The Wreck of the Nancy Bell

"The Wreck of the Nancy Bell" (continued 6)

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In fact it was more so, for, the accumulated water, proceeding from the thaw and the rain, which came every now and then to aid it, had swelled the fresh-water tarn near them so greatly that it had overflowed its banks, which now extended on the right to the base of the furthest hills at the head of the valley that penetrated the creek; while, to the left, the water was pouring down, a foaming torrent, into the sea—the house being almost surrounded and separated by the newly-made river from the little building in which the jolly-boat had been housed on the beach.

They were thus threatened with a flood, for the water was rising every moment and slowly creeping up to their feet, narrowing the little peninsula on which their habitation stood.

That was not the worst either!

While they were pondering as to the best means for extricating themselves from the danger of being washed away, a new one arose.

Through the melting of the snow on the mountains above, a sparkling cascade commenced all at once to leap down the face of the cliff at the back of the house, right on to the roof over their heads.

This was serious; for, should this peril not be guarded against and some sort of pent-house put up as a shield, the slight timber work of the roof would soon be crushed in and swept away by the ever-increasing weight of the falling water.

In the midst of these imminent dangers, a phenomenon occurred which for the moment appalled everybody, not even excepting Mr Meldrum—it was so strange, so awe-inspiring!

It commenced snowing again; but there was nothing unusual in that. What was unusual was, that the flakes which fell, instead of being white, were as black as ink!

What could the awful portent foretell?

It was inexplicable.

Chapter Thirty.

An Apparition!

“Goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Mrs Major Negus in accents of genuine terror, “the world’s coming to an end!” and she sank down in a heap on the ground, close to the door of the general room, where she had been standing uncertain whether to go out or in.

There was ample reason for the good lady’s consternation, for danger seemed staring her in the face in either direction.

On the one hand, the flood in the valley appeared approaching as if to swallow up the hut and all its belongings; while, on the other, the deafening noise of the water pouring down from the cliff above on to the roof made everybody feel impelled to quit the house.

Mary Llewellyn, the stewardess, generally a quiet and retiring person, was driven into a fit of hysterics by the concatenation of horrors that all at once surrounded them.

As for the children, they shared the fright of their elders, Florry clinging convulsively to Kate, who had dropped on her knees and was praying in the corner—believing really that the last supreme moment was at hand.

The men, too—they had been hastily called together the moment the dangerous predicament of the roof was noticed, and had begun to knock together a sort of wooden shield to interpose between the cliff and the top of the house, so that the water might rim over it in the fashion of a spout—stopped in their task with one accord, staring as if bewildered at each other the moment the terrible black snow began to fall from the sombre pall-like clouds which hung over the creek. This was immediately after the cascade of water came down the cliff; and so frightened were they, that not one of them uttered a word, nor did Mr McCarthy, who had summoned them together, urge them on with their work. All remained spell-bound and tongue-tied.

“It air orfull,” said Mr Lathrope, drawing a deep breath, and looking up at the sky as if to peer into its mysteries. “I guess I never seed such a fall before—no, nor nobody else in the land of the living!”

No one answered him, however; for, at that moment, there was a strange concussion in the air, the earth shaking beneath their feet, and they were all thrown to the ground. At the same time, the black flakes descended faster and faster as if to bury them, and some of the men, imitating the example of the women, cried out in positive alarm.

Mr Meldrum was the first to recover his self-command.

“Silence!” he shouted, making his powerful voice heard above the chorus of groans and shrieks that arose from the frightened men and screaming women. “It’s only an earthquake; and God will protect us here against the perils of the land, the same as he did through the tempests of the deep! Let us meet what may be in store for us with the courage of brave men and faith of Christians!”

His words at once checked the tumult—even the stewardess and Mrs Negus hushing down their wailing outcry to an occasional moan or faint muffled sob, which they could not quite stifle; but the strange rocking motion of the ground, which seemed as if they were again on shipboard, prevented the yen from at once regaining their feet, only a few being able to scramble up into an erect position by holding on to the supports of the house, which fortunately stood the shock of the subterranean commotion without giving way.

“The worst is past now,” said Mr Meldrum presently, as the throbs of the earthquake grew less and less potent and the quivering sensation, which appeared to jingle through every nerve in their bodies, died away into a faint rumbling in the distance, that finally disappeared a few seconds afterwards—the whole thing not lasting longer than a minute altogether, although it seemed more than an hour to the terror-stricken people. “I don’t think we’ll have another shock.”

He stood up firmly as he spoke; and those of the men who were still lying on the ground rose too.

“But the snow, sir,” said one. “What does that mean?”

“Why, look—can’t you see!” replied he, drawing his hand over his face and showing it to the speaker.

“Lor’ bless us!” ejaculated the sailor. “It’s only smut from the chimbley.”

“Ah! it came from a bigger chimney than we have here,” said Mr Meldrum. “There has been a volcanic eruption on the island; and what we all thought was black snow was only the ashes thrown up from the crater, and these have now been brought down from the higher air by the descending ram.”

“Snakes and alligators!” exclaimed Mr Lathrope, who was one of the last to get on his long legs and when he did so appeared to touch the ground as tenderly “as if he were a cat treading on hot eggs,” as Mr McCarthy said. “If I wurn’t clean took in, and thought the outlandish thing wer nat’ral, like the red rain I’ve heerd folks tell o’ seeing in some parts of the world! I guess you was startled, too, mister, and kinder frit!”

“I confess I was, at first,” replied Mr Meldrum, “till I felt the earthquake. Then I recollected about the volcano.”

“Oh! the one down south, that we seed to leeward when the old ship poked her nose on the reef?”

“The same,” said the other. “It was smoking then; and we’ve just had the eruption. It is pretty nearly over, I think, however, for the ashes are not falling quite so thickly now.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Mr Lathrope. “Gin it didn’t stop soon, we’d all be transmogrified inter blacker niggers than the cook haar!”

“I ain’t no nigger, massa!” interposed Snowball, feeling his dignity insulted by the remark.

“My crickey!” ejaculated the American, emitting a shrill whistle of astonishment at the naïve assertion. “Then what, in the name of George Washington and Abe Lincoln rolled into one, air you, sir-ree!”

“I’se a ’spectable collud genlemun,” replied the darkey pompously.

“I guess you’ll do,” said Mr Lathrope laughing. “Jest hear that, now! Waal, never mind, my Ethiopian serenader,” he added good-humouredly. “You’re none the worse fur your colour, as fur as I ken see; and I will say this fur you, that you’re the slickest and smartest ship’s cook I ever came across from Maine to Californy; and that’s saying something!”

“Tank you, massa,” replied Snowball, much flattered by the compliment. “I make you one good rabbit-pie next time I’se get rabbits.”

“That’s a bargain!” said Mr Lathrope; and there the incident ended.

“Rouse up there with that spout!” shouted out Mr McCarthy, who had at once turned back to tackle the roof as soon as the alarm caused by the earthquake had passed away. “Bedad, if you don’t look pretty sharp, there’ll be no ruff to put it on, at all at all!”

“That’s right!” said Mr Meldrum. “In the fear of a greater calamity, I had forgotten the lesser danger! Do you think the roof will bear the pressure on it?”

“Sure, sorr,” replied the other. “It has borne it all this toime, and the ould house has stood the airthquake; so, there’s hopes that it’ll last out yit! It is more frightened of the flood coming up and swaping it away I am, than that the wather’ll do it any harm.”

“Then we’re safe, thank God!” said Mr Meldrum. “The river has not swelled any more since I last marked it. It seems to have worn a channel deep enough to carry off all the overflow from the valley, without spreading further and threatening the house. I think we are out of danger now.”

“We’ve much to be thankful for, papa,” observed Kate thoughtfully.

Frank had joined her within, after the last shock of earthquake, having been engaged before in helping Mr McCarthy on the roof; so his prayers had ascended to heaven along with hers, the two kneeling side by side in silent worship and praise to Him who had watched over them.

Coming out of the house together, they had approached the spot where Mr Meldrum was standing.

“Yes, my child, we have much to be thankful for,” said he in answer to Kate’s observation. “You need not fear now, my dear,” he added.

“I was not frightened, even when the earth trembled, papa.”

“No!” said he inquiringly.

“No, not a bit,” she answered quietly; “although, I confess, I thought we should all be killed. I can’t tell what sort of feeling seemed to possess me; but I felt quite peaceful and happy, as if I were prepared to die!”

“Ah!” said her father, “you had that peace which the world cannot give! I—I—”

“I felt happy, papa,” continued Kate, as if uttering her thoughts aloud, “because I thought we would see mamma again—you, and I, and Florry.”

“And didn’t you think of me too, Kate; and wish me to be with you?” asked Frank eagerly.

“Yes, you too,” said she. “Don’t you belong to me now?” Mr Meldrum did not hear Frank’s answer; for his attention was at that moment called away by Ben Boltrope, who had come up to report that the roof had been made snug, the water from the cliff now arching over it in a cascade, and not pouring down directly on to it as it had done before, when it fell with terrific force right upon the shingles, displacing some which were now repaired as soon as the spout was put up.

The weather improved very much after this, the sun appearing and shining with increasing power each day, while the snow disappeared entirely from the valleys and lower portions of the hills. The water below, however, did not drain off sufficiently to allow of any excursion for some days towards the rabbit warren they had visited before, or of their going anywhere, indeed, far from the little stretch of beach before the creek.

But, in spite of this drawback, the castaways’ stock of provisions was most unexpectedly added to, a very agreeable change of diet from penguin fricassees being introduced, by the coming of large flocks of wild ducks, which visited the valley a few days after they were all in danger of being flooded out. The water evidently was the attraction, for, previously, none of the water-fowl had ever come near the place—with the exception of a solitary couple of teal that Mr Meldrum had noticed flying over the creek shortly after they landed from the wreck.

The first day that they had roast duck for dinner, everybody thought that Mr Lathrope would have said something about the unexpected treat; but he did not, and Mrs Major Negus seemed somehow or other much vexed at his silence in the matter.

“You generally speak a good deal about eating,” said she at last impatiently. “I wonder why you’ve nothing to say now!”

“Ah! marm,” replied Mr Lathrope, “don’t you be surprised at anything! I’d advise you never to measure other people’s corns by your own chilblains! Because you happen to set your fancy on a thing, that’s no reason for other folks to do the same!”

“No,” said she; “though I can’t see the application of your remark about chilblains, for I never had one in my life.”

“Ah! that’s a sort of metaphorical conundrum, which I leave you to find out bye and bye! But, if you’d really like to know why I ain’t satisfied with having roast duck to dinner, I’ll tell you; it makes me feel kinder lonesome, it dew!”

“Why!”

“’Cause there ain’t no green peas with it, marm,” said Mr Lathrope, with a melancholy smile. “I guess I’m a whale on peas, I am!”

It was now the end of September; but the month was not fated to pass without another event happening to break the monotonous life of the little party. On its very last day, something occurred which took them all by surprise.

It may be remembered that when Mr Meldrum assumed the command of the party in the place of Captain Dinks, who was still on the sick list and recovering slowly but yet far from well, he established certain regulations for the employment of the men.

Amongst the several duties they had to perform, in accordance with these regulations, was the one of keeping watch, as if on guard, for a certain stated number of hours at the foot of a short flagstaff which had been erected on the top of a little eminence overlooking the beach in front of the creek—a man being stationed here regularly to report anything that might come in sight. This duty, it may be added, had been a sinecure from the date of its institution, nothing having ever since been seen.

On this last day of September, however, all hands were electrified by the look-out man calling out, just about noon.

“Sail ho!”

“A sail!” cried Mr Meldrum, quite as much astonished as the rest; and he hurried out to scan the offing. However, he could not see anything, and thought the man must have been asleep at his post and dreaming. “Do you know what you are saying?” he called out to the look-out. “Where away is this sail, my man!”

“Far off on the port side of the reef, sir,” answered the sailor, speaking quite composedly.

“What do you make it?” asked the other, as he hastened to the look-out station, which commanded a larger stretch of the coast than could be seen from the house—Mr McCarthy and the others following after him with anxious curiosity.

“Looks like a boat’s sail, sir; but, it’s so far to leeward, I can’t quite make it out yet.”

“I see,” said Mr Meldrum, who had now reached the man, taking his glass from his pocket and looking in the direction pointed out. “Yes, there is a small boat, sure enough. By Jove,” he added presently, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the missing mutineers in the longboat turned up at last! Look, McCarthy, and see if you don’t recognise the Nancy Bell’s boat by the white streak below the gunwale.”

The first-mate took the telescope and gazed intently at the approaching object for some few moments. He then turned round and stared at Mr Meldrum.

“Be jabers, it is the longboat, sorr!” he exclaimed at length; “and faix, sorr, I belave I can say that baste Moody lookin’ out over the gunwale, as if tellin’ thim where to steer, with his long black hair and ugly mug, and the cut across his hid which the cap’en giv him wid the butt end of his pistol! The murtherin’ villin! won’t I be aven wid him if iver he comes ashore, and pay him out—bad cess to him!”

“Are you sure,” said Mr Meldrum, “that it is the long-boat?”

“As sartin as there’s mud in a ditch, son—the divil a doubt of it!”

Chapter Thirty One.

A Terrible Tale!

By this time, the news having rapidly spread amongst the little community that the longboat was in sight, every one—save of course poor Captain Dinks, who could not yet move—had come out of the house.

The castaways were gathered together in little groups, some near Mr Meldrum and the first-mate, who stood by the flagstaff, others along the ridge which ran from thence above the beach, and the remainder on the shore; but all were intent on one object, and looking down the bay at the little speck in the distance that was said to be the boat, which was steadily making its way towards the creek. The tide was on the ebb and against its onward progress, although the wind was in its favour, so it approached only very slowly.

Mr Meldrum’s first intention on having his suspicions confirmed by the mate’s opinion, had been to haul down the flag—a little white ensign made out of portions of some old silk handkerchiefs which had been mustered amongst the party and sewn together by Kate; but, he dismissed the idea as soon as the thought occurred to him.

“No,” said he to Mr McCarthy, belaying the halliards again, “it is too late now, for they must have seen it. Besides, what have we to fear if they do come? We can easily prevent them from landing, if we like, for we’re nearly two to one against them in numbers should they try force; and we are stronger by far in moral as well as physical courage!”

“True for you, sorr,” replied the first-mate. “It’s a good larrupping they’d git, if they thried that on anyway. Bedad, I’d die aisy an’ I could only give that baste Moody the bating I’ve had in store for him since he and his gang abandoned us, the dhirty schoundrels!”

“We must forget the past, considering we’ve been so mercifully preserved,” said Mr Meldrum. “Perhaps it was all for the best that we were not able to leave the ship when they did.”

“Maybe; but faix, they didn’t have the dacency to ax us!”

“Well, we’ll see what they have to say for themselves when we’ve a chance of speaking to them,” said Mr Meldrum. “The boat’s coming on a bit quicker now. It has got out of the set of the tide and has the wind well abeam, just the thing for that lugsail she carries.”

“Sure and she’s a smart sailer, sorr,” observed Mr McCarthy after a few minutes’ interval, during which time the longboat, which had been heading up the coast, hauled her wind and was steered towards the entrance of the little creek at the top of the bay, close by where the flagstaff was erected and the Penguin Castle people were on the look-out.

As she came nearer, however, it could be seen that Mr McCarthy’s imagination had been quicker than his eyesight, for there was no one looking out over the gunwale—least of all Bill Moody, whose tall herculean form and peculiar visage would have been easily recognisable even at some distance off.

Indeed, there seemed to be very few persons in the boat at all, only two being observed in the stern-sheets, one of whom was steering with an oar, while a third was sitting on one of the forward thwarts attending to the sheet of the lugsail, slacking it out as the wind came aft occasionally, and hauling it in taut again when the sail jibed on the boat’s head falling off a point or two through the alteration of her course now and again.

The castaways were all in a state of the greatest expectation and surmise, as the longboat gradually grew more visible and the small number of its occupants became noticeable; for, as she rounded the point of the ridge, those on the beach could now observe her as well as Mr Meldrum and the first-mate, who were by the side of the look-out man at the signal station on the higher ground and were the only ones able at first to see the boat.

“They look as if they’d had hard times,” said Ben Boltrope, who was one of those who could now have a look at the boat, “and some of them seem to have lost the number of their mess.”

“And a durned good job, too!” exclaimed Mr Lathrope; “the mean skunks, to scoot away and leave a lot of wemmen and children to drown, as they thought. They’ve well arned any troubles they’ve come by, I guess!”

“Poor creatures!” said Kate, who was standing near the American, with Frank, of course, the inseparable, by her side; “please don’t say that! If all of us only just got what we deserved, we should have a sorry reckoning!”

“Very proper, and just what I think,” observed Mrs

Major Negus in a sort of condescending and approving way. “I do not consider it right myself to condemn others, and never do it on principle, for—”

“Thar you go agin, measurin’ other folks’ corns right away by your own chilblains, marm,” interrupted Mr Lathrope. “It’s allers what you’d do; and you never kinder give a thought to what t’other people would have to say in the matter! I guess you’re a bit narrow-minded, excuse me, marm.”

“Narrow-minded, humph!” snorted “the Major,” highly indignant at the accusation. “The idea of the thing! to be sure, Mr Lathrope, I ought never to be surprised at anything you choose to say; your manners and conversation are so very—ah, well—elegant!”

“Much obleeged, marm, I’m sure,” said the other, chuckling at making her angry. “I took fust-class when at school in the States for elegancy and deportment.”

“I’m sure I wish you had stopped there!” retorted the lady; but any further amenities were arrested from passing between them by the nearer approach of the longboat, and the fact of Mr Meldrum and those with him coming down from the ridge so as to be on the beach when their unexpected visitors got in to shore.

Closer and closer the boat came, until at last its keel touched ground, when, slewing round broadside on, it was left stranded on the beach.

“Snakes and alligators!” exclaimed Mr Lathrope, the lugsail swinging aside and enabling him and the others to see into the boat clearly, a thing which had been previously impossible from the boat’s coming up end on. “They air a ruin lot, mister! Of all the starved, God-forsaken critturs as I’ve ever seed they’re ’bout the worst!”

They were.

Only the man who had been steering with the oar and the one who was on the thwart amidships were apparently able to sit up, for three other figures were observed stretched in the bottom of the boat in a lump together; while one was by himself in the bows, doubled up in a crouching posture, quite dead and with his ghastly eyes staring out sightless from the retreating sockets. The closely-drawn features and general appearance of this latter miserable object showed that he must have expired in the last stage of starvation!

“Why, this is almost worse than you were when we picked you up off Pernambuco,” said Ben Boltrope to Karl Ericksen.

“Ja, ja!” replied the Norwegian. “It var sehr kalt, and we was expose as mooch as starve; but it vor bad, very, and so is dese, it remind me, oh! so much;” and he turned away his head, as Kate had already done, from the hideous spectacle, quite unable to gaze any longer at it from its association with his own rescue from a similar horrible death.

The men by Mr Meldrum’s side, however—forgetting the past conduct of the survivors of those in the longboat and the fact of their not only having deserted them but even locked them below to drown in the hold of the sinking ship—rushed into the water, eager, in the common exercise of that humanity which is common to us all, but especially noticeable in English sailors, to relieve the misery that was so apparent, and to separate those who were living from those who had ceased to suffer; and, of all these Good Samaritans, Mr McCarthy, who had been so bitter in his denunciation of the mutineers, was the first to go forward, with Frank and Mr Meldrum, you may be sure, not very far off.

“Only six out of the dozen that left the ship!” exclaimed Mr Meldrum to the man in the stern-sheets, to whom he extended his hand to aid him in getting out of the boat. “Where are the rest of your number?”

But the emaciated wretch—who seemed to have suffered considerable bodily injury as well as want of food, for one of his arms hung down powerless at his side, and there was a broad cut across his face from some weapon—was as incapable of speech as he was apparently of moving. His lips only worked feebly, without any sound coming from them, and he stumbled and fell forwards on his face when he tried to rise by the aid of Mr Meldrum’s arm.

“Bedad, they’re in a bad way, sorr,” said Mr McCarthy sympathisingly, coming up and helping Mr Meldrum to lift the man out and place him on the beach, where he had already laid down the corpse that had been in the bows, throwing a bit of the sail over it to hide it for the time from observation. “The poor divil can’t spake, sure. I wondther which of them it wor? I’m blest if I can make him out, and I knew all the men purty well, most of them being in my own watch, by the same token.”

But just then, the stewardess saved him from puzzling over the man’s face any further.

“It’s Llewellyn, my husband!” she cried out, pushing Mr McCarthy away, and taking the almost lifeless figure he was supporting tenderly in her arms, oblivious of everything save of her natural womanly pity and love. “The poor fellow! the poor fellow!” and she burst into tears over the miserable semblance of the man, who, coward and deserter as he had proved himself to be, had yet once been dear to her as her husband.

“Ah! then he accompanied them too!” said Mr Meldrum reflectively to the first-mate, as the last man was raised from the bottom of the boat and carried as tenderly ashore as if he had been one of their own party and a loved shipmate. “So there were thirteen of them altogether, instead of twelve, as I thought! That makes seven unaccounted for. I wonder what became of them!”

“Sure and the divil only knows,” replied the first-mate laconically, “for Bill Moody, the baste, must be along o’ them, as he’s not with these here; and he was sartain to be will looked afther by the ould gintleman in black down below!”

“Hush!” said Mr Meldrum. “If he is dead, let him rest in peace!”

“Aye, aye, sort; so say I,” answered Mr McCarthy; “and may joy go with him, for he was the broth of a boy!”

Bye and bye, when Llewellyn, the steward, recovered sufficiently to be able to speak, he had a terrible tale to tell.

On the outbreak of the row on board the ship, he said, between Captain Dinks and Moody, he was about to slip forward to join Snowball in the galley to have a warm, for he found it cold in his pantry; and, besides, he had no one to speak to there, and he felt dull and cheerless.

Frightened at the altercation and afraid of getting hurt in the scuffle that arose, he hid himself in the bows of the longboat; and, as luck would happen, he was there when the boat was launched and went away from the side of the vessel with the mutineers, for he could not scramble out in time.

Bill Moody, said the steward, wanted to chuck him over board when he was discovered; but the rest of the men overruled him, and he was allowed to remain.

The boat was carried far to leeward, and so pitched about by the heavy sea which was running, that every moment they thought she would be swamped. They had to bale her out continuously, for the waves broke over her each moment, half-filling her on many occasions.

Fortunately, they were not dashed ashore in the darkness against the cliffs, which they could faintly see through the haze to be quite close; and towards daylight they were able to get up the fore-sail and steer her along the land, which stretched far away down to the southward, miles away from where they had left the ship. The mutineers tried all they could to find some place where they could beach the boat without risk of getting her stove in on the rocks; but their efforts were vain.

At last, they came past a mountain which was smoking, and as the shore seemed to shelve down here, Moody determined to endeavour to land there, saying that they would find the vicinity of the volcano warm and comfortable—better than some frozen ice-glaciers which they had noticed further north.

After many attempts and failures, they managed to run the boat on to a black sandy stretch of beach which opened out beyond the smoking mountain; and here, they unloaded her in safety.

They had then more provisions than would have lasted them for months with care.

“All of ourn!” ejaculated Mr Lathrope, interrupting the steward at this point of the narrative. “We would ha’ swopped some o’ them penguins and Kerguelen cabbage fur the lot, I guess.”

But, continued Llewellyn, the men wasted all the stores, recklessly destroying much more than they ate; for they pitched away half-consumed cans of preserved meat, opening fresh ones with the greatest carelessness before requiring them.

Besides all this, there was the drink—a curse which followed them from the ship.

Moody had contrived to secrete a cask of rum in the boat before quitting the wreck, and this was opened soon after landing, he and most of the mutineers drinking themselves drunk and indulging in the wildest orgies whilst it lasted.

One evening, about a week after they had got ashore, in the middle of a drunken debauch Moody set fire to a tent, which they had constructed out of some of the spare sails placed in the boat. It was completely burnt, many of the men being almost roasted alive before they could extricate themselves and three dying subsequently from the injuries they had then received.

This was not the worst, however; for, in addition to the tent, their entire stock of provisions, which were stored inside, was consumed; and, beyond a few of the half-eaten tins that had been previously thrown away, they had nothing afterwards left to eat.

Starvation stared them in the face.

“Did you not search about and find the cabbage that we got here?” asked Mr Meldrum.

“No,” replied the steward; “the whole land thereabouts, before the snow fell, was as bare as a brick-field, and just as black and burnt up like.”

“And did no seals or birds come?”

“Some animals swam in one day,” said Llewellyn, “but the men were drunk at the time and frightened them away; so they never came back again when we needed them. Only a stray gull or two occasionally flew by, so far out of reach that none of us could catch them.”

“Well, go on to tell the story in your own way,” said Mr Meldrum.

Their hunger got so great, the man proceeded to say, that they hunted about for stray ham-bones, and even gnawed the soles of their boots; and at last Bill Moody said they would have to cast lots and sacrifice one of their number for the good of the rest.

“Oh, the dhirty cannibal!” interposed Mr McCarthy. “He’d be quite capable of that; bad cess to the baste!”

There were now only ten of them left, with himself, continued Llewellyn, and he could see that Moody wanted him to be killed, it being all a pretence about casting lots. Some of the men saw through the plot, too, as well as he did and took his part. It was then that a fight came about, and in it he got that slash across his face which they had noticed.

Moody’s own particular adherents amongst the party were only four in number; but they had all got pistols, which the others did not possess; and Llewellyn’s party would probably have got the worst of it had not an awful thing happened.

Just at the moment the fight began, the smoking mountain blew up!

“An eruption of the volcano,” said Mr Meldrum.

The steward did not know anything about that. He explained that, while they were in the midst of the struggle, a lot of fire and stones came down upon them, and Moody and some of the other mutineers were crushed to death outright. The survivors, with himself, then managed to push down the longboat into the sea again, and made off from the terrible place—coasting back along the coast in the hope of coming across one of the settlements of the whaling vessels, which some of them had heard frequented the island.

When they were suffering the last extremities of hunger and thirst—the latter being a fresh privation, for they had had plenty of water to drink on the volcano beach, however much they had wanted food—they saw the flag of the “Penguin Castle” settlers, and made towards it as well as they were able.

“And, thank God, I’m here with you all!” concluded the steward when he had brought his narrative to this point. “I have been saved from a horrible death.”

“Arrah, sure, all’s well that inds will!” said Mr McCarthy; “but I’m glad you weren’t a desarter, as I thought you were; and I’m roight glad, too, that that thafe of a Moody has mit with his desarts at last!”

Chapter Thirty Two.

Preparations for Departure.

It was a fortunate circumstance, not only for the surviving mutineers who had turned up so strangely, but for the little community at Penguin Castle as well, that they did not make their appearance on the scene earlier; for, had they came at the trying period, when famine, so to speak, reigned in the land, they certainly would not have been “welcome guests!” Of course, even then, Mr Meldrum and the others would have felt bound to do as much for them as they could; but as at that time the castaways were almost near upon starvation, they could ill have afforded to help others in the same predicament, however much charity might have constrained them.

But, now, things were very different in regard to their larder, wild ducks being plentiful enough and another heavy “bag” of rabbits having been secured as soon as the road to the warren had become passable through the partial subsidence of the flood in the valley; while, in addition to those stores of substantial food, there was Kerguelen cabbage ad libitum at their disposal—all the fresher and more juicy through being covered up by the snow and watered by the spring rains—besides an abundance of the haddock-like, spike-headed fish to be had for the catching in the bay, not to speak of the dried penguins as a last resource, should the other articles of diet fail to suit or pall on the palate after a time. Indeed, as Mr Lathrope observed frequently when seated at the central table of their general room and disposing of the savoury residue of some gipsy stew of Snowball’s concoction, during this period of plenty, which came in such pleasing contrast to their recent scarcity of provender, they were “living like fighting cocks, and no mistake!”

Such being the state of things at “Penguin Castle,” it was not long before the emaciated men, who arrived in the longboat almost at death’s door through want, were restored to health. Mr Meldrum, however, took the precaution of binding them down by the most stringent conditions as to their obedience and orderly conduct before admitting them on the same terms as the rest to the common membership of the community—it being clearly put before them that the least lâche or inattention to orders would subject them to expulsion, when they would have to shift for themselves and give a wide berth to those of the settlement.

Captain Dinks had recovered so far now that he was able to sit up for a short time each day; but the length of his illness and the amount of blood he had lost had so aged and pulled him down that he was transformed, from the smart energetic sailor he had been, into a feeble old man, utterly incapable of ever resuming his former position should events ever place it in his power to take command of a ship again—at least so it seemed from his general state of prostration.

Under these circumstances, therefore, Mr Meldrum was unquestionably still looked upon as the head of the party, quite apart from any appointment as such, from the simple reason that everybody recognised that it would be only through his advice and forethought that they could ever hope to escape from the island and see home once more.

Although he had as yet never spoken directly to the point on the subject, all could gather, from stray hints and observations which occasionally dropped from his lips, that this thought was ever before him; and that, when he considered that the proper time for action had arrived, he would lay his plans before them.

They were not mistaken.

One evening, about the third week in October and the third month of their residence on Desolation Island, when all were assembled in the general room after the principal meal of the day—gathered together for a social chat over the little petty details of their life since the morning and cogitating as to what was best to be done on the morrow, as was their invariable custom each night before separating at bedtime—Mr Meldrum unbosomed himself, just when they least expected it.

Mr Lathrope was having a spirited contest with the first-mate over the chequer-board that he had assisted in making; Kate was reading out of a little pocket Bible to the poor captain as he lay back in his cot; while the others, grouped around, were talking and otherwise amusing themselves—some of the men knitting a net, which it was intended to use as a seine for catching fish some day when finished, and the steward assisting Snowball in cutting up some cabbage which they were going to pickle and lay by for emergencies—when Mr Meldrum, after a preliminary “hem,” to attract their attention, addressed the little gathering.

“Friends,” said he, “it was my intention to speak to you some little time back about our future prospects here, but I waited for the weather to become more settled. Now that the spring has fairly set in, however, it is better not to delay our preparations any longer, for time is precious and we shall have to accomplish a great deal in the short period which will be at our disposal.”

“I ’spose,” put in Mr Lathrope, “you mean about shifting our diggings, mister, hey?”

“Precisely,” replied the other. “The season was not sufficiently advanced before; but now that it is, the rain having stopped falling persistently and the weather showing signs of clearing up, why, the sooner we are up and stirring, the greater chance we shall have of getting rescued!”

“Waal,” drawled the other in his usual nasal way, “you’ve only got to say the word, boss, and I guess we’re on the move!”

“All right! I’m coming to that, but I want you to understand the situation. Here is a map of Kerguelen Land,” and Mr Meldrum unrolled the old admiralty chart which has been alluded to before, as he spoke. “You will see, from the rough outline given of the island, that it is formed of two peninsulas, running nearly north and south respectively and both of nearly equal size, but divided by a comparatively narrow neck of land. The whole island is, taking its outside limits, about ninety miles long by sixty broad in its widest part, although at the narrow point or neck which I have mentioned—see, just here where I place my finger—the distance from sea to sea between the eastern and western sides does not exceed fifteen miles.”

“I say it clearly, sorr,” said Mr McCarthy, all attention when his especial element was mentioned.

“Well, it so happens,” continued Mr Meldrum, “that our position here, the correctness of which I have carefully ascertained from observations that I have taken and worked out, is, very fortunately for us, on the western side of this isthmus, and not at the extremity of the broader portion of the island. Consequently, we shall only have to traverse the short width of this neck of land in our endeavours to get across to the eastern side, whither we must go if we hope for any vessel to pick us up and take us to a civilised port—none ever touching here on account of the dangerous character of the coast, which we already know to our cost!”

“Bedad, I can’t say how ye are going to get the boats over fifteen miles ov solid ground, more or less,” said the first-mate, scratching his head vigorously, as he always did when puzzled by anything.

“I’ll tell you,” answered Mr Meldrum. “You may have noticed since the snow melted and the rains came, how the waters of that originally small lake at the bottom of the creek have become extended so that they now reach up the base of the furthest hills in the valley?”

“Yis, sorr,” said Mr McCarthy, stopping from disturbing his auburn locks any further with his fingers and now all eagerness again, as if only just then beginning to comprehend what the other was driving at.

“All right, then,” continued Mr Meldrum, “so far, so good! Now, to-day, I went prospecting up to the top of the cliff here, and I see that the waters of the swollen tarn are united in the extreme distance—to the left there on the map—with a river, or some other lake, which comes round that further hill. Hence, this very width of fifteen miles which we have to cross may be but half of it land and half water, so that, really, in that case, we should have only to haul the boat, or boats, over the intervening bits of terra firma in passing from sea to sea.”

“I guess, mister,” said Mr Lathrope, “you mean what the lumber men on the Susquehanna and Red River call ‘making a portage,’ hey?”

“I don’t quite follow you,” observed Mr Meldrum.

“Why, when they come across a rapid in the river, they jest tote up their canoes and carry ’em along the bank, or through the forest sometimes, till they gits to whar the stream runs free agin, when they floats ’em and sails along as slick as you please!”

“Exactly,” said Mr Meldrum, “you have just hit what I wished to describe. Well, friends, whether we have to carry the boat a short distance or a long one, we shall have to cross this isthmus; and, the sooner we commence making our preparations, the better.”

“You sid only a boat, sorr; aren’t ye going to take the pair ov ’em?” asked Mr McCarthy.

“No,” replied the other, “one will be about as much as we shall be able to manage, and the smaller of the two at that.”

“Be jabers!” exclaimed the first-mate in surprise; “and how, thin, will you carry the lot ov us?”

“When we have to cross land,” said Mr Meldrum, “of course we’ll have to walk, and can go in a body or not, just as we please; but when we have to take to the water again, why the boat will have to do it in so many trips—taking over a certain number first and returning for a fresh load, until all shall be taken over; and repeating the process from stage to stage.”

“It kinder strikes me, mister,” said Mr Lathrope, reflectively, “that you’ll find that thar jolly-boat a heap bigger and a pile heavier than them birch-bark canoes of the lumber men and Injuns I was a talkin’ about; and yet, they’re heavy enough to cart along fur any raal sort o’ distance, you bet, fur I’ve tried ’em!”

“I’ve already thought of that,” said Mr Meldrum, “and to-morrow the carpenter and I will have a talk about a little job which will, perhaps, relieve your mind in the matter; but, take the boat we must, by hook or by crook! Do you know that, after crossing the isthmus and getting into the open sea on the other side, we shall have to coast along for another fifty or sixty miles before we can expect to reach Betsy Cove, the little harbour out of Hillsborough Bay or sound, which—you can see it here on the chart—is the rendezvous of the whalers. Thither, I tell you, we must go if we hope to meet any of these in order to be taken off the island. Now, if we can’t get there by water we should have to go by land; and the distance, by the circuitous route we should have to adopt, would exceed two hundred miles, the way, too, taking us across mountains which the ladies at least would find impassable!”

“And when are you thinking of starting?” asked Captain Dinks, speaking for the first time.

“As soon as possible. The whalers are said generally to arrive at Betsy Cove about the beginning of the summer, that is in November; and, what with the difficulties we may meet in traversing the isthmus here, and the subsequent long distance we should have to go by water—for we may have to make repeated trips in order to transport all the members of our party to the point I am aiming at—it will take us all our time to reach there in a month.”

“All right!” responded the captain, who looked for the moment more cheerful at the idea of moving away, “make all the arrangements you like, Mr Meldrum; I’m only a useless old hulk now, and can do nothing to help you.”

“Bedad you’ll be all right agin, cap’en,” said Mr McCarthy. “That is, faix, when you say the say on t’other side, sure. Cheer up, my hearty, and niver say die!”

“Thank you, Tim,” said Captain Dinks, actually smiling, which was the best sign he had shown for weeks; “your face is as good as a tonic any day, old friend, and you make me feel better already!”

The very next day all began to prepare for the contemplated shifting of their quarters, Mr Meldrum so contriving that each had his quota of work to perform in making ready for the start.

Ben Boltrope was commissioned to manufacture as speedily as he could, out of what spare timber he could get hold of—and, if necessary, he was empowered to break up the longboat in default of finding any elsewhere, for they would not want to use it again—a small light carriage with large broad wheels similar to those commonly used in transporting life-boats from place to place along the coast, when their services are suddenly required at some spot remote from their station and it would take too long to send them round by sea.

This carriage, of course, was for the accommodation of the jolly-boat, whenever it should be found necessary for it to abandon its more congenial element the water, for the land; and as the wheels required some delicacy of manipulation, it was a lucky thing that the mutineers had forgotten to take Ben’s tool-chest out of the longboat, and that it had been restored to his possession. Otherwise, the old man-o’-war’s man would have been unable to have completed satisfactorily the difficult task set him with only an old axe and a hammer for his available tools, as had been the case when the house was being built.

Such of the party as were not assisting the carpenter were set to work collecting and curing everything in the shape of food, or provisions of any sort that came to hand—the rabbit warren being depopulated and wild ducks slaughtered to such an extent that the latter abandoned the valley; while, the last remaining birds in the penguin colony, old and young alike, were sacrificed to appease the craving gods of the common larder.

Neither were the ladies idle; for, Kate Meldrum and Mrs Major Negus were employed making canvas bags for the stowage of all these good things in proper ship-shape fashion. Even Master Maurice—the whilom “Imp,” who had almost been reformed by his experience amongst the penguins—and Miss Florry, had their services requisitioned in one way or other.

One and all, without exception, had each something to do!

“I guess, mister,” said Mr Lathrope a week later on, when he and Mr Meldrum were returning from an unsuccessful foray on the adjacent marshes that had been the haunt of the wild fowl—without once getting a shot, much less bagging a duck to reward their trouble,—“this’ll be a tall moving; and the sooner we make tracks the better now, since all the game’s skeart. I don’t see nary a grasshopper to aim at!”

“The arrangements are all completed,” replied the other, “and I have determined to start to-morrow. As you say, there’s nothing to be gained by our waiting any longer; so, as we’ve now as much provision collected as we shall either want or can carry, and as Ben has finished the boat-carriage, I don’t see any reason for delaying our departure a single day!”

Mr Meldrum was as good as his word. He gave out an intimation of the projected start on the morrow to the household the same evening, as soon as the two reached the little dwelling by the creek which they were about to abandon so remorselessly after the long shelter it had given them in their adversity!

Chapter Thirty Three.

Across Country.

It was a lovely morning, the loveliest that the shipwrecked people had seen since their landing on Kerguelen Land, when the little party started away from Penguin Castle, bidding adieu to the spot which for so many long months had given them a shelter and a home.

The sun was shining out brightly, the sky without a cloud, and the air felt quite warm, although with a freshness in it that just gave zest to movement; while the atmosphere had that peculiar opalescent translucency about it and an almost imperceptible colouring—in the faintest tints of light mauve and amber, with a shade of tender apple-green—which is rarely seen in more northern latitudes, excepting in those regions that are well within the borders of the Arctic circle.

Out in the bay opposite the creek, the water was as smooth as glass, undisturbed by the slightest breath of wind so as to cause a ripple; and numbers of baby puffins and young penguins, their spruce little downy bodies clad in bright new coats of silky feathers, were scattered in groups over the mirror-like expanse, diving and coming up again in a moment in the centre of a series of expanding circles that gradually grew wider and wider in diameter, as when a stone is flung into a still pond, only to disappear the next minute. Others were flitting along over the surface with the pinions of their little wings just dipped in the water, so that they flicked it up, in the short flights they took now and then in play and mimic pursuit of each other, like as rowing men do when they “feather” their oars too soon in lumpy water. Sometimes, the generally restless birdlets would rest tranquilly for a brief while on the bosom of the sea, chattering away like so many aquatic magpies in miniature mottled flocks; but this was only for a very short spell.

To the right of the creek, rising abruptly out of the sea, the black basaltic cliffs which formed such a bold headland to the bay stretched far out to where the extreme point of Cape Saint Louis could be seen, embracing within the compass of its arm the reef on which the Nancy Bell had been lost; and to the left, beyond the ridge at the back of the castaways’ dwelling, the higher ranges of the inland mountains, which seemed to run down to the southwards and eastwards as far as the eye could reach, stood up—towering in the distance above the hills immediately near in the foreground and lifting their snow-clad summits into the blue vault of the heavens.

The “travelling caravan,” as Mr Lathrope had styled the jolly-boat when he saw it first mounted on its broad-flanged, awkward-looking carriage, had been packed the night before with all the impedimenta of the pilgrims. Their few “goods and chattels and household effects” were stowed in and about below the thwarts, with the canvas bags containing the dried birds and Kerguelen cabbage which formed their stock of provisions ranged round the gunwales and crammed in anywhere; while a special place was kept clear and reserved in the stern-sheets for the accommodation of poor Captain Dinks, who was deposited here in his cot.

Pussy, who had been so happily saved from the wreck at the last moment and had since done such good service in demolishing the mice which infested the house, was placed alongside of the captain to keep him company, and he had also in charge a tame, or rather an educated penguin, that Master Maurice Negus had displayed considerable ability in training and which Mr Meldrum had allowed to be taken along with the other things as a reward for the “imp’s” services of late in assisting at the preparations of the expedition.

For some days prior to this, Mr Meldrum had been very busy taking short excursions in various directions, but all tending to the same point of the compass. He was endeavouring to find out which route would be the most practicable for reaching the eastern seaboard; and, after collecting all his observations into one harmonised whole and deliberating over the matter with Mr Lathrope and the first-mate, who had severally accompanied him in his various prospecting tours, the final course of the party was at length agreed on.

The bright morning appeared to all as an augury of success; so it was with light hearts that they set out.

They abandoned Penguin Castle in all its entirety, Mr Meldrum saying that possibly they might have to seek its shelter again; but, if happily there should arise no occasion for that eventuality, the building might still be of service to other shipwrecked men in a like extremity to themselves. Thus it came to pass that the place was left “all standing,” with rooms, furniture—such as it was—Snowball’s copper and the cooking range all intact. Even the flagstaff with Kate’s ensign at the peak was left hoisted, as if to show, that if deserted now, the spot had once been inhabited!

They were thirty-two souls in all now, reckoning the steward and the other four men of the mutineers who had come back in the longboat—which had to be broken up, by the way, after all, to form the jolly-boat’s carriage; and it was just “six bells in the forenoon watch” when they started, a team of the sailors, tethered in traces like a pack of Esquimaux dogs, hauling away at the boat-carriage and running it along merrily with a chorus of “cheerily men, cheerily ho!” The others tramped behind the queer vehicular conveyance, without respect of persons; only poor Captain Dinks being allowed a seat in the boat, while it travelled on land, and that only by reason of his helplessness and inability to move without assistance. When they had to take to the water, of course, the jolly-boat would have to carry more passengers.

On the way, sometimes, they had serious difficulties to encounter, for the ground in many places was moist and spongy, causing the feet of the men hauling to sink deeply into the soil as they tugged at the towing-rope of the jolly-boat’s carriage; but, as frequently Mr Meldrum remarked, to rouse the seamen’s energies, “difficulties were only made for brave men to conquer,” so at it they went with a will which soon overcame the dead weight of the load they had to drag behind them—a fresh towing team relieving the first at the expiration of every half hour, so as not to weary the men out by a too prolonged strain at such unusual exertion.

Bye and bye, they arrived at the end of their first “portage,” the shores of the little lake which Mr Meldrum had noticed trending in an eastward direction. This water would now considerably aid their passage across the isthmus by allowing the jolly-boat to take to its native element, on whose bosom it would be borne some miles on the onward way.

Here a halt was called and a short luncheon taken, after which the jolly-boat was safely launched on the water by backing it down on its carriage. This plan was easy as well as expeditious; for, as soon as the boat had reached its proper point of immersion, it floated off the wheels.

The ladies then got into the stern-sheets, alongside of the captain, accompanied by Mr Meldrum, while four of the seamen took their places on the thwarts in order to row them across—the remainder of the party stopping where they were, along with a portion of the packages that had been removed from the boat so as to make room for Mrs Major Negus and the others who went with her. The carriage belonging to the boat was also left behind until the latter should have deposited its first cargo on the other side of the lake and return to fetch a fresh load.

Three trips were taken before the whole party were thus transported over the lake, the boat’s carriage being then towed over at the last crossing.

It would be needless repetition to recount in detail all the different portages of the jolly-boat over the strips of land which lay between the chain of lakes that were spread over the line of their route; or, to tell the number of the trips by water that had to be made.

There were many unloadings of the little craft, and many packings-up again.

Many weary miles the poor unaccustomed pedestrians had to tramp, sometimes up-hill, sometimes down dale, through marshy lands and over stony boulders that blistered their feet; and all the while they had to drag after them that terrible Frankenstein-like monster, the jolly-boat mounted on its carriage, which seemed to the worn-out men sometimes a species of Juggernaut car, crushing out their spirits and sapping their every energy.

Suffice it to say, that, at the end of a fortnight’s time, they at length reached a magnificent stretch of blue water, which Mr Meldrum said was Hillsborough Bay, on the eastern side of Kerguelen Land.

Hurrah—they had crossed the isthmus, and arrived so far towards the end of their destination!

As they toiled over this neck of land which united the two principal peninsulas into which the island was divided, they could mark how, as had been noticed along the coast, the country was composed of a series of terraced hills, rising above a chain of lakes and lagoons that indented it deeply on either side and forming an endless succession of deep fords and harbours, the hills being almost invariably covered, from their crests down to a certain altitude, with perpetual snow. Below this line, their sides were clothed with green verdure, composed chiefly of a species of azorella and a rough spinated grass; while, the strangest feature of all was, that not a single tree, or plant approaching to the dimensions of a shrub, could be seen on any portion of the island!

The most charming characteristic of the scenery noticed, was the profusion of cataracts, cascades, and waterfalls, which leaped and sparkled from terrace to terrace of the basaltic net-work of peaks and ridges that ran here, there, and everywhere across the isthmus, enclosing the valleys and scarping the sea—the splashing of these natural fountains making soft music everywhere as the water gurgled down into tiny rivulets and brooks below, which stole their way along banks bordered by chickweed and liverwort into the lakes, and from the lakes into the ocean, only to be sucked up again by the clouds and deposited on the hills in the form of rain, forming the cascades and cataracts anew; and so on, da capo.

Chapter Thirty Four.

Rescued.

“Snakes and alligators, mister!” exclaimed Mr Lathrope when the whole party were gathered together on the shore of Hillsborough Bay, united once more after the boat-carriage had been lugged over its final portage, and the boat itself had accomplished its last separate short trip before adventuring again on the open waters of the sea—“I guess your fifteen miles has come to a considerable sight more’n fifty, you bet.”

“Oh! please be a little more moderate in your estimate,” laughed Mr Meldrum. “I confess I somewhat understated the probable distance; but really, now, fifty miles is a little too much.”

“Wa-al, then, let us call it five-and-twenty,” said the American with a genial grin over his sharp-cut features, which were almost as elongated as his legs. “You can’t grumble at that anyway, I reckon, boss!”

“That’s pretty much like the story of the five hundred cats which came down, I believe, to two, if I’m not mistaken,” slily put in Miss Kate, smiling.

“Now, don’t you be too rough on a feller, missy,” said Mr Lathrope, pretending to be very serious over the matter, in his humorous way. “I cave in to the fifty, that’s a fact, as I kinder wanted to pile on the agony; but when I took my stand to be euchred on twenty-five miles, I meant the distance we’ve tramped over, and nary a bit of the water passage, for my old boots hev got busted up, I guess, and the sooner I git a noo pair the better for this child.”

“Bedad, that’s the same case wid mysilf,” interposed Mr McCarthy, exhibiting the articles he wore as he spoke, which, from their repeated patchings and general state of dilapidation, would certainly have carried off the prize at a curiosity show. “Sure, and it’s walkin’ on my fut I’ve bin the last foor days entirely.”

“You’d have ben a smart coon to have done the contrary, I guess, mister, anyhow,” said the American drily.

“Sure, an’ it’s the sole of me fut I mane, sorr,” explained the first-mate in Hibernian fashion.

“Jest so,” said Mr Lathrope, laughing at the blunder; “and it would puzzle you to walk different, I kalkerlate, that is onless you tried the sole of your head!”

“Well, here we are, no matter what distance we have travelled,” said Mr Meldrum, going back to business; while Frank and Kate, who had not been able to get much conversation together of late, were having a very interesting little tête-à-tête confabulation in a corner, out of ear-shot of the rest. “We shall, however, soon have to separate our forces again, for we must make the next start on our journey by water, which will now be our travelling medium all the way.”

“Be jabers, and it’s glad I am to hear that same!” exclaimed Mr McCarthy, interrupting the speaker in his jubilation at not being forced to walk any more, a means of locomotion to which, from his long life at sea, the first-mate was strangely averse.

“As I was saying,” continued Mr Meldrum, “we must now make up our minds for a short separation, the rest of our journey having to be performed by water. I’ll tell you what I think will be the best plan, if you will listen:— From here to Betsy Cove, the harbour I have mentioned where the whalers call every year, is in a bee-line just about thirty-five miles right ahead across the stretch of sea there; but as we may have to make a détour in order to avoid reefs and any rocks or islands which may come within this straight line, we’d better call it fifty miles.”

“Better say a hundred, mister, while you’re at it,” said Mr Lathrope, with a wink to the others; “you kinder forget the fifteen miles you made it across the isthmus ’fore we started, hey?”

“There’s no fear of my making that mistake here,” replied Mr Meldrum. “This is all plain sailing, with correct latitude and longitude to go by! It won’t be more than fifty, indeed, even if we have to creep round the coast of the bay all the way, instead of shaping a course right across it, as I intend doing. Well, all things considered, it will be best for the boat first to take half of us this distance to Betsy Cove, going all the way in the one trip; and then to return for the other portion of the party. We have lightened her considerably of the provisions during the last ten days, and being able to carry twelve or fourteen hands ordinarily, she will now easily take us across the bay in two trips—that is, if some of you don’t mind a little squeezing.”

“Will—will—it be quite safe?” said Mrs Major Negus in a hesitating way, looking at the bright, frisking little wavelets which covered the blue sea of the bay with some slight alarm. She had imbibed a perfect horror of the water and all pertaining to it ever since the wreck.

“Quite,” answered Mr Meldrum. “We’ve had peril enough without my seeking to endanger your safety now! I suppose,” continued he, going on to explain the arrangements, “the boat will take a day, say, in getting to Betsy Cove, and another day coming back on the return voyage for the rest.—We’ll call it three days, to allow for contingencies; so that, we shall not be apart more than four days at the outside, allowing due time for the boat reaching the Cove again after her second trip hither.”

“Fancy!” whispered Frank to Kate. “Four whole days that I may not be able to see you! I know it will be just my luck that I shall have to stay behind at the camp; for, your father will most probably take all the ladies with him in the first trip, as he did at setting out.”

“Oh, dear!” said Kate smiling, “that will be a terribly long separation, won’t it?”

“You darling tease!” exclaimed he; “I don’t believe you care for me half as much as I do for you!”

“Don’t I!” she said softly; and her melting blue eyes would have disclosed a secret if Frank had been looking into them at the moment—which very probably he was!

However, the sad eventuality he had conjectured did not occur. Mr Meldrum, knowing the condition of matters between the lovers, did not have the heart to separate the two, even temporarily; and so Frank had the supreme and unexpected felicity of accompanying Kate in the first trip the jolly-boat took across the bay to Betsy Cove—Mrs Major Negus and Maurice, Mr Meldrum and Florry, Mr Adams and Captain Dinks, of course, besides six of the seamen, being their fellow-passengers.

Mr Lathrope remained at the head of the inlet, with Mr McCarthy, in charge of the camp and the remaining hands until the jolly-boat came back to fetch them; and it really seemed, from the many earnest “good-byes” exchanged between those starting off and the ones left behind as if the castaways were parting for ever, the separation seemed to cause such a wrench after they had been so long together!

Thanks to the fine fresh breeze, and the fact of their being almost in the open sea now—for the sides of the bay diverged so greatly after a time that the opposite coasts could not be seen—the boat was under sail instead of being pulled along; and the motion was ever so much more pleasant than when it was oscillated to and fro by the sharp jerky strokes of the rowers.

The weather still continued fine and clear, with the sun shining on the water and a bright blue sky overhead; and as the boat glided along, heeling over to the wind every now and then and tossing the spray from her bows as she came down with a flop on the crest of some little wave which got in her way, Frank wished that he and Kate could glide on so for ever. Everything seemed so delightful around them after the dreary winter they had so recently passed through.

Nature herself was smiling again upon them in the bright summer dawn!

Even the penguins seemed to enjoy the change of season, for they raced after the boat as she pursued her way, moving through the water like a shoal of albacore, and rarely showing more than their heads above the surface for a little while. Then, all of a sudden, as if playing a game of leapfrog amongst themselves, they would spring out of the sea in long lines, one after another, showing their steel-grey backs and silvery sides, so that Kate could hardly believe they were not fishes jumping up in sport, like as she had frequently seen the bonito do when off the African coast in the Atlantic.

The jolly-boat had such a spanking breeze from the north-west all the way with her, right abaft the beam, that she accomplished the distance between the head of the inlet and Betsy Cove before nightfall, Mr Meldrum shaping her course so well by the old chart he had that she fetched the harbour in a bee-line almost from their point of departure, steering east by south.

There was no mistaking the place.

Betsy Cove was a second bay within a larger one, called “Accessible Bay” on the chart and marked by a curious isolated mountain-peak which raised itself on the very extremity of a low spit of land that ran out into the sea, a long way out from the main shore.

On the beach were several old wooden huts and a large iron boiler that had evidently been used for “trying out” seal and whale oil from the blubber; while further up the shore was a small graveyard, a rather melancholy-looking spot with a few wooden crosses and piles scattered about it bearing dreary legends relating to the untimely end of different seamen who had either died there on shore, or had lost their lives at sea in the immediate vicinity. However, the most important point to our little party, was the fact that there were no signs of any vessels having recently visited the place; and, consequently, Mr Meldrum had carried out his original plan to the letter, having evidently arrived there in time before the annual coming of the whalers.

Early the next morning the jolly-boat was sent back to fetch the others, and towards the evening of the day following the whole of the party were once more together.

A week passed by without any event of note happening, during which period the little community did not suffer from any want of food or other necessaries, for they found a store of provisions in one of the huts that had evidently been placed there in case of need similar to their own; so, things jogged on evenly enough. Still, all were in a state of high-strung suspense, looking out eagerly from morning till night for the promised vessel that every one expected was coming to deliver them.

“I guess they’d better look alive, mister, if they’re coming,” said Mr Lathrope, “or else the summer’ll be gone afore we git away, and then we shall have to go back to Penguin Castle for another winter. I’d sooner a durned sight be thar than haar if it comed on to blow!”

“Patience, my friend!” replied Mr Meldrum. “Don’t you recollect that old French proverb, ‘Everything comes to him who waits!’”

“Don’t reckon I dew, mister,” answered the other. “I guess, though, it warn’t a waiter at one of them hotels that said that, hey?”

“Perhaps not,” said Mr Meldrum, smiling at the American’s hit; “but I’ve no doubt we shall be rescued this year, even if we have to wait.”

He was not disappointed.

On the Monday morning of the following week the look out man—for they had set up another signal station here at the head of the harbour the same as at Penguin Castle—sang out the welcome call—“Sail ho!”

And, soon after, a large fore-and-aft rigged schooner was seen entering the bay.

She proved to be the Matilda Ann of New London. She was engaged in the whale and seal fishery between Kerguelen Land and the neighbouring Heard Islands; and as she was empty, having transferred her oil to a homeward-bound whaler belonging to the same owners, her captain readily accepted the offer made him by Mr Meldrum on behalf of Captain Dinks, to charter the schooner to convey the survivors of the passengers and crew of the Nancy Bell to the Cape of Good Hope, whence they would easily be able to get a passage back to England or to their original destination in New Zealand.

“I guess that air prime,” said Mr Lathrope; “but I’ve hed enuff v’yging fur a spell, and I kinder kalkerlate I’ll make tracks to hum. I don’t mind either, darkey, if I take you along o’ me! I’ve got a fust-rate brown-stone front in Philadelphy, and I’ll chuck you in as cook, if you like, hey?”

“Golly, massa, you don’t mean dat, suah!”

“Guess I dew,” said the American deliberately.

“Tank you, massa; den you ken take down de bill, I ain’t no longer to let—I’m on, yah, yah!” shouted Snowball, giving way to the most obstreperous merriment, in order to testify his satisfaction at Mr Lathrope’s engaging him in his service, the darkey having always had a hankering after the American from his thorough appreciation of his cookery.

Mrs Major Negus was true to the last.

“What an extremely fishy smell!” she exclaimed as she went on board the whaler which had so opportunely come to rescue them from the solitude of Desolation Island. “I’m sure I wish Captain Dinks had secured a passage for us in a more respectable ship after choosing to cast away his own!”

But little more remains to be added.

The whaling schooner reached Table Bay in safety, without encountering any storms similar to that which had led to the loss of the Nancy Bell, and all the rescued castaways were shortly afterwards landed at Cape Town. Here, Captain Dinks, who had recovered much from his wound since he was taken off the island, secured a passage home to England for himself and officers and such of the passengers of the lost ship as desired to go back thither, sending on to New Zealand, at the owners’ expense, those who preferred proceeding to their original destination.

Amongst these latter was Mrs Major Negus and her son, “the Major” being extremely anxious to join her husband at Waikatoo as soon as possible. Mr Meldrum and his family also went on; the ex-commander in the Royal Navy having sold out the little property he had at home and capitalised his pension with the object of settling in New Zealand, had now no desire to return to England, or the means to live there if he had such a wish.

Frank did not forget his engagement with Kate, however.

Although he was obliged to accompany Captain Dinks back to England, it was not long after his arrival in London before he passed the Trinity House Board, obtaining a certificate licensing him to act as chief mate, in which capacity he went out to New Zealand on his very next voyage.

This will not be his last trip to the Antipodes either, for rumour has it that, not improbably, Frank Harness, promoted to the rank of a master in the mercantile marine, will proceed shortly again to Otago in command of a ship of his own, when, possibly, he will have one especial item of human freight to bring home with him on his own account!

Chapter Thirty Five.

The Last of the Old Ship!

There is one thing more to tell.

It all arises from the unpardonable stupidity of that donkey of a steward, Llewellyn, who forgot the memorandum concerning the circumstance and left it down below in the cabin—and that, too, in spite of Ben Boltrope’s telling him to be certain to bear it mind, besides his wife, Mary, having continually jogged his memory on the subject! Had it not been for this, the omission would never have occurred, as the matter would have been mentioned in its proper place some time ago.

Shortly after the Matilda Ann set sail from the little whaling station at Betsy Cove with the rescued castaways of Kerguelen Land on board, and just as she was weathering the Cloudy Islands, as they are called—a group of rocks that lie to the north-east of the mainland—the look-out man in the fore cross-trees, who was keeping a keen watch for breakers, the navigation at this point being rather ticklish on account of the treacherous reefs and stray currents that wander about there, suddenly shouted down to the man at the wheel to put the helm down, which of course he immediately did.

“What is it?” called out the steersman, who happened to be the master of the schooner himself. He noticed no sign of breakers anywhere near and wondered at this sudden alteration of the vessel’s course—“Where’s the reef?”

“’Tain’t no reef, sir,” sang out the man aloft in answer, “but I see something like a man in the water.”

“Man be hanged!” exclaimed the schooner’s skipper in a rage. “And was it for such an absurd idea that you’ve nearly made me shiver the masts out of her? If it be a body, it can only be a corpse; for no man could swim out here from Kerguelen, and I’m blessed if he could live on those rocks of islands beyond!”

“There!” shouted the look-out man again, taking no notice of the other’s upbraiding, and seeming to be very anxious about whatever he had seen in the water. “It is quite close now on the lee bow.”

“Well, just to oblige you,” said the skipper, speaking loud enough for all on board to hear, “and to let you see for yourself what a confounded fool you are, I’ll fetch her up to it!”

“Bully for you, cap’en!” exclaimed Mr Lathrope, who with the others of the rescued party was on deck, not liking the rather fusty odour of the schooner’s cabin—which, to do justice to Mrs Major Negus, did smell most abominably of seal-oil, and even worse scents!

The floating object was soon approached on the schooner’s bearing away towards it; and a man in the bows, who had a boat-hook ready in his hand, quickly grappled it and pulled it alongside.

It was no man, however, as the look-out had thought; but only a piece of square timber which had evidently once formed some portion of a vessel’s belongings, and it was carved out roughly on the uppermost side to represent a female head and bust.

“I wasn’t far out in thinking it were a man in the water,” said the look-out man, gazing down on the object from his perch above, as the schooner’s skipper, giving the helm in charge of some one else, came forward to have a look over the side at the innocent cause of all this unnecessary fuss, as he thought.

“You’d better say no more,” replied the skipper, scornfully shouting back up to the man. “I always thought you were a fool, and now I know you are one! A drowning man, indeed! why, it’s only the broken figurehead of some old vessel or other!”

“Look, Mr McCarthy!” cried Mr Meldrum to the Irishman, who just then came up to see what all the commotion was about. “Don’t you see what it is?”

“Be jabers, I do!” responded the ex-mate, quite as much excited as the other. “Sure, an’ it’s the last of the ould ship! I wondther howsomedever it iver floated all the way here?”

It was the figurehead of the ill-fated Nancy Bell.