When Watty Wilkins awoke from sleep, the sun was high in the heavens and the sea smooth as a mirror.
The poor boy raised himself on one elbow and looked about him, at first with a confused feeling of uncertainty as to where he was. Then the truth burst upon him with overwhelming force. Not only was he alone in a little, half-decayed boat without sail, rudder, or compass, on the great Pacific Ocean, but, with the exception of a few fish, he was without food, and, worst of all, he had not a drop of fresh water.
What was to be done? An unspoken prayer ascended from his heart to God, as he rose and seized the oars. A belief that it was needful to act vigorously and at once was strong upon him. For several minutes he relieved his feelings by rowing with all his might. Then he stopped abruptly, and his spirit sank almost in despair as he exclaimed aloud—
“What’s the use? I don’t know where the island is. I may only be pulling farther away from it. Oh! what shall I do?”
At that moment of extreme depression, the value of having had a God-fearing father who had taught him the Bible was unexpectedly realised, for there flashed into his mind, as if in reply to his question, the words, “Call upon me in the time of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”
He pulled in the oars at once, fell on his knees, and, clasping his hands, prayed fervently. Watty had been taught a form of prayer in childhood, and had often used it with little or no regard to its meaning. Now, in his distress, he prayed in earnest. He meant what he said. It followed, also, that he said what he meant. The old form, being quite unsuitable to the occasion, was forgotten, and very homely language indeed was used, but it was sufficient for the purpose. The substance of it was a cry for pardon and deliverance. That which winged it to the Throne of Grace was the name of Jesus Christ.
Resuming the oars, he rowed gently; not for the sake of directing the boat, but because a state of inaction was disagreeable, and as he rowed he thought of the promise that had been sent to him. Strange to say, the latter part of it, “Thou shalt glorify me,” seemed to take a stronger hold of his mind than the first. “Yes,” he thought, “the whole promise is true. He will deliver me and make me to glorify Himself in some way or other. Perhaps He will let me live to return home, and be a comfort to my father.”
The thought of the sorrow he had caused his father weighed heavier than ever in the poor boy’s mind, and the desire to express his repentance, and, if possible, make his father glad again, became very intense. It seemed to him that a millstone would be removed from his heart if he could be allowed, even for one minute, to hold his father’s hand and say, “Oh, I am so sorry, sorry, sorry that I ran away!” The millstone was not removed at that time, however; but in answer to prayer it was unquestionably lightened.
The exercise of rowing and the fresh morning air produced their natural effect ere long on the little castaway. He became ravenously hungry, and turned his eyes inquiringly on the few fish which surged about in the pool of dirty water that had gathered in the bottom of the boat. It was not an inviting breakfast. Watty turned his eyes away from it, looked up into the fair blue sky, and tried to think of other things! But the calls of nature were not to be silenced. Instead of thinking of other things, he somehow thought of bread and butter. He even fell into a species of argument with himself as to whether it would not be uncommonly pleasant in various supposable circumstances, to eat bread without butter. Then he found himself 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 the depth of anxiety which had oppressed them at the thought of being left, perhaps for years, it might be to the end of their days, on that unknown island.
As the vessel approached, it became apparent that there was some one on board whose temporary insanity was as demonstrative as their own, so wild were his gesticulations.
“It’s too fur off,” said Baldwin, “to make out the crittur’s phisog; but if it warn’t for his size, I’d say he was a monkey.”
“P’r’aps it’s an ourang-outang,” suggested Corkey.
“Or a gorilla,” said O’Rook.
“Oh!” exclaimed Polly, in a low, eager voice of surprise, “I do believe it is Watty Wilkins!”
“Polly is right,” said Philosopher Jack; “I’d know Watty’s action among a thousand.”
As he spoke, the vessel rounded-to outside the reef, backed her top-sails, and lowered a boat. At the same time the excited figure disappeared from her bow, and reappeared, wilder than ever, in the stern of the boat. As it crossed the lagoon, the voice of Watty became audible, and was responded to by a succession of hearty cheers, in the midst of which the boat was run ashore. The excited lad sprang on the beach, and was almost annihilated by the species of miscellaneous embracing that he immediately underwent.
Need we say that Captain Samson and his men were only too thankful to have such an opportunity of deliverance? They at once accepted the offer of the American captain, embarked in his ship the following morning, passed Cape Horn not long after, sailed up the coast of South America, and, in course of time, cast anchor in the renowned harbour of San Francisco.
At the time of which we write, the excitement about the gold-fields of California was at its highest pitch. Men were flocking to that region from all parts of the earth. Fortunes were being made by some in a few months, and lost by others, at the gaming-tables, in a few days, or even hours. While a few gained a competence, many gained only a bare subsistence; thousands lost their health, and not a few their lives. It was a strange play that men enacted there, embracing all the confusion, glitter, rapid change of scene, burlesque, and comedy of a pantomime, with many a dash of darkest tragedy intermingled. Tents were pitched in all directions, houses were hastily run up, restaurants of all kinds were opened, boats were turned keel up and converted into cottages, while ships were stranded or lying idle at their anchors for want of crews, who had made off to that mighty centre of attraction, the diggings.
Arrived at San Francisco, Captain Samson and his crew were landed one fine morning at an early hour, and went up to a modest-looking hotel, without any definite idea as to what was best to be done in their peculiar circumstances. Feeling a strange sensation of helplessness in the midst of so much turmoil and human energy, after their quiet sojourn on the Coral Island, they kept together like a flock of sheep, and wandered about the town. Then they returned to their hotel and had luncheon, for which so large a sum was demanded, that they resolved to return on board at once, and ask the American captain’s advice.
They found their deliverer pacing his quarterdeck, with his hands in his pockets, and a stern frown on his countenance. He was quite alone, and the vessel wore an unusually quiet air.
“Nothing wrong, I hope,” said Captain Samson, as he stepped over the gangway.
“Everything wrong,” replied the American; “crew skedaddled.”
“What! bolted?”
“Ay, every man, to the diggin’s.”
“What will you do?” asked Captain Samson, in a sympathetic tone.
“Sell off the ship and cargo for what they’ll fetch, and go to the diggin’s too,” replied the other. “Moreover, I’d strongly recommend you to do the same.”
“What say you to that advice, Philosopher Jack?” asked Captain Samson, turning to our hero, with a peculiar smile.
“I say,” answered the philosopher, returning the smile, “that the advice requires consideration.”
“Cautiously replied; and what says my Polly?” continued the captain.
“I say whatever you say, father.”
“Ah! Poll, Poll, that sort of answer don’t help one much. However, we’ll call a council of war, and discuss the matter seriously; but, first of all, let’s see how the wind blows. How do you feel inclined, Ben Trench? Bein’ the invalid of our party, so to speak, you’re entitled, I think, to speak first.”
“I say, Go,” replied Ben.
“And I say ditto,” burst from Watty Wilkins with powerful emphasis.
“You wasn’t axed yet,” observed Bob Corkey. “Besides, stowaways have no right to speak at all.”
“What says Mr Luke!” continued the captain.
“Don’t go,” answered Mr Luke feebly.
“Now, lads,” said the captain, after putting the question to the others, “we’ll go in for the pros and cons.”
They went in for the pros and cons accordingly, and after an animated debate, resolved that the path of duty, as well as that of interest and propriety, lay in the direction of the diggings.
Having settled the matter, and gathered together into a common fund the small amount of cash and property which each had saved from the wreck, they went ashore, purchased the articles necessary for their expedition, and followed the great stream of Californian gold-diggers.
We shall join them, but let not the reader suppose that we intend to bore him or her with the statistics and details of Californian gold-digging. It is our purpose only to touch lightly on those salient points in the adventures of our wanderers which had a more or less direct bearing on the great issues of their lives.
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