CHAPTER X
THE TRAGEDY OF THE BOATS
When the fog lifted after midnight the people in the long-boat saw thequarter-boat half a mile to starboard of them.
“Can you see the dinghy?” asked Lestrange of the captain, who wasstanding up searching the horizon.
“Not a speck,” answered Le Farge. “Damn that Irishman! but for him I’dhave got the boats away properly victualled and all; as it is I don’tknow what we’ve got aboard. You, Jenkins, what have you got forwardthere?”
“Two bags of bread and a breaker of water,” answered the steward.
“A breaker of water be sugared!” came another voice; “a breaker halffull, you mean.”
Then the steward’s voice: “So it is; there’s not more than a couple ofgallons in her.”
“My God!” said Le Farge. “_Damn_ that Irishman!”
“There’s not more than’ll give us two half pannikins apiece all round,”said the steward.
“Maybe,” said Le Farge, “the quarter-boat’s better stocked; pull forher.”
“She’s pulling for us,” said the stroke oar.
“Captain,” asked Lestrange, “are you sure there’s no sight of thedinghy?”
“None,” replied Le Farge.
The unfortunate man’s head sank on his breast. He had little time tobrood over his troubles, however, for a tragedy was beginning to unfoldaround him, the most shocking, perhaps, in the annals of the sea—atragedy to be hinted at rather than spoken of.
When the boats were within hailing distance, a man in the bow of thelong-boat rose up.
“Quarter-boat ahoy!”
“Ahoy!”
“How much water have you?”
“None!”
The word came floating over the placid moonlit water. At it the fellowsin the long-boat ceased rowing, and you could see the water-dropsdripping off their oars like diamonds in the moonlight.
“Quarter-boat ahoy!” shouted the fellow in the bow. “Lay on your oars.”
“Here, you scowbanker!” cried Le Farge, “who are you to be givingdirections—”
“Scowbanker yourself!” replied the fellow. “Bullies, put her about!”
The starboard oars backed water, and the boat came round.
By chance the worst lot of the _Northumberland’s_ crew were in thelong-boat—veritable “scowbankers,” scum; and how scum clings to lifeyou will never know, until you have been amongst it in an open boat atsea. Le Farge had no more command over this lot than you have who arereading this book.
“Heave to!” came from the quarter-boat, as she laboured behind.
“Lay on your oars, bullies!” cried the ruffian at the bow, who wasstill standing up like an evil genius who had taken momentary commandover events. “Lay on your oars, bullies; they’d better have it now.”
The quarter-boat in her turn ceased rowing, and lay a cable’s lengthaway.
“How much water have you?” came the mate’s voice.
“Not enough to go round.”
Le Farge made to rise, and the stroke oar struck at him, catching himin the wind and doubling him up in the bottom of the boat.
“Give us some, for God’s sake!” came the mate’s voice; “we’re parchedwith rowing, and there’s a woman on board.”
The fellow in the bow of the long-boat, as if some one had suddenlystruck him, broke into a tornado of blasphemy.
“Give us some,” came the mate’s voice, “or, by God, we’ll lay youaboard!”
Before the words were well spoken the men in the quarter-boat carriedthe threat into action. The conflict was brief: the quarter-boat wastoo crowded for fighting. The starboard men in the long-boat foughtwith their oars, whilst the fellows to port steadied the boat.
The fight did not last long, and presently the quarter-boat sheeredoff, half of the men in her cut about the head and bleeding—two ofthem senseless.
* * * * * *
It was sundown on the following day. The long-boat lay adrift. The lastdrop of water had been served out eight hours before.
The quarter-boat, like a horrible phantom, had been haunting andpursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none. It waslike the prayers one might expect to hear in hell.
The men in the long-boat, gloomy and morose, weighed down with a senseof crime, tortured by thirst, and tormented by the voices imploring forwater, lay on their oars when the other boat tried to approach.
Now and then, suddenly, and as if moved by a common impulse, they wouldall shout out together: “We have none.” But the quarter-boat would notbelieve. It was in vain to hold the breaker with the bung out to proveits dryness, the half-delirious creatures had it fixed in their mindsthat their comrades were withholding from them the water that was not.
Just as the sun touched the sea, Lestrange, rousing himself from atorpor into which he had sunk, raised himself and looked over thegunwale. He saw the quarter-boat drifting a cable’s length away, lit bythe full light of sunset, and the spectres in it, seeing him, held outin mute appeal their blackened tongues.
* * * * * *
Of the night that followed it is almost impossible to speak. Thirstwas nothing to what the scowbankers suffered from the torture of thewhimpering appeal for water that came to them at intervals during thenight.
* * * * * *
When at last the _Arago_, a French whale ship, sighted them, the crew ofthe long-boat were still alive, but three of them were raving madmen.Of the crew of the quarter-boat was saved—not one.