Philosopher Jack by R. M. Ballantyne (the best electronic book reader TXT) 📖

meditating on the delights of butter and jam together, which somehow suggested the scriptural figure of a land flowing with milk and honey.

“Oh!” he sighed at this point, “if the sea was only milk and honey—milk even without honey!—what a glorious prospect!”

He looked at it as if he half thought it would be transformed under the power of his intense wish. Then he looked again at the floating fish and shuddered. Well might he shudder, for they were contemptible little fish, most of them, with unnaturally large heads, and great staring eyes, as if they had failed, even in death, to get rid of their surprise at being caught. With their mouths opened to the uttermost, they seemed to wish to shout, but couldn’t.

“I may as well take them out of the dirty water anyhow,” he muttered, suiting the action to the word, and spreading the fish on the thwart in front of him. Liking their appearance still less in that position, he put them on the thwart behind him, and tried to forget them. Impossible! He might as well have tried to forget his own existence. At last, after holding out as long as possible, the poor boy made up his mind to eat a little. Then he thought, “If I could only cook them; oh! for only one small lump of live coal from the camp fire on—”

The thought was checked abruptly, for he suddenly remembered that he had a burning-glass in his trousers pocket. He might perhaps be able to roast them with that—in a somewhat underdone fashion, no doubt—still, any sort of cooking would be better than none!

It need scarcely be said that the attempt failed. The only results were a burnt spot or two and a faint odour that served to intensify his hunger. At last he bit a mouthful out of the back of one of the fish, chewed it viciously, swallowed it in a hurry, and felt very sick. The ice was broken, however, and he got on better than he had expected. But when hunger was appeased, there came gradually upon him the far less endurable condition of thirst. He really felt as if he should choke, and once or twice he dipped his baling-dish over the side, but restrained himself on remembering the journal of the skeleton, wherein it was recorded that one of the men had gone mad after drinking salt water.

Towards the afternoon hope was revived in his breast by the appearance of clouds indicating rain. It came at last, in a soft gentle shower—far too gentle, indeed, for it could not be collected. What dropped upon the wooden baling-dish seemed to sink into or evaporate off it. The few drops that fell upon his patiently protruded tongue served only to tantalise him. But Watty was not prone to give way to despair; at least, not to remain in that condition. He took off his jacket, spread it out so as to form a basin, and eagerly watched the result. Alas! the cloth was too soft. It acted like a sponge, into which the rain-drops disappeared.

When it became evident that the coat was a failure—refusing even to part with a single drop when wrung,—Watty chanced to cast down his eyes, and they naturally fell on his trousers. They were stiff canvas trousers, and very greasy from much service among the dishes. Instantly he had them off, and spread out as the coat had been. Joy inexpressible—they held water! To convert the body of them into a lake and the legs into two water-courses was not difficult for one whose ingenuity was beyond the average. But oh! the lake basin was slow to gather the precious drops! He caused the two legs to debouch into the baling-dish, and watched eagerly for half an hour, at the end of which period about a wineglassful was collected. He sucked it in, to the last drop, and waited for more. It seemed as if the very sky sympathised with the boy’s distress, for soon afterwards the rain increased, then it poured, and finally, Watty Wilkins was more than satisfied, he was drenched. Fortunately the downpour was short-lived. It ceased suddenly; the clouds broke up, and the evening sun came out in full splendour, enabling him to partially dry his garments.

In the Southern Seas at that time, the weather was particularly warm, so that our castaway felt no inconvenience from his ducking, and spent the second night in comparative comfort, his dreams—if he had any—being untroubled with visions of food or drink. Once, indeed, he awoke, and, looking up, recalled so vividly the fate of the man who had been cast alone and dying on the Coral Island, that he became deeply depressed by the thought of meeting a similar fate; but the text of the previous day again recurred to him. Clinging to it, he again fell asleep, and did not wake till morning.

Looking over the side, he saw what sent a gush of hope and joy to his heart. A ship, under full sail, not half a mile off! He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Was he dreaming? Could it be?

He sprang up with a cry of delight and gave vent to a long, loud cheer, as much to relieve his feelings as to attract attention. It was almost too good to be true, he thought. Then a voice within whispered, “Did you not ask for deliverance?” and the boy mentally responded, “Yes, thank God, I did.”

While he was thinking, his hands were busy refastening his jacket (which he had taken down to sleep in) by a sleeve to its former place at the end of an oar. But there was no occasion to signal. The vessel, a barque, was running straight towards him before a light breeze under full sail—as Baldwin Burr would have said, with “stuns’ls slow and aloft.” Believing that he had been observed, he ceased waving his flag of distress.

But soon a new idea sent a thrill through his heart. No sign of recognition was made to him as the ship drew near. Evidently the look-out was careless.

Leaping up, Watty seized the oar, waved his flag frantically, and yelled out his alarm. Still the ship bore majestically down on him, her huge bow bulking larger and higher as she drew near. Again Watty yelled, loud and long, and waved his flag furiously. The ship was close upon him—seemed almost towering over him. He saw a sailor appear lazily at the bow with his hands in his pockets. He saw the eyes of that seaman suddenly display their whites, and his hands, with the ten fingers extended, fly upwards. He heard a tremendous “Starboard ha-a-a-rd!” followed by a terrific “Starboard it is!” Then there was a crashing of rotten wood, a fearful rushing of water in his ears, a bursting desire to breathe, and a dreadful thrusting downwards into a dark abyss. Even in that moment of extremity the text of the morning flashed through his whirling brain—then all was still.

When Watty’s mind resumed its office, its owner found himself in a comfortable berth between warm blankets with a hot bottle at his feet, and the taste of hot brandy-and-water in his mouth. A man with a rough hairy visage was gazing earnestly into his face.

“Wall, youngster, I guess,” said the man, “that you’d pretty nigh slipped your cable.”

Watty felt thankful that he had not quite slipped his cable, and said so.

“You went over me, I think,” he added.

“Over you! Yes, I just think we did. You went down at the bows—I see’d you myself—and came up at the starn. The cap’n, he see’d you come up, an’ said you bounced out o’ the water like the cork of a soda-water bottle. But here he comes himself. He told me I wasn’t to speak much to you.”

The captain, who was an American, with a sharp-featured and firm but kindly countenance, entered the berth at the moment.

“Well, my boy, glad to see you revived. You had a narrow escape. Wouldn’t have been so if it hadn’t chanced that one of our worst men was the look-out—or rather wasn’t the look-out. However, you’re all right now. Your ship went down, I expect, not long since?”

“About three or four months ago,” answered Watty.

“Come, boy, your mind hasn’t got quite on the balance yet. It ain’t possible that you could be as fat as a young pig after bein’ three or four months at sea in an open boat. What was the name of your ship?”

“The Lively Poll.”

“What! a Scotch ship?”

“Yes; part owned and commanded by Captain Samson.”

“I know him; met him once in Glasgow. A big, rough-bearded, hearty fellow—six foot two or thereabouts. Didn’t go down with his ship, did he?” asked the captain with a look of anxiety.

“No,” replied Watty with increasing interest in the American; “we escaped on a raft to an island, off which I was blown, while alone in my boat only two days ago.”

“Only two days ago, boy!” echoed the captain, starting up; “d’you happen to know the direction of that island?”

Watty did not know, of course, having had no compass in his boat; but he fortunately remembered what Captain Samson had said when he had ascertained the latitude and longitude of it.

“Mr Barnes,” shouted the captain to the first mate, who stood on deck near the open skylight, “how’s her head?”

“Sou’-sou’-west, sir.”

“Put her about and lay your course west and by north. Now,” said the captain, turning again to Watty, with a look of satisfaction, “we’ll soon rescue Captain Samson and his crew. I’m sorry I won’t be able to take you all back to England, because we are bound for San Francisco, but a trip to California is preferable to life on a coral island. Now, boy, I’ve talked enough to you. The steward will bring you some dinner. If you feel disposed, you may get up after that. Here are dry clothes for you. We ripped up your own to save time after hauling you out of the sea.”

It was not usual for the gentle Polly Samson to alarm the camp with a shriek that would have done credit to a mad cockatoo, nevertheless, she did commit this outrage on the feelings of her companions on the afternoon of the day on which Watty was run down and rescued.

Her father and all the others were seated around the camp fire among the bushes at the time. Polly had left them, intending to pay a visit to one of her beautiful water-gardens on the beach, and had just emerged from the bushes and cast her eyes upon the sea, when she beheld the sight that drew from her the shriek referred to. She gave it forth in an ascending scale.

“Oh! Oh!! Oh!!! father! come here! quick! quick! oh!”

Never since he was a boy had the captain jumped so sharply from a sitting posture to his legs. Every man followed suit like a Jack-in-the-box. There was a rush as if of a tempest through the bushes, and next moment the whole party burst upon the scene, to find Polly—not as they had feared in some deadly peril, but—with flashing eyes and glowing cheeks waving her arms like a windmill, and shrieking with joy at a ship which was making straight for the island under full sail.

The captain greeted the sight with a bass roar, Philosopher Jack with a stentorian shout. Ben Trench did his best to follow Jack’s example. Simon O’Rook uttered an Irish howl, threw his cap into the air, and forthwith began an impromptu hornpipe, in which he was joined by Bob Corkey. Baldwin Burr and his comrades vented their feelings in prolonged British cheers, and Mr Luke, uttering a squeak like a wounded rabbit, went about wanting to embrace everybody, but nobody would let him. In short every one went more or less mad with joy at this sudden realisation of “hope long deferred.” Only then did they become fully aware of