The Greatest Works of J. S. Fletcher (64+ Titles in One Illustrated Edition). J. S. Fletcher
some desperate game, and to have my revenge and see justice done on him. I was not going to give in without making a fight for it.
But it was a poor chance that I had—and I was well aware of it. There was small prospect of fishing boats or the like coming out that evening; small likelihood of any coasting steamer sighting a bit of a speck like me. All the same, I was going to keep my chin up as long as possible, and the first thing to do was to take care of my strength. I made shift to divest myself of a heavy pea-jacket that I was wearing and of the unnecessary clothing beneath it; I got rid, too, of my boots. And after resting a bit on my back and considering matters, I decided to make a try for land—I might perhaps meet some boat coming out. I lifted my head well up and took a glance at what I could see—and my heart sank at what I did see! The yacht was a speck in the distance by that time, and far beyond it the Cheviots and the Lammermoors were mere bits of grey outline against the gold and crimson of the sky. One thought instantly filled and depressed me—I was further from land than I had believed.
At this distance from it I have but confused and vague recollections of that night. Sometimes I dream of it—even now—and wake sweating with fear. In those dreams I am toiling and toiling through a smooth sea—it is always a smooth, oily, slippery sea—towards something to which I make no great headway. Sometimes I give up toiling through sheer and desperate aching of body and limbs, and let myself lie drifting into helplessness and a growing sleep. And then—in my dream—I start to find myself going down into strange cavernous depths of shining green, and I wake—in my dream—to begin fighting and toiling again against my compelling desire to give up.
I do not know how long I made a fight of it in reality; it must have been for hours—alternately swimming, alternately resting myself by floating. I had queer thoughts. It was then about the time that some men were attempting to swim the Channel. I remember laughing grimly, wishing them joy of their job—they were welcome to mine! I remember, too, that at last in the darkness I felt that I must give up, and said my prayers; and it was about that time, when I was beginning to feel a certain numbness of mind as well as weariness of body, that as I struck out in the mechanical and weakening fashion which I kept up from what little determination I had left, I came across my salvation—in the shape of a piece of wreckage that shoved itself against me in the blackness, as if it had been some faithful dog, pushing its nose into my hand to let me know it was there. It was no more than a square of grating, but it was heavy and substantial; and as I clung to and climbed on to it, I knew that it made all the difference to me between life and death.
Chapter XX. The Samaritan Skipper
I clung to that heaven-sent bit of wreckage, exhausted and weary, until the light began to break in the east. I was numbed and shivering with cold—but I was alive and safe. That square yard of good and solid wood was as much to me as if it had been a floating island. And as the light grew and grew, and the sun at last came up, a ball of fire out of the far horizon, I looked across the sea on all sides, hoping to catch sight of a sail, or of a wisp of smoke—of anything that would tell me of the near presence of human beings. And one fact I realized at once—I was further away from land than when I had begun my battle with death. There was no sign of land in the west. The sky was now clear and bright on all sides, but there was nothing to break the line where it met the sea. Before the fading of the light on the previous evening, I had easily made out the well-known outlines of the Cheviots on one hand and of Says Law on the other—now there was not a vestige of either. I knew from that fact that I had somehow drifted further and further away from the coast. There was accordingly nothing to do but wait the chance of being sighted and picked up, and I set to work, as well as I could on my tiny raft, to chafe my limbs and get some warmth into my body. And never in my life did I bless the sun as I did that morning, for when he sprang out of bed in the northeast skies, it was with his full and hearty vigour of high springtide, and his heat warmed my chilled blood and sent a new glow of hope to my heart. But that heat was not an unmixed blessing—and I was already parched with thirst; and as the sun mounted higher and higher, pouring his rays full upon me, the thirst became almost intolerable, and my tongue felt as if my mouth could no longer contain it.
It was, perhaps, one hour after sunrise, when my agony was becoming almost insupportable, that I first noticed a wisp of smoke on the southern rim of the circle of sea which just then was all my world. I never strained my eyes for anything as I did for that patch of grey against the cloudless blue! It grew bigger and bigger—I knew, of course, that it was some steamer, gradually approaching. But it seemed ages before I could make out her funnels; ages before I saw the first bit of her black bulk show up above the level of the dancing waves. Yet there she was at last—coming bows on, straight in my direction. My nerves must have given out at the sight—I remember the tears rolling down my cheeks; I remember hearing myself make strange sounds, which I suppose were those of relief and thankfulness. And then the horror of being unseen, of being left to endure more tortures of thirst, of the steamer changing her course, fell on me, and long before she was anywhere near me I was trying to balance myself on the grating, so that I could stand erect and attract her attention.
She was a very slow-going craft that—not able to do more than nine or ten knots at best—and another hour passed before she was anywhere near me. But, thank God! she came within a mile of me, and I made shift to stand up on my raft and to wave to her. And thereon she altered her course and lumbered over in my direction. She was one of the ugliest vessels that ever left a shipyard, but I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life as she looked in those moments, and I had certainly never been so thankful for anything as for her solid and dirty deck when willing and kindly hands helped me up on it.
Half an hour after that, with dry clothes on me, and hot coffee and rum inside me, I was closeted with the skipper in his cabin, telling him, under a strict pledge of secrecy, as much of my tale as I felt inclined to share with him. He was a sympathetic and an understanding man, and he swore warmly and plentifully when he heard how treacherously I had been treated, intimating it as the—just then—dearest wish of his heart to have the handling of the man who had played me the trick.
"But you'll be dealing with him yourself!" said he. "Man!—you'll not spare him—promise me you'll not spare him! And you'll send me a newspaper with the full account of all that's done to him when you've set the law to work—dod! I hope they'll quarter him! Them was grand days when there was more licence and liberty in punishing malefactors—oh! I'd like fine to see this man put into boiling oil, or something of that sort, the cold-hearted, murdering villain! You'll be sure to send me the newspaper?"
I laughed—for the first time since—when? It seemed years since I had laughed—and yet it was only a few hours, after all.
"Before I can set the law to work on him, I must get on dry land, captain," I answered. "Where are you going?"
"Dundee," he replied. "Dundee—and we're just between sixty and seventy miles away now, and it's near seven o'clock. We'll be in Dundee early in the afternoon, anyway. And what'll you do there? You'll be for getting the next train to Berwick?"
"I'm not so sure, captain," I answered. "I don't want that man to know I'm alive—yet. It'll be a nice surprise for him—later. But there are those that I must let know as soon as possible—so the first thing I'll do, I'll wire. And in the meantime, let me have a sleep."
The steamer that had picked me up was nothing but a tramp, plodding along with a general cargo from London to Dundee, and its accommodation was as rough as its skipper was homely. But it was a veritable palace of delight and luxury to me after that terrible night, and I was soon hard and fast asleep in the skipper's own bunk—and was still asleep when he laid a hand on me at three o'clock that afternoon.
"We're in the Tay," he said, "and we'll dock in half an hour. And now—you can't go ashore in your underclothing, man! And where's your purse?"
He had rightly sized up the situation. I had got rid of everything but my singlet and drawers in the attempt to keep going; as for my purse, that was where the rest of my possessions were—sunk or floating.
"You