"Can you only see one man, Martin; or are there any more with him, think you?" shouted Cavendish.
"Naw, zir," responded the old fellow; "as Ai zay, Ai can only zee one of "em, and "e do be a-carryin" on zumthing wonnerful, zir. "E be a-jumpin" up an" down, and a-wavin" of his arms laike to one possessed.
Ai expec"s as how un belaives us "aven"t zeen un, an" wants to attrac"
our attention."
"Very well, Martin," answered the captain; "stay where you are, man," as he perceived the old fellow making preparations to descend, "stay where you are. Keep a sharp lookout, and let me know if anything further takes place, or if any more men make their appearance.
"I expect, gentlemen," said the captain, turning to the a.s.sembled officers, "that there is only one man there; the others would have joined him by this time, had there been any more of them. In a way, I am sorry; for I could very well have done with a great many more men-- always provided, of course, that they had been Englishmen,--for we are, as you all know, very short-handed. This man is possibly the sole survivor of a shipwrecked crew; but, as there seems, so far as we can see at present, to be no trace of others being there, I should be more inclined to think that he has been marooned. Marooning is, of course, a very common practice, particularly among pirates, and, in my opinion, it is one of the most cruel forms of punishment ever conceived by the brain of man. Now, it has occurred to me as quite within the limits of possibility that this man ash.o.r.e there may be a marooned member of the crew of that scoundrel, Jose Leirya. It would not be so very extraordinary, after all, if he were. Leirya is practically the only pirate at present in these seas, and we are all aware that marooning is practised chiefly among pirates. Should it happen to be as I somewhat suspect, the man will, at all events, know something worth telling us about that arch villain; for I shall never be happy until I have hunted the scoundrel down, and hanged him for the dog he is!"
The captain"s face blazed with righteous anger as he spoke, and his expression was reflected on the countenances of the officers gathered round him. It boded ill indeed for the pirate if ever the squadron should fall in with him.
"Send a man into the chains," continued Cavendish, speaking to Roger.
"As the land lies so low in the water, it is not unlikely that the water round it is very shoal, and I have no wish to get any of the vessels ash.o.r.e if I can help it. And order the signalman to signal the rest of the fleet to keep the lead going."
Roger obeyed, and a leadsman was soon perched in the chains to windward, busy with his sounding-line to ascertain the depth of water in which they were then sailing, and to give timely warning if the water should begin to shoal dangerously.
"Seven fathoms now, sir!" reported Hearst, the leadsman.
"Very well," answered Cavendish; "we are safe as yet," turning to Leigh.
"Let her go through the water."
The other vessels were strung out behind the _Stag Royal_, and they fell into her wake for their greater safety; for she drew more water than any of the rest, being a much larger vessel, and where she could go the rest could follow. They were running along with a fresh breeze on their starboard beam, and making about six knots an hour. They were therefore rapidly nearing the island, and could by this time discern the solitary occupant from the deck. He still continued to wave the red shirt, or whatever it was, that they had at first seen, and it appeared as though even now he could scarcely convince himself that he had yet been seen, although the fleet was heading directly for the island, for he continued his wild gestures--leaping into the air, and waving his arms like one possessed.
"Six fathoms!" came the voice of the leadsman from the chains.
"We can stand in some way farther yet," commented Cavendish. "I want to take the ship in as near as I can, so that the men may not have far to pull in the boat. Furthermore, gentlemen, by the look of the sky, methinks that a gale is brewing, and it will be well that the boat get not too far away from the ship."
"Five and a half fathoms!" chanted the leadsman a few minutes later.
""Tis well. Still keep her going as she is," ordered the captain.
The people on deck could now see the poor solitary on the beach quite distinctly, and presently he came running down to the water"s edge, still waving his red flag; and so eager did he appear for rescue that it seemed as though he intended to swim off to the ships, for he waded into the sea up to his arm-pits.
"I pray Heaven that he does nothing so foolish!" murmured Roger, who still remembered his own experience with the sharks.
The unfortunate man had no such intention, it presently appeared; yet was he still in a sufficiently dangerous situation, for he stopped where he was with the water up round his shoulders, and continued waving his signal of distress.
"Five fathoms bare!" was the next report of the man with the sounding-line.
"We can edge in even a little farther yet," remarked the captain. "But I cannot understand," he continued, "why that man persists in acting so strangely. He must know by this time that we have seen him and will rescue him, yet he continues to signal with his arms and that red rag as though he were demented. It would not greatly surprise me to find, when we get him on board, that his brain has given way with the horror of solitude, suffering, and privation."
"By your leave, sir, it seems very much to me," suggested Roger, touching his hat, "as though the poor fellow were striving not so much to attract us nearer as to warn us to keep farther away."
"Why, boy, prithee what puts that idea into your head?" retorted the captain rather testily. "Why should he wish us to keep off? Surely if you were in his place you would be fully as anxious as he appears to be to have the rescuing ships approach and take you off without delay?"
"What I meant to suggest, Mr Cavendish," responded Roger rather stiffly, and not one whit abashed by his commander"s testiness, "was that perchance this man knows the shoals and rocks round the island well. He may perceive that we are sailing into danger, and wish to warn us from approaching any closer before it be too late."
"Zounds, boy!" shouted Cavendish, ""fore Heaven I believe that you may be right in your a.s.sumption!"
Then, turning to the crew: "All hands stand by to veer ship!" he cried.
But even as he spoke there was a sudden check to the vessel"s way, and almost instantly she stopped dead, the sudden shock throwing more than one man prostrate on the deck. At the same moment the leadsman in the chains gave his warning cry: "Three fathoms only, and shoaling fast!"
But the warning came too late, for the vessel had taken the ground, which evidently shoaled up with great abruptness. Her fore, main, and mizzen topmasts snapped like carrots with the sudden check to her speed, and came tumbling down with their attendant wreckage, thus adding to the already great confusion on deck, and, what was worse, killing two men, whom they could ill spare, and badly injuring five others.
"You were right, Roger!" shouted the captain as he ran past the lad to the stern of the vessel, with intent to warn the other ships from a similar mishap. But the warning was needless, for they had been on the lookout, and, observing the accident to their consort, had at once hauled their wind and gone off on another tack in time to avoid a similar fate. When at a safe distance they luffed into the wind and, furling their canvas, came to anchor.
Cavendish, seeing that the remainder of his little squadron was safe, ordered the wreckage to be cut adrift and the decks cleared for further operations.
"Work away with a will, lads!" he cried encouragingly.
"The ship has taken a soft berth; she lies on the sand, and there is no present danger of her sinking; indeed we are in much too shoal water for that. Mr Leigh, we must get the wreckage cleared away first of all, after which we will get out kedge anchors astern; and if these fail us we will run out cables to the other vessels. Perchance we may thus get ourselves off by our own hauling and the others towing. But we must all work with a will; for, as all may see, there is in the look of the sky every prospect of ill weather very shortly, and if it take us ash.o.r.e like this we shall lose the ship! Now, Roger, take you two hands in the gig--I cannot spare more--and bring off that poor fellow. I would that we had earlier understood what he meant; it would have saved us this disaster. And hasten, lad, for I cannot spare even three of you for a single moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Yet must I have that man, for he may possess information of untold worth to us. And you, Mr Leigh, will take two hands also, and go off to the other vessels. You will acquaint them with our condition, and give them their orders to prepare for towing, and to be ready by the moment when we can avail ourselves of their help, for we have no time to waste."
Roger soon found his two men, and the boat was got ready and over the side in a very few minutes; yet, quick as he had been, he perceived as he pushed off that Mr Leigh"s boat was already some distance on her way to the other ships.
"Now, give way, men, with a will!" cried the lad, encouragingly. "You heard what Mr Cavendish said--there is not a moment to lose if we are to get that man off, and the ship too, ere the gale breaks. And indeed I like not the look of the weather at all. It fast grows more threatening, and we shall be lucky if we get back to the fleet in time.
Furthermore, I fear much that there will not be time to save the poor old _Stag Royal_: she is, to my mind, hopelessly lost, for, if appearance belie it not, the gale will be down on us ere they can hope to move her off the sand; and I pray G.o.d that the poor fellows on board her may be able to get away from her in time. Ah, the wind comes away even now! Pull, lads, pull, or we shall be swamped ere we can get ash.o.r.e!"
As he spoke, the whole sky seemed to darken in a moment all round them; the sea took on the appearance of dull metal and became of a livid hue.
Away on the north-western horizon the sky was black as ink, and below that, between sky and wave, was a line of white extending athwart the horizon, showing the forefront of the advancing gale.
"Pull, lads, pull!" again shouted Roger, raising his voice above the deep moaning sound that filled the air everywhere about them. "Unless we can contrive to reach the sh.o.r.e before that line of white, you know what our fate will be. We shall have to wait until the gale blows over before we can return to the ships, if indeed they survive it."
The seamen saw that what Roger said was only too true, and pulled for dear life; but the boat was a heavy one, her full complement of oarsmen being eight. Now, however, she had only two men pulling; they therefore made painfully slow progress, and the white line of water seemed to be overtaking them at a speed that filled them with despair.
Meanwhile Roger noticed that the solitary watcher on the beach had now left the water, and was lying at full-length on the sand as though overcome by his exertions, weakened as perhaps he was by long exposure and privation.
The lad felt extremely anxious as to the fate of the ships, and frequently turned his head to s.n.a.t.c.h a glimpse of what was happening behind him. He was able to see, during his brief observations, that boats had been lowered from the stranded ship, and from her consorts, and were plying at their utmost speed between the wreck and the other vessels of the squadron. It was evident to Roger that the captain, observing the extraordinarily rapid approach of the gale, and foreseeing that, unless a miracle were to take place, the stranded ship must be lost, had not delayed a moment, but was transferring her crew to the other ships as fast as he possibly could. Roger fervently prayed that this operation of transfer might be completed ere the storm burst upon them; but he was very doubtful, for that fatal white line of foam was driving down upon the fleet with appalling rapidity.
But he could not relax his attention from the matter that he himself had in hand. He could not watch what was going on behind him and also steer the boat; so he set his teeth and gripped the tiller hard, looking straight ahead of him in search of the best and safest spot on which to beach his boat, for the sea was rising fast. He would have given much to have had his bosom friend and more than brother, Harry, in the boat with him at that moment. He could always rely on Harry"s coolness and sound clear-headed advice, and he would have felt much less anxious had his chum been with him then.
The man on sh.o.r.e was now seen to stagger to his feet and to support himself with a stick, alternately pointing out to sea and beckoning them on. But neither Roger nor the men with him now needed anyone to remind them of the peril in which they stood.
They were nearing the beach now, but meanwhile the sea had been rising with almost incredible rapidity. When they left the ship the sea had been calm, with not even a ripple lapping the beach. There had been the proverbial calm before the storm. But now, although the gale had not yet reached the boat, the waves were leaping up the beach in foam, and their back-wash gave forth a roar like that of distant thunder. Roger yearned to look behind him again, to ascertain how far away the white squall still was, but he dared not turn his head; all his nerve and skill and courage were now needed to enable him to beach the boat without capsizing her. One glance at the faces of the men pulling, who of course were sitting looking aft in the direction from which the storm was coming, was enough to convince him that it could not be by this time very far distant. They were now within a few fathoms of the beach, and Roger, for the first time, dared to hope that they would reach the sh.o.r.e without any mishap, when he observed his two seamen redouble their exertions, with a look of terror on their countenances, although they were very nearly "gastados" as the Dons say, or used up, and the next moment, with a fearful shriek, the white squall burst in all its fury upon the unhappy trio. The boat seemed suddenly to take wings; she was propelled with fearful velocity towards the beach; the spindrift whistled about them and blinded them; the shriek and roar of the wind deafened them, and its fearful force stunned them. The seamen were blown bodily from the thwarts into the bottom of the boat; but Roger, clinging desperately to the gunwale with one hand, and fiercely gripping the tiller with the other, contrived to retain his seat, and strove to pierce the dense mist of scud-water with his eyes, that he might see to beach the boat safely. But he could perceive nothing, and the next moment a wave descended full upon his back, dashing him forward and out over the bows. The tiller thus released, the boat broached to, filled, and capsized, and her three occupants were left struggling in the water and fighting for their lives, while the craft was flung bottom-upward on the beach and dashed into staves by the violence of the shock. Tossed hither and thither, to and fro, Roger strove to get his breath; but he could not, for he seemed buried in salt water; and he was suffering all the agonies of suffocation when his head emerged for a moment from the water and he drew a hasty breath that seemed to put fresh strength into his fast-failing limbs. Yet, strive against it as he would, although he felt the beach under his feet, they were fast being dragged from under him; he was in the clutch of the fatal undertow, and he knew that, exhausted as he was, if he were once swept back again into deep water he would drown, for his strength was now at an end. Summoning up all his energy, therefore, he gave vent to a loud shout for help--although help seemed to be the last thing he might expect at that moment--and made one last struggle for life. But, even as his senses failed him, and he was sinking backward in that fatal embrace, a pair of strong hands clutched his hair and arm, and for a few seconds he felt as though, between the sea on the one hand and a st.u.r.dy British seaman on the other, he were being torn asunder. Presently, however, the wave receded; the awful feeling of being sucked back left him, and, opening his eyes, he saw that he was on terra firma, with the sea behind him. "Now run," shouted the seaman--one Jake Irwin, who had been in the boat with him,--"run, Master Trevose, before the next sea catches ye." At the same time he dragged the lad up the beach with all his strength, and they reached safety as another wave came rolling hungrily after them, to retire again with an angry snarl, as though cheated of its lawful prey. Roger stood up and wiped the wet from his eyes and ears, and wrung the water out of his clothes as well as he could, and looked about him. He saw the two seamen--one of whom had rescued him, only just in the nick of time, from a watery grave--standing close by; and not far from them he perceived the figure of the man whom they had come to rescue, and for whom they had so nearly met disaster. The seamen who had rowed in the boat seemed none the worse for their adventure, and asked the lad how he felt, and whether he had suffered from the accident to the boat. Roger, aching in every limb and muscle from his recent struggle in the water, felt himself carefully over, and was able to a.s.sure them that he had broken no bones.
The stranger now approached and spoke to them, thanking them and applauding their bravery in coming away to save him, despite the threat of the gale that was by this time raging furiously. The man, it appeared, was an Englishman, and, in answer to a question put by Roger, he confessed that, as the captain had suggested on the deck of the flag-ship, he had been one of a crew of pirates, and, having incurred the displeasure of his captain and the enmity of his companions, had been marooned on the sand-bank with but a small stock of provisions and no means of obtaining more when those were exhausted; he had been allowed neither fishing-tackle nor musket with powder and shot, although the latter would not have been of very much use to him, for the island was small and so far away from the mainland that birds very seldom made their appearance there. It appeared that he had been on the sand-bank some thirty-six days, with the few provisions that they had been moved to give him, and nothing else beside but the clothing he stood up in.
"But," concluded the poor fellow, who was emaciated and weak to the last degree, "I have made a bit of a shelter to leeward of the top of this bank; let us go there, since even it is better than nothing at all.
Your boat"s smashed to pieces on the beach, and we shall be forced to remain here until the storm blows itself out before they can send another boat. I pray that it may not be long in doing so, for, although there is water here in plenty, my provisions are pitifully low; in fact, for the four of us, there is only enough for about two days with the strictest economy. But come round to my shelter and I will make some fire, so that you can get your clothes dried, and you will then be a bit more comfortable."
They were turning to follow their new friend, when Roger once more cast his eyes out to seaward, and he came to a stand-still, remaining as if rooted to the spot. The others gazed at him for a moment in astonishment, not knowing what had come over the lad. As they looked, however, he raised his arm slowly and pointed to seaward; the other three, following the direction of his outstretched arm, at once saw the reason for the horror and despair depicted on the lad"s countenance.
The flag-ship, which they had left stranded, lay broken in half by the terrific force of the sea, and the after-part of her was now being gradually driven sh.o.r.eward, the fore-part remaining, as before, embedded in the sand; and, worse still for the poor castaways, the remaining three ships of the fleet had cut their cables and, setting what sail they dared, were heading away from the island before the gale. No wonder that Roger felt stunned with despair, as he realised that he was actually left on an island that was nothing more than a mere sand-bank, with three other men to bear him company, it is true, but with, between the four, only two days" provisions, provided that they were used with the most rigid economy!
But he was roused from his reverie by Jake"s voice saying to him: "Never worry, Master Trevose, they ships ha"n"t forgotten us by no manner o"
means; but the skipper sees as how he can"t take us off while this "ere gale lasts, so he"s cut his cables and run for it. The captain have lost one ship, and he don"t want to lose any more, so he"ve just bore up out of harm"s way until the gale have blowed itself out. And that, sir, with all submission, I calls good seamanship. Never you fear, sir; we ain"t forgotten; the skipper ain"t the man to forget his crew, nor no part of "em; and as soon as this "ere bit of a breeze is over, you"ll see they three ships come sailin" back here to this sand-bank to take us off again. I knows Captain Cavendish, I do, and he ain"t the man to forget we"s here, and sail away and leave us. We"ll see "em all back here to-morrow, or next day at the furdest. But I"m wonderin" whether there were any poor fellers left aboard the _Stag Royal_ when she parted in the middle!" And old Jake Irwin looked round, shading his eyes from the flying spindrift, to see if he could discover any trace of human being either in the sea or washed up on the beach. But none was visible.
"Yes, you are right, Jake," said Roger. "I forgot for the moment that Captain Cavendish would be obliged to leave that anchorage or be blown on sh.o.r.e. But the captain will, of course, return as soon as he is able. As to there being any people aboard when the ship parted, Jake, I think all were taken off before that happened. And now, since we can do no more for the present, we had better go and take shelter as this man suggests. By the way, my man, what is your name?"
"My name, sir, is William Evans," replied the marooned man.