The Lifeboat - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best short books to read TXT) 📗

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His intention was in the first place to go to London and visit the "Three Jolly Tars," where, he doubted not, every possible and conceivable sort of information in regard to shipping could be obtained.

There chanced at the time to be a certain small collier lying in the downs, awaiting a fair wind to carry her into the port of London. This collier (a schooner) was named the "Butterfly," perhaps because the owner had a hazy idea that there was some resemblance between an insect flitting about from flower to flower and a vessel sailing from port to port! Black as a chimney from keelson to truck, she was as like to a butterfly as a lady's hand is to a monkey's paw.

The skipper of the "Butterfly" was a friend of Bluenose, and knew Tommy. He at once agreed to give him a passage to London, and never thought of asking questions.

Soon after the boy went aboard the wind changed to the south-west; the "Butterfly" spread her black wings, bore away to the nor'ard, and doubled the North Foreland, where she was becalmed, and left to drift with the tide just as night was closing in.

"I'm tired, Jager" (this was the skipper's name); "I'll go below and take a snooze," said Tommy, "for I've lots o' work before me to-morrow."

So Tommy went below and fell asleep. The three men who formed the crew of this dingy craft lay down on the deck, the night being fine, and also fell asleep, Jager being at the helm.

Now Jager was one of those careless, easy-going, reckless seamen, who, by their folly, ignorance, and intemperance are constantly bringing themselves to the verge of destruction.

He sat near the tiller gazing up at the stars dreamily for some time; then he looked round the horizon, then glanced at the compass and up at the sails, which hung idly from the yards, after which he began to mutter to himself in low grumbling tones--

"Goin' to blow from the nor'ard. Ay, allers blows the way I don't want it to. Driftin' to the southward too. If this lasts we'll drift on the Sands. Comfr'able to think on, that is. Come, Jager, don't you go for to git into the blues. Keep up yer sperits, old boy!"

Acting on his own suggestion, the skipper rose and went below to a private locker, in which he kept a supply of rum,--his favourite beverage. He passed Tommy Bogey on the way. Observing, that the boy was sleeping soundly, he stopped in front of him and gazed long into his face with that particularly stupid expression which is common to men who are always more or less tipsy.

"Sleep away, my lad, it'll do ye good."

Accompanying this piece of unnecessary advice with a sagacious nod of the head, the skipper staggered on and possessed himself of a case-bottle about three-quarters full of rum, with which he returned to the deck and began to drink.

While he was thus employed, a breeze sprang up from the north-east.

"Ease off the sheets there, you lubbers!" shouted the drunken man, as he seized the tiller and looked at the compass. "What! sleeping again, Bunks? I'll rouse ye, _I_ will."

With that, in a burst of anger, he rushed forward and gave one of the sleepers a severe kick in the ribs. Bunks rose sulkily, and with a terrible imprecation advised the skipper "not to try that again"; to which the skipper retorted, that if his orders were not obeyed more sharply, he would not only try it again, but he would "chuck him overboard besides."

Having applied a rope's-end to the shoulders of one of the other sleepers, he repeated his orders to ease off the sheets, as the wind was fair, and staggered back to his place at the helm.

"Why, I do believe it is a sou'-wester," he muttered to himself, attempting in vain to read the compass.

It was in reality north-east, but Jager's intellects were muddled; he made it out to be south-west and steered accordingly, almost straight before it. The three men who formed the crew of the little vessel were so angry at the treatment they had received, that they neither cared nor knew how the ship's head lay. A thick mist came down about the same time, and veiled the lights which would otherwise have soon revealed the fact that the skipper had made a mistake.

"Why, wot on airth ails the compass?" muttered Jager, bending forward intently to gaze at the instrument, which, to his eye, seemed to point in all directions at once; "come, I'll have another pull at the b-bottle to steady me."

He grasped the bottle to carry out this intention, but in doing so thrust the helm down inadvertently. The schooner came up to the wind at once, and as the wind had freshened to a stiff breeze and a great deal of canvas was set, she heeled violently over to starboard. The skipper was pitched into the lee scuppers, and the case-bottle of rum was shivered to atoms before he had time to taste a drop.

"Mind your helm!" roared Bunks, savagely. "D'ye want to send us to the bottom?"

The man sprang to the helm, and accompanied his remark with several fierce oaths, which need not be repeated, but which had the effect of rousing Jager's anger to such a pitch, that he jumped up and hit the sailor a heavy blow on the face.

"I'll stop your swearin', I will," he cried, preparing to repeat the blow, but the man stepped aside and walked forward, leaving his commander alone on the quarter-deck.

Bunks, who was a small but active man, was a favourite with the other two men who constituted the crew of the "Butterfly," and both of whom were strong-limbed fellows. Their anger at seeing him treated thus savagely knew no bounds. They had long been at deadly feud with Jager. One of them, especially (a tall, dark, big-whiskered man named Job), had more than once said to his comrades that he would be the death of the skipper yet. Bunks usually shook his head when he heard these threats, and said, "It wouldn't pay, unless he wanted to dance a hornpipe on nothing," which was a delicate reference to being hung.

When the two men saw Bunks come forward with blood streaming from his mouth, they looked at each other and swore a tremendous oath.

"Will ye lend a hand, Jim?" sputtered Job between his clenched teeth.

Jim nodded.

"No, no," cried Bunks, interposing, but the two men dashed him aside and rushed aft.

Their purpose, whatever it might have been, was arrested for a moment by Bunks suddenly shouting at the top of his lungs--

"Light on the starboard bow!"

"That's a lie," said Jager, savagely; "use yer eyes, you land-lubber."

"We're running straight on the North Foreland," cried Job, who, with his companion, suddenly stopped and gazed round them out ahead in alarm.

"The North Foreland, you fool," cried the skipper roughly, "who ever saw the North Foreland light on the starboard bow, with the ship's head due north?"

"I don't believe 'er head _is_ due north," said Job, stepping up to the binnacle, just as Tommy Bogey, aroused by the sudden lurch of the vessel and the angry voices, came on deck.

"Out o' the way," cried Jager roughly, hitting Job such a blow on the head that he sent him reeling against the lee bulwarks.

The man, on recovering himself, uttered a fierce yell, and rushing on the skipper, seized him by the throat with his left hand, and drove his right fist into his face with all his force.

Jager, although a powerful man, and, when sober, more than a match for his antagonist, was overborne and driven with great violence against the binnacle, which, being of inferior quality and ill secured, like everything else in the miserable vessel, gave way under his weight, and the compass was dashed to pieces on the deck.

Jim ran to assist his comrade, and Bunks attempted to interfere. Fortunately, Tommy Bogey's presence of mind did not forsake him. He seized the tiller while the men were fighting furiously, and steered away from the light, feeling sure that, whatever it might be, the wisest thing to be done was to steer clear of it.

He had not got the schooner quite before the wind when a squall struck her, and laid her almost on her beam-ends. The lurch of the vessel sent the struggling men against the taffrail with great violence. The skipper's back was almost broken by the shock, for his body met the side of the vessel, and the other two were thrown upon him. Job took advantage of his opportunity: seizing Jager by the leg, he suddenly lifted him over the iron rail, and hurled him into the sea. There was one wild shriek and a heavy plunge, and the miserable man sank to rise no more.

It is impossible to describe the horror of the poor boy at the helm when he witnessed this cold-blooded murder. Bold though he was, and accustomed to face danger and witness death in some of its most appalling forms, he could not withstand the shock of such a scene of violence perpetrated amid the darkness and danger of a stormy night at sea. His first impulse was to run below, and get out of sight of the men who had done so foul a deed; but reflecting that they might, in their passion, toss him into the sea also if he were to show his horror, he restrained himself, and stood calmly at his post.

"Come, out o' the way, younker," cried Job, seizing the helm.

Tommy shrank from the man, as if he feared the contamination of his touch.

"You young whelp, what are ye affeared on? eh!"

He aimed a blow at Tommy, which the latter smartly avoided.

"Murderer!" cried the boy, rousing himself suddenly, "you shall swing for this yet."

"Shall I? eh! Here, Jim, catch hold o' the tiller."

Jim obeyed, and Job sprang towards Tommy, but the latter, who was lithe and active as a kitten, leaped aside and avoided him. For five minutes the furious man rushed wildly about the deck in pursuit of the boy, calling on Bunks to intercept him, but Bunks would not stir hand or foot, and Jim could not quit the helm, for the wind had increased to a gale; and as there was too much sail set, the schooner was flying before it with masts, ropes, and beams creaking under the strain.

"Do your worst," cried Tommy, during a brief pause, "you'll never catch me. I defy you, and will denounce you the moment we got into port."

"Will you? then you'll never get into port alive," yelled Job, as he leaped down the companion, and returned almost instantly, with one of the skipper's pistols.

He levelled it and fired, but the unsteady motion of the vessel caused him to miss his aim. He was about to descend for another pistol, when the attention of all on board was attracted by a loud roar of surf.

"Breakers ahead!" roared Bunks.

This new danger--the most terrible, with perhaps the exception of fire, to which a seaman can be exposed--caused all hands to forget the past in the more awful present. The