The Greatest Sea Adventure Novels: 30+ Maritime Novels, Pirate Tales & Seafaring Stories. R. M. Ballantyne
who was always either in or out of the way at the most inopportune moments, came rushing up from below, whither he had gone to secure a favourite brass finger-ring, and scrambled over the side.
It would be difficult to say whether Jim’s head, or feet, or legs, or knees, or arms went over the side first,—they all got over somehow, nobody knew how—and in the getting over his hat flew off and was lost for ever.
Seeing this, and feeling, no doubt, the momentous truth of that well-known adage “Now or never,” Master Jacko uttered a shriek, bounded from his position of fancied security, and seized Jim Scroggles firmly by the hair, resolved apparently to live or perish along with him. As to simply clambering along that cable to the shore. Jacko would have thought no more of it than of eating his dinner. Had he felt so disposed he could have walked along it, or hopped along it, or thrown somersaults along it. But to proceed along it while it was at one moment thirty feet above the sea, rigid as a bar of iron, and the next moment several feet under the mad turmoil of the raging billows—this it was that filled his little bosom with inexpressible horror, and induced him to cling with a tight embrace to the hair of the head of his bitterest enemy!
Having gained the shore, Jacko immediately took up his abode in the warmest spot on that desolate sandbank, which was the centre of the mass of cowering and shivering men who sought shelter under the lee of the rocks, where he was all but squeezed to death, but where he felt comparatively warm, nevertheless. When the sun came out he perched himself in a warm nook of the rock near to Ailie, and dried himself, after which, as we have already hinted, he superintended the discharging of the cargo and the arrangements made for a prolonged residence on the sandbank.
“Och! but yer a queer cratur,” remarked Briant, as he passed, chucking the monkey under the chin.
“Oo-oo-oo-ee-o!” replied Jacko.
“Very thrue, no doubt—but I haven’t time to spake to ye jist yet, lad,” replied Briant, with a laugh, as he ran down to the beach and seized a barrel which had just been hauled to the water’s edge.
“What are you going to do with the wood, papa?” asked Ailie.
The captain had seized an axe at the moment, and began vigorously to cut up a rough plank which had been driven ashore by the waves.
“I’m going to make a fire, my pet, to warm your cold toes.”
“But my toes are not cold, papa; you’ve no idea how comfortable I am.”
Ailie did indeed look comfortable at that moment, for she was lying on a bed of dry sand, with a thick blanket spread over her.
“Well, then, it will do to warm Jacko’s toes, if yours don’t want it; and besides, we all want a cup of tea after our exertions. The first step towards that end, you know, is to make a fire.”
So saying, the captain piled up dry wood in front of the place where Ailie lay, and in a short time had a capital fire blazing, and a large tin kettle full of fresh water boiling thereon.
It may be as well to remark here that the water had been brought in a small keg from the ship, for not a single drop of fresh water was found on the sandbank after the most careful search. Fortunately, however, the water-tanks of the Red Eric still contained a large supply.
During the course of that evening a sort of shed or tent was constructed out of canvas and a few boards placed against the rock. This formed a comparatively comfortable shelter, and one end of it was partitioned off for Ailie’s special use. No one was permitted to pass the curtain that hung before the entrance to this little boudoir, except the captain, who claimed a right to do what he pleased, and Glynn, who was frequently invited to enter in order to assist its fair occupant in her multifarious arrangements, and Jacko, who could not be kept out by any means that had yet been hit upon, except by killing him; but as Ailie objected to this, he was suffered to take up his abode there, and, to do him justice, he behaved very well while domiciled in that place.
It is curious to note how speedily little children, and men too, sometimes, contrive to forget the unpleasant or the sad, or, it may be, the dangerous circumstances in which they may chance to be placed, while engaged in the minute details incident to their peculiar position. Ailie went about arranging her little nest under the rock with as much zeal and cheerful interest as if she were “playing at houses” in her own room at home. She decided that one corner was peculiarly suited for her bed, because there was a small rounded rock in it which looked like a pillow; so Glynn was directed to spread the tarpaulin and the blankets there. Another corner exhibited a crevice in the rock, which seemed so suitable for a kennel for Jacko that the arrangement was agreed to on the spot. We say agreed to, because Ailie suggested everything to Glynn, and Glynn always agreed to everything that Ailie suggested, and stood by with a hammer and nails and a few pieces of plank in his hands ready to fulfil her bidding, no matter what it should be. So Jacko was sent for to be introduced to his new abode, but Jacko was not to be found, for the very good reason that he had taken possession of the identical crevice some time before, and at that moment was enjoying a comfortable nap in its inmost recess. Then Ailie caused Glynn to put up a little shelf just over her head, which he did with considerable difficulty, because it turned out that nails could not easily be driven into the solid rock. After that a small cave at the foot of the apartment was cleaned out and Ailie’s box placed there. All this and sundry other pieces of work were executed by the young sailor and his little friend with an amount of cheerful pleasantry that showed they had, in the engrossing interest of their pursuit, totally forgotten the fact that they were cast away on a sandbank on which were neither food nor water, nor wood, except what was to be found in the wrecked ship, and around which for thousands of miles rolled the great billows of the restless sea.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
Life on the Sandbank—Ailie takes Possession of Fairyland—Glynn and Bumble Astonish the Little Fishes.
In order that the reader may form a just conception of the sandbank on which the crew of the Red Eric had been wrecked, we shall describe it somewhat carefully.
It lay in the Southern Ocean, a little to the west of the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope, and somewhere between 2000 and 3000 miles to the south of it. As has been already remarked, the bank at its highest point was little more than a few feet above the level of the ocean, the waves of which in stormy weather almost, and the spray of which altogether, swept over it. In length it was barely fifty yards, and in breadth about forty. Being part of a coral reef, the surface of it was composed of the beautiful white sand that is formed from coral by the dashing waves. At one end of the bank—that on which the ship had struck—the reef rose into a ridge of rock, which stood a few feet higher than the level of the sand, and stretched out into the sea about twenty yards, with its points projecting here and there above water. On the centre of the bank at its highest point one or two very small blades of green substance were afterwards discovered. So few were they, however, and so delicate, that we feel justified in describing the spot as being utterly destitute of verdure. Ailie counted those green blades many a time after they were discovered. There were exactly thirty-five of them; twenty-six were, comparatively speaking, large; seven were of medium size, and two were extremely small—so small and thin that Ailie wondered they did not die of sheer delicacy of constitution on such a barren spot. The greater part of the surface of the bank was covered with the fine sand already referred to, but there were one or two spots which were covered with variously-sized pebbles, and an immense number of beautiful small shells.
On such a small and barren spot one would think there was little or nothing to admire. But this was not the case. Those persons whose thoughts are seldom allowed to fix attentively on any subject, are apt to fall into the mistake of supposing that in this world there are a great many absolutely uninteresting things. Many things are, indeed, uninteresting to individuals, but there does not exist a single thing which has not a certain amount of interest to one or another cast of mind, and which will not afford food for contemplation, and matter fitted to call forth our admiration