"This way! This way! The fiends are after us again."

CHAPTER XXIII.

Adrift.

Seizing their weapons, the wearied men ran forward to the forecastle, where the negroes had nearly cut another hole through the bulkhead separating the crew's quarters from the hold.

One of the main hatch guards was holding them at bay, and had managed to seize the implement with which they had gained their liberty, from the savage who happened to be using it last. It was part of an old hand saw, that had, by some neglect, been left unnoticed on the floor of the hold.

Several shots drove back the blacks, then the hole, which was a small one, was nailed up and another guard stationed.

Gary's next move was to order the two sound boats lowered and attached by ropes to the side. He was impressed by this last effort of the blacks that the worst might happen, and that they had better be prepared. Once the horde of savages gained the decks, the vessel would afford no refuge to their hated oppressors.

The night was somewhat advanced. In the horizon a few darker s.p.a.ces denoted the presence of clouds, though all above was clear.

The Wanderer's sails hung limp, unless now and then a feeble expansion caused by some desultory puff be excepted. Gary divided the remainder of the men into two watches, one of whom he caused to lie down on deck for a little rest, with their arms at their sides.

Below, amid the darkness, a single light shone from the cabin. Some one of the blacks, evidently acquainted with the use of matches (through traders or missionaries, doubtless), had found a way of lighting the cabin lamp. Pandemonium reigned there. Inflamed by rum, furious efforts were made from time to time to burst through the hatches.

Along towards morning, however, a certain degree of quiet began to prevail. Perhaps the negroes were growing weary.

A light breeze had arisen that sent the schooner ahead. Gary had determined to make for the nearest port, provided they could hold out to reach it. He saw no chance to do aught to subdue and confine the blacks with his reduced force. If they saved the vessel and their own lives, they would do more than some of them expected.

One of the boats was chafing against the weather side of the ship.

Gary directed Ralph to drop both boats astern and fasten one behind the other.

The boy obeyed, climbing down into the first boat in order to attach the second to its stern. He made, as he thought, a half hitch of the painter, then, drawing the second boat close to the first, he stepped into it, and began bailing out the water that had filtered in through the seams shrunken by exposure to the sun on the schooner's deck.

As he worked away, thoughts of his mountain home intruded strangely, perhaps incongruously, upon his mind. Looking eastward a narrow rim of moon was protruding over the ocean's rim.

Something reminded him of the way it used to rise above "Old Peaky Top," just back of the cabin on Hiawa.s.see. He straightened himself to obtain a better view. A sharp report rang out behind him from the vessel, and he felt a numbness under his shoulder.

"Reckon they must be trying to get out again," he muttered, glancing at the ship's stern.

He was then sensible of a dizziness and a roaring in his ears. A black savage face was glaring upon him from the window of the captain's stateroom, from whence protruded the barrel of a rifle. After that his sight grew dim; something wet trickled down on one of his hands, and outward things became a blank. His last sensation was a comfortable kind of sleepiness.

When Ralph came to himself he was lying in the bottom of the boat with his head jammed uncomfortably under one of the thwarts. As he scrambled up, his first thought was of what the captain would say to his falling asleep in that way. But instead of rising, he stumbled and fell. Then he realized that it was morning and that he was unaccountably weak. Pulling himself up again with more care, he stared around for an instant, then sank back against the thwart.

The Wanderer was nowhere to be seen. After another moment he pulled himself up on the seat, in order to a.s.sure himself that he was not dreaming. What his eyes had told him was a fact.

He was alone in that little boat, with not a sail or other sign of man's presence anywhere within view. The surprise held him mute and breathless at first, then he began to wonder how he came to be left in such a plight.

His left arm felt stiff and sore. Looking down, he saw the blood had dried on his left hand, while under that shoulder something smarted with every movement.

It came to him then. The report, the numbness, the fleeting glimpse of that savage face, and the gun barrel, were now accounted for.

"While I was mooning away about grandfather and home, that fellow shot me. Lucky he didn't strike closer. But how did I get loose?"

Examination showed him the painter trailing idly in the water alongside. He must have made that half hitch carelessly. During his swoon it had worked loose.

His friends on board had doubtless had their attention too much taken up by the blacks, to give heed to him. The whiffs of air had slowly swept the schooner out of sight and he had lain senseless until daylight.

"I am surely in a bad fix," he reflected. "Wounded--in an open boat--without an oar, or a bite to eat or drink."

He had read enough of the perils of the sea to comprehend the terrible possibilities of his situation, and at first his blood chilled and his courage sank. Resolute as he was by nature, there was a deadly difference between the loneliness of his present condition and the solitude of his native mountains.

In the woods he was at home; he knew where to go to find people there--but here! In his weakened condition tears started to his eyes.

But he soon dashed them away, and, rising, set about dressing his wound.

He removed his jacket and shirt, and bathed the wound with ocean water, as he knew that salt was good to allay possible inflammation. The bullet had grazed his side just under the shoulder, making a painful though not a dangerous injury.

"Lucky it didn't lodge," he thought, as he tore up his handkerchief and bound up the place by pa.s.sing the bandage over his opposite shoulder.

A good deal of blood had flowed both down his arm and side. This accounted for his present weakness.

After resuming his clothes, he sat down to consider the situation.

There was a light breeze from the northeast, with a straggling fleece of clouds, expanding like a fan towards the zenith. Ralph knew that the appearance indicated more wind, but he determined not to borrow trouble from the future.

A slow, majestic heaving of the ocean, on which the yawl gently rose and fell was counter crossed by the shorter ripples stirred up by the light wind then blowing. The dead swell evinced the neighborhood of some previous gale.

"I might as well search the lockers," he said to himself. "There might be something eatable in them."

There was nothing to eat aboard; but in the locker at the stern he discovered a small keg filled with water, overlooked probably when the boat was unloaded, for it was the same craft in which the trip up the African river had been made.

"That's a good find," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Crickey! what is this?"

He drew forth from under the bow a strip of canvas and an old rusty hatchet. The possession of these articles raised his spirits for a time, so that he set to work to rig up a sort of jury mast and sail.

There were three thwarts. From one of these he managed to split two pieces some six feet long without impairing its strength as a brace to stiffen the boat. He lashed the three together with a few bits of spun yarn from his pocket, making a mast nearly ten feet long.

Next he split from the other thwarts a piece or two for a boom, then he turned his attention to the sail.

Part of the canvas he tore into strips, and by the help of these he manufactured a sort of lug sail of sufficient size to keep the boat steady in a seaway, and in running with a fair wind to make two or three miles an hour.

To step and wedge the mast with the aid of the hatchet and more splinters from the thwarts, did not take long. The only thing that bothered him was the main sheet, or--to explain--the rope which should hold the sail taut and trim.

His eye happened to rest on the knot of the painter where it was fastened to a ring bolt at the bow. He drew the wet line aboard, untied the knot and soon had his main sheet fastened to the boom.

There was a cleat near the tiller and Ralph, hauling in, brought the yawl a little up in the wind and soon had the craft under headway.

"By jolly!" he exclaimed, "but this isn't so very bad, after all. If I only knew where to head now, I might strike the Cape Verdes. I suppose I might hit Africa if I went east long enough; that is, supposing I didn't capsize or founder, or starve, or something. Heigho! How weak I feel. Believe I'll take breakfast."

So he took up the keg and drank heartily, for his wound had made him slightly feverish.

"I must touch it lighter than this," he said as he put down the keg.