“Look out, boys, or we shall never fetch the ship again!” “Why, what’s the matter?”
“Matter enough; we’re ever so far from her, and there’s a storm brewing. Just look to the westward and see what a bank the sun is setting in.”
Sure enough, a lurid, red sun was setting in a bank of heavy, black clouds, which had already obscured his lower half, and the surface of which was flecked with little, white, fleecy dots, moving rapidly, which looked as if the port-holes of some giant craft had been opened and her guns fired.
In an open boat were I, Sam Hawse, and the two speakers, my companions, Tom Arbor and Bill Seaman, and a mile and a half or two miles away lay a ship with her upper sails furled, courses hauled up, and topsails lowered on the cap, while the surface of the sea was like glass, though a long, heavy swell was rolling up from the westward, heralding the approach of the storm of which the clouds pointed out by Tom Arbor were the visible harbingers.
The ship was the Golden Fleece, a clipper barque; and we were three boys belonging to her, and had on this the third day of continuous and stark calms been sent away to try our hands at turning a turtle, of which some had been seen floating on the surface, and had already been successful in securing two; and going on in search of others, we had got farther from the Golden Fleece than either we wished or intended.
“See there,” continued Tom; “it’s all hands aboard the barky. The skipper he sees what’s coming, and ain’t a-goin’ to be caught napping. Come, we must give way and get aboard as soon as we may; he’ll be in no pleasant temper, and the mate or bos’n will give us a rope’s-ending for supper.”
Besides the fear of the reception which awaited us, we saw the truth of what Tom said, and bent to our oars with all our strength.
Before, however, we had covered half the distance which lay between us and the Golden Fleece, the clouds had risen and obscured the heavens, and we could feel faint, chill puffs of air fanning our cheeks.
“Give way, lads,” cried Tom, who was pulling stroke, “or we shall never reach her; and in a cockle-shell like this we can never live out a storm such as is coming on.”
Bill and I needed no urging, and if possible pulled harder than before; but suddenly Tom’s oar broke in half, and he fell on his back in the bottom of the boat.
Bill, astonished at this, let go his oar, and it fell overboard and drifted astern.
As soon as Tom regained his seat, we looked round for the ship, and saw that she was paying off before the wind with a fore-staysail set, and that, even if we had our oars, there would be small hope of our reaching her, while to windward we could see the rain coming down on us like a wall.
“Well, lads, we’re in a fix now,” said Tom; “give me your oar, Sam, and I’ll see if I can scull back to pick up Bill’s oar.”
“Not much use in that; the rain will be on us in five minutes, and we shall be able to see nothing,” I said; and almost as I spoke, a flash of lightning seemed to strike the water in our immediate vicinity, and was instantly followed by a crash of thunder, which sounded as if heaven and earth were coming to an end.
“Out with your knives, quick, and cut the sails loose, and get the lug over the bows fast to the painter; we may ride to it, while I keep her bows on with the oar,” (our only remaining one), cried Tom.
Indeed, this was our only chance, for the rain was upon us and the lightning was flashing all around us; and in less time than it takes to tell of it, Tom and I had the sail over the bows, and bent on to the painter with the tack, and weighted by the leads of some fishing-lines, which were fortunately in the boat.
By the time this was finished, the ship was hidden from our sight by the storm; and soon the freshness of the rain turned to salt from the spray driven by the wind, and the full force and fury of the storm fell on us.
Fortunately the sea did not get up rapidly, being kept down by the strength of the wind, and Tom managed to keep us bows on, and our hastily-extemporized sea-anchor prevented it from breaking over us; but Bill and I had all our work cut out to bail out the water, which we did with a bailer and bucket that were by good-luck in the boat.
After about two hours, as it must have been, though to us it seemed much longer, the storm abated, leaving a nasty, confused sea; but we were able to keep the boat afloat and fairly dry, though the long, dark night was most dreary.
At last the day began to dawn, and when the sun rose the clouds dispersed and the sea got calmer by degrees. Our first anxiety was to look for the Golden Fleece, and we eagerly scanned the horizon for some signs of her; but not a sail was to be seen, and we three lads were alone in an open boat on the wide ocean.
Before going any farther I may as well describe the three occupants of the boat, and say who we were. Tom Arbor, as the eldest, should stand first. He was about seventeen years of age, and was strong built and active. Like Seaman and myself, he was an orphan and the son of a sailor drowned at sea. His mother had brought him up to the best of her ability, and would have kept him with her, and opposed his following in his father’s footsteps and going to sea with her utmost power; but she could no more prevail with him than a hen who has sat upon ducks’ eggs can stop her brood from taking to the nearest water by clucking. Accordingly, when but twelve years of age, he had stowed himself away on board a ship bound round the Horn to California; and, not being found till long after the pilot had left, had made the voyage, and, the skipper being a kindly man, had been well treated. When he came home he had found his mother married again to a small shopkeeper, and she no longer said a word against his being a sailor; and he had made a voyage to China and back before shipping on board the Golden Fleece, about six months before. He was a cheerful, good-natured lad, with dark-brown hair and eyes, and was certainly for his years a good sailor, and could hand, reef, and steer, splice a rope, and pull an oar as well as many who were longer at sea and older in years.
Bill Seaman had been picked up on the sea-shore when about two years old, and was supposed to be the only survivor from the wreck of a large ship, in which it was thought his father had been lost; but no means had come to hand to establish who his father was, and he had, by the interest of some of the gentry living near where he was found, been brought up in an establishment for the orphans of sailors till it was closed, and he was sent to a workhouse. He was a clever, bright boy, but small for his age.
My mother had died when I was born, and when the ship in which my father was an A.B. came home, the news was given to an aunt of my mother’s who had taken charge of me that he had fallen off the fore-topsail yard off Cape Horn in a winter gale and been drowned; so my old relative, the only one I ever knew, had obtained admission for me into the same asylum as Seaman; and as she died soon after, I was as destitute of friends or relations as he was. In this asylum we continued till about the age of seven, when from one cause or another it was closed, and Seaman and myself were sent to a workhouse.
Here our life was by no means a happy one, and two or three times we ran away and tried to get taken as boys on board ships sailing from the sea-port near which the workhouse was; but no one would take us, as we were too small and young, and we were always caught and taken back to the workhouse, where we were flogged and severely punished for our attempts to escape.
As may be imagined, our repeated attempts to escape did not cause our treatment to be any better; so, after the last time we were brought back, when we had undergone our punishment, Bill and I consulted together and agreed—we were only twelve at the time—that we should wait until we were two years older, when we hoped to be big and strong enough to be accepted by some captain, and then to make another try for freedom.
During these two years we did all in our power to be considered good boys, and with some success, and applied ourselves to learning the trades which were taught us, Bill being taught shoemaking, while I was instructed in carpentering; and at the end of these two years we had both made some progress.
Our intention of going to sea, however, never left us, though our good conduct caused us to be treated more kindly than had hitherto been the case; but I must say that our instructors punished us for any mistakes or carelessness most severely, though of this we did not take much notice, for we saw equal measure served out to all our companions, and never for a moment doubted that it was part and parcel of the necessary teaching.
When we were about fourteen we were both called before the guardians, who spoke to us kindly, and said that it was their intention to apprentice us to our respective trades, for which we had shown great aptitude, and that in about a week or so we should be bound over to the masters who had been chosen for us.
When we left the board-room I said to Seaman that the time had come for us to try to run away to sea again, for if we were bound apprentice, which, I know not why, among us and our comrades was looked upon as a dreadful thing, we should never be able to get away, and in any case we should be separated.
He quite agreed with me, and we made up our minds to get away the next night. Our dormitory was on the first floor, and had a long range of windows, guarded by iron bars, which overlooked a narrow lane leading down into a part of the town composed of sailors’ lodging-houses, and along which scarcely any one passed after dark.
The bars of the windows had only lately been put in order by the boys in the carpenter’s shop, and with a screw-driver one could be easily removed, so that we could get through and cut away the lead of the windows.
Bill promised me that he would manage to get a shoemaker’s knife to cut the lead, while I had to procure a screw-driver, which I did without being noticed.
Next night, when the occupants of the dormitory were all sound asleep, we set about our work, and while Bill got the cord which stretched the sacking of our beds to lower ourselves into the lane, I unscrewed the bars and cut the lead framing away.
Some of the other boys were disturbed by the noise; but we were amongst the biggest and strongest, and by threats and persuasion managed to prevent them giving the alarm until the last moment, when, leaving behind us the knife and screw-driver and all our clothes but our shirts and trousers, for we did not wish to be considered thieves as well as runaways, we slid down the rope, and on reaching the bottom scudded away as fast as we could towards the nearest seamen’s haunt.