"Oh! if a storm should arise, then am I lost indeed!"
Every now and then was I pained with such an apprehension.
True, the probabilities were in my favour. It was the fair month of May, and the morning of that day one of the finest I had ever seen. In any other month, a storm would have been more regular; but there are storms even in May, and weather that on sh.o.r.e may seem smiling and bright, is, for all that, windy and gusty upon the bosom of the broad sea, and causes destruction to many a fine ship. Moreover, it did not need to be a hurricane; far less than an ordinary gale would be sufficient to overwhelm me, or sweep me from the precarious footing upon which I stood.
Another apprehension troubled me: my cairn was far too loosely put together. I had not attempted to make any building of the thing; there was not time for that. The stones had been hurled or huddled on top of one another, just as they dropped out of my hands; and as I set my feet upon them I felt they were far from firm. What if they should not prove enough so to resist the current of the returning tide, or the lashing of the waves? Should they not, then indeed I had laboured in vain. Should they fall, I must fall with them, never again to rise!
No wonder that this added another to the many doubts I had to endure; and as I thought upon such a mischance occurring, I again looked eagerly outward, and ran my eyes in every direction over the surface of the bay, only, as on every other occasion, to meet with sad disappointment.
For a long time I remained in the exact position I had first a.s.sumed-- that is with my arm thrown round the signal-staff, and hugging it as if it were a dear friend. True, it was the only friend I had then; but for it an attempt to have built the cairn would have been vain. Even could I have raised it to the full height, it is neither likely that it would have stood the water or that I could have held my position upon it.
Without the staff to hold on to, I could not have balanced my body on its top.
This position, then, I kept, almost without moving a muscle of my body.
I dreaded even to change my feet from one stone to another lest the movement might shake the pile and cause it to tumble down, and I knew that if once down, there would be no chance to build it up again. The time was past for that. The water all around the base of the staff was now beyond my depth. I could not have moved a step without swimming.
I pa.s.sed most of the time in gazing over the water; though I did not move my body, I kept constantly turning my neck. Now looking before, then behind, then to both sides, and the next moment repeating these observations, until I had scanned the surface for the fiftieth time, without sight of boat or ship to reward me. At intervals I watched the returning tide, and the huge waves as they rolled towards me over the reef, coming home from their far wanderings. They appeared angry, and growled at me as they pa.s.sed, as if to chide and scold me for being there. What was I, weak mortal, doing in this their own peculiar home-- this ground that was the chosen spot for their wild play? I even fancied that they talked to me. I grew dizzy as I watched them, and felt as if I should swoon away and melt into their dark flood.
I saw them rising higher and higher, until they swept over the top of my cairn, and covered my feet resting on it; higher still and yet higher, till I felt them lipping against my knees. O! when will they stay?
When will they cease to come on?
Not yet--not yet--higher! higher! till I stand up to the waist in the briny flood, and even above that the spray washes around me--against my face--over my shoulders--into my mouth, and eyes, and ears-- half-stifling me, half-drowning me! O merciful Father!
The water had reached its height, and I was almost overwhelmed by it; but with desperate tenacity of life I held out, closely clinging to the signal-shaft. For a very long time I held on, and, had no change occurred, I might have been able to keep my place till the morning; but a change was near, and one that placed me in greater peril than ever.
Night came on; and, as if this had been a signal for my destruction, the wind increased almost to a gale. The clouds had been scowling throughout the twilight, as if threatening rain, which now fell in torrents--the wind, as it were, bringing the rain along with it. I perceived that the waves were every moment rising higher, and one or two large ones now swept almost over me. So great was their strength that I was scarcely able to resist it, and came very near being swept away.
I was now full of fear. I saw that should the breakers grow larger, I could not hold out against them, but must succ.u.mb. Even as they were, it was doubtful whether my strength would hold out.
The last great wave that struck me had somewhat altered my foothold upon the stones, and it was necessary for me to recover it, or fix myself still better. For this purpose I raised my body a little by my arms, and was feeling about with my foot for the most elevated point of my battery, when another huge wave came rushing along, and whipping both my feet off the stones, carried them out from the shaft. I held on with both arms, and for some moments hung almost horizontally upon the water, until the wave had pa.s.sed. Then permitting my feet to drop down, I felt once more for the support of the cairn. I touched the stones, but only touched them. As soon as a pound of my weight rested upon them, I felt the cairn crumbling beneath my feet, as if it had melted suddenly away; and, no longer able to sustain myself, I glided down the staff, and sank after the scattered pile to the bottom of the sea!
CHAPTER TWELVE.
HUGGING THE STAFF.
Fortunately for me I had learnt to swim, and I was a tolerably good hand at it. It was the most useful accomplishment I could have possessed at that moment; and but for it I should have been drowned on the instant.
Diving, too, I could do a little at, else the ducking I then received would have discomfited me a good deal; for I went quite to the bottom among the ugly black stones.
I stayed there not a moment longer than I could help, but mounted back to the surface like a duck; and then, rising upon the wave, looked around me. My object in so doing was to get sight of the signal-staff, and with the spray driving in my eyes this was not so easy. Just like a water-dog searching for some object in the water, I had to turn twice or thrice before I saw it; for I was uncertain in which direction to look for it, so completely had the sudden plunge blinded me and blunted my senses.
I got my eyes upon it at length; not within reach, as might have been expected; but many yards off, quite twenty, I should think! Wind and tide had been busy with me; and had I left them to themselves for ten minutes more, they would have carried me to a point from which I should never have been able to swim back.
As soon as I espied the post I struck directly for it--not indeed that I very clearly knew what I should do when I got there, but urged on with a sort of instinct that something might interfere in my favour. I was acting just as men act when in danger of being drowned. I was catching at straws. I need not say that I was cool: you would not believe me, nor would there be a word of truth in it, for I was far from cool in the moral sense of the word, whatever I might be personally and physically.
On the contrary, I was frightened nearly out of my senses; and had just enough left to direct me back to the post, though this might only have been instinct. But no, something more than instinct; for I had at the same time a keen and rational sense of the unpleasant fact, that when I should arrive at the post, I might be not a bit nearer to _safety_. I had no fear about being able to reach the staff. I had confidence enough in my natatory powers to make me easy on that score. It was only when I thought of the little help I should find there, that my apprehensions were keen, and this I was thinking of all the while I was in the water.
I could easily have climbed the staff as far as the cask, but no farther. To get to the top was beyond my power; one of those difficulties which even the fear of death cannot overcome. I had tried it till I was tired of trying; in short, till I saw I could not do it.
Could I only have accomplished that feat, I might have done so before, for I took it for granted that on that high perch I should have been safe, and the nine-gallon barrel would have been large enough to have given me a seat where I might without difficulty have weathered the storm.
Another reason there was why it would have been the best place for me.
Had I succeeded in mounting up there before nightfall, some one upon the sh.o.r.e might have noticed me, and then the adventure would have ended without all this peril. I even thought at the time of those things, and while clambering up the shaft entertained hopes that some one might observe me. I afterwards learned that some one did--more than one-- idlers along sh.o.r.e; but not knowing who it was, and very naturally believing that some Sabbath-breaking boys had gone out to the reef to amuse themselves--part of that amus.e.m.e.nt being to "swarm" up the signal-staff--I was set down as one of those, and no farther notice was taken of me.
I could not have continued to go up the staff. It speedily tired me out; besides, as soon as I perceived the necessity for erecting the platform, I needed every second of the time that was left me for that work.
All the above thoughts did not pa.s.s through my mind while I was in the water struggling back to the staff, though some of them did. I thought of the impossibility of climbing up above the barrel--that was clear to me; and I thought also of what I should do when I reached the post, and that was not clear to me. I should be able to lay hold upon the staff, as I had done before, but how I was to retain my hold was the unsolved problem. And it remained so, till I had got up and seized the staff, and indeed for a good while after.
Well, I reached the pole at length, after a great deal of buffetting, having the wind and tide, and even the rain in my teeth. But I reached it, and flung my arms around it as if it had been some dear old friend.
Nor was it aught else. Had it not been for that brave stick, I might as well have stayed at the bottom.
Having clutched hold of it, I felt for some moments almost as if I had been saved. I experienced no great difficulty in keeping my limbs afloat so long as I had such a support for my arms, though the work was irksome enough.
Had the sea been perfectly calm I could have stood it for a long time; perhaps till the tide had gone out again, and this would have been all I could have desired. But the sea was not calm, and that altered the case. There had been a short lull with the smoother sea just as I returned to the staff, and even this was a fortunate circ.u.mstance, as it gave me time to rest and recover my breath.
Only a short respite it was, and then came wind and rain and rough seas--rougher than ever. I was first lifted up nearly to the barrel, and then let down again with a pitch, and then for some minutes was kept swinging about--the staff serving as a pivot--like some wonderful acrobat performing his feats in a gymnasium.
I withstood the first shock, and though it bowled me about, I held on manfully. I knew I was holding on for my life, and "needs must;" but I had slight reason to be satisfied. I felt how near it was to taking me, and I had gloomy forebodings about the result. Worse might come after, and I knew that a few struggles like this last would soon wear me out.
What, then, could I do that would enable me to hold on? In the interval between the great seas, this was my ruling thought. If I had only been possessed of a rope, I could have tied myself to the staff; but then a rope was as far away as a boat, or an easy chair by my uncle"s fireside.
It was no use thinking of a rope, nor did I waste time in doing so; but just at that moment, as if some good spirit had put the idea into my head, I thought of something as good as a rope--a _subst.i.tute_. Yes, the very thing came up before my mind, as though Providence had guided me to think of it.
You are impatient to hear what it was. You shall hear.
Around my arms and shoulders I wore a garment familiarly known as a "cord jacket"--a roundabout of corduroy cloth, such as boys in the humbler ranks of life use to wear, or did when I was a boy. It was my everyday suit, and after my poor mother"s death it had come to be my Sunday wear as well. Let us say nothing to disparage this jacket. I have since then been generally a well-dressed man, and have worn broadcloth of the finest that West of England looms could produce; but all the wardrobe I ever had would not in one bundle weigh as much in my estimation as that corduroy jacket. I think I may say that I owe my life to it.
Well, the jacket chanced to have a good row of b.u.t.tons upon it--not the common horn, or bone, or flimsy lead ones, such as are worn nowadays, but good, substantial metal b.u.t.tons--as big as a shilling every way, and with strong iron eyes in them. Well was it for me they were so good and strong.
I had the jacket upon my person, and that, too, was a chance in my favour, for just as like I might not have had it on. When I started to overtake the boat, I had thrown off both jacket and trousers; but on my return from that expedition, and before I had got as badly scared as I became afterwards, I had drawn my clothes on again. The air had turned rather chilly all of a sudden, and this it was that influenced me to re-robe myself. All a piece of good fortune, as you will presently perceive.
What use, then, did I make of the jacket? Tear it up into strips, and with these tie myself to the staff? No. That might have been done, but it would have been rather a difficult performance for a person swimming in a rough sea, and having but one hand free to make a knot with. It would even have been out of my power to have taken the jacket off my body, for the wet corduroy was clinging to my skin as if it had been glued there. I did not do this, then; but I followed out a plan that served my purpose as well--perhaps better. I opened wide my jacket, laid my breast against the signal-staff, and, meeting the loose flaps on the other side, b.u.t.toned them from bottom to top.
Fortunately the jacket was wide enough to take in all. My uncle never did me a greater favour in his life--though I did not think so at the time--than when he made me wear an ugly corduroy jacket that was "miles too big" for me.
When the b.u.t.toning was finished, I had a moment to rest and reflect--the first for a long while.
So far as being washed away was concerned, I had no longer anything to fear. The post itself might go, but not without me, or I without it.
From that time forward I was as much part of the signal-staff as the barrel at its top--indeed, more, I fancy--for a ship"s hawser would not have bound me faster to it than did the flaps of that strong corduroy.
Had the keeping close to the signal-staff been all that was wanted I should have done well enough, but, alas! I was not yet out of danger; and it was not long ere I perceived that my situation was but little improved. Another vast breaker came rolling over the reef, and washed quite over me. In fact, I began to think that I was worse fixed than ever; for in trying to fling myself upward as the wave rose, I found that my fastening impeded me, and hence the complete ducking that I received. When the wave pa.s.sed on, I was still in my place; but what advantage would this be? I should soon be smothered by such repeated immersions. I should lose strength to hold up, and would then slide down to the bottom of the staff, and be drowned all the same--although it might be said that I had "died by the standard!"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
A STATE OF "SUSPENSE."
I had not lost presence of mind as yet, but once more set about considering how I might be able to keep above water. I could easily slide up the staff without taking out a single b.u.t.ton; but once up, how could I remain there? I should certainly come slipping down again. Oh!
that there was only a notch--a knot--a nail--if I only had a knife to make a nick; but knot, notch, nail, knife, nick--all were alike denied me. Stay! I was wrong, decidedly wrong. I remembered just then that while attempting to get over the barrel, I had noticed that the staff just under it was smaller than elsewhere. It had been f.l.a.n.g.ed off at the top, as if to make a point upon it, and upon this point was placed the barrel, or rather a portion of the top was inserted into the end of the barrel.