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

cast about in his mind what was best to be done.

His first idea was to construct a raft. He had just begun this laborious work when the rising tide lifted the schooner over the sand-bank, and sent her off into deep water. This raised Tommy's hopes and spirits to an unnaturally high pitch; he trimmed the foresail--the only one left--as well as he could, and then, seizing the tiller, kept the vessel running straight before the wind.

Standing thus at the helm he began to reflect on his position, and the reflection did not tend to comfort him. He was out in a gale on the stormy sea, without companions, without compass to guide him, and steering he knew not whither--possibly on rocks or shoals. This latter idea induced him to attempt to lie-to till day-break, but the crippled condition of the schooner rendered this impossible. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to run before the gale.

In a short time his attention was attracted to a peculiar sound in the hold. On examination he found that the vessel had sprung a leak, and that the water was rising slowly but steadily. The poor boy's heart sank, and for the first time his courage began to give way; but quickly recovering himself he lashed the helm in position, and manfully set to work at the pump. He was somewhat relieved to find that the leak was small. In an hour he had pumped out nearly all the water. Then he returned to the helm and rested there for an hour, at the end of which the water in the hold had increased so much that he had to ply the pump again.

The day broke while he was thus engaged, but the morning was so thick that he could see no land. On returning to the helm the second time, Tommy felt that this state of things could not go on much longer. The excitement, the watching, the horrors of the past night were beginning to tell on him. His muscles were exhausted, and he felt an irresistible desire to sleep. He struggled against this till about noon, by which time the wind had moderated to a steady breeze, and the sun shone through the mist as if to cheer him up a little.

He had eaten nothing for many hours, as he did not dare to quit his post to go below for food, lest the schooner should come suddenly on some other vessel and be run down. Hunger and exhaustion, however, soon rendered him desperate; he ran below, seized a handful of biscuit, filled a can with water, and returned hastily on deck to break his fast. It was one of the sweetest meals he ever ate, and refreshed him so much that he was able to go on alternately steering and pumping till late in the afternoon. Then he suddenly broke down. Exhausted nature could bear up no longer. He lashed the helm, pumped out the water in the hold for the last time, and went below to rest.

He was half asleep as he descended the companion-ladder. A strange and sad yet dreamy feeling that everything he did was "for the last time," weighed heavily on his spirit, but this was somehow relieved by the knowledge that he was now at last about to _rest_! There was delight in that simple thought, though there mingled with it a feeling that the rest would terminate in death; he lay down to sleep with a feeling that he lay down to die, and a half-formed prayer escaped his lips as his wearied head fell upon the pillow.

Instantly he was buried in deep repose.

The sun sank in the ocean, the stars came out and spangled all the sky, and the moon rose and sank again, but Tommy lay, regardless of everything, in profound slumber. Again the sun arose on a sea so calm that it seemed like oil, ascended into the zenith, and sank towards its setting. Still the boy continued to sleep, his young head resting quietly on the pillow of the dead skipper; his breath coming gently and regularly through the half-opened lips that smiled as if he were resting in peace on his mother's bosom.

Being dashed on the rocks, or run into by steamers, or whelmed in the waves, were ideas that troubled him not, or, if they did, they were connected only with the land of dreams. Thus the poor boy rested calmly in the midst of danger--yet in safety, for the arm of God was around him.


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.


THE ANTIPODES.

A new scene breaks upon us now, patient reader. We are among the antipodes in that vast and wonderful region where the kangaroo reigns in the wilderness, and gold is sown broadcast in the land. The men we see are, to a large extent, the same men we saw before leaving the shores of Old England, but they are wonderfully changed! Red flannel shirts, long boots, leathern belts, felt hats, and unshorn chins meet us at every turn; so do barrows and pick-axes and shovels. It seems as if we had got into a region inhabited solely by navvies. Many of them, however, appear to be very gentlemanly navvies!

There are no ladies here; scarcely any females at all, for we have left the thriving settlements of Australia far behind us, and are now wandering over the Daisy Hill gold-diggings. The particular section of that busy spot to which our attention is directed at this moment, is named the "Kangaroo Flats."

None but strong men can get on here. Let us go forward, and see how they obtain this yellow metal that turns the world upside down!

Here is a man issuing from a hole in the earth close at our feet, like a huge ground-squirrel. He is tall; stout, and fair, with broad shoulders and a fine manly countenance, which is ornamented by a thick beard and moustache of glossy yellow hair. The silken curly hair of this man, contrasted with his great size and manliness, is very striking. He seats himself on a mass of clay, wipes the perspiration from his forehead, and shouts to some one down in the earth.

"Hallo! Jack, let's hoist out the stuff now."

"Ay, ay, Harry," replies a strong voice, with a sailor-like ring in it, from below, "I'll be on deck in a jiffy."

Let us descend and look at this miner. The hole is narrow and deep; at the bottom of it is a dark tunnel two feet broad, between two and three feet high, and twenty-five feet long. At the farther extremity of it crouches a man with a pickaxe in his hands, and a candle beside him. It is a very awkward position in which to work, and the result is that this man pants and blows and sighs, and sometimes laughs quietly to himself at the comicality of his attitudes, while the perspiration pours over his face in large beads continuously. It seems very hard work, and so, indeed, it is, but the man is an unusually big and strong fellow, larger even than his fair companion above ground. His hair is short, black, and curly, as are his beard and whiskers, but at this moment his whole head and face are so besmeared with clay that his aspect is piebald and not more becoming than his attitude. Still, there is a massive grandeur in the outline of his features which cannot be destroyed by incrustations of clay, although his complexion is obscured by it.

Like his comrade above, his costume consists of flannel shirt, dark trousers, and big boots. His shirt sleeves being rolled up to the shoulders, display a pair of arms that a sculptor might gaze on with admiration.

This strong man pants and gasps more than ever with the heat as he drives the pick and tears up the earth for gold. Presently the candle burns dim; the air is getting foul.

"Hallo, the candle's going out!" cries the dark miner, scrambling towards the bottom of the shaft on his hands and knees.

"Ha! time to take a mouthful o' fresh air, Jack," remarks the fair miner, looking into the hole.

In another moment a wild dishevelled clay-bespattered figure comes to the surface, rises like a giant out of the earth, and the countenance and proportions of our friend John Bax are revealed, in spite of the strange costume and black moustache and beard and incrustations of clay which more than half disguise him.

"Whew! how hot it is," said Bax, as he stepped out of the hole.

"You may say that," observed his friend, rising; "but come along, Jack, let's get up the stuff and wash out as much as we can before dinner. Mind, you've got to write home this afternoon, and won't be able to help me much in the evening."

"Come along then," said Bax, going to work again with redoubled energy.

There was a windlass over the hole by which the clay was raised to the surface. Bax wrought at this, and his mate went below to fill the buckets. Then they washed it out, and flooded away cartloads of worthless soil, until a small residue of clear shining particles remained behind. This they gathered carefully together, added it to the bag that held their fortune, remarked that there were "no nuggets this time," and that it was "hard work and little pay;" after which they flung down their tools, washed their hands and faces, and went into their tent to dine.

Thus did Bax and his mate (an old acquaintance unexpectedly met with after arrival in Australia) dig, and sweat, and toil for gold.

But Bax and his friend worked thus hard, only because it was their nature so to work at whatever their hands found to do. They had not set their hearts upon the gold.

After dinner Harry went out to drive his pick and shovel. Bax remained in the tent to drive the quill.

That night the two friends lay chatting and smoking in their tent after supper, with a solitary candle between them, and the result of the day's work--a small pile of shining dust--before them.

"We'll not make our fortunes at this rate," observed Harry, with a sigh.

"There's no saying what good fortune may be in store for us," observed Bax; "but put away the gold, it will do us no good to gaze at it."

Harry rolled the little heap in a piece of paper, and tossed it into the leathern bag which contained their earnings.

"Come now," said he, replenishing his pipe, "let's hear the letter, Bax, who d'ye say's the friend you've written to?"

"He's a boy," said Bax, "Tommy Bogey by name, of which name, by the way, he has no reason to be proud--but he's a first-rate fellow, and I fear will have set me down as a faithless friend, for I left him without saying good-bye, and the letter I wrote to him on my arrival here went to the bottom with the unfortunate ship that carried it. However, here is the epistle. I'm open to correction, Harry, if you think any part of it not ship-shape."

"All right," said Harry, "go ahead."

Bax read as follows:--

"Kangaroo Flats, Daisy Hill Diggings,

"Australia, _10th January_, 18--.