sun; thoughthe latter did not seem so much to rise, but rather appeared to Bob, whowas watching intently the various changes that occurred, to jump in aninstant above the sea, glorifying it far and near with its presence andwarming it into life,

  This warmth soon cheered the boys, as the light banished the despondentfeelings inseparable, as a rule, from darkness and, beyond that, thedeath-like stillness around, which had previously added to their fears,was banished by the new stir and movement observable in everything.

  Previously, the sea had risen and fallen tumidly, as if Father Neptunehad been asleep and its monotonous pulsation was caused by his deep,long-drawn breathing; but, now, it crisped and sparkled in the sunshine,whilst its surface was broken by innumerable little wavelets, likecurls, that grew into swell-crested billows anon, and, later on still,into great rolling waves as the wind got up--this blowing steadily fromthe eastwards first and then veering round south, following the courseof the orb whose heat gave it being.

  Nor was inanimate nature only stirring.

  Grey and silver sea-gulls hovered over the little cutter, all sweepingdown curiously every now and then to see what the boys were doing therein that mastless and oar-less boat out on the wide waters; and,presently, a shoal of mackerel rose round about them, so thickly thatDick thought he could scoop up some in the buckets, only the fish weretoo wary and dived down below the surface the moment he stretched hisarm out over the side beyond his reach.

  A couple of porpoises, too, swam by, playing leap-frog again; and, afterthese, a much larger monster, which might possibly have been a grampus,though Bob could tell nothing about it, not knowing what it was. Themovements of all these, with the constantly-changing appearance of thesea, now blue, now green, now brown, as some cloud shadow passed overit, made up a varied panorama such as neither of the two lads ever sawor thought of before!

  Ships, also, hove in sight and disappeared on the horizon, their whitesails gleaming out in the far-off distance; one moment high in the airas if bound skywards, the next sinking into the curving depths of thesea.

  Now and again, too, the smoke-wreath of some passing steamer, coastingalong more speedily than the sailing craft, would sacrilegiously blotthe blue of the heavens!

  But, all the while, though the distant ships might sail along to theirhaven, and the steamers shape shorter courses to their port independentof wind and tide alike, the poor dismasted, dismantled little yacht wasthe sport of all alike; first setting down Channel with the ebb, as ifgoing out on a cruise into the wide Atlantic, and then again up Channelwith the flood towards Dover.

  The boat was ever drifting and tossed about ever, like a batteredshuttlecock, by the battledore currents, some four of which contend forthe mastery throughout the livelong day in that wonderful waterway, theEnglish Channel; two always setting east, relieving each other in turn,and two west, with a cross-tide coming atop of them, twice in everytwenty-four hours, trying fruitlessly to soothe the differences of thequarrelsome quartette!