FICTION IN BRIEF. THE ADVENTURES OF THREE SAILORS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XX, Issue 2437, 27 May 1893, Page 4

FICTION IN BRIEF. THE ADVENTURES OF THREE SAILORS.

BY W. CLARK RUSSELL,

Author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor," "A Sea Queen," "The Golden Hope," &c., &c.

[All Rights Reserved.] OOR vessel was alittle brig, named the Hindoo Merchant, and we sailed on a day ol March in the year of our Lord 1857, from Trincomalle bound to Calcutta. The captain, myself and three sailors were Europeans; the rest of the ship's* company natives. Though we were " flying light" as the term is — that is to say, though there was little more in the ship's hold than ballast, and though she had tolerably nimble heels, for what one might term a country -wallah — yet the little ship was so bothered with head winds and light airs, and long days of stagnation, that we had been several weeks afloat before we managed to crawl to the Norrard of the Andaman parallels, which yet left a long stretch of waters before us. If this remainder of the ocean was not to be traversed more fleetly than the space we had already measured, then, it was certain we should be running short of water many a long while before the Sandheads came within the compass of our horizon, and to provide against " the most horrible situation that the crew of a ship can find themselves placed in, we kept a bright lookout for vessels, and within four daysmanaged to speak two; but they had no water to spare, and we pushed on. But within three days of our speaking the second of the two vessels we sighted a third ; a large barque, who at once backed her topsail to our signals, and hailed us to know what we wanted. My captain, Mr. Roger Blow, stood up in the mizzen-rigging and asked for water. They asked how much we needed ; Captain Blow responded whatever they could spare would be a God-send. On this they sung out, " Send a boat with a cask, and you shall have what we can afford to part with." Captain Blow then told me to put an eighteen-gallon cask, in the portquarter boat, and go away to the barque with jt. " They'll not fill it," .said he, " but a half'll be better than a quarter, and aquarter'll be good enough ; for we stand to pick up more as we go along." Thad called to two of the English sailors, named Mike Jackson and Thomas Fallows, to get into the boat, when the cask had been placed in her ; and when I had entered her the darkeys lowered us ; we unhooked and shoved off. There was a pleasant breeze of wind blowing ; itblei'hof. ♦Vi^.i-hit came straight f-i.-r. the inside of an oven, the door vi which had been suddenly op-tned ; the sky had the sort of glazed dimness of the human eye in fevor ; but right overhead it was of a copperish dazzle where the roasting orb of the sun was. I could not see a speck of cloud anywhere, which rendered what followed the more amazing to my mind for the suddenness of it. The two vessels at the first of their speaking had been tolerably close together, but some time had been spent in routing up the cask and getting it into the boat, and setting ourselves afloat, so that at the moment of our shoving off— spite of the topsail of each vessel being to the mast — the space had widened between them, till I daresay it covered pretty nearly a mile, 'f he wind was at west-nor'west, and the baique bore on the lee-quarter of the Hindoo Merchant. The great heat put a languor into the arms of our two seamen, and the oars rose and fell slowly and weakly. Jackson said to me : " I hope," he says, " they'll be able to spare us a bite of ship's biead. Ours i« no better than sawdust, and if it wasn't for the worms in it." said he, '• blast me if there'd be any nutriment in it at all. Them Cingalese ought to ha 1 moored their island off the Chinee coast. They'd have grown rich with teaching the Johnnies more tricks than they're master of, at plundering sailors." "The Hindoo Merchant's bread isn't up to much, Fallows, ' said I ; " but this is no atmosphere to talk of bread in. What's aboard'll carry us to the Hooghley. It is water we have to fi\ our minds on." We drew alongside of the tall barque, and the master after looking over the rail, asked me to step aboard and drink a glass with him in his cabin, " for" says he, " this is no part of the ocean to be thirsty in," and he then gave directions for the cask to be got out of the boat, and a drink of rum and water to be handed down to the two seamen. I stepped into the cabin, and the captain put a bottle of brandy and 9omo cold water on the table. He asked me sfeveral questions about the brig, and how long we were out, and where w c were from and the like, and one thing iendinc;ioanother, he happened to mention the town he was born in , which was my native place too— Ashford, in the county of Kent— and here was now a topic to set us yarning, for I knew some of his friends, and heknewsomc ofinine; and the talk seemed to do him si much good, whilst it was so agreeable to r.:e, that neither of us seemed in a hurry to end it. This is the only excuse I can offer for lingering on the barque longer than, as circumstances proved I ought to have done. ' At last I pot up and said I must be off, and I thanked him most kindly for his obliging reception of n,e, and for his goodness in supplying the brig with water, and I gave him Captain Blow's compliments, and desired to know if we could accommodate him in any way in return. He answered ■' nothing, nothing," stepping through the hatch as he said it, and an instant after he set up his throat in a cry. " You'll have to bear a hand aboard " says he with a face of astonishment ; " look yonder ! Tis rolling down upon your brig like smoke." He pointed to the vessel, and a little way past her I spied a long line oi white vapour no higher than Dover cliff as it looked, butas denseas those rocks of chalk too The sun made steam of it, but already it was putting a likeness of its own blankness into the sky over it, which seemed to be dying out, as the vapour came along, as the light perishes in a looking-glass upon which you breathe I ran to the side and saw my boat under the gangway and the two men in fier. The cask was in the stern of the boat. The master of the barque cried out to me • "Will you not stay till that smother clears ? You may loose your brig in it." I replied : ••No sir, thank you, I will take my chance It is more likely I should lose her by remain! ing here " and with a flourish of the hand if? Opp ,^ d ° v ? r the side and entered the boat. "Now," cried I, " pull like the devil, men " They threw their oars over and fell to rowing fiercely ; but the barque was not five cables length astern of us when the first of the white cliff of vapour smote the Hindoo Merchant, and she vanished in it like a star in a cloud. There was a fresh breeze of wind behind that line of sweeping thickness Md in places, at the base of the mass of blankness, it would dart out in swift racings of shadow that made one think of the feelers Df some gigantic marine spider, probing under its cobweb as though feeling its way along. In a tew minutes the cloud drove down over us with a loud whistling of wind* and the water close to the boat's side ran in ihort. small seas, every head of it hissing ; but :0 within the range of a biscuit toss all was flying, glistening obscurity, with occasional bursts of denser thicknesses which almost lid one end of the boat from the other It was about six o'clock in the after-noon, and .here mi^ht be yet anotiiei l.ourof sunshine. "'Vast rowing!" sajs i piesently, " you may keep the oais over, but there's no good. in pulling, short of keeping her head to i wind. This is too thick to last." j "Ain't so sure of that." says Fallows, ■ taking a slow look round at the smother, " I've been m these here seas for two days 'tinning in weather ar'er this pattern." " Pity \vu didn't stay aboaru the barque," lays jackson. " A plague on your pities !" I cried. " I know my duty, 1 believe. Suppose we had stayed aboard the barque, we stood to be separated from the brig in this breeze and muckiness, c.nd was her skipper by-and-bye joing to sail in search of the Hindoo Mer:hant ?" " A gun !" cries Fallows. II That'll be the brig," saysl, catching the dull thud of the explosion of a nine-pounder which the Hindoo Merchant carried on her luarterdeck. " Seems to me as though it sounded from yonder," says Jackson, looking away over : he r.tai board beam of the boat. " What have ye there, men ?' r says I, nod- ' iiingjit a bundle of canvas under the amid- ' w

sHiptHwart. " Ship's bread," answered Jackson, with a note of sulkiness in his voice. 'It was hove to us on my asking for a bite. She was a iberal barque. The cask's more'n threequarters full." We hung upon our oars listening and waiting. There was a second gun ten minutes after the first had been fired, and that was the last we heard. The report was thin and distant, but whether ahead or astern I could not have guessed by harkening. 1 kept up my own and endeavoured to inspirit the hearts of the others by saying that this fog which had come down in a moment, would end in a moment, that it was all clear sky above with plenty of moonlight for us in the night if it should happen that the sun went down upon us thus, that Captain Blow was not going to losa us and his boat and the cask of fresh water if it was in mortal seamanship to hold a vessel in one situation; but the fellows were not to be cheered, their spirits sank and their faces grew lcnger.as the complexion of the fog told us that the sun was sinking last, and I own that when it came at ■last to his setting, and no break in the flying vapour, and a blackness as of ink stealing into it out of the swift tropic dusk, I myself felt horribly dejected; greatly fearing that we had lost the brig for good. Just before the last of the twilight faded out of the smoke that shrouded us, we lashed both oars together and attaching them to the boat's painter, threw them overboard and and rode to them. Our thirst was now extreme, and to appease it— being without a dipper to drop into the cask — *ye sank a handkerchief through the bunghole and wrung it out in the half cocoa-nut shell that was in the boat as a baler, and by this means procured a drink,,, each man. Grateful t6 God indeed was I that we had fresh water with us. I beat the cask and gathered by the sound that it was more than half full. Heaven was bountiful too in providing us with biscuit. iVhad been the luckiest of thoughts on Jackson's part, though he had desired nothing more to obtain a relish for his own rations of buffalo hump aboard. I never remember the like of the pitch darkness of that night. There was a moon, pretty nearly a full one if I recollect aright ; but had she been shining over the other side 6f the world it would have been all the same. Her delicate silver beam could not pierce the vapour, and never once did I behold the least glistening of her radiance anywhere. There was a constant noise of wind in the dense thickness, and an incessant seething and crackling of waters running nimbly, so that though we could from time to time bend our ears in hope of catching the rushing and pouring noise of the sea divided by a ship's stem, we nevercould hear more than the whistling of the breeze and the lapping of the hurrying little surges. There was a deal of fire in the water, and it came and went in sheets like the reflection of lightning insomuch that we might have believed ourselves in the heart of an electric storm ; but happily the wind never gathered so much weight as to raise a troublesome sea, and though the boat tumbled friskily she kept dry and there was nothing in her movements to render me uneasy. I told the two fellows to lie down in the bottom of the boat, and I kept watch till I reckoned it was drawing on to about one o'clock in the morning. Twice or thrice during fhat long and wretched vigil there seemed a promise of the weather clearing, and I gazed with the yearning of the shipwrecked; but regularly it thickened and blackened down upon us again in blasts like the belchings of a three-decker's broadside. It was a very watery vapour, and I was early wet to the skin. At about one o'clock, as I calculated, I awoke Jackson, and bid him to keep an eager lookout and not to spare his ear in putting it against the night, " for," say I, " there's nothing to be done with the eyes ; it's all for the hearing at such a time as this, mate, and what you can't watch for you must listen for ; and wake me up to any sound you may hear, that our three throats may hail together. Oh God," says I, "if it would but thin and show the brig within reach of our shouts 1" With that I lay down and was soon fast asleep, being worn out with excitement and grief, and when I awoke it was daylight, for there's but little dawn off the Andamans ; the sun in those seas leaps on to the horizon into the night, as it were, and flashes it Into day in a breath. It was still thick and troubled \veather, but clear to about two miles from the side of the boat. There was very little wind, and a long swell of the colour of, lead was running from the southward. The vaponrhad broken up and lay in massess r6und about us— long, white twisted fo|ds of it, like powder smoke after a great battle ; and to the top of those heaps Of thickness^ the sky sloped in a sort of grey shadow, with a little pencilling here and there 6f some small livid ring of mist, whjch looked stirless as thofigh what air there was blew low. There was nothing in sight; we strained our gaze into every quarter, but 1 say there was nothing to be seen. This smote nic to the heart. I had been in my tin^e in. several situations of peril at sea, but had neve* yet experienced the horrors' of air open boat amidst a vast waste of waters, such'as was this Bay of Bengal with the Andaraiin glands some hundreds of miles distant; and a hear menace of roasting heat when the wide grey stretch of cloud should have passed away and laid bare the sun's eye of fife. We gazed with melancholy faces one at another. ;• What's to be done?" says Fallows bnnging his bloodshot eyes from the sea to my face ; "if we had a sail to set we might have a chance." There are two oars," said I, " for a mast and a yard, and our shirts must furnish a sail." "But how are we to head ?" says Jackson. II Right afore the wind, I suppose" says I; "there'll be no ratching with the rags we're going to hoist. Right afore the wind,' I says; "and we must trust in God to keep us in view till something heaves in sight— which is pretty well bound to happen I suppose when there comes some wind along." I opened the canvas parcel, and found a matter of thirty biscuits; all very sweet pod bread. We took each of us a piece, and followed on with a drink, and then went to work to get our oars in. We all three wore •nirts, and we stripped them off our backs «n<3 cut t&em to lit open. I had a little cir. :ular cushion of stnut pins in my pocket, such as a sailor might carry, and with them we brought the squaxes of the shirts together, i.id seized the <:oniers to one of the oars by yarns out o. aii end ol painter we cut Oi'f, then stepppd {lie other oar, and secured it with another piece of the painter; and now we had a scrt of -.ail, the mere sight of which, even. >\as :■ mv^l! s;it is faction to us, since the sivris hcn^nhiie they must needs make a Road i lai k upon ihr nater, something iiot to he missed. ur!e.-,<i wilfully, by a passing vessel The momint; away, and a little alter twelve <>'c'6V)< the water in the south was darken..) \t\ ihc ■u.ishin^ of a wind, which. drove thuboverin ' j.ias'-es of vapour before-, it ; :md pre^.-ritly me, h,«l totally dis appeared ,. ]< riving:, .Ky\. -tli i cuts and yawns of bUie in place-,, -.m! .id._,u »lass-like circle of horizon;, up:-,. \ l:ii h ho ,\ ever, there was nothing to he .mvji. l'lie i>oat moved slowly before the wirwl. which blew ho; as a desert breeze ; 1 s tee; to, «m! Jackson and Fallows sat near me, one or the other !ro;n time tc tiroe getting on U>d thwart to take a view o) th»e ocean, untier Hie «.li.irp of his hand. In this-Jasliion ]).>•. a ili.- jiiiei.,', cm. The Night cany* with .uuilol liio >i ;he water, and a very . a., twhi floating mi lagoons o! velvnt sintn< »:; ', t twivl ihp clouds. The weather cevtn u-jc". <;uiet ilia long sv.el made a plea.-vii • crndle •>• the boat, and the night-wind be. -g full of dew, lm.itUcl refreshingly upoi cur hot cheeks , whilst oui ears were soothed by the in plm^ noise ol the running waters which s.ec-ined to cool the senses, as the breeze did the hV.v It was almost a deaii c;.lm, u'.>ue\er, at daybreak, next incniiv The airnospheie was closfpinl hr\i\ v, am, -lieic w-is astiange strung j,,.v;il oi sea've. <!. i .r.in» oit tiie ocean, which caused me to ] u ok narrowly about, with some dim dream ol pcrcci- i'n« land] though J should bate Known t'tieie was no land foi'lea"(ie- :>nd levues Whilst we wo:o munching ,i biscuit, I observed r,n apperiance ot steam lifting off the water, at n distance of about lirvlf a mile on the starboard side of the boat '1 he vapour came out of the water in the shape of corkscrews, spirally working, and they melted at a height of perhaps ten or filteen feet. 1 counted five of these singular emissions Jackson said that they were fragments of mist, and we mijiht lookout for such another j thickness as had lost us the brig. Fallows said " No ; that's no mist, mate ; that is as good steam as ever blew out of a kettle. Are there places where the water boils in this here ocean?"

Mr. Gladstone as a Daring Diner Out.

The London Court Journal says : — "Mr Gladstone dines out with a regu. larity and daring that could not be excelled by a man of half Hb years. One who meets him often at these gastronomic toarnamenta cays that Mr G.s participation ia their enjoyments is by no means perfunctory. Some men past 60, still dining out, enjoy themselves under severe restrictions, daintily picking their way through the menu. Mr G.,past 80, is apparently under no such restrictions. He eats what comes, generally right through tbe menu, and can take his glaea of port after his libation of champagne, a teßt from which many an ardent diner out would shrink. His mental activity is on a par with his physical vigour. His conversation ia a never flagging flood, brimful of interest. If it were only possible to reproduce a verbatim report of bis conversation at a dinner-party, where tbe personal surroundings are sufficiently interesting to excite him to talk', there would be produced a volume of interest, biographical, autobiographical, and historical. His memory ia marvellous, and his power of graphically recalling an incident ia the admiration of even tbe gentlemen behind the chairs." Mr Gladstone is to be congratulated on possessing a perfect liver, not all men can say tbe same ; the slightest over indulgence in eating or drinking is sufficient with some people to upsel; the liver and cause bilions attacks; these eventually lead to serious disease and make the sufferer's life one continual misery. Timely use of Clements Tonic with an occasional dose of Dr. Fletcher's Pills will always cure tbe most serious caseß, as shown by tbe proofs vouchsafed by Miss Imcy liammond, New Plymouth, who writes :— -After many years of sufEeriag, and travelling all over the world in search of good health, it gives me great pleasure to state that Clements Tonic bas done me more good than all the doctors, and all the baths, Bpas and masseurs I have known. My life bas been one round of misery for tbe paßt seven years, owiDg (so the doctors said to liver complaint. My head always ached, my limbs ached ; I was always tired and languid, and I felt more tired in a morning than when I went to bed. I had sleepless and restless nights, and could get no relief. Three months back I came to New Zealand, and in my travels frequently beard and read of Clements Tonic, and mother advised me to try two or three bottles. lam pleaßed to say that it bas done wonders. I never have headache now, and I have only taken three bottles, but I feel a wonderful deal stronger and better, and you have my heartfelt gratitude for yonr remedy.