Three Sailor Boys

CHAPTER I.

THE RUNAWAYS.

“Look out, boys, or we shall never fetch the ship again!”

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“Matter enough; we’re ever so far from her, and there’s a storm brewing. Just look to the westward and see what a bank the sun is setting in.”

Sure enough, a lurid, red sun was setting in a bank of heavy, black clouds, which had already obscured his lower half, and the surface of which was flecked with little, white, fleecy dots, moving rapidly, which looked as if the port-holes of some giant craft had been opened and her guns fired.

In an open boat were I, Sam Hawse, and the two speakers, my companions, Tom Arbor and Bill Seaman, and a mile and a half or two miles away lay a ship with her upper sails furled, courses hauled up, and topsails lowered on the cap, while the surface of the sea was like glass, though a long, heavy swell was rolling up from the westward, heralding the approach of the storm of which the clouds pointed out by Tom Arbor were the visible harbingers.

The ship was the Golden Fleece, a clipper barque; and we were three boys belonging to her, and had on this the third day of continuous and stark calms been sent away to try our hands at turning a turtle, of which some had been seen floating on the surface, and had already been successful in securing two; and going on in search of others, we had got farther from the Golden Fleece than either we wished or intended.

“See there,” continued Tom; “it’s all hands aboard the barky. The skipper he sees what’s coming, and ain’t a-goin’ to be caught napping. Come, we must give way and get aboard as soon as we may; he’ll be in no pleasant temper, and the mate or bos’n will give us a rope’s-ending for supper.”

Besides the fear of the reception which awaited us, we saw the truth of what Tom said, and bent to our oars with all our strength.

Before, however, we had covered half the distance which lay between us and the Golden Fleece, the clouds had risen and obscured the heavens, and we could feel faint, chill puffs of air fanning our cheeks.

“Give way, lads,” cried Tom, who was pulling stroke, “or we shall never reach her; and in a cockle-shell like this we can never live out a storm such as is coming on.”

Bill and I needed no urging, and if possible pulled harder than before; but suddenly Tom’s oar broke in half, and he fell on his back in the bottom of the boat.

Bill, astonished at this, let go his oar, and it fell overboard and drifted astern.

As soon as Tom regained his seat, we looked round for the ship, and saw that she was paying off before the wind with a fore-staysail set, and that, even if we had our oars, there would be small hope of our reaching her, while to windward we could see the rain coming down on us like a wall.

“Well, lads, we’re in a fix now,” said Tom; “give me your oar, Sam, and I’ll see if I can scull back to pick up Bill’s oar.”

“Not much use in that; the rain will be on us in five minutes, and we shall be able to see nothing,” I said; and almost as I spoke, a flash of lightning seemed to strike the water in our immediate vicinity, and was instantly followed by a crash of thunder, which sounded as if heaven and earth were coming to an end.

“Out with your knives, quick, and cut the sails loose, and get the lug over the bows fast to the painter; we may ride to it, while I keep her bows on with the oar,” (our only remaining one), cried Tom.

Indeed, this was our only chance, for the rain was upon us and the lightning was flashing all around us; and in less time than it takes to tell of it, Tom and I had the sail over the bows, and bent on to the painter with the tack, and weighted by the leads of some fishing-lines, which were fortunately in the boat.

By the time this was finished, the ship was hidden from our sight by the storm; and soon the freshness of the rain turned to salt from the spray driven by the wind, and the full force and fury of the storm fell on us.

Fortunately the sea did not get up rapidly, being kept down by the strength of the wind, and Tom managed to keep us bows on, and our hastily-extemporized sea-anchor prevented it from breaking over us; but Bill and I had all our work cut out to bail out the water, which we did with a bailer and bucket that were by good-luck in the boat.

After about two hours, as it must have been, though to us it seemed much longer, the storm abated, leaving a nasty, confused sea; but we were able to keep the boat afloat and fairly dry, though the long, dark night was most dreary.

At last the day began to dawn, and when the sun rose the clouds dispersed and the sea got calmer by degrees. Our first anxiety was to look for the Golden Fleece, and we eagerly scanned the horizon for some signs of her; but not a sail was to be seen, and we three lads were alone in an open boat on the wide ocean.

Before going any farther I may as well describe the three occupants of the boat, and say who we were. Tom Arbor, as the eldest, should stand first. He was about seventeen years of age, and was strong built and active. Like Seaman and myself, he was an orphan and the son of a sailor drowned at sea. His mother had brought him up to the best of her ability, and would have kept him with her, and opposed his following in his father’s footsteps and going to sea with her utmost power; but she could no more prevail with him than a hen who has sat upon ducks’ eggs can stop her brood from taking to the nearest water by clucking. Accordingly, when but twelve years of age, he had stowed himself away on board a ship bound round the Horn to California; and, not being found till long after the pilot had left, had made the voyage, and, the skipper being a kindly man, had been well treated. When he came home he had found his mother married again to a small shopkeeper, and she no longer said a word against his being a sailor; and he had made a voyage to China and back before shipping on board the Golden Fleece, about six months before. He was a cheerful, good-natured lad, with dark-brown hair and eyes, and was certainly for his years a good sailor, and could hand, reef, and steer, splice a rope, and pull an oar as well as many who were longer at sea and older in years.

Bill Seaman had been picked up on the sea-shore when about two years old, and was supposed to be the only survivor from the wreck of a large ship, in which it was thought his father had been lost; but no means had come to hand to establish who his father was, and he had, by the interest of some of the gentry living near where he was found, been brought up in an establishment for the orphans of sailors till it was closed, and he was sent to a workhouse. He was a clever, bright boy, but small for his age.