Chapter XXVI: Hard Times

When the second mate revived there were sounds of high rejoicing overhead. He saw that the fastenings of his door had not been disturbed.

After dressing his wound as best he could, he set about securing the best possible means of prolonging and perhaps saving his life. If the drink-crazed blacks could be kept out of his stateroom, it might be that he would not be molested until some passing vessel, noting the unseaman-like appearance and maneuvers of the Wanderer would come to his rescue.

The blacks evidently did not know of his whereabouts, but considered that all of their whilom masters had been put to death. But the chance for ultimate safety was slight, he felt.

When the schooner might be fired or dismantled in a gale, through ignorance, he knew not, but he realized that the negroes were liable to commit almost any blunder. Again, the passing ships might not stop.

He also must have something to eat and drink, his wound rendering him especially thirsty.

Limping to the door he listened long and intently. As far as he could tell, the entire crowd of blacks were on deck, carousing over their victory and enjoying the fresh air of which they so long had been deprived.

He unlocked and peered through the door. Then he quickly slipped into the cabin and reconnoitered. All seemed to be quiet.

Without wasting time he went into the store rooms, secured a bag of biscuit and filled a breaker with water from one of the butts. Carrying these into his room he returned and took a pair of spare oars wherewith to brace his door.

The confusion and waste wrought by the blacks were extreme. Bread, meat, and vegetables lay upon the floor. Boxes and barrels were broken open and their contents recklessly thrown about. The rum barrel had been conveyed to the deck.

Overhead Duff could hear barbaric dancing, whooping and singing. A noise at the head of the companion-way caused him to retreat hastily to his own room, where he softly locked the door and used both oars as braces. For the present he was probably safe, as his presence had not yet been discovered.

All that day the negroes gave themselves over to eating and drinking. The sails swung idly in the passing breezes, and as the weather was not boisterous the schooner fared very well.

Duff slept, thought, and nursed his wound. At times he would look from his little window for a sail, and when night came he curled down in his bunk so snugly, that it seemed at times as if things were going on as usual before the mutiny. When he looked out in the morning at daylight the first object he saw was the yawl.

At first he thought it might be the second boat which had been loosened somehow during the fierce battle on deck. But when Ralph rose and looked around, the mate recognized the lad and waved his handkerchief.

He was not a little astonished at the boy's re-appearance, having heard the shot which wounded Ralph, and having given both lad and yawl up for lost.

"Well now," remarked Ralph, on the conclusion of the story, "what are we to do?"

"When the sun gets well up, we will take an observation and make a reckoning. Then we'll lay our course for the nearest land. Perhaps we may be picked up--perhaps we won't be. Whatever happens we will make the grub and water go as far as possible, keep a stiff lip, and trust to Providence."

While speaking Duff drew forth from the bundle of bedding he had thrown out, a leather bag. From this he produced a compass and a sextant.

"Now, lad," said he, "let us enlarge this here sail a bit, and get ready to do some traveling when the breeze comes."

For an hour or two both man and boy worked until they had the yawl in as good trim as possible. Then the mate took an observation by the sun, cast a reckoning, and informed Ralph that as far as his knowledge of geography would serve, they were some two hundred miles from the Cape Verdes.

"We have a fair wind, Ralph, so square away west by nor'west, and leave this bloody slaver to her fate. I'm sorry for those niggers, for bad as they treated us, we got 'em in the fix they're in. If we speak a vessel we can go back."

"Mebbe they won't want to," suggested Ralph.

"Salvage," returned Duff briefly. "There's money in it, you see. Men will do about anything for money enough."

For the next two days they kept their course and took turn about in sailing. As the last glimpse of the slaver faded into nothingness, both felt relieved. They nursed their wounds and endured their sufferings and privations as best they could.

The third day sundry signs betokening a storm lent an anxious expression to Duff's face, that soon transferred itself to Ralph's.

The wind stiffened gradually into half a gale and night closed in, around an ominous and threatening horizon. Though worn and wearied, the mate never gave up the tiller all during that black and perilous siege of darkness.

Ralph bailed and held the main sheet. When the squalls came he slackened up or drew in around the cleat as became necessary.

The scene was intensely depressing, hopeless, terrible. Hardly a word was spoken save in reference to the management of the boat.

Morning found them greatly exhausted and barely able to keep their small craft from broaching to. Had this happened they would have foundered undoubtedly.

The clouds seemed to press the ocean, confining the view to less than half a mile in any direction. The sea was a tumbling mass of gray, seething billows, that tossed the yawl at pleasure hither and thither, the rag of sail barely sufficing to keep her head to windward.

Ralph had endured the terrors of the night without a murmur. But he had been aboard the yawl now about five days on a diet of bread and water. Nature was giving way under the strain.

As he gazed around on the angry scene, where no sign of relenting on the part of the storm was evident, he turned to Duff and fixed on him a hopeless look.

"I don't think I can stand it much longer, sir," he said.

The mate's plight was almost as bad; indeed his wound was worse than Ralph's. But he was tougher; he had been shipwrecked twice previously.

"Lad," he replied, somewhat sternly, "never give up as long as you can bat an eye. That's my doctrine."

And he looked it; so did Ralph a moment later, nor did the boy complain again.

All that weary day they fought a losing battle against wind and wave, and when night once more closed in without any sign of clearing weather, the hearts of both were at the lowest ebb of hope. Had the gale increased they must inevitably have been swamped.

Along about two bells in the first night watch the mate, who had never uttered one word of complaint, groaned aloud.

"Give--me--water," he faltered. "I--I----" And he sank forward against Ralph, and from there to the boat's bottom, where he lay apparently insensible from exhaustion and pain.

The boy seized the tiller, or the yawl, broaching, would have shipped a fatal sea. There was nothing to do but to hold to his post; so after throwing a blanket over Duff he turned his attention to the boat, keeping the shred of sail taut, and the bow as much to windward as possible.

Later on he nodded, but found on awaking that the wind was decreasing. This cheered him into renewed activity for a time, then he fell asleep again, and so continued, with brief interludes of wakefulness, until he felt himself sinking from the seat he had held so long. Once he fancied he caught a gleam of stars; and it seemed that a stillness was pervading the air as the whistle of the wind died into melancholy murmurings. After that he remembered nothing more until a voice penetrated his brain like a trump of doom.

He started up, but fell back weakly. The mate was steering and half lying on the bottom of the boat, while shading his eyes with one hand as he stared over the gunwale.

"Rouse up a bit, lad!" cried Duff, his tones quivering with excitement and weakness. "It's a sail--a sail!"

Ralph struggled to his knees and beheld a large ship bearing down upon them scarcely half a mile away. The sun was up, and the sky bright and fair, with a ragged patch of cloud here and there.

"Hurray!" he cried weakly, then his head swam, and he fell back motionless.

Duff held grimly to his post, even after consciousness had departed. The rescuing party found him with head drooped upon his arm, while his nerveless fingers still rested on the tiller.