CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
ON THE CASQUETTES.
Bob's hearing was not at fault, this sense of his remaining perfectthough his mind was wandering; and so, the unwonted sound that fell uponhis ear had got woven amongst his delirious fancies.
It was, without doubt, a real bell, which if it might not summon piousfolk to prayer, yet fulfilled almost as sacred a duty, warning, as itdid, poor mariners of impending peril and so answering the petition oftput up "for those travelling by sea."
This ball belonged to the lighthouse-tower erected on the highest peakof the Casquettes, a terrible group of rocks jutting out into theChannel, just off the French coast hard by Alderney, some six miles tothe north-west of which island they lie. Rocks that are cruel andrelentless as the surges that sweep over them in stormy weather, andwhich are so quaintly named from their helmet, or "casque"-likeresemblance--rocks, concerning which the poet Swinburne has sung in hiseloquent verse, that breathes the very spirit of the sea in depictingthe strife of the elements:
"From the depths of the waters that lighten and darken, With change everlasting of life and of death, Where hardly by morn if the lulled ear hearken It hears the sea's as a tired child's breath, Where hardly by night, if an eye dare scan it, The storm lets shipwreck be seen or heard, As the reefs to the waves and the foam to the granite Respond one merciless word.
"Sheer seen and far, in the sea's life heaven, A sea-mew's flight from the wild sweet land, White plumed with foam, if the wind wake, seven Black helms, as of warriors that stir, not stand, From the depths that abide and the waves that environ Seven rocks rear heads that the midnight masks; And the strokes of the swords of the storm are as iron On the steel of the wave-worn casques.
"Be night's dark word as the word of a wizard, Be the word of dawn as a god's glad word, Like heads of the spirits of darkness visored That see not for ever, nor ever have heard, These basnets, plumed as for fight or plumeless, Crowned by the storm and by storm discrowned, Keep word of the lists where the dead lie tombless And the tale of them is not found!"
Hither the boat had drifted in the course of the three days that hadelapsed since she had been first becalmed off Spithead, or ratherbetween the Nab and Warner lights; for, it was then that the wind haddropped, leaving her at the mercy of the stream, going whither thecurrent willed.
She had pursued a most erratic course, however, to reach this point.
To commence with, she had floated on the ebb-tide, which for two hoursafter high-water runs south by west, out into the Channel past the Isleof Wight; the wind, slight as it was, that subsequently sprung up fromthe eastward, to which point it had veered after the sea-fog had risen,combined with the westward action of the tideway, making the littlevessel take almost a straight course across the stream of the currenttowards the French coast.
When about midway, however, she got into a second channel current, whichswept her nearer and nearer to Cape La Hogue.
Then, again, when still some miles out from the land, yet anothercurrent took charge of her, bringing her within the influence of thestrong indraught which runs into the Gulf of Saint Malo; by which,finally, she was wafted, in a circular way, up to "the Caskets," or"Casquettes," to adopt the proper French version.
Here she had arrived at the time of Bob's delirium, drifting in closerand closer to the rocks, on which the cutter would probably have beendashed to pieces and her fragments possibly picked up anon on theopposite side of the Atlantic, had not fate intervened.
It was in this wise.
The little cutter drifted in near the rocks while it was still earlymorning; and the reason for the bell on the lighthouse ringing wasbecause some of the mist, or fog, that had been blown across theChannel, yet lingered in the vicinity, as if loth to leave altogetherthe waters over which it loved to brood.
When, however, the rays of the bright morning sun sent this nightmare ofa mist to the right-about, a small French fishing lugger might have beenseen working out towards the offing from Saint Malo, giving the"Casquettes" a pretty wide berth you may be sure; those who have to dowith seafaring matters across Channel knowing full well of the dangerousrace that runs by the fatal rocks, ever seeking in its malice to engulphpassing crafts and bear them away to destruction!
Two men were in the lugger; one, as usual, attending to the helm, theother minding the sheets and sitting midway between the bows and sternof the vessel, so as to be handy when required and thus save unnecessarylocomotion.
Sailors, it may here be mentioned in confidence, especially thosehailing from la belle France, never give themselves more trouble thanthey can help; which philosophic way of going through life might bestudied to advantage, perhaps, by some shore folk!
These mariners, consequently, were taking it very easy, the one forwardsitting on the break of the "fo'c's'le" and smoking a pipe, there notbeing much to do in the rope-hauling or letting go, as the lugger wasonly creeping lazily along through the almost still water with the aidof the light breeze then blowing.
Presently, this latter gentleman, casting a casual eye around, spied thepoor mastless, derelict-looking little yacht, rolling about in the heavytide-race that was taking her on to the rocks.
Instantly, sailor-like, he became all animation; taking his pipe out ofhis mouth and shouting out to his fellow-voyager astern with muchgesticulation.
"Tiens, Jacques!" he cried, "voila un bateau qui courre sur lesbrisants!"
"Quoi?" carelessly asked the other. "Vous moquez vous!"
But the one who had first spoken repeated what he'd said, to the effectthat there was "a boat drifting on the rocks, and likely to be wrecked.""Jacques," however, as his comrade had called him, did not seem muchinterested in the matter, merely shrugging his shoulders, implying thatit was "none of his concern."
"C'est bien," said he. "Pas mon affaire."
The other, though, seemed more taken with the little craft, climbing upa couple of steps into the rigging in order to have a better look ather.
He had not gazed a moment when his excitement became intensified.
"Mon Dieu, Jacques!" he sang out. "Il-y-a quelqu'un a bord! Deuxpersonnes, et des garcons je crois; mais, ils sont morts!"
"Pas possible," cried the helmsman, showing a little more interest."Really?"
"Parbleu, c'est vrai! Vire que nous nous en approchions."
"C'est fait," exclaimed Jacques, now quite as much excited--as theother, and eager to rescue any one in peril or distress, as every sailorof every nationality always is--that is, a true sailor. "Starboard itis!"
"Babord!" cried out Antoine, as the helmsman called him, telling thelatter he was to put the tiller over. "Port."
Jacques replied by a counter order.
"Toi, Antoine," shouted he, "lache la grande voile!" meaning him to"slacken off the mainsheets," whereupon the lugger was brought alongsidethe wreck of the cutter.
Our friend Antoine, without wasting a moment, at once stepped on board,exclaiming, "Tenez bon dessus--Hold on."
The man was shocked at what he saw, the dead bodies, as he thought, ofBob and Dick lying across each other on the floor of the little cabin,half in and half out of which the boys were exposed to his view at thefirst glance.
"Pauvres garcons!" he cried in a husky voice, wiping away a tear thatsprang unbidden to his eye, with the characteristic ready emotionalsympathy of his countrymen. "Pauvres garcons."
Jacques, who was a little longer in coming to inspect the derelict,hearing what his companion said, called out for further information.
"De quel pays sont-ils?" he asked. "Can you tell their nationality?"
"Anglais, sans doute!" was his reply. "Je le crois par leur air."
This made Jacques prick up his ears.
"Comment?" said he; and, without waiting to hear anything else he, too,jumped down into the boat. "Anglais? Mon Dieu!"
Jacques was a man of common-sense; so, instead of contenting himselfwith staring at the apparently lifeless boys,
as Antoine did, he bentdown to see whether they yet breathed.
"Bete! Quant aux enfants, ils ne sont pas plus morts que toi ou moi!"he sang out indignantly. "You fool! The boys are no more dead than youor me."
But Jacques was a kind-hearted man as well as one possessed of common-sense.
So, under his directions, he and Antoine between them transshipped theapparently lifeless but still animate forms of Bob and Dick from thewrecked cutter into the fo'c's'le of the lugger, where a charcoal, firewas smouldering in a small stove on which simmered a saucepan containingsomething savoury, judging by its smell.
Here Jacques proceeded to rub the bodies of the boys alternately with apiece of flannel dipped in spirit, which he first held in front of thestove to warm; Maitre Antoine, meanwhile, attending to the navigation ofthe lugger and guarding lest she should run upon the Casquettes, or getled astray out of her course by Alderney Race, a current of theseregions which, like the Saint Malo stream, is not to be played with whenthe wind's on shore!
Not content with merely rubbing them down with the spirit, Jacquespresently varied his external application of some brandy, a remedy withhim for most complaints to which flesh is heir, by administering to eachboy in turn a few drops internally of the spirit, forcing it dexterouslybetween their lips as soon as respiration was restored and they began tobreathe with some regularity; Bob, however, progressing much morerapidly than Dick, whose pulse obstinately remained feeble and barelyperceptible, while the author of all the mischief was nearly all right.
Bob opened his eyes almost as soon as he tasted the brandy.
"Where am I?" he stammered out, gazing round the little fo'c's'le of thelugger in wonder. "Where am I?"
Bob Strong's Holidays Page 27
