The Wreck of the Golden Mary

Published：2026-07-30 06:44:24 Source: plush pillows for 11 year olds Author: Dropshipping

Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and best remote control trucks for the whole familyHall edition of “ChristmasStories” by David Price, email [email protected]

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY

THE WRECK

I was apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and I haveencountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and metaphorical. It has always been my opinion since I first possessed such a thing asan opinion, that the man who knows only one subject is next tiresometo the man who knows no subject.  Therefore, in the course of mylife I have taught myself whatever I could, and although I am not aneducated man, I am able, I am thankful to say, to have an intelligentinterest in most things.

A person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in thehabit of holding forth about number one.  That is not the case. Just as if I was to come into a room among strangers, and must eitherbe introduced or introduce myself, so I have taken the liberty of passingthese few remarks, simply and plainly that it may be known who and whatI am.  I will add no more of the sort than that my name is WilliamGeorge Ravender, that I was born at Penrith half a year after my ownfather was drowned, and that I am on the second day of this presentblessed Christmas week of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six,fifty-six years of age.

When the rumour first went flying up and down that there was goldin California—which, as most people know, was before it was discoveredin the British colony of Australia—I was in the West Indies, tradingamong the Islands.  Being in command and likewise part-owner ofa smart schooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it. Consequently, gold in California was no business of mine.

But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing wasas clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day.  There wasCalifornian gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths’ shops,and the very first time I went upon ’Change, I met a friend ofmine (a seafaring man like myself), with a Californian nugget hangingto his watch-chain.  I handled it.  It was as like a peeledwalnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and then electrotypedall over, as ever I saw anything in my life.

I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, andshe died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, Ilive in my house at Poplar.  My house at Poplar is taken care ofand kept ship-shape by an old lady who was my mother’s maid beforeI was born.  She is as handsome and as upright as any old ladyin the world.  She is as fond of me as if she had ever had an onlyson, and I was he.  Well do I know wherever I sail that she neverlays down her head at night without having said, “Merciful Lord!bless and preserve William George Ravender, and send him safe home,through Christ our Saviour!”  I have thought of it in manya dangerous moment, when it has done me no harm, I am sure.

In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet forbest part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands,and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly. At last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I couldlay hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in theCity of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I callSmithick and Watersby of Liverpool.  I chanced to lift up my eyesfrom looking in at a ship’s chronometer in a window, and I sawhim bearing down upon me, head on.

It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here mention,nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those names, nordo I think that there has been any one of either of those names in thatLiverpool House for years back.  But, it is in reality the Houseitself that I refer to; and a wiser merchant or a truer gentleman neverstepped.

“My dear Captain Ravender,” says he.  “Ofall the men on earth, I wanted to see you most.  I was on my wayto you.”

“Well!” says I.  “That looks as if you wereto see me, don’t it?”  With that I put my arm in his,and we walked on towards the Royal Exchange, and when we got there,walked up and down at the back of it where the Clock-Tower is. We walked an hour and more, for he had much to say to me.  He hada scheme for chartering a new ship of their own to take out cargo tothe diggers and emigrants in California, and to buy and bring back gold. Into the particulars of that scheme I will not enter, and I have noright to enter.  All I say of it is, that it was a very originalone, a very fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one beyonddoubt.

He imparted it to me as freely as if I had been a part of himself. After doing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer that ever wasmade to me, boy or man—or I believe to any other captain in theMerchant Navy—and he took this round turn to finish with:

“Ravender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of thatcoast and country at present, is as special as the circumstances inwhich it is placed.  Crews of vessels outward-bound, desert assoon as they make the land; crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship atenormous wages, with the express intention of murdering the captainand seizing the gold freight; no man can trust another, and the devilseems let loose.  Now,” says he, “you know my opinionof you, and you know I am only expressing it, and with no singularity,when I tell you that you are almost the only man on whose integrity,discretion, and energy—” &c., &c.  For, I don’twant to repeat what he said, though I was and am sensible of it.

Notwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned, quite ready for avoyage, still I had some doubts of this voyage.  Of course I knew,without being told, that there were peculiar difficulties and dangersin it, a long way over and above those which attend all voyages. It must not be supposed that I was afraid to face them; but, in my opiniona man has no manly motive or sustainment in his own breast for facingdangers, unless he has well considered what they are, and is able quietlyto say to himself, “None of these perils can now take me by surprise;I shall know what to do for the best in any of them; all the rest liesin the higher and greater hands to which I humbly commit myself.” On this principle I have so attentively considered (regarding it asmy duty) all the hazards I have ever been able to think of, in the ordinaryway of storm, shipwreck, and fire at sea, that I hope I should be preparedto do, in any of those cases, whatever could be done, to save the livesintrusted to my charge.

As I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should leaveme to walk there as long as I liked, and that I should dine with himby-and-by at his club in Pall Mall.  I accepted the invitationand I walked up and down there, quarter-deck fashion, a matter of acouple of hours; now and then looking up at the weathercock as I mighthave looked up aloft; and now and then taking a look into Cornhill,as I might have taken a look over the side.

All dinner-time, and all after dinner-time, we talked it over again. I gave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the same. I told him I had nearly decided, but not quite.  “Well, well,”says he, “come down to Liverpool to-morrow with me, and see theGolden Mary.”  I liked the name (her name was Mary, and shewas golden, if golden stands for good), so I began to feel that it wasalmost done when I said I would go to Liverpool.  On the next morningbut one we were on board the Golden Mary.  I might have known,from his asking me to come down and see her, what she was.  I declareher to have been the completest and most exquisite Beauty that everI set my eyes upon.

We had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the gangwayto go ashore from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand to my friend. “Touch upon it,” says I, “and touch heartily. I take command of this ship, and I am hers and yours, if I can get JohnSteadiman for my chief mate.”

John Steadiman had sailed with me four voyages.  The first voyageJohn was third mate out to China, and came home second.  The otherthree voyages he was my first officer.  At this time of charteringthe Golden Mary, he was aged thirty-two.  A brisk, bright, blue-eyedfellow, a very neat figure and rather under the middle size, never outof the way and never in it, a face that pleased everybody and that allchildren took to, a habit of going about singing as cheerily as a blackbird,and a perfect sailor.

We were in one of those Liverpool hackney-coaches in less than aminute, and we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, lookingfor John.  John had come home from Van Diemen’s Land barelya month before, and I had heard of him as taking a frisk in Liverpool. We asked after him, among many other places, at the two boarding-houseshe was fondest of, and we found he had had a week’s spell at eachof them; but, he had gone here and gone there, and had set off “tolay out on the main-to’-gallant-yard of the highest Welsh mountain”(so he had told the people of the house), and where he might be then,or when he might come back, nobody could tell us.  But it was surprising,to be sure, to see how every face brightened the moment there was mentionmade of the name of Mr. Steadiman.

We were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we had woreship and put her head for my friends, when as we were jogging throughthe streets, I clap my eyes on John himself coming out of a toyshop! He was carrying a little boy, and conducting two uncommon pretty womento their coach, and he told me afterwards that he had never in his lifeseen one of the three before, but that he was so taken with them onlooking in at the toyshop while they were buying the child a crankyNoah’s Ark, very much down by the head, that he had gone in andasked the ladies’ permission to treat him to a tolerably correctCutter there was in the window, in order that such a handsome boy mightnot grow up with a lubberly idea of naval architecture.

We stood off and on until the ladies’ coachman began to giveway, and then we hailed John.  On his coming aboard of us, I toldhim, very gravely, what I had said to my friend.  It struck him,as he said himself, amidships.  He was quite shaken by it. “Captain Ravender,” were John Steadiman’s words, “suchan opinion from you is true commendation, and I’ll sail roundthe world with you for twenty years if you hoist the signal, and standby you for ever!”  And now indeed I felt that it was done,and that the Golden Mary was afloat.

Grass never grew yet under the feet of Smithick and Watersby. The riggers were out of that ship in a fortnight’s time, and wehad begun taking in cargo.  John was always aboard, seeing everythingstowed with his own eyes; and whenever I went aboard myself early orlate, whether he was below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway,or overhauling his cabin, nailing up pictures in it of the Blush Rosesof England, the Blue Belles of Scotland, and the female Shamrock ofIreland: of a certainty I heard John singing like a blackbird.

We had room for twenty passengers.  Our sailing advertisementwas no sooner out, than we might have taken these twenty times over. In entering our men, I and John (both together) picked them, and weentered none but good hands—as good as were to be found in thatport.  And so, in a good ship of the best build, well owned, wellarranged, well officered, well manned, well found in all respects, weparted with our pilot at a quarter past four o’clock in the afternoonof the seventh of March, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, andstood with a fair wind out to sea.

It may be easily believed that up to that time I had had no leisureto be intimate with my passengers.  The most of them were thenin their berths sea-sick; however, in going among them, telling themwhat was good for them, persuading them not to be there, but to comeup on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them with a joke, ora comfortable word, I made acquaintance with them, perhaps, in a morefriendly and confidential way from the first, than I might have doneat the cabin table.

Of my passengers, I need only particularise, just at present, a bright-eyedblooming young wife who was going out to join her husband in California,taking with her their only child, a little girl of three years old,whom he had never seen; a sedate young woman in black, some five yearsolder (about thirty as I should say), who was going out to join a brother;and an old gentleman, a good deal like a hawk if his eyes had been betterand not so red, who was always talking, morning, noon, and night, aboutthe gold discovery.  But, whether he was making the voyage, thinkinghis old arms could dig for gold, or whether his speculation was to buyit, or to barter for it, or to cheat for it, or to snatch it anyhowfrom other people, was his secret.  He kept his secret.

These three and the child were the soonest well.  The childwas a most engaging child, to be sure, and very fond of me: though Iam bound to admit that John Steadiman and I were borne on her prettylittle books in reverse order, and that he was captain there, and Iwas mate.  It was beautiful to watch her with John, and it wasbeautiful to watch John with her.  Few would have thought it possible,to see John playing at bo-peep round the mast, that he was the man whohad caught up an iron bar and struck a Malay and a Maltese dead, asthey were gliding with their knives down the cabin stair aboard thebarque Old England, when the captain lay ill in his cot, off SaugarPoint.  But he was; and give him his back against a bulwark, hewould have done the same by half a dozen of them.  The name ofthe young mother was Mrs. Atherfield, the name of the young lady inblack was Miss Coleshaw, and the name of the old gentleman was Mr. Rarx.

As the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curlsall about her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave her thename of the Golden Lucy.  So, we had the Golden Lucy and the GoldenMary; and John kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child wentplaying about the decks, that I believe she used to think the ship wasalive somehow—a sister or companion, going to the same place asherself.  She liked to be by the wheel, and in fine weather, Ihave often stood by the man whose trick it was at the wheel, only tohear her, sitting near my feet, talking to the ship.  Never hada child such a doll before, I suppose; but she made a doll of the GoldenMary, and used to dress her up by tying ribbons and little bits of fineryto the belaying-pins; and nobody ever moved them, unless it was to savethem from being blown away.

Of course I took charge of the two young women, and I called them“my dear,” and they never minded, knowing that whateverI said was said in a fatherly and protecting spirit.  I gave themtheir places on each side of me at dinner, Mrs. Atherfield on my rightand Miss Coleshaw on my left; and I directed the unmarried lady to serveout the breakfast, and the married lady to serve out the tea. Likewise I said to my black steward in their presence, “Tom Snow,these two ladies are equally the mistresses of this house, and do youobey their orders equally;” at which Tom laughed, and they alllaughed.

Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to,or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid andselfish character, and that he had warped further and further out ofthe straight with time.  Not but what he was on his best behaviourwith us, as everybody was; for we had no bickering among us, for’ardor aft.  I only mean to say, he was not the man one would havechosen for a messmate.  If choice there had been, one might evenhave gone a few points out of one’s course, to say, “No! Not him!”  But, there was one curious inconsistency in Mr.Rarx.  That was, that he took an astonishing interest in the child. He looked, and I may add, he was, one of the last of men to care atall for a child, or to care much for any human creature.  Still,he went so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was long ondeck, out of his sight.  He was always afraid of her falling overboard,or falling down a hatchway, or of a block or what not coming down uponher from the rigging in the working of the ship, or of her getting somehurt or other.  He used to look at her and touch her, as if shewas something precious to him.  He was always solicitous abouther not injuring her health, and constantly entreated her mother tobe careful of it.  This was so much the more curious, because thechild did not like him, but used to shrink away from him, and wouldnot even put out her hand to him without coaxing from others. I believe that every soul on board frequently noticed this, and notone of us understood it.  However, it was such a plain fact, thatJohn Steadiman said more than once when old Mr. Rarx was not withinearshot, that if the Golden Mary felt a tenderness for the dear oldgentleman she carried in her lap, she must be bitterly jealous of theGolden Lucy.

Before I go any further with this narrative, I will state that ourship was a barque of three hundred tons, carrying a crew of eighteenmen, a second mate in addition to John, a carpenter, an armourer orsmith, and two apprentices (one a Scotch boy, poor little fellow). We had three boats; the Long-boat, capable of carrying twenty-five men;the Cutter, capable of carrying fifteen; and the Surf-boat, capableof carrying ten.  I put down the capacity of these boats accordingto the numbers they were really meant to hold.

We had tastes of bad weather and head-winds, of course; but, on thewhole we had as fine a run as any reasonable man could expect, for sixtydays.  I then began to enter two remarks in the ship’s Logand in my Journal; first, that there was an unusual and amazing quantityof ice; second, that the nights were most wonderfully dark, in spiteof the ice.

For five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless toalter the ship’s course so as to stand out of the way of thisice.  I made what southing I could; but, all that time, we werebeset by it.  Mrs. Atherfield after standing by me on deck once,looking for some time in an awed manner at the great bergs that surroundedus, said in a whisper, “O! Captain Ravender, it looks as if thewhole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up!” I said to her, laughing, “I don’t wonder that it does, toyour inexperienced eyes, my dear.”  But I had never seena twentieth part of the quantity, and, in reality, I was pretty muchof her opinion.

However, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is tosay, when we were sixty-six days out, John Steadiman who had gone aloft,sang out from the top, that the sea was clear ahead.  Before fourp.m. a strong breeze springing up right astern, we were in open waterat sunset.  The breeze then freshening into half a gale of wind,and the Golden Mary being a very fast sailer, we went before the windmerrily, all night.

I had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had been,until the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the Heavens, and Timeshould be destroyed; but, it had been next to light, in comparison withwhat it was now.  The darkness was so profound, that looking intoit was painful and oppressive—like looking, without a ray of light,into a dense black bandage put as close before the eyes as it couldbe, without touching them.  I doubled the look-out, and John andI stood in the bow side-by-side, never leaving it all night.  YetI should no more have known that he was near me when he was silent,without putting out my arm and touching him, than I should if he hadturned in and been fast asleep below.  We were not so much lookingout, all of us, as listening to the utmost, both with our eyes and ears.

Next day, I found that the mercury in the barometer, which had risensteadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady.  I had hadvery good observations, with now and then the interruption of a dayor so, since our departure.  I got the sun at noon, and found thatwe were in Lat. 58 degrees S., Long. 60 degrees W., off New South Shetland;in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn.  We were sixty-seven days out,that day.  The ship’s reckoning was accurately worked andmade up.  The ship did her duty admirably, all on board were well,and all hands were as smart, efficient, and contented, as it was possibleto be.

When the night came on again as dark as before, it was the eighthnight I had been on deck.  Nor had I taken more than a very littlesleep in the day-time, my station being always near the helm, and oftenat it, while we were among the ice.  Few but those who have triedit can imagine the difficulty and pain of only keeping the eyes open—physicallyopen—under such circumstances, in such darkness.  They getstruck by the darkness, and blinded by the darkness.  They makepatterns in it, and they flash in it, as if they had gone out of yourhead to look at you.  On the turn of midnight, John Steadiman,who was alert and fresh (for I had always made him turn in by day),said to me, “Captain Ravender, I entreat of you to go below. I am sure you can hardly stand, and your voice is getting weak, sir. Go below, and take a little rest.  I’ll call you if a blockchafes.”  I said to John in answer, “Well, well, John! Let us wait till the turn of one o’clock, before we talk aboutthat.”  I had just had one of the ship’s lanterns heldup, that I might see how the night went by my watch, and it was thentwenty minutes after twelve.

At five minutes before one, John sang out to the boy to bring thelantern again, and when I told him once more what the time was, entreatedand prayed of me to go below.  “Captain Ravender,”says he, “all’s well; we can’t afford to have youlaid up for a single hour; and I respectfully and earnestly beg of youto go below.”  The end of it was, that I agreed to do so,on the understanding that if I failed to come up of my own accord withinthree hours, I was to be punctually called.  Having settled that,I left John in charge.  But I called him to me once afterwards,to ask him a question.  I had been to look at the barometer, andhad seen the mercury still perfectly steady, and had come up the companionagain to take a last look about me—if I can use such a word inreference to such darkness—when I thought that the waves, as theGolden Mary parted them and shook them off, had a hollow sound in them;something that I fancied was a rather unusual reverberation.  Iwas standing by the quarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when Icalled John aft to me, and bade him listen.  He did so with thegreatest attention.  Turning to me he then said, “Rely uponit, Captain Ravender, you have been without rest too long, and the noveltyis only in the state of your sense of hearing.”  I thoughtso too by that time, and I think so now, though I can never know forabsolute certain in this world, whether it was or not.

When I left John Steadiman in charge, the ship was still going ata great rate through the water.  The wind still blew right astern. Though she was making great way, she was under shortened sail, and hadno more than she could easily carry.  All was snug, and nothingcomplained.  There was a pretty sea running, but not a very highsea neither, nor at all a confused one.

I turned in, as we seamen say, all standing.  The meaning ofthat is, I did not pull my clothes off—no, not even so much asmy coat: though I did my shoes, for my feet were badly swelled withthe deck.  There was a little swing-lamp alight in my cabin. I thought, as I looked at it before shutting my eyes, that I was sotired of darkness, and troubled by darkness, that I could have goneto sleep best in the midst of a million of flaming gas-lights. That was the last thought I had before I went off, except the prevailingthought that I should not be able to get to sleep at all.

I dreamed that I was back at Penrith again, and was trying to getround the church, which had altered its shape very much since I lastsaw it, and was cloven all down the middle of the steeple in a mostsingular manner.  Why I wanted to get round the church I don’tknow; but I was as anxious to do it as if my life depended on it. Indeed, I believe it did in the dream.  For all that, I could notget round the church.  I was still trying, when I came againstit with a violent shock, and was flung out of my cot against the ship’sside.  Shrieks and a terrific outcry struck me far harder thanthe bruising timbers, and amidst sounds of grinding and crashing, anda heavy rushing and breaking of water—sounds I understood toowell—I made my way on deck.  It was not an easy thing todo, for the ship heeled over frightfully, and was beating in a furiousmanner.

I could not see the men as I went forward, but I could hear thatthey were hauling in sail, in disorder.  I had my trumpet in myhand, and, after directing and encouraging them in this till it wasdone, I hailed first John Steadiman, and then my second mate, Mr. WilliamRames.  Both answered clearly and steadily.  Now, I had practisedthem and all my crew, as I have ever made it a custom to practise allwho sail with me, to take certain stations and wait my orders, in caseof any unexpected crisis.  When my voice was heard hailing, andtheir voices were heard answering, I was aware, through all the noisesof the ship and sea, and all the crying of the passengers below, thatthere was a pause.  “Are you ready, Rames?”—“Ay,ay, sir!”—“Then light up, for God’s sake!” In a moment he and another were burning blue-lights, and the ship andall on board seemed to be enclosed in a mist of light, under a greatblack dome.

The light shone up so high that I could see the huge Iceberg uponwhich we had struck, cloven at the top and down the middle, exactlylike Penrith Church in my dream.  At the same moment I could seethe watch last relieved, crowding up and down on deck; I could see Mrs.Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw thrown about on the top of the companionas they struggled to bring the child up from below; I could see thatthe masts were going with the shock and the beating of the ship; I couldsee the frightful breach stove in on the starboard side, half the lengthof the vessel, and the sheathing and timbers spirting up; I could seethat the Cutter was disabled, in a wreck of broken fragments; and Icould see every eye turned upon me.  It is my belief that if therehad been ten thousand eyes there, I should have seen them all, withtheir different looks.  And all this in a moment.  But youmust consider what a moment.

I saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their appointedstations, like good men and true.  If she had not righted, theycould have done very little there or anywhere but die—not thatit is little for a man to die at his post—I mean they could havedone nothing to save the passengers and themselves.  Happily, however,the violence of the shock with which we had so determinedly borne downdirect on that fatal Iceberg, as if it had been our destination insteadof our destruction, had so smashed and pounded the ship that she gotoff in this same instant and righted.  I did not want the carpenterto tell me she was filling and going down; I could see and hear that. I gave Rames the word to lower the Long-boat and the Surf-boat, andI myself told off the men for each duty.  Not one hung back, orcame before the other.  I now whispered to John Steadiman, “John,I stand at the gangway here, to see every soul on board safe over theside.  You shall have the next post of honour, and shall be thelast but one to leave the ship.  Bring up the passengers, and rangethem behind me; and put what provision and water you can got at, inthe boats.  Cast your eye for’ard, John, and you’llsee you have not a moment to lose.”

My noble fellows got the boats over the side as orderly as I eversaw boats lowered with any sea running, and, when they were launched,two or three of the nearest men in them as they held on, rising andfalling with the swell, called out, looking up at me, “CaptainRavender, if anything goes wrong with us, and you are saved, rememberwe stood by you!”—“We’ll all stand by one anotherashore, yet, please God, my lads!” says I.  “Hold onbravely, and be tender with the women.”

The women were an example to us.  They trembled very much, butthey were quiet and perfectly collected.  “Kiss me, CaptainRavender,” says Mrs. Atherfield, “and God in heaven blessyou, you good man!”  “My dear,” says I, “thosewords are better for me than a life-boat.”  I held her childin my arms till she was in the boat, and then kissed the child and handedher safe down.  I now said to the people in her, “You havegot your freight, my lads, all but me, and I am not coming yet awhile. Pull away from the ship, and keep off!”

That was the Long-boat.  Old Mr. Rarx was one of her complement,and he was the only passenger who had greatly misbehaved since the shipstruck.  Others had been a little wild, which was not to be wonderedat, and not very blamable; but, he had made a lamentation and uproarwhich it was dangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagionin weakness and selfishness.  His incessant cry had been that hemust not be separated from the child, that he couldn’t see thechild, and that he and the child must go together.  He had eventried to wrest the child out of my arms, that he might keep her in his. “Mr. Rarx,” said I to him when it came to that, “Ihave a loaded pistol in my pocket; and if you don’t stand outof the gangway, and keep perfectly quiet, I shall shoot you throughthe heart, if you have got one.”  Says he, “You won’tdo murder, Captain Ravender!”   “No, sir,”says I, “I won’t murder forty-four people to humour you,but I’ll shoot you to save them.”  After that he wasquiet, and stood shivering a little way off, until I named him to goover the side.

The Long-boat being cast off, the Surf-boat was soon filled. There only remained aboard the Golden Mary, John Mullion the man whohad kept on burning the blue-lights (and who had lighted every new oneat every old one before it went out, as quietly as if he had been atan illumination); John Steadiman; and myself.  I hurried thosetwo into the Surf-boat, called to them to keep off, and waited witha grateful and relieved heart for the Long-boat to come and take mein, if she could.  I looked at my watch, and it showed me, by theblue-light, ten minutes past two.  They lost no time.  Assoon as she was near enough, I swung myself into her, and called tothe men, “With a will, lads!  She’s reeling!” We were not an inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going down,when, by the blue-light which John Mullion still burnt in the bow ofthe Surf-boat, we saw her lurch, and plunge to the bottom head-foremost. The child cried, weeping wildly, “O the dear Golden Mary! O look at her!  Save her!  Save the poor Golden Mary!” And then the light burnt out, and the black dome seemed to come downupon us.

I suppose if we had all stood a-top of a mountain, and seen the wholeremainder of the world sink away from under us, we could hardly havefelt more shocked and solitary than we did when we knew we were aloneon the wide ocean, and that the beautiful ship in which most of us hadbeen securely asleep within half an hour was gone for ever.  Therewas an awful silence in our boat, and such a kind of palsy on the rowersand the man at the rudder, that I felt they were scarcely keeping herbefore the sea.  I spoke out then, and said, “Let every onehere thank the Lord for our preservation!”  All the voicesanswered (even the child’s), “We thank the Lord!” I then said the Lord’s Prayer, and all hands said it after mewith a solemn murmuring.  Then I gave the word “Cheerily,O men, Cheerily!” and I felt that they were handling the boatagain as a boat ought to be handled.

The Surf-boat now burnt another blue-light to show us where theywere, and we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly alongside ofher as we dared.  I had always kept my boats with a coil or twoof good stout stuff in each of them, so both boats had a rope at hand. We made a shift, with much labour and trouble, to get near enough toone another to divide the blue-lights (they were no use after that night,for the sea-water soon got at them), and to get a tow-rope out betweenus.  All night long we kept together, sometimes obliged to castoff the rope, and sometimes getting it out again, and all of us wearyingfor the morning—which appeared so long in coming that old Mr.Rarx screamed out, in spite of his fears of me, “The world isdrawing to an end, and the sun will never rise any more!”

When the day broke, I found that we were all huddled together ina miserable manner.  We were deep in the water; being, as I foundon mustering, thirty-one in number, or at least six too many. In the Surf-boat they were fourteen in number, being at least four toomany.  The first thing I did, was to get myself passed to the rudder—whichI took from that time—and to get Mrs. Atherfield, her child, andMiss Coleshaw, passed on to sit next me.  As to old Mr. Rarx, Iput him in the bow, as far from us as I could.  And I put someof the best men near us in order that if I should drop there might bea skilful hand ready to take the helm.

The sea moderating as the sun came up, though the sky was cloudyand wild, we spoke the other boat, to know what stores they had, andto overhaul what we had.  I had a compass in my pocket, a smalltelescope, a double-barrelled pistol, a knife, and a fire-box and matches. Most of my men had knives, and some had a little tobacco: some, a pipeas well.  We had a mug among us, and an iron spoon.  As toprovisions, there were in my boat two bags of biscuit, one piece ofraw beef, one piece of raw pork, a bag of coffee, roasted but not ground(thrown in, I imagine, by mistake, for something else), two small casksof water, and about half-a-gallon of rum in a keg.  The Surf-boat,having rather more rum than we, and fewer to drink it, gave us, as Iestimated, another quart into our keg.  In return, we gave themthree double handfuls of coffee, tied up in a piece of a handkerchief;they reported that they had aboard besides, a bag of biscuit, a pieceof beef, a small cask of water, a small box of lemons, and a Dutch cheese. It took a long time to make these exchanges, and they were not madewithout risk to both parties; the sea running quite high enough to makeour approaching near to one another very hazardous.  In the bundlewith the coffee, I conveyed to John Steadiman (who had a ship’scompass with him), a paper written in pencil, and torn from my pocket-book,containing the course I meant to steer, in the hope of making land,or being picked up by some vessel—I say in the hope, though Ihad little hope of either deliverance.  I then sang out to him,so as all might hear, that if we two boats could live or die together,we would; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and joincompany no more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and weasked for theirs.  We then gave them three cheers, which they returned,and I saw the men’s heads droop in both boats as they fell totheir oars again.

These arrangements had occupied the general attention advantageouslyfor all, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they ended ina sorrowful feeling.  I now said a few words to my fellow-voyagerson the subject of the small stock of food on which our lives dependedif they were preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessityof our eking it out in the most frugal manner.  One and all repliedthat whatever allowance I thought best to lay down should be strictlykept to.  We made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-platingand some twine, and I got together for weights such of the heaviestbuttons among us as I calculated made up some fraction over two ounces. This was the allowance of solid food served out once a-day to each,from that time to the end; with the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimeshalf a one, when the weather was very fair, for breakfast.  Wehad nothing else whatever, but half a pint of water each per day, andsometimes, when we were coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each,served out as a dram.  I know how learnedly it can be shown thatrum is poison, but I also know that in this case, as in all similarcases I have ever read of—which are numerous—no words canexpress the comfort and support derived from it.  Nor have I theleast doubt that it saved the lives of far more than half our number. Having mentioned half a pint of water as our daily allowance, I oughtto observe that sometimes we had less, and sometimes we had more; formuch rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas stretched for the purpose.

Thus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempestuouspart of the world, we shipwrecked people rose and fell with the waves. It is not my intention to relate (if I can avoid it) such circumstancesappertaining to our doleful condition as have been better told in manyother narratives of the kind than I can be expected to tell them. I will only note, in so many passing words, that day after day and nightafter night, we received the sea upon our backs to prevent it from swampingthe boat; that one party was always kept baling, and that every hatand cap among us soon got worn out, though patched up fifty times, asthe only vessels we had for that service; that another party lay downin the bottom of the boat, while a third rowed; and that we were soonall in boils and blisters and rags.

The other boat was a source of such anxious interest to all of usthat I used to wonder whether, if we were saved, the time could evercome when the survivors in this boat of ours could be at all indifferentto the fortunes of the survivors in that.  We got out a tow-ropewhenever the weather permitted, but that did not often happen, and howwe two parties kept within the same horizon, as we did, He, who mercifullypermitted it to be so for our consolation, only knows.  I nevershall forget the looks with which, when the morning light came, we usedto gaze about us over the stormy waters, for the other boat.  Weonce parted company for seventy-two hours, and we believed them to havegone down, as they did us.  The joy on both sides when we camewithin view of one another again, had something in a manner Divine init; each was so forgetful of individual suffering, in tears of delightand sympathy for the people in the other boat.

I have been wanting to get round to the individual or personal partof my subject, as I call it, and the foregoing incident puts me in theright way.  The patience and good disposition aboard of us, waswonderful.  I was not surprised by it in the women; for all menborn of women know what great qualities they will show when men willfail; but, I own I was a little surprised by it in some of the men. Among one-and-thirty people assembled at the best of times, there willusually, I should say, be two or three uncertain tempers.  I knewthat I had more than one rough temper with me among my own people, forI had chosen those for the Long-boat that I might have them under myeye.  But, they softened under their misery, and were as considerateof the ladies, and as compassionate of the child, as the best amongus, or among men—they could not have been more so.  I heardscarcely any complaining.  The party lying down would moan a gooddeal in their sleep, and I would often notice a man—not alwaysthe same man, it is to be understood, but nearly all of them at onetime or other—sitting moaning at his oar, or in his place, ashe looked mistily over the sea.  When it happened to be long beforeI could catch his eye, he would go on moaning all the time in the dismallestmanner; but, when our looks met, he would brighten and leave off. I almost always got the impression that he did not know what sound hehad been making, but that he thought he had been humming a tune.

Our sufferings from cold and wet were far greater than our sufferingsfrom hunger.  We managed to keep the child warm; but, I doubt ifany one else among us ever was warm for five minutes together; and theshivering, and the chattering of teeth, were sad to hear.  Thechild cried a little at first for her lost playfellow, the Golden Mary;but hardly ever whimpered afterwards; and when the state of the weathermade it possible, she used now and then to be held up in the arms ofsome of us, to look over the sea for John Steadiman’s boat. I see the golden hair and the innocent face now, between me and thedriving clouds, like an angel going to fly away.

It had happened on the second day, towards night, that Mrs. Atherfield,in getting Little Lucy to sleep, sang her a song.  She had a soft,melodious voice, and, when she had finished it, our people up and beggedfor another.  She sang them another, and after it had fallen darkended with the Evening Hymn.  From that time, whenever anythingcould be heard above the sea and wind, and while she had any voice left,nothing would serve the people but that she should sing at sunset. She always did, and always ended with the Evening Hymn.  We mostlytook up the last line, and shed tears when it was done, but not miserably. We had a prayer night and morning, also, when the weather allowed ofit.

Twelve nights and eleven days we had been driving in the boat, whenold Mr. Rarx began to be delirious, and to cry out to me to throw thegold overboard or it would sink us, and we should all be lost. For days past the child had been declining, and that was the great causeof his wildness.  He had been over and over again shrieking outto me to give her all the remaining meat, to give her all the remainingrum, to save her at any cost, or we should all be ruined.  At thistime, she lay in her mother’s arms at my feet.  One of herlittle hands was almost always creeping about her mother’s neckor chin.  I had watched the wasting of the little hand, and I knewit was nearly over.

The old man’s cries were so discordant with the mother’slove and submission, that I called out to him in an angry voice, unlesshe held his peace on the instant, I would order him to be knocked onthe head and thrown overboard.  He was mute then, until the childdied, very peacefully, an hour afterwards: which was known to all inthe boat by the mother’s breaking out into lamentations for thefirst time since the wreck—for, she had great fortitude and constancy,though she was a little gentle woman.  Old Mr. Rarx then becamequite ungovernable, tearing what rags he had on him, raging in imprecations,and calling to me that if I had thrown the gold overboard (always thegold with him!) I might have saved the child.  “And now,”says he, in a terrible voice, “we shall founder, and all go tothe Devil, for our sins will sink us, when we have no innocent childto bear us up!”  We so discovered with amazement, that thisold wretch had only cared for the life of the pretty little creaturedear to all of us, because of the influence he superstitiously hopedshe might have in preserving him!  Altogether it was too much forthe smith or armourer, who was sitting next the old man, to bear. He took him by the throat and rolled him under the thwarts, where helay still enough for hours afterwards.

All that thirteenth night, Miss Coleshaw, lying across my knees asI kept the helm, comforted and supported the poor mother.  Herchild, covered with a pea-jacket of mine, lay in her lap.  It troubledme all night to think that there was no Prayer-Book among us, and thatI could remember but very few of the exact words of the burial service. When I stood up at broad day, all knew what was going to be done, andI noticed that my poor fellows made the motion of uncovering their heads,though their heads had been stark bare to the sky and sea for many aweary hour.  There was a long heavy swell on, but otherwise itwas a fair morning, and there were broad fields of sunlight on the wavesin the east.  I said no more than this: “I am the Resurrectionand the Life, saith the Lord.  He raised the daughter of Jairusthe ruler, and said she was not dead but slept.  He raised thewidow’s son.  He arose Himself, and was seen of many. He loved little children, saying, Suffer them to come unto Me and rebukethem not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.  In His name, myfriends, and committed to His merciful goodness!”  With thosewords I laid my rough face softly on the placid little forehead, andburied the Golden Lucy in the grave of the Golden Mary.

Having had it on my mind to relate the end of this dear little child,I have omitted something from its exact place, which I will supply here. It will come quite as well here as anywhere else.

Foreseeing that if the boat lived through the stormy weather, thetime must come, and soon come, when we should have absolutely no morselto eat, I had one momentous point often in my thoughts.  AlthoughI had, years before that, fully satisfied myself that the instancesin which human beings in the last distress have fed upon each other,are exceedingly few, and have very seldom indeed (if ever) occurredwhen the people in distress, however dreadful their extremity, havebeen accustomed to moderate forbearance and restraint; I say, thoughI had long before quite satisfied my mind on this topic, I felt doubtfulwhether there might not have been in former cases some harm and dangerfrom keeping it out of sight and pretending not to think of it. I felt doubtful whether some minds, growing weak with fasting and exposureand having such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not magnifyit until it got to have an awful attraction about it.  This wasnot a new thought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading. However, it came over me stronger than it had ever done before—asit had reason for doing—in the boat, and on the fourth day I decidedthat I would bring out into the light that unformed fear which musthave been more or less darkly in every brain among us.  Therefore,as a means of beguiling the time and inspiring hope, I gave them thebest summary in my power of Bligh’s voyage of more than threethousand miles, in an open boat, after the Mutiny of the Bounty, andof the wonderful preservation of that boat’s crew.  Theylistened throughout with great interest, and I concluded by tellingthem, that, in my opinion, the happiest circumstance in the whole narrativewas, that Bligh, who was no delicate man either, had solemnly placedit on record therein that he was sure and certain that under no conceivablecircumstances whatever would that emaciated party, who had gone throughall the pains of famine, have preyed on one another.  I cannotdescribe the visible relief which this spread through the boat, andhow the tears stood in every eye.  From that time I was as wellconvinced as Bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this phantom,at any rate, did not haunt us.

Now, it was a part of Bligh’s experience that when the peoplein his boat were most cast down, nothing did them so much good as hearinga story told by one of their number.  When I mentioned that, Isaw that it struck the general attention as much as it did my own, forI had not thought of it until I came to it in my summary.  Thiswas on the day after Mrs. Atherfield first sang to us.  I proposedthat, whenever the weather would permit, we should have a story twohours after dinner (I always issued the allowance I have mentioned atone o’clock, and called it by that name), as well as our songat sunset.  The proposal was received with a cheerful satisfactionthat warmed my heart within me; and I do not say too much when I saythat those two periods in the four-and-twenty hours were expected withpositive pleasure, and were really enjoyed by all hands.  Spectresas we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations did not perishlike the gross flesh upon our bones.  Music and Adventure, twoof the great gifts of Providence to mankind, could charm us long afterthat was lost.

The wind was almost always against us after the second day; and formany days together we could not nearly hold our own.  We had allvarieties of bad weather.  We had rain, hail, snow, wind, mist,thunder and lightning.  Still the boats lived through the heavyseas, and still we perishing people rose and fell with the great waves.

Sixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty nights and nineteen days,twenty-four nights and twenty-three days.  So the time went on. Disheartening as I knew that our progress, or want of progress, mustbe, I never deceived them as to my calculations of it.  In thefirst place, I felt that we were all too near eternity for deceit; inthe second place, I knew that if I failed, or died, the man who followedme must have a knowledge of the true state of things to begin upon. When I told them at noon, what I reckoned we had made or lost, theygenerally received what I said in a tranquil and resigned manner, andalways gratefully towards me.  It was not unusual at any time ofthe day for some one to burst out weeping loudly without any new cause;and, when the burst was over, to calm down a little better than before. I had seen exactly the same thing in a house of mourning.

During the whole of this time, old Mr. Rarx had had his fits of callingout to me to throw the gold (always the gold!) overboard, and of heapingviolent reproaches upon me for not having saved the child; but now,the food being all gone, and I having nothing left to serve out buta bit of coffee-berry now and then, he began to be too weak to do this,and consequently fell silent.  Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshawgenerally lay, each with an arm across one of my knees, and her headupon it.  They never complained at all.  Up to the time ofher child’s death, Mrs. Atherfield had bound up her own beautifulhair every day; and I took particular notice that this was always beforeshe sang her song at night, when everyone looked at her.  But shenever did it after the loss of her darling; and it would have been nowall tangled with dirt and wet, but that Miss Coleshaw was careful ofit long after she was herself, and would sometimes smooth it down withher weak thin hands.

We were past mustering a story now; but one day, at about this period,I reverted to the superstition of old Mr. Rarx, concerning the GoldenLucy, and told them that nothing vanished from the eye of God, thoughmuch might pass away from the eyes of men.  “We were allof us,” says I, “children once; and our baby feet have strolledin green woods ashore; and our baby hands have gathered flowers in gardens,where the birds were singing.  The children that we were, are notlost to the great knowledge of our Creator.  Those innocent creatureswill appear with us before Him, and plead for us.  What we werein the best time of our generous youth will arise and go with us too. The purest part of our lives will not desert us at the pass to whichall of us here present are gliding.  What we were then, will beas much in existence before Him, as what we are now.”  Theywere no less comforted by this consideration, than I was myself; andMiss Coleshaw, drawing my ear nearer to her lips, said, “CaptainRavender, I was on my way to marry a disgraced and broken man, whomI dearly loved when he was honourable and good.  Your words seemto have come out of my own poor heart.”  She pressed my handupon it, smiling.

Twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days.  We were in no wantof rain-water, but we had nothing else.  And yet, even now, I neverturned my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten before mine. O, what a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the presence of death,the shining of a face upon a face!  I have heard it broached thatorders should be given in great new ships by electric telegraph. I admire machinery as much is any man, and am as thankful to it as anyman can be for what it does for us.  But it will never be a substitutefor the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another manto be brave and true.  Never try it for that.  It will breakdown like a straw.

I now began to remark certain changes in myself which I did not like. They caused me much disquiet.  I often saw the Golden Lucy in theair above the boat.  I often saw her I have spoken of before, sittingbeside me.  I saw the Golden Mary go down, as she really had gonedown, twenty times in a day.  And yet the sea was mostly, to mythinking, not sea neither, but moving country and extraordinary mountainousregions, the like of which have never been beheld.  I felt it timeto leave my last words regarding John Steadiman, in case any lips shouldlast out to repeat them to any living ears.  I said that John hadtold me (as he had on deck) that he had sung out “Breakers ahead!”the instant they were audible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struckbefore it could be done.  (His cry, I dare say, had made my dream.) I said that the circumstances were altogether without warning, and outof any course that could have been guarded against; that the same losswould have happened if I had been in charge; and that John was not toblame, but from first to last had done his duty nobly, like the manhe was.  I tried to write it down in my pocket-book, but couldmake no words, though I knew what the words were that I wanted to make. When it had come to that, her hands—though she was dead so long—laidme down gently in the bottom of the boat, and she and the Golden Lucyswung me to sleep.

* * * *

All that follows, was written by John Steadiman, Chief Mate:

On the twenty-sixth day after the foundering of the Golden Mary atsea, I, John Steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stern-sheetsof the Surf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer—thatis to say, with my eyes strained, wide-awake, over the bows of the boat,and my brains fast asleep and dreaming—when I was roused upona sudden by our second mate, Mr. William Rames.

“Let me take a spell in your place,” says he.  “Andlook you out for the Long-boat astern.  The last time she roseon the crest of a wave, I thought I made out a signal flying aboardher.”

We shifted our places, clumsily and slowly enough, for we were bothof us weak and dazed with wet, cold, and hunger.  I waited sometime, watching the heavy rollers astern, before the Long-boat rose a-topof one of them at the same time with us.  At last, she was heavedup for a moment well in view, and there, sure enough, was the signalflying aboard of her—a strip of rag of some sort, rigged to anoar, and hoisted in her bows.

“What does it mean?” says Rames to me in a quavering,trembling sort of voice.  “Do they signal a sail in sight?”

“Hush, for God’s sake!” says I, clapping my handover his mouth.  “Don’t let the people hear you. They’ll all go mad together if we mislead them about that signal. Wait a bit, till I have another look at it.”

I held on by him, for he had set me all of a tremble with his notionof a sail in sight, and watched for the Long-boat again.  Up sherose on the top of another roller.  I made out the signal clearly,that second time, and saw that it was rigged half-mast high.

“Rames,” says I, “it’s a signal of distress. Pass the word forward to keep her before the sea, and no more. We must get the Long-boat within hailing distance of us, as soon aspossible.”

I dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another word—forthe thought went through me like a knife that something had happenedto Captain Ravender.  I should consider myself unworthy to writeanother line of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speakthe truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—and I must,therefore, confess plainly that now, for the first time, my heart sankwithin me.  This weakness on my part was produced in some degree,as I take it, by the exhausting effects of previous anxiety and grief.

Our provisions—if I may give that name to what we had left—werereduced to the rind of one lemon and about a couple of handsfull ofcoffee-berries.  Besides these great distresses, caused by thedeath, the danger, and the suffering among my crew and passengers, Ihad had a little distress of my own to shake me still more, in the deathof the child whom I had got to be very fond of on the voyage out—sofond that I was secretly a little jealous of her being taken in theLong-boat instead of mine when the ship foundered.  It used tobe a great comfort to me, and I think to those with me also, after wehad seen the last of the Golden Mary, to see the Golden Lucy, held upby the men in the Long-boat, when the weather allowed it, as the bestand brightest sight they had to show.  She looked, at the distancewe saw her from, almost like a little white bird in the air.  Tomiss her for the first time, when the weather lulled a little again,and we all looked out for our white bird and looked in vain, was a soredisappointment.  To see the men’s heads bowed down and thecaptain’s hand pointing into the sea when we hailed the Long-boat,a few days after, gave me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of heartacheto bear as ever I remember suffering in all my life.  I only mentionthese things to show that if I did give way a little at first, underthe dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without havingbeen a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or anotherthan often fall to one man’s share.

I had got over the choking in my throat with the help of a drop ofwater, and had steadied my mind again so as to be prepared against theworst, when I heard the hail (Lord help the poor fellows, how weak itsounded!)—

“Surf-boat, ahoy!”

I looked up, and there were our companions in misfortune tossingabreast of us; not so near that we could make out the features of anyof them, but near enough, with some exertion for people in our condition,to make their voices heard in the intervals when the wind was weakest.

I answered the hail, and waited a bit, and heard nothing, and thensung out the captain’s name.  The voice that replied didnot sound like his; the words that reached us were:

“Chief-mate wanted on board!”

Every man of my crew knew what that meant as well as I did. As second officer in command, there could be but one reason for wantingme on board the Long-boat.  A groan went all round us, and my menlooked darkly in each other’s faces, and whispered under theirbreaths:

“The captain is dead!”

I commanded them to be silent, and not to make too sure of bad news,at such a pass as things had now come to with us.  Then, hailingthe Long-boat, I signified that I was ready to go on board when theweather would let me—stopped a bit to draw a good long breath—andthen called out as loud as I could the dreadful question:

“Is the captain dead?”

The black figures of three or four men in the after-part of the Long-boatall stooped down together as my voice reached them.  They werelost to view for about a minute; then appeared again—one man amongthem was held up on his feet by the rest, and he hailed back the blessedwords (a very faint hope went a very long way with people in our desperatesituation): “Not yet!”

The relief felt by me, and by all with me, when we knew that ourcaptain, though unfitted for duty, was not lost to us, it is not inwords—at least, not in such words as a man like me can command—toexpress.  I did my best to cheer the men by telling them what agood sign it was that we were not as badly off yet as we had feared;and then communicated what instructions I had to give, to William Rames,who was to be left in command in my place when I took charge of theLong-boat.  After that, there was nothing to be done, but to waitfor the chance of the wind dropping at sunset, and the sea going downafterwards, so as to enable our weak crews to lay the two boats alongsideof each other, without undue risk—or, to put it plainer, withoutsaddling ourselves with the necessity for any extraordinary exertionof strength or skill.  Both the one and the other had now beenstarved out of us for days and days together.

At sunset the wind suddenly dropped, but the sea, which had beenrunning high for so long a time past, took hours after that before itshowed any signs of getting to rest.  The moon was shining, thesky was wonderfully clear, and it could not have been, according tomy calculations, far off midnight, when the long, slow, regular swellof the calming ocean fairly set in, and I took the responsibility oflessening the distance between the Long-boat and ourselves.

It was, I dare say, a delusion of mine; but I thought I had neverseen the moon shine so white and ghastly anywhere, either on sea oron land, as she shone that night while we were approaching our companionsin misery.  When there was not much more than a boat’s lengthbetween us, and the white light streamed cold and clear over all ourfaces, both crews rested on their oars with one great shudder, and staredover the gunwale of either boat, panic-stricken at the first sight ofeach other.

“Any lives lost among you?” I asked, in the midst ofthat frightful silence.

The men in the Long-bout huddled together like sheep at the soundof my voice.

“None yet, but the child, thanks be to God!” answeredone among them.

And at the sound of his voice, all my men shrank together like themen in the Long-boat.  I was afraid to let the horror producedby our first meeting at close quarters after the dreadful changes thatwet, cold, and famine had produced, last one moment longer than couldbe helped; so, without giving time for any more questions and answers,I commanded the men to lay the two boats close alongside of each other. When I rose up and committed the tiller to the hands of Rames, all mypoor follows raised their white faces imploringly to mine.  “Don’tleave us, sir,” they said, “don’t leave us.” “I leave you,” says I, “under the command and theguidance of Mr. William Rames, as good a sailor as I am, and as trustyand kind a man as ever stepped.  Do your duty by him, as you havedone it by me; and remember to the last, that while there is life thereis hope.  God bless and help you all!”  With those wordsI collected what strength I had left, and caught at two arms that wereheld out to me, and so got from the stern-sheets of one boat into thestern-sheets of the other.

“Mind where you step, sir,” whispered one of the menwho had helped me into the Long-boat.  I looked down as he spoke. Three figures were huddled up below me, with the moonshine falling onthem in ragged streaks through the gaps between the men standing orsitting above them.  The first face I made out was the face ofMiss Coleshaw, her eyes were wide open and fixed on me.  She seemedstill to keep her senses, and, by the alternate parting and closingof her lips, to be trying to speak, but I could not hear that she uttereda single word.  On her shoulder rested the head of Mrs. Atherfield. The mother of our poor little Golden Lucy must, I think, have been dreamingof the child she had lost; for there was a faint smile just rufflingthe white stillness of her face, when I first saw it turned upward,with peaceful closed eyes towards the heavens.  From her, I lookeddown a little, and there, with his head on her lap, and with one ofher hands resting tenderly on his cheek—there lay the Captain,to whose help and guidance, up to this miserable time, we had neverlooked in vain,—there, worn out at last in our service, and forour sakes, lay the best and bravest man of all our company.  Istole my hand in gently through his clothes and laid it on his heart,and felt a little feeble warmth over it, though my cold dulled touchcould not detect even the faintest beating.  The two men in thestern-sheets with me, noticing what I was doing—knowing I lovedhim like a brother—and seeing, I suppose, more distress in myface than I myself was conscious of its showing, lost command over themselvesaltogether, and burst into a piteous moaning, sobbing lamentation overhim.  One of the two drew aside a jacket from his feet, and showedme that they were bare, except where a wet, ragged strip of stockingstill clung to one of them.  When the ship struck the Iceberg,he had run on deck leaving his shoes in his cabin.  All throughthe voyage in the boat his feet had been unprotected; and not a soulhad discovered it until he dropped!  As long as he could keep hiseyes open, the very look of them had cheered the men, and comfortedand upheld the women.  Not one living creature in the boat, withany sense about him, but had felt the good influence of that brave manin one way or another.  Not one but had heard him, over and overagain, give the credit to others which was due only to himself; praisingthis man for patience, and thanking that man for help, when the patienceand the help had really and truly, as to the best part of both, comeonly from him.  All this, and much more, I heard pouring confusedlyfrom the men’s lips while they crouched down, sobbing and cryingover their commander, and wrapping the jacket as warmly and tenderlyas they could over his cold feet.  It went to my heart to checkthem; but I knew that if this lamenting spirit spread any further, allchance of keeping alight any last sparks of hope and resolution amongthe boat’s company would be lost for ever.  Accordingly Isent them to their places, spoke a few encouraging words to the menforward, promising to serve out, when the morning came, as much as Idared, of any eatable thing left in the lockers; called to Rames, inmy old boat, to keep as near us as he safely could; drew the garmentsand coverings of the two poor suffering women more closely about them;and, with a secret prayer to be directed for the best in bearing theawful responsibility now laid on my shoulders, took my Captain’svacant place at the helm of the Long-boat.

This, as well as I can tell it, is the full and true account of howI came to be placed in charge of the lost passengers and crew of theGolden Mary, on the morning of the twenty-seventh day after the shipstruck the Iceberg, and foundered at sea.

Related articles