CHAPTER XII.
"HOLD your tongue," said Welch, with an oath.
Mr. Hazel looked at Miss Rolleston, and she at him. It was a momentaryglance, and her eyes sank directly, and filled with patient tears.
For the first few minutes after the _Proserpine_ went down the survivorssat benumbed, as if awaiting their turn to be ingulfed.
They seemed so little, and the _Proserpine_ so big; yet she was swallowedbefore their eyes, like a crumb. They lost, for a few moments, all ideaof escaping.
But, true it is, that, "while there's life there's hope"; and, as soon astheir hearts began to beat again, their eyes roved round the horizon andtheir elastic minds recoiled against despair.
This was rendered easier by the wonderful beauty of the weather. Therewere men there who had got down from a sinking ship into boats heavingand tossing against her side in a gale of wind, and yet been saved; andhere all was calm and delightful. To be sure, in those other shipwrecksland had been near, and their greatest peril was over when once the boatsgot clear of the distressed ship without capsizing. Here was no immediateperil; but certain death menaced them, at an uncertain distance.
Their situation was briefly this. Should it come on to blow a gale, theseopen boats, small and loaded, could not hope to live. Therefore they hadtwo chances for life, and no more. They must either make land--or bepicked up at sea--before the weather changed.
But how? The nearest known land was the group of islands called JuanFernandez, and they lay somewhere to leeward, but distant at least ninehundred miles; and, should they prefer the other chance, then they mustbeat three hundred miles and more to windward; for Hudson, underratingthe leak, as is supposed, had run the _Proserpine_ fully that distanceout of the track of trade.
Now the ocean is a highway--in law; but, in fact, it contains a fewhighways and millions of byways; and, once a cockleshell gets into thosebyways, small indeed is its chance of being seen and picked up by anysea-going vessel.
Wylie, who was leading, lowered his sail, and hesitated between the twocourses we have indicated. However, on the cutter coming up with him, heordered Cooper to keep her head northeast, and so run all night. He thenmade all the sail he could, in the same direction, and soon outsailed thecutter. When the sun went down, he was about a mile ahead of her.
Just before sunset Mr. Hazel made a discovery that annoyed him very much.He found that Welch had put only one bag of biscuit, a ham, a keg ofspirit and a small barrel of water on board the cutter.
He remonstrated with him sharply. Welch replied that it was all right;the cutter being small, he had put the rest of her provisions on boardthe long-boat.
"On board the long-boat!" said Hazel, with a look of wonder. "You haveactually made our lives depend upon that scoundrel Wylie again. Youdeserve to be flung into the sea. You have no forethought yourself, yetyou will not be guided by those that have it."
Welch hung his head a little at these reproaches. However, he replied,rather sullenly, that it was only for one night; they could signal thelong-boat in the morning and get the other bags and the cask out of her.But Mr. Hazel was not to be appeased. "The morning! Why, she sails threefeet to our two. How do you know he won't run away from us? I neverexpect to get within ten miles of him again. We know him; and he knows weknow him."
Cooper got up and patted Mr. Hazel on the shoulder soothingly. "Boat-hookaft," said he to Welch.
He then, by an ingenious use of the boat-hook and some of the sparecanvas, contrived to set out a studding-sail on the other side of themast.
Hazel thanked him warmly. "But, oh, Cooper! Cooper!" said he, "I'd giveall I have in the world if that bread and water were on board the cutterinstead of the long-boat."
The cutter had now two wings instead of one; the water bubbling loudunder her bows marked her increased speed, and all fear of being greatlyoutsailed by her consort began to subside.
A slight sea-fret came on and obscured the sea in part; but they had agood lantern and compass, and steered the course exactly all night,according to Wylie's orders, changing the helmsman every four hours.
Mr. Hazel, without a word, put a rug round Miss Rolleston's shoulders,and another round her feet.
"Oh, not both, sir, please," said she.
"Am I to be disobeyed by everybody?" said he.
Then she submitted in silence, and in a certain obsequious way that wasquite new and well calculated to disarm anger.
Sooner or later all slept, except the helmsman.
At daybreak Mr. Hazel was wakened by a loud hail from a man in the bows.
All the sleepers started up.
"Long-boat not in sight!"
It was too true. The ocean was blank. Not a sail, large or small, insight.
Many voices spoke at once.
"He has carried on till he has capsized her."
"He has given us the slip."
Unwilling to believe so great a calamity, every eye peered and stared allover the sea. In vain. Not a streak that could be a boat's hull, not aspeck that could be a sail.
The little cutter was alone upon the ocean. Alone, with scarcely twodays' provisions, nine hundred miles from land, and four hundred miles toleeward of the nearest sea-road.
Hazel, seeing his worst forebodings realized, sat down in moody, bitter,and boding silence.
Of the other men some raged and cursed. Some wept aloud.
The lady, more patient, put her hands together and prayed to Him who madethe sea and all that therein is. Yet her case was the cruelest. For shewas by nature more timid than the men, yet she must share their desperateperil. And then to be alone with all these men, and one of them had toldher he loved her, and hated the man she was betrothed to! Shame torturedthis delicate creature, as well as fear. Happy for her that of late, andonly of late, she had learned to pray in earnest. _"Qui precari novit,premi potest, non potest opprimi."_
It was now a race between starvation and drowning, and either way deathstared them in the face.