Un capitaine de quinze ans. English Read online

  CHAPTER XII.

  HOPE REVIVED.

  The wind had now increased to a hurricane; it had veered to thesouth-west, and had attained a velocity little short of ninety miles anhour. On land, the most substantial of erections could with difficultyhave withstood its violence, and a vessel anchored in a roadstead musthave been torn from its moorings and cast ashore. The memorable stormthat had devastated the Island of Guadaloupe on the 25th of July, 1825,when heavy cannon were lifted from their carriages, could scarcely havebeen more furious, and it was only her mobility before the blast andthe solidity of her structure that gave the "Pilgrim" a hope ofsurviving the tempest.

  A few minutes after the topsail had been lost, the small jib wascarried away. Dick Sands contemplated the possibility of throwing out astorm-jib, made of extra strong canvas, as a means of bringing the shipa little more under his control, but abandoned the idea as useless. Itwas, therefore, under bare poles that the "Pilgrim" was driven along;but in spite of the lack of canvas, the hull, masts, and rigging, gavesufficient purchase to the wind, and the progress of the schooner wasprodigiously rapid; sometimes, indeed, she seemed to be literallylifted from the water, and scudded on, scarcely skimming its surface.The rolling was fearful. Enormous waves followed in quick succession,and as they travelled faster than the ship, there was the perpetualrisk of one of them catching her astern. Without sail, there were nomeans of escaping that peril by increase of speed; the adroitmanagement of the helm was the only chance of avoiding the hazardousshocks, and even this repeatedly failed.

  To prevent his being washed overboard Dick lashed himself to his placeat the wheel by a rope round his waist, and made Tom and Bat keep closeat hand, ready to give him assistance, in case of emergency. Herculesand Actaeon, clinging to the bitt, kept watch at the bow. Mrs. Weldonand her party, at Dick's special request, remained inside the sterncabin, although the lady, for her own part, would much rather havestayed on deck; she had, however, yielded to the representation thatshe would thus be exposing herself to unnecessary danger.

  The hatchways were hermetically closed, and it was to be hoped thatthey would withstand the heavy sea that was dashing over them; only letone of them give way to the pressure, and the vessel must inevitablyfill and founder. It was a matter of congratulation that the stowagehad been done very carefully, so that notwithstanding all the lurchingsof the ship, the cargo did not shift in the least.

  The heroic young commander had still further curtailed his periods ofrest, and it was only at the urgent entreaty of Mrs. Weldon, who fearedthat he would exhaust himself by his vigilance, that he was induced tolie down for a few hours' sleep on the night of the 13th.

  After Tom and Bat had been left alone at the wheel they were, somewhatto their surprise, joined by Negoro, who very rarely came aft. Heseemed inclined to enter into conversation, but found littleencouragement to talk on the part either of Tom or his son. All at oncea violent roll of the ship threw him off his feet, and he would havegone overboard if he had not been saved by falling against the binnacle.

  Old Tom was in a frantic state of alarm lest the compass should bebroken. He uttered a cry of consternation so loud that it roused Dickfrom the light slumber into which he had fallen in the cabin, and herushed to the deck. By the time he had reached the stern, Negoro hadnot only regained his feet, but had managed successfully to conceal thebit of iron which he had again extracted from beneath the binnaclewhere he had himself laid it. Now that the wind had shifted to thesouth-west, it suited his machinations that the magnetic needle shouldindicate its true direction.

  Quick as lightning, Dick Sands drew a revolver from hispocket.]

  "How now?" asked Dick eagerly; "what is the meaning of all this noise?"

  Tom explained how the cook had fallen against the binnacle, and how hehad been terrified lest the compass should be injured. Dick's heartsank at the thought of losing his sole remaining compass, and hisanxiety betrayed itself in his countenance as he knelt down to examineits condition; but he breathed freely as he ascertained that theinstrument had sustained no damage; by the dim light he saw the needleresting on its two concentric circles, and felt his fears at oncerelieved; of course, he was quite unconscious of the fact that theremoval of the bit of iron had made the magnet change its pointing. Theincident, however, excited his misgiving; although he felt that Negorocould not be held responsible for an accidental fall, the very presenceof the man in such a place at such a time perplexed him.

  "And what brings you here, this hour of the night?" he asked.

  "That's not your business," retorted Negoro insolently.

  "It is my business," replied Dick resolutely; "and I mean to have ananswer; what brought you here?"

  Negoro answered sullenly that he knew of no rule to prevent his goingwhere he liked and when he liked.

  "No rule!" cried Dick; "then I make the rule now. From this timeforward, I make the rule that you shall never come astern. Do youunderstand?"

  Roused from his accustomed doggedness, the man seemed to make athreatening movement. Quick as lightning, Dick Sands drew a revolverfrom his pocket.

  "Negoro, one act, one word of insubordination, and I blow out yourbrains!"

  Negoro had no time to reply; before he could speak he was bowed downtowards the deck by an irresistible weight. Hercules had grasped him bythe shoulder.

  "Shall I put him overboard, captain? he will make a meal for thefishes; they are not very particular what they eat," said the negro,with a grin of contempt.

  "Not yet," quietly answered Dick.

  The giant removed his hand, and Negoro stood upright again, and beganto retreat to his own quarters, muttering, however, as he passedHercules,--

  "You cursed nigger! You shall pay for this!"

  The discovery was now made that the wind apparently had taken a suddenshift of no less than forty-five degrees; but what occasioned Dick thegreatest perplexity was that there was nothing in the condition of thesea to correspond with the alteration in the current of the air;instead of being directly astern, wind and waves were now beating onthe larboard. Progress in this way must necessarily be full of danger,and Dick was obliged to bring his ship up at least four points beforehe got her straight before the tempest.

  The young captain felt that he must be more than ever on the alert; hecould not shake off the suspicion that Negoro had been concerned in theloss of the first compass, and had some further designs upon thesecond. Still he was utterly at a loss to imagine what possible motivethe man could have for so criminal an act of malevolence, as there wasno plausible reason to be assigned why he should not be as anxious asall the rest to reach the coast of America. The suspicion continued,however, to haunt him, and when he mentioned it to Mrs. Weldon he foundthat a similar feeling of distrust had agitated her, although she, likehimself, was altogether unable to allege a likely motive why the cookshould contemplate so strange an act of mischief. It was determinedthat a strict surveillance should be kept upon all the fellow'smovements.

  Negoro, however, manifested no inclination to disobey the captain'speremptory order; he kept strictly to his own part of the ship; but asDingo was now regularly quartered on the stern, there was a tolerablysure guarantee that the cook would not be found wandering much in thatdirection.

  A week passed, and still the tempest showed no signs of abating; thebarometer continued to fall, and not once did a period of calmerweather afford an opportunity of carrying sail. The "Pilgrim" stillmade her way northeast. Her speed could not be less than two hundredmiles in twenty-four hours. But no land appeared. Vast as was the rangeof the American continent, extending for 120 degrees between theAtlantic and the Pacific, it was nowhere to be discerned. Was hedreaming? was he mad? Dick would perpetually ask himself: had he beensailing in a wrong direction? had he failed to steer aright?

  But no: he was convinced there was no error in his steering. Althoughhe could not actually see it for the mist, he knew that day after daythe sun rose before him, and that it set behind him. Yet he wasconstr
ained in bewilderment to ask, what had become of those shores ofAmerica upon which, when they came in sight, there was only too great afear the ship should be dashed? what had become of them? where werethey? whither had this incessant hurricane driven them? why did not theexpected coast appear?

  To all these bewildering inquiries Dick could find no answer except toimagine that his compass had misled him. Yet he was powerless to puthis own misgivings to the test; he deplored more than ever thedestruction of the duplicate instrument which would have checked hisregisters. He studied his chart; but all in vain; the position in whichhe found himself as the result of Negoro's treachery, seemed to bafflehim the more, the more he tried to solve the mystery.

  The days were passing on in this chronic state of anxiety, when onemorning about eight o'clock, Hercules, who was on watch at the fore,suddenly shouted,--

  "Land!"

  Dick Sands had little reliance upon the negro's inexperienced eye, buthurried forward to the bow.

  "Where's the land?" he cried; his voice being scarcely audible abovethe howling of the tempest.

  "There! look there!" said Hercules, nodding his head and pointing overthe larboard side, to the north-east.

  Dick could see nothing.

  Mrs. Weldon had heard the shout. Unable to restrain her interest, shehad left her cabin and was at Dick's side. He uttered an expression ofsurprise at seeing her, but could not hear anything she said, as hervoice was unable to rise above the roaring of the elements; she stood,her whole being as it were concentrated in the power of vision, andscanned the horizon in the direction indicated by Hercules. But all tono purpose.

  Suddenly, however, after a while, Dick raised his hand.

  "Yes!" he said; "yes; sure enough, yonder is land."

  He clung with excitement to the netting; and Mrs Weldon, supported byHercules, strained her eyes yet more vehemently to get a glimpse of ashore which she had begun to despair of ever reaching.

  Beyond a doubt an elevated peak was there. It must be about ten milesto leeward. A break in the clouds soon left it more distinct. Somepromontory it must be upon the American coast. Without sails, ofcourse, the "Pilgrim" had no chance of bearing down direct upon it; butat least there was every reason to believe that she would soon reachsome other portion of the shore; perhaps before noon, certainly in afew hours, they must be close to land.

  The pitching of the ship made it impossible for Mrs. Weldon to keepsafe footing on the deck; accordingly, at a sign from Dick, Herculesled her back again to her cabin.

  Dick did not remain long at the bow, but went thoughtfully back to thewheel.

  He had, indeed, a tremendous responsibility before him. Here was theland, the land for which they had longed so eagerly; and now that theiranticipations were on the point of being realized, what was there, witha hurricane driving them on towards it, to prevent that land beingtheir destruction? What measures could he take to prevent the schoonerbeing dashed to pieces against it?

  "There! look there!"]

  At the very moment when the promontory was just abreast of them, Negoroappeared on deck; he nodded to the peak familiarly, as he might havesaluted a familiar friend, and retired as stealthily as he had come.

  Two hours later, and the promontory was lying to the larboard wake.Dick Sands had never relaxed his watchfulness, but he had failed todiscover any further indications of a coast-line. His perplexity couldonly increase; the horizon was clear; the Andes ought to be distinct;they would be conspicuous twenty miles or more away. Dick took up histelescope again and again; he scrutinized the eastern horizon withminutest care; but there was nothing to be seen; and as the afternoonwaned away the last glimpse had been taken of the promontory that hadawakened their expectation; it had vanished utterly from their gaze; noindication of shore could be seen from the "Pilgrim's" deck.

  Dick Sands uttered a sigh of mingled amazement and relief. He went intoMrs. Weldon's cabin, where she was standing with her party.

  "It was only an island!" he said; "only an island!"

  "How? why? what island? what do you mean?" cried Mrs. Weldonincredulously; "what island can it be?"

  "The chart perhaps will tell us," replied Dick; and hurrying off to hisown cabin, he immediately returned with the chart in his hands.

  After studying it attentively for a few minutes, he said,--

  "There, Mrs. Weldon; the land we have just passed, I should supposemust be that little speck in the midst of the Pacific. It must beEaster Island. At least, there seems to be no other land which possiblyit could be."

  "And do you say," inquired Mrs. Weldon, "that we have left it quitebehind us?"

  "Yes, entirely; almost to windward."

  Mrs. Weldon commenced a searching scrutiny of the map that wasoutspread before her.

  "How far is this," she said, after bending a considerable time over thechart; "how far is this from the coast of America?"

  "Thirty-five degrees," answered Dick; "somewhere about 2500 miles."

  "What ever do you mean?" rejoined the lady astonished; "if the'Pilgrim' is still 2500 miles from shore, she has positively made noprogress at all. Impossible!"

  In thoughtful perplexity, Dick passed his hand across his brow. He didnot know what to say. After an interval of silence, he said,--

  "I have no account to give for the strange delay. It is inexplicable tomyself, except upon that one hypothesis, which I cannot resist, thatthe readings of the compass, somehow or other, have been wrong."

  He relapsed into silence. Then, brightening up, he added,--

  "But, thank God! at least we have now the satisfaction of knowing wherewe really are; we are no longer lost upon the wide Pacific; if onlythis hurricane will cease, long as the distance seems, we are on ourproper course to the shores of America."

  The tone of confidence with which the youthful captain spoke had theeffect of inspiring new hope into all who heard him; their spiritsrose, and to their sanguine mood it seemed as if they were approachingto the end of all their troubles, and had hardly more to do than toawait the turning of a tide to bring them into a glad proximity to port.

  Easter Island, of which the true name is Vai-Hoo, was discovered byDavid in 1686 and visited by Cook and Laperouse. It lies in lat. 27 deg.S., and long. 112 E.; consequently, it was evident that during theraging of the hurricane the schooner had been driven northwards no lessthan fifteen degrees. Far away, however, as she was from shore, thewind could hardly fail within ten days to carry her within sight ofland; and then, if the storm had worn itself out, (as probably itwould,) the "Pilgrim" would again hoist sail, and make her way intosome port with safety. Anyhow, the discovery of his true positionrestored a spirit of confidence to Dick Sands, and he anticipated thetime when he should no longer be drifting helplessly before the storm.

  To say the truth, the "Pilgrim" had suffered very little from theprolonged fury of the weather. The damage she had sustained was limitedto the loss of the topsail and the small jib, which could be easilyreplaced. The caulking of the seams remained thoroughly sound, and nodrop of water had found its way into the hold. The pumps, too, wereperfectly free. Dick Sands did not fear for the stability of his ship;his only anxiety was lest the weather should not moderate in time. Onlylet the wind subside, and the schooner once more would be under hiscontrol; but he never forgot that the ordering of the winds and waveswere in the hands of the Great Disposer of all.