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The Survivors of the Chancellor: Diary of J.R. Kazallon, Passenger

by Jules Verne · English · Gutenberg #1652 · 314,344 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Survivors of the Chancellor: Diary of J.R. Kazallon, Passenger

Author: Jules Verne


        
Release date: February 1, 1999 [eBook #1652]
                Most recently updated: October 13, 2016

Language: English

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THE SURVIVORS OF THE CHANCELLOR.

DIARY OF J.R.KAZALLON, PASSENGER.


By Jules Verne




CHAPTER I.

CHARLESTON, SEPTEMBER 27th, 1869.--It is high tide, and three o’clock
in the afternoon when we leave the Battery-quay; the ebb carries us off
shore, and as Captain Huntly has hoisted both main and top sails, the
northerly breeze drives the “Chancellor” briskly across the bay. Fort
Sumter ere long is doubled, the sweeping batteries of the mainland on
our left are soon passed, and by four o’clock the rapid current of the
ebbing tide has carried us through the harbour-mouth.

But as yet we have not reached the open sea; we have still to thread our
way through the narrow channels which the surge has hollowed out amongst
the sand-banks. The captain takes a south-west course, rounding the
lighthouse at the corner of the fort; the sails are closely trimmed; the
last sandy point is safely coasted, and at length, at seven o’clock in
the evening; we are out free upon the wide Atlantic.

The “Chancellor” is a fine square-rigged three-master, of 900 tons
burden, and belongs to the wealthy Liverpool firm of Laird Brothers. She
is two years old, is sheathed and secured with copper, her decks being
of teak, and the base of all her masts, except the mizzen, with all their
fittings, being of iron. She is registered first class A I, and is now
on her third voyage between Charleston and Liverpool. As she wended her
way through the channels of Charleston harbour, it was the British flag
that was lowered from her mast-head; but without colours at all,
no sailor could have hesitated for a moment in telling her
nationality,--for English she was, and nothing but English from her
water-line upwards to the truck of her masts.

I must now relate how it happens that I have taken my passage on board
the “Chancellor” on her return voyage to England. At present there is no
direct steamship service between South Carolina and Great Britain,
and all who wish to cross must go either northwards to New York or
southwards to New Orleans. It is quite true that if I had chosen to
start from New York I might have found plenty of vessels belonging to
English, French, or Hamburg lines, any of which would have conveyed me
by a rapid voyage to my destination; and it is equally true that if I
had selected New Orleans for my embarkation I could readily have reached
Europe by one of the vessels of the National Steam Navigation Company,
which join the French Transatlantic line of Colon and Aspinwall. But it
was fated to be otherwise.

One day, as I was loitering about the Charleston quays, my eye lighted
upon this vessel. There was something about the “Chancellor” that
pleased me, and a kind of involuntary impulse took me on board, where I
found the internal arrangements perfectly comfortable. Yielding to the
idea that a voyage in a sailing vessel had certain charms beyond the
transit in a steamer, and reckoning that with wind and wave in my
favour there would be little material difference in time; considering,
moreover, that in these low latitudes the weather in early autumn is
fine and unbroken, I came to my decision, and proceeded forthwith to
secure my passage by this route to Europe.

Have I done right or wrong? Whether I shall have reason to regret my
determination is a problem to be solved in the future. However, I will
begin to record the incidents of our daily experience, dubious as I feel
whether the lines of my chronicle will ever find a reader.



CHAPTER II.

SEPTEMBER 28th.--John Silas Huntly, the captain of the “Chancellor,” has
the reputation of being an experienced navigator of the Atlantic. He is
a Scotchman, a native of Dundee, and is about fifty years of age. He is
of middle height and slight build, and has a small head, which he has a
habit of holding a little over his left shoulder. I do not pretend to be
much of a physiognomist, but I am inclined to believe that my few hours’
acquaintance with our captain has given me considerable insight into
his character. That he is a good seaman and thoroughly understands his
duties I could not for a moment venture to deny; but that he is a man
of resolute temperament, or that he possesses the amount of courage
that would render him, physically or morally, capable of coping with
any great emergency, I confess I cannot believe. I observe a certain
heaviness and dejection about his whole carriage. His wavering glances,
the listless motions of his hands, and his slow, unsteady gait, all seem
to me to indicate a weak and sluggish disposition. He does not appear
as though he could be energetic enough ever to be stubborn; he never
frowns, sets his teeth, or clenches his fist. There is something
enigmatical about him; however, I shall study him closely and do what
I can to understand the man who, as commander of a vessel, should be to
those around him “second only to God.”

Unless I am greatly mistaken there is another man on board who,
if circumstances should require it, would take the more prominent
position--I mean the mate. I have hitherto, however, had such little
opportunity of observing his character, that I must defer saying more
about him at present.

Besides the captain and this mate, whose name is Robert Curtis, our crew
consists of Walter, the lieutenant, the boatswain, and fourteen sailors,
all English or Scotch, making eighteen altogether, a number quite
sufficient for working a vessel of 900 tons burden. Up to this time my
sole experience of their capabilities is, that under the command of the
mate, they brought us skillfully enough through the narrow channels of
Charleston; and I have no reason to doubt but that they are well up to
their work.

My list of the ship’s officials is incomplete unless I mention Hobart,
the steward, and Jynxstrop, the negro cook.

In addition to these, the “Chancellor” carries eight passengers,
including myself. Hitherto, the bustle of embarkation, the arrangement
of cabins, and all the variety of preparations inseparable from starting
on a voyage for at least twenty or five-and-twenty days have precluded
the formation of any acquaintanceships; but the monotony of the voyage,
the close proximity into which we must be thrown, and the natural
curiosity to know something of each other’s affairs, will doubtless lead
us in due time to an interchange of ideas. Two days have elapsed and
I have not even seen all the passengers. Probably sea-sickness has
prevented some of them from making their appearance at the common
table. One thing, however, I do know; namely, that there are two ladies
occupying the stern-cabins, the windows of which are in the aft-board of
the vessel.

I have seen the ship’s list and subjoin a list of the passengers. They
are as follow:--Mr. and Mrs. Kear, Americans, of Buffalo. Miss Herbey,
a young English lady, companion to Mrs. Kear. M. Letourneur and his son
Andre, Frenchmen, of Havre. William Falsten, a Manchester engineer. John
Ruby, a Cardiff merchant; and myself, J. R. Kazallon, of London.



CHAPTER III.

SEPTEMBER 29th.--Captain Huntly’s bill of lading, that is to say, the
document that describes the “Chancellor’s” cargo and the conditions of
transport, is couched in the following terms:--

“BRONSFIELD AND CO., AGENTS, CHARLESTON.

“I, John Silas Huntly, of Dundee, Scotland, commander of the ship
‘Chancellor,’ of about 900 tons burden, now at Charleston, do purpose,
by the blessing of God, at the earliest convenient season, and by the
direct route, to sail for the port of Liverpool, where I shall obtain
my discharge. I do hereby acknowledge that I have received from you,
Messrs. Bronsfield and Co., Commission Agents, Charleston, and have
placed the same under the gun-deck of the aforesaid ship, seventeen
hundred bales of cotton, of the estimated value of 26,000l., all in
good condition, marked and numbered as in the margin; which goods I do
undertake to transport to Liverpool, and there to deliver, free from
injury (save only such injury as shall have been caused by the chances
of the sea), to Messrs. Laird Brothers, or to their order, or to their
representative, who shall on due delivery of the said freight pay me the
sum of 2000l. inclusive, according to the charter-party and damages in
addition, according to the usages and customs of the sea.

“And for the fulfillment of the above covenant, I have pledged and do
pledge my person, my property, and my interest in the vessel aforesaid,
with all its appurtenances. In witness whereof, I have signed three
agreements, all of the same purport; on the condition that when the
terms of one are accomplished, the other two shall be absolutely null
and void.

“Given at Charleston, September 13th, 1869,

“J. S. HUNTLY.”


From the foregoing document it will be understood that the “Chancellor”
 is conveying 1700 bales of cotton to Liverpool; that the shippers are
Bronsfield, of Charleston, and the consignees are Laird Brothers, of
Liverpool. The ship was constructed with the especial design of carrying
cotton, and the entire hold, with the exception of a very limited space
reserved for passengers’ luggage, is closely packed with the bales, The
lading was performed with the utmost care, each bale being pressed into
its proper place by the aid of screw-jacks, so that the whole freight
forms one solid and compact mass; not an inch of space is wasted, and
the vessel is thus made capable of carrying her full complement of
cargo.



CHAPTER IV.

SEPTEMBER 30th to OCTOBER 6th.--The “Chancellor” is a rapid sailer, and
more than a match for many a vessel of the same dimensions. She scuds
along merrily in the freshening breeze, leaving in her wake, far as the
eye can reach, a long white line of foam as well defined as a delicate
strip of lace stretched upon an azure ground.

The Atlantic is not visited by many gales, and I have every reason to
believe that the rolling and pitching of the vessel no longer incommode
any of the passengers, who are all more or less accustomed to the sea.
A vacant seat at our table is now very rare; we are beginning to know
something about each other, and our daily life, in consequence, is
becoming somewhat less monotonous.

M. Letourneur, our French fellow-passenger, often has a chat with me.
He is a fine tall man, about fifty years of age, with white hair and a
grizzly beard. To say the truth, he looks older than he really is: his
drooping head, his dejected manner, and his eye, ever and again suffused
with tears, indicate that he is haunted by some deep and abiding sorrow.
He never laughs; he rarely even smiles, and then only on his son:
his countenance ordinarily bearing a look of bitterness tempered by
affection, while his general expression is one of caressing tenderness.
It excites an involuntary commiseration to learn that M. Letourneur is
consuming himself by exaggerated reproaches on account of the infirmity
of an afflicted son.

Andre Letourneur is about twenty years of age, with a gentle,
interesting countenance, but, to the irrepressible grief of his father,
is a hopeless cripple. His left leg is miserably deformed, and he is
quite unable to walk without the assistance of a stick. It is obvious
that the father’s life is bound up with that of his son; his devotion
is unceasing; every thought, every glance is for Andre; he seems to
anticipate his most trifling wish, watches his slightest movement, and
his arm is ever ready to support or otherwise assist the child whose
sufferings he more than shares.

M. Letourneur seems to have taken a peculiar fancy to myself,
and constantly talks about Andre. This morning, in the course of
conversation, I said,--

“You have a good son, M. Letourneur. I have just been talking to him. He
is a most intelligent young man.”

“Yes, Mr. Kazallon,” replied M. Letourneur, brightening up into a smile,
“his afflicted frame contains a noble mind. He is like his mother, who
died at his birth.”

“He is full of reverence and love for you, sir,” I remarked.

“Dear boy!” muttered the father half to himself. “Ah, Mr. Kazallon,”
 he continued, “you do not know what it is to a father to have a son a
cripple, beyond hope of cure.”

“M. Letourneur,” I answered, “you take more than your share of the
affliction which has fallen upon you and your son. That M. Andre is
entitled to the very greatest commiseration no one can deny; but you
should remember, that after all a physical infirmity is not so hard to
bear as mental grief. Now, I have watched your son pretty closely, and
unless I am much mistaken there is nothing, that troubles him so much as
the sight of your own sorrow.”

“But I never let him see it,” he broke in hastily. “My sole thought
is how to divert him. I have discovered, that in spite of his physical
weakness, he delights in travelling; so for the last few years we have
been constantly on the move. We first went all over Europe, and are now
returning from visiting the principal places in the United States.
I never allowed my son to go to college, but instructed him entirely
myself, and these travels, I hope, will serve to complete his education.
He is very intelligent, and has a lively imagination, and I am sometimes
tempted to hope that in contemplating the wonders of nature he forgets
his own infirmity.”

“Yes, sir, of course he does,” I assented.

“But,” continued M. Letourneur, taking my hand, “although, perhaps, HE
may forget, I can never forget. Ah, sir, do you suppose that Andre can
ever forgive his parents for bringing him into the world a cripple?”

The remorse of the unhappy father was very distressing, and I was
about to say a few kind words of sympathy when Andre himself made his
appearance. M. Letourneur hastened toward him and assisted him up the
few steep steps that led to the poop.

As soon as Andre was comfortably seated on one of the benches, and his
father had taken his place by his side, I joined them, and we fell into
conversation upon ordinary topics, discussing the various points of
the “Chancellor,” the probable length of the passage, and the different
details of our life on board. I find that M. Letourneur’s estimate of
Captain Huntly’s character very much coincided with my own, and that,
like me, he is impressed with the man’s undecided manner and sluggish
appearance. Like me, too, he has formed a very favourable opinion of
Robert Curtis, the mate, a man of about thirty years of age, of great
muscular power, with a frame and a will that seem ever ready for action.

Whilst we were still talking of him, Curtis himself came on deck, and as
I watched his movements I could not help being struck with his physical
development; his erect and easy carriage, his fearless glance and
slightly contracted brow all betokened a man of energy, thoroughly
endowed with the calmness and courage that are indispensable to the
true sailor. He seems a kind-hearted fellow, too, and is always ready
to assist and amuse young Letourneur, who evidently enjoys his company.
After he had scanned the weather and examined the trim of the sails, he
joined our party and proceeded to give us some information about those
of our fellow-passengers with whom at present we have made but slight
acquaintance.

Mr. Kear, the American, who is accompanied by his wife, has made a large
fortune in the petroleum springs in the United States. He is a man of
about fifty, a most uninteresting companion, being overwhelmed with
a sense of his own wealth and importance, and consequently supremely
indifferent to all around him. His hands are always in his pockets,
and the chink of money seems to follow him wherever he goes. Vain and
conceited, a fool as well as an egotist, he struts about like a peacock
showing its plumage, and to borrow the words of the physiognomist
Gratiolet, “il se flaire, il se savoure, il se goute.” Why he should
have taken his passage on board a mere merchant vessel instead of
enjoying the luxuries of a Transatlantic steamer, I am altogether at a
loss to explain.

The wife is an insignificant, insipid woman, of about forty years of
age. She never reads, never talks, and I believe I am not wrong in
saying, never thinks. She seems to look without seeing, and listen
without hearing, and her sole occupation consists in giving her orders
to her companion, Miss Herbey, a young English girl of about twenty.

Miss Herbey is extremely pretty. Her complexion is fair and her eyes
deep blue, whilst her pleasing countenance is altogether free from
that insignificance of feature which is not unfrequently alleged to be
characteristic of English beauty. Her mouth would be charming if she
ever smiled, but exposed as she is to the ridiculous whims and fancies
of a capricious mistress, her lips rarely relax from their ordinary
grave expression. Yet humiliating as her position must be, she never
utters a word of open complaint, but quietly and gracefully performs her
duties accepting without a murmur the paltry salary which the bumptious
petroleum-merchant condescends to allow her.

The Manchester engineer, William Falsten, looks like a thorough
Englishman. He has the management of some extensive hydraulic works in
South Carolina, and is now on his way to Europe to obtain some improved
apparatus, and more especially to visit the mines worked by centrifugal
force, belonging to the firm of Messrs. Cail. He is forty-five years of
age, with all his interests so entirely absorbed by his machinery that
he seems to have neither a thought nor a care beyond his mechanical
calculations. Once let him engage you in conversation, and there is no
chance of escape; you have no help for it but to listen as patiently as
you can until he has completed the explanation of his designs.

The last of our fellow-passengers, Mr. Ruby, is the type of a vulgar
tradesman. Without any originality or magnanimity in his composition, he
has spent twenty years of his life in mere buying and selling, and as
he has generally contrived to do business at a profit, he has realized a
considerable fortune. What he is going to do with the money, he does
not seem able to say: his ideas do not go beyond retail trade, his mind
having been so long closed to all other impressions that it appears
incapable of thought or reflection on any subject besides. Pascal says,
“L’homme est visiblement fait pour penser. C’est toute sa dignite
et tout-son merite;” but to Mr. Ruby the phrase seems altogether
inapplicable.



CHAPTER V.

OCTOBER 7th.--This is the tenth day since we left Charleston, and I
should think our progress has been very rapid. Robert Curtis, the mate,
with whom I continue to have many a friendly chat, informed me that we
could not be far off Cape Hatteras in the Bermudas; the ship’s bearings,
he said were lat. 32deg. 20min. N. and long. 64deg. 50min. W., so that
he had every reason to believe that we should sight St. George’s Island
before night.

“The Bermudas!” I exclaimed. “But how is it we are off the Bermudas? I
should have thought that a vessel sailing from Charleston to Liverpool,
would have kept northwards, and have followed the track of the Gulf
Stream.”

“Yes, indeed; sir,” replied Curtis, “that is the usual course; but you
see that this time the captain hasn’t chosen to take it.”

“But why not?” I persisted.

“That’s not for me to say, sir; he ordered us eastwards, and eastwards
we go.”

“Haven’t you called his attention to it?” I inquired.

Curtis acknowledged that he had already pointed out what an unusual
route they were taking, but that the captain had said that he was quite
aware what he was about. The mate made no further remark; but the knit
of his brow, as he passed his hand mechanically across his forehead,
made me fancy that he was inclined to speak out more strongly.

“All very well, Curtis,” I said, “but I don’t know what to think about
trying new routes. Here we are at the 7th of October, and if we are to
reach Europe before the bad weather sets in, I should suppose there is
not a day to be lost.”

“Right, sir, quite right; there is not a day to be lost.”

Struck by his manner, I ventured to add, “Do you mind, Mr. Curtis giving
me your honest opinion of Captain Huntly?”

He hesitated a moment, and then replied shortly, “He is my captain,
sir.”

This evasive answer of course put an end to any further interrogation on
my part, but it only set me thinking the more.

Curtis was not mistaken. At about three o’clock the lookout man sung out
that there was land to windward, and descried what seemed as if it might
be a line of smoke in the north-east horizon. At six, I went on deck
with M. Letourneur and his son, and we could then distinctly make out
the low group of the Bermudas, encircled by their formidable chain of
breakers.

“There,” said Andre Letourneur to me, as we stood gazing at the distant
land, “there lies the enchanted Archipelago, sung by your poet Moore.
The exile Waller, too, as long ago as 1643, wrote an enthusiastic
panegyric on the islands, and I have been told that at one time English
ladies would wear no other bonnets than such as were made of the leaves
of the Bermuda palm.”

“Yes,” I replied, “the Bermudas were all the rage in the seventeenth
century, although latterly they have fallen into comparative oblivion.”

“But let me tell you, M. Andre,” interposed Curtis, who had as usual
joined our party, “that although poets may rave, and be as enthusiastic
as they like about these islands, sailors will tell a different tale.
The hidden reefs that lie in a semicircle about two or three leagues
from shore make the attempt to land a very dangerous piece of business.
And another thing, I know. Let the natives boast as they will about
their splendid climate, they, are visited by the most frightful
hurricanes. They get the fag-end of the storms that rage over the
Antilles; and the fag-end of a storm is like the tail of a whale;
it’s just the strongest bit of it. I don’t think you’ll find a sailor
listening much to your poets,--your Moores, and your Wallers.”

“No, doubt you are right, Mr. Curtis,” said Andre, smiling, “but poets
are like proverbs; you can always find one to contradict another.
Although Waller and Moore have chosen to sing the praises of the
Bermudas, it has been supposed that Shakspeare was depicting them in the
terrible scenes that are found in ‘The Tempest.’”

The whole vicinity of these islands is beyond a question extremely
perilous to mariners. Situated between the Antilles and Nova Scotia, the
Bermudas have ever since their discovery belonged to the English,
who have mainly used them for a military station. But this little
archipelago, comprising some hundred and fifty different isles and
islets, is destined to increase, and that, perhaps, on a larger scale
than has yet been anticipated. Beneath the waves there are madrepores,
in infinity of number, silently but ceaselessly pursuing their labours;
and with time, that fundamental element in nature’s workings, who shall
tell whether these may not gradually build up island after island, which
shall unite and form another continent?

I may mention that there was not another of our fellow-passengers who
took the trouble to come on deck and give a glance at this strange
cluster of islands. Miss Herbey, it is true, was making an attempt to
join us, but she had barely reached the poop, when Mrs. Kear’s languid
voice was heard recalling her for some trifling service to her side.



CHAPTER VI.

OCTOBER 8th to OCTOBER 13th.--The wind is blowing hard from the
north-east; and the “Chancellor” under low-reefed top-sail and
fore-sail, and labouring against a heavy sea, has been obliged to be
brought ahull. The joists and girders all creak again until one’s teeth
are set on edge. I am the only passenger not remaining below; but I
prefer being on deck notwithstanding the driving rain, fine as dust,
which penetrates to my very skin. We have been driven along in this
fashion for the best part of two days; the “stiffish breeze” has
gradually freshened into “a gale;” the top-gallants have been lowered,
and, as I write, the wind is blowing with a velocity of fifty or sixty
miles an hour. Although the “Chancellor” has many good points, her drift
is considerable, and we have been carried far to the south we can
only guess at our precise position, as the cloudy atmosphere entirely
precludes us from taking the sun’s altitude.

All along throughout this period, my fellow-passengers are totally
ignorant of the extraordinary course that we are taking England lies
to the NORTH-EAST, yet we are sailing directly SOUTH-EAST, and Robert
Curtis owns that he is quite bewildered; he cannot comprehend why the
captain, ever since this north-easterly gale has been blowing, should
persist in allowing the ship to drive to the south, instead of tacking
to the north-west until she gets into better quarters.

I was alone with Curtis to-day upon the poop, and could not help saying
to him “Curtis, is your captain mad?”

“Perhaps, sir, I might be allowed to ask what YOU think upon that
matter,” was his cautious reply.

“Well to say the truth,” I answered, “I can hardly tell; but I confess
there is every now and then a wandering in his eye, and an odd look on
his face that I do not like. Have you ever sailed with him before?”

“No; this is our first voyage together. Again last night I spoke to him
about the route we were taking, but he only said he knew all about it,
and that it was all right.”

“What do Lieutenant Walter and your boatswain think of it all?” I
inquired.

“Think; why they think just the same as I do,” replied the mate; “but
if the captain chooses to take the ship to China we should obey his
orders.”

“But surely,” I exclaimed, “there must be some limit to your obedience!
Suppose the man is actually mad, what then?”

“If he should be mad enough, Mr. Kazallon, to bring the vessel into any
real danger, I shall know what to do.”

With this assurance I am forced to be content. Matters, however, have
taken a different turn to what I bargained for when I took my passage
on board the “Chancellor.” The weather has become worse and worse. As I
have already said, the ship under her large low-reefed top-sail and fore
stay-sail has been brought ahull, that is to say, she copes directly
with the wind, by presenting her broad bows to the sea; and so we go on
still drift, drift, continually to the south.

How southerly our course has been is very apparent; for upon the night
of the 11th we fairly entered upon that portion of the Atlantic which
is known as the Sargassos Sea. An extensive tract of water is this,
enclosed by the warm current of the Gulf Stream, and thickly covered
with the wrack, called by the Spaniards “sargasso,” the abundance of
which so seriously impeded the progress of Columbus’s vessels on his
first voyage across the ocean.

Each morning at daybreak the Atlantic has presented an aspect so
remarkable, that at my solicitation, M. Letourneur and his son have
ventured upon deck to witness the unusual spectacle. The squally gusts
make the metal shrouds vibrate like harp-strings; and unless we were
on our guard to keep our clothes wrapped tightly to us, they would have
been torn off our backs in shreds. The scene presented to our eyes is
one of strangest interest. The sea, carpeted thickly with masses of
prolific fucus, is a vast unbroken plain of vegetation, through which
the vessel makes her way as a plough. Long strips of seaweed caught up
by the wind become entangled in the rigging, and hang between the masts
in festoons of verdure; whilst others, varying from two to three hundred
feet in length, twine themselves up to the very mast-heads, from whence
they float like streaming pendants. For many hours now, the “Chancellor”
 has been contending with this formidable accumulation of algae; her
masts are circled with hydrophytes; her rigging is wreathed everywhere
with creepers, fantastic as the untrammelled tendrils of a vine, and as
she works her arduous course, there are times when I can only compare
her to an animated grove of verdure making its mysterious way over some
illimitable prairie.



CHAPTER VII.

OCTOBER 14th.--At last we are free from the sea of vegetation, the
boisterous gale has moderated into a steady breeze, the sun is shining
brightly, the weather is warm and genial, and thus, two reefs in her
top-sails, briskly and merrily sails the “Chancellor.”

Under conditions so favourable, we have been able to take the ship’s
bearings: our latitude, we find, is 21deg. 33min. N., our longitude
50deg. 17min. W.

Incomprehensible altogether is the conduct of Captain Huntly. Here we
are, already more than ten degrees south of the point from which, we
started, and yet still we are persistently following a south-easterly
course! I cannot bring myself to the conclusion that the man is mad. I
have had various conversations with him: he has always spoken rationally
and sensibly. He shows no tokens of insanity. Perhaps his case is one
of those in which insanity is partial, and where the mania is of
a character which extends only to the matters connected with his
profession. Yet it is unaccountable.

I can get nothing out of Curtis; he listens coldly whenever I allude
to the subject, and only repeats what he has said before, that nothing
short of an overt act of madness on the part of the captain could induce
him to supersede the captain’s authority and that the imminent peril of
the ship could alone justify him in taking so decided a measure.

Last evening I went to my cabin about eight o’clock, and after an hour’s
reading by the light of my cabin-lamp, I retired to my berth and was
soon asleep. Some hours later I was aroused by an unaccustomed noise on
deck. There were heavy footsteps hurrying to and fro, and the voices
of the men were loud and eager, as if the crew were agitated by some
strange disturbance. My first impression was, that some tacking had been
ordered which rendered it needful to fathom the yards; but the vessel
continuing to lie to starboard convinced me that this was not the origin
of the commotion, I was curious to know the truth, and made all haste
I could to go on deck; but before I was ready, the noise had ceased.
I heard Captain Huntly return to his cabin, and accordingly I retired
again to my own berth. Whatever may have been the meaning of the
manoeuvre, I cannot tell; it did not seem to have resulted in any
improvement in the ship’s pace; still it must be owned there was not
much wind to speed us along.

At six o’clock this morning I mounted the poop and made as keen a
scrutiny as I could of everything on board. Everything appeared as
usual. The “Chancellor” was running on the larboard tack, and carried
low-sails, top-sails, and gallant-sails. Well braced she was; and under
a fresh, but not uneasy breeze, was making no less than eleven knots an
hour.

Shortly afterwards M. Letourneur and Andre came an deck. The young man
enjoyed the early morning air, laden with its briny fragrance, and I
assisted him to mount the poop. In answer to my inquiry as to whether
they had been disturbed by any bustle in the night, Andre replied that
he did not wake at all, and had heard nothing.

“I am glad, my boy,” said his father, “that you have slept so soundly. I
heard the noise of which Mr. Kazallon speaks. It must have; been about
three o’clock this morning, and it seemed to me as though they were
shouting. I thought I heard them say, ‘Here, quick, look to the
hatches!’ but as nobody was called up, I presumed that nothing serious
was the matter.”

As he spoke I cast my eye at the panel-slides, which fore and aft of the
main-mast open into the hold. They seemed to be all close as usual,
but I now observed for the first time that they were covered with heavy
tarpauling. Wondering; in my own mind what could be the reason for
these extra precautions I did not say anything to M. Letourneur, but
determined to wait until the mate should come on watch, when he would
doubtless give me, I thought, an explanation of the mystery.

The sun rose gloriously, with every promise of a fine dry day. The
waning moon was yet above the western horizon, for as it still wants
three days to her last quarter she does not set until 10.57 am. On
consulting my almanac, I find that there will be a new moon on the 24th,
and that on that day, little as it may affect us here in mid ocean, the
phenomenon of the high sygyzian tides will take place on the shores of
every continent and island.

At the breakfast hour M. Letourneur and Andre went below for a cup of
tea, and I remained on the poop alone. As I expected, Curtis appeared,
that he might relieve Lieutenant Walter of the watch. I advanced to meet
him, but before he even wished me good morning, I saw him cast a quick
and searching glance upon the deck, and then, with a slightly contracted
brow, proceed to examine the state of the weather and the trim of the
sails.

“Where is Captain Huntly?” he said to Walter.

“I have seen nothing of him,” answered the lieutenant “is there anything
fresh up?”

“Nothing, whatever,” was the curt reply.

They then conversed for a few moments in an undertone, and I could see
that Walter by his gesture gave a negative answer to some question which
the mate had asked him. “Send me the boatswain, Walter,” said Curtis
aloud as the lieutenant moved away.

The boatswain immediately appeared, and another conversation was carried
on in whispers. The man repeatedly shook his head as he replied to
Curtis’s inquiries, and then, in obedience to orders, called the men
who were on watch, and made them plentifully water the tarpauling that
covered the great hatchway.

Curious to fathom the mystery I went up to Curtis and began to talk to
him upon ordinary topics, hoping that he would himself introduce the
subject that was uppermost in my mind; finding, however, that he did not
allude to it; I asked him point blank.

“What was the matter in the night, Curtis?”

He looked at me steadily, but made no reply.

“What was it?” I repeated. “M. Letourneur and myself were both of us
disturbed by a very unusual commotion overhead.”

“Oh, a mere nothing,” he said at length; “the man at the helm had made a
false move, and we had to pipe hands to brace the ship a bit; but it was
soon all put to rights. It was nothing, nothing at all.”

I said no more; but I cannot resist the impression that Robert Curtis
has not acted with me in his usual straightforward manner.



CHAPTER VIII.

OCTOBER 15th to OCTOBER 18th.--The wind is still in the north-east.
There is no change in the “Chancellor’s” course, and to an unprejudiced
eye all would appear to be going on as usual. But I have an uneasy
consciousness that something is not quite right. Why should the
hatchways be so hermetically closed as though a mutinous crew was
imprisoned between decks? I cannot help thinking too that there is
something in the sailors so constantly standing in groups and breaking
off their talk so suddenly whenever we approach; and several times I
have caught the word “hatches” which arrested M. Letourneur’s attention
on the night of the disturbance.

On the 15th, while I was walking on the forecastle, I overheard one of
the sailors, a man named Owen say to his mates,--

“Now I just give you all warning that I am not going to wait until the
last minute. Every one for himself, say I.”

“Why, what do you mean to do?” asked Jynxstrop, the cook.

“Pshaw!” said Owen, “do you suppose that longboats were only made for
porpoises?”

Something at that moment occurred to interrupt the conversation, and I
heard no more. It occurred to me whether there was not some conspiracy
among the crew, of which probably Curtis had already detected the
symptoms. I am quite aware that some sailors are most rebelliously
disposed, and require to be ruled with a rod of iron.

Yesterday and to-day I have observed Curtis remonstrating somewhat
vehemently with Captain Huntly, but there is no obvious result arising
from their interviews; the Captain apparently being bent upon some
purpose, of which it is only too manifest that the mate decidedly
disapproves.

Captain Huntly is undoubtedly labouring under strong nervous excitement;
and M. Letourneur has more than once remarked how silent he has become
at meal-times; for although Curtis continually endeavours to start some
subject of general interest, yet neither Mr. Falsten, Mr. Kear, nor Mr.
Ruby are the men to take it up, and consequently the conversation flags
hopelessly, and soon drops. The passengers too are now, with good cause,
beginning to murmur at the length of the voyage, and Mr. Kear, who
considers that the very elements ought to yield to his convenience, lets
the captain know by his consequential and haughty manner that he holds
him responsible for the delay.

During the course of yesterday the mate gave repeated orders for the
deck to be watered again and again, and although as a general rule this
is a business which is done, once for all, in the early morning, the
crew did not utter a word of complaint at the additional work thus
imposed upon them. The tarpaulins on the hatches have thus been kept
continually wet, so that their close and heavy texture is rendered quite
impervious to the air, The “Chancellor’s” pumps afford a copious supply
of water, so that I should not suppose that even the daintiest and most
luxurious craft belonging to an aristocratic yacht-club was ever subject
to a more thorough scouring. I tried to reconcile myself to the belief
that it was the high temperature of the tropical regions upon which
we are entering, that rendered such extra sousings a necessity, and
recalled to my recollection how, during the night of the 13th, I had
found the atmosphere below deck so stifling that in spite of the heavy
swell I was obliged to open the porthole of my cabin, on the starboard
side, to get a breath of air.

This morning at daybreak I went on deck. The sun had scarcely risen, and
the air was fresh and cool, in strange contrast to the heat which below
the poop had been quite oppressive. The sailors as usual were washing
the deck, A great sheet of water, supplied continuously by the pumps was
rolling in tiny wavelets, and escaping now to starboard, now to larboard
through the scupper-holes. After watching the men for a while as they
ran about bare-footed, I could not resist the desire to join them, so
taking off my shoes and stockings I proceeded to dabble in the flowing
water.

Great was my amazement to find the deck perfectly hot to my feet! Curtis
heard my exclamation of surprise, and before I could put my thoughts
into words, said,--

“Yes! there is fire on board!”



CHAPTER IX.

OCTOBER 19th.--Everything, then, is clear. The uneasiness of the crew,
their frequent conferences, Owen’s mysterious words, the constant
scourings of the deck and the oppressive heat of the cabins which had
been noticed even by my fellow-passengers, all are explained.

After his grave communication, Curtis remained silent. I shivered with a
thrill of horror; a calamity the most terrible that can befall a voyager
stared me in the face, and it was some seconds before I could recover
sufficient composure to inquire when the fire was first discovered.

“Six days ago,” replied the mate.

“Six days ago!” I exclaimed; “why, then, it was that night.”

“Yes,” he said, interrupting me; “it was the night you heard the
disturbance upon deck. The men on watch noticed a slight smoke issuing
from the large hatchway and immediately called Captain Huntly and
myself. We found beyond all doubt, that the cargo was on fire, and what
was worse, that there was no possibility of getting at the seat of the
combustion. What could we do? Why; we took the only precaution that
was practicable under the circumstances, and resolved most carefully
to exclude every breath of air from penetrating into the hold, For some
time I hoped that we had been successful. I thought that the fire was
stifled; but during the last three days there is every reason to make us
know that it has been gaining strength. Do what we will, the deck gets
hotter and hotter, and unless it were kept constantly wet, it would be
unbearable to the feet. But I am glad, Mr. Kazallon,” he added; “that
you have made the discovery. It is better that you should know it.”

I listened in silence, I was now fully aroused to the gravity of the
situation and thoroughly comprehended how we were in the very face of a
calamity which it seemed that no human power could avert.

“Do you know what has caused the fire?” I presently inquired.

“It probably arose,” he answered, “from the spontaneous combustion of
the cotton. The case is rare, but it is far from unknown. Unless the
cotton is perfectly dry when it is shipped, its confinement in a damp
or ill-ventilated hold will sometimes cause it to ignite; and I have no
doubt it is this that has brought about our misfortune.”

“But after all,” I said, “the cause matters very little. Is there no
remedy? Is there nothing to be done?”

“Nothing; Mr. Kazallon,” he said. “As I told you before, we have adopted
the only possible measure within our power to check the fire. At one
time I thought of knocking a hole in the ship’s timbers just on
her waterline, and letting in just as much water as the pumps could
afterwards get rid of again; but we found the combustion was right
in the middle of the cargo and that we should be obliged to flood
the entire hold before we could get at the right place. That scheme
consequently was no good. During the night, I had the deck bored in
various places and water poured down through the holes; but that again
seemed all of no use. There is only one thing that can be done; we must
persevere in excluding most carefully every breath of outer air, so that
perhaps the conflagration deprived of oxygen may smoulder itself out.
That is our only hope.”

“But, you say the fire is increasing?”

“Yes; and that shows that in spite of all our care there is some
aperture which we have not been able to discover, by which, somehow or
other, air gets into the hold.”

“Have you ever heard of a vessel surviving such circumstances?” I asked.

“Yes, Mr. Kazallon,” said Curtis; “it is not at all an unusual thing for
ships laden with cotton to arrive at Liverpool or Havre with a portion
of their cargo consumed; and I have myself known more than one captain
run into port with his deck scorching his very feet, and who, to save
his vessel and the remainder of his freight has been compelled to unload
with the utmost expedition. But, in such cases, of course the fire has
been more or less under control throughout the voyage; with us, it
is increasing day by day, and I tell you I am convinced there is an
aperture somewhere which has escaped our notice.”

“But would it not be advisable for us to retrace our course, and make
for the nearest land?”

“Perhaps it would,” he answered. “Walter and I, and the boatswain, are
going to talk the matter over seriously with the captain to-day. But,
between ourselves, I have taken the responsibility upon myself; I have
already changed the tack to the south-west; we are now straight before
the wind, and consequently we are sailing towards the coast.”

“I need hardly ask,” I added; “whether any of the other passengers are
at all aware of the imminent danger in which we are placed.”

“None of them,” he said; “not in the least; and I hope you will not
enlighten them. We don’t want terrified women and cowardly men to add to
our embarrassment; the crew are under orders to keep a strict silence on
the subject. Silence is indispensable.”

I promised to keep the matter a profound secret, as I fully entered into
Curtis’s views as to the absolute necessity for concealment.



CHAPTER X.

OCTOBER 20th AND 21st.--The “Chancellor” is now crowded with all the
canvas she can carry, and at times her top-masts threaten to snap with
the pressure. But Curtis is ever on the alert; he never leaves his post
beside the man at the helm, and without compromising the safety of the
vessel, he contrives by tacking to the breeze, to urge her on at her
utmost speed.

All day long on the 20th, the passengers were assembled on the poop.
Evidently they found the heat of the cabins painfully oppressive, and
most of them lay stretched upon benches and quietly enjoyed the gentle
rolling of the vessel. The increasing heat of the deck did not reveal
itself to their well-shod feet and the constant scouring of the boards
did not excite any suspicion in their torpid minds. M. Letourneur, it
is true, did express his surprise that the crew of an ordinary merchant
vessel should be distinguished by such extraordinary cleanliness, but as
I replied to him in a very casual tone, he passed no further remark. I
could not help regretting that I had given Curtis my pledge of silence,
and longed intensely to communicate the melancholy secret to
the energetic Frenchman; for at times when I reflect upon the
eight-and-twenty victims who may probably, only too soon, be a prey to
the relentless flames, my heart seems ready to burst.

The important consultation between captain, mate, lieutenant, and
boatswain has taken place. Curtis has confided the result to me. He says
that Huntly, the captain, is completely demoralized; he has lost all
power and energy; and practically leaves the command of the ship to him.
It is now certain the fire is beyond control, and that sooner or
later it will burst out in full violence The temperature of the crew’s
quarters has already become almost unbearable. One solitary hope
remained; it is that we may reach the shore before the final catastrophe
occurs. The Lesser Antilles are the nearest land; and although they
are some five or six hundred miles away, if the wind remains north-east
there is yet a chance of reaching them in time.

Carrying royals and studding-sails, the “Chancellor” during the last
four-and-twenty hours has held a steady course. M. Letourneur is the
only one of all the passengers who has remarked the change of tack;
Curtis however, has set all speculation on his part to rest by telling
him that he wanted to get ahead of the wind, and that he was tacking to
the west to catch a favourable current.

To-day, the 21st, all has gone on as usual; and as far as the
observation of the passengers has reached, the ordinary routine has been
undisturbed. Curtis indulges the hope even yet that by excluding the
air, the fire may be stifled before it ignites the general cargo; he has
hermetically closed every accessible aperture, and has even taken the
precaution of plugging the orifices of the pumps, under the impression
that their suction-tubes, running as they do to the bottom of the
hold, may possibly be channels for conveying some molecules of air.
Altogether, he considers it a good sign that the combustion has not
betrayed itself by some external issue of smoke.

The day would have passed without any incident worth recording if I had
not chanced to overhear a fragment of a conversation which demonstrated
that our situation hitherto precarious enough, had now become most
appalling.

As I was sitting on the poop, two of my fellow-passengers, Falsten,
the engineer, and Ruby, the merchant whom I had observed to be often in
company, were engaged in conversation almost close to me. What they said
was evidently not intended for my hearing, but my attention was directed
towards them by some very emphatic gestures of dissatisfaction on the
part of Falsten, and I could not forbear listening to what followed.

“Preposterous! shameful!” exclaimed Falsten; “nothing could be more
imprudent.”

“Pooh! pooh!” replied Ruby; “it’s all right; it is not the first time I
have done it.”

“But don’t you know that any shock at any time might cause an
explosion?”

“Oh, it’s all properly secured,” said Ruby, “tight enough; I have no
fears on that score, Mr. Falsten.”

“But why,” asked Falsten, “did you not inform the captain?”

“Just because if I had informed him, he would not have taken the case on
board.”

The wind dropped for a few seconds; and for a brief interval I could
not catch what passed; but I could see that Falsten continued to
remonstrate, whilst Ruby answered by shrugging his shoulders. At length
I heard Falsten say,--

“Well, at any rate the captain must be informed of this, and the package
shall be thrown overboard. I don’t want, to be blown up.”

I started. To what could the engineer be alluding? Evidently he had not
the remotest suspicion that the cargo was already on fire. In another
moment the words “picrate of potash” brought me to my feet? and with an
involuntary impulse I rushed up to Ruby, and seized him by the shoulder.

“Is there picrate of potash on board?” I almost shrieked.

“Yes,” said Falsten, “a case containing thirty pounds.”

“Where is it?” I cried.

“Down in the hold, with the cargo.”



CHAPTER XI.

What my feelings were I cannot describe; but it was hardly in terror so
much as with a kind of resignation that I made my way to Curtis on
the forecastle, and made him aware that the alarming character of our
situation was now complete, as there was enough explosive matter on
board to blow up a mountain. Curtis received the information as coolly
as it was delivered, and after I had made him acquainted with all the
particulars said,--

“Not a word of this must be mentioned to any one else, Mr. Kazallon,
where is Ruby now?”

“On the poop,” I said.

“Will you then come with me, sir?”

Ruby and Falsten were sitting just as I had left them. Curtis walked
straight up to Ruby, and asked him whether what he had been told was
true.

“Yes, quite true,” said Ruby, complacently, thinking that the worst
that could befall him would be that he might be convicted of a little
smuggling.

I observed that Curtis was obliged for a moment or two to clasp his
hands tightly together behind his back to prevent himself from
seizing the unfortunate passenger by the throat; but suppressing his
indignation, he proceeded quietly, though sternly, to interrogate him
about the facts of the case. Ruby only confirmed what I had already told
him. With characteristic Anglo-Saxon incautiousness he had brought
on board with the rest of his baggage, a case containing no less than
thirty pounds of picrate, and had allowed the explosive matter to be
stowed in the hold with as little compunction as a Frenchman would feel
in smuggling a single bottle of wine. He had not informed the captain
of the dangerous nature of the contents of the package, because he was
perfectly aware that he would have been refused permission to bring the
package on board.

“Any way,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, “you can’t hang me
for it; and if the package gives you so much concern, you are quite at
liberty to throw it into the sea. My luggage is insured.”

I was beside myself with fury, and not being endowed with Curtis’s
reticence and self-control, before he could interfere to stop me, I
cried out,--

“You fool! don’t you know that there is fire on board?”

In an instant I regretted my words. Most earnestly I wished them
unuttered, But it was too late: their effect upon Ruby was electrical.
He was paralyzed with terror his limbs stiffened convulsively; his eye
was dilated; he gasped for breath, and was speechless. All of a
sudden he threw up his arms and, as though he momentarily expected an
explosion, he darted down from the poop, and paced frantically up and down
the deck, gesticulating like a madman, and shouting,--

“Fire on board! Fire! Fire!”

On hearing the outcry, all the crew, supposing that the fire had now
in reality broken out, rushed on deck; the rest of the passengers soon
joined them, and the scene that ensued was one of the utmost confusion.
Mrs. Kear fell down senseless on the deck, and her husband, occupied in
looking after himself, left her to the tender mercies of Miss Herbey.
Curtis endeavoured to silence Ruby’s ravings, whilst I, in as few words
as I could, made M. Letourneur aware of the extent to which the cargo
was on fire. The father’s first thought was for Andre but the young
man preserved an admirable composure, and begged his father not to be
alarmed, as the danger was not immediate. Meanwhile the sailors had
loosened all the tacklings of the long-boat; and were preparing to
launch it, when Curtis’s voice was heard peremptorily bidding them to
desist; he assured them that the fire had made no further progress; that
Mr. Ruby had been unduly excited and not conscious of what he had said;
and he pledged his word that when the right moment should arrive he
would allow them all to leave the ship; but that moment, he said, had
not yet come.

At the sound of a voice which they had learned to honour and respect,
the crew paused in their operations, and the long-boat remained
suspended in its place. Fortunately, even Ruby himself in the midst
of his ravings, had not dropped a word about the picrate that had
been deposited in the hold; for although the mate had a power over the
sailors that Captain Huntly had never possessed, I feel certain that if
the true state of the case had been known, nothing on earth would
have prevented some of them, in their consternation, from effecting an
escape. As it was, only Curtis, Falsten, and myself were cognizant of
the terrible secret.

As soon as order was restored, the mate and, I joined Falsten on the
poop, where he had remained throughout the panic, and where we found
him with folded arms, deep in thought, as it might be, solving some hard
mechanical problem. He promised, at my request, that he would reveal
nothing of the new danger to which we were exposed through Ruby’s
imprudence. Curtis himself took the responsibility of informing Captain
Huntly of our critical situation.

In order to insure complete secrecy, it was necessary to secure the
person of the unhappy Ruby, who, quite beside himself, continued to rave
up and down the deck with the incessant cry of “Fire! fire!” Accordingly
Curtis gave orders to some of his men to seize him and gag him; and
before he could make any resistance the miserable man was captured and
safely lodged in confinement in his own cabin.



CHAPTER XII.

OCTOBER 22nd.--Curtis has told the captain everything; for he persists
in ostensibly recognizing him as his superior officer, and refuses
to conceal from him our true situation. Captain Huntly received the
communication in perfect silence, and merely passing his hand across his
forehead as though to, banish some distressing thought, re-entered his
cabin without a word.

Curtis, Lieutenant Walter, Falsten, and myself have been discussing
the chances of our safety, and I am surprised to find with how much
composure we can all survey our anxious predicament.

“There is no doubt” said Curtis, “that we must abandon all hope
of arresting the fire; the heat towards the bow has already become
well-nigh unbearable, and the time must come when the flames will find
a vent through the deck. If the sea is calm enough for us to make use
of the boats, well and good; we shall of course get quit of the ship as
quietly as we can; if on the other hand, the weather should be adverse,
or the wind be boisterous, we must stick to our place, and contend with
the flames to the very last; perhaps, after all, we shall fare better
with the fire as a declared enemy than as a hidden one.”

Falsten and I agreed with what he said, but I pointed out to him that
he had quite overlooked the fact of there being thirty pounds of
combustible matter in the hold.

“No” he gravely replied, “I have not forgotten it, but it is a
circumstance of which I do not trust myself to think I dare not run
the risk of admitting air into the hold by going down to search for the
powder, and yet I know not at what moment it may explode. No; it is a
matter that I cannot take at all into my reckoning, it must remain in
higher hands than mine.”

We bowed our heads in a silence which was solemn. In the present state
of the weather, immediate flight was, we knew, impossible.

After a considerable pause, Falsten, as calmly as though he were
delivering some philosophic dogma, observed,--

“The explosion, if I may use the formula of science, is not necessary,
but contingent.”

“But tell me, Mr. Falsten,” I asked, “is it possible for picrate of
potash to ignite without concussion?”

“Certainly it is,” replied the engineer. “Under-ordinary circumstances,
picrate of potash although not MORE inflammable than common powder, yet
possesses the same degree of inflammability.”

We now prepared to go on deck. As we left the saloon, in which we had
been sitting, Curtis seized my hand.

“Oh, Mr. Kazallon,” he exclaimed, “if you only knew the bitterness of
the agony I feel at seeing this fine vessel doomed to be devoured by
flames, and at being so powerless to save her.” Then quickly recovering
himself, he continued, “But I am forgetting myself; you, if no other,
must know what I am suffering. It is all over now,” he said more
cheerfully.

“Is our condition quite desperate?” I asked.

“It is just this,” he answered deliberately “we are over a mine, and
already the match has been applied to the train. How long that train may
be, ‘tis not for me to say.” And with these words he left me.

The other passengers, in common with the crew, are still in entire
ignorance of the extremity of peril to which we are exposed, although
they are all aware that there is fire in the hold. As soon as the fact
was announced, Mr. Kear, after communicating to Curtis his instructions
that he thought he should have the fire immediately extinguished and
intimating that he held him responsible for all contingencies that might
happen, retired to his cabin, where he has remained ever since, fully
occupied in collecting and packing together the more cherished articles
of his property and without the semblance of a care or a thought for his
unfortunate wife, whose condition, in spite of her ludicrous complaints,
was truly pitiable. Miss Herbey, however, is unrelaxing in her
attentions, and the unremitted diligence with which she fulfills her
offices of duty, commands my highest admiration.

OCTOBER 23rd.--This morning, Captain Huntly sent for Curtis into his
cabin, and the mate has since made me acquainted with what passed
between them.

“Curtis,” began the captain, his haggard eye betraying only too plainly
some mental derangement, “I am a sailor, am I not?”

“Certainly, captain,” was the prompt acquiescence of the mate.

“I do not know how it is,” continued the captain, “but I seem
bewildered; I cannot recollect anything. Are we not bound for Liverpool?
Ah! yes! of course. And have we kept a north-easterly direction since we
left?”

“No, sir, according to your orders we have been sailing south-east, and
here we are in the tropics.”

“And what is the name of the ship?”

“The ‘Chancellor,’ sir.”

“Yes, yes, the ‘Chancellor,’ so it is. Well, Curtis, I really can’t take
her back to the north. I hate the sea, the very sight of it makes me
ill, I would much rather not leave my cabin.”

Curtis went on to tell me how he had tried to persuade him that with a
little time and care he would soon recover his indisposition, and feel
himself again; but the captain had interrupted him by saying,--

“Well, well; we shall see by-and-by; but for the present you must take
this for my positive order; you must, from this time, at once take
the command of the ship, and act just as if I were not on board. Under
present circumstances, I can do nothing. My brain is all in a whirl, you
cannot tell what I am suffering;” and the unfortunate man pressed both
his hands convulsively against his forehead.

“I weighed the matter carefully for a moment,” added Curtis, “and seeing
what his condition too truly was, I acquiesced in all that he required
and withdrew, promising him that all his orders should be obeyed.”

After hearing these particulars, I could not help remarking how
fortunate it was that the captain had resigned of his own accord, for
although he might not be actually insane, it was very evident that his
brain was in a very morbid condition.

“I succeed him at a very critical moment;” said Curtis thoughtfully;
“but I shall endeavour to do my duty.”

A short time afterwards he sent for the boatswain, and ordered him to
assemble the crew at the foot of the main-mast. As soon as the men were
together, he addressed them very calmly, but very firmly.

“My men,” he said, “I have to tell you that Captain Huntly, on account
of the dangerous situation in which circumstances have placed us, and
for other reasons known to myself, has thought right to resign his
command to me. From this time forward, I am captain of this vessel.”

Thus quietly and simply the change was effected, and we have the
satisfaction of knowing that the “Chancellor” is now under the command
of a conscientious, energetic man, who will shirk nothing that he
believes to be for our common good. M. Letourneur, Andre, Mr. Falsten,
and myself immediately offered him our best wishes, in which Lieutenant
Walter and the boatswain most cordially joined.

The ship still holds her course south-west and Curtis crowds on all
sail and makes as speedily as possible for the nearest of the Lesser
Antilles.



CHAPTER XIII.

OCTOBER 24th to 29th.--For the last five days the sea has been very
heavy, and although the “Chancellor” sails with wind and wave in her
favour, yet her progress is considerably impeded. Here on board this
veritable fireship I cannot help contemplating with a longing eye this
vast ocean that surrounds us. The water supply should be all we need.

“Why not bore the deck?” I said to Curtis. “Why not admit the water by
tons into the hold? What could be the harm? The fire would be quenched;
and what would be easier than to pump the water out again?”

“I have already told you, Mr. Kazallon,” said Curtis, “that the very
moment we admit the air, the flames will rush forth to the very top of
the masts. No; we must have courage and patience; we must wait. There is
nothing whatever to be done, except to close every aperture.”

The fire continued to progress even more rapidly than we had hitherto
suspected. The heat gradually drove the passengers nearly all, on deck,
and the two stern cabins, lighted, as I said, by their windows in the
aft-board were the only quarters below that were inhabitable. Of these
Mrs. Kear occupied one, and Curtis reserved the other for Ruby, who,
a raving maniac, had to be kept rigidly under restraint. I went down
occasionally to see him, but invariably found him in a state of abject
terror, uttering horrible shrieks, as though possessed with the idea
that he was being scorched by the most excruciating heat.

Once or twice, too, I looked in upon the ex-captain. He was always calm
and spoke quite rationally upon any subject except his own profession;
but in connexion with that he prated away the merest nonsense. He
suffered greatly, but steadily declined all my offers of attention, and
pertinaciously refused to leave his cabin.

To-day, an acrid, nauseating smoke made its way through the panellings
that partition off the quarters of the crew. At once Curtis ordered the
partition to be enveloped in wet tarpaulin, but the fumes penetrated
even this, and filled the whole neighbourhood of the ship’s bows with
a reeking vapour that was positively stifling. As we listened, too, we
could hear a dull rumbling sound, but we were as mystified as ever to
comprehend where the air could have entered that was evidently fanning
the flames. Only too certainly, it was now becoming a question not
of days nor even of hours before we must be prepared for the final
catastrophe. The sea was still running high, and escape by the boats was
plainly impossible. Fortunately, as I have said, the main-mast and the
mizzen are of iron; otherwise the heat at their base would long ago
have brought them down and our chances of safety would have been
much imperiled; but by crowding on sail the “Chancellor” in the full
north-east wind continued to make her way with undiminished speed.

It is now a fortnight since the fire was first discovered, and the
proper working of the ship has gradually become a more and more
difficult matter. Even with thick shoes any attempt to walk upon deck up
to the forecastle was soon impracticable, and the poop, simply because
its door is elevated somewhat above the level of the hold, is now the
only available standing-place. Water began to lose its effect upon the
scorched and shrivelling planks; the resin oozed out from the knots
in the wood, the seams burst open, and the tar, melted by the heat,
followed the rollings of the vessel, and formed fantastic patterns about
the deck.

Then to complete our perplexity, the wind shifted suddenly round to the
north-west, whence it blew a perfect hurricane. To no purpose did Curtis
do everything in his power to bring the ship ahull; every effort was
vain; the “Chancellor” could not bear her trysail, so there was nothing
to be done but to let her go with the wind, and drift further and
further from the land for which we are longing so eagerly.

To-day, the 29th, the tempest seemed to reach its height; the waves
appeared to us mountains high, and dashed the spray most violently
across the deck. A boat could not live for a moment in such a sea.

Our situation is terrible. We all wait in silence, some few on the
forecastle, the great proportion of us on the poop. As for the picrate,
for the time we have quite forgotten its existence; indeed it might
almost seem as though its explosion would come as a relief, for no
catastrophe, however terrible, could far exceed the torture of our
suspense.

While he had still the remaining chance, Curtis rescued from the
store-room such few provisions as the heat of the compartment allowed
him to obtain; and a lot of cases of salt meat and biscuits, a cask of
brandy, some barrels of fresh water, together with some sails and wraps,
a compass and other instruments are now lying packed in a mass all ready
for prompt removal to the boats whenever we shall be obliged to leave
the ship.

About eight o’clock in the evening, a noise is heard, distinct even
above the raging of the hurricane. The panels of the deck are upheaved,
and volumes of black smoke issue upwards as if from a safety-valve. An
universal consternation seizes one and all: we must leave the volcano
which is about to burst beneath our feet. The crew run to Curtis for
orders. He hesitates; looks first at the huge and threatening waves;
looks then at the boats. The long-boat is there, suspended right along
the centre of the deck; but it is impossible to approach it now;
the yawl, however, hoisted on the starboard side, and the whale-boat
suspended aft, are still available. The sailors make frantically for the
yawl.

“Stop, stop,” shouts Curtis; “do you mean to cut off our last and only
chance of safety? Would you launch a boat in such a sea as this?”

A few of them, with Owen at their head, give no heed to what he says.
Rushing to the poop, and seizing a cutlass, Curtis shouts again,--

“Touch the tackling of the davit, one of you; only touch it, and I’ll
cleave your skull.”

Awed by his determined manner, the men retire, some clambering into the
shrouds, whilst others mount to the very top of the masts.

At eleven o’clock, several loud reports are heard, caused by the
bursting asunder of the partitions of the hold. Clouds of smoke issue
from the front, followed by a long tongue of lambent flame that seems to
encircle the mizzen-mast. The fire now reaches to the cabin occupied by
Mrs. Kear, who, shrieking wildly, is brought on deck by Miss Herbey.
A moment more, and Silas Huntly makes his appearance, his face all
blackened with the grimy smoke; he bows to Curtis, as he passes, and
then proceeds in the calmest manner to mount the aft-shrouds, and
installs himself at the very top of the mizzen.

The sight of Huntly recalls to my recollection the prisoner still below,
and my first impulse is to rush to the staircase and do what I can to
set him free. But the maniac has already eluded his confinement, and
with singed hair and his clothes already alight, rushes upon deck. Like
a salamander he passes across the burning deck with unscathed feet,
and glides through the stifling smoke with unchoked breath. Not a sound
escapes his lips.

Another loud report; the long-boat is shivered into fragments; the
middle panel bursts the tarpaulin that covered it, and a stream of fire,
free at length from the restraint that had held it, rises half-mast
high.

“The picrate! the picrate!” shrieks the madman; “we shall all be blown
up! the picrate will blow us all up.”

And in an instant, before we can get near him, he has hurled himself,
through the open hatchway, down into the fiery furnace below.



CHAPTER XIV.

OCTOBER 29th:--NIGHT.--The scene, as night came on, was terrible indeed.
Notwithstanding the desperateness of our situation, however, there
was not one of us so paralyzed by fear, but that we fully realized the
horror of it all.

Poor Ruby, indeed, is lost and gone, but his last words were productive
of serious consequences. The sailors caught his cry of “Picrate,
picrate!” and being thus for the first time made aware of the true
nature of their peril, they resolved at every hazard to accomplish their
escape. Beside themselves with terror, they either did not or would
not, see that no boat could brave the tremendous waves that were raging
around, and accordingly they made a frantic rush towards the yawl.
Curtis again made a vigorous endeavour to prevent them, but this time
all in vain; Owen urged them on, and already the tackling was loosened,
so that the boat was swung over to the ship’s side, For a moment it hung
suspended in mid-air, and then, with a final effort from the sailors, it
was quickly lowered into the sea. But scarcely had it touched the water,
when it was caught by an enormous wave which, recoiling with resistless
violence, dashed it to atoms against the “Chancellor’s” side.

The men stood aghast; they were dumbfoundered. Long-boat and yawl both
gone, there was nothing now remaining to us but a small whale-boat. Not
a word was spoken; not a sound was heard but the hoarse whistling of
the wind, and the mournful roaring of the flames. From the centre of the
ship, which was hollowed out like a furnace, there issued a column of
sooty vapour that ascended to the sky. All the passengers, and several
of the crew, took refuge in the aft-quarters of the poop. Mrs. Kear
was lying senseless on one of the hen-coops, with Miss Herbey sitting
passively at her side; M. Letourneur held his son tightly clasped to his
bosom. I saw Falsten calmly consult his watch, and note down the time
in his memorandum-book, but I was far from sharing his, composure, for I
was overcome by a nervous agitation that I could not suppress.

As far as we knew, Lieutenant Walter, the boatswain, and such of the
crew as were not with us, were safe in the bow; but it was impossible
to tell how they were faring because the sheet of fire intervened like a
curtain, and cut off all communication between stem and stern.

I broke the dismal silence, saying “All over now, Curtis.”

“No, sir, not yet,” he replied, “now that the panel is open we will set
to work, and pour water with all our might down into the furnace, and
may be, we shall put it out, even yet.”

“But how can you work your pumps while the deck is burning? and how can
you get at your men beyond that sheet of flame?”

He made no answer to my impetuous questions, and finding that he had
nothing more to say, I repeated that it was all over now.

After a pause, he said, “As long as a plank of the ship remains to stand
on, Mr. Kazallon, I shall not give up my hope.”

But the conflagration raged with redoubled fury, the sea around us was
lighted with a crimson glow, and the clouds above shone with a lurid
glare. Long jets of fire darted across the hatchways, and we were forced
to take refuge on the taffrail at the extreme end of the poop. Mrs.
Kear was laid in the whale-boat that hung from the stern, Miss Herbey
persisting to the last in retaining her post by her side.

No pen could adequately portray the horrors of this fearful night. The
“Chancellor” under bare poles, was driven, like a gigantic fire-ship
with frightful velocity across the raging ocean; her very speed as it
were, making common cause with the hurricane to fan the fire that was
consuming her. Soon there could be no alternative between throwing
ourselves into the sea, or perishing in the flames.

But where, all this time, was the picrate? perhaps, after all, Ruby
had deceived us and there was no volcano, such as we dreaded, below our
feet.

At half-past eleven, when the tempest seems at its very height there
is heard a peculiar roar distinguishable even above the crash of the
elements. The sailors in an instant recognize its import.

“Breakers to starboard!” is the cry.

Curtis leaps on to the netting, casts a rapid glance at the snow-white
billows, and turning to the helmsman shouts with all his might
“Starboard the helm!”

But it is too late. There is a sudden shock; the ship is caught up by an
enormous wave; she rises upon her beam ends; several times she strikes
the ground; the mizzen-mast snaps short off level with the deck, falls
into the sea, and the “Chancellor” is motionless.



CHAPTER XV.

THE NIGHT OF THE 29th CONTINUED.--It was not yet midnight; the darkness
was most profound, and we could see nothing. But was it probable that we
had stranded on the coast of America?

Very shortly after the ship had thus come to a standstill a clanking of
chains was heard proceeding from her bows.

“That is well,” said Curtis; “Walter and the boatswain have cast both
the anchors. Let us hope they will hold.”

Then, clinging to the netting, he clambered along the starboard side,
on which the ship had heeled, as far as the flames would allow him. He
clung to the holdfasts of the shrouds, and in spite of the heavy
seas that dashed against the vessel he maintained his position for a
considerable time, evidently listening to some sound that had caught
his ear in the midst of the tempest. In about a quarter of an hour he
returned to the poop.

“Heaven be praised!” he said, “the water is coming in, and perhaps may
get the better of the fire.”

“True,” said I, “but what then?”

“That,” he replied, “is a question for by-and-by. We can now only think
of the present.”

Already I fancied that the violence of the flames was somewhat abated,
and that the two opposing elements were in fierce contention. Some plank
in the ship’s side was evidently stove in, admitting free passage for
the waves. But how, when the water had mastered the fire, should we be
able to master the water? Our natural course would be to use the
pumps, but these, in the very midst of the conflagration, were quite
unavailable.

For three long hours, in anxious suspense, we watched and watched, and
waited. Where we were we could not tell. One thing alone was certain:
the tide was ebbing beneath us, and the waves were relaxing in their
violence. Once let the fire be extinguished, and then, perhaps, there
would be room to hope that the next high tide would set us afloat.

Towards half-past four in the morning the curtain of fire and smoke,
which had shut off communication between the two extremities of the
ship, became less dense, and we could faintly distinguish that party
of the crew who had taken refuge in the forecastle; and before long,
although it was impracticable to step upon the deck, the lieutenant and
the boatswain contrived to clamber over the gunwale, along the rails,
and joined Curtis on the poop.

Here they held a consultation, to which I was admitted. They were all
of opinion that nothing could be done until daylight should give us
something of an idea of our actual position. If we then found that we
were near the shore, we would, weather permitting, endeavour to land,
either in the boat or upon a raft. If, on the other hand, no land were
in sight, and the “Chancellor” were ascertained to be stranded on some
isolated reef, all we could do would be to get her afloat, and put her
into condition for reaching the nearest coast. Curtis told us that it
was long since he had been able to take any observation of altitude, but
there was no doubt the north-west wind had driven us far to the south;
and he thought, as he was ignorant of the existence of any reef in this
part of the Atlantic, that it was just possible that we had been driven
on to the coast of some portion of South America.

I reminded him that we were in momentary expectation of an explosion,
and suggested that it would be advisable to abandon the ship and take
refuge on the reef. But he would not hear of such a proceeding, said
that the reef would probably be covered at high tide, and persisted in
the original resolution, that no decided action could be taken before
the daylight appeared.

I immediately reported this decision of the captain to my fellow
passengers. None of them seem to realize the new danger to which the
“Chancellor” may be exposed by being cast upon an unknown reef, hundreds
of miles it may be from land. All are for the time possessed with one
idea, one hope; and that is, that the fire may now be quenched and the
explosion averted.

And certainly their hopes seem in a fair way of being fulfilled. Already
the raging flames that poured forth from the hatches have given place
to dense black smoke, and although occasionally some fiery streaks dart
across the dusky fumes, yet they are instantly extinguished. The waves
are doing what pumps and buckets could never have effected; by their
inundation they are steadily stifling the fire which was as steadily
spreading to the whole bulk of the 1700 bales of cotton.



CHAPTER XVI.

OCTOBER 30th.--At the first gleam of daylight we eagerly scanned the
southern and western horizons, but the morning mists limited our view.
Land was nowhere to be seen. The tide was now almost at its lowest ebb,
and the colour of the few peaks of rock that jutted up around us showed
that the reef on which we had stranded was of basaltic formation. There
were now only about six feet of water around the “Chancellor,” though
with a full freight she draws about fifteen. It was remarkable how far
she had been carried on to the shelf of rock, but the number of times
that she had touched the bottom before she finally ran aground left us
no doubt that she had been lifted up and borne along on the top of an
enormous wave. She now lies with her stern considerably higher than her
bows, a position which renders walking upon the deck anything but an
easy matter; moreover as the tide-receded she heeled over so much to
larboard that at one time Curtis feared she would altogether capsize;
that fear, however, since the tide has reached its lowest mark, has
happily proved groundless.

At six o’clock some violent blows were felt against the ship’s side, and
at the same time a voice was distinguished, shouting loudly, “Curtis!
Curtis!” Following the direction of the cries we saw that the broken
mizzen-mast was being washed against the vessel, and in the dusky morning
twilight we could make out the figure of a man clinging to the rigging.
Curtis, at the peril of his life, hastened to bring the man on board,
It proved to be none other than Silas Huntly, who, after being carried
overboard with the mast, had thus, almost by a miracle, escaped a
watery grave. Without a word of thanks to his deliverer, the ex-captain,
passive, like an automaton, passed on and took his seat in the most
secluded corner of the poop. The broken mizzen may, perhaps, be of
service to us at some future time, and with that idea it has been
rescued from the waves and lashed securely to the stern.

By this time it was light enough to see for a distance of three miles
round; but as yet nothing could be discerned to make us think that
we were near a coast. The line of breakers ran for about a mile from
south-west to north-east, and two hundred fathoms to the north of the
ship an irregular mass of rocks formed a small islet. This islet rose
about fifty feet above the sea, and was consequently above the level of
the highest tides; whilst a sort of causeway, available at low water,
would enable us to reach the island, if necessity required. But
there the reef ended; beyond it the sea again resumed its sombre hue,
betokening deep water. In all probability, then, this was a solitary
shoal, unattached to a shore, and the gloom of a bitter disappointment
began to weigh upon our spirits.

In another hour the mists had totally disappeared, and it was broad
daylight. I and M. Letourneur stood watching Curtis as he continued
eagerly to scan the western horizon. Astonishment was written on his
countenance; to him it appeared perfectly incredible that, after our
course for so long had been due south from the Bermudas, no land should
be in sight. But not a speck, however minute, broke the clearly-defined
line that joined sea and sky. After a time Curtis made his way along the
netting to the shrouds, and swung himself quickly up to the top of the
mainmast. For several minutes he remained there examining the open space
around, then seizing one of the backstays he glided down and rejoined us
on the poop.

“No land in sight,” he said, in answer to our eager looks of inquiry.

At this point Mr. Kear interposed, and in a gruff, ill-tempered tone,
asked Curtis where we were. Curtis replied that he did not know.

“You don’t know, sir? Then all I can say is that you ought to know!”
 exclaimed the petroleum merchant.

“That may be, sir; but at present I am as ignorant of our whereabouts as
you are yourself,” said Curtis.

“Well,” said Mr. Kear, “just please to know that I don’t want to stay
for ever on your everlasting ship, so I beg you will make haste and
start off again.”

Curtis condescended to make no other reply than a shrug of the
shoulders, and turning away he informed M. Letourneur and myself that if
the sun came out he intended to take its altitude and find out to what
part of the ocean we had been driven. His next care was to distribute
preserved meat and biscuit amongst the passengers and crew already half
fainting with hunger and fatigue, and then he set to work to devise
measures for setting the ship afloat.

The conflagration was greatly abated; no flames now appeared, and
although some black smoke still issued from the interior, yet its volume
was far less than before. The first step was to discover how much water
had entered the hold. The deck was still too hot to walk upon; but
after two hours’ irrigation the boards became sufficiently cool for the
boatswain to proceed to take some soundings, and he shortly afterwards
announced that there were five feet of water below. This the captain
determined should not be pumped out at present, as he wanted it
thoroughly to do its duty before he got rid of it.

The next subject for consideration was whether it would be advisable to
abandon the vessel, and to take refuge on the reef. Curtis thought not;
and the lieutenant and the boatswain agreed with him. The chances of an
explosion were greatly diminished, as it had been ascertained that the
water had reached that part of the hold in which Ruby’s luggage had been
deposited; while, on the other hand, in the event of rough weather,
our position even upon the most elevated points of rock might be very
critical. It was accordingly resolved that both passengers and crew were
safest on board.

Acting upon this decision we proceeded to make a kind of encampment on
the poop, and the few mattresses that were rescued uninjured have been
given up for the use of the two ladies. Such of the crew as had saved
their hammocks have been told to place them under the forecastle where
they would have to stow themselves as best they could, their ordinary
quarters being absolutely uninhabitable.

Fortunately, although the store-room has been considerably exposed
to the heat, its contents are not very seriously damaged, and all
the barrels of water and the greater part of the provisions are quite
intact. The stack of spare sails, which had been packed away in front,
is also free from injury. The wind has dropped considerably since the
early morning, and the swell in the sea is far less heavy. On the whole
our spirits are reviving, and we begin to think we may yet find a way
out of our troubles.

M. Letourneur, his son, and I, have just had a long conversation about
the ship’s officers. We consider their conduct, under the late trying
circumstances, to have been most exemplary, and their courage, energy,
and endurance to have been beyond all praise. Lieutenant Walter,
the boatswain, and Dowlas the carpenter have all alike distinguished
themselves, and made us feel that they are men to be relied on. As for
Curtis, words can scarcely be found to express our admiration of his
character; he is the same as he has ever been, the very life of his
crew, cheering them on by word or gesture; finding an expedient for
every difficulty, and always foremost in every action.

The tide turned at seven this morning, and by eleven all the rocks were
submerged, none of them being visible except the cluster of those which
formed the rim of a small and almost circular basin from 250 to 300 feet
in diameter, in the north angle of which the ship is lying. As the tide
rose the white breakers disappeared, and the sea, fortunately for
the “Chancellor,” was pretty calm; otherwise the dashing of the waves
against her sides, as she lies motionless, might have been attended by
serious consequences.

As might be supposed, the height of the water in the hold increased
with the tide from five feet to nine; but this was rather a matter for
congratulation, inasmuch as it sufficed to inundate another layer of
cotton.

At half-past eleven the sun, which had been behind the clouds since
ten o’clock, broke forth brightly. The captain, who had already in the
morning been able to calculate an horary angle, now prepared to take
the meridian altitude, and succeeded at midday in making his observation
most satisfactorily. After retiring for a short time to calculate the
result; he returned to the poop and announced that we are in lat; 18deg.
5min. N. and long. 45deg. 53min. W., but that the reef on which we are
aground is not marked upon the charts. The only explanation that can be
given for the omission is that the islet must be of recent formation,
and has been caused by some subterranean volcanic disturbance. But
whatever may be the solution of the mystery, here we are 800 miles from
land; for such, on consulting the map, we find to be the actual distance
to the coast of Guiana, which is the nearest shore. Such is the position
to which we have been brought, in the first place, by Huntly’s senseless
obstinacy, and, secondly, by the furious north-west gale.

Yet, after all, the captain’s communication does not dishearten us. As
I said before, our spirits are reviving. We have escaped the peril of
fire; the fear of explosion is past and gone; and oblivious of the fact
that the ship with a hold full of water is only too likely to founder
when she puts out to sea, we feel a confidence in the future that
forbids us to despond.

Meanwhile Curtis prepares to do all that common sense demands. He
proposes, when the fire is quite extinguished, to throw overboard the
whole, or the greater portion of the cargo, including of course, the
picrate; he will next plug up the leak, and then, with a lightened
ship, he will take advantage of the first high tide to quit the reef as
speedily as possible.



CHAPTER XVII.

OCTOBER 30th.--Once again I talked to M. Letourneur about our situation,
and endeavoured to animate him with the hope that we should not be
detained for long in our present predicament; but he could not be
brought to take a very sanguine view of our prospects.

“But surely,” I protested, “it will not be difficult to throw overboard
a few hundred bales of cotton; two or three days at most will suffice
for that.”

“Likely enough,” he replied, “when the business is once begun; but you
must remember, Mr. Kazallon, that the very heart of the cargo is still
smouldering, and that it will still be several days before any one will
be able to venture into the hold. Then the leak, too, that has to be
caulked; and, unless it is stopped up very effectually, we shall be
only doomed most certainly to perish at sea. Don’t, then, be deceiving
yourself; it must be three weeks at least before you can expect to put
out to sea. I can only hope meanwhile that the weather will continue
propitious; it wouldn’t take many storms to knock the ‘Chancellor,’
shattered as she is, completely into pieces.”

Here, then, was the suggestion of a new danger to which we were to be
exposed; the fire might be extinguished, the water might be got rid of
by the pumps, but, after all, we must be at the mercy of the wind and
waves; and, although the rocky island might afford a temporary refuge
from the tempest, what was to become of passengers and crew if the
vessel should be reduced to a total wreck? I made no remonstrance,
however, to this view of our case, but merely asked M. Letourneur if he
had confidence in Robert Curtis?

“Perfect confidence,” he answered; “and I acknowledge it most
gratefully, as a providential circumstance, that Captain Huntly had
given him the command in time. Whatever man can do I know that Curtis
will not leave undone to extricate us from our dilemma.”

Prompted by this conversation with M. Letourneur I took the first
opportunity of trying to ascertain from Curtis himself, how long he
reckoned we should be obliged to remain upon the reef; but he merely
replied, that it must depend upon circumstances, and that he hoped the
weather would continue favourable. Fortunately the barometer is rising
steadily, and there is every sign of a prolonged calm.

Meantime Curtis is taking active measures for totally extinguishing the
fire. He is at no great pains to spare the cargo, and as the bales that
lie just above the level of the water are still a-light he has resorted
to the expedient of thoroughly saturating the upper layers of the
cotton, in order that the combustion may be stifled between the moisture
descending from above and that ascending from below. This scheme has
brought the pumps once more into requisition. At present the crew are
adequate to the task of working them, but I and some of our fellow
passengers are ready to offer our assistance whenever it shall be
necessary.

With no immediate demand upon our labour, we are thrown upon our own
resources for passing our time. Letourneur, Andre and myself, have
frequent conversations; I also devote an hour or two to my diary.
Falsten holds little communication with any of us, but remains absorbed
in his calculations, and amuses himself by tracing mechanical diagrams
with ground-plan, section, elevation, all complete. It would be a happy
inspiration if he could invent some mighty engine that could set us all
afloat again. Mr. and Mrs. Kear, too, hold themselves aloof from
their fellow passengers, and we are not sorry to be relieved from the
necessity of listening to their incessant grumbling; unfortunately,
however, they carry off Miss Herbey with them, so that we enjoy little
or nothing of the young lady’s society. As for Silas Huntly, he has
become a complete nonentity; he exists, it is true, but merely, it would
seem, to vegetate.

Hobart, the steward, an obsequious, sly sort of fellow, goes through his
routine of duties just as though the vessel were pursuing her ordinary
course; and, as usual, is continually falling out with Jynxstrop, the
cook, an impudent, ill-favoured negro, who interferes with the other
sailors in a manner which, I think, ought not to be allowed.

Since it appears likely that we shall have abundance of time on our
hands, I have proposed to M. Letourneur and his son that we shall
together explore the reef on which we are stranded. It is not very
probable that we shall be able to discover much about the origin of this
strange accumulation of rock, yet the attempt will at least occupy us
for some hours, and will relieve us from the monotony of our confinement
on board. Besides, as the reef is not marked in any of the maps, I could
not but believe that it would be rendering a service to hydrography if
we were to take an accurate plan of the rocks, of which Curtis could
afterwards verify the true position by a second observation made with a
closer precision than the one he has already taken.

M. Letourneur agrees to my proposal, Curtis has promised to let us have
the boat and some sounding-lines, and to allow one of the sailors to
accompany us; so to-morrow morning, we hope to make our little voyage of
investigation.



CHAPTER XVIII.

OCTOBER 31st to NOVEMBER 5th.--Our first proceeding on the morning of
the 31st was to make the proposed tour of the reef, which is about a
quarter of a mile long. With the aid of our sounding-lines we found that
the water was deep, right up to the very rocks, and that no shelving
shores prevented us coasting along them. There was not a shadow of doubt
as to the rock being of purely volcanic origin, upheaved by some mighty
subterranean convulsion. It is formed of blocks of basalt, arranged
in perfect order, of which the regular prisms give the whole mass the
effect of being one gigantic crystal; and the remarkable transparency
of the sea enabled us plainly to observe the curious shafts of the
prismatic columns that support the marvelous substructure.

“This is indeed a singular island,” said M. Letourneur; “evidently it is
of quite a recent origin.”

“Yes, father,” said Andre, “and I should think it has been caused by
a phenomenon similar to those which produced the Julia Island, off
the coast of Sicily, or the group of the Santorini, in the Grecian
Archipelago. One could almost fancy that it had been created expressly
for the ‘Chancellor’ to stand upon.”

“It is very certain,” I observed, “that some upheaving has lately taken
place. This is by no means an unfrequented part of the Atlantic, so that
it is not at all likely that it could have escaped the notice of sailors
if it had been always in existence; yet it is not marked even in the
most modern charts. We must try and explore it thoroughly and give
future navigators the benefit of our observations.”

“But, perhaps, it will disappear as it came,” said Andre. “You are no
doubt aware, Mr. Kazallon, that these volcanic islands sometimes have
a very transitory existence. Not impossibly, by the time it gets marked
upon the maps it may no longer be here.”

“Never mind, my boy,” answered his father, “it is better to give warning
of a danger that does not exist than overlook one that does. I daresay
the sailors will not grumble much, if they don’t find a reef where we
have marked one.”

“No, I daresay not, father,” said Andre “and after all this island is
very likely as firm as a continent. However, if it is to disappear, I
expect Captain Curtis would be glad to see it take its departure as soon
as possible after he has finished his repairs; it would save him a world
of trouble in getting his ship afloat.”

“Why, what a fellow you are Andre!” I said, laughing, “I believe you
would like to rule Nature with a magic wand; first of all, you would
call up a reef from the depth of the ocean to give the ‘Chancellor’ time
to extinguish her flames, and then you would make it disappear just that
the ship might be free again.”

Andre smiled; then, in a more serious tone, he expressed his gratitude
for the timely help that had been vouchsafed us in our hour of need.

The more we examined the rocks that formed the base of the little
island, the more we became convinced that its formation was quite
recent, Not a mollusk, not a tuft of seaweed was found clinging to the
sides of the rocks; not a germ had the wind carried to its surface, not
a bird had taken refuge amidst the crags upon its summits. To a lover of
natural history, the spot did not yield a single point of interest; the
geologist alone would find subject of study in the basaltic mass.

When we reached the southern point of the island I proposed that we
should disembark. My companions readily assented, young Letourneur
jocosely observing that if the little island was destined to vanish,
it was quite right that it should first be visited by human beings. The
boat was accordingly brought alongside, and we set, foot upon the
reef, and began to ascend the gradual slope that leads to its highest
elevation.

The walking was not very rough, and as Andre could get along tolerably
well without the assistance of an arm, he led the way, his father and I
following close behind. A quarter of an hour sufficed to bring us to the
loftiest point in the islet, when we seated ourselves on the basaltic
prism that crowned its summit.

Andre took a sketch-book from his pocket, and proceeded to make a
drawing of the reef. Scarcely had he completed the outline when his
father exclaimed,--

“Why, Andre, you have drawn a ham!”

“Something uncommonly like it, I confess,” replied Andre. “I think we
had better ask Captain Curtis to let us call our island Ham Rock.”

“Good,” said I; “though sailors will need to keep it at a respectful
distance, for they will scarcely find that their teeth are strong enough
to tackle with it.”

M. Letourneur was quite correct; the outline of the reef as it stood
clearly defined against the deep green water resembled nothing so much,
as a fine York ham, of which the little creek, where the “Chancellor”
 had been stranded, corresponded to the hollow place above the knuckle.
The tide at this time was low, and the ship now lay heeled over very
much to the starboard side, the few points of rock that emerged in the
extreme south of the reef plainly marking the narrow passage through
which she had been forced before she finally ran aground.

As soon as Andre had finished his sketch we descended by a slope as
gradual as that by which we had come up, and made our way towards the
west. We had not gone very far when a beautiful grotto, perfect as an
architectural structure, arrested our attention, M. Letourneur and Andre
who have visited the Hebrides, pronounced it to be a Fingal’s cave
in miniature; a Gothic chapel that might form a fit vestibule for the
cathedral cave of Staffa. The basaltic rocks had cooled down into the
same regular concentric prisms; there was the same dark canopied
roof with its interstices filled up with its yellow lutings; the same
precision of outline in the prismatic angles, sharp as though chiselled
by a sculptor’s hand; the same sonorous vibration of the air across the
basaltic rocks, of which the Gaelic poets have feigned that the harps of
the Fingal minstrelsy were made. But whereas at Staffa the floor of the
cave is always covered with a sheet of water, here the grotto was beyond
the reach of all but the highest waves, whilst the prismatic shafts
themselves formed quite a solid pavement.

After remaining nearly an hour in our newly-discovered grotto we
returned to the “Chancellor,” and communicated the result of our
explorations to Curtis, who entered the island upon his chart by the
name that Andre Letourneur had proposed.

Since its discovery we have not permitted a day to pass without spending
some time in our Ham Rock grotto. Curtis has taken an opportunity of
visiting it, but he is too preoccupied with other matters to have much
interest to spare for the wonders of nature. Falsten, too, came once and
examined the character of the rocks, knocking and chipping them about
with all the mercilessness of a geologist. Mr. Kear would not trouble
himself to leave the ship; and although I asked his wife to join us in
one of our excursions she declined, upon the plea that the fatigue, as
well as the inconvenience of embarking in the boat, would be more than
she could bear.

Miss Herbey, only too thankful to escape even for an hour from her
capricious mistress, eagerly accepted M. Letourneur’s invitation to pay
a visit to the reef but to her great disappointment Mrs. Kear at first
refused point-blank to allow her to leave the ship. I felt intensely
annoyed, and resolved to intercede in Miss Herbey’s favour; and as I
had already rendered that self-indulgent lady sundry services which she
thought she might probably be glad again to accept, I gained my point,
and Miss Herbey has several times been permitted to accompany us across
the rocks, where the young girl’s delight at her freedom has been a
pleasure to behold.

Sometimes we fish along the shore, and, then enjoy a luncheon in the
grotto, whilst the basalt columns vibrate like harps to the breeze.
This arid reef, little as it is, compared with the cramped limits of
the “Chancellor’s” deck is like some vast domain; soon there will be
scarcely a stone with which we are not familiar, scarcely a portion of
its surface which we have not merrily trodden, and I am sure that when
the hour of departure arrives we shall leave it with regret.

In the course of conversation, Andre Letourneur one day happened to say
that he believed the island of Staffa belonged to the Macdonald family,
who let it for the small sum of 12 pounds a year.

“I suppose then,” said Miss Herbey, “that we should hardly get more than
half-a-crown a year for our pet little island.”

“I don’t think you would get a penny for it, Miss Herbey; but are you
thinking of taking a lease?” I said, laughing.

“Not at present,” she said; then added, with a half-suppressed sigh,
“and yet it is a place where I have seemed to know what it is to be
really happy.”

Andre murmured some expression of assent, and we all felt that there was
something touching in the words of the orphaned, friendless girl who had
found her long-lost sense of happiness on a lonely rock in the Atlantic.



CHAPTER XIX.

NOVEMBER 6th to NOVEMBER 15th.--For the first five days after the
“Chancellor” had run aground, there was a dense black smoke continually
rising from the hold; but it gradually diminished until the 6th of
November, when we might consider that the fire was extinguished. Curtis,
nevertheless, deemed it prudent to persevere in working the pumps, which
he did until the entire hull of the ship, right up to the deck, had been
completely inundated.

The rapidity, however, with which the water, at every retreat of the
tide, drained off to the level of the sea, was an indication that the
leak must be of considerable magnitude; and such, on investigation,
proved to be the case. One of the sailors, named Flaypole, dived one
day at low water to examine the extent of the damage, and found that the
hole was not much less than four feet square, and was situated thirty
feet fore of the helm, and two feet above the rider of the keel; three
planks had been stoved in by a sharp point of rock, and it was only a
wonder that the violence with which the heavily-laden vessel had been
thrown ashore did not result in the smashing in of many parts besides.

As it would be a couple of days or more before the hold would be in a
condition for the bales of cotton to be removed for the carpenter to
examine the damage from the interior of the ship, Curtis employed the
interval in having the broken mizzen-mast repaired. Dowlas the carpenter,
with considerable skill, contrived to mortice it into its former stump,
and made the junction thoroughly secure by strong iron-belts and bolts.
The shrouds, the stays and backstays, were then carefully refitted,
some of the sails were changed, and the whole of the running rigging was
renewed. Injury, to some extent, had been done to the poop and to the
crew’s lockers, in the front; but time and labour were all that were
wanted to make them good; and with such a will, did every one set to
work that it was not long before all the cabins were again available for
use.

On the 8th the unlading of the ship commenced. Pulleys and tackling were
put over the hatches, and passengers and crew together proceeded to haul
up the heavy bales which had been deluged so frequently by water that
the cotton was all but spoiled. One by one the sodden bales were placed
in the boat to be transported to the reef. After the first layer of
cotton had been removed it became necessary to drain off part of the
water that filled the hold. For this purpose the leak in the side had
somehow or other to be stopped, and this was an operation which was
cleverly accomplished by Dowlas and Flaypole, who contrived to dive at
low tide and nail a sheet of copper over the entire hole. This, however,
of itself would have been utterly inadequate to sustain the pressure
that would arise from the action of the pumps; so Curtis ordered that a
number of the bales should be piled up inside against the broken planks.
The scheme succeeded very well, and as the water got lower and lower in
the hold the men were enabled to resume their task of unlading.

Curtis thinks it quite probable that the leaks may be mended from the
interior. By far the best way of repairing the damage would be to careen
the ship, and to shift the planking, but the appliances are wanting for
such an undertaking; moreover, any bad weather which might occur while
the ship was on her flank would only too certainly be fatal to her
altogether. But the captain has very little doubt that by some device or
other he shall manage to patch up the hole in such a way as will insure
our reaching land in safety.

After two days’ toil the water was entirely reduced and without further
difficulty the unlading was completed. All of us, including even Andre
Letourneur, have been taking our turn at the pumps, for the work is so
extremely fatiguing that the crew require some occasional respite; arms
and back soon become strained and weary with the incessant swing of
the handles, and I can well understand the dislike which sailors always
express to the labour.

One thing there is which is much in our favour; the ship lies on a firm
and solid bottom, and we have the satisfaction of knowing that we
are not contending with a flood that encroaches faster than it can be
resisted. Heaven grant that we may not be called to make like efforts,
and to make them hopelessly, for a foundering ship!



CHAPTER XX.

NOVEMBER 15th to 20th.--The examination of the hold has at last been
made. Amongst the first things that were found was the case of picrate,
perfectly intact; having neither been injured by the water, nor of
course reached by the flames. Why it was not at once pitched into the
sea I cannot say; but it was merely conveyed to the extremity of the
island, and there it remains.

While they were below, Curtis and Dowlas made themselves acquainted with
the full extent of the mischief that had been done by the conflagration.
They found that the deck and the cross-beams that supported it had been
much less injured than they expected, and the thick, heavy planks had
only been scorched very superficially. But the action of the fire on
the flanks of the ship had been of a much more serious character; a long
portion of the inside boarding had been burnt away, and the very ribs
of the vessel were considerably damaged; the oakum caulkings had all
started away from the butt-ends and seams; so much so that it was
little short of a miracle that the whole ship had not long since gaped
completely open.

The captain and the carpenter returned to the deck with anxious faces.
Curtis lost no time in assembling passengers and crew, and announcing to
them the facts of the case.

“My friends,” he said, “I am here to tell you that the ‘Chancellor’ has
sustained far greater injuries than we suspected, and that her hull is
very seriously damaged. If we had been stranded anywhere else than on a
barren reef, that may at any time be overwhelmed by a tempestuous sea
I should not have hesitated to take the ship to pieces, and construct a
smaller vessel that might have carried us safely to land; but I dare not
run the risk of remaining here. We are now 800 miles from the coast of
Paramaribo, the nearest portion of Dutch Guiana, and in ten or twelve
days, if the weather should be favourable, I believe we could reach the
shore. What I now propose to do is to stop the leak by the best means we
can command, and make at once for the nearest port.”

As no better plan seemed to suggest itself, Curtis’s proposal was
unanimously accepted Dowlas and his assistants immediately set to work
to repair the charred frame-work of the ribs, and to stop the leak; they
took care thoroughly to caulk from the outside all the seams that were
above low water mark; lower than that they were unable to work, and
had to content themselves with such repairs as they could effect in the
interior. But after all the pains there is no doubt the “Chancellor” is
not fit for a long voyage, and would be condemned as unseaworthy at any
port at which we might put in.

To-day, the 20th, Curtis having done all that human power could do to
repair his ship, determined to put her to sea.

Ever since the “Chancellor” had been relieved of her cargo, and of the
water in her hold, she had been able to float in the little natural
basin into which she had been driven. The basin was enclosed on either
hand by rocks that remained uncovered even at high water, but was
sufficiently wide to allow the vessel to turn quite round at its
broadest part, and by means of hawsers fastened on the reef to be
brought with her bows towards the south; while, to prevent her being
carried back on to the reef, she has been anchored fore and aft.

To all appearance, then, it seemed as though it would be an easy matter
to put the “Chancellor” to sea; if the wind were favourable the sails
would be hoisted, if otherwise, she would have to be towed through the
narrow passage. All seemed simple. But unlooked-for difficulties had yet
to be surmounted.

The mouth of the passage is guarded by a kind of ridge of basalt, which
at high tide we knew was barely covered with sufficient water to float
the “Chancellor,” even when entirely unfreighted. To be sure she had
been carried over the obstacle once before, but then, as I have already
said, she had been caught up by an enormous wave, and might have been
said to be LIFTED over the barrier into her present position. Besides,
on that ever-memorable night, there had not only been the ordinary
spring-tide, but an equinoctial tide, such a one as could not be
expected to occur again for many months. Waiting was out of the
question; so Curtis determined to run the risk, and to take advantage of
the spring-tide, which would occur to-day, to make an attempt to get the
ship, lightened as she was, over the bar; after which, he might ballast
her sufficiently to sail.

The wind was blowing from the north-west, and consequently right in the
direction of the passage. The captain, however, after a consultation,
preferred to tow the ship over the ridge, as he considered it was
scarcely safe to allow a vessel of doubtful stability at full sail to
charge an obstacle that would probably bring her to a dead lock. Before
the operation was commenced, Curtis took the precaution of having
an anchor ready in the stern, for, in the event of the attempt being
unsuccessful, it would be necessary to bring the ship back to her
present moorings. Two more anchors were next carried outside the
passage, which was not more than two hundred feet in length. The
chains were attached to the windlass, the sailors worked away at the
handspikes, and at four o’clock in the afternoon the “Chancellor” was in
motion.

High tide would be at twenty minutes past four, and at ten minutes
before that time the ship had been hauled as far as her sea-range would
allow; her keel grazed the ridge, and her progress was arrested. When
the lowest part of her stern, however, just cleared the obstruction,
Curtis deemed that there was no longer any reason why the mechanical
action of the wind should not be brought to bear and contribute its
assistance. Without delay, all sails were unfurled and trimmed to the
wind. The tide was exactly at its height, passengers and crew together
were at the windlass, M. Letourneur, Andre, Falsten, and myself being
at the starboard bar. Curtis stood upon the poop, giving his chief
attention to the sails; the lieutenant was on the forecastle; the
boatswain by the helm. The sea seemed propitiously calm and, as it
swelled gently to and fro, lifted the ship several times.

“Now, my boys,” said Curtis in his calm clear voice, “all together!
Off!”

Round went the windlass; click, click, clanked the chains as link by
link they were forced through the hawse-holes.

The breeze freshened, and the masts gave to the pressure of the sails,
but round and round we went, keeping time in regular monotony to the
sing-song tune hummed by one of the sailors.

We had gained about twenty feet, and were redoubling our efforts when
the ship grounded again.

And now no effort would avail; all was in vain; the tide began to turn;
and the “Chancellor” would not advance an inch. Was there time to go
back? She would inevitably go to pieces if left balanced upon the ridge.
In an instant the captain has ordered the sails to be furled, and the
anchor dropped from the stern.

One moment of terrible anxiety, and all is well.

The “Chancellor” tacks to stern, and glides back into the basin, which
is once more her prison.

“Well, captain,” says the boatswain, “what’s to be done now?”

“I don’t know” said Curtis, “but we shall get across somehow.”



CHAPTER XXI.

NOVEMBER 21st to 24th.--There was assuredly no time to be lost before we
ought to leave Ham Rock reef. The barometer had been falling ever since
the morning, the sea was getting rougher, and there was every symptom
that the weather, hitherto so favourable, was on the point of breaking;
and in the event of a gale the “Chancellor” must inevitably be dashed to
pieces on the rocks.

In the evening, when the tide was quite low, and the rocks uncovered,
Curtis, the boatswain, and Dowlas went to examine the ridge which had
proved so serious an obstruction, Falsten and I accompanied them. We
came to the conclusion that the only way of effecting a passage was by
cutting away the rocks with pikes over a surface measuring ten feet by
six. An extra depth of nine or ten inches would give a sufficient gauge,
and the channel might be accurately marked out by buoys; in this way it
was conjectured the ship might be got over the ridge and so reach the
deep water beyond.

“But this basalt is as hard as granite,” said the boatswain; “besides,
we can only get at it at low water, and consequently could only work at
it for two hours out of the twenty-four.”

“All the more reason why we should begin at once, boatswain,” said
Curtis.

“But if it is to take us a month, captain, perhaps by that time the ship
may be knocked to atoms. Couldn’t we manage to blow up the rock? we have
got some powder on board.”

“Not enough for that;” said the boatswain.

“You have something better than powder,” said Falsten.

“What’s that?” asked the captain.

“Picrate of potash,” was the reply.

And so the explosive substance with which poor Ruby had so grievously
imperilled the vessel was now to serve her in good stead, and I now saw
what a lucky thing it was that the case had been deposited safely on the
reef, instead of being thrown into the sea.

Picric acid is a crystalline bitter product extracted from coal-tar, and
forming, in combination with potash, a yellow salt known as picrate of
potash. The explosive power of this substance is inferior to that
of gun-cotton or of dynamite, but far greater than that of ordinary
gunpowder; one grain of picric powder producing an effect equal to that
of thirteen grains of common powder. Picrate is easily ignited by
any sharp or violent shock, and some gun-priming which we had in our
possession would answer the purpose of setting it alight.

The sailors went off at once for their pikes, and Dowlas and his
assistants, under the direction of Falsten, who, as an engineer,
understood such matters, proceeded to hollow out a mine wherein to
deposit the powder. At first we hoped that everything would be ready for
the blasting to take place on the following morning, but when daylight
appeared we found that the men, although they had laboured with a will,
had only been able to work for an hour at low water and that four tides
must ebb before the mine had been sunk to the required depth.

Not until eight o’clock on the morning of the 23rd was the work
complete. The hole was bored obliquely in the rock, and was large enough
to contain about ten pounds of explosive matter. Just as the picrate was
being introduced into the aperture, Falsten interposed:--

“Stop,” he said, “I think it will be best to mix the picrate with common
powder, as that will allow us to fire the mine with a match instead of
the gun-priming which would be necessary to produce a shock. Besides,
it is an understood thing that the addition of gunpowder renders picrate
far more effective in blasting such rocks as this, as then the violence
of the picrate prepares the way for the powder which, slower in its
action, will complete the disseverment of the basalt.”

Falsten is not a great talker, but what he does say is always very
much to the point. His good advice was immediately followed; the two
substances were mixed together, and after a match had been introduced
the compound was rammed closely into the hole.

Notwithstanding that the “Chancellor” was at a distance from the rocks
that insured her from any danger of being injured by the explosion, it
was thought advisable that the passengers and crew should take refuge in
the grotto at the extremity of the reef, and even Mr. Kear, in spite of
his many objections, was forced to leave the ship. Falsten, as soon as
he had set fire to the match, joined us in our retreat.

The train was to burn for ten minutes, and at the end of that time the
explosion took place; the report, on account of the depth of the
mine, being muffled, and much less noisy than we had expected. But the
operation had been perfectly successful. Before we reached the ridge we
could see that the basalt had been literally reduced to powder, and that
a little channel, already being filled by the rising tide, had been
cut right through the obstacle. A loud hurrah rang through the air; our
prison-doors were opened, and we were prisoners no more!

At high tide the “Chancellor” weighed anchor and floated out into the
open sea, but she was not in a condition to sail until she had been
ballasted; and for the next twenty-four hours the crew were busily
employed in taking up blocks of stone, and such of the bales of cotton
as had sustained the least amount of injury.

In the course of the day, M. Letourneur, Andre, Miss Herbey, and I took
a farewell walk round the reef, and Andre with artistic skill, carved on
the wall of the grotto the word “Chancellor,”--the designation Ham Rock,
which we had given to the reef,--and the date of our running aground.
Then we bade adieu to the scene of our three week’s sojourn, where we
had passed days that to some at least of our party will be reckoned as
far from being the least happy of their lives.

At high tide this morning, the 24th, with low, top, and gallant sails
all set, the “Chancellor” started on her onward way, and two hours later
the last peak of Ham Rock had vanished below the horizon.



CHAPTER XXII.

NOVEMBER 24th to DECEMBER 1st.--Here we were then once more at sea, and
although on board a ship of which the stability was very questionable,
we had hopes, if the wind continued favourable, of reaching the coast of
Guiana in the course of a few days.

Our way was south-west and consequently with the wind, and although
Curtis would not crowd on all sail lest the extra speed should have a
tendency to spring the leak afresh, the “Chancellor” made a progress
that was quite satisfactory. Life on board began to fall back into its
former routine; the feeling of insecurity and the consciousness that
we were merely retracing our path doing much, however, to destroy the
animated intercourse that would otherwise go on between passenger and
passenger.

The first few days passed without any incident worth recording, then
on the 29th, the wind shifted to the north, and it became necessary to
brace the yards, trim the sails, and take a starboard tack. This made
the ship lurch very much on one side, and as Curtis felt that she was
labouring far too heavily, he clued up the top-gallants, prudently
reckoning that, under the circumstances, caution was far more important
than speed.

The night came on dark and foggy. The breeze freshened considerably,
and, unfortunately for us, hailed from the north-west. Although we
carried no top-sails at all, the ship seemed to heel over more than
ever. Most of the passengers had retired to their cabins, but all the
crew remained on deck, whilst Curtis never quitted his post upon the
poop.

Towards two o’clock in the morning I was myself preparing to go to my
cabin, when Burke, one of the sailors who had been down into the hold,
came on deck with the ominous cry,--

“Two feet of water below.”

In an instant Curtis and the boatswain had descended the ladder. The
startling news was only too true; the sea-water was entering the hold,
but whether the leak had sprung afresh, or whether the caulking in some
of the seams was insufficient, it was then impossible to determine; all
that could be done was to let the ship go with the wind and wait for
day.

At daybreak they sounded again:--“Three feet of water!” was the report,
I glanced at Curtis, his lips were white, but he had not lost his
self-possession. He quietly informed such of the passengers as were
already on deck of the new danger that threatened us; it was better that
they should know the worst, and the fact could not be long concealed. I
told M. Letourneur that I could not help hoping that there might yet be
time to reach the land before the last crisis came. Falsten was about to
give vent to an expression of despair, but he was soon silenced by Miss
Herbey asserting her confidence that all would yet be well.

Curtis at once divided the crew into two sets, and made them work
incessantly, turn and turn about at the pumps. The men applied
themselves to their task with resignation rather than with ardour; the
labour was hard and scarcely repaid them; the pumps were constantly
getting out of order, the valves being choked up by the ashes and bits
of cotton that were floating about in the hold, while every moment that
was spent in cleaning or repairing them was so much time lost.

Slowly, but surely, the water continued to rise, and on the following
morning the soundings gave five feet for its depth, I noticed that
Curtis’s brow contracted each time that the boatswain or the lieutenant
brought him their report. There was no doubt it was only a question of
time, and not for an instant must the efforts for keeping down the level
be relaxed. Already the ship had sunk a foot lower in the water, and as
her weight increased she no longer rose buoyantly with the waves, but
pitched and rolled considerably.

All yesterday, and last night, the pumping continued; but still the
sea gained upon us. The crew are weary and discouraged, but the second
officer and the boatswain set them a fine example of endurance, and the
passengers have now begun to take their turn at the pumps.

But all are conscious of toiling almost against hope; we are no longer
secured firmly to the solid soil of the Ham Rock reef, but we are
floating over an abyss which daily, nay hourly, threatens to swallow us
into its depths.



CHAPTER XXIII.

DECEMBER 2nd and 3rd.--For four hours we have succeeded in keeping the
water in the hold to one level; now, however, it is very evident that
the time cannot be far distant when the pumps will be quite unequal to
their task.

Yesterday Curtis, who does not allow himself a minute’s rest, made a
personal inspection of the hold. I, with the boatswain and carpenter,
accompanied him. After dislodging some of the bales of cotton we could
hear a splashing, or rather gurgling sound; but whether the water
was entering at the original aperture, or whether it found its way in
through a general dislocation of the seams, we were unable to discover.
But whichever might be the case, Curtis determined to try a plan which,
by cutting off communication between the interior and exterior of the
vessel, might, if only for a few hours, render her hull more watertight.
For this purpose he had some strong, well-tarred sails drawn upwards by
ropes from below the keel, as high as the previous leaking-place, and
then fastened closely and securely to the side of the hull. The
scheme was dubious, and the operation difficult, but for a time it
was effectual, and at the close of the day the level of the water
had actually been reduced by several inches. The diminution was small
enough, but the consciousness that more water was escaping through
the scupper-holes than was finding its way into the hold gave us fresh
courage to persevere with our work.

The night was dark, but the captain carried all the sail he could,
eager to take every possible advantage of the wind, which was freshening
considerably. If he could have sighted a ship he would have made signals
of distress, and would not have hesitated to transfer the passengers,
and even have allowed the crew to follow, if they were ready to forsake
him; for himself his mind was made up, he should remain on board the
“Chancellor” until she foundered beneath his feet. No sail, however,
hove in sight; consequently escape by such means was out of our power.

During the night the canvas covering yielded to the pressure of the
waves, and this morning, after taking the sounding, the boatswain could
not suppress an oath when he announced “Six feet of water in the hold!”

The ship, then, was filling once again, and already had sunk
considerably below her previous water-line. With aching arms and
bleeding hands we worked harder than ever at the pumps, and Curtis makes
those who are not pumping form a line and pass buckets, with all the
speed they can, from hand to hand.

But all in vain! At half-past eight more water is reported in the hold,
and some of the sailors, overcome by despair, refuse to work one minute
longer.

The first to abandon his post was Owen, a man whom I have mentioned
before, as exhibiting something of a mutinous spirit, He is about forty
years of age, and altogether unprepossessing in appearance; his face
is bare, with the exception of a reddish beard, which terminates in a
point; his forehead is furrowed with sinister-looking wrinkles, his lips
curl inwards, and his ears protrude, whilst his bleared and bloodshot
eyes are encircled with thick red rings.

Amongst the five or six other men who had struck work, I noticed
Jynxstrop the cook, who evidently shared all Owen’s ill feelings.

Twice did Curtis order the men back to the pumps, and twice did Owen,
acting as spokesman for the rest, refuse; and when Curtis made a step
forward as though to approach him, he said savagely,--

“I advise you not to touch me,” and walked away to the forecastle.

Curtis descended to his cabin, and almost immediately returned with a
loaded revolver in his hand.

For a moment Owen surveyed the captain with a frown of defiance; but
at a sign from Jynxstrop he seemed to recollect himself; and, with the
remainder of the men, he returned to his work.



CHAPTER XXIV.

DECEMBER 4th.--The first attempt at mutiny being thus happily
suppressed, it is to be hoped that Curtis will succeed as well in
future. An insubordinate crew would render us powerless indeed.

Throughout the night the pumps were kept, without respite, steadily at
work, but without producing the least sensible benefit. The ship became
so water-logged and heavy that she hardly rose at all to the waves,
which consequently often washed over the deck and contributed their
part towards aggravating our case. Our situation was rapidly becoming as
terrible as it had been when the fire was raging in the midst of us;
and the prospect of being swallowed by the devouring billows was no less
formidable than that of perishing in the flames.

Curtis kept the men up to the mark, and, willing or unwilling, they had
no alternative but to work on as best they might; but, in spite of all
their efforts, the water perpetually rose, till, at length, the men in
the hold who were passing the buckets found themselves immersed up to
their waists and were obliged to come on deck.

This morning, after a somewhat protracted consultation with Walter and
the boatswain, Curtis resolved to abandon the ship. The only remaining
boat was far too small to hold us all, and it would therefore be
necessary to construct a raft that should carry those who could not find
room in her. Dowlas the carpenter, Mr. Falsten, and ten sailors were
told off to put the raft in hand, the rest of the crew being ordered to
continue their work assiduously at the pumps, until the time came and
everything was ready for embarkation.

Hatchet or saw in hand, the carpenter and his assistants made a
beginning without delay by cutting and trimming the spare yards and
extra spars to a proper length. These were then lowered into the sea,
which was propitiously calm, so as to favour the operation (which
otherwise would have been very difficult) of lashing them together into
a firm framework, about forty feet long and twenty-five feet wide, upon
which the platform was to be supported.

I kept my own place steadily at the pumps, and Andre Letourneur worked
at my side; I often noticed his father glance at him sorrowfully, as
though he wondered what would become of him if he had to struggle with
waves to which even the strongest man could hardly fail to succumb. But
come what may, his father will never forsake him, and I myself shall not
be wanting in rendering him whatever assistance I can.

Mrs. Kear, who had been for some time in a state of drowsy
unconsciousness, was not informed of the immediate danger, but when
Miss Herbey, looking somewhat pale with fatigue, paid one of her flying
visits to the deck, I warned her to take every precaution for herself
and to be ready for any emergency.

“Thank you, doctor, I am always ready,” she cheerfully replied, and
returned to her duties below. I saw Andre follow the young girl with his
eyes, and a look of melancholy interest passed over his countenance.

Towards eight o’clock in the evening the framework for the raft was
almost complete, and the men were lowering empty barrels, which had
first been securely bunged, and were lashing them to the wood-work to
insure its floating.

Two hours later and suddenly there arose the startling cry, “We are
sinking! we are sinking!”

Up to the poop rushed Mr. Kear, followed immediately by Falsten and Miss
Herbey, who were bearing the inanimate form of Mrs. Kear. Curtis ran to
his cabin, instantly returning with a chart; a sextant, and a compass in
his hand.

The scene that followed will ever be engraven in my memory; the cries of
distress, the general confusion, the frantic rush of the sailors towards
the raft that was not yet ready to support them, can never be forgotten.
The whole period of my life seemed to be concentrated into that terrible
moment when the planks bent below my feet and the ocean yawned beneath
me.

Some of the sailors had taken their delusive refuge in the shrouds, and
I was preparing to follow them when a hand was laid upon my shoulder.
Turning round I beheld M. Letourneur, with tears in his eyes, pointing
towards his son. “Yes, my friend,” I said, pressing his hand, “we will
save him, if possible.”

But Curtis had already caught hold of the young man, and was hurrying
him to the main-mast shrouds, when the “Chancellor,” which had been
scudding along rapidly with the wind, stopped suddenly, with a violent
shock, and began to settle, The sea rose over my ankles and almost
instinctively I clutched at the nearest rope. All at once, when it
seemed all over, the ship ceased to sink, and hung motionless in
mid-ocean.



CHAPTER XXV.

NIGHT OF DECEMBER 4th.--Curtis caught young Letourneur again in his
arms, and running with him across the flooded deck deposited him safely
in the starboard shrouds, whither his father and I climbed up beside
him.

I now had time to look about me. The night was not very dark, and I
could see that Curtis had returned to his post upon the poop; whilst in
the extreme aft near the taffrail, which was still above water, I could
distinguish the forms of Mr. and Mrs. Kear, Miss Herbey, and Mr. Falsten
The lieutenant and the boatswain were on the far end of the forecastle;
the remainder of the crew in the shrouds and top-masts.

By the assistance of his father, who carefully guided his feet up the
rigging, Andre was hoisted into the main-top. Mrs. Kear could not be
induced to join him in his elevated position, in spite of being
told that if the wind were to freshen she would inevitably be
washed overboard by the waves; nothing could induce her to listen to
remonstrance, and she insisted upon remaining on the poop, Miss Herbey,
of course, staying by her side.

As soon as the captain saw the “Chancellor” was no longer sinking,
he set to work to take down all the sails, yards and all, and the
top-gallants, in the hope that by removing everything that could
compromise the equilibrium of the ship he might diminish the chance of
her capsizing altogether.

“But may she not founder at any moment?” I said to Curtis, when I had
joined him for a while upon the poop.

“Everything depends upon the weather,” he replied, in his calmest
manner; “that, of course, may change at any hour. One thing, however, is
certain, the ‘Chancellor’ preserves her equilibrium for the present.”

“But do you mean to say,” I further asked, “that she can sail with two
feet of water over her deck?”

“No, Mr. Kazallon, she can’t sail, but she can drift with the wind, and
if the wind remains in its present quarter, in the course of a few days
we might possibly sight the coast. Besides, we shall have our raft as a
last resource; in a few hours it will be ready, and at daybreak we can
embark.”

“You have not then,” I added, “abandoned all hope even yet?” I marvelled
at his composure.

“While there’s life there’s hope, you know Mr. Kazallon; out of a
hundred chances, ninety-nine may be against us, but perhaps the odd one
may be in our favour. Besides, I believe that our case is not without
precedent. In the year 1795 a three-master, the ‘Juno,’ was precisely
in the same half-sunk, water-logged condition as ourselves; and yet with
her passengers and crew clinging to her top-masts she drifted for twenty
days, until she came in sight of land, when those who had survived the
deprivation and fatigue were saved. So let us not despair; let us hold
on to the hope that the survivors of the ‘Chancellor’ may be equally
fortunate.”

I was only too conscious that there was not much to be said in support
of Curtis’s sanguine view of things, and that the force of reason
pointed all the other way; but I said nothing, deriving what comfort I
could from the fact that the captain did not yet despond of an ultimate
rescue.

As it was necessary to be prepared to abandon the ship almost at a
moment’s notice, Dowlas was making every exertion to hurry on the
construction of the raft. A little before midnight he was on the point
of conveying some planks for this purpose, when, to his astonishment and
horror, he found that the framework had totally disappeared. The ropes
that had attached it to the vessel had snapped as she became vertically
displaced, and probably it had been adrift for more than an hour.

The crew were frantic at this new misfortune, and shouting “Overboard
with the masts!” they began to cut down the rigging preparatory to
taking possession of the masts for a new raft.

But here Curtis interposed:--

“Back to your places, my men; back to your places. The ship will not
sink yet, so don’t touch a rope until I give you leave.”

The firmness of the captain’s voice brought the men to their senses, and
although some of them could ill disguise their reluctance, all returned
to their posts.

When daylight had sufficiently advanced Curtis mounted the mast, and
looked around for the missing raft; but it was nowhere to be seen. The
sea was far too rough for the men to venture to take out the whaleboat
in search of it, and there was no choice but to set to work and to
construct a new raft immediately.

Since the sea has become so much rougher, Mrs. Kear has been induced to
leave the poop, and has managed to join M. Letourneur and his son on
the main-top, where she lies in a state of complete prostration. I need
hardly add that Miss Herbey continues in her unwearied attendance. The
space to which these four people are limited is necessarily very small,
nowhere measuring twelve feet across; to prevent them losing their
balance some spars have been lashed from shroud to shroud, and for the
convenience of the two ladies Curtis has contrived to make a temporary
awning of a sail. Mr. Kear has installed himself with Silas Huntly on
the foretop.

A few cases of preserved meat and biscuit and some barrels of water,
that floated between the masts after the submersion of the deck, have
been hoisted to the top-masts and fastened firmly to the stays. These
are now our only provisions.



CHAPTER XXVI.

DECEMBER 5th.--The day was very hot. December in latitude 16deg. N. is a
summer month, and unless a breeze should rise to temper the burning sun,
we might expect to suffer from an oppressive heat.

The sea still remained very rough, and as the heavy waves broke over the
ship as though she were a reef, the foam flew up to the very top-masts,
and our clothes were perpetually drenched by the spray.

The “Chancellor’s” hull is three-fourths immerged; besides the three
masts and the bowsprit, to which the whale-boat was suspended, the poop
and the forecastle are the only portions that now are visible; and as
the intervening section of the deck is quite below the water, these
appear to be connected only by the framework of the netting that
runs along the vessel’s sides. Communication between the top-masts is
extremely difficult, and would be absolutely precluded, were it not that
the sailors, with practised dexterity, manage to hoist themselves about
by means of the stays. For the passengers, cowering on their narrow
and unstable platform, the spectacle of the raging sea below was truly
terrific; every wave that dashed over the ship shook the masts till they
trembled again, and one could venture scarcely to look or to think lest
he should be tempted to cast himself into the vast abyss.

Meanwhile, the crew worked away with all their remaining vigour at the
second raft, for which the top-gallants and yards were all obliged to
be employed; the planks, too, which were continually being loosened
and broken away by the violence of the waves from the partitions of
the ship, were rescued before they had drifted out of reach, and were
brought into use. The symptoms of the ship foundering did not appear
to be immediate; so that Curtis insisted upon the raft being made with
proper care to insure its strength; we were still several hundred miles
from the coast of Guiana, and for so long a voyage it was indispensable
to have a structure of considerable solidity. The reasonableness of this
was self-apparent, and as the crew had recovered their assurance they
spared no pains to accomplish their work effectually.

Of all the number, there was but one, an Irishman, named O’Ready, who
seemed to question the utility of all their toil. He shook his head with
an oracular gravity. He is an oldish man, not less than sixty, with his
hair and beard bleached with the storms of many travels. As I was making
my way towards the poop, he came up to me and began talking.

“And why, bedad, I’d like to know, why is it that they’ll all be afther
lavin’ of the ship?”

He turned his quid with the most serene composure, and continued,--

“And isn’t it me myself that’s been wrecked nine times already? and
sure, poor fools are they that ever have put their trust in rafts or
boats sure and they found a wathery grave. Nay, nay; while the ould ship
lasts, let’s stick to her, says I.”

Having thus unburdened his mind he relapsed, into silence, and soon went
away.

About three o’clock I noticed that Mr. Kear and Silas Huntly were
holding an animated conversation in the fore top. The petroleum merchant
had evidently some difficulty in bringing the ex-captain round to his
opinion, for I, saw him several times shake his head as he gave long and
scrutinizing looks at the sea and sky. In less than an hour afterwards
I saw Huntly let himself down by the forestays and clamber along to the
forecastle where he joined the group of sailors, and I lost sight of
him.

I attached little importance to the incident, and shortly afterwards
joined the party in the main-top, where we continued talking for some
hours. The heat was intense, and if it had not been for the shelter’
afforded by the sail-tent, would have been unbearable. At five o’clock
we took as refreshment some dried meat and biscuit, each individual
being also allowed half a glass of water. Mrs. Kear, prostrate with
fever, could not touch a mouthful; and nothing could be done by Miss
Herbey to relieve her, beyond occasionally moistening her parched lips.
The unfortunate lady suffers greatly, and sometimes I am inclined to
think that she will succumb to the exposure and privation. Not once had
her husband troubled himself about her; but when shortly afterwards I
heard him hail some of the sailors on the forecastle and ask them to
help him down from the foretop, I began to think that the selfish fellow
was coming to join his wife.

At first the sailors took no notice of his request, but on his repeating
it with the promise of paying them handsomely for their services, two
of them, Burke and Sandon, swung themselves along the netting into the
shrouds, and were soon at his side.

A long discussion ensued. The men evidently were asking more than Mr.
Kear was inclined to give, and at one time if seemed as though the
negotiation would fall through altogether. But at length the bargain
was struck, and I saw Mr. Kear take a bundle of paper dollars from his
waistcoat pocket, and hand a number of them over to one of the men,
The man counted them carefully, and from the time it took him, I should
think that he could not have pocketed anything less than a hundred
dollars.

The next business was to get Mr. Kear down from the foretop, and
Burke and Sandon proceeded to tie a rope round his waist, which they
afterwards fastened to the forestay; then, in a way which provoked
shouts of laughter from their mates, they gave the unfortunate man a
shove, and sent him rolling down like a bundle of dirty clothes on to
the forecastle.

I was quite mistaken as to his object. Mr. Kear had no intention of
looking after his wife, but remained by the side of Silas Huntly until
the gathering darkness hid them both from view.

As night drew on, the wind grew calmer, but the sea remained very rough.
The moon had been up ever since four in the afternoon, though she only
appeared at rare intervals between the clouds. Some long lines of vapour
on the horizon were tinged with a rosy glare that foreboded a strong
breeze for the morrow, and all felt anxious to know from which quarter
the breeze would come, for any but a north-easter would bear the frail
raft on which we were to embark far away from land.

About eight o’clock in the evening Curtis mounted to the main-top but
he seemed preoccupied and anxious, and did not speak to any one. He
remained for a quarter of an hour, then after silently pressing my hand,
he returned to his old post.

I laid myself down in the narrow space at my disposal, and tried to
sleep; but my mind was filled with strange forebodings, and sleep was
impossible. The very calmness of the atmosphere was oppressive; scarcely
a breath of air vibrated through the metal rigging, and yet the sea rose
with a heavy swell as though it felt the warnings of a coming tempest.

All at once, at about eleven o’clock, the moon burst brightly forth
through a rift in the clouds, and the waves sparkled again as if
illumined by a submarine glimmer. I start up and look around me. Is it
merely imagination? or do I really see a black speck floating on the
dazzling whiteness of the waters, a speck that cannot be a rock; because
it rises and falls with the heaving motion of the billows? But the moon
once again becomes overclouded; the sea, is darkened, and I return to my
uneasy couch close to the larboard shrouds.



CHAPTER XXVII.

DECEMBER 6th.--I must have fallen asleep for a few hours, when at four
o’clock in the morning, I was rudely aroused by the roaring of the
wind, and could distinguish Curtis’s voice as he shouted in the brief
intervals between the heavy gusts.

I got up, and holding tightly to the purlin--for the waves made the
masts tremble with their violence--I tried to look around and below me.
The sea was literally raging beneath, and great masses of livid-looking
foam were dashing between the masts, which were oscillating
terrifically. It was still dark, and I could only faintly distinguish
two figures on the stern, whom, by the sound of their voices, that I
caught occasionally above the tumult, I made out to be Curtis and the
boatswain.

Just at that moment a sailor, who had mounted to the main-top to do
something to the rigging, passed close behind me.

“What’s the matter?” I asked,

“The wind has changed,” he answered, adding something which I could not
hear distinctly, but which sounded like “dead against us.”

Dead against us! then, thought I, the wind had shifted to the
south-west, and my last night’s forebodings had been correct.

When daylight at length appeared, I found the wind although not blowing
actually from the south-west, had veered round to the north-west, a
change which was equally disastrous to us, inasmuch as it was carrying
us away from land. Moreover, the ship had sunk considerably during
the night, and there were now five feet of water above deck; the side
netting had completely disappeared, and the forecastle and the poop were
now all but on a level with the sea, which washed over them incessantly.
With all possible expedition Curtis and his crew were labouring away
at their raft, but the violence of the swell materially impeded their
operations, and it became a matter of doubt as to whether the woodwork
would not fall asunder before it could be properly fastened together.

As I watched the men at their work M. Letourneur, with one arm
supporting his son, came and stood by my side.

“Don’t you think this main-top will soon give way?” he said, as the
narrow platform on which we stood creaked and groaned with the swaying
of the masts.

Miss Herbey heard his words, and pointing towards Mrs. Kear, who was
lying prostrate at her feet, asked what we thought ought to be done.

“We can do nothing but stay where we are,” I replied.

“No;” said Andre “this is our best refuge; I hope you are not afraid.”

“Not for myself,” said the young girl quietly “only for those to whom
life is precious.”

At a quarter to eight we heard the boatswain calling to the sailors in
the bows.

“Ay, ay, sir,” said one of the men--O’Ready, I think.

“Where’s the whale boat?” shouted the boatswain.

“I don’t know, sir. Not with us,” was the reply.

“She’s gone adrift, then!”

And sure enough the whale-boat was no longer hanging from the bowsprit;
and in a moment the discovery was made that Mr. Kear, Silas Huntly, and
three sailors,--a Scotchman and two Englishmen,--were missing. Afraid
that the “Chancellor” would founder before the completion of the raft,
Kear and Huntly had plotted together to effect their escape, and had
bribed the three sailors to seize the only remaining boat.

This, then, was the black speck that I had seen during the night. The
miserable husband had deserted his wife, the faithless captain had
abandoned the ship that had once been under his command.

“There are five saved, then,” said the boatswain.

“Faith, an it’s five lost ye’ll be maning,” said O’Ready; and the state
of the sea fully justified his opinion.

The crew were furious when they heard of the surreptitious flight,
and loaded the fugitives with all the invectives they could lay their
tongues to. So enraged were they at the dastardly trick of which they
had been made the dupes, that if chance should bring the deserters again
on board I should be sorry to answer for the consequences.

In accordance with my advice, Mrs. Kear has not been informed of her
husband’s disappearance. The unhappy lady is wasting away with a fever
for which we are powerless to supply a remedy, for the medicine chest
was lost when the ship began to sink. Nevertheless, I do not think we
have anything to regret on that score, feeling as I do, that in a case
like Mrs. Kear’s, drugs would be of no avail.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

DECEMBER 6th CONTINUED.--The “Chancellor” no longer maintained her
equilibrium; we felt that she was gradually going down, and her hull was
probably breaking up. The main-top was already only ten feet above the
water, whilst the bowsprit, with the exception of the extreme end, that
rose obliquely from the waves, was entirely covered.

The “Chancellor’s” last day, we felt, had come.

Fortunately the raft was all but finished, and unless Curtis preferred
to wait till morning we should be able to embark in the evening.

The raft is a very solid structure. The spars that form the framework
are crossed one above another and lashed together with stout ropes, so
that the whole pile rises a couple of feet above the water. The upper
platform is constructed from the planks that were broken from the ship’s
sides by the violence of the waves, and which had not drifted away. The
afternoon has been employed in charging the raft with such provisions,
sails, tools, and instruments as we have been able to save.

And how can I attempt to give any idea of the feelings with which, one
and all, we now contemplated the fate before us? For my own part I was
possessed rather by a benumbed indifference than by any sense of genuine
resignation. M. Letourneur was entirely absorbed in his son, who, in
his turn, thought only of his father; at the same time exhibiting a calm
Christian fortitude, which was shown by no one else of the party
except Miss Herbey, who faced her danger with the same brave composure.
Incredible as it may seem, Falsten remained the same as ever, occupying
himself with writing down figures and memoranda in his pocket-book. Mrs.
Kear, in spite of all that Miss Herbey could do for her, was evidently
dying.

With regard to the sailors, two or three of them were calm enough, but
the rest had well-nigh lost their wits. Some of the more ill-disposed
amongst them seemed inclined to run into excesses; and their conduct,
under the bad influence of Owen and Jynxstrop, made it doubtful whether
they would submit to control when once we were limited to the narrow
dimensions of the raft. Lieutenant Walter, although his courage never
failed him, was worn out with bodily fatigue, and obliged to give up all
active labour; but Curtis and the boatswain were resolute, energetic and
firm as ever. To borrow an expression from the language of metallurgic
art, they were men “at the highest degree of hardness.”

At five o’clock one of our companions in misfortune was released from
her sufferings. Mrs. Kear, after a most distressing illness, through
which her young companion tended her with the most devoted care, has
breathed her last. A few deep sighs and all was over, and I doubt
whether the sufferer was ever conscious of the peril of, her situation.

The night passed on without further incident. Towards morning I touched
the dead woman’s hand, and it was cold and stiff. The corpse could
not remain any longer on the main-top, and after Miss Herbey and I had
carefully wrapped the garments about it, with a few short prayers the
body of the first victim of our miseries was committed to the deep.

As the sea closed over the body I heard one of the men in the shrouds
say,--

“There goes a carcass that we shall be sorry we have thrown away!”

I looked round sharply. It was Owen who had spoken, But horrible as were
his words, the conviction was forced upon my mind that the day could not
be far distant when we must want for food.



CHAPTER XXIX.

DECEMBER 7th.--The ship was sinking rapidly; the water had risen to the
fore-top; the poop and forecastle were completely submerged; the top
of the bowsprit had disappeared, and only the three mast-tops projected
from the waves.

But all was ready on the raft; an erection had been made on the fore to
hold a mast, which was supported by shrouds fastened to the sides of the
platform; this mast carried a large royal.

Perhaps, after all, these few frail planks will carry us to the shore
which the “Chancellor” has failed to reach; at any rate, we cannot yet
resign all hope.

We were just on the point of embarking at 7 a.m. when the “Chancellor”
 all at once began to sink so rapidly that the carpenter and men who were
on the raft were obliged with all speed to cut the ropes that secured
it to the vessel to prevent it from being swallowed up in the eddying
waters. Anxiety, the most intense, took possession of us all. At the
very moment when the ship was descending into the fathomless abyss, the
raft, our only hope of safety, was drifting off before our eyes. Two
of the sailors and an apprentice, beside themselves with terror, threw
themselves headlong into the sea; but it was evident from the very first
that they were quite powerless to combat the winds and waves. Escape was
impossible; they could neither reach the raft, nor return to the
ship. Curtis tied a rope round his waist and tried to swim to their
assistance; but long before he could reach them the unfortunate men,
after a vain struggle for life, sank below the waves and were seen no
more. Curtis, bruised and beaten with the surf that raged about the
mast-heads, was hauled back to the ship.

Meantime, Dowlas and his men, by means of some spars which they used as
oars, were exerting themselves to bring back the raft, which had drifted
about two cables-lengths away; but, in spite of all their efforts, it
was fully an hour,--an hour which seemed to us, waiting as we were with
the water up to the level of the top-masts, like an eternity--before
they succeeded in bringing the raft alongside, and lashing it once again
to the “Chancellor’s” main-mast.

Not a moment was then to be lost. The waves were eddying like a
whirlpool around the submerged vessel, and numbers of enormous
air-bubbles were rising to the surface of the water.

The time was come. At Curtis’s word “Embark!” we all hurried to the
raft. Andre who insisted upon seeing Miss Herbey go first, was helped
safely on to the platform, where his father immediately joined him. In
a very few minutes all except Curtis and old O’Ready had left the
“Chancellor.”

Curtis remained standing on the main-top, deeming it not only his duty,
but his right, to be the last to leave the vessel he had loved so well,
and the loss of which he so much deplored.

“Now then, old fellow off of this!” cried the captain to the old
Irishman, who did not move.

“And is it quite sure ye are that she’s sinkin?” he said.

“Ay, ay! sure enough, my man; and you’d better look sharp.”

“Faith, then, and I think I will;” and not a moment too soon (for the
water was up to his waist) he jumped on to the raft.

Having cast one last, lingering look around him, Curtis then left the
ship; the rope was cut and we went slowly adrift.

All eyes were fixed upon the spot where the “Chancellor” lay foundering.
The top of the mizzen was the first to disappear, then followed the
main-top; and soon, of what had been a noble vessel, not a vestige was
to be seen.



CHAPTER XXX.

Will this frail float, forty feet by twenty, bear us in safety? Sink
it cannot; the material of which it is composed is of a kind that
must surmount the waves. But it is questionable whether it will hold
together. The cords that bind it will have a tremendous strain to bear
in resisting the violence of the sea. The most sanguine amongst us
trembles to face the future; the most confident dares to think only of
the present. After the manifold perils of the last seventy-two days’
voyage all are too agitated to look forward without dismay to what in
all human probability must be a time of the direst distress.

Vain as the task may seem, I will not pause in my work of registering
the events of our drama, as scene after scene they are unfolded before
our eyes.

Of the twenty-eight persons who left Charleston in the “Chancellor,”
 only eighteen are left to huddle together upon this narrow raft; this
number includes the five passengers, namely M. Letourneur, Andre,
Miss Herbey, Falsten, and myself; the ship’s officers, Captain Curtis,
Lieutenant Walter, the boatswain, Hobart the steward, Jynxstrop the
cook, and Dowlas the carpenter; and seven sailors, Austin, Owen, Wilson,
O’Ready, Burke, Sandon, and Flaypole.

Such are the passengers on the raft; it is but a brief task to enumerate
their resources.

The greater part of the provisions in the store-room were destroyed at
the time when the ship’s deck was submerged, and the small quantity that
Curtis has been able to save will be very inadequate to supply the wants
of eighteen people, who too probably have many days to wait ere they
sight either land or a passing vessel. One cask of biscuit, another of
preserved meat, a small keg of brandy, and two barrels of water complete
our store, so that the utmost frugality in the distribution of our daily
rations becomes absolutely necessary.

Of spare clothes we have positively none; a few sails will serve for
shelter by day, and covering by night. Dowlas has his carpenter’s tools,
we have each a pocket-knife, and O’Ready an old tin pot; of which he
takes the most tender care; in addition to these, we are in possession
of a sextant, a compass, a chart, and a metal tea-kettle, everything
else that was placed on deck in readiness for the first raft having been
lost in the partial submersion of the vessel.

Such then is our situation; critical indeed, but after all perhaps
not desperate. We have one great fear; some there are amongst us whose
courage, moral as well as physical, may give way, and over failing
spirits such as these we may have no control.



CHAPTER XXXI.

DECEMBER 7th CONTINUED.--Our first day on the raft has passed without
any special incident. At eight o’clock this morning Curtis asked our
attention for a moment.

“My friends,” he said, “listen to me. Here on this raft, just as when we
were on board the ‘Chancellor,’ I consider myself your captain; and as
your captain, I expect that all of you will strictly obey my orders. Let
me beg of you, one and all, to think solely of our common welfare; let
us work with one heart and with one soul, and may Heaven protect us!”

After delivering these few words with an emotion that evidenced their
earnestness, the captain consulted his compass, and found that the
freshening breeze was blowing from the north. This was fortunate for us,
and no time was to be lost in taking advantage of it to speed us on our
dubious way. Dowlas was occupied in fixing the mast into the socket that
had already been prepared for its reception, and in order to support
it more firmly he placed spurs of wood, forming arched buttresses, on
either side. While he was thus employed the boatswain and the other
seamen were stretching the large royal sail on the yard that had been
reserved for that purpose.

By half-past nine the mast was hoisted, and held firmly in its place by
some shrouds attached securely to the sides of the raft; then the
sail was run up and trimmed to the wind, and the raft began to make a
perceptible progress under the brisk breeze.

As soon as we had once started, the carpenter set to work to contrive
some sort of a rudder, that would enable us to maintain our desired
direction. Curtis and Falsten assisted him with some serviceable
suggestions, and in a couple of hours’ time he had made and fixed to
the back of the raft a kind of paddle, very similar to those used by the
Malays.

At noon, after the necessary preliminary observations, Curtis took
the altitude of the sun. The result gave lat. 15deg. 7min. N. by long.
49deg. 35min. W. as our position, which, on consulting the chart, proved
to be about 650 miles north-east of the coast of Paramaribo in Dutch
Guiana.

Now even under the most favourable circumstances, with trade-winds and
weather always in our favour, we cannot by any chance hope to make more
than ten or twelve miles a day, so that the voyage cannot possibly be
performed under a period of two months. To be sure there is the hope to
be indulged that we may fall in with a passing vessel, but as the part
of the Atlantic into which we have been driven is intermediate between
the tracks of the French and English Transatlantic steamers either
from the Antilles or the Brazils, we cannot reckon at all upon such a
contingency happening in our favour; whilst if a calm should set in,
or worse still, if the wind were to blow from the east, not only two
months, but twice, nay, three times that length of time will be required
to accomplish the passage.

At best, however, our provisions, even though used with the greatest
care, will barely last three months. Curtis has called us into
consultation, and as the working of the raft does not require such
labour as to exhaust our physical strength, all have agreed to submit
to a regimen which, although it will suffice to keep us alive, will
certainly not fully satisfy the cravings of hunger and thirst.

As far as we can estimate, we have somewhere about 500 lbs. of meat and
about the same quantity of biscuit. To make this last for three months
we ought not to consume very much more than 5 lbs. a day of each, which,
when divided among eighteen people, will make the daily ration 5 oz. of
meat and 5 oz. of biscuit for each person. Of water we have certainly
not more than 200 gallons, but by reducing each person’s allowance to
a pint a day, we hope to eke out that, too, over the space of three
months.

It is arranged that the food shall be distributed under the boatswain’s
superintendence every morning at ten o’clock. Each person will then
receive his allowance of meat and biscuit, which may be eaten when and
how he pleases. The water will be given out twice a day--at ten in the
morning and six in the evening; but as the only drinking-vessels in our
possession are the tea-kettle and the old Irishman’s tin pot, the water
has to be consumed immediately on distribution. As for the brandy,
of which there are only five gallons, it will be doled out with the
strictest limitation, and no one will be allowed to touch it except with
the captain’s express permission.

I should not forget that there are two sources from which we may hope to
increase our store. First, any rain that may fall will add to our supply
of water, and two empty barrels have been placed ready to receive it;
secondly, we hope to do something in the way of fishing, and the sailors
have already begun to prepare some lines.

All have mutually agreed to abide by the rules that have been laid down,
for all are fully aware that by nothing but the most precise regimen can
we hope to avert the horrors of famine, and forewarned by the fate,
of many who in similar circumstances have miserably perished, we are
determined to do all that prudence can suggest for husbanding our
stores.



CHAPTER XXXII.

DECEMBER 8th to 17th.--When night came we wrapped ourselves in our
sails. For my own part, worn out with the fatigue of the long watch in
the top-mast, I slept for several hours; M. Letourneur and Andre did
the same, and Miss Herbey obtained sufficient rest to relieve the tired
expression that her countenance had lately been wearing. The night
passed quietly. As the raft was not very heavily laden the waves did not
break over it at all, and we were consequently able to keep ourselves
perfectly dry. To say the truth, it was far better for us that the sea
should remain somewhat boisterous, for any diminution in the swell of
the waves would indicate that; the wind had dropped, and it was with a
feeling of regret that when the morning came I had to note down “weather
calm” in my journal.

In these low latitudes the heat in the day-time is so intense, and
the sun burns with such an incessant glare, that the entire atmosphere
becomes pervaded with a glowing vapour. The wind, too, blows only in
fitful gusts and through long intervals of perfect calm the sails flap
idly and uselessly against the mast. Curtis and the boatswain, however,
are of opinion that we are not entirely dependent on the wind. Certain
indications, which a sailor’s eye alone could detect, make them almost
sure that we are being carried along by a westerly current, that flows
at the rate of three or four miles an hour. If they are not mistaken,
this is a circumstance that may materially assist our progress, and
at which we can hardly fail to rejoice, for the high temperature often
makes our scanty allowance of water quite inadequate to allay our
thirst.

But with all our hardships I must confess that our condition is
far preferable to what it was when we were still clinging to the
“Chancellor.” Here at least we have a comparatively solid platform
beneath our feet, and we are relieved from the incessant dread of being
carried down with a foundering vessel. In the day-time we can move about
with a certain amount of freedom, discuss the weather, watch the sea,
and examine our fishing-lines; whilst at night we can rest securely
under the shelter of our sails.

“I really think, Mr. Kazallon,” said Andre Letourneur to me a few
days after we had embarked, “that our time on board the raft passes as
pleasantly as it did upon Ham Rock; and the raft has one advantage even
over the reef, for it is capable of motion.”

“Yes, Andre,” replied, “as long as the wind continues favourable the
raft has decidedly the advantage; but supposing the wind shifts, what
then?”

“Oh, we mustn’t think about that,” he said; “let us keep up our courage
while we can.”

I felt that he was right, and that the dangers we had escaped should
make us more hopeful for the future; and I think that nearly all of us
are inclined to share his opinion.

Whether the captain is equally sanguine I am unable to say. He holds
himself very much aloof, and as he evidently feels that he has the great
responsibility of saving other lives than his own, we are reluctant to
disturb his silent meditations.

Such of the crew as are not on watch spend the greater portion of their
time in dozing on the fore part of the raft. The aft, by the captain’s
orders, has been reserved for the use of us passengers, and by erecting
some uprights we have contrived to make a sort of tent, which affords
some shelter from the burning sun. On the whole our bill of health is
tolerably satisfactory. Lieutenant Walter is the only invalid, and he,
in spite of all our careful nursing, seems to get weaker every day.

Andre Letourneur is the life of our party, and I have never appreciated
the young man so well. His originality of perception makes his
conversation both lively and entertaining and as he talks, his wan
and suffering countenance lights up with an intelligent animation. His
father seems to become more devoted to him than ever, and I have seen
him sit for an hour at a time, with his hand resting on his son’s,
listening eagerly to his every word.

Miss Herbey occasionally joins in our conversation, but although we all
do our best to make her forget that she has lost those who should have
been her natural protectors, M. Letourneur is the only one amongst us to
whom she speaks without a certain reserve. To him, whose age gives him
something of the authority of a father, she has told the history of her
life--a life of patience and self-denial such as not unfrequently falls
to the lot of orphans. She had been, she said, two years with Mrs.
Kear, and although now left alone in the world, homeless and without
resources, hope for the future does not fail her. The young lady’s
modest deportment and energy of character command the respect of all
on board, and I do not think that even the coarsest of the sailors has
either by word or gesture acted towards her in a way that she could deem
offensive.

The 12th, 13th, and 14th of December passed away without any change in
our condition. The wind continued to blow in irregular gusts, but always
in the same direction, and the helm, or rather the paddle at the back of
the raft has never once required shifting; and the watch, who are posted
on the fore, under orders to examine the sea with the most scrupulous
attention, have had no change of any kind to report.

At the end of a week we found ourselves growing accustomed to our
limited diet, and as we had no manual exertion, and no wear and tear
of our physical constitution, we managed very well. Our greatest
deprivation was the short supply of water, for, as I said before, the
unmitigated heat made our thirst at times very painful.

On the 15th we held high festival. A shoal of fish, of the sparus tribe,
swarmed round the raft, and although our tackle consisted merely of long
cords baited with morsels of dried meat stuck upon bent nails, the fish
were so voracious that in the course of a couple of days we had caught
as many as weighed almost 200lbs., some of which were grilled, and
others boiled in sea-water over a fire made on the fore part of the
raft. This marvelous haul was doubly welcome, inasmuch as it not only
afforded us a change of diet, but enabled us to economize our stores; if
only some rain had fallen at the same time we should have been more than
satisfied.

Unfortunately the shoal of fish did not remain long in our vicinity. On
the 17th they all disappeared, and some sharks, not less than twelve or
fifteen feet long, belonging to the species of spotted dog-fish, took
their place. These horrible creatures have black backs and fins, covered
with white spots and stripes. Here, on our low raft, we seem almost on
a level with them, and more than once their tails have struck the spars
with terrible violence. The sailors manage to keep them at a distance
by means of handspikes, but I shall not be surprised if they persist in
following us, instinctively intelligent that we are destined to become
their prey. For myself, I confess that they give me a feeling of
uneasiness; they seem to me like monsters of ill-omen.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

DECEMBER 18th to 20th.--On the 18th the wind freshened a little, but as
it blew from the same favourable quarter we did not complain, and only
took the precaution of putting an extra support to the mast, so that it
should not snap with the tension of the sail. This done, the raft was
carried along with something more than its ordinary speed, and left a
long line of foam in its wake.

In the afternoon the sky became slightly overclouded, and the heat
consequently somewhat less oppressive. The swell made it more difficult
for the raft to keep its balance, and we shipped two or three heavy
seas; but the carpenter managed to make with some planks a kind of wall
about a couple of feet high, which protected us from the direct action
of the waves. Our casks of food and water were secured to the raft
with double ropes, for we dared not run the risk of their being carried
overboard, an accident that would at once have reduced us to the direst
distress.

In the course of the day the sailors gathered some of the marine plants
known by the name of sargassos, very similar to those we saw in such
profusion between the Bermudas and Ham Rock. I advised my companions to
chew the laminary tangles, which they would find contained a saccharine
juice, affording considerable relief to their parched lips and throats.

The remainder of the day passed without incident. I should not, however,
omit to mention that the frequent conferences held amongst the sailors,
especially between Owen, Burke, Flaypole, Wilson, and Jynxstrop, the
negro, aroused some uneasy suspicions in my mind. What was the subject
of their conversation I could not discover, for they became silent
immediately that a passenger or one of the officers approached them.
When I mentioned the matter to Curtis I found he had already noticed
these secret interviews, and that they had given him enough concern to
make him determined to keep a strict eye upon Jynxstrop and Owen, who,
rascals as they were themselves, were evidently trying to disaffect
their mates.

On the 19th the heat was again excessive. The sky was cloudless, and as
there was not enough wind to fill the sail the raft lay motionless
upon the surface of the water. Some of the sailors found a transient
alleviation for their thirst by plunging into the sea, but as we were
fully aware that the water all round was infested with sharks, none of
us was rash enough to follow their example, though if, as seems likely,
we remain long becalmed, we shall probably in time overcome our fears,
and feel constrained to indulge ourselves with a bath.

The health of Lieutenant Walter continues to cause us grave anxiety, the
young man being weakened by attacks of intermittent fever. Except for
the loss of the medicine-chest we might have temporarily reduced this by
quinine; but it is only too evident that the poor fellow is consumptive,
and that that hopeless malady is making ravages upon him that no
medicine could permanently arrest. His sharp dry cough, his short
breathing, his profuse perspirations, more especially in the morning;
the pinched-in nose, the hollow cheeks, of which the general pallour is
only relieved by a hectic flush, the contracted lips, the too brilliant
eye and wasted form--all bear witness to a slow but sure decay.

To-day, the 20th, the temperature is as high as ever, and the raft still
motionless. The rays of the sun penetrate even through the shelter of
our tent, where we sit literally gasping with the heat. The impatience
with which we awaited the moment when the boatswain should dole out our
meagre allowance of water, and the eagerness with which those lukewarm
drops were swallowed, can only be realized by those who for themselves
have endured the agonies of thirst.

Lieutenant Walter suffers more than any of us from the scarcity of
water, and I noticed that Miss Herbey reserved almost the whole of her
own share for his use. Kind and compassionate as ever, the young girl
does all that lies in her power to relieve the poor fellow’s sufferings.

“Mr. Kazallon,” she said to me this morning, “that young man gets
manifestly weaker every day.”

“Yes, Miss Herbey,” I replied, “and how sorrowful it is that we can do
nothing for him, absolutely nothing.”

“Hush!” she said, with her wonted consideration, “perhaps he will hear
what we are saying.”

And then she sat down near the edge of the raft, where, with her head
resting on her hands, she remained lost in thought.

An incident sufficiently unpleasant occurred to-day. For nearly an
hour Owen, Flaypole, Burke, and Jynxstrop had been engaged in close
conversation and, although their voices were low, their gestures had
betrayed that they were animated by some strong excitement. At the
conclusion of the colloquy Owen got up and walked deliberately to
the quarter of the raft that has been reserved for the use of the
passengers.

“Where are you off to now, Owen?” said the boatswain.

“That’s my business,” said the man insolently, and pursued his course.

The boatswain was about to stop him, but before he could interfere
Curtis was standing and looking Owen steadily in the face.

“Ah, captain, I’ve got a word from my mates to say to you,” he said,
with all the effrontery imaginable.

“Say on, then,” said the captain coolly.

“We should like to know about that little keg of brandy. Is it being
kept for the porpoises or the officers?”

Finding that he obtained no reply, he went on,--

“Look here, captain, what we want is to have our grog served out every
morning as usual.”

“Then you certainly will not,” said the captain.

“What! what!” exclaimed Owen, “don’t you mean to let us have our grog?”

“Once and for all, no.”

For a moment, with a malicious grin upon his lips, Owen stood
confronting the captain; then, as though thinking better of himself,
he turned round and rejoined his companions, who were still talking
together in an undertone.

When I was afterwards discussing the matter with Curtis I asked him
whether he was sure he had done right in refusing the brandy.

“Right!” he cried, “to be sure I have. Allow those men to have brandy! I
would throw it all overboard first.”



CHAPTER XXXIV.

DECEMBER 21st.--No further disturbance has taken place amongst the men.
For a few hours the fish appeared again, and we caught a great many
of them, and stored them away in an empty barrel. This addition to our
stock of provisions makes us hope that food, at least, will not fail us.

Usually the nights in the tropics are cool, but to-day, as evening drew
on, the wonted freshness did not return, but the air remained stifling
and oppressive, whilst heavy masses of vapour hung over the water.

There was no moonlight; there would be a new moon at half-past one in
the morning, but the night was singularly dark, except for dazzling
flashes of summer lightning that from time to time illumined the horizon
far and wide. There was, however, no answering roll of thunder, and the
silence of the atmosphere seemed almost awful, For a couple of hours,
in the vain hope of catching a breath of air, Miss Herbey, Andre
Letourneur, and I, sat watching the imposing struggle of the electric
vapours. The clouds appeared like embattled turrets crested with flame,
and the very sailors, coarse-minded men as they were, seemed struck with
the grandeur of the spectacle, and regarded attentively, though with an
anxious eye, the preliminary tokens of a coming storm. Until midnight we
kept our seats upon the stern of the raft, whilst the lightning ever and
again shed around us a livid glare similar to that produced by adding
salt to lighted alcohol.

“Are you afraid of a storm, Miss Herbey?” said Andre to the girl.

“No, Mr. Andre, my feelings are always rather those of awe than of
fear,” she replied. “I consider a storm one of the sublimest phenomena
that we can behold--don’t you think so too?”

“Yes, and especially when the thunder is pealing,” he said; “that
majestic rolling, far different to the sharp crash of artillery, rises
and falls like the long-drawn notes of the grandest music, and I can
safely say that the tones of the most accomplished ARTISTE have never
moved me like that incomparable voice of nature.”

“Rather a deep bass, though,” I said, laughing.

“That may be,” he answered; “but I wish we might hear it now, for this
silent lightning is somewhat unexpressive.”

“Never mind that, Andre” I said; “enjoy a storm when it comes, if you
like, but pray don’t wish for it.”

“And why not?” said he; “a storm will bring us wind, you know.”

“And water, too,” added Miss Herbey, “the water of which we are so
seriously in need.”

The young people evidently wished to regard the storm from their own
point of view, and although I could have opposed plenty of common sense
to their poetical sentiments, I said no more, but let them talk on as
they pleased for fully an hour.

Meantime the sky was becoming quite overclouded, and after the zodiacal
constellations had disappeared in the mists that hung round the horizon,
one by one the stars above our heads were veiled in dark rolling
masses of vapour, from which every instant there issued forth sheets of
electricity that formed a vivid background to the dark grey fragments of
cloud that floated beneath.

As the reservoir of electricity was confined to the higher strata of the
atmosphere, the lightning was still unaccompanied by thunder; but the
dryness of the air made it a weak conductor. Evidently the fluid could
only escape by terrible shocks, and the storm must ere long burst forth
with fearful violence.

This was the opinion of Curtis and the boatswain. The boatswain is only
weather-wise from his experience as a sailor; but Curtis, in addition to
his experience, has some scientific knowledge, and he pointed out to me
an appearance in the sky known to meteorologists as a “cloud-ring,”
 and scarcely ever seen beyond the regions of the torrid zone, which are
impregnated by damp vapours brought from all quarters of the ocean by
the action of the trade-winds.

“Yes, Mr. Kazallon,” said Curtis, “our raft has been driven into the
region of storms, of which it has been justly remarked that any one
endowed with very sensitive organs can at any moment distinguish the
growlings of thunder.”

“Hark!” I said, as I strained my ears to listen, “I think I can hear it
now.”

“You can,” he answered; “yet what you hear is but the first warning of
the storm which, in a couple of hours, will burst upon us with all its
fury. But never mind, we must be ready for it.”

Sleep, even if we wished it, would have been impossible in that stifling
temperature. The lightning increased in brilliancy, and appeared from
all quarters of the horizon, each flash covering large arcs, varying
from 100deg. to 150deg., leaving the atmosphere pervaded by one
incessant phosphorescent glow.

The thunder became at length more and more distinct, the reports, if I
may use the expression, being “round,” rather than rolling. It seemed
almost as though the sky were padded with heavy clouds of which the
elasticity muffled the sound of the electric bursts.

Hitherto, the sea had been calm, almost stagnant as a pond. Now,
however, long undulations took place, which the sailors recognized, all
too well, as being the rebound produced by a distant tempest. A ship, in
such a case, would have been instantly brought ahull, but no manoeuvring
could be applied to our raft, which could only drift before the blast.

At one o’clock in the morning one vivid flash, followed, after the
interval of a few seconds, by a loud report of thunder, announced that
the storm was rapidly approaching. Suddenly the horizon was enveloped in
a vapourous fog, and seemed to contract until it was close around us. At
the same instant the voice of one of the sailors was heard shouting,--

“A squall! a squall!”



CHAPTER XXXV.

DECEMBER 21st, NIGHT.--The boatswain rushed to the halliards that
supported the sail, and instantly lowered the yard; and not a moment too
soon, for with the speed of an arrow the squall was upon us, and if
it had not been for the sailor’s timely warning we must all have been
knocked down and probably precipitated into the sea; as it was, our tent
on the back of the raft was carried away.

The raft itself, however, being so nearly level with the water, had
little peril to encounter from the actual wind; but from the mighty
waves now raised by the hurricane we had everything to dread. At first
the waves had been crushed and flattened as it were by the pressure of
the air, but now, as though strengthened by the reaction, they rose with
the utmost fury. The raft followed the motions of the increasing swell,
and was tossed up and down, to and fro, and from side to side with the
most violent oscillations “Lash yourselves tight,” cried the boatswain,
as he threw us some ropes; and in a few moments, with Curtis’s
assistance, M. Letourneur, Andre, Falsten, and myself were fastened so
firmly to the raft, that nothing but its total disruption could carry us
away. Miss Herbey was bound by a rope passed round her waist to one
of the uprights that had supported our tent, and by the glare of the
lightning I could see that her countenance was as serene and composed as
ever.

Then the storm began to rage indeed. Flash followed flash, peal followed
peal in quick succession. Our eyes were blinded, our ears deafened, with
the roar and glare. The clouds above, the ocean beneath, seemed verily
to have taken fire, and several times I saw forked lightnings dart
upwards from the crest of the waves, and mingle with those that radiated
from the fiery vault above. A strong odour of sulphur pervaded the air,
but though thunderbolts fell thick around us, not one had touched our
raft.

By two o’clock the storm had reached its height. The hurricane had
increased, and the heavy waves, heated to a strange heat by the general
temperature, dashed over us until we were drenched to the skin. Curtis,
Dowlas, the boatswain, and the sailors did what they could to strengthen
the raft with additional ropes. M. Letourneur placed himself in front
of Andre to shelter him from the waves. Miss Herbey stood upright and
motionless as a statue.

Soon dense masses of lurid clouds came rolling up, and a crackling, like
the rattle of musketry, resounded through the air. This was produced by
a series of electrical concussions, in which volleys of hailstones were
discharged from the cloud-batteries above. In fact, as the storm-sheet
came in contact with a current of cold air, hail was formed with great
rapidity, and hailstones, large as nuts, came pelting down, making the
platform of the raft re-echo with a metallic ring.

For about half an hour the meteoric shower continued to descend, and
during that time the wind slightly abated in violence; but after having
shifted from quarter to quarter, it once more blew with all its former
fury. The shrouds were broken, but happily the mast, already bending
almost double, was removed by the men from its socket before it should
be snapped short off. One gust caught away the tiller, which went adrift
beyond all power of recovery, and the same blast blew down several of
the planks that formed the low parapet on the larboard side, so that the
waves dashed in without hindrance through the breach.

The carpenter and his mates tried to repair the damage, but, tossed from
wave to wave, the raft was inclined to an angle of more than forty-five
degrees, making it impossible for them to keep their footing, and
rolling one over another, they were thrown down by the violent shocks.
Why they were not altogether carried away, why we were not all hurled
into the sea, was to me a mystery. Even if the cords that bound us
should retain their hold, it seemed perfectly incredible that the raft
itself should not be overturned, so that we should be carried down and
stifled in the seething waters.

At last, towards three in the morning, when the hurricane seemed to be
raging more fiercely than ever, the raft, caught up on the crest of
an enormous wave, stood literally perpendicularly on its edge. For
an instant, by the illumination of the lightning, we beheld ourselves
raised to an incomprehensible height above the foaming breakers. Cries
of terror escaped our lips. All must be over now! But no; another
moment, and the raft had resumed its horizontal position. Safe, indeed,
we were, but the tremendous upheaval was not without its melancholy
consequences. The cords that secured the cases of provisions had
burst asunder. One case rolled overboard, and the side of one of the
water-barrels was staved in, so that the water which it contained was
rapidly escaping. Two of the sailors rushed forward to rescue the case
of preserved meat; but one of them caught his foot between the planks
of the platform, and, unable to disengage it, the poor fellow stood
uttering-cries of distress.

I tried to go to his assistance, and had already untied the cord that
was round me; but I was too late. Another heavy sea dashed over us, and
by the light of a dazzling flash I saw the unhappy man, although he
had managed without assistance to disengage his foot, washed overboard
before it was in my power to get near him. His companion had also
disappeared.

The same ponderous wave laid me prostrate on the platform, and as my
head came in collision with the corner of a spar, for a time I lost all
consciousness.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

DECEMBER 22nd.--Daylight came at length, and the sun broke through and
dispersed the clouds that the storm had left behind. The struggle of the
elements, while it lasted, had been terrific, but the swoon into which
I was thrown by my fall, prevented me from observing the final incidents
of the visitation. All that I know is, that shortly after we had shipped
the heavy sea that I have mentioned, a shower of rain had the effect
of calming the severity of the hurricane, and tended to diminish the
electric tension of the atmosphere.

Thanks to the kind care of M. Letourneur and Miss Herbey, I recovered
consciousness, but I believe that it is to Robert Curtis that I owe my
real deliverance, for he it was that prevented me from being carried
away by a second heavy wave.

The tempest, fierce as it was, did not last more than a few hours;
but even in that short space of time what an irreparable loss we have
sustained, and what a load of misery seems stored up for us in the
future!

Of the two sailors who perished in the storm, one was Austin, a fine
active young man of about eight-and-twenty; the other was old O’Ready,
the survivor of so many ship wrecks. Our party is thus reduced to
sixteen souls, leaving a total barely exceeding half the number of those
who embarked on board the “Chancellor” at Charleston.

Curtis’s first care had been to take a strict account of the remnant of
our provisions. Of all the torrents of rain that fell in the night we
were unhappily unable to catch a single drop; but water will not fail us
yet, for about fourteen gallons still remain in the bottom of the broken
barrel, whilst the second barrel has not yet been touched. But of food
we have next to nothing. The cases containing the dried meat, and the
fish that we had preserved, have both been washed away, and all that now
remains to us is about sixty pounds of biscuit. Sixty pounds of biscuit
between sixteen persons! Eight days, with half a pound a day apiece,
will consume it all.

The day has passed away in silence. A general depression has fallen
upon all: the spectre of famine has appeared amongst us, and each
has remained wrapped in his own gloomy meditations, though each has
doubtless but one idea dominant in his mind.

Once, as I passed near the group of sailors lying on the fore part of
the raft, I heard Flaypole say with a sneer,--

“Those who are going to die had better make haste about it.”

“Yes,” said Owen, “leave their share of food to others.”

At the regular hour each person received his half-pound of biscuit.
Some, I noticed, swallowed it ravenously, others reserved it for another
time. Falsten divided his ration into several portions, corresponding,
I believe, to the number of meals to which he was ordinarily accustomed.
What prudence he shows! If any one survives this misery, I think it will
be he.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

DECEMBER 23rd to 30th--After the storm the wind settled back into its
old quarter, blowing pretty briskly from the north-east. As the breeze
was all in our favour it was important to make the most of it, and
after Dowlas had carefully readjusted the mast, the sail was once more
hoisted, and we were carried along at the rate of two or two and a half
knots an hour. A new rudder, formed of a spar and a good-sized plank,
has been fitted in the place of the one we lost, but with the wind in
its present quarter it is in little requisition. The platform of the
raft has been repaired, the disjointed planks have been closed by means
of ropes and wedges, and that portion of the parapet that was washed
away has been replaced, so that we are no longer wetted by the waves. In
fact, nothing has been left undone to insure the solidity of our raft,
and to render it capable of resisting the wear and tear of the wind and
waves. But the dangers of wind and waves are not those which we have
most to dread.

Together with the unclouded sky came a return of the tropical
heat, which during the preceding days had caused us such serious
inconvenience; fortunately on the 23rd the excessive warmth was somewhat
tempered by the breeze, and as the tent was once again put up, we were
able to find shelter under it by turns.

But the want of food was beginning to tell upon us sadly, and our sunken
cheeks and wasted forms were visible tokens of what we were enduring.
With most of us hunger seemed to attack the entire nervous system, and
the constriction of the stomach produced an acute sensation of pain. A
narcotic, such as opium or tobacco, might have availed to soothe, if not
to cure, the gnawing agony; but of sedatives we had none, so the pain
must be endured.

One alone there was amongst us who did not feel the pangs of hunger.
Lieutenant Walter seemed as it were to feed upon the fever that raged
within him; but then he was the victim of the most torturing thirst,
Miss Herbey, besides reserving for him a portion of her own insufficient
allowance, obtained from the captain a small extra supply of water, with
which every quarter of an hour she moistened the parched lips of the
young man, who almost too weak to speak, could only express his thanks
by a grateful smile. Poor fellow! all our care cannot avail to save him
now; he is doomed, most surely doomed to die.

On the 23rd he seemed to be conscious of his condition, for he made
a sign to me to sit down by his side, and then summoning up all his
strength to speak, he asked me in a few broken words how long I
thought he had to live? Slight as my hesitation was, Walter noticed it
immediately.

“The truth,” he said; “tell me the plain truth.”

“My dear fellow, I am not a doctor, you know,” I began, “and I can
scarcely judge--”

“Never mind,” he interrupted, “tell me just what you think.”

I looked at him attentively for some moments, then laid my ear against
his chest. In the last few days his malady had made fearfully rapid
strides, and it was only too evident that one lung had already ceased
to act, whilst the other was scarcely capable of performing the work of
respiration. The young man was now suffering from the fever which is the
sure symptom of the approaching end in all tuberculous complaints.

The lieutenant kept his eye fixed upon me with a look of eager inquiry.
I knew not what to say, and sought to evade his question.

“My dear boy,” I said, “in our present circumstances not one of us can
tell how long he has to live. Not one of us knows what may happen in the
course of the next eight days.”

“The next eight days,” he murmured, as he looked eagerly into my face.

And then, turning away his head, he seemed to fall into a sort of doze.

The 24th, 25th, and 26th passed without any alteration in our
circumstances, and strange, nay, incredible as it may sound, we began to
get accustomed to our condition of starvation. Often, when reading the
histories of shipwrecks, I have suspected the accounts to be greatly
exaggerated; but now I fully realize their truth, and marvel when I find
on how little nutriment it is possible to exist for so long a time. To
our daily half-pound of biscuit the captain has thought to add a few
drops of brandy, and the stimulant helps considerably to sustain our
strength. If we had the same provisions for two months, or even for one,
there might be room for hope; but our supplies diminish rapidly, and the
time is fast approaching when of food and drink there will be none.

The sea had furnished us with food once, and, difficult as the task of
fishing had now become, at all hazards the attempt must be made again.
Accordingly the carpenter and the boatswain set to work and made lines
out of some untwisted hemp, to which they fixed some nails that they
pulled out of the flooring of the raft, and bent into proper shape. The
boatswain regarded his device with evident satisfaction.

“I don’t mean to say,” said he to me, “that these nails are first-rate
fish-hooks; but one thing I do know, and that is, with proper bait they
will act as well as the best. But this biscuit is no good at all. Let me
but just get hold of one fish, and I shall know fast enough how to use
it to catch some more.”

And the true difficulty was how to catch the first fish. It was evident
that fish were not abundant in these waters, nevertheless the lines were
cast. But the biscuit with which they were baited dissolved at once in
the water, and we did not get a single bite. For two days the attempt
was made in vain, and as it only involved what seemed a lavish waste of
our only means of subsistence, it was given up in despair.

To-day, the 30th, as a last resource, the boatswain tried what a piece
of coloured rag might do by way of attracting some voracious fish, and
having obtained from Miss Herbey a little piece of the red shawl she
wears, he fastened it to his hook. But still no success; for when,
after several hours, he examined his lines, the crimson shred was still
hanging intact as he had fixed it. The man was quite discouraged at his
failure.

“But there will be plenty of bait before long,” he said to me in a
solemn undertone.

“What do you mean?” said I, struck by his significant manner.

“You’ll know soon enough,” he answered.

What did he insinuate? The words, coming from a man usually so reserved,
have haunted me all night.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

JANUARY 1st to 5th.--More than three months had elapsed since we left
Charleston in the “Chancellor,” and for no less than twenty days had
we now been borne along on our raft at the mercy of the wind and waves.
Whether we were approaching the American coast, or whether we were
drifting farther and farther to sea, it was now impossible to determine,
for, in addition to the other disasters caused by the hurricane, the
captain’s instruments had been hopelessly smashed, and Curtis had no
longer any compass by which to direct his course, nor a sextant by which
he might make an observation.

Desperate, however, as our condition might be judged, hope did not
entirely abandon our hearts, and day after day, hour after hour were
our eyes strained towards the horizon, and many and many a time did our
imagination shape out the distant land. But ever and again the illusion
vanished; a cloud, a mist, perhaps even a wave, was all that had
deceived us; no land, no sail ever broke the grey line that united sea
and sky, and our raft remained the centre of the wide and dreary waste.

On the 1st of January we swallowed our last morsel of biscuit. The
1st of January! New Year’s Day! What a rush of sorrowful recollections
overwhelmed our minds! Had we not always associated the opening of
another year with new hopes, new plans, and coming joys? And now, where
were we? Could we dare to look at one another, and breathe a new year’s
greeting?

T

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