The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea

Just then the boom, suddenly recoiling, came back with a rapid sweep; and, striking him across the shins, sent him sprawling over the shoulders of Ben Brace, and right into the sea-chest, in front of which the sailor was still kneeling.

Ben had heard that significant cry of alarm, and almost simultaneously the “plash” made by the little Portuguese as her body dropped down upon the water. He had slewed himself round, and was making a hurried effort to get to his feet, when the boy, flung with violence upon his stooping back, once more brought him to his knees.

As William was chucked right over him into the chest the sailor soon recovered from the shock, and rising erect, cried out in a half-confused manner, – “Overboard! Who? Where? Not you, Will’m! What is’t, boy?”

“O Ben! Ben!” answered William, as he lay kicking among the contents of the kit, “Lilly Lalee, she’s knocked overboard by the boom! Save her! save her!”

The sailor needed neither the information nor the appeal thus addressed to him. His interrogations had been altogether mechanical, for the plunge he had heard, and the absence of the girl from the raft, – ascertained by a single glance, – told him which of the Catamaran’s crew it was who had fallen overboard.

The circling eddies in the water showed him the spot where the girl had gone down; but, just as he got to his feet again, she had turned to the surface; and, uttering half-stifled screams, commenced buffeting the water with her tiny hands, in an instinctive endeavour to keep herself afloat.

In a crisis of this character, the brave English sailor was obstructed by no ambiguity as to how he should act. A single bound carried him across the Catamaran, – another landed him upon the top of one of the casks, and a third launched him six feet outward into the sea. Had he been apprised of the accident only a score of seconds sooner, less than that number of strokes would have sufficed him to reach the spot where the child had first fallen into the water. Unfortunately in the collision with little William, that had brought him back to his knees, some time had been expended. During this interval – short as it was – the craft, though under an uncontrolled sail, was still making considerable way; and when the rescuer at length succeeded in leaping from the cask, the struggling form had fallen into the wake of the Catamaran to the distance of nearly a cable’s length.

If the girl could only keep afloat for a few minutes, there need be no great danger. The sailor knew that he could swim, sustaining a heavier weight than was the little Lalee. But it was evident the child could not swim a stroke, and was every moment in danger of sinking for the second time.

Her rescuer perceived this danger as he started to her aid; and therefore pressed rapidly towards her, cleaving the water with all the strength that lay in his muscular arm and limbs.

Meanwhile little William had also regained his feet; and, having extricated himself from the chest in which he had been temporarily encoffined, ran towards the after part of the raft. Quickly mounting upon the water-cask at the stern, he stood astride the steering-oar, – an anxious and trembling spectator, – his eyes alternately fixed on the strong swimmer and the struggling child.

Snowball was still dormant, buried in a slumber profound and unconscious, – such as only a “darkey” can enjoy. The cry “Overboard!” uttered by little William had made no impression upon the tympanum of his wide-spread ears, – nor the exclamations that succeeded in the harsher voice of the sailor. Equally unheard by him had been the scream coming across the water, though along with it he might have heard the utterance of his own name!

As none of these sounds had been sufficient to arouse him from his torpor, he was likely to remain for some time longer unconscious of what was occurring. The sailor swam in silence, – the cries of the child, now more distant, were growing feebler and feebler; while little William – Snowball’s only companion upon the raft – was too much absorbed in the scene and its issue to allow even a breath to escape him.

In this moment of agony, – intense to all the others of the Catamaran’s crew, – Snowball was sleeping as soundly and sweetly as if he had been stretched along the bench of his caboose, and rocked to rest by the undulations of a good ship going at easy sail.

Up to this time, William had not thought of awakening him; for, to say the truth, the boy had not yet quite recovered his presence of mind. The shock of consternation caused by the accident was still vibrating through his brain; and his actions, in running aft, and springing up on the cask, were half mechanical. There, enchained by the spectacle, and waiting with intense anxiety for its dénouement, he had not a thought to give either to Snowball or his slumberings.

The silence continued only for a short period of time, though it may have seemed long enough both to actors and spectator in that thrilling drama. It was terminated by a cry of joyous import from the lips of little William, – in short, a loud hurrah, evoked by his seeing the swimmer come en rapport with the child, raise her sinking form above the surface, and holding it in one hand, strike out with the other in the direction of the rail.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Saved!

“Brave Ben! – brave fellow! he has saved her! Hurrah!”

Whether it was the violent gestures that accompanied this ebullition of feeling that caused the water-cask to lurch from under his feet, – or whether it arose from his nervous system suddenly becoming relaxed after such a spell of intense anxiety, – certain it is that the sailor-lad, as he repeated the final “Hurrah!” lost his balance upon the task, and, staggering over, he fell with all his weight upon the prostrate body of the slumbering sea-cook.

The latter, in his sleep more sensible to touch than hearing, was at length aroused.

“Gorramity!” cried he, suddenly starting to his knees, and endeavouring to disembarrass himself of the weight of little William, still scrambling upon his back. “Gorramity! What all dis fracas ’bout? Someb’dy shout ‘Hurrah?’ – Ha! you, lilly Willy? you shout dat jess now? I tink I hear ye in ma ’leep. What for you hurrah? Golly! am dar a ship in sight? I hope dar am – Wha’s Mass’ Brace? – wha’s de lilly gal? Augh?”

This string of interrogations was put in such rapid succession as to give the lad no opportunity of replying to them. But, indeed, a reply was not needed, as may be deduced from the final ejaculation of the questioner.

Snowball, having swept the surface of the Catamaran with a quick, searching glance, and missing from it not only its captain, but – what was of greater moment – his own protégé, became equally the victim of surprise and consternation.

His eye was at once turned towards the water; and, like all men accustomed to the sea, was intuitively directed sternward. The missing individuals could not be elsewhere than in the wake of the craft going under sail.

He was soon satisfied of the correctness of his conjecture. On the instant of his turning he beheld Ben Brace, – or rather, only the head of that individual, – just visible above the rippling surface of the sea. Close by was another head, of smaller size, with dark ringlets floating on both sides of it, and a tiny arm stretched out and apparently clinging to the shoulder of the seaman.

Snowball needed no one – not even little William – to interpret what he saw. At a glance he comprehended what had occurred during his sleep, – all except the cause. Little did he suspect that the disaster had its origin in his own negligence. But it did not need that thought to beget within him a feeling of anxiety, – or, rather, of intense alarm.

This feeling did not arise on the instant. Seeing the girl sustained by such a strong swimmer as he knew his old shipmate to be, he had but little fear for the result, – so little that he checked his first impulse, which was to leap overboard and swim to the assistance of both.

A moment’s reflection, however, satisfied him that there was still danger both for Lalee and her brave rescuer, – a danger which little William while giving utterance to that joyful “Hurrah!” had not taken into account. The lad had seen the girl picked up by the strong seaman; and, having an unlimited faith in the prowess of his own protector, he had no other thought than that the latter would soon swim back to the Catamaran, bearing his light burden along with him.

In his joy little William had overlooked the circumstance that the Catamaran was under sail, and moving through the water at a rate of speed that the swiftest swimmer, unembarrassed with the slightest weight, might in vain attempt to overtake her!

This sinister circumstance, in the excitement of the hour overlooked by the youthful sailor, was even, for a moment, unthought of by the more experienced mariner, – for Snowball, in addition to being a sea-cook, was also a competent seaman. Not for long, however, did the latter continue unconscious of the danger. Almost on the instant did he perceive it; and quickly squatting himself in front of the cask, he took hold of the steering-oar, – which he had so culpably neglected, – and, although still ignorant of the fact that his own negligence had caused the disaster, he bent all his energies towards remedying it.

Under the strong arm of the Coromantee, the Catamaran was fast coming round towards the wind, – and so shortening the distance between the swimmer and the craft, – when an object came under the eye of her steersman that caused him to drop the oar as if either his arm had become suddenly paralysed, or the piece of rounded ash grasped between his hands had become transformed into a bar of red-hot iron!

The former it could not be; since paralysed arms could not act, as did those of Snowball on that instant. On dropping the oar, his right hand was suddenly carried towards his left thigh, where a long knife hung suspended in its sheath. Upon the hilt of this his fingers rested for a moment, evidently not with the intention of drawing it, but apparently to assure himself that the knife was in its place.

In an instant the hand was withdrawn; but during the action the negro had hastily risen to his feet; and, having already abandoned the oar, he rushed towards the edge of the raft and leaped overboard into the water!

Chapter Thirty.

The Zygaena

The conduct of the Coromantee in thus relinquishing the rudder and springing overboard into the sea was inexplicable, – at least, to little William it seemed so for the time. What could be Snowball’s object in taking to the water? The sailor’s strength was sufficient to sustain both himself and the little girl. He appeared to have no difficulty in holding her above the surface; and as to getting back to the raft, Snowball was surely doing more service in steering the raft towards them? Had he continued at the rudder a few minutes longer, the Catamaran must have come very near where the swimmer was struggling; where as, on his dropping the oar, she once more luffed round, and began to make way in the opposite direction.

Little William, however, did not observe this sinister circumstance; or if he did, it was for the moment driven out of his mind by one still more sinister, that just then came under his observation.

Only for a few seconds had he remained watching the negro, and wondering, with unpleasant thoughts, why the latter before leaping overboard had half drawn the knife from his belt and then resheathed it. Something like a suspicion passed through the mind of the youth. What could the negro want with a knife, if his object was to give help to the swimmer? Could a fiendish conception have occurred to the Coromantee, to lessen the number of those who might require food and water?

It is true the suspicion had barely shaped itself in the brain of the boy. Still, it had shaped itself, to be succeeded by a feeling of remorse for the wrong which he had done to Snowball in entertaining it. Almost on the instant did he become conscious of this wrong, by an object coming under his eyes and which at once accounted for the conduct of the Coromantee, that had seemed strange. Snowball was swimming towards Ben Brace, – not to destroy, – but with the intention of saving him.

From what? Was the sailor really in danger of sinking, so as to stand in need of support both for himself and his burden?

Little William did not put such an interrogatory. All his conjectures were ended. The peril threatening his patron, – and little Lalee as well, – was plainly outlined before his eyes, in all its frightful reality. That flattish, dark disc, with lunetted edge, rising erect above the surface, and cutting keenly through the rippling water, was an object not to be mistaken for any moving thing met with amid the ocean, save the dorsal fin of a shark, and William knew at a glance that such in reality it was.

He saw, moreover, it was the same he and little Lalee had so late been contemplating in security, – the dreaded zygaena: for through the translucent water he could distinguish its hammer-shaped head, and lurid eyes gleaming out from their protuberant sockets, – hideous to behold!

The boy now became spectator, – sole spectator, – of a scene of thrilling, even terrible interest. The characters in the drama were Snowball, the zygaena, and Ben Brace with his burden.

Just as William had arrived at the comprehension of the Coromantee’s behaviour, the dramatis persona were placed relatively to each other in a triangular position, – an isosceles triangle, in which Snowball and the shark represented the angles at the base, while Ben with his charge occupied the apex. The latter point was almost stationary, while both the former were moving towards it in converging lines, fast as shark and man could swim.

The situation was easily explained. The zygaena, hitherto holding its course ahead of the Catamaran, had become apprised of the catastrophe occurring among the crew. The plash occasioned by little Lalee as she was flung upon the water, and the heavier concussion of Ben’s body as he plunged overboard, had reached the monster’s ears; and, with that fell instinct peculiar to its tribe, it had suddenly turned in the water, and commenced swimming toward the wake of the craft; where it knew that anything, whether human or otherwise, falling overboard, must inevitably drift.

While passing the Catamaran towards the wake, Snowball had caught sight of its fan-like fin, – which apprised him of the direction it was taking, at the same time revealing to him its design.

The plunge which Snowball had made as he sprang out into the water had caused the zygaena to swerve from its course; and for some moments it swam towards him, as if determined upon changing the object of its attack; but whether not liking the looks of the Coromantee or frayed by his bold attitude in making directly towards it, it shied back into its former course, and kept on towards the others.

Of course, the sailor, encumbered as he was by the half-lifeless form of the girl, would stand but little chance of making a successful defence against a shark, – more especially such a monster as the zygaena; and it was the knowledge of this that had summoned Snowball to the rescue.

Against such an adversary a more capable combatant than the Coromantee could scarce have been found on the waters of the ocean, or even in them. He could swim like a swan, and dive like a sea-duck; nor was it the first time for him to have fought the shark in its own element; neither would it be the first time should he prove conqueror in the combat.

On launching into the lists, his chief dread had not been for himself, but for those he was proceeding to rescue.