The Ghost Ship/Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen. In the Nick of Time.

“A boat!” exclaimed Captain Applegarth, his jesting manner changing instantly to one of earnest attention. “Where away?”

“On our starboard beam, sir,” sang out Masters from the foretop. “About two points off, I fancies, sir.”

“I can’t see her,” said the skipper, looking in the direction the boatswain had indicated. “I thought she was close-to from your hailing her.”

“She’s further away now than I thought, sir!” shouted old Masters in reply to this, after having another squirm over the topsail yard. “I’m blessed, though, if I ain’t lost her, with the ship’s head bobbing all round the compass. No; there she be ag’in, sir. No—yes—yes. There she is, about a mile or so off, sir, I’m thinkin’.”

“By George, Masters, you think too much, I think!” the skipper retorted angrily. “You don’t seem to know what you’re saying, and I believe you’ve gone off your chump since you saw that ‘ghost-ship,’ as you called it! Go aloft, Haldane, and see what you can make of this blessed boat he says he sighted!”

I was already in the weather shrouds before the skipper gave me this order, and in another minute I was on the top beside the boatswain, who pointed out silently to me a little black speck in the distance apparently dancing about amid the waves, which were beginning to curl before an approaching breeze that was evidently springing up from the westwards. Fortunately, I had a pair of binoculars in my jacket pocket, and I immediately levelled the glasses at the object in view.

“Well, Haldane!” at last sang out the skipper impatiently from the end of the bridge, where he still stood, looking up at me with his chin cocked in the air. “What do you make it out to be, eh, my lad?”

“It’s a boat sure enough, sir,” I shouted down to him, without taking my eyes off it. “She’s a long way off, though, sir, and I think she’s drifting further away, too.”

“The deuce!” exclaimed Captain Applegarth. “Can you see any one in the boat?”

“No—no—not distinctly, sir,” I replied after another searching look. “Stay; I do—I do think there’s a figure at one end! and, yes—yes—I’m sure I noticed something that appeared like a movement, but it might have been caused by the rocking of the sea.”

“But don’t you see anybody, or can’t you make anything else out?”

“Only the boat, sir, and that a breeze seems coming up from the westward. I see a white line on the water along the horizon. That’s all I can see, sir!”

“Well, that’s not much use to us,” he growled below, beginning his customary “quarter-deck walk” up and down the bridge. “I wish some one would come up from the engine-room to say they had repaired the cylinder and that we could go ahead again!”

Almost as soon as he spoke thus I noticed Mr Stokes, who I thought was lying down in his cabin, coming towards the forepart of the ship where we were, from the direction of the engine-room hatchway.

“Hullo, Stokes,” said the skipper, catching sight of him at once with his eagle eye that seemed to take in everything that went on, whether his back was turned or not. “I thought you were on the sick list still, and ill. You oughtn’t to be bustling about so soon after your accident, my dear fellow!”

“No, but I feel better!” replied the old chief, who, although he was still pale and shaky, had a more cheerful look on his face than the day before, when he appeared decidedly ill. “I’ve been down below and I’m glad to say Stoddart and the other artificers, who I must say have worked well without me, you will be glad to know, have got the cylinder cover on again. They’ve made a splendid job of it!”

“Stoddart himself is a splendid fellow,” said the skipper enthusiastically. “Aye, and the rest of your staff, too, my dear Stokes. By George, you’ve brought us good news!”

“But that isn’t all, cap’en,” cried the old fellow, beaming over with a broad smile of quiet enjoyment at the surprise the skipper showed. “They say below that they’ll be able to start the engines as soon as there’s a full head of steam on! Now what do you think of that, sir? Isn’t that good news?”

The skipper looked ready to embrace our fat chief, and I believe only refrained from giving this expression of his joy by the sight of poor Mr Stokes’ bandaged arm, which was still in a sling.

He contented himself, therefore, with patting him tenderly on the back and walking round him admiringly, like a cat purring round a saucer of cream.

“By George!” he cried. “I feel as pleased as if my grandmother had left me five thousand pounds!”

“I wish she had,” laughed the old chief. “I would ask to go shares!”

“And so you should, my boy; so you should,” repeated the skipper with much heartiness, and as if he really meant it. “How soon do you think we shall be able to start, eh?”

“Very soon, I think, sir. The after-boiler fires were lit early this morning and they’ve been getting up steam ever since.”

“That’s good!” cried the skipper, stopping in his excited walk up and down the bridge, which he had again resumed, being unable to keep still, when he looked up, caught sight of me and hailed me.

“I say, Haldane?”

“Aye, aye, sir?” I sang out from the top, where I had remained with the boatswain on the look-out, and hearing likewise all that transpired beneath. “What do you want, sir?”

“I hope you’re keeping your eye on that boat, my lad. If she is there we may be able to overhaul her yet, if you don’t lose sight of her!”

“No fear of that, sir,” I shouted back, pointing with my finger in the distance. “There she is, still to win’ard, pretty nearly flush with the water.”

“Then she really is there all right, my lad. Keep your eye on her.”

The funnels had been emitting smoke for some time without our having paid much attention to the fact, the fires of the fore-boilers having been kept in and banked ever since our breakdown, in order to work the pumps and capstan gear when required; but now steam, I noticed, came out as well as smoke, and I could hear it plainly roaring up the waste pipe, besides making a fearful row.

Presently another sound greeted my ears and made me jump.

It was that of the electric bell in the wheel-house, giving warning that those below in the emporium wished to make some communication.

Mr Stokes went to the voice-tube that led down thither from the bridge.

“What’s the matter?” he roared into the mouthpiece so loud that I heard every word he uttered, although a-top of the mast. “Anything wrong?”

I couldn’t of course catch the reply that came up the pipe; and it certainly was not a satisfactory one, for Mr Stokes turned round at once to the skipper, who immediately stopped his quarter-deck walk to hear what the chief had to say.

“They’ve corrected the propeller, sir,” he exclaimed with a chuckle that made his fat form shake all over; “and Stoddart says he’s only waiting for your signal to close the stop valves and let the steam into the cylinder.”

“By George, he shan’t wait a minute longer!” cried Captain Applegarth, moving the engine-room telegraph. “Go ahead, my hearties, as soon as you please! Hullo, there, forrad, I want a hand here at the wheel. I suppose the steam steering gear is all right again now?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” replied Mr Stokes to this. “Grummet fixed that up on Sunday afternoon, he told me. I am sure it was done. I remember he was doing it when that man-of-war came alongside and spoke you.”

“Strange I didn’t see him at the job; he must have been pretty smart over it!” replied the skipper. “But I’m very glad it is done, though.”

In answer to the skipper’s signal a sudden blast of steam rushed up the funnel abaft the wheel-house, and I could feel the ship tremble as the shaft began to revolve and the propeller blades splashed the water astern with the familiar “thump-thump, thump-thump.”

All hands joined in a hearty cheer, to which Masters and I in the top lent what aid our lungs could give.

“Steady amidship, there,” sang out the skipper as the old barquey forged ahead once more. “Steady, my man.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the foremost hand, Parrell, who had come from the fo’c’s’le to take the first “trick” at the steering wheel on the bridge. “Steady it is.”

“How does the boat bear now, Haldane?”

“Two points off our starboard bow, sir,” I replied to this hail of the skipper. “She’s about three miles off, I think, sir.”

“All right,” he shouted back to me. “Port your helm, there!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” repeated Parrell. “Port, sir, it is.”

“We’re rising her fast now, sir,” I called out after a short interval. “There’s a man in the boat; yes, a man, sir. I can see him quite plainly now, and I’m sure I’m not mistaken!”

“Are you quite sure, my lad?”

“Quite sure, sir. And he’s alive, too, I’m certain. Yes, sir; he moved then distinctly. I could see him plainly. Why, the boat is so near now that you ought to see it from the deck.”

“And so I can, by Jingo, Haldane!” replied the captain, peering out ahead himself with a telescope from the end of the bridge. “I fancy I can see a second figure, and it looks like another man, too, lying down in the bows of the boat, as well as the figure at the stern, who seems to me to be holding up an oar or something!”

“Yes, there is, sir,” I called out, stopping on my way down the rigging to have another look. After a pause I exclaimed, “I can see both of them, and with my naked eye. I can see them now!”

“Well, then, you’d better come down from aloft. Tell your friend, the boatswain, to come down as well. He’ll be wanted at the fo’c’s’le when we presently come up to the boat, as I trust we shall!”

“Lucky Masters saw the boat, sir,” said I when I reached the deck and up to the skipper’s side again. “But even more fortunate it is for the poor fellows that our engines are working again, sir, for otherwise we could not have been able to get up to the boat and save them.”

“It isn’t luck, my boy,” observed Mr Stokes, whom the death of poor Jackson and his own narrow escape from a like fate had led to think of other matters besides those connected with his mundane profession. “It’s Providence!”