Генри де Вэр Стэкпул – The Blue Lagoon / Голубая лагуна (страница 7)

“What is it, acushla[99]?”

“I smell something.”

“What d’ye say you smell?”

“Something nice.”

“What’s it like?” asked Dick, snifnif g hard. “I don’t smell anything.”

Emmeline sniffed again to make sure.

“Flowers,” said she.

The breeze was bearing with it a faint, faint odour: a perfume of vanilla and spice so faint as to be insensible to almost all.

“Flowers!” said the old sailor, tapping the ashes out of his pipe against the heel of his boot. “And where’d you get flowers in middle of the say? It’s dhramin’ you are. Come now—to bed wid yiz!”

“Fill it again,” wailed Dick, referring to the pipe.

“It’s a spankin’ I’ll give you,” replied his guardian, lifting him from the deck, and then assisting Emmeline, “in two ticks[100] if you don’t behave. Come along, Em’line.”

He started off, a small hand in each of his, Dick bellowing.

As they passed the ship’s bell, Dick stretched towards the pin that was still lying on the deck, seized it, and hit the bell a mighty bang. It was the last pleasure to be had before sleep, and he got it.

Paddy had made up beds for himself and his charges in the deck-house; he had cleared the stuff off the table, opened the windows to get the musty smell away, and placed the mattresses from the captain and mate’s cabins on the floor.

When the children were in bed and asleep, he went to the starboard rail, and, leaning on it, looked over the moonlit sea. He was thinking of ships as his eye wandered over the sea, little dreaming of the message that had been received and dimly understood by Emmeline. Then he leaned with his back to the rail and his hands in his pockets. He was not thinking now, he was meditating.

The basis of the Irish character, Paddy Button being an example, is a deep laziness mixed with a deep melancholy. Yet Paddy, in his left-handed way, was as hard a worker as any man on board ship; and as for melancholy, he was the life and soul of the cockpit[101].

Suddenly Mr Button came back from his dreams to find himself on the deck of the Shenandoah; and he instantly became taken by fears. Beyond the white deserted deck, he could see the door of the caboose. Suppose he should suddenly see a head pop out—or, worse, a shadowy form go in?

He turned to the deck-house, where the children were sound asleep[102], and where, in a few minutes, he, too, was sound asleep beside them, while all night long the brig rocked to the gentle ripple of the Pacific, and the breeze blew, bringing with it the perfume of flowers.

Chapter IX

The Tragedy of the Boats

When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the long-boat saw the quarter-boat half a mile to starboard of them.

“Can you see the dinghy?” asked Lestrange of the captain, who was standing up searching the horizon.

“Not a speck,[103]” answered Le Farge. “Damn that Irishman! but for him I’d have got the boats away properly supplied and all[104]; as I don’t know what we’ve got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got there?”

“Two bags of bread and a small barrel of water,” answered the steward.

“A barrel of water, half full!” came another voice.

Then the steward’s voice: “So it is; there’s not more than a couple of gallons[105] in her.”

“My God!” said Le Farge. “Damn that Irishman!”

“There’s not more than’ll give us two half pannikins apiece all round,” said the steward.

“Maybe,” said Le Farge, “the quarter-boat’s better stocked; pull for her[106].”

“She’s pulling for us,” said the stroke oar[107].

“Captain,” asked Lestrange, “are you sure there’s no sight of the dinghy?”

“None,” replied Le Farge.

The unfortunate man’s head sank on his breast. He had little time to think over his troubles, however, for a tragedy was beginning to start around him, the most shocking, perhaps, in the history of the sea.

When the boats were within hearing distance, a man in the bow of the long-boat rose up.

“Quarter-boat ahoy!”

“Ahoy!”

“How much water have you?”

“None!”

The word came floating over the moonlit water. At it the fellows in the long-boat ceased rowing, and you could see the water-drops dripping off their oars like diamonds in the moonlight.

“Quarter-boat ahoy!” shouted the fellow in the bow. “Lay on your oars.”

“Here, you scowbanker[108]!” cried Le Farge, “who are you to be giving directions—”

“Scowbanker yourself!” replied the fellow. “Bullies, put her about[109]!”

The starboard oars backed water, and the boat came round.

By chance the worst lot of the Northumberland’s crew were in the long-boat—real “scowbankers,” scum; and how scum clings to life you will never know, until you have been amongst it in an open boat at sea. Le Farge had no more command over this lot than you have who are reading this book.

“Heave to[110]!” came from the quarter-boat, as she laboured behind.

“Lay on your oars, bullies!” cried the rufaif n at the bow, who was still standing up like an evil genius[111] who had taken momentary command over events. “Lay on your oars, bullies; they’d better have it now.”

The quarter-boat in her turn ceased rowing, and lay a cable’s length away.

“How much water have you?” came the mate’s voice.

“Not enough to go round.”

Le Farge made to rise, and the stroke oar struck at him, catching him in the wind and doubling him up in the bottom of the boat.

“Give us some, for God’s sake!” came the mate’s voice; “we’re parched with rowing, and there’s a woman on board.”

The fellow in the bow of the long-boat broke into blasphemy[112].

“Give us some,” came the mate’s voice, “or, by God, we’ll lay you aboard[113]!”

Before the words were well spoken the men in the quarter-boat carried the threat into action. The conflict was brief: the quarter-boat was too crowded for fighting. The starboard men in the long-boat fought with their oars, while the fellows to port steadied the boat[114].

The fight did not last long, and presently the quarter-boat went away, half of the men in her cut about the head and bleeding—two of them senseless.

It was sundown on the following day. The long-boat lay adrift. The last drop of water had been served out eight hours before.

The quarter-boat had been pursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none.

The men in the long-boat, gloomy and morose, tortured by thirst, and tormented by the voices imploring for water, lay on their oars when the other boat tried to approach.

Now and then, suddenly, and as if moved by a common impulse, they would all shout out together: “We have none.” But the quarter-boat would not believe. It was in vain[115] to hold the open barrel upside down to prove its dryness, the half-delirious creatures had it fixed in their minds that their comrades were hiding from them the water that was not.

Just as the sun touched the sea, Lestrange raised himself and looked over the side. He saw the quarter-boat drifting a cable’s length away, lit by the full light of sunset, and the ghosts in it, seeing him, held out in silent appeal their blackened tongues.

Of the night that followed it is almost impsible to speak. Thirst was nothing to what the scowbankers suffered from the torture of the appeal for water that came to them at intervals during the night.

When at last the Arago, a French whale ship, saw them, the crew of the long-boat were still alive, but three of them were raving madmen[116]. Of the crew of the quarter-boat was saved—not one.

Part II

Chapter X

The Island

“Childer!” shouted Paddy, while the children standing beneath on deck were craning their faces up to him. “There’s an island in front of us.”

“Hurrah!” cried Dick. He was not quite sure what an island might be like, but it was something fresh, and Paddy’s voice was jubilant.