CHAPTER I.--THE TERRORS OF THE OCEAN.
Long months have passed away since that sad parting at Glenvoie; aparting that seemed to raise our young heroes at once from the carelesshappiness of boyhood to the serious earnestness of man's estate.
They had stayed in town until Captain Talbot arrived. He was just thesame brave and jolly sailor that Duncan had first known.
Would he take Frank as his apprentice?
Why, he would be glad to have the whole three. They were so bold andbright, there was not the least fear of their not getting on.
Wouldn't they come? His present ship was not so large as he would likeit to be, but he would make shift somehow.
But Duncan, while he thanked him, was firm.
"Well," said Talbot, "I'll tell you what I'll do for you, for somehow Ihave acquired a liking for you all Frank here, then, shall come with me,not as an apprentice belonging to the owners, but as a friend who wishesto get well up in seamanship and eventually pass even formaster-mariner. You see, Frank, you will be rated as apprentice to me,and not to the company, else they would hold you to the same ship foryears. And my reason is this: in about a year or a little over, Ishall, please God, have a ship of my own. It is to be a great project,but I am promised assistance, and many of the savants in London say theproject is well worthy of the greatest success. I shall voyage first tothe Antarctic regions, and come home with a paying voyage of oil andskins of the sea-elephants, and this shall smooth my way to exploringfurther south than any ship has yet reached.
"So you see, Duncan, as you and your brother will not be bound to anytie as regards apprenticeship, you can both sail with me to the SouthPole, and who knows but you may yet become the Nansens of theAntarctic."
"Too good to be true," said Duncan laughing; "but I'm just determined todo my best, and no one can do more."
"Bravo, lad!" cried the colonel, laying his hand on Duncan's shoulder."And you remember what the poet says:
"''T is not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more...; we'll deserve it'"
"Brave words, Colonel Trelawney," cried Talbot. "Why, sir, scraps ofheroic verse have helped me along all through life. I'm a ship-masternow, with a bit in bank. But my first voyage was to the Arctic and Ihad hardly clothes enough to keep out the terrible weather. My motherwas a poor widow in Dundee, and I--being determined to go to sea--becamea stowaway. I hid in a coal-bunker, and it came on to blow, so that Iwas very nearly killed with the shifting coals that cannonaded againstmy ribs.
"Luckily the storm did not last long, but when they hauled me out atlast I was as black as a chimney-sweep and covered with blood.
"I was too ill to be lifted and landed at Lerwick. The doctor said I wasdying. The first mate, who was never sober, said, 'Serve the youngbeggar right!' But, boys, I knew better. Dundee boys don't die worthshucks, and so I was on deck in ten days' time. There were two dogs onboard, and my duty was to feed and look after them, and also to assistthe cook.
"I roughed it, I can tell you, lads; but, Lord bless you, it did me apower of good. We were out for six months, and by that time I was asstrong as a young mule. How old was I? Oh, not more than sixteen. ButI felt a man. And I could reef and steer now, and splice a rope, and doall sorts of things. For the bo's'n had taken me in hand, and rightkind he was.
"Ah! but that rascally mate! A long black, red-cheeked chap he was, andnot a bit like a sailor, but he kept up his spite against me, and, whenhalf-seas over--which he always was when not completely drunk--he wouldlet fly at me with a belaying-pin, a marling-spike, or anything else hecould lay his hands on.
"'Why don't you land him one," said the bo's'n one day, 'right from theshoulder?'
"'That would be mutiny, wouldn't it?' said I.
"'Nonsense, lad, the skipper likes you, and he wouldn't log you for it.'
"I determined to take the bo's'n's advice next time the drunken mate hitme.
"Well, I hadn't long to wait. You see I had come to really love thedogs under my charge. So one day the mate kicked one of them ratherroughly out of his way.
"'Don't you dare kick that dog,' I cried; 'they are both in my charge.'
"How well do I remember that forenoon. We were on the return voyage,running before a light breeze, with every scrap of canvas set, low andaloft, and the sun shining bonnie and warm.
"But the mate grew purple with rage when I checked him. He could hardlyspeak. He could only stutter.
"'You, you beggar's brat,' he shouted, 'I'll give you a lesson.'
"He rushed to pull out a belaying-pin.
"I tossed off my jacket and threw it on the top of the capstan.
"I twisted the belaying-pin out of his hands before you could have said'knife'.
"'Fight fair, you drunken scamp!' I cried.
"Pistols and rifles lay ready loaded in boxes at the top of the cabincompanion, and he made a stride or two as if to take one out.
"'Mutiny!' he muttered, 'rank mutiny!'
"I sprang between him and the box, and dealt him a square left-handerthat made him reel. I followed this up with a rib-starter, then withone on the nose.
"Down he went, and he actually prayed for mercy.
"That bulbous nose of his was well tapped, and there was no fear of himtaking apoplexy for a while anyhow.
"But when I let him up he seemed to lose control of his senses, for thedemon drink was now in the ascendant. He faced me no longer, however,but rushed for poor, faithful Collie, and before I could prevent it, hadseized and pitched him overboard.
"The men, untold, rushed to haul the foreyard aback and to lower a boat.
"But he checked them.
"'What! lower a boat for a dog?' he cried.
"'Lower a boat for a man then,' I shouted, 'and just as I was I leaptupon the bulwark and dived off it. Next minute I was alongside Collie.Ay, lads, and alongside something else. A huge shark sailed past us,and passed us so near I could almost have touched him. He must havebeen fully fifteen feet long.[1] I knew that nothing but splashing andshouting could keep him at bay, and I did both as well as I knew howto.'"
[1] The _Scymnus borealis_, or Greenland shark, is often eighteen totwenty feet in length.
"But the boat came quickly to our rescue, and we were soon safe onboard. The skipper liked me, and did not log my mutinous conduct. Infact he became my friend, and I was apprenticed to his very ship. So Ihad many and many a voyage to the Sea of Ice after this.
"There is a glamour about this weird and wonderful frozen ocean, boys,that none can resist who have ever been under its bewitching spell. Itis on me now, and this it is which has determined me to seek soon foradventures in the Antarctic, which very few have ever sought to explore.
"Now, Duncan and Conal, I'll tell you what I shall do with you. Thereis a big Australian ship to sail from Southampton in about a month. Thecaptain is a personal friend of mine, and will do anything for you. Ishall give you a letter.
"Mind this, he is strict service, and if you do your duty, as I'm sureyou will, you'll soon have a friend on the quarter-deck."
Captain Talbot--or Master-mariner Talbot as he liked best to becalled--had been as good as his word, and now our young heroes were faraway at sea.
The _Ocean's Pride_ was a full-rigged Aberdeen clipper-built vessel, andcould show a pair of clean heels to almost any other ship in the trade.The skipper and his two mates were all thorough sailors, and gentlemenat heart. The skipper, whose name was Wilson, soon began to take aninterest in Duncan and Conal, and knowing that they were studying intheir idle moments, invited them to come daily to his own cabin, andthere for a whole hour he used to teach them all he could.
Duncan could soon be trusted to take sights, and even "lunars", and gaveevery evidence of possessing the steadiness and grit that goes so far tomake a thorough British sailor.
They touched at the Cape in due time, and Conal acted as clerk or"tally-boy" while cargo was being landed and fresh stock taken on board.
The boys found time to have a look at the town. They went with one ofthe mates who had been often here before.
Well, the hills all around, clad in their summer coats of dazzlingheaths and geraniums, were quite a sight to see. But the town itselfthey voted dismally slow, and so I myself have found it, there being somany heavy-headed Dutchmen therein.
They were not a bit sorry, therefore, when they found themselves oncemore on the heaving billows.
And the billows around the Cape of Good Hope do heave too with avengeance.
Such mountain waves Duncan could not have believed existed anywhere.Tall and raking though she was, the _Ocean's Pride_ was all but buriedwhen down in the trough of the waves.
There was but a six-knot breeze when they started to stretch away andaway across that seemingly illimitable ocean betwixt the Cape andAustralia. Oh such a lonesome sea it is, reader! Six thousand miles ofwater, water, water, and often never a sign of life in the sky above orin the sea below.
There was, as I have said, but a light wind to begin with, and it wasdead astern, so that stunsails were set, and the great ship looked likesome wonderful bird of the main, as she sailed, with her wingsout-spread, eastward and eastward ho!
But before noon the sky in the west began to darken, and greatrock-shaped or castellated clouds rolled up from the horizon.Snow-white were they on top, where the sun's rays struck them, but darkand black below.
"Snug ship!" was the order now.
In came the stunsails, the men working right merrily, and singing asthey worked. In came royals and top-gallant sails, and close-reefedwere the topsails. The captain was no coward, but right well he knewthat the storm coming quickly up astern would be no child's play.
Nor was it.
A vivid flash of lightning and great-gun thunder first indicated theapproach of the gale.
Then away in the west a long line of foam was seen approaching. In aninconceivably short space of time it struck the ship with fearfulviolence, and though she sprung forward like a frightened deer anddipped her prow into a huge wave, she seemed engulfed in raging seas.The skipper had battened down, but so much water had been taken on boardthat the good clipper could not for a time shake herself clear. Perhapsthe shivered bulwarks helped to save the ship.
In a few minutes she was rushing before the wind at a good twelve knotsan hour.
"What a blessing it is," said Captain Wilson, "that we got snug intime!"
"Yes, sir," said the mate, "and it's an ill wind that blows nobody good.Why, this gale is all in our favour, and will help us along."
Our heroes had far from a pleasant time, however, for the next few days.Then wind and sea went down, and peace reigned once more on the decks,and in the rigging of the good ship _Ocean's Pride_.
The splendid cities they visited when the vessel at last arrived inAustralia quite dazzled our boys. And as the English language wasspoken everywhere they felt quite at home.
Captain Wilson seemed to take a pride in having Duncan and Conal withhim, and he introduced them as friends wherever he went.
Both lads were handsome, and in the city of Melbourne a rumour gotabroad that they were of noble birth, and were serving before the mastfor the mere romance of the thing. Well, even the Earl of Aberdeen wasonce found in the guise of an ordinary seaman; but there was somethingmore than romance in our heroes' situation. However, the report, whichthey always contradicted, did them no harm, and they were invited tomore houses than one, being asked, moreover, to come in their sailor'sclothes.
The boys obeyed. In fact they had none other, but they had a kind ofbest suit, and very well the broad blue collar and blacksailor's-knotted handkerchief became their handsome young faces.
I don't think I am far wrong in saying that some of the Australianladies fell in love with them.
But that is a mere detail.
Now, having reached Australia, Duncan had about half a mind, more orless, to try his luck at the gold diggings.
He broached the subject to Captain Wilson.
"Well," replied the skipper, "mind, though I should be grieved to partwith you, I would rather put another spoke in your wheel than hinderyou, if I thought there was the ghost of a chance of your making yourfortune. But I don't think there is."
"Then we shall be advised by you," said Duncan.
So after a very pleasant time spent in Australia the _Ocean's Pride_spread her wings once more to the breeze and sailed for distant Japan.
Thence homewards round stormy Cape Horn. It took them six weeks toweather the Cape, so close was the ice.
But worse was to befall them, alas! than this.
They were now bearing up for home. Right cheerily too, for they hadcaught the trades, and finally fell into the doldrums in crossing theequator.
Here they tumbled about for no less than three weeks, not a breath ofwind blowing all this time to help them along.
But it came at last, and they were free.