Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
Dick Leslie's Luck, by Harry Collingwood.
CHAPTER ONE.
A MARITIME DISASTER.
The night was as dark as the inside of a cow! Mr Pryce, the chief mateof the full-rigged sailing ship _Golden Fleece_--outward-bound toMelbourne--was responsible for this picturesque assertion; and one hadonly to glance for a moment into the obscurity that surrounded the shipto acknowledge the truth of it.
For, to begin with, it was four bells in the first watch--that is tosay, ten o'clock p.m.; then it also happened to be the date of the newmoon; and, finally, the ship was just then enveloped in a fog so densethat, standing against the bulwarks on one side of the deck, it wasimpossible to see across to the opposite rail. It was Mr Pryce'swatch; but the skipper--Captain Rainhill--was also on deck; and togetherthe pair assiduously promenaded the poop, to and fro, pausing for amoment to listen and peer anxiously into the thickness to windward everytime that they reached the break of the poop at one end of their walk,and the stern grating at the other.
Now, a dark and foggy night at sea is an anxious time for a skipper; butthe anxiety is multiplied tenfold when, as in the present case, theskipper is responsible not only for the safety of a valuable ship andcargo, but also for many human lives. For the _Golden Fleece_ was amagnificent clipper ship of two thousand eight hundred tons register,quite new--this being her maiden voyage, while she carried a cargo,consisting chiefly of machinery, valued at close upon one hundredthousand pounds sterling; and there were thirty-six passengers in hercuddy, together with one hundred and thirty emigrants--mostly men--inthe 'tween decks. And there was also, of course, her crew.
For a reason that will shortly become apparent, it is unnecessary tointroduce any of the above-mentioned persons to the reader--with twoexceptions. Of these two exceptions one was a girl some three andtwenty years of age, of medium height, perfect figure, lovely featurescrowned by an extraordinary wealth of sunny chestnut wavy hair with aglint of ruddy gold in it where the sun struck it, and a pair ofmarvellous dark blue eyes. Her beauty of face and form was perfect; andshe would have been wonderfully attractive but for the unfortunate factthat her manner towards everybody was characterised by a frigid hauteurthat at once effectually discouraged the slightest attempt to establishone's self on friendly terms with her. It was abundantly clear that shewas a spoiled child, in the most pronounced acceptation of the term, andwould be likely to remain so all her life unless some extraordinarycircumstance should haply intervene to break down her repellent pride,and bring to the surface those sterling qualities of character that everand anon seemed struggling for an opportunity to assert themselves. Hername was Flora Trevor; her father was an Indian judge; and, accompaniedby her maid, and chaperoned--nominally, at least--by a friend and formerschoolfellow of her mother, she was now proceeding on a visit to somerelatives in Australia prior to joining her father at Bombay.
The other exception was a man, of thirty-two years of age--but wholooked very considerably older. He stood six feet one inch in hissocks; was of exceptionally muscular build, without an ounce ofsuperfluous flesh anywhere about him; rather thin and worn-looking as toface--which was clean-shaven and tinted a ruddy bronze, as though theowner had been long accustomed to exposure to the weather; of a gloomyand saturnine cast of countenance; and a manner so cold andunapproachable that, although on this particular night he had been onboard the _Golden Fleece_ just a fortnight, no one in the ship knewanything more about him than that he went by the name of Richard Leslie;and that he was--like the rest of the passengers--on his way toAustralia.
Now, there is no need to make a secret of this man's history; on thecontrary, a brief sketch of it will lead to a tolerably clearunderstanding of much that would otherwise prove incomprehensible in hischaracter and actions. Let it be said, therefore, at once, that he wasthe second, and at one time favourite, son of the Earl of Swimbridge,whom the whole world knows to be beyond all question the proudest memberof the British peerage. Amiable, generous, high-spirited, and withevery trait of the best type of the British gentleman fully developed inhim, this son had joined the British navy at an early age, as amidshipman, and had made rapid progress in the profession of hischoice--to his father's unbounded satisfaction and delight--up to acertain point. Then, when he was within a few months of histwenty-fifth birthday, a horrible thing happened. Without a shadow ofwarning, and like a bolt from the blue, disgrace and disaster fell uponand morally destroyed him; and almost in a moment the once favouredchild of good fortune found himself an outcast from home and society;disowned by those nearest and dearest to him; with every hope andaspiration blasted; branded as a felon; and his whole life ruined, as itseemed to him, irretrievably. In his father's house, and while enjoyinga short period of well-earned leave, he was arrested upon a charge offorgery and embezzlement; and, after a short period of imprisonment,tried, found guilty, and sentenced to a period of seven years' penalservitude! Vain were all his protestations of innocence; vain hiscounsel's representation that there was no earthly motive for such acrime on the part of his client; the evidence adduced against him was sooverwhelmingly complete and convincing--although the greater part of itwas circumstantial--that his protestations were regarded as a positiveaggravation of his offence; and the last news that reached him ere theprison gates closed upon him were that the girl who had promised to behis wife had already given herself to his rival; while his father,stricken to earth by the awful blow to his family pride, as well as tohis affection, was not expected to live.
That so fearfully crushing a catastrophe should have fallen withparalysing effect upon the moral nature of the convict himself was onlywhat might naturally be expected. With the pronouncement of thatterrible sentence by the judge the victim's character underwent acomplete and instantaneous transformation, as was evidenced by the factthat to him the worst feature of the case seemed to be that he wasinnocent! He felt that had he been guilty he could have borne hispunishment, because he would have richly merited it; but that, being_innocent_, he should thus be permitted to suffer such abasement anddisgrace seemed incomprehensible to him; the injustice of it appeared tohim so rank, so colossal, as to destroy within him, in a moment, everyatom of his former faith in the existence of a God of justice and ofmercy! And with his loss of faith in God went his faith in man. Everygood instinct at once seemed to die within him; while as for life,henceforth it could be to him only an intolerable burden to be laid downat the first convenient opportunity.
Feeling thus, as he did, full of rebellion against fate, full of angerand resentment against his fellow-man for the bitterly cruel injusticethat had been meted out to him, and kicking hard against the pricksgenerally, it was scarcely to be expected that he would prove veryamenable to the harsh discipline of prison life; and as a matter of facthe did not; he was very careful to avoid the committal of any offencesufficiently serious to bring down upon him the disgrace of a flogging--that crowning shame he could not have endured and continued to live--but, short of that, he was so careless and intractable a prisoner, andgave so much trouble and annoyance to the warders in charge of him, thathe earned none of those good marks whereby a prisoner can purchase theremission of a certain proportion of his sentence; and as a result heserved the full term of his imprisonment, every moment of which seemedcrowded with the tortures of hell! And when at length he emerged oncemore into the world, he did so as a thoroughly soured, embittered,cynical, utterly hopeless and reckless man, without a shred of faith inanything that was good.
The first thing that he learned, upon attaining his freedom, was thatalthough the Earl,
his father, had, after all, survived the shock of hisson's disgrace, he had made a solemn vow never to forgive him, never tosee him again, and never to have any communication with him. He had,however, made arrangements with his solicitors that his son should bemet at the prison gates and conveyed thence to London, where he waslodged in a quiet hotel until arrangements could be made for hisshipment off to Australia. This was quickly done; and within a week ofhis release the young man, under the assumed name of Richard Leslie,found himself a saloon passenger on board the _Golden Fleece_, with aplain but sufficient outfit for the voyage, and one hundred pounds inhis pocket to enable him to make a new start in life at the antipodes;the gift of the money, however, was accompanied by a request from theEarl that he would never again show his face in England, or even inEurope.
At the moment when this story opens the sound of the ship's bell--uponwhich "four bells" had just been struck--was still vibrating upon thewet, fog-laden air; the steerage passengers were all below, and most ofthem in their bunks; while the cuddy people, with one solitaryexception, were in the brilliantly lighted saloon, amusing themselveswith cards, books, and music. The exception was Leslie, who, havingchanged out of his dress clothes into a comfortable suit of blue serge,was down in the waist of the ship, smoking a gloomily retrospectivepipe. The ship's reckoning, that day, had placed her, at noon, inLatitude 32 degrees 10 minutes North, and Longitude 26 degrees 55minutes West; she was therefore about midway between the parallels ofMadeira and Teneriffe, but some four hundred miles, or thereabouts, tothe westward of those islands. The wind was blowing a moderate breezefrom about south-east by South; and the ship, close-hauled on the porttack, and with all plain sail set, to her royals, was headingsouth-west, and going through the water at the rate of a good honestseven knots. The helmsman was steering by compass, and not by thesails, since it was impossible to see anything above a dozen feet upfrom the deck; hence the ship was going along with everything a-rapfull.
Captain Rainhill was very far from being easy in his mind. Seven knots,he meditated, was a good pace at which to be sailing through a fog thickenough to cut with a knife, and would mean something very much likedisaster if the ship happened to run up against anything, particularlyif that "anything" happened also to be travelling at about the samespeed in the opposite direction; from this point of view, therefore, thespeed of the _Golden Fleece_ just then constituted a decided element ofdanger. On the other hand, however, it enabled her to promptly answerher helm, and thus might be the means of enabling her to swerve quicklyaside and so avoid any danger that might suddenly loom up out of the fogaround her; and in this sense it became a safeguard. Then there was thefact that the _Golden Fleece_ was no longer in a crowded part of theocean; it was three days since they had sighted a craft of anydescription, and there might be at that moment nothing within a coupleof hundred miles of them, in which case there was absolutely nothing tofear. Furthermore, his owners made an especial point of persistentlyimpressing upon their captains the great importance of--nay, more, theurgent necessity for--making quick passages; there were two keen-eyedlookouts stationed upon the topgallant-forecastle, and between them athird man provided with a fog-horn, upon which he at brief intervalsblew the weirdest of blasts. Taking into consideration all thesecircumstances the skipper finally decided to leave things as they were,and put his trust in the "sweet little cherub that sits up aloft to lookafter the life of poor Jack."
"Five bells" pealed out upon the dank air, and the responsive cry of"All's well" from the look-outs came wailing aft from the forecastle.Leslie's pipe was out. He knocked out the dead ashes, and turned to gobelow. Then, considering the matter further, he decided that it wasfull early yet to turn in, and, sauntering across the deck to the portrail, he stood gazing abstractedly out to windward as he slowly filledhis pipe afresh. The man with the fog-horn was still industriouslyblowing long blasts to windward when, ruthlessly cutting into one ofthese, there suddenly came--from apparently close at hand, on the portbow--the loud discordant yell of a steam syren; and the next instantthree lights--red, green, and white, arranged in the form of anisosceles triangle--broke upon Leslie's gaze with startling suddennessthrough the dense fog, broad on the port bow of the _Golden Fleece_. Alarge steamer, coming along at full speed, was close aboard and headingstraight for the sailing ship!
Leslie's professional training at once asserted itself and, as afrenzied shout of "Steamer broad on the port bow!" came pealing aft fromthe throats of the two startled lookouts, he made a single bound for thepoop ladder, crying, in a voice that rang through the ship, from stem tostern--
"Port! hard a-port, for your life! Over with the wheel, for God'ssake!"
His cry was broken in upon by a mad jangling of engine-room bellsaccompanied by a perfect babel of excited shouts--evidently in someforeign tongue--on board the stranger, mingled with equally excitedshouts and the sudden trampling of feet forward, and loud-voicedcommands from Captain Rainhill on the poop. As Leslie reached the headof the poop ladder the steamer crashed with terrific force into the portside of the ill-fated _Golden Fleece_, just forward of the fore rigging.So tremendous was the shock that every individual who happened at themoment to be on his, or her, feet on board the sailing ship was thrownto the deck; while, as for the ship herself, she was heeled over by ituntil the water poured like a cataract in over her starboard topgallantrail; there was a horrid crunching sound as the ponderous iron bows ofthe steamer irresistibly clove their way through the wooden side anddecks of the ship; a loud twanging aloft told of severed rigging; therewas a terrifying crash of breaking spars overhead; and then, all in amoment, as it seemed, the main deck and poop became alive withshrieking, shouting, distraught people rushing aimlessly hither andthither, and excitedly demanding of each other what was the matter.
The skipper, confounded for the moment by the appalling suddenness ofthe catastrophe, quickly recovered himself and, turning to the chiefmate, ordered him to go forward to investigate the extent of the damage.Then, finding Mr Ferris, the second mate, at his elbow, he said--
"Mr Ferris, muster the watches at once--port watch to the port side,and starboard watch to the starboard side--and set them to work to clearaway the boats for launching. Where is the chief steward?"
"Here, sir," answered the individual in question, forcing his waythrough the excited crowd that surrounded the skipper.
"Good!" ejaculated Rainhill. "Muster your stewards, sir, and turn-toupon the job of getting provisions and water up on deck for the boats.And, as you go, pass the word for all passengers to dress in theirwarmest clothing, and make up in packages any valuables that they maydesire to take with them in the event of our being obliged to leave theship. But they must leave their luggage behind; there will be no roomfor luggage in the boats. And tell any of them who may be below tocomplete their preparations and come on deck without delay."
At this moment Mr Pryce, having completed his investigations forward,came rushing up the poop ladder and, wild with excitement, shouted tothe skipper--
"We can't live five minutes, sir! We are cut down from rail to bilge;there is a hole in our side big enough to drive a coach and six through,and the water is pouring into her like a sluice!"
"And where is the steamer?" demanded the skipper.
"She has backed out, and vanished in the fog," answered the mate.
"My God! what an appalling mess," ejaculated the distracted skipper."And all through the lubberly carelessness of those foreign fellows, whowere too lazy to sound their syren until they were aboard of us! Now,Mr Ferris, what is the news of the boats? Hurry up and get them intothe water as smartly as possible. Back the main-yard, Mr Pryce."
This mention of the boats, added to the ill-advised candour of themate's loudly proclaimed statement as to the condition of the ship, tookimmediate hold upon the mob of anxiously listening people who werecrowding round the two men, and galvanised them into sudden, breathlessactivity; hitherto they had only vaguely realised that what had happened_might_ po
ssibly mean danger to them; now, in a flash, it dawned uponthem, one and all, that they were the victims of a ghastly disaster, andthat death was actually staring them in the face! And therewith a mad,unreasoning panic took possession of them, and with one accord they madea rush for the boats.
"Stand back, there; stand back, I say, and leave the men room to work,"yelled the skipper. "Do you hear, there, you people from the steerage?Stand back, as you value your lives! Do you want to drown yourselvesand everybody else? Here, Mr Pryce, lend me a hand to keep thesemadmen in order. Back, every man of you; get off this poop--"
He might as well have appealed to and attempted to reason with the oceanthat was pouring in through the gash in the ship's side! It is doubtfulwhether any one of those to whom he addressed himself heard him; if theydid they certainly took no notice. In a moment the ship's crew wereswept away from the davits and tackle falls, and in another the maddenedmob, with a wild yell of "We're sinking, we're sinking!" were strugglingtogether, striking and trampling down everybody who happened to be inthe way, and fighting desperately with each other for a place in theboats, that had been swung out and were ready for lowering. The skipperand the mate dashed manfully into the thick of the _melee_, no doubthoping that their authority, and the habit of discipline that was beinggradually cultivated among the emigrants would enable them to stem thetide of panic that was raging, and restore order for at least the fewminutes that were needed to get the boats into the water. In vain! thetwo men were visible for a moment, fighting desperately, side by side;then they went down before that maniacal charge--in which the cuddypassengers had by this time joined--and were seen no more.
As for Leslie, the nearest approach to happiness that had been his formore than seven years came to him now with the conviction that he was atlast face to face with inevitable, kindly Death. He had endured sevenyears of physical misery and mental torment because he had too much gritto resort to the cowardly expedient of taking his own life; but now,_now_ fate--he no longer believed in the existence of such a being asGod--fate had taken pity upon him and, through no act of his own, he wasgoing to be relieved of his intolerable burden. For he knew that, withthat fighting mob of raging maniacs struggling madly round the boats,escape was a sheer impossibility, and that in a few minutes--or hours,at the outside--for he was a strong swimmer--he would go down inanimateinto the dark depths, and his load of disgrace and humiliation wouldfall from him for ever.
So, serene and contented in mind, he stood well back beyond the outerfringe of that frantic, swaying, cursing crowd, and cynically watchedits proceedings. The scene upon which he gazed was precisely what hehad expected from the moment when those three ill-omened lights hadburst through the fog and told him that the _Golden Fleece_ was a doomedship. Here was selfishness supremely triumphant, beating down anderadicating in a moment every nobler instinct of humanity. It was"Every man for himself" with a vengeance; women and children were struckout of men's way with horrid curses and savage, murderous blows; menwere fighting together like furious beasts; knives were out, blood wasflowing freely, and the air was clamorous with shrieks, groans, andimprecations; the whole accentuated and made still more dreadful by theloud clash of dangling wreckage aloft, and the awful creaking andgroaning of the riven hull as it writhed upon the low swell to thegurgling and sobbing and splashing sound of the water alongside andunder the counter; the weird and horror-inspiring effect being stillfurther intensified by the hollow moaning of the night wind over theheaving surface of the deep. The struggling crowd was no longer human,save in shape; it had become a mob of senseless, raging demons!
Blind, insensate selfishness! Yes; that was the motive that dominatedevery individual in that seething crowd. Had they but kept their headsand listened to poor Captain Rainhill, had they but helped instead ofhindered, all might have been well. Many hands make light and quickwork; and had every man there devoted but a tithe of the energy he wasnow displaying to the task of helping the crew to launch the boats it ispossible that every life on board might have been saved. But, as itwas, the boats hung there at the davits, crowded far beyond their utmostcapacity with men who ignorantly sought to lower themselves, whileothers fought and struggled with the occupants for the places that theyhad secured; and nothing useful was done.
Meanwhile, although not one of that crowd of mad folk seemed to be awareof the fact, the ship was settling down with awful rapidity. Alreadyshe was sunk to her channels, and was heaving heavily upon the swellwith the slow, deadly sluggishness of movement that, to the initiated,told so plainly that her end was nigh.
Now, utterly hopeless as Leslie's future appeared to him, impossible asseemed to be the task of ever rehabilitating himself in the eyes of theworld, crushed as he was by the burden of his disgrace, and glad as hewas at the prospect of deliverance from all his misery through thekindly agency of death, it was characteristic of him that, even now, atthe supreme moment of his impending deliverance, his self-respectimperiously demanded of him that at all costs must he eschew even thefaintest taint of so cowardly an act as that of suicide; if death werereally close at hand--as it certainly appeared to be--well and good; itwas what he was hoping for, and would be thrice welcome. Nevertheless,he felt it incumbent upon himself that he should take full advantage ofsuch slender aids to escape as happened to present themselves; andaccordingly, as the bows of the ship became depressed, while the sternrose in the air, telling that the _Golden Fleece_ was about to take herfinal dive, he mechanically sprang to the taffrail and, disengaging alife-buoy that hung there, passed it over his shoulders and up under hisarmpits. Then, climbing upon the rail, he leapt unhesitatingly into theblack, heaving water below him at the precise moment when a loud wail ofindescribable anguish and despair from the frantic crowd fighting aboutthe boats told that to them, too, had at last come the realisation ofimminent doom.
As Leslie struck the water and floated there, supported by thelife-buoy, the rudder and stern-post of the ship hove themselves slowlyout of the water close alongside him until the keel, for a length ofsome thirty feet, was exposed; then the huge hull began to slide forwardand away from him with an ever-quickening motion until, with a rush, aweird whistling of air escaping from the ship's interior that mingledhorribly with the shrieks of those on deck, and a dull booming as thedecks were burst up, the fabric plunged headlong and was gone!
Then came the deadly suction of the sinking ship; the waters poured fromall round, like a raging torrent, into the swirling hollow where thecraft had been; and as Leslie felt himself caught and draggedirresistibly toward the vortex he instinctively drew a deep breath,filling his lungs to their utmost capacity with air in readiness for thelong submergence that he knew was coming.
Another moment and it had come; the tumbling waters had closed over him,and he felt himself being dragged down, down, down, and whirledhelplessly hither and thither as he clung resolutely to his life-buoy.As he continued to descend he was constantly reminded that he was notalone in this frightful plunge into the depths; he several times cameinto more or less violent contact with objects, some at least of whichwere certainly struggling human beings like himself. Once he felthimself strongly clutched by the hair for a moment, but the swirl of thewater almost immediately tore him free again. And still that awful,implacable downward drag continued, until he began to wonder dreamilywhether he would ever return to the surface alive, or whether, afterall, deliverance from his wretchedness--which in some inexplicable wayalready seemed much less poignant to him--was coming to him down therein those black depths. The pressure upon his body was rapidly becomingunendurable; the air was being forced from his lungs; he wassuffocating! Involuntarily he began to struggle, throwing out his armsand legs instinctively in a powerful effort to return to the surface.Then, in a moment, he lost all consciousness of his dreadful situationand found himself once more back among the scenes of his childhood, amultitude of trivial and long-forgotten incidents recurring to hismemory with inconceivable rapidity. He was a dying man; the ago
ny ofdrowning was over, and he had entered upon that curious phase ofretrospection that most drowning people experience, and that sopleasantly precedes that form of dissolution.
But after an indefinite period of oblivion consciousness returned, andhe found that he had somehow come back to the surface and was painfullytaking in great gulps of air, clinging tenaciously, meanwhile, to what,so far as he could discover, in the intense darkness, was the body of awoman!
Whether that woman was alive, or dead, Leslie knew not; but, stillanimated by the old reckless disregard for his own safety that hadbecome a part of his nature, as well as by that innate feeling ofchivalry that even his great sorrow had not eradicated, his firstimpulse was to give his unknown companion the benefit of whateverslender possibility of ultimate escape might exist; and he accordinglylost not a moment in disengaging himself from the life-buoy that stillsupported him, and adjusting it beneath the unconscious body of thewoman in such a manner that she sat within it almost as though it werean armchair; the buoy floating aslant in the water, with its lower rimsupporting the weight of the body, while its upper rim, which roseseveral inches above the surface of the water, pressed against andsupported the woman's shoulders. By this arrangement the woman's headwas raised well above the water; and if she were not already dead therewas some prospect that she would ultimately revive and recoverconsciousness. As for Leslie, he was so powerful a swimmer that hereally needed no support, now that he was once more himself; heaccordingly threw himself prone upon his back and, in that position,floated easily, retaining his hold upon the buoy by means of the becketsof light line that were looped around it.
The water was quite warm; there was therefore no hardship in beingimmersed in it; there was not much sea running, and such as there wasseldom broke. Leslie felt therefore that the probability of severalhours of life still lay before him; and he began, with a queer feelingof dismay and disappointment, to ask himself whether, after all, hemight not ultimately be doomed to escape. He knew that the catastrophehad occurred right in the usual track of ships bound south; and it wasquite upon the cards that one of these might come along at any momentand pass within hail of him, or, at all events, close enough to permitof his being seen. And if this should happen to occur between daylightand dark he would feel bound to adopt such measures as might be possibleto attract the attention of her crew and cause himself to be picked up.Well, he argued, if such a thing should happen it could not be helped;perhaps there might occur some other occasion. Besides, there was hiscompanion. She might possibly be alive; and if such should be the caseshe would doubtless be anxious to escape; she had, in an accidental way,come under his protection, and he must do everything he possibly couldfor her.
The question as to whether life still lingered in the occupant of thelife-buoy was speedily determined; for while Leslie still lay floatingtranquilly upon his back, weighing the _pros_ and _cons_ of thesituation, a faint groan reached his ear, quickly followed by a second,louder and more sustained; then followed certain sounds indicative ofviolent sickness; the patient was getting rid of the very considerablequantity of sea water that she had swallowed.
Leslie waited patiently until this unpleasant episode appeared to havecome to an end, when, raising himself upright in the water, he saidcheerfully--
"That's capital; you will soon be all right now. Are you feelingtolerably comfortable in that buoy?"
"Oh Heaven!" moaned a voice that Leslie fancied was not altogetherunfamiliar to him, "is it possible that there is some one else in thesame horrible plight as my unfortunate self?"
"Nay," said Leslie, "do not speak or think of yourself as unfortunate,at least as yet. You have thus far escaped with life--which is, I fear,more than any one else except myself has done--and while there is lifethere is hope, you know."
"Surely not in such a dreadful situation as ours!" said his companion."What hope dare we entertain? What possible prospect of escape have we?Is it not a certainty that we shall perish miserably by thirst andstarvation if we succeed in avoiding death by drowning? I must confessthat I shall bitterly regret the respite that has in some mysterious waycome to me, if I am doomed to linger on and endure the protractedhorrors of death from hunger and thirst."
"Naturally you will," assented Leslie; "I fully agree with you that, ifone or the other fate must necessarily overtake us, that of drowning ismuch to be preferred. But it is early yet to despair. We are in a partof the Atlantic that is much frequented by ships; and if fate will onlybe kind to us, it is quite on the cards that we may be picked up in thecourse of a day or two. And surely, if this fine weather will butlast--as I believe it will--we can hold out for that length of time.And let me reassure you upon one point: so long as we are fully immersedin the water, as we now are, we shall not suffer very greatly fromthirst; the water penetrates through the pores of the skin, and, beingfiltered as it were in the process, alleviates to a very considerableextent the craving for liquid that must otherwise result from longabstinence. Hunger, of course, is another matter; but we must make upour minds to endure that as best we may. You will understand that I amnow looking at the bright side of things; there is a dark side also, butwe will not consider that at present. What we have to do just now is tobe hopeful; to maintain one's hopefulness is half the battle. And, ifthe assurance will help in the least to encourage you, I should like youclearly to understand that so long as life--or at least consciousnessand a particle of strength--remains to me, you may rely upon my doing mylevel best for you. And, being by profession a sailor, I may be able todo much that a landsman could not. Meanwhile, however, all that we cando at present is to wait patiently for daylight. One point is alreadydeclaring itself in our favour; I notice that the fog is lifting."
"Is it?" responded the girl, wearily. "I cannot say that I am able todetect any improvement. But, naturally, a sailor's trained eyes wouldbe more quick to see such a change than those of a lands-woman likemyself. And you spoke of yourself as a sailor. I seem to recogniseyour voice. Are you one of the officers of the _Golden Fleece_?"
"No," answered Leslie. "My connection with the ship was simply that ofa passenger like yourself. But I used to belong to the British navy;and although I left it some seven years ago, I venture to believe thatmy knowledge of seamanship has not yet grown quite rusty. My name isLeslie--Richard Leslie, and unless my ears deceive me you are MissTrevor."
"Yes," assented the girl; "you are quite right. I am that unfortunateindividual--unfortunate, that is to say, in that I yielded to my pooraunt's persuasions and consented to embark in a sailing ship instead ofgoing out to Australia in a mail steamer. I had not been very well forsome months, and it was thought that the longer voyage by a sailing shipwould benefit my health. And so you are Mr Leslie, the gentleman whoheld himself so rigidly aloof from all that he excited everybody's mostlively curiosity as to his business, his antecedents, and, in short,everything about him. Well, Mr Leslie, let me say at once that I amprofoundly grateful to you for your promise to help me so far as youcan. At the same time, I must confess that at present I quite fail tosee in what way you can possibly be of the slightest assistance to me,excepting, of course, that your presence and companionship are a greatcomfort and encouragement to me. It would be awful beyond words to findone's self quite alone in such a frightful situation as this. By theway, do you think it likely that any others besides ourselves havesurvived this horrible accident--if accident it was?"
"Oh," answered Leslie, "there is no doubt as to its being an accident.But it was one of those accidents that might have been avoided.Rainhill was not to blame; he observed every possible precaution; thefault lay with the other fellow, who came blundering along through thatdense fog at full speed. I take it he approached us so rapidly that hefailed to hear our fog-horn until it was too late to avoid us. Heought, under the circumstances, to have been steaming dead slow. Then,upon hearing our fog-horn, he could at once have stopped his engines,and, if necessary, reversed them, until the danger of collision wasp
ast. As it is, it is quite upon the cards that he, too, has gone tothe bottom. No ship could strike so terrific a blow as that steamer didwithout suffering serious damage herself. As to the probability ofthere being other survivors than ourselves, I doubt it. It isabsolutely certain that nobody could possibly have escaped in either ofthe boats; and, watching the mad fight for them, at a distance, as Idid, I imagine that when the ship went down, every one of those franticpeople went under in the grasp of somebody else, and so lost, in anotherperson's death-grip, whatever chance he might otherwise have had ofcoming to the surface. It is a marvel to me how _you_ escaped. Wherewere you when the ship plunged?"
"I? Oh, I was down on what they called the `main deck,'" answered MissTrevor. "I heard the captain give orders that every one was to dontheir warmest clothing, so I slipped into my cabin and changed myevening frock for a good stout serge that I wore when I first came onboard; and when I emerged from the saloon I found myself quite alone. Iwas just about to climb up on the poop when the ship seemed to slidefrom under me, and I found myself being dragged down beneath thesurface. Then I lost consciousness, and knew no more until I awoke tofind myself afloat in this life-buoy. I have been wondering how I cameto be in such a singular position. Can you by any chance enlighten me?"
"Well, to be perfectly candid, I put you there," answered Leslie. "Irecognised from the first that, with the mad panic prevailing on board,there would be no possibility of utilising the boats; so I took theprecaution to provide myself with a life-buoy, in which I jumpedoverboard. Like you, I was of course dragged under by the suction ofthe ship, as she went down; and, like you, I lost consciousness, thoughnot, I think, for very long. And when I recovered my senses I foundmyself once more afloat, with a fold of your dress in my grasp. So, asthe simplest means of relieving myself of the fatigue of supporting you,I placed you in the buoy, not needing it myself, since I am a strongswimmer, and can support myself for practically any length of time inthe water."
"From which it would appear that I am indebted to you for thecircumstance that I am alive at the present moment," commented MissTrevor. "I suppose I ought to be profoundly grateful to you; but--"
"Excuse me for interrupting you," broke in Leslie, "but if I am notgreatly mistaken there is something floating out there that may be ofuse to us. I will tow you to it. In our present circumstances we mustavail ourselves of everything that affords us an opportunity to betterour condition."