The Sandbank—The Wrecked Crew make the best of Bad Circumstances.
It will scarcely surprise the reader to be told that, after the first emotions of thankfulness for deliverance from what had appeared to the shipwrecked mariners to be inevitable death, a feeling amounting almost to despair took possession of the whole party for a time.
The sandbank was so low that in stormy weather it was almost submerged. It was a solitary coral reef in the midst of the boundless sea. Not a tree or bush grew upon it, and except at the point where the ship had struck, there was scarcely a rock large enough to afford shelter to a single man. Without provisions, without sufficient shelter, without the means of escape, and almost without the hope of deliverance, it seemed to them that nothing awaited them but the slow, lingering pains and horrors of death by starvation.
As those facts forced themselves more and more powerfully home to the apprehension of the crew,—while they cowered for shelter from the storm under the lee of the rocky point, they gave expression to their feelings in different ways. Some sat down in dogged silence to await their fate; others fell on their knees and cried aloud to God for mercy; while a few kept up their own spirits and those of their companions by affecting a cheerfulness which, however, in some cages, was a little forced. Ailie lay shivering in her father’s arms, for she was drenched with salt water and very cold. Her eyes were closed, and she was very pale from exposure and exhaustion, but her lips moved as if in prayer.
Captain Dunning looked anxiously at Dr Hopley, who crouched beside them, and gazed earnestly in the child’s face while he felt her pulse.
“It’s almost too much for her, I fear,” said the captain, in a hesitating, husky voice.
The doctor did not answer for a minute or two, then he said, as if muttering to himself rather than replying to the captain’s remark, “If we could only get her into dry clothes, or had a fire, or even a little brandy, but—” He did not finish the sentence, and the captain’s heart sank within him, and his weather-beaten face grew pale as he thought of the possibility of losing his darling child.
Glynn had been watching the doctor with intense eagerness, and with a terrible feeling of dread fluttering about his heart. When he heard the last remark he leaped up and cried— “If brandy is all you want you shall soon have it.” And running down to the edge of the water, he plunged in and grasped the cable, intending to clamber into the ship, which had by this time been driven higher on the rocks, and did not suffer so much from the violence of the breakers. At the same instant Phil Briant sprang to his feet, rushed down after him, and before he had got a yard from the shore, seized him by the collar, and dragged him out of the sea high and dry on the land.
Glynn was so exasperated at this unceremonious and at the moment unaccountable treatment, that he leaped up, and in the heat of the moment prepared to deal the Irishman a blow that would very probably have brought the experiences of the “ring” to his remembrance; but Briant effectually checked him by putting both his own hands into his pockets, thrusting forward his face as if to invite the blow, and exclaiming—
“Och! now, hit fair, Glynn, darlint; put it right in betwane me two eyes!”
Glynn laughed hysterically, in spite of himself.
“What mean you by stopping me?” he asked somewhat sternly.
“Shure, I mane that I’ll go for the grog meself. Ye’ve done more nor yer share o’ the work this mornin’, an’ it’s but fair to give a poor fellow a chance. More be token, ye mustn’t think that nobody can’t do nothin’ but yeself. It’s Phil Briant that’ll shin up a rope with any white man in the world, or out of it.”
“You’re right, Phil,” said Rokens, who had come to separate the combatants. “Go aboord, my lad, an’ I’ll engage to hold this here young alligator fast till ye come back.”
“You don’t need to hold me, Tim,” retorted Glynn, with a smile; “but don’t be long about it, Phil. You know where the brandy is kept—look alive.”
Briant accomplished his mission successfully, and, despite the furious waves, brought the brandy on shore in safety. As he emerged like a caricature of old Neptune dripping from the sea, it was observed that he held a bundle in his powerful grasp. It was also strapped to his shoulders.
“Why, what have you got there?” inquired the doctor, as he staggered under the shelter of the rocks.
“Arrah! give a dhrop to the child, an’ don’t be wastin’ yer breath,” replied Briant, as he undid the bundle. “Sure I’ve brought a few trifles for her outside as well as her in.” And he revealed to the glad father a bundle of warm habiliments which he had collected in Ailie’s cabin, and kept dry by wrapping them in several layers of tarpaulin.
“God bless you, my man,” said the captain, grasping the thoughtful Irishman by the hand. “Now, Ailie, my darling pet, look up, and swallow a drop o’ this. Here’s a capital rig-out o’ dry clothes too.”
A few sips of brandy soon restored the circulation which had well-nigh been arrested, and when she had been clothed in the dry garments, Ailie felt comparatively comfortable, and expressed her thanks to Phil Briant with tears in her eyes.
A calm often succeeds a storm somewhat suddenly, especially in southern latitudes. Soon after daybreak the wind moderated, and before noon it ceased entirely, though the sea kept breaking in huge rolling billows on the sandbank for many hours afterwards. The sun, too, came out hot and brilliant, shedding a warm radiance over the little sea-girt spot as well as over the hearts of the crew.
Human nature exhibits wonderful and sudden changes. Men spring from the depths of despair to the very summit, of light-hearted hope, and very frequently, too, without a very obvious cause to account for the violent change. Before the day after the storm was far advanced, every one on the sandbank seemed to be as joyous as though there was no danger of starvation whatever. There was, however, sufficient to produce the change in the altered aspect of affairs. For one thing, the warm sun began to make them feel comfortable—and really it is wonderful how ready men are to shut their eyes to the actual state of existing things if they can only enjoy a little present comfort. Then the ship was driven so high up on the rocks as to be almost beyond the reach of the waves, and she had not been dashed to pieces, as had at first been deemed inevitable, so that the stores and provisions in her might be secured, and the party be thus enabled to subsist on their ocean prison until set free by some passing ship.
Under the happy influence of these improved circumstances every one went about the work of rendering their island home more comfortable, in good, almost in gleeful spirits. Phil Briant indulged in jests which a few hours ago would have been deemed profane, and Gurney actually volunteered the song of the “man wot got his nose froze;” but every one declined to listen to it, on the plea that it reminded them too forcibly of the cold of the early morning. Even the saturnine steward, Tarquin, looked less ferocious than usual, and King Bumble became so loquacious that he was ordered more than once to hold his tongue and to “shut up.”
The work they had to do was indeed of no light nature. They had to travel to and fro between the ship and the rocks on the rope-cable, a somewhat laborious achievement, in order to br............