Part 4 (2/2)
”Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted both the boys together; and without further ado the Captain hurried the little people along with him down through the woods to the water.
The old man had been down there before, and had everything in readiness.
The little yacht was lying close beside the little wharf. ”Look sharp now, and be lively,” exclaimed the Captain as he helped them one by one aboard; and then he got in himself, and shoved the yacht off from the landing, and with the a.s.sistance of a singular-looking boy, whom the Captain called ”Main Brace,” he spread the sails, and the lively craft was soon skimming over the waters, carrying as lively a party as ever set out on an afternoon frolic. ”Jolly” was the only word which seemed at all to express the children's pleasure, and if the boys said ”it's jolly” once, they must have said it fifty times at least; while little Alice exhibited her excitement by jumping from one side of the boat to the other, stopping now and then to lean over the side and watch the little waves gurgling past them, sometimes dipping her delicate hands into the water, and screaming with delight when the spray flew over her.
The party were seated (when seated at all) in what is called the ”stern sheets,” that is, on the seat in the open s.p.a.ce behind the cabin heretofore described,--the good-natured and kindly Captain in the midst of them, firmly holding the helm or tiller of his boat, and guiding it with steady hand wherever he wished it to go, cracking a pleasant joke now and then, and enjoying in all the fulness of his big, warm heart the joyous delight of his young guests. And he was in no hurry to stop the sport, for he ran on clear across the harbor, and then said he would ”'bout s.h.i.+p,” and put back again.
”What's 'bout s.h.i.+p?” inquired William.
”That's going about on the other tack,” replied the Captain.
”What's going about on the other tack?” asked William, as wise as he was before.
”I'll show you,” said the Captain. ”Now see here: first I give the proper order, as if somebody else was giving it to me, and I was the man at the wheel: 'Hard-a-lee,' do you observe;--now look, I put the helm down as far as I can jam it,--there;--look now, how that turns the boat and brings her up into the wind,--you see the sails begin to s.h.i.+ver,--the wind is blowing right in your faces now;--now we have turned nearly round; the boat, you see, has come up on an even keel,--level, you know;--now look out sharp for your heads there,--the boom is going to jibe over to the other side;--there, don't you see we've turned round,--that house over there near the beach that was almost ahead of us is now behind us. There goes the boom,--bang! There fills the sail, see it bulging out,--the jib, you see, shakes a little yet,--but there she goes now filled out like the other; and now you see I've got the helm back where I had it before, in the middle, 'steady,'
you know, and there goes the _Alice_ off on the starboard tack, and an easy bowline back towards the Mariner's Rest again. Wasn't that nicely done?”
”Splendid! splendid!” cried William; ”I wish I could do it.”
”I'll teach you,--it's easy learned,” answered the Captain; ”but look out there, or you'll go overboard; get up to windward, and trim the boat; you see we are leaning over to the other side now.”
And thus the Captain kept on ”tacking” across the harbor, going to and fro, for more than an hour, enjoying every minute of it just as much as the children did. When at length, however, the children began to quiet down a little (the sharp edge of novelty being worn off), the Captain ran into shoal water, and brought his boat's head once more up into the wind; but this time, instead of letting her head ”pay” off to starboard, he steered her right into the wind's eye, with the sails s.h.i.+vering all the time, until the boat stopped, when he cried out to Main Brace to ”let go the anchor,” which Main Brace did promptly, with an ”Ay, ay, sir!” and then he ”clewed” up the sails, and spread a white and red striped and red-fringed awning over the place where they were seated, and said he was now going on with the story. ”Isn't this a tip-top place,” said he, ”for story-telling?” And the children all said it was ”tip-top,” and ”jolly,” and ”grand,” and made many little speeches about it, which to put down here would make this account so long that everybody would get tired before getting to the end of it.
”Now I call this a much better place than the 'Crow's Nest,'” went on the Captain; ”for, don't you see, when we knocked off yesterday I was standing in the middle of the sea, on a great ice-raft. To be sure we are not exactly in the middle of the sea here, nor on an ice-raft either, but we are on salt water, and that's where I like to be. The air is better for the wits, and the tongue too, for that matter, than on the land there, which is a good enough place to be when there is no wind; but I like to be on the water, and have plenty of sea-room, when the wind blows, especially when it blows a gale,--for on land, at such times, I'm always afraid that the trees will blow over on me, or the house will blow down on my head, or some dreadful accident will happen, whereas on the sea one has no fears at all; and besides, at sea one is always at home,--come rain or s.h.i.+ne, he's always his house with him, and never has to go groping about for shelter.”
”Only you mustn't be in the forecastle,” put in cunning William, who remembered the Captain's fright when he first found himself at sea in the _Blackbird_.
”Never mind that, lad,” replied the Captain, ”I was only a boy then, and hadn't come to years of discretion. I've made better friends with the sea since that day. But let us go on, or we'll never get through with this story, any more than the Flying Dutchman will get into port, though he keeps on beating up and down forever; and as for to-day, why, we'll leave off just where we began, like thieves in a treadmill, if we don't get started pretty soon.
”Well, you see, as I was saying, you left me standing on an ice-raft in the middle of the Arctic Sea, cast away in a cold and forbidding place, and all alone. My s.h.i.+pmates were all either drowned or killed outright by the falling ice, so far at least as I knew. The prospect ahead was not a pleasing one, for of course, as I think I have said before, the first thought which crossed my mind was, that I should starve or freeze to death very soon. I was greatly astonished by what had happened, and indeed it was hard for me to believe my senses, so suddenly had this great disaster come upon me. I stood staring into the mist, and listening to the terrible sounds which came out of it, as one petrified; yet after a little time I recovered myself sufficiently to realize my situation. The instinct of life is strong in every living thing, and young sailor-boys are no exception to the rule; so, after I had stood in the presence of this frightful chaos for I have not the least idea how long, I began to think what I should do to save myself.
”The waves which had been raised after a while began steadily to subside, and, as the sea became more calm, I found that I could approach nearer to where the wreck had happened by jumping over some of the cracks which had been made in the ice, and walking across piece after piece of it. These pieces were all in motion, rolling on the swell of the sea, and, the farther I went, of course the greater the motion became. I had to proceed cautiously, and when I jumped from one fragment of ice to another, I was obliged to look carefully what I was about, for if I missed my footing I should fall into the sea, and be either drowned or ground up by the moving ice.
”Had the iceberg all gone to pieces at once, the sea would soon have become quiet; but it was evident from the noises which reached me that a considerable part of the berg was still holding together, and was wallowing in the sea in consequence of its equilibrium being disturbed by the first crash, and was still keeping the waters moving. I could indeed vaguely see this remaining fragment, swaying to right and left, and I could also perceive that, with every roll, fresh ma.s.ses were breaking off, with loud reports, like the crash of artillery. I could, however, discover nothing of the s.h.i.+p nor either of the boats. I was able to detect, even at a considerable distance, some fragments of ice floating and rolling about, when the fog would clear up a little; and, as I peered into the gloom, I thought at one time that I saw a man standing upon one of them. It was but a moment, for the fog closed upon the object, whatever it may have been, and it vanished as a spectral figure.
”My eyes were strained to catch a further glimpse of this object, but nothing more was to be seen of it. From this my attention was soon attracted by a dark ma.s.s which had drifted upon the edge of the broken ice, not far to the right of the place where I had been standing when the boat left me. I soon made this out to be some part of the wreck of the s.h.i.+p. In a few moments I could clearly see that it was a piece of a mast; then I could plainly distinguish the 'foretop.' Each succeeding wave was forcing it higher and higher out of the water, and I discovered, after a few moments, that other timbers were attached to it, and that beside these were sails and ropes, making of the whole a considerable ma.s.s.
”After observing this fragment of the wreck attentively for some time, I thought I perceived a man moving among the tangled collection of timbers and ropes and sails, endeavoring to extricate himself. Whatever it might be, it was some distance above the sea,--so high, indeed, that the waves no longer washed it fairly,--only the spray.
”It soon became clear to me that my suspicions that this was a man were correct; and being more convinced that one of my s.h.i.+pmates at least was yet alive, I rushed forward to rescue him if possible, without once stopping to give a thought to the risks I would encounter. It was clear that he could not liberate himself.
”You will remember that I was now standing on a fragment of ice which had been broken off from the solid ice-field by the waves. It was one of a number of similar fragments, all lying more or less close together, and between me and the place where I had been standing when the waves began to subside, and the ice ceased to break up. Before me the ice was in the same broken condition as behind me, only, being nearer the open water, the pieces were rolling more, so that there was much greater danger in springing from piece to piece. Without, however, pausing to reflect upon this circ.u.mstance, I rushed forward as fast as I could go, jumping with ease over every obstacle in my way, until I was on the piece of ice that held up the end of the tangled wreck. I had evidently arrived in the very nick of time, for the wreck was, instead of coming farther up, now beginning to sink back into the sea.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Rescued from the Wreck.]
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