So, much chapfallen, I withdrew from the poop; and, abandoning all my dignities as acting second mate and first-class apprentice, proceeded to make myself at home with the crew forward—much against the grain, I confess, although the men received me cordially, and took my part, not only from their liking for me personally, but from their hatred of the chief mate as well.

Mr Macdougall, I could plainly see, was cock-a-hoop at my disgrace, from the malicious grin on his freckled face.

His triumph, however, was not very long-lived.

On making me relinquish my functions on the quarter-deck, the skipper had sent for Jorrocks, telling him that he would have to take charge of Mr Ohlsen's watch in my place.

"But I doesn't know nothing o' navigation, Cap'," said the boatswain, who felt keenly my abasement, and was loth to "step into my shoes," as it were.

"Oh, never mind that," replied the skipper. "Mr Macdougall will give you the courses to steer; and, if anything particular happens—which I don't expect, with the wind we have now and us in the open sea—why, you can call me."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered Jorrocks, being thus foiled in his attempt at getting me reinstated, which he thought might have been the case on his pleading his inability to con the ship; and so, when Macdougall went below with the starboard watch at eight bells in the afternoon, the boatswain took charge of the deck with the relief hands—the mate telling him still to keep to the same west-sou'-west course which I had suggested to Mr Macdougall, a couple of hours or so before, should be altered to a more southerly one, and the controversy about which had caused that "little unpleasantness" between us, which had terminated so disastrously for myself.

To explain this matter properly, I should mention that, when, on our thirteenth day out, after the cessation of the north-westerly gale that had driven us to the south of the Canaries, Captain Billings discovered that we were so near in to the African coast, in taking advantage of the wind off the land he had perhaps committed an error of judgment in making an attempt to recover our lost westing, instead of pursuing a course more directly to the southwards; for, in the early part of the northern summer, the Equatorial Current begins to run with greater rapidity towards the west, causing vessels to lose much of their true direction, and the most experienced navigators recommend crossing this stream at right angles, if possible, so as to get beyond its influence as speedily as circumstances will permit, at least at that time of year, when an easterly passage of the equator is advisable.

However, the skipper acted for the best, wishing to get well to the windward of Cape Blanco and the contrary currents and variable breezes generally encountered in that vicinity; and so, the Esmeralda had therefore continued on a diagonal course across the equatorial stream even after we had picked up the regular north-east Trades, until we had reached the meridian of 25 degrees West, when we had run as far south as 8 degrees 15 minutes North.

Here, we lost the Trades that had blown us so far on our route, entering into the second great belt of calms met with in the Atlantic to perplex the mariner when essaying to pass either to the north or south of the equator—a zone of torpidity, known popularly under the name of the "Doldrums," which was originally derived most probably from the old Portuguese phrase dolorio, "tormenting."

This belt of calms separates the two wind zones of the north-east and south-west Trades, which meeting here, their opposing forces are neutralised, and the air they bring with them from the colder regions of the north and south, becoming rarified by the heat of the equator, passes up into the higher atmosphere, producing a stagnation of the wind currents; and hence ensue calms that vary in duration according to the position of the sun, whether north or south of the Line, calms that are sometimes accompanied by tremendous rain showers, and sometimes varied with frequent squalls and thunder and lightning, followed sometimes by thick fogs hanging on the surface of the water.

The belt of the Doldrums has an average width of some six degrees, or about five hundred miles of latitude, roughly speaking; and in crossing it we were not much more favoured than most navigators, having to knock about for seven days under a sweltering tropical sun—taking advantage of whatever little breeze we could get that aided our progress to the equator, until we emerged from the retarding influence of this zone of inactivity, some three degrees to the northward of the Line, when we fortunately succeeded in sailing into the south-east Trades almost before we expected.

We had, however, lost some little way eastwards through the sweep of the Guinea current, a stream which seems strangely enough to take its rise in the middle of the ocean, and makes a sudden set thence towards the Bight of Benin; so, Captain Billings, who appeared to be prejudiced on the subject of the western passage of the equator, instead of now trying again to shape a true south course towards our point of destination, Cape Horn, directed a parallel so as to fetch the Brazilian coast. The ship, consequently, after leaving the Doldrums was steered south-west and by west, a direction which, if preserved, would have run us on in a straight line to the Rocas, a dangerous reef stretching out into the sea off the westward peak of the island of Fernando Noronha, some eighty- four miles out from the mainland to the northward of Cape Saint Roque.

This was on our thirtieth day out from the Bristol Channel, two days before the first mate and I had come to loggerheads; and since then the vessel had kept on in the same course, closing with the equator each hour under the steady south-easterly breeze which we had with us, on the port tack, and speeding even more rapidly to the west than our skipper imagined—for, through the set of some current to the northward and westwards, our dead reckoning showed a wide discrepancy from the position of the ship by observation, as I made it on the day of the row—when, as I've stated, the skipper, feeling indisposed, had left me to take the sun, knowing that the mate would check my calculations.

But, as things turned out, the altercation which occurred completely took off the attention of Captain Billings from the subject; and, as I left the chart which I had been using on the top of the cabin sky-light when he ordered me to quit the poop without informing him of the serious error I had discovered, and Mr Macdougall, wise in his own conceit and confident that he and the dead reckoning were both right, did not hint of the ship's course being wrong, on we went, with all our canvas spread, racing into the teeth of a danger which the skipper never dreamt of our being near.

The weather was now beautifully fine, the breeze tempering the heat of the sun, and flying fish and albicore playing around the vessel as we neared the equator; while, occasionally, a school of whales would spout to windward, or a shoal of porpoises, having a game of high jinks as they leaped out of the water in their graceful curves one after the other, would cross our bows backwards and forwards in sport, apparently mocking our comparatively slow progress through the sea in contrast to their own rapid and graceful movements, and showing how easily they could outstrip us when they so pleased.

I was standing on the fo'c's'le head, sadly looking out over the bows, while the light lasted, at the moving panorama of Nature around me; the dancing waves curled up on either side of the catheads as the vessel plunged her forefoot down, and streaming aft in a long wake to leeward; the cloudless sky above; the vast solitary expanse of the horizon; the leaping fish and spouting whales—keenly alive to everything and yet my mind full of all my grievances, being especially wrathful with the skipper for accepting Mr Macdougall's statement against me, without first allowing me to utter a word in my own defence.

It was worse than tyranny, I thought, this arbitrary conduct in disrating me unjustly!

I remained here till I heard one bell strike soon after the second dog- watch commenced; for I was waiting for Jorrocks to be relieved, as I wished to speak to him in order to get him to put in a word for me with Captain Billings, when he had calmed down and could listen to reason. While I was waiting, the evening closed in, the sun having not long set; for, in the tropics, night succeeds day with startling rapidity, there being no twilight to temper the transition between bright sunshine and darkness—the one ensuing almost immediately after the other without any "toning down," as painters express it, to lessen the effect of the change.

Hearing, as I fancied, a whale spouting nearer than usual—these monsters of the deep making a noise as they eject the water through the spout-holes on top of their heads in a fountain of spray, after drawing it with their gills, like surf breaking on a distant shore—the sound somehow or other took back my thoughts to the chart, and I suddenly remembered what I had told the mate about the danger of the ship approaching the Islets of Saint Paul.

These are a cluster of rocks, called by the early Portuguese navigators the Penedo de Saint Pedro, lying almost in mid-ocean, close to the equator, in latitude zero degrees 55 minutes 30 seconds North, and longitude 29 degrees 22 minutes West; and, from the water being beyond soundings in their immediate neighbourhood, they must form the peak of some submarine mountain range. They are only about sixty feet or so in height clear above the level of the sea; and, consequently, being only visible at a comparatively short distance off—not more than a couple of leagues at the outside, even in broad daylight—and situated as the shoal is in the direct track of the trade wind, the rocks form a source of great peril to mariners traversing their bearings, especially at night time, nothing existing to give warning of their proximity until a vessel may be right on to them, as it were.

Thinking of all this, which I had read in the "Sailing Directions for the North Atlantic," a book which the skipper had lent me to study, in order to perfect me in navigation, I felt a sudden fear lest the ship should be wrecked on the reef, making up my mind to tell Jorrocks about the error I had discovered in our position on the chart, which I determined to ask him to fetch for me, so as to show it to Captain Billings.

Jorrocks, however, was a long time coming forwards after being relieved from charge of the deck by Mr Macdougall, remaining some little time talking to him on the poop; so that it was nearly two bells, and quite dusky, when he made his way to where I was standing looking out for him, I having asked one of the hands to say that I wanted to speak with him.

"Well, Mister Leigh," he said, on making his appearance, "here I am at last; better late nor never, as the old folks say! But that blessed Scotchman would have a long yarn with me, about goodness knows what!"

"I'm glad you've come," I replied; and then I went on to tell him about my fears of peril to the ship from our vicinity to the Rocks of Saint Paul, which I was certain we were approaching every mile we ran further west.

But the boatswain was almost as incredulous of our being near the shoal as the first mate had been in the afternoon.

"Bless you, Mister Leigh, we're miles to windward of that place," said he with a laugh. "But it's allers the way with your young navigators as is full chock up to the bung with book larnin' and hasn't had no real 'sperience o' the sea yet! They allers fancy all sorts o' dangers that your old seamen who've been a v'yage or two never thinks o' reckonin' on!"

However, the good-natured fellow, seeing how earnest I was in the matter, promised to take the chart to the skipper, who was lying down in his cabin again, feeling far from well of late, as, indeed, his looks lately showed—and we were all afraid he had caught the same sort of low fever like Mr Ohlsen, the second mate.

"An; I'll tell him as mildly as I can, Mister Leigh, of this here mare's nest as you've found out, so as not to make him angry with you again."

"Thank you, Jorrocks," I replied heartily; but, just at that moment, hearing the whales making a noise quite close to the ship's side as I thought—although I could not see them within the limited circle of dusky light to which the surrounding gloom narrowed my vision, I said, "What a row those whales are making, are they not? They're quite near, and yet, although it's not dark enough yet to hide them from our gaze, there's not a trace of one in sight!"

Jorrocks cocked his head on one side and listened; but in an instant there was a striking alteration in the quizzical look with which he had at first regarded me, under the evident idea that I had discovered another "mare's nest."

"By Jingo, Mister Leigh, you're right after all!" he exclaimed, his face turning pale as if with sudden fright.

"What, do you think we're running on the rocks I spoke about?" I asked, anxiously.

"Aye, not a doubt of it," he answered, in the same quick way, bending his head again to listen over the side. "Either them identical ones, or else we're on the Rocas off the Brazilian coast."

In another moment, however, if in doubt previously, his suspicions were apparently confirmed; for, springing up again, and rushing aft as if he were suddenly possessed, Jorrocks roared out at the pitch of his voice— the words ringing like a trumpet note through the ship—

"Breakers ahead on the weather bow! Hard up with the helm—hard!"



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

PAT DOOLAN "CARRIES ON."

Jorrocks's cry to put the helm up was instantly obeyed by the man at the wheel, who jammed it hard-a-port with all his strength. The hands belonging to the watch on duty, at the same time, knowing with the aptitude of seamen what this order necessitated, rushed to the lee braces, easing them off without any further word of command, while those on the weather side were hauled in, thus squaring the yards and getting the ship round before the wind, when she ran off to the north-westwards, on a course almost at right angles to her former direction—which was on a bowline, with the sou'-south-east wind nearly on her beam.

"Hoot mon, what d'ye mean?" shouted Mr Macdougall, when he had recovered from the surprise which the unexpected order of the boatswain, so rapidly carried out, had caused. "Are ye gone clean daft?"

But Jorrocks had no need to explain the reason for his interference with the mate's duties.

As the vessel payed off, the sound of surf, loudly thundering against some rocky rampart projecting from the deep which opposed the onward roll of the ocean billows, was heard louder and louder; and, in another instant, Mr Macdougall and those who stood beside him on the poop held their breath with awe as the Esmeralda glided by a triangular-shaped black peak that seemed as high as the foretopsail yard—so closely that they could apparently have touched it by merely stretching out their hands, while over it the waves, driven by the south wind, were breaking in columns of spray, flakes of which fell on the faces of all aft, as they looked over the side, and trembled at the narrowly-avoided danger.

"Whee-ew!" whistled Jorrocks through his teeth. "That were a squeak, an' no mistake!"

It was.

We had been saved by a miracle.

Five minutes, nay, half a minute longer on our previous course, and the Esmeralda would, with the way she had on her, have been dashed to pieces on the jagged teeth of these isolated rocks standing in mid- ocean, when never a soul on board would have lived to tell the tale of her destruction; for, in the pale phosphorescent light emitted by the broken water surrounding the crag, some of the sailors averred, as we sheered by, that they saw several sharks plunging about—ready to devour any of us who might have tried to swim ashore had the vessel come to grief.

It was an escape to be thankful for to Him who watches over those who travel on the treacherous seas, and protects them from its perils "in the night, when no man seeth!"

A dead stillness prevailed for a moment on board after the bustle of wearing the ship round had ceased, so that you might have heard a pin drop, as the saying is, although in the distance away astern the melancholy cadence of the waves breaking on Saint Paul's Islets was borne down to us on the wind. As I stood in the waist, whither so far aft I had followed Jorrocks, I could have caught any words spoken on the poop above me, but I noted that Mr Macdougall didn't utter a syllable in continuance of the reprimand he had begun against the boatswain for his "officiousness," as he apparently considered his order to put the ship off her course. He was terror-stricken on realising the motive for the boatswain's interference; however, before he had time to open his mouth again, the skipper, who had been roused up by the sudden commotion on the deck over his head, rushed past me up the poop ladder like lightning.

Captain Billings' first look, sailor-like, was aloft; and noticing the vessel was before the wind, while the spanker, which had been eased off, prevented him from seeing the shoal we had so narrowly avoided, he turned on the mate for explanation.

"Hallo, Macdougall!" he exclaimed, "what's the reason of this, eh?"

But the mate did not answer at once. He still seemed spellbound.

"We've just wore her, sir," said Jorrocks, stepping forwards, and accompanying Captain Billings as he made his way to the binnacle.

"So I see," drily replied the skipper, after a hasty glance at the standard compass. "But what has been the reason for thus altering the course of the ship? I gave orders for her to be steered south-west by west; and here we are now heading direct up to the northward again! What's the reason for this, I want to know? Speak, now, can't you?"

Macdougall, on this second inquiry being directed to him by the skipper—who for the moment seemed to ignore the boatswain's presence beside him—mumbled out something about the rocks, but he spoke in so thick and indistinct a voice that Captain Billings believed he was intoxicated.

"Rocks, your grandmother!" he cried angrily. "The only rocks hereabouts are those built up in your brain through that confounded bottle you're always sucking at below!"

"Indeed, sir," put in Jorrocks at this point, taking the mate's part, "Mr Macdougall's right, Cap'. We've just had the narrowest squeak of going to the bottom I ever 'sperienced in all my time. Look there, sir, o'er the weather taffrail, an' you'll see summat we pretty nearly ran foul of just now—it were a risky shave!"

Captain Billings, somewhat puzzled by the boatswain thus "shoving his oar in" for a second time unasked, cast his eyes in the direction pointed out to him, where, now lighted up by the newly risen moon, could be distinctly seen the Penedo de San Pedro, with the surf breaking over it in sheets of silver foam.

He recognised the place in a moment, having passed close by the spot on a previous voyage; and he was greatly astonished at our being in its near vicinity now.

"Good gracious!" he ejaculated, "what an escape we must have had; but how came we near the place at all?"

"That I can't explain, sir," replied Jorrocks meaningly. "Perhaps, though, as how there was something wrong in the ship's position on the chart to-day."

"Ha, humph!" muttered the skipper to himself. "This comes of my being ill and entrusting my duties to other hands; but I'll never do it again, I'll take care! Mr Macdougall," he added aloud, "I beg your pardon for what I said just now in the heat of the moment, and I hope you'll excuse it, as I was greatly flurried, and do not feel very well yet. What position did you place the vessel in to-day, by the way, when you took your observation at noon?"

This was a ticklish question, and the mate hardly knew how to answer it, recollecting, as he did in an instant, what I had said—of our being much further westwards than the skipper thought. Even if he did not agree with me, the point should have been referred to Captain Billings, as it so vitally concerned the interests of all on board. Almost tongue-tied, therefore, now by his former silence on the subject, he temporised with the difficulty, determined not to be cornered if he could help it.

"'Deed an' I mad' it e'en the same as the deed reck'nin' cam' to, Cap'en, a wee bit to the westwar' o' twenty-seven, and close to the leen."

"Then your sextant must have been out of order, or your calculations wrong," replied the skipper, shortly. "We are evidently much to the westwards of your reckoning. How did you observe the danger—was there a man on the look-out?"

"Nae, sir, I didna think we required yon," answered Macdougall, now at his wit's end for a reply.

"No, I should think not," said Captain Billings, in his dry way; "but who was it that warned you in time to wear the ship?"

"Mister Leigh, sir," put in Jorrocks, thinking the time now come to speak up for me. "He heard the noise of the breakers first, and called my 'tention to 'em, and I then sung out to put the helm up."

"Oh!" ejaculated the skipper, quite taken aback by my name being thus suddenly brought up by Jorrocks—just as he was thinking of me and my recent shortcomings, as he afterwards explained to me.

"Yes, sir," continued my old friend the boatswain, believing it best to push the matter home, now he had once introduced me on the carpet; "and he begged me to tell you, sir, as how he'd left his chart on the cabin sky-light, where he'd jotted down summat as he'd diskivered when taking the sun, before the rumpus arose 'twixt him and Muster Macdougall."

"Chart!" interposed the mate, making a step towards the sky-light, and trying to throw the tarpaulin that was hanging there over it whilst pretending to drag it off, "I see no chart here."

"Why, here it is," exclaimed the skipper, noticing one end of the roll, which projected from beneath the tarpaulin; and, pulling it out, he walked back again towards the binnacle, by the light of which he inspected my tracing of the ship's path on the chart carefully.

"Pass the word forwards for Martin Leigh," he cried out presently; and I, listening below in the waist, just under the break of the poop, to all that had transpired, very quickly answering to the call of my name as it was sung out by Jorrocks, mounted up the poop ladder, and advanced aft to where Captain Billings stood.

"Leigh," said he, quietly, "I have sent for you to explain matters about this chart. Did you take an observation to-day as I told you?"

"Yes, sir," I replied.

"And did you agree with Mr Macdougall?"

"No, sir," said I, unable to avoid the joke, "we didn't agree—we fell out, as you saw!"

Jorrocks burst out laughing at this, and even the skipper himself couldn't repress a smile—although he bit his lips to hide it, seeing the first mate scowling at me as if he could eat me up without salt, for he was afraid of the truth now coming out.

"Don't be impudent, Leigh! you know what I mean well enough. Did your calculation agree with that of Mr Macdougall?" asked Captain Billings again.

"No, Captain Billings," I answered, this time gravely enough. "I found that our dead reckoning was nearly thirty leagues out, some set of current having carried us considerably to the westward; but when I told this to Mr Macdougall, he called me a fool."

"Why did you not come and report the matter to me?"

"Well, sir, I didn't have time to," I said. "When Mr Macdougall spoke to me in that way, I suppose I gave him a cheeky retort, for he threatened to knock me down."

"And then?" asked the skipper, when I paused here, not wishing to tell of my being floored.

"Why, I dared him to touch me," I continued, "and he did knock me down."

"Did he? I heard nothing of this before! I thought that you had attacked Mr Macdougall first—indeed, he told me so himself!" Captain Billings said, with much surprise, eyeing the first mate suspiciously.

At this point, an unexpected witness stepped forth in my defence, in the person of Haxell, the taciturn carpenter. This individual seldom spoke to any one unless previously addressed; so his voluntary testimony on my behalf was all the more striking and effective, especially as it was given in the very nick of time.

"Aye, but the lad didn't," now sang out Haxell, who had come up on the poop without any one previously noticing him. "I saw Mr Macdougall knock him down twice afore ever he raised his hand ag'in' him."

"The deuce he did!" exclaimed the skipper, indignantly; and then turning on the first mate, he gave him another "dressing down" before all the men, such as I never heard given to any one before. It, really, almost made me feel sorry for him!

"You lying thing!" he cried to Mr Macdougall in withering accents, the scorn of which was more than I could express in words. "I can't call you a man, and you aren't a sailor, by Jove, for sailors don't behave like that to poor friendless orphan boys! You have told me a heap of falsehoods about this whole occurrence from first to last, and I despise you from the bottom of my soul for the way in which you have acted throughout. I'm only sorry we're at sea, for you shouldn't stop an hour longer in my ship if I could help it!"

"But, Cap'en," interposed Mr Macdougall, feebly, trying to ward off the storm of the skipper's wrath, "the ill favourt loon provokit me, and was mair than inseelent."

"Phaugh, man!" exclaimed Captain Billings, with intense disgust. "Don't try and excuse yourself; it only makes matters much worse! I don't mind your knocking the lad down, and I daresay Leigh would forgive you for that, too; but what I am indignant at is the fact of your telling such a gross lie about the transaction, and allowing me to take an unjust view of the quarrel—making me disrate the young fellow, and punish him as I did, under a false, impression of what his conduct had been, all of which a word from you might have altered! Besides, just think how in your conceited ignorance you nearly wrecked the ship and sacrificed all our lives through your refusal to take a hint from the lad as to our position. Why, I don't mind receiving a suggestion from the humblest foremast hand any day!"

"But—" put in the mate again, trying to defend himself.

His appeal, however, was in vain, for the skipper would not listen to him for a moment.

"You had better go below, Mr Macdougall," he said. "I cannot speak calmly to you now, and the sooner you're out of my sight the better for you! But stop a minute," he added, as if on after reflection. "As you were present when I disrated Leigh—on the ground mainly of your false statements as to his having assaulted you without any provocation on your part, which has now been proved to have been false—it is only right that you should also be present at the restoration of the lad to his former post. Leigh!"

"Here, sir," I replied to this last hail of the skipper's, on his completing his reprimand to the mate. I anticipated, of course, what was coming, and my heart gave an exultant thump, almost "leaping into my mouth," as the saying is.

"I'm sorry, my boy, I did you a wrong this afternoon," said Captain Billings, stretching out his hand kindly to me as he spoke. "I hope, however, you'll forgive me, and bear no malice. I now wish you to return to your duties as acting second mate in Mr Ohlsen's place until he's fit and well again; and I trust you'll have no further disagreements with any of the officers of the ship."

"Thank you, sir," I answered respectfully, accepting the hand he offered and giving it a cordial shake. "I will be very careful of my conduct in future, and I'm sorry for being impertinent to Mr Macdougall—"

I turned here towards where the first mate had been standing; but he had disappeared, so the skipper accepted the apology I intended for him, on his behalf in his absence, making short my amende honorable.

"Never mind him now, my lad," he said, waving his hand as if dismissing Mr Macdougall from further consideration. "He's gone below, and joy go with him, if he's got any conscience! And, by the way, Leigh, I shan't forget that you've saved all our lives to-night by your timely warning."

"It was more Jorrocks than I, sir," I interposed here, stopping the skipper's thanks. "I thought the sound of the breakers was caused by a lot of whales blowing near us; but he knew better, and he it was who sang out to the helmsman."

"Well, well, we won't argue the point," replied Captain Billings, laughing. "I will say you both had a hand in it, if that'll suit you better; but now, to end the controversy, you can go and turn in to your old bunk, as I intend keeping the first watch till we're safe on our right track again."

To hear was to obey, although, before I left the poop, the Esmeralda having got well away from the perilous rocks that had nearly been her ruin, I had the satisfaction of seeing her hauled round again up to the wind, with her head pointing south, thus resuming her proper course towards Cape Horn—only now with a more southerly pitch, sailing close- handed on the port tack.

Towards four bells in the morning watch we achieved the wonderful nautical feat of "Crossing the Line," and, as I was on deck at the time, interviewing Pat Doolan in order to coax some coffee out of him, the Irish cook had a joke or two at my expense, under the plea of christening me on my entrance into Neptune's rightful "territory"—if that term be not a Hibernian bull, considering the said territory is supposed to lie below the sea!

It was only our thirty-third day out, and some of the hands were congratulating themselves on our having got so far on our journey, many vessels knocking about the equator when within reach of it for days frequently before they can accomplish the passage.

"Be jabers!" said Doolan, "I call to mind once whin I was goin' from Noo Yark to Australy in a schooner with a cargo o' mules—"

"Lor', here's a bender coming now!" interrupted one of the crew with a laugh.

"Whisht, now!" ejaculated the cook indignantly. "Sure an' it's the trooth I'm tell'n ye, an' niver a lie! Whin I were a goin' to Australy in this here schooner, we kept dancing about hereabouts till a lot ov them blessed mules died, an' in coorse we hove 'em overboard as soon as they turned up their toes."

"That's a good un!" put in Jorrocks, who was standing by. "This is the fust time I ever heard tell of a mule having toes!"

"Well, hooves thin, if you likes them betther," said Pat, a little upset by this correction. "But, as I was a sayin' when this omahdaun here took the word out ov me mouth, unlike the raal gintleman he ginerally is—"

"Stow that flummery," cried Jorrocks, putting his hands before his face, under pretence of blushing at the compliment; but Doolan took no notice of him further, proceeding with his yarn.

"Whin we hove them mules over the side, I noticed one as was coollured most peculiar, all sthripes ov black on a white skin, jist like one ov them zaybrays they haves in the sarcus show, an' they're called so, by the same token, 'case they brays like a donkey and comes over the zay, you see?"

"Aye, we see," said the hands, winking at each other and whispering that Pat was "carrying on finely this morning!"

"Well, bhoys, as I was a sayin'," continued the narrator, serving out pannikins of hot coffee to the watch the while, and so attending to duty and pleasure in the same breath, "I notic't this sthripy mule when it was chucked over the side at the beginning of the month. It was last August twelvemonth as how we was crossing the Line; and, after pitching the poor brute over, we sailed on and on—would you belayve it?—aye, for thray weeks longer, as I'm a living sinner, whin one foine mornin', jist the same as this now, the look-out man sings out as he says a boat floating ahid ov the schooner! Our old man, thinkin' there might be sowls in the blissid thing, puts the vessel off ov her coorse to fetch to windward ov it; and blest if what the look-out man thought was a boat wasn't the self-same carkiss ov that there sthripy mule we hove over three weeks before!"

"You'll do," was the comment of Jorrocks to this story. "You 'mind me, Pat, of a yarn I heard once about an old lady and a chap who knew how to 'bowse his jib up,' same as yourself."

"What was that?" I asked, seeing that Jorrocks looked as if he were primed up to fire off another story, and only needed a little pressing to make him reel it out.

"Lord, Mister Leigh, it ain't nothing to speak of," he began, with a preliminary hitch of his trowser stocks; "it's only what them book- people calls a nanny goat."

"An anecdote, eh?" I said. "Well, that'll be all the better. Heave ahead with it now you're on the tack."

"All right, then," replied Jorrocks. "Here goes. You must know as how this old lady were going over the Atlantic for the fust time, being on a voyage from Falmouth to Saint Kitts, in the West h'Indies; and she were mighty curious, when she had rekivered from sea-sickness, about all the strange sights o' the h'ocean, pestering the cap'en to death with questions.

"One day she tackled the old man 'bout flying fish. 'Bless me, Mr Capting,' she says, 'is it really true as how there be fishes as fly hereabouts?'

"Now, it were just on to noon that day, and the old man was busy 'bout taking a sight o' the sun, the same as you're so handy with, Mister Leigh; so he says to the old lady, 'I'm engaged, mum, at present, but if you axes that man there at the wheel while I goes below, he'll tell you all about it.'

"So, as soon as he dives down the companion to take the time of the chronometer below, the old lady goes up to the helmsman—all bridling up and curtseying down, the same as a ship in a heavy head sea.

"'Good-morning, Mr Sailor,' says she.

"'Mornin',' says the man at the wheel, who was a rough old shellback, and didn't waste his words like Pat Doolan here.

"'Is it really true, Mr Sailor,' says the old lady, 'as how there are fishes in the sea in these latitoods, as can fly in the air, like birds? The capting told me to ax you, or I wouldn't trouble you.'

"'Bless you, mum, no trouble at all,' answered the man. 'In course there be flying fish hereabouts; you'll see flocks of 'em presently.'

"'And are they very large, Mr Sailor?' says the old lady.

"'Large, mum?' repeats the helmsman, looking around as if in search of something to liken the size of the fish to. 'Why, I've seed em as big round as—aye, as the stump of that there mizzen-mast there!'

"'My good gracious!' screams the old lady, 'Why, they must be larger nor crocodiles!'

"'Aye, all that,' says the man, as cool as you please. 'The last voyage I was on, my mate was in the foretop of the vessel I was in, looking out to windward, when pop jumps one of 'em right down his throat!'

"'And the fish was as big as the mizzen-mast there?' says the old lady, curious like, in her surprise at the chap's awful bender; although she didn't misdoubt his telling her the truth, for she would ha' took in anything!

"But he was too fly for her, was my joker!

"'You mustn't speak to the man at the wheel!' says he, gruffly; and so he got out cleverly from answering any more questions on the point— smart of him, wasn't it?"

I could not help laughing at this story, the other hands joining in the merriment; all of us, though, wondering how Pat Doolan would take it.

The Irishman, however, did not consider there was anything personal in it. Other people's pulls at the long-bow always seem much more apparent than one's own!

"Ov coorse that chap was takin' a rise out of the ould lady," he said parenthetically; "but what I tould you ov the mule was thrue enough."

"What! do you mean to say that you were sailing away from the carcase for three weeks and came across it again?" I inquired, with a smile.

"Not a doubt ov it," replied the Irishman, stoutly, "and going good siven knots an hour by the log, too, at that! I rec'lect that v'yage o' mine in that schooner well, too, by the same token! It was there I found that Manilla guernsey ov mine so handy ag'in' the could."

"A Manilla guernsey?" said Jorrocks, in much amazement. "I know what Manilla cables are, and I've heard tell o' Manilla cigars, though I've never smoked 'em; but a Manilla guernsey—why, who ever came across sich an outlandish thing?"

"Be jabers, I have, boatswain," cried Pat Doolan. "Sure, an' I made it mysilf; so, if you'll listen, I'll till ye all about it."

"Hooray, here's another bender!" sang out the chaps standing by; but, seeing that the cook appeared as if he would turn rusty if they showed any further incredulity at his statements, they composed their faces—"looking nine ways for Sunday," as the phrase goes; or, like the Carthaginians when the pious Aeneas was spinning that wonderful yarn of his which we read about in Virgil, in the presence of Queen Dido and her court, conticuere omnes et ora tenebant!



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

CAUGHT IN A PAMPERO.

"Sure an' you must bear in mind, messmates," commenced Pat, coming outside his galley and leaning against the side in free-and-easy fashion, "when I wint aboord that vessel in Noo Yark, I was a poor gossoon, badly off for clothes, having no more slops than I could carry handy in a hankercher."

"Not like your splendiferous kit now," observed Sails, the sail-maker, with a nudge in Jorrocks' ribs to point the joke—the cook's gear in the way of raiment being none of the best.

"No, not a ha'porth ov it," proceeded the Irishman, taking no notice of the sarcastic allusion to his wardrobe. "To till the truth, I'd only jist what I stood up in, for I'd hard times ov it in the States, an' was glad enough to ship in the schooner to git out ov the way ov thim rowdy Yankees, bad cess to 'em! They trate dacint Irishmen no betther nor if they were dirthy black nayghurs, anyhow! How so be it, as soon as I got afloat ag'in, I made up my mind to git some traps togither as soon as I could."

"Let you alone for that!" interposed Sails again, maliciously.

"Arrah, be aisy now, old bradawl and palm-string, or I'll bring ye up with a round turn!" exclaimed Pat, getting nettled at the remark.

"Why can't you let him be?" cried the rest, thereupon. "Heave ahead, cooky;" and, so encouraged, the Irishman once more made a fresh start, declaring, however, that if he were once more interrupted they'd "never hear nothing" of what he was going to tell them, "at all, at all!"

Peace being then restored, he resumed the burden of his tale.

"As soon as the ould schooner was riddy to start with all thim mules aboard, we got a tugboat to take us in tow down the harbour out to the Narrows, as they calls the entrance to Noo Yark Bay; and whin the tug's hawser was fetched over our bows to be fastened to the bollards I sees that the rope's a bran-new Manilla one.

"'Aha,' thinks I, 'that's a foine pace of rope anyhow! I'll have a bit ov you, me lad, to stow away with my duds; mayhap ye'll come in handy by-and-bye!' and so saying to meeself, I sings out to the chap on the tugboat a-paying out the hawser, to give me some more slack, and he heaves over a fathom or two more, which allowed me to cut off a good length, lavin' plenty yit to belay around the bollards; an' whin no one was lookin' I takes the pace ov cable below and kicks it away in the forepeak, so as I could know where to foind it forenenst the time I wanted for to use it.

"Well, we sailed away from Sandy Hook down to the Line, an' sailed and sailed, losin' most of our mules, and making no headway, as I've tould you, until at last we got into the south-east Trades, same as this ship is now, and fetched down the coast to Cape Horn.

"Presently, it begins to get so could, that for want of clothing I was nearly blue-mouldy with the frost in the nights, until I could stand it no longer; but none ov the chaps had any duds to spare, an' I was clane out of me head what for to do.

"One evening, howsoever, whin I were that blue with could as I could have sarved for a Blue Pater if triced up to the mast-head, a sinsible kind ov idea sthruck me.

"'Be jabers,' sez I to mesilf, 'I'm forgettin' that pace of Manilla hawser I've got stowed away; sure an' it'll make an illigant overall!'

"No sooner I thinks that, than down I goes to the forepeak, where I found me rope all right; and thin, thin and there, boys, I unreaves the strands, making it all into spun yarn—you know, I s'pose, as how I'm a sail-maker by rights, like Sails here, and not a reg'ler cook?"

"The deuce you are!" ejaculated Sails; "you never told us that before."

"No fear," replied Pat. "Faix, I don't till you iverythin' I knows—I larnt better nor that from the monkeys in Brazil, old ship!"

"But what did you do with the Manilla hemp arter you unrove the hawser?" asked Jorrocks, his curiosity now roused by the matter-of-fact way in which the Irishman told his story—relating it as if every word was "the true truth," according to the French idiom.

"Why, you omahdaun, I jist worked it into a guernsey, knitting it from the nick downwards, the same as the ladies, bless 'em! do them woollen fallals that they wear round theirselves."

"You wove it into a guernsey?" cried Sails, in astonishment.

"Aye, I did that so," returned Pat; "and wore it, too, all round Cape Horn!"

"Then let me look at you a little closer," cried the sail-maker, pulling Doolan towards him, and passing his hand over his nose.

"What the blazes are ye afther, man?" asked Pat, not being able to make out what the other meant by handling him in that fashion.

"Only seeing if you had my mark," said Sails, calmly; "and here it is, by all that's powerful!"

"Your mark, Sails? What on airth d'ye mane?"

"Why, whenever I sews up a chap in his hammock as dies at sea, which I've often had to do as part of the sail-maker's duty in the many ships I've been in, I allers makes a p'int of sticking my needle through the corpse's nose, to prevent him slipping out of his covering."

"What!" ejaculated the Irishman, startled for the moment out of his native keenness of wit; "an' is it m'aning to say as it's a could corpus I've been, an' that I've bin did an' buried in the bottom of the say?"

"Aye, aye, my hearty," answered Sails, with great nonchalance. "And I've sewed you up in your hammock, too, for sarten—that is, just as sure as you fetched across that there streaky mule of yourn, arter sailing over the ocean for three weeks, and made a guernsey frock out of a Manilla hawser!"

There was a regular shout of laughter from all hands at the sail-maker thus turning the tables so completely on the Irishman, who got so angry at our merriment for the moment that he retired within his caboose, slamming the half-door too, and declaring that not a single mother's son of those present should have the taste of hot coffee again in the morning watch!

However, Pat's fits of temper were as evanescent as they were quickly produced, and presently he was laughing and talking away as if he had not been offended, enjoying the joke Sails had against him almost as much as any of the others.

Two days after crossing the Line we sighted the Rocas, on passing the parallel of Fernando Noronha, where the Brazilians have a penal settlement; and, on the third day, we cleared the Cape of Saint Roque, which is the most projecting point of the South American continent— stretching out, as it does, miles into the Atlantic Ocean, while the coast-line on either side of it trends away in a wide sweep, away westwards, north and south, back from the sea.

After passing Saint Roque, we ran down our latitudes rapidly, the south- east Trades keeping with us until we had reached the twentieth parallel; and we fetched Rio on our forty-second day out. This was not bad time, considering the great distance we were driven out of our way by the gale, and the fact of our subsequently knocking about for a week in the Doldrums.

With regard to matters on board the ship, I may state here, that, from the date of that eventful night when the Esmeralda had so providentially escaped being wrecked on the Rocks of Saint Paul, and Captain Billings, after "dressing down" the mate, had restored me to my former position aft, Mr Macdougall had not spoken a single word to me, although I had made many overtures of peace towards him, wishing the matter to drop—nothing being so unpleasant as to be on awkward terms with any one with whom one is brought in constant contact, especially when the daggers-drawn parties are cooped up together in a vessel on the high seas.

But, no; he would not accept the olive branch.

When it was time for me to relieve his watch, the mate invariably sent one of the hands to summon me, telling me through the same medium the course to be steered, and giving what orders were necessary for the working of the ship, so that there should be no occasion for any conversation between us; and it likewise happened that when we were on deck together, as was frequently the case during the day, he always walked on the weather side of the poop, while I took the leeward place— that is, unless the skipper was there too, when of course the latter promenaded the more honourable beat, and I walked by his side, while Mr Macdougall had the lee-side then all to himself.

At meal-times also, in the cabin, he took care that we should not meet, never coming in until after I had left the table, and always rising up to go on deck should I enter while he was there.

The mate held aloof in a similar fashion from the skipper, the two never interchanging a word save with reference to the navigation of the vessel. He seemed, indeed, to have sent us both to Coventry, although Captain Billings made no comment to me on his conduct; but I did not fail to notice—what indeed was the popular belief through the ship— that, if the first mate was paying us out in this way, he did not forget to "take it out of the crew" in another and very practical mode of his own, which was by driving them as hard as a workhouse superintendent in charge of a lot of poor paupers.

To return to the ship and her voyage, I should observe that, after the south-east Trades failed us—succeeded for a short spell by light variable winds, as we kept well away from the coast, and so perhaps missed the land breeze that we might have had—we picked up the south- west monsoon, which carried us past Rio Janeiro.

The term monsoon, or "monsun," I may explain, is derived from an Arabic word, mausim, meaning "a set time, or season of the year;" and is generally applied to a system of regular wind currents, like the Trades, blowing in different hemispheres beyond the range of those old customers with which ordinary voyagers are familiar.

From Rio we ran down in five days to the Plate River, having fine weather and making pretty good sailing all the time, as indeed we had done since crossing the Line; but, arrived off Monte Video, we soon had warning that our quiet days of progress through the water on one tack, without shifting a brace or starting a sheet, were numbered with the fortunate things of the past.

One morning, just when we were in latitude 34 degrees 55 minutes south, and 55 degrees 10 minutes West, or nearly a hundred miles off the wide estuary of the Rio de la Plata, I noticed a peculiar phenomenon.

The wind was blowing from the northward of west, while the atmosphere was bright and clear, so that the horizon was extended to almost double its ordinary distance; but, although no land was to be seen anywhere in sight, myriads of little winged insects began all at once to hover over us, just as if we were close in shore under the lee of some tropical forest, while our hands, clothes, faces, and the ship's rigging as well, began to be covered with long, white, hair-like webs, similar to those woven by spiders in a garden shrubbery! I couldn't make it out at all, feeling inclined to view the matter as one of those extraordinary freaks of Nature, which even science is unable to throw any light on—phenomena that are every now and then exhibited to us, as if only to show our ignorance of the workings of the invisible Power around us guiding the movements and physical cosmogony of our sphere; but Jorrocks, who was a thorough seaman, believing in portents, and thinking that everything unusual at sea was sent for a purpose, and "meant something," advised my calling the skipper.

"I 'specs, Mister Leigh," said he, "as how there's a squall brewing, or summat, for they're pretty plentiful down here when the wind bears round to the west."

"All right, Jorrocks; I'll give him a hail," I replied; and leaving the boatswain in charge of the deck, it being my watch, I went down to wake up the skipper, he having only turned in just before I came on duty.

"How's the glass?" asked Captain Billings, as soon as I had roused him and told him what I had observed.

"I didn't think of looking at it, sir," I replied.

"Then do so at once," he said; "a sailor should never fail to consult his barometer, even when the weather is apparently fine, for it gives warning of any change hours, perhaps, before it may occur. It is an unswerving guide—more so than the wind and sky in some latitudes."

I hastened now to look at the instrument, and noticing that it had fallen, I reported the fact to the skipper as he was dressing.

"Ah," said he, "then that has occurred since I turned in;" and, completing his toilet rapidly, he soon followed me on deck, whither I returned at once.

In the short interval of my absence below, however, there was a marked alteration in the scene.

The wind had dropped to the faintest breeze, which presently, too, died away, succeeded by a dead stillness of the atmosphere, while the sea became like glass, except where an occasional heave of the unbroken surface betrayed the restless force beneath that seeming calm; and, instead of the clear sky and wide-stretching horizon melting into the azure distance, which had previously struck me with admiration, a thick haze had crept up over the heavens from the westwards, which, extending right up to the zenith, had soon shut out the bright sunlight, making it darker than night—the air becoming at the same time chill and cold.

I had not much leisure, though, to note the pictorial effects of the scene; for I heard the skipper's voice behind me.

"By Jove, Leigh!" he exclaimed, "we're going to have one of those pamperos, as they call them, that come off the mouth of the Plate; and we'll have all our work cut out for us to be ready in time. Call the other watch, boatswain!"

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Jorrocks; and quickly his familiar hail rang out fore and aft, as he rapped on the scuttle forwards—

"All ha-a-ands take in sail!"

We were carrying a full spread of canvas at the time; but the men, tumbling out of their bunks with a will, not having had much of that sort of work lately, were soon clambering up the rigging, furling the royals and topgallant sails—I amongst them, you may be sure, having been the first, as usual, on the main royal yard.

"Now, men, take in the flying jib," cried Captain Billings, when we had come below, having so far stripped the ship for the coming fight; and the headsail was stowed, the spanker and trysail were brailed, the courses hauled up and the yards squared, when we awaited the attack of the pampero.

"It'll soon be on us now," said the skipper, seeing that the heavens became blacker and blacker to the westwards; and presently it came!

A streak of vivid lightning shot out from the blue-black storm-clouds that were hung over the ship like a funeral pall, lighting up the surrounding gloom and making it appear all the more sombre afterwards from the momentary illumination; and then, with a crash of thunder—that seemed as if the sky above was riven open, it was so awfully loud and reverberating—the tornado burst upon us, accompanied by a fierce blast of wind, that almost took the ship aback, and would have sent her down beneath the water in an instant to a certainty if we had been under sail.

"Let fly everything!" shouted the skipper; and the halliards being cast loose, the topsails came down on the caps by the run; when the Esmeralda, paying off from the wind, began to exhibit her old form of showing her heels to the enemy—tearing away through the sea with all her sheets flying.

Along with the pampero came a terrific shower of hail that lacerated our faces and almost took away our breath for the moment; but, never heeding this, on the skipper issuing his orders, we were up aloft again reefing topsails in a jiffey, and, as soon as the halliards had been manned and the yards rehoisted, the courses were furled and the jib hauled down, the fore-topmast staysail being set in its place. Everything being now made snug, the vessel was brought once more round to her course on the starboard tack, heading a little to the westward of south.

To the hail succeeded a heavy storm of rain; and then, the pampero having blown itself out by its sudden frenzy, a short calm now came on, after which the wind chopped round to the old quarter, the southwards and eastwards, bringing us back again to the port tack as we steered between the Falkland Islands and the South American continent—keeping in closer to the land now, for any fresh wind that might spring up would be certain to come from off shore.

The day of the pampero, however, did not pass by before another incident happened on board the Esmeralda.

When "all hands" were called, of course Mr Macdougall came up too; and, although he did not go aloft the same as I did to help in reefing topsails and furl the canvas—for he was neither so young nor so active as myself, and besides, it was not his place as first mate of the ship thus to aid the crew in doing the practical part of their duty—yet, on deck, he was of much assistance to the skipper in seeing that his different orders were promptly executed at the moment required; being not chary either of lending a hand at a brace when help was necessary, and exerting himself as much as any one, in a way very unusual for him.

So now, when the pampero had passed away and the excitement was over, Captain Billings, in his joyful exuberance of feeling at the Esmeralda having weathered the peril, went up to him and shook hands cordially.

"Hurrah, Macdougall!" he exclaimed, "the old barquey has been too much for my River Plate bully of a pampero."

"Aye, mon, she's weethered it weel, I ween," replied the mate, accepting the proffered pledge of restored friendship; and he was shaking away at the skipper's fist as if he was never going to relinquish its grasp, when, suddenly, the calm came on that I have mentioned, and the sails flapped against the masts heavily, shaking the ship and making the rigging vibrate.

Both Mr Macdougall and the skipper looked aloft, impelled by the same instinct, as they stood aft, the mate close to the taffrail; when, at that instant, the spanker boom swinging round, the lee sheet—not being hauled taut—caught the mate athwart his chest and swept him incontinently over the side!

I was on the opposite side of the deck, witnessing with much satisfaction the mode in which he and the skipper had made up their differences, the feud having lasted for over a fortnight; but, on seeing the accident, was for a moment horror-struck.

However, I soon recovered myself.

"Man overboard!" I shouted out, with all the power of my lungs; and then, without hesitation, I plunged after Mr Macdougall into the sea.



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

ON FIRE IN THE HOLD!

The wind had dropped to a calm, as I've mentioned, just before this; but the sea was still running high, with those heavy waves that get up in a moment in the lower latitudes as soon as it begins to blow. But I never thought of this when I plunged in to the mate's rescue.

When I was at Dr Hellyer's, the only two things I ever really learnt that were of any use to me in my after-life were, a substantial grounding in mathematics—thanks to "Smiley"—which subsequently made the study of navigation easy to me when Sam Pengelly put me under charge of a tutor; and, secondly, the art of swimming, the place where the school was situated and the practice of taking out the boys on the beach for the purpose every day, offering great facilities to any one with the least aptitude for taking to the water and possessed of a desire to learn how to support himself in it.

Now, therefore, I found the second of these acquirements to stand me in good stead—the consciousness of knowing how to swim, not only giving me the courage to leap over the vessel's side after the unfortunate man, but also enabling me to decide what to do when I found myself battling with the waves on my errand of succour.

The Esmeralda's quarter was a good height from the sea level; so, on my diving off, what with this and the impetus of my leap, I went considerably below the surface, coming up panting for breath some distance away from the ship, which, having still a little way on her, besides offering a considerable surface of hull for the waves to act upon, was drifting further and further off each instant.

I had no concern about this, though, the only impression on my mind being the necessity of getting hold of Mr Macdougall as soon as I could; and when I had recovered from the half-suffocating feeling produced by my impromptu long dive beneath the Atlantic rollers, I raised myself on the top of one of these, and proceeded to look for the first mate, who ought, I thought, to be pretty close to me.

The water struck bitterly cold, as I trod it down in order to elevate myself as much as I could and so have a wider view around, for it made my limbs feel as if cramp was coming on; but I kicked out vigorously, and the sensation passing off I began to feel more at home in the water, and as confident as if I were bathing off the shore at Beachampton— albeit I was now having a bath in the middle of the Southern ocean, with my ship almost half a mile from me by this time!

I did not see Mr Macdougall anywhere at first, so I feared that the force with which the boom sheet had come against his chest might have so injured him as to paralyse his movements when he fell overboard; but, presently, when I rose on the crest of another huge rolling billow that took me up a little higher aloft, I saw him struggling in one of the watery valleys between the ridges of the waves about half a cable's length away to the windward of me, so that I was between him and the ship, whose sails alone now were all I could see of her from my low position in the water.

Catching sight of him, at once inspired me with fresh courage, making me as buoyant as a cork; and I faced the task before me, offering up a heartfelt prayer that I might accomplish it successfully.

"Hold up, Mr Macdougall! I'm coming to help you!" I cried out as loudly as I could, for he seemed just then, from the look of despair I saw on his face, to be on the point of chucking up his hands and allowing himself to sink to the bottom, impressed probably with the hopelessness of attempting to reach the vessel. Then, striking out with a good strong breast-stroke, which is worth all your fancy side business in rough water, I made towards him; although, having to go against the set of the sea, I found it much harder work than merely keeping myself afloat, which was all that I had previously tried to do, without actually swimming.

He did not hear my shout, being to windward; but, when I rose presently on another wave-crest nearer him, I could perceive that he saw me, from the way in which he raised one of his arms in his excitement—the effect of which was, of course, to cause his head to go under and make him believe his last hour was come.

"Help, help!" he screamed, when he got above the surface again, spluttering out words and water together; "I'm droonin', mon—help, mon, help!"

I could hear him distinctly from my being to leeward, and as I was much nearer to him now, I cried out again to encourage him—

"Hold on, Mr Macdougall! I'll be with you in a minute!"

Then, with half a dozen strong, sturdy strokes, aided by a wave that worked him towards me, I was by his side.

He was utterly exhausted, having, like most unpractised swimmers, pumped himself out by splashing about with short jerky movements of his hands and legs, which only wearied him without advancing him through the opposing billows or assisting him to keep up; and, on my coming up to him, as all drowning men in similar circumstances invariably do, he made a frantic clutch at me, when, if he had succeeded in grasping me, we should both have sunk to the bottom.

But I took very good care he should not touch me, for Tom Larkyns and I when at Hellyer's used to make a practice in fun of pretending we were going down when out bathing, and the one or other of us who acted the part of rescuer would always study how to approach the feigning drowner, so as to help him effectually without incurring any risk of being pulled below the surface; so, on Mr Macdougall stretching out his clutching hands, endeavouring to get hold of me, I was quite on my guard to avoid his grip.

Diving below him, I seized him by the back of the neck, his long sandy hair, which was streaming with water, enabling me to take a firm grip.

"Don't try to hinder me," I cried hurriedly between breaths, for the sea was very rough, and it wasn't easy to speak. "Keep perfectly quiet, and I'll save you."

The Scotsman gave a wriggle or two, but, like most of his countrymen, he had a good deal of common sense and self-command, which made him remain passive after a bit; when, throwing myself on my back, I floated, dragging his head across my body, so that he might rest awhile and recover himself before trying to swim towards the ship.

Presently he endeavoured to look round, so as to see who it was that had come to his assistance.

"Hold hard!" I said. "You mustn't move, or I'll have to let you go;" for, I can state, it was a difficult job supporting him in that way, and it took all my paddling to keep our united weight up.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "I ken the voice—eet's you, Leigh, eesn't it?"

"Yes, Mr Macdougall, it's me," said I. "Do you feel better now?"

But he did not answer me for a moment, although I felt a tremble go through his frame.

A moment afterwards, with what sounded like a sob, he cried out, "You brave laddie! To theenk that you of all ithers should ha' coom to save a reckless loon lik' me, the noo! It's a joogement on me for me cruel leeing again' you, boy; you've heapit coals o' fire on me head!"

"Never mind that now, Mr Macdougall," I said. "We've got to see about getting back to the ship, and then we can let bygones be bygones! Have you got your breath back now?"

"Eh?"

"Do you think you can manage to put a hand on my shoulder, and rest quiet in the water while I tow you along?"

"Aye, I'll try it, laddie."

"Mind, you mustn't clutch hold of me too hard," I cried; and, easying him off from my chest, I turned round again in the water.

He sank about a foot at first from the change of position, but, keeping strict heed to my injunctions, and gripping my shoulder with a grasp of iron, he was presently floating half alongside and half behind, with his head well out of the water, as I struck out to where I could still see the ship as we rose every now and then at intervals on the crests of the following waves; although, when we descended again between the intervening hollows, we seemed shut in by a wall of sea.

The pampero having blown off from the pampas inland—whence the local name for these tornadoes—had come from the westwards, and, of course, the set of the waves, even after the wind had ceased to move them, continued in a south-westerly direction, whither the Esmeralda had also been carried away from us, the exposed surface of her hull drifting her more rapidly away than such tiny atoms as we presented to the influence of the rollers. When, therefore, Mr Macdougall was so far recovered as to permit of my attempting to regain the ship, she was already quite a mile off, if not more!

As I looked at her distant sails, which came in sight when we got atop of the billows, they seemed to be gliding further and further away each fresh time that I saw them, showing that there was no wind; so, knowing that a boat would have to pull all that distance against a heavy head sea in order to fetch us, I almost despaired of our being picked up.

No one but those who have undergone a similar experience, can imagine the utter loneliness that strikes upon the heart of a solitary swimmer, struggling in the middle of the ocean for dear life. The sea never looks so terribly wide and vast as then, the sky never so far off, as he gazes upwards in piteous entreaty; while the elements appear to mock his puny efforts to reach the receding vessel containing his comrades of a moment ago, who now seem basely leaving him to perish!

These thoughts flashed through my mind as I struck out in the direction of the Esmeralda. All the sins and omissions of my past life then rose before my mental kaleidoscope, making me conscious of my unpreparedness to die, and yet want of justification to live; but I struck out bravely nevertheless, and I need hardly say, I did not whisper a word of my fears to the mate, who kept silent and motionless the while, without incommoding my efforts.

My strokes got slower and slower, for the wash of the sea over us every now and then was terribly fatiguing; for, although I was very strong for my age, and powerfully built, still the strain of supporting Mr Macdougall besides myself, was more than I was able to manage—the strongest man couldn't have done it.

He saw this even before I did, and took away his hand from my shoulder.

"Let me bide, laddie," he said. "You've doon your best to save me, but you canna do't mair; gang awa' and save your ain sel'."

"No I won't, Mr Macdougall," I cried, stopping and treading water for a minute or two, while he imitated my example. "If I'm saved, you shall be saved; and if you drown, I'll drown too!"

"That's bravely said, laddie," he replied, "but your streength will na let you bear my lumpy karkus. I'm a meesereeble sinner, ye ken, and it's na richt as a brave lad lik' you should lose his ain life for a worthless loon lik' me!"

"No more of that, Mr Macdougall!" I cried, stoutly. "I made up my mind to try and save you when I jumped overboard after you; and save you now I will, with God's help—so there's no use trying to prevent me! Now put your hand on my shoulder again, for it's time for us to be moving on after our rest."

The short "spell off" from swimming had rested me, and I struck out once more with renewed vigour, my progress with the mate in tow being now much more rapid, for the sea was calming down, beginning to feel the cessation of the wind.

"We'll reach the ship, never fear!" I said presently, seeing her still in the distance when we rose upon a wave from the watery abyss in which the previous dialogue had taken place.

"I hope so, laddie, I hope so," said Mr Macdougall, but his words did not sound very cheering, and I went on swimming hard, saying nothing further. By-and-bye, just when my strength began to fail again, and I felt that I could never get over the distance that separated us from the vessel, I saw to my joy a large object floating near.

"Hullo!" I cried, "here's a boat, or raft, or something in sight; cheer up, Mr Macdougall, we're saved!"

But, he was so worn out with the exposure, and his previous efforts to keep up before I went to his assistance, that he had now almost lost the power of speech, only moaning something like "Eh, laddie?" behind me.

I saw, therefore, that I must now trust entirely to my own exertions for our joint safety—the more so since that, as the mate lost his consciousness, although still keeping hold of me in the way I had directed him, his limp, passive weight pressed me down lower and lower in the water; so, putting out all my energies for a final effort, and clenching my teeth together with grim determination, I struggled forward, swimming as hard as I could towards the floating object I had seen, and which I had caught sight of only just in time.

One stroke—two—three—and a roller throws me back again. I renew the contest—another stroke, accompanied by as vigorous a kick out as I can manage, with Mr Macdougall's prostrate body touching my legs; and then—I clutch hold of the thing at last—hurrah!

It was a large hencoop, which used to be fixed on the starboard side of the Esmeralda's poop; so I suppose some one must have pitched it overboard after me the moment I gave the alarm.

But, no matter when it was sent adrift or why, it now saved both our lives; for I don't believe I could have swum a stroke further, while as for Mr Macdougall, he was already like a man dead.

There was a piece of rope lashed round the coop, and with this I at once made the mate fast to it, raising his head well up, and shouting in his ears to revive him.

In a minute or two, he opened his eyes, and appeared more like himself, a smile spreading over his face, as if in thankfulness for escaping death.

As for me, I was as right as a trivet now that I had come across such a splendid raft; and, climbing on top, and balancing myself so as not to let it lurch over, I proceeded to look for the ship—which I had almost forgotten while striving to reach this nearer haven of refuge.

No sooner, however, had I mounted the hencoop, which floated nearly a foot above the surface, even with my weight on it—for it was a big piece of woodwork, with plenty of timber in it, and as light as a cork— than I felt a faint current of air blowing in my face from a direction quite opposite to that of the drift of the waves, the tops of which now began to curl and break off.

"Hullo, the wind has changed!" I sang out to Mr Macdougall, as he looked up at me to hear my report; and then, glancing round, there I saw the Esmeralda, with her yards squared, approaching us rapidly, the breeze having caught her up long before it reached us.

I could have shouted aloud for joy.

"Cheer up, Mr Macdougall!" I said, repressing my emotion as much as it lay in my power. "The ship is making for us, and we'll be on board again in a brace of shakes."

"Nae, ye're jookin', laddie!" he cried despairingly. "She'll never reach us 'fore dark."

"Aye, but she will, though," I replied, as she was nearing us so fast that I could now see her hull, which had before been invisible; and, almost as I spoke the words, she rose higher and higher, until I could make out an object at the mast-head like a man on the look-out for us and signalling, for I could see his arms move.

"Hurrah! she's coming up fast now!" I cried, to convince Mr Macdougall; when, seeing my excitement, he at last believed the good news, the effect on him being to cause him to burst into a passion of tears, of which I took no notice, leaving him to recover himself.

Presently, I could not only perceive the Esmeralda, but a boat also ahead, to which the man I had noticed in the foretop was making motions.

"We're all right now, Mr Macdougall," I said.

"I thought they wouldn't desert us! They have launched a boat, and it is pulling towards us now. Let us give them a hail; raise your voice, sir—one, two, three—now then. Boat ahoy!"

The mate did not help the chorus much, his voice being too weak as yet, and his lungs probably half full of salt water; but still, he joined in my shout, although those in the boat were too far off to hear it.

"We must hail them again," I said, "or else they'll pass to windward of us. Come, Mr Macdougall, one more shout!"

This time our feeble cry was heard; and a hearty cheer was borne back down on the breeze to us, in response, the men in the boat pulling for us as soon as they caught our hail.

In another five minutes, it seemed, but perhaps it was much less—the tension on one's nerves sometimes making an interval of suspense appear much longer than it really is—the Esmeralda's jolly-boat was alongside our little raft, with the two of us tumbled into the stern- sheets, amidst a chorus of congratulations and handshakings from Jorrocks, who was acting as coxswain; and, before we realised almost that we were rescued, we were safe on board the old ship again.

It was all like a dream, passing quite as rapidly!

The skipper, when I climbed the side ladder which had been put over for us, assisted up by a dozen pairs of willing hands, almost hugged me, and the crew gave me three cheers, which of course gratified my pride; but, what I valued beyond the praises bestowed on me for jumping overboard after Mr Macdougall—which was a mere act of physical courage which might have been performed by any water-dog, as I told Jorrocks—was the consciousness that I had made a friend of one who had previously been my enemy, returning good for evil. It was owing to this only, I fervently believe, that my life was preserved in that perilous swim!

Mr Macdougall was ill for some days afterwards, the shock and exposure nearly killing him; still, before the end of the week he was able to return to duty, a much changed man in every respect. Thenceforth, he treated the men with far greater consideration than previously, and he was really so painfully humble to me that I almost wished once or twice that he would be his bumptious, dogmatic old self again. However, it was all for the best, perhaps, for we all got on very sweetly together now, without friction, and harmony reigned alike on the poop and in the fo'c's'le.

The south-easterly wind, which had sprung up so fortunately for our rescue, lasted the Esmeralda until she had run down the coast of Patagonia to Cape Tres Puntas, some three hundred and twenty miles to the northward of the Virgins, as the headlands are called that mark the entrance to the Straits of Magellan.

Of course, our skipper did not intend to essay this short cut into the Pacific, which is only really practicable for steamers, as the currents through the different channels are dangerous in the extreme, and the winds not to be relied on, chopping round at a moment's notice, and causing a ship to drop her anchor in all sorts of unexpected places; but he intended to go through the Straits of Le Maire, instead of going round Staten Island, and thus shorten his passage of Cape Horn in that way.

However, when, on our fifty-ninth day out, we were nearing the eastern end of Staten Island, the wind, which had of late been blowing pretty steadily from the northward of west, hauled round more to the southward, and being dead against the Le Maire channel, we were forced to give the island a wide berth, and stand to the outside of it.

It was fine light weather, with clear nights, all the time we had been sailing down the coast; for we could see the Magellan clouds, as they are called, every evening. These are small nebulae, like the Milky Way, which occupy the southern part of the heavens, immediately above Cape Horn, whose proximity they always indicate.

Shortly after our passing Staten Island, however, a change came, the wind blowing in squalls, accompanied by snow and sleety hail, and the sea running high as it only can run in these latitudes; but still, everything went well with us until we were about 55 degrees South and 63 degrees West, when a violent gale sprang up from the north-west.

Everything was hauled down and clewed up, the ship lying-to under her reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail, and Captain Billings was just saying to me that I was now going to have "a specimen of what Cape Horn weather was like," when I noticed Mr Macdougall—who had been making an inspection of the ship forwards—come up the poop ladder with his face much graver than usual, although, as a rule, his expression of countenance was not the most cheerful at any time.

"Whatever is the matter with Mr Macdougall?" I said to Captain Billings. "I'm certain something has happened, or he would not look so serious!"

"Bless you, Martin, you mustn't judge by his phiz. I daresay the men have only been skylarking in the fo'c's'le, and it doesn't please him."

But it was something far more important than that which had occasioned the gravity of the mate's face, as the skipper soon heard; for, on Mr Macdougall coming up close to us, he whispered something in the skipper's ear which made him turn as white as a sheet.

"Martin, Martin," he said to me, dropping his voice, however, so that the men might not hear the terrible news before it was absolutely necessary to tell them, "the coals are on fire in the main hold!"



CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE LAST DISASTER.

After the first shock of surprise at the alarming intelligence—the most awful that can be circulated on board a ship, and one that fills up the seaman's cup of horrors to the brim—Captain Billings quickly recovered his usual equanimity. He was his own clear-headed, calm, collected self again in a moment.

"How did you discover it?" he asked the mate, in a low tone.

"I was ganging forwarts," said Mr Macdougall, in the same hushed key, so that only Captain Billings and I could catch his words, "when a' at once I smeelt somethin'—"

"Ah, that raking flying jibboom of yours wasn't given you for nothing!" whispered the skipper, alluding to the mate's rather "pronounced" nose.

"Aye, mon, it sairves me weel," said Mr Macdougall, feeling the ridge of his nasal organ with much apparent satisfaction, and then proceeding to finish his statement. "But I could no meestake the smeel, the noo."

"Something burning, I suppose?" said the skipper interrogatively.

"You're right, Cap'en; the smeel was that o' boornin' wood and gas."

"What did you do then?" asked Captain Billings.

"I joost slippet off the main hatch, and the smeel was quite overpowerin', enough to choke one! so I e'en slippet the hatch on again, walking forwarts so as not to alarm the crew; and then I cam' aft to tell your ain sel'."

"You did right," said the skipper. "I'll go presently and have a look myself."

Captain Billings' inspection proved that the mate's fears were but too well-founded; so he immediately had the pumps rigged by the watch on duty—"all hands" not being called yet, as the vessel was lying-to, and there was not much work to be done. But a lot of water was pumped into the hold, after which the hatches were battened down, and we hoped the fire would die out from being smothered in this way.

Meanwhile the north-westerly gale increased to almost a hurricane, the ship taking in great seas over her bows that deluged the decks, so that the waist sometimes was all awash with four feet of water on it; but this did not trouble us much, for of the two elements the sea was now the least feared, as we hoped that the one would check the spread of the other.

Next day, however, when the gale lightened a little, and the Esmeralda rode easier, still head to sea, the men complained that the fo'c'sle was getting too hot for them to live in it, although the temperature of the exterior air was nearly down to freezing point.

This looked ominous; so Captain Billings, determining to adopt more stringent measures to check the conflagration that must be raging below in the cargo, caused the hatches to be opened; but such dense thick volumes of smoke and poisonous gas rolled forth the moment the covers were taken off, that they were quickly battened down again, holes now being bored to insert the hose pipes, and another deluge of water pumped into the hold, forwards as well as amidships.

"I don't know what to do," said the skipper to Mr Macdougall. "If it were not for this gale I would try to run for Sandy Point, where we might get assistance, as I've heard of the captain of a collier once, whose ship caught fire in the cargo like mine, careening his ship ashore there, when, taking out the burning coals, he saved the rest of his freight and stowed it again, so that he was able to resume his voyage and deliver most of the cargo at its destination. But this wind is right in one's teeth, either to get to Sandy Point or fetch any other port within easy reach."

"We moost ae just trust to Proveedence!" replied the mate.

"Oh, yes, that's all very well," said the skipper, impatiently. "But, still, Providence expects us to do something to help ourselves—what do you suggest?"

"I canna thaenk o' naught, Cap'en," replied Mr Macdougall, in his lugubrious way.

"Hang it, neither can I!" returned the skipper, as if angry with himself because of no timely expedient coming to his mind; but just at that moment the gale suggested something to him—at all events in the way of finding occupation!

All at once, the wind, which had been blowing furiously from the northwards, shifted round without a moment's warning to the south-west, catching the ship on her quarter, and heeling her over so to leeward that her yard-arms dipped in the heavy rolling sea.

For a second, it seemed as if we were going over; for the Esmeralda remained on her beam ends without righting again, the waves breaking clean over her from windward, and sweeping everything movable from her decks fore and aft; but then, as the force of the blast passed away, she slowly laboured up once more, the masts swaying to and fro as if they were going by the board, for they groaned and creaked like living things in agony.

"Put the helm up—hard up!" shouted the skipper to the man at the wheel; but, as the poor fellow tried to carry out the command, the tiller "took charge," as sailors say, hurling him right over the wheel against the bulwarks, which broke his leg and almost pitched him over the side. Had this occurred it would have been utterly impossible to have saved him.

Mr Macdougall and I immediately rushed aft; and, the two of us grasping the spokes, managed to turn the wheel round with our united strength; but it was too late to get the ship to pay off, for, a fresh blast of wind striking her full butt, she was taken aback, the foremast coming down with a crash across the deck, carrying with it the bowsprit and maintopmast, the mizzen-topmast following suit a minute afterwards.

This was bad enough in all conscience, without our having the consciousness that besides this loss of all our spars, making the vessel a hopeless log rolling at the mercy of the winds and waves, our cargo of coals was on fire in the hold, forming a raging volcano beneath our feet!

Fortune was cruel. Mishap had followed on mishap. The powers of evil were piling Ossa on Pelion!

The skipper, however, was not daunted yet.

All hands had rushed aft, without being specially called, roused by the crash of the falling spars, so he immediately set them to work with the hatchets fastened round the mainmast bitts, cutting away at the wreckage; and then, as the clouds cleared away and a bit of blue sky showed itself aloft, Captain Billings expressed himself hopeful of getting out of the meshes of that network of danger in every direction with which we seemed surrounded.

"Look alive, men, and don't despair," said he to the crew, encouraging them; for they were almost panic-stricken at first, and it was all that Jorrocks and I could do to get them to ply their tomahawks forwards and cut away the rigging, which still held the foremast with all its top- hamper attached to the ship, thumping at her sides as the lumber floated alongside, trying to crunch our timbers in. "Look alive, men, and put your heart into it; all hope hasn't left us yet! The gale has nearly blown itself out, as you can see for yourselves by that little bit of blue sky there overhead, bigger than a Dutchman's pair of breeches; so, as soon as the sea goes down a little, we'll hoist out the boats, so as to have them handy in case we have to abandon the ship, should the fire in the hold get too strong for us, although I don't fear that yet, my hearties, for the water may drown it out soon, you know. But work away cheerily, my lads, and clear away all that dunnage, so that we can set a little sail presently on the mainmast and mizzen, which we still have standing, when we can make a run for some islands lying close by under the lee of Cape Horn, where I'll heave her ashore if I can; but, if the vessel don't reach the land, you needn't be afraid of not being able to do so in the boats, which we can take to as a last resource, so there's no fear of your lives being lost, at any rate!"

"Hurray!" shouted out Jorrocks, leading a cheer; and Pat Doolan seconding him heartily, the hands started at the rigging with greatly renewed vigour, slashing at the shrouds and stays until they parted, and the foremast was at last cut away clear, floating astern on the top of the rolling waves.

"There it goes!" cried the skipper, "and joy go with it for deserting us in that unhandsome way!"

"Ah, sir," observed Haxell, the carpenter, who was standing close beside him now, quiet a bit after exerting himself like a navvy in helping to clear the wreck, "you forgets as how the poor dear thing never recovered that spring it had off Madeiry!"

"No; for it has lasted well, nevertheless, and I oughtn't to complain of it now," said Captain Billings, with a responsive sigh to the carpenter's lament over the lost foremast. Haxell looked upon all the ship's spars as if they were his own peculiar private property, and spoke of them always—that is, when he could be induced to abandon his chronic taciturnity—as if they had kindred feelings and sensibilities to his own!

The dark threatening clouds which had enveloped the heavens for the past twenty-four hours now cleared away, although the wind still blew pretty fresh from the south-west, and the sun coming out, Captain Billings told me to go and fetch my sextant in order to take an observation so as to ascertain our true position; for, first with the north-easter, and then with the squall from the south, we had been so driven here, there, and everywhere, that it was difficult to form any reasonable surmise as to where we really were—especially as there was a strong current supposed to run round Cape Horn from the Pacific towards the Atlantic Ocean at certain tides.

I fetched my sextant and took the sun; and I may say confidently to all whom it may concern that this was the last observation ever made by any one on board the ill-fated Esmeralda!

The skipper checked me in the time, from the chronometer in the cabin; and when I had worked out the reckoning, we compared notes on the poop.

"What do you make it?" said he.

"56 degrees 20 minutes South," I said.

"And the ship's time makes us about 66 degrees West. Ha! humph! we must be about forty miles to the south of Cape Horn; and, by Jove," he added, looking to the north-west, where the blue sky was without a fleck save a little white cloud, like the triangular sail of a boat, seen dimly low down on the horizon, "there's my gentleman over there, now!"

The knowledge of the vessel's position appeared to give the skipper greater confidence; and, the waves ceasing to break over us, although the huge southern rollers swept by in heavy curves, he gave directions for getting some tackle rigged to launch the long-boat, which, although it was right in the way, had escaped injury when the foremast fell. At the same time, the mainsail and mizzen staysail were set, and the vessel steered in the direction of that Cape which she seemed destined never to round.

"We'll run for the Wollaston group," said the skipper—"that is, if the fire will let us stop aboard till we reach there; and if not, why, the less distance there will be for us to trust ourselves to the boats in this strong sea."

No time was lost in making preparations to quit the ship, however— provisions and stores being brought up from the steerage by the steward and a couple of seamen who were told off to help him.

In the last few hours the fire had made considerable headway; for thin wreaths of smoke were curling up from the deck forwards, where the pitch had been melted from the seams, and the heat was plainly perceptible on the poop, accompanied as it was by a hot sulphurous smell.

"Be jabers, I fale like a cat on a hot griddle," said Pat Doolan, as he danced in and out of the galley, engaged in certain cooking operations on a large scale which the skipper had ordered; "I'll soon have no sowl at all, at all, to me cawbeens!"

The men laughed at this, but there was a good deal of truth in the joking words of the Irishman, as, although washed with water, the deck was quite unbearable to one's naked foot.

It was now early in the afternoon, and the long-boat and jolly-boat were both launched and loaded with what stores were available, the skipper personally seeing that each was provided with a mast and sails and its proper complement of oars and ballast—barrels and barricoes containing water being utilised to this latter end, thus serving for a double purpose.

Other things and persons were also attended to.

Mr Ohlsen, the second mate, and Harmer, the seaman who had had his leg broken when thrown against the bulwarks—and who, by the way, had the injured limb excellently set by Mr Macdougall, who had passed through a hospital course in "Edinbro' Toon," he told us—were brought up from the cabin in their cots, being both invalids. The skipper likewise secured the ship's papers and removed the compass from the binnacle; while I, of course, did not forget my sextant and a chart or two which Captain Billings told me to take. The foremast hands having also selected a small stock of useful articles, all of us were ready to leave the vessel as soon as she gave us notice to quit.

The fire was waxing hotter and hotter, the curling wreaths of smoke having expanded into dense black columns of vapour, and an occasional tongue of flame was licking the edges of the coamings of the fore hatchway, while sparks every now and then went flying up in the air and were wafted away to leeward by the wind.

"She can't last much longer now without the flames bursting forth," said Captain Billings. "The sooner we see about leaving her the better now. Haul up the boats alongside, and prepare to lower down our sick men."

"Hadn't we better have a whip rigged from the yard-arm, sir?" suggested Jorrocks. "It'll get 'em down more comfortable and easy like."

"Aye, do; I declare I had forgotten that," said the skipper; "I'm losing my head, I think, at the thought of the loss of my ship!" He spoke these words so sadly that they touched me keenly.

"No, no, Cap', you haven't loosed your head yet, so far as thinking about us is concerned," observed Jorrocks, who was watching the man he had sent out on the mainyard fasten a block and tackle for lowering down the cots of the two invalids. I'm sure we all acquiesced in this hearty expression of the boatswain's opinion, for no one could have more carefully considered every precaution for our comfort and security than the skipper, when making up his mind to abandon the ship.

No further words were wasted, however, as soon as the boats were hauled alongside.

Mr Ohlsen and Harmer were lowered down carefully into the long-boat, and the provisions, with the captain's papers and instruments, were subsequently stowed in the stern-sheets by the side of the invalids. A similar procedure was then adopted in reference to the jolly-boat, only that there were no more sick men, fortunately, to go in her; and the skipper was just about mustering the hands on the after part of the main deck, below the break of the poop, when there was a terrible explosion forwards, the whole fore-part of the ship seeming to be rent in twain and hurled heavenward in a sheet of flame as vivid as forked lightning!

I don't know by what sudden spasm of memory, but at that very instant my thoughts flew back to my boyish days at Beachampton, and my attempt to blow up Dr Hellyer and the whole school with gunpowder on that memorable November day, as I have narrated. The present calamity seemed somehow or other, to my morbid mind, a judgment on my former wicked conduct—the reflection passing through my brain at the instant of the explosion with almost a similar flash.



CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

HERSCHEL ISLAND.

"Maircy on us!" exclaimed Mr Macdougall, who at that moment was just gingerly passing down the standard compass to Jorrocks, the boatswain, standing up in the stern-sheets of the long-boat alongside, and stretching up his hands as carefully to receive the precious instrument; and the sudden blinding flash of the explosion and concussion of the air that it caused, almost made him drop this in his fright. "Whateever on airth ees that noo?"

"Matter?" repeated the skipper after him coolly, taking in cause and effect at a glance. "Why, the gas generated by the heated coal in the hold has blown out the forepeak, that's all! It is providential, though, that the wrench which the foremast gave to the deck-beams and bulkhead there when it carried away, so far weakened the ship forwards as to enable the gas to find vent in that direction, otherwise the entire deck would probably have been blown up—when it would have been a poor look-out for all of us here aft!"

"Gudeness greecious!" ejaculated the mate again, blinking bewilderedly, like an owl unexpectedly exposed to daylight; but Captain Billings did not waste time in any further explanations or unnecessary words.

"I hope nobody's hurt! Run forwards, Leigh, and see," he said to me.

Fortunately, however, all had escaped without a scratch, although fragments of the knees and other heavy portions of the vessel's timbers had been hurled aloft and scattered in all directions, as if a mine had been sprung below—the woodwork descending afterwards in a regular hailstorm on our heads, blown into small pieces no bigger than matches, and mixed up with a shower of blazing sparks and coal-dust, making us all "as black as nayghurs," as Pat Doolan said.

The stump of the foremast, in particular, described a graceful parabolic curve in the air, coming down into the water in close proximity to the bows of the long-boat—where, under the supervision of the boatswain, the steward and the carpenter were stowing provisions under the thwarts, making the two almost jump out of their skins. It descended into the sea with the same sort of "whish" which the stick of a signal rocket makes when, the propelling power that had enabled it previously to soar up so majestically into the air above being ultimately exhausted, it is forced to return by its own gravity to its proper level below, unable to sustain itself unaided by exterior help at the unaccustomed height to which it was temporarily exalted.

And in this respect, it may be observed here, although I do not believe the remark is altogether original, that a good many human rockets may be encountered in our daily life, which exhibit all the characteristic points and weaknesses of the ordinary material model that I have likened them to—composed of gunpowder and other explosive pyrotechnic substances, and familiar to all—for, they go up in the same brilliant and glorious fashion, and are veritable shining lights in the estimation of their friends and the fickle testimony of public opinion; only, alas, to descend to the ordinary level of every-day mortals, like the rocket- stick comes down in the end!

I need hardly say, though, that I had no thought of these reflections now; for, immediately after the explosion forwards, the flames which mounted aloft with it burst forth with full vigour, released from the confined space of the hold to which they had been previously limited, and the entire fore-part of the ship, from the waist to the knight- heads, became a mass of fire, the cavity disclosed by the riven deck adjacent to the fo'c's'le being like a raging volcano, vomiting up clouds of thick yellow smoke from the glowing mass of ignited coal below, which almost suffocated us, as the ship went too slowly through the water for the vapour to trail off to leeward.

The mainmast was still standing, with the mainsail set before the southerly wind, that was blowing in towards the land, the force of the explosion not being vented much further aft than the windlass bitts; but, almost as we looked, tongues of flame began to creep up the main rigging, and the huge sail was presently crackling away like tissue paper to which a lighted match has been applied, large pieces of the burning material being whirled in the air.

The heat now became unbearable, and Captain Billings, much to his grief, saw that the time had come for him to abandon the ship.

"We must leave her, Leigh," said he to me, with as much emotion as another person might have displayed when wishing a last farewell to some dearly-loved friend or relative. "There is no good in stopping by the old barquey any longer, for we can't help her out of her trouble, and the boats may be stove in by the falling mainmast if they remain alongside much longer. Poor old ship! we've sailed many a mile together, she and I; and now, to think that, crippled by that gale and almost having completed her v'yage, she should be burnt like a log of firewood off Cape Horn!"

"Never mind, sir," said I, sympathisingly. "It has not happened through any fault of yours."

"No, my lad, I don't believe it has, for a cargo o' coal is a ticklish thing to take half round the world; as more vessels are lost in carrying it than folks suppose! However, this is the last we'll ever see of the old Esmeralda, so far as standing on her deck goes; still, I tell you what, Leigh, you may possibly live to be a much older man than I am, but you'll never come across a ship easier to handle in a gale, or one that would go better on a bowline!"

"No, sir, I don't think I shall," I replied to this panegyric on the doomed vessel, quite appreciating all the skipper's feelings of regret at her destruction; but just then the flames with a roar rushed up the main hatch, approaching towards the poop every moment nearer and nearer.