Part 6 (1/2)

”Oh! yes you will, boy Rory,” said McBain; ”it was a new sensation, that's all.”

”New sensation!” said Allan, laughing in earnest; ”well, captain, I must say that is a mild way of putting it. _I_ don't want any more such sensations. Steward, bring some nice hot coffee.”

”Ay!” cried Ralph, ”that's the style, Allan. Some coffee, steward--and, steward, bring the cold pork and fowls, and make some toast, and bring the b.u.t.ter and the Chili vinegar.”

Poor Irish Rory! Like every one with a poetic temperament, he was easily cast down, and just as easily raised again. Ralph's wondrous appet.i.te always amused him.

”Oh, you true Saxon!” said Rory--”you hungry Englishman!” But, ten minutes afterwards, he felt himself constrained to join the party at the supper table.

You see, reader mine, a sailor's life is like an April day--suns.h.i.+ne now and showers anon.

”How now, Stevenson?” said McBain, as the mate entered with a kind of a puzzled look on his face.

”Well, sir, we are, as you said, off the Faroes. The night is precious dark, but I can see the lights of a village in here, and the lights of a vessel of some size, evidently lying at anchor.”

”Then, mate,” said the captain, ”as we don't know exactly where we are, I don't think we can do wrong to steam in and drop anchor alongside this craft. We can then board her and find out. How is the weather?”

”A bit thick, sir, and seems inclined to blow a little from the east-south-east.”

”Let it, Stevenson--let it. If the other vessel can ride it out I don't think the _Arrandoon_ is likely to lose her anchors. Hullo! Mitch.e.l.l,”

he continued, as the second mate next entered hat in hand, ”what's in the wind now, man?”

”Why, sir,” said Mitch.e.l.l, ”I'm all ash.o.r.e like, you see; I can't make it out. But here is a boat just been a-hailing of us, and the pa.s.senger--there is only one, a comely la.s.s enough--has just come on board, and wants to see you at once. Seems a bit cranky. Here she be, sir;” and Mitch.e.l.l retired.

A young girl. She was probably not over seventeen, fair-faced, and with wild blue eyes, and yellow hair, dripping with dew, floating over her shoulders.

”Stop the s.h.i.+p!” she cried, seizing McBain by the arm. ”Go no farther, or her ribs will be scattered over the waves, and your bones will bleach on the cliffs of the rocks.”

”Poor thing!” muttered McBain. ”Oh, you heed me not!” continued the girl, wringing her hands in despair. ”It will be too late--it will be too late! I tell you here is no harbour, here is no s.h.i.+p. The lights you see are placed there to lure your vessel on sh.o.r.e. They are wreckers, I tell you; they will--”

”By the deep three!” sung the man in the chains.

Then there was a shout from the man at the foretop.

”Breakers ahead!”

Then, ”Stand by both anchors. Ready about.”

CHAPTER SIX.

A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE--ON THE ROCKS--MYSTERY--A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP.

Has the reader ever been to sea? The first feeling that a landsman objects to at sea is that of the heaving motion of the s.h.i.+p; to your true sailor the cessation of that motion, or its absence under circ.u.mstances, is disagreeable in the extreme. To me there is always a certain air of romance about the old ocean, and about a s.h.i.+p at sea; but what can be less romantic than lying in a harbour or dull wet dock, with no more life nor motion in your craft than there is in the slopshop round the corner? To lie thus and probably have to listen to the grating voices and pointless jokes of semi-inebriated stevedores, as they load or unload, soiling, as they do, your beautiful decks with their dreadful boots, is very far from pleasant. In a case like this how one wishes to be away out on the blue water once more, and to feel life in the good s.h.i.+p once again--to feel, as it were, her very heart throb beneath one's feet!

But disagreeable as the sensation is of lying lifeless in harbour or dock, still more so is it to feel your vessel, that one moment before was sailing peacefully over the sea, suddenly rasp on a rock beneath you, then stop dead. Nothing in the world will wake a sailor sooner, even should he be in the deepest of slumber, than this sudden cessation of motion. I remember on one particular occasion being awakened thus.

No crew ever went to sleep with a greater feeling of security than we had done, for the night was fine and the s.h.i.+p went well. But all at once, about four bells in the middle watch,--

Kurr-r-r-r! that was the noise we heard proceeding from our keel, then all was steady, all was still. And every man sprang from his hammock, every officer from his cot.

We were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, or rather the Mozambique Channel, with no land in sight, and we were hard and fast on the dreaded Lyra reef. A beautiful night it was, just enough wind to make a ripple on the water for the broad moon's beams to dance in, a cloudless sky, and countless stars. We took all this in at the first glance. Safe enough we were--for the time; _but_ if the wind rose there was the certainty of our being broken up, even as the war-s.h.i.+p _Lyra_ was, that gave its name to the reef.