Chapter XII: “no Help! No Hope! and Day After Day Flew By”

Early next morning Antonio commenced putting his plan into execution.

The work would be long and tedious, probably it would be an entire failure. Yet somehow or other he had hope.

He called all hands together and addressed them briefly.

“It seems to me,” he said, “boys, that the sandbank on which we lie extends almost directly south far beyond this Sea of Sargasso, in which we have been Crusoes so long. The soundings that I and my young officer here, Mr. Stuart, have taken, appear to confirm me in that idea. Well, deep water would frustrate my plans, so we must trust we shall keep on the bank.

“Luckily,” he continued, “we have a tremendous length of hawser or hawsers on board. Some of these will need splicing. This must be done at once. So away with you, lads, and do this work, and reeve a small anchor to one end of it, attaching the other to the windlass, and then we shall see what we shall see.”

The men worked with such a will, that before noon all was ready.

Then the anchor end of the hawser was loaded into the weed-plough boat, which being well manned, began at once to forge its way through the weeds directly south.

Meanwhile the main anchor was got up.

The hawser was paid out almost to the end. Then Antonio hailed the boat through his speaking-trumpet.

“Let go the hawser anchor.”

For just a moment hope trembled in the balance.

But, oh joy! as the men on board bent on to the winch and turned it round, it was found that the anchor end held fast, and the ship herself began to move slowly seawards.

Round and round went the winch, and in came the hawser.

Men were stationed over the bows at each side, armed with long poles, to help to thrust aside the weeds. And this aided the ship’s progress considerably.

Unfortunately there was not a breath of wind, else the work would have gone on more quickly.

As it was, there was little to complain of, and as soon as the hawser anchor was got up, it was once more shipped on board the weed-plough and carried off again.

And so the work went on slowly but surely till darkening.

Then the main anchor was once more let go, and the boat hauled up for the night. They had advanced two whole miles that afternoon, so no wonder their spirits rose.

* * * * *

For the first time since the sad death of poor Johnnie Smart, Antonio brought out his guitar to-night to play and sing.

We cannot blame him. We never can forget the dear dead ones, although soundly do they sleep, their joys and sorrows past.

Then have we not the hope of a glorious resurrection? We can harbour no doubt on this score; for to Him who made and rules the mist of stars, and suns, and planets we see even by the naked eye every starry night around and above us, surely nothing is impossible. But more marvellous still, perhaps. Our Father governs the infinitely small as well as the infinitely great, and that by laws immutable and unchangeable. Not a midge that, though but one of millions who dance gaily as the setting sun glints over moor or marsh He does not know all about; even the microbes revealed to us by microscopic aid are His creatures, and fulfil His will, making life, or destroying the old to rebuild the new. Yes, it is a mysterious world! But what would it be without hope?

Grief, however, is not healthful, and we may indulge in it even to a sinful extent.

But the songs sung to-night by Antonio were, though not exactly sad, plaintive, sweet, and tender, and found their way straight to the hearts of his listeners. And when he had finished, Sister Leona, though she had tears in her eyes, thanked him most fervidly.

After he had laid down his instrument, Teenie crept up close to his knee and demanded a story.

And it had to be a fairy one, too.

Antonio told her one with a mermaid in it, a most beautiful mermaid, who dwelt far away in a coralline cave, deep down in the sea’s dark bottom. She had little baby mermaids too, and though the sea itself was dark, her cave was lighted up with diamonds and rubies, and studded with pearls, quite a fairy-queen’s palace.

“And now, dearie,” he said at last, “off you go to your hammock, say your prayers, and dream about all the pretty things I have tried to describe to you.”

* * * * *

The men were at work next day soon after sunrise. Indeed, all hands were piped to breakfast at a little past five o’clock.

It was a long and toilsome day’s work, and at the end of it they found they had only done four miles.

But at this rate they would succeed at last, and probably in ten days’ time be afloat on the blue sea once more.

Day after day they toiled and toiled. Never before, perhaps, had such hard and tedious work been performed by men who were far from well.

The labour of cutting a ship clear from the main pack of ice in the Arctic seas is great indeed, but there the weather is cold. Here, on the contrary, the sun’s heat almost broiled the poor fellows, and the water served out to them was all but hot.

No wonder that before five days were over three had succumbed to sunstroke, two of whom were dead.

Their deaths caused fear in the hearts of the survivors, for no one knew whose turn might come next.

Antonio and the officers worked as hard, if not harder, than the crew did.

But now came Sabbath, and rest. They were working for dear life itself, it is true, yet Antonio believed that ill-luck would follow, if they did not refrain from work on Sunday.

But Monday morning saw them hard at it again.

And lo! on the evening of that day, with a delight that was inexpressible, they beheld the blue open water not ten miles away.

In three days more, being still above the sandbank, they found themselves at anchor beyond and clear away from Sargasso, that mysterious and echoless sea.

And now a most difficult task lay before them.

They must unship and repair the rudder. Without this they would but drift like a log once more, and probably be once more engulfed among the terrible weeds.

The rudder, when at last they did manage to unship and hoist it, was found to be more severely damaged than any one had been aware of.

They had to cut timber from the lower deck itself to splice and repair it. But at long, long last they were successful.

But heavy seas, though smooth, were once more rolling in from the south and west, and it was days before they could get the anchor re-shipped.

Was danger all over now?

No, indeed, it was not.

For the backwash of the Atlantic had a tendency to thrust them north again into the Sea of Sargasso, and there was not a breath of wind to aid them in keeping away.

But luckily the sandbank ran far south, and along this they crept by means of hawser and windlass, until they had made good quite a wide offing.

The sandbank ended now, and just at its edge they cast anchor, and determined to wait for the wind, or for assistance from some passing steamer.

No help! no hope! and day after day flew by. They appeared as far from succour as ever.

Hope began once more to fail them, and illness took its place.

Of the whole crew now only nine remained, and of these five were down with scurvy.

O reader, if ever you go to sea, I trust you will never have any experience of that dreariest of all diseases, scurvy. It is but little likely that you will, for never a ship sails now that is not well provided with its prophylactic antidote, lime juice.

I would not harrow any one’s feelings with describing the sufferings of these stricken men, their swollen limbs, their dusky, deathlike countenances, and their sadly sunken eyes.

One of the worst features of these cases was the terrible despondency of the poor fellows.

Sister Leona and Teenie, with Antonio himself, laboured hard among them, but so virulent were the attacks, that one by one all five dropped off.

They were simply sewn in their hammocks and cast overboard.

But dreadful to say, the other four hands of the working crew took ill next, and of these three died.

Then one of the blacks succumbed.

The plague, however, seemed now stayed, but there were hardly officers enough left to work the ship.

The reason, I believe, why none of these had died, is simply to be found in the fact that they kept hard at work all day long. The pores of the skin were therefore well open, and the poison eliminated as fast as it accumulated.

But the wind never came, and for three whole weeks no sail heaved in sight.

Had the anchor been let go, they would have drifted off into deep water, and so have been swirled back towards the echoless sea--never again in life to leave it.