HOME-COMING AND UNEXPECTED SURPRISES.
Upwards of another year pa.s.sed away, and at the end of that time a ship might have been seen approaching one of the harbours on the eastern seaboard of America. Her sails were worn and patched. Her spars were broken and spliced. Her rigging was ragged and slack, and the state of her hull can be best described by the word `battered." Everything in and about her bore evidence of a prolonged and hard struggle with the elements, and though she had at last come off victorious, her dilapidated appearance bore strong testimony to the deadly nature of the fight.
Her crew presented similar evidence. Not only were their garments ragged, threadbare, and patched, but the very persons of the men seemed to have been riven and battered by the tear and wear of the conflict.
And no wonder; for the vessel was a South Sea whaler, returning home after a three years" cruise.
At first she had been blown far out of her course; then she was very successful in the fishing, and then she was stranded on the reef of a coral island in such a position that, though protected from absolute destruction by the fury of the waves, she could not be got off for many months. At last the ingenuity and perseverance of one of her crew were rewarded by success. She was hauled once more into deep water and finally returned home.
The man who had been thus successful in saving the ship, and probably the lives of his mates--for it was a desolate isle, far out of the tracks of commerce--was standing in the bow of the vessel, watching the sh.o.r.e with his companions as they drew near. He was a splendid specimen of manhood, clad in a red shirt and canvas trousers, while a wide-awake took the place of the usual seafaring cap. He stood head and shoulders above his fellows.
Just as the ship rounded the end of the pier, which formed one side of the harbour, a small boat shot out from it. A little boy sculled the boat, and, apparently, had been ignorant of the ship"s approach, for he gave a shout of alarm on seeing it, and made frantic efforts to get out of its way. In his wild attempts to turn the boat he missed a stroke and went backwards into the sea.
At the same moment the lookout on the ship gave the order to put the helm hard a-starboard in a hurried shout.
Prompt obedience caused the ship to sheer off a little, and her side just grazed the boat. All hands on the forecastle gazed down anxiously for the boy"s reappearance.
Up he came next moment with a bubbling cry and clutching fingers.
"He can"t swim!" cried one.
"Out with a lifebelt!" shouted another.
Our tall seaman bent forward as they spoke, and, just as the boy sank a second time, he shot like an arrow into the water.
"He"s all safe now," remarked a seaman quietly, and with a nod of satisfaction, even before the rescuer had reappeared.
And he was right. The red-shirted sailor rose a moment later with the boy in his arms. Chucking the urchin into the boat he swam to the pier-head with the smooth facility and speed of an otter, climbed the wooden piles with the ease of an athlete, walked rapidly along the pier, and arrived at the head of the harbour almost as soon as his own ship.
"That"s the tenth life he"s saved since he came aboard--to say nothin"
o" savin" the ship herself," remarked the Captain to an inquirer, after the vessel had reached her moorings. "An" none o" the lives was as easy to manage as that one. Some o" them much harder."
We will follow this magnificent seaman for a time, good reader.
Having obtained permission to quit the South Sea whaler he walked straight to the office of a steam shipping company, and secured a fore-cabin pa.s.sage to England. He went on board dressed as he had arrived, in the red shirt, ducks, and wide-awake--minus the salt water.
The only piece of costume which he had added to his wardrobe was a huge double-breasted pilot-cloth coat, with b.u.t.tons the size of an egg-cup.
He was so unused, however, to such heavy clothing that he flung it off the moment he got on board the steamer, and went about thereafter in his red flannel shirt and ducks. Hence he came to be known by every one as Red Shirt.
This man, with his dark-blue eyes, deeply bronzed cheeks, fair hair, moustache, and beard, and tall herculean form, was nevertheless so soft and gentle in his manners, so ready with his smile and help and sympathy, that every man, woman, and child in the vessel adored him before the third day was over. Previous to that day, many of the pa.s.sengers, owing to internal derangements, were incapable of any affection, except self-love, and to do them justice they had not much even of that!
Arrived at Liverpool, Red Shirt, after seeing a poor invalid pa.s.senger safely to his abode in that city, and a.s.sisting one or two families with young children to find the stations, boats, or coaches that were more or less connected with their homes, got into a third-cla.s.s carriage for London. On reaching the metropolis he at once took a ticket for _Sealford_.
Just as the train was on the point of starting, two elderly gentlemen came on the platform, in that eager haste and confusion of mind characteristic of late pa.s.sengers.
"This way, Captain," cried one, hailing the other, and pointing energetically with his brown silk umbrella to the Sealford carriages.
"No, no. It"s at the next platform," returned the Captain frantically.
"I say it is _here_," shouted the first speaker sternly. "Come, sir, obey orders!"
They both made for an open carriage-door. It chanced to be a third cla.s.s. A strong hand was held out to a.s.sist them in.
"Thank you," said the eldest elderly gentleman--he with the brown silk umbrella--turning to Red Shirt as he sat down and panted slightly.
"I feared that we"d be late, sir," remarked the other elderly gentleman on recovering breath.
"We are _not_ late, Captain, but we should have been late for certain, if your obstinacy had held another half minute."
"Well, Mr Crossley, I admit that I made a mistake about the place, but you must allow that I made no mistake about the hour. I was sure that my chronometer was right. If there"s one thing on earth that I can trust to as reg"lar as the sun, it is this chronometer (pulling it out as he spoke), and it never fails. As I always said to my missus, `Maggie," I used to say, `when you find this chronometer fail--" `Oh!
bother you an" your chronometer," she would reply, takin" the wind out o" my sails--for my missus has a free-an"-easy way o" doin" that--"
"You"ve just come off a voyage, young sir, if I mistake not," said Crossley, turning to Red Shirt, for he had quite as free-and-easy a way of taking the wind out of Captain Stride"s sails as the "missus."
"Yes; I have just returned," answered Red Shirt, in a low soft voice, which scarcely seemed appropriate to his colossal frame. His red garment, by the way, was at the time all concealed by the pilot-coat, excepting the collar.
"Going home for a spell, I suppose?" said Crossley.
"Yes."
"May I ask where you last hailed from?" said Captain Stride, with some curiosity, for there was something in the appearance of this nautical stranger which interested him.
"From the southern seas. I have been away a long while in a South Sea whaler."
"Ah, indeed?--a rough service that."
"Rather rough; but I didn"t enter it intentionally. I was picked up at sea, with some of my mates, in an open boat, by the whaler. She was on the outward voyage, and couldn"t land us anywhere, so we were obliged to make up our minds to join as hands."
"Strange!" murmured Captain Stride. "Then you were wrecked somewhere-- or your ship foundered, mayhap--eh?"
"Yes, we were wrecked--on a coral reef."
"Well now, young man, that is a strange coincidence. I was wrecked myself on a coral reef in the very same seas, nigh three years ago.
Isn"t that odd?"
"Dear me, this is very interesting," put in Mr Crossley; "and, as Captain Stride says, a somewhat strange coincidence."
"_Is_ it so very strange, after all," returned Red Shirt, "seeing that the Pacific is full of sunken coral reefs, and vessels are wrecked there more or less every year?"
"Well, there"s some truth in that," observed the Captain. "Did you say it was a sunk reef your ship struck on?"
"Yes; quite sunk. No part visible. It was calm weather at the time, and a clear night."
"Another coincidence!" exclaimed Stride, becoming still more interested.
"Calm and clear, too, when I was wrecked!"
"Curious," remarked Red Shirt in a cool indifferent tone, that began to exasperate the Captain.
"Yet, after all, there are a good many calm and clear nights in the Pacific, as well as coral reefs."
"Why, young man," cried Stride in a tone that made old Crossley smile, "you seem to think nothing at all of coincidences. It"s very seldom-- almost never--that one hears of so many coincidences happening on _this_ side o" the line all at once--don"t you see."