Ridan The Devil And Other Stories by George Lewis Becke (free e books to read .TXT) 📕

were so near the land we had not bothered about hoisting her up again, knowing that we should want her to tow us into Jakoits if the wind fell light when going through the passage.

The mate, two Penrhyn Island natives and myself were but a few moments in hauling her alongside, jumping in, and pulling to the assistance of the whale-boat's crew, some of whom we could see clinging to the wreckage. The officer in charge was a little wiry Western Island Portuguese, and as we came up he called out to us that one of the men was killed and had sunk, and another, whom he was supporting, had his leg broken and was unconscious. We lifted them into the boat as quickly as possible, laid the injured man on his back and started for the schooner. We had scarcely pulled a dozen strokes when, to our profound astonishment, we saw her suddenly keep away from us.

'The captain's come on deck again,' cried one or our native hands to me.

Sure enough, the skipper was on deck, and at the wheel, and took not the slightest heed of our repeated hails, except that he merely turned his head, gave us a brief glance, eased off the main-sheet a bit, and let the schooner spin away towards the land. We learnt next evening that he had suddenly emerged on deck from his bunk, given the helmsman a cuff on the head, and driven him, the steward and the other remaining hand up for'ard. They and the native passengers, who knew something of his performances when in liquor, were too frightened to do anything, and let him have his own way.

We pulled after the schooner as hard as we could for a quarter of an hour, then gave it up and steered for the barque, which was now a couple of miles away. She had been working to windward after the chief mate's and fourth mate's boats--both of which had quickly killed their respective whales--when the disaster to the second officer's boat was seen, and she was now coming towards us. The fourth boat was miles distant, chasing the main body of the 'pod,' in company with those of the other barques and the ship.

By this time it was all but dark; a short, choppy sea had risen, the wind came in sharp, angry puffs every now and then, and we made scarcely any headway against it. The barque seemed to be almost standing still, though she was really coming along at a ripping pace. Presently she showed a light, and we felt relieved. Just then the man with the broken leg called to his officer, and asked for a smoke, and I was filling my pipe for him when the boat struck something hard with a crash, shipped a sea aft, and at once capsized, several of us being taken underneath her.

The Portuguese, who was a gallant little fellow, had, with one of the Penrhyn Islanders, got the wounded man clear, and presently we all found ourselves clinging to the boat, which was floating bottom-up and badly bilged. Fortunately, none of us were hurt, but our position was a dangerous one, and we kept hailing repeatedly, fearing that the barque would run by us in the darkness, and that the blue sharks would discover us. Then, to our joy, we saw her close to, bearing right down upon us, and now came the added terror that she would run us down, unless those on board could be made to hear our cries and realise our situation.

Again we raised our voices, and shouted till our lungs were exhausted, but no answer came, the only sounds we heard being the thrapping and swash of the waves against our boat. Five minutes--which seemed hours--passed, and then we suddenly lost sight of the barque's headlight, and saw the dull gleam of those aft shining through the cabin ports.

'Thank God!' said the whaler officer, 'he's bringing to.'

Scarcely had he spoken when we heard a hail distinctly.

'Boat ahoy, there, where are you?'

'In the water. We're capsized,' I answered.

No response came; then again they hailed, and again we shouted unitedly, but no reply, and presently we saw a blue light was being burnt on the starboard side--they were looking for us in the wrong quarter. For some minutes our suspense was horrible, for, if the captain thought he had overshot our boat (knowing nothing of the second disaster), he would, we feared, go off on the other tack. Again they hailed, and again we answered, though we were now feeling pretty well done up, and the Portuguese was alternately praying to the saints and consigning his captain to hell.

'Hurrah!' cried Tom, one of my Penrhyn Island boys, 'she's filling away again, and coming down; they've heard us, safe enough.'

It so happened that they had not heard us at all; but the captain, at the earnest request of the ship's cooper, who believed that we had been swamped, and were to leeward, decided to keep away for a short time, and then again bring-to. Not only was he anxious for us, but for the other boats, and the dead whales as well; for he feared that, unless he could get the latter alongside by daylight, and start to cut-in, the sharks would devour the best part of them.

A few more minutes passed, and now we saw the barque looming through the night, and apparently again coming right on top of us. We shouted and screamed till our voices broke into hoarse groans; and then there happened a strange thing. That which had caused our misfortune proved our salvation. We heard a crashing sound, followed by loud cries of alarm, and then saw the ship lying flat aback, canting heavily over to port. Presently she righted, and then made a stern-board, and came so close to us that one of the hands not only heard our cries but saw us in the water.

In an instant the captain called to us to cheer up, and said a boat was coming. 'The ship struck some wreckage, and is making water,' he added.

We were taken aboard in two trips, the poor, broken-legged sailor suffering terribly. He had been kept from drowning by one of the Penrhyn men, who stuck to him like a brick through all the time we were in the water. Neither of these brave islanders had lost heart for a moment, though Harry, the elder of the two, was in consumption and not at all strong.

As soon as we had sufficiently recovered to be able to talk and tell our story, we were pleased to hear from the captain that the ship was not badly injured, and that the pumps--short-handed as he then was--could easily keep the water down; also that all the other boats were safe, and had signalled that they had each 'killed,' and were lying by their whales.

Early in the morning the four ships were within a few miles of each other, and each had one or more whales alongside, cutting-in. The schooner, too, was in sight, lying becalmed under the lee of Ponape. The captain of the whaler lent me one of his boats, paid me a fair price for the loss of our own, and otherwise treated us handsomely. He was highly pleased at having such 'greasy luck,' i.e., getting three fish, and, besides presenting me with another barrel of potatoes, gave me four bolts of canvas, and each of our natives came away with a small case of tobacco, and five dollars in silver.

We had a long pull to the schooner, and our arrival was hailed with cries of delight. The skipper, we were pleased to learn, was nearly dead, having been severely beaten by the women passengers on board, one of whom, creeping up behind him as he was steering, threw a piece of _tappa_ cloth over his head, while the others bore him to the deck and tied him up and hammered him. He told me a few days afterwards that he had not the slightest recollection of leaving us in the boat.

The wreckage upon which the whale-ship struck was, so her captain imagined, the same which had capsized our boat. As far as he could make out in the darkness, it was a long and wide piece of decking, belonging to a large ship. Our boat, very probably, had gone half her length on top of the edge of it, and was then washed off again after she had bilged; and the strong current had set us clear.



A CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE FAR SOUTH SEAS

Donald MacBride and myself were the only Britishers living on one of the North Pacific island lagoons when Christmas of 1880 drew near, and we determined to celebrate it in a manner that would fill our German and American trading rivals throughout the group with envy. MacBride was a bony, red-headed Scotchman, with a large heart and a small, jealous, half-caste wife. The latter acquisition ruled him with a rod of iron, much to his financial and moral benefit, but nevertheless agreed with me that we--Donald, she and myself--ought to show the Americans and the 'Dutchmen' how an English Christmas should be celebrated. But as Sera was a half-caste native of the Pelews, and had never been to a civilised country, she also concurred with me that Donald and myself should run the show, which, although I was not a married man, was to take place in my house on account of the greater space available. Donald, she said, wanted to have a 'hakkise'; so we bought a nanny-goat from Ludwig Wolfen, the German trader at Molok, and one evening--the 23rd of December--I helped Sera to drive and drag the unsuspecting creature home to her husband's place to the slaughter. (I may as well say at once that MacBride's nanny-goat haggis was a hideous failure, and my boat's crew, to whom it was handed over, with many strong expressions about MacBride's beastly provincial taste, said that it _smelt_ good, like shark's liver, but was not at all so juicy.)

Meanwhile, Wolfen, a fat, good-hearted Teuton, with a face like a full moon in a fog, called upon me, and remarked in a squashy tone of voice, superinduced by too many years of lager beer, and its resultant adipose tissue, that he and Peter Huysmans, his neighbour, would feel very much hurt if we did not invite them to participate in the festivities. I said that 'Blazy-head' (for so we called dear old MacBride) and myself would be delighted; whereupon Wolfen, who had once, when he was a sailor on an English ship, spent a Christmas in a public-house somewhere in the vicinity of the East India Docks, said that the correct thing for us to do would be to have a Christmas cake; also, he suggested we should invite Tom Devine and Charley de Buis, the two American traders who lived across the lagoon, to join the party. Being aware of the fact that, from trade jealousies, there had hitherto been a somewhat notorious bitterness of feeling between my German fellow-trader and the two Americans, I shook his hand warmly, said that I was delighted to see that he could forgive and forget, and that I should that moment send my boat across the lagoon to Devine and Charley de Buis with a written invitation, and ask them to favour us with their company; also, that as Mrs Charley--who was a Samoan half-caste girl--was skilled in baking bread, perhaps she would lend Mesdames MacBride, Wolfen and Huysmans her assistance in making a Christmas cake, the size of which should cause the native population to sit up and