The White Squall: A Story of the Sargasso SeaHutcheson, John C. (John Conroy)
General
The White Squall: A Story of the Sargasso Sea
Hutcheson, John C. (John Conroy)
Sargasso Sea -- Fiction
"You've guessed rightly," said he; "so now, as I see the men taking in
their clothes, which are by this time dry enough, I should fancy, from
their exposure to the sun and wind, I think I'll give them a hail."
This he did; and bye and bye, as the orb of day sank below the sea, the
body of Harry, tied up in a piece of tarpaulin and with a heavy piece of
chain-cable attached to the feet to make it sink, was committed to the
deep, Captain Miles reading the impressive burial service, for those
lost at sea, out of a prayer-book which he had recovered from the debris
of the cabin and put in his pocket for the purpose.
This was our religious observance of the day. It was a great contrast
to the prayers on the poop which we had on the previous Sunday, when the
ship, in all the glory of her fine proportions, with her lofty masts
towering into the skies, was rolling on the calm bosom of the ocean,
with her idle sails spread vainly to the breeze that would not come;
now, she was but a battered and dismantled hulk. The breeze we had
wished for had come at last and waxed into a strong wind, which had
ultimately developed into the hurricane that had done all the mischief--
the final result of which was the present burial of our drowned comrade!
"Lads," cried Captain Miles when he had finished reading the service and
the body had disappeared below the surface of the restless sea, "you can
go and turn in now, all that like. Mind, you have a good caulk until
early to-morrow morning, when you'll have to rouse out sharp, all hands,
for there be lots to be done!"
We who were on the poop also went below soon afterwards to the cabin,
where we found that Jake had cleared out all the debris and arranged the
place so neatly that one would scarcely have imagined it had ever been
in the state of confusion we noticed when first entering it.
Our bunks, too, were all arranged comfortably, with dry blankets spread
in each; and I know that I, for one, was so glad to lie down on anything
like a bed again after the two nights' exposure outside the ship, that I
dropped off to sleep the moment I turned into my cot--the remark the
captain had made about our being now thirteen in number, or a "baker's
dozen," running in my head as a refrain to my dreams, although my rest
was not in any way disturbed. The baker's dozen, however, made me think
of bread on my waking up in the morning; for, I felt more hungry then
than on the previous day, when the first morsel of food I tasted almost
choked me.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
WE BEAT UP FOR THE AZORES.
It was early dawn when the unwonted sound of feet bustling about over my
head on the deck, which I had not heard now it seemed for an
unconscionable length of time, roused me up to the realisation of our
having at last been relieved from our terrible peril and the privations
we had suffered whilst the ship was on her beam-ends.
Oh, what joy it was to think we were all safe on board the _Josephine_
again!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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