Читать книгу The Secret of the Sands; Or, The "Water Lily" and her Crew - Harry Collingwood - Страница 9

After we had reverently laid the Spaniard to rest in his alien grave, I gave my friend Bob a full and accurate account of all that had passed, showing him at the same time the copious notes I had, at the earliest opportunity, jotted down to assist and refresh my memory in case I should ever find myself in a position to seek the hidden treasure.

But it is now necessary that I should introduce the dramatis persona who have already cast their shadows on the curtain; and this I will do with all possible brevity.

“Place aux dames.” Ada Collingwood, my darling and only sister, was at this time approaching her seventeenth year, and was a dainty specimen of lovely girlhood just budding into still lovelier womanhood. Her figure was petite, promising in due time to develop into the most faultless perfection of shape: and her laughing blue eyes and rich profusion of silky golden hair set off to perfection a face which, perhaps, no one would have dreamed of calling beautiful, any more than they would have dreamed of denying that it was charmingly piquant, and irresistibly pretty. Her temper was equable; she was gifted with a rich flow of animal spirits, and a keen perception of the ludicrous, which would have upset the gravity of the most confirmed hypochondriac.

Nevertheless, if occasion required it, her merry ringing laugh could be hushed, her joyous elasticity of movement could be subdued, and no one better than she could assume the rôle of the sick-nurse, or the tender and sympathising confidante of distress. And lastly, she adored, with a blind unreasoning idolatry for which there was no excuse, your humble servant, her unworthy brother.

Of myself, it becomes me not to say very much. I was just turned twenty-one: six feet high: and vanity whispered, in confirmation of my sister’s energetic and oft-repeated assertions, a trifle more than moderately good-looking. I was an only son (as my sister was an only daughter), and I had received my education at the Royal Naval School at Greenwich, with the understanding that I was to join my father on its completion, when he would continue and finish what is there so well begun, thus making me “every inch a sailor.”

On leaving school I joined my father (who was master and part owner of a fine dashing clipper), in the capacity of midshipman, and went some six or seven voyages with him: on the last of which, or rather a few days after its termination, I was seized with a violent attack of rheumatic fever, from which I had not recovered sufficiently to rejoin the ship by the time that she was once more ready for sea. I was consequently left at home under Ada’s care (my dear mother had been dead some years), to recover at leisure, and amuse myself as well as I could, until another voyage should be accomplished, and an opportunity once more offered for me to repossess myself of my quarters in the old familiar berth. That opportunity never arrived, for at the time my story opens, my father had been two years “missing.” He sailed from Canton with the first cargo of the new season’s teas, and from the moment that the good ship disappeared seaward she had never been heard of; not the faintest trace of a clue to the mystery of her fate having, so far, been discovered.

Bob Trunnion was a middle-aged man, of medium stature, great personal strength, and no very marked pretensions to beauty; but he was as thorough an old sea-dog as ever looked upon salt water. His visage was burnt to a deep brick-red by years of exposure to all sorts of weather; and his hair and beard, which had once been brown, were now changed to the hue of old oakum by the same process, except where, here and there, a slight sprinkling of grey discovered itself. He had been a sailor almost all his life; having “crept in through the hawse-pipe” when he was only twelve years old; since when, by close application, and perseverance, he had gradually worked his way aft to the quarter-deck. He joined my father’s ship as second mate, on the same voyage as I did, and on the following voyage took the chief mate’s, berth, in place of a man whom my father was compelled to discharge for confirmed drunkenness.

The last time that my poor father passed down Channel, outward-bound, Bob had the misfortune (as we thought it then), to fall off the poop and break his arm. It was what the surgeons call a compound fracture, and certainly looked to be a very ugly one; so, as the ship happened at the time to be off Saint Alban’s Head, my father ran into Weymouth roads, and sent Bob ashore to our house to be cured, and to bear me company; shipping in his stead the second mate, and picking up a new second mate somewhere about the town.

Thus it happened that Bob and I, old shipmates as we were, happened to be both away from our ship when her mysterious fate overtook her. As soon as we were both recovered, we sought and obtained berths, always in the same ship, for short voyages; returning home about once in every six weeks or two months, with the hope of hearing either that my father had returned, or that some news had arrived of him. For the last twelve months we had abandoned the former hope, but the latter would probably be many years before it finally took its flight.

This introduction and explanation are necessary to the understanding of what is to follow; and now, having fairly weathered them both, we may take up the thread of the story, and follow it out to the end without further interruption.

I have already said that I took an early opportunity to give Bob a detailed account of the Spaniard’s revelation to me. This was on the evening of the day on which we laid the poor fellow in his grave; and I told my story while we and my sister were seated comfortably round the fire after tea, with the curtains drawn close, and everything made snug for the night.

Bob listened with the utmost attention to my story (as did also my sister), occasionally requesting me to “say that again,” as some point in the narrative was reached which he wished to bear particularly in mind; and when I had finished he sat for some time staring meditatively between the bars of the grate.

At length, “Well, Harry, my lad, what do you intend to do?” said he.

“That,” replied I, “is just the point upon which I want your advice. If this story be true—”

“No fear about that,” said Bob. “It’s true enough. The thing’s as plain and circumstantial as the ship’s course when it’s pricked off upon the chart. There ain’t a kink in the yarn from end to end; it’s all coiled down as neat and snug as a new hawser in the ropemaker’s yard; and besides, dyin’ men don’t spin yarns with no truth in ’em, just for divarsion’s sake like.”

“Well,” said I, “I am disposed, with you, to think that the story is quite true; the man could have no object in telling it if it were not so. The question is, what is to be done in the matter?”

“Done!” exclaimed Ada, “why, what should be done, Harry, except that you go to this island, dig up the gold, bring it home, and live like a gentleman ever afterwards?”

This was Ada’s great ambition; that I should be placed in the position of a gentleman. She had a theory—whence derived I know not—that it was my destiny to become a man of unbounded means; and that my life was to be passed in an atmosphere of splendour and luxury only equalled by that enjoyed by the most favoured heroes of the “Arabian Nights.” And this was an entirely disinterested feeling on her part too; for though she would often laughingly prophesy what would happen “when I should become a rich man,” I never knew her to utter a word which suggested the idea that she would in any way be a gainer by my acquisition of wealth.

“More easily said than done, pet,” replied I, patting her soft cheek. “What is to become of you whilst I am gone?”

“Why, I shall stay here with Mrs. Moseley (our housekeeper) until your return, and be the first to welcome you back,” said she.

“Well,” replied I, “I think suitable arrangements for your comfort and safety could be made without much difficulty; but,” said I, appealing to Bob, “how is this gold to be got at and brought home in safety? I have not the means of purchasing a ship of my own; and if I had, do you think it would be safe to trust so much treasure with a crew, picked up though ever so carefully?”

“Ah! now you ’pawls me,” replied Bob, rubbing the back of his head reflectively. “I’ve sailed with crews as you might ha’ trusted with untold gold, at least I’ve thowt so at the time I was with ’em; but mayhap, if temptation was throwed in their way, they mightn’t be able to stand out agin it; there’s no gettin’ to the bottom o’ the heart o’ man. As to the ship, that’s easy enough. If you ain’t got the cash to buy, you can always charter?”

“True,” said I, “and if I could make sure of finding a sufficient number of thorough good men, that is the course I should be inclined to pursue. Do you think, Bob, that by diligent search we could find some six or eight really reliable men? The craft need not be a large one, you know—”

“There you’ve hit the solution of the enigmy, as the schoolmaster said,” replied Bob, bringing his clenched fist down upon my knee with an emphasis which impressed me for the remainder of the evening: “How much of that gold now do you reckon would make your fortune, lad? you’re pretty good at figures; just cipher it up and let’s hear?”

“How much!” exclaimed I; “oh, a very small portion of the whole cargo would satisfy me if I had it here at this moment.”

“How much?” persisted Bob. “Would a ton of it be enough for you, boy?”

“Yes, indeed,” laughed I; “a ton of pure gold—why, what do you suppose that would be worth, Bob?”

“Hain’t much of a idee,” replied he.

“A ton of pure gold,” said I, “is worth over one hundred thousand pounds, Bob; I believe one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds is nearer it’s value; though I cannot say for certain.”

“Then,” said Bob, “if we can manage to get, say, a couple of tons of it home, you will be satisfied—eh?”

“Perfectly,” I replied; “but how do you propose to accomplish this?” for I saw he had a scheme to bring forward.

“Nothing easier,” replied Bob. “Build a little craft big enough to accommodate the two of us; with room to stow away our grub and water, and the two tons of gold; and up anchor and away.”

“But,” said I, “you forget that this island is somewhere in the Pacific. Such a craft as you speak of would be totally unfit for the voyage we contemplate.”

“Why?” inquired Bob.

“Why?” repeated I, astonished at the question. “Simply because we should never get across the Bay of Biscay in her, to say nothing of the remainder of the voyage.”

“Why not?” demanded Bob, rather pugnaciously.

“Do you mean to say,” I retorted, “that you can sit there and propose in cold blood such a hair-brained scheme as that we two should undertake a voyage to the Pacific in a mere boat?”

“I do,” replied Bob emphatically. “That’s a simple way out of all your difficulties. The craft will be your own; there will be no risk of the crew rising upon us for the sake of our cargo; and nobody to say ‘What are we doing here?’ or ‘What do you want there?’ Why, it will be a mere pleasure trip from end to end, all play and no work, leastways none to speak on!”

“But, my dear fellow, do be serious,” protested I. “You know, as well as I do, that we should be swamped the first time we fell in with a capful of wind.”

“Maybe we should, if we went to work like a couple of know-nothing land-lubbers,” retorted Bob; “but if we went to work like seamen, as we are, I should like to know what’s to purvent our sailing round the world if we like! Answer me that.”

“Come, Bob, old man, let us hear the full extent of your proposition,” said I. “I know that, whatever it may be, it will be the proposal of a thorough seaman, for if any one could carry out the wild scheme you have suggested, you are the man.”

“ ’Tain’t such a very wild scheme neither,” replied Bob. “Answer me this. How many people was saved from the London when she foundered in the Bay of Biscay?”

“Nineteen, if I remember rightly,” replied I.

“Very well; now if a small boat of about twenty-five feet long or thereabouts, open, mind you, from stem to starn, could live twenty hours with nineteen people in her, as the London’s pinnace did, in weather that the old ship herself couldn’t stand up agin, how long will a full-decked boat of, say, thirty to thirty-five feet long, carefully constructed, and in good trim, live with only two men in her? And warn’t I,” continued he, “nineteen days alone in an open boat in the South Atlantic; and didn’t I make a v’y’ge of a thousand miles in her afore I struck soundings at Saint Helena?”

This last question referred to an adventure which had befallen Bob in his younger days, on an occasion when he had been cruelly deserted in a sinking ship by the rest of the crew, and had made his escape, as described by himself, after enduring unheard-of suffering.

“Then,” questioned I, “you seriously entertain the belief that the scheme you have suggested is practicable?”

“With ease and comfort,” replied Bob. “Now look here, Harry. You can afford to build a craft such as I have described, and fit her out for the v’y’ge, and still leave money enough at home to keep sauce-box here” (indicating Ada, who was to him as the apple of his eye) “comfortable and happy like till we come back. You’ve a rare eye for a sea-boat, and mine ain’t bad, for that matter; let’s draught her out ourselves, since it’s our own lives as we are going to trust in her; and if we don’t turn out, between us, as pretty a sea-boat as ever floated, why, turn to and lay me up in ordinary for the rest of my days for a useless old hulk, that’s all. A boat thirty feet long, decked all over, and carefully designed, can’t sink, boy, because we can easily arrange matters so as to keep her dry inside; she’ll ride as light as a gull and as dry as a bone when big ships is making bad weather of it, and as for the matter of capsizing, bein’ run down, or cast away, why they’re dangers as we are liable to in any ship, and must be guarded against in every craft, large or small; and our little barkie would carry comfortable all we should want for the v’y’ge, for we could touch here and there out and home to make good deficiencies, and we two are men enough to handle her in all weathers. Rig her as a cutter, boy. I was once’t aboard a cutter yacht in a trip up the Mediterranean, and you’ve no idea what a handy rig it is, once you’re used to it. And the way them cutters ’ll hug the wind—why ’twould make a difference of nigh on a couple of thousand miles, out and home, in the length of the passage.”

I began to be infected with Bob’s enthusiasm. The scheme, which had at first appeared to me as the very acme of fool-hardiness, now, under the influence of Bob’s eloquence, gradually assumed an appearance of reasonableness, and a promising prospect of success, which was very fascinating. Nevertheless, I could not but remember that the proposed voyage would take us into latitudes subject to the most frightful and sudden tempests, and I could not help thinking (as I pointed out to Bob) that our cockle-shell would stand but a poor chance in a cyclone or a black squall.

“Look here, Harry, my boy,” remarked Bob gravely, “as I propose to ship on this here v’y’ge as chief mate, I ain’t likely to forget that there’s such dangers as them you’ve just mentioned. But suppose you was to cork up a bottle, or clap the lid on an empty biscuit-tin, and heave ’em overboard, do you think they’d live through one or t’other? In course they would, because salt water can’t get inside of ’em, and as long as they keep dry holds they’ll float, let the weather be what it will, and so ’ll our craft, for the same reason. And when the weather’s too bad to sail the barkie, we can heave her to, and when it’s too bad for that we can anchor her, my boy, go below, slide on the top of the companion, and turn in until the weather clears up.”

“But,” said I, “we cannot anchor in the middle of the Atlantic. Suppose we should be caught in a cyclone there, for instance?”

“We can anchor there, lad, with a floating anchor, which will keep her head to wind; and with everything snug aloft and on deck, and a floating-anchor ahead with about sixty fathoms of cable veered out, she would ride out in safety any gale that ever blew out of the heavens.”

This last remark closed the case, and secured a verdict for the defendant. I knew that every word Bob spoke was literally true, and the audacity of the enterprise so fascinated me that I resolved on the spot to undertake it, if it should be found, on going into details, that a craft, capable of being handled by our two selves, could stow away, without being overloaded, such provisions, etc., as we should need for the voyage.

The following morning, immediately after breakfast, I got out my drawing-board, strained a sheet of paper upon it, and, with Bob at my side to give me the benefit of his opinion upon every line I traced upon the paper, set to in earnest to design the little craft in which we proposed to embark on our adventurous voyage.

Before putting a line upon paper, however, we settled the plan of her internal arrangements. It was our intention to make her lines as fine as her respective dimensions would permit; she was to be, in fact, a small yacht. We knew that every vessel with sharp lines must necessarily be wet, unless the weights she would have to carry were all concentrated about her midship section, or broadest part, so we decided that as far as was practicable such should be the arrangement with us; and we knew that, if we could succeed in this, our barkie might be as sharp as we could make her, and still be dry and comfortable. We accordingly prepared a list of our requirements, as far as we could think of them, calculated the space they and the ballast: would occupy, and then roughly sketched out the proposed lines. These were altered, rearranged, and improved upon time after time, until at length we felt we had got them as near perfection as the dimensions of the boat and our own knowledge would carry us. And I may as well say at once that throughout the entire voyage we never had the slightest reason to think our little vessel could be in any way improved upon by alteration.

It is not probable that so long a voyage as ours will be often undertaken again in such a very small craft as we accomplished it in; but there are many men, I have no doubt, who would gladly receive a hint as to the most advantageous form for a small boat in which they might safely adventure, alone, or with a friend, a cruise, say round the British Isles, or across the Channel and along the French coast; and therefore, as this story is written for the amusement only of such people as love boats, I think I may venture to trespass so far on my readers’ patience as to give such a hint in the shape of a brief description of the Water Lily, as Ada christened her.

She was, then, thirty-six feet long, and twelve feet beam on the water-line; but, in designing her midship section, we caused her sides to swell out boldly above water, so that her greatest beam was fourteen feet, at a point one foot six inches above the water-line. At this point her side tumbled home two inches as it was carried upwards to her deck, and from the same point the side curved quickly inwards and downwards until it met the water-line, when it swept under water with an almost imperceptible curve for some distance, and then took a moderately quick bend downwards to meet her keel. This gave us a vessel in shape very much like the centre-board model of boat, but with a deep keel, and consequently great lateral resistance, and space low down in the hull for the stowage of ballast. We thus secured a very small displacement, a light buoyant hull, extraordinary stability, and a fair amount of power.

The hull was divided into three compartments by bulkheads with wide doors which, if necessary, we could close water-tight. In the fore compartment we decided to place nothing except the smallest and lightest cooking-stove we could find. In the midship compartment it was intended to stow our ballast, water-tank, provisions, the chain-cables, and in fact everything which we could possibly place there, leaving only a narrow passage amidships to pass to and fro. The after compartment we intended to make our cabin, and there we arranged also to sling our hammocks. It will easily be understood that there was not an inch of spare room anywhere; but as our lives would be spent almost entirely on deck, we did not mind that very much.

Having designed our craft, the next question was, who should build her? Bob was strongly in favour of having her built in the town, so that we might oversee the laying of every plank, and the driving of every nail; but I knew there were firms who could safely be trusted to honestly put the best of work and material into the little vessel without being watched; and I determined to put her into the hands of a very celebrated firm of London boat builders.

Accordingly, Bob and I ran up to town, taking my sister with us for a holiday, and on the morning after our arrival, having seen Ada safely disposed of for the day with some friends of ours, we two men set out for the building-yard.

I placed our design in the hands of the principal, telling him at the same time that we wanted a boat of those dimensions, and, if possible, built on those lines, and that she was intended to keep at sea in all weathers.

He looked rather surprised at the last stipulation; but after carefully examining the drawing, and asking us our reasons for certain little peculiarities of shape, he confessed that, as far as his experience went, he could frankly say he had never seen a model better adapted for the purpose.

“And yet, gentlemen,” said he, “she will be wonderfully fast, for, in the first place, her hull is of such a shape that it will offer but a trifling resistance to forward motion; and, in the next place, these overhanging top-sides will give her such extraordinary stability, as soon as she begins to heel over, that you will be able to carry enormous sails.”

We were very glad to hear our own judgment thus confirmed by a man, part of whose business it was to form a correct opinion with respect to the points upon which he had touched, and we said as much.

He took a great deal of interest in what must, after all, have been a very trifling matter to him; and both Bob and I had reason often afterwards to congratulate ourselves that we had confided the building of our boat to such good hands.

He proposed that she should be composite built; that is, that for the sake of lightness and strength combined, her frame should be of steel, with an inner skin of thin steel plate, and an outer planking of two thicknesses of mahogany. The ribs were to be arranged diagonally, crossing the keel at an angle of forty-five degrees, and intersecting each other at right angles, thus converting her entire frame into a sort of lattice-work girder.

It was arranged that all the fastenings of the inner thickness of planking should be of iron, whilst the outside planks should be secured with copper fastenings. The utmost care was exercised (and, as experience proved, with complete success) to prevent the slightest approach to galvanic action, and one of the precautions taken was, I remember well, the painting of the inner planking with melted india-rubber, which was laid on coat after coat until there was about one-sixteenth of an inch of the rubber between the outer and inner planks.

As we did not intend to sail until the following summer, the builder had about eight months in which to put our little ship together, a circumstance at Which he expressed great satisfaction, as he said it would enable him to pick and choose his materials, and put careful work into her.

We arranged, at the same time, for the construction of a boat to take with us, as we felt that in the event of any untoward accident happening, we ought to have something to take to for the saving of our lives, and we knew also that there would be many occasions when we should require something to answer the purposes which a boat answers with regard to a ship.

The designing of this boat was beset by difficulties, all originating in one, viz., want of space in which to stow her. To think of carrying her on deck was out of the question, as the deck was not spacious enough, in the first place, to receive such a boat as we wanted; and even had it been, there was no chance of its remaining there; it would have been carried away by the first sea which swept over us. We required something large enough to carry us both, and a stock of provisions in addition, so that should it be necessary to abandon the Water Lily, we might hope to reach land, or fall in with a ship. We also wanted something that should be essentially a life-boat, whilst she should also be very fast. How to obtain all these desiderata, and at the same time overcome the difficulty in respect to room, we knew not. But, resolved not to be baffled, we set our wits to work, and at length schemed out a design of an exceedingly novel character, which proved in all respects a most brilliant success.

Two hollow steel cylinders, of very thin metal, twenty-six feet long and one foot diameter in the centre, tapering gradually away to nothing at each end, were constructed in thirteen lengths of two feet each. These lengths, being of different diameters, stowed one within the other, thus taking up very little room indeed. In either end of each length was inserted a narrow band of metal thick enough to allow of a worm and screw, so that all the lengths of each cylinder could be screwed together perfectly water-tight. A light steel framework of simple arrangement connected the two cylinders together, at a distance of six feet apart, with their centre lines parallel, and supported, at a height of two feet above the top of the cylinders a light stage ten feet long and six feet wide. On the top of the stage, and connected with the framework, was a step for a mast, and a gammon-iron for a bowsprit, and underneath the stage was a centre-board which we could lower or raise at pleasure. A broad rudder, fixed to the after-part of the stage, completed the design.

We spent a fortnight in London, and, having witnessed the laying of the Water Lily’s keel, and inspected some of the timber which the builder proposed to use in her construction, I saw Ada safe home again, leaving Bob in London to look out for a ship, which, when I rejoined him a couple of days afterwards, he had found.

We shipped in her for a voyage to Constantinople and Trebizond, which occupied us for eight months, and when we returned to London, on the termination of this voyage, we found the Water Lily completed, with the exception of a few finishing touches, which the workmen were then giving her.