Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

“You’d better bale it out than curse it,” said Gaff sternly; for he felt that if there was to be anything attempted he must conquer his desperate companion.

The man drew his knife. Gaff, noticing the movement, leaped up, and catching hold of the tiller, which Billy handed to him with alacrity, faced his opponent.

“Now, Graddy,” he said, in the tone of a man who has thoroughly made up his mind, “we’ll settle this question right off. One of us must submit. If fair means won’t do, foul shall be used. You may be bigger than me, but I don’t think ye’re stronger: leastwise ye’ll ha’ to prove it. Now, then, pitch that knife overboard.”

Instead of obeying, Graddy hurled it with all his force into Gaff’s chest. Fortunately the handle and not the point struck him, else had the struggle been brief and decisive. As it was, the captain followed up his assault with a rush at his opponent, who met him with a heavy blow from the tiller, which the other received on his left arm, and both men closed in a deadly struggle. The little boat swayed about violently, and the curling seas came over her edge so frequently that Billy began to fear they would swamp in a few moments. He therefore seized the baling-dish, and began to bale for his life while the men fought.

Gaff soon proved to be the better man, for he finally flung the captain over the middle thwart and almost broke his back.

“Now, do ye give in?” he shouted fiercely, as he compressed the other’s throat with both hands.

Graddy gasped that he did; so Gaff allowed him to rise, and bade him take the baling-dish from the boy and set to work without delay.

The wretched man was so thoroughly cowed that he thereafter yielded instant obedience to his companion.

The wind was blowing furiously by this time, and the waves were running high, so that it required constant baling, and the utmost care in steering, to keep the boat from being swamped. Fortunately the storm was accompanied by heavy rain, so that by catching a little of this in their jackets and caps, they succeeded in quenching their thirst. Hunger they had scarcely felt up to this time, but soon the cravings of nature began to be imperious, and Gaff served out the first ration, on the short allowance scale, which was so small that it served only to whet their appetites. There was no need to row now. It was absolutely necessary to run before the wind, which was so strong that a single oar, set up in the place where the mast should have been, was sufficient to cause the light craft to fly over the waves.

Each took the helm for a couple of hours by turns. Thus employed they spent the day, and still thus employed the dark night found them.

Bad though things looked when there was light enough to enable them to see the rush of the black clouds overhead, the bursts of the driving spray and the tumultuous heavings of the wild sea, it was inconceivably worse when the darkness settled down so thick that they could barely see each other’s faces, and the steering had to be done more by feeling, as it were, than sight. Gaff took the helm during the greater part of the night, and the other two baled incessantly; but the gale increased so much that the water at last came in faster than it could be thrown out, and they expected to be swamped every instant.

“We’re goin’ down, daddy,” said Billy, while a strong inclination to burst into tears almost choked him.

“Here, lad,” shouted Gaff in a loud voice, for the noise of the wind and waves rendered any other sound almost inaudible, “take the helm and keep her right before the wind. Ye used to steer well; do yer best now, my boy.”

While he spoke Billy obeyed, and his father sprang into the middle of the boat, and grasped the three oars and boat-hook with which the boat was supplied. There were two small sails, which he wrapped hastily round these, and then tied them all together tightly with a piece of rope. In this operation he was assisted by Graddy, who seemed to understand what his comrade meant to do.

The boat was now half full of water.

“Down the helm—hard down,” roared Gaff.

“Ay, ay, sir,” responded Billy, with the ready promptitude of a seaman.

The boat flew round; at the same moment Gaff hurled the bundle of sails and spars overboard, and eased off the coil of rope to the end of which it was attached. In a few seconds it was about forty yards away to windward, and formed a sort of floating breakwater, which, slight though it was, proved to be sufficient to check the full force of the seas, so that the little boat found partial shelter to leeward.

The shelter was terribly slight, however; only just sufficient to save them from absolute destruction; and it was still necessary for one of their number to be constantly employed in baling out the water.

During the night the clouds cleared away, but there was no abatement of the wind; and having no water they were obliged to eat their allowance of biscuit either in a dry state or moistened in the sea.

Next day the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and all day it shone upon them fiercely, and the wind moderated enough to render baling unnecessary, but still they did not dare to haul in their floating bulwark.

Extreme thirst now assailed them, and Graddy began in an excited state to drink copiously of salt water.

“Don’t go for to do that, cap’n,” remonstrated Gaff.

A derisive laugh was the only reply.

Presently Graddy arose, and going into the head of the boat, took up the baling-dish and again drank deeply of the sea-water. “Ha! ha!” he laughed, tossing his arms wildly in the air, and gazing at Gaff with the glaring eyes of a maniac, “that’s the nectar for me. Come, boys, I’ll sing you a ditty.”

With that he burst into a roaring bacchanalian song, and continued to shout, and yell, and drink the brine until he was hoarse. But he did not seem to get exhausted; on the contrary, his eyes glared more and more brightly, and his face became scarlet as the fires that were raging within him increased in intensity.

Billy clung to his father, and looked at the captain in speechless horror. Even Gaff himself felt an overpowering sense of dread creep over him, for he now knew that he had to deal with a raving maniac. Not knowing what to do, he sat still and silent in the stern of the boat with the tiller in his hand, and his eyes fixed immovably on those of the madman, who seemed to feel that it was a trial as to which should stare the other down, for he soon gave up singing and drinking, and devoted all his energies of body and soul to glaring at his enemy.

Thus they continued until the sun began to set. Then Gaff’s heart sank within him, for he felt sure that, whenever it was too dark for each to see the other, the madman would summon up courage to make a sudden attack.

The attack, however, was precipitated by Gaff inadvertently glancing over his shoulder to observe how far the sun had yet to descend.

Instantly, with the leap of a panther, Graddy was upon him with both hands grasping tightly at his throat. Down, down, he pressed him, until Gaff lay on his back with his head over the gunwale. His strength now availed him nothing, for unnatural energy nerved the madman’s arm.

Billy sprang up and tried to disengage him from his grasp. As well might the rabbit try to unlock the boa’s deadly coil. Wrenching the tiller from his father’s grasp he hit the madman on the head with all his might; but the poor boy’s might was small. The blow seemed to have no effect at all. Again and again he brought it down in an agony of haste lest his father should be strangled before the other was felled. At last he hit him with all his force behind the ear, and Graddy’s grasp relaxed as he fell prone on the body of his insensible victim.

To pull him off and haul his father into a more convenient position was the work of a few seconds.

“O daddy, daddy, speak to me,” he cried, loosening his father’s neckcloth and unbuttoning his shirt. “Oh, quick! get better before he does,” cried Billy wildly, as he shook his father and laved water on his face; “oh! he’ll get well first and kill you.”

In order to do all that lay in his power to prevent this, Billy suddenly sprang up, and, seizing the tiller, dealt the prostrate Graddy several powerful blows on the head. It is not improbable that the frightened boy would have settled the question of his recovery then and there had not his father revived, and told him to stop.

For some minutes Gaff sat swaying about in a confused manner, but he was roused to renewed action by seeing Graddy move.

“We must hold him now, Billy. Is there a bit of rope about?”

“Not a inch, you tied it all round the oars.”

“It’s awkward. However, here’s my necktie. It an’t strong, but it’s better than nothin’.”

Gaff was about to take it off when Graddy recovered suddenly and attempted to rise. The others sprang on him and held him down; but they did so with difficulty, for he was still very strong.

All that night did they sit and hold him, while he raved and sang or struggled as the humour seized him. They did not dare to relax their hold for a moment; because, although he lay sometimes quite still for a lengthened period, he would burst forth again without warning and with increased fury.

And still, while they sat thus holding down the maniac, the wind blew fiercely over the raging sea, and the waves curled over and burst upon their tiny breakwater, sending clouds of spray over their head, insomuch that, ere morning, the boat was nearly half full of water.

When morning at last broke, father and son were so much exhausted that they could scarcely sit up, and their cramped fingers clung, more by necessity than by voluntary effort, to the garments of the now dying man.

Graddy was still active and watchful, however. His face was awful to look upon, and the fire of his restless eyes was unabated. When the sun rose above the horizon both Gaff and Billy turned their weary eyes to look at it. The madman noted the action, and seized the opportunity. He sprang with an unearthly yell, overturned them both, and plunged head foremost into the sea.

Twice he rose and gave vent to a loud gurgling cry, while Gaff and his son seized the rope attached to the oars, intending to pull them in and row to his assistance, for he had leaped so far out that he was beyond their reach. But before they had pulled in half of the cable the wretched man had disappeared from their view for ever.

Slacking off the rope they let the boat drift astern again to its full extent. Then, without a word, without even a look, father and son lay down together in the stern-sheets, and were instantly buried in a profound deathlike slumber.

Chapter Twenty.

The Voyage of the Bottle

The little fragile craft which Stephen Gaff sent adrift upon the world of waters freighted with its precious document, began its long voyage with no uncertainty as to its course, although to the eye of man it might have appeared to be the sport of uncertain waves and breezes.

When the bottle fell upon the broad bosom of the South Pacific, it sank as if its career were to end at the beginning; but immediately it re-appeared with a leap, as if the imprisoned spirit of the atmosphere were anxious to get out. Then it settled down in its watery bed until nothing but the neck and an inch of the shoulder was visible above the surface. Thus it remained; thus it floated in the deep, in storm and calm, in heat and cold; thus it voyaged more safely, though not more swiftly, than all the proud ships that spread their lofty canvas to the breeze, night and day, for weeks and months, ay, and years together—not irregularly, not at haphazard, but steadily, perseveringly, in strict obedience to the undeviating laws which regulate the currents in the ocean and the air as truly and unchangeably as they do the circulation of the blood in the human frame.

The bottle started from that part of the South Pacific which is known to mariners as the Desolate Region—so called from the circumstance of that part of the sea being almost entirely destitute of animal life. Here it floated slowly, calmly, but surely, to the eastward with the great oceanic current, which, flowing from the regions of the antarctic sea, in that part sweeps round the southern continent of America, and makes for the equator by way of the southern Atlantic Ocean.