“south 70° e., sir, weather’s a bit sulky and inclined to dirt before daylight, i should think. lot of ships about. bishop bore n. 20° w. fifteen miles off at eight bells (4 a.m.). good morning.” and as he uttered the last words the second officer of the kafirstan, 10,000-ton cargo steamer, london to boston, u.s., swung his burly form down the lee-bridge ladder, and the darkness swallowed him up. the chief, who had just relieved him, mumbled out “g’mornin’” in the midst of a cavernous yawn, not because he was churlish or out of humour, but for the reason that be a man never so seasoned, the sudden transition from the cosy recesses of a warm bunk and sweet sleep to a narrow platform some forty feet above the sea, fully exposed to the wrathful edge of a winter gale at four o’clock in the morning, does not predispose him to cheerful conversation, or indeed any other of the amenities of life, until the wonderful adaptability of the human body has had time to adjust itself to the altered conditions.
no; john furness, chief mate, was anything but a sulky man. buffeted by the storms of fate from his earliest youth in far fiercer fashion than ever the gales of winter had smitten him, he was now by way of280 esteeming himself one of the most fortunate of mankind, for, after serving as second mate for several years with a chief and master’s ticket, and never getting a better berth than some thousand-ton tramp could afford him, he had suddenly taken unto himself a wife—a dear girl, as poor and as friendless as himself—with the quaint remark that the best thing to do with two lonely people was to make ’em one, on the principle that like cures like. and with his marriage his luck seemed to have turned. on the second day of his honeymoon he was taking his young wife round the docks, and pointing out to her the various ships—like introducing her to old acquaintances—when suddenly, with a bound, he left her side and disappeared over the edge of a jetty. he had caught sight of an old gentleman who had tripped his foot in a coil of rope and tumbled over it and the edge of the pier at the same time. john’s promptitude cost him a wetting, but got him his present berth, the best he had ever held in his life, and his heart beat high with hope that at last he was on the high road to fortune.
still, all these pleasant recollections didn’t prevent him feeling sleepy and chilly upon relieving his shipmate. vigorously he called up his resources of energy, peering through the thick gloom ahead at the twinkling gleams showing here and there, betokening the presence of other ships. far beneath him the untiring engines, with their titanic thrust and recover, kept his lofty station a-quiver as they drove the huge mass of the kafirstan steadily onward against the fierce and increasing storm. again and again he answered281 cheerily to the look-out man’s taps on the bells announcing lights “all right,” and as often by a word to the helmsman behind him, altered his great vessel’s course a little to port or starboard in order to avoid collision with the passing ships. all this in the usual course of routine—it is what hundreds of men like him are doing this morning, thinking no more of the magnitude of the forces they control than a cabman who navigates the crowded london streets dwells upon what would happen if he should spill his fare under a passing waggon. it is, above all things, necessary at sea to refrain from dwelling upon what may happen. the one thing needful is to be equal to each duty as it arises. and john furness was undoubtedly that. but suddenly an awful crash flung him backwards; his head struck against a stanchion of the bridge, a myriad lights gleamed before his glazing eyes, and he knew no more—knew nothing, that is, of the short, stern agony through which his shipmates passed as the huge fabric beneath them admitted the supremacy of the ever-watchful sea. she had met—her mass of 10,000 tons or so being hurled along at the rate of twelve miles an hour—with the terror of the darkness, a derelict just awash, one of those ancient norwegian timber-scows, the refuse of the sea, that crawl to and fro across the atlantic on sufferance, until there comes a day when the half-frozen crew are swept from the top of the slippery deck-load, the sea pours in through a hundred openings, and she becomes one of the most awful dangers known to mariners—a water-logged derelict. floating just awash at the will of ocean currents, she cannot be located with any degree of certainty, but solid almost as a rock she drifts silently across the great ocean highway invisible, unheard, a lier-in-wait for the lives of men.
when john furness returned to consciousness again, he became aware of acute pains all over his body. also that he was not drowning, although at intervals waves washed over him. gradually he realized that he was clinging desperately, mechanically, but with such force that he could hardly unbend the grip of his hands, to a slimy rope. but where? as his mind cleared, and the certainty of the awful tragedy that had just passed over him and left him still alive became borne in upon him, he felt his heart swell. he thought of the handful of brave men, of whom he had already got to know every one, suddenly hurled into oblivion with all the hopes and love of which each was the centre. and a few heavy drops rolled out from his brine-encrusted eyes. then he thought of mary—his mary—and at the same moment realized his duty: to strive after life for her sake. the impulse was needed, because that lethargy that means a loss of the desire to live was fast stealing over him. with a great effort that sent racking pains through his stiffened body he turned his face upwards, passed one hand across his face, and saw where he was. lying upon the slope of a bank thickly overgrown with dank green weed like fine hair, and with a strong fishy smell. with awakening interest he peered at the rope he held—it, too, was thickly draped with the same growth, but in addition, beneath the weed, it was encrusted with jagged little shells. more than this he could hardly discern for the present, because it was still dark; but as his senses resumed their normal keenness of apprehension, he knew that he was afloat, and guessed the truth—that by some mysterious means he had been preserved from drowning by laying hold of the same cause that had sent all his late shipmates to their sudden end. a low, sullen murmur smote upon his ears, for the wind had gone down, and the resentful sea still rolled its broken surface violently in the direction in which it had been so fiercely driven, making john’s holding-on place roll and heave in a heavy, lifeless manner. the grey, cheerless dawn struggled through the thick pall of clouds still draping the sky, and by the cold light the shivering man saw the full horror of his surroundings. he was clinging to the last rag of running-gear trailing from the short stump of the mainmast of a large ship—a ship that must, at least, have been of seventeen or eighteen hundred tons burden. she lay with one side of the deck well below the water, and the other some ten feet above it. not a vestige of bulwarks, cabin, or fo’c’sle appeared on deck, all was flush as if mowed off by some gigantic scythe. only a little forrard of where john lay was a gash cut into her side at right angles, revealing within sodden masses of timber also crushed and broken by the terrible impact of that blow. and as he looked at the wedge-shaped wound there came back to him, as if in a dream of some former life, the shock, the few seconds’ realization of that fatal blow dealt herself by the kafirstan, before he had lost consciousness284 to resume it here. and knowing the build of the steamer as he did, he had not the faintest hope of her having survived for even an hour. his chief longing was that sufficient time had been allowed his shipmates to get into the boats and pull away from the frightful vortex of the sinking kafirstan.
the light having become sufficiently strong for him to see thoroughly well, he made another heroic effort, and commenced to explore his prison. and as soon as he did so, he realized how long this dangerous obstruction had been drifting about the ocean. for she was literally undistinguishable, except to a seaman’s eye, from a worn and sea-beaten rock. through the crevices in her deck and the gap made by the kafirstan, he could see hosts of fish, legions of crabs of various kinds, and nowhere, except at the point where she had been run into, was there a square inch that was not thickly hidden by the sea-growth of weed and shells. he dragged himself up to the stump of the mainmast, and, bracing himself erect against it, looked long and earnestly around the lowering horizon; but he was quite alone. not a gleam of sail or a wreath of smoke was to be seen. but he was a man who, while never very sanguine about his “luck,” had a wonderful fund of hope, and in spite of the dismal outlook, he felt no despair. nevertheless, that he might not brood, he determined to be busy, and dragging himself aft with the utmost caution that he might not slide off that slimy slope into the cold sea to leeward, he reached the yawning cavity, where once the companion or entrance to the lower cabin had been. peering down, the sight was not encouraging, although the dark water did not here come so close up to the deck as forward. but he was bound to explore, even if he had to swim, if only for the sake of employment; so crawling over the edge, he dropped below into water up to his waist, and immediately struggled to windward, where to his content he found he could move about above water. he entered what he took to be the skipper’s cabin, noticing with a queer feeling of sympathy the few remnants of clothing hanging from hooks like silent witnesses of the tragedy of long ago. to his surprise, he found that everything was left as if in the midst of ordinary life; the owner had been carried off without a moment in which to return for anything he might value. even the bed-clothes, dank and sodden, lay as they had been jumped out of, well tucked in at the foot of the bunk by a careful steward. with a sense of sacrilege that he found it hard to shake off, john tried the drawers, and the woodwork fell away at his touch. clothes, papers, photographs within lay in pulpy masses where the invading sea had so long drained through on to them. but the searcher turned all over, listlessly, mechanically, until the hot blood suddenly surged to his head as he heard a musical jingle. with feverish haste he pulled out the lumps of dank stuff until at the bottom of the drawer he found a heap of gold coins which he had evidently disturbed by twitching at the rotted bag which had contained them. gathering them all together without counting, he shovelled them into the two inner pockets of his pea-coat, afterwards tearing286 open the lining and securing the necks of the pockets by a piece of roping twine, of which he was never without a small ball.
then with almost frantic haste he scrambled on deck, feeling as if by being down there another minute he might be risking his chance of rescue. but when he again reached the mainmast and looked around only the same blank circle greeted him. and his mind, until then fairly calm, fiercely rebelled at the idea of being lost now, when the weight burdening him told him that should he reach home again, he would be able to secure a position for himself as captain of a ship by the hitherto impossible means of buying an interest in her. had he waited to analyze his feelings, he would no doubt have wondered why the possession of a little gold should have the power to change his usually calm and philosophic behaviour into the fretful eager frame in which he now found himself; but at the time all his hopes, all his energies, were concentrated upon the one idea, how to save, not merely his life, but his newly gotten gold for the enjoyment of that dear one bravely waiting at home.
the long bitter day passed without other sign of life around, than the occasional deep breathing of a whale close at hand, or the frolicsome splash of a passing porpoise. his vitality, great though it was, began to fail under the combined influences of cold and hunger and thirst. so that he passed uneasily to and fro between sleeping and waking, only dimly conscious all the time of decreasing ability to resist the combined influences of these foes to life. day faded into night, and still the wind did not rise, although the sky continually threatened, being so lowering that the night shade was almost opaque. as he lay semi-conscious some mysterious premonition smote him to his very vitals, and raised him erect with such nervous energy that he felt transformed. there, almost upon him, glared the two red and green eyes of a great ship, while, high above, the far-reaching electric beams from her fore masthead made a wide white track through the darkness. he shouted with, as it seemed to him, ten voices, “ship ahoy.” and back like an echo came the reply, “hullo.” the alarm was taken, and close aboard of the derelict the huge mail steamer came to a standstill, saved from destruction. in ten minutes john furness was in safety, and three days after he landed in london, bringing the first news of the loss of the kafirstan. and in three days more his treasure trove had secured for him the position he had so long fruitlessly striven to obtain by merit and hard work.
