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

below with a baby that had just been rescued in his arms, there arose a wild cheer of admiration, not unmingled with laughter, from those who had witnessed his conduct.

But their attention was soon turned again to the boats, two of which still remained with their freight on the heaving water. Many incidents of a thrilling nature were enacted that night. One of the most interesting, perhaps, occurred soon after that which has just been related.

In one of the boats was the young wife of an emigrant, who, having been compelled to separate from his wife and child when they left the burning ship in the first boat, had come alongside of the "Trident" in another boat. Being an active man, he had caught a rope and hauled himself on board some time before his wife was rescued. The poor young mother had tied her infant tightly to her bosom by means of a shawl, in order to make sure that she should share its fate, whatever that might be.

When the boat sheered up alongside, her husband was standing in the chains, anxious to render her assistance. The woman chanced to come near to Bax, but not sufficiently so to grasp him. She had witnessed his great power and success in saving others, and a feeling of strong confidence made her resolve to be caught hold of by him, if possible. She therefore drew back from the grasp of a stout fellow who held out his brawny arms to her.

Bax noticed this occur twice, and understood the poor woman's motive. Feeling proud of the confidence thus placed in him, he watched his opportunity. The boat surged up, but did not come near enough. It swept away from the ship, and the poor woman's hands played nervously about the folds of the shawl, as she tried to adjust them more securely round her infant. Again the boat rose on a wave; the woman stood ready, and Bax stooped. It did not come quite near enough, but the disappointed woman, becoming desperate, suddenly put her foot on the gunwale, stood up at full length, and stretched out her arms. Bax just caught her by the hands when the boat was swept from under her.

Similar incidents had occurred so often that little anxiety was felt; but our hero's strength was now thoroughly exhausted. He could not haul her up, he could only hold on and shout for assistance. It was promptly rendered, but before the poor woman could be rescued the infant slipped from the shawl, which the straightening of the mother's arms and her suspended position had loosened. A cry burst from the agonised father, who stooped, and stood in the attitude of one ready to plunge into the sea. The mother felt the child slipping, and a piercing shriek escaped from her as she raised her knees and caught it between them. With muscular power, intensified by a mother's love, she held the infant in this strange position until both were drawn up and placed in safety on the deck!

This was the last of Bax's achievements on that eventful night. He was so thoroughly worn out by the long-continued and tremendous exertions he had been called on to make, that his strength, great though it was, broke down. He staggered down into the cabin, flung himself, wet as he was, on a couch, and almost instantly fell into a sleep so deep that he could not be roused for more than a moment or two at a time. Seeing this, Tommy bade the bystanders leave him alone for a few minutes until he should come back, when, according to his own expression, "he would screw him up all right and tight!" Every one was by this time so thoroughly convinced that the boy was quite able to manage his friend that they stood still awaiting his return with much curiosity.

Tommy soon returned with a tumbler of hot brandy and water, followed by the steward with a pile of blankets.

"Hold that a minute," said the boy, handing the tumbler to a little old gentleman who stood swaying to and fro with the motion of the vessel, and staring at Bax as if he had been a half-drowned sea-monster.

"Now, then," cried Tommy, punching his friend severely in the ribs, seizing the hair of his head with both hands, and shaking him until his neck seemed dislocated,--to the surprise of all and the horror of not a few!

The result was that Bax grumbled angrily, half awoke, and raised himself on one elbow.

"Drink, you tom-tit!" said the boy, catching the tumbler from the old gentleman, and applying it to his friend's lips.

Bax smiled, drank, and fell back on the pillow with a deep sigh of satisfaction. Then Tommy spread blanket after blanket over him, and "tucked him in" so neatly and with such a business-like air, that two or three mothers then present expressed their admiration and wonder in audible whispers.

While Bax was being thus carefully tended by Tommy and a knot of sympathisers, the passengers and crew vied with each other in making the rescued people as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

Meanwhile the "Trident" was again laid on her course, and, thus crowded with human beings, steered before favouring breezes for the shores of old England.


CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.


MYSTERIOUS DOINGS.

We return, now, to the coast of Kent, and beg the reader to follow us into the Smuggler's Cave at Saint Margaret's Bay.

Here, in a dark corner, sat old Jeph. It was a stormy Sunday afternoon. The old man had gone to the Bay to visit Coleman, and accompany him to his place of worship. Jeph had wandered alone in the direction of the cave after church. He found that some one had recently cleared its mouth of the rubbish that usually filled it, and that, by bending low, he could gain an entrance.

Being of an adventurous disposition, the old man went in, and, seating himself on a projecting rock in a dark corner, fell into a profound reverie. He was startled out of this by the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Come in, come in," said a deep hoarse voice, which Jeph at once recognised as that of Long Orrick, his old enemy. "Come in, Nick; you seem to have got a'feer'd o' the dark of late. We'll be out o' sight here, and I'll amuse ye till this squall blows over with an account o' what I heer'd the old man say."

"This squall, as ye call it, won't blow over so soon as ye think," replied Rodney Nick in a sulky tone. "Hows'ever, we may as well wait here as anywhere else; or die here for all that I care!"

"Hallo! messmate, wot's ado that ye should go into the blues when we're on the pint o' making our fortins?" said Orrick.

"Ado!" cried Rodney angrily, "is it not bad enough to be called messmate by _you_, and not be able to deny it?"

"You're civil, anyhow," said Orrick, with an oath.

"I mean to be," retorted Nick, fiercely.

"Come, come, it's no use quarrelling," said Orrick, with an affectation of good-humour. "Never say die! Nick; them's the words o' the immortial Nelson, w'en he gave the signal to blaze away at Trafalgar. But sit ye down here on this rock, and I'll tell ye all about wot I see'd last night. Ye'd like to know, I dessay."

"I'd like to have know'd sooner, if you had seen fit to tell me," said Rodney Nick, in a gruff tone.

"Well, then, keep yer mind easy, and here goes. You know as how I chanced to hear old Jeph make an appointment with that young puppy, Guy Foster, to meet him at the darkest hour o' night at the tomb o' Mary Bax. Thinks I, it won't be for nothin' you're goin' to meet at sich an hour in sich a place, my hearties, so I'll go an' keep ye company in a _private_ way!

"You may be sure I was up to time. Two hours did I wait in the ditch behind the tomb, and I can tell ye, Nick, it's desprit eerie work a-sittin' there all alone of a dark night, a-countin' of the beatins of yer 'art, an' thinkin' every shadow of the clouds is a ghost. Hows'ever, the old man came at last, and lies down flat on the grave, and begins to groan a bit. Arter that he takes to prayin', an', d'ye know, the way that old feller prays is a caution. The parsons couldn't hold a candle to him. Not that I ever heer'd ony of 'em, but I _s'pose_ they couldn't!

"Well, he was cut short in the middle by the arrival of the puppy--."

"Wot puppy?" inquired Rodney.

"Guy, to be sure; ain't he the biggest puppy in Deal?" said Orrick.

"Mayhap, but he ain't the _longest_," retorted Rodney; "go on."

"Humph!--well, down sits Guy on the head o' the tombstone, and pats old Jeph on the shoulder.

"`Here I am, Jeph; come now, what is it you are so anxious to tell me?'

"The old man sat up: `I'm goin' to die,' says he.

"`Nonsense,' cried the young 'un, in a cheerie tone, by way of "don't say that." `You're as tough as an old bo'sn. Come, that wasn't what you wanted to tell me, I'm sure.'

"`Ay, but it was,' says the old man in sich an earnest voice that the young 'un was forced to become serious. `Listen, Guy,' he goes on, `I'm goin' to die, an' there's no one in this world as I've got to look after me.'

"Guy was goin' to interrupt him at this point, but he laid his hand on his shoulder and bade him be silent.

"`I've got no relations, Guy, except two,' says he, `an' I've no childer. I never married. The only girl I ever loved lies under the cold, cold sod. You know that I'm a poor man, an' the two relations I spoke of are rich--rich--ay, and they're fond o' money. Mayhap that's the reason they _are_ rich! Moreover, they know I've got the matter o' forty pounds or thereabouts, and I know that when I die they'll fight for it--small though it is, and rich though they be--and my poor fortune will either go to them or to the lawyers. Now, Guy, this must not be; so I want you to do me a kindness. I'm too old and frail to go about matters o' business, an' I never was good at wot they call business in my best days, so I want you to pay all my debts for me, and bring me the receipts.'

"`I'll do it, Jeph,' said Guy, `and much more than that, if you'll only tell me how I can serve you; but you mustn't speak in that sorrowful way about dying.'

"`Sorrowful!' cries the old man, quite surprised like; `bless your heart, I'm not sorrowful. Don't the Book say, "It's better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord?"' (ah, you may grin as you please, Nick, but I give ye the 'xact words o' the old hypocrite.) `No, no, Guy,' continued Jeph, `I'll be right glad to go; many a sad yet pleasant hour have I spent here, but I'm