THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN RENTON.

Colonist, Volume XVIII, Issue 1987, 2 November 1875, Page 3

THE ADVENTURES OF JOHN RENTON.

Th« Brisbane Courier of October 13 publishes the - - following description of the adventures of John '"; Benton, the sailor who was rescued by the schooner '*' Bobtail Nag, on August 8, from the savages on the Island of Malay ta. The particulars were taken down from the lips of the sole white survivor of the scones described:—-

In the early part of the year 1868, just after the news of the attempted assassination by O'Farrell of '* Prince Alfred, at Sydney, had reached San Francisco, ' there sailed from that port a large ship, the Reynard, ' of Boston, bound on a cruise to the guano islands of ■''' the South Pacific Ocean. Her crew were principally' Boßton men, but theru was also on board a lad named ' John Renton, 19 years of age, a native of Stromness, ' in tbe Orkney Islands, who had been " crimped," • and found himself bound on a voyage, whether he liked it or not. The vessel, after calling in at the ' Sandwich Islands, and there taking on board a number of natives to assist in digging the guano,' crossed the equator, and arrrived at her destination, M'Kean's Island.

Among the orew a good deal of discontent prevailed from some reason, and inflamed by pictures of the South Seai drawn by the Nestor of the ship's company, one' Boston Ned, an elderly man, who had at a previous period patted some time among them, four of the men, inoluding the said Ned, determined to make an effort to reach these havens of rest, and take their chance of falling in with torn* trading vessel, of which he stated many constantly visited' the islands. Boston Ned had taken t> liking to young • Renton, had dotfe him various good offices daring the voyage, and had' in that way established a sort of influence over him. He now communicated the plan' to the 4ad, and induced him to throw in his lot with ' the other adventurers. Ned was apparently,' a ' capable leader. Knowing the danger of allowing ' time for a secret shared by five persons to leak out, ' his preparations were already matured when he spoke to' Renton, and with one exception, which he trusted that fortune would enable him to arrange at the last moment, ererything was in readiness for an immediate departure. He had fixed upon one of the ship's boats—a small whaleboat—whioh was already in the water, and knew where to put his hands at a moments notice upon the ma*ts, sails, and oars. He had secretly concealed two small kega full of water— - eaoh containing about eight gallons—he had appropriated a box of biscuits, and knew where some hams could be readily got at. Eaoh man was instructed to prepare bis kit, and to take care to have a good stock of pipes tobacco and matches. He might possibly have got at more biscuits and more water, but as everything would have to be smuggled into the boat at night, under the very nose of the officer of the watch, to attempt more would have been to court failure. One thing alone caused great anxiety tt»' the intending adventurers. They had no compass.' True, there was one hung in the cabin, and others in the officer's state room, but if taken duriog the day they would be missed, even if the steward ■ failed to sea the person entering the cabin, and at night any attempt to unscrew the one in the csbin from its fastenings to the ceiling would certainly be detected. • There remained only the compass in the binnacle; <■ but one or other of the mates walked the poop all night, acd by sheer force of habit consulted that; compass almost every turn of his walk, andwould miss it; even if he could be got away to: the fore part of the ship sufficiently long to allow of its removal, before the boat would have time to go a hundred yards. These difficulties proved too many for the deserters, and when in the dead of night theyl embarked noislesgly in the wbaleboat, and, unfasten--ing the painter, drifted silently-away from the ship's side, they were without a compass. Besides their' kits 'of clothing and blankets they had in the boat a box of biscuits, four hams, two kegs of water, matches, pipes, and tobacco, sails, mast, and oars, a harpoon, and an old frying pan. Thui provided, as soon as they had drifted a safe distance from the ship, they hoisted their sail and guided by the stars, were soon speeding gaily over< the waters in the direction they desired, propelled by a favorable breeze. The dawn found them out of sightof ship and land, and still scudding comfortably along over a sufficiently placid sea. The five men were in high spirits ; they reckoned their speed was about six miles an hour, and calculated that with a continuance of the breeze which was blowing, and showed no sign of change, three or four, days, or a week at most, would suffice to take them among the islands, which they believed to be so numerous that they could not fail to catch sight of one or other. Tbe wind, however, proved fickle; sometimes it fell dead oalm for dayt together, and then they rowed in turns. Thus ten days wont by without any signs of land appearing. Their provisions were seriously diminished, they were suffering from the blazing heat of a tropical sun, and their limbs were cramped by confinement. They had also been racked and tormented by frequent disappointments. Constantly scanning the horizon they continually fancied they perceived land and enjoyed a brief delusion that their anxieties were at laßt ended, only to find their hopes mocked !by the supposed land proving to be a lowlying cloud. At this time the absolute necessity for restricting their daily consumption of food had become too apparent to be neglected. They accordingly agreed to put themselves upon rations of a half biscuit and a half pannikin of water each per day. Their hopes were now at a low ebb, and suffering, in addition to their previous ills, the pangs of semistarvation, they voyaged along, sunk in moody silence, or only speaking to reproach one another, each charging his neighbor with having induced him to join an enterprise which seemed likely to result in an agonising death. Prom an apathy which was growing upon them, a circumstance occurred, some four or fire days later to arouse them, call forth their remaining energies, and cause them to lose sight of deferred death in the prospect of speedy destruction. On the morning of the fifteenth day one of their number scanning the horizon, as usual, had detected a dark spot, which they were,all more than ordinarily hopeful would prove to be land. Its outlines were more strongly defined than had been those of the clouds which had so often deceived.them, and their hopes ran high. It was like unto a man's hand. It rose up out of the sea, and spread itself over the sky —a cloud like its predecessors, but a cloud of a different sort. Black, lurid, and threatening, it came up, and seemed to the miserable men as if the Almighty had hung a pall in the be ivent as a warn,, ing' of their approaohing fate. They hoped at the worst that it might bring rain with it, for the water in tbe keg ran low fearfully low. But even that mitigation of their sufferings was denied them. Fierce puffs of wind preceded the bankofolovdi, and before an hour was past the ocean was seething under a furious gale. Soon the seal) ran high, and they had no resource but to put the little craft before the wind, and under close reefed sail scud for •their, lives, racing the waves that threatened every moment to overwhelm them. Boston Ned was a seaman who had sailed in every sea, and gone through every experience, including that of a whaler. He alone was competent to steer the boat in these critical circumstances. He did his duty manfully. All the long day and all the dreadful night be, stood at his post lashed to the steering oar, while the waves, gaining every now and then in the awful race, flnng their crests over either side of the boat. The other men baled incessantly, in grim silence. The night was the worst; the stearsman could only guess by the phosphorescent gloamings. of the; wave-oresU as they chased and overtook the quivering boat when to give the dexterous turn which should avoid .the full weight'ofJtheir shock. ■i:; ;:/ ';., The following morning the fury of the gale was spent; but the haggard wretches had little scope for congratulation. During all this time: the sun and stars' had alike been invisible, and'they had been hurried they knew not whither. Even yet the sky was overcast, and for ought they: knew they might be heading away from '■ the goal they so desperately desired to reach. - When at last, after a few days of miserable uncertainty, the sun again shone oat, they put the boat's bow in the propsr direotion without a smile; for a fresh mil ry engaged their attention— their provisions and their water were finished. They had eaten'the'last crumb of biscuit, polished the la»t bones, > and drained the last sweet drop of water. They had even crunohed the bones to powder with*

their teeth arid swallowed them. _ • - *£- The wwd bad lnlled to;a gentle air,-which Blovrly . '' drove the boat along, and fanned it's unhappy erew1, < who sat listlessly chewing the cud of bitter reflection —they had nothing else to chew—and grimly, staring each other and death in. the face. Twioe more the sun.roae and set, each dawn.showing faces more despairing and. shrunken.: Benton fared somewhat better than.'the others, by an expedient which may be usefully imitated by persons who may hereafter undergo similar suffering. The lad/had received <* good eduoatiop,rand.had read many acoourits of similar adventures.,: He refrained from drinking, as the others did, certain horrible draughts and sea; water, which he had. learned were certain to aggravate , instead of quenching thirist. Being a good swimmer, it was his praotioe to leap from time to time into the tea, diving m deep as he could attain into the cooler depths. The water forced itself into his nostrils and ears, and he arose from each' plunge refreshed almost as muoh sb if he had. been blessed with a hearty drink of sweet water. To this practice heasenbes the manner in whioh hisl strength" outlasted that of his companions. On the third day the faint airs died away, and whatever little relief its 000 l breath had afforded was withdrawn, the cruel sun streaming his. scorching rays on the shrunken; forms, which seemed to wither; under the glare. The sea was like glass, and a steamy haze obscured the horizon. At the stern reclined Boston Ned, mumbling, with black and cracked.lips, something in the ear of the man nest to him. He crawled,over to where Benton was \ leaning over the side, dabbling his hands in the water. The robustness of youth had, told in his favor, and he; was !now the least exhausted of the five. Ned laboriously reached him where he sat, and exhausted by this toilsome :trayet of. two yards, crouched^ beside him, gasping to; recover his breath. Presently he regained power "to speak, and, now and again stopping,to gnaw hungrily at the .flesh'of his own forearm, he whispered in cracked and croaking accents that something must be done! ;If in that time when every horrid prospect must have been successively revolving through the brain of each unhappy being in that floating coffin, explanation had been wanting, it was at:that moment supplied. The man to whom Ned had been muttering just before,, had ever since been rummaging feebly among the miscellanies in his ship's kit. While Ned yet jerked his crackling syllables in Beaton's ear, he produced a razor and strop, and set. himself to edge the blade with monotonous regularity, mumbling to himself the while. .Now, what in. the name of all things grotesque Bhould a starving man want stropping a r»zor in midocean ? Was he overtaken the first with the madness each had felt approaching hourly ? He had, as well ns the rest, lapped mouthfulls from the bitter sea ? But no! if mad, there was a dreadful meaning in his madness. He did not want to shave. .Benton had, as probably all had, dreaded this moment aa inevitable. : His mind had revolved all the dreadful probabilities of the horrors which lay before them ; and he had considered that he himself, as the youngest, and a foreigner among American seamen, would be the probable victim. Nor did it fail to present itself to his mind, in the particular line of thought forced upon him, that he was also the plumpest. ; It was evident that a tragedy was contemplated, and that Ned and the man with the razor had como to an understanding. The fact that Ned chose to open the matter to him gave Benton some hopes that he was not to be the victim, bub be looked forward to the coming night with desperate anxiety. He was afraid to remonstrate lest his doing so might be made the occasion of picking a quarrel with him, and bringing the catastrophe on his own head. He resolved that he would ke«jp awake, and further determined to bo protect himself with all hib surplus clothing that he would be in some degree impervious to.a sudden blow. He; would put handkerchiefs round his neck, fasten his sou-wester over his cap on his bead, and wear one thick coat over another. The other two men were.lying in the fore part of the boat unconscious of the plottings going on. Benton continued at intervals to scan the homon in the desperate hope that even in that eleventh hour the sight of land or the appearance of a sail might avert the impending catastrophe. Suddenly he became aware that cloae at hand a something broke the glassy monotony of the surface of the sea. Black, triangular, and pointed it rose above the surface, and slowly moved leaving scarcely a ripple behind it. A moment's observation sufficed to satisfy him. It was the dorsal tin of a prowling shark. At the first moment its appearance seemed a freah aggrivation of the situation. The sailor superstition which connects these ocean tigers with some impending tragedy, and ascribes to them an instinctive foreknowledge where to attend a certain pre-y, took possession of his mind. Shuddering he called the attention of the others to the .fin,-which continued to move about with a silent sugg( uiion of stealthy waiting. To men so hungry as that boat's crew, however, another fashion of considering this appearance could not long fail to suggest itself. Admitting that the shark counted on devouring them, they felt at least an equal anxiety to devour the shark. It was certain that however whetted his appetite might be, it could not be more hut-gry than they. Once seized with this idea, they eet themselves to oppose reason to instinct. They pitted themselves against the shark. The fish had by this time glided into the wake of the boat, and there remained stationary, as if in dogged attendance for the. time which would deliver them to its maw. The men in the boat, on their part, were stirred up Jo exertion.by the chance of something to eat. The harpoon was quickly attached to its line, and Boston JSed stood up for a chance to strike. The shark, however, steadily ; kept its distance. It became necessary to invent some means of bringing it closer. A big piece.of pork thrown into the water at the end of a line would no doubt have fetched it, but then they had no pork. They must try a live bait, and, in fact, be that bait themselves. The case was desperate and required desperate measures. Accordingly, Benton Beated himself on the gunwale, and . fished for shark with one of own legs. Tbe monster —it was 7ft long—was not long in perceiving the morsel; Two, of its pilot- fish made a prospecting expedition to: the leg, and went baok to report. ■They probably reported it lean, but worthy of attention, for their big employer ranged slowly up ■towards the boat. Thrice it approached, and thrice the .harpoon was poised in the air, but thrice it lost heart at the last moment and slunk back again to the . despair of the men in the boat. The fourth time it - seemed to have determined to venture. It came up with a rush, turned quickly on its side, and opened ..ts jaws to enclose the:-tempting morsel. - At that imoment the bait was briskly whisked out of the • water, and the harpoon launched- by Ned entered - deeply into its side. - The fish writhed, splashed, and . endeavored to dash away, but the line: held stoutly, > the prey was fast, and—the man in the stern dropped his razor. ■ . ■ : [Benton; and his companions afterwards reached one of the Solomon group, of Islands. The savages killed and ate the whole party except Benton, who was rescued after living on the island for eight yeara.]