Post Haste by R. M. Ballantyne (mystery books to read .txt) 📕
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- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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Again the signal was given as before, and the line began to run. Very soon a stout hawser or cable was seen coming out to the wreck. Aspel fastened the end of this to the mast several feet below the pulley.
A third time the signal was given.
“Now then, ladies, stand by to go ashore, and let’s have no hesitation. It’s life or death with us all,” said the mate in a voice so stern that the crowd of anxious and somewhat surprised females prepared to obey.
Presently a ring-shaped lifebuoy, with something like a pair of short breeches dangling from it, came out from the shore, suspended to a block which traversed on the cable, and was hauled out by means of the whip.
A seaman was ordered to get into it. Mrs Tods, who stood beside the mate, eyeing the process somewhat curiously, felt herself firmly but gently seized.
“Come, Mrs Tods, step into it. He’ll take care of you—no fear.”
“Never! never! without my two darlings,” shrieked Mrs Tods.
But Mrs Tods was tenderly lifted over the side and placed in the powerful arms of the sailor. Her sons instantly set up a howl and rushed towards her. But Mr Bright had anticipated this also, and, with the aid of a seaman, arrested them. Meanwhile, the signal having been given, the men on the land pulled in the cradle, and Mrs Tods went shrieking over the hissing billows to the shore. A few minutes more and out came the cradle again.
“Now, then, for the two ‘darlings’,” growled the mate.
They were forcibly put over the side and sent howling to their mother.
After them went Mrs Pods, who, profiting by the experience of her friend, made no resistance. This however, was more than counterbalanced by the struggles of her three treasures, who immediately followed.
But the shades of evening were now falling, and it was with an anxious feeling at his heart that the mate surveyed the cluster of human beings who had yet to be saved, while each roaring wave that struck the wreck seemed about to break it up.
Suddenly there arose a cry of joy, and, looking seaward, the bright white and blue form of the lifeboat was seen coming in like an angel of light on the crests of the foaming seas.
We may not stay to describe what followed in detail. The lifeboat’s anchor was let go to windward of the wreck, and the cable paid out until the boat forged under the vessel’s lee, where it heaved on the boiling foam so violently that it was difficult to prevent it being stove in, and still more difficult to get the women and children passed on board. Soon the lifeboat was full—as full as she could hold—and many passengers yet remained to be rescued.
The officer in charge of the mail-bags had got them up under the shelter of the companion-hatch ready to be put into the boat, but human life was of more value than letters—ay, even than diamonds.
“Now, then, one other lady. Only room for one,” roared the mate, who stood with pistol in hand near the gangway.
Miss Gentle tried to get to the front, but Lady Tower stepped in before her.
“Never mind, little woman,” said Mr Bright, encouragingly, “the rocket apparatus is still at work, and the wreck seems hard and fast on the reef. You’ll get off next trip.”
“But I can’t bear to think of going by that awful thing,” said Miss Gentle, shuddering and sheltering herself from the blinding spray under the lee of Bright’s large and powerful body.
“Well, then,” he returned, cheerfully, “the lifeboat will soon return; you’ll go ashore with the mails.”
Mr Bright was right about the speedy return of the lifeboat with her gallant crew, who seemed to rejoice in danger as if in the presence of a familiar friend, but he was wrong about the wreck being hard and fast. The rising tide shifted her a little, and drove her a few feet farther in. When the other women and children were got into the boat, Mr Bright, who stood near the mail-bags looking anxiously at them, left his position for a moment to assist Miss Gentle to the gangway. She had just been safely lowered when a tremendous wave lifted the wreck and hurled it so far over the reef that the fore part of the vessel was submerged in a pool of deep water lying between it and the shore.
Mr Bright looked back and saw the hatchway disappearing. He made a desperate bound towards it, but was met by the rush of the crew, who now broke through the discipline that was no longer needed, and jumped confusedly into the lifeboat on the sea, carrying Bright along with them. On recovering his feet he saw the ship make a final plunge forward and sink to the bottom, so that nothing was left above water but part of the two funnels. The splendid lifeboat was partly drawn down, but not upset. She rose again like a cork, and in a few seconds freed herself from water through the discharging tubes in her bottom. The men struggling in the water were quickly rescued, and the boat, having finished her noble work, made for the shore amid cheers of triumph and joy.
Among all the passengers in that lifeboat there was only one whose visage expressed nothing but unutterable woe.
“Why, Mr Bright,” said Miss Gentle, who clung to one of the thwarts beside him, and was struck by his appearance, “you seem to have broken down all at once. What has happened?”
“The mail-bags!” groaned Mr Bright.
“Why do you take so deep an interest in the mails?” asked Miss Gentle.
“Because I happen to be connected with the post-office; and though I have no charge of them, I can’t bear to see them lost,” said Mr Bright with another groan, as he turned his eyes wistfully—not to the shore, at which all on board were eagerly gazing—but towards the wreck of the Royal Mail steamer Trident, the top of whose funnels rose black and defiant in the midst of the raging waves.
Behind a very fashionable square in a very unfashionable little street, in the west end of London, dwelt Miss Sarah Lillycrop.
That lady’s portion in this life was a scanty wardrobe, a small apartment, a remarkably limited income, and a tender, religious spirit. From this it will be seen that she was rich as well as poor.
Her age was, by a curious coincidence, exactly proportioned to her income—the one being forty pounds, and the other forty years. She added to the former, with difficulty, by teaching, and to the latter, unavoidably, by living.
By means of a well-known quality styled economy, she more than doubled her income, and by uniting prayer with practice and a gracious mien she did good, as it were, at the rate of five hundred, or five thousand, a year.
It could not be said, however, that Miss Lillycrop lived well in the ordinary sense of that expression.
To those who knew her most intimately it seemed a species of standing miracle that she contrived to exist at all, for she fed chiefly on toast and tea. Her dietary resulted in an attenuated frame and a thread-paper constitution. Occasionally she indulged in an egg, sometimes even in a sausage. But, morally speaking, Miss Lillycrop lived well, because she lived for others. Of course we do not mean to imply that she had no regard for herself at all. On the contrary, she rejoiced in creature comforts when she had the chance, and laid in daily “one ha’p’orth of milk” all for herself. She paid for it, too, which is more than can be said of every one. She also indulged herself to some extent in the luxury of brown sugar at twopence-halfpenny a pound, and was absolutely extravagant in hot water, which she not only imbibed in the form of weak tea and eau sucrée hot, but actually took to bed with her every night in an india-rubber bottle. But with the exception of these excusable touches of selfishness, Miss Lillycrop ignored herself systematically, and devoted her time, talents, and means, to the welfare of mankind.
Beside a trim little tea-table set for three, she sat one evening with her hands folded on her lap, and her eyes fixed on the door as if she expected it to make a sudden and unprovoked assault on her. In a few minutes her expectations were almost realised, for the door burst open and a boy burst into the room with— “Here we are, Cousin Lillycrop.”
“Phil, darling, at last!” exclaimed Cousin Lillycrop, rising in haste.
Philip Maylands offered both hands, but Cousin Lillycrop declined them, seized him round the neck, kissed him on both cheeks, and thrust him down into an easy chair. Then she retired into her own easy chair and gloated over him.
“How much you’ve grown—and so handsome, dear boy,” murmured the little lady.
“Ah! then, cousin, it’s the blarney stone you’ve been kissing since I saw you last!”
“No, Phil, I’ve kissed nothing but the cat since I saw you last. I kiss that delicious creature every night on the forehead before going to bed, but the undemonstrative thing does not seem to reciprocate. However, I cannot help that.”
Miss Lillycrop was right, she could not help it. She was overflowing with the milk of human kindness, and, rather than let any of that valuable liquid go to waste, she poured some of it, not inappropriately, on the thankless cat.
“I’m glad you arrived before your sister, Phil,” said Miss Lillycrop. “Of course I asked her here to meet you. I am so sorry the dear girl cannot live with me: I had fully meant that she should, but my little rooms are so far from the Post-Office, where her work is, you know, that it could not be managed. However, we see each other as often as possible, and she visits sometimes with me in my district. What has made you so late, Phil?”
“I expected to have been here sooner, cousin,” replied Phil, as he took off his greatcoat, “but was delayed by my friend, George Aspel, who has come to London with me to look after a situation that has been promised him by Sir James Clubley, M.P. for I forget where. He’s coming here to-night.”
“Who, Sir James Clubley?”
“No,” returned the boy, laughing, “George Aspel. He went with Mr Blurt to a hotel to see after a bed, and promised to come here to tea. I asked him, knowing that you’d be glad to receive any intimate friend of mine. Won’t you, Coz?”
Miss Lillycrop expressed and felt great delight at the prospect of meeting Phil’s friend, but the smallest possible shade of anxiety was mingled with the feeling as she glanced at her very small and not too heavily-loaded table.
“Besides,” continued Phil, “George is such a splendid fellow, and, as maybe you remember, lived with us long ago. May will be glad to meet him; and he saved Mr Blurt’s life, so you see—”
“Saved Mr Blurt’s life!” interrupted Miss Lillycrop.
“Yes, and he saved ever so many more people at the same time, who would likely have been all lost if he hadn’t swum off to ’em with the rocket-line, and while he was doing that I ran off to call out the lifeboat, an’ didn’t they get her out and launch her with a will—for you see I had to run three miles, and though I went like the wind they couldn’t call out the men and launch her in a minute, you know; but there was no delay. We were in good time, and saved the whole of ’em—passengers and crew.”
“So, then, you had a hand in the saving of them,” said Miss Lillycrop.
“Sure I had,” said Phil with a flush of pleasure at the remembrance of his share in the good work;
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