The night was cold and chill, and a drizzling rain was falling, which speedily wet us through, as Bill and I stood on the deck, not knowing where to go or what to do. The drunken men and their chests were all taken down into the forecastle; but when we attempted to follow, we were told to stay on deck and do our work, though what that work was proved a mystery to us.
Seeing men coiling up ropes and hanging them on to belaying pins, we tried to do the same, but only got cuffs and blows for doing it wrong; so we sheltered ourselves under the long-boat, thinking that if this was going to sea, it would have been much better to have remained in the workhouse to become a carpenter and a shoemaker.
Here we cowered away during the long and dreary night, and to add to our discomfort, the ship being close to the wind, bobbing into a choppy head-sea, we became dreadfully seasick.
At last daylight came, and we were found and routed out of our refuge, and brought before the mate who had the morning watch.
“Hallo! Who are you, and where did you come from?” he shouted.
We stood sillily before him, and answered, “Please, sir, we’re the two apprentices Captain Haxell brought off last night.”
“Apprentices! I never heard of our old man having apprentices before; but where’s your kit, and the rest?”
“Kit, sir—what’s that?”
“Your chests, beds, clothes, you greenhorns.”
“Please, sir, we’ve only what we’ve got on.”
“Well, I don’t know what to do. I’ll see the captain when he comes on deck. Here, what are your names?”
When we told him, the mate said: “Well, Hawse, you are starboard watch; and, Seaman, you are port watch. Hawse, your watch below; Seaman, on deck.”
All this was Greek to us, but one of the men, in obedience to the mate, put a swab into Bill’s hand, and told him to dry the deck, while I was left alone. I was standing amidships, wondering at what was going on and what would become of us, when I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and a voice, the first with a tone of kindness in it that I had heard on board, saying, “What cheer, shipmate?”
Looking round, I saw a boy with a good-humoured smile on his face.
“Oh,” I said, “what am I to do, and where can I go?”
“Why, you must do what you’re told. Did you stowaway on board in dock?”
“Not I. I and Bill there,” pointing to him, “are apprentices, and came on board last night with the captain.”
“Apprentices are you? Where are your chests and hammocks? Got nothing but what you stand up in? You’re funny ’prentices, and I don’t think the old man is likely to have ’prentices bound to him, from what I can see since I’ve been aboard of the hooker.”
When I explained to the speaker, who told me his name was Tom Arbor, and that he had shipped two days before the ship sailed, how we had come aboard, he laughed heartily, and said, “You’re no ’prentices. The old man maybe wanted boys for something or other, and he took you. Never mind, I’ll do what I can for you both.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the captain coming on deck, and calling for us. “Now, my brave sailor-boys, how d’ye like the sea?”
Captain Haxell, as he spoke, looked even more like a bird of prey than he had the day before, and though his words were cheery, there was something in the way he said them which chilled us with fear.
I, however, plucked up courage, and asked where we were to live, and for some dry clothes.
“Clothes, you workhouse brats; let them dry on you. Now you’ve got to work before you eat. Here,” catching hold of me by the ear, “you go to the steward, and say he said he wanted a boy, and I’ve got him one; and you”—to Bill—“go to the cook for his mate.”
We were told off thus roughly to our duties, and forewarned that those under whom we had to work were worse tyrants than any we had had to do with in the workhouse, but that they were kindness itself when compared with the captain and mate.
Indeed from no one on board did we receive any kindness, except from Tom Arbor, and he himself had to undergo much ill-treatment. We often longed to be back at the workhouse again, for there we were sure of our night’s rest, and of sufficient food, while if we were treated severely, we had not to suffer from actual cruelty.
After leaving England we were at sea four or five months, and had during the latter part to suffer from thirst; for our supply of water was but scanty, and Bill and I were always the last served, and sometimes had to go without.
Notwithstanding rough treatment and thirst, we were fortunate enough to keep our health; and when we first anchored, which was at one of the coral islands in the Pacific, we were so delighted with all that we saw of scenery and people—all was so strange, new, and wonderful—that we thought little of the pains and hardships we had undergone.
Soon, however, we found that even delightful scenery and climate do not make up all that is necessary for enjoyment, and that sailing among lovely islands, especially when one never has a chance of putting a foot ashore, is but a poor compensation for blows and ill-treatment.
We soon found that Captain Haxell traded with the people of the islands on very peculiar principles. Indeed, often many of his acts were sheer robbery and piracy, and though often Tom Arbor consulted with Bill Seaman and myself as to the possibility of running away, we were afraid to trust ourselves among the natives, lest they should avenge upon us the wrongs they received at the hands of our shipmates.
So matters went on, until the day when this story commences. Certainly we had learned some amount of seamanship, and were better able to look after ourselves than when we had left England; but I hope and trust that it may never again fall to the lot of English boys to undergo such ill-treatment as we constantly received. One comfort we had, and one alone, and that was that Tom Arbor had been religiously brought up, and taught where to look for consolation, and showed us how the Christianity we had heard of in the workhouse was a real and beautiful thing, instead of, as we had regarded it, simply one of the subjects of the workhouse school.
As soon as we found that there was no ship in sight, Tom proposed that we should pray for help and guidance, and if our prayers were offered up in rough and untutored language, they were as true and fervent as most that are made in church.
When our prayers were finished, we began to overhaul the boat, to find what we had aboard of her. Fortunately she had constantly been employed in trading, and her trade-box, arms, and all other gear belonging to her were on board, except the oars, which had unfortunately been taken out, just before we were sent in chase of the turtle, to be overhauled, and only the three spoken of above had been passed into her before the boat was lowered, and of these three, as will now be remembered, only one remained.
We found we had the mainmast and a dipping lug, as well as a small triangular mizzen, and we at once shipped the masts, and made sail to a light breeze from the westward; and then, with Bill Seaman steering, Tom Arbor and I opened the trade-box. On the lid we found a sheet of paper, on which was written the contents, which mainly consisted of gaudy beads, brass wire, flints and steels, small hatchets and knives, and also a book, in which had been entered what had been expended, and how much had been replaced, and in which there were many blank sheets. There was also a bottle of ink and a pen, so Tom said we could keep a log of our proceedings.
When we found that the list and trade-book agreed with the contents of the chest, we looked to see what were in the lockers, which were fitted under the stern sheets; and in them we found about four pounds of pigtail tobacco—which, as none of us had ever taken to smoking, we determined to keep for trade, knowing how fond the natives were of it—six and a half ship biscuits, a piece of boiled salt pork weighing about a pound, a bottle of rum, two cooked yams, two pistols, a large packet of ammunition, some gun flints, a flask of priming powder, a bag with needles and thread, and some tin plates, pannikins, and spoons.
Lashed under the thwarts were four muskets in tarpaulin covers, and there were three small beakers or casks, one of which was half full of fresh water, a couple of balls of spun yarn, two fishing-lines and hooks, and a lead and line.
When we had completed our search, Tom said, “Well, my boys, we may be thankful to have so much. Many a poor fellow has been adrift in a boat without bite or sup, while what we have here, with these two turtles, may last us some days; and before it is all finished, we may fall in with an island or a ship.”
Bill and I said we were both hungry and thirsty, and proposed to make a meal off the pork and biscuits; but Tom said that they would keep, and that we had better kill one of the turtles and live on its flesh.
One was accordingly killed and cut up by Tom, and he gave us each a piece of flesh to eat; but hungry as we were we could not stomach the idea of eating it raw, and so we all began to cast about for some means of cooking our ration.
We had means of making fire, and the bottom boards would supply us with fuel, but what were we to use as a stove or fireplace? This puzzled us for some time, but at last a bright idea entered into my head. “Why couldn’t we fill the shell of the turtle with water, and out of the hoops of the bucket make a grating on which we could light a fire?”
“That may be,” said Tom; “but suppose we want the bucket for bailing again? That won’t do.”
“But let us look again in the trade-box. Perhaps there may be something there,” I answered.
“I have it,” said Bill. “I quite forgot; but I remember a day or two ago I was told to put some old cask hoops in the boat, and they are under the head sheets.”
Looking where he said, we found the hoops he mentioned, and before long we made a sort of fireplace, which we stood in the turtle shell, and splitting up one of the bottom boards with our knives we made a fire, over which we after a fashion cooked our turtle meat, which we washed down with a pannikin of water.
When we had finished our meal, Tom said, “Now we had best try to make some sort of paddles. There’s the loom of the broken oar and the boathook. If we fix some of the bottom boards across them, they will answer until we can arrange something better.”
No sooner said than done; and I, as carpenter, managed by dint of hard work before the night fell to fashion a couple of paddles, which if somewhat clumsy were at all events better than nothing. Whilst I was employed about this, Tom and Bill had taken turns in steering, and in cutting up the turtle, the second of which was also killed and cut into thin strips, which they hung on a piece of spun yarn stretched between the two masts; and when that was finished, they had cleaned the muskets and seen that they were fit for use.
At sunset, Tom, who without any talk or election had been made our captain, said we had better lower our sail, as otherwise we might run by or upon land in the darkness, as many of the coral islands were but a few feet above the surface of the water, and only visible from the cocoanut palms growing on them.
We accordingly lowered the lug, leaving the mizzen set to keep us head to wind and sea, and arranging that we should watch in turns. The two who were watch below rolled themselves up in the sail, Bill remarking that it was better than the Golden Fleece, where at the best it was watch and watch, and often watch and watch on, whereas now we were in three watches.
The morning watch fell to my lot, and just before the sun rose I saw away on the eastern horizon a line of spots which looked like the sails of ships, but which by this time I had learned were cocoanut palms on a coral island.
I instantly called my companions, and it being a dead calm, after we had made a breakfast, at which, as land was in sight, Tom allowed us half a biscuit apiece, we got out our paddles and commenced to pull in the direction in which I had seen the tops of the trees.